Show HN: Four numbers can predict your lifetime risk of a heart attack - <AUTHOR> http://knowyour4.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN!

This project was inspired by a personal experience I had--I put my numbers into a spreadsheet provided by the American Heart Association and found I had a 50% lifetime risk of a heart attack. Yikes!

I've gone to regular check-ups all my life and always been a little outside of the cholesterol guidelines, but I never knew how seriously to take that. I didn't know you could translate those numbers into percentage chance of getting a heart attack, whether I was "high" or "low," or how much I could improve by making lifestyle changes.

I figured there must be other people out there who are similarly ignorant about their own health, so I built this. (Please don't take this as a substitute for going to the doctor; there are all sorts of things your doctor can tell you that a web page can't. This is just for education!)

Please let me know if you have questions!

<comment><USER2> For those purposes, do you know how smoking marijuana maps to smoking cigarette? E.g. is 1 "dose" of pot = 1 cigarette? 10 cigarettes? Or does it not map at all?

What about electronic cigarettes?

<comment><USER3> Real life doctor here. Your question sounds simple, but the answer is complex. The heart disease risk from smoking probably stems from damage to blood vessels caused by toxins generated in the tobacco burning. "Toxins" is really the best word here, even though it's so general. I use it to encompass thousands of different chemicals like free radicals, known carcinogens, etc.

Current thinking is the body repairs that damage with clots and cholesterol. But, these repairs accumulate over time to occlude a blood vessel (atherosclerosis). If red blood cells can't get through, oxygen can't either, and heart cells downstream to the occlusion will die in minutes to hours.

Marijuana most likely generates a significant amount of toxins as well. However, marijuana smokers generally smoke less than cigarette smokers. Given that heart disease and cancer risk increases with the amount smoked, it would be reasonable to assume marijuana smokers are much less at risk (though the risk is nonzero). But, we don't have a clear conversion between marijuana and cigarette smoke yet. You may also consider that marijuana may be contaminated with other plants or chemicals.

Electronic cigarettes are possibly more safe than non-e cigarettes in terms of cancer risk (this is theoretical as no significant study has been done yet). However, some in vitro (cellular) research suggests nicotine may play a role in atherosclerosis discussed above. Also, nicotine can precipitate a heart attack if a heart is already diseased.

<comment><USER4> > Current thinking is the body repairs that damage with clots and cholesterol

does this imply that if there's very little damage (due to inflammation or substance abuse) elevated cholesterol doesn't really matter?

<comment><USER3> Damage accumulates with normal wear and tear, giving more chances for atherosclerosis to form. Cholesterol matters in otherwise healthy patients particularly as they age.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And none of these numbers can be expressed with proper measurement units most of the world uses... Instead we have lbs feet and inches.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! Which units would you prefer?

For height/weight, I'd assume meters and kg?

When you get your cholesterol measurements, do use mg/dL, mmol/L, or something else? What about blood pressure?

<comment><USER6> Obviously metric, since that's what most of the world uses abd you're cutting yourself from a large chunk of your potential audience. The cholesterol measures are already metric.

<comment><USER7> The site is going to be limited to the US anyway. The data is calculated from a US population for US lifestyles. And the racial information is US-centric. Does 'Asian' mean Korean, Indian, or Palestinian? Is an African African- American? Even if they're Moroccan? The medical term for that genotype is 'negro', but that word has far too much baggage to be used with a primarily US audience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Based on following the research, I don't believe all these risk factors have been established scientifically. What i've gleaned over the years:

Total cholesterol: probably doesn't matter much

HDL: matters

Blood Pressure: I don't know

Smoking: matters

<comment><AUTHOR> If you're curious about the risk modeling research literature, here's a good example of models built for 30-year risk prediction: [http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/119/24/3078.abstract](http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/119/24/3078.abstract)

The models tend to be close to equivalent in their inputs: either total or LDL cholesterol (small-particle LDL is the one that drives atherosclerosis, but if the model includes HDL cholesterol, then it doesn't make a big difference in accuracy whether the other variable is total or LDL cholesterol), HDL cholesterol (seems to cause a protective effect, although randomized trials of HDL-boosting drugs haven't shown improvements, so may not be causal), blood pressure, and smoking. People also sometimes include newer biomarkers like triglycerides or hs-CRP, but they don't consistently show accuracy gains (LDL, triglycerides, and hs-CRP are highly correlated, so each one individually is a good predictor but having all three doesn't necessarily give you a more accurate model).

There's still a lot of active research to find out which of these variables are causal and which are merely associated with heart disease. For example, LDL-lowering drugs like statins do reduce the risk of heart attacks in randomized trials.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> TC is less predictive than HDL:Triglyceride ratio by a significant margin. people with "high" TC of 200-220 and a good HDL:Trig ratio outlive those with "excellent" TC levels.

There are cases where BP matters less as well. For example the cochrane review on sodium consumption indicated that while lowering sodium intake aggressively did successfully lower BP, it resulted in worse mortality.

<comment><AUTHOR> Have a citation for a risk model that uses triglycerides?

"Predicting the Thirty-year Risk of Cardiovascular Disease: The Framingham Heart Study" ([http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/119/24/3078.abstract](http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/119/24/3078.abstract)) reported that triglycerides were not statistically significant when added to a model that already contains total and HDL cholesterol:

"Standard CVD risk factors (male sex, age, SBP, antihypertensive treatment, total and HDL cholesterol, smoking and diabetes) were highly significant (0.01 level) in the multivariable model. DBP and triglycerides were not statistically significant and inclusion of LDL in place of total cholesterol did not improve model performance."

<comment><USER9> Interesting, thanks for the citation I hadn't seen it before. It does look like pretty solid evidence, so I'm less sure of the triglyceride hypothesis than I was before.

A couple cites of interest:

[http://cpr.sagepub.com/content/3/2/213.short](http://cpr.sagepub.com/content/3/2/213.short)

[http://www.ahjonline.com/article/0002-8703(86)90296-6/abstra...](http://www.ahjonline.com/article/0002-8703\(86\)90296-6/abstract)

[http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/85/1/37.short](http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/85/1/37.short)

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2664115/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2664115/)

There is significant overlap in the explanatory power of these variables because they are not independent. So it is possible that "high" cholesterol has covariance with triglyceride:HDL ratio in the majority of the population sample (seems likely). In that case we should see people with "high" TC still have better mortality outcomes. Which we do see: [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11502313](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11502313)

But like I said, the Framingham study does seem like reasonable evidence. I'll look over the entire thing later.

There is also this interesting development, but I don't know enough to speak intelligently about it: [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2796.2006....](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2796.2006.01616.x/full)

It is interesting to note that apo-b levels VERY closely track HDL:Trig ratio.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds good. What I've mostly seen is that LDL, total cholesterol, and triglycerides seem to be highly correlated, and adding in any one of those three (assuming you also have HDL) gives the same accuracy, so the risk modelers usually just stick with total cholesterol since more patients know it.

For ratios, this particular model is log-linear: risk = b^(w0 + w1 _log(cholesterol) + w2_ log(hdl) + ...)

So adding in variables to represent ratios would change the coefficients, but not the final risks.

For that last one, the "low cholesterol" bucket they allude to is people whose total cholesterol is <180 mg/dL. 180 mg/dL is exceptionally low, particularly for an older population. There's also a potential confounding effect when you study only total cholesterol (ignoring HDL)--your "low cholesterol" group of people includes a disproportionate number whose HDL ("good") cholesterol is also low, and who thus are actually at a high risk of heart disease according to models like the Framingham one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Right now QRISK2 is considered the most accurate when it comes to predicting morbidity and mortality of cardiovascular events. This calculator is great, but missing one important factor if either of your first degree parents had a heart attack before 60 then you are at greater risk. This mostly ties into things like homocystine levels, hrcp, and LDL particle size, but its a good ballpark for the genetic variation.

My advice get genetically screened if you are worried and make changes. If you carry alterations on the 9p21 chromosome chances are you are at higher risk. If so you can simply eat more fruit and vegetables this has been shown in multiple studies to dramatically lower rates independent of other factors.

</comment><comment><USER11> What a great way to get detailed demographic data of the HN crowd!

<comment><USER12> I was thinking the exact opposite after having plugged in all sorts of crazy numbers to see how they affect the results (incidentally the highest total cholesterol it accepts is 400, way too low for anyone who regularly cooks with coconut oil IMHO).

<comment><USER11> The initial height/weight/sex/race/ip address/browser is a pretty good combo and most likely the legit values.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One critical factor missing is immediately family history of early cardiac disease, such as a parent or sibling having a heart attack before age 45

</comment><comment><USER14> Slick. I liked the additional prompts when entering information.

The graph animation was slow in my Firefox 33.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the report! I'll work on Firefox speed--it's sort of an all-around problem with the Firefox experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you don't enter height or weight into "debug my life" it says: "Your current BMI is 23, which is in the healthy range" instead of "you didn't give us what we need to calculate your BMI".

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, thanks! Will fix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The current risk in the graph doesn't update when I change a value and click Calculate My Risk again; e.g., if I calculate with blood pressure blank then recalculate with it set to 130.

I'm using Firefox 33 and Chrome 38-ish for Mac.

</comment><comment><USER17> Just wonder, do people know about kilograms, meters, international system of units?

</comment><comment><USER18> This is great, brandonb, and I love to see people making tools that raise awareness. If anyone is looking for this in iOS app form, I made something a few months ago: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/heartgram-physicians-cvd- ris...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/heartgram-physicians-cvd- risk/id885312924?mt=8) .

</comment><comment><USER19> Interesting that family history isn't included. I'd have thought that was a pretty important factor.

</comment><comment><USER20> Total cholesterol, really (which goes up with HDL, which has no upper limit)? And no triglycerides?

<comment><USER21> I closed the page immediately upon seeing total cholesterol. Being on a ketogenic diet, it'd probably tell me I'm at risk because the diet increases both HDL and big LDL particles (the harmless kind). Total cholesterol is meaningless.

<comment><USER20> In fact, there was some study (can't find the link) showing that people with moderately higher LDL lived longer than people with LDL that's in norm. I'm also on a ketogenic diet and my HDL is over 100, triglycerides below 70, and LDL is a bit high, but total cholesterol is way high due to high HDL. It's totally unscientific to use LDL given it includes HDL and the higher the HDL, the better with no set up limit (unlike many markers). HDL/triglycerides is the only meaningful ratio in the standard lipid profile. Also, there's some truth in doing subfractioning of LDL, which almost nobody does as it's expensive and not part of official lipid profile testing as far as I know. Edit: Grammar.

<comment><USER21> > It's totally unscientific to use LDL given it includes HDL

I agree that total LDL is not a good indicator unless you do subfractioning, but I think you meant total cholesterol here, as LDL does not include HDL (that wouldn't even make sense!).

<comment><USER20> Yes, I made a mistake, but you got my point. As you may have in-norm LDL and very HDL and then your TC will be in the danger zone, which doesn't make any sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Interesting, but not exactly new. This has been promoted in various ways in the past ([http://www.cvriskcalculator.com/](http://www.cvriskcalculator.com/) \- which is updated with recent BP management data as well)

</comment><comment><USER23> There was also that thing in the news about some effects of smoking being mitigated if one quit by about age ~32. Still I wonder (as someone who previously smoked) how there couldn't be some kind of damage after several years of smoking

</comment><comment><USER24> This has got to be off.

"I had a 50% lifetime risk of a heart attack. Yikes!"

not for nothing, but I entered in my numbers and got 68% and I smoke about a pack of day. If that's the case, then I'm not quitting any time soon.

<comment><USER25> You know higher numbers are worse, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> A good metric would be the hours spent per week in doing cardio exercises.

</comment><comment><USER27> The sensitivity analysis being displayed automatically is a nice feature, as it immediately shows the effects of changes. That's a clever bit of UI that most similar apps don't have.

</comment><comment><USER28> Minor bug: the heart icon gets clipped if the risk factor comes out to 12% in the latest version of Chrome.

[http://imgur.com/l27HcXA](http://imgur.com/l27HcXA)

<comment><USER29> Actually, it's clipped _and_ it's overlapping with 'current risk'. I also see the same on the other end of the chart with blood pressure: [http://imgur.com/jaJHErm](http://imgur.com/jaJHErm)

(I'm also unclear as to why '90' systolic blood pressure is at an unexpected end of the graph, but...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This seems pretty neat. Are you considering turning this into a startup, then? X for Y pitch of "machine learning for personal health"? I say go for it. :D

</comment><comment><USER31> Great app - thank you for sharing. Unfortunately the answer to this seems similar to most health advice sent my way, "Lose some weight!"

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately it's hard but true. I'm on a diet too and it's hard to keep it up. But the benefits of losing weight are pretty clear--it basically improves all four of your numbers except for smoking. :)

Feel free to email me if you have thoughts on what you've tried so far, and what you'd like to see ideally. Address is in my profile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Cool, but it doesn't take into account your drinking habits. 1-2 drinks per day reduces the chances of coronary heart disease by up to 40%.

<comment><USER33> [research results needed]

Even if true, drinkings bring your other risk factors so high( >Σ40%) that you are better of staying abstinent.

<comment><USER32> [http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh23-1/15-24.pdf](http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh23-1/15-24.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> So far there are only two links to published research in this thread.

That's suboptimal when discussing something where the science is moving.

</comment><comment><USER35> I don't know if you submitted your app to the Million Hearts challenge, but it would have made a nice fit.

[http://www.health2con.com/devchallenge/one-in-a-million- hear...](http://www.health2con.com/devchallenge/one-in-a-million-hearts- challenge/)

Are you using the Archimedes Indigo back end? [https://archimedesmodel.com/indigo-api](https://archimedesmodel.com/indigo- api)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, I wish I had seen that challenge before submissions closed!

The risk models for heart disease are simple enough that I just implemented them in Javascript based on the Framingham papers, although I did talk with one of the risk modelers at Archimedes to understand which models to use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> How does BMI affect numbers when I do weight lifting? I.e. I assume I have more muscles than average Joe?

<comment><USER37> BMI has never been fully trusted. Partly for the reason you bring up.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index#Limitations_and...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index#Limitations_and_shortcomings)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Shouldn't alcohol intake be a major factor as well along with smoking?

</comment><comment><USER39> These numbers seem slightly off, or the way they are presented is a bit confusing:

"Your lifetime risk of heart disease is 56% as of today. You can reduce that to 38% if you ... That would make your risk about 34% lower. Not too shabby!"

<comment><USER40> It's measuring percent, not percentage points. 38% is ~34% less than 56%, but about 18 percentage points.

If your risk was lowered from 2% to 1%, that's a 50% reduction, but a 1 percentage point reduction.

<comment><USER39> I see what you are saying. I stand by the second part of my statement though. Presenting a percentage you can lower a percentage can (and just did) lead to some confusion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> How might I increase my HDL (good cholesterol)?

</comment><comment><USER42> > Your risk of heart disease is 25%

But the graph shows 26%

</comment><comment><USER43> Does age play any part into one's risk?

<comment><AUTHOR> It does when calculating your 10-year-risk, but not for lifetime risk. I'd like to add a feature to show you both 10-year and lifetime risks, but for now, the NIH has a 10-year-risk calculator: [http://cvdrisk.nhlbi.nih.gov/](http://cvdrisk.nhlbi.nih.gov/)

For most people, the 10-year-risk becomes important in your 50's, 60's, and 70's and is used to guide treatment for e.g., statin therapy or anti- hypertensive medication.

If you're 30, your 10-year-risk is generally very low even if you treat your body terribly. :) So part of the motivation for showing the lifetime risk is to get people thinking about how to optimize their health for their life, since by the time your 10-year-risk is significant it's often too late to change your habits for diet/exercise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> All I can say is big thank you :-)

</comment><comment><USER45> Nice try, insurance company.

</comment><comment><USER46> Great domain name.

</comment><comment><USER47> Please add support for SI units (mmol/L) for cholesterol. Some of us live in more enlightened countries...

<comment><AUTHOR> Working on it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> There's an interesting controversy around the lipid hypothesis: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid_hypothesis#Minority_disag...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipid_hypothesis#Minority_disagreement)

<comment><AUTHOR> One warning--

"Cholesterol" tends to get used to mean two different things, and even otherwise clear writers like Gary Taubes don't always explicitly denote which one they mean: 1) the amount of cholesterol in your blood, which is mostly produced by your liver. I.e., if my blood cholesterol is 300 mg/dL, should I be worried? 2) cholesterol in your diet. I.e., should you avoid eggs?

I'd say the scientific consensus is that blood cholesterol (particularly small-particle LDL) drives heart disease, but cholesterol (or saturated fat) in your diet doesn't drive blood cholesterol (<10% effect).

So low-fat/high-carb diets were a fallacy and are not "heart-healthy," it's fine to eat eggs, but you should still try to reduce your LDL cholesterol if it's high and boost your HDL cholesterol if it's low.

<comment><USER49> >I'd say the scientific consensus is that blood cholesterol (particularly small-particle LDL) drives heart disease

Blood cholesterol is a natural component of blood and is synthesized by all animal cells because it is an essential component of cell membranes. If you had no cholesterol in your blood you would be seriously ill.

Abnormal levels of cholesterol are associated with heart disease but it is not clear if they are the prime cause. The heart disease and abnormal cholesterol may both be caused by something else. There is evidence that excessive activation of the bodies inflammatory system may be more of a root cause.

(see [http://www.sott.net/article/242516-Heart-surgeon-speaks- out-...](http://www.sott.net/article/242516-Heart-surgeon-speaks-out-on-what- really-causes-heart-disease) for example)

<comment><AUTHOR> Be careful about which sources you trust. Here's are a couple other articles from sott.net's "Health and Wellness" page: [http://www.sott.net/article/287460-Vaccine-wars- Penalizing-t...](http://www.sott.net/article/287460-Vaccine-wars-Penalizing- the-unvaccinated) [http://www.sott.net/article/287450-The-not-so-surprising- ben...](http://www.sott.net/article/287450-The-not-so-surprising-benefits-of- smoking)

I'll stick with Circulation, The Lancet, and JAMA, thank you very much. :)

<comment><USER49> Yeah I grabbed that link without checking up much. Although I still think there is evidence for the inflammation hypothesis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> So if I have relatively more muscle mass compared to my height, that means that I am at a higher chance for getting a heart attack? Well, that could be the case for all I know.</comment>


Ask HN: What are some web apps that use the .io extension - <AUTHOR>

I'm putting together a list of web apps that use the .io domain extension. <comment><USER2> <http://www.google.com/search?q=site:.io>

</comment><comment><USER3> drop.io is a well known, recently sold to Facebook. path.io changed to path.com boxcar.io is an awesome iPhone notifications app. pen.io is a new startup from the Launch Conference.

Thats just off the top of my head... If you find any more please add them to this thread :)

</comment><comment><USER4> ep.io for Django hosting

</comment><comment><USER5> we are called ginger.io</comment>


Algorithmic Complexity Big-O Cheat Sheet Study Guide - <AUTHOR> http://algorithmiccomplexity.com/cheat-sheet/

<comment><AUTHOR> Site is still under development, but I found this useful for preparing for technical interviews. Cool idea.</comment>


The newly modularized Three20 library - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/facebook/three20/blob/master/Articles/AboutModules.mdown <comment><USER2> I'm the project maintainer, so if you have any questions I'll do my best to answer them.</comment>


Brushing up on operating systems and C programming - <AUTHOR> http://www.shubhro.com/2018/01/20/brushing-up-os-c/ <comment><USER2> Can anyone recommend an intermediate to advanced C book? I feel like most C material I've been exposed to in the past lacks what a modern C project should have when it comes to best practices, code organization, build tools (should I use make for this, cmake, where does autotools fit? what about clang vs gcc?), linters (valgrind?), testing, etc. I recognize that much of this falls outside of C, but all of these tools seem like things C projects routinely grapple with.

<comment><USER3> To answer your questions:

* Clang vs gcc: doesn't really matter. Clang has slightly better compile times. GCC has really advanced but in some cases still has inferior warning/error messages. Best practice is not to really use GNU c features unless you want to. If you do want to, decide if you want to just use the subset supported by clang or the full shabang from gcc. Beyond that: if you want to support both, test on both before release and do release builds using whichever produces faster or smaller (choose whichever metric you prefer) binaries.

* Build systems: plain old make is sufficient in most cases. I would recommend autoconf over cmake just because it's significantly simpler, although cmake has better cross-platform support (it can generate visual studio build files, for instance). I wouldn't use something outside of make, cmake, or autoconf, even if it seems like it's better in every way than those, because it probably isn't, and even if it is, you lose out on the battle-tested, available-everywhere, and widely-used nature of the above build systems. I shouldn't have to install a build system to build your program, and if I do, I should be able to use that build system to build a significant of other programs too.

* Linting: not really necessary IME. Aim for no compiler warnings, though.

* Yes, use valgrind. Anything it complains about, fix. Uninitialized values and out-of-bounds memory accesses are _significantly_ more important and worrisome than memory leaks (because they represent potential attack vectors), but still, it won't complain about something unless it's actually something that should be complained about.

* Testing: like the other commenter said, just a little bit of macro magic and you're golden.

* Code organization: headers in include/, source files in src/. You can separate src/ into subdirectories if your project grows to sufficient complexity that the source files become difficult to wrangle. Separating the headers into separate directories is probably not necessary, however.

* Not directly c-related, but pick a _SANE_ code style and stick to it.

* Debugging: make a separate target that compiles in debug symbols and disables optimizations, and use gdb (or lldb) on it. You don't need much to get started: 99% of the time, all I do is "break main", "run" ("r" for short), "backtrace" ("bt" for short), "frame <number>" (to switch between stack frames), and "print <variable>" ("p <variable>" for short); it's taken me quite far.

<comment><USER4> I like your thinking regarding using simpler build tools. I took this to the extreme and now my build tool for personal C/C++ projects is just a file called build.sh/build.bat. That does little more than:

        gcc main.c

main.c #includes any other .c files that are needed (the term for this appears to be a 'unity build'). Compiling this way is /really/ fast, which is why it's okay to use a dumb build script that always recompiles everything.

<comment><USER3> I would tbh recommend make (bsd make is a wider-supported subset of gnu make) over a shell script, because it can automatically detect which source files need to be rebuilt and which can be kept from previous builds, greatly reducing compile times. Also, it supports parallel builds, although this one is _relatively_ easy with a shellscript.

<comment><USER5> If the sole purpose is to track which files changed, then redo is arguably a simpler solution to this problem - you don't need to learn a new language either (and its funky rules like the tab/space difference), just shell scripts with a couple new commands.

[http://news.dieweltistgarnichtso.net/bin/redo- sh.html](http://news.dieweltistgarnichtso.net/bin/redo-sh.html)

<comment><USER6> I've never seen this before... I shall have to try it out on a C project I'm starting. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I recommend (by most expensive, to free):

Marshall Kirk McKusick's FreeBSD Intensive Code Walkthrough: [https://www.mckusick.com/courses/advdescrip.html](https://www.mckusick.com/courses/advdescrip.html)

Also, _The Design and Implementation of the FreeBSD Operating System (2nd Edition)_ : [https://www.amazon.com/Design-Implementation-FreeBSD- Operati...](https://www.amazon.com/Design-Implementation-FreeBSD-Operating- System/dp/0321968972)

Thirdly: grab a copy of FreeBSD (or OpenBSD) and (a) set it up in VirtualBox and SSH it into locally (b) use an old ThinkPad. Then grab the source code of the base system. Build and install it. And start reading code of things like usr.bin/grep/grep.c

<comment><USER8> I have't done the code walkthrough course, but I bought and watched Kirk McKusick's Kernel Internals course and it is excellent ([https://www.mckusick.com/courses/introdescrip.html](https://www.mckusick.com/courses/introdescrip.html)). It is based around FreeBSD, but is a generic enough Unix internals course that it is good for Linux.

I'm thankful to have the opportunity to learn from someone with such deep knowledge of Unix, who was involved with BSD from the early days in the 80s to modern FreeBSD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This book is not about OS dev but rather systems programming: "The Linux Programming Interface", [https://nostarch.com/tlpi](https://nostarch.com/tlpi)

For OS development resources, this wiki is very good: [http://wiki.osdev.org](http://wiki.osdev.org)

<comment><USER10> > This book is not about OS dev but rather systems programming: "The Linux > Programming Interface", > [https://nostarch.com/tlpi](https://nostarch.com/tlpi)

You can also look through the man pages for free.

[https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/](https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/)

Or if you are adventurous you can play around with syscalls in assembly.

[https://syscalls.kernelgrok.com/](https://syscalls.kernelgrok.com/)

Also, the examples for TLPI are available online

[http://man7.org/tlpi/code/online/index.html](http://man7.org/tlpi/code/online/index.html)

<comment><USER11> Not to pick on you specifically, but I've really grown to hate this type of response to this very common question. Most people new to a topic want an instructional manual or guide, not a technical reference. Man pages and tables of syscalls are decidedly the latter, and therefore primarily intended for people who are already familiar with the topics they cover.

<comment><USER10> > Most people new to a topic want an instructional manual or guide, not a > technical reference. Man pages and tables of syscalls are decidedly the > latter, and therefore primarily intended for people who are already familiar > with the topics they cover

But this thread is about brushing up on OS and C programming. So not novices, but people who are already familiar with the topic.

<comment><USER12> Even then... Where are you going to start in reading references? A random syscall or function a day? I think it is far more useful to e.g. read the late W. Richard Stevens' Advanced Programming in the Unix environment. It puts everything in context, provides historical background where necessary, and gives examples.

Reference pages are not really for brushing up, but more for the 'what was the address family field of sockaddr called again'-type of questions? Or put differently: they are external memory.

<comment><USER10> > Even then... Where are you going to start in reading references? A random > syscall or function a day?

Sure. Or browse through a bunch of them?

> think it is far more useful to e.g. read the late W. Richard Stevens' > Advanced Programming in the Unix environment.

That is closer to a reference than a novice tutorial.

> It puts everything in context, provides historical background where > necessary, and gives examples.

Sure. So do good references. Even man pages do.

> Reference pages are not really for brushing up, but more for the 'what was > the address family field of sockaddr called again'-type of questions? Or put > differently: they are external memory.

It depends on your level, experience and your competence in the material I guess. I'm not saying it's the only thing you need, but in many situations, it's the only thing you need to brush up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> [http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/](http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~remzi/OSTEP/) is really good and approachable. It was even recommended in one of the Gatech OS courses.

<comment><USER14> I've gone through the first few chapters of this book, it's fine. The exercises are somewhat lacking though, in my opinion (the last course I did was nand2tetris, which was project-based, so perhaps I have unrealistic expectations). I started learning C concurrently, and didn't find it a problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> To learn which traps to avoid in C, have a look at SEI CERT C. It's written very well with examples and explanations, and is structured as a coding guide.

[https://wiki.sei.cmu.edu/confluence/display/c/SEI+CERT+C+Cod...](https://wiki.sei.cmu.edu/confluence/display/c/SEI+CERT+C+Coding+Standard)

</comment><comment><USER16> I recently decided to review operating systems, but my old Tanenbaum textbook from college would take forever to read through especially now that I'm working full time. I've been watching the Berkeley lecture series on Youtube (CS 162) and its been pretty good at covering the main topics concisely.

<comment><USER14> What prompted you to review? Does this somehow indicate that you weren't using the course material in your job(s)?

<comment><USER16> I graduated from college more than 2 years ago so I forgot almost all of them CS topics that I've learned and wanted to review the fundamentals (OS, databases, computer architecture, etc). And no, I don't use of these concepts very much at work, only surface level knowledge. I've also been trying to learn more about malware analysis and reverse engineering, and it seems like having a solid foundation in CS concepts is key to being proficient at it.

<comment><USER14> Would you mind sharing what kind of software you write?

This is interesting to me, since I'm self-taught and seem to have done well in my career so far (4 years in), but now I'm going through core CS books and courses, worried that I'll hit a ceiling and wanting to fill the gaps in my knowledge. I work in devops and infrastructure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I personally found the best method of brushing up on C and operating systems was just walking through examples myself...

Haven't personally done it for a few years, but I went through step by step on my blog (particularly in 2014):

[https://austingwalters.com/knowledge/](https://austingwalters.com/knowledge/)

I also have a nice repo of a bunch of IPC examples:

[https://github.com/lettergram/IPC- examples](https://github.com/lettergram/IPC-examples)

</comment><comment><USER15> Knowing and fully understanding the concept of undefined behaviour (UB) and the difference to unspecified and implementation-defined behaviour is a must for safe and secure C programming. Because arguably, C and C++ are broken at the specification level. Chris Lattner puts this in kind words:

[http://blog.llvm.org/2011/05/what-every-c-programmer- should-...](http://blog.llvm.org/2011/05/what-every-c-programmer-should- know_14.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> Somewhat unrelated but I've always wanted ask: What types of small projects can a beginner start to develop a better understanding of C ? (Beyond basic syntax, something that would actually make use of memory allocation, pointers etc)

<comment><USER19> Creating a small UFS implementation (on top of your file system, rather than as a raw disk is probably easier) in C is a nice fun exercise.

<comment><USER18> Thanks for the recommendation ! Sounds indeed like a fun thing to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Great 'free' resources:

\- C Programming Boot Camp [https://www.gribblelab.org/CBootCamp/index.html](https://www.gribblelab.org/CBootCamp/index.html)

\- aalto-c.mooc [http://2016-aalto-c.mooc.fi/en/Module_1/index.html](http://2016-aalto-c.mooc.fi/en/Module_1/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER21> I would also recommend reading Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective, 3rd Edition.

<comment><USER22> Indeed! It's my favorite technical book, several of the chapters have information I've yet to find laid out in comparable detail anywhere online.

The book was written for a CS course (15-213) at Carnegie Mellon University, course materials here (supplement, but no replacement for the book): [https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~213/](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~213/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I like this little book, in very small amount of space it teaches you how to build a bare bones OS, from there you can start doing your own experiments which I think is the best way to really learn something:

[https://littleosbook.github.io/](https://littleosbook.github.io/)

It's good to not only know operating systems in general, but also to understand some of the internals of the operating system you are actually using. For Linux, this is good:

[https://0xax.gitbooks.io/linux- insides/content/index.html](https://0xax.gitbooks.io/linux- insides/content/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER24> TLPI is a fantastic reference book to have when written code.

</comment><comment><USER25> CS50 courses (This is CS50!), cs50.io is currently one of the easiest and the best introduction to C language. It's very modern approach to teaching C programming.

</comment><comment><USER26> mark as it is ,learned a lot

</comment><comment><USER27> Will recommending my own project get me hell-voted? Cixl is a straight forward 3-stage (parse/compile/eval) interpreter that is designed to be as fast as possible without compromising on simplicity, transparency and flexibility. The codebase has no external dependencies and is currently hovering around 7 kloc including tests and standard library. There are some articles explaining design decisions, but I've been mostly busy with code. The code should be perfectly readable though, and contains plenty of good ideas distilled from 32 years of daily practice.

[https://github.com/basic-gongfu/cixl](https://github.com/basic-gongfu/cixl)

[https://github.com/basic- gongfu/cixl/tree/master/devlog](https://github.com/basic- gongfu/cixl/tree/master/devlog)

<comment><USER28> Could make a good show hn post

<comment><USER27> Been there, done that :)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16081592](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16081592)

<comment><USER29> Yes I followed that thread with interest, as well as the earlier one on Reddit. I still have trouble following many of your statements, though.

Here, are you saying the Cixl _implementation_ is a useful example of C programming? Or something else?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How did you like your job in 2017? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER3> "Awful" would be the first word that comes to mind.

I've spent three years at my current position at one of the "big 5", and after the first 9 months there were reorgs and I haven't been doing the things I was hired to do since. Instead I work on things that I have zero interest towards, and can feel my soul being sucked out of me daily.

It has gotten to the point where I cannot even imagine heading in to work each morning. My entire body and mind rejects the notion. Somehow I manage to make it in on autopilot, and pretty much autopilot throughout the day. Any acts of sentience on my part while at the office are immediately doused with reminders of how much I hate all of this, and I quickly retreat back.

Unfortunately, this has done nothing but cause an ever-amplifying depression spiral. At this stage I can't even imagine trying to get another job as I don't think I'm capable of passing the whiteboard-hazing at any tech company given my current state of mind.

I'm just going to wither away here until the end I imagine.

To be fair: it's not "awful" by any traditional metric - I'm not being overworked, yelled at, treated like shit, etc. But acknowledging that doesn't help my thoughts, any.

<comment><USER4> Is it really disappointing to get hired at one of these places so many people admire and desire, only to find it's nothing special at all? Or is the problem something else?

I've wondered about that. My job isn't spectacular, it's pretty good. I used to want to strive for a spot in a bigger/high impact/significant company like Amazon or Apple for example, but eventually came to realize I'd probably never do anything interesting there, even if I was capable of it. I don't know. I used to feel like I missed the boat and my career would never be as rewarding because of it. These days... Starting to feel like I'm actually doing alright, making the most with what I've got.

I stopped pursuing that career direction because I'm geo-locked, so to speak. I can't leave this city.

Anyway, sorry you're having a terrible time. I've been there. I hope the situation improves soon. Maybe you should bank everything you can, take time off, then get back to finding work with a fresh mind. Good luck.

<comment><USER3> For me, at least, the problem is something else. I never expected it to be "special" at any of these places...I'd likely be exactly this unhappy doing the same meaningless work I'm doing here, elsewhere. I just took the jobs because they paid well and, at least at the beginning, I was going to be doing things that were of reasonable interest.

I tried the "take time off route" once, and while it was alright, I was consumed with thoughts of whether or not I'd ever be able to get a job again, to the point where I couldn't enjoy it simply because I worried about the future (and it wasn't because I only had a few months of runway - <USER2> frugally I could have likely stretched my savings to two years or so, but the panic got to me after half a year).

I, quite frankly and totally honestly, don't see any way out at this point. I live life in an aimless fog, with no drive towards anything any more (which also makes it very difficult to do things like study for whiteboard-hazing).

<comment><USER5> I would talk to someone directly. You sound very unhappy.

I wasn't quite clear if the problem was the work or the company? It's something that needs to be dived into and had a good look at because there could be imbalance in your life leading to depression. So you need to look at things like diet, sleep, exercise, relationship etc. It's possible you need to rebalance - it's possible you need a new career. A career break should never be a hindrance to a new job, and should often be a selling point, as long as you've used that time sensibly.

So in short, talk to a career coach or counsellor. Try and get some more face to face help. You say you work for a big company - they often have help lines for employees run by third parties - use it!

<comment><USER3> > I wasn't quite clear if the problem was the work or the company?

I honestly don't have a complete answer for this. I mean, I _know_ the work is a major problem, but it's not the only factor by far. It's definitely the one front and center, however.

As for other "life" things, I believe I do well there. I get 8 hours of sleep, I exercise 4 days a week, eat healthy, etc. No relationships but I'm antisocial to a tremendous degree so there's not much helping me there.

I appreciate the comments. Thank you!

<comment><USER5> > No relationships but I'm antisocial to a tremendous degree so there's not > much helping me there.

That may be partly the issue. Studies into "happiness at work" often show it's not the work itself that necessarily determines happiness, but the quality of the relationships you have at work. For example, some work that may seem tedious and dull can become quite interesting if you are working on it together with someone you like and respect - and it's even better if you can have a blast with them. On my last gig for example I was doing dreadfully tedious work, but it was made better because several people I worked with were just awesomely nice people and we tried to have some fun too. Perhaps there's someone at work that you can buddy up with, and your manager might be able to help you there.

Having a relationship can be an important factor too - apart from anything it helps you get out of your own head and relax. Do you do any social activities on the weekend? It might be worth joining a cycling club, a running club or even a Crossfit box - you say you like exercise, something where there are other people to talk to. Just being around other people and talking to them will help - I know this is like hell on Earth if you are basically shy, so this is something you are going to have to ease into gently and get support if you need it - it will get easier.

Having said all that this is a difficult thing to diagnose and remedy via HN! As mentioned before you might find it worth talking to a career coach or perhaps even a counsellor. Feel free to email me if you want.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 6/10

It's not the job's fault. Good atmosphere, coworkers, and immediate management. I just want to be doing my own thing.

We have had a lot of turnover, though. Perhaps it's not as good for others.

Edit: I think the job deserves 8 or 9/10, it's my own attitude affecting how I answer the question as-posed.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I know that feeling. I've concluded that I'm simply not a very good employee.

Don't get me wrong, I perform! And they've let me make a lot of changes that fix many of the problems they've had.

But my mind's always on my side jobs and how fast I can grow them into a business that can support us full-time. The inefficiencies at a mature business just bug me so much.

<comment><USER8> You may find those technical inefficiencies are what enabled the business to mature and sustain itself...I know several people whose "business" has extremely "efficient" tech but zero revenue. I.e. customers don't care how efficient the tech is so long as they can pay you money to solve their problem...and putting too much energy into the tech prevents you from other revenue-generating activities such as lead generation, sales, etc.

<comment><USER7> I said absolutely nothing about _technical_ inefficiencies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> 1/10\. Constant mass layoffs, most subject matter experts have quit, the code is a legacy pile of bugs and where changing one line of code is incredibly painful. Also new college grads are making 20k+ higher than my current salary despite having 2 years of experience in the bay area. I've been trying to find a new job but I'm so exhausted and stressed out at the end of the day that I don't have the energy to grind leetcode/algorithms problems to prepare for technical interviews, and those whiteboarding/system design interviews are brutal.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry to hear that! Couldn't agree more tech interviews are long and difficult and require lots of preparations. I had some that lasted 4 -6 hours, man that is long! I also find that you get to speak about the company and the role only at the very end, when you already spent a fair bit of yours and theirs time. Wish you best of luck in job hunt this year!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I went from a huge bank with excellent engineering that never shipped anything to a small startup that is constantly on fire and a product that needs a lot of work.

I love it. I'm excited about the company, there's a lot of room for me to grow, and it's small enough that I can have a lasting impact as we solidify our engineering culture. I report directly to the CTO, though I believe we'll be getting a director soon that will sit between us. It's still better than the 7+ layers of management at Giant Bank.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool! What do you find is the best advantage and what is the biggest downside working in a small startup as opposed to a big corporate?

<comment><USER10> Biggest downside: a lack of established process. Big corporate had too much process at times, but there was normally decent enough tooling around everything. And there were teams to do everything, which really allowed you to focus.

Advantage: More control over what tools I use. Always something interesting happening, and knowing that the growth of the company is directly influenced by your work.

I am also terrified that being able to impact the company/culture means that I will lead us down the wrong path.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's an interesting worry to have! Sounds like fun, you definitely won't be bored at work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've 34 years of experience in software engineering. Since about 1986, I have been either hired as the team lead or eventually been appointed the team lead at each of the six employers that I have worked for. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I am once again starting over as a team member in a new group. I wasn't given much choice in the matter as my attempt to apply to an open position that I thought had potential, was squashed by my management. At least, knowing my desire, they offered up two choices of becoming a team member of a couple of projects with funding, openings, and years of internal customer base. However, it was a choice for me between the least of evils. Something that I could not convey to my management since I was already apparently "in the dog house" for having applied to the position of my choosing earlier. So now I have the psychological dilemma of trying to act like I am joining the team by my own choosing because I do not think any existing team member has any idea of the way I was collared. Whats more, the technology stack and engineering practices of my new team are poorly thought out if not completely random (and this is the better of the two choices). There was no mention of me being added as some sort of white knight to fix it. As far as I can tell, management has no idea of the cruft that is this system. So my spouse urges me to have patience, that I will eventually take over, as I have done in the past. But I struggle to keep my head up day to day, being assigned feature and bug tickets and instructed on kluged up solutions that match the overall product. Meanwhile, I fantasize how I could rearchitect and rewrite this system into a much better product. It isn't healthy. It isn't fun. I hate it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Might be the time to move on? Sometimes waiting pays off, but not if it takes long time and makes you so unhappy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I love it! which is actually bad for me, because otherwise I would retire early and travel the world... maybe next year :-)

12 years and counting at this position...

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, must be a great job:) I always get surprised when I see someone at the same company for 10+ years in IT.

<comment><USER13> I have a small company and have found that in general 5 years is the _shortest_ stints for our technical employees. Our dept managers have been with us for over 15 years. Our college interns also report hands down that their internships were the best of their peers.

I've taken this as a compliment to the environment and culture I've fostered. My "secret": treat everyone the way I'd like to be treated and work the way I'd like others to work.

I'm always surprised when others are surprised at our retention. To me this seems like an easy accomplishment. Maybe this is only possible at a smaller company who's doing interesting work?

<comment><USER12> Great stuff, it is also possible in big corporations, you just have to work on interesting projects with like minded people, be flexible as a manager and lead by example...

Essentially you can turn your team into small company with it's own culture within the corporation, threat the rest as customers, etc...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> 3/10, of the 10 months working here I did maybe 2 months of actual work. And then about 2 months ago the company brought in a developer from the company we get part of our software from to basically do my job, so I don't know why I'm here anymore besides some sort of political puppet. Did I mention I'm a temp still by the way?

<comment><USER15> You are in a strong position just keep doing what you are doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not too much; The job was oversold to me during interviews (or I did not ask the right questions) and that means, I've gone from working on massive scale distributed systems infrastructure to network automation configuring a handful of devices every now and then. I think my skills may have atrophied even though I have been keeping up on the side - not sure how I can sell this in my next interviews. What's keeping me here? An awesome manager (learned how to lead from him, just by observation), and my green card application is in the final stages.

</comment><comment><USER17> 7.5/10

It was very interesting, and I shipped another game. I was in a fairly new position and fought a bit with impostor syndrome at first, but got to learn a lot and contributed quite a bit back to the engine. Just as I was feeling pretty competent and settled into the role I was moved to a position with more responsibilities, so now I have to adjust all over again. I guess it is good not to be entirely comfortable and keep pushing yourself, it just means a little more stress to deal with. I think it'll be fine though; I am used to working on things that feel challenging and push me to learn and develop more.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hear you, getting comfortable at job sometimes means you might get bored too quickly :) Depends on the person really, wish you best of luck!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> 8/10

Improved my code quality by becoming more aware of code style and becoming more nuanced in the approaches I take when solving problems. Enjoyed getting back into Python work, but async programming in python is still somewhat awkward.

I'm alarmingly bittersweet about living in the Bay Area and not living closer to home. On one hand, I miss seeing my large and wonderfully close family and friends at home; on the other, the Bay Area weather is wonderfully mild and always sunny, and of course, salaries are better here. So I've wrestled with re-calculating the costs of where to live.

<comment><AUTHOR> Improving coding skills is a lifetime work :) Does Bay Area work out for you? I heard salaries are high, but so are life expenses.

<comment><USER18> Salaries are high, but taxes and living expenses really take a bite out of it. Nonetheless, I feel I've saved more money than I would have living in my home- city.

The perpetually mild weather has done wonders for my mental health, I hate the cold, dark winters in Vancouver BC. I keep telling myself it's only a 2 hour flight away, but I never seem to go back enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> In the beginning, it was nice.

In the middle, it came with some interesting career changes and challenges. It was a good personal experience, but ultimately it didnt work for the company.

In the end, we changed management and it -might- be good for the company depending on what the new owner wants with it. But people are fired en masse, and people are quitting en masse. Project management sucks, we didnt have things to do for months and around both christmas AND new years, we got 2 supposedly CRITICAL issues that HAVE to be done. Except not really.

Looking forward to 2018. Mostly because I'll be looking at new opportunities.

<comment><AUTHOR> You had the whole spectrum throughout the year. It is interesting how a company can change from great to complete opposite in a year time. It reminds me a bit on my 2016, I left eventually after one more merger happened, it was hard to follow which companies joined ours, which systems are going to be ditched and so on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Went from a start up with a garbage fire app chasing VC money to sell the last of their dignity to the world of big business working on real software; so 50-50 on terrible soul crushing experience and fantastic year.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is something now, hard to beat that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm really happy in 2017. I'm at the same job for a year (big accomplishment for me). I got a large hourly raise; they sent me to react and rails training. I took 6 weeks to go to europe and I can work from home a few days per week. I'm working the dream.

</comment><comment><USER22> 7/10, defense contractor doing projects no one cares about until I get my security clearance. Tired of "rudimentary python scripts", want to work on a real code base and with other people (I'm the only one on my project). First job out of college.

</comment><comment><USER23> I really enjoyed it. My first year fully remote. It's been quite the change and while I will leave this job at the end of the month I think it's been a great experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> Congrats on your first year fully remote! I was thinking of switching remote as well. Did you encounter any challenges that you normally wouldn't have? If I may ask, why are you leaving it?

<comment><USER23> I crave a bit more of freedom of travelling and I will try and focus on some personal projects. At least for a while and if I see it's not working I'll go back to a "proper" job.

I haven't found many challenges other than taxes and stuff like that. Many countries I find are not ready to welcome people that move around a lot.

As for the job itself I keep a pretty strict regime on myself so I still try to do all office hours and keep in touch as much as I can. It is true tho that you do get "cut out" a bit and it's probably not the best for people that want to climb the ladder. For me it really helped the fact that I worked for a full year in the office with the same people so I knew them pretty well.

<comment><AUTHOR> That sounds very cool, thanks for the answer. Enjoy your adventures in 2018!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> 7/10.. Changed end of 2016 and got a good raise. Got to learn a lot of new things and adapt to the new culture. Its nice to shake up things once in a while I guess.

</comment><comment><USER25> It was great! A dream come true! Then it all ended pretty quickly. Ah well.

</comment><comment><USER26> 7/10 One job sucked and found a new one. New gig is okay. I think my expectations for work has decreased.

</comment><comment><USER27> 10/10

</comment><comment><USER28> 7/10

Work as a contractor for one of the largest govt defense contractors in the aerospace and land vehicle field. Lots of opportunity here to work on pretty much whatever you'd like. You can jump on any project ranging from low level embedded devices to application code to virtual reality. Coworkers are pleasant, albeit their skills can be a bit atrophied due to them being in maintenance/bug fixing mode for the past 10+ years of being here working on their own little section of code. Managers are great and leave you alone. My actual team lead only holds meetings once every few weeks, as we mostly use SMS for any instant or urgent information (nothing I work on is classified, and my core team consists of about three other people who do actual coding). I got a cube, and if I need more alone time, I can head to six or more different silo areas where specific hardware is kept for testing, and I can ssh to any machine and just pick up where I left off. They're usually not busy until a release is coming up, which is only a couple times a year.

Downsides include the location of the company (lower income state compared to others), weather, and an aversion to change - which I guess kinda comes with a fortune 100 govt contracting company. Computer hardware given to us is atrocious, getting competent new people in is almost impossible due to what we work on and location, and devs don't even need to show they can code. Nepotism is very real, as is having to "know people" in order to advance here. If you are a direct employee, promotions are rare and usually only occur once every 5 to 10 years. IT infrastructure is some of the absolute worst I have ever seen, and it prevents you from getting real work done (imagine having to wait four months to get your favorite free IDE installed or six months to update Cygwin packages, for example. In fact, our IT group still can't figure out how to upgrade a Cygwin install on a shared folder).

Pay is decent. As a contractor, you get straight time for every 40 hours worked, and you get 1.5x pay for every six minutes after that. Overtime is basically never mandated or requested, but you are free to work as much OT as you'd like without anyone saying anything. I have personally worked 70+ hour work weeks just for the extra cash, assisting everything from a new GUI, adding new objects to a VR demo, and implementing new functionality to Linux kernel drivers. Even got a pay raise (13% increase!) for all the extra hard work I did on top of all that extra pay, so that was cool.

All in all, it's a decent place (especially if you like living in the Midwest) with long term stability. However, you won't really be challenged with truly hard problems if you work here, and growth is stagnant. You'll really need to make the most out of it yourself by pushing management to allow you to implement new stuff, which isn't terribly hard, thankfully. They're willing to listen and implement new stuff, especially if it is a newer product. Harder if it's a legacy project, obviously, but it is still possible.

<comment><USER21> How can I get a job there?

<comment><USER28> The company isn't really hiring for software devs right now, so unless you already know Ada/vxWorks or current architecture, it might be hard to get into.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I spent 3/4 of 2017 trying to land a job. I've been at the company for a quarter. Its a big corporate monstrosity and they literally made me "train" for a month on how to do sales, customer service, and technician roles... Yeah I sat on a phone for 2 straight days taking phone calls with an engineering degree from the best school in the SE USA. Just trying to put that in perspective. I overlooked it because the opportunity brought me into a place with a lot of job opportunities.

Its hard to describe without spilling the beans on who I work for. I was hired to do embedded programming work but I do nothing of the sort and just fix/cleanup code in C. My team is being broken up and I have a chance to work with someone who has a project that actually needs embedded work.

He is abrasive as hell and corrects me all the time. I have tried to engage with him as much as possible over the last week. I am afraid even though his behavior is exactly what I envisioned as my best fit (I have worked with such a man before and I grew alot). I am also afraid because the CEO is moving to our building and the project is directly linked to whether or not the business is viable after the next 3 years. I know I can do the work as I have literally done the same kind of project before with a different standard (Project is a proof of concept), and I want to do this work as opposed to playing Barney's cleanup game with half assed projects. I liked doing Barneys cleanup song with that at my old job, but that was new frontier for me (CUDA).

I have done all I can to make sure this man understands exactly what I am capable of doing on my own, what I will need to bug him about, and things I have no experience in. Trying to cover all my bases to make sure I am a good fit for him. Yet I cannot shake this feeling of whether it is a good fit for me. Its like trying to sleep before the first round of engineering exams but constant.

In the end I decided to join his team because he used to subscribe to "embedded system design" magazine which is a resource I used to prepare for interviews. (Can someone point me to a company that will actually test me on embedded principles in a interview for an embedded position? Literally every interview asks things I learned in first year or a thought puzzle.)

Maybe I feel to paranoid about all this because I went from producing 50x more at a startup to here where a simple change can get deadlocked for a week. Believe me I work frantically. I spend 80% of my time researching and taking notes since all the domain experts have quit (terrible benefits) and nobody seems to want and be able to assist me in a proper training rampup period (y'know instead of having me work a fucking call center).

Everyone seems to barely know the part of the code they live in and honestly as I walk around productivity/attention is literally the lowest I have ever seen in my life. To this I try and convince myself its just the change of employer type and that other people are literally watching movies at work so I should not fret so much.

Sorry for the wall of text, but the first thing I learned is that at corporate you have to cover your own ass. So it is cathartic to be able to express myself here. Any input would be greatly appreciated. I have no idea what I am doing.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you don't mind me asking, were you actively looking for a new job for 3/4 of 2017, without being employed anywhere? Finding a job in tech shouldn't be that hard, I would think.

Your situation sounds quite like any other big corporate. Lots of people not doing anything or working very little and manages that can be really picky and hard to get along. I am not sure what I would do, getting into that team seams like a way to go, but working with that manager sounds very difficult. Maybe give it a go for few months to see if you get along with him? If not, start looking for a new job, while you are still at your present one maybe.

It really depends on your character, I might not give the best advice cos I am tired of working for ineffective managers.

<comment><USER29> I appreciate your time to give me your advice. You may not think it matters much but I benefit greatly from hearing it from another human. If you have anything else to add I will check back</comment></comment></comment>


Amazon's Fargate grows faster than Kubernetes among AWS customers - <AUTHOR> https://thenewstack.io/fargate-grows-faster-than-kubernetes-among-aws-customers/ <comment><USER2> if you have ever tried k8s on AWS you will know why its not often used, but why would AWS want something a customer could pick up and move to Azure, DO, or any other k8s implementor. Their interests are better served by fargate.</comment>


Ask HN: Elasticsearch vs. SOLR? - <AUTHOR> Has anyone got any experience with both of these? Which one would you recommend?<p>I have a new project where I want to store logs and search those logs by keyword, and eventually do visualizations on the performance of my app based on these logs. <comment><USER2> I have been involved with some complex SOLR customizations such as Asian languages, probabilistic IR and neural ranking functions, etc. I have been proud of the end product but at the cost of blood, sweat and tears. To be fair, a lot of this was in the Lucene 3 era, in which doing anything interesting with the ranking function would be a big pain and probably wreck performance.

I haven't done anything that advanced with Elasticsearch but the #1 theme is that Elasticsearch is really easy in terms of development and operations. I know people that have developed plugins for ES that are pretty clean so I think advanced customization is easier than it used to be, but a lot of that is a matter of Lucene 4.

If you are working with logs and interested in visualization you should check out Kibana and also Kibi

[https://siren.solutions/kibi/](https://siren.solutions/kibi/)

which is a greatly powered-up fork of Kibana.

</comment><comment><USER3> We moved everything from SOLR to Elasticsearch about a year ago. We were already using Elasticsearch for data visualizations, but SOLR was our text search. Elasticsearch supported that, and we were able to add more language analyzers to support our use-case.

On the admin side, SOLR was a black box to everyone but one person on the team. If a node dies, there needs be another election, and Zookeeper needs to be updated. Restart nodes too fast and we ended up masterless a few times. Elasticsearch is much much better on leader elections and backups, though status going to red on new index creation is obnoxious. That supposedly will be fixed soon.

</comment><comment><USER4> Perhaps not the best question for HN. But I used both a year ago and did not see a single thing in SOLR that ES didn't do better. Starting from documentation to ease of configuration and querying, features... Documentation alone was worth the switch. Overall it seems to me that SOLR is a technology that's on it's way out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, it seems to me that Elasticsearch has better documentation as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Really good write-up (about a year old) on precisely that subject, here:

[https://sematext.com/blog/2015/01/30/solr-elasticsearch- comp...](https://sematext.com/blog/2015/01/30/solr-elasticsearch-comparison/)

</comment><comment><USER6> If your requirement is mainly indexing and search, then the performance of Sphinx ([http://sphinxsearch.com](http://sphinxsearch.com)) will be must better, even for large amounts of data.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm looking at replacing a few GSA appliances with either of these for indexing private user content (so users can search their own data). Anyone have experience with this on these and how has it been?

</comment><comment><USER8> Unless you like XML and convoluted documentation, go for ES.</comment>


Throwing Money Away (Buying vs Renting) - <AUTHOR> http://messymatters.com/2009/06/01/buyrent/ <comment><USER2> I've always been an opponent of the "throwing money away" argument. In fact, the argument played right into the housing bubble. There was a sense of urgency that you HAD to buy a house now or else.

Renting provides you near elasticity in where you want to live. Besides your lease (which could be month-to-month) you have nothing binding you to an area. You also don't face the risk of a declining asset. While housing typically increases in value, we've certainly seen the opposite happening a lot lately. When you're young, you probably don't want to be tied down to an area. Things change quickly at this stage in your life.

Ironically, a lot of these people who were afraid they were "throwing money away" while renting got into situations where they literally were throwing money away to PMI and too large of interest rates.

If renting was such a god-awful idea, it wouldn't exist. There are tons of reasons to rent instead of buy and anyone who insists that home ownership is the only way is foolish.

<comment><USER3> Renting in the US also means you are not responsible for:

* leaky roofs

* broken appliances: clotheswashers, water heaters, etc

* maintenance of a/c, heat, etc.

* maintenance of water pipes, electricity, etc., etc.

* upkeep of lawn, sidewalks, driveways (except in rare cases)

* building safety compliance

* fixing damage from floods, storms, earthquakes, etc.

* worry about termites, the foundation, the well, property line disputes from faulty surveys (the latter occur ALL THE TIME in the US)

* building insurance (renter's insurance always a good idea tho)

* personal liability for visitors hurting themselves on the lawn, sidewalks, driveway, inside stairs (anywhere outside your actual unit)

I could go on and on... if you own a condo, you are subject to surprise "assessments" to care for the building/property amenities, but there's insurance for it. If you own a house, it comes out of your pocket. And if you make claims against accidents (tree falling, storm ripping off siding, etc.) on your homeowners insurance policy for damages, their habit of late is that they will drop you. (Lots of scandals about this.)

Renting means very little exposure to this kind of risk, or surprise housing costs, in addition to flexibility to leave.

Homeownership pr0n is really out of control.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Encouraging buying instead of lending discourages a flexible labor market. Basically the government, with the mortgage tax break, is lining the pockets of developers and home builders, and making it difficult or expensive for families to move where there is a higher paying job or even better school district.

<comment><USER5> It also encourages boring lives. I recently had occasion to talk with several homeowners.

My plans over the next year? Move to Kerala, learn Kalaripayattu and work on my startup. Several renters had similarly interesting plans.

Every single homeowner (or homeborrower) had plans to remodel some room of their house.

I'm firmly convinced that a home is nothing more than a ball and chain.

[edit: changed 'similar plans' to 'similarly interesting plans'. A reply to this post made me realize it was unclear.]

<comment><USER6> That's nice, because I'm sure if you talk to 100 renters, most of them also want to move to Asia and start companies.

Sheesh.

<comment><USER5> One had plans to move to north dakota, play guitar and learn to shoot. One planned to follow his job to wherever. Overall, the plans of renters were simply more interesting than those of owners.

Orthogonality is good. If your investments are tightly coupled to your lifestyle, you will have less freedom.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The NYT has a good rent vs. buy calculator:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/business/2007_BUYRENT_GRAP...](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/business/2007_BUYRENT_GRAPHIC.html)

<comment><USER8> For the mathematically inclined here is another one that accounts for more factors. [http://randolfe.typepad.com/randolfe/2006/04/bubblizer_a_req...](http://randolfe.typepad.com/randolfe/2006/04/bubblizer_a_req.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9>
        3. Leverage. Buying a house is the only way normal
        people can invest a huge amount of money on margin.

That's a reason against it, not in favour.

Would you borrow 300k so as to invest in a fixed term bond on residential real estate with hefty exit penalties?

The cult of home ownership puts a respectable shine on brazen gambling practices. :)

</comment><comment><USER10> It's really not that complicated, maybe if I write it in code people will understand:

      if( {current value of house}*{interest rate} + {taxes} + {insurance} + {maintenance} < {rent} )
        return 'buy';
      else
        return 'rent';

_Ignore_ any change in the prices of houses! It has no bearing on the decision.

<comment><USER11> You forget costs for insurance and maintenance of the house. Plus the costs of having your money tied up in a illiquid asset. And lets not forget that a house takes time and is something on your mind. Time is probably the asset I personnaly value the most. I purchased a house a few years ago (after many many years of renting by choice) and the cost in time is VERY annoying for me.

<comment><USER10> > You forget costs for insurance and maintenance of the house.

I did. I just put them in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think his arguments are quite reasonable, but his example is a poor one. A Manhattan apartment is a fairly atypical sort of real estate investment, imho. I live in Austin TX, where real estate has managed to weather the storm much better than average over the last couple of years, and I'm much better off having bought than rented, even though I bought my condo in 06, at the height of the housing bubble.

That's also an atypical example, I know, and so I wouldn't want to generalize from my case alone.

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't think the situation is so black and white. I have always preferred this approach above everything else:

[http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2007/02/27/renting-versus- buy...](http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2007/02/27/renting-versus-buying-are- there-situations-where-renting-clearly-wins/)

</comment><comment><USER14> One huge plus of buying vs renting, is that when you buy you can get a home equity line for emergencies. A huge line of credit at very low interest rate, that doesn't expire, or change due to future events.

<comment><USER10> If you were renting you would have that money (that equity) in your pocket, and wouldn't need to borrow against your house to have access to it.

<comment><USER15> Vaksel is wrong, but so are you. If you were renting you wouldn't have any equity to appreciate (in the form of title to your house and the difference between what you paid for it and the current market value) so it would never be in your pocket to begin with.

<comment><USER10> You missed the point. If you were renting you would not have paid the money that otherwise went to principal - that money would still be in your pocket.

<comment><USER15> But nor would you get any benefit if the value of the property you were renting had appreciated, though obviously this is balanced out by not having a millstone around your neck when property values crash during a recession. Having both bought and rented, I don't think there is an unambiguous financial benefit either way. Renting gives you more temporal freedom (as in being able to just walk away and move to a better place or another country), a sensible buy can give you more financial freedom (as in a large chunk of collateral).

<comment><USER10> > But nor would you get any benefit if the value of the property you were > renting had appreciated

If you want to invest in real estate you can. You don't have to live there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> At least no renter is upside down on their mortgage right now.

<comment><USER17> Yes but many many landlords are, which cause some very sad stories of people being kicked out of their house or apartment because the bank foreclosed on the landlord. Renters have almost no rights in that situation.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, and sometimes the renters first notice is the deputy showing up telling them they've got 2 hours to get out before the locks are changed. Apparently there are cops in Vegas working 12 hour days just doing evictions.

<comment><USER19> > there are cops in Vegas working 12 hour days just doing evictions

They had better hope that there will never be a revolution which results in class-traitors being correctly dealt with.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


ConsenSys Ventures invests in six companies and launches its Accelerator - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/12/consensys-ventures-invests-in-five-companies-and-launches-its-accelerator/ <comment><USER2> DADA actually sounds somewhat interesting. I think the art world is one that could genuinely benefit from Blockchain technology, if only the power consumption issue turns out to be practically solveable.</comment>


Apple deploys network sniffer - <AUTHOR> In recent Apple Mac OSX 10.13.2 system update, a new daemon called 'rapportd' has been found to do the following:<p>* It is an undocumented 'Rapport Connectivity Framework' (RCF), * Port 49158/tcp * It is not power-friendly, wakes up the entire box too often * systemstat starts this rapportd daemon * RCF  is a multi-client chatty protocol * iPhone and iPad makes effort to connect with iMac<p>It's ill-conceived and not well thought out.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/32698485? <comment><USER2> That description doesn't sound nefarious. But I'm keen to learn more.</comment>


Show HN: Simple Chat Application Using Elixir Phoenix Running on Raspberry Pi 2 - <AUTHOR> http://pichat.zohaib.me

<comment><USER2> Nice. Thanks for sharing the writeup and demo. You'll probably want to rate and character limit it.

edit: also perhaps deny a single user from duplicating tabs and saturating the bandwidth. ...but it's a neat demo and useful for trusted users.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, yep i need to add that. I just put it together from the fork of chrismccord chat example, did'nt put much thought into the rate & limit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> There should be a spam-filter based on number of post per users compared to other users in a given timeframe. The chat is now flooded by a user posting links to porn-pages.</comment>


Ozark Medieval Fortress - <AUTHOR> http://ozarkmedievalfortress.com/en-us/

<comment><USER2> As a student at UA Fayetteville, I would love to take a trip out there. It looks quite interesting.

Putting together castles without modern equipment is the definition of (really) oldschool hacking!

<comment><AUTHOR> I want to go check it out too, and I'm all the way out in SF!</comment></comment>


Ask YC: Recommended Podcasts and Video Shows? - <AUTHOR>

To better manage my time, I'm trying to purge the South Parks and Aqua Teens from my life in favor of more "complex carbohydrate" material.
I think everyone could benefit from suggestions.
To start things off, I'm a big fan of WNYC's Radiolab podcast. Every one I've heard has been fascinating, and well-produced. <comment><USER2> How does replacing one entertainment with another equate to better time management?

I can understand wanting higher quality entertainment than South Park, but don't fool yourself into thinking an NPR podcast is a better use of time if it is likewise distracting you from things you need to do.

</comment><comment><USER3> BBC World Service, radio documentaries.

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/documentaries/index.shtml>

</comment><comment><USER4> www.ted.com

</comment><comment><USER5> Probably the most startuppy podcast I know is GigaOm's: They're way too short..but often worth watching:

<http://revision3.com/gigaom/>

</comment><comment><USER6> This american life.

</comment><comment><USER7> iTunes U - it has great resources from many top Us - not just classroom material, but great talks, etc.

Be sure to checkout Stanford's Entrepreneurship section! Also, research channel (also on iTunes) exposes some incredible academia work - kids, this is a great place for your idea hunting on the next big thing (why read when you can watch them present?)

</comment><comment><USER8> Exceptional. <http://www.cbc.ca/writersandcompany/>

</comment><comment><USER9> a short subset of my podcast list:

this american life

security now

TWIT

TWIS

the sound of young america

jordan jesse go

never not funny

car talk

they're all a little more entertainment-centric, but i like to split my mind like that when working.

</comment><comment><USER10> Come on, everyone should take a break now and then.

</comment><comment><USER11> WTF is a podcast? Will you speak English here please?

<comment><USER7> A podcast is a recorded radio show or the sort that is published via RSS usually.</comment></comment>


Startup advice: Stop solving a "problem", users don't have any - <AUTHOR> http://dominikbalogh.com/post/20347988061/what-problem-are-you-solving-is-just-obsolete

<comment><USER2> This ties back to the being a visionary side of things - solving a problem before people realize they have a problem.

Or more usually termed as a quote about Ford: "If Ford asked people what they wanted, he'd build a quicker horse."</comment>


Show HN: A website architecture and onsite SEO analysis tool. - <AUTHOR> http://metaforensics.io/

<comment><AUTHOR> I have been working on an SEO / internal link analysis / site architecture tool for a little while now, and it's getting to the stage where it is ready for some hardy early adopter sorts to have a play with it.

Here is some example output that the tool generates: [http://metaforensics.io/dashboard](http://metaforensics.io/dashboard)

Any feedback would be gratefully received!</comment>


IMHO: The Mythical Fullstack Engineer - <AUTHOR> https://stackoverflow.blog/2019/10/17/imho-the-mythical-fullstack-engineer/?cb=1 <comment><USER2> > Knows at least one primary backend language (probably NodeJS, PHP, or Java)

Oh how things have changed!

It used to be C/C++, Python, Perl, Ruby...</comment>


Follow the money: Apple vs. the FBI - <AUTHOR> http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2016/03/follow-the-money-apple-vs-the-.html#more <comment><USER2> this was posted here before, and is a really great read.</comment>


Http://blog.spendingkarma.com/ - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> How do you prove a person's location with your app?

There is very little info on the main page. If I click "more info" I expect to see more than 3 circles. Sorry to rant, I don't think you want a page that disappoints.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> There's a new sheriff in town.</comment>


Are you scientifically literate? A quiz. - <AUTHOR> http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/1209/Are-you-scientifically-literate-Take-our-quiz/Composing-about-78-percent-of-the-air-at-sea-level-what-is-the-most-common-gas-in-the-Earth-s-atmosphere

<comment><USER2> Too bad it costs about 100 ad impressions to complete this quiz.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm afraid the first question was a general-knowledge question, which led me (perhaps unfairly?) to write the rest of the test off as nothing more than a specialised knowledge quiz.

I don't suppose it went into scientific method, controlled experiments, philosophy of science, etc.?

If not, then it could hardly be called a scientific literacy quiz, any more than a random series of questions about specific APIs is a programming interview.

<comment><USER4> I would like to see a quiz like that; "spot the errors in these experiments", "spot the statistical flaws in these methods" and so on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fun quiz, but the user interface is terrible. Too many ads, and showing each question again after you answer it is obnoxious.

<comment><USER6> That's the point of the quiz.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I missed four and I half-guessed on three questions, though I was able to rule out many impossible answers even on those. I saw two lucky guesses and three brain farts, so it mostly evened out. Without the silly mistakes I could have improved my score to 49/50.

Being able to recite at least the first ten or so elements from memory is rather useful on this quiz. And that last question is a bit out of place, being more of a history question than one of science. Sure, I got it right because I knew it had to be a trap, but even so.

</comment><comment><USER8> The reloading of the page wouldn't be so bad if not for the gazillion social sharing widgets. Those things really slow down page loads.

I'm going to go install an extension that blocks those.

</comment><comment><USER9> Better title: How many ads are you willing to look at? A test.

</comment><comment><USER10> I got impatient after 14, I don't feel any better about myself for having got the first 14 right though.

</comment><comment><USER11> Good exercise if you want to join who wants to be a millionaire. I got 32 out of 50 for the record.

</comment><comment><USER12> Wow. Pageview bait. Ugh.</comment>


Metal as a Service - <AUTHOR> https://maas.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> A way to provision and remotely manage your servers using IPMI and AMT.</comment>


Ask HN: How many of you will buy Sim City for Mac? - <AUTHOR>

Given the recent fiasco with the new Sim City release, I was curious how many people on HN would still buy the Mac version (in April??)? I know many people purchased the PC version and are running it on a PC VM, just curious who else would make the purchase given how EA has handled the initial launch. <comment><USER2> I liked Sim City 2000 enough (and bought it a second time recently on <http://www.gog.com/> ) that I would have bought the new one had it not been for the AI issues. The DRM sucks but this is one game I would have put up with it for. But it's a shame the DRM basically makes it more of a disposable game where you'll probably not have the magical experience of loading it up 20 years from now to relive good times.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if it will be further delayed. That being said, my brother is considering purchasing it, but I am holding off.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think I am going to hold at least until summer, just to see what happens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hell no! I do however plan on playing a SimCity ROM on my SNES emulator.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've just bought Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm. Can't waste too much on another 70 bucks or 90 the editors collection.

</comment><comment><USER6> I would never put up with DRM and EA's business practice, but it is hard to resist a new version of SimCity.

</comment><comment><USER7> The most meaningful vote you can cast is with your money. Nothing for EA.

</comment><comment><USER8> Nope, both because of DRM, AI and general server glitchiness.

</comment><comment><USER9> Nope. Those aren't people I should do business with.

</comment><comment><USER10> Probably will.... just a little curious, no?</comment>


Next generation of Web Apps, built with just jQuery & CSS - <AUTHOR> http://appdok.com/?utm_source=HN&utm_medium=HN&utm_campaign=appdok

<comment><USER2> I found the pulse very annoying.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's was just an experiment to get focus on the download button...

Any thoughts on the Apps?

Developer portal might interest you more - <http://adomado.github.com/developers/></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would you use this service? - <AUTHOR>

How many times have you received an email that started:

  > Following recent correspondence, ...
 Sometimes it's true, but mostly it's a lie.
If someone started a database of reports of companies that lied in this fashion, would you be interested?  After all, information that a company tells lies like this is a suggestion that they will lie about other things as well.
What safeguards would you want to see?  How would you gather the data?  How would you make it available?  How would you charge for it?
I don't have time, possibly it's not worth anything, but I'd really like to see this sort of blatant lying exposed. <comment><USER2> How about a tool that's broader than just emails: something that puts the BBB out of business.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think there are bigger worries than emails that start as above. For example, are passwords encrypted, are contact details being passed to marketing agencies etc

</comment><comment><USER4> Only if it can be used to add a layer to spam filters that cut this sort of message.</comment>


Ask HN: Should my small company take a big (but sweet) space in San Francisco - <AUTHOR>

We are small right now (4 people) but we are kicking ass and we are need some good space (about 750 - 1000 sqft) because we've outgrown our sublet.<p>We found some awesome space that I think will ROCK (great location, very cool industrial space, 2 decks) in the longer run (as we grow) but is very big and expensive (3000 sqft / $6500 per month).  We can hustle and make this work by subletting some parts of it and benefit by having sweet space but its a distraction.  Hacker News: What would you do? <comment><USER2> In the startup world, I often hear very anti-office-space sentiment (either "don't get it" or "learn to rough it / cheaper is better"). I think this may be the after effects of the bubble, but that's an entirely different topic. Instead, I'll provide a slightly different perspective.

When deciding whether or not to buy office space (and how much to spend), I converted rent dollars to productive hours. For the sake of simplicity, let's assume that you are a one-person startup (as I was), and that you could easily get contracting gigs for $100/hr. Heck, let's be more conservative and consider $75/hr. Again, for the sake of simplicity, let's assume that your time spent on the startup is equally valuable as your time would be spent consulting.

In Michigan, a nice office costs around $400/mo. So, in order for this office to pay itself off, it must help me produce an extra ~5.5hr/mo of billable work (i.e. productivity). This amounts to around 11 extra minutes of productivity per day. This doesn't take into account other things like mental outlook, well-being, company attitude, etc.

So, in my scenario, I decided 2 years ago that yes, an office would add 11 extra minutes of productivity to my day. This is a decision each person must consider, as it's not one-solution-fits-all. And for a startup team, you must take into account everyone's individual productivity in addition to group productivity.

In my experience, I love having an awesome office and it's helped me through the day many times. However, I'm also constantly (and at time, painfully) aware of the cost of this luxury. For example, I still do more consulting than I'd probably prefer.

</comment><comment><USER3> Pass on this one. $6500 * 12 /3000 is $26 per square foot/year, which is a bit pricey even by SF standards. There's about 90m square feet of commercial space in SF, and this is set to increase by 5% within the next 2 years; that's one reason the city bent over backwards to give Twitter a favorable deal. For this kind of money you could get a rather fancy retail/restaurant space in a good location, or a full-service suite with less space but an impressive financial district address and all the trappings of success. If you sublet you need to budget for the cost of accounting services and what-all else as well; if you're going to go down that route then go big so that you have your eggs spead across several baskets at $15/sfyr. Try loopnet.com, but also look into the city's tax exemptions.

</comment><comment><USER4> With 4 people there is absolutely no reason to get 3000 sqft especially for $6500 per month. I would suggest either staying put or finding something much cheaper you can all live in and work in.

You are tiny and you have to act as if the money is yours (perhaps it is actually your own investment). Even if it is VC money you do not want to blow through that on BS stuff like renting space in a "nice" "cool" location. In the end it will make you run out of VC and need more, diluting you further and losing you money in the long run. No matter how you look at it, this is your money so spend it wisely! Ramen profitability is the goal! (PG plug)

</comment><comment><USER5> Don't - places are good because of the people, not the decor. Any space of sufficient size with cool people will be cool. I would spend the money on a place that either saves your time in commuting or in maintenance.

my two cents.

</comment><comment><USER6> Don't go there unless you have a very, very solid reason to get that much space. I very much doubt you each need nearly 1000 sqft to work in!

</comment><comment><USER7> Nope. Don't move into a bigger space until you _HAVE_ too (no more room in old space).

</comment><comment><USER8> Don't. Why ingest such a massive amount of overhead? Co-work until no longer feasible :)

</comment><comment><USER9> > _"its[sic] a distraction"_

This didn't need collective wisdom.

</comment><comment><USER10> If you don't NEED that big/expensive of a space, don't get it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks all for your help!</comment>


The Most Annoying Website - <AUTHOR> https://theannoyingsite.com/ <comment><USER2> You _obnoxious asshole_.

Clicktrap sites aren't annoying. Or funny. At _minimum_ , you cost everybody what context that page/tab was in.

WARNING: do NOT, in fact, click on this. If you really want to be a dupe, do it in an expendable incognito session... but it's not worth it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm the author of theannoyingsite.com. Feel free ask me any questions.

I also gave a talk at dotJS about how the site works, if you're interested. [https://www.dotconferences.com/2017/12/feross- aboukhadijeh-t...](https://www.dotconferences.com/2017/12/feross-aboukhadijeh- the-most-annoying-website)

</comment><comment><USER3> wow, this is a work of art

<comment><AUTHOR> High praise! Thank you very much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> {Press that damn space bar - go ahead and you will see that it fits the description} LOL .. get outta here ..</comment>