Rethinking the limits on relational databases - <AUTHOR> http://www.craigkerstiens.com/2014/01/24/rethinking-limits-on-relational/ <comment><USER2> I may be in the minority, but I rather like the rigidity of a fixed schema. Yes, it's a bit more "painful" for initial setup ( _you have to actually create the tables_ ) and yes, it's a bit more work during migrations ( _you have to actually add the columns_ ), but I don't see either of those as getting in the way enough to give it up. It's just too useful.

Data structures are meant to last much longer than application code. Anyone that has worked on a long running system can attest to that; well defined data structures and table layouts will outlive any application code.

When I'm designing a system, I think I spend orders of magnitude more time thinking about data structures then actually implementing the CREATE/ALTER TABLE code for them. Planned properly, you can even do the ALTERs/CREATEs necessary to add columns in advance of any actual app usage ( _ie. "two stage" app deployment_).

There is a place for "flex fields" or storing generic "documents" but legit use cases are pretty rare. When they are necessary, a single JSON column is usually enough. The example I generally use is an audit trail: The who ( _FK to user_ ), what ( _event enum_ ), and when ( _timestamp_ ) are all strongly typed but you may want a JSON field for event specific data.

Oh and if anybody has every tried to do a data migration with a schema-less database ... well have fun with that. Either you bite the bullet and convert everything or you end up with a lot if/then/else logic littered through your app that will bite you down the road.

<comment><USER3> I'd put it more strongly. If your apps are anything more than dumb opaque storage, if they ever process the data they write, _they have a schema_. There are certain fields and values your code is relying on to work as intended. "Schemaless" merely means your schema is not written down anywhere, and you might not have any tests that could detect whether any version of your apps ever wrote data that violates it. I say "apps", plural, because in my experience if the data store has been there for more than about a year, anyone who thinks there's just one piece of code that uses it is in for a very unpleasant surprise.

On data migration, I don't think the if/then/else version is even feasible. If there have been _n_ versions of your apps, there are _2^n_ possible states any particular record could be in depending on which versions of your apps did and did not update it. I've seen Notes documents after a few years of this that are in such weird states that not even the dev team could say just what the hell happened to that doc or what correct (well, least bad) behavior of the apps would be, much less what the current versions of the apps would probably do. You can kind of get partway there with apps that have existed and been actively maintained for as long as any of your data has been there, but trying to write anything like new analytics over old non-migrated data is hopeless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Currently using MongoDB on a project and boy do I just hate it. We have highly relational data that is a nightmare to reason with and query. Guess what? We also have migrations! It's hard to explain why, but I just get a bad feeling in my tummy every time I have to interact with the database. Just not enjoyable to work with at all. The only thing I've seen it do that actually impresses me is the aggregation framework/pipeline. That's actually pretty neat, and I feel like it's a good fit for the data we're querying with it (analytics data). Other than that, man, I wish I was using PostgreSQL...

<comment><USER5> _We have highly relational data_

How did your project end up selecting MongoDB? That seems like exactly the sort of thing that it's not good for.

(I'm not just being rhetorical; were there other attributes of MongoDB that made it seem preferable to a relational database earlier in the project?)

<comment><USER6> When you really start looking into it, what projects actually _are_ good for Mongo?

EDIT: It's nice and quick for prototypes. Ironically, I'm building one with it now.

<comment><USER7> After a few months dealing with a system that's built on Mongo ad the data store, I've come to the conclusion that MongoDB only use cases are:

1\. A persistent cache, or a compute-ahead read-only data store. 2\. A write- only store for high volume but non-critical data, such as comments, log events, etc.

MongoDB should never be the primary source of truth data store. Nothing can replace a relational DB for that purpose, yet.

<comment><USER8> > 1\. A persistent cache, or a compute-ahead read-only data store.

Even then, you're probably better off with Redis or memcached.

> 2\. A write-only store for high volume but non-critical data, such as > comments, log events, etc.

Just write to disk. It's very hard to beat flat file text for this use case and most of the time it's not worth it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > There's no reason higher level frameworks or ORMs couldn't handle the > migration process.

> ...this is a manual painful process today, but theres no reason this can't > be fully handled by PostgreSQL or directly within an ORM .

You mean like EF already does [1]?

> Add-Migration will scaffold the next migration based on changes you have > made to your model since the last migration was created

For what it's worth, I don't use that feature. I prefer to use SQL Server Data Tools [2] to maintain a model of the database and use its schema and data diff tools to generate upgrade scripts. This is more due to the database pre-dating EF migrations but as well the schema is fairly complex so having SSDT (with its knowledge of nearly all SQL Server object types) do diffs against the actual database model is better than EF diffing its own abstract model.

[1] [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/data/jj591621.aspx](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/jj591621.aspx)

[2] [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/hh272686(v=vs.103).a...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/hh272686\(v=vs.103\).aspx)

<comment><USER10> The Haskell database-mapping library [1] "persistent" does auto-migrations as well. You declare your data types in a DSL reminiscent of SQL CREATE TABLE statements. If you add a new data type, it creates the table; if you add a field, it adds the column; if you make a field optional, it changes the column to allow nulls.

It will only do that for non-destructive changes, so if you remove a column (which would lose data), or make an optional field non-optional (which is ill- defined if you had NULLs), it bails out with a message suggesting the SQL you should run to migrate manually.

[1] I can't really call it an ORM, since it maps to Haskell record types rather than _O_bjects, and it works with NoSQL databases as well as _R_elational databases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I find the whole "schema-less" thing to be a side-effect of NoSQL marketed as a feature. Unless you are about prototyping a small feature quickly (which MongoDB is great for) - on the large scale of things, 5,6 months out in development time, you will find that the time saved on "not having to do migrations" may very will be nil. In most cases, if you want to keep your hair you end up having a schema anyways. At the very best MongoDB and friends make it easy add columns, but removing and changing datatypes might as well be migrations. Also, as the article mentions, Postgres now has a JSON data type making the schema less advantage kind of useless.

When it comes to limits of relational databases some of the real limits are actually sharding, replication and high availability, which are all relatively more difficult to do on the popular YesSQL databases.

In any case, its pretty tiring to see NoSQL only refer to MongoDB and other document stores. Redis, Cassandra, HBase and Hive are all NoSQL engines ranked before the next document store, and IMO have a lot harsher performance penalties for incorrect usage than Postgres & friends. Given that Cassandra is a the second highest ranked NoSQL store which also (sort-of) enforces a schema, implying that the limits on relational databases are schemas is pretty bizarre.

[http://db-engines.com/en/ranking](http://db-engines.com/en/ranking)

</comment><comment><USER12> Craig - great post. I think you missed a few huge benefits that drive the "NoSQL movement." Specifically, sharding and aggregation.

Most devs don't need the power of sharding, which is why that benefit can never be felt. But the reality is this is probably the #1 characteristics (huge benefit) of NoSQL databases. Google and Amazon definitely paved the way for this movement, primarily b/c they dealt with tons of data. Its simply cheaper to scale out (distributed) than scale up.

You can't aggregate data with a relational database. But you can aggregate with (most) NoSQL databases (exception is graph dbs). Instead of building relationships, with NoSQL you're building composites. The huge benefit here is enabling sharding while, having your data all in one place.

Lastly, a relationship db is made up of tuples and sets of tuples. With a NoSQL DB you can have complex data structures. I think this is the point you we're trying to make re: Documents.

I still love relational databases. It's cool to have options though. Before, relational was the only way.

The question is how do we determine which db to use (or use more than one)? Ah, the beauty of polygot persistance...

</comment><comment><USER13> You would not want a Framework/ORM that abstracts alter statements from you when working with large tables in a relational db. Alter statements can have real performance interruption and is something that an engineer has to be aware of. It's a case where a framework might help 70% of the use cases but really hurt the other 30% with medium-larger sized tables.

</comment><comment><USER14> > Having Rails/Django/(Framework of your choice) automatically notice the need > for a column to exist and make appropriate modifications you could work with > it the same way you would managing a document relation in your code.

Hibernate can do this (IIRC, it's been awhile), which is great for development mode, but I would never trust a framework/ORM to "auto-migrate" my production database.

</comment><comment><USER15> Thought this was going to be an article about RethinkDB.

<comment><USER16> this. I don't know if it would be appropriate to suggest author try RethinkDB

if so... Please try RethinkDB, I think it's fantastic. If offers some interesting promises, and is by far the best noSQL DB that I have worked with (they actually fix problems with it, too, constantly).

Comparison from RethinkDB website (RethinkDB vs. Mongo/others): [http://rethinkdb.com/docs/comparison- tables/](http://rethinkdb.com/docs/comparison-tables/)

I think they're really up front with what they promise, instead of people just saying it's "web scale", and I think of them as an iteration after Mongo. Then again, I haven't done a super large amount of work in Mongo, so...

<comment><USER15> Absolutely agree with this. RethinkDB is the NoSQL db that got me to use NoSQL again. Currently use it in tandem with Postgres for most of my projects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I am not an expert on RDBMSs, but isn't the issue of distributed computing and the CAP theorem a far more important driving force behind the NoSQL movement than any of the reasons in the article?

<comment><USER18> no

<comment><USER19> Read the community rules please. Comments should add value. Nobody cares whether you agree or not. We want to know why you disagree.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The problem with relational databases is not the schema or the relations, it is SQL.

<comment><USER8> What's wrong with SQL?

<comment><USER20> The language. Really the problem with SQL is the API. I like having a relational database, but SQL strings are a really crummy way of writing to it.

<comment><USER8> What's so crummy about variable interpolation?

        def insert_person(first_name, last_name)
          sql.query("insert into persons values(#{first_name}, #{last_name})")
        end

So long as you're not plugging form data directly into that function, that works just fine.

<comment><USER21> What happens when you have to deal with a crazy pop star with a " in his (real, legal, you-are-the-unreasonable-one-for-demanding-something-else) name? (This is ignoring the myriad of issues that come with parameterizing names into "first name" and "last name" in the first place, but that's a separate thing.)

This is what binding variables is for, but to use them you're either writing for specific platforms (PSQL, Oracle SQL, etc), or you're using middleware that hides the raw SQL from you.

<comment><USER8> This is a problem with the string domain, not with SQL. You'd have it no matter what data persistence method you use. The answer is to put logic between that function and your form data puller.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


On the growing, intentional uselessness of Google search results - <AUTHOR> https://neosmart.net/blog/2016/on-the-growing-intentional-uselessness-of-google-search-results/ <comment><USER2> Sorry, but I'm still in awe at search.

I have at my fingertips a method of searching the entirety of human knowledge in less than a second for any information I care to think of on a whim.

I remember pre-internet when getting answers to whimsical questions was impossible unless you had a wall covered with reference books or were actually standing in the library.

I don't know how many web sites there are, hundreds of millions by now? Each of which has multiple pages, each page of which contains many potential search results. All of this is searchable in an instant. I have no idea how. This is what Asimov was talking about when he compared high tech to magic.

And all of this is made available to us for free. On every device we choose to use.

To me, being picky about the finer details of what results are returned _in an instant, out of billions of possible results, for free_ is just ungracious.

As the FOSS folks say, if you don't like, feel free to do better...

<comment><USER3> I dunno. OP has a point. Should users really have to "include" "exact" "terms" quote marks on every word in a two word search query?

But I thought people were right to be annoyed when Google took the plus operator away until they said that most people didn't use it, and of the ones who did use it only a third used it correctly. (Something like 1 in 600 searches used it correctly, IIRC).</comment></comment>


Finland Central Bank Rules Bitcoin Is Not a Currency - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2014/01/20/bitcoin-commodity-finland/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-bus-link

<comment><USER2> Why are central banks in such a hurry to declare Bitcoin "not a currency"? It's like governments declaring in early 90's that the Internet is not a venue for commerce, or something like that. My guess is they have their own ulterior motives.

I really don't like Bitcoin being named a commodity because that means it could be taxed VAT. Getting taxed VAT just for receiving Bitcoin is pretty ridiculous . It's one thing to be taxed VAT for the _products_ being sold for Bitcoin, and quite another to tax _both_ Bitcoin and the product you're buying itself with VAT.</comment>


The Ecuadorean govt document appointing Julian Assange as a diplomat - <AUTHOR> https://de.scribd.com/document/391002472/The-Ecuadorean-govt-document-appointing-Julian-Assange-as-a-diplomat-in-the-country-s-Russian-embassy <comment><USER2> So does this mean he has diplomatic immunity?

It's kinda sketchy that he was appointed to their Moscow embassy, given all the allegations revolving around Wikileak's influence in the 2016 US election. It would have looked better to appoint him to their embassy in Paraguay or something.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is from 2017 and it didn't work.</comment>


ExtremeTalk: Why aren't you using an SSD yet? - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/computing/106173-extremetalk-why-arent-you-using-an-ssd-yet <comment><USER2> SSD was by far the best upgrade I made on my machine. I would recommend it in a heartbeat, if it where down to the choice of more RAM, faster processor or SSD I would choose the SSD, it is night and day. I ended up getting a NAS server for my home office to solve the smaller storage space of SSD. If I do not use files for a while I just move them over to the NAS which has plenty of storage space. It ended up being a better solution anyways, as not I have a backup system that does not require attaching storage.</comment>


Feeling Sad Makes Us More Creative - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2010/10/feeling-sad-makes-us-more-creative/ <comment><USER2> Considering the byline on this wired article, I'd be cautious about ascribing any accuracy to it. This is pre-scandal lehrer. I have no idea how much review Wired has done of his previous work for them, but it's very much a reader- beware situation.

<comment><USER3> Lehrer was mostly knocked for plagiarism (including self-plagiarism), rather than fabrication, if I recall correctly. Wired pledged to review his works for them and add editorial notes where appropriate. A longer Lehrer article with similar themes (referenced by the Wired piece) remains up at the NYTimes without significant corrections. So, this is probably as reliable as average Wired/NYTimes content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This reminds me of one my favorite analogies in literature, from Kierkegaard's Either/Or:

"What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music. It is with him as with the poor wretches in Phalaris's bronze bull, who were slowly tortured over a slow fire; their screams could not reach the tyrant's ears to terrify him; to him they sounded like sweet music."

Phalaris's bronze bull is a Brazen Bull: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazen_bull](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazen_bull)

</comment><comment><USER5> Tortured artist.

In my own experience this is very true.

I have a penchant for poetry and writing but I only face the page in times of turmoil.

The distinction between heartbroken me and happy me in terms of power through the pen is staggering.

I have at times even considered self sabotage in order to align these necessary forces and generate a period of productivity in writing.

I have a beautiful wife and beautiful children and I could never do it but still I have found myself considering it.

Such is the power of this effect in my own personal case.

</comment><comment><USER6> Research over the last decade has shown that feeling creative is empowered by the intensity of emotion, not necessarily whether the emotion is a negative one or positive one. What matters most is being in an "active mood."

The research indicates that our content-like moods are not very motivating for states of original thought. That's not to say you can't have a great idea by being perfectly content, only that you're more inclined to experience creative-like thinking in a state of one polar end of the mood spectrum or the other.

Negative moods can be motivating and help focus on what's in front of us rather than pre-existing assumptions. Positive moods can leave us feeling open to new possibilities, leading to an increase in divergent thinking and making unusual associations as a result.

For those interested, I've written about this before with more detail here: [http://creativesomething.net/post/76220500752/whats-the- best...](http://creativesomething.net/post/76220500752/whats-the-best-mood- for-creativity)

<comment><USER7> I already posted this, but it was relevant to you so I repeat:

Manic depressive people have also been observed before to perform more variably between-and-within subject (on a puzzle-game with more than one solution) during their depressed state, while performing more stereotypically during their manic states.

Another variation of the study looked at how manic depressive people who report low sensitivity or intensity to their own feelings would _not_ experience the same patterns in behavioral variability during their manic and depressive swings (this is just an enriching complication, not something that directly responds to you).

Frustration in rats and humans alike produce variable behavior, whereas satisfaction produces stereotypical behavior. Why is this interesting? Because stereotypy is the enemy of learning and innovation, while being the friend to optimizers, while variability is a friend to learning and innovation, but an enemy to optimization. If you are often doing the same things, you experience an opportunity cost in which you could've been NOT doing the same thing.

That's not to say that if you do the same thing, then you are optimal, or that if you change up your behavior, then you are creative. Creativity is a mere possibility to change and newness.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for repeating for me, this is fascinating. Do you have a link to the source information for this?

<comment><USER7> Hmm... I could give you a link to a Google Drive folder full of articles on factors to behavioral variability and stereotypy.

But you'd have to do the digging yourself, or find an authoritative review article that summarizes current state of research (much better), as I'm a bit lazy.

I understand the internet has this culture of expecting someone who makes a claim to have the burden of proof to present citations, but honestly, it's too much work, and not even scientists do this. Instead, they have unpaid laborers do it for them for free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It would be redundant of me to rehash my thoughts on this, so I'll simply link my reply to this same assertion in the other thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8916129](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8916129)

To summarize: bullshit. Depression and 'feeling sad' were what kept me from accomplishing anything of merit for over a decade.

<comment><USER9> There is a different between feeling sad and depression. Equating the two is a problem. You're absolutely right that depression is paralyzing. You are absolutely wrong that feeling sad is the same as being depressed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't know if there's any real connection between feeling down and being creative, but the thought had occurred to me. Friends and I have joked (joked!) that Trent Reznor should get back on heroin and resume making the kind of music he did back when he seemed miserable. And feeling down tends to make me want to sit and play guitar.

<comment><USER11> I prefer the way he is now. His soundtrack work is very good.

<comment><USER12> Yes, he's an artist I've enjoyed watching change and sort of growing up and older with. I still very much enjoy his old work, but I also really enjoy the things he does now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Angst has creative perks.

I've experienced this myself, although not out of depression or sadness, but fear and anxiety. For instance, writing an entire paper for class the night before it's due, and somehow pulling off a good grade. I've always just told myself that I'm not creative until I have to be.

</comment><comment><USER14> Feeling well and bad are not opposites on one scale, but rather different brain-function.

Bad feelings are often actually anxiety or fear, which lead to a broadening of attention: perceiving many different things, but none of them clearly. Exactly what is needed to get away from a situation. This is where the creativity might come from.

Please note that this broadening of attention doesn't mean you can think clear, which is the problem with depression: having thousands of dysfunctional thoughts rotating, without being able to focus on one of them properly. (until the brain just shuts down with exhaustion).

Feeling well, on the other hand, often incorporates feeling in-the-zone, being focussed on something, without seeing all the parts around it.

</comment><comment><USER15> [http://nautil.us/blog/how-meaning-withdrawal-aka-boredom- can...](http://nautil.us/blog/how-meaning-withdrawal-aka-boredom-can-boost- creativity)

[http://nautil.us/issue/20/creativity/to-be-more-creative- che...](http://nautil.us/issue/20/creativity/to-be-more-creative-cheer-up-rd)

Clearly everything boosts creativity

</comment><comment><USER16> to me, any real creative accomplishments require considerable sustained effort. generally, feeling shitty saps energy, so id say it puts the skids on getting big things finished. however, necessity is the mother of invention, and people will do anything to feel better- often artistic and creative acts can give someone something tangible that they can control (to some degree). then you get addicted by the progress and it becomes self sustaining. so in that sense, the negative emotions can be a source of inspiration. from my own experience, the moments of particularly creative inspiration are always a product of effort, or at the very least highly correlated. since effort can be summoned from both negative and positive emotions, i think its hard to say that one side is more powerful.

</comment><comment><USER7> Manic depressive people have also been observed before to perform more variably between-and-within subject (on a puzzle-game with more than one solution) during their depressed state, while performing more stereotypically during their manic states.

Another variation of the study looked at how manic depressive people who report low sensitivity or intensity to their own feelings would _not_ experience the same patterns in behavioral variability during their manic and depressive swings.

</comment><comment><USER17> This might not be directly related to what is described in the article but I'm pretty sure that great things come out of desperation. Sometimes you really have to hit the bottom in your life and feel miserable to realize that you actually have to do something or try harder.

The best thing about getting out of a difficult situation is that once you managed to do so, you definitely don't want to go back since you experienced it first hand and know how much it sucks. :)

</comment><comment><USER18> This isn't new

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

</comment><comment><USER19> I found I did my best photography after breaking up with my girlfriend, the death of a loved one... the intensity of feeling in those photos is unmatched.

Now, I hardly take any photos. Life is much more pleasant, even happy, and the photos I take are empty of any emotion. I'm glad for life to be so great, but sometimes wish for the unhappiness, for the astounding creativity it provided.

<comment><USER20> I found that the "creativity" from sadness is mostly pseudo intellectual thoughts. The kind of thoughts that are pretty meaningless. Example: "Life has the name of life, but in reality it is death." This thought makes the one who made it up feel smarter, and so maybe a little happier, but in reality it has no actual meaning or purpose other than make people feel good about themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Couldn't agree more. Tend to find i'm most productive when i'm miserable. Just as enthusiasm for a project can lead to great things, the motivation to get yourself out of a bad mood can work equally well - but I wouldn't recommend secluding yourself in the hope that you'll suddenly become a talented writer/philosopher/scientist!

</comment><comment><USER22> Being creative sounds pretty miserable, one article on front page says boredom boosts it while the other claims sadness does...

<comment><USER23> ...while another one says you must cheer up:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8912699](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8912699)

Pretty confusing, isn't it?

<comment><USER24> In my experience, I have more ideas when happy and already having a couple in the back of my mind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Explains why no one can makes a second hit :)

</comment><comment><USER26> As someone's who's feeling sad (and remorse) right now, I am not feeling any creative juices.

</comment><comment><USER27> Feeling sad can _sometimes_ make _some people_ more _inspired_. But then again so can everything else.

Creativity, inspiration and quality of art are not quantifiable. This is pseudo science backed by anecdotal evidence wrapped in an emotional swaddling blanket.

</comment><comment><USER28> "Happiness writes white" has always been one of my favorite cliches.

<comment><USER29> Happiness is a state you should pass through, not rest in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Correlation does not imply causation, however. There could be a more complex relationship between the two than direct causality.

</comment><comment><USER31> I find that a pathological lack of any emotion or sentiment is key to creativity and productivity. Tabula Rasa is my mantra.

</comment><comment><USER32> It ain't like feeling sad or cheering up, rather more spending time with one own-self makes it happen.

</comment><comment><USER33> Two titles on the front page. One says cheer up to be more creative and the other says feel sad. Interesting

<comment><USER34> They're not mutually contradictory; perhaps feeling strong emotions, in general, gets people more creative?

<comment><USER35> Yeah. If you want to do things differently, you have to see things differently, and/or you have to want different things. And different emotional states achieve that. Or drugs. Or travel. Or anything, really, apart from "the same thing that happened yesterday". (Which is most people's default.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> In other news: (same HN page)

To Be More Creative, Cheer Up (nautil.us) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8912699](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8912699)

</comment><comment><USER37> HN, make up your mind.</comment>


How To Lead Clever People - <AUTHOR> http://business.in.com/article/rotman/how-to-lead-clever-people/28632/1

<comment><USER2> The article is based on a compelling premise, but the analysis is often generic enough to be meaningless and leaves much to be desired.

Most of the do's and don't infographic were either false or obvious. Example, Do: 'Talk Straight'. Don't: 'Use bull or deceive'. Really? I'm pretty sure this advice applies to every management position in existence outside of politics.

I'd like to see an in-depth analysis of why the best engineers go to Google, but not AOL. I'd like to see more empirical based analysis on how to keep incredibly smart people to stay at your organization even though they're sharp enough and confident enough to go out on their own.

It seems he's pushing a book about 'Clever Management'. I haven't read the book but if this article is any indication it will be one of those 80% filler business books that you read and walk away feeling like you didn't really learn anything new or non-obvious.

<comment><USER3> Where can I get reimbursed for the 90 seconds it took to skim this article? If the book is at all worthwhile, this is horrible advertising.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Clevers"? Plural, as a noun? Give me a break.

Maybe I missed something in my 3 second skim, but this guy sounds like he just wants to ride some asinine gimmick like "Seven Habits.." or "The Southbeach Diet".

Here is my take on managing people, "clevers" and "non-clevers" (stupids? muggles? non-college?...) Remember that the people you hire are, in fact, people, rather than cranky forklifts. People need challenge, creativity, and growth to thrive, though they are often willing trade some time doing monotonous bullshit if there is a decent tradeoff; if you do have do monotonous bullshit, make sure they get to some cool stuff that follows from that. Figure out their "will-to-power" and how they view themselves, and align your goals with their own.

Remember that even though you went to an Ivy League school and they graduated from the local junior college, they need the same stuff as you.

"Clevers"?? really? he should be embarassed.

<comment><USER5> It is natural to feel challenged and threatened by obviously more intelligent co-workers and subordinates. Most people probably don't want to work with someone who thinks they are a superstar, and would prefer just to go home at a regular time. Those of us who wish to work in an intellectually challenging environment are probably a minority.

It is unfortunate that the article uses the term 'clever' to make a slightly unclear differentiation from 'knowledge worker.' Maybe if the term 'innovator' were selected then the article would be clearer. It would also help to explain why frequent feedback may be disadvantageous. Managing or harnessing innovative people is extremely difficult and it is an important subject to discuss and study.

<comment><USER4> I disagree that "those of us who wish to work in an intellectually challenging environment are ... a minority".

I think what is true is that most people don't have the opportunity to be truly human at work (challenged, interested, etc) because the current system doesn't hire _human beings_ , but just "function-fulfillers". Then we get disappointed when the human beings we hired don't act like simple robots... go figure ...

(I don't know how true to life the books are, but the Toyota Way series makes a big point about how important it is to allow -- demand, in fact -- people to grow and challenge themselves, from the engineers to the production workers. It is the US unions insistence on highly constrained work rules and job functions that made Deming hate them, rather than anything to do with wages.)

Also -- nobody wants to work with an arrogant asshole who "thinks they are a superstar", whether they are "a clever" or "a stupid". But it is only folks with low self esteem or power trips who willingly surround themselves with people of less talent themselves.

Knowledge worker? Innovator? -- that could be anyone, including a fry cook at McDonalds, if it was allowed to them. I have worked some shit, shit jobs, and I was always struck by how the spread in raw intelligence was about the same as in my elite private high school (now study skills and entitlement, however, is something the "non-clevers" just don't have at the moment, but that is a cultural thing that could be changed, if we cared.)

<comment><USER5> It is not sensible to hire people who will become rapidly frustrated at the function they are delegated to perform unless you have another position to promote them into. Often you need someone to perform a dull role.

There are plenty of people, even knowledge workers, who are satisfied with a steady paycheck and a low level of workplace stimulation. Should one force them to improve? If you do, then they often move on (in my experience). That is why the distinction brought up between innovators and knowledge workers is important.

<comment><USER4> "Often you need someone to perform a dull role."

If you see your company as a machine in which you and a few select managers are the controllers, and everyone else is, somewhat literally, just a tool. This is the subconcious model that permeates our society, for better or for worse.

"There are plenty of people, even knowledge workers, who are satisfied with a steady paycheck and a low level of workplace stimulation."

Really? That sounds a lot like somebody in power justifying to themselves why the other people are not in power -- because they are "satisfied" with their lot. This is a very, very old trope, including the whole White Man's Burden thing, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My version of How to lead clever people:

1\. They are clever, remember that.

2\. Remember 1. Stay out of their way, let them do what they are so good at doing.

3\. Remember 1. Don't try to outsmart them at work. Unless it's not work related. Have fun there.

4\. Remember 1. Do or help them do what they are not willing to do. Clear the trash, or hire someone to do it.

5\. Remember 1. Help them do what they are good at. Give them resources. Remove blockers.

6\. Remember 1. Give them challenges. Nothing bores clever people more than not feeling challenged by their work (read: their work do not include politics)

7\. Protect them from politics. They might be good at shielding themselves, but that's not an effective use of their time. This includes you helping other teams that don't work with you. If every other team hates yours for performing and getting all the rewards, this might not make life good for you or your clever people.

8\. Let them know what you have done for them. Don't brag, but this is a necessity for human relationships to work out, especially at work.

Edit: typo

<comment><USER7> I worked at a company that needed help at a few of these.

4) To save a few $, they made EVERY employee do cleaning duties. Take out the trash, clean the fridge and microwave, etc. This caused no end of strife, and couldn't possibly have been worth the little money they saved.

7) Politics were awesome initially, but then the CEO's friend was promoted to being a manager. After a major screwup, the CEO moved the guilt from the manager to EVERYONE under him. For not going over his head when he was making a mistake. The politics were made obvious at that point.

8) I often did NOT know what the company was doing for me behind the scenes. I only saw the things they failed to do, and had little appreciation for the things they did. I'm sure they thought they were just keeping me from being bothered, but they really should have tooted their own horn a bit here.

In the end, these were factors in my leaving, but not the biggest one. Pay was the biggest. So I'll add to your list:

9\. Pay them appropriately. If you don't, they're clever enough to find someone who will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The best way to lead clever people is to clear the way in front of them and let them follow the path of least resistance. If a "clever" encounters an obstacle they will devote their energy to working a way around it, so you need to make sure that the only challenges they encounter are ones you WANT them to solve.

</comment><comment><USER9> From the article: "Don't: give frequent feedback."

Really?

Perhaps they mean, give frequent feedback on what but not on how? I'm not sure where they were going with this.

</comment><comment><USER10> There is a book for that: Peopleware.

<comment><USER11> Second that. Peopleware should be required reading for anyone in software. I read it a decade ago and think it is still relevant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Managing the smartest people isn't impossible "cat herding" and it's not some obscure science. The trick is to realize how they got smart: by fighting the system to learn more than they should. They're rule-breakers but they also have a deep respect for learning, courage, and effort.

Such people need to be mentored, and they need to feel favored (which is politically messy). If they feel like the people "in charge" are looking out for them and moving political obstacles out of their way, they'll be loyal. If they don't feel that way, they'll do what they think will teach them. Remember how they got smart: fighting the system, breaking rules. Getting an education by "stealing" it from a boss is natural to them.

</comment><comment><USER13> A managers job is to bring the "clever" out of all the people he or she manages.

</comment><comment><USER14> Don't lead them. Administer them.</comment>


It's Unreal Just How Awful 'Real ID' Is - <AUTHOR> https://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2020/02/11/real-id-is-awful/ideas/connecting-california/ <comment><USER2> Avoiding a Real ID is a great idea if you don't have to fly. If you do, though, it's a nonstarter. I'll have to investigate how feasible it is to take alternate forms of transportation for business trip...

<comment><USER3> use your passport. I personally won't opt in to a real id unless needed.

<comment><USER2> That would work if I had a passport...</comment></comment></comment>


Finding Water in the Wild - <AUTHOR> https://survivorsupply.com/3-rules-for-finding-water-in-the-wild/ <comment><USER2> First, I have found water in the southern Utah slickrock desert by noticing a small area with flying insects. It was just a small pocket of water in a crack in the slickrock, but had I needed it, it could have saved my life.

Second, there are some places where "look for the green" can get you to water that you can't drink. In particular, in southern Utah, there are some springs that contain arsenic. Some plants will grow in that water, but there are no animal tracks leading to it. There aren't even insect larvae in it. Nice clean water isn't necessarily a good sign.

</comment><comment><USER3> "carrying along more than a liter or two of water is just plain realistic." Well if you say so!

Also, I hike a ton, many miles up many mountains. 3 liters really isn't that much weight at all, many camelbak style products support that volume, and will get you through a pretty long and arduous day. In my experience 12-15 miles in hot climates.

<comment><USER4> I hike pretty often and unless it's extremely arid like in the desert, I'll usually just eat a bunch of fresh fruit and vegetables before setting off on a full day of hiking. It's far more pleasant to be unburdened by carrying things, and I'm more likely to mix in some trail running as well.

What I've found is I can pretty trivially go a full day without any food or water, even when doing physical activity. It's just important to not start out already dehydrated, and a last meal full of moisture with enough bulk to take some time to digest doesn't seem to hurt.

<comment><USER5> This is extremely irresponsible advice.

Any food you put in your body requires water to digest. If you can't convert calories, your body will struggle to regulate core temp, so this is a danger in cold temps, not just heat.

Dehydration can impair judgement. If you get injured or lost with no way to get more water or food, you run a serious risk of dying, or at best requiring a very expensive rescue.

Experienced hikers have died mere hundreds of feet off trail [0], and that's starting with food/water/gear/etc. If you are comfortable going an entire day without water, that is your prerogative, but to anyone looking to dabble in outdoor adventure, DO NOT attempt any hike without some kind of survival supplies. The cost/impact ratio is just ludicrous and should be a no-brainer.

[0]: [https://m.ranker.com/list/lost-hikers-near- civilization/jaco...](https://m.ranker.com/list/lost-hikers-near- civilization/jacob-shelton)

<comment><USER6> Seconding this.

Back in the 50's and 60's, the top Tour de France contenders would tell people not to eat or drink anything before or during a race, for fear that their stomach would start digestion and rob them of power. Several of them died on the tour essentially of exertion and dehydration.

Your body will not tell you when you are dehydrated until it is too late. Your mind can get clouded, you can get delusional, and then lost. You might try to wander around and an accident will happen. Or you might get really tired and decide to sit down and wait for someone to come by you. It's just stupid to go out for multi-hour hikes or runs in the wilderness without the essentials (such as water).

<comment><USER7> > Several of them died on the tour essentially of exertion and dehydration.

In case anyone was curious, four cyclists have died during the Tour de France. One drowned during a rest day (in 1910) and two crashed in different ways (in 1935 and 1995). The remaining cyclist died of heart failure on a hot day (in 1967), after mixing alcohol and amphetamines. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Tom_Simpson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Tom_Simpson)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "It may be hard to figure out where downhill is, when the land appears flat, but it still slopes downhill. If nothing else, it always slopes towards the ocean."

Not always - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Basin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Basin)

<comment><USER9> I like that low point is known as Badwater Basin.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Water is our second biggest survival need, beaten out only by the need to > maintain our body's core temperature.

Hmmm, I'd say oxygen supply in the blood is probably #2.

<comment><USER11> One useful way I've heard to remember it is the rule of 3's:

You can survive approximately: 3 minutes without oxygen, 3 hours of exposure (core temperature), 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food

Supposedly the special forces add to this "3 seconds after a bad decision."

<comment><USER10> 3 cycles after a bad instruction?

<comment><USER12> 3 seconds after the LT makes a bad decision

<comment><USER13> 3 funding rounds later

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > According to the laws of physics, water always flows downhill. So if you're > looking for water, it only makes sense to flow the same way. No matter where > you are, there's always something downhill of you, unless you're standing at > sea level.

New Orleans, Death Valley, and a lot of other places would like to have a word with you.

<comment><USER15> I don't know why people are bothering to point this out.

All things considered, those places are very rare. Surely you're not saying people should disregard advice that's accurate 99.99% of the time because of a handful of counterexamples?

New Orleans and Death Valley are particularly silly examples because New Orleans is not wild in the sense of the article, and a person will almost certainly know when they're in Death Valley and be aware of its unique situation.

<comment><USER16> In a temperate woodlands environment (such as the eastern US), you will be able to get water by setting out a container and waiting for it to rain, which will likely happen before you die of dehydration. If that takes too long, then just wander around aimlessly for a bit and you'll find a stream that's at least intermittent if not permanent. You don't need a guide to find water because you can't get away from it.

The only reason to have a guide on how to find water is if a) you need a guide on how to find potable water (which this dismisses by saying "eh, you'll be filtering everything so any water is good enough" [1]), or b) you are in an arid or other similar environment where water is hard to find. In the later situation, endorheic basins are going to be substantially more common, and the problems with endorheic lakes as water sources are definitely worth mentioning.

[1] As others have noted, this isn't true. Water sources, particularly in endorheic basins, can be unacceptably concentrated in poisons such as agricultural runoff or arsenic, or too salty to drink.

<comment><USER17> > In a temperate woodlands environment (such as the eastern US), you will be > able to get water by setting out a container and waiting for it to rain, > which will likely happen before you die of dehydration.

What? I used to live in Bergen - and even there we'd see a full week without precipitation parts of the year. If you're out of water, I can't imagine there are many places in the world where "waiting rain" is the surest way to ensure hydration within the next 72 hours? Especially if you go hiking in periods of "good" weather.

[http://www.bergen.climatemps.com/precipitation.php](http://www.bergen.climatemps.com/precipitation.php)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm amazed, "start digging" didn't make the cut.

I don't know if this is the best blog to learn to survive from.

<comment><USER19> Digging is addressed by the article.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why is the current user verification process so bad? - <AUTHOR> Story: so I tried to login to my bank account via selenium just _once_. After being unsuccessful, I go back to login as normal, and have to change my entire password and verify my account via email.
But that's just my bank.
Accessing Linkedin on a different computer? Gonna need to dig out your old email address password to get the code from that account verification email they just sent.
And god absolutely forbid you should be accessing a Google service from a different/unfamiliar machine. If you don't have a number on file with them (lol), or haven't updated your recovery email in a while, you're legit locked out.
Granted this is a bit of a rant, but why on earth is account verification in this, the year 2020 just such a paranoid, terrible user experience where every company takes an uncreative, heavy-handed approach to identity verification? <comment><USER2> What solution would you advise banks take when you login from an unfamiliar location?

I think we've had to too lax for too long.

<comment><USER3> Most banks have to make that check because they are still relying on username + password pairs. (I doubt using the Belgian eID triggers an alert.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I dont mind a bank, but facecook? The site where people gossip about their travels wants me to download their 500MB app on my phone to verify me in order to post a silly picture on my game's page. Twitter just banned my crypto- prices bot for the third time. I m not giving them my number again. I give up, this is sillyness, and i notice growing resentment from people too.

<comment><USER5> On Facebook a single moderately offensive post can lead to burning bridges and angry wives. Social attacks can destroy a person life as much as a bank theft can.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think everything you're complaining about is a good thing to be honest.

</comment><comment><USER7> For a bank. I really don't mind that level of security.</comment>


Ask HN: I will create a prototype for you - <AUTHOR>

I have a small team based in India and we are interested in creating prototypes for individuals who will then use these to pitch to VCs. Most interested in working for 'Uber for X' kind of ideas.<p>PM for details at email@example.com; skeptical of what may come hence Anon. <comment><USER2> Can you send me a link to something your team has already built. Could be useful to me.</comment>


'Citizen scientists' use drones to map El Nino flooding - <AUTHOR> http://www.chron.com/news/science/article/Citizen-scientists-use-drones-to-map-El-Nino-6780674.php <comment><USER2> The Public Laboratory has been doing this kind of work with low-cost DIY and open source tools for several years. Kite mapping, aerial photography, laser spectrometry, and open data collaboration. Check it out at [https://publiclab.org](https://publiclab.org)

</comment><comment><USER3> The title made me chuckle... my first thought was as opposed to illegal immigrant scientists? :)</comment>


Ask HN: personal hosting - <AUTHOR>

Talking about hostings, what hosting would you recommend for personal website(-s)? After two years of using stablehost.com I find myself in need of bigger hosting (space) for similar price (had 50% recurring). Do you have any budget hosting recommendation?
I would use appfog but I need bigger than 100Mb database (mysql) for one of my projects.
It doesn't matter if it is PaaS or old-school ftp/cpanel hosting. I would like to spend not more than 50$ <comment><USER2> I'd assume most HN users would spring for a VPS, and if you're looking for a good price, check out lowendbox. You can easily get something for $12 a year.

<comment><AUTHOR> What are the lowest requirements for VPS to run a ~5 websites with minimal load and couple of email boxes?

<comment><USER2> I can't know what you mean by minimal load, but I'm guessing you could get by with 128mb RAM to run a few personal sorts of sites, but I've seen $7/m for 1-2gb RAM. Be sure to read comments to make sure the company is decent, as most are run by just a single dude who could be flaky.</comment></comment></comment>


JsCoq - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ejgallego/jscoq

<comment><USER2> But if I run Coq on the client anyway, why would I take a gratuitous detour through the browser?

A real REPL (i.e. in your shell, not in your browser) that uses MathJax or whatever for result rendering would look much more interesting to me.

If the universe ever comes to an end it will be because it has been rewritten in JS.

<comment><USER3> I too, would personally prefer a command line REPL. But sometimes you are interested enough in a thing to try it out, but not interested enough to install things. Coq, in particular, is a pretty brutal installation process if you aren't already an emacs user. These web REPL's are great for reducing the friction necessary to try something out, and thereby getting people more interested. This one in particular is a big win for convenience over existing tooling.

I will add, I think it can be very disheartening for people who put a lot of their own time into making something happen and then having a random commenter say, 'Yeah, but I would rather have had something else, that wasn't at all the project you set out to make.'

<comment><USER4> > Coq, in particular, is a pretty brutal installation process if you aren't > already an emacs user.

It's only "brutal" if you're compiling from source, in which case you've got to compile all of the ML and _then_ all of the Coq libraries. That's only necessary for experimental branches though; I've not used an OS which doesn't provide binaries of official releases.

The installation process is basically "apt-get install coq && coqide", or whatever package manager your system uses. That will run the GTK interface which comes bundled with Coq.

The only time when Emacs might have anything to do with Coq is in relation to Proof General; but the only reason to run PG is if you're already an Emacs user. It's been in maintenance mode for years, and being rapidly overtaken by asynchronous interfaces based on PIDE (eg. the jEdit and Eclipse plugins).

I'm a very happy Emacs user, but just because I use Coq via PG doesn't mean I'd ask non-Emacs-users to do the same; in the same way that I access my GMail account via Gnus, but wouldn't try to convince non-Emacs GMail users to do the same.

<comment><USER5> By the way, there is also the OPAM package manager for Coq to install Coq and user libraries easily: [http://coq-blog.clarus.me/use-opam-for- coq.html](http://coq-blog.clarus.me/use-opam-for-coq.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is 403 Forbidden at the moment, but if it's a way to run Coq in a browser, ProofWeb is also of interest:

[http://prover.cs.ru.nl/login.php](http://prover.cs.ru.nl/login.php)

</comment><comment><USER7> Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /rhino-coq/ on this server.

<comment><USER8> [https://github.com/ejgallego/jscoq](https://github.com/ejgallego/jscoq)

<comment><USER9> Thanks, we updated the link to GitHub for now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> wasn't the whole point of Functional Programming to avoid languages like JavaScript (or even OOP like Python, C++)?

<comment><USER11> No, not really. Lisp and other functional languages predate the articulation of OOP:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_programming#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_programming#History)

[http://userpage.fu- berlin.de/~ram/pub/pub_jf47ht81Ht/doc_kay...](http://userpage.fu- berlin.de/~ram/pub/pub_jf47ht81Ht/doc_kay_oop_en)

So functional programming isn't a reaction to OOP.

It's also the case that Python is not particularly OOP (it does seem to me that lots of people that came to it from Java use it that way).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Original link FYI:

[https://x80.org/rhino-coq/](https://x80.org/rhino-coq/)

</comment><comment><USER12> PSA: Names in software matter. I know we want to believe we live in some language agnostic utopia, but the fact is, programming culture, literature, and science, is dominated by the english language... so when you name your language something like "Coq" (sounds like cock), or Nimrod, (a common american childrens insult), or your OS, Losethos, (which has the word Lose in it, even though it is an actual place...), You face a tremendous barrier to adoption. Case in point, the previous examples, Nimrod changed their language name to Nim, and have seen a recent surge in visibility/popularity, Losethos renamed to TempleOS, and has seen a similar wave of attention... Names matter.</comment>


Perhaps Culture is now the Counterculture - <AUTHOR> http://www.newrepublic.com/article/113299/leon-wieseltier-commencement-speech-brandeis-university-2013#primary-form

<comment><USER2> Something that really gets lost in our rush to learn how things are done, is the ethical implications of whether we should do something. I thought this article provided some things to think about, particularly on why it is important to become as well-rounded as possible, and not just in computer languages.

</comment><comment><USER3> Perhaps we need a social science / humanities centric HN.</comment>


Y Combinator Demo Day Roundup - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/14/y-combinator-demo-day-roundup-for-spring-2008/

<comment><USER2> I was curious where they were hosted so I thought I'd share. The script is based on an old post by cperciva <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=65022>.

      Slicehost LLC                   6
      	tipjoy.com
      	baseshield.com
      	mightyquiz.com
      	insoshi.com
      	stanfordturf.com
      	280slides.com
      Amazon.com, Inc.                4
      	8aweek.com
      	webmynd.com
      	deluux.com
      	wundrbar.com
      SoftLayer Technologies Inc.     3
      	snaptalent.com
      	chatterous.com
      	omnisio.com
      Peer 1 Network Inc.             2
      	rescuetime.com
      	addher.com
      HERAKLES LLC                    1
      	mixwit.com
      Hollywood Interactive, Inc.     1
      	yumdots.com

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> My votes go to:

-RescueTime (So freaking valuable!)

-Kirkland North (definitely going to grow their userbase quickly! (once they launch))

-Chatterous (Because I had a very similar idea)

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-

My notes are to:

-insoshi (you have an indirect competitor, lovdbyless, it's a rails based opensource social network maker thing)

-deluux (my first interpretation of what you guys do was a single login for every site (like openID or w/e) but then my second interpretation was that I can show my facebook page or elements from it, on my own site? Like a widget(s)? That would be awesome!)

-joberator(i think we simply need more developers, not referrals, because, at least in S. Florida, finding a developer through craigslist, career builder or monster is NOT easy, and my CS major friends dont have any referrals, period and they are in their last year of college, so I have to wait for them to graduate which is not sufficient)

-wundrbar(dont know if this is possible, but if you could simply be an option in the dropdown that accompanies that search box in top right of FireFox and IE7, that would ROCK MY FREAKING WORLD!)

<comment><USER3> LovdByLess is launched! Check out <http://lovdbyless.com> for more info.

<comment><USER4> +1 for Rails

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If I were a betting man, SnapTalent would be the first I'd put coin on. I didn't actually think much of it (and, in fact, I think when I first talked to them early in Winter08 they didn't even have any useful code written yet...but maybe I'm misremembering), until they'd actually launched. It really looks great, though--a perfect way to handle the tech jobs market, which is a HUGE industry in and of itself. Monster and Dice have been fighting it out for years, and spending millions just marketing themselves. SnapTalent allows the world of bloggers and tech sites to market for them. Recipe for win if ever I saw one.

<comment><USER6> Hey Joe, Thanks for the comments. We're starting out in tech but will be moving to other verticals eventually. The other key advantage we have is that as the web's traffic is more international and as we add advertisers from different countries we can serve Ip targeted ads on the same publishers and be extremely local at the same time.

We have a global and pretty ambitious vision - its how hotjobs started, we're aiming to be even bigger in this phase of the web.

<comment><USER7> I was putting myself in the mindset of someone looking for a job, and I was extremely disappointed after viewing both awesome snaptalent ads that I could not click "Browse more". I wanted to see all your listings.

<comment><USER8> I've been thinking the same thing for awhile. Initially I had just chalked it up to a browser issue since I'm running webkit nightlies. This seems like a pretty easy thing to remedy though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My favorite is TipJoy. The problem was in the air, PG himself teased everybody with it, but yet nobody took the trouble of actually tackling it. Neat approach, nice execution. Bravo!

Another big one, I think, is SnapTalent. The existing system of finding people to work is pretty much an "offline approach" ported over the net. SnapTalent actually uses the technology to improve the effectiveness of the process. I only hope that their users (companies) will be smart enough to recognize the potential. If I were monster.com (are they still around?) I'd grabbed these guys immediately.

<comment><USER10> _My favorite is TipJoy_

I like the basic principle of aggregating micropayments, but I think TipJoy going to be very limited until people can actually get money out (which of course means that TipJoy has to deal with the regulatory issues). So far they've accumulated $1531.54 in tips (assuming their website is up to date), which means that their 3% cut adds up to a grand total of $45.95... which isn't going to make anyone rich in a hurry.

<comment><USER11> You can't tell much from the numbers of a startup this young. They've generated more revenue than Google had at the same age.

<comment><USER10> Sure -- my point was just that taking a 3% cut of $0.10 payments means that TipJoy needs to get very very big before it will be making much money.

Can TipJoy get big enough fast enough?

<comment><USER11> Tipping is just the initial form of micropayment they've implemented. Eventually they plan to support all forms. Could being able to charge people small amounts for digital content be big? Yes.

<comment><USER10> _Tipping is just the initial form of micropayment they've implemented._

Well, that changes things. :-)

<comment><USER12> I know you might expect this from a cofounder, but I think Tipjoy is going to be huge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> 280Slides caught my attention - sounds like Zenter - The Sequel?

In fact, RescueTime & 8AWeek also sound awfully similar, don't they? This raises an interesting question. As number of YC companies increases, the chances of "collision" increases too. How is that handled?

<comment><USER11> 280 North comes at the problem from a different direction. They're building infrastructure for making a new class of web-based apps that really feel like desktop ones. They just happened to pick Powerpoint to build first. But of the 60k LOC they've written so far, I believe 280 Slides is only 20k.

RescueTime and 8aweek are also quite different: RT is for people and groups who want to track their productivity, and 8aweek is an alternative to blacklist-based web filtering.

Our answer to the problem of collisions is that in any large market, which we encourage startups to be in, there is going to be room for several different approaches.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm really interested in TipJoy, it sounds like they finally came up with a system for micro-payments that could work.

<comment><USER15> Tipjoy seems to be gaining in popularity: It's already being filtered out by some enterprise firewalls (unfairly, in my opinion) being labelled as a Pay- to-surf site!

<comment><USER12> Thanks for that heads up. It's the exact opposite: "pay for what I surf".

Does anyone know if there is some automated reason this might have happened?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not a lot of love in the techcrunch comments, but I guess that's to be expected.

<comment><USER5> No better or worse than usual (actually maybe a little less hostile than the last three batches--I know Winter07 had more hostility in the comments, although this one may catch up by the time all is said). TC comments are always full of also-rans and never-was entrepreneurs who are spitting vitriol, and they come out in force for the YC demo day roundup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The presentations were awesome. The total value of the tech in the room was huge.

<comment><USER17> is there any video of the presentations?

on paper some of these seem like hacker projects not startups so I would love to see how they see value in these startups.

<comment><USER18> what percentage of breakout success storieson the Internet did NOT start as hacker projects? Facebook, google, yahoo, etc. All started that way.

<comment><USER19> As counterpoints, myspace, flickr, and digg were not hacker projects.

edit: removed google from the above list.

<comment><USER11> Flickr was sort of a hacker project, in that like Blogger it was a side project of a group who thought they were working on something else.

<comment><USER19> It depends on how you define a hacker project. That is a fair characterization if you say that a hacker project is something that doesn't come out of a normal business process, regardless of the corporate structure that surrounds the people hacking away on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Quote: MightyQuiz ...The site is very sticky: the average session lasts 8 minutes (or 19 questions). As a comparison, the founders claim that Slate has an average session length of 4:22 and Wired has 3:34.

Are 3-8 minute sessions any indication of success? My site gets over 10 minutes right now.

</comment><comment><USER21> I get so excited to see whats coming out next from the YC womb. I'm very excited about InSochi and tipJoy especially. I can see non-profits and charities even using tipJoy . Pretty hip stuff!

<comment><USER22> Glad to hear you're excited about Insoshi---just be sure to note the spelling! (We own the domains for a bunch of misspellings, just not the one you used. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Many sound like good ideas, but I'm most intrigued by Deluux.

</comment><comment><USER24> Which company had the best demo?

</comment><comment><USER25> Nice job guys, wish you all the best. My startup launches in 3 weeks :)</comment>


Ditching Wordpress for Pelican - <AUTHOR> http://razius.com/articles/ditching-wordpress-and-becoming-one-of-the-cool-kids/ <comment><USER2> I really like Pelican. I think a lot of people commenting here are missing the point about why some people would want a static site. It's not really about performance, it's about simplicity. It's trivial to set up a web server to serve static HTML pages. All I needed was Apache, SSH, and rsync. I keep all of my blog posts in ReStructuredText files which are stored in a git repository. When I want to publish, it's as simple as `make rsync_upload` and I'm done. No database, no web interface for managing content. Just plain text and command line tools.

I am having one small issue with Pelican, though. When I change my theme from the default, it uses the new theme's templates but the default theme's stylesheet. As expected, the result is awful. Has anyone else experienced this issue?

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you share your pelicanconf.py? Maybe it's a configuration issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You're all missing the point on why people have static sites.

In the words of Paul Graham - "Static sites are the fixies of the Internet."[0]

[0] [https://twitter.com/paulg/status/402205795552489472](https://twitter.com/paulg/status/402205795552489472)

<comment><USER4> What does that mean?

<comment><USER5> It's a common term for a bicycle without the ability to change gears; a fixed gear (aka fixie). They generally are low maintenance and simple to repair. I think he's making an analogy that static sites are also low maintenance and easy to repair.

<comment><USER6> Actually you're thinking of a single speed here.

A fixie is one that runs with a fixed gearing (without a freehub [0]. When the wheels turn the pedals must turn. many hipsters also run them without brakes which requires them to use their legs to slow the bike. these are most commonly seen on velodromes and anywhere with lots of coffee shops.

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freehub](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freehub)

<comment><USER5> thanks for the clarification.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Yes, it's not really a fair comparison, I also changed the theme to a much simpler one which is a big boost too, but still._

But still nothing. Comparing a page that is 15% the size of the original is ridiculous. I'm left wondering what happens to the page loads on a WordPress site if you reduced the overall size and number of requests.

<comment><AUTHOR> Rather than adapting the existing Wordpress theme to Pelican I decided it would be better to just start from an existing Pelican theme, the article wasn't meant to be a benchmark.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> imho static page generating sites is optimizing at the wrong level. That's what app caching, caching servers and CDNs and such are for. Static page generation like this is ok at a very small level/scale but doesn't scale use wise. You cannot build interesting big dynamic sites with it. So I guess for a blog fine, but, not for me thanks

<comment><USER9> Static generators are useful for quick, very low maintenance products with limited out-of-box features that are not very extensible. Most people probably want just that - they want to create content and don't give a damn to add fancy new geeky feature on their blogs or whatever. You would hit a wall sooner or later if you do try to do something more. For example, how do you generate pages that return posts per category or date range. How about automatic page of "Popular Posts"? Technically you can but it would be lot of duplication and bit of a mess.

<comment><USER10> The problem is that while that while static page generation is definitely the best fit for what _most people need,_ it is not the best fit for what they _think they need._ One of the big reasons WordPress was able to dethrone Movable Type as the #1 blog software was precisely because of its dynamic pages -- that was a big point of attraction for people over MT's static page generation approach. So much so that Movable Type's developers eventually felt the need to graft a half-baked dynamic page system onto their product, just so they could tell people who wanted dynamic pages that they shouldn't rule out MT altogether. (It didn't help in the end, but the fact that they felt they had to do it at all speaks volumes.)

Why do they think they need dynamic pages? The upsides of dynamic pages (no more waiting for pages to rebuild) are right there in their face, while the downsides (your server falling over if you get more than three readers at a time) don't become evident for a while. So to non-technical folks, dynamic pages seems like a no-brainer. They don't learn the downsides until they leap up and bite them.

This mismatch between what people think they want and what they actually really should want based on their needs is sadly quite common in tech products, and explains how a lot of crappy products managed to become more popular than a techie would ever have expected them to be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't even use a site generator. I just edit the html directly via ssh. I use putty from win machines, ssh from nix machines, and connectbot on android (with Hacker'S Keyboard).

Once there, I use nano, it's fine for editing small text files.

the VPS I'm on costs $10/month, but you can get them for $15 a year. Yes, I've had to learn how to use debian from command-line, but I am very, very glad I know how now.

If you want, you can use a sftp-capable text editor, and that works too. I used to use jEdit, but it's not installed everywhere, and it's definitely not installed on my smart phone, so...

Also, for those who complain that the site looks like 1993, that's intended, as it looks fine and loads very fast in mobile, and that's essentially my only target platform.

<comment><USER12> I have some static sites I build with Nanoc. The source content is mostly HTML with a sprinkling of ERB.

I could do all of it by hand, but using a SSG lets me factor out a lot of repetitive scut work. For example, I have a function that takes a hash and builds the HTML for a collection of references. Doing it by hand would be time consuming and error-prone.

More obviously, when I update my page layouts, it happens across the whole site. I don't have to go around copying and pasting, again introducing more busy work with room for error.

"What about grep and sed?", I hear you ask. By the time I'm building ad hoc build pipelines each time I fiddle with the site, I once again introduce new opportunities for error. Why not just automate the whole pile of wax and be done with it?

<comment><USER11> About updates to the site layout, I've come to the realization that the site doesn't need to have a uniform look and feel for the whole site, or sections of the site. I came to the understanding that each page can do, can be, what it needs to be. Plain html5 (no css, no js) is enough for my needs, and each page is customized for its own purpose.

I have a crumbs navigation at top, that may go away too. most people (99.9% i think) navigate forward, then use the back key in the browser to go back, so I may get rid of the crumbs someday.

each page on the site is accessible from the whole internet. If Joe the poet links to a page on my site, essentially, my page becomes part of the web experience Joe is building. I want to show respect to Joe, and not suck in his readers into my own site. if people want to get to the root of my site, they already know how to edit the uri down to the domain name.

(sorry for philisophizing! )

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Just curious, I currently use Hyde. Pelican seems to be the new coolness and Hyde seems pretty stable and not much forward motion.

Any compelling reason for me to consider switching, features that Pelican has which Hyde lacks?

</comment><comment><USER14> It's the dream of the 1890s as if caching and CDNs were never invented.

<comment><USER15> For me, the site's latency is not the issue. I find myself pulling my hair out trying to make the Wordpress admin area work the way I want it to work. If I can just stay in vim, I am a happy camper. If you force me into some WYSIWYG editor inside of an admin panel, I am going to get frustrated.

<comment><USER14> I hear ya. I work in VIM and the command line all day too and for a simple blog I can see the frustration with the WYSIWYG editor. That won't fly with a marketing team of a couple inbound marketing experts though.

WordPress does have a Command Line Interface and you can in fact write to a text file and import it as a new blog Post:

\- [http://wp-cli.org/commands/post/create/](http://wp- cli.org/commands/post/create/)

You can actually do a ton with it. I don't know how familiar you are with WordPress but with CLI you can upgrade WP core, update/add/activate/deactivate plugins, and much more with it:

\- [http://wp-cli.org/](http://wp-cli.org/)

It's a nice tool for WordPress developers that want to bypass going through the admin panel.

<comment><USER15> I had no idea that existed! Pretty cool! Thank you for the tip. That is slick!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Have you thought about using Varnish in front of your web servers? That would do nice static content caching.

Unless the mess of code under the bonnet of Wordpress is a concern and you want more flexibility in controlling it then I see your decision as sound.

However it is hard to beat Wordpress's extensibility and ease of use for publishing content online.

<comment><USER17> plus the fact that wordpress has numerous good plugins for generating static files...

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I, too, migrated from Wordpress to Pelican ([http://calebmadrigal.com](http://calebmadrigal.com)). I love not having all of my content inside of MySQL tables. I also love writing in Markdown in vim instead of the Wordpress editor.

</comment><comment><USER19> Conflicted. On one hand, we have a camp of people who would say "static content" almost always equals _garbage content_. Documentation aside, who would ever want a static website? I don't see much advantage of having to setup environment, ensure libraries are installed, etc. – every time you want to do a simple change from a computer other than your own. I'll take WordPress over that any day.

Scenario: You just noticed a major typo on your new, statically generated microsite - using Markdown, pelican, etc. ...but the only computer you have access to is running a fresh copy of Windows 8.

Talk about your non-portable website.

<comment><USER20> You download PuTTY, ssh to your host, and rebuild it? It's not like you can't run the static site generator hosted somewhere.

<comment><USER21> Or just plug your USB key in with PuTTY Portable and FileZilla installed on it. If the static site generator tools run on Windows, we could probably make those portable, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm in a really similar situation to the author's. I've been using WordPress for quite a long time, among several (usually shared) hostings, only to realize how disgusting it is to move a WordPress website from one place to another. With Pelican I can have the entire source of my website in Dropbox or a pendrive, and edit the articles in Markdown anywhere.

Lately I had been all the cool kids using Octopress, but I don't like Ruby, not to mention its programming environment (installing rvm, for example). Also, Octopress's default theme is a total mess. I love Python, so Pelican is a total win for me.

<comment><USER22> Not to mention that using something like Disqus to manage comments is years beyond moderating the comments yourself using the WordPress admin panel...

<comment><USER23> I don't see how, wouldn't wordpress still give you more control over the content?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Here is an optimized Wordpress install, with caching turned on and a lightweight custom theme: [http://imgur.com/j16xIY0](http://imgur.com/j16xIY0)

You can see that there's virtually no difference from your static blog.

For me the main selling point of Pelican is the Markdown syntax and the ease of running it on any host. I hear some even run it from Dropbox.

On a side note: where can I fork and improve on your theme? :)

<comment><USER25> > On a side note: where can I fork and improve on your theme? :)

It's at [https://github.com/razius/razius.com/tree/master/theme](https://github.com/razius/razius.com/tree/master/theme) , which is a modified version of [https://github.com/danclaudiupop/pure](https://github.com/danclaudiupop/pure) . The underlying framework is [http://purecss.io](http://purecss.io) , and a lot is possible with it.

I started hacking that theme too, and then I realized that it may be difficult to merge efforts if I build what I want. I think it would help a lot if Pelican had theme inheritance ( [https://github.com/getpelican/pelican/issues/1092](https://github.com/getpelican/pelican/issues/1092) ) and we all reused a common PureCSS base-theme. This is probably an easy issue to tackle for a skilled Python coder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I moved my personal blog from posterous to pelican long ago and hosting it over heroku for free. Optimized it for exceptional performance and got 99 page speed score: [http://www.i.com.pk/exceptional-performance-without- mod_page...](http://www.i.com.pk/exceptional-performance-without- mod_pagespeed-or-apache-page-speed-score99/)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's some sweet loading time. Thank you for the tips and pointers in the article, having a go at page load optimizations is what I'm going to do next.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I finally got tired of the pain of hosting my own Wordpress-backed blog a few months back and made the switch to Pelican. Here's a post detailing my overwhelmingly positive experience so far:

[http://jimter.net/switching-the-jimternet-from-wordpress- to-...](http://jimter.net/switching-the-jimternet-from-wordpress-to-pelican/)

</comment><comment><USER28> Many developers have written about ditching a CMS-like thing for a static site generator for their own personal use. I've done it too, it's great!

Is there anybody who's had a good experience getting less technical partners/colleagues/clients to do the same, possibly with something like the GitHub file editor and continuous deployment?

<comment><USER29> I think there's a big future for static site generators (that's why I'm building BitBalloon [https://www.BitBalloon.com](https://www.BitBalloon.com)), but the big hurdle for using them for projects for clients is the lack of browser based admin tools.

Stuff like prose.io goes some of the way, but for most users even WordPress requires training, and showing them the raw filesystem is gonna be way to geeky in many cases.

Would love to talk to anyone interested in building a great open source admin panel for a static site generator.

<comment><USER30> I've been thinking about leveraging existing open source interfaces for static site generation, creating something between a full cached (Varnish, etc) interface to a dynamic site and generating each page on the fly. So rather than have Wordpress or Drupal or some such thing generate the full site the new post is dumped into the existing static site generator and a site generation pass is triggered.

I'd prefer to retain some dynamic site features like commenting, discussion, and form submission. While there are very successful companies that outsource these features I prefer to have the option to take ownership and control of my content. So I'm envisioning the only dynamic part of the site besides the admin interface is an API to enable these (and more) features. Depending on design and the type of interaction these could trigger a page or site rebuild or update a Javascript framework on the page to reflect the new comment, the successful form posting that updates a calendar, etc.

<comment><USER12> I wrote a project proposal back in 2010 for something like this. Essentially the key is to turn site updates from being GET-driven to being PUSH-driven.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> the major issue still remains that you're hosting comments externally. when this is the case you could also have whatever free service handle the site entirely.

whats missing for larger adoption of generators is a super simple comment engine that just work and that you can host. there are some but they aint convincing.

</comment><comment><USER32> 1\. If you are not familiar with either Ruby or Python which one would you choose - Jekyll or Pelican.

2\. Can you use Adsense with Github Pages?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. I try to learn to use Octopress, it should be simpler to set-up than Jekyll as it comes with a theme and a sensible config by default. 2\. Sure you can, Adsense is loaded via client-side via javascript so all you have to do is embed the javascript in your templates.</comment></comment>


When Automation Makes Passengers Freight - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@AnthroPunk/when-automation-makes-passengers-freight-united-airlines-and-seat-assignments-d1f1ce440336 <comment><USER2> There is a simple solution. Put aside positive space for 4 crew members on every flight. If they are not used they can be awarded to any non revenue passengers instead. Trust me there are always non revenue passengers for every flight.

Plane still goes out full and no paying passengers are asked to get off.</comment>


Ask HN: Temporary Containers as a Service? - <AUTHOR> Are there any services that provide temporary docker containers on demand? I want to launch a dockerized web app and access it remotely for an hour, without creating an account on a cloud provider.
I'm looking for something similar to dply.co (which seems no longer available)
dply.co post on HN:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13030603 <comment><USER2> Looks like a free hosting service isn't sustainable long-term. [https://twitter.com/dply_co](https://twitter.com/dply_co) "Dply disabled account creations due to abuse", "Due to a large influx of fraudulent accounts we were forced to take down the Dply public site for a couple days."

</comment><comment><USER3> What language are you using?</comment>


Full Third-Party Cookie Blocking - <AUTHOR> https://webkit.org/blog/10218/full-third-party-cookie-blocking-and-more/#:~:text=Service%20Worker%20registrations%20and%20cache <comment><USER2> Previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22677605](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22677605).

I think the specific thing being highlighted here is that some wording has been changed since the original post; it used to only read "Service Worker registrations" ([https://web.archive.org/web/20200324185029/https://webkit.or...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200324185029/https://webkit.org/blog/10218/full- third-party-cookie-blocking-and-more/)) but now is "Service Worker registrations _and cache_ ". This section right under it was also added:

> A Note On Web Applications Added to the Home Screen

> As mentioned, the seven-day cap on script-writable storage is gated on > "after seven days of Safari use without user interaction on the site." That > is the case in Safari. Web applications added to the home screen are not > part of Safari and thus have their own counter of days of use. Their days of > use will match actual use of the web application which resets the timer. We > do not expect the first-party in such a web application to have its website > data deleted.

> If your web application does experience website data deletion, please let us > know since we would consider it a serious bug. It is not the intention of > Intelligent Tracking Prevention to delete website data for first parties in > web applications.

</comment><comment><USER3> This was discussed previously at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22677605](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22677605)

</comment><comment><USER4> How could browsers go further?

How about true opt-in? If you don't have to sign up for a site, with a login known to the browser, all interaction with that site is forgotten at browser exit or in an hour, and the site can't see any state from other sites.

If you do create an account and sign in, the browser should warn you that tracking has now started.

</comment><comment> mac-reality I am wondering when/if Safari and Chrome are going to address CNAME cloaking. Marketing and tracking companies are just having all their clients setup CNAME records to alias their domains back to the tracking domain and setting it to be a first party cookie to get around the new blocking techniques browsers are using.

<comment><USER5> I would argue that's OK.

The problem with third-party cookies is that information gets shared across websites and thus your behavior can be tracked across websites.

If you set a CNAME to point to a third-party, the cookies become in fact first-party and cross-domain tracking no longer works.

<comment><USER6> No it is not OK.

Cross-domain tracking still works. While every domain has its own cookie, it is extremely simple to use fingerprinting to connect those cookies to a single user.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> In an unrelated note, Firefox just had a major screwup. They forced an update to Firefox 75 on users without asking. At least on Linux, the update is broken - right click menus are mostly blank.

There's no going back. Firefox now has "downgrade protection" \- if you install an older version, it erases your preferences for "security".[1]

[1] [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-older- version-o...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-older-version-of- firefox)</comment>


1 BTC is hidden in this picture - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/8kk0pa/1_btc_is_hidden_in_this_puzzle_good_luck/ <comment><USER2> As someone mentioned there are 100+ mnemonic seed words in that image, so that may have something to do with it.</comment>


Venmo Touch Screencast: Add credit card payments to your iOS app in 15 minutes - <AUTHOR> https://www.braintreepayments.com/braintrust/venmo-touch-screencasts-add-one-touch-payments-to-your-app-in-15-minutes

<comment><USER2> Isn't accepting external forms of payment against Apple's guidelines?

<comment><USER3> Apple's guidelines only cover purchasing digital content. You may use outside payment methods to purchase physical goods or services used outside of your application. For example this is how Uber, Hailo, Airbnb, Hotel Tonight, and Task Rabbit all manage to take payments in their current iOS applications.

(Disclosure, I work for Braintree)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Working on a startup as the sole developer - <AUTHOR>

I have been working on a startup for some time, with a business cofounder meaning apart from a small amount of work from outside (had my brother do little bits and pieces) I have written all the code. I am starting to think that maybe it would be better to have a third cofounder if I could find the right person to also develop. I have seen other small startups in action where both founders are developing and the dynamic seems to be a lot better, the back and forward turns up a lot more bugs, generates ideas and generally stamps out bad coding practises.
I see myself as a decent developer but at the same time the code is entirely mine without any kind of oversight to guide what can be a bit of a complex architecture, feeling that it could be possible that I go off in the wrong direction on some things but have no oversight. It also causes lazy techniques like not fully worrying about version control and adhoc changing things given that I know that in general the files aren't being edited by others. I also feel a little alone on real technical issues where my cofounder can't really offer any input, sure I could discuss it with others but obviously they don't have the background on the codebase to frame the conversation.
Really just interested in hearing about how others have dealt with being either the sole developer at a startup or a single founder and how it's panned out in the long run, I wouldn't be too concerned about the equity loss as x% of $0 is still $0 unless your startup really gets off the ground, so I'm more concerned with giving it the best chance to get off the ground. <comment><USER2> Whatever you do don't take on another business cofounder. I have two of them right now (I'm not even a full-on developer, really just a web designer and front-end developer) and they can't ever seem to accomplish anything while I spend hours on design and dev.

I think another technical co-founder could be really good. If you start being validated, you're going to end up bringing on more devs anyways, right? Might as well start now and give yourself a better chance of getting things moving.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm in pretty much the same boat, FWIW. My goal is to add a co-founder (or two, maybe even three) eventually, but haven't found people who were A. interested and B. the right fit, so far.

All I can suggest you do is some of the same stuff I do: use the Internet to get that "extra voice" you need... ask questions here, on Quora, on StackOverflow, programming.reddit.com, programmers.stackexchange.com, etc. Use mailing lists for the various libraries, frameworks and/or tools you might happen to use.

One thing that applies in my case, though, that might not in yours is that my code is open-source. So if somebody really wants to dig in and talk about things on a low level, they can clone my repo and get right into the guts of things. Also, the fact that I'm trying to run the open-source project in a respectable manner also adds pressure to keep everything pushed up to the github repo, use reasonable commit messages, etc., etc.

Something else you might want to look into is the HN Office Hours site. Find a fellow HN'er or two that has "office hours" and call / skype / IM them and chat about things. Heck, even just join #startups or ##solofounders on Freenode and that'll give you some people to talk to.

</comment><comment><USER4> When I found myself a third co-founder it extremely helped out our startup. Not only do you have a third head to help out, but you have another person to balance out the other two founders. I find working with just one other person can lead to divisions. If you have a third you can have another opinion on matters.

Unless you feel three is a crowd, I would say go for it! Find a person who can not only be a great asset to the team, but helps balance the emotion and energy in the team dynamic.

</comment><comment><USER5> I was in a similar situation, though I wasn't really worried about the architecture as such. In terms of where I messed up being a coder "in charge" of business, though, I did a write up at [http://peterc.org/blog/2010/257-three-years-ago-i-sold-my- st...](http://peterc.org/blog/2010/257-three-years-ago-i-sold-my-startup.html)

The ultimate result is that I learnt _tons_ from the experience and I'm _still_ doing my projects solo but with a giant pile of lessons learned and a good feel on what I should or shouldn't get involved with.</comment>


iPhone 4 antenna problems were predicted on June 10 by Danish professor - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/26/iphone-4-antenna-problems-were-predicted-on-june-10-by-danish-pr/

<comment><USER2> Sorry, this might be a bit lame, but this picture immediately came to mind: <http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/7176/jobsmedvedev.jpg>

It says: "Haha, signal lost!" "Here you go, that way it's not"</comment>