It's time to rethink libraries. - <AUTHOR> http://newslily.com/blogs/104

<comment><USER2> His library might be dead, but that's not the case everywhere. My nearest library (Aurora Colorado) is generally packed full of people anytime I go there. And while there are certainly plenty of people on the library computers, a _lot_ of them are browsing the book stacks and checking out plain old books.

The idea that the Internet contains everything you can find in a library is (at present at least) absolute bunk! The internet is great for enthusiasts to read more about their favorite subjects, but for a beginner learning about a _new_ subject, books (physical or ebook) still rule.

And it would be a _huge_ mistake to believe that everyone can afford a computer or an ebook reader. There are still a _lot_ of people even in the US or other first world countries where $100 for an ebook reader is completely unrealistic.

Libraries are a great asset to communities and to democracy exactly because the price of admission for library users is so low. You don't need credit, you don't need any hardware, just a desire to learn.

<comment><AUTHOR> (I wrote this).

I'm not saying that libraries should be abolished, just that they should be expanded. My point is that the world has changed, and it would be great if the libraries caught up.

Absolutely don't get rid of books, that's not what I'm saying at all.

To me, libraries represent an academic resource for the community. I would just love to see them be an _even greater_ resource than they are now. I think the idea is fantastic, and I think that history agrees, I just want to see that fantastic idea expanded a little more.

<comment><USER3> _So what would I like to see happen? Get rid of the dead trees, but don't stop there._

It sounds like you want to get rid of books ("dead trees"), but maybe you got a little overexcited. I just went to the library today, to return and check out some books. It's a nice break from the time I spend behind a computer, and e-books don't interest me that much.

But while I was there, a group of toddlers were engaged in a singalong, and several people were browsing the web on library computers. Now, some libraries are better than others (for some strange reason, our local library only has one terminal dedicated to searching the catalog, so you have to wait if someone else is using it and you can't simply use one of the web PCs without signing up for a session, plus there's no wifi), but the trend is definitely toward improving the library as a community resource. The bigger problem is the lack of funding and other resources. If you want to help your library develop along these lines, volunteer, donate, vote and/or simply ask accordingly.

<comment><AUTHOR> You make a good point. It was mistaken to say "get rid of the dead trees", what I meant was "get rid of the idea that the main focus of your establishment should be dead trees."

<comment><USER4> _> mistaken_

Eh. Maybe books are not quite dead yet, but they do have a terminal disease. We all can see it, I don't know why we tiptoe around it.

<comment><USER5> Books still have many things going for them. Once they are produced, the only infrastructure they require is literacy and something to keep them dry.

Once you have a book, you can do almost anything you want with it, including give it or sell it to someone else, who will have the same rights you had. Copyright does apply to books, of course, but with books, the concept of fair use is well ensconced, and not encumbered by EULAs and "click-wrap" terms of use.

So yes, books may well be terminal, but if they die, we risk loosing something more than just a stack of dead tree we can hold in our hands.

<comment><USER4> I can't see that you disagreed with me, & I don't disagree with you either. Something's always lost in these 'revolutions', but we always gain more than we lose. That's why we're switching mediums in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My wife is a librarian and I do think there are some points that have been glossed over.

Book are still super important. In fact not everyone can afford to buy books. Esp in large metropolitan area where there is any sort of impoverish population. They can't afford book let alone a kindle.

That neuroscience journal might not have been on the racks but I'll bet there is a good chance it was in one of the online databases that libraries pay good money to have access to. Feel free to check out the prices online and I'll bet most will pass on paying for it your self.

Also illustrated Children's Books are something even parents in Suburbia take advantage of as children go through them quickly and they are very expensive to buy.

That said many libraries hold on to books long past their relevance. And more space and time should be devoted to public events, like video games, and education, like the class my wife teaches "how to sigh up for email" and "learning to use the mouse".

<comment><USER7> Indeed. I feel offended when I have to spend (usually) over 5 GBP for a Kindle edition of a 20-year old book, and get a poorly formatted, poorly indexed piece of text that someone at a publisher has spent perhaps 20 minutes looking over, judging from the quality of the product, when I can go to a library and borrow it for free, or go to a second-hand bookstore and buy it for 50p.

The prices of books on Kindle are simply scandalous for the quality of the product and the lack of a secondary market. You're lucky if you get both a table of contents with hyperlinks and chapter markers that work; if you're unlucky, you end up with something the length of a Dostoyevsky that you have to binary search through with page number gotos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> My wife is a librarian. I love libraries, browsing around, finding stuff on chance. I also love ebooks (I've developed a pretty horrible O'Reilly habit since I got my iPad).

Most of what you say is true here, but it sounds like where you went kind of stunk. - libraries need to cease being book warehouses and start becoming community centers and resources. A good library will have computer classes, solid wifi, and an engaged staff working to help out the community around it.

That community is most likely not a bunch of HN readers who want to use a free beowulf cluster and all the other really cool stuff they can't justify buying for themselves, but I could see a tool lending library being quite popular in most communities.

As much as I like ebooks, the dream of "no dead wood" is probably not going to happen anytime soon - there are a whole ton of books out there that aren't available in digital format, or are out of print but still sitting on shelves somewhere. Frankly, the DRM scheme of having content restricted to ink on paper is a relatively reasonable form of copy protection, IMO.

<comment><AUTHOR> >libraries need to cease being book warehouses and start becoming community centers and resources.

Yes, exactly! I actually disagree with you that library goers aren't the HN types that want computing hardware... perhaps they are and just don't know it. TO me, giving community members access to hardware is the _exact_ same thing as giving them access to books has been for the last 150 years or so. Books were traditionally something that most people couldn't afford, but would be good for the community to have, so people go money together and bought them. I think that computers are the same way now. Yeah, I personally might have some decent compute hardware in my house, but most people probably don't even know this type of thing _exists_. I would love to see more people exposed to what I personally think is the future of...well, everything so that they can learn about it.

<comment><USER9> I definitely echo the community center sentiment.

More specifically, I envision the future library as a place that teaches people how to learn: \- How to use online searches intelligently \- How to use online crowd-sourced resources \- How best to use online communities to gain knowledge \- How to find relevant online classes

Though I agree with some of the above comments that people will continue to benefit from the physical books, I do believe that libraries will transition to a Netflix model, where they have access to a limited number of e-books that can be loaned to e-readers for a limited time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I agree for the most part, but the expectation of a Library having a CNC mill or a miniature cluster seems a little strange and specific to your personal interests.

Holding reading classes for younger children and poorly literate adults, community events centered on lots of different subjects, art appreciation, reading groups... I think those are all slightly more feasible and in line with what a general public would enjoy in a library.

Now, if we're talking about the concept of a Hacker-centre... I think there are a few of those in the larger cities and some college campuses.

<comment><USER11> Indeed, and a public miniature cluster is just a tragedy of the commons waiting to happen. Either it gets monopolised by one person, or nobody gets more than a tiny fraction of a CPU-day per day making it less useful than your own laptop.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well wait a second, couldn't the same thing be said about books? Or public basketball courts? Or study rooms or anything that is made publicly available and isn't unlimited?

Yes _I_ could build a cluster in my house if I wanted one, but 15 year old me couldn't, and 15 year old me would have spent his entire childhood in the library if the one described here existed.

<comment><USER11> Not really. A library can easily buy more books than everybody in the surrounding communities could possibly want at any given time, which is why if you go to the library you'll see books on the shelves. Books are cheap and I can't use any more than a few at a time.

But any legitimate cluster user can easily use an entire mini-cluster, all the time, on their own. (I know I can!) So the demand for the resources can easily outstrip the supply, for any reasonable value of supply.

A decent M-node cluster with a good backbone costs N thousand dollars per node, where N is some surprisingly high number. If you have more than M users it's pretty much useless for everybody since I can't do anything I can't do on my home computer, and if you have fewer than M users it's a damn poor use of library money to buy an expensive cluster that hardly anyone's going to use.

PS. This thread reminds me that my library books are a week overdue, I should return them right now. Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> But it doesn't specifically have to be a cluster. The point is to make libraries more than just a warehouse for print, but a place for continued learning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I worked in an major academic library from 2000 until 2007. Libraries know about the changing landscape and it's the basis of pretty much everything librarians discuss these day. A number of the big academic libraries have added cafes and digital centers. At the university where I worked, most of the network of computer labs throughout campus were put into the library.

There are also services that people aren't really aware of. For example, the article's author mentions that he wanted an article from a 1978 issue of a neuroscience journal that his local library doesn't have. But doesn't actually matter if the local library doesn't have it because practically every library in the US offers an interlibrary loan service and will get you a copy of the article from a library that does have it.

Still, there are a couple things holding libraries back. One is that librarians traditionally have entered the field because they were attracted the old, book-centric library model. Even at the beginning of this decade at my library there were many people who were very much opposed to even the idea of google. There is very low turnover in many big libraries (academic libraries are filled with staff members who have spent decades in the same jobs) and the pay is so low that it's difficult to attract skilled technology workers.

Furthermore, libraries are usually strange, bureaucratic organizations. They operate sort of like businesses, but they have no revenue and, therefore, most metrics and benchmarks always felt somewhat contrived, and therefore office politics had a more prominent role in decision-making processes. It's also very, very difficult for most academic libraries to fire people, so they attract people who are looking for jobs with good benefits that they can coast in. I'm guessing public libraries are similar.

The result of all of this is that libraries often make bizarre decisions about technology. Librarians hop on mainstream technology fads in ridiculous ways. For instance, when I left in 2007, the most prominent issue discussed on library blogs was how important it was to have a presence on Second Life.

</comment><comment><USER13> Until we had our son I would have largely agreed with this article, but our local public library has been an incredible resource for board books and kids music CDs for him (now 2 years old). My wife checks out at least a dozen new books and a couple of CDs every week for our son, which we read to him several times a day, and consequently he loves "reading" his picture books and listening to music.

Call me old fashioned but I don't think that that babies and toddlers can get the same experience from an iPad or Kindle-esque device that they do from physical books.

</comment><comment><USER14> Eerie. Having been in/around Tempe for the last 16 years, as soon as he said "There's a coffee shop here in Tempe..." the first one that came to mind (of the many, many non-starbucks coffee shops in this area) was the exact one he meant. I've certainly logged my share of hours there studying, reading something interesting, chatting with friends, etc.

And going by that, the nearest library (likely the one he is referencing--and i went there a lot in middle/high school back in the 90s) is about a mile from the coffee shop and all in all is in a pretty suburbanite, middle class part of town. It's pretty fair to say that for an area with a good median income, high but not extreme property values, etc, something like a public library is going to be hit hardest by the advent of the internet, since the "public" is going to be pretty thoroughly plugged-in.

Not that it's a bad idea to consider bringing libraries along into the newer age...

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha :). Has the internet always been as bad as it is now?

To be honest, the library I was at (Yep, right up the street from xbean), seemed to be very well funded, clean, in outstanding order. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with the _execution_ of libraries, just that I would love to see what I believe is the idea behind them expanded to include more than just books (and movies, and magazines, and music).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The obvious move would be to replace the bookshelves and books (among other texts and publications) with a bunch of computers and free/paid Internet access. But the biggest problem, I think, would be making sure that people are actually using those new resources for what they are meant to be used for and not for something else like updating their Facebook status or watching Charlie Bit My Finger on YouTube.

</comment><comment><USER5> I agree that libraries need rethinking. I've found that even those Librarians who are inclined to do such rethinking can be surprisingly conservative.

Even so, the authors needs a different point of reference needs a reset. I've never been in one of Seattle's libraries that hasn't been a bustling hub of activity. There are lots of public computers, for people who don't have their own. People are studying and working on their laptops, and some people are even reading or checking out books.

Personally, most of my use of our libraries via the web, particularly to access the O'Reilly Safari Library. One of the awesome things about libraries is librarians, because they believe in things like the democratization of acess to information. One result is that often times, the licenses on online databases acessed through libraries are often less restrictive than you'd get on your own.

</comment><comment><USER16> Awh, thought this was going to be about binary compatibility and DLL hell. This is good too, though :)

</comment><comment><USER17> While it has taken a great deal of flak for breaking somewhat with traditional library organization and architecture, I think Seattle's library is nearly what he is calling for: a geographic place focused to a large extent on services and not simple booklending.

TED Talk on the Seattle Central Library design process: [http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_prince_ramus_on_seattle_s_li...](http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_prince_ramus_on_seattle_s_library.html)

Architectural diagrams (and some wild hyperbolic language) at: [http://www.archdaily.com/11651/seattle-central-library- oma-l...](http://www.archdaily.com/11651/seattle-central-library-oma-lmn/)

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm not sure we'll ever find everything he has in mind in one place, but there was an article on CNN recently that talks about a business that's attempting to fill the need of some of what he suggested. It's a place called TechShop, and it aims to provide membership-based access to tools, and other resources necessary to get into product creation.

The article about it is located here: [http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/14/technology/techshop/index.ht...](http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/14/technology/techshop/index.htm)

</comment><comment><USER19> My use of the library has vastly, vastly increased since the web has enabled our library catalog to get online, to pool many of the libraries in our county into one giant catalog, so that finding and ordering a book (or other media) is simple and fast.

SO MUCH of what I want to find is simply not online yet - Google books has a long way to go.

WorldCat is great too. I usually start there since it has the best interface, and if the book is only outside of the local system I can consider if it is worth the bother of an ILL.

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't see why libraries need to transform into community centers. Why not let them concentrate what they do best: collecting and storing information, especially books. While I think such community centers as described in the writing could even stand on their own feet, but imho they would also fit better to schools rather than libraries.

edit: While I think at it, opening schools for general public sound more and more better idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> >edit: While I think at it, opening schools for general public sound more and more better idea.

Not sure if this was supposed to be a joke about the public school system or not... If it _was_ , the public school system, unfortunately, comes to an abrupt end when you graduate from high school. You can continue learning if you want, but you have to pay _huge_ amounts of money to do so.

What I'm advocating here is effectively an expansion of libraries into sortof- schools for both kids and adults that want to do stuff beyond what is being offered in their classes.

<comment><USER20> Not a joke about school system. What I meant that schools facilities would be more fitting for community centers, so it would be imho more sensible to open school facilities for adults to use (of course equipping some rooms appropriately) rather than expanding libraries.

<comment><AUTHOR> A problem that I have with this is that the school system is too _rigid_.

Maybe it was different for some people, but when I was in school, it was very much "you are allowed to do _this specific thing_ with this resource, and nothing else." One school that I went to, my junior high school, actually had an _outstanding_ tech shop. We had a CNC mill, CAD stations, a pneumatics lab, some robotics stuff, a wind tunnel...lots of absolutely _amazing_ things. That said, I never got the impression that I could use the CNC mill for anything other than writing my name on a piece of plexiglass (a souvenir that I still have.)

(I actually moved away from this school mid-term and never got to do the wind tunnel, or the pneumatics lab)

What I'm talking about is taking the shop that I had in middle school and putting it in a library so that everybody can use it.

<comment><USER20> Why would it need to be moved to library? Wouldn't it be easier just let schools open doors and let everybody use the equipment etc where it is?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, first, this stuff mostly doesn't exist in schools. Around the valley, maybe, but in Iowa where I grew up (the place I left to after the school I was talking about)? No.

Second, why _not_ put this stuff in the Library? It is absolutely a resource that the public could use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I worked at the Clarkson University library for three years and learned the software used to manage library databases is a huge contributor to the problem. I'd love to do something about it if the chance presented itself.

</comment><comment><USER22> I love the image conjured up by the term "baby cluster". Just don't think about what's sticking the babies together.</comment>


Google BigQuery brings Big Data analytics to all businesses - <AUTHOR> http://googledevelopers.blogspot.com/2012/05/google-bigquery-brings-big-data.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Note that this is built on top of Dremel: <http://research.google.com/pubs/pub36632.html></comment>


Google Copresence APIs for Chrome - <AUTHOR> https://developer.chrome.com/apps/copresence

<comment><USER2> This API (chrome.copresence) appears to be a publish/subscribe interface, there also appears to be a connection-oriented interface, the chrome.copresenceSocket.

[https://developer.chrome.com/apps/copresenceSocket](https://developer.chrome.com/apps/copresenceSocket)</comment>


Starting Today, Facebook Apps Can Ask You To Hand Over Your Email Address - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/20/facebook-app-email/

<comment><USER2> TC title: Starting Today, Facebook Apps Can Ask You To Hand Over Your Email Address

HN title: Starting Today, Facebook Apps Can Require You To Hand Over Your Email Address

There's a difference.

<comment><USER3> TC changed "Require" to "Ask" in their headline _after_ icey posted it here. Lighten up.

<comment><USER2> Sorry, the post was only 5 minutes old when I said that, seemed a narrow window to change in. My bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here is the facebook announcement, [http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=355](http://developers.facebook.com/news.php?blog=1&story=355)

Applications can request you to share email addresses explicitly via their "extended permission" api...

Its upto the user to share or not...

</comment><comment><USER5> My curiosity hovers over how much freedom FB app developers have in the "Request for Special Permissions" dialog.

Will the FB API force them to disclose the fact their app wants to email you directly, as is shown in the screencap, or could this fact be obscured with clever word choice or some other diversion in the dialogs?

If the latter, then this new feature sits somewhere close to sanctioned phishing. Once an untrusted 3rd party has your email address, FB can't revoke it. The recent stories about Farmville don't give me much reason to trust such 3rd parties.

Indeed at that point, FB, along with whatever role FB had hoped to play in data-mining the traffic it sends to your address, become entirely irrelevant.

Which begs the question: why does FB chose to cast itself as the easily expendable middleman?

<comment><USER6> I agree with you, but your use of "begs the question" is wrong, and given that I'm in a pedantic mood (and that this is a mistake I've seen before on HN), I'd like to offer a word on the subject.

Begging the question is a logical fallacy in which you essentially assume your conclusion as part of formulating your argument. Instead, you probably mean something more like "Which brings up the question".

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question>

<comment><USER5> Fair enough, and thx for the reference. Idiom and logic rarely get along together.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Starting from last week, I changed my facebook email address to a throw away email address. Not as an impressive piece of foresight, however: simply to stop companies finding my facebook details via my email address. Still, I'm especially glad I did now.

</comment><comment><USER8> I wonder how much it costs Facebook to send all of those application notification emails? It seems this announcement is decentralizing the sending of those emails, and putting the onus on companies.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yet another move by Facebook to show utter disrespect for their users. Sure, we will all read the dialog before giving away our email address. However, 90% of Facebook's users _wont_.

Proof: when they updated the privacy settings a few months ago to default to public. Pretty much everyone in my friends list now have their profiles fully public. Craziness.

<comment><USER10> How is giving people the option to make things public disrespectful?

<comment><USER9> Because Facebook know very well that people don't read things, they should but they don't, and they take advantage of this. The point is it shouldn't default to public (which it does if you've never touched your privacy settings which previously defaulted to public).

<comment><USER10> > Because Facebook know very well that people don't read things, they should > but they don't, and they take advantage of this.

As far as I'm concerned, if you log into a website, and a modal dialog comes up, and you don't read what it says and just click "yes"... you deserve what you get.

I don't see anything wrong with things defaulting to public, either. Most things you do on the internet are public, or at least associated with your username. Such is life.

<comment><USER9> When you signed up for Facebook though you signed up under the assumption that your data was private.

<comment><USER10> Maybe you did. Regardless of assumptions, they threw the options right up there in front of you, and made you choose one. No excuses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hellllloooooo Mailinator.

<comment><USER12> Or just click "Don't Allow".

<comment><USER13> Or you can use Facebook's proxy option (something like firstname.lastname@example.com) so app devs don't actually see your real email address. Same sort of thing that Craigslist does.</comment></comment></comment>


You can finally play SimCity offline - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/media/2014/03/18/can-finally-play-simcity-offline/

<comment><USER2> They need to post an update that gives you the ability for larger land plots for cities, then I'll play the game again. I haven't even touched it since last spring because the massive amounts of bugs in the core game still.

Also, side note, there is nothing more frustrating then watching a game come out with DLC's over and over again when they still have major bugs in the core game. It seems so ridiculous to me.

<comment> jon-wood While I don't disagree that SimCity was an utter mess, and haven't played it since shortly after release either, the complaint about DLC is one I hear all over the place from gamers.

The team working on DLC is going to be different to the team working on bugs in the core game. I'm not really sure what you expect a content artist to do in the effort to decouple SimCity from the online play it was connected to, and since they can't do much there they may as well work on flooding cities with Nissan Leafs instead and keep their job.

<comment><USER2> While I see your point, based on what you are saying, it would still take a developer's resources to implement those DLC's when they could be working on critical bugs (because you are saying the people working on DLC's are just designers, not developers also). If they were also developers, then that voids your argument, because then they should be working on the bugs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Too little, way too late.

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you mean? It's 2014 and offline play is a hot new feature!

More toward my interest in submitting this article, I wonder what this means for us webapp developers. Should offline mode be taken more seriously? Or is this a game-only lesson?

<comment><USER4> I first played Sim City on the Amiga when the original was released, and I've played various versions since.

The problem is that they messed majorly with gameplay in a way that effectively created an entirely different type of game. For my part, I enjoyed Sim City as a way to tinker on my own, and have no desire whatsoever to play with others, and it seems that's the case for a lot of others too. When that's the case, I also don't want to be forced to be online when playing.

It means nothing for webapp developers in general, other than that you should be aware of how your users use your app and not suddenly release a version that turns everything upside down and expect not to upset a lot of users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Honestly, I don't mind the whole offline thing. It means nothing. My gaming machine is online 24/7\. Internet outage? I'll just go outside and play stuff. Computer games don't rule my life.

My biggest gripe is how small cities are in simcity. Add the whole traffic situation.

Not sure how many of the issues they resolved, I have not played the game since launch, but the small towns are kind of annoying.

<comment><USER6> > My gaming machine is online 24/7\. Internet outage? I'll just go outside and > play stuff.

What if it rains?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Surprised no one is looking at it this way. Correct me if I'm wrong:

Online only is a form of DRM, offline mode comes out over a year after the initial release. This "DRM" was super effective preventing piracy during the hype and popularity of the game.

Offline is inevitable for when they decide to take their servers down.

<comment><USER8> I'm guessing it was even more effective at preventing sales too

<comment><USER9> Considering some of the atrocious numbers I've heard thrown around regarding piracy on the PC, DRM that scares off some customers may be the result of some execs doing some hard number crunching. Something like:

At current estimates, we sell 1m copies, and we'll get 5m pirates. If we put in really restrictive DRM, 100k of those original 1m sales will be put off, but we'll pick up one tenth of the pirates, putting us on 1.4m sales. Worth it!

The problem with this calculation is that the pirates are often based in 2nd world countries that don't have a culture of paying for media (e.g. Russia) so preventing piracy won't boost sales from these countries. But have you folks ever tried to convince anyone with money on the line that piracy numbers != lost sales?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm curious to hear at some point an insider's view on WTF happened here. I know EA was looking to make money faster, but they shot themselves in the foot by putting out such a terrible title that was so broken- whereas if they had waited 6 months and done it right they very well may have had something fantastic that would have sold 4x as much (or more).

Didn't they see that coming?

<comment><USER11> It's not clear that it would have sold more; a lot of us suckers bought it anyway. And as Zynga has taught us, forced social = microtransactions = profit.

<comment><USER10> Maybe I'm atypical these days. I don't preorder. I only play the 'top' games that are rated and reviewed exceedingly well unless I have a specific reason to do otherwise (specific niche that I want to play). I waited until after launch and then heard it was terrible- so I didn't buy.

But I don't have time to play most games. 90% of the games I've bought on Steam I've put less than 5 hours into.

<comment><USER12> This suggests around 30% of purchases are pre-orders:

[http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/28/how-to-maximize-your- onlin...](http://venturebeat.com/2014/02/28/how-to-maximize-your-online-game- launch/)

At least among whoever they got their data from

Most games I buy on steam I put in 40+ hours. I also follow the don't pre- order model. The last game I pre-ordered was Sword of The Stars 2 - and that was a 'never again' moment.

These days I wait until the lets plays and the like are out on YouTube.

The reward of saving yourself a few hours download time when it comes out, and a few £££, just doesn't line up with the risk of getting an awful game and feeling like a sucker for me.

<comment><USER10> I personally just don't see the point of preorders. There is no scarcity of games. There is no downside in waiting another week if your local Gamestop (or Amazon) are sold out to get it later.

In fact, I kinda like waiting months... or even year to check out a game. It gets past any hype about the game, and then all bugs/patches are done. And cheaper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What? I've been playing SimCity2K offline for the past 18 years. Is this like a headline from 1996?

<comment><USER14> I don't know if you're being facetious, but EA claimed the game was such an intensive simulation that calculations had to be run from their servers, so you had to be connected to the internet to paly.

<comment><USER15> Which if I recall correctly, turned out to be untrue. Shortly after it came out there were hacks that would let you spoof EA's servers or remove the need all together and play locally with only minor features disabled.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Remember the good ol'days when they said that was impossible? (Hint: almost nothing is impossible in software.)

<comment><USER17> Zombo-dot-com is software.

You can do anything at Zombo-dot-com . The only limit is your imagination.

Therefore, nothing is impossible in software. That's logic!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Welp, time to buy the new SimCity. I've been eagerly awaiting this moment, even if it does have other bugs.

</comment><comment><USER19> When I read the title I thought about this game [http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/393/SimCity+Classic.html](http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/393/SimCity+Classic.html) This confused me a bit as it's 100% offline :)

</comment><comment><USER20> After all these years that SimCity franchise has existed, it seems like there would be a good FOSS alternative, but there's still nothing great out there.

</comment><comment><USER21> but is the game any good? Atleast compared to simcity4

<comment><USER22> No, it's terrible. The first 8-bit simcity is a better city simulation. Once you get past the 3d gloss, the game is fundamentally broken and unfun. There are so many basic problems with the simulation that it's not even worth listing the issues.

It's, at best, an advanced proof of concept of a 3d simcity in presentation, that escaped the lab and mutated into the mess that ended up being released.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Does it run on Linux? I'm guessing no since they're owned by EA. I really hope Steam and Valve, steam roll over EA.

</comment><comment><USER24> Too late, and besides I'd rather play SimCity 2000.</comment>


The Strange and Sudden Disappearance of a Coding Bootcamp Founder - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/salvador-rodriguez/devschool-coding-bootcamps.html <comment><USER2> A lot of the students enrolled hoping to get a job later.

The scam aside, this goes to show that too many people still believe in the old system: learn skill in school -> get job. Especially that one student who lamented now he can't prove he completed the lessons from this bootcamp. Would a no name bootcamp impress any employer?

Learning in a classroom (or via Slack chats!) is not enough. It's just the first step. The key is applying it as soon as possible by doing projects, for yourself or for someone else. For free in the beginning if need be. Employers now want to see proof you can do something, not a piece of paper showing you can. Plus publishing these projects online can help employers / recruiters discover you.

Too many parents are still teaching their kids a paint by the numbers formula they knew for life: go to school -> land job. Work there -> rise through the ranks. The good news is, there's a hundred different ways to land a job now. The bad news is, trying, failing at, trying again at those different ways can be hard.

<comment><USER3> As a former instructor at a code school I always told students that learning to code would put them on a successful trajectory more than make them instantly valuable. It's not an on/off situation. A good engineer is always learning and improving.

Code schools too often make it look like you attend and then succeed, there's a lot more than goes on in between.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "He had a penchant for oversharing personal information and sometimes ripped hits from a colorful glass bong during video lectures with the students."

"I did learn some stuff," Johnson says. "I can write some code, and I didn't know anything before I started."

Oh jeez. I feel really bad for his students.

<comment><USER5> I wouldn't look down on that remark. People are different, and everyone needs to start somewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Has anyone done a coding bootcamp? With the plethora of relatively cheap/free resources out there from Universities, to professional institutions, all the way to YouTube, what is the appeal?

Do the certifications count for anything to hiring managers? Do you need someone to kick you in the ass on a daily basis to keep moving? Do you need the higher touch Q&A thats not available in Forums/StackOverflow type places?

<comment><USER7> I went through General Assembly's Web Development Immersive 2 years ago.

I have made good use of what I have learned in that program; however, I would be reluctant to recommend that everyone should take it.

It really depends on how much of your own time you are willing to invest in learning the material. I had 1 year of some web development experience at that point, so I was familiar with some of the material and didn't mind putting in work to get better. It was great for me in that it rounded out some of my skills and got me interested in bash which was something I never expected.

They worked really hard to get feedback from students to ensure that our experience was what we wanted and that they were also challenging us without being overwhelming. They also had a very passionate and personable staff that would answer any questions assuming that you had tried to solve your problem before asking.

They encouraged students to fail first so that they would eventually not fear failure; this was one of the most important lessons that I have taken with me. I don't think you can really learn this from an online course or tutorial.

I saw people go into the program without any developer experience come out of it building complex web apps that were using newer technologies (at that time) like Web Sockets and NodeJS. I also saw people go into the program and not really get much from it, but I don't know how much work they really put in.

A couple of the students from my cohort are working at big name companies like Uber and Starbucks, so my takeaway is that there isn't a guaranteed route to success with these types of programs. They give you enough tools to start a fire but they leave the rest up to you.

<comment><USER5> Most of that sounds positive, actually. So I'd be curious as to what the basis for your net negative take was.

<comment><USER7> I'll bite. The negative aspects, to me, were ultimately minor in my experience but consequential for a lot of the students.

This might have changed, but if you had the money, they will take you in. There is an interview process that they use to screen applicants, but my impression is that if you can pay, you get in.

This creates issues where there are students that are heavily invested in a successful outcome but might not have the ability to grasp the material. I tried helping some of my colleagues but some of them just could not grasp the material and it was hard for me understand what obstructed their ability to do so.

It might have been a confidence thing ("I don't get this and I never will"), but again, failure was encouraged in the program.

Additionally, there were issues that occurred due to a lack of diversity in race and gender. I do not want to get into it because it's really complicated and I lack the ability and the time to give this a fair evaluation. The gist of it is: General Assembly facilitated open dialogue but not all of the participants wanted to participate. I will leave it at that.

Halfway through the program, we had a teacher give pretty uninspiring lessons. The subject matter wasn't super dry or uninteresting (it was on SQL and relational databases); my feeling was that the teacher had some personal issues that were affecting his work.

This sucked more for the people that had zero background in development because he was poorly teaching crucial material and none of the students were feeling it. A lot of the students complained about this and he started turning around after that.

I also get the feeling that there was some "drama" in the inner workings of General Assembly. The director of our cohort quit towards the end of our immersive (week 10 out of a 12 week program); she was basically the one that ran the show and made sure that our needs for learning were met.

From my understanding, she was fired because of student complaints. She was very personable and very protective of the students so I feel like there must have been some pressure from above.

<comment><USER5> Yup - education is hard; sounds like GA is still figuring this out. Thanks for the data points.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I attended a coding bootcamp 3 years ago, and this was a major concern of mine going into it. The instructor had only taught one small class previously, so there was not much of a track record to trust. I spent quite a bit of time researching the instructor's background and speaking with his former students. Even with all that, there really was no way of knowing going into it whether it would deliver what I was hoping for. Ultimately I decided the risk of losing my $3k was worth the potential upside of a career as a software developer. Luckily, it worked out.

<comment><USER9> $3k is a bargain, some charge $20k!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _" Every year, dozens of new schools open, promising to teach anyone who can type the skills necessary to make a career in software development."_

OK, so people want an accessible route into the very basics. Where are the Community Colleges? In the UK, your local Further Education college will do you the very basics for not much money as an evening class.

<comment><USER11> They are there, but their curriculums are extremely outdated most of the time.

<comment><USER12> The cisco academy approved evening class ones are good we had 20 switches and 20 routers to play with at Mender College in the UK but it was about £500/£600 per quarter (free if you are unemployed)

<comment><USER10> CISCO was very much the gold standard, I'm thinking more like html -> client side -> server side (simple) -> server side (more complex).

PS: I'm glad it worked for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I know this guy, he worked for me on a project for a bit. At the time, he was in Mexico on a sail boat just going from port to port working on projects remotely. He would exchange tid-bits about his life, he was definitely unhinged. At the time, I think he was avoiding prosecution in the US by being in Mexico. This is super crazy but I'll be honest, not out of character for the guy.

<comment><USER14> That's super interesting. Can you offer any more details about him/his skills/his life?

<comment><USER13> Not too much. I was referred to him through a friend of mine who is a recruiter who knew I was looking for rails dev's, we still talk about him every once in awhile as possibly the oddest dev that's ever worked for me. He was a pretty good Rails developer (and passionate) and very active on the Ruby Forums, I think he was banned at some point though for some of his behavior. I remember he went on a Facebook rant regarding his ex-wife on Facebook, about how she was keeping his kid(s?) away from him and (at the time) she was the reason he couldn't return to the United States. After he got hired, he basically went to the other dev's on the github and emailed all of them telling them "he was the new lead dev" on the project. I had to take an entire day calming down the rest of the team haha.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This would be a perfect opportunity for someone who runs a bootcamp to contact these students and give them a chance enroll for free. It would be great PR ...

</comment><comment><USER5> _His uneasy students began to formulate theories. "We really didn't want to believe that we had been deserted," says Lundgren, who had paid $5,988 in tuition._

My heart goes out to these bootcamp students -- scammed and otherwise. That's a heck of a lot money for someone not earning a tech salary to pony up. For a set of skills which (at that level) just aren't going to be enough to get them into the kinds of jobs the envision being in reach, at the end of the tunnel.

</comment><comment><USER16> I saw this a few days ago. Creepy stuff. Please do your research when choosing a bootcamp. Or learn on your own.

</comment><comment><USER17> Ide be moving to Mexico to track this scumbag down, cant be that hard, dude has a profile on every social media platform is existence.

</comment><comment><USER18> I don't get it, people paid $100k to this guy to get courses through slack and online videos ? The article says 19 students, who paid $5k each for that ? are you kidding me ?

<comment><USER19> Yeah, this was a crazy story, but the fact that people were paying what amounts to college tuition for _learning-via-Slack-from-a-guy_ was the biggest shock to me. And I am a fan of bootcamps and think that there are bootcamps where you will get far more out of your $10,000 than you would for a year in college.

But those bootcamps are _physical_ places, with hands on instruction from a variety of instructors. I don't keep track of the bootcamp scene but I imagined it to be saturated by now with a bit of the race to the bottom, in terms of quality and pricing. A teacher-via-Slack isn't shocking, the prices he commanded _are_. But maybe such an arrangement is the only resort for folks who don't live in big cities like New York, or growing hubs like Omaha?

<comment><USER20> It's clear evidence of market demand. Even in 2016, it's likely a good bet to start a bootcamp, especially outside of the US.</comment></comment></comment>


Our website design was stolen - <AUTHOR>

I am the lead UI/UX Engineer for a company called HelloWallet in based in DC, and I came into work yesterday and was sent a link to this website: http://themattressboutique.com/
Our website is located here: http://www.hellowallet.com
Notice any similarities? We are taking the necessary actions but I am curious, what would you all do in this situation?
Here is the traceroute: xe-7-2-0-32767-sur01.floridaave.dc.bad.comcast.net (126.96.36.199)  9.943 ms  13.016 ms  10.529 ms
 4  ae-20-0-ar04.capitolhghts.md.bad.comcast.net (188.8.131.52)  35.839 ms  22.171 ms  12.891 ms
 5  pos-5-7-0-0-cr01.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast.net (184.108.40.206)  33.425 ms  20.759 ms
    pos-4-3-0-0-cr01.ashburn.va.ibone.comcast.net (220.127.116.11)  17.624 ms
 6  xe-11-1-0.edge2.washington12.level3.net (188.8.131.52)  20.346 ms  19.578 ms  17.183 ms
 7  vlan51.ebr1.washington12.level3.net (126.96.36.199)  78.736 ms  76.601 ms  76.790 ms
 8  ae-6-6.ebr1.atlanta2.level3.net (188.8.131.52)  78.316 ms  77.705 ms  77.245 ms
 9  ae-63-63.ebr3.atlanta2.level3.net (22.214.171.124)  77.589 ms  79.110 ms  78.466 ms 10  ae-7-7.ebr3.dallas1.level3.net (126.96.36.199)  78.302 ms  78.583 ms  80.935 ms 11  ae-3-3.ebr2.losangeles1.level3.net (18.104.22.168)  76.571 ms  77.794 ms  76.753 ms 12  ae-82-82.csw3.losangeles1.level3.net (22.214.171.124)  78.186 ms
    ae-92-92.csw4.losangeles1.level3.net (184.108.40.206)  77.761 ms
    ae-62-62.csw1.losangeles1.level3.net (188.8.131.52)  83.570 ms 13  ae-2-70.edge6.losangeles1.level3.net (126.96.36.199)  75.762 ms
    ae-3-80.edge6.losangeles1.level3.net (188.8.131.52)  79.727 ms
    ae-4-90.edge6.losangeles1.level3.net (184.108.40.206)  77.652 ms 14  * * * 15  * * * 16  web04.lax1.pronethosting.net (126.96.36.199)  107.211 ms  76.224 ms  77.021 ms
And here is the web hosting company that is hosting it: http://www.coolhandle.com/
Flattering, huh? <comment><USER2> I work in the security/abuse department for one of the largest web hosting companies in the world and we see these types of complaints regularly. The best way to go about this would be to email the abuse@ email for the IP which is email@example.com. If you can't get a hold of them that way, contact the colocation company directly. Their website is <http://www.cyberverse.com/>.

You can find out more about this process at:

[http://rising.blackstar.com/how-to-send-a-dmca-takedown- noti...](http://rising.blackstar.com/how-to-send-a-dmca-takedown-notice.html)

Network Information:

DNS Zone source: <http://leafdns.com/index.cgi?testid=329C603D> DNS Zone source: <http://www.intodns.com/themattressboutique.com> IP WHOIS: <http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-209-151-224-224-1/pft>

Let me know if you need any other information.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the info.

We are taking appropriate actions. We have some of the best on our side :-).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Also, they are hotlinking to some images you are hosting.

You can have fun with this by changing the image to something "not ideal".

</comment><comment><USER4> Now I'm not one to promote petty revenge (unless it's VERY amusing), but there are a few scripts and images that they're loading from the hellowallet.com servers, and from filostudios.com, who I presume did your design.

If someone were to change these files, they could dramatically alter the look and behaviour of themattressboutique.com quite easily...

<comment><AUTHOR> They did not do our design.

Have no idea who they are.

<comment><USER5> I'm sure they will be getting an awkward call from their client very soon..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Probably they are Picasso followers "good artists copy but great artists steal"

Blatant copy by the way...

</comment><comment><USER7> No idea what plan you will pursue, but try and contacting the company first.

This isn't the first time I see something like this, where the infringing company outsourced the design or even bought a design from ThemeForest like site and had no idea they were infringing.

</comment><comment><USER8> I hope you alert the authorities about this theft so that you can quickly recover your stolen property. Is your business being impacted in the meantime due to your deprivation of this property? Do you have a backup design you can use until you recover the stolen one?

<comment><AUTHOR> Unsure if we are impacted, but doubtful.

No need to have a backup design IMO. This is just our marketing site.

<comment><USER9> jordigh is being sarcastic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Filo Studios is indeed the design company that created the site. You can see that they were hosting the dev version here: <http://filostudios.com/websample/>.

</comment><comment><USER11> you should send a mail to department of abuse to hosting company where they copycat monkey have host their site.

i have experience with a image copy and here is a solution we made ;-

if their is too many people have stole or hotlinking the image from your server then change the image to 'this image is stolen and something lorem ipsum'. change the image to another name and update it on pages where you have used them.

this way you can show on the people site that they hosted something illegal. tough but solid way.

</comment><comment><USER12> Shugs, that is terrible. I would contact them company directly and let them know. Could be that they used a separate web-design company who is to be blamed

</comment><comment><USER13> Esamek, I was wondering if you can contact me by email. I have a few questions.

firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER14> Putting a single document.write(""); in one of your script files should solve this pretty quickly...

</comment><comment><USER3> Should be pretty obvious... they have hellowallet references in the page source.

</comment><comment><USER15> Cuurently `en constracion`. Looks like your takedown worked.

</comment><comment><USER16> They've even got your GA code in the source!

<comment><USER17> Also var disqus_shortname = 'hellowallet'. Sad.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best Interactive Environment for SQL? - <AUTHOR> What's, for you, the best interactive environment for crafting SQL queries around here?<p>Things I'm wondering about:<p>* basic syntax help / autoindent<p>* red underline for indicating errors<p>* function autocomplete<p>* table and field autocomplete<p>* partial results streaming<p>* progress indicators<p>* table exploration (looking at a table catalog etc.)<p>* "workbench" where you can save multiple queries<p>* link to visualization tools<p>* link off to more powerful statistical analysis tools<p>... <comment><USER2> DataGrip by Jetbrains is decent. I really like the autocomplete found in the psql client as well. Sublime Text has a few sql plugins that help with code readability.

<comment><USER3> Anything Jetbrains seems to have pretty great SQL support in any case (e.g. PyCharm, Goland etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Depends what flavour of SQL you want to use. As pointed out already the DB plugin/DataGrip 'stand alone' app from Jetbrains is not bad, and has pretty wide language/protocol support.

For MySQL/compatible stuff, I still end up back on SequelPro though, because it's much "lighter", IMO.

</comment><comment><USER5> I enjoy TablePlus throughly! I would download the free version and try it out. It's a game changer for people that do majority of the their transformation and modeling in SQL. (Along with DBT).

</comment><comment><USER6> i used to _love_ AquaDataStudio, but their license price went nuts sometime ago, since then, i have been orbiting around datagrip.</comment>


The God Equation? - <AUTHOR> http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/12/the_god_equation.php

<comment><USER2> _As the possibility of the Earth having the exact required characteristics to fit the equation by chance is remote, and the equation has, in theory, been in existence since the beginning of the Universe, this means that the Earth's orbit, rotation and weight must have been engineered to fit this equation._

The chance is apparently _so_ remote that it couldn't be accomplished even given an infinite number of chances.

<comment><USER3> Or that the equation was built to fit those characteristics.

At first I looked at the things and thought: "So what it doesn't provide any insights". Then read on and was glad that the authors point is that it's made up.

Pick a few measurements, pick their units and pick how to combine them so that it sort of fit. Voila, claim to fame!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The earth continues to orbit the sun, puppies still lick your hand and scientists barely notice crap like this getting scattered about. The Internet is chock full of it.

Yet we are to believe the AGW crowd zealously hoards their taxpayer-funded data sets because they fear _this kind of work_ will result and it will engender bad publicity and tarnish all their efforts.

Or maybe they have something more solid to fear.</comment>


On pasta and music and copyright - <AUTHOR> http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2010/05/01/on-pasta-and-music-and-copyright/

<comment><USER2> Unrelated but related, visiting other countries I discovered that pasta is a common aliment almost everywhere. Still many people don't realize how to make it in a proper way, even if it's so trivial, so...:

\- Boil water, a lot, it's not good to make pasta with a few water.

\- When the water is boiling, put some salt, not too much, you can understand if the amount is right by tasting the water, it should not be tasteless or clearly salted.

\- At this point put the pasta in the water. Move the pasta until the water starts boiling again. For a moment it will stop because the pasta will lower the temperature.

\- Move from time to time (every 2 minutes at least)

\- In total boil it for around 8-12 minute. It's up to the kind of pasta, check the instructions if you are not a pasta expert, otherwise you'll be able to understand when the pasta is ready just looking at it and tasting it if required.

\- Finally drain it.

At this point you are supposed to have a seasoning ready ;) Otherwise just a bit of olive oil and some cheese will be enough.

Alternatively press some grail with oil and a bit of salt, then add tomatoes cut in little cubes, everything crude, and enjoy. Some basil will make it better.

<comment><USER3> Just an addendum, you need to take the pasta out just before it's done (it will be soft with a slight firmness, but not full-blown starchiness - leave it too late and it might get soggy) and put it into a colander or a sieve and drain the water off. As the remaining water evaporates shake it around slightly to shake the water loose for the layers underneath. You'll know it's done because it's dry and slightly cooler.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Amusing, but is this really useful? Most of the people who read this are likely to already agree with the sentiment, and those few who did not yet are convinced by reading this are unlikely to have any pull where it matters. (Plus, there was an article recently that suggests that faced with contrary evidence, people will dig their heels even deeper)

And the massive group of people who don't really know anything much about the subject and could be useful if they, the entire group, all read about the issues and thought about it, are hardly likely to read this. (Though I suspect this is the audience that is being targeted, seeing as how the entire article is really just an analogy)

Rather than seeing more of these articles, I'd like to see, oh, arguments that we can use in general regarding such issues.

For instance, someone says (regarding some upcoming restrictive legislation), "Don't worry about it. It doesn't affect you if you have nothing to hide/aren't doing anything wrong". What are the main things you want to say to respond to that?

<comment><USER5> _those few who did not yet are convinced by reading this are unlikely to have any pull where it matters_

All words are golden for _someone_ out there.

I might agree with the sentiment, you might as well, my parents might not realize what's going on and never get the article (even if they could read English), many others will disagree, but there will be people who read this and it will light the bulb in their heads, and they will realize: "Fuck, man! This is _so_ true, I knew this is how it is but I just never found the words."

Nicely written article, by the way. I didn't even skip to the point, I just first enjoyed reading about pasta.

<comment><USER6> > All words are golden for someone out there.

You only get one chance to convince some people. Make it count.

<comment><USER5> That's pretty limited; if you feel you have to optimize it's like you were running out of something.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Monad transformers, free monads, mtl, laws and a new approach - <AUTHOR> https://ocharles.org.uk/blog/posts/2016-01-26-transformers-free-monads-mtl-laws.html <comment><USER2> Recent work related to free and "freer" monads: [http://okmij.org/ftp/Haskell/extensible/](http://okmij.org/ftp/Haskell/extensible/)

</comment><comment><USER3> What is the difference between this and arrows in terms of composition of effects?

<comment><USER4> This is pretty close to fundamentally a monadic approach. Arrow approaches to effect management are sometimes similar and sometimes very different. It's hard to be more clear since unifying these things as effects is perhaps tenuous than trying to find their common points.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The freer the monads...</comment>


NodeGS, my clone of Node.js running in my own programming language, on my own VM - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/geertvos/node-gs <comment><AUTHOR> During the corona crisis I obviously had too much time and implemented a script runtime like NodeJS. But this runs gscript, a custom scripting language written in Java that runs on its own VM, the GVM. Looking for comments, improvements, ideas. Shoot!</comment>


Is Small Still Beautiful? - <AUTHOR> http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/3705 <comment><USER2> I posted this response in LTU, but it bears repeating.

Orthogonality (or representational independence), not size, is the relevant criteria. Harmonic analysis is the appropriate comparison. While every complete basis can represent any function in the relevant function space, it is better at representing some than others; notably the functions which are a finite linear combination of the basis functions. So trigonometric series represent one kind of function very efficiently, wavelets another. It's similar with programming languages.

Of course the orthogonal core may be mostly of interest to the language implementer,as orthogonality should, in the most faithful sense of the word, make the implementation of one construct independent of implementing another construct, particularly in optimization.

<comment><USER3> The "orthogonal core" is _not_ only of interest to the language implementer, it is what determines the suitability of the language for the particular task. To use your analogy of harmonic analysis, a complete basis is not only useful as a method of representation, but also a method by which to ease the process of calculation.

Regardless, I think the post is postulating that a large, overcomplete "basis" is the new beauty de jour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Languages should be small, libraries should be big.

The standard library should be comprehensive and well documented so that it's easy to (1) decide if there's a package that does what you want, and (2) work out how to use it. Simply documenting all the functions/methods on an API is not enough; documentation should start by saying what problems the module is trying to solve, then give some worked examples. If the worked examples don't give a bloody good idea of how to use it, then probably either the package is badly designed or the documentation badly written.

There are libraries in Python that I have given up on using simply because I've not been able to figure out how to use them.

<comment><USER5> It is not very clear what is "language" and what are "libraries", in a conceptual sense. For example, you can build Common Lisp from a handful of things / special forms, but the ANSI standard is very large, because it wanted to standardize a lot of things that could be built in many different ways (e.g. the loop facility).

Basically, the difference between "language" and "library" is normative. What you put in "language" are requirements for conforming implementations. It is a political decision more than a technical one.

<comment><USER4> > What you put in "language" are requirements for conforming implementations.

That's a language definition, not a language. Consider a language L which is implemented in implementation language M.

Stuff that's written in L is part of the satndard library. Stuff that could have been written in L but is written in M (e.g. for speed) is part of the language. And stuff that is written in M is also part of the language.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Small is nice until you've exhausted learning the nooks and crannies of the language, making you crave the ability to do more with it. Then more gets added until it isn't small anymore.

<comment><USER3> I beg to differ. I want to completely understand the tools I use. Exploring a new language may be a fun process, but having an easy understanding of the complete language specification allows you to adequately frame a problem in the context of that language.

Having said that, I do use big tools in my day job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yes. Small is Beautiful.

Functional. Functions. And, the only important " _Library_ " is a small and beautiful compiler which is invoked with a built-in function called compile that you can change, swap out and completely remove, of course. Anything else seems like big globs of crufty glue.

<comment><USER8> Unless and until you need to or want to interface with the Rest of World.

<comment><USER9> So "small" has to include sockets.</comment></comment></comment>


A tale of project management, toil, and ripped donuts - <AUTHOR> https://triplebyte.com/blog/how-triplebyte-launched-two-new-interview-tracks-in-four-weeks <comment><USER2> I wrote this post! The month leading up to Thanksgiving was an unusually busy one for us. This project involved so many different people that we realized the story behind it could serve as a cross-section glimpse into what we actually do on a day-to-day basis – as well as a chance to reminisce about some of the funny things that happened along the way. Normally our blog posts are more serious and data-driven, but in this case I thought it'd be more interesting – and fun – to write something a bit more tongue-in-cheek. Hope you enjoyed!</comment>


Ask HN: What DSLR should I buy?  New/Used? - <AUTHOR>

I'm an amateur photographer and am going to purchase my first SLR very soon.  I'm looking into the Canon XSi with the kit 18-55mm lens and getting the 55-250mm lens to go with it.  However I'm haunted by the fact that the camera goes on sale for +-$300 once in a while - it makes me want to wait.
Would I be better off getting a (better) used camera (off ebay or craigslist), waiting for a ridiculous sale, or getting the XSi at a decent price ($550 with the kit lens)?
Any photographers on here? <comment><USER2> I've been shooting for 20+ years.

IMO, I'd only look at a camera with a full-frame image sensor, but your budget may limit you to less expensive bodies.

Half of the equation is the glass (lens). The XSi is an overall unremarkable camera body, but it gets the job done. You'll notice a big difference though between a low-end lens and a quality lens on almost any camera body.

Don't invest in the EF-s lenses, they'll only mate with APS-C sensor bodies. Go with the standard EF series lenses so that when you eventually upgrade to a higher-end body all your lenses will still work.

I tend to recommend the craigslist route to many friends looking to get into photography. There seem to be a lot of people who upgrade for no good reason, and end up selling their old bodies for a good price with only a few hundred to low-thousand shutter activations (practically new).

Canon and Nikon gear both hold their values well. The Canon gear is _generally_ considered to be a little better than Nikon, but that is kind of an "emacs vs. vi" argument... Everyone has their own religious preferences.

If you must compromise on the price, get a good lens and a decent body. Upgrade the body when you have some extra cash.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply.

So what would you say is a bad deal in terms of shutter activations? A guy on craigslist now is selling a Canon 40D with 60k clicks for $1000. Excessive?

I don't know if a full-frame would be worth it at this point. Seems like it'd be quite a bit more expensive.

Getting EF lenses is good advice though - thanks.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, 60K clicks seems like a lot. It varies by body, but you can usually look up the specs and find what the unit is rated for from Canon and/or when they recommend it to be sent in for service (the 40D BTW is rated for 100K). You'd probably want something with no more than 25% of the rated shutter activations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Honestly, it doesn't matter what camera you buy. Lens are much more important but even they pale into insignificance compared to subject, light and skill.

Just buy a camera then... Practice, practice, practice. Shoot everything. Try everything. Keep a photoblog. Publish photos daily. Join a club. Do a SoFoBoMo (look it up). Be critical. Aim for better shots. Plan ahead. Shot subjects that take you out of your comfort zone. All these things will do more for you than any camera body or lens, and are basically free.

Do NOT fall into the trap of thinking that photography is about the equipment.

I like to think I can hold my own, even with a basic Sony DSLR and a few mid- range lenses: <http://photoaday.ideasasylum.com/p/407> <http://photoaday.ideasasylum.com/p/419> and so on: <http://photoaday.ideasasylum.com/browse/1>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks - great advice. It's always easy to get caught up in the feature trails...

Wow the first photo of the baby is wonderful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> like hopeless said, the lens is a big deal. I'd ABSOLUTELY SKIP THE KIT LENS. If you're going nikon or canon, buy yourself the 50mm f/1.8 lens. it'll run you 100 bucks and teach you way more about photography because you'll get to play with the aperture a lot more (open that lens all the way up and you'll get a really narrow depth of field compared to the widest open on the kit lens).

Camera: to start with and learn on, xsi is a great camera. if you're thinking nikon, i'd get a d40 if you want to stay in the same price range (skip the d60, its not better than the d40).

i generally recommend the d90 for nikon as a starter if you're a little more flexible with budget (same sensor as the d300, cropped sensor, but i think thats a nonissue for most beginners, especially if you're shooting for posting online).

between nikon/canon -- just pick one. this is basically the same sort of question as "ruby or python".

i've bought happily off craigslist, but if you're even slightly concerned that the seller is sketchy, skip it, unless you know what to look for. better to pay 50 bucks more as insurance that you're getting quality early on. B&H photo is a great place to buy online and they'll match any reputable vendor (usually they're the bst though).

read kenrockwell.com. he reviews a ton of cameras and generally has a higher concentration of quality information in one place than you can find elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER5> Canon T2i just came out as what looks to be the successor to the Si (Sx? I forget). I believe it's around US$800-900 with an 18 - 50-something starter lens. I saw a mention of low noise up to 3200 ISO equivalent, and it does 1080p x 30 frame/sec video. If you're going for a starter Canon, I'd include it in your evaluation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah though it appears to not have any special features beyond HD video (which I don't care about), and the 3200 ISO option - which I'm skeptical about.

<comment><USER5> I think this is what I saw the other day:

[http://www.pcmag.com/print_article2/0,1217,a%253D249554,00.a...](http://www.pcmag.com/print_article2/0,1217,a%253D249554,00.asp)

And DP Review has a preview:

<http://www.dpreview.com/previews/CanonEOS550D/>

Whatever you get, have fun!</comment></comment></comment>


How to protect humans in a fully automated society - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/1/18205204/automation-ai-software-disruption-artificial-intelligence-big-picture <comment><USER2> ...is that it? Is there any insight or suggestion, or is this article just reiterating that the public has a justified fear of their jobs being automated?</comment>


Casino-rules blackjack sim (by MIT bio undergrad/Wharton mgmt PhD student) - <AUTHOR> http://wendyham.weebly.com/uploads/1/3/4/5/1345982/blackjack.html

<comment><AUTHOR> In more detail: Wendy, the creator, is a blackjack aficionado with a science background who wanted to build something to explore the probable returns of various standard blackjack strategies, given various parameters such as number of decks, number of shoes played, bet size, and starting bankroll.

From the site: "This simulator gives you some idea about how your bankroll may fluctuate during a playing session. The 'player' in this simulator follows the blackjack basic strategy, and the rules are based on those of a typical Las Vegas casino."

Please don't think this is a web casino spam.

The sim is implemented in NetLogo. AFAIK source isn't available, but maybe she'd release it if asked.

She's interested in feedback, I suppose from anyone with related knowledge or interests.

</comment><comment><USER2> If you're interested in this, you might really enjoy the book Fortune's Formula by William Poundstone (ISBN: 0809046377):

link: [http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?author=&title=&lan...](http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?author=&title=&lang=en&isbn=0809046377&submit=Begin+search&new_used=*&destination=us&currency=USD&mode=basic&st=sr&ac=qr)

The book looks at, among other things, the Kelly Criterion: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion>

<comment><USER3> thanks jake!</comment></comment>


What could you write down about a juggling pattern? (1993) - <AUTHOR> http://www.juggling.org/help/siteswap/faq.html <comment><USER2> FAQ writer here. I've got a video with demos [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38rf9FLhl-8&t=105s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38rf9FLhl-8&t=105s) from a few years ago. AMA.

<comment><USER2> BTW I'm fairly sure I wrote the siteswap -> on-screen simulation, in 1988. In Pascal. A few years later three of us wrote [http://www.juggling.org/programs/java/MAGNUS/juggler.html](http://www.juggling.org/programs/java/MAGNUS/juggler.html) in now-ancient Java, which did a ton more stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Taught myself to juggle grocery store bags while working at a grocery store.

It's a little like spinning plates. You hang a bag in the air, leave it for a bit, and grab it before it hits the ground. Now interleave 3 of these:

Start:

\- Hang bag A with right hand.

\- Hang bag B with left hand.

\- Hang bag C with right hand and grab bag A with left hand.

Process:

\- Hang bag A with left hand and grab bag B with right hand.

\- Hang bag B with right hand and grab bag C with left hand.

\- Hang bag C with left hand and grab bag A with right hand.

\- Hang bag A with right hand and grab bag B with left hand.

\- Hang bag B with left hand and grab bag C with right hand.

\- Hang bag C with right hand and grab bag A with left hand.

End:

\- Grab bag B with right hand.

\- Grab bag C with left hand, while still holding bag A.

OR

\- Allow all bags to fall on floor, then collect them.

</comment><comment><USER4> Here is an entertaining video describing the same notation from Colin Wright. Excellent speaker!

[https://youtu.be/GNKFSpJIBO0](https://youtu.be/GNKFSpJIBO0)

</comment><comment><USER5> Hey, maybe we'll get one of the originators on here?

One interesting thing that happened when jugglers discovered siteswap was a proliferation in new patterns as they discovered the full space of (hand position independent) patterns. Some are more difficult to time/think than they are to throw/catch.

For more history see the wiki... [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siteswap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siteswap)

<comment><USER6> > _Hey, maybe we 'll get one of the originators on here?_

Hello

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Juggler3D "screensaver" [https://linux.die.net/man/6/juggler3d](https://linux.die.net/man/6/juggler3d) can also be run manually with a pattern, and it will attempt to show a stick figure juggling with that pattern.

<comment><USER8> I first saw this through xscreensaver and was very impressed. At least as it's packaged for Arch, xscreensaver brings in loads of weird, fun, mind-expanding screensavers. It's always a surprise. I'm not sure if other distributions' packages pull in the full set of screensavers by default, but I imagine you can find them regardless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hi wrote this article in a blog explaining the basics if you are interested [http://www.mathisintheair.com/eng/2018/02/21/maths-and- juggl...](http://www.mathisintheair.com/eng/2018/02/21/maths-and-juggling/)

<comment><USER10> Thanks! That was very informative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> For more on site swap, read also B. Polster: The Mathematics of Juggling. Springer, 2002. ([https://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Juggling-Polster- Burkard-...](https://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Juggling-Polster-Burkard- Paperback/dp/B00JYHVORI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1532520613&sr=8-2&keywords=The+Mathematics+of+Juggling)) and here is a review by @allenknutson (writer of the FAQ): [https://www.ams.org/notices/200401/rev- knutson.pdf](https://www.ams.org/notices/200401/rev-knutson.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER12> This website is unchanged from 1993 (the web archive first crawled it in 1997), yet it looks great in my 4K screen. I wouldn't be able to tell if it was written yesterday or 20 years ago. Completely unlike the experience you are getting from something like this [http://web.archive.org/web/19961112181513/http://www.nytimes...](http://web.archive.org/web/19961112181513/http://www.nytimes.com:80/)

<comment><USER13> It doesn't look great on my screen and I need to turn on reader-mode (which breaks the graphs) or zoom and scroll horizontally in order to read the content

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anthony Gatto, the greatest juggler alive: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17609254](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17609254)

</comment><comment><USER15> Is there an intersection between HNers and jugglers? I've been teaching myself contact juggling for... quite some time. I picked it because it was so far out of my comfort zone.

<comment><USER16> I spent hours a day juggling for ~4 years in my mid teens (in my 30s now) and got up to juggling 8 balls.

I find numbers juggling (say 5 or more) to be almost therapeutic. It requires a reasonable amount of physical exertion, and it just pulls you into a flow state. All of your mental and physical focus is concentrated on maintaining this ephemeral pattern, and there's no room for anything else... until the pattern falls apart :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I like the finite state machine (directed graph) near the end. That means there's a regular expression that can encode it.

<comment><USER2> You might like some of the papers about random traversals of this graph, e.g. [http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/0302.5257](http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/0302.5257) and [http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/1601.06391](http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/1601.06391)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Do any online tools to validate and visualise siteswap notation exist?

<comment><USER11> You just need your head :) Check [http://www.siteswap.org/validate.html](http://www.siteswap.org/validate.html) Otherwise, check the software section here: [http://www.siteswap.org/](http://www.siteswap.org/)</comment></comment>


Yes, Philly does Web startups - <AUTHOR> http://foundedinphilly.com/

<comment><USER2> Excellent post. I have been looking for a good list of speaking and demo events in the greater Philadelphia area, and this is the first I've seen so far.

At about what percentage into my minimum viable product should I start giving presentations to build good traction?

<comment><AUTHOR> I would start right now!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> No doubt, Philly is on the upswing

</comment><comment><USER4> We have top notch universities conducting top notch research.</comment>


1 in 20 deaths globally are a result of alcohol use - <AUTHOR> https://lite.cnn.io/en/article/h_649cf72203001a944835af29bf5a168f <comment><USER2> This seems to miss that a lot of alcohol use is a symptom of something else, rather than being a primary problem.</comment>


Show HN: Lost in translations – a fun app of recursive translations - <AUTHOR> http://lost-in-translations.amanjeev.com <comment><USER2> "My hovercraft is full of eels" [http://lost-in- translations.amanjeev.com/lost-translations/2...](http://lost-in- translations.amanjeev.com/lost-translations/277)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Hungarian_Phrasebook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Hungarian_Phrasebook) & [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6D1YI-41ao](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6D1YI-41ao)

<comment><USER3> My first try: "I'm not going to buy this Album, you will be disqualified."

Then I saw this post, haha.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Note: It seems like I am about to run out of the free quota (I see the usage as 754K characters already). I grossly underestimated.

Edit: If I run out of the quota, which it looks like I will, you can use your own API key locally by using this package: [https://pypi.python.org/pypi/ulit/](https://pypi.python.org/pypi/ulit/). A neat feature is that you can use Google translate API as well but it is not nearly as much fun.

Update: I ran out of the quota but have emailed Yandex if I can pay a few bucks to keep it running. It seems to have under 50 mil characters, you pay about $15.

<comment><AUTHOR> Another update: I think the quota will be reset at midnight moscow time (it is Sept 30th today). So, hopefully in about three hours the quota should be reset and the app shall be usable again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Same problem as [http://translationparty.com/](http://translationparty.com/), running out of API quota. Sad since it's a funny idea.

Here's how Translation Party is supposed to work: [https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/forcebe...](https://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/forcebewithyou-1.png) (similar to Lost in translations).

<comment><AUTHOR> Sadly, Yandex has a limit for characters in their free API. A thing I noticed is that there is no free version of Google translate but that is not as much fun as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I tried some popular quotes, there is an example: "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." was transformed to: Every time you log on to the website of the Majority, it is Time to stop and think.

</comment><comment><USER6> Seems like an entertaining, tech-enhanced, multi-lingual, solitary version of telephone [1].

FWIW: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" becomes "In veloce Marrone volpe Pull lazy cane" [2]

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

[2] [http://lost-in-translations.amanjeev.com/lost- translations/1...](http://lost-in-translations.amanjeev.com/lost- translations/1246)

<comment><AUTHOR> >>Seems like an entertaining, tech-enhanced, multi-lingual, solitary version of telephone [1].

Everyone within the family I have mentioned this idea to has called it that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The following goes through and comes out the end unchanged:

"We are all Human beings. The Earth is our home. It is our World. We have to learn to share, before it's too late."

<comment><USER6> If Amanjeev runs out of free quota, here's the link - [http://lost-in- translations.amanjeev.com/lost-translations/1...](http://lost-in- translations.amanjeev.com/lost-translations/1319)

<comment><AUTHOR> This thing of saving the translations paid off. So at least I wasn't as bad in predicting but I still failed to estimate the free quota's limitations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Using text: "Hello, i'm trying out this translation madness, I'm hoping these text won't lost."

Afterwards, it has corrected my grammar: Good Day, I am trying this translation Madness, I hope that these Texts will not lose.

[http://lost-in-translations.amanjeev.com/lost-translations/7...](http://lost- in-translations.amanjeev.com/lost-translations/788)

</comment><comment><USER9> That's pretty cool :)

Maybe you could spin the waiting time by showing the intermediary translations as they go?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Indeed. I am also working on allowing users to select the intermediate translations steps and the language of choice they want to begin with (per API).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> That's funny, I wrote a hubot script that does something similar a little while ago:

[https://github.com/okize/hubot-garble](https://github.com/okize/hubot-garble)

<comment><AUTHOR> Neat! We should join forces: Here is mine [https://github.com/amanjeev/ulit](https://github.com/amanjeev/ulit)

<comment><USER10> That looks great!

This doesn't really qualify as multiple discovery but it is funny how common it is for disparate people to have the same idea simultaneously.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was always sure I am not the only one with this idea but somehow never could find a similar web project via Google searches and never looked on Github. So, my bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Reminds me of [http://ackuna.com/badtranslator](http://ackuna.com/badtranslator) which was way better back when you could still use Bing and Google Translate.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. I tried googling this before I started making this app but could not find any. I guess my google-fu is not good enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I think this could use some non-Indo-European languages in the language chain for fun.

Also, looks like all past translations are available through URL modification:

[http://lost-in-translations.amanjeev.com/lost-translations/1...](http://lost- in-translations.amanjeev.com/lost-translations/1000)

by changing 1000 to 999, 1001, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Yes I want to add the ability to have users decide the intermediate languages. And yes the past translations are available. Thats how i wanted it to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I managed to get "Sorry, language not supported by Yandex" error somehow. Is the app hitting to the API limits?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. That is a the quota limit. Unfortunately, I never thought I'd run out since I never thought anyone would want to use it this much. 'Tis just a small experiment I did not invest much time in. Sorry.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Question: Would anyone be interested in the translations (as a plain-text dump) ?

</comment><comment><USER14> Isn't this more about repeated iterations than recursive calls to itself?

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess you are correct. I was trying to really find a decent phrase but I guess I failed.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Battleweb, a game to play while you're working on or browsing the web - <AUTHOR> https://battleweb.net <comment><AUTHOR> This is a labor-of-love side project of mine, just seeing how far I could push the boundaries of Firebase and Chrome extensions. Hope you like it. :)</comment>


Ask HN:Anyone here not want an exit? - <AUTHOR>

What if you are incredibly happy with your leadership position at your start-up, are not too concerned about living a wealthier life, and don't see yourself building something else?
This question determines whether I want to raise money since VCs / angels always ask, "What's your exit strategy?".
So you have to balance between two views:
a.) Raise money, allowing your operation to possibly grow more because of this, a broader network through the investors for partnerships/advice, and coming to grips with the fact that you will have to sell or your investors will push you for it. Understand that if you are acquired (low chances, but just saying), you will have to work for a behemoth company, and judging from the amount of founders that leave a short while after being acquired, being an employee of one of those companies can hardly be described as exhilarating. Also understand that if you were bought out, you will have more cash in the next 5 years (if you did nothing with it) than if you were to stay at your start-up providing yourself a salary for the next 5 years, even taking into account increased salary from growing the company (without VC money) during those years.
b.) Don't raise money, keep living off your salary (if any), reduce the direct and indirect transaction costs of having investors, and possibly lower growth opportunities (no money to hire more staff, etc..).
So anybody here not looking forward for an exit? <comment><USER2> My startup isn't accepting VC and we're not looking for an exit. If we get funding, it'll be for one of our (many) products, but never the company itself. It is imperative that we maintain 100% autonomy, even if it means risking our very survival.

As for why, it is because the work we're doing (a particular style of video game) is unproven in the market, and we need to be able to take substantial risks, again and again, where we stand to lose a lot of money. We can't afford to have any external interests guiding these decisions. We're doing this work for love of the work, so an exit would be ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interestingly, some of the most successful startups today may never "exit". Facebook seems to want to avoid an IPO if they can, and Mark Pincus from Zynga has said he hope he can exist as a privately held corporation indefinitely. [1]

SecondMarket creates liquidity for investors, founders, and employees while allowing the company to still maintain some control of how many investors they have.

At NextGenConf a few weeks ago, Peter Thiel specifically said Clarium prefers to invest in companies that can be successful without any exit. [Can't find a ref here, taken from my notes.]

[1] <http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2311>

<comment><AUTHOR> >Peter Thiel specifically said Clarium prefers to invest in companies that can be successful without any exit.

So how does he get his return? By selling his shares to others?

<comment><USER3> Yes, SecondMarket specifically provides liquidity for private companies. Again, I can't find a reference, but I believe Thiel has sold over half his original Facebook stock already in this manner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What about option c.

Make a ton of money. Stay private.

There's some sort of mind-brainwash that the only way to build a company is to get funding by giving some middle aged man who doesn't have the balls to take big risks himself a large share of your company.

It's the Internet. You don't need a lot of capital.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you don't want an exit, you're not alone. To name just one famous example, Tim O'Reilly has turned down multiple offers over the years to sell O'Reilly for much more money than the company is worth.

<comment><USER6> Also Craig Newmark.

Different but related: founders (Page, Brin, Jobs, Ellison) who stayed involved after IPO. The VCs have an exit in those cases, but the founders stick around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm always suspicious of founders that want an exit. Am I really to believe they think they're doing their life's work and trying to save the world if they want to be done with it in a few years? Do they really think of it as their baby if they'd happily sell it and never see it again?

If I was a V.C., I would dismiss any founder that answered the "what is your exit strategy?" question with anything other than a middle finger. A good V.C. would see it as the V.C.'s job to convince the founder to sell at the right time.

<comment><USER8> That's not very fair. Unless you're fortunate enough to be working on your most passionate, most world-changing idea _right now_ , I don't see the problem with taking an exit. Many people have passions outside of their company, so what's wrong with taking the money and using it to fund another project?

<comment><USER2> I don't think the problem is the action of selling and starting anew. I think the problem is double-talk.

Either treat your startup like it's your life's work and see it through for as long as it takes, or treat it like a big project that you're happy to turn over when something better comes along. But keep the attitudes distinct.</comment></comment></comment>


20 Useful Visualization Libraries - <AUTHOR> http://abeautifulwww.com/2008/09/08/20-useful-visualization-libraries/ <comment><AUTHOR> Seems to be down now.

Here's the text-only cached copy: [http://184.108.40.206/search?q=cache:http://abeautifulwww.co...](http://184.108.40.206/search?q=cache:http://abeautifulwww.com/2008/09/08/20-useful- visualization-libraries/&hl=en&sa=G&strip=1)

The original web page with the images looked better.

</comment><comment><USER2> "Page is not available", is it just me :(

<comment><USER3> Was the same for me, works now.</comment></comment>


The $2 Standup Desk - <AUTHOR> http://ckth.is/iwht

<comment><USER2> Nice. I like my lay-down desk which I also sleep in. Churchill used to work in bed for four hours every morning. Hugh Hefner too. Netbooks are good for this.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks great, as long as you don't mind working on top of a dirty/unattractive pallet and have no writing to do.

</comment><comment><USER4> Better sand that down some if you don't want splinters.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well actuallly I did not sand it down at all, and it is perfectly fine, but I guess that depends a lot on the quality of the pallets you can find. It can't hurt to sand it down some anyway...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> How would you sterilize one of these? You don't know where it's been or what's been on it.

<comment><USER5> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallet#Food_safety_risks>

        Food safety risks

        Wood pallets used to transport food can possibly harbor pathogens such as
        E. coli and Listeria.

        A release by the National Consumers League announced the testing of 70 wood
        pallets and 70 plastic pallets that have been loaded with perishable products
        and shipped to an end user was shipped overnight to an independent microbiology
        lab for testing. The results came back with 10 percent of the wood pallets
        positive for E. coli and 1.4 percent positive on the plastic pallets.[29]

Contaminated pallets is enough of a thing that you should at least think twice about bringing one into your home, especially if you have ankle biters around or eat lunch at your desk.

If you search for _salmonella pallet_ you get a lot of link bait, and some indication of a PR war between the wooden pallet industry and the plastic pallet industry, and a very small number of level headed, topical articles.

The idea is enough of a thing that the wooden pallet industry has responded at length: [http://www.palletenterprise.com/articledatabase/view.asp?art...](http://www.palletenterprise.com/articledatabase/view.asp?articleID=3480)

Part of their defense is "anyway, it's tertiary packaging, so why worry?" That's fine if you're worried about individual resale items in their own packages, in a wholesale box of packages, wrapped on a pallet. Maybe not so slam dunk safe if you're bringing the pallet itself into your home.</comment></comment>


Electroceuticals - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/electroceuticals/ <comment><USER2> The holy grail though is endorphin/serotonin/dopamine emission through nerve stimulation. That is a device that gets you "high" by just pushing signals into your brain that you should be high. Back in 2008/2009 when a flurry of papers came out about using deep brain stimulation on treatment resistant depression I estimated we were about 10 years away from a purely electronic opioid equivalent.

Clearly I was a bit optimistic, but I still think it is just a matter of time. That will change the world dramatically when it lands and pretty much suck most of the oxygen out of conventional criminal and corrupt enterprises.

<comment><USER3> People have been predicting that for longer than either of us have been alive, and we're not really any closer to the reality thst doesn't involve brain surgery.

<comment><USER2> As I mentioned in my post the DBS experiments suggested to me that we are closer than we were when Silverberg and others posited "wireheads" in their fiction.

The ability to manipulate several phase coherent RF waveforms creates the ability to fairly precisely create energy lobes inside the soft tissue. Time will tell of course.

<comment><USER3> It would be interesting if you were right. Have you read any of Larry Niven's work? In his Known Space novels, especially later Ringworld books the idea of "wireheads" is extensively considered. The outlook adopted seems to be what you're implying, that is to say it would supplant all drugs and most addictive vices. It would also be al ost invariably fatal due to self-neglect, reproduction rates of the affected population would be low, and after some generations most seriously addictive personalities would be essentially eliminated. Whoever was left wild naturally become wireheads, so would have some baseline of addicts, but it would be a fraction of pre-wireheads days.

Interesting idea, with a bit of a bumpy ride on the way.

<comment><USER2> I have read much of Niven's work. I also got to hear him and Jerry Pournelle discuss some of their 'evolution in action' theories at a science fiction conference in LA. It was more entertaining than rigorous given the venue but both of them had given the concepts a lot of thought. Of course as my grandfather would say some times, "The law of the jungle is always more appealing to those who aren't subject to it."

I recognize that the impacts will be felt widely when this technology becomes available, but I also recognize I can't predict the impact on things outside of my own experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does this sort of therapy have any connection, similarity, or other relationship to acupuncture?</comment>


Time Warner Cable Sent Me to Collections – A Tale of Customer DB Fragmentation - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@krisroadruck/time-warner-cable-sent-me-to-collections-d9fbbeb3aea7#.clq0b9pl0 <comment><USER2> Oh wow, they actually create a new account instead of moving the service? Interesting system. I wouldn't be surprised if they were using some really old enterprise database solution. But if the system works most of the time, I guess not all businesses care. Banks run on really old technology, but they put pretty makeup all over their websites to seem modern.

Wonder how it would work if you had like a house in Texas and a vacation home in Florida. I guess you'd have two separate accounts and bills even if its in the same name?</comment>