What Would You Do? - <AUTHOR>

Suppose that you're a programmer for a company of a thousand employees that makes embedded systems for some market. You're frequently tasked with fixing automated tests written by QA.
The test framework used to test your company's hardware system is a real bear to work with. It was written in Java by some guy who talked his way into a job, who didn't actually know Java. When he left, it was inherited by other bad programmers, including people in QA.
The key to creating good API's and frameworks, according to Scott Meyers, anyway, is making them easy to use correctly, and hard to use incorrectly. This test framework is neither of those things. The framework is so bad that, when a test fails, no one is really sure if it's a bug in the product, in the test, or in the framework; there's barely any logging, and exceptions are always swallowed, so no one ever really knows what happened.
Unfortunately, because this test framework isn't customer-facing, management won't allocate time to improve it.
Barring looking for another job, you see two options:
1. Ignore how bad it is, do the bare minimum to get these automated tests working temporarily, and get the tasks off your plate.
2. Revamp the framework from the ground up -- a big task -- in your free time, with the hopes that your laundry list of gripes can be resolved, and you will no longer be asked to fix automated tests based on a crappy framework.
What do you do? <comment><USER2> Looking at it from management's perspective, if you improve their framework, it will have the following costs:

1\. Cost for you to make it.

2\. Cost for QA to learn it.

3\. Cost to convert previous tests to new framework, if necessary .

4\. Cost for delays on fixing QA's tests.

5\. Cost for developers and management to receive QA's results later than expected during development/training.

Essentially, the question you have to ask is this:

In the process of improving this, how many tests will be delayed and by how much time? Will doing this save or expend resources over the duration of the project?

If you can answer that question, and the answer is that it will save resources - do it. Break down the costs and benefits to them from a program perspective. Understand them at their level and they will likely listen to you. Keep in mind though - their goals aren't always what you think they are.

</comment><comment><USER3> You forgot an option #3. Hone your pitch to management to get them to give you the time you need.

Honestly I'd probably look for a new job, but with that option off the table #1 runs the risk of you looking bad doing the bare minimum and having truly failing tests that pass the suite. #2 runs the risk of you doing a ton of work for free only to get a pat on the back and maybe a "good job" email.

What makes your management tick? Is it happy customers? Frame the discussion with "We had 47 customer impacting bugs that were missed by the test suite last month." Is it cost savings? "My team spent 312 man hours last quarter fiddling with the test framework when you could have been moving the product forward or fixing actual bugs".

Just because it's not "customer facing" doesn't mean it isn't "customer impacting".

<comment><AUTHOR> Management is fixated on On-Time Delivery. We do have metrics showing that QA spends a lot of time re-running automated tests, but there's no direct proof that shows that the crappy framework is the cause.

<comment><USER4> Ask yourself why management is fixated on it. What is their business case? One clue that they have a solid one is their willingness to pay people to do something that sucks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How do you want to live professionally? Having the soft-skills to manage-up and explain things to non-technical senior management is a necessary part of your job. They deserve your best recommendations. If they don't get it or give inappropriate push-back, that's a sign your talents are best employed somewhere else.

<comment><USER6> >that's a sign your talents are best employed somewhere else.

Or your recommendations aren't presented well or your recommendations are presented well but there are higher priorities for the business.

<comment><USER5> The best way to foster communication is first seek to understand and then be understood.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> 1.

Track your time. It is likely to show there is no business case for 2.

On the off chance it does, then the business case will be backed by data. But odds are that there won't be a business case.</comment>


Drone downed by Iran UFO? - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/01/iran-ufo-drone/

<comment><USER2> I'd love to give the article the attention it surely deserves, but I'm just so in awe of Arikia Millikan's Photoshop talents. I'm glad she got a credit for that header image.

</comment><comment><USER3> Haha, you know you've entered a new cold war when they start saber-ratting about UFO's, aliens and flying saucers. Welcome to 1950.

<comment><USER4> "We invite the US government and other nations to enter into negotiation with the Foundation and The Iranian government," he posted, "for disclosure of the full space technology to all nations simultaneously that there shall be no more war race, but a pace race [sic] to join and conquer the space and not each others little peace of lands so called nations, this offer stands and is extended to all nations irrespective of their colour, race and religion."

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> In iran, judging from the success of their missiles, flying saucer technology = well executed frisbee throw. That will teach the drone pilots for flying that thing too low.

On the other hand, maybe the Iranian government is actually run by aliens. That would explain their odd behavior.</comment>


Easiest method for multiplying numbers - <AUTHOR> http://mathema-tricks.blogspot.com/2011/12/method-for-multiplying-numbers-where.html

<comment><USER2> These kind of tricks are pretty handy, and I don't know why I wasn't taught them back in school, growing up in the calculator generation. My father could do all kinds of math in his head, which was just as well since he was a mathematician, but couldn't explain how he did it, he just "knew" the answer.

I taught myself some tricks after the fact, the rest is just practice I think. Some examples:

Multiply any two digit number by 11 easily:

Using 62 as an example. Separate the two digits (6__2). Notice the gap between them Add 6 and 2 together (6+2=8) Put the resulting 8 in the gap to get the answer: 682, 62x11=682.

If the result of the addition > 9, put the least significant digit in the gap and carry the most significant digit.

This can be expanded to multiply any number by 11 in your head.

Even really easy/obvious tricks are useful, e.g:

To quickly multiply any number by 5, divide the number in two and then multiply it by 10. Very quick to do in your head.</comment>


Poplar study shows trees can be genetically engineered not to spread - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2018-08-groundbreaking-poplar-trees-genetically.html <comment><USER2> > People have this fear that GMO trees will take over the world, but these are > containment genes that make taking over the world essentially impossible,

It's also a convenient run-around for laws that allow you to cultivate whatever plant you own. I'm not entirely sure if many countries have those laws but I know that at least the netherlands has them.

It's basically DRM for trees.</comment>


Yahoo's security boss faces down NSA director over crypto ban - <AUTHOR> http://boingboing.net/2015/02/24/yahoos-security-boss-faces-d.html <comment><USER2> "The United States government's international response to accusations of interfering with freedom of speech is that the bill of rights ends where our job begins. The international framework for protecting US business is weakened by the loose and ephemeral framework under which the president makes his mark in the world."

<comment><USER2> "Turning down a meeting with international leaders may not be an impeachable offense like getting a blowjob, but it certainly makes our job... harder."

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> test</comment>


Why Cops Like Me Are Quiet - <AUTHOR> http://www.buzzfeed.com/dreamworks/why-cops-like-me-stay-quiet-about-police-brutality

<comment><USER2> To be fair, this isn't the worst excuse-filled cop rant, but...

> _They hate when people shove cameras in their face or scream at them when > they're talking, just like you would if that happened at your office._

That's it. Everyone at the scrum gets a Taser. "As the CMO, I need our code to do shit I have no idea is reasonable, but..." ZZZZAAAPPPP!!!! "He's resisting!" ZZZAAAAPPP!!!</comment>


Advanced Data Structures - <AUTHOR> http://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.851/ <comment><USER2> I never hear anybody mentioning him but Jeff Erickson's 'Algorithms' textbook [1] has some of the most lucid explanations I've come across. CLRS is often times impenetrable and for the times I didn't like its explanation of something I turned to Jeff Erickson's book and it hasn't failed me yet. I'd urge anybody trying to solidify algorithms and data structures to take a look at it.

[1] [http://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/](http://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the shout-out! If you can't remember the long URL, [http://algorithms.wtf](http://algorithms.wtf) also works. Please send me bug reports!

<comment><USER4> Looks great, thanks a lot!

While causally browsing I noted the following in the 8-queens backtracking example:

"The following recursive algorithm, essentially due to Gauss (who called it "methodical groping"), ..."

Hilarious, especially given the current situation. I'd like to know what his original German term was.

<comment><USER5> Oh this is a fun rabbit hole to go down:

Gauss indeed wrote "methodisches tatonniren"[1], the latter of which is not a common German word, nor does it suggest grouping. I believe it to be an expression used at the time which was borrowed from French "tâtonner", which means "fumble", to describe a step-by-step process, "approaching" a solution. The closest I get in modern German is "herantasten", which in turn does not have an elegant English translation; you will have to take its elements "heran" (onto) and "tasten" (touch/feel/grope) individually to judge how close it is to fumble.

So, methodical groping is not as far off as you might have thought!

[1] [https://books.google.com/books?id=3jEDAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PA106&...](https://books.google.com/books?id=3jEDAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PA106&lpg=RA1-PA106&dq=8+königinnen+gauss&source=bl&ots=BuaJSJydKs&sig=1Z78TngV_y6IyQ8QNRwSVmvohvY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwim0v3zhZHQAhXolFQKHStQCFYQ6AEIIjAB#v=onepage&q&f=true) This may be a typo—the regular verb form would be "tatonnieren"—then again a lot of German spelling has changed since the time of those letters.

<comment><USER6> The word "tâtonner" should be the same as Italian "procedere (proceed) a tastoni", since usually the circumflex accent in French correspond to an "s" in Italian.

The meaning is "feel your way"\---proceed carefully and at every step feel what is around you, as if you were walking on complete darkness.

<comment><USER7> >proceed carefully and at every step feel what is around you, as if you were walking on complete darkness.

this would be a fitting translation of the german word "herantasten", which has nothing to do with groping btw

<comment><USER6> Yup, "groping around" is not at all the same as "groping"!!!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> All scribe notes in one PDF:

[http://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.851/spring14/scribe/2012scrib...](http://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.851/spring14/scribe/2012scribes.pdf)

\--

Playlist (2012 lectures from MIT OpenCourseWare):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0yzrZL1py0&list=PLUl4u3cNGP...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0yzrZL1py0&list=PLUl4u3cNGP61hsJNdULdudlRL493b-XZf)

<comment><USER9> ooh, I had forgotten that Erik Demaine taught that course. He's great (MacArthur Fellowship, MIT professor at 20, etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is very nice.

But right now as a programmer, I am using data-structures more on an as-needed basis. Sometimes it is difficult to find the right data-structures for the job. So then it would be nice to have a resource that provides the functionality of data-structures as a black box. Learning these would make more sense than learning also all of the gory technical details upfront.

<comment><USER11> As you get into advanced data structures, you often need the gory technical details to make correct decisions about tradeoffs and usage. Succinct data structures, for instance, which are a specific thing and not just a generic adjective, are almost miraculously powerful, _but_ you'd better understand exactly what the preconditions for using them are (which is a fairly mathematical discussion) and what the tradeoffs are before you use them because you will _not_ be able to just "tweak" them and fix them up later if you're wrong.

<comment><USER12> With that being said, would you agree that in general one does not need to be intimately familiar with these to be a productive, useful software engineer?

<comment><USER11> I'm often amazed at how far a key/value store and an array type can get you.

But when you need more, it's good to know your options.

In fact I'd say nobody can afford to be intimately familiar with all the various advanced data structures. But most people will, at most, just need to know the things they might need, then go learn about them when they need it, and many won't even need that much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Often shied away from as too complicated, this book deserves the obligatory mentioning: Knuth's _The Art of Computer Programming_. Although not using Python and perhaps being too analytical and detailed for an average programmer's taste, the book is _the_ single biggest classic treatise on algorithms and data structures.

At the other end of the spectrum - accessible and brief, I find Dasgupta _et al._ 's _Algorithms_ a refreshingly engaging read.

<comment><USER14> This book is often recommended, but I would dearly love to know how many of its recommenders have actually read it.

<comment><USER15> I have read the first 50 pages about a 100 times.

Does that count?

P.S. I have never recommended it to anyone though, I don't recommend books I haven't read all the way through. I will get through TAOCP one day, (it's now on my retirement bucket list, along with learning Sanskrit) but I first need to read through a bunch of Math books forst, so I can get past the 50 page hump.

<comment><USER16> off the topic, but what made you curious about Sanskrit?

<comment><USER17> I'm not the OP, but can comment about Sanskrit a bit. (I had studied Sanskrit in school.) [Edit:] As a third language, apart from English and Hindi.

This is mostly all IMO, except where specified otherwise:

\- it's an interesting language, because it is the ancestor of many Indian languages (except the languages of the southern Indian states - Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada - and their dialects - and except the languages of the North-Eastern states beyond Assam, maybe - not sure on this one). In fact, even those languages (southern Indian at least) have some Sanskrit-derived words; I think the term is loanwords.

\- it's grammar rules are very regular (compared to many other languages, I've heard), which makes it less of a chore and easier to remember and learn;

\- (probably many) parts of the language are sort of mathematical / logical in the sense that some of the rules build upon other rules, so you can use your knowledge of the latter to understand the former; e.g. a part of the language called sandhi, which gives the rules for how to combine smaller words/sounds into larger ones. Once you learn those rules (and there are only a handful), a) you can use them both to create new words according to those sandhi rules, by combining existing words (and those new words would be legal Sanskrit, BTW - poets and prose writers did it all the time), and b) can use them to figure out what compound words mean (that you have newly come across), i.e. the reverse process of a). So in that and maybe some other aspects its a bit like a programming language [1], where you build up higher abstractions from lower- level ones. [Edit:] It's my guess that people who like languages like Lisp, Haskell, Clojure, etc. - that are built upon mathematical principles and so on, might find Sanskrit interesting to learn.

\- [1] I've also read a few times that due to the mentioned regular qualities of the grammar (and also, I think, due to the unambiguous nature of the sounds in it - each letter or small letter grouping can be (legally) pronounced in only one way), CS and Sanskrit-knowing people have done research on using Sanskrit in computer research in various ways (programming languages (research), AI? No idea about the success or not of those efforts, though.

<comment><USER18> Re: programming languages, it's worth mentioning that a Sanskrit grammarian invented something like context-free grammars around 2500 years ago: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backus%E2%80%93Naur_form#Histo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backus%E2%80%93Naur_form#History)

<comment><USER17> Cool. I knew about Panini as a grammarian, but don't think I knew the part you mention about context-free grammars.

<comment><USER17> An interesting thing from that Wikipedia article:

"The name Pāṇini Backus form has also been suggested in view of the fact that the expansion Backus normal form may not be accurate, and that Pāṇini had independently developed a similar notation earlier."

So that may be one of the (few or common?) cases where something was named (or considered being named) after a person thousands of years after the person existed :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> List of videos/notes 2014: [http://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.851/spring14/lectures/](http://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.851/spring14/lectures/)

(spent 2 min trying to find them)

<comment><USER20> They're also on YouTube under the OCW channel.

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP61hsJNdULdu...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUl4u3cNGP61hsJNdULdudlRL493b-XZf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've been watching the lectures & recitations from 6.006 Introduction to Algorithms (Fall 2011) to brush up prior to an interview. Erik Demane, Srini Devadas & Victor Cossan (Recitations) have been an amazing resource.

I've learned so much and am really impressed with their depth of knowledge and how they are able to convey complex ideas in a very easy to understand way, I can't wait to start the next courses.

</comment><comment><USER22> A very underrated book and one of my favorites is Udi Manber's Introuction to Algorithms, highly recommended

<comment><USER23> I used that book for my dissertation. it had best explanation of the knapsack algorithm if I recall correctly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Thank you for sharing this.

Anyone would recommend resources for learning fundamental of data structures?

Book, video, or courses are welcome. I don't care the programming languages that are used for implementations. I am OK with C.

<comment><USER25> The Algorithm Design Manual by Steven Skiena

Really enjoyed that book! It intersperses real world use cases which helps when your motivation starts to wane and has a warmer tone than most algorithm books. That being said, it is still pretty rigorous and will take a lot of work to get through it all.

Whichever resource you choose, make sure it has exercises and do them! Even if you can't 100% figure some of them out just trying to will help your thinking immensely.

<comment><USER26> I'll second that recommendation and op makes an important point that is rarely expressed when threads on learning algorithms show up on HN: Don't be discouraged if you find the material hard at first, "Even if you can't 100% figure some of them out just trying to will help your thinking immensely."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Does anyone use any of these ideas day to day? That's not to knock it, I'm genuinely curious.

<comment><USER28> Yup, in particular when I want to prove/disprove the impact of a design proposal by preparing a simulation. Pay 1-2 days writing a simulation to save 6 months of wasted engineering effort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Anyone knows which year has the best scribe notes?

</comment><comment><USER30> why are these hand drawn diagrams easier for me to understand and remember?

<comment><USER31> Probably because they're visually more distinct. We tend to just glance over things that look very familiar because "we know this" (not a conscious act). Using different colors for different components also helps. Allows details to "pop" out at you. Versus a diagram that's blue/black/gray/white.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> These are great, Erik is a really smart guy. His intro to algorithms class is also fantastic, which should be on MIT OpenCourseWare.

</comment><comment><USER33> > If you haven't taken 6.854, you must have a strong understanding of > algorithms at the undergraduate level, such as receiving an A in 6.046, > having had a relevant UROP, involvement in computer competitions, etc.

Quite the pre-reqs...

</comment><comment><USER34> My small contribution to the field: [http://zvrba.net/downloads/fusion.pdf](http://zvrba.net/downloads/fusion.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER35> I take it solutions by students are mostly done in Python now?

<comment><USER36> It seems as though the instructor expects a compiled pdf, so maybe it's a more theoretical course?

[http://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.851/spring14/hmwk.html](http://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.851/spring14/hmwk.html)

<comment><USER20> I've watched the lecture series before, it focuses a decent amount on cache oblivious data structures and doing realllllllly cool integer tricks to get things fitting into compact bit maps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> also very interesting is Erik Demaine's work on geometric folding, at least it's fun to watch various structures he prints and plays with.

</comment><comment><USER38> erik is the prof.

<comment><USER39> He is awesome,a s student in third world country (which universities sucks) I watched to all his online lectures and I learned more than I learned in my 4 year of college,I always wander how person as young as he can achieve so much success.

I don't care about financial success, I am curious about scientific success.

God I wish there was mind recorder. I would listen to his (and people like he) mind all day, how they think, what they think , how they manage their time, everything.

Scientists should study these guys, imagine a world filled with people like Erik (in all careers) how beautiful that world would be.

<comment><USER40> Thank you for posting this! I love the perspective that your comment brings to course material being available online. It really helps to understand the power of educational material being abundantly available!

<comment><USER39> If I want to be honest I worship teachers and instructors I have watched their course. I have been in sucky university, I know how it feels to waste your time. The first moment I find my first course (Erik all algorithm course) it was revolution in my life.

I literally worship people like Douglas Schmidt, Erik Demanine, Tim Roughgarden, Robert Sedgwick ...

They literally changed my life.

Can you imagine third world universities? I am sure not. After 4 year , you end up knowing nothing , literally nothing,not even writing hello world.

Thanks to these guys I am reading a book every month. For past two months I was reading Silberchats database books.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> from the two-birds-with-one-stone-dept i've been looking for a good excuse to dive into pyret, and using it to do the exercises from this course might just be it. would anyone like to join me in a slow-paced workthrough?

</comment><comment><USER42> Will there be a 2016 version?

<comment><USER43> I'm not sure the algorithms would have changed between then and now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> They better start close captioning or they will have to take the videos down

</comment><comment><USER45> Thank you for this, I'm so excited to take it.

</comment><comment><USER46> is the site down?

</comment><comment><USER47> That's a great teach

</comment><comment><USER48> This is a great resource for anybody that isn't formally trained in computer science. A lot of programmers use an abstract data type like a dictionary or hash table, but many of the self-taught and even some formally trained treat it like a magical black box that stores key-value entries very efficiently. What a hash table/dictionary gives it near O(1) properties is a good hashing function for the key, and having a good distribution of buckets for all the keys when collisions occur.

I think a lot of programmers have good understanding of many data structures. But I think hashes and dictionaries are still taken for granted. What they really need to think of hashes as many magical black boxes and the hashing function directs which key to go to which magical bucket. :)

<comment><USER49> Are you serious? This class is intended for students with deep knowledge of CS theory who want to learn more about recent data structures research. 6.006 and 6.046 are much more suitable if you aren't formally trained in computer science.</comment></comment>


Hacker news browser plugin needed - <AUTHOR>

to remove retarded posts<p>Im looking for a browser addon/extension that will remove any hacker news post that starts with "Why I..." "I...". There is a lot of great content posted on hacker news, but I can do without blog posts that contain " I " in it. dont care what you have to say, wish there was a plugin to remove retarded blog posts from my sight. amazes me how some posts get up voted, must be up vote bots. must be! <comment><AUTHOR> I do like posts that start with "How I..." make sure I can see those posts, not all of those are retarded

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> example of retarded content that contains "I" in it: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4095257>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> example of great content that contains "I" in it: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4101992>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> my post is also retarded, but i really need a plugin to get rid of retarded shit on hacker news

<comment><USER2> So you're smart, you read hacker news, write it yourself. Or you could post the idea to the jobs board to do that if you really need it.</comment></comment>


Should I apply to YC with this idea? - <AUTHOR> Smile to boost your mood. Open the webapp and start smiling, it will keep track of your smiling time so that you can review it later by day, week, etc.
You would also be able to see the amount of time people have spent smiling worldwide.  You can invite your friends to smile as well and, maybe, get to know how many times and for how long they have smiled thanks to you.
In [this article](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2762283/) they talk about Laughter prescription, which is basically suggesting patients to smile to allegedly, aleviate symptoms, improve mood, and, enhance health.
> Findings range from suggesting that, in addition to a stress-relief effect, laughter can bring about feelings of being uplifted or fulfilled to showing that the act of laughter can lead to immediate increases in heart rate, respiratory rate, respiratory depth, and oxygen consumption. These increases are then followed by a period of muscle relaxation, with a corresponding decrease in heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure.
What do you think? Should I build a prototype based on this idea? <comment><USER2> Spread the word. Make it free. Take donations.

<comment><AUTHOR> I never thought of taking donations. Thank you very much for the suggestion!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> No.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why not bizarre?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> do it

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you see yourself using it Cypher?</comment></comment>


Google Chrome would like to access your contacts - <AUTHOR> https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2012/08/03/contacts/ <comment><USER2> [http://code.google.com/p/chromium/source/search?q=ABPerson&#...</a>

<comment><USER3> If I'm reading this right then they actually only want the users contact information.

It's been bugging me for a while that the users information is lumped in with contacts in the normal way in most contact systems.

It seems to me that perhaps this is an argument for a specific permission request specifically for just the users contact details, as opposed to the whole contact database.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What an asshole. Chromium's code is there for review, you know.

<comment><USER5> Thanks! Comments like this mean I'm on the right track.

<comment><USER4> It's obvious to me that you didn't get it right. Being retarded has to be hard.

<comment><USER6> There was absolutely no need for that.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Does the HN article ranking formula need to be adjusted? - <AUTHOR>

I've noticed that the top spot for articles in the last has turned over three times within the last three hours.  While I enjoy the mix of articles here on HN, I kind of feel that the fast rate of change for the top most articles is a bit frenetic.<p>Given that HN is becoming mainstream with all of the excellent exposure PG has had being on the cover of Inc., I'm wondering if the ranking formula needs to be adjusted or not. <comment><USER2> I would really like to be able to see all the articles that were submitted since I last visited ordered by their votes. That way when I don't visit HN over a holiday or a busy weekend then I know that I won't miss anything important.

<comment><USER3> <http://news.ycombinator.com/best>

<comment><USER4> Is there a list somewhere of all the "special" pages on HN?

<comment><USER3> Scroll down to the bottom of the frontpage (or any long page) and click on Lists.

<comment><USER4> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When I browse the comments of people I follow, sometimes I find totally great discussions that I missed as I was doing something else and didn't check HN for 12 hours. So I wish I could browse front pages by date. Everything that hit the front page and with over 5 points should be listed for each day. I used to run a crude cron job that did this. I let it die. May be I should set it up again.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think it's fine, as far as I'm concerned the decay could be a lot quicker than it is right now. This is one of those aspects of a website that is hard to do right to please everybody.

And to make it configurable on a per user basis would probably be quite expensive in terms of server usage.

<comment><USER7> To a certain degree it already is configurable on a per-user basis, right? Your upvotes are "saved" for you. The only other user-configurable option would be to "hide" items that you have voted on or manually hidden (a la reddit). Does that require more server power? Sure but not 2x, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Serious abuse of the moderation system in this thread, this is not a poll, it is a discussion, if you don't agree with somebody say why, don't mod down.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'd like to see some filtering so that I can clear out posts I've seen, or not show anything from particular domains.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think the turnover rate is fine.</comment>


Rules for angel financing saved  - <AUTHOR> http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/04/rules_for_angel_financing_saved.html

<comment><USER2> " _To date, the legislative process has worked better than we imagined it could._ "

I hope it didn't/won't cost too much money sent to the members of the Senate Banking Committee. I didn't get the impression this was a "juice" bill, but fixing it could have turned into that sort of game.</comment>


Show HN: PineHQ – We built a app that lets you check-in with yourself every day - <AUTHOR> https://pinehq.com/

<comment><USER2> Interesting idea. Constructive criticism from my end as a potential user: I always try to get a sense of what is "included" in the app when I download, but after searching through your site for a few minutes, and visiting your page on the app store. I'm still not sure, and I didn't bother to download to check it out. More pictures would be the first step and more explanations of your features What do you mean by "check-in"? My locations? Me checking in to the app to see how im doing? When I "connect" with friends and family, what does that entail? Showing my mood for the day, seeing there? Just knowing they to are using?... Just me!

<comment><USER3> Hi, thanks for the comments and feedback, really appreciate it. Im on the team that built PINE, so I'll jump right in and respond to some of the points you've raised. Hopefully, you'll re-consider downloading PINE and giving it a shot. We're still very much in prototype mode, so our landing page has the minimum amount of information needed to launch the app. We'll be updating this in the coming weeks. That said, we've also outlined how PINE works in our blog post [https://medium.com/@pine/pine-your-daily-check-in-beta- relea...](https://medium.com/@pine/pine-your-daily-check-in-beta- release-8e718d170a8f) , I've also outlined my experience on PINE thus far [https://medium.com/@renjie/my-experience-using- pine-1768c312...](https://medium.com/@renjie/my-experience-using- pine-1768c312847) as well. And we've got another blog post from another team member [http://lewwwk.com/post7583](http://lewwwk.com/post7583) , for good measure. For V 2.0.0 on the App Store, we didn't realize that we couldn't add screenshots until after we had already submitted the developer release. The forthcoming V 2.0.1 update will have the screenshots that we included in the blog posts. Now as for check-ins, the check-ins are NOT location based. Rather, they are personal and private check-ins, in response to the question, 'how are you doing?', where only the user can view them. When you connect with family and friends, all they'll be able to see is that you've checked-in on PINE, but not what you've actually written down in your private reflection. By being connected on PINE with friends and family however, you'll be able to send each other nudges, encouraging each other to check-in on PINE. Hope this clarifies a few things. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cool. I've been thinking of building the (almost) exact same thing for a while.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! If you do end up downloading and using PINE, would love to get your comments and feedback!</comment></comment>


The Hot Girl Effect and Networking - <AUTHOR> http://sirdg.com/2010/12/the-hot-girl-effect-and-networking/ <comment><USER2> The theory above is short term (get a date), when there is also the long term consideration (marry her, have kids). If you are an average joe, the chances of you having kids with a hot top model are, very frankly, very low. And we guys know that.

In the same way, the chance of us having a nice chat with the CEO of Goldman is fair, but the chance of him maintaining contact with us and being a friend or mentor is pretty low. You don't have the money to hang with him, you don't have the opportunities to share with him and so on.

So you can get a date with the top model if you're brave. You can get a coffee with the CEO if you're brave. But I doubt that anything long term will develop, unless you have true value to offer.

And people evaluate their actual value and see that it probably is not enough to make it worth their while approaching this person.

An example that I'm sure many here can identify with: How many of you have emailed Paul Graham asking him for feedback on your app or whatever? Some brave ones likely have, but how many realistically expect a relationship to develop out of that?

<comment><USER3> > people evaluate their actual value and see that it probably is not enough to > make it worth their while approaching this person.

Cost: Awkwardness, potential for embarrassing rejection.

Benefit: Possible relationship, either short-term or long-term, with the subject of your admiration.

So in my mind, if you can get over the fear of rejection, there's no reason not to at least try. Coffee with a CEO is better than nothing, and may potentially be useful down the road. (Can I have a job? Remember when we had coffee that one time?) Likewise, a date with a beautiful model, even one, is better than eating ramen alone. Well, usually. :)

Also, while I agree with what you said about having "true value to offer", there are many types of value. When developing a relationship with someone like a CEO, you may not be able to offer them direct monetary value, but you might be able to give technical insight, an outsider's point of view or a perspective from a different industry, or even just a like-minded person to talk about basketball with.

My advice is to look hard for the value you can offer. Knowledge that you may take for granted is often quite valuable to others, or at least interesting enough for them to keep you around and ask your opinion.

<comment><USER4> There is also cost of your time for the coffee and whatever may follow, as well as material costs (potentially high when dealing with upper-echelon), so it is not an outright win situation.

<comment><USER5> No risk no glory!

Only the ones that are willing to fail repeatedly are the ones who _deserve_ to win. What I'm trying to imply here that taking risks while maximizing your odds is also a skill.

A super hot woman (or GS executive) both appreciate confidence and candor. They don't want to be treated as "different" - to return to that hot woman - she doesn't want to be treated as special. Looking into mirror is enough to get her depressed. She wants to feel ordinary, to be appreciated for being a woman or at least not a _freak_.

<comment><USER6> I know a founder of one of the top silicone valley start-ups. He's a great guy and when I happen to see him it's fine to chat. He's very busy so I don't see him very often.

This relationship gets me zero, zilch, practical benefits.

It's fluke that I know him. Would I expend a lot of effort to get ten relationships with similarly well-connected people? No, because it would rather insincere _and_ would get me ten times as much practical benefits (ten time zeros). The people who I happen to meet and are cool people, I'll be friends with. The stunningly beautiful ballerinas I've chatted with are nice also but not the best material for personal relationships...

In other words, the glory of knowing COOs and dating models also over-rated. And if the models are feeling truly neglected, I'm sure they won't have a problem introducing themselves to cute guys at bars if they want "glory".

<comment><USER5> Are you of any benefit to your founder friend? My personal strategy is that I constantly work on maximizing myself as benefit to others. This gives me an edge - where I can actually pick such _partners_ that return appropriate value. Increasing demand is actually really simple - just offer better (sought after) goods.

As far as the _poor pretty girl_ that needs to hit on guys. Unfortunately it doesn't work this way. Its got a lot to do with guy's and girl's insecurities.

1\. Hot woman hitting on a guy - The natural reaction of the said guy is "It's a trap!". 2\. Having to hit on guys is awful for this woman - since less pretty girls don't need to do it. Which starts spinning up in a persons mind that you _must_ be some sort of freak since a) mend don't hit on you and b) when you try to hit on men they run away ("It's a trap!").

Oh and the glory thing is just a parable for success.

<comment><USER6> Hmm,

Would you like to have coffee some time next week?

I'm in the SF Bay area and my email is on my profile (for now).

Would Tuesday or Friday work best for you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Actually, I've found that the more successful and accomplished people are, typically, it seems like the more humble and friendly they are. Additionally, they tend to appreciate the value of networking and make an effort to meet new people."

Nope! This is non-evidence. Successful people who are arrogant and antisocial are by nature less likely to run into you, so you should expect your observed pool of people-you-know to be heavily skewed towards the friendliest people.

A similar phenomenon occurs in social network rankings: For any given person with a reasonable number of Facebook friends, their friends will be, on average, more popular than the original person (popularity defined by number of friends). Almost everyone is one of the least popular people in their own social network.

<comment><USER8> >A similar phenomenon occurs in social network rankings: For any given person with a reasonable number of Facebook friends, their friends will be, on average, more popular than the original person (popularity defined by number of friends). Almost everyone is one of the least popular people in their own social network.

Is there a name for this phenomenon? Or supplemental reading material?

<comment><USER9> If we don't consider what made a person "popular", ie have many friends, this "phenomenon" just makes statistical sense to me. You have a greater chance of being in a pool of friends that is large, while your pool of Facebook friends is smaller, so out of that smaller pool you have less of a chance of one of them being less popular than you. It is already unlikely that unpopular people are one of your Facebook friends because they themselves have so few friends.

I have no mathematical proof; this is merely what I intuit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> >>Once a girl passes a certain degree of hotness, the amount of guys hitting on her drops dramatically.

When a girl starts to become a hot babe then tons of guys hit on her -- its annoying and time consuming to ward off losers so she develops a "bitch shield". This defense mechanism tells guys that she is too good for them and not to bother, from this point on only the cocky guys approach who are not intimidated by the "bitch shield" (these guys look like assholes to "nice guys") - then the "nice guys" whine about how they can't get any girls. As lowlife as the PUA guides are, I still found them informative.

<comment><USER11> I wonder how many rejections a man would have to face to develop a "cockiness shield", to continue pursuing and hitting on women no matter how rejected he becomes. After all, it's a small effort for a potentially good returns.

With practice he could certainly toughen up with regard to that but I think that by doing so he would inevitably have shut out part of his heart. Getting rejected by a woman is hard for a man. H-a-r-d. It might very well be that once he successfully hits on a woman he finds interesting, he might have a hard time softening down to something resembling an emotional human being capable of falling into love and a loving relationship.

<comment><USER12> I had a landlord once who wasn't very social, and as a result wasn't very good with women (but he was a specialized mechanic and made a ton of money). Was talking to him one day, and he said that his therapist had given him an assignment to get out of his shell.

His assignment was to go to a bar (or any sort of similar place) and get rejected by ten women. That is, between that session and his next (the span of a week I believe), his goal was to get shot down by ten women in a social situation. Not necessarily crash and burn, but some kind of rejection.

After a while, you realize rejection isn't really that bad - it's the fear of rejection that's the big problem. Once you can get over that, you're going to be doing a lot better.

<comment><USER13> Since you didn't phrase this in terms of "Rejection Therapy" I have to assume it didn't pop up on your radar. It was pretty popular on here a couple of weeks ago, and Jason Shen even did a series about trying it out.

How long ago was this? The therapist was probably ahead of his time!

<comment><USER14> Actually getting rejected by women and getting blown out of "sets" on purpose is a well known PUA practice to handle fear of rejection. I remember reading about it 4 years ago or so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Here's a much better analysis of this phenomenon: <http://plus.maths.org/issue51/features/rey/index.html>, even deriving a mathematical model.

I think the same kind of thing holds true for attractive ideas as well: For ideas with killer potential, people tend to say "Oh, somebody surely must have implemented it, is looking into it", etc.) and not to push on. Until someone either ignorant of the idealand layout or too dogged to care takes it on and becomes successful. The history of the Valley has many examples of this pattern.

<comment><USER16> Can you list some of the examples? I actually personally find that instinct to be true in almost all cases, but would be happy to be wrong about it.

<comment><USER15> I think the examples fall into two categories:

* There's an obviously good idea, people have tried it and "proved" that it cannot be done. Then somebody ignorant of this fact goes ahead and does it anyway. A famous example of this is Spencer Silver of 3M inventing the adhesive for the Post-It notes. He is quoted to say "If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this."

* There's a good idea, others have implemented it with modest success. Then somebody comes along and blows it out of the water. Best example I can think of for this is the iPod. MP3 players were common before Apple, so it wasn't a new idea. Yet, they re-invented it in so many ways. Another example is, of course, Google, going against established search portals when they came about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I once worked with a Teamster who didn't give a damn who you were (or how important for that matter). He just spoke his mind. Working on films, he would regularly have lunch with producers, actors, studio heads, you name it. He'd plop down at a table wherever & just eat his lunch & chat with whoever was there. Result? He could walk up to the "untouchables" on most shows & ask about their kids, chat about a vacation, even occasionally talk about politics. He even helped defuse a disgruntled actor one day by simply asking, "hey, what the hell's the matter?" and letting him vent (much to the dismay of the cowering producers).

On a personal note, I befriended a power broker several years ago while discussing art. We had a lot to talk about. Now years later we still talk & email fairly regularly & grab lunch when in the same town.

Stop thinking of people as who they are or what they represent, just treat them like normal folks & you'll be surprised who you might befriend.

<comment><USER18> Great post. I've been wanting to say something like that, but got distracted.

There is a truth, and two fallacies in the article. The truth is that the hot girl effect exists. Fallacies: #1 - It is automatically desirable to talk to the hot girl and the CEO, more so than to other people. It may be, it may not be, who knows. This is an implicit assumption in the article. #2 - That you therefore have to make an effort to talk to these people.

All three really are about the Ego and its trying to justify its existence by making itself important. Talking to hot girl / CEO - Ego gratification. Getting shot down - blow to the Ego. Fear of getting shot down - fear of the Ego losing its importance. If you looked at your own Ego as an entity all of its own, it is literally the fear of death.

Now with the hot girl situation you have two possible outcomes: Talk to hot girl; or avoid it. Both means you lose and both mean the ego wins. In talking to her, you "made" it and can feel proud; in avoiding, you've avoided being shot down and also "made" it. It's a lose-lose situation.

The best reaction that I know is to observe the ego forces within yourself - independent of your action.

Any time you feel superior, or inferior, to any other person, it's just the Ego talking. You can't stop this but you can observe it, realize it is so, and thereby overcome it. Personally when I have these moments I then just relax within myself and do what I like. I am happier and I am also meeting more interesting people.

"Stop thinking of people as who they are or what they represent" - exactly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm going to go ahead and say that "the hot girl effect" is not true, at least for women. The hotter you are the more you'll get hit on, guaranteed.

Which leaves the theory behind this interaction up for grabs :)

<comment><USER20> There are a lot of variables in play, and I really have no idea if this holds up for any particular woman or not. But as a guy, who spends a lot of time talking to other guys about approaching / meeting / dating women, I can definitely say that - in my experience - there is absolutely an "intimidation" effect where men will avoid the hotter women because they assume that:

A. "she's out of my league and wouldn't be interested."

B. "she is that hot, she probably gets hit on all the time and is therefore probably snooty / bitchy towards strange guys."

C. "she can have any guy she wants, so surely she's dating some bigshot executive with a rolls-royce and a private jet... no point in little ole me going over and talking to her."

D. "etc."

Not saying that all guys do this, or that all guys do it in all situations, but there is something plausible about this.

<comment><USER18> [From my single days] I'd generally want to get laid. So women that show absolutely no interest are great - no time wasted. Women that want to f... you right there in the bathroom are also great, but rare. Women that are nice and hot are great. But women that just string you along for whatever reason, they're your enemy - you waste all that time, and you get nothing for it. Had many of those experiences as it's sometimes very hard to tell which is which. US women in my not-statistically-significant experience were the worst. Europeans, South Americans, Asians, all more real and less likely to string guys along.

So in hindsight I think the most important skill is to cut losses early. Or as one womanizing friend told me - the skill is not to convince a girl who doesn't want to to sleep with you - that's not gonna happen; the skill is to spot those that are looking for sex tonight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> From the article: _"Once a girl passes a certain degree of hotness, the amount of guys hitting on her drops dramatically."_

However, I know of a different version. If (as a guy) you are seen to date a hot girl, then the chances of you dating other hot girls goes up. They want to know what you've got.

I'm guessing this applies to VC as well.

<comment><USER18> Absolutely true. Wait until you get married - suddenly chicks hit on you all the time. It's like... WTF?

Just two days ago, I sit in an outdoors bar, all alone, and order a beer. Now the other rule is that if you're all by yourself, nobody will approach you because you might be weird. Two hot girls sit down on the next table. And every time I look over, one of them gives me the biggest "please come over to talk to me right NOW" smile I have ever seen. As I am waiting for my wife. No regrets of course - I love my wife. But I am wondering: Where WERE you girls when I was single?

<comment><USER22> How do those girls know you're married?

<comment><USER23> Wedding band.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This reflects something I've noticed at some conferences: the keynote speaker is often alone in the bar afterwards, looking bored because no one gets up the nerve to talk to them.

<comment><USER25> That sometimes happens, but often keynote speakers are left alone because nobody's interested in talking to them. Keynotes speakers are often prominent individuals from outside the narrow field of the conference, and often wildly misjudge what conference attendees will be interested in hearing about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Apples and oranges. Yes, there is a "hot girl effect", but it really only applies to hot girls. People who are at the top of their fields may be friendly, but they are, by virtue of being at the top of their field, generally very busy people. Sure, they're approachable, but you can't really expect to have more than a small slice of their time unless the ideas you are bringing to the table are of significant interest to them. The CEO or top scientist is inherently busy or they wouldn't be in their position. A hot girl, by contrast, is no more or less likely than anyone else to have a full calendar. Hot girls don't automatically lose their hotness by living a relaxed, unstructured lifestyle.

</comment><comment><USER27> People like similar people. They have more in common. Relationships between similar status people end up happiest and work out the best, on average.

That doesn't mean people always hit on those of equal attractiveness alone. If you have more money than the girl, then she can have more prettiness. But if she's way ahead on looks, you better be way ahead on money or something or it isn't an equal relationship.

What does this add up to? Simply: the edge of the bell curve is always lonely.

</comment><comment><USER28> I have to disagree with this. I've seen the exact opposite many times, e.g. Dave McClure at the TechHub Xmas party, the poor guy was absolutely mobbed.

I thought this post was going to be about something different altogether, so I wrote it myself:

[http://blog.shrewple.com/post/2520650113/the-real-hot- girl-e...](http://blog.shrewple.com/post/2520650113/the-real-hot-girl-effect- and-networking)

</comment><comment><USER29> I believe I first encountered the description of this phenomenon in one of Leil Lowndes' books, "How To Talk To Anyone" IIRC.

And I encountered the phenomenon IRL a good few years back at a convention, where I had a really nice conversation with an actress who played a major role in a prominent SF series. Apparently, I was one of a few people who'd even just stopped to ask her how she was enjoying the show: everyone else was either staff, stewards or fanbois who only wanted her autograph, photo or both.

I got to sit with her and her retinue later that night in the hotel restaurant: a dinner date I'll never forget.

The Hot Girl effect is pretty real. And if you can get past that barrier of your own fears to approach the unapproachable, yet retain your humility as you do so, the rewards can often be awesome and memorable.

</comment><comment><USER30> Is this for real? Is there any science to support the anecdotal experience of "the hot girl effect"?

<comment><USER31> OKCupid does interesting analyses of their user data. Here's a post looking at the impact of attractiveness on messaging rates ([http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-looks-and-online- dati...](http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-looks-and-online-dating/)). Looks like, at least for their users, the "hot girl effect" is not real; the more attractive the girl, the lower the probability of a successful response.

<comment><USER32> The problem with OKCupid rejection is that rejection is not real.

You can easily spam out messages to all the hot girls and "rejection" is really a non-reply. Meaning that "rejection" is invisible.

In real life rejection means a "walk of shame" away from the girl, probably while your friends are watching, probably while they're laughing at you. OkCupid incorporates none of that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> In my opinion the real problem is this creepy glorification of people for their looks or social status.

Guys who are obsessed with dating hot girls are really just obsessed with how others perceive them, which makes them lame to be around. Same with social climbers.

</comment><comment><USER6> A corollary to this that I've heard from the sales end, is that one actually doesn't want to "pump buying temperature" to maximum.

The argument I've heard is that it's more effective to sell someone on you or your product being _appealing yet practical_ rather than convincing them that you or your product are the hottest thing on the planet (but there's always the "expensive decoy product" mentioned in the link yesterday).

This is generalization too, of course, but it seems reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER34> It seems like it would be a confounding factor if said hot girl had a reputation as evil incarnate, as does Goldman-Sachs.

</comment><comment><USER35> Reminder: if you try to become friends with someone for any other reason besides you're a friendly person and like meeting people? They're going to figure you out eventually.

So instead of "targeting" people, I'd just hang out at the right places and get to know folks in general.

</comment><comment><USER36> Hot girls get hit on and proposed to several times a day by eager men. That translates to about 100 times a month and 1200 times a yar. If you don't believe me go ask one. Especially Programmer girls.</comment>


Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber (2000) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2000/06/chase.htm <comment><USER3> In June, RadioLab (The NPR show), did a show called "Oops" that had a section on this. It was a REALLY interesting episode and continues to be a spectacular podcast.

If you're interested in the Oops episode, check out. <http://www.radiolab.org/2010/jun/28/>

EDIT: I looked, the section I'm referring starts around 4:30

<comment><USER4> This article in The Atlantic is actually written by Alston Chase himself - <USER2> gentleman Jad and Robert talk to in the Radiolab piece.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The insistence on classifying Kaczynski as schizophrenic is disturbing. I'm reading Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus, and it resonates a lot with both how he was perceived and tried, and what his thoughts on modern society are (although there is nothing anti-technology in Anti-Oedipus, quite the opposite).

<comment><USER6> I recall from contemporary news reports that when he was found there was a medication (Trazodone) that is occasionally prescribed for major mood disorders (NOT schizophrenia) in the cabin where he was living. I see the "schizophrenia" diagnosis for him was not a finding at trial, but just one psychiatrist's proferred testimony, since he told his lawyers to avoid using an insanity defense and thus didn't put the issue to trial.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Kaczynski's thesis rests on the idea that technological progress is intrinsically evil or intrinsically results in evil.

I think the evidence shows that technology is always ethically neutral. When early humans begun welding rocks as tools (one of the first technological developments), this could be used to both club someone to death more efficiently OR to build a house and have a sturdier shelter.

To get to the level of development we are at today, it appears humans have consistently chosen constructive uses of technology over destructive ones. I can't see the evidence that the Industrial Revolution fundamentally changed things in this respect.

</comment><comment><USER8> Ayn Rand wrote a pre-buttal, if such a concept exists, to the Unabomber's manifesto in which she identifies the implications of the anti-reason and anti-technology ideas of the Sixties and that it would not lead to peace and love but to death and hate as manifest in a creature like Kaczynski. Read The New Left: The Anti-Industrial Revolution and Kaczynski's manifesto and choose your side because Kaczynski is correct as quoted in The Atlantic article; most people vastly underestimate the number of his supporters.

<comment><USER9> Kaczyniski apparently didn't believe that his ideas would lead to "peace and love" - he was explicit that he was not trying to tear down the system to replace it with something better, but simply as an end in itself.

I think trying to bundle the Unabomber in as a part of the tedious Left-vs- Right culture wars misses the mark spectacularly. After all, he seems to have been driven to act against technology and science based on its percieved corrosive effects on individual liberty! Eg. _"In these pages, it is argued that continued scientific and technical progress will inevitably result in the extinction of individual liberty."_

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Noting the date of this submission in the title would be helpful to readers.

<comment><USER10> I respectfully disagree. It is as relevant today as it was in 2000, and the date shows up in the status bar when you hover over the link.

<comment><USER11> Yes, but given that it's a fascinating article written in 2000 and available on the net we can assume a lot of people will have already read it. If you stick (2000) after the title that helps those who have from having to click through.

I say this as someone who hadn't read the article and has just done so due to this link.

Plus, I usually see a year after a title as indicating quality. It says that the article isn't about some current fad but is a genuinely good/interesting read.

<comment><USER10> I would suspect that people who have read it would realize this from the title, not the year. And, again, the year is visible when you hover over the link. There's not much more to discuss. Let's just agree to disagree.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Introducing Pusher WebHooks - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pusher.com/2012/1/25/webhooks

<comment><AUTHOR> There's also a demo + code of the WebHooks in action here: <http://blog.pusher.com/2011/12/7/filtrand-a-demo-webhooks></comment>


Ask HN: Foursquare somehow surpasses Loopt - <AUTHOR>

I have researching various mistakes and such that startups make, and in particular I have been looking at location-aware startups. I was recently looking at google trends for foursquare and loopt and noticed this: http://www.google.com/trends?q=foursquare+,+loopt&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=1 which implies that sometime around the beginning of this year foursquare must have made some sort of significant change, but I don't have a clue as to what. Do any of you guys know what I might be missing in understanding this? Thank you! <comment><USER3> I think that you have to remember also that Foursquare, in 2004 on that graph, is not about Foursquare... it's about foursquare, I suppose, you know - <USER2> game you play with chalk and a playground ball. So I think that that trends graph is a little bit noisy.

To me, it's a question of 4sq taking off and Loopt failing to do so, more than foursquare surpassing them when it was a clear neck-and-neck competition.

If we're looking at trends as a buzz-o-meter, it's the kind of situation where Loopt is not able to leverage its initial boom of interest to transcend its beginnings.

The seemingly 'obvious' answer is to ascribe the disparity to circumstances beyond the startups themselves -- 2009/10 sees a significantly greater penetration of location enabled phones, the effect of Facebook destroying our notions of privacy has sunk in more (joking on that one), etc. I don't know if that's the whole deal, but I think there have to be some macro effects involved beyond just, well, people really like gaming elements and Crowley is the one and only king of location.

Quick .02 : ) I think Foursquare has done a good job, but haven't followed Loopt very well to know where they may have stumbled (or merely been unlucky).

<comment><USER4> Loopt was a service too US centric. At least in Mexico, the current trendy option is Foursquare. As for Gowalla (My favorite one), didnt do so well in the beginning.

Maybe, what the trend is showing is more adoption from outside the US.</comment></comment>


Another Study Blames Uber and Lyft for Public Transit's Decline - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2019/01/uber-lyft-ride-hailing-impact-public-transit-ridership/581062/ <comment><USER3> Sorry but this is bullshit.

As others have mentioned, public transit beats uber/lyft when its actually the better, faster service (e.g. London, Tokyo).

But when public transit is poorly planned, slow, dirty, crime-ridden like it often is in the US, uber/lyft wins every time. Even when cities like San Francisco choose to spend billions on improving public transit, they mess it up every single time. There's a long list of hilariously short sighted decisions made on projects like the Transbay Terminal, The Central Subway, Geary/Van Ness BRT.

My daily commute literally runs along the t-line in San Francisco, but I never take it because it's basically the same speed as walking, slower than biking, slower than uber'ing. Poor planning and management is the cause of public transit's decline.

<comment><USER4> Yup. E.g. in Manhattan you'd be crazy to not use the subway. It's just faster than everything else, and extremely liberating. In contrast, in SF, if you want to get to your destination in any reasonable amount of time and don't your start and destination are not near the BART line, you need to use car / Uber / Lyft. Or even a scooter or Go bike is faster than public transit.

SF needs to significantly invest in transit with dedicated rights of ways, preferably along more important routes than the Central Subway. And if subways are too expensive or difficult to build, we need to seriously consider using elevated light rail instead. Geary road, for example, would be perfect for an el.

<comment><USER5> Seattle has been doing this recently. I'm not sure if they have released any studies yet, but my observation has been a noticeable improvement.

<comment><USER6> I've noticed no improvement, especially now with the viaduct closed which appears to be a permanent decline for people coming in from the southwest and west Seattle.

<comment><USER5> That's a temporary change until the tunnel opens. I've noticed that Denny has been much better for buses since they have made a few changes for bus priority.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I know it's only an anecdote, but myself (and many other colleagues) in Boston switched to periodically using rideshares to commute due to the decline in public transit quality. The tech boom in the area completely overloaded the system, and when you combine it with the rampant corruption behind the MBTA, this was inevitable.

Uber and Lyft have not been the best actors, but someone was going to step in and profit off of public transit's incompetence here.

Even prior to the prevalence of rideshares, Boston was dealing with absurd corruption in attempting to expand on the public transit systems. See: Green Line Extension project

<comment><USER8> Agreed. This feels like a classic causation v correlation problem.

Of course when a substitute improves, some people will switch. However, the root cause is the declining quality and lack of improvements to the system that even gives a substitute the chance to compete.

I honestly don't understand how 100 years ago nyc was able to build an expansive subway system and today it takes decades to add a new station. I know it's a combination of land costs, labor costs, corruption, regulation, underground congestion (and that the original lines were built by private companies) but I still don't really understand the situation.

<comment><USER9> My general impression is that worker safety was pretty much disregarded compared to modern standards.

A quick search turned up this piece[1] on 16 deaths around 1904 during construction of a NYC subway line. There are famous pictures such as this one of construction of high rises in New York[2] without any safety equipment whatsoever. But it was built in 14 months! All that safety gear is expensive and slows down construction. In climbing, we often joke 'no belay, no delay', because of how fast you can climb when you don't take the time to fix your ropes, etc. [3]

[1] [https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-died-during-the- constr...](https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-died-during-the-construction- of-the-New-York-City-subway-system)

[2] [https://www.google.com/search?q=empire+state+building+constr...](https://www.google.com/search?q=empire+state+building+construction+pictures&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=zL2IEaI_HTr6qM%253A%252CWmlUwbdST_H3CM%252C_&usg=AI4_-kTA8aR3Mh- nwjJkAvyKm5ewle- mYw&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiLpIDf24ngAhXqV98KHUlhA5EQ9QEwAnoECAQQCA#imgrc=zL2IEaI_HTr6qM):

[3][https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urRVZ4SW7WU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urRVZ4SW7WU)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Public transportation can only win by competing with the alternatives.

When I'm in Tokyo I don't use Uber because the train system is so clean, fast, and safe; I have no incentive to use an Uber.

When I'm in places with slow buses that get stuck in traffic, or operate trains with disgusting facilities, I'm more likely to choose Uber.

<comment><USER11> When the wealthy[1] can opt out of having to use public services, those public services tend to be crap.

When the wealthy are forced to use public services, all of a sudden, they become interested and politically engaged in improving them.

Uber doesn't drive improvements in transit in this sense - it starves it of political capital.

The best transit services are ones which are used by a wide swathe of the public.

[1] If you are regularly paying $6-30 for a one-way taxi commute, you are either wealthy, really money-foolish, or a truly special case.

<comment><USER12> Not sure about the ranges on that wealthy comparison- if I wanted to commute to work by bus, it would cost >$6 in bus faires a day in the Bay Area. Splitting a Lyft line in San Francisco often results in math where we actually save money while using a more convenient service. It's just hard to choose public transit around here when it is unreliable, barely cost competitive and slower.

<comment><USER13> It's pretty rare you end up spending 3$ for a Lyft in SF. The bus pass is also $78 (or $1.95 a ride assuming you work 20 days a month). It should be cheaper yes, but it's still much cheaper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This kind of ignores the fact that the quality of public transit has been rapidly declining, and had been before Uber/Lyft came into being.

Take the DC metro for example - it used to be arguably the best public rail system in the country. Now, through mismanagement and neglect, it's pretty awful. IMO dirty, unreliable public transport created a massive void that Lyft/Uber have filled.

<comment><USER15> I'll go a bit further and say that, while Uber/Lyft probably contribute to decline in public transit, those companies exist precisely because of how bad public transit was in those service areas.

<comment><USER14> 100% agree. If you look at SF, there's to get from SOMA to the Marina, you can either take multiple buses plus walk (~50 minutes of travel), or take a lyft/uber which will bring you door to door in less than half the time.

<comment><USER15> I took a Lyft from Soma to the Marina last night at 5:30pm, which is pretty close to peak weeknight traffic. It cost $14 and took 17 minutes.

The Muni bus would have taken 31 minutes according to Google Maps (with much higher expected variance, based on my personal experience) and would have cost $2.50 (or $2.75 if I didn't have a preloaded Clipper card).

Because of that expected duration variance; the probability of sharing a bus or bus stop with a profoundly troubled, violent, or dirty person; and the fact that the difference between $2.50 and $14 is not very significant to me; taking a Lyft was an extremely easy decision for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Blaming Uber and Lyft for public transportation usage decline sounds exactly the same as blaming piracy for the music industry's decline.

If public transportation was better, I wouldn't use Lyft as much as I do these days.

It'd be interesting to look at countries known for their exceptional public transportation and see if they saw a decline when Uber and Lyft came on the market.

<comment><USER17> Great point. Coming from Switzerland, which IMO has the best public transportation across the country and in cities in the world, Uber and Lyft simply aren't nearly used as much as here exactly BECAUSE public transportation works as well. I rarely have to take an Uber inside Geneva because buses, trams and trains bring me everywhere, for a decent price (as a student), and until decent hours. So yeah, for me the blame is on the system more than on these apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> >"Single-handedly" may not be quite right, since the paper also finds that cheap gas prices and higher fares have a negative effect on ridership. And this analysis does not include other, more local factors that could be pushing riders off of buses and trains, such as the maintenance and reliability issues plaguing New York City and Washington, D.C. in particular. Nor does it look at safety perceptions among riders, a growing concern on Bay Area transit.

>"Perhaps the presence of innovative modes makes it a more compelling or sexier question to ask, but I think there are lots of reasons people aren't taking these modes as much as before," said Susan Shaheen, the co-director of the Transportation Sustainability Research Center at UC Berkeley and an expert in shared mobility. "The question of causality is perplexing and hard, and it's not necessarily one thing."

So basically, shocker, correlation does not equal causation and there's a lot going on driving this change.

Also, it'd be interesting to see data that took into account different modes. Light rail ridership in the Twin Cities has soared because (unlike our bus system) it is reliable and predictable, plus easier to use multimodally etc. etc.

And I imagine that most places share the Twin Cities' struggles to combat lawmakers in greater MN who have decided that investing in metro transit is a certain evil.

</comment><comment><USER19> "Another study blames the internal combustion engine for the decline of horse ridership".

</comment><comment><USER20> It is certainly valid to say that, to first order, Uber and Lyft do not compete with public transit. I get a Lyft from downtown KC to the KC airport about thirty minutes away; I do this because it's about as expensive as airport economy parking will be for several weeks; I do not think twice about public transit because there simply is no public transit route there. But to go to the library or Union Station I'd never take a Lyft; there's a tram that goes to both.

But that gets complicated when we're talking about second-order effects. To second order, yes, it does matter. I have taken both the bus and a Lyft to work when my car was inaccessible. There is competition there, and it's driven by bus transfers. To get close enough that I do not have significant walking to do, I have to accept delays due to bus transfers, and the weather has to be nice enough that I can easily endure those waits outside. Or my budget needs to be tight enough that that makes sense.

It's not surprising to me that public transit sees somewhere in the range of 5-20% decline due to the cheaper taxi service; that is about the range of those second-order effects. But this is also an avoidable loss: with the widespread use of cell phones it may be possible that routes become more customizable, not unlike how school buses work: "this route serves to bring people from that general area to this general area, but of course we tailor it a bit to the individual student population, we don't go down any side-streets if there are no students to pick up there." There is a great potential when city institutions start to get the hang of this new technology stuff, that a bus service could meaningfully get you from where you're at to where you're going without any big pain points, on the assumption that you have a smart- enough cell phone. And that's no longer the marker of wealth that it used to be. If they can really get it right, they can even have the ride-hailing services tied into those systems, the way that cab lines informally used to be: "we're willing to send a fare your way for someone starting at hub X and going to location Y which is outside of our service regions."

<comment><USER21> A city of 500k inhabitants doesn't have even a bus between the airport and city center? That's quite interesting, one would think it'd one of the most sought after routes.

<comment><USER20> I mean it does it's just hard to get to and slow. It's route 229, it takes 10-15 minutes to get (through public transit) to the center of the metro area where it goes through, in fact almost as long as just walking the 10-15 blocks or whatever it is to get there... then I think you are waiting 10 more minutes on average as they run every 20 minutes, and it takes something like 50 minutes to get from there to the airport -- whereas the straight shot with a Lyft is maybe 30 minutes, the bus can take somewhere from a half hour to an hour longer.

So it's possible with some transfers etc., it's just sufficiently inconvenient and slow that I've ruled that out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Uber and Lyft increase downtown congestion (like sometimes up to one third of cars I see are Uber/Lyft in downtown Chicago) and routinely block bus stops and in bus lanes. This further slows down buses even more and screws up schedules. I wish bus drivers could automatically ticket the drivers.

I have a CTA pass so I almost never use Uber/Lyft because it's so much more expensive.

<comment><USER23> TNCs are not the only ones contributing to congestion. Private cars do as well. We should address all road users and not just cherry-pick one scapegoat when everyone sitting in traffic is traffic. Congestion pricing is the solution here.

<comment><USER22> Sure but private cars aren't generally on the road all the time. They go to their destinations and park. TNC's spend a substantial part of their time between fares. If they were displacing all private car trips they would only marginally increase congestion by 1-utlization factor but that's certainly not the case in places where public transport exists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> a lot of people taking the low hanging free-market attitude: if public trans was better, then uber/lyft wouldn't win. don't blame uber/lyft for filling a need. now I agree it doesnt make sense to hold uber/lyft responsible for this, because they're just a business. but I do agree it shows something wrong with society.

what people in this thread seem to be forgetting is that a lot of people don't actually have money to choose the service according to which is better - <USER2> take what they can afford, which is public trans. when rich people don't need to take the same forms of transit, then theres less pressure by the powerful people in society to create change, to improve the system. in the long run, we would all benefit directly, and indirectly (the positive effects it has on society), from a robust, affordable, pleasant, clean, etc public transit system. but because of this stratification, which uber/lyft contribute to (but of course cant be held entirely responsible for), it never gathers the clout and momentum to actually happen.

</comment><comment><USER25> Metro Vancouver transit ridership is increasing faster than any other region in Canada or the U.S and Uber/Lyft is not allowed... hmmmm

[https://www.vancourier.com/news/metro-vancouver-transit- ride...](https://www.vancourier.com/news/metro-vancouver-transit-ridership- increasing-faster-than-any-other-region-in-canada-u-s-1.23245535)

</comment><comment><USER26> I only use a ridesharing app when I can't get a bus or train. If it's going to take more than 20 minutes for that bus or train to arrive and I need to travel more than a mile, ridesharing is generally how I get there. It fills a niche where I live that isn't served by public transit.

</comment><comment><USER27> I replaced the subway by a bike because of how bad the subway was. But I guess they will blame my bike.

</comment><comment><USER28> But how about transportation as a whole? Wouldn't people have better transport than ever these days then? I doubt that public transport is ideal anyways.

<comment><USER7> Public transport would be ideal if there were better ways to manage it. Infrastructure problems and rampant corruption stifle it, so innovators moved in and stole their lunch.

I know it's more complicated than it seems, but check out Tokyo. Their public transit works incredibly well, and a lot of public resources are spent making sure it stays that way. Some of this is due to the fact that Tokyo is an extremely new city in terms of a lot of its infrastructure (due to WW2), but that's not the whole story here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Public transit in Los Angeles sucks big big time, so it makes sense Uber and Lyft wins in cities like Los Angeles.

</comment><comment><USER30> Isn't the TL;DR here that when better alternatives emerge, the worse option can lose? The article seems to be arguing that because Uber/Lyft are often better than public transit, we shouldn't tolerate them, rather than the obvious response: improve public transit.

</comment><comment><USER31> ya , you can blame. but why you not proivde good service</comment>


A Comparison of JavaScript Calendars and Schedulers - <AUTHOR> http://www.sitepoint.com/comparison-javascript-calendars-schedulers/ <comment><USER2> Cool stuff! thk</comment>


Can Google Hear Me? - <AUTHOR> http://www.cangooglehearme.com/ <comment><USER2> If the success of your startup depends on getting a partnership with one company, you're probably doomed. Successful products are ones that create value for users, and value comes from startups. Creating a product where half the value comes from the startup and half comes from an established company usually leads to a product that's only 50% valuable.

If you don't believe me, ask Sam Altman at Loopt whether he'd still do a startup that depended on partnering with cellphone companies if he had to do it over again.

The only thing worse than pinning your chances on a big company creating the value for your product is pinning your chances on a big company providing distribution. Channels are for meeting demand, not creating it.

<comment><USER3> I'm sure anyone who has to deal with cell carriers would say it was a pain in the ass. But that pain also kills off a lot of competitors. Much of Loopt's success is traceable to the fact that they were one of the few groups, if not the only one, who were both great hackers and willing to endure endless meetings with cell carriers.

<comment><USER2> It's sure one hell of a sustainable competitive advantage if you have the cojones to pull it off. That being said, I'd rather spend my time thinking about how I'm going to get my users laid rather than how to appeal to the self interest of a non-rational corporate entity.

update: That is, I work for a big company and you come to me and tell me that you're going to make my company a hundred million dollars. I say, gee, that's great, if this works out then I'll get my name on the wall and maybe a small bonus. And if it doesn't then I'll get fired, I won't be able to pay the mortgage and my wife will divorce me. So whatever your question, the answer is no. To make it work without a huge reputation and network and existing relationships you need to rely on a lot of luck.

My general outlook on this is that if you read Horatio Alger, the general formula is luck, pluck, and virtue. Which is great, but what's even better is if you can minimize luck and make your bread-and-butter off just pluck and virtue. Then whatever luck comes your way is just icing on the cake.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well I guess if he can generate that much buzz over the simple act of handing a business proposal to Google- without even mentioning anything about what that proposal is- then he has some talent. Google could hire him and put him in marketing.

</comment><comment><USER5> red paper clip as marketing strategy... I guess the internets like the little- guy-long-shot story...

http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/</comment>