The Dark Matter Data Bonanza - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26861/?p1=blogs

<comment><USER3> I wonder if it is related to:

"Evidence for Correlations Between Nuclear Decay Rates and Earth-Sun Distance"

<http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.3283>

</comment><comment><USER4> >As the Sun moves through the galaxy, it must also be moving through a sea of dark matter. And as the Earth moves around the Sun, it will plough more quickly into the sea of dark matter at some times of the year and at other times more slowly.

sounds like the old idea of aether and absolute frame of reference is back (after all, considering that Michelson-Morley experiment "proved" Special Relativity without being calibrated using the SR/Lorenz rules it proved ... That would explain why the NASA, astronomers and everybody else starting at specific level of precision and/or scale in the space adjust their measurements/results/formulas for about 200-300km/s in one specific direction :)

> Sun... it must also be moving through a sea of dark matter.

So, what we have here - the "dark matter" isn't rotating together with Sun and the rest of the Milky Way's Orion arm around the Milky Way's core. Hmmmm, gravitationally interacting yet not enough to rotate together. Once we consider the Milky Way's movement through the Universe - we come to 2 alternatives - either the dark matter tags alone, (yet not rotates ?! - <USER2> what force makes it to tag alone?), or the "dark matter" is just uniformly spread around in the Universe - nice absolute frame of reference and new aether.

>...peaking in late April or early May

At January the Earth orbit movement is codirected with our Sun's and Orion arm's rotation path around the Milky Way's core, and late April we actually crossing it in the direction outward of the core. Explaining the above "peaking" effect by dark matter, we would need to allow that Sun has speed relative to the dark matter which is directed toward or outward of the galaxy core and which absolute value is comparable with the Earth orbit speed. Either Sun moves that way relative to the core, or the dark matter is moving in direction toward or outward of our galactic core.

</comment><comment><USER5> I should mention that one of the primary authors on the Cogent paper is a YC alum, Mike Miller, Cloudant (YC 07) Founder.

</comment><comment><USER6> Non-physicist here. If the modulation is annual, does that imply that the Dark Matter they're detecting is stationary, relative to the Sun (meaning it orbits the Milky Way on the same path as our Sun)?

<comment><USER7> That's possible. It's also possible that it does not rotate in the Milky Way at all. Earth would still be passing through it faster for the part of the year where our rotation around the sun has us going at a faster velocity around the center of the galaxy.

If it helps, think of your car's tire as you drive down the road at speed v. The part of the tire that touches the road at any instant has no speed (relative to the road), and the opposite point on the tire is travelling at 2*v (still relative to the road).

<comment><USER6> Ahh, right. Thanks for clarification.</comment></comment></comment>


GoReplay first major release in 7 years - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/buger/goreplay <comment><USER2> It seems pretty spammy to drop 4 links within 5 minutes for your project: [https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=LeonidBugaev](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=LeonidBugaev)</comment>


Why Smokers Still Smoke - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/opinion/sunday/why-smokers-still-smoke.html <comment><USER2> Smoking is a nasty habit and harmful to my body.

Now that that's out of the way, here are a couple reasons I smoke now and then:

1\. Socialization. For whatever reason, it's easy to meet new people while smoking. You don't feel the need to constantly be talking so it's a pretty chill, low-pressure way to meet coworkers, especially those outside of your department.

2\. Reflection. I think Ayn Rand said it best:

"I like to think of fire held in a man's hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips. I often wonder about the hours when a man sits alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking. I wonder what great things have come from such hours. When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind--and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression."

Obviously there is no requirement to smoke to get in a reflective state, but it is a trigger that helps me.

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of Rule No 1 for the GS Summer interns: _If your boss smokes, smoke._ [1]

[1] [http://gselevator.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/congratulations-s...](http://gselevator.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/congratulations- summer-interns-of-2013-grab-a-pen-here-are-a-few-words-of-wisdom/)

<comment><USER4> I laugh at how seriously he takes himself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As an anecdotal tidbit:

The reason I smoke is completely the opposite of what this article says. I _do_ think about the long term effects, smoking increases my ability to focus and when smoking my product is of higher quality and my marks are higher. I'm trading my health later on for benefits now. Personally, I feel smoking carries less risk than cognitive enhancement drugs (I.e provigil) and causes less long term damage. I can deal with COPD and take immune boosters, eat healthy, and ensure I have an adequate intake of antioxidants to lower the risk of cancer. I also don't have a defective p53 gene.

<comment><USER6> I wouldn't hire you just based on the fact that you smell like shit.

<comment><USER7> Well, I hope you're not involved with hiring at all because you might have just opened yourself up to discrimination lawsuits.

<comment><USER6> It doesn't matter. Even if the interviewer doesn't state that as a reason, it still has influence. There's nothing really stopping that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> tl;dr Smokers seem to be worse at delayed gratification. And are more easily tempted into the easy/pleasurable choice, even if it's obviously a bad choice long term.

</comment><comment><USER9> I have seen lately advertisement for electronic cigarettes. Are those better, worse for one's health. I don't smoke but was just wondering. They are hailed as a non cancer causing cigarette. Is that true? What about just a nicotine patch. Would smokers just prefer that so they can save money but still get the nicotine boost.

<comment><USER10> Nicotine itself is safe (that is, it a neurotoxin, but so is caffeine; the dosis makes the poison for humans). The carcinogenic substances you inhale from smoking are mostly a by-product of the combustion process. Electronic cigarettes work similar to vaporizers and should be safe (pending research).

Also see gwerns articles on nicotine:

[http://www.gwern.net/Nicotine](http://www.gwern.net/Nicotine) [http://www.gwern.net/Nootropics#nicotine](http://www.gwern.net/Nootropics#nicotine)

<comment><USER11> Nicotine is not "safe". It's less harmful than some of the other constituents of tobacco smoke, but it's still cancer promoting in itself:

[http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/full/v12/i46/7428.htm](http://www.wjgnet.com/1007-9327/full/v12/i46/7428.htm) [http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/91/14/1194.long](http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/91/14/1194.long) [http://toxsci.oxfordjournals.org/content/97/2/279.long](http://toxsci.oxfordjournals.org/content/97/2/279.long)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Does smoking cause bad self-control or does bad self-control drive people to smoke? I do not know the answer.

What I know is that I am nicotine addict and smoking addict. It is a habit that I go for a cigarette about every hour. It is like a clock in my head ringing to go for a cigarette after 45-60 minutes even though the nicotine withdrawal hits in around three hours. After that I usually will just go out of choice for a cigarette even if I have decided not to smoke that much for the day, because the withdrawal symptoms are annoying.

Then again I know for a certain that I am looking for activities that create lasting profit and happiness and avoid every kind of risky things like lottery. Even though I may once a year buy a lottery ticket to try my bad luck, but so does everyone else.

I do know that smoking has bad social risks like yellow teeth and bad smell. I do know that smoking causes health problems. Thing is. It is life and it is my decision to live with my addiction, where is the self-control missing?

One thing I have noticed since some of my friends have tried to stop smoking or actually have stopped smoking. They will still be the occasional smokers if they stay around other smokers and often that is the case, because smokers usually socialize with other smokers at the cigarette break and once you have quit you will still have that carving for another cigarette and some times the decision "maybe one" will rule them all. It's the ~20% club.

<comment><USER13> Nicotine addiction is not really the problem; you can get over that in a week. The problem is habit: want to go outside and think; talk to friends; kill some time while walking from point A to B? Would you rather think about smoking or just smoke and think about something else? For a smoker trying to quit, any whitespace/meditation time in your schedule is a potential for relapse. And its not just a matter of not smoking for a week, a month, 3 months, or even 6 months. It is a continuous long-road challenge to really stop.

Source: me.

<comment><USER12> Yes I do know that Nicotine addiction is not the problem. The bigger problem is the habit of wanting to go outside and think, talk to friends, kill some time while taking the dog out. Like I just went to smoke and thought about this and that about how people discriminate smokers and try to get us to stop it even though most of us avoid smoking while non-smokers are present. Though it is their problem if they hang around with smokers while they smoke.

Oh yes and I do wear a seat belt while I am in a vehicle if the vehicle has one for me.

<comment><USER13> Smoking is obviously bad, I think we all get that. I for one welcome "social pressure" as an effective mechanism for getting all of us to quit; its quite useful to limit the places that one can smoke, and to make it uncool when hanging out with a certain crowd, or even continuous admonishment from non- smokers. I would also be happy if cigarettes completely disappeared or were incredibly expensive; less temptation for me.

Smoking is not a personal problem, it is a societal one. Barring effective personal solutions, societal solutions will be more effective. Maybe they won't get you to stop smoking, but your kids probably won't smoke, and in a few generations it will be gone.

Consider that I never started smoking until I moved to a country at around 35 yro where smoking was common, welcomed everywhere but Starbucks, and cigarettes are incredibly cheap ($1.25/pack). It started out as a social habit at bars, and eventually turned into an addiction that I depended on for creativity. Now that I've associated it with that, and have been...more effective (coincidental or not)...its hard to just blow off the habit. Health or a successful career?

Oh and no, I never wear seat belts because they are always hidden in the taxis I take.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Addicts lack self control. Source: I'm a recovering addict.

Edit: Really, come visit an AA meeting sometime and watch everyone guzzle coffee and light up the second they get out the door.

</comment><comment><USER15> I wish there was a data source that compared risky behaviors. Like smoking one cigarette is equivalent to driving 100 mph on a windy road is equivalent to not eating vegetables for a week. (just making those up)

The problem for me is that I really don't know how risky smoking is relative to other activities.

I know that it's risky. But, is it more risky than eating charcoal grilled meat or walking across a busy intersection?

</comment><comment><USER16> About The New York Times (and other subscriber only content)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6111453](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6111453)

<comment><USER17> Funny to note, the study cited by the NYT was published by PloS, which was founded as an alternative to subscription based scientific journals and allows articles to be republished under Creative Commons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think anxiety disorders can also trap people in a smoking habit. I've heard that nicotine withdrawal can cause panic attacks. I've never smoked but I know what panic attacks are like and they really try the will power; they're so horrible that you'll do anything (except for something immediately dangerous) that you think can end one. Given how rapidly an ex-smoker "unquits" after lighting up the first time, one can imagine it being hard (for some) to get out of.

It does seem to be highly variable how hard it is for people to get out of the habit. Some just stop one day and lose the desire, but I also know a number of people who've "quit" several times but always fall back into it.

</comment><comment><USER19> Without reading the article: the nicotine in the cigs trigger certain brain chemical reactions which impact feels so good it is sought-after again and again and again.

<comment><USER20> Well that's what everyone knows. The question is, given the known pleasures and the known downsides, why do smokers not choose to avoid the downsides? And the answer according to the article is self-control.

<comment><USER21> I thought almost everyone knows that as well.</comment></comment></comment>


How one woman made a 'tricorder' that could change medicine [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20151204-how-one-woman-made-a-tricorder-that-could-change-medicine <comment><USER2> TL;DR: The device in question, Gene Radar, is a "tricorder" only in the sense that it's a mobile health diagnostic tool, not in the Star Trek sense of a handheld external scanner that will will give you information about a person or object from a distance without direct physical contact. Based on the video in the article, it still requires a blood sample to be inserted for direct analysis. Really cool, but not quite a Star Trek tricorder just yet.

<comment><USER3> Even with the blood sample "shortcoming", it will be huge if it keeps to its promise.

But I learned not to get excited by new medical inventions before a few years pass, before it's FDA approved, before there are enough studies that prove it _really_ does what it _says_ it does, etc.

Cool video. A woman writing some formulas, nano technology, DNA sequences, etc. All cool stuff.

Theranos also had some cool stuff to show but...

<comment><USER4> I agree, it's super cheesy/cliche that she is writing formulas on windows and stuff, but it makes for nice TV.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Nanobiosym" is living up to its namesake with the nano-level of technical information provided in their press releases about their "revolutionary" GeneRADAR(R) platform. Plenty of hype, though (from their "Nanobiosym Confidential Video" published on youtube[1]):

"we can actually _stop_ the transmission of HIV to the next generation! ... GeneRADAR(R) will empower you to personalize your healthcare experience by not only detecting but also _preventing_ diseases before you manifest symptoms!

Big claims, Nanobiosym! Tell us more! Reading between the lines, based on your references to PCR, gold standard diagnostics, and "reading and writing DNA at the nanoscale" \- just another PCR reference, presumably - it sounds as if you are developing a point-of-care qPCR[2] system that does sample prep in microfluidic cartridges. Wooooooo - there must be more to your _platform_ than that, however, because if low-cost reliable qPCR diagnostics alone could really "stop the transmission of HIV to the next generation" or "prevent diseases before you manifest symptoms," then surely the international public health community, not to mention wealthy western medical systems, would already have deployed qPCR diagnostics on a global scale, _compelled_ by the moral and economic disease-preventing, life-saving benefits you claim.

qPCR really _is_ a powerful technology with the potential to improve healthcare for everyone, everywhere, but incremental technical innovations will not solve the regulatory and clinical hurdles that have thus far prevented it's widespread use.

Personally, I am much more excited about Chai Bio's disruptively-priced Open qPCR machine - open-source hardware, 1/5th the price of the competition at $3.5k per unit, and they just started shipping units [3].

I can't stand it when bombastic, vapid corporate PR gets press like this. DEMO or BUST, Nanobiosym!

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFPo4pjT40k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFPo4pjT40k)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real- time_polymerase_chain_rea...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real- time_polymerase_chain_reaction)

[3] [https://www.chaibio.com](https://www.chaibio.com)

<comment><USER5> Regardless of the corporate claptrap, if we give Nanobiosym the benefit of the doubt and assume their geneRADAR platform does advance the state of the art in qPCR, microfluidics, and point-of-care diagnostics, what might that advance be?

It may have to do with how much blood they need for each multiplex test. Clinical qPCR diagnostics need at least 5-10 uL of blood for each test (ballpark minimum). A finger prick or dried blood sample card [1] may provide enough DNA (human or pathogen depending on the test) for one or two of these tests, but not more. To run 100 or 1000 tests in parallel, a lab would need 5-50 mL of blood. Easy to get from a venous blood draw but not easy in the field.

So perhaps Nanobiosym is developing a reliable method purifying DNA from blood and running multiplex qPCR at nanoscale volumes, and possibly enriching the purified DNA first for particular pathogen DNA sequences with a non-qPCR method. The capability to run hundreds of qPCR-based diagnostic tests in parallel from a single finger prick of blood would result in significant improvements in clinical convenience and reagent cost-savings.

It's an interesting challenge: in a person who is HIV positive but hasn't presented with AIDS, how many viral genomes can be expected to be found on average in a single finger prick of blood (viral titer)? It could be on average only 0.001 - 1 genome [2]

[1] [http://www.spotonsciences.com/dbstechnology/](http://www.spotonsciences.com/dbstechnology/)

[2] _" If a subject has a high HIV viral load (for example, at least 1 ,000 copies/ml plasma), this may indicate treatment failure, i.e. that the virus is replicating and the disease may progress more quickly. If HIV viral load is low (for example, less than 1 ,000 copies/ml plasma), this indicates that the anti-viral treatment regimen is effective, i.e. that the virus may not be actively replicating and the disease may progress more slowly."_ \- [http://www.google.com/patents/WO2014140641A1?cl=en](http://www.google.com/patents/WO2014140641A1?cl=en)

<comment><USER5> Or... they could be chaining polymerases to tiny tuning-forks to tune the speed and fidelity of DNA replication... _sounds_ pretty cool!

From a patent granted to Anita Goel / Nanobiosym: [https://www.google.com/patents/US7494791](https://www.google.com/patents/US7494791)

 _" Denaturation of double stranded nucleic acids, primer annealing, and precision control over primer extension by polymerase can be accomplished by applying stress to a nucleic acid. These methods can provide one ore more benefits over conventional PCR methods including: precision control over the PCR process; generally improved fidelity; improved accuracy over problematic... [etc etc]"_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Am I reading too much into the title? Seems like whenever there's a new thing made by female the titles have to emphasize it, almost like it's out of the ordinary for women to make something. I can't remember titles like "How one man made something..." or "How a team of only men made this..." The accomplishments are impressive regardless of gender!

<comment><USER7> Hmm, it seems to me that it is part of an attempt to get women interested in these fields; along the lines of "Oh there are successful women in this field, you could be just like them".

However, although role models help, I do not believe[0] this is the right way to go. Actively advertising that "X thing/project was made/led by a woman!" implies on some level that it is _special event_ , and unusual. I think perhaps we would have better success with subtle raising of the exposure of women in the industry[1], so instead of explicitly mentioning the gender, have a higher frequency of posts and news articles where women were the lead of projects or of teams that have a majority of women researchers.

In short: I think that increasing the public's perception of how many women there are in a field without drawing attention to it as a special case, would increase the amount of women studying in the field.

At the same time, this is more difficult to implement. So unless a bunch of newspapers collaborate on this, it seems that we are stuck with the former for now.

[0]: I am always willing to be proven incorrect, however :)

[1]: And also with investing more effort into preventing the rejection and pushing away of women who are studying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you can't watch the video, or have audio for whatever reason, her company news room page has plenty of content about the device [http://www.nanobiosym.com/index.php/news- room/](http://www.nanobiosym.com/index.php/news-room/)

rant: I've never liked article titles like these

</comment><comment><USER9> I actually think that is massively cool. In particular for remote areas or for natural disaster response where local hospitals could be unsafe/unavailable.

I will say comparing it to a "tricorder" does the device a disservice. It isn't even trying to be one, it is trying to be something else entirely, and all it will get for being called that is criticism that it isn't tricorder- enough.

</comment><comment><USER10> Of course if there is no privacy with the resulting data or the DNA input to the machine, adoption may become difficult. What will the government do with such information: [http://www.innocenceproject.org/free-innocent/improve-the- la...](http://www.innocenceproject.org/free-innocent/improve-the-law/fact- sheets/dna-exonerations-nationwide)

</comment><comment><USER11> [http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/november/tricorder- device...](http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/november/tricorder-device- arbabian-110915.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> very cool. How far are we with this type of devices? Cost? Availability?</comment>


In Defense of Telling Patients They're Dying via Robot - <AUTHOR> https://slate.com/technology/2019/03/robot-doctor-technology-patient-dying.html <comment><USER2> I disagree. There is no defense for informing people they are dying via a "robot".

What is next. "Please press # to be connected to our partnering funeral parlor"?

It's a hospital, there are doctors, there are nurses present. Perhaps a specialist can only participate remotely, but if that is the case then a local doctor can deliver the news and ask if the family would like to speak with the remote specialist.

Being told your loved one is dying via a roomba is beyond the pale. I have received more compassion from our vet.</comment>


Microsoft Announces Azure Data Lake, a Data Repository for Big Data Analytics - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/29/microsoft-announces-azure-data-lake-a-data-repository-for-big-data-analytics/

<comment><USER2> The term "Data Lake" has been a rich source of puns and riffs at work. You can trawl through it for weeks without finding anything; it's polluted with industrial runoff; you can hide a body in it...

Fun, but like the "cloud" terminology, I die a little bit every time one of these marketing terms gets coined.

<comment><USER3> It's like a Glacier had a meltdown! In California, it's all dried up! No lifeguard on duty; beware of sharks! It's like the cloud crashed! Rough seas lie ahead! To set up a data retention policy, right-click -> properties -> configure dynamic water conservation! Well, I guess this is how they deal with the rising tide! "A place to dump all your crap"! Tell your data to walk the plank! Your data will be swimmin' with the fishes! When the data evaporates, performance can really bog down! A good solution if you're swamped with data! I wonder how they handle marsh-alling! "We can help increase your data liquidity"! When it breaks, you'll yell "dam"! A great way to shore up your big data needs! A great place for a lawsuit fishing expedition! "The data were lost at sea, sir"! Maybe they're just trolling! This is their answer to Google Wave! Tributaries include the River Styx! They really caught the market off guard! I wonder if it works with Docker! More "S.O.S." than S3! Call their sales team if you're interested in a deep-dive! They'll sell you hook, line, and sinker! Great for product launches! I bet this can provide some deep insights! Data recovery is now known as search and rescue! I wonder if this falls under DMCA safe harbor! If nautical nonsense be something you wish, jump on a conf call and blub like a fish!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What is particularly cool here is it seems to expose the HDFS APIs.

Could this mean you can run HBase and friends on it? If so that makes it many times cooler than Redshift/Manta etc.

</comment><comment><USER5> The links in the article to Microsoft's marketing sites are 404ing. Does anyone have good links?

<comment><USER6> works now

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sounds a bit too much like data _leak_...

</comment><comment><USER6> this sounds like joyent manta service.</comment>


On the subject of disclosing your compensation - <AUTHOR> http://raganwald.posterous.com/on-the-subject-of-disclosing-your-compensatio

<comment><USER2> I would go so far to say that if you use this technique and find a recruiter doesn't want to deal with that, you've just found a great recruiter filter mechanism. Move on to someone else who actually adds value.

Recruiters annoy the heck of out of me as a contractor: They claim all kinds of value when in fact they have but one thing to add: they know someone looking for a job. They add no other value to the equation (and in fact, often detract by doing horrible buzzword matching analysis to put you in front of someone). They don't necessarily know _quality_ employers, _good_ jobs, or even _how to help get you hired_. They're like real estate agents: they merely want the transaction to take place, regardless of the actual price. The difference in commission for a house that sells at a "suggested market price" and maybe, your ideal price of $10,000 higher is a lousy $400 to the agent. It's not in their interest to push that with the buyer. It's in their interest to make the transaction happen.

The same is 100% true of recruiters.

EDIT: Having dealt with many recruiters in the past, my experiences reflect what I describe above. It's possible that a shining few exist out there that do add value. If you're out there, for heaven's sake REPLY and tell us who you are. This thread would give you a deep pool of talent for sure.

<comment><USER3> My first instinct while reading your last sentence is "oh no, now we're going to get spammed by crappy recruiters". Then it occurred to me that if a tech recruiter is actively participating in Hacker News they are probably at least a step above the crowd.

<comment><USER2> You'll also notice the complete lack of replies from recruiters thus far. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's been a lot of talk about this lately, and I think I have another vantage point on it. All this talk about "don't reveal your current salary", "hide your current compensation" is totally relaying weakness to anyone you're negotiating with. Take control of the negotiation! Be the confident person who knows exactly what they want! (Even if you don't really know that).

Right now is a great time to be negotiating for salary compared to 20 years ago - there are so many tools that give you an idea of what current pay ranges are for any job. PayScale.com for example is one tool that gives you infinite more information than people had 20 years ago. Use it!

When you apply to a job, you should already know what the salary range is going to be. Negotiation is 90% preparation before the actual negotiation. This is a huge part of it. When you apply, know exactly the range they'll be offering.

When they ask you "What's your current salary" you give them the absolute very top of the range you've found in your research (or even add another 10%). You aim for their reservation point and set a high anchor point from which negotiation can continue. Take control of the negotiation and own the process yourself. Remember, nearly everyone on this site is a skilled employee who is in demand right now.

<comment><AUTHOR> I applaud the spirit of your comment, namely that the idea is to take control. My post is mostly aimed at dealing with people who want numbers as a screening question before you get down to negotiating a specific offer.

If you're a top person in great demand, you ought to be able to take control of the negotiation by saying either of the following:

a) My compensation for the past five years isn't the issue here, let's talk about what I can do for you, or; b) My compensation for the past five years has ranged from X to Y, but here's why I think Z is the right number for this job in this company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great advice. It took me years to learn it on my own. One thing I would like to add is there are times you have to clam up completely and refuse to give out even a range. At one of the companies I worked for, they had a weird policy of not hiring people if their new salary would exceed their old salary by more than 20%. Now, I can understand some of the reasoning behind it, but I personally find it detestable. The best policy in such a case is to either pass (which in this case would have been a shame, because the job was good in all other respects) or clam up and have them decide whether to hire you based on your merits alone.

<comment><USER6> Can you explain some of the reasoning behind that policy, because I don't understand it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Such rules are usually driven by HR, not by hiring managers. The hiring manager's motivation is to get something done. Your compensation is a rounding error on the revenues from a successful product or whatever it is you are hired to create.

HR, on the other hand, exists to create a "system." One of the primary properties of the system they are trying to create is predictability. If you have a process of some sort, anybody ought to be able to put the same inputs in and get the same outputs out.

Thus, they look for a good way to explain what you are offered. Capping it based on your previous compensation is a nice, simple rule that fits well with a process. Paying you some random amount based on how urgent your skills are needed on a team is not a repeatable process.

In a weird way, although HR talk a good line about people and soft skills and values and missions, they behave just like autistic programmers: They put numbers and rules ahead of people and priorities.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think if you have a feeling for what the range is, and you know for sure you are in the top of it, disclosing it is good as it establishes your value, and they are less likely to waste your time, or make a stab in the dark offer that is too low and insulting.

</comment><comment><USER8> What if you are moving from a low cost area to a high cost area?

I just checked out an online cost-of-living calculator and my salary in Austin would have to increase by 2.6x to have the same quality of life in Palo Alto.

How many HR types are going to realize that 50 in Austin is 100 in San Fran or Manhattan?

<comment><USER9> Any "HR type" who does their job well absolutely _will_ know how to do a cost- of-living conversion, and should effectively screen and prepare candidates armed with that knowledge.

It goes both ways, of course; less-savvy candidates might not know what they're getting into, and can be offered what seems like a sizable salary bump only to discover after arrival that they're worse-off in total.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> How does this work out if you believe you are significantly under-compensated at your current job (assuming it's the peak for the last five years)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you including ALL of the compensation in calculating "Y?" Let me help. I currently work with Unspace Interactive. They're downtown. Most programming jobs require a commute of some sort. What's my time worth? Let's pick $100 an hour based on the fact that I recall paying some random contractor that exact figure for some fun week-end moonlighting recently.

So if I save one hour a day because of Unspace's location, I'm going to add $100 times 250 working days a year to Y, or $25,000 a year on top of everything else (beverages, BBQs, whatever).

If that number is still significantly lower than the compensation you're after, be up front: "My comp has ranged from X to Y, but I think I'm worth Z to you because of a, b, and c."

Ultimately, every job interview boils down to explaining why Z is the right number and why it's in the employer's best interests to pay Z. If you can't explain that to an employer, you aren't going to get Z. I don't make these rules up, it's economics in the small.

<comment><USER11> This yearly savings calculation (albeit an example) of $25k for Unspace is based solely on your assumption that one hour less commute time correlates to an additional work hour every day. While this may be sound for how to express added value, I find it unreasonable to believe that most people would work an extra hour simply because they live closer. Maybe I'm wrong.

In my case, I think what you _can_ do is to let them know just how hardcore you are. If I tell my employer that I'll work on R&D and product development in my spare time at home, they can easily get a ballpark of additional hours worked and added value over Joe Schmoe. If I log an additional 10 hours a week from home after work hours, that could equate to an additional 25% hours over the standard 40. I understand alot of you may be putting in more than 40 hours, but that should also be part of your negotiation.

<comment><USER12> > This yearly savings calculation (albeit an example) of $25k for Unspace is > based solely on your assumption that one hour less commute time correlates > to an additional work hour every day.

No, it accounts for time wasted, money spent on travel, stress due to traffic, etc. Basically, it's how much you'd be willing to pay to _not_ have to commute. It has nothing to do with additional working hours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The reason hiring managers ask for your salary is because they want to know what your expectations are. If you're not comfortable telling them your past salary, just let them know your salary requirements.

</comment><comment><USER14> It doesn't matter so much what you tell them so long as you are willing to reject a lowball offer and ask for more. If they are going to negotiate with stupid tricks and use information you give them adversarially, feel free to drag out the interview process at their expense. Once they make the offer they've revealed their intention to hire you.

If they had made you a fair offer the first time around they wouldn't have to worry.

</comment><comment><USER15> This might work fine for contractors, but it's nonsense for permanent employees.

5 years covers a range from my first graduate job to my current reasonably good mid-level salary. If I gave that range to a recruiter I'd end up at a bunch of interviews with companies all trying to offer me close to a graduate salary.

<comment><AUTHOR> The context here is that a recruiter calls you and says, "Y Combinator is looking for an Arc programmer to work on new versions of the language as well as maintain the HN site. Please give me your resumé and your current salary."

You say, "Here's my resumé." The recruiter demands the salary, saying that Paul won't interview anyone without it. My first advice is that you can just say no. The sun will still shine, you'll find work elsewhere that you enjoy.

But if you really, really want to interview for the Arc job, the thesis of this post is that giving the range is better than giving the salary at your current job.

If the recruiter then tries to jam you into a job paying Ramen noodles because five years ago that's what you were making working for a startup... I agree that's annoying. Only you can decide whether that downside is unbearable.

<comment><USER15> I totally agree with your first step (say no).

Like you say though, with the range idea I suppose you have to balance the likelihood of getting low offers. Personally, giving a range like this just gives them a range to make their offers in, which will result in a lower offer than my current salary every time (as my salary has always increased, so the current is always the peak).

If I'm going to give a range, I'd rather give a range from current+x% - current+y%

Of course, that suffers from the same problem as most other ideas, which is they may have been prepared to offer far more, but reduce because they know you'll accept current+x%.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> really?

I mean, I usually have more than one offer. For me, I've always been open about what I currently make, and about how much it'd take to get me away from that. I'm also open about any other offers on my plate.

I interview often enough that I figure that if I am lowballed, I'll get another offer that is better enough to move fairly quickly. If you want me long term, eh, maybe you shouldn't have lowballed me in the first place?

Key here, I think, is to keep interviewing even when you aren't really looking to move. it's the only way to have an honest view of how much you are worth, and I think it's good practice, anyhow.

(of course, for the last year and a half I haven't been working for other people, and I haven't quite figured out contractor negotiations.)</comment>


Delete your LiveJournal account without accepting the new ToS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jikamens/chrome-lj-tos-hider <comment><AUTHOR> Amusingly, someone who works at LiveJournal just submitted a pull request to make the code shorter.</comment>


Effects Produced By Substitution of a Tap Water Placebo for LSD (1955) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.gwern.net/docs/1955-abramson.pdf

<comment><USER2> > The most common symptoms reported after 28 subjects received a placebo were, > in order of decreasing frequency: moist palms, headache, fatigue, > drowsiness, anxiety, illness, dream-like feeling, increased appetite, > unsteadiness, hotness, weakness, and heavy feeling in the hands and feet.

When I read the title I was hoping it would be like the old joke of people getting "totally wasted" off non-alcoholic beer, like maybe they reported a sudden influx of spiders or dragons or something. But that list of things might be natural responses to spending a morning in a strange place while being asked strange questions, half of them correlate with with just being hungry.</comment>


Ask HN: I am at a UK Govt. IP review panel tonight. What are your views? - <AUTHOR>

The UK Government is doing a review of its IP laws, and I've been given a chance to attend and present my views. See http://eu.techcrunch.com/2011/02/08/your-chance-to-re-make-the-uks-ip-laws-in-the-image-of-a-startup/ and  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2192522.  I'd like to present a view that's reflective of other startups too, so I'd like input from HN on what I should say.
I will be reviewing PG's article on patents on my way as I remember it being very well written and I think it reflects my views well.
Unfortunately being a last minute invite (about half an hour ago; I've got four hours of travel time and then it starts) I haven't any chance to prepare. Can you help me with a list of issues I should have in mind?
I may not get a chance to reply here before I arrive, but I will make sure I read it. Are there any other HNers attending? <comment><USER2> The UK needs a safe-harbor provision that protects UGC sites.

The patent office needs to stop software being patented. UK patent law specifically excludes "programs for computers" but nevertheless the patent office still grants software patents.</comment>


Cell Phones in Africa: Communication Lifeline - <AUTHOR> http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/04/15/cell-phones-in-africa-communication-lifeline/ <comment><USER2> I lived in Ecuador for 5 months and was a little surprised that at one time they had the highest rate of cell phone ownership per capita of any country in the world [1]. Like the countries mentioned in Africa, it's because they skipped the land line stage and went straight to cell phones.

What was truly shocking was the amount of money people were paying relative to their income. There were local Ecuadorians working with me - earning a good income by Ecuadorian standards, though they were living in dirt-floor houses and didn't have hot running water.

These people were spending an entire months salary on a flip phone. Because that's what they wanted and was cool.

It blew me a way to think of the average person from a Developed country spending an entire months salary on a cell phone - it's essentially not even possible.

It's as if they have access to all the same technology the Developed world does, but the cost of entry is exponentially higher.

[1] [http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.CEL.SETS.P2?order=wba...](http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.CEL.SETS.P2?order=wbapi_data_value_2013+wbapi_data_value+wbapi_data_value- last&sort=desc)</comment>


Nile: decentralized, commission-free, local-economy focused Amazon alternative - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/open-source-ideas/open-source-ideas/issues/78 <comment><USER2> OpenBazaar[0] already _is_ this idea.

I just checked the github post and one of the committers to openbazaar-go has left a nice lengthy comment explaining why/how[1].

Hopefully the people interested in Nile just put their support behind OpenBazaar instead.

[0]: [https://openbazaar.org/](https://openbazaar.org/)

[1] [https://github.com/open-source-ideas/open-source- ideas/issue...](https://github.com/open-source-ideas/open-source- ideas/issues/78#issuecomment-410764389)

<comment><USER3> I work on OpenBazaar and want to add that we've built it to support people creating custom front end clients for their own particular use case and are not compelled at all to use the reference client.

So they can use the OpenBazaar backend but still have the local focus they want by making a new front end.

We've been working on decentralized ecommerce for a long time and I would love for a fresh group of developers to take a look at it and give us their thoughts. It's all MIT licensed open source.

<comment><USER4> How does a distributed market (like OpenBazaar) deal with trust? Is every transaction put into escrow?

The idea of a open, distributed market, is great. But the reality of scammers, cheaters, etc. is a big hurdle to over come. One of the great things about Amazon is the customer service, I don't really worry about not getting a product, or if I need to return an item to Amazon I am also confident that it won't be an issue. This seems really hard to accomplish in a distributed system with lots of small "shops".

<comment><USER3> There are two types of payments in OpenBazaar: direct and moderated.

Direct is when buyers completely trust vendors. There's no escrow and no safety net at all.

Moderated is when both parties agree to a third party moderator and the funds go into a two of three multisig account. Two parties need to agree to release the funds. Normally it's the buyer and seller but if they can't agree then they open a dispute with the moderator, who resolves the dispute and sends the funds to rhe winning party (or slipts them).

Moderators get a small percentage payout when disputes are settled. It's an open marketplace for offering moderator services.

The moderator doesn't have complete control of the funds (two parties are needed) and they aren't even aware of the transaction until a dispute was opened, so it has some advantages over traditional centralized escrow services.

<comment><USER5> What's the current status of proof-of-burn for reputation?

<comment><USER3> Not used. I was in the very early versions of OpenBazaar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The software piece of this is not the hard part. The social piece is.

Admirable goal, but good luck getting wide enough adoption to achieve viability.

<comment><USER7> This explains just about everything. Can't remember all the times I've read some pompous HN comment "pah, I could build it" and then thought, "well, you'd be just 0.01% of the way there."

Nothing kills this delusion more than spending a year building something that you can't seem to successfully market... multiple times. Then you realize there's almost zero value in the technical part, and you can only chuckle at HN comments arguing about Python vs Node as if that's the crux of a new business.

<comment><USER8> > you can only chuckle at HN comments arguing about Python vs Node as if > that's the crux of a new business

I definitely relate to this. I use Go a fair amount, and any conversation about Go on /r/programming invites a whole bunch of "every product built on a language without generics is doomed to fail". While generics would be a nice feature to my mind, I like Go for the tooling and the ecosystem, which are still an insignificant contribution to the success of a commercial product, but still many times more significant than the type system (and I'm a fan of type systems too).

<comment><USER9> Interesting...the simplicity of the language appeals to me. If the tooling and ecosysstem is as great as you say it is I'm in ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice name :) Greetings from Cairo.

My team is working on an hyperlocal e-commerce system that connects small stores with people in their neighborhoods. Delivery is limited to walking or bike distance performed by the vendors themselves.

Cairo is full of small vendors in every street. Most of people living in high rises. You can get everything delivered already.

At the first stage we will just save vendors from taking orders via the phone by hand by allowing them to receive orders on their phone. The next step is to create credit system that eliminate the wastes of vendors or customers when they don't have exact change.

<comment><USER11> Hi! I posted a desire for something like this on the thread already! I just want to say I'm interested. I think it would be cool if people could share their stuff or sell their stuff to maybe a select group of people like family or extended family. The deal is it needs fulltext search and the ability to have privacy. This sort of thing would be great for situations like "I want to make ice cream. Should I buy an icecream maker for $99? Lets look at what my family has.. Oh great, Beth still has hers I'll message her to see if I can borrow it"

<comment><USER10> Yeah. Right now I think people rely on WhatsApp groups for things like these.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Would this gave the option for one organization in a city to do the work for small stores? I can imagine stores might not have the resources to host a part of this, but maybe the municipality, a co-op, or a large company that wants to support the local economy could host it. This comes to mind because my employer wouldn't have a need for this since we make enterprise software, but we profess to support the local economy via hosting a farmer's market, using local food when possible in our cafeteria, encouraging local bookstores for reimbursable education materials, and even sponsoring the local public radio. We would have way more resources to host an instance than a corner shop that sells yarn.

<comment><USER13> There are businesses built on top of local economies, e.g. Atalanda in Germany: [https://atalanda.com/](https://atalanda.com/) (I'm not affiliated, but I know people who work there.)

They partner up with local businesses for the goods and bike courier services for the delivery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am not sure whether the name "Nile" was picked because of the "Amazon" river or because Nile is a symbol of being the only major river flowing from south to north.

The former would be mundane, the later a great metaphor.

<comment><USER15> Found your claim astonishing, so googled it.

Looks like this is not true, at least the Ob river (3,650 km) and the Yenisei river (3,438 km) are major rivers flowing from South to North (Both top 10 rivers).

So not sure where you did get that piece about the Nile from.

<comment><USER16> When I was in grade school, my _science_ teacher told the class rivers couldn't flow north because, on a globe, north is up.

Somehow pointing out the Nile wasn't conclusive evidence against it.

Public education in America!

<comment><USER17> Ooooh is this a subthread for ranting about public education in a America? Cause I come from a family of teachers and I have WORDS!

In a little school district in Texas, we can't use the word "adaptation" in our cellular biology section.

Recent history textbooks use strange language around black slaves that seems to imply they were "workers," rather than, you know, _slaves._

Eh. I'll stop. I gave up on teaching ages ago, but my mom still gets drummed up in front of the principal at least monthly for some bullshit. Most recently because the students have a shared box of basic supplies at their little desk pods (scissors and markers), and some mom demanded her son be allowed to use his own supplies because she didn't want him using the "Communist supplies." Verbatim quote. She thought it would teach him the values of communism. Obviously my mom told her to fuck off in no uncertain terms, so stern meeting with the principal for July...

<comment><USER18> I still remember that in Elementary school in Kentucky the teachers "accidentally" showed an Elementary-focused science series that included a video on plate tectonics and they had to apologize to the class and parents for showing such an "advanced and controversial topic". That left a lasting impression to this curious kid about how such simple science topics could even be so controversial, when the teachers looked pained at every follow up question I had days later. (As someone with a terrible anti-authoritarian streak at that age, this show of weakness in the teachers didn't help.)

<comment><USER17> In middle school in South Carolina, a public, accredited, full-time teacher saw me reading Harry Potter, walked up, and said "You know that book was written by Satan, right?"

Written by Satan. Not, like, "that book has satanic values" or "was written by a satanist" or "has evil themes," it was literally written by satan.

It's no wonder I was such a shithead little anarcho-atheist growing up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Hi. What you're describing is a public market much like those that were in Andalus and also in use by the Greeks and for the reasons mentioned on the GitHub page this is what led to the prosperity of those societies. I have a unique set of skills when it comes to Strategy, process and narrative. Soft skills basically. I would love to get involved or at least have a chat with the founders of how I may be able to help. If the founders are reading this, please tell me how I can get on touch.

</comment><comment><USER20> Does this need to be decentralized? Decentralized does not necessary mean fair. How a decentralized platform could sove the problems OP mentioned; paying taxes (by using a decentralized platform, really??) and profitable for economics?

It is too naive to think decentralization simply can solve any social problems.

<comment><USER21> 'Democracy' does not necessary mean fair either. (Even in places where it isn't just a label.)

Decentralization solves problems created by centralization. It replaces them with the problems created by decentralization. We're fairly certain now that centralization creates social problems. Decentralization eliminates big dictators in favor of petty dictators.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Hey there, I have the same vision. I drafted a blog post on Friday (just published it) discussing the first phase that I plan set in motion.

I would like to partner up with you on this.

Reference: [https://russell.ballestrini.net/all-local-heros-need-a- gig-s...](https://russell.ballestrini.net/all-local-heros-need-a-gig-side- kick/)

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't particularly agree with the delivery suggestion. Basically a volunteer UberEATS style delivery with bicycles? To say this is ambitious is an understatement. Bicycles are not nearly as used as you'd think, and decentralized delivery with volunteers will probably raise the cost of delivery (effort/petrol/time) as well as no one would actually trust this. So, suggesting a local delivery service would be more ideal, but that again is a pretty lofty goal with the amount of local options. So I suspect this will end up querying a few well known delivery services if they are available in the customer's country, and give a rough estimate of that cost.

Next, expecting the stores to bear the brunt of the store power also brings into question the technical knowledge of the store management. You'd need dedicated personnel for this since most people wouldn't know any of this. And granted, people who have the relevant knowledge to host and maintain the instance wouldn't be working in a store most likely anyway.

All that being said I don't want to complain too much. I like the idea but as it has been submitted there are a lot of practical holes in it considering the "market" it would best serve (areas not already touched by long ecommerce giant fingers) not having the necessary knowledge and infrastructure. Personally I'd suggest taking a look at how other popular decentralized systems work and seeing how ecommerce would fit into that (mainly, Mastodon).

</comment><comment><USER24> The biggest issue with Amazon currently is counterfeit products. How is this planning on addressing that?

</comment><comment><USER25> What is the incentive for the shops to scan and upload all products with correct description picture etc. this is a huge work, and just the access to a bigger market doesn't seem to be enough. Locafox in Berlin is pretty much trying to build a similar aggregator of local shops [https://www.locafox.de/](https://www.locafox.de/) It doesn't seem to work too well which is why they diversified into selling digital cashier machines to local businesses instead.

</comment><comment><USER26> I feel like people don't know the difference between "doesn't pay taxes" and "pays no tax" —– one is illegal, the other one is typically a success metric of accounting.

(Disclaimer: I'm not advocating things like the double Irish w/dutch sandwich, or similar methods — while more or less legal — I personally agree of course how morally questionable tax-tricks can be to society, this is just to make sure we're clear that technically, most companies are a for profit and profit- maximizing operation)

</comment><comment><USER11> I would be interested in a kind of federated marketplace, similar in structure to Nextcloud's federation. I would be responsible for my users, but other site owners can link to mine and we can expand our search for the goods we are interested in. We can just transact in cash just like a garage sale. It might be cool to have a private version of this so a family or extended family could share their stuff to save money and get more facetime.

</comment><comment><USER27> Amazon is successful because it brings nearly everything a consumer wants within two days' easy reach. They are able to do so because they have an excellent logistical ground game, maybe a peerless one. Without challenging them on this you are not truly competing with Amazon.

This is more like competing with instacart or similar. That's a reasonable market, but operationally is a very hard nut to crack. I don't think having volunteers on bikes is going to manage it.

</comment><comment><USER9> Mmm...interesting idea...a bit Utopian...I'm not sure the world works that way...good luck to anyone investing their time, effort or other resources to get this going.

<comment><USER28> Much of what we take for granted in the modern world looked utopian before it was available.

<comment><USER15> Not sure in which way e.g. the telephone or lightbulb looked utopian at the time. Most inventions had similar predecessors.

Perhaps you're thinking of social inventions like the social security nets in western Europe - I'm not as good in their history.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I see a lot of people mentioning OpenBazaar here. I remember trying it out a year or two back when they had an early release. Has the OpenBazaar community grown? I haven't found anything I was interested in buying through it. I feel like the weakest link with stuff like Nile or OpenBazaar is that there is no good search engine out there for consumers to discover new products easily.

<comment><USER3> I work on OpenBazaar. It has grown significantly over the past couple years.

I'm mobile and don't have the stats in front of me but I do know that the network has been used by more than 55k people since last November when the 2.0 version launched.

It's now built on IPFS so nodes are still accessible even when the store is offline.

OpenBazaar.com launched as a read-only way to browse the network.

A mobile version is nearing completion now.

Check out OpenBazaar.org and download the new version, we're proud of how far it has come.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Digital Town is working on a similar idea with a notable team and funding. Each city/town gets it's own domain or can use an existing one. It's a bit of a resurrection of 90's style search portals for the blockchain era.

[https://digitaltown.com/](https://digitaltown.com/)

</comment><comment><USER31> Openbazzar?

<comment><USER32> When I went to Google that, the first autocomplete was "openbazaar drugs".

<comment><USER33> That must be based on your search history :) I get completions in the following order: search, token, tor, github, 2.0, shops, blockhain

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Amazon pays no taxes? Got this from the introduction.

<comment><USER35> Looks like they paid no US income taxes in 2017:

[https://www.seattlepi.com/business/tech/article/Amazon- paid-...](https://www.seattlepi.com/business/tech/article/Amazon-paid-no-US- income-taxes-for-2017-12713961.php)

<comment><USER9> I couldn't access that the article...are they saying that people who work for Amazon paid no income tax?

<comment><USER36> No, it's corporate income tax, a direct tax imposed by the federal government on corporations. The rate can be 15% to 35% but there are so many deductions available that large companies like Amazon are often able to dodge it completely. For instance, the article mentions a $917 million deduction on stock options exercised by employees, which was probably the bulk of the deductions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The description feels like a recipe for disaster.

</comment><comment><USER38> I love how oblivious (blissfully ignorant?) the "How will you earn money?" section is.

 _> The application is decentralized so we just need money for the developers, the lawyers and the advertisers, we don't have to build and maintain a huge and expansive network infrastructure. So we'll just earn money from advertisement, but it will not be specific for you, because we want your data to be yours, and we will accept to advertise only local products._

 _Just_ need money for developers, lawyers, and advertisers huh? _Just_ earn money from advertisement!

A utopian marketplace that runs on ad revenue makes little sense to me. I would've liked to see the "decentralized system" part replaced with a boring "centralized system", and the boring "advertising revenue" replaced with something else.

<comment><USER39> IMO everything that is wrong about internet now is because people don't have better idea for monetizing than slapping ads on a page. Big players like goog and other ad networks made it even worse making it easy to enter, just slap adwords on your page and earn. The more users you have the more you earn, which breeds clickbait.

Someone will have to run centralized node for city, so _we don't have to build and maintain a huge and expansive network infrastructure_ goes out of the window also, bitcoin miners are not running nodes for free and not for advertising money from their servers. How would they make sure that ad revenue for running server is higher than cost of running server?

It is also oblivious to fact that amazon has full fleet for delivery, warehouses. Where they propose everything _commision-free_ but then magically _the money for the delivery goes directly to the cyclists involved_. _An algorithm calculates the best and cheapest route to deliver your goods._ , I also expect that running bike delivery service is much more complicated that calculating best and cheapest routes.

So I went full rage mode on this one, it is ignorant, visionary, buzzword ridden, writeup. But maybe I should judge it as just fiction writing not actual business idea.

<comment><USER38> I think you should judge it as what it is. A tiny write up of an idea where each answer needs a lot of work to be implemented fully.

I don't know if advertising is the culprit for the bad aspects of the internet, but I agree that creators/companies don't put any effort into alternative revenue streams. Not only that, but consumers have been trained to expect free content at the expense of ads. Yes, consumers are becoming more and more aware of the privacy-for-service trade they've implicitly agreed to. But I think it'll take years (if not decades) to reverse the "free content/service" mentality but also to have any other revenue stream rival "slapping on ads and calling it a day".

Subscriptions aren't the solution either, with more and more people experience subscription fatigue.

Maybe there isn't some Ultimate Monetization Method™ for internet services and content, but at the very least I'd like to see less defaulting to advertising.

<comment><USER39> Ultimate maybe not but I believe there should be just fair method for each type of content or service or business. Unfortunately users are not fair as well (sharing, multi accounts, freeloading) so yes it is in some part users fault as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> thse projects are nice but there needs to be incentives

</comment><comment><USER41> This is / can be filled by craigslist or facebook marketplace.

<comment><USER42> No, this is for combining a local area's retail stores' inventory into a unified shopping interface, and a courier service for seamless delivery (e.g. so you don't have to visit stores x, y, z to complete pickup of a single order with items from disparate stores). Not individuals hawking their used junk.

<comment><USER41> Stores are already doing that on craigslist and facebook, this would just be hooking up a delivery service to it and you have it. Still seems like a pretty weak idea.

<comment><USER42> I'd love to know how stores are synchronizing their entire shelf+backstock inventory to Craiglist or FB Marketplace given neither service even has an API (Craiglist allows bulk posting but that's useless if you can't bulk delete/update for availability) or even basic metadata like product quantity, UPC/EAN, etc.

Ignoring that, the services you're talking about don't even do any kind of canonicalization or grouping of products like Amazon, so if you search for "Xbox" you're going to have to click through many pages of individual listings rather than having a unified product page displaying product details and specs from the manufacturer, consumer reviews, related product variants (e.g. color), etc.

It's fine if you think the idea's weak but at least give the idea a fair shake before dismissing it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> An ironic name.

</comment><comment><USER44> "Amazon alternative"

To what? AWS? S3?

<comment><USER45> to the river

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Where are you based?</comment>


Funding for your Idea without going to VC - <AUTHOR> https://www.reliablebits.io/free/ <comment><USER2> > What's your idea?

How do I know that I won't be cheated if my project doesn't get chosen but my idea gets stolen by someone else instead?

I don't think I can trust ANY site to build my idea for free. That is far too much of a risk for it to be stolen by another person to implement it as a side-project if I don't get chosen.

The idea of 'Facebook' being 'stolen' by another person is an example of this.</comment>


Ask HN: Where should I go on vacation - <AUTHOR>

I know this is a bit of a weird question, but I haven't taken more than a 3 day vacation to Portland in the last 3 years.
I'm stumped.
Seriously... Need some time off.  I'd love some suggestions.
Only requirement is amazing food.
Thanks, Mike <comment><USER2> I have some friends who have toured the US and enjoyed that.

Also, had some friends who have taken cruises.

Neither is really my thing, instead I much enjoyed Paris, Berlin, and London. Agadir, Morocco was also fun and not TERRIBLY expensive. Gibraltar on paper seemed to be an affordable week-long vacation though it was ~6 months last time I looked at my travel plans for there.

I haven't been to Moscow yet but I'd always love to go. Keep in mind during your planning stages there are TONS of places out there and even a 3 day vacation to somewhere like Paris is fantastic.

Wherever you go, fair travels and have much fun. And remember, be excellent to each other.

</comment><comment><USER3> You could visit Barcelona and some other cities around. There are lots of good restaurants in Barcelona and Catalonia in general ([http://www.barcelona.com/barcelona_city_guide/where_to_eat_b...](http://www.barcelona.com/barcelona_city_guide/where_to_eat_barcelona/top_10_best_restaurants_in_barcelona))

Moreover, Barcelona is very nice, the city has got amazing architecture and so on... 100% recommended.

</comment><comment><USER4> Albania!

Beautiful as Spain and other Mediterranean countries, extremely cheap, fantastic food, nice beaches, beautiful girls ;-) and very welcoming, curious and friendly people!

For more details: <http://albaniatourism.info> or shoot us an email at firstname.lastname@example.com, we'd be happy to help you organizing your trip!

</comment><comment><USER5> I just got back from a trip to Southeast Asia in February, and the dim sum in Hong Kong and the noodles and seafood in Thailand were amazing. In October, I went to Europe, and Marseilles, France has amazing seafood, and Palermo, Sicily has amazing food on literally every corner.

<comment><USER6> I'd agree with Hong Kong and Thailand as food destinations. Don't focus on "regional" or "local" cuisine in those places though. Population density (and mix) along with food culture and infrastructure conspire to create multicultural food meccas. I'd probably rate Thai food #2 or #3 in Bangkok, with Japanese, Chinese or maybe Italian having an edge. Hong Kong is marginally more expensive than Bangkok but both offer excellent value. They've also both developed strong wine and beer cultures. I've been enjoying a wide variety of high value Bordeaux here in Bangkok. Both have growing supplies of Belgian and German beers as well. Go to Hong Kong for Belgian beer and mussels. Go to Bangkok for Italian or Japanese or even the steakhouses. Yes, you can also get really good Chinese and Thai in these places.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Spring and early summer are great periods for visiting Greece [http://www.visitgreece.gr/deployedFiles/StaticFiles/Brochure...](http://www.visitgreece.gr/deployedFiles/StaticFiles/Brochures/gastronomy_visitgreece.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER8> If amazing food is a requirement, then you should go to Singapore.

If you're interested: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBjKOqBxHcc>

Enjoy!

</comment><comment><USER9> Watch the show "No Reservations" until you see a place that looks good to you.

</comment><comment><USER10> Napa Valley! Best food you'll ever eat.</comment>


"That's not a compiler, I don't pay you to design" - <AUTHOR> http://dogfoodconnoisseur.blogspot.com/2015/07/profiles-in-bad-management-boss-that.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I worked with the author the day this happened. The developer was working on an architecture diagram when his manager screamed at him to stop drawing and get back to coding.

</comment><comment><USER2> Haha, I can relate to situations like this.

Some experiences from a few really bad companies I have worked at:

1) "Don't use tabs or spaces in your code, they take up bandwidth".

2) "Don't put your javascript in a separate file, it makes it hard to find. Put it in the onclick for that DOM element"

3) No dev boxes or version control. Daily work involved SSHing into the production box and editing the PHP code in vim.

4) Got laid off from one company because I was insisting that they use version control and this upset a lot of the other script kiddies because I was making their work more difficult.

5) HR had cameras installed in the ceiling and pointed at all the monitors.

6) Trying to debug PHP code that outputs Javascript code that outputs HTML.

7) Spending 15 minutes trying to find the closing HTML tag, only to discover that it was in a PHP function that was in a separate file from the one that created the opening tag.

8) Being told, figure it out or you're fired several times a week.

9) "Stop abusing the <ul> <li> element to create navigation menus. <li> is supposed to be for bulleted lists only."

10) Being told to go home several times when I disagreed with a proposed design.

11) Being told they wouldn't get me a better monitor (only did 1920x1080) because screen space isn't important for programming. Meanwhile the boss had a 6 monitor setup (yes 6 monitors for a single computer) mainly used for IM conversations.

12) Being asked to create a favicon that looked like a secure SSL lock because our cert provider didn't work on some mobile devices.

13) Being asked to create a bunch of "bank sites". Bare minimum sites that meet the requirement to get a merchant account. That way they can just switch the merchant account when there were too many chargebacks. They were offering free subscriptions with CC verification and a small print $70/mo recurring fee that you had to scroll down quite a bit to see.

<comment><USER3> _throwaway to hide my deep shame_

14) Having to explain to my employers what JSON is and why it's better than the weird CSV-like serialization format they just invented to pass things around because they don't know what AJAX is, then watching them reject it entirely because JSON looks too complicated and go with their thing, which proceeds to break the site in weird ways because they're dropping user data and queries from the database (which is not, mind you, even remotely optimized) directly into PHP generated javascript functions and surprise, surprise, shit gets messy.

14.5) Having to explain to them once they discover AJAX that writing to the database with it is a bad idea when there's no real authentication for the requests. And that, no, POST isn't somehow 'more secure'.

14.5b) Writing a barebones JSON API for them and watching their eyes glaze over when I explain what it is and why it's a good idea.

15) Writing a session-based login for them because up until that point, you could authenticate as any user by storing their username in a cookie(because "authentication" was, literally "do they have a cookie with a username? Ok."). Because my code caused people to log in every few hours the site was considered "unusuable" from a user experience standpoint and the code was rejected entirely, and rewritten from scratch, and then when they couldn't get it to work the entire concept of session-based logins was considered "impossible." Any future user authentication is planned to be handled using, and this is a paraphrase from the 'CEO', "if statements and hiding javascript or something."

16) Explaining why using mail() to send emails from a shared server account to maybe every email address in the database might not be the best use of the limited resources we have but being told to add a mailer to the site anyway because it creates a more unified user experience. Bear in mind - nobody is paying us for anything.

17) Pointing out that using usernames as primary keys is a bad thing. There are no foreign keys - usernames are just copied as as strings where relevant. Some usernames have spaces in them. These are also echoed into javascript and passed back as function parameters. To say there are occasional issues with double-escaping and encoding would be an understatement.

18) Pointing out that encrypting passwords is actually not that great an idea and that being able to log in as an arbitrary user with nothing but javascript is actually a bad thing and being sorry I ever showed them that because now it's apparently an indispensable part of the admin control panel.

19) Oh yes - the only way to develop is on the live server with FTP. Version control is asking if anyone is working on the file you want to edit first.

19.5) Includes including includes including includes. Including css. Because all of the css and javascript is inline and half generated on the server. Many stalwart souls have tried to chart it out, all have failed.

20) Dealing with a pathological fear and mistrust of third party libraries. If we can't write it ourselves then it probably won't be written. The rationale for this is not having to deal with code they don't understand and that might not be supported in the future. Never mind the time they're wasting discovering half-assed ways of implementing things there are already tested solutions for, and the fact that their understanding is rudimentary at best.

And at another job I was told to manually audit our database against a parts database because our boss didn't "trust the algorithms." I was fired after this took longer than he expected.

<comment><AUTHOR> And this!

> 19) Oh yes - the only way to develop is on the live server with FTP. Version > control is asking if anyone is working on the file you want to edit first.</comment></comment></comment>


Tegra Wireless Aims to Unshackle Your Cellular Service - <AUTHOR> https://www.tegrawireless.com/pages/press <comment><USER2> Just got a mintsim prepaid plan w/ unlimited call &sms plus 2gb monthly Lte cap for $15/mo.

What's so special about tegra?</comment>


Google Search Stories - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/searchstories

<comment><USER2> also here: <http://www.search-stories.com> and with an SEO friendly domain.</comment>