Comma Two Devkit - <AUTHOR> https://comma.ai/shop/products/comma-two-devkit <comment><USER2> Quick bit of feedback for any Comma employees lurking:

It took me a very long time to realize that this was a self-driving solution for existing vehicles. The hero just says

"Driven over 6 million miles" and then a "Buy Now".

When I scrolled down and looked at the product and read:

> We've added an infrared camera to provide 24/7 driver monitoring, an > integrated panda, a custom cooling solution, and an OBD-C port with power > supplied directly from the car.

I thought it was some kind of dash cam + driver sleep monitor? Also, most of those words don't mean anything to me.

Only after deeply investigating it did I realize that it's basically Tesla Autopilot for existing vehicles.

You have an awesome value prop though, "Bring autopilot features, to your car." Make that clear!

<comment><USER3> Count me in as well. I came here to make that comment.

I've had to scan the entire website and still cannot find a reference to a simple term like "self-driving" anywhere in the website. It seemed like a dashcam that warns the driver.

<comment><USER4> While the website doesn't directly state it, the entire purpose of the Comma hardware is to run the OpenPilot self-driving software (or "driver assistance" software, whatever you want to call it). Sure, you _can_ run other software with it, but it works _really well_ with the software that has already been written for it and is available on the same website.

The FAQ clears some of this up ([https://comma.ai/faq](https://comma.ai/faq)), but I agree with the idea that it is purposefully obtuse to keep regulators off their back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Comma.ai represents a strange attitude towards life in which you try to turn hard, serious problems (like self-driving), into trivial problems (write some Python and run it on Android phones and plug it into your car!) and try get away with it. It only has a chance of working if you are cool enough in SV such as geohot. I interviewed there once and it was extremely off-putting how clear their demand for fast progress was, and how little they cared about safety.

It's move fast and break things all over again.

Think about how the tech community rips apart Boeing and demands the utmost in quality engineering, reliability, redundancy, testing. And then we have comma, which controls your vehicle on a non-realtime system...

If you ran comma.ai in your car and had a serious crash, you could possibly be found criminally negligent.

<comment><USER6> Great perspective. Why isn't SDC software held to the same regard as Boeing? The safety framework is the same.

<comment><USER7> And comma ai deals with regulation by selling dashcams that can drive a car if the user installs hardware and opensource software.

I use open pilot for highway driving and love it. But Comma AI is intentionally making design decisions to get around regulation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Since the website is not clear, here is what it is.

Comma Two is an aftermarket dash cam that adds features like adaptive cruise control, automatic lane centering, and forward collision warning to cars using open source software.

It uses a combination of the dash cam and the vehicle's built in radar to accomplish this. It is able to control the car and receive its radar data by connecting to the vehicle's OBD port.

The unit is $1000 and also requires the purchase of a vehicle specific harness for $200.

A list of compatible vehicles can be found here: [https://comma.ai/vehicles](https://comma.ai/vehicles)

The source code that performs the driver assist functionality has to be loaded by the user and is available here: [https://github.com/commaai/openpilot](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot)

There's also a "prime" subscription which pays for cell service on an included SIM card and allows you to see video footage or location data from your vehicle remotely.

</comment><comment><USER9> A lot of commaai bashing here.

I was very skeptic too. However using their system for almost an year everyday, I can deffo say it makes me a safer highway driver.

I have overall more awareness of the road since I don't always have to keep eyes on the lane in front. I look around more around the car and look side mirror/rear mirror more. Once this asshole driver was zipping left and right over taking and was gonna squeeze through us, I could spot him/her from distance and I gave more space. If I didn't he would have deffo crashed into us. Granted half an hour later he/she did get into a crash.

Another time, car in front suddenly brakes, system immediately alerted and started braking. Even If I was manually driving, I couldn't have had the same reaction time. Car ahead crashed, ours didn't.

Some humans are very dangerous highway drivers since they don't maintain distance with car infront.

This is testament to both commaai and Toyota. I can set I want 2 seconds-ish reaction time with car infront and it always mantains that safe distance. Really neat.

Also commaai driver mobitoring has gotten quite good. Move your eyes off the road for a bit and it yells with an alert to touch the steering wheel and get eyes back on the road. That alone makes you more attentive.

All I can say is give it a shot, it's quite an ingenous solution to make other brands of cars, highway self lane following.

I'm not gonna say self driving, because essentially it's a driver monitoring + alert system + lane following system. Very narrow but does a good job at it.

</comment><comment><USER10> "comma two is designed for permanent installation in your car."

Okay, what's it do?

"We've added an infrared camera to provide 24/7 driver monitoring, an integrated panda, a custom cooling solution, and an OBD-C port with power supplied directly from the car."

Great, so it monitors cars... For what? Quick movements? What's a panda? I'd be interested if I knew what it was.

"comes with three free months of comma prime"

So the 1000$ onboard computer that does _something_ comes with a free* subscription.

They need a total marketing rework, can't imagine the sales they've already lost.

<comment><USER7> Their marketing won't change until they are willing to deal with the NHTSA. [https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/comma-ai-cancels-the- comma...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/comma-ai-cancels-the-comma-one- following-nhtsa-letter/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can anyone here comment on actually using a Comma product?

I don't even drive a car, but I don't see why anyone would buy something like this yet. My point being that it's not full self driving, and frankly its safety is entirely questionable.

Self driving is supposed to make driving less stressful, but does having a system like this actually do that? Or does it make you more stressed because you have to be conscious of the computer?

Don't get me wrong, I like what George Hotz is trying here, but what incentive is there to be an early adopter?

<comment><USER12> I find driving much less fatiguing when using my Eon (the previous iteration of this product). Taking yourself out of the feedback loop of constantly adjusting steering (and gas if in traffic) makes the experience much more relaxing even though you still have to pay full attention. In my experience, OpenPilot is really rock solid in normal highway driving scenarios and there isn't anything stressful about using it.

As far as safety goes, their safety policy is outlined here: [https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/devel/SAFETY.md](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/devel/SAFETY.md)

the short of it is:

"""

The driver must always be capable to immediately retake manual control of the vehicle, by stepping on either pedal or by pressing the cancel button.

The vehicle must not alter its trajectory too quickly for the driver to safely react. This means that while the system is engaged, the actuators are constrained to operate within reasonable limits.

"""

Those checks are separately coded into both OpenPilot, the self-driving software, and Panda, the microcontroller responsible for communicating between OpenPilot and the vehicle.

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the perspective.

Do you happen to know what the hardware safety is like? Just curious.

<comment><USER12> Sure! so there are three stages of safety:

OpenPilot generates all of the control messages to send to the vehicle based off of feedback from the cars sensors and it's own camera. it has rate limits for all control messages it generates so that it can't jerk the steering wheel or slam on the brakes (as of now it leaves Collision Avoidance up to the stock system)

Steering limits: [https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38...](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38ce22fa25ddffbd1d3084e3/selfdrive/controls/lib/latcontrol_indi.py#L99)

Accel/Decel limits: [https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38...](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38ce22fa25ddffbd1d3084e3/selfdrive/controls/lib/longcontrol.py#L76)

These control messages are then passed to the Panda over USB. Panda is a microcontroller that converts the control messages into CAN messages that the vehicle can understand. The Panda has the same rate limits checks hardcoded into the firmware and it will reject any control messages that are outside the limits

Panda Safety code: [https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38...](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38ce22fa25ddffbd1d3084e3/panda/board/safety.h#L156)

Finally, because Panda is sending the same CAN messages as the stock ADAS system, whatever safety mechanisms the OEM implemented apply to OpenPilot as well. Most cars have some form of torque caps and some form of rate limiting baked into the EPS firmware.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The Comma One source code was put online (I think by the author?) and deemed to be incredibly dangerous. If I recall there was very little error handling. Does anyone know what has really changed since then?

<comment><USER14> Yeah plenty has changed since then, there are limits that are checked twice to ensure the driver is always able to take control. If violated, the car or openpilot throws an error openpilot.comma.ai

<comment><USER15> Source (i assume you read the source code and know where these checks are)?

<comment><USER12> [https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38...](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38ce22fa25ddffbd1d3084e3/panda/board/safety.h#L156)

<comment><USER12> This was harder to find but this is where caps for steering are set in OpenPilot:

[https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38...](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38ce22fa25ddffbd1d3084e3/selfdrive/controls/lib/latcontrol_indi.py#L99)

<comment><USER12> Last but not least, here is brake and gas limiting:

[https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38...](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38ce22fa25ddffbd1d3084e3/selfdrive/controls/lib/longcontrol.py#L76)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The Comma Two looks like a step in the right direction for making existing cars self driving with open source being a bonus with openpilot.

One can say it is like Tesla Autopilot for any car.

Comma's products explicitly state you still need to pay attention when driving with their system which is almost hard to ignore.

On a more meta note: I find the comments here ironic given this project fits within the spirit of HN and hacker culture but commenters find this project displeasing.

I agree their marketing is kind of vague and needs improvement, but I encourage HN to view videos of the system in action before jumping to conclusions.

</comment><comment><USER17> If there is anything about Comma.ai that I have seen beyond the hype of self- driving cars, I see this as substance, unlike the rest of them AI self-driving cars (Except Tesla). The idea to turn your existing car into self-driving rather than spending $$$ on a new one makes sense for those saving money.

Comma.ai is for cars what Linux is for PCs, meaning that you use open-source software and a hardware kit to make your existing car self-driving. Very clever!

<comment><USER18> >The idea to turn your existing car into self-driving rather than spending $$$ on a new one makes sense for those saving money.

You sure this is where you want to save money on a self-driving system?

God forbid there's an accident, what then? There's no big company you can point at for recourse and I guarantee that Comma.ai isn't going to stand by and accepted responsibility - their website makes it clear that the dev kit does not ship with any self-driving software.

>Very clever!

Very dangerous!!

<comment><USER14> It's only a level 2 system and with this hardware, won't ever be level 3

If there's an accident, the driver has to be pretty stupid. it's predictable, you know where its strong and weak points are. It has weak points when the roads get tricky. Previously it would panic through an intersection, this has since been improved upon.

Its eyes don't leave the road, people on their phones do. I wonder which cause more bumper to bumper collisions!

They probably won't accept responsibility, that's on the driver since openpilot is a driver assist system, not a higher level (L3+) self-driving system

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What is this? The entire site already assumes you know what it does.

<comment><USER20> So, it appears to be a plug-in system to do automated cruise control and lane assist and driving in stop & go traffic.

Out of curiosity, I checked for my car. It says it's not supported. BUT, Comma is open source, so I could add it myself.

Does this imply they're encouraging anyone to write buggy code and drive their cars with it?!?

<comment><USER21> > Does this imply they're encouraging anyone to write buggy code and drive > their cars with it?!?

The fact that the comma guys aren't locking it down out of a misguided paternalistic belief that they no better is a good thing. Don't blame them for providing the hardware, blame people if they write buggy code. This is analogous to blaming a firearms manufacturer for a murderer's crime.

<comment><USER22> No it would be like blaming a firearms manufacturer for a fault that causes the thing to blow up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Well, hey, for $1000 I'd almost buy this for the "Tesla experience" but alas it doesn't support my car (2014 Lexus).

Well done for finding the right price point. You have a solid business case here.

Not commenting on safety like everyone else because it seems from the ISO 26262 (not easy to comply) and architecture that you've put some thought into this. Will be good to see it improve further. I understand that you need to sell units to do so, so I do not hold that against you.

</comment><comment><USER15> Let's say I order this stuff and flash the firmware of my car.

If there was a bug in comma ai program (like jerking the driving wheel and slam my car in the guard rail without giving me time to react) I guess I am liable?

That sounds like a bad idea.

<comment><USER12> OpenPilot doesn't require you to flash anything to your car, everything is done using the same CAN messages that the stock ADAS system sends. Further, the microcontroller that communicates between OpenPilot and the vehicle is hardcoded to block any CAN messages OpenPilot sends that are deemed to be too fast to react to:

[https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38...](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38ce22fa25ddffbd1d3084e3/panda/board/safety.h#L156)

<comment><USER15> I am not impressed with this source code. Maybe you can tell my why i am wrong.

The safety.h you pointed to is using "int" for variable declaration instead of using stdints to control size. Is there are reason for that?

From safety.h, I tried to follow addr_allowed function parameters. I get here ([https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/c025b96e8a15640ee4...](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/c025b96e8a15640ee4d6e4d513fada6ed101afe5/panda/board/safety/safety_cadillac.h#L56)) and see this:

int addr = GET_ADDR(to_send); int bus = GET_BUS(to_send);

Where are GET_ADDR and GET_BUS macros declared? There are no header declaration to follow dependencies.

<comment><USER24> GitHub > commaai/panda > Search > 'GET_BUS' >

panda/board/drivers/llcan.h

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Funny how people are usually piling on Hotz/Comma and lionizing Musk/Tesla... while their software development practices are probably not too dissimilar : [https://twitter.com/atomicthumbs/status/1032939617404645376](https://twitter.com/atomicthumbs/status/1032939617404645376)

</comment><comment><USER9> I use commaai kit for lane following everyday. Just commuted to Portland. 3 hours totally hands free driving. It was Magical.

Would never go back to manual highway driving.

</comment><comment><USER26> The related articles from this website suggest this is a product for automated driving. It's still unclear to me what exactly this product does.

</comment><comment><USER27> This website is so self-obsessed it can't just tell you what the hell the product is.

</comment><comment><USER28> Serious question: is 80K-130K for a data science position competitive in the San Diego area? Feels a bit low to me but I live in NYC.

[https://comma.ai/jobs](https://comma.ai/jobs)

<comment><USER29> Considering the people they're explicitly looking for, according to that page:

 _> People who have done well at math competitions (USAMO, IMO, PUTNAM), competition programming (ACM, USACO, codejam, topcoder), science fairs (ISEF, STS), or capture the flag (DEFCON, secuinside, GITS). Those competitions don't just select for ability, they also select for quickness. We are in a very competitive space._

...it's absurdly low. Companies like Google hand out close to $200k total, liquid compensation to new grads who haven't placed in any of those competitions. The people who have ranked in any of those (especially the math ones, and doubly so the Putnam) can easily write their ticket to a job paying double $130k right out of college.

Anyone with that kind of competitive math/programming experience _and_ real world machine learning engineering experience could earn triple that range if they wanted to. That's a ridiculously small and competitive set of candidates to be targeting. It's also not necessary, because strong performance on the e.g. IMO doesn't _a priori_ map to outperformance, on a per dollar basis, writing autonomous driving logic.

Basically: no it's not competitive for San Diego, Comma is asking for wildly overqualified people to sacrifice significant amounts of money to work there, and it's not clear they should be using those kinds of qualifications as a filtering criteria in the first place.

This kind of cargo culting does not inspire confidence in their recruiting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I think Comma is generally pretty good. The only two downsides are:

1\. Some car manufacturers will limit the torque applied to the steering wheel. So Comma can only perform small "drifts" rather than full turns

2\. The cooling fan is pretty loud

</comment><comment><USER31> Well, I think Comma gives a tough competition to Tesla given the features which it offers when compared to AutoPilot of Tesla. There are lot of masses who still cannot afford a Tesla( and their $7K package for full self driving cars). Imagine all of (atleast 20 %) Comma AI and Openpilot supported cars actually using this hardware and software in the next 6 months which is way more than the number of Teslas in the market. Also, it avoids the necessity of owning a Tesla. Coming to safety, I believe Openpiot with Comma makes a driver a better and safe driver with driver being attentive. I wouldn't drive a Tesla without being attentive even it offers Level 4 autonomy (because we always need to have an eye on the road and pitch-in when needed as this involves people's lives and there is no single system in the market which is 100% perfect).

</comment><comment><USER32> Who would willingly buy this and install it in their car? Someone who wants to die?

</comment><comment><USER33> Found a video onn YouTube that demonstrate the system a little bit: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=361&v=GODp6q4Sac...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=361&v=GODp6q4Sac0)

Pretty cool stuff.

</comment><comment><USER34> They should move away from using Python in a system like this. There's a non trivial amount of Python code (e.g. [0]) in the repo. The lack of type-safety is just the start of the issues with using it in a project like this.

[0] [https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/tree/aa365e0d48ba29fd44...](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/tree/aa365e0d48ba29fd44ec110d4570fa1fe1210e54/selfdrive/controls/lib)

<comment><USER35> Geo addressed that at the lex fridman podcast 5 months ago, briefly mentioning type checking as one of the reasons. I think he said they're moving to Go or C

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I never heard about them. And with the limited information their site provides my initial impression is that this looks incredibly dangerous.

<comment><USER14> Jump on youtube, plenty of timelapses showing its reliability. The predictability of the system partly removes the danger factor and with the driver monitoring system in place, it becomes very difficult to not pay attention. I'd rather have this driving a car on highways than most people I know

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> > On stage, I asked Hotz about safety issues and concerns, but he expressed > confidence that Comma One wasn't doing anything existing technology on the > market doesn't already offer.

This is a nonsensical reply. Begs the question what is it that Comma does not do that every proper self-driving or driver assistant solution does.

</comment><comment><USER38> What is "OBD-C"? Did the appropriate the USB-C connector for an OBD connection for some reason?

</comment><comment><USER39> Is this still a Geohot project?

<comment><USER40> Yes.

<comment><USER41> too bad

<comment><USER42> ? Why

<comment><USER41> I always disliked geohot ambition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgAbfr42oI8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgAbfr42oI8)

</comment><comment><USER44> Any more info on the hardware used? I'm kinda curious what the new phone and the infrared camera mentioned is.

</comment><comment><USER45> [https://comma.ai/faq](https://comma.ai/faq)

</comment><comment><USER46> Not a word of explanation on the front page explaining what it is.

</comment><comment><USER47> If the obtuseness is to deter regulators, it's a good thing nobody at any regulatory body reads Hacker News. Right? Because otherwise frontpaging HN would defeat the entire purpose of trying to fly under regulatory radar.

</comment><comment><USER48> I clicked around for a while and it took me forever to figure out what this was. For the longest time I thought it was a dash cam. What's an integrated panda? Why do I care about a custom cooling solution?

</comment><comment><USER49> >"Make driving chill"

Yeah, nah. Driving isn't meant to be "chill". Driving "chill" is how collisions occur. Fuck this product and fuck the SV cocksucks making it.

</comment><comment><USER50> There is so many reasons this shouldn't make it to the top of the front page. But here we are...</comment>


The Candlemakers' Petition - <AUTHOR> http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html <comment><USER2> If Bastiat was alive today, he would run circles around politicians and economists like Krugman, while at the same time being ridiculed as one of those crazed nut-case libertarian. He will also generally being unpopular. And he _was_ unpopular and unknown in his time. I mean, this man had braved the French Revolution and risked getting his head chopped off.

What he did for us is to write pretty good fables and stories teaching us a thing or two about economic fallacies. That's the whole reason why we still read him today. That what have earned him legion of fans.

But, in this era and age, some of the things he said would still be seen as heresy.

Breaking windows(or digging holes and filling up again) is still seen as smart by some crazy economists.

The other day, I stubbornly argued against wars as stimulus on the basis that it's a broken window fallacy on hacker news. I got lot of karma points alright, but my opponent was pretty damn persistent about wars being a smart idea.

<comment><USER3> It's hardly only Krugman who's in favor of economic stimulus; most orthodox neoclassical economists believe in at least _some_ role for fiscal stimulus, including those who lean right. For example, _The Economist_ has generally supported some degree of stimulus programs and warned against too-quick budget reductions plunging economies back into recession, despite usually being against government intervention in the economy.

Where I'll agree is that it does seem preferable for stimulus spending to actually produce something useful, preferably something infrastructural that produces long-term value, as opposed to just having people dig holes and fill them back up again. For example, the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s produced a bunch of schools, bridges, hydroelectric dams, national park trails/structures, etc., many of which we still use.

That was one of the criticisms of the 2009 stimulus plan, which in the interest of short-term stimulus ended up spending a bunch of money on things without any real lasting value. E.g. instead of building $20b of high-speed rail, we spent $20b on repaving roads.

<comment><USER4> The problem is that its always something that people are unwilling to pay full price for with their own money. so the actual value is somewhat unknown. But there are so many distortions and subsidies, one cannot really tell with a lot of things.

One thing is certain though. When government spends money, it borrow it or take it by taxation or inflation. So it really just changes who is spending it and the desirability of the spending.

Desirability drops because people spend on thing or invest in things that are of real value to them, where as government puts money where it politically popular.

I hear the government is going to be giving two solar companies $2 billion that will create 2000. That's $1 million per job. And on a technology that is not all that competitive yet.

But don't worry. Government knows exactly what technologies will win out. And if it doesn't, it will spend whatever is required to make it look like its winning.

<comment><USER5> Why are you so hostile to research that sees production use?

The theory, which is increasingly being borne out, is that economies of scale will kick I bun if you subsidize it.

But even if not, it's small-scale research, and extremely important. But politicians need a message that sells, and talking about the complexities of solar panel research and job creation that motivate this endeavor just leaves people's eyes glazed over.

<comment><USER2> Solar research will dramatically kicks in as soon as oil become too expensive. Moreover, solar productions will kick in when it become too expensive to run our economy on oils.

There is no need for solar researches until then. We could use that money to spend on other research programs, such as space exploration, semiconductor research, or even water conservation research. However, we don't know which to fund. So we end up with a government that more or less redirect the path of technological development, not so much advance the overall state of technology.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

<comment><USER6> Do libertarians not believe in externalities?

There is a free lunch! It's the other costs of fossil-fuels (political instability, pollution, global warming, risks of environmental disaster) that are not reflected in the price of oil and so are unable to influence development of energy alternatives!

<comment><USER2> _Do libertarians not believe in externalities?_

Some libertarians like to cry rivers about our roads today because of the traffic cogging that happens since congestions are not priced.

So you want to tell me that libertarians do not believe in externalities?

<comment><USER6> I meant the question seriously and your answer was informative.

However I suspect your example really stems from an argument that "common property" like roads should be minimized and that a private owner would better price road use. I think libertarians would not argue that the government should create a fancy new road-taxing system. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Many other externalities are harder to privatize. For example social costs/benefits of hiring or firing employees, of providing employees with insurance or not, of destroying local businesses with everyday low prices and shipping the proceeds to China, of promoting education and/or research, of taking advantage of peoples' poor choices in credit use, of selling highly- addictive drugs, of polluting, of destroying the Gulf's tourism and fishing industries, of global warming, etc. I doubt libertarians advocate private ownership of the atmosphere.

I certainly don't like the idea of the government micromanaging every conceivable, nebulous externality, but I think there is a time and a place for regulation, taxes, government investment, government subsidies, etc. as tools for dealing with the most troublesome systemic problems.

<comment><USER4> The time and place for government action is when individual rights are being violated. A right is something that authorizes the use of force to defend it.

You have the right to live, to breath and to own property. You're free to buy insurance, promote education, bargain with people who are dumber than you, use substances or sell them to others.

You have the right to hire and fire, and capriciously change where you buy your gasoline.

But you don't have the right to force others to fund your pet projects or make their decisions for them if you think they're being dumb. And we gain no special right to do so just because a group of us get together and decide to do so.

Our system is stronger specifically when individuals are free to disagree and to try many competing ideas without a central approving authority.

But, yes, some things are inescapably shared like the atmosphere and we must cooperate on protecting it.

<comment><USER6> Your take on government's "time and place" doesn't resonate with me. I value many functions of government that I don't consider "rights" such as antitrust enforcement, insider trading prosecution, radio frequency allocation, long- term research funding, deposit insurance, unemployment insurance, driver licensing, pharmaceutical testing.....

I also don't see completely unregulated industry as remotely tenable. I suspect that wealth and power would rapidly concentrate in a small number of companies (and probably individuals) and competition would be minimal. While I don't exactly understand how the interplay between consumers, workers, share- holders, and corporations would work in that world, I suspect it would be something like a less democratic, less accountable, less liberty protecting, government.

<comment><USER4> I think more can be accomplished when people cooperate voluntarily.

There is nothing that says people cannot voluntarily enter into contracts to cooperate on many things often seen as things coercive governments must manage. For example, one can enter into agreements with other property owners in an area that could govern all kinds of things. No one need be forced to do anything, other than keep their agreements.

Freedom is not being free from all commitments and all arrangements. It is merely being from having them imposed upon you by physical force or threat of it.

But some of the things on your list no one would ever agree to. For example, paying someone when they don't have a job, something they have a lot of control over and which simultaneously gives them the means to not have to take a job. We're better off if people learn to save their money. Most can certainly do that.

Likewise, deposit insurance takes away all reason to evaluate where you put your money and has certainly subsidized a lot of reckless banking. I think people who make decisions should bare the risks. People who have nothing to do with it should not be forced to bare such risk.

Other things on your list would continue under a more private system. People would still fund long term research; companies do that now too. Perhaps you've heard of Xerox PARC, HP Labs, IBM and Bell Laboratories.

And if you've got a private highway, you're going to require people know how to drive on it. Why wouldn't you? You lose money when there are accidents. You'll probably even come up with a way to keep drunks off of your road.

The wealth concentration you fear is frequently empowered by the very government you think prevents it. The corporations control the government now.

Who handed the lands and right of ways to the railroads? Who stood by as they lied to farmers to get them to move out there where they only lifeline was the railroad? Who told BP their liability was limited to $75 million? Some might even go as far as saying it is no coincidence that the rise of big business parallels the rise of big government.

And as for being less liberty protecting, I really don't see how a government that fiercely enforces individual rights will not be protecting them.

Just because things have been done a certain way doesn't mean things can't be done in a better way. But I certainly don't expect people to drop the current approaches without having those alternatives being demonstrated as better.

I see things as very incremental. A lot of things have gotten bad because of whole series of less than optimal choices. We can certainly move towards better systems incrementally.

<comment><USER6> I feel obligated to respond since you put so much time into your response. However, I'm not going to follow this thread further so I'll resist the urge to get in the last word.

I think our debate can be summed up as follows:

I believe that government has a role in fixing/preventing systemic problems, preventing private entities from engaging in harmful social behavior when the market is inadequate to do so, and performing socially important functions that the market does not incentivize. I certainly don't think the government should tackle every conceivable problem - we have a democracy to decide. In practice, I think the costs of the fix is high enough in many cases that it is preferable to live with the problem. (However, this is a practical observation rather than a determination based on principle.)

I think you would say that the government has no authority to meddle in those issues and must rely on coercion to do so, always gets things wrong when it does, the purported benefits of regulation can be achieved by voluntary agreements between private entities, and that "important functions that the market does not incentivize" is an inherent contradiction.

<comment><USER4> ok

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "+ x + = - ... would be to heap _absurdity_ upon _absurdity_."

Perversely, "+ x + = -" is valid Scheme:

      #;1> (= (- (+) (*) (+)))
      #t

</comment><comment><USER8> Thus, Foxconn gives us half an iPhone for free?</comment>


Be who you are - <AUTHOR> http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/09/be-who-you-are/ <comment><USER2> I'd rather live by "Be who you want to be".

The title "Be who you are" seems to imply that who you are is an immutable property, presumably defined in your early childhood or something. I don't think that's true.

At age 15, I was as geeky as any kid could be. I frequently skipped school because I studied Mathematics at the University in parallel, didn't care too much about how I looked and didn't like talking with people. Then I decided to change (and I agree with the OP that girls played a big role in this); I started talking to people, went to high school parties (worth it) and took my sisters' fashion advice. Now, 7 years later, I couldn't be happier :) I'm healthy, get to work on awesome difficult problems every day, don't feel like an outcast and picked up some important skills along the way.

Be who you want to be. If you want to be a non-awkward geek, you can even be that :)

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, that's a better title. A lot of the commenters seem to be reacting more to the title than the post, but whatever. My point was just that I wish I had done what I wanted because I was interested in it, not because I wanted to fit in with some group of "cool" kids.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This may be tangentially related, but here goes:

During the last week of high school, my favorite teacher pulled me aside. It was a po-dunk high school and I had gotten into one of the top engineering universities in the US, so I was pretty satisfied with myself. But I was also a geek, incredibly coy, and completely one-dimensional.

I admired the guy a lot. He never bull-shitted any of the students. If he didn't like you, he'd say so. But me and him hit it off, even though he was a history teacher and I was a hard science guy. I think he always saw me for the person I could be, rather than who I was at the time. He pulled me aside, and he said "promise me in college you'll live you're life fully." And I knew what he meant. After getting into college, I kind of collapsed. All the work paid off, but I had so much free time, I didn't know what to do with it towards the end of high school. Hadn't asked any girls out. Never played any sports. Never found a good group of friends. I completely neglected major parts of my life.

So in college, I sort of reinvented myself. Joined a bunch of social clubs, even became president of one, asked girls out, got shot down, asked girls out some more, didn't get shot down, played sports, made a great group of friends (who all studied different things), and also did well in school. I became much MUCH happier (and I was already pretty happy).

Getting shot down - man, I learned more about myself from that experience than I have all of the science I studied combined. His point was to live through experience, not just knowledge. Up until college, I was someone who had filled his head/life with books and studying, and stuck to what I was good at.

What I realized was, in high school, you can't possibly know who you are. You might know a few subjects you're good at, and try to reinforce your confidence by sticking only to those subjects and hanging out with the people who do the same. Thats how you get geeks, jocks, cheerleaders, emo kids. Each group follows their own limiting ideology. You'll never see geeks into sports, or cheerleaders into science, etc, etc. At least at the school I was at.

But its the perfect time to just explore. To NOT get stuck in any particular group. "Who you are" should be a very fluid concept when you're young. And as far as I'm concerned, after graduating recently, its still a useful way to look at yourself. "Sticking to what you're good at" may be the way to rack up success. But you don't live through a diversity of experience that might ultimately define who you can become.

</comment><comment><USER4> More importantly, I say live without regrets. You'll never make the right choices 100% of the time, and the mistakes you think you made are as much a part of who you are now as the things you got right. You never really know what the outcome would have been had you chosen the opposite: Maybe you wouldn't have had the social skills to get that job, maybe you wouldn't have met that friend of a friend of your new popular friend who introduced you to your future wife, etc.

Reflection and maturity is healthy, but harboring regrets and second-guessing past decisions just isn't worth it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with the sentiment of not getting caught up second-guessing yourself, but I think that the line of reasoning you're espousing destroys any hope of learning from past mistakes, and by extension, diminishes the importance of carefully considering future decisions. If I don't look back and learn from my mistakes because I never know what would have happened in the other case, why bother putting any thought into my current decisions? Very shortly they'll be in the past and I can avoid regretting them as well :)

I wrote a post about this where I hopefully explain in a little better. Just don't get caught up on the word "regret":

[http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/08/why-im-learning-to-love- regr...](http://ryanwaggoner.com/2010/08/why-im-learning-to-love-regret/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I stayed geeky, to my detriment. I went to an all-boys school, and didn't so much as talk to a female younger than 30 between the ages of 12 and 19. Meanwhile, I was too geeky even for school, getting buried in computer science etc. long before there was any academic reward from it, to the extent that I failed English in my final exams and ended up going to a small-town no-name college a couple of years later than my peers, surrounded by unambitious and average students, and knowing more about the topics that interested me than my lecturers. I had a good time playing pool, though.

It kinda worked out in the end, as I knew that once I had a job, I could shine. But I regret my misspent youth. Irresponsibility isn't as kindly regarded in older people.

<comment><USER6> I'm living that life right now :(

<comment><USER7> If you feel bored and lonely, do something that scares you. That's how I got through difficult times. Lots of geeks remain geeky out of self-consciousness. Never be afraid to make a fool of yourself. 10 years from now nobody will give a shit anyway. Go out and do something new that scares you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sometimes, it's tough. For reasons I won't get into here, I don't want to get my future-fiance a diamond. It can be any other gemstone, just not a diamond. She can get herself a diamond, it just won't come from me.

Telling my female friends--even the level-headed, rational, down-to-earth ones --resulted in opposition. At best, they would just say good luck finding a girl like that. At worst, they'd keep arguing about why I should get her a diamond.

If you're going to be who you are, there will be things that you believe in that are going to be different from others. If you have things that are different, some people will fight you on it. Pick your battles carefully.

<comment><USER9> I think the "diamond test" is useful and elegant in its simplicity: a woman that requires a diamond to marry you is the wrong woman.

<comment><USER8> Alas, then many good women are all the wrong women then. I don't know why, but diamonds have a tight grip on many feminine psyche.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Be who you are. Worst advice ever. What does that even mean?

As a scientist, you perform the same experiment 100 times with the same conditions, same procedures and get the same result. You don't expect to see a different result on the 101st time unless you change something different.

Most geeks like to think of themselves as possessing both the ambition and talent to "change the world"; but yet at the same time, they also like to think of themselves as empathetic (unlike those jock duches), hard-working (engineering creates value unlike sales) & down to earth (supports liberal causes) whose work and personality will only improve society for the better.

When in reality, most geeks are afraid of rocking the boat and are eager to please. No one can blame someone who "wants to change the world." No one will get jealous when you are at the bottom of the social totem-pole or an engineer that takes marching orders gladly from management. It takes guts to admit that you are a selfish person (which all human beings are) and oppose other people to get what you want. Especially if the other person comes from a position of greater power (politically, economically, physically, sexually), but that's what makes a man a man, standing up for yourself against all odds.

If you want to be rich, get laid, or even get ahead career-wise. You have to be willing to do what other people aren't willing to do, which is to say take risks that most people aren't willing to bear. You have to be willing to lose all your money and time, get slapped countless times, get into fights, get fired, lose your job, friends & girlfriend. You are willing to undergo ridicule, humiliation & oppression from your peers, parents & authority to be who you want to be, not what other people want you to be. If you can't stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen but don't rationalize it to "being who you are" because you are not who you should be because you don't want to take the risks.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have no idea what your rant means or how it relates to the blog post that I wrote. All I can say is that I don't see any evidence that being successful requires shitting on everyone else. What a depressing and negative way to live your life...seems like it would be self-fulfilling. If you treat life like a zero-sum game where you have to step on someone else to get a step ahead, then people will probably not be willing to help you and you'll end up having to do the very thing you thought you had to do to get ahead.

Sorry, but I'm not buying it. I know too many people who are very successful who I admire on almost every metric. And if "success" did require shitting on people, it's not for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> _And most regrettably, I stopped hanging out with certain people because I felt like they would be a drag on my newfound social ambition._

So did I. And I've been haunted ever since by a TV show that perfectly captured my experience. It was "The Square Dance" episode of "The Wonder Years", when Kevin wouldn't hang out with the girl he wanted to because of what other people would think.

The closing voiceover:

"The funny thing is, it's hard to remember the names of the kids you spent so much time trying to impress. But you don't forget someone like Margaret Farquhar. Professor of Biology. Mother of six. Friend to bats."

</comment><comment><USER12> Man, I've been several different people already. I'm not even who I was yesterday and I'm certainly nothing like who I was just five years ago. No amount of wishful thinking or regret will change any of that. I don't really mind though because I can look back at those people and learn something new. They may not have made all the best choices, but I still have a chance.

<comment><USER7> Totally agree, identity is self-illusion at best.

<comment><USER13> It's all a matter of picking the best self-illusion you can think of, really.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> You're very, very wrong. Be many different people over the course of your life. Try many different things, lose friends, make friends.

Life is variety, and each new experience will teach you things you can apply in different ways. It's good to excel in one thing, but you have to be good all-round. And not being a geeky dork is a good way to get started.

Just because you start out one way (it's your parents who actually made that decision for you) does not mean you should end up that way.

There's one guy who you have to believe made the right decision based on the circumstances he was in - that's young ryan. Don't second guess young ryan, he did what he felt he needed to do. Don't go back and belittle his decision. Instead, use his experience to make better and better decisions moving forward.

He was right, and now you have grown more conservative and blame him for that. Don't. Every _new_ thing you do in life is the right thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> _Every new thing you do in life is the right thing._

Sorry, couldn't disagree more. To take an extreme example, I could go out and rape or murder someone, which I've never done before. But that's definitely not the right thing. Decisions have consequences, and should be weighed accordingly. I agree that we should always be seeking to expand our horizons, to experience new things, to grow as individuals. And I have. But if that lust for novelty is your only moral compass, you're in for a rough ride.

<comment><USER15> Horrible strawman—though, in theory, you "could" go out and rape or murder someone, there is likely no you from the current you whose biological processes would predetermine those actions (or, in simpler terms, "you don't have it in you.") You can't get there from here—you wouldn't allow yourself to start.

On the other hand, everywhere that you _can_ go, every you you _can_ be without you evaluating you-prime negatively, you should become.

<comment><AUTHOR> _there is likely no you from the current you whose biological processes would predetermine those actions_

...

 _every you you can be without you evaluating you-prime negatively, you should become._

Not really grasping how choice plays into your view of reality. Am I predetermined through biological processes, or do I have a choice to become the things I _should_ become?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Learning who you are is not independent of living (being). I should say that you will discover who you are and that you never are in a steady state, so a tree can be a tree but a person is a project to be developed, so I don't think is correct to say "be".

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I posted this here because I know that many people here can probably relate to the awkward years of high school, though I suspect most here on HN were the types who stayed true to who they were and paid a price at the hands of shallow people like me :(

<comment><USER17> I already commented on the post. Don't feel bad, I also hang here in HN but were one of those outliers (maybe not as much as you did, because we did not have clubs in our HS, but I gave up playing chess, too...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Every man (or woman) wants a chance to go back in time and fix something, its human nature. Tell a high-schooler what your mistakes were and not to make them, he'll make sure to repeat them. Part of being a teenager is knowing everything.

</comment><comment><USER19> That's might be a good advice for some introverts who want to stay who they are. But I think it is a bad advice.

Going always the same patch from work to home, eat always the same food all the time, creating a ritual from everything - that is a common way for an introverts an autistic people to stay away from the world, always looking to the ground.

I know, it is almost painful to do a new, different things, you need some effort, to force you to go a different way, to try a different combination, to visit a new, strange place, and especially to talk to a strange people. But after a many tries you will re-frame yourself, and there will be no more regret ever.

The DRY principle is not only for programmers. It is all about going out of a comfort zone, about developing a new habits and re-framing those which are here from a childhood.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sigh...I really wish that I had picked a different title. Believe me, I'm definitely not the type to just stick to the same routine. I've packed quite a bit into the last 15 years of my life, thank you. But to the extent that I did things to impress others or meet someone else's expectations to the detriment of my own purpose and interests, it was probably a mistake. That's all I was trying to say.</comment></comment>


Why Content Farms Are Here To Stay - <AUTHOR> http://www.seobook.com/economics-of-content-farms

<comment><USER2> Can we make the total crap more expensive for the farmers?

Perhaps via a sort of 'anti-click' that deducts from, rather than adds to, their AdSense accounts?</comment>


Show HN: I followed your suggestions and now my startup reached 250K+ members - <AUTHOR> http://www.connected2.me/register/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is my new startup and I'd love to get your feedback. It reached 250K+ members with only viral.

Basically you can think of it as Formspring with chat. You set up an account for people to chat with you anonymously. As their identities are anonymous your friends can ask everything to you that they normally cannot ask. They can tell their thoughts and criticisms about you.

Moreover, you have an opportunity to chat anonymously with celebrities you admire through Connected2.me. You can tell your problems to specialists such as psychologists by keeping your identity secret and get an instant answer. Companies also use Connected2.me in order to get anonymous feedback about their products and give support to their customers real-time.

Please try and tell me what do you think.

</comment><comment><USER2> Congrats on your launch. I like the idea and the UI design is slick. Can you share more details about "It reached 250K+ members with only viral". Some pointers for rest of us would be great.

Which suggestion you followed to reach 250K member mark? Also, most of your traffic seems to be coming from Turkey. Could you explain bit about that?</comment>


Ask HN: what sites should use ssl? - <AUTHOR>

I'm working on a site which deals with some user sensitive information, but not dealing with credit cards and stuff like that.
I'm was thinking that I would need to get an SSL certificate, but I've just noticed that Facebook doesn't encrypt data over https, so I'm wondering if I need to bother.
I'm transfering info like e-mail address for the users login, and all that is encrypted in my db, so should I also be encrypting it over the wire?
<comment>-additional</comment><comment></comment><comment>-
So the first to responses were basically 'yes, do it', but
1) why wouldn't a major company like facebook do it, and the start.yourdomain.com from google doesn't do it either, and that has all your email and stuff in it?
2)if I do decide to do it, is there a specific source I should get my certificate from? is there another way to encrypt? as I'm bootstrapping along, should I really be paying a few hundred dollars for this? </comment><comment><USER2> Ideally, you should be using SSL any time you ask for information you don't want others to ever be able to see. Think about it this way:

You log on to your site via an open wireless network at your local coffee shop. Anything that you aren't SSL encrypting is being sniffed and read by the shady looking dude with the laptop and latte over in the corner. What don't you want him to see? SSL encrypt that.

For my sites, this generally means any page where a password is entered. You might want to take it a step further and protect private profile pages or anything like that, but at a minimum, authentication should be encrypted over the wire.

You might say "Well yeah, but I run a site where people post pictures of their morning poo, who cares if they get hacked?" - that's fine, but people have a horrible tendancy to use the same email and password all over the place. When Joe logs in to PostMyPoo with email@example.com/hunter2, chances are Shady Latte Guy is going to pop over to gmail, punch in those credentials, and the vast majority of the time, he's in to Joe's account. He can now go through Joe's email to see what else Joe is signed up for, try his existing credentials, or issue password reset requests to get into anything else he wants. Suddenly, Joe has a data/identity security nightmare on his hands, and you bear some measure of responsibility for that.

</comment><comment><USER3> We try and make sure all our clients use SSL for authentication and transfer of secure data. Just because Facebook and Google aren't as conscientious as they should be doesn't let you off the hook.

You don't need to pay a few hundred dollars for an SSL certificate, unless you need a wildcard. Go with a cheap reputable Certificate Authority and start this out right.

<comment><AUTHOR> Any recommendations on a certificate authority?

<comment><USER3> we mostly use GoDaddy because it is so cheap, but its a horrible user experience. We use DynDns.com for our DNS hosting and I think they offer certs now, so we may switch to them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Correct me if I'm wrong - looking at the source code, Facebook submits the form over https, though the page is http.

By itself, a leak of information may appear trivial, but piece together a few bits of info and mix in some social engineering, and you could have enough to do naughty things! Yes, users should use different passwords, but _you_ should be the one who does the right thing and takes the responsibility for them, to prevent that exponential spread of consequences. It's more than just "This cert cost me _x_ ", it's "If I spend _x_ , I save _y_ people from losing _z_ of time and money." where x<y<z.

StartSSL offer well priced certificates - from free, up to ~USD150, and they are well reviewed here: [http://www.sslshopper.com/startcom-certificate- authority-rev...](http://www.sslshopper.com/startcom-certificate-authority- reviews.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> Google _does_ do it after being being embarrassed into it by some security folk. The 'sign in' link on the main google.com page is ssl, as is Gmail, and <http://google.com/a/domainname> (at least for me) is redirecting to https.

Facebook _does_ support ssl (<https://facebook.com>) but the problem is that they don't forwards regular http login to it.

Unless you need a wildcard domain, which you shouldn't, until you have to scale, it shouldn't cost you more than like $20 US for the cert.

</comment><comment><USER6> It is good practice to at least encrypt the authentication process, so that someone can't grab plaintext passwords as they are transmitted.

</comment><comment><USER7> My understanding of why some major players don't do it is because there is considerable overhead in running encryption when you are dealing with millions of connections.

</comment><comment><USER8> I like ssl for logins and signups and if it is something important or sensitive (like say email) for the whole interaction.</comment>


JavaScript Code smell Survey - <AUTHOR> https://srvy.online/js <comment><USER2> Around 20 questions, and doesn't show the results at the end...

<comment><AUTHOR> I am not affiliated, but I thought the questions were interesting. Hopefully there's a good follow-up post afterwards...</comment></comment>


The Secret History of Star Wars - <AUTHOR> https://wayback.archive.org/web/20150219205702/http://secrethistoryofstarwars.com:80/articles.html <comment><AUTHOR> The website is no longer up, but I think this is the most recent snapshot before it went under. There is now a book available, but the old website had many superb articles on the real story behind the making of the franchise.</comment>


Ask HN: Do I risk getting "pigeonholed" by accepting an Operations Engi. role? - <AUTHOR> Sorry if this is the wrong usage of "Ask HN", I'm  not sure if this is the right usage or not.
Anyway, basically I'm a 4th year CS student who will graduate sometime next year (so basically I'll graduate around year 4.5).
edit: oh and this is a full-time internship, not a full role since I'll have to go back to school for 1 or 2 quarters after summer.
Anyway, I applied to a company; I heard about the company from their senior director of engineering - basically the guy came up to talk to us during a "poster session" at our school's "capstone" competition that my team won (basically 4th years form teams and try to create products).
Anyway, since I have experience on my resume in general scripting, writing simple integration scripts with sed/awk, computer security and the like (aside from traditional dev experience), I ended up getting interviewed for an operations engineer role.
The onsite went well and I should be receiving an offer soon, but basically my concern is, if I accept this role am I likely to get stuck in it? I like stuff like continuous integration, containerization etc but more from the development perspective (so I guess what you'd call devops, as much of a buzzword as that is).
I liked all the engineers I met with, and they made a point that operations works closely with development, but obviously don't write any production code, just the scripting/general automation coding around it.
I'm kind of rambling now but I think experience with AWS, kubernetes, network administration etc would help round out my skills, but I'm wondering if it's a better idea to focus on development and learn those skills as part of development rather than sort of separated from it.
Thanks for any advice <comment><USER2> Oldster here: It's definitely possible that there will be an effect. I've done both "dev" and "ops" over the years--I have broad skills--and I've definitely noticed that I seem to be typecast to whichever I've done most recently. It's almost bizarre in a way, but if you're currently in an ops role, many people become unable to see your programming/math chops and vice versa. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. That's kind of what I figured; that employers will tend to anchor on your last role, so I'll try to make sure to get the message across that I want to do both development and ops in the future.

In your experience, do salaries cap out earlier say in Ops vs Dev? It seems like they could scale up equally high since whether you're producing value as a developer or, say, making a massive system x% more efficient, but obviously salary decisions can be constrained by HR's idea of what a role entails

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure. As a guess, it's probably a bit easier to get a higher salary as ops than dev. This doesn't have much to do with value, since corps usually cannot perceive your value. Rather, it's more that you're closer to where the rubber hits the road. And unlike a dev, often ops will be expected to pull nearly infinite hours if something awful happens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> My "career" started as the ops/IT guy for a radio station, and concurrently as a video game tester; a rather un-glorious start if you ask me. To say I've worn many hats since then is an understatement; and if you build good skills, I'm confident you can do the same.

As modbait points out, you definitely get catered to for your concentration, but I'd point out that I think that has more to do with how your portray yourself/your vitae. By having broader experiences, I think you gain an edge in being able to emphasize various parts of your history and tell a better story for why you fit for a given position in the future. I have a "sysadmin" resume, a "data analyst" resume, and a "full stack" resume, to name a few.

From the sound of it, what you'll be touching is far from unapplicable. <mainstream cloud platform>, scripting, basic sec/platform stuff, these are all foundational skills pretty regardless of what part of tech you want to do next, I have never once regretted coming from an ops perspective initially. (In fact I proudly think it's an advantage for both understanding your whole stack, and gaining some very useful mindsets for developing and maintaining robust and long-running software. You may also become a beast at firefighting, depending on your role, which _never_ is a bad skill to have.)

If you want to focus on dev, ops positions often hold opportunities to take some initiative/leverage those skills. There's a reason "Devops" is such a buzzword. Always be asking yourself how you can automate yourself out of a job.

Sorry, this has been quite a ramble; "ops as an important skillset" is a topic very close to heart for me. hope this braindump is even marginally useful, and best of luck of course. Bust ass, listen to what the sister comments said about networking+projects+staying hungry for growth. This washed up ops guy is rooting for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks dude :)

My eventual goal is to be competent in basically every part of the stack, so I think this role will fit me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good work experience is good work experience. It will earn you more opportunities and money down the road. Just insure you mix development and ops if you want the flexibility to be able to do both down the line. If you only do software engineering then you may end up building really poor applications because you do not have the systems engineering experience to know how to scale and secure apps appropriately.

Since it is just an internship it will not be your first and last job. If you want to do one for some time that is fine, as when you apply for another role you will normally have to pass engineering tests for the job at hand which will let you know if it is right for you. The really good jobs ask you questions related to what you or your peers are actually doing.

</comment><comment><USER5> 1\. Once you have a job at a company it's often possible to move sideways into another team at the company.

2\. It's just an internship, you're not choosing your whole career.

1+2 suggest this may be fine opportunity to get regular programmer job at this company. Just make sure you spend time with people in other teams too, and if you like their roles better you can, at end of internship, go talk to them about getting job there after school.

</comment><comment><USER6> Do the work/intern. Dev on the side. Put your projects up on Github. Make connections at internship. Keep ear to the ground for opportunities.</comment>


How do you spot a genius? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/streams-of-consciousness/2012/10/18/how-do-you-spot-a-genius/

<comment><USER2> How do you write a stupid article?

* Present it as a "How to..." article, provides a few vague sentences on how you might be able to begin to plan to do it, then quickly devolve into an article on what must be done "for the childrenz!".

* Use lots of emotionally charged nonesense words and phrases, like "gifted", "radical ideas", "enabling the genius within", "renewed commitment to excellence".

* Make it all about the childrenz.

* Be sure to add some complaint about lack of funding for projects related to your sparkly notions.

* Make the use of everyday judgement sound like a complicated process only safe for use by experts.

* Support the statement of your opinions with references to other articles stating the same opinion, but do it in the fashion of a scientific reference.

... and many more!

<comment><USER3> Good to know that Scientific American hasn't changed since the early mid 1990s when I stopped reading it. There was a time that Scientific American had articles on research and experiments (the first 150 years or so of its existence), rather than agenda-based editorial pieces.

EDIT: "has" -> "hasn't" in first line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _This failure has consequences. America ranked 31st of the 56 countries that participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, which assesses the academic skills and knowledge of 15-year-olds._

Two "easy to fix" reasons why our school sucks: Summer vacation and sleep depriving school schedule. Sleep is necessary for learning, but high school students don't get enough of it because their biology collides with school schedule. Summer vacation have a reputation for destroying education gain, because they're not spending time reviewing what they have learned. Review is crucial to the learning process, since our knowledge decay due to little or no use. That's why adults will have rusty math and know a lot less than high school seniors unless said adult is an engineer or a doctor.

They are easy to fix, in theory. All you have to do is distribute summer vacation days into the rest of the school years. All you have to do is shift starting time to something more reasonable like 8:30 AM or 9:00 AM.

However, they are hard, because of politics and culturally mandated stupidity.

<comment><USER5> Summer vacation is only detrimental to poor kids. In wealthier households, the children get sufficient mental stimulation so as to come back to school without fallen behind.

The problem with changing school hours is that getting children to school needs to work around parent's work hours. This is less of a problem in other countries where young children can walk to school on their own or in groups, but would require massively changing American society to work.

<comment><USER6> I don't even know how you can justify the "only detrimental to poor kids."

It is far more an effect of the parents and household than it is economics of the house.

And that of the school hours is kind of wrong when you reach high school because that is when children take the bus or ride with friends with cars and drivers licenses.

Hours for school where I went (in the US):

        Elementary:    8:30am - 3:10pm
        Middle School: 8:20am - 3:00pm
        High School:   7:30am - 2:20pm

There is a huge difference in the high school, especially in bus in areas where buses come at anywhere from 6-6:45am. This isn't an issue caused by parent schedules or you would see similar times for middle and elementary school.

<comment><USER7> Wait, high schools starts _earlier_ than Elementary?

I'm... dumbfounded by the idiocy of that (And a quick google indicates this isn't uncommon!).

Who on earth thought this was a good idea? Flip the ordering around and I'd bet you'd see significant improvement for practically no pain.

<comment><USER8> Typically it's because it's still dark out for the earlier block. Parents dislike having elementary school kids walk to school in the dark. (I have no idea whether it is actually less safe, but that's certainly the perception.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _"Only four states currently mandate services for gifted students and fully fund those mandates. The failure to develop the talents of our children deprives all of us of a stable of future innovators, creative thinkers, leaders and outstanding performers."_

Except that clearly, it doesn't. We know this because a) we had plenty of "genius" before we had any "gifted education", and b) the nature of the thing implies exceptionalism that overcomes cultural boundaries. (I also strongly suspect that "gifted education" has never been demonstrated to increase "genius", but that's just my speculation.)

If you look at what public education is designed to do (provide for a well- educated populace), it makes sense that most of our resources _should_ go toward the under-performers: it's far more important to have a baseline level of literacy and numeracy for 95% of adults, than to nurture the development of the top 5% of people who will probably excel regardless.

I say this as someone who did "gifted education" in elementary and middle school, and found it to be mostly useless. In retrospect, I'd rather that my school district invested the money spent on gifted education in more AP classes, better funding for the arts, computers or early language instruction. It's almost negligent that a school system can afford to pay a full-time "gifted" instructor, but not provide for foreign-language instruction starting in kindergarten.

<comment><USER10> I was also put into a "gifted student" class in elementary school - it was little more than extended play time. The problem is alluded to in the article - it's not really agreed on how to systematically produce brilliance. At most a school does is shunt the smarter kids into classes a bit higher than their level. That might save those kids from some time wasting, but still isn't developing them above from what they naturally are. IMO brilliance is a mix of ability, effort, long term planning, and guidance - and each have dozens on variables for maximization. Frankly I wouldn't want public schools as they are doing any long term planning and guidance for my kid. They aren't doing well enough teaching the basics as it is.

<comment><USER11> Not my experience. The gifted classes I attended were far better than the regular ones, and allowed me to study some JHS and HS-level material. The major failure in my education happened during that wasted period between elementary and college.

<comment><USER9> There's a world of difference between "gifted" classes, and classes that cover more advanced material. You'll notice that I said I would prefer AP courses over gifted education -- there's real value to allowing _all_ qualified students to take advanced coursework.

The situation gets messy when you try to segregate "gifted" kids into special education from a young age. Of the kids who ended up in AP courses with me high school, way less than half were pre-identified as "gifted" at the elementary and middle-school level. We're just not good at identifying intellectual potential in first graders.

<comment><USER11> Sorry I wasn't clear. These were classes set aside for so-called "gifted" children. Not just classes that covered more advanced material. (Though they did.) Nearly everyone in there was really, really smart. I'm sure many kids fell through the cracks and weren't selected, but other than the odd inclusion of some musically gifted children who quickly fell behind and dropped out, we didn't really have any false positives.

That said, I totally agree that all students who can and are interested in advanced coursework ought to be able to benefit from it. I don't really understand why elementary school isn't more like college. If a 3rd-grade student reads at a 9th-grade level, but only does math at a 3rd-grade level, why compromise his experience?

And, as one who had teachers who couldn't always answer my questions, I don't really think asking one person to teach many types of subject matter is always a good idea, either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My time in a gifted program was certainly valuable, a close second to the free lunch program that kept me fed.

I attended and later worked in and around the public school system. I have a lot of ideas about what's wrong with it that would impossible to fully articulate here. However, I can say that I wouldn't put "nurturing nascent genius" particularly high on the list.

</comment><comment><USER13> I read this article as "My children are gifted and the government should fund/educate them and forget about all other kids."

From the article: >America ranked 31st of the 56 countries that participated in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, which assesses the academic skills and knowledge of 15-year-olds.

So how exactly is nurturing genius kids going to help that? Shouldn't education for everyone be the goal?

>First of all, we need to train teachers to spot giftedness....

How about training the teachers to teach? There seems to be a lack of good education in the US, at least for people who are poor.

<comment><USER4> _I read this article as "My children are gifted and the government should fund/educate them and forget about all other kids."_

No, the article notes that people don't spend much money on gifted kids.

 _So how exactly is nurturing genius kids going to help that? Shouldn't education for everyone be the goal?_

Scores isn't everything. If your scores is in the last place but you have silicon valley and lot of genius or talents cultivated by your school system, who cares? Moreover, cultivating genius isn't mutually exclusive to ensuring everyone get a shot at a good education.

 _How about training the teachers to teach? There seems to be a lack of good education in the US, at least for people who are poor._

How about don't make the teacher spend time every year doing the same god damn live-lecture every year? Just record the video, and get all the teachers together to vote for the best one. Record all questions students have. Incorporate it into the next video lecture competition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Summary: genius is a complex relationship of ability & accomplishment and is both a nature & nurture issue.

<comment><USER15> jenniewong, you seem to be hellbanned. I assume this is for your submissions rather than for you comments.

<comment><USER14> I've only submitted like 2-3 articles. None of them were related to me and at least one was in direct response to another article I read in the top.

Although, most of my comments aren't exactly award winning poetry - I would hope that they show some level of engagement on here. How do I de-hellban?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> While reading the article, I couldn't help but think that the title should be "How do you spot a Sheldon?"

</comment><comment><USER17> My uncle once told me "You're a genius. Keep doing what you've been doing".

</comment><comment><USER18> it is a self-controlled and self-aware madness.)

</comment><comment><USER19> Go to a Mensa meetup!

<comment><USER20> I agree - kids need intelligent role models. The modes of entertainment kids engage in (tv, movies, videogames) do not glorify intelligence - books are much better for that.

<comment><USER21> Well taking just TV Stargate had several very intelligent characters as role models Sam, Daniel, Jonas, Rodney and Jeannie. and NCIS has Abby and Tim.

And the BBC's new sherlock also has a hyper intelligent character.

<comment><USER22> times are a-changin'

seriously though, being geek has become cool

contrast steve urkel with blah blah it's all those shows i don't watch but probably the ones you mentioned.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask Hn: How hard is it to create a copycat omegle or chatroulette - <AUTHOR>

Hi i'm super new here my older brother introduced me to this site and i'm in awe of all the knowledge this user base has.<p>i wanted to create a project with couple of my friends thats similar to omegle and chatroulette, using outsourced services like Elance.  Someone told me to create wireframes and such what would you recommend to do start something like this? <comment><USER2> You can probably already buy a script for a similar concept. I just googled and found these sites that might have what you're looking for: [http://marketplace.sitepoint.com/categories/software-for- sal...](http://marketplace.sitepoint.com/categories/software-for-sale) <http://www.buymyscripts.net/> <http://www.scriptbazaar.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you retroafroman.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A clone is not hard, almost by definition. I could make it for you--what's your budget? Better yet [http://mashable.com/2010/04/12/12-chatroulette- clones-you-sh...](http://mashable.com/2010/04/12/12-chatroulette-clones-you- should-try/)

<comment><AUTHOR> between me and my friends we can pool in whatever's a reasonable price for this. thank you for the link and replying techbio.</comment></comment>


Microsoft's Cube debuts at Decibel, creating a one-of-a-kind digital dance party - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.microsoft.com/next/2014/09/24/microsoft-cube-decibel-dance-music/

<comment><USER2> "Canvas for a new kind of creative expression", "unique technological sculpture", "the cube is community". All those buzz phrases make it feel like it's an april fools ad parody.

</comment><comment><USER3> Any intended positive effect of this project is nullified by having a "senior marketing director" stand in front of it, emit a bunch of pointless superlatives, and take credit. Nerd cool factor approaches zero.

<comment><USER4> The funny bit here is that a marketing director ruins the marketing effect of the thing. :)

<comment><USER5> A 3 minute video of all the cool interactions we spent so much time attempting to visualize ourselves would have been all that was needed. Then a 5 second explanation of how it was done at the end. Something like this needs all killer no filler.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _> > The Kinects can read up to three people on each side, and you can see others through the Cube, which acts as a portal, virtually connecting people who are separated in physical space. [http://www.wired.com/2008/11/eye- contact-tra/](http://www.wired.com/2008/11/eye-contact-tra/) _

I would expect this to be a hit in Japan where shyness is apparently a taller hurdle to overcome than most of western social norms.

[http://travel.cnn.com/tokyo/shop/miteru-dake-videos-stare- ab...](http://travel.cnn.com/tokyo/shop/miteru-dake-videos-stare-abyss-060690)

<comment><USER7> Needs a Dance Dance Revolution mode and a karaoke then :).

<comment><USER8> "We're really shy unless we're singingly horribly or stomping on a pad in front of people!"

It's funny how that works.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> People connected in space... can dance together...

... by being on opposite sides of an opaque obelisk. Or, you know, you could _actually_ dance together, in actual physical contact, actually looking at each other, rather than some laggy, pointless, abstract acid-trip-inspired video game (which uses more computing power and electrical power than the median US household practically owns).

<comment><USER10> If it was introduced as a game/device that people can buy - sure, I agree. But as an art project? What's wrong with that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't get the negativity. I've seen the Cube - currently installed at EMP museum - it's a pretty cool art project.

Is it pointless? Yes, but it doesn't have to have a point. It's simply cool way to "transform" you from the meatspace into the "cube space" using modern technology.

<comment><USER12> I think the hate is the result of how hard they are trying to sell it. My subjective analysis: It is clearly awesome tech, but the obviously high production value of the video detracts from viewers' inclination to appreciate the project.

The polar opposite would be Johnny Chung Lee's videos. Here's an example: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s5EvhHy7eQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s5EvhHy7eQ)

I suspect the ratio of marketing budget to project budget might be a good informal indicator of this effect. Or maybe it's just an aversion to anything big-budget?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Leave it Microsoft to "innovate" by creating a non-product which purports to connect people who are dancing by...putting a giant Microsoft product between them so they can't see each other. They say it is "virtually connecting people who are separated in physical space". Is it only me who finds this uproariously funny? It's not "virtually connecting" anything! It's putting a big cube in between them. Which separates them. And people are not "separated" in the way they are saying by physical space...since people can see.

I know, I know, it's just a toy to play with, but the way they describe it is so tone-deaf.

</comment><comment><USER14> The marketing speak from Microsoft is pretty obviously influenced by Steve Jobs keynote references to Apple products living at the "intersection of technology and liberal arts" \- [http://i.imgur.com/XvT8a.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/XvT8a.jpg)

<comment><USER14> I found a three-minute excerpt of his talk: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlI1MR- qNt8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlI1MR-qNt8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Not sure for whom this Cube is made. If it's for regular people to dancing together, why there is no regular forks in the video to say something, if it's for artists, why there is no single piece of artwork presented, if it's for tech junkies, well, just show me the codes!

<comment><USER16> Its an art project, not a product. Probably someone's //oneweek project.

<comment><USER5> They probably spent 3-6 months on this. To me it comes across like an "innovation center" put together by building a project team out of different skill sets and giving them some leash.

I'm not sure how this fits into the mobile first or cloud first strategy however. The cube, while I suppose with a team of engineers could be moved and re-displayed, isn't "mobile" at all.

<comment><USER11> Seriously... I bumped into one of the guys on the opening night. He never said anything about "strategy", only "art". Decibel fest was exactly right place for the cube.

<comment><USER5> I'm not saying the team doesn't have its own mission, I was pondering how things like the Cube, which is being promoted within the Microsoft brand, fits into their corporate strategy. Its a valid question to ask when its clear they won't consider this project a source of revenue generation in any future timeline.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Cooler if you put a few around in different venues and network them. Dance with people at other clubs.

</comment><comment><USER18> The BS/m delivered in this presentation is amazing.

</comment><comment><USER19> As soon as they have wind of it. Microsoft takes credit for other peoples hard work and creativity. Word of warning if your inventive..

</comment><comment><USER20> Gah, it's like re-inventing the skateboard, but without wheels.

</comment><comment><USER21> And nobody came.</comment>