Ask HN: Any recommended books about Entrepreneurship for young children? - <AUTHOR>

I just read Sasha's Matrioshka Dolls by Jana Dillion. The story is about a boxmaker's granddaughter who keeps losing her dolls to various animals. The grandfather replaces them with wooden ones during his downtime. Soon his collection catches on with the locals and an industry is born. Innovation at its finest.<p>I am wondering what other stories I should read to my children about innovation and entrepreneurs. <comment><USER2> Do they really have to be storybook material? I would say you should tell them stories of your own entrepreneurial experiences, and invite them to listen in on your business conversations with other adults. They can play on the floor or whatever, but they'll still listen.

As a kid, I always felt I was pushed out of these conversations, but money and business were very interesting to me... just as they are to any kid that has seen Scrooge McDuck diving in his moneybin.

Today, I love asking my dad about his entrepreneurial past. Things that didn't make sense as a kid make a whole lot more sense now, so I'm trying to fill in those fuzzy memories and learn all I can. These are the kinds of discussions that I want my kids to sit in on.

<comment><AUTHOR> True the power of osmosis is powerful but does it create self-drive or motivation to succeed.</comment></comment>


Entry Level Positions – 3 Years Experience - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@m_rlons/entry-level-position-3-years-experience-75fa785188cd#.pkyzdzocy <comment><USER2> Entry level requiring 3 years experience is code for Experienced but willing to take an entry level salary. Full stack on half comp.

<comment><USER3> I remember when the last tech bubble popped, in my area there were literally no entry level development positions -- 3-5 years minimum experience required or no call back. This percolated up the experience tree to the top. You'd see job postings asking for more years experience with a certain technology than that technology had even existed.

I actually ended up changing careers into something else it was so bad and finally in the last few years moving back in to pure tech work.

From the hiring side, I understand why the plethora of job descriptions: companies are usually forming job openings where they're having current pain. They take the skillset of the team they have, look at what's missing, shove a title on top of those things and post it out in the world. Quite often they don't really know what they want so all kinds of craziness ends up in the posting.

<comment><USER2> > Quite often they don't really know what they want so all kinds of craziness > ends up in the posting.

That sounds like one of the answers to the question: "How do I know if the company I am applying to is a good fit?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> People need to stop reading 3 years of professional experience as 3 years of technical experience. So long as you've been in the work world for 3 years already, doing contracts or whatever, then you have 3 years of experience. You can have 3 years at McDonalds.

Also, a college grad should not shy away from applying to such positions. If a job appeals to you, you should apply and let them tell you you don't qualify.

Mostly that clause is added to weed away wannabes.

<comment><USER5> _You can have 3 years at McDonalds._

No, that's clearly not what it means.

"3+ years experience" _always_ means "3+ years of relevant experience."

 _Mostly that clause is added to weed away wannabes._

No. It's specifically there to weed out anyone with 2.99726 years experience of, also. In other words, it's just nonsense filler.

In more direct terms, what it's really trying to say is:

"Shit, the bossman wants me to crank out 10 position reqs before the 4p meeting. But I'm so hungry I can't think straight, and all the good bagels in the kitchen have been taken... What am I gonna say... I know, lemme just mouse-grab from this other startup's jobsite over here..."

<comment><USER4> This attitude is counter-productive and will lead to only being able to get jobs precisely like the ones you describe, where you're over-worked and underpaid.

Work is what you make of it. If you want to hate work, that thing you have to spend 40+ hours of your week doing, then nobody is going to stop you.

One can make work into something that adds to your life instead of takes away from it. If you can figure out how to do this then you'll find that everything about your life changes utterly for the better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Others have said this, but what they mean is that the pay will be poor regardless of the qualifications requested.

The point is that employers are now very comfortable with paying experienced people poorly; this works well to serve their interests as it keeps wages depressed, saving costs. The trick is getting the job-seekers to be comfortable with being undervalued-- and so, job seekers are told implicitly that they are not valuable (they don't have enough experience to get an entry level job or that the experience they already have doesn't take them above entry level), in the hopes that they start to believe the putdowns and settle for a weak opportunity. This malice hurts everyone except employers; recent grads are "too inexperienced" to get their first job, and people who are just finishing up their first or even second job are most likely forced to take another job at the same level before they can move up.

I have applied to these mid-level (yet advertised as entry level) jobs and was eminently qualified for a few, resulting in interviews. The cherry on top is that the interviewers tried to imply that I was unqualified. To reiterate, the employers attempted to minimize the experience I had even though it was enough to get the interview. I am sure that this regrettable behavior was posturing designed to somehow result in lower wages paid out. This has happened to me multiple times!

The career ladder is being pulled up behind the people who made it to the middle level first. Of course, this is just another damned instance of eating the young to feed the old.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is so relevant to me. Mainly the years of experience part.

I've always been a technical minded person who dabbles in coding for side projects. I've come to a point in my career where I want my side work, coding (web to be specific), to actually be my professional career.

I'm willing to take a significant pay cut to do so and I've been searching Indeed, LinkedIn, and Angel for weeks now.

For the record I am in Boston. Not only are junior postings so rare, but when I do find them, they are as this article describes: "2-3 years+ professional experience and proficient in at least one of the following".

I get Boston is wildly competitive now, so do I accept this as the junior/entry expectations? So I'll never be qualified unless I go to a bootcamp? Do I just grind and start my own business or large portfolio on the side?

Or is there agreement that these junior requirements are too aggressive in this space?

<comment><USER8> Well first, have you actually applied to any of the places that asked for that experience? A lot of places will settle for far less than their advert asks. Second, have you emphasised your side-projects sufficiently? If you sell them properly, those count as professional experience.

<comment><USER9> I can echo this. Speaking as someone who has sat on the hiring side a fair bit, years of experience is almost always a guideline and/or set based on HR requirements if it's a large company ("Oh, you are looking to hire an X? That requires Y years of experience").

The job description is to fill a role. It's loosely what the hiring manager's understanding of what it will take to fill that role would require. A compelling case for why you have what it takes to fill the role, regardless of what the hiring manager thought it would take, will still be considered. A curious mind, someone self motivated and learning about technology on their own, and showing that they've done things with it, who establishes a good rapport when interviewing, is -more- desirable, to me at least, than someone who just checks off the qualifications, at least for entry level.

My team actually recently hired someone who doesn't have a CS degree, and who never did any development, but who had done solutions contracting, configuring and patching together off the shelf solutions to meet customer needs. That is, has a track record of figuring out and solving problems, with technology, with minimal code (scripts to tie things together, that sort of thing). It was just above entry level, and with the expectation that some training and mentoring would need to happen, but everyone on the team felt this person would be a positive

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Then the bomb dropped. Every entry level position I looked at required 3+ years of experience;_

It's amazing how many job ads contain statements in plain, black-and-white English that make no sense whatsoever, either in the real world or just in terms of logical self-consistency. Another one of my favorites is:

 _Minimum of 3-5 years ..._

Why not just say "Minimum of 3 years"? Does the person who wrote this really not understand that they're saying?

One has to wonder.

</comment><comment><USER10> There are 2 subplots this article has yet to unfold, which will only be revealed on the other side of the hiring process, after landing a seemingly desirable job.

      1. HR's fortifications, subversive booby traps and
         no-mans-land designed to repel applications by
         way of sinister salary negotiations, that leave
         behind a simmering animosity even after getting
         hired.

      2. On the other side of the wall, all of your co-
         workers turn out to be fantastically retarded,
         including your own boss and boss' bosses, largely
         due to HR's low-ball tactics, leaving you with
         the startling realization that the job description
         and hiring interrogation (ahem! interview) was
         all smoke and mirrors.

See also:

[http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais- principle-o...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or- the-office-according-to-the-office/)

<comment><USER11> This is so on point. After graduating college I found myself in the "loser" layer surrounded by the "clueless." The org was so big I didn't even get to see the "sociopaths" at the top. 2 years of putting in the "bare minimum" I quit only to find the same structure in my new job. I'm now planning my second exit this time hoping to find a lower paying but cushier job were I can serve my 8 hour daily sentence without having to talk to anyone and in a real office probably browsing HN all day (I already have a couple of apps out there).

I've also been working on FIRE, entrepreneurship and hobbies that could provide income. But the most important thing and what I wish I knew when I was starting my adult life is that obtaining true happiness from a career is bullshit. I now enjoy spending my time with family and on my own interests. I just wish I had more of that time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I recently saw a position open that required 5 years Laravel experience.

It hasn't even been available for 5 years.

<comment><USER13> Haha. Comical.

On the other hand, it's nice of them to provide evidence of their unrealistic expectations right in the ad. Now you know not to waste any time with them!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I am a big fan of finding work through referrals, though that obviously doesn't work for the initial position.

An alternative I'd consider is the pain letter and addressing hiring managers directly, as outlined here: [http://www.humanworkplace.com/whats-pain- letter/](http://www.humanworkplace.com/whats-pain-letter/)

I know when I was hiring junior folks (for a small company), I would have been blown away by the larger perspective a pain letter indicates.

<comment> lloyd-christmas Referrals DO work for the initial position. I'm a developer and spend my entire day staring at a screen. When I was on the job hunt, I barely sat in front of my screen. Referrals come from meeting people, whether or not it's from prior work or just a good random conversation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've always read requirements for tech jobs to be a laundry list of things that are "nice to haves". Read "requirements" as "skills we're interested in," even if they have an explicit section for bonus talents.

This is especially true for junior and/or entry level roles. Every place I've seen just has an eternally published "opening" on theirs careers section. They keep it there so that when they finally decide that they're ready to hire, they'll have a ready-made pool to of résumés from which to draw.

If you're not experienced enough, you'll be able to tell from a specific, well written job description. If it's full of buzz words and meaningless fluff, they're not looking for someone specific and you should apply.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think the commonality of "three years experience" is probably more a function of the author searching for jobs in the design side of industry. The fact that portfolio requirements come as a shock and are seen as a burden suggests unfamiliarity with design culture. Filtering people based on their commitment or non-commitment to aesthetics is legitimate here...and design aesthetics aren't about resolution.

Anyway, the portfolio requirement is meant to balance the experience requirement.

</comment><comment><USER16> Man, some of you kids should have been around in the late 1990's bubble.

"Wow, you can spell 'internet' without sticking an A in there? Here is a job!"

Didn't go so well for those people when it burst.

But that's nothing to say of the surrounding jobs. I was in this company that blew up to something like a 3:1 ratio of sales/marketing to developers. Eek!

Company parties had live bands and free booze, with unlimited repeats (no two- drink-vouchers bullshit).

<comment><USER17> >"Wow, you can spell 'internet' without sticking an A in there? Here is a job!"

We went on to "Wow, you can write javascript without having any formal CS education or any regards concerning optimization? Here is a job!". Not sure it's better.

<comment><USER18> I guess you've never built a product for a business then? Someone who can write Javascript and deliver features that work (even if inefficient) is actually providing significant value to the company. Customers pay for features, not formal CS education.

<comment><USER17> Apply analogy to any construction work. I can build a house with terrible foundations. It may work right now, but sooner or later you're going to need to change it before it collapses. And the price of doing so is much, much greater than properly building it at first.

Same thing happens with software. Yeah, it works now, but the cost of the 10-dev team required to maintain it after is going to end up being a greater cost than properly writing software (if there is such as thing.)

<comment><USER18> Except cs degrees don't teach you anything about properly writing software. I've encountered plenty of graduates from top CS curriculums that couldn't code their way out of a paper bag. Understanding finite automata and formal methods does jack shit to help you write maintainable code. So your example of a 10-dev team maintaining code would apply more to a fresh CS grad's work than someone that has any experience writing software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Pure UX Designers are s dying breed. I know a bunch of designers and they confirm this. You need to know how to code on top of UX design. Finding pure UX design jobs are hard and in 5 years it might be extinct. It's just the nature of the industry unfortunately n

<comment><USER20> As a designer myself I can promise you that any UX designer employed at a respectable company already knows how to code.

The change that I see coming soon is that designers will be required to program. I don't think we'll see Front-end Developers and Designers (be it visual, UX or Product) as separate job roles for much longer.

I certainly don't think this is a good thing. I'm constantly reminded of how tedious and time consuming Front-end development. I'd much rather spend my days designing experiences, but I don't see that as a possibility in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Seattle seems to be one of the worst markets for this. We have a huge number of job openings in tech, but very few entry level openings.

</comment><comment><USER22> "Oh no, different companies have different requirements for a position that has the same name!"

</comment><comment> lloyd-christmas "3+ years" is a filter for people who give up or have self-doubt. We put that on our job postings because it filters out people who don't think they are qualified. People with 1 year experience applying to a 3+ year position DO get their resumes glanced at (the reason I say 1 is because we rarely hire a straight up college grad, because we want someone who has a month of working in an office that understands the difference between the college sensitivity bubble and real life)

A tough realization for the entry-level people: You're not special and your "skills" are meaningless. Entry-level hiring is a crapshoot. You just hope you get someone that is capable of learning so you don't waste 3 months of training and then have to go back to hiring the next useless entry-level person.

My words of advice: If you're reading a job posting, you're not going to get the job. People get jobs by meeting other human beings. If you want to deal with jobs online, throw a bunch of random buzzwords on your linkedIn profile and wait for the recruiter swarm to come vett your bullshit.

<comment><USER23> I'm sure this toxic hiring strategy serves your company's interests well, but is terrible for the industry. Let's all adopt this approach and in a few years there won't be anyone taking someone from 0 experience to 1-3 years.

<comment> lloyd-christmas Training someone for a job is expensive. Training two people for one job is even more expensive. Dragging me away from programming to review resumes/interview people that don't even think themselves qualified is that much more expensive. I'm happy to train someone. I've actually really enjoyed it over the years. What I don't like is having to train two people for the same position. THAT'S a toxic hiring strategy.

<comment><USER24> The first rule of getting hired is never to show any sign of humility or weakness.

Pity that once you are actually in the job, it's not very helpful to have a bunch of egomaniacal Dunning-Kruger cases running around.

<comment><USER25> _> The first rule of getting hired is never to show any sign of humility or weakness._

I don't think this is true at all. I'm very comfortable saying "I have no idea" in an interview setting (though I think it's generally understood that I'll go find out), I'm generally up-front with weaknesses in that, hey, there are things that I just don't work well with. There are a bajillion jobs out there, and it doesn't make any sense to push a bad fit.

<comment><USER26> It depends entirely on the company. The first rule of getting hired _at a company run by sociopaths or brogrammers_ is never to show any sign of humility or weakness. Some people seem to think that's the only kind of company there is, so that bit is sometimes accidentally left out.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Orderly, a textual format for describing JSON - <AUTHOR> http://orderly-json.org/

<comment><USER2> I forsee the day where JSON-related technologies become as complex as XML- related ones, and people start moving to the next simple thing.

<comment><USER3> I agree... Who here has a use for this and/or JSONSchema (which I didn't know existed until today)? Javascript is a dynamic language, so why add this type of stuff onto it to make it more friendly to static languages.

If you're storing things so complicated that it needs to be validated in JSON format, perhaps you should choose a different serialization format.

<comment><USER4> I couldn't agree more, and will tell you that we're already there. I'm working on a project right now with an exceedingly complex JSON API. There isn't a day that goes by that I wish I could have gone back in time and had the team use XML instead.

<comment><USER5> Have you considered applying JSONSchema or Orderly to your current project?

<comment><USER4> It's definitely something I'm going to be looking at in the very near future. The pain we're experiencing is definitely worsened by the fact that it's largely undocumented internally as well.

Have you had experience with either technology, and if so, do you have a recommendation one way or the other?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> See also: Avro

<http://hadoop.apache.org/avro/docs/current/>

(Not for the JSON, but for the lightweight cross-platform schema part.)

</comment><comment><USER7> I can't wait to have a textual format that will describe Orderly

</comment><comment><USER8> This seems really useful for statically typed languages. Use a code generator and manipulate JSON in a typesafe way.

Now if there were such a thing for Scala... (Anyone wanting to work on that?)

<comment><USER9> A very interesting idea.

That would basically be like writing another generator for the current orderly implementation. one capable of writing code. The thing would basically eat orderly_nodes and poop code.

Here's the intermediate representation of nodes that it could work from:

[http://github.com/lloyd/orderly/blob/master/src/api/node.h#L...](http://github.com/lloyd/orderly/blob/master/src/api/node.h#L82,L125)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like it - reminds me a lot of RelaxNG compact syntax.</comment>


Assume 8 SCOTUS justices. How to avoid Bush vs. Gore and secure voting machines? - <AUTHOR> Assume
1. A US Supreme Court Justice dies and a replacement is not confirmed before November.
2. A few US states like Florida have a sizable number of elderly registered voters die before November.
3. A state actor is motivated to tamper with voting machine software in a way that is:
- Obvious to Democrats who are biased to believe that Russia wants to help Trump win.
- Invisible to Republicans who are biased to believe this "hacking" is a hoax by Democrats.
In a world of "filter-bubbles" and with current vulnerabilities of vote-counting software[1], can we design a system which can prevent a division in belief in the legitimacy of the 2020 election?
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/voting-village-results-hacking-decade-old-bugs/ <comment><USER2> If the Supreme Court doesn't reach a majority decision on anything, then the decision of the relevant appeals court stands, in this case probably the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is a good point. So at least there is _a_ default decision. I am still concerned about it being seen as authoritative enough, but it does also increase the likelihood that SCOTUS would align around an existing decision.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Can we keep this kind of poisonous mind game off of HN?

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you mean by poisonous mind game?</comment></comment>


Apple Music is poised to kill every other streaming service - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@savjani/apple-music-is-poised-to-to-kill-every-other-streaming-service-cb190a1ecf07

<comment><USER2> Yes, the author gets it. No other music streaming service can come close to what Apple will offer in terms of the complete customer experience.

What puzzles me is that Apple has been streaming its entire iTunes music library for several years via iTunes Radio, yet Apple is marketing Apple Music as an entirely new venture. iTunes Radio is ad-free if you pay $25/year for iTunes Match. That means their current streaming service costs at most about $2/month.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is possible. I think they would do 2 year free subscription though, for that is when people would switch their phones anyways.</comment>


Show HN: My 4-hour project, why it failed - <AUTHOR> http://campsh.com/peter#23

<comment><AUTHOR> OH NO, FAIL WHALE!

TL;DR until I get it back up... I made <http://www.weedtee.com> one afternoon for a friend when he got obsessed with this story - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2173155>

We put it up yesterday, it did not go viral.

</comment><comment><USER2> Not exactly the type of project I expected to see on HN.

But actually ... I like it, I might even buy one as a gift for a stoner friend.

The design (of weedtee.com) is a bit heavy. I'm using a crappy comp connected to RDP and it took it about 5-10 seconds just to render the page. Maybe (a slight) redesign will help you turn visitors into customers?

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, thanks for the tip. Is it the javascript that's taking a while or just downloading the page? The background image is on the LARGE side.

<comment><USER2> A little of both. It takes a while for the background image to load, maybe you can compress it without noticeable quality loss? Then again, it should be fine with a normal connection on a normal computer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for sharing, this is why I love HackerNews - even fails are wins.

</comment><comment><USER4> too bad. I'd say save it for the next time prop 19 rolls around.

</comment><comment><USER5> Failed because of a crappy server? I can't see anything.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I'm running apache on a cheap ubuntu VPS from Enotch. Anyone want to help me with this?

<comment><USER6> The quickest way to handle lots of load on an article is to make a static html page of your article and serve that instead of your wordpress/whatever resource intensive website.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nutrition facts for humans might be fun, too. Useful for vampires at least.</comment>


Ask HN: What does a college startup club need to do? - <AUTHOR>

I run the Entrepreneurs Society at my college (Georgia Tech). We are rebooting the group and what is the best things we can do for our members next year?<p>Please suggest. <comment><USER2> Make sure people are making things, rather than just talking about making things.

Don't have idea competitions. Have an MVP competition.

<comment><USER3> One of the major advantages to actually making things is that the students will be making things _with each other_. As many have said before, figuring out who to build a product with is just as important (or more so, even) than figuring out what to build.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Instead of a business plan competition, how about a competition where students must create and refine a value proposition and launch a real product or service (alpha version). The new ventures in the competition can be judged based on a range of tangible criteria, such as (a) how many customers have agreed to trial the product, (b) what kind of feedback have customers provided, (c) how much revenue has been generated, etc. I think such a competition would provide much more value to students than a traditional business plan competition, in part because it would force students to not only formulate a venture idea but also execute and test the idea with real customers.

<comment><USER5> From my personal experiences, I don't think that would work as well for a few of reasons:

\- Students don't have that much time - just creating a business plan and convincing presentation/pitch was hard enough for most groups at our school. Actually funding an idea and executing is much harder and more time consuming, especially if you're taking a lot of credit hours.

\- With our business plan competition, we would start out with a large number of interested students and that number would drop with each meeting. I'm not sure how many students would be able to manage (or have interest) in pursuing their business until the end of the competition.

\- This would only work for certain businesses and eliminate ones that require research or a significant time investment. When I took part in the competition, we were competing with a group working on a medical product that will hopefully save lives one day. They were at the very early stages of their prototype after having researched the principles behind it for a couple of years. They won the competition and I think(hope?) used the funds for their business.

\- I assume it would also be harder to judge, as different businesses have different measures of success (based on revenue, # of customers, etc.)

All that said I do wish students would actively pursue a business to learn the ins and outs of it through active involvement. I just don't think it's feasible to do it through a competition. Maybe the whole entrepreneurship club could work on a business together though? Or find a struggling local business and help them - that would be an immense learning experience in itself (I wish there was a class that did that).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You could start a business plan (or elevator pitch) competition. Find sponsors to donate a few thousand as the prize money and get local entrepreneurs, angel investors and VCs to judge.

We do it at UNC (<http://www.carolinachallenge.org/>) and it does a few things:

      - inspires and motivates students to start a business
      - brings attention to the entrepreneurship club or business school
      - provides funding to a new company (if the students choose to run with it)

<comment><USER6> Definitely a great idea! RPI (my college) recently hosted one, and was even able to bring in an alumnus who is now at a Silicon Valley VC to judge it.

More details here: <http://www.eship.rpi.edu/elevator.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's what it shouldn't do: have meetings where they read many different theories of entrepreneurship off a powerpoint. That represents our Entrepreneurship club.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'd recommend checking out University of Michigan's entrepreneurship club, called MPowered: <http://mpowered.umich.edu/>

I don't actually go there, but I subscribed to their mailing list when I considered starting something similar at my college. Definitely a great group to model!

NC State also hosts some great entrepreneurship events for their students, including spring break trips to Silicon Valley and China. <http://www.ncsu.edu/ei/events.php>

Finally, I'd say Stanford BASES pretty much sets the standard for student entrepreneurship groups. <http://bases.stanford.edu/>

Good luck!

<comment><USER8> I'm a member of MPowered at the University of Michigan. I can answer any questions anyone has.

It's not listed on the website, but I'm on MPowered's team that's launching a new program in the dorms that groups a bunch of entrepreneurial students together to live and work together and mentor each other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> your previous submission suggests that you go to georgia tech. i think you should encourage students of the club to participate in the already established events such as:

1.the business plan competition: <http://bit.ly/dcT6TP> 2.the inventure prize: <http://bit.ly/4xGF6T> 3.social entrepreneurship competition: <http://bit.ly/94WkWn> 4.yahoo hack week & the like. 5.participate in the atlanta startup weekend

<comment><AUTHOR> We are going to be doing these (and possible sending a bunch of kids to startup weekend for free too ;-)

We are hoping to do something more cause there still exists a void at Tech.

Business Plan Competition - focus is on the BP and not on doing anything

Inventure - Focus is on inventing something - not startups or the business side - more on making a (physical) product to sell

Social entrepreneurship - same as business plan

Hack week - The closest thing to what I am hoping for but with more focus on making money ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Leverage that alum network. Host a forum. Invite successful entrepreneur alums to give keynote speeches and participate on panels. Invite vc / angel alums to network with students.

</comment><comment><USER11> Make sure that you don't put people in charge who enjoy talking about being an entrepreneur and who merely love the idea of being an entrepreneur. The entrepreneur society at my school (which I helped run) was about 50/50 among the membership. Once a few from the wrong side start running it, things will stop getting done (but at least everyone will look really good doing it).

</comment><comment><USER12> I agree with doing a business plan/idea competition. I would also do a startup weekend where people can come together on a weekend and do a 48 hour competition where people come together to start an idea and implement the business in the 48 hours. Then hold a panel of judges from professors to give feedback and vote for the best.

<comment><USER13> we do something like that at UT: <http://3daystartup.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> i'll offer a snarky comment followed by a constructive one (so i hopefully get a net vote count of zero)

1.) _at my college (a top 10 engineering school)_

why the mention of 'top 10 engineering school'? is that relevant to your entrepreneurs society? if so, you should just name your school. perhaps start- up hackers or founders living near your school could offer some in-person help. if not, then there's no point in 'half-boasting'.

2.) Find somebody who you look up to in the entrepreneurial world, contact him/her, and figure out a way to get him/her to engage in a live discussion with your group. Ideally, it would be an in-person visit, but more likely, a group video chat could still be useful (e.g., 10 students could huddle around a webcam and ask questions for the 1 expert)

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure why I wrote that ;-p. Fixed it now though. I think I might have been trying to add a bit of mystery to the whole thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I would love to do something similar at Emory and eventually get a joint group going that includes the metro colleges. Please contact me asap. :)</comment>


Ask HN: Should managers be asking employees to multitask? - <AUTHOR> I suspect that more and more managers will demand that they need someone "who can switch gears as time-sensitive items come up and juggle a few things at once".<p>Thoughts? Where should the line be drawn? <comment><USER2> I think that line is different for each person and very task dependent.

Personally I have no issues multitasking when I'm doing coordinator , oversight, or review type work. I can handle many requests coming in, provide answers to different people on different projects, etc...

When having to do development work I find it almost impossible to multitask. It takes time to review and get in the right headspace to start. Any interruptions break my flow and it takes time to get back in rhythm. Something that should take a few hours of dedicated time can take days if there's constant interruptions.

While multitasking is something we should all be able to handle a good manager should know their team and work styles to allow them to be most productive.</comment>


Tesla Motors Plans I.P.O. to Raise $100 Million - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/30/business/energy-environment/30tesla.html?ref=technology <comment><USER2> That's actually one of very few tech IPOs that makes some sense.

I wish the Tesla people lots of strength, the car industry is a very bad place to be active in at the moment.

They have a unique proposition, they've done some clever marketing. By taking the 'prius' out of the electric car market and showing they can be sexy as well as good performers they've made a lot of people less skeptical about electric propulsion.

Let's hope they stick around and will manage to establish themselves as a long term brand, it is probably a requirement for at least one party to fully focus on electric instead of having to offer a whole range of vehicles, like that they can optimize where others will have to compromise.

Their model S is still two to three years away, if and when it starts shipping it will be a very interesting development.

</comment><comment><USER3> SEC Filing: [http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/00011931251001705...](http://sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000119312510017054/ds1.htm)

This isn't necessarily a good thing for the sector/company.

Also:

Risks Affecting Us

 _Risk Factors:

our limited operating history makes evaluating our business and future prospects difficult, and may increase the risk of your investment;

we have a history of losses and we expect significant increases in our costs and expenses to result in continuing losses for at least the foreseeable future;

our future growth is dependent upon consumers' willingness to adopt electric vehicles;

we are dependent upon our ability to fully draw down on our loan facility from the United States Department of Energy, which may restrict our ability to conduct our business;

our distribution model is different from the predominant current distribution model for automobile manufacturers, which makes evaluating our business, operating results and future prospects difficult;

we are almost entirely dependent upon revenue generated from the sale of our electric vehicles, specifically the Tesla Roadster, in the near term, and our future success will be dependent upon our ability to design and achieve market acceptance of new vehicle models, and specifically the Model S;

we anticipate that we will experience a decrease in revenues and increase in losses prior to the launch of the Model S;

our production model for the non-powertrain portion of the Model S is unproven, still evolving and is very different from the non-powertrain portion of the production model for the Tesla Roadster; and

we may experience significant delays in the design, manufacture, launch and financing of the Model S._</comment>


Support the FSF: Help us stop Restricted Boot - <AUTHOR> http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot/2012-appeal <comment><USER2> I totally agree. First unlock the bootloader of the iDevices and some Androids and then we can talk ... it is hypocritical to rage against windows machines and leave phone and tablet vendors have its ways.</comment>


The German front in rare color photos, 1914-1918 - <AUTHOR> https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/hans-hildenbrand-german-front-in-rare-color-photos-1914-1918/ <comment><USER2> Wow. For some reason what gets me most is the... blue skies.

I've always had decent imagination to turn black and white _people_ into color, and the same with buildings, etc.

But somehow I always mentally kept the skies as gray... as if the death and destruction of the war warranted overcast dreary weather, for years on end.

The idea that WWI was fought on many days that were brilliantly sunny somehow makes it even more depressing in a way.

<comment><USER3> DeOldify is going quite good job on old photos: [https://github.com/jantic/DeOldify](https://github.com/jantic/DeOldify)

<comment><USER4> I love all these colorizations, especially videos (easy to find on YT).

One thing I've been wondering about: Is it possible that the ML algo turns the faces into more "modern" faces because it's presumably trained on later color footage?

<comment><USER5> It's an inherent problem of all ML systems to extrapolate from training data only.

You can get dramatically different results depending on your training data set.

The only real issue with that is treating any of the outputs as "realistic" representations in terms of "close to the original scene". It's just a modern interpretation and the viewer needs to keep that in mind at all times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For anyone that hasn't seen They Shall Not Grow Old, I highly recommend it.

Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings fame) spent years working with the British government to digitize and colorize their old footage of World War I. They also added in sound using the actual military equipment that was used in the field during the war. They also hired lip readers to figure out what each person was saying and added in dialogue.

It's really incredible and makes the war (which was only 100 years ago) feel much more modern than old black and white footage.

Trailer: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrabKK9Bhds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrabKK9Bhds)

<comment><USER7> I would also recommend the documentary series Apocalypse: World War I which also contains colorized footage and dubbed sound effects.

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

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also see [1] and [2].

The rest of that rarehistoricalphotos.com site is well worth browsing for many more amazing photos.

[1] - "Rare pictures of London in Dufaycolor, 1943-1945" \- [https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/rare-pictures-london- dufayc...](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/rare-pictures-london- dufaycolor-1943-1945/)

[2] - "Rare color pictures from Russian Empire, 1905-1915" \- [https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/rare-color-pictures- russian...](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/rare-color-pictures-russian- empire-1905-1915/)

<comment><USER8> Prokudin-Gorskii's photograph of a simple railway bridge has always struck me the most of any early color photograph. The quality is such that it could have easily been taken today with a good camera.

[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prokudin- Gorskii-25....](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Prokudin- Gorskii-25.jpg)

<comment><USER9> The shot was created in 2004 using software to combine digitized negatives. IMO it is hard to say exactly how much of that impression is to be attributed to software capabilities, the colors in the Wikipedia version are definitely touched up. (Great shot though, hands down.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Somewhat related, there have been some impressive ML-powered video remasterings recently (colorized and upscaled to 4K at 60 fps):

\- Footage Of The First Flying Machines 1890-1910: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_G1YbItY9o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_G1YbItY9o)

\- A Trip Through New York City in 1911: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ1OgQL9_Cw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ1OgQL9_Cw)

\- Views of Tokyo, Japan, 1913-1915: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQAmZ_kR8S8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQAmZ_kR8S8)

<comment><USER11> The New York 1911 is amazingly well done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I thought _1917_ was a pretty good representation of what it must have been like. If you remember, it was filmed as if it was a long, continuous shot, and the way the actors would walk from what was a (literal) "hellhole," to a beautiful, green, field, was jarring.

The thing that struck me, was the _quality_ of these trenches. It's possible the photos were propaganda, so they only took pictures of the "good" trenches, but every picture you see of allied trenches looked like ditches.

That said, a quick shufti at the casualty figures[0] shows that the _absolute worst_ place to be, during the war, was in a German trench.

[0] [https://wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties)

<comment><USER13> > It's possible the photos were propaganda, so they only took pictures of the > "good" trenches, but every picture you see of allied trenches looked like > ditches.

It's not really propaganda, German trenches were on average much better than allied ones. The reason was that the allied side considered itself on the offensive, and saw no reason to makes the trenches more livable since they expected to leave them as soon as possible to advance in newly reconquered territory.

<comment><USER14> > The reason was that the allied side considered itself on the offensive, and > saw no reason to makes the trenches more livable since they expected to > leave them as soon as possible to advance in newly reconquered territory.

There is a certain irony in that, considering that almost every Allied soldier who set foot on German soil – with a few minor exceptions – did so as prisoner of war.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What a complete waste of human lives, that will only set the scene for an even more horrible war afterwards. For what...

<comment><USER16> For Europe at least, WW1 was worse than WW2.

Arguably it's just one 31-year war with a generation-long cessation of hostilities in the middle to mature more cannon fodder for the meat grinder.

<comment><USER17> I guess this depends on your definition of "Europe" and "worst".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> That shot of the men lining the trench... with cloth hats. No helmets.

Imagine the constant artillery bombardment above you - shrapnel and rock everywhere - and you're wearing not much more than a baseball hat.

Truly an incredible time in history - these old armies colliding with a new type of war.

<comment><USER19> Do helmets significantly reduce casualities or are they more like a courage device that makes the wearer feel less vulnerable?

<comment><USER20> WW1 helmets are as effective as their modern day counterparts

[https://scitechdaily.com/shocking-results-when-wwi- helmets-w...](https://scitechdaily.com/shocking-results-when-wwi-helmets-were- compared-to-modern-military-designs/)

<comment><USER21> That's only against overhead shockwaves and states in the article that serious advancements have been made to protect from other types of damage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What strikes me the most are how short the soldiers are. In most photos with standing soldiers, they look to me as not fully grown children.

<comment><USER23> Everyone was shorter 100 years ago.

Bad nutrition stunts height and IQ.

[https://time.com/4423803/how-tall-100-years- height/](https://time.com/4423803/how-tall-100-years-height/)

<comment><USER24> Bad nutrition or just less protein?

I say this because I was just looking at another thread where people were arguing about whether a vegetarian diet is suitable for humans.

And I vaguely remember reading about how average height increases in a given society as meat becomes more available and less of a luxury.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I feel like when I look at these photos in colour, they are more impactful. Like when it's in black and white I think that's Long time ago. But in colour I feel it's not so long ago.

</comment><comment><USER26> Sometimes when I'm feeling a little blue I'll remind myself I am not crouched in a foxhole (in freezing or burning weather) with people across the field trying to shoot me.

Usually makes whatever's bothering me seem insignificant. Photos like these remind me that scenario has been real for many, many people.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm quite speechless to imagine all the human energy involved in all of this

<comment><USER28> I study WW2, and at the start you're unsettled by the number of casualties (in the realm of 70 million through 1945.)

But over time you also realize the entire industrial output of the Allies was used to defeat the Axis, and you become completely disgusted at the monumental waste.

Historians agree that the Axis never had a chance of winning in the longterm (aside from extreme luck), and WW2 was a result of US isolationism. Had the US promised to send 2 million troops to Europe as in WW1, Germany would not have bothered with most of their adventures.

We've had relative peace since 1945 thanks to US military investment, but one passive speech from the Whitehouse can undermine that deterrent, as Jimmy Carter did before.

<comment><USER29> The US didn't have 2M active duty troops available to send to Europe in 1939. We were still in the Great Depression. Even if there had been political will to oppose the Axis Powers at that time, the funding and materiel simply didn't exist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > World War I was a significant turning point in the political, cultural, > economic, and social climate of the world.

Prior to WWI, Western Europeans saw themselves as the God-ordained masters of the world. They carved up Asia(including China and Africa into zones of influence. They were typically the senior military partners in any alliance they entered into.

After the horrors of WWI, it was over. WWII was just the final chapter of WWI. Now, Instead of being the senior military partners, they would be the junior partners (see NATO and the Warsaw Pact). They would lose their colonies. They would at best, be one region of the world among many in terms of global power.

<comment><USER31> I am always amazed that _Brave New World_ is taught as dystopic. Maybe it's over the top in its anti-reactionary elements, but considering that everyone except for a single suicidal (not saying it's because he was viviparous, some of my best friends have been born viviparously...) misfit has a pleasant life, one would think utilitarians should be as fond of Huxley as others are of Rand.

<comment><USER32> I strongly agree with you. Brave New World is a utopian novel desperately trying to appear dystopic. With just a few small changes, to account for the existence of automation/robots/computers, the darker aspects (e.g. the population of deltas) stop being plausible within the universe.

The TV show had to invent a lot of extra nonsense to introduce conflict. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of Brave New World is that things are so stable, human needs are met so consistently, that life ceases to be a struggle; without a struggle, life becomes meaningless. That interpretation is alluded to in the TV show, but I won't spoil it.

We should be working as hard as possible to move society closer to brave new world and further from 1984.

<comment><USER33> > We should be working as hard as possible to move society closer to brave new > world and further from 1984.

I never thought that this idea was even conceivable. Brave new world is orders of magnitude more terrifying than 1984. It describes a complete dead end, the last throes just before the thermal death of mankind. Heck, even the novel "Atomised", that describes the disappearance of homo sapiens, is not as grim as brave new world. How can you seriously read brave new world as utopian?

<comment><USER31> Very easily. Taking utilitarianism to be maximisation of happiness and well- being, how many people in _Brave New World_ are happy? unhappy? Is there any lack of well-being, outside of the savage reservations?

As to "more terrifying", _1984_ features actual repression (albeit mostly operative only for ~13% of the population). On the other hand, the _Brave New World_ achieves stability voluntarily, via consumerism.

What are three dead ends in the _Brave New World_?

<comment><USER34> It's worth reading Marcuse (and Adorno) for their criticisms of precisely the kind of world laid out in Brave New World, and even as they were speaking from the 50s and 60s, their points were intimately related to society at the time, and even today's society. Marcuse called it 'one dimensionality' and highlighted the dangers of total administration, while Adorno lamented the 'culture industry'. They precisely answer to the simple utilitarian position, and precisely the repression that arises. Contra Orwell's idea of "war is peace, peace is war", Marcuse argued that now the contradiction is not so obvious, but hidden in the noun itself. We speak of 'freedom', but the word 'freedom' itself has been overloaded with things which are characteristically unfree. The view of repression as simple, brute force violence and surveillanace is only scratching the surface. It ignores autonomy, the dangers to democracy, the loss of critical capacity, and alienation.

It's worth noting that even J.S. Mill recognized some problem with pure utilitarianism, and tried to interject with a distinction between higher and lower pleasures. He recognized the problem, but could not solve it with pure philosophy that starts from the sole measure of the good as being pleasure and the absence of pain. Mill's account is thus inconsistent, but what he was getting at was incredibly important, and it's a bit of a shame to see this classification of society in terms of the number of people happy versus unhappy repeated in 2020, when Mill saw a problem with it in the early 19th century.

<comment><USER31> Thank you! It will take a while for me to read up on these lines. In the meantime, I'll note that if Huxley had been a utilitarian himself, he would probably not have written _Island_ [1].

A 1961 take on 'freedom' being just another word: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhSKk- cvblc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhSKk-cvblc)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_(Huxley_novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_\(Huxley_novel\))

> "If I were now to rewrite the book, I would offer the Savage a third > alternative. Between the Utopian and primitive horns of his dilemma would > lie the possibility of sanity... In this community economics would be > decentralist and Henry-Georgian, politics Kropotkinesque and co-operative. > Science and technology would be used as though, like the Sabbath, they had > been made for man, not (as at present and still more so in the Brave New > World) as though man were to be adapted and enslaved to them. Religion would > be the conscious and intelligent pursuit of man's Final End, the unitive > knowledge of immanent Tao or Logos, the transcendent Godhead or Brahman. And > the prevailing philosophy of life would be a kind of Higher Utilitarianism, > in which the Greatest Happiness principle would be secondary to the Final > End principle – the first question to be asked and answered in every > contingency of life being: "How will this thought or action contribute to, > or interfere with, the achievement, by me and the greatest possible number > of other individuals, of man's Final End?"</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Datachains: AI driven DAOs for incentivizing taste-based content delivery - <AUTHOR> http://roberts.pm/datachain <comment><USER2> Not to be too cynical, but I find it difficult to imagine that we need blockchain-paid AI to find porn on the internet.

I understand that is just an example, but it is completely unclear to me why this is better in any way at all than the existing systems (even for use-cases outside porn).

The AI bots need to operate on computers somewhere. If they are on your computer then great, but there is no need for a blockchain (unless it is for payment for whatever they are buying for you. In which case the payment system can be abstracted away - you just need some kind of trusted payments, which may or may not be blockchain based).

If it runs on other's computers then (1) Why?, and (2) then the payment is for the computing resource rent, not just the content. This kind of makes a little bit of sense (people pay to run computing agents on eg Amazon or Google infrastructure now, in some cases because of the large datasets they make available). In this case the AI is just a distraction though.

Just saying AI+Blockchain doesn't magically make it amazing.

<comment><AUTHOR> These are good questions. The short answer is that the blockchain offers several benefits over a traditional payment system like allowing the people mining the content to be guaranteed payment (no matter what) and helping to preserve privacy in those paying for it. Such benefits would be very hard to provide if everything was done using a traditional financial system, not to mention the fees could potentially be quite prohibitive.

With something like a peer-to-peer network you also gain the power to scale up and locate content over the Internet more quickly than something like a few data centers might give you (which may not be as distributed as running a peer-to-peer network of retrieval agents for searching disparate data sets.) The benefits are more pronounced for running datachains for controversial content where a distributed, incentivized ledger can help preserve the intended purpose (and chain of content) far better than entrusted everything to a centralized organization or list of computers.

Admittedly, there are lot of bizarre projects in the blockchain space at the moment, so I'll keep thinking about whether this truly makes sense to do in practice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Really unfortunate that DAOHub & Slock.it tarnished the name and concept of DAOs. There is place for some specialised DAOs that will indeed help some use cases.

I really believe that eventually some proper DAO will prove their value.

</comment><comment><USER4> complete garbage.</comment>


Sam's String Matching Algorithms Collection - <AUTHOR> http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~sam/stringmetrics.html

<comment><USER2> I'm talking about this kind of thing (fuzzy string matching) at the Central PA Open Source Conference tomorrow:

      http://www.cposc.org/

Also have slides (keynote, ppt, pdf, and example code) here:

      http://github.com/kyleburton/fuzzy-string

Interesting and useful algorithms.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! Somehow I missed Text::Brew. Looks interesting.

I've found that scoring is a rather slow operation (relatively speaking), and so at the very least people should consider using memoization when they score or some other technique to reduce frequent scoring of identical terms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great collection, I'm gonna port a bunch of those to PHP, in case anyone cares.</comment>


A drone flying an Albanian flag caused a riot at a football match in Belgrade - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/oct/14/serbia-albania-euro-2016-flag-halted

<comment><AUTHOR> Video here: [http://www.theguardian.com/football/video/2014/oct/15/serbia...](http://www.theguardian.com/football/video/2014/oct/15/serbia- albania-drone-brawl-video)</comment>


Facebook's ad manager on the state of the media - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/mhudack/posts/10152148792566194

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure why they're shifting the blame to Facebook; it didn't invent the crappy stories that get the most clicks, the news outlets did. They engineer titles in order to get the most shares/clicks out of humans, I don't this is anything to with Facebook in this case. The algorithms may choose to promote these more heavily but that's only because people tend to share those types of headlines _more._

It's a pity that even "real" journalism outlets like Vox and The Verge are going after the short-term quick fix that is clickbait, but it's not really their fault either. If that's all that gets readers clicking, and they ultimately want to survive, it seems that their upper management will choose to adopt it in order to make it look like they perform better.

You can _choose_ to do better, real journalism, but it's a long slow road to profitability. Especially if you have investors.

</comment><comment><USER3> It sets a poor foundation upon bad faith to equate Judy Miller and Glenn Greenwald.</comment>


Risky Business Becomes Riskier: A New Playbook for How Artists Are Compensated  - <AUTHOR> http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2715

<comment><USER2> Now that more artists are taking a risk when they sell music, the pirates should have no excuses. The music isn't too expensive, DRM is slowly going away, you can try before you buy, and the artists aren't getting screwed by labels.

I suspect music piracy will continue though.</comment>


Why I believe we ought to build a spacefaring civilisation - <AUTHOR> https://jmkorhonen.net/2018/02/08/why-i-believe-we-ought-to-build-a-spacefaring-civilisation/ <comment><USER2> The problem is speed of light limit. It will be very difficult to expand beyond our solar system. Maybe that's the reason we haven't been visisted by aliens yet</comment>


Gatsby – Static Site Generator with React and Webpack - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby/blob/master/README.md <comment><USER2> Genuine question, not passive aggression. Why do static site generators always revolve around blogs?

Blogs are around, sure, but they're a bit old-hat now, right? There are other ways to arrange content. I've got my own single-file Python static site generator, which could handle a blog, I guess, but it would seem odd to crown that one application. Is it historical, from Jekyll? Or is blogging the overwhelming use-case for static sites?

<comment><USER3> Great question, I'm not sure why media sites aren't all statically generated, would be much more economical if nothing else. Ads can still be dynamically loaded on the client, but content that never changes; why is that in a database?

<comment><USER4> When you've got multiple authors of varying technical skill, it's probably significantly easier to give them a nice web server backend to interact with than it is to try and teach them how to use the generator.

<comment><USER3> The backend is irrelevant to the interface the author uses.

<comment><USER5> But if the author needs to add content, they need to use the generator, if they're using an interface, they're no longer on a static site.

<comment><USER3> No, they're in an admin application, which has no reason to be the same "thing" as the site you're authoring.

This is what I'm talking about, people are so engrained in the way things currently work that can't see obvious things like this. It's code, you can do whatever you want.

<comment><USER6> I think making a desktop application using electron as the basis, and embedding one of the SSGs would be interesting. Are you aware of anything like that?

<comment><USER7> Closest thing I can think of is Microsoft's WebMatrix.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What are we pulling in such heavy machinery for a text-only site? It's things like this that make people think it's OK to have a blog that isn't accessible without JS which includes so screen readers.

<comment><USER9> This one is actually Universal ("Isomorphic" if you want), check [https://www.reindex.io/](https://www.reindex.io/) for example.

<comment><USER8> Interesting. I had expected it to be like bloger that just greets you with a white screen; I didn't see his example blog earlier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've been using [http://gohugo.io](http://gohugo.io) which has the same live reload feature and is really fast and easy to work with.

</comment><comment><USER7> The docs page delivered 270kb of compressed and minified JavaScript (1MB uncompressed) but sadly didn't seem to show anything with JavaScript disabled. I thought all the hot new React apps were isomorphic nowadays.

<comment><USER5> Isomorphic does not mean works without JavaScript. Actually you need JavaScript turned on for isomorphic to work.

On a related topic, I hate the term isomorphic. It's just JavaScript.

<comment><USER11> You don't need JavaScript if the server can generate all the pages and the links are valid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Requiring JS to read pages of a static website is nonsensical.

<comment><USER13> Which is why this tool compiles the pages into static HTML before serving them to the client.

Go ahead, disable javascript and visit any of the example websites.

<comment><USER14> uh. This just means you end up with inverted PHP. Instead of PHP, where you have a Perl-ish language generating HTML, you now have JS generating HTML. You lose 100% of the benefit of React, which is the virtual DOM. You can literally use any template language you want and achieve identical results here.

<comment><USER13> I'm not quite sure what your point is.

You say that the only use of react is the virtual DOM, so is it just that React is a poor choice as a template engine? I'm not personally convinced, but that's a bit of personal preference I suppose. The modularization and composability of components is definitely nice, and not all template engines do this well. I could certainly see how you may disagree with me though.

Is it that they aren't doing anything revolutionary? That's certainly true. It's relatively trivial to make a static site generator that uses React, and there's plenty of static site generators out there that use other engines. I think using webpack to bundle everything up is pretty nice though.

Either way, my point wasn't that this project is particularly amazing, or useful, just that it works with JavaScript disabled.

<comment><USER14> > just that it works with JavaScript disabled

My point is, the whole point of React is to _use_ JavaScript. Otherwise it just becomes yet another template language. Which every static site generator already has.

It's also easy to screw up React and end up with JS on the client side. Because that's the selling point of React (or isomorphic, to be exact)... JS freely travels between backend and frontend without the developer really caring much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> what static site generators out there exists that is easy to setup on a ubuntu server?

<comment><USER16> I'd assume all of them, no? Personally, I prefer Middleman, but of course Jekyll is probably the most popular choice.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What should people not do with their work computer? - <AUTHOR> A friend of mine works in IT and while repairing a company issued laptop found an entire folder of porn images.(conveniently hidden)  Got me wondering if thats really an exception or do things like these really happen out there? <comment><USER2> Besides committing crimes (pirating content, fraud, etc) and doing questionable things (such as accessing porn), I would refrain from creating anything using my work computer (such as a web app, mobile app, blog). It is very common for companies to add clauses that says that anything you produce using their equipment is their IP.

<comment><USER3> Check your local laws too. In CA it doesn't matter if they have a clause, they can claim ownership of your IP if you use company time or resources (including a company machine).

That said it's a reasonable policy and easy to make a clean break. Some jurisdictions will let companies claim anything you developed during your term of employment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Having done IT, I'd say it's fairly common. If the company does not have strict rules about personal use of systems, I generally ignored it ("Oh sorry, wrong folder" if the user was looking over my shoulder).

In my current company we specifically ask users not to store pornographic images on their work systems so we can all be spared the embarrassment, so far that seems to work well.

Personally I try not to use work systems for anything non-work related. Why risk it? hardware is cheap.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've heard lots of stories about work computers full of porn, even in the government.

It's definitely a very bad idea, but I don't think it's that uncommon. Usually these people eventually get in trouble for it, but it might take a while (esp. in the government).

</comment><comment><USER6> The best thing you can do with your work computer is leave it at work.

<comment><USER7> I used to do this, but security isn't really good enough, and it's not a great idea to tempt break ins.

<comment><USER8> >I used to do this, but security isn't really good enough, and it's not a great idea to tempt break ins.

The company is responsible for the security of their hardware and anything else provided to employees to use in the course of their work and should not be off-loading this onto their employees, implicitly or explicitly.

If your house got burgled and the company laptop stolen, would you feel responsible for replacing it (or having your insurance do so) for having taken it from the premises under the guise that their security was insufficient?

<comment><USER7> It's a gray area IMO, similar to, say, a bus driver whose bus is stolen. The employee has to maintain some reasonable security approaches and the company should as well.

If the employee takes good care, then the company should replace it if there's a loss.

My company has CCTVs, guards, digital and analog door locks, but a MBP is still more expensive than a gold ingot, and my house is still a little more secure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Using company-linked profiles to express your personal opinion. Keep your company name out of your personal Twitter profile, for example.

</comment><comment><USER10> Don't use a work computer for any personal or side projects. Otherwise the employer may be able to claim copyright ownership over the work.

</comment><comment><USER11> NSFW - Not Safe For Work

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

Happens all the time, hence the Wikipedia entry.

</comment><comment><USER7> I go as far as avoiding personal email, Facebook, WhatsApp, assuming that the device can be taken back any time. But this is difficult as an app developer, where logins often use personal accounts.

</comment><comment><USER12> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21746753](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21746753)

</comment><comment><USER13> I like porn as much as anybody, or so I thought. Never in a million years would it occur to me to access or store it on a work computer. Just why?

</comment><comment><USER14> Had a guy mining Monero on his. Didn't find out until he left.

Tacky, considering the kinds of salary this field draws.

<comment><USER7> I don't really see what's wrong with this unless it wears out the hardware.

<comment><USER15> Plenty wrong with it. Additional power consumption. Slow down performance for actual work.

<comment><USER7> I mean, I'm assuming this is a laptop and done outside the office when the device is idle.

<comment><USER16> It's basically stealing electricity.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Reddit costs $33k/month to operate? - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/ctz7c/your_gold_dollars_at_work/c0v8ug8?context=1 <comment><USER2> That's actually not terribly surprising. Reddit's always been extremely conservative with ad space, and it seems like they could offset a lot of that if they started running more "traditional" ad slots.

By their own numbers, they do about 14.3m pageviews/day. Let's assume half of that is AdBlocked. A single 300x250 at an exceptionally low $0.05 CPM would yield $3,575/day in ad revenue, or $107,250/month. I'll guarantee that reddit could pull far, far higher CPMs. Like, an order magnitude or two higher.

Edit: I'm off by an order of magnitude, see below. Point stands, though, that there is a lot of ad money they're leaving on the table.

<comment><USER3> I agree with your main point but your math is off by an order of magnitude:

(14,300,000 x $0.05 x 0.5)/1000 = $357.50/day

I still think Reddit could easily pay their costs by running ads, not sure why they are not doing so.

<comment><USER4> Their user base is outright hostile to the idea.

<comment><USER2> Users are actively hostile to ads in general. Reddit's userbase, in particular, has been spoiled by the staff's similar attitude towards ads. The fact remains that computing power, bandwidth, and storage takes money, which is easy for your average hostile-to-ads user to forget.

If they dropped in AdSense units, there would be an uproar for about a week, then people would adapt and life would go on with a significantly bolstered revenue stream. Worst that happens is that more users would still be adblocking, but given their page view volume compared to their expenses, I can't imagine that even that would be a net loss.

<comment><USER5> > The fact remains that computing power, bandwidth, and storage takes money, > which is easy for your average hostile-to-ads user to forget.

Uh... therefore reddit gold. That's the point.

<comment><USER6> Reddit gold will probably bring in 2% of what adsense would bring in (If the userbase was 'better')

<comment><USER7> I think you are completely wrong about that. Even at a very low conversion rate subscriptions pull in an awful lot of money. Typically my subscription income outweighs my ad income by about 5 to 1 in a given month. And my site is _far_ smaller than reddit.

The key to this is user retention, and if reddit users are loyal to reddit (which they seem to be, especially those willing to pull their credit cards) I wouldn't be surprised to see retentions on the order of 6 months or more.

What do you base the 2% on ?

<comment><USER6> If you look at the internet as a whole, the number of $ revenue from 'subscriptions' vs number of $ from advertising, then the % is probably far lower. <1%. Also my personal experience has been that it's far far easier to make money from advertising. Especially for something like Reddit where there is little incentive for people to pay.

For Reddit, yes you'll get a number of die-hard fans who want to subscribe. But I don't believe that there is a big enough value proposition for the userbase to do that en-masse. They may as well just set up their own reddit since the code is open source (And wouldn't be that hard to recreate if it wasn't).

It _might_ be different if:

      A). Reddit wasn't spending crazy money on servers
      B). Reddit wasn't owned by a multinational corporation
      C). Reddit hadn't pandered to, and cultivated a staunchly
          anti advertising userbase.

Right now though, it's looking like they're going to try a subscription based news service. Which fails time and time again. People don't want to pay for online news.

Also from their latest blog post, it looks like they're just spending the 'reddit gold' money on _more_ hardware! Instead of fixing the underlying issues.

<comment><USER8> >Also from their latest blog post, it looks like they're just spending the 'reddit gold' money on more hardware!

And hiring a designer! Because, you know, that'll fix their load issues.

<comment><USER9> joking aside, a good designer can save you bandwidth money if they know what they are doing. (please note I used the word "good")

<comment><USER5> Considering reddit's current bare-bones design, a designer would have a hard time coming up with something eating _less_ bandwidth, lest he removed all colors.

<comment><USER9> You can waste a lot of bytes on a bar-bones design if done poorly. A couple of years ago there was a blog post (can't find it now) about a designer redoing slashdot.org using css and that redesign had a pretty large % change in size.

<comment><USER2> Slashdot was tables-based back in the day, which can't help but be verbose. :)

(The point stands, though, that "basic" doesn't mean "light").

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A comment or two down, jedberg explains they use reserved instances from Amazon, so their hosting fees are more like $22,390.37 a month.

<comment><USER11> Actually they're even lower, since the 3 year instances are so much cheaper than the 1 year over time.

      (1820 * 57) + (910 * 23) = $124,670/yr in reservation fees

Changes to

      (2800 * 57) + (1400 * 23) = $191,800/3yr in reservation fees

Which, when spread over the 3 years, brings the cost down by $5,061.39/mo, making the final cost there actually $17,328.98.

Of course this assumes they're doing 3 year reservations, but I don't see any reason not to on their XL instances (I could be wrong though, not sure how open Conde Nast is to logic like this).

<comment><USER12> We use one year reserved instances because our budgets are done annually.

<comment><USER6> Why not just get some dedicated servers? :/ I still don't understand why anyone with any amount of load or traffic would use the most expensive hosting available.

<comment><USER12> We had dedicated servers. It saved us 30% a month to move to EC2.

<comment><USER6> I can't understand how that would be the case. Did you run virtualization on the dedi servers so you had multiple 'machines' on them to play with? (If you need that sort of thing for your architecture)

What was the limiting factor on dedicated? CPU? ram? bandwidth?

Maybe you just had a really bad dedicated server deal? Were they reasonably priced?

Even VPSs are cheaper than Amazon.

I started out on VPSs and saved a _lot_ moving to dedicated servers once it made sense to. For the dedi servers I use I don't have to pay for RAM monthly, and I get bandwidth at a good price.

The kind of money you're paying on servers is just obscene. It wouldn't matter if Reddit had the revenue of course...

<comment><USER13> There is no point proposing them to use dedicated servers as already many did. They are 100% sure dedicated servers cost more, so let them keep their ec2's and let them fail!

I wonder why google, yahoo and facebook don't run their site on ec2... if it's cheaper.

<comment><USER14> Google et al. do essentially run their servers on EC2. However it's their own version of EC2, in their datacentres. They have a whole pile of virtualised servers they can turn on an off by the minutes. They have internal accounting systems so that each team is 'charged' based on what they use. Google are so big, so it's cheaper for them to make their own datacentre than use someone else's (i.e. Amazon's).

EC2 only came about because Amazon run their servers on it, and they had so much spare capacity, so they sell it.

<comment><USER15> >Google et al. do essentially run their servers on EC2.

If by EC2 you mean "bunches of servers", sure.

On GoGrid you can buy cloud servers, or you can rent dedicated servers (and you can intermix the two). The latter are quite a bit less expensive for a given quanta of resources, while the former obviously offer greater dynamic flexibility (with a significant premium).

Actually considering the terrible I/O rate of services like EC2, dedicated often offers a dramatic advantage.

>They have a whole pile of virtualised servers they can turn on an off by the minutes.

But they don't. So they use none of the upside, and have all of the downside. Yay!

<comment><USER12> > But they don't. So they use none of the upside, and have all of the > downside. Yay!

That's not true at all. We shut down machines when we are over capacity (rarely) and we often have to bring up a bunch of new machines where there is a traffic spike.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wow...this is hard to believe. Numbers like that make me wonder if the cost of going with ruby or python (in reddit's case) or insert-your-slower-dynamic- language-here outweigh the benefits in the long run. How can anyone bootstrap a company and scale to the size of Reddit without quickly running into a "must fund or sale" situation?

If it's truly a python issue, it should not be taken lightly by entrepreneurs. I hope it's not...I'm an avid user of both ruby and python, and want to believe they can both be used to create successful and maintainable (in terms of effort _and cost_ ) sites.

<comment><USER17> Actually, I bet you it's a "we hit the database on every pageload" problem.

<comment><USER18> The overwhelming majority of reddit's pageviews are users that are not logged in, which is very very cacheable.

<comment><USER12> About 20% of the users are logged in, and they represent about 50% of the page views.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> That's just the server instance cost. What about bandwidth and S3 cost? Bandwidth would cost a bundle.

<comment><USER12> The bandwidth is less than 5% of the total cost. It's about $2500 a month.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> So.. how much cost HN? :)

And what/who pay for that?

<comment><USER21> Very little compared to reddit. PG said recently that HN has 60K unique/day. Reddit has around 8Million.

In addition to that, the software behind HN doesn't do nearly as much as the reddit software: there is no automatic checking of new messages, there are no sub reddits you need to work on, there are only so many votes to be processed, etc.

I have no clue about who pays for what, but I guess PG pays.

<comment><USER22> I would assume though it would be even easier here than on reddit to get people to donate towards server cost should the need ever arise.

<comment><USER23> The users of reddit are downright hostile toward anyone trying to make money. There was a thread last week about paid accounts. Out of 2000 comments, I think I only found one or two people supporting the idea. Most of the comments were somewhere along the lines of "paid accounts creates two classes of users and everyone should be equal" and "it's not my job to figure out how reddit makes money" (advertisements are actively blocked by 30% of users).

When your userbase is filled with college kids and anti-capitalist, you are going to have a tough time making money,

<comment><USER24> Being anti-advertising is no the same as being anti-capitalist.

There is a good argument that advertising actively moves you away from the EMH which is one of the strongest arguments in favor of capitalism.

<comment><USER23> "There is a good argument that advertising actively moves you away from the EMH which is one of the strongest arguments in favor of capitalism."

I said anti-capitalist because many people were against advertisements and the gold accounts. While there may be many people lurking on reddit that are not anti-capitalist, it's a sentiment I see in almost every topic related to making money on that site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Amusingly, I can't read it because I get an error: "the service you request is temporarily unavailable. please try again later.".

<comment><USER26> I have a screenshot of it here: [http://toadjaw.com/screenshot?id=http://www.reddit.com/r/blo...](http://toadjaw.com/screenshot?id=http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/ctz7c/your_gold_dollars_at_work/c0v8ug8?context=1)

<comment><USER27> What is toadjaw? The homepage didn't seem to have any info.

<comment><USER26> It's my after hours/weekend project. It'll eventually be a bookmarking site. I'm about 75% of the way there before I open it up to the public. Some of the features are nearly completed, like the screenshots and article text viewer.

Along the way, I realized it would be trivial to make a mobile HN reader, so I spent some time doing that <http://toadjaw.com/hn>

<comment><USER28> Hey I use your website everyday on my Iphone. Love it, and thanks for the new 'theming' and new buttons, that's better than last week !

Keep up your website. Maybe you should put an ad on it, I would click it once a day to help :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I wonder what the best money-saving optimisation would be?

Whilst it sounds like a lot of money remember that the whole sites annual EC2 bill could easily be paid for several years by one of the Newhouse brothers (who own Advance Publications, who own Conde Nast) selling one of their Reubens or probably just giving up their bank interest for a month (est. about ¼-million USD per day for the poor one : 1day of 2% annual interest on $4.5 billion).

<comment><USER30> Of course the Newhouse brothers _could_ do that, but they could do it precisely for the reason they'd be unlikely to: if it's a bad investment, they shouldn't keep throwing money at it. Not saying that it is a bad investment, just that ignoring the problem because it's owned by a rich person who could easily bail it out ignores the way rich people think.

<comment><USER29> >Not saying that it is a bad investment, just that ignoring the problem because it's owned by a rich person who could easily bail it out ignores the way rich people think.

I don't want to argue that at all. I'd argue that bailing them out as if they're a charity is wrong given that supporting it would be pocket change for the owners - less than they'd pay for a painting that they probably don't even bother to look at (I know that these paintings are not to look at, humour me).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> There is a great talk by an (ex-) developer from Reddit about the technical background, scalability problems, caching, storing redundant data, queued offline computing etc. This might shed light on some questions in the comments here.

[http://thinkvitamin.com/dev/steve-huffman-on-lessons- learned...](http://thinkvitamin.com/dev/steve-huffman-on-lessons-learned-at- reddit/)

</comment><comment><USER32> People are usually the highest cost for most companies. Reddit for sure needs admins, developers, sales, marketing, etc.

</comment><comment><USER33> Presumably, they could halve the costs buy racking a bunch of SuperMicro boxes.

Renting an empty rack is about 200 EUR/month, and you can fill it with back to back mounted Atoms with SSDs for less than 40 kUSD. 160 cores and 320 GByte RAM with some 16 TByte/s peak throughput for some ~2 kW is not that bad for the price.

</comment><comment><USER34> Would moving reddit to a cloud will make it cheaper?

<comment><USER35> It's already there.</comment></comment>