Fast website link checker in Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/raviqqe/muffet <comment><USER2> I find the use of rake to be kind of unorthodox, and yet I don't know what else you'd use in the Go world, other than maybe just Makefiles. Any particular reason to choose Rake? It's probably not easy to get it running on Windows based on my experience playing with Rails on Windows.

Other than that it looks quite useful, and it's definitely something to keep in the tool belt. Bonus points for the subtle Undertale references too :)

<comment><USER3> I'm also curious about this. It seems that many go developers out there are using Makefiles. Makefiles are a good solution for golang projects in some cases, but I've seen a lot of people really abusing Makefiles and trying to use them for more generic task running.

In a past life, we used invoke [1] for task running. It was incredible but has the same problem as rake: it introduces another language (Python) and more dependencies.

There's a fairly new task runner being developed in go called mage [2], but it didn't seem worth the jump yet to me as it's still pretty immature (I haven't played with it in a few months, though). Did you consider trying that out?

[1] [https://github.com/pyinvoke/invoke](https://github.com/pyinvoke/invoke) [2] [https://github.com/magefile/mage](https://github.com/magefile/mage)

<comment><USER4> I like using make even for basic task running. It's usually installed where I'm working and is familiar. I don't want to install rake or mage.

<comment><USER5> Make gets a bad rap but I've seen it being used for susbtantially complex workflows. If you wrap your commands in something that can reattach to running processes and use dependencies correctly, it is hard to displace.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A comprehensive prompt is an extremely useful and an underappreciated productivity booster.

But please, when making screencast or screenshots, use a simple prompt.

Because the information included in the prompt is often not only irrelevant, it can be actively distracting and makes reading through less pleasant by increasing the required eye-movement and cognitive effort to filter out the useless content.

Small little things makes a difference.

<comment><USER7> I wrote a script bash-for-recording for myself a few years back, for invocation by termrec, which set the window size to 80×24, set HOME to a new empty directory, set USER and NAME to dummy values (creating an actual new throwaway user account would be better here, but I was lazy), set TERM to xterm-256color (I think it was), cleared the environment (env -i) and possibly one or two other things, set a deliberately very simple and obvious prompt (which sets the title as well), cleared the screen, then finally started a nice clean bash profile.

I should pull out my old laptop or my backups and resuscitate the script.

The example at [http://tty-player.chrismorgan.info/](http://tty- player.chrismorgan.info/) was generated using that script.

<comment><USER7> I remembered a couple of details incorrectly, but this was my bash-for- recording script:

      #!/bin/bash

      # Start a new bash shell with a severely filtered environment and no initfile.
      if [ -z "$_BFR_RUNNING" ]; then
          env -i \
              _BFR_RUNNING=1 \
              PATH="$PATH" \
              LD_LIBRARY_PATH="$LD_LIBRARY_PATH" \
              TERM="$TERM" \
              SHELL="$SHELL" \
              USER="$USER" \
              HOME="$HOME/bfr-home" \
              LANG="$LANG" \
              bash --init-file "$0" "$@" <&0
          exit $?
      else
          unset _BFR_RUNNING
      fi

      # What remains of this file is the initfile.

      USER=user
      HOSTNAME=hostname
      PS1='\n\[\033[32;45;1m\]\w\[\033[m\]\$ '
      eval "$(dircolors -b)"
      alias ls='ls --color=auto'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Pretty nice tool that Just Works (tm).

Although the concurrency level (512 connections) is a bit too aggressive for most servers. You'll get throttled, blocked or your backend will crash (which isn't too bad in any case, except that might not be what you were after with a link checker).

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, I totally agree with you. I decided the number based on the default maximum number of open files on Linux because I was not sure about common limits of concurrent connections between clients and HTTP servers. Or, it should probably regulate numbers of requests per second sent to the same hosts. If someone suggests other options, I would adopt it.

<comment><USER9> Both Chrome and Firefox limited the number of connections to a server to six (6), if memory serves. I'm not certain if those limits have changed or if the number is different based on HTTP 1.1 versus HTTP 2.

<comment><USER10> The limit is per _hostname_ not per _server_ (unless things have changed in the last 10 years).

This is why you'll see assets1.foo.com, assets2.foo.com, etc. all pointing to the same IP address(es). Server-side code picks one based on a modulus of a hash of the filename or something similar when rendering the HTML to get additional pipelines in the user's browser. Not sure how or if this is done in SPA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How fast is this? Is there even a common benchmark for this sort of thing?

How does it compare to the older python "linkchecker", which was resurrected here (and is quite fast): [https://github.com/linkchecker/linkchecker](https://github.com/linkchecker/linkchecker)

<comment><USER7> I have found linkchecker to be unreasonably slow by default, very fragile if you try to make it any faster (e.g. occasional socket errors with almost _any_ concurrency, regardless of the purported ulimits, in a way that suggested some kind of socket leaking to me at the time), and possessing fairly bad reporting. Also, on Windows, being built with ancient Python meant it didn't support SNI, so I had to delve into it to figure out a way of turning TLS verification off to make it work pretty much _at all_ , which also hints at its generally poor configurability and surprisingly poor documentation (given the fact that there _is_ actually a moderate amount of it).

I still _use_ linkchecker (because I've never completed my Rust-based link checker that I started several years ago), and have extended it at work to support client-side certificates which we use on CI, but I'm generally fairly unimpressed with linkchecker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks rad. Is there any plan to add authorization headers, so that I can test a site as a particular user?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your feedback! Can you open an issue on the GitHub repository? I would appreciate it if you add some concrete use cases as then it'll be clear what kinds of options need to be implemented.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't know Go, but looking at the code it doesn't look like it handles sites that are rendered on the client, if so it has limited utility in today's web.

<comment><USER14> Of course it does not, for that you need a headless browser ( = Chrome Headless).

Neither Python/Go/Java/Rust/C/C++/D/Ruby/C#/F#/... nor any other language (not even Node afaik, but Puppeteer handles that) can handle Javascript rendered sites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Anyone know of an equivalent for Ruby? I'd love to add this as an integration test for jazzy[0].

Separately, it'd be awesome if this also checked that anchor links resolve to id values to validate linking to specific elements on a page.

[0]: [https://github.com/realm/jazzy](https://github.com/realm/jazzy)

<comment><USER16> [https://github.com/gjtorikian/html- proofer](https://github.com/gjtorikian/html-proofer) is what I use

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Are there any good checkers for URLs in text files?

I wrote [https://github.com/jwilk/urlycue](https://github.com/jwilk/urlycue) , but I'm not quite happy about it, I don't have energy to improve it either; so I'm looking for alternatives.

<comment><USER18> I guess one of the bigger challenges when it comes to unstructured data is identifying URLs. Is there a canonical way of identifying a URL embedded in text? Is it an impossible problem?

<comment><USER19> Perhaps I'm missing the question, but there _is_ a regular expression for matching a URI. Remove the leading carat and it can match anywhere in a text.

[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986#appendix-B](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3986#appendix-B)

Edit: I see it's not quite that simple. However, I still think that with some stricter matching requirements this could work.

<comment><USER17> This regexp lets you parse a valid URI, but it matches also a lot things at are not URIs at all.

The URI language is of course regular, so it would be possible to construct a regexp that matches only URIs. But naively applying such regexp wouldn't work in practice, because many punctuation characters are allowed in URIs. For example, single quotes are allowed, so in this Python code the regexp would match too much:

       homepage = 'http://example.com/'

<comment><USER19> I see—The standard allows most characters we normally use to surround URIs. It sure does look like a difficult problem then, and one that a regexp can't solve.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have been using a nodejs equivalent, named broken-link-checker [https://github.com/stevenvachon/broken-link- checker](https://github.com/stevenvachon/broken-link-checker)

I run it in a CI job which builds a static site. It works pretty well for me.

</comment><comment><USER21> pylinkvalidator seems to be a pretty good python alternative for this project. It's also very fast, scans 700+ URLs in under a minute [https://github.com/bartdag/pylinkvalidator](https://github.com/bartdag/pylinkvalidator)

</comment><comment><USER22> Awesome tool. I have one small request, is it possible to put an architecture diagram connecting different moving parts like parsing, fetcher, daemon etc. IMHO this might be useful for people who are trying to go through the source code to understand how the tool functions. Thanks anyways :)

</comment><comment><USER23> So, I'll bite. Why user this and not wget, curl, or any other http spider?

<comment><USER24> Is there a good html parser that you can pipe into/out of? Using Go, it would be easier to parse the html, and tell the difference between
[http://somewhere.com/
](http://somewhere.com/
) and test
](http://somewhere.com/">test
)

<comment><USER25> Personally I don't care about the difference between your two examples because a published URL is still a published URL regardless of whether it is a hyperlink or not.

However where I do care about the difference between an anchor and a paragraph block is with relative links or other URLs without the protocol prefix as those are harder to programmatically guess what is a web URL and what is an example file system path in a technical document (for example). In an ideal world the JavaScript, CSS and any web-APIs (eg JSON returns) would be executed locally to check any modern way of abstracting away URLs (page redirection et al). But that's not to say there isn't a place for a less sophisticated parser (though I would say that as I've also written a link checker similar to the one posted hehehe).</comment></comment></comment>


USB power supply puts 220 Mains power out on USB jack - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hdn0MuCK_0 <comment><USER2> Not sure if HN knows about Mehdi Sadaghdar's (aka ElectroBOOM's) YouTube channel, which is somewhat similar - but takes a more lighthearted view on electronics.

E.g. Compare Big Clive's mention of a full bridge rectifier in the video vs Mehdi's YouTube video of the same thing :)

[https://youtu.be/sI5Ftm1-jik](https://youtu.be/sI5Ftm1-jik)

<comment><USER3> I love this guy. His skids are like slap stick for the makers.

However, on the serious side, I wish that he would publish a complementary video showing the real story of what he is doing.

My kids would watch his videos, and then run off the find the bits to do exactly what he did. Hmm..Luckily I was there to let them know of the real consequences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you are wondering "How could an isolation transformer ever get past QC with abraded or nicked insulation?", you might find this video interesting:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEJn74Z3wHk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEJn74Z3wHk)

<comment><USER5> I've had a portable Bluetooth speaker blow up in my bedroom a couple of years ago while charging. Something malfunctioned in the battery section.

The only reason that didn't set the building on fire was that I was right next to the speaker when it burst into flames. My immediate reaction was to assume my SO playing a really unfortunate firecracker prank on me, but half a second later it was obvious it was the speaker's fault. Turns out batteries can make pretty flames and a lot of fairly unpleasant smoke. To this day, still can't believe how lucky I was to be right next to it with a pillow as it blew up.

The company was kind enough to send us their top of the line product for the incident, in exchange for the faulty unit (for them to study) and a written agreement to not take em to court.

Still pretty uncomfortable around charging devices with batteries to this day, but the reality is that it's unavoidable and there's no point in developing a phobia about it.

<comment><USER6> >for them to study

For them to study, or for them to destroy the evidence so that you absolutely could not take them to court.

<comment><USER7> > so that you absolutely could not take them to court.

Did he miss an opportunity or an opportunity cost?

<comment><USER6> He's the poster child for a potential class action lawsuit. He witnessed their product explode with his own eyes.

And yes I would imagine that there could have been some cost associated with cleaning up the smoke smell left in the room and possibly any burned areas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A true isolation transformer has an earthed copper shield wound in between and physically separating the primary from secondary windings, anything less is unsafe.

One of the many reasons I detest "double insulated" equipment, as it is impossible to determine if it has been designed for safety or not without ripping it apart and destroying it.

This is a real issue in Australia as our regulators do no regulating and most equipment I have investigated does not comply with Australian Standards even though manufacturers lie and put standards compliance numbers on them.

Also the Australian Standards should be considered an absolute Minimum not "super safe".

<comment><USER9> Does the Australian Standards body require that devices are sent to them for testing? Then there could be a database you could check as to whether a device has passed.

<comment><USER8> technically yes.. but it is not enforced

<comment><USER8> I should also add that if you are an Australian manufacturer, you have to submit your product for testing for design compliance and you won't last long if you dont, but importers can import anything with none, yet another impediment to Australian manufacturing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Big Clive, who makes these videos does some brilliant tear-downs. I recommend watching his other videos.

<comment><USER11> Big Clive is _the_ channel for teardowns of everyday electronic stuff. I am actually not that interested in this kind of stuff but somehow I still watch most of his videos.

If you are into more... entertaining teardowns you should have a look at AvE. Even if you don't like it you will still learn some useful canadian terms ;) (edit: just to make it clear, AvE is actually very knowledgable. His "boltr" teardown series of electronic power tools is most likely the most thorough you will find on the internet)

My third goto channel for electronic stuff is EEVBlog who also does amazing stuff. If you are going to watch one teardown today then please watch his rather famous video about the worlds worst tablet computer: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o8MDCIlOEk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o8MDCIlOEk)

<comment><USER12> Mikes electronic stuff is also quite good.

<comment><USER13> See also scanlime [http://youtu.be/UTUYl-2g-r4](http://youtu.be/UTUYl-2g-r4)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Here, Clive looks at an Ikea USB power supply: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRe9w5PKmsE&nohtml5=False](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRe9w5PKmsE&nohtml5=False)

Much better made.

<comment><USER14> I recently discovered AvE and now bigclive. I'm not sure how I missed this particular internet rabbit hole but I love it.

<comment><USER10> If you want another rabbit hole to start down, I can also recommend Techmoan. He doesn't do teardowns, but instead likes to buy old HiFi gear and reviews them.

Some of them are incredibly obscure such as the Tefifon: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBNTAmLRmUg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBNTAmLRmUg)

<comment><USER14> This is great, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How do I know what I'm buying is safe? I've sworn by the Nexus chargers in their various incarnations and [http://www.amazon.com/Charge-Charging-Station- Micro-USB-Sams...](http://www.amazon.com/Charge-Charging-Station-Micro-USB- Samsung/dp/B01BBYJQ5I/) (I have a Tronsmart and an Aukey vertsion)

<comment><USER11> I play Ingress a lot (a GPS based mobile game where you run around a lot in the real world so most players use external batteries) and at least 60-70% of the whole community uses Anker products. I personally know at a dozen people who use Anker wall plugs and all of them (including me, 1 wallplug and 2 battery packs) are very happy.

<comment><USER16> Anker and recently Aukey. And iOrange for cables. The problem is that smaller brands hit the Amazon lottery and get a lot of early 5-star reviews, then swap out their product with one made of cheaper components.

I think for Anker, their brand has become a bit bigger than is gamble-able on a bait and switch, so I'm continuing to use their products.

<comment><USER17> Anker is ex-Google employees.

<comment><USER18> Interesting! Source?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> That's scary. Not enough isolation between the line side and the output side. Classic cause of electrocution and fires. The standard for this is UL 1310, Class 2 Power Supplies. Not sure if this design complies.

There's a lot to be said for split-bobbin transformers, where there's a solid plastic barrier between the two windings. This just has wire insulation and some tape.

<comment><USER20> The really scary thing is that as he points out, it actually seems to be designed with an apparently reasonable amount of isolation between the primary and secondary - it's just that something managed to completely abrade the insulation. Not sure if it was UL compliant as designed because their requirements for transformer construction are quite complicated, but it certainly seems plausible.

He's reviewed numerous really questionable power supplies[1] with a gnat's whisker of separation between the mains and low voltage sides and much more dubious transformers, but somehow none of those actually managed to put 240 volts on the output...

[1] Such as the cheap shitty pink USB charger from China: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioAq7PI1Uwg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioAq7PI1Uwg)

<comment><USER19> _The really scary thing is that as he points out, it actually seems to be designed with an apparently reasonable amount of isolation between the primary and secondary - it 's just that something managed to completely abrade the insulation._

That's the argument for a split bobbin. With a hard plastic wall between the two coils, in addition to the wire insulation, it's hard to get a short between both side of the transformer.

Here are some split-bobbin transformers for switching power supplies on Alibaba.[1] Split-bobbin seems to add about $0.10 to the price, raising it from $0.89 to $0.99.

[1] [http://wholesaler.alibaba.com/product-detail/EE22-split- bobb...](http://wholesaler.alibaba.com/product-detail/EE22-split-bobbin- transformer-for-charger_60428582199.html)

<comment><USER21> _Split-bobbin seems to add about $0.10 to the price, raising it from $0.89 to $0.99._

So, there it is.

Good luck finding a miscreant to hold accountable if this sort of cost reduction kills someone. And even if you could hold the culprit accountable, that still can't undo the loss of life anyway.

It's all just collateral damage from the race to the bottom.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Finally a possible explanation [1] as to why Apple chargers (USB and laptop) give you tingles when touching the metal casing of the device they're plugged into.

Would love to know if the mentioned capacitor is indeed the reason and whether it leads to enough efficiency to justify the scare it causes with first time customers.

[1]: [https://youtu.be/3Hdn0MuCK_0?t=2m14s](https://youtu.be/3Hdn0MuCK_0?t=2m14s)

</comment><comment><USER23> As a reminder, if you're buying a USB charger or battery, or MicroUSB, Type C, or Lightning cable _please_ buy Anker products.

They are not expensive, but they are the best products you can get your hands on. I own multiple Anker products, and have never discovered anything better than these.

The only non-Anker charger I currently use is the Google Nexus branded Qi charger (plugged into an Anker multiport brick), and the original Chromecast brick plugged into my Chromecast.

<comment><USER24> The one thing that I can't find from Anker or any other reputable, reasonably- priced supplier (last time I checked, anyway) is a single-port charger that is small enough, horizontally and vertically, to not sprawl out onto adjacent outlets in a power strip.

I don't understand why this is so hard. My first smartphone, a Samsung Galaxy Nexus, came with one, but it failed within a year and Samsung wanted like $50 for a branded replacement.

<comment><USER25> Like an Apple one?

<comment><USER23> The Apple ones do not speak standard USB charging resistor ladders, thus max out at 500mA when charging non-Apple devices.

On the flip side, Anker chargers speak both, and charge newer iPhones and iPads faster than that huge iPad charger does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I love the simplicity of and the humor in the Big Clive videos. The methylated spirits video was quite... hilarious. DO NOT try this! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep2I3Gf3Sec](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep2I3Gf3Sec)

</comment><comment><USER27> Hmm, I've always bought Anker and occasionally bought other brands like Mpow, Oldshark (haha) and Aukey which seem like yet another rebrand from the same batch of Shenzhen factories. I know Anker has considerably more Customer Service backend and better packaging but I wonder if their products are engineered any better?

<comment><USER28> Google engineer Benson Leung tests a bunch of USB 3.0 cables/chargers and has generally found Anker to be good. Spreadsheet of results: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wJwqv3rTNmORXz- XJsQa...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wJwqv3rTNmORXz- XJsQaXK1dl8I91V4-eP_sfNVNzbA/edit#gid=0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> He's like the "Bob Ross" of electronics.

</comment><comment><USER30> Apple chargers, USB-C... When will Amazon offer a hardware fault bounty?

</comment><comment><USER31> Seeing the wire damage reminded me of this Boeing 787 fire...

[http://asndata.aviation- safety.net/reports/2013/20130712-0_B...](http://asndata.aviation- safety.net/reports/2013/20130712-0_B788_ET-AOP.pdf)

...caused by a battery short resulting from the two wires being trapped against the case and eventually the insulation abrading through when subject to vibration. Even the highly regulated aviation industry isn't immune to simple defects like these.

</comment><comment><USER32> Can someone explain why the transformer is on the DC side of the circuit in the diagram he draws at the beginning of the video?

<comment><USER33> This is a switch mode power supply. In order to use a smaller transformer it uses very high frequency AC rather than 50/60Hz mains frequency.

In order to do this it rectifies the mains input to high voltage DC (330/220Vish, depending on the mains voltage) then using a power transistor rapidly switches this on and off at around 1-10kHz. Then the transformer outputs low voltage AC which is re-rectified and filtered to produce low voltage DC.

The switch mode chip monitors the output voltage and modulates the switching frequency to maintain a constant output voltage.

If you look closely at the board (and he talks about this in the video) there's a separation between the high and low voltage sides. Only the transformer and certain specialized components should cross this (Y-class capacitor and optoisolators). Cheap power supplies often miss this out which could allow a small bit of loose solder being able to send mains voltage to the output. Look at other videos by Big Clive to see the horrors.

The high voltage side is a bit of a misnomer. It's really just the non- isolated side - the chip runs on 5v or similar, but it's not completely separated from the high voltage DC so isn't safe for human contact.

<comment><USER34> > the chip runs on 5v or similar

How does the chip get 5V, out of interest? Given that it's not allowed to be connected to the non-isolated side?

<comment><USER33> Normally though an additional winding on the transformer.

Switch mode transformers have three or four sets of windings. The primary (high voltage), secondary (low voltage) a bootstrap winding (for the chip) and sometimes a flyback winding.

The bootstrap winding takes off a variable voltage depending on the local supply and uses a linear regulator to produce the required voltage.

For a better explanation than I can manage in text the EEVBlog channel goes in to all sorts of regulators and how they work: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM7t1Mpu7s4&list=PLn- ZIFhWxh...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM7t1Mpu7s4&list=PLn- ZIFhWxhWpbwaHZNTBWoOmeyeVPCq_i)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This happened to me with a cheap reflow heat gun. [1]

Got a nasty bite as soon as I touched it.

Got what I paid for I guess. Made me rethink super-cheap AC equipment from the internet, that's for sure.

[1]: www.amazon.com/Kohree-Digital-Rework-Station-Solder/dp/B00ITMPQS2

</comment><comment><USER36> Aren't there legal tests that any appliance which plugs into the mains must pass? I'm surprised this kind of thing is possible, but I guess not performing such tests cuts costs.

<comment><USER37> Sometimes even large well trusted companies get fake products shipped to them.

I think EEVBlog highlighted this with the FTDI case. People were buying what they thought were authentic FTDI chips (and paying the proper price) but being delivered fakes that then went on to be bricked by the driver update.

There is so much margin in swapping good stuff with dreadfull stuff there are several points in the procurement chain where people can try their luck passing off crap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> oh man i don't even need to click, i know its big clive! i spent all of saturday watching his videos holy shit there are some dangerous products on the market!

</comment><comment><USER39> Never seen a video from this guy but I love the massive beard moving at the bottom of the video when he speaks!

</comment><comment><USER40> Why does he handle the bare wires of the test lamp near the mains? Is there no risk the way he hooks it up?

<comment><USER10> The wires are insulated. Yes, there is a risk but this is what he does.

Check out this video for a story of a risky thing he did with a heating element and a bath (4:30 is where it really gets going): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUn17ccR2a4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUn17ccR2a4)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> The scary part is most of us would plug our phones into one of these chargers without thinking there'd be any more than 5 volts at the output. Best case - destroyed phone. Worst case - fire or electric shock.

</comment><comment><USER42> Heh, ground fault interrupters should probably be required on every circuit.

<comment><USER43> That only works if the device is grounded, and the fault is to ground. Neither is the case here. :(

<comment><USER20> The most likely danger with this fault is that someone would touch both the live device and ground, causing a path to ground. This would cause any RCD to trip. It's obvious that whoever owned this didn't have one installed because even the cable shorting to a grounded radiator didn't cause a trip.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Question for the knowledgeable: why did one of the insulation layers have some metal foil in it? He commented on it as he was unwinding it, as if it was a little odd but not completely bizarre.

</comment><comment><USER45> I get that tingly feeling when I hold my ipod after plugging it into the wall through a usb adapter. It's given me a minor shock once I think. That's very interesting.

</comment><comment><USER46> great video. I don't know a lot about electronics, so I am left wondering two things:

why did the fault not stop after i pulled out the first two components? wouldn't that break off the power circuit inside?

why did the fault stop after he removed the transformer?

<comment><USER47> The first two components he removed (the filter Y-capacitor and the opto- isolator) are _supposed_ to be open-circuit to direct current. And since they were not at fault (ie, they were not shorted), removing them from the circuit didn't change anything.

The fault probably stopped after he removed the transformer because in the process of desoldering and yanking it from the board, he caused enough strain/vibration that whichever wire was shorting the primary and secondary windings moved and was no longer causing a short. That sort of intermittent fault is common in hardware, and quite annoying to debug.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I have always buy Amazon Basics chargers.

</comment><comment><USER49> This takes some horrific failure to accomplish, I imagine.

<comment><USER50> The problem appears to be the transformer: [https://youtu.be/3Hdn0MuCK_0?t=20m49s](https://youtu.be/3Hdn0MuCK_0?t=20m49s) (and specifically a bit of shredded insulation [https://youtu.be/3Hdn0MuCK_0?t=25m35s](https://youtu.be/3Hdn0MuCK_0?t=25m35s))

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Got your Power Delivery right here.</comment>


Diabetes complications soar in US, but not Canada, as teens become young adults - <AUTHOR> https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-05-diabetes-complications-soar-canada-teenagers.html <comment><USER2> The article talks about people being uninsured, but this is a misunderstanding of the problem. I'm type 1 diabetic, and the reasons for this are pretty straightforward.

In thus US, insulin (of the types people actually use) is very expensive (~$300/vial), and requires a prescription which expires after one year. In Canada, the exact same insulins from the exact same manufacturers are literally 10x cheaper, and are OTC. Being without insulin takes about two hours to turn into a life-threatening emergency.

The prescription requirement creates ample opportunities for logistical errors that turn into life-threatening emergencies. And there's no legitimate reason for prescriptions to expire. And the cost is such that, if travel were free, you'd often be better off paying the full price in another country than just the co-pay in the US; the price is so insanely inflated that insurance is just compensating for the dysfunction, it isn't better than a sane uninsured baseline would be.

Insulin is cheap in every country in the world except for the United States. This is completely insane. It needs to be OTC in the US, and the import restrictions need to be removed so that US diabetics can have it at the international price instead of the gouging price.

<comment><USER3> Same goes for asthma medication. Epinephrine got removed from OTC options a few years ago, and now it's impossible to treat asthma without getting pushed into steroid treatments with whopping price tags.

<comment><USER4> Do you not have access to beta2 agonists such as salbutamol?

<comment><USER5> Still need a script to get it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am type 2, but here in Canada my cost to buy Insulin is way lower, I have no medical plan and buy OTC about 4 months supply for $60 CDN.

Also since I am diabetic I have to have a yearly eye examination but it is free.

So also for my visits to the Diabetic Clinic every three months where they monitor me.

All my doctor visits are free, I have a general (family) doctor, heart doctor, urologist, kidney doctor all free to make appointments with.

I do not know how I could afford medical help if I had to pay directly for it all. Yes, I have higher taxes, but I am 62. I have been paying taxes for decades. However, I have relatives in the US with low taxes but are now near bankrupt or are running out of health insurance.

<comment><USER7> Having employer-sponsored medical insurance is generally better than Canadian health care. I'm Canadian living in the US. Of course, having Canadian public health care is better when you don't have much money.

I needed an MRI. I got one the next day through Kaiser. My friend had a suspected gallstone. It took her 4 months to get an MRI scheduled. She had to live with pain during those 4 months.

Her children are both diagnosed with autism. It took 2.5 years to get therapy paid for by the government. The only other option besides waiting was to pay for therapy herself which was $80,000/year. She couldn't afford it so her children had to wait without therapy during the most crucial times for therapy. Recently, the Ford government decided upon spending cuts that will limit her youngest son with severe autism to 2 more years of care and then they get nothing.

With Kaiser, they have a top standard autism program where children get instantly put into. My friend is a medical doctor specializing in this and he said the Kaiser program was great. When I told him that my friend had to wait 2.5 years in Canada, he was shocked and saddened for the children.

Before the younger son could get diagnosed with autism, he had to undergo an MRI to ensure there wasn't anything specifically wrong with his brain. They waited 3.5 months, and then when they got to the MRI appointment, they were told their appointment was cancelled, and they had to wait another month.

My aunt was scheduled for gall stone surgery in Toronto but it was also months in advance. One weekend she went to emergency because was vomiting from pain. They put her in a bed and scheduled her for surgery at the hospital. If she left, she would have to wait for the scheduled surgery but if she took an emergency room spot, she could get surgery sooner. She had occupy that bed for 1.5 weeks until they finally scheduled her for surgery, taking the place of other patients. We asked if we could move her to another hospital that didn't have the wait and they said no, she had to stay in that hospital otherwise she would lose her place.

These are experiences just with people I know. I've lived much of my life with Canadian health care and I trust it. But what you don't pay with money you pay with time.

I've found that most people in the US want government health care, but they also want a private option, which is untenable for such a large country, and illegal in Canada. They have a 2 party health care system in Australia but the quality difference is vast. With public and private, you can criticism that only rich people get the best health care but with a single public system, everyone waits. So there's no great way.

<comment><USER8> Kaiser doesn't treat many people over the age of 65, because the overwhelming majority of them aren't working, and those that are, aren't working somewhere they can get Kaiser healthcare.

Any healthcare system can be made 'cheap' and 'good', if it mostly cuts out old people.

If Canada just kicked old people off the healthcare bus to die alone, I'm sure both the waitlists, and the tax bills would be a lot smaller.

<comment><USER7> I don't think you've been in a Kaiser facility if you believe this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow this is sad. To me, insulin is like food. If I don't get it I die. I will literally starve without it. It's also like food in that my fridge is stocked and it's just part of regular expenses.

When I was diagnosed I thought about how a hundred years ago it was a death sentence. And how far we'd come short of a cure. Then I read this and think how far we are spread along the path.

</comment><comment><USER10> Reminds me of the height differences between South and North Koreans.

</comment><comment><USER11> At these ages, it's mostly type 1 diabetes we're talking about.

Rates for 19 and under:

22 per 100,000 for type 1

13 per 100,000 for type 2

[http://www.diabetes.org/assets/pdfs/basics/cdc-statistics- re...](http://www.diabetes.org/assets/pdfs/basics/cdc-statistics- report-2017.pdf)

<comment><USER12> The referenced article studied individuals aged 12 to 30. Additionally, while type 1 and type 2 diabetes rates among youths are rising, type 2 diabetes is becoming more common in that group.

[0] [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-019-05006-6](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-019-05006-6)

[1] [https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/rates-new- diag...](https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/rates-new-diagnosed- cases-type-1-type-2-diabetes-rise-among-children-teens)

<comment><USER11> The results from the study linked in the second article ([https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1610187](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1610187)) seems to be identical to the ones that I cited for 2011-12.

<comment><USER12> I missed the breakdown of growth rates in your original source, seeing only the absolute incidences, but I think we're in agreement. It looks like growth in youth type 1 diabetes was reported at 1.8%, while growth in type 2 diabetes was reported at 4.8%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This really is a study on the political consequences of an underregulated free-market economy and the result of political demands for more libertarian ideals as applied. The consequence is the poor cannot afford to live.

<comment><USER14> This perception of the US as having a free-market economy, particularly in the area of healthcare, is curiously persistent.

Vast sums of money are spent lobbying to distort the market in favor of particular companies and industries. The FDA has long been accused of preventing key drugs from coming to market that are available in other countries. The patent system alone perpetuates medication monopolies over decades for fabricated reasons, keeping cheap generics out of people's hands. The tax system heavily favors employer-run plans (for reasons rooted in the WWII era) that encourage overspending, tie coverage to your employer, and distort the market in multiple, deep ways.

Medicare and Medicaid are huge. The chart in the FEE link below puts US gov per capita expenditures at 4th in the world.

The below Vox article, which is otherwise anti-free-market, concedes that generic insulin providers seem too daunted by secondary patents and "extreme regulatory complexity," both of which obviously run counter to a free market.

This isn't to say a free-market system would be a panacea of all complaints (systems dealing in scarce resources will never be perfect to all participants), but those complaints would be much different than those about the layers of bureaucracy, high government spending, low competition, high time-to-market for drugs, breathtaking lobbying efforts, and overwhelming tax complexity we have now.

Maybe you think you'd prefer single-payer to the present regime, but to characterize the latter as "free-market" sets up a false dichotomy. (Note that it could logically still be "underregulated," as you say, despite not being free - not that I would agree.)

Drug patents: [https://www.statnews.com/2019/02/11/drug-patent- protection-o...](https://www.statnews.com/2019/02/11/drug-patent-protection- one-done/)

Tax distortion: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2017/07/30/why- ta...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2017/07/30/why-tax-reform- should-address-incomprehensible-and-indefensible-inequities-in-health- subsidies)

Insulin prices: [https://www.vox.com/2019/4/3/18293950/why-is-insulin-so- expe...](https://www.vox.com/2019/4/3/18293950/why-is-insulin-so-expensive)

Free market? [https://fee.org/articles/the-idea-that-the-us-has-a-free- mar...](https://fee.org/articles/the-idea-that-the-us-has-a-free-market- health-care-system-is-pure-fantasy/)

<comment><AUTHOR> We had a free market for drugs. So free and freely abused that it gave birth to modern journalism (muckraking) and the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. For good reasons few yearn to return to those truly free times.

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

[https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h917.html](https://www.u-s- history.com/pages/h917.html)

<comment><USER14> Thanks for the links - that's interesting to consider when weighing the tradeoffs of an FDA-less country. Of course, the FDA is only one part of the story, and conceding a need for its general existence in no way means that its current purview and methodologies don't need extensive revision.

In any case, my post above was about what is (and what to properly call it), not what ought to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In other words, stop voting for Republicans.

<comment><USER16> Big Pharma knows no party.

<comment><USER17> Then why are only Democrats pushing for Medicare For All and other comprehensive public health plans while Republicans want to dismantle the ACA (Obamacare)?

<comment><USER18> A subset of Democratic politicians and officials are pushing for Medicare for All. Most of the Democratic party machine is tepid-to-opposed.

<comment><USER17> There are more than zero Democrats working on the problem. There are zero Republicans working on the problem.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


My First Year as a Freelance AI Engineer - <AUTHOR> http://masatohagiwara.net/202002-my-first-year-as-a-freelance-ai-engineer.html <comment><USER2> Wow, it's nice to see my post on the top page of Hacker News.

Note that I wrote this post back in February 2020 and there are a couple of things that I would like to add:

\- Due to high demand, I increased my rate to $250/hour + some fixed monthly fee in April. I didn't drop any single client :)

\- I'm seeing very little impact from the coronavirus. I have a client base spanning between Japan and the US in a little-impacted industry (education). Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

\- I would strongly encourage everyone who's considering making a leap to read "The Win Without Pitching Manifesto" [https://www.winwithoutpitching.com/the- manifesto/](https://www.winwithoutpitching.com/the-manifesto/)

\- Due to a sheer volume of my incoming emails I can't answer all of them, but do let me know if you are interested in working with me!

<comment><USER3> I don't get what "NLP/ML for Asian language processing and language education" work is. Can someone explain a bit more. What kinds of companies do this, what kind of businesses?

<comment><AUTHOR> An example of "language education" is Duolingo, where the author used to be an employee.

"NLP/ML for Asian language processing" covers anything that has text in CJK/other languages. I work with Japanese and lots of things taken for granted in NLP pipelines require entirely different approaches specifically for Japanese. For example, there's no spaces, so word tokenization is actually a complicated issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As a business owner & non-engineer who sometimes uses freelance software engineers like OP, it's fascinating to see so much pushback to the guy's hourly rate. On Hacker News!

People are so hung up on how much the guy gets per hour, as a business owner all I'm thinking about are the _total costs_. There are lots of cheaper developers who would take longer to get the job done- how have I saved money by hiring them? And that's before getting into quality of work. I think many commenters are imagining OP as a contractor who works 40 hours a week for his clients, 9 to 5. The whole point of a consultant is that they're project- based, it's not an ongoing expense. I would certainly hire OP for a 20-50 hour project, say, and then an hour here or there to fix bugs and answer questions as needed. It's not a huge total cost, I don't care what the guy gets paid per hour. I literally just look at it like 'overall, this ML/AI project cost me $10k, and delivered x amount of value'.

If HN commenters think $250 an hour is a lot, wait till they hire accountants or- god forbid- attorneys :) I bet OP is much smarter and delivers more value than my attorney that charges $400 an hour for simple contract review, and breaks out specific line items for answering my e-mails and 10 minute phone calls with me....

<comment><USER5> When I notice people pushing back on hourly rates, I think of a story a friend told me about an expert locksmith. He could unlock a door in under 30 seconds, but he often fiddled around a bit so his customers would feel better about having spent $200. He was very good, but if he made it look too easy, they would complain or give him a bad review. I try to never begrudge someone that knows how to add value and set a marketable price. If you're consistent, reliable and add value, they deserve it!

<comment><USER6> I'm not saying it's easy but $200 is a lot. Hypothetically purely based on opportunity costs, the AI freelancer could afford spending an hour trying to unlock his own door, someone like me I could spend like 6 hours buy a lockpick and watch a YouTube tutorial, or maybe easier to spend the next hour looking for a cheaper locksmith!

<comment><USER7> That is only possible because you didn't put a price tag on your own time.

Similarly, a company's CEO could say "Hey, I could simply go to university myself and learn everything about NLP and solve my NLP problem and save 10.000$ for this contractor! Yay!"

That's only scalable up to a certain point, and that point is usually reached when you realize that you need employees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Super cool, I've been thinking a little about this for CV rather than NLP. One thing that gave me the idea is I (the company I worked for, at the direction of me) engaged an outside expert on a particular ML domain. It wasn't a freelancer, but just someone at a major company who did some cool stuff. I approached them, told them about what issue we were having, and engaged them for a 50 hour contract @ $500/hr. Completely worth it, but looking at your rates maybe we super overpaid. Not that it matters, but just an interesting data point and got me thinking about freelancing purposely if those are the rates. Thanks for sharing your experience.

<comment><USER9> New to freelancing, and while I get the hustle and pricing according to the value for the client, it's still hard to wrap my head around people charging 500$/h+. Like, what is the value an AI contractor can deliver in ~50h that easily justifies spending 25k (and without much prior knowledge about the product, systems in place, etc.). Honest question, trying to understand the game.

<comment><USER8> Imagine developing a core competency for your company where it's complicated enough that you're not sure what route to take. Also assume you have a team of maybe 8-10 ML engineers who all make what ML engineers make. It makes so much more sense to pay $25k to get direct knowledge of systems and techniques versus your team spending a bunch of time exploring different products/methods/algos to find something that might work in the end, or might fail in a few months. $25k is like 5 MacBooks, hardly worth thinking about versus being able to get experienced direction from someone who has done what you're trying to do and saving your team literally hundreds of hours of exploratory work. It's not really a game, it's good sense. Yeah given the covo here I probably could have negotiated them down, but that's my time doing that and then things have to be vetted with outside counsel and the CFO, also time wasted, versus just telling them this is what the person charges, we need them for 50 hours, "authorize the charges please." And at what cost, saving a few thousand dollars?

<comment><USER10> How do you develop a business connection and market your service as being more valuable that the wide abundance of free materials, engineering blogs, research papers, etc., in this space?

Just for example, I run a team of 10 machine learning engineers at a large ecommerce company. We mostly do NLP and computer vision, some time series forecasting.

I cannot imagine ever paying anything close to $25k for consulting advice, that's just bananas to me. We recently purchased licenses to use the data annotation tool prodigy from the spaCy creators at explosion.ai. That was ~$4000 and the decision whether to build our own data annotation system or not was excruciating, involved all kinds of business documentation, RFCs, approvals, NDA processes, etc. It was deeply non-trivial to procure that, and building our own was a very serious option we pursued with tech specs and prototypes and everything.

Spending 6x that amount for _advice_ about NLP, which practically grows on trees today, is just totally unrealistic.

It makes me suspect the real target customer for you is not companies with actual ML engineering teams or ambitious data-driven projects, but more like someone looking for McKinsey-lite. Some place that has no serious ML use case beyond drop-in pretrained models and sees $25k as the cheaper path to rubber stamp certification that dissolves internal political feuds. Most likely just selling super cookie cutter NLP models as if they are advanced and represent some sexy leap forward for a company with a couple junior data scientists. Algolia or just some drop-in Elastic tfidf search is more than enough for these companies. Spend the $25k on an intern who can tell you anything you need to know about neural network frameworks.

In reality, the 4-5 ML engineers you already hired are very likely _more knowledgeable_ than the freelance consultant you might hire. They can tell you much more about state of the art and simultaneously know the specific integration path in _your_ company's web service and data ecosystem. Those folks won't be wasting time prototyping - they would be pursuing a _more efficient_ way to get the answers you need than advice from a freelancer, even if that freelancer was Bengio for pete's sake.

I just cannot see the value prop here except for the usual story of paying for consulting as a virtue signal / credential / politics kind of thing.

<comment><USER8> I just really don't know what to tell you, I'm sorry. We saw the value, pursued the person, and had an engagement with them effectively consulting for 50 hours. There was no justification to anyone outside of our team, other than getting the very quick approval, and the consultant worked with our team directly and not to anyone outside the team. There was no internal politics at play.

And again, this wasn't a "freelance consultant" in the sense of the original story posted to HN, but an accomplished person at a very respected company who was able to secure the approvals from their side to help us out. This was novel/niche work for which "drop in pretrained models" don't really exist or apply.

Frankly to judge and belittle someone else who is just sharing their experience by saying they're not doing serious work and don't have serious customers is very rude.

<comment><USER10> It's not rude at all to highlight how this warrants huge skepticism. "Just calling someone up" to spend $25k+ on "advice" and claiming it's justified in time saved of your existing staff not flailing around to research the same topic is _very_ weird. That doesn't line up with any professional experience I've ever seen in any machine learning team at Fortune 500, startup, finance & academia jobs. _Maybe_ for appearance fees to have a big name researcher come and give a company presentation or keynote. _Maybe_. Absolutely not believing it for ad hoc freelance consulting based on someone having some NLP projects on GitHub, conference presentations or publications, or gigs at "fancy" AI employers, and I find it's worth making this comment so other readers can consider how extremely shaky that premise is.

<comment><USER11> Just to provide another perspective : I've consulted for 20+ companies. Spending money for outside advice or actual work products is extremely common and generally worthwhile if done right. There's a reason why consulting is a multi billion dollar industry.

<comment><USER10> I disagree. Consulting is fashion signaling. It's a huge business because it's about buying and selling political status in the context of company decision making. It offers value from social signaling, not from strategic facts that demonstrably yield improvements to success metrics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> LLC? You're leaving thousands on the table.

Switch to an s-Corp.

30% of the gross will be paid as a salary, as an employee of the s-Corp. you must pay social security, etc on that.

The other 70% can be taken as a dividend distribution As the owner of the s-corp. Thats not subject to social security, etc.

Will save you ~15% in taxes.

at your level, it's Well worth the cost of the cpa to handle the payroll, quarterly, etc.

<comment><USER2> I do have a CPA and we did an S-corp election for 2019 tax return. This is something I didn't get to mention in the post because we hadn't filed the tax yet.

<comment><USER12> Maybe convert it in a a future post.

I don't think devs realize that a 1099 costs you money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Great article! The most important part for others reading this:

 _Narrowing your niche down attracts specific types of clients who have specific needs that few people in the world can solve._

 _My expertise is NLP /ML for Asian language processing and language education. When defining your specialty, I think it helps if you define it in terms of the industry, not in terms of an ML stack. People look for, e.g., "AI solutions for healthcare" and "text analytics for finance," not for "GANs" or "Seq2Seq models." You need to be willing to learn a very wide range of ML techniques and models, from simple regression to GANs and RL, no matter what industry you work in._

In other words, _define your niche in terms that make it easy for someone with budget authority to say "yes" to hiring you_.

This is worth noting also because if you accidentally cross over into talking with recruiters or other gate-keepers to the real budget authority holders, you'll be misled into talking or padding your resume with technical terms that are not the key value drivers for why you'd get a nice-paying contract.

</comment><comment><USER14> One interesting thing about being freelance during times of economic instability is that the "steadiness" metric is inverted when you have multiple sources of income compared to relying on one company.

</comment><comment><USER15> What about client's valuable and private data? I've always thought it'd be a big problem for freelancing as an AI engineer.

<comment><USER2> This has never been a big problem for me. Some clients have strict policies (e.g., only allowing you to work on their servers) while others don't care as much. In some cases, as a freelancer, you only work on a "proof of concept" prototype assuming you have access to their private data. It is their FTEs job to actually train/implement/deploy this prototype using their private data.

<comment><USER15> How can you work on a "proof of concept" prototype without access to their data?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Great post. I felt like $150/hour is way too cheap for his resume (10+ years of experience, PhD, author of book, based in Seattle). I am pretty sure some companies will be happy paying twice as much.

</comment><comment><USER17> "As a freelance AI engineer, you are expected to, for example, start with a client, familiarize yourself with the product and the codebase, submit the first PR within a couple of days"

Although I have my doubts maybe this is true specifically for AI area. In general contracting, getting familiar with the large project and "submitting the first PR within a couple of days" is a wet dream. I will exclude cases when one is hired to find and fix bug in some simple, short piece of code.

<comment><USER18> Are you trying to say it's unreasonable to expect a freelancer to start contributing within a couple of days? Or the opposite?

Because I can't remember a single project where I wasn't expected to contribute something immediately, especially with new clients (that need to be convinced of the value).

<comment><USER17> I guess we are talking about different kind of projects. I had few very short limited scope projects (shortest one 3 days I think) but generally I design and develop products from ground zero (some I own, some made for corporate clients). It could take me a month sometime to write first line of code. And no one in their right mind would expect me to start coding big product with no design in place on a first day. As for trust - I have big portfolio and stellar references from satisfied clients and some of my products can be seen on the web. In my case this is normally what counts, not me banging on keyboard from the first hour. You do not start coding major project without without first having a clear and documented picture of what exactly is being built. Doing it other way is a recipe for major disappointment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This person, like many, makes the error of commodity pricing for labor. They charges less, the more the client buys. That's how corn is bought. Don't sell your time like corn.

This kind of thinking/pricing has been inculcated by so much free-market idealism, and of course on some level human labor can be thought of as a commodity, but that's neo-evil.

<comment><USER20> Would you mind sharing what you think are the practical downsides of this pricing approach?

<comment><USER19> I'm more interested from a labor perspective, but practically, you get less money for your work, and no benefit. Especially as a freelancer, paying all your own taxes, insurance, health, and company costs. That means you need an addition 20% revenue, not less.

If you work in demanding field, and have a client that needs—and can afford—your work, giving them them a discount only takes away from your stack. What possible benefit is there? Repeat business? They will repeat if they need it, not b/c it's on sale.

Assume you are literally putting money in their pocket (ROI) and get paid what you're worth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think the lawyer example is great! People here don't question how a lawyer or good accountant can charge 500$/hr easily but an engineer, oh heavens no it can't be possible. Big business pay this because as others have said it's about returns, and they aren't experts in the field and they know they'll make more back. As startup owners or employees, it may be hard to fathom.

If anything more engineers need to be paid even more. Heck even consider a real estate agent that puts your house up for sale, and your house is worth 1m and they get 2.5%, let's say they walk away with 15k how many hours do you think they spent marketing and managing the sale? In a hot market, where prices are higher and things move fast, even they are reeling in 500$/hr so a PhD level engineer pulling that shouldn't shock you.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey, quick clarification - I posted this because I thought it was interesting, but I am not the author and can't answer questions about it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Really nice article. I've been an independent consultant (freelancer) for several years and there are so many parts of this that match my experience too: whether freelancing is right for you, being prepared for uneven work cycles, and what is fair game for billable hours. To me breadth of experience, time flexibility, and just being independent are the strongest perks.

</comment><comment><USER23> Congrats on making the leap! Do you find that your pipeline is busy enough are are you still looking to grow it?

</comment><comment><USER24> Just wanted to say that even though you said you're not a native English speaker, I never would have known if you hadn't mentioned it. Very well- written and clearly organized post.

</comment><comment><USER25> Great post! Anybody else here who is currently employed in this field and wants to start a consulting agency or similar? Feel free to reach out at email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER26> Who are your typical clients/industries? And how long is a typical engagement? And why per hour vs per project pricing?

</comment><comment><USER27> what are most people asking for - pytorch? or are they leaving those decisions up to you?

<comment><USER28> As a practitioner in the field and in similar circumstances, the answer will probably be: it doesn't really matter. Personally I prefer PyTorch, but I can work with whatever the client already uses, if anything. For one of my clients I worked in both because there was no viable deployment option out of PyTorch to one of their platforms. There still isn't, so both models are still maintained and trained.

If they aren't 100% set in their ways, I do make them aware that things will move at about half the speed with TF, so they'll effectively be paying twice as much. If they are set in their ways, I do not mention it, since I'm not going to change their mind anyway.

That said PyTorch 1.5.0 is just broken pretty much - tensor permute (which in computer vision you end up doing for every input tensor) is 10x slower than it used to be. There's an issue in GitHub already.

I'm beginning to worry about PyTorch.

<comment><USER29> Thanks for sharing your experience!

I'm working with TF and Pytorch as well, but so far for the later I have found the project to be reasonably reliable (though I did find Chainer considerably more polished). Can you share more about what worries you with Pytorch?

<comment><USER28> 1.5.0 is basically broken for computer vision. Input tensors are usually in NHWC memory format, but PyTorch (and CUDA) prefers NCHW (planar). So you'd normally run permute() to move things around. But [https://github.com/pytorch/pytorch/issues/37142](https://github.com/pytorch/pytorch/issues/37142) (and possibly other bugs) kinda gets in the way of that. I had to roll back, since training got way slower than it was before, and it wasn't super fast to begin with, even on my quad-GPU workstation.

The fact that such obvious, severe bugs make it through the release process likely means that there isn't really much of a release process. And what's in place doesn't even test the release on totally bread-and-butter models like resnet50.

<comment><USER30> PyTorch maintainer here: we're looking into that and if needed will issue 1.5.1 asap. It didn't show up in release testing, which among other things does end-to-end imagenet runs with ResNet50 and a few other models (i.e. time and memory didn't regress). Will also figure out how to catch this early.

<comment><USER30> @m0zg if you could comment on the issue you quoted with any details, it would be really helpful to us. Unlike what is reported in the github issue, `permute` isn't the regression.

For reference, one of the core devs added more details based on where we are with our investigation: [https://github.com/pytorch/pytorch/issues/37142#issuecomment...](https://github.com/pytorch/pytorch/issues/37142#issuecomment-623205729)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is super cool. I'm curious if OP engages in cold emails to scout for leads.

</comment><comment><USER32> What are your clients?

<comment><USER33> His clients are in education sector spanning from the US to Japan.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> To anyone who is seriously considering paying $250 an hour for someone who isn't guaranteeing they will deliver anything--

I will personally quit my job and sign a contract with you that clearly defines what will be delivered by what date, if you are willing to pay flat rate of $X.

You will not pay until after you accept delivery of the system.

<comment><USER35> Just wait until you discover what the government is paying McKinsey (and the likes) for their services. Hourly rates starting at $500, growing up into the thousands.</comment></comment>


Root, a code-teaching robot - <AUTHOR> http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/04/root-the-code-teaching-robot/ <comment><USER2> The "multi-level" programming (simple graphical, complex graphical, text) was really neat to see.

It seems like an attempt to improve on Lego Mindstorm, since that's another "teach programming using robots". So that brings to mind a question: has there been any educational studies to see if mindstorms is a good program? Does it actually deliver on having kids who are interested in STEM vs. schools that don't have mindstorm? That seems to be a key study to determine if Root is even solving a real problem vs. just speculative problem solving.

<comment><USER3> The CEEO at Tufts does a lot of research in this specific area. [http://ceeo.tufts.edu/research/](http://ceeo.tufts.edu/research/)

<comment><USER2> Thanks! I skimmed a few of their articles and it seemed more qualitative review than quantitative outcomes... but helpful to see some of the work that's been done. And maybe I missed the quantitative ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not quite clear whether (and when, if at all) it will be released to the general public.

<comment><USER5> From the project homepage:

> The Wyss team is currently seeking the right curriculum and translation > partners to help put Root coding robots in every classroom.

It's very vague but at least it looks like they're pushing for making it more broadly available. I really hope that works out because this seems like a fantastic teaching tool. The heavy focus on whiteboard usage is quite smart.</comment></comment>


BitTorrent's Bram Cohen isn't limited by Asperger's - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_43/b4105046863317.htm <comment><USER2> You will find A LOT of people with Asperger's in the computer world. Its very easy to become obsessed with something like C++ when its your job. I mean I can literally walk around my engineering campus and point out the students with Asperger's. Its really kind of scary.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> _"... So why did Cohen agree to vote for the transaction? Speculation abounds, but one aspect of the transaction is suspicious ... That mostly means Cohen, who is reportedly getting the lion's share of the 30% of the company put aside for current employees. Cohen, who has recently had highly publicized financial troubles, may have simply been bought off ..."_ ~ <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=398803>

But ... here we have an allegation that might have a simpler explanation. I found this article in 'Business Week' reading through his blog. Don't let the lack of facts or another possible explanation get in the way of a good story.</comment>


Ask HN: Looking for a technical interview coach - <AUTHOR> I'm an iOS engineer. I have a great portfolio but I'm lacking in knowledge on data structures and algorithms. Are there interview coaches available for hire to help bootstrap my skills? What about online? <comment><USER2> :-)

My answer to this on Quora (among other answers):

[https://www.quora.com/Programming-Interviews/I-want-to- find-...](https://www.quora.com/Programming-Interviews/I-want-to-find-a- personal-algorithm-tutor-to-train-me-to-prepare-for-the-Google-interview- Where-could-I-find-one)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've actually seen your posts before and know about your service. I'd love to check it out but, I'm out of state :-( I'm honestly surprised there isn't a service where I can just do a google hangout with someone to help get me up to speed.

<comment><USER2> Thanks! Try scheduling mock interviews with Careercup.com. That's probably the closest I can recommend you. (We do mock interviews also, but it's a distraction for us from the main course we offer).

There are other mock interview services too, but I'm not sure if they are any good.

Core issue is, that the area of interview-important DS and Algos is vast. And most people who are good at it, are too busy working. Careercup sets a high bar, and so do we. And you don't want to go to people from Academia.

(BTW, we do accept remote students in the program. Our batches are small, and increasingly getting full way in advance, but if you'd like to chat, feel free to hit me up: email@example.com.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Great, I'll reach out to you.

I've used careercup a few times, primarily for resume review. I've had mixed results though.

Appreciate the feedback.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


WhatsDownToday.com is a scam - <AUTHOR> http://blog.embed.ly/post/47456918600/verelos-public-shaming

<comment><USER2> To me that looks like a mistake by the Verelo programmer, in interpreting the "over limit" response from your API as being "down". To term that a "scam" is an equally misleading. I don't believe it is fair that you cast aspersions without proof. "Publicly shaming" you is a wild accusation.

If I had put such a service together, I can imagine that I would search for a public API method that I could call, and if I received a response I would assume that the API was up, and vice-versa. The developer has mistakenly interpreted an error response code in the context of a user over access limits as an entire API failure. An automated script keeps running and gives incorrect results. That's an oversight and not a scam.

I think you would have been better to try to get an explanation from Verelo before publicly shaming them. They might have worked with you to correct the problem.

By the looks of the <http://whatsdown.verelo.com/> website, the vast majority of the sites appear to have valid uptimes. Yours is the primary exception. That suggests to me that this truly was an oversight, otherwise they would have been trying to extort other services in the same way.

Contact Verelo, and ask them for an explanation. If the explanation is valid and they correct the error, then I think they deserve a public apology from yourself.

On a side note, it might be useful for all public APIs to offer a standard /status call, which returns a standard response. In that way, services like these, which do have some value, could operate in a standard way without upsetting the API owner.</comment>


A blog to review apps with high quality but low downloads - <AUTHOR> http://tinyappreview.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/aim/

<comment><USER2> Great blog. This is highly required as since the removal of just in section.</comment>


By Losing Genes, Life Often Evolved More Complexity - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/by-losing-genes-life-often-evolved-more-complexity-20200901/ <comment><AUTHOR> >Gene gain and loss across the metazoan tree of life

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-1069-x](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-1069-x)

>Widespread patterns of gene loss in the evolution of the animal kingdom

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-1129-2](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-1129-2)</comment>


Sorting algorithms, demonstrated with the help of a color circle - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9Ecb43qw98&feature=youtu.be <comment><USER2> HN seems to love these sorting algorithms visualizations

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=sorting%20algorithms](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=sorting%20algorithms)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=sorting%20visualization](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=sorting%20visualization)</comment>


Ask HN: Someone posted an my passport on Facebook. Anything I can do? - <AUTHOR> I found out that about a week ago, a real estate company whom I previously was a tennant of, has posted the full front page of my passport including address, dob, passport number and address along with a picture in a private facebook group.
I flagged the post, but it's still up, I submitted a help request to FB's sensitive information page but they denied it, I think maybe because that line was more targeted towards nude selfies being posted for revenge.
Is there anything I can do to get this taken down? I have a feeling FB has some support line hidden somehwwhere but they make it impossible to find anything. Any help would be greatly appreciated as I feel like I'm being set up for identity theft here. <comment><USER2> If the real estate company put it up then they can take it down too. Have a lawyer write them a nice C&D on letterhead complete with a notice that any damages as a result of their action will be reclaimed and I suspect it will be gone before you can blink.

I've upvoted this after dhimes alerted me to your post, I don't know anybody at Facebook but I suspect that if you mail email@example.com that you'll get at least a rise out of them. Since the group is private I would hope that the damage at least is limited.

best of luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you for posting the legal link! That is atleast some route to pursue, and the only one that I know of.

Unfortunately I'm in Colombia now and this is a Colombian company. I don't perceive that I have any great legal options and don't have any connections to lawyers down here but I'm looking into it.

Anyway thanks again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Send a complaint to your local district attorney with the company CC'd. You should also consider making a formal police complaint (this would be around identity fraud/theft). This wasn't something accidental, but intentional.

</comment><comment><USER4> Jesus lol that's horrible. Keep making noise about it. Make an anonymous twitter account and try to get it retweeted a lot. This is apparently how customer service is done less than 24 days to the year 2020

<comment><AUTHOR> It seriously unbelievable that someone can do this and there is nothing you can do besides hit a button that says "Report" but there is not even a field to say what you are reporting. Unbelievably frustrating.

<comment><USER4> We are accelerating towards a very dangerous time. While there is probably a lot of shady things that someone can do with a copy of your passport, I would rest assured that there is a very small chance something bad will happen to you.

Most of the information contained on a passport is already publicly searchable anyway :(((

FB is showing their true colors as always here though, removing things that shouldn't be removed and not removing things that should be removed.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know, the only thing in the back of my mind that makes me less nervous is well, this is probably only the nth time this year that my private information has been leaked onto the internet. And the others would have been explicitly to dump the data for identity theft in a corporate breach.

So unfortunately it might not even matter.

Still super frustrating that after everything they've been trough, fb does not have a meaningful way to report abuse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The most burning question I have is, why on earth would the company do this?

<comment><AUTHOR> They are trying to get money out of me. Their was a legitimate claim between them and I regarding some minor damage to the property and I paid them in full for that damage which I took full responsibility for upfront. I could provide proof of the issue and the payment for damages in private.

They are now trying to accuse me of other severe damage on the property that did not occur during my stay and milk extra money on me and using this as leverage.

Regardless of all of that, posting my passport scan to a public forum is not appropriate and is against facebook's terms of service and there should be a way to get it removed.

<comment><USER6> I am still super confused. They posted your personal information on Facebook and said to you "we will take this down if you pay us." This makes no sense. Your passport has already been put out on the internet. Even if the post from Facebook was removed the damage has already been done. They don't really have any leverage here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is there an equivalent to "small claims court" in Colombia where you don't need a lawyer if you're willing to do your own research? Maybe threaten to take them to that court for disclosing private information without permission, and also for libel if they accompanied the photo with untruthful badmouthing. And then take them to that court if they ignore you? IANAL though, and I know nothing about what's legal or not in Colombia.

One other thing you can try is get more people to report that post. Maybe there's a threshold at which they will look into this more seriously.

</comment><comment><USER8> That is awful. Hope that FB steps up and fixes this.

</comment><comment><USER9> Are you or the publisher located in the EU? If so, consider bringing legal action against the publisher under GDPR and send a article 17 request for erasure to Facebook. GDPR covers this publication since it was made by the company.

I'm not able write a longer answer right now but leave a comment or reach out to me on firstname.lastname@example.com and I can give an in-depth answer. IANAL but have successfully brought a GDPR case to trial.

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately I'm in Colombia at the moment and this is a Colombian country. So I feel like my avenues for help are limited to facebook support.

<comment><USER9> I see, I wish you the best of luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You could try a DMCA complaint.

</comment><comment><USER11> Wow, this is an enormous WTF. What reason could they possibly have had for posting this?

</comment><comment><USER12> Maybe not the opinion you're looking for but based on the info you gave I personally wouldn't sweat over it and just move on and try to forget about it after some basic due deligence. People have this idea that ski mask hackers are hiding around every corner waiting for you to give up some special piece of information. I am of the belief that what happens online has almost no ramifications to an actual balanced human life. I do not value or respect my online identity or information. Those that do are just stressing over boogie men imho. /rant</comment>


Norse Attack Map - <AUTHOR> http://map.norsecorp.com/ <comment><USER2> I've seen maps like this discussed[0] on /r/netsec/ and other similar forums and from my understanding, they are mostly useless. It's aggregates some data to make a very pretty site, but doesn't really give you anything actionable. Normally you need to run it through real monitoring tools with various thresholds configured so you can alert the proper teams to act when something odd is going on.

[0] [http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/2xuai9/pewpew_your_v...](http://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/2xuai9/pewpew_your_very_own_ip_attack_map_with_d3js/)

<comment><USER3> The Norse Map used to have a little "about" section that explained how the map is a general aggregation of data and designed to show at a very high level what is going on, but doesn't provide any deep insight into each attack. The famous disclaimer "for entertainment purposes only" comes to mind, but in reality I think the Norse Map is just a really neat and sort-of functional advertisement for the capabilities of Norse. If you go to [http://norsecorp.com](http://norsecorp.com), you'll see that the company behind the map is a security firm that wants you to pay for "real-time visibility into global cyber attacks", which means either signing up for their service that alerts you of weird activity on your network, or purchasing their appliance that can help block attacks at the point of entry. I'd conclude that the map is not really meant to actually provide real threat warnings, but rather a way to see into what the Norse Intelligence Service is capable of monitoring.

<comment><USER4> Norse is generally considered a joke by all the professionals I know in the infosec and threat intelligence industries, and not just for their silly map. Even moreso after their recent Iran report, done in conjunction with the political thinktank American Enterprise Institute. No bias there at all.

<comment><USER5> Agree, though I think the value in this is purely demonstrative to non-tech people, just to try to emphasise specific concepts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> With a title like that, I was at first expecting to see a map of coastal attacks against northern Europe.

</comment><comment><USER7> This map has much better pew pew sounds: [http://threatbutt.com/map/](http://threatbutt.com/map/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Thought it was a video game. Tried shooting back at China.

<comment><USER9> _Shall we play a game?_

<comment><USER10> How about global thermonuclear war?

<comment><USER11> A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Are there any open source map platforms like this for integrating into real time data feeds (i.e. if we want to track sales by region etc...) onto a map?

I know about [http://cesiumjs.org/](http://cesiumjs.org/) but it was extremely resource intensive heavy last time I tried to use it.

EDIT: it looks like they use [http://leafletjs.com/](http://leafletjs.com/) \-- looks interesting

<comment><USER13> There's this [https://github.com/hrbrmstr/pewpew](https://github.com/hrbrmstr/pewpew) it's as much a criticism of these sorts of security visualizations as it is a means to create them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Seems like China needs to go to internet time-out.

</comment><comment><USER15> what is norse, and why does it hate st. louis?

<comment><AUTHOR> LOL, I had the same initial reaction. Apparently Norse monitors global cyber attacks[1]. So the real question is not why they hate St. Louis but why does China hate St. Louis?

I found the link while reading conspiracy theories about the NYSE shut down this morning[2]. I have no idea about the quality of the data. I just thought the visualization was cool.

[1] [http://norsecorp.com/](http://norsecorp.com/). [2] [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-08/what-first-world- cy...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-08/what-first-world-cyber-war- looks-global-real-time-cyber-attack-map)

<comment><USER16> Norse has offices in St. Louis and I'm sure that's where they host the majority of their honeypots. Thus, you see a lot of attacks hitting St. Louis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If Norse wanted to make this data useful, they'd present it as a CSV, too. How else could I determine if one entity owns all the St. Louis targets??? :)

<comment><USER18> They actually sell that sort of data feed. The map is an ad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The company that runs this attack map published a blog post about China yesterday.

[http://darkmatters.norsecorp.com/2015/07/07/chinas-new- secur...](http://darkmatters.norsecorp.com/2015/07/07/chinas-new-security-law- is-retort-for-u-s-sanctions-policy/)

[EDIT: removed 'unflattering'.]

</comment><comment><USER19> Their homepage says "Norse Tracks over 200,000 tor exit nodes". Tor metrics [1] says there exist 1,000 ish Tor exit nodes. So is Norse's statement a blatant lie?

[1] [https://metrics.torproject.org/relayflags.html](https://metrics.torproject.org/relayflags.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't know much about network security. Is there a difference between the kind of attacks that would be caught by honeypots vs targeted attacks? Do these statistics depend heavily on how they setup their honeypots, which I assume is limited by the company's logistics.

</comment><comment><USER21> How do they collect this data?

<comment><USER16> Honeypots

<comment><USER22> That would, in my view, mean I shouldn't take the map as accurate.

<comment><USER23> What does "accurate" mean? It's not comprehensive - what it does is show you where their honeypots get the most attacks from over time.

That said, it's not all that useful - there's no shocking information here. As mentioned, it's largely a marketing tool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Not sure how they are getting their attack data. Especially since they are classifying shodan as an "attacker"

</comment><comment><USER25> interesting that attacks come directly from China instead of say some botnets distributed around the world.

<comment><USER26> China probably has the most compromised PCs due to the levels of piracy there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is more of a sales pitching device (and it's a nice one) than a useful tool

</comment><comment><USER28> What about that spot mid Russia which just pulsates? attacking itself?

</comment><comment><USER29> I expected Russia to be active.</comment>


Ask HN: What top things you have done/do when you become a Engineering manager? - <AUTHOR> Scenarios can be<p>For existing team where you worked as IC or promoted or joined as EM in new company <comment><USER2> #1: Keep everybody accountable to everybody else. #2: Foresee and prevent any technological/architectural minefields that could develop, and encourage best practices and technologies. Otherwise, leave architecture to senior devs.</comment>


Kite-like sail cuts ship fuel consumption up to 35% - <AUTHOR> http://gas2.org/2009/06/08/ship-emissions-got-you-down-look-up-at-skysails/

<comment><AUTHOR> Somewhat related; kites as wind turbines: [http://www.ted.com/talks/saul_griffith_on_kites_as_the_futur...](http://www.ted.com/talks/saul_griffith_on_kites_as_the_future_of_renewable_energy.html)</comment>


Ask HN: How do background check sites get their data? - <AUTHOR>

I went on one and it had my address and email (both accurate). Even worse, a reverse lookup on my cell looked pretty accurate too.<p>*Note I only saw the preview pages...but the asteriked details looked accurate <comment><USER2> Credit rating agencies (experian, equifax, trans union) collect all the data whenever you apply for a credit card, and then re-sell it to other businesses -- this is the data that experian sells with many of its demographic products, for example. They also have metrics for your income, purchasing history, etc. Someone can buy a list of email addresses of people with income > $x who have purchased a car in the past 6 months, etc.

There is also a way that they obtain data via public records, etc., simply by requesting it from each municipality.</comment>


How A.I. and chatbots will change startups - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2016/10/03/how-a-i-and-chatbots-will-change-startups/ <comment><USER2> Some of us are still holding out for True AI serving as the brain behind a chatbot, the MindGrid, the knowledge base (KB).</comment>


Move Your Domain Day: Support EFF - <AUTHOR> https://www.namecheap.com/campaigns/2014/moveyourdomainday-feb-5.aspx <comment><USER2> Or you could just donate directly to EFF and cut out the middleman.

Maybe I'm too cynical, but I tend to be very skeptical about "buy things and help a good cause" promotions. People like to buy things, and people like to feel they're supporting a good cause. This satisfies both impulses, but the vast majority of the revenue goes to the company not the nonprofit.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ok, so I have a bunch of domains on Godaddy pointing at a bunch of sites on Digital Ocean and DreamHost. Is it really worthwhile transferring all of them over to Namecheap and setting everything back up? Besides not being Godaddy, i'm curious what the upsides are?

<comment><USER4> Whether it's a pain or not depends on how you have the domains setup. If you use Digital Ocean and Dreamhost for your DNS, it won't be a problem at all, you just transfer and it copies the correct DNS with the transfer. If you are using Godaddy as your DNS as well, then you'd probably first want to transfer the DNS to Dreamhost/Digital Ocean before initiating the transfer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really wish that Namecheap would stop reselling under ENOM. It's the one thing that I don't like about them.

Why isn't Namecheap their own registrar? Namecheap IS a valid registrar, but they're still reselling domains from ENOM...

</comment><comment><USER4> I love the added incentive to move. With domains, it's so easy to just stick with the status quo since you only have to think about it at max once a year, and transferring is actually a bit of a PITA.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is awesome! Love NameCheap. Network solutions is totally screwing me right now by charging me $15 randomly for customer support and things I'm not ordering. And I can't get a refund after 6-7 hours on the phone...

</comment><comment><USER7> I use namecheap for all dozen or so of my domains and I recommend them to all of my friends who get domains. I've always been very pleased with the No-BS service they provide. This is just icing on the cake.

<comment><USER8> I use them for everything except .io domains. Gandi is $20 cheaper. I'm still waiting for Namecheap to reduce their price.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would it be possible (and wise) to run a Forum on JAMstack? - <AUTHOR> I know comments on JAMstack is possible: https://jamstack-comments.netlify.com/ but what about a full-fledged forum? <comment><USER2> Javscript is horrible. Replacing server side processing by client side processing is the last thing to do security-wise, and planet-wise.

</comment><comment><USER3> Relying on JavaScript would lead to security issues.

</comment><comment><USER4> look at vanilla forums, or discourse. i believe they fit.</comment>


Ask HN: Is outsourcing though Elance/Guru a reasonable way to get started - <AUTHOR>

I have several ideas for web apps that I would like to pursue. I would love to begin working on one of them, but do not have a great programming background (my current capability is in front end design/UX). I am planning on spending as much time as possible over the last year of my degree teaching myself a major web-focused programming language (such as Python, Ruby, or PHP). However my current time constraints don't allow me enough time to do everything myself.
My questions are these:
Is using a service such as Elance or Guru to pay for some help a viable way to begin working on a prototype of an app?
If so, how is the best way to approach this sort of a situation? <comment><USER2> I've tried it. The code quality was OK but it took a lot of time just to document and explain the project to each coder over email, and time to do progress checks with each coder, answer their questions, and generally keep everyone coordinated with what others were working on. At some point I realized I was documenting the project in such detail and coordinating every step of it that it was faster to code it all myself. I would still outsource graphic design elements because I'm a better coder than artist.

</comment><comment><USER3> Depends. I know a guy with no programming skill who had an idea. Take that flash helicopter game people like to play and put it on Facebook. He hired a Russian guy through elance to do the flash, and a brilliant guy in Virginia through IRC to do the PHP. His app got big and he sold it six months later for a significant chunk of cash.

</comment><comment><USER4> Slow down, take what spare time you have and learn django or ruby on rails. Go through some tutorials, struggling and learning as you go. By the time you graduate you'll be so much more powerful, and glad you did.

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=ojbyrne> built Digg for $10 per hour (and a total cost of ~$200) and was hired through elance...

<http://digg.com/programming/Digg_com_created_for_only_200_00>

...so you _can_ get your ideas implemented well at a low cost, but what you do with it then and how you progress is really the hard part.

</comment><comment><USER6> I haven't actually got anything done through any of these sites but I have some friends who have, and I think it can be hit and miss with regard to the quality of developers on the sites.

An idea I'd like to try is a small guinea-pig project that you would use to find the better developers - get them to build it and see what the quality is like. It may cost a bit up-front but if you find good developers you could save yourself a lot of money and get a lot better results on a real project.

</comment><comment><USER7> It can be, but like Paul Graham says it all depends on your ability of identifying a good programmer. I made the mistake of not interviewing the candidates well enough and wasted a month's worth of time and labor because of it. Most people on the site, from my experience, are 3rd world country programmers with the equivalent of a degree from Devry.

My advice is just to learn the language and do it yourself. You will probably have to modify the site in the long run anyway.

</comment><comment><USER8> the problem with freelancers...is the programmers get overwhelmed. A crappy little app that would take someone decent 2 weeks to program, will end up taking 8-10 months. Because the guy is juggling your project with 20 other ones.

But yeah, if you have no other option freelancing sites are the way to go. At least this way you can get the basic site up, and then have something to offer to get a decent programmer as a co-founder.

</comment><comment><USER9> I would just pick one project and focus on it, learn and implement it... then the others will become easier and easier.

Might want to do the one you are least interested in first, since the code quality will probably not be too good.

</comment><comment><USER10> Elance is not a bad place to start ut you can look on Killerstartups.com and when you see a site you like email them and ask them for a referal .

</comment><comment><USER11> I think, there are really smart service providers. You have to just choose one from bids.</comment>