Former NSA Contractor Sentenced to 9 Years for Heist of U.S. Secrets - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/former-nsa-contractor-sentenced-to-9-years-for-heist-of-u-s-secrets-11563565527?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> If Martin had released these files somehow, wouldn't there likely have been stenographic measures in place to trace the source of the leak? Or like, _ANY_ corroborating accounting for the transfer of ~50 TB of data? I guess the important lesson of the story is that NSA contractors can lose track of terabytes of data being exfiltrated over the course of decades. /Decades/.

Who knows, maybe there are 10 more Martins out there who are just better at covering up their tracks. Then again, maybe not. Maybe anything.

I guess there's always the "you can't stop someone from taking a photo of your computer monitor" problem (forgetting the name rn), but even then you can use little things like spacing words slightly differently per presentation of the file, etc.

<comment><USER3> There are definitely steganographic measures in place. Reality Winner is currently imprisoned because The Intercept didn't properly remove yellow tracking dots from a printed memo she leaked to them. Printed documents are easily tracked this way, and I suspect minor variations and invisible unicode, etc. is used for more widely desseminated digital material.

There is almost definitely 10 more martins out there... exfiltration is so diverse of a problem that any system with strict auditing and controls will still have side-channel attacks.

>I guess there's always the "you can't stop someone from taking a photo of your computer monitor" problem (forgetting the name rn), but even then you can use little things like spacing words slightly differently per presentation of the file, etc.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I see it kinda surprising to see that a lot of US spooks are private contractors, and not people in uniform, or even full time employees.

Can anybody shed light on that?

When the NSA project codename list first leaked, I ran a linkedin search with some of them, and I got over a hundred hits on some of them, with people seemingly not concerned with naming them at all on their resumes.

<comment><USER5> The story I hear is that NSA doesn't pay enough. So one path for people is to quit then work for one of the military contractors which then end up doing contracts at the NSA but get paid a lot more.

But maybe that is unrelated since if he would still ex-filtrate data even if he worked directly for NSA.

<comment><USER6> > But maybe that is unrelated since if he would still ex-filtrate data even if > he worked directly for NSA.

This is something that's not really clear. There will always be leakers, but being part of an organization becomes part of many people's identities. The success of the organization then becomes a much more personal effort, which would likely discourage people from taking actions that might hurt it.

My point being: contractors may not have the same sense of ownership or belonging-ness that employees do. I will freely admit that this is an untested hypothesis though.

<comment><USER5> > My point being: contractors may not have the same sense of ownership or > belonging-ness that employees do

That's fair. I do see someone directly working for NSA maybe being more devoted to their country. Though I imagine it must be hard when they know their previous co-workers, who now moved to Booz Allen are making 2x working on the same projects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The title is misleading, as it wasn't really a "heist", which implies armed robbery. This guy stole information by taking it home from work over a period of many years.

Seems like a fairly light sentence considering he had amassed _50 terabytes_ of data by the time he was caught. According to Wikipedia he was caught when he contacted a Russian security firm, who in turn contacted the NSA (which is interesting in itself). [0]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_T._Martin_III](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_T._Martin_III)

</comment><comment><USER8> He accepted a plea bargain and still won't be out for 9 years; had he gone to trial he likely would have been in prison his entire life.

> _Mr. Martin was never charged with leaking information, only illegally > retaining national defense information._

These sentences are insane.

They are building a culture of fear, from Manning to Assange to Winner to Snowden: they want everyone to be so afraid of them that the concept of doing the right thing seems equivalent to death.

<comment><USER9> In what sense was Martin "doing the right thing" by hoarding documents seemingly for its own sake/to satisfy some tick? I don't think it's fair to the others you listed to lump Martin in with them.

<comment><USER8> The specifics of his case are irrelevant; they are using any and all opportunities to create an atmosphere of extreme fear.

Assange isn't even subject to US law and doesn't/didn't have a clearance. They're going after him on whatever grounds they can scare up simply for _publishing_.

It's part of a wider plan, to shore up the fact that they are vulnerable, which Snowden most effectively demonstrated.</comment></comment></comment>


25 Ways To Be More Productive As a Designer - <AUTHOR> http://www.youthedesigner.com/2008/10/01/25-ways-to-be-more-productive-as-a-designer/

<comment><USER2> This person has padding down to an art.

"1. Make the most of your commute"

"4. Keep your computer software up to date, virus and spyware free"

"20. Organize all your paperwork once a week" closely followed by "21. Organize your computer files once a week"

etc etc.

12 word version on how to be more productive? Love your work, seek inspiration, never stop trying to improve, remove clutter.

</comment><comment><USER3> Find and replace "designer" with most other occupations and this list is still applicable.

That's not a good thing.</comment>


Exploiting reality - <AUTHOR> http://dcurt.is/exploiting-reality

<comment><USER2> It's somewhat amusing that the user "unnamed" posted this link. :) Regardless, this is an interesting article. I can recall a few movies where a made-up character becomes "real".

On a related note, I'm getting all these new kind of spam emails these days in which the messages are specifically tailored to me. Real creepy. They know my name. They know the city I live in. Etc. (The message says, for example, I met the president of his company in a conference in [CITY NAME], and this is a follow-up. Etc.) Real creepy.</comment>


Ask HN: How to clone Stripe webhooks - <AUTHOR>

Stripe has a great API. Pretty much everyone I've talked to about it agrees, and it's often cited as a solid example of a best practice.
One of the best parts is their webhooks. The question is: how can I clone them?
I read in a blog post somewhere that the webhooks are based in large part upon a MongoDB collection that acts as a message queue. Sounds like a solid piece of advice, and I understand how Mongo's non-relational data storage makes for a pretty slick way of persisting events/messages. Besides that... any other hints? I'm look at you, Stripe devs.
Alternatively, are there SaaS services or open source libraries that help with this problem or am I stuck re-inventing the wheel? <comment><USER2> Version 1.0 can be out in an hour and requires one page to register webhooks, one place to store outgoing event data (which can be in anything -- a SQL database with a column representing a JSON bag-of-serialized-attributes will work fine), and a cron job. The minimum implementation is not difficult engineering.

A lot about what Stripe does right is in the ancillary bits about consuming their webhooks:

1) Spend a lot of time thinking about what your retry policy is. Some service providers (including ones which I like) will do one callback and then not retry. This is often suboptimal for consumers. I personally like "retrying with expotential decay", which is a nice balance between "You get your webhook really, really quickly if a gremlin just happened to eat the first one" and "If your servers are experiencing hard downtime, we won't add to the problem by pinging the heck out of you."

2) There is no SaaS or open source option for "Have great documentation, at once both comprehensive and easy to consume for the goal-oriented developer."

3) There are a lot of failure modes for webhook systems, some of which you'll only discover when operating them. Transient network problems between your application and the consumer's. "Failure to agree on reality" between different moving parts of your application. Adding webhooks to the outgoing queue in a non-idempotent fashion, which seems to be one of the great Let Me Tell You About This One Timee stories in systems engineering. Timing issues with consumers receiving webhooks in an order other than that which they would logically expect, which might not be your problem but good luck convincing a customer of that.

You'll want to have instrumentation and monitoring up that wazoo, so you can resolve these little usage niggles. This boring, iterative execution on the base feature is approximately 99% of why really well-executed APIs (like Stripe or Twilio or whomever) are really fun to work with and, well, why there exist some APIs which are less fun to work with.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Patrick, stoked to hear your response! Solid advice all around, I definitely agree! Unfortunately, I was looking for something more than just "do a lot of work and do it well"... but I might just be wishing for something too good to be true!

On a related note, one of my favourite features of the Stripe webhooks is the UI for showing logs/events/etc. Makes developing SO MUCH easier when it's not just some magic black box.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Ping me at jason <at> webhooks.io and we can chat more about what you are looking for, I might have something that can help you with this.</comment>


Ask HN: Any shops/devs offering NodeJs App Development? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking to have a small, straight-forward, data-driven web application and mobile optimized site/application developed and was wondering if it wasn't too premature to do something like this in nodejs.  If not, are there any consulting shops or developers on here that would be interested in such a project? <comment><USER2> Drop me an email in my profile, we are not taking work right now, but I have a developer who just came off a project and has some time between projects, if it is small enough we may be able to fit you in. We are a strong JavaScript and mobile shop of Independent freelancers. Even if we can't help due to scheduling conflicts, I can help you find the right person.</comment>


Huawei Under Fire for Calling Taiwan a Country - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-15/chinese-champion-huawei-under-fire-for-calling-taiwan-a-country <comment><USER2> What was the quote? "A gaffe in politics is accidentally telling the truth?" I don't get why that doublespeak delusion has been honored for so long. Hell even in South Korea which maintains one Korea doesn't get offended by referring to North Korea as a separate country currently. I guess because they have actual legitimacy compared to them.

<comment><USER3> The Chinese government withdrew to the province of Taiwan at the end of the civil war.

The communists proclaimed a new republic, the People's Republic of China, over the whole of China and thereby decreed that the Republic of China has ceased to exist.

Following this logic Taiwan is simply under the control of "rebels".

That would have been 'fine' if the new regime had quickly 'finished off' the job but they didn't. With time this has become a tedious mental gymnastics, and also probably counter-productive for them...</comment></comment>


Boeing to Temporarily Shut Down 737 Max Production - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/business/boeing-737-max.html <comment><USER2> It seems unlikely, at least to me, that Boeing will ever restart 737 Max production. The decision by Boeing executives to bet the company on this deeply flawed aircraft will have serious economic consequences for the employees, suppliers, and investors who trusted them.

For the rest of us, no big deal. Airbus will happily take up the slack.

</comment><comment><USER3> Related, though a bit earlier in the news cycle: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21799845](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21799845)

</comment><comment><USER4> nothing is more permanent than a temporary solution</comment>


Offer HN: I will review and critique your CV. - <AUTHOR>

I'm an experienced technical recruiter based in the UK and due to the uprise in offers of assistance to this site I've decided to add my own two cents.
I'm willing to analyse your CV and offer constructive feedback on potential content alterations, layout, etc.
The logical critic in you will assume I'm offering to do this in order to generate leads or recruits and to counter-act that, I have no problem with you removing your personal details and even censoring company names.
As for me, I have a degree in Software Development & Web Design and my target market is London and the South East. I've been in recruitment for a few years now and I have a 1st class understanding of the market. My highest fee generating clients are insurance companies & financial institutions.
I will be doing this during my spare time and at the weekend so if the response is significant then be patient with me!
edit: ATTENTION: DUE TO AN OVERWHELMING RESPONSE I CAN NO LONGER ACCEPT ANY FURTHER CV'S FOR NOW. I WILL RESPOND TO EVERYONE WHO HAS GONE TO THE EFFORT OF EMAILING ME SO FAR. <comment><AUTHOR> 22 CV's received so far!

Looks like I'm going to be kept busy. I will do my absolute best to respond to each and every one of you but you will need to be patient.

Anyone else looking to send me a CV, please fire away but it would help if you could include info on what you would like me to focus on, eg. are you concerned about specific content, is it the layout or format that you feel is letting you down, etc.

UPDATE:

That figure has now doubled and I'm looking at over 40 CV's in my inbox. I'll get started on them tonight and see how many I get through.

<comment><USER2> Here's adding to your workload - <http://sidmitra.com/resume.pdf> Let me know if i can every repay your effort with some of my skill sets.

<comment><USER3> My take:

Not overly convinced with listing the skills down the right hand side. It makes it a little hard to read. I generally recommend that people stick to "normal" layouts and list skills at the end.

Also; be more specific with the skills if you can. "Database design" can mean many things (this is particularly important if you go for, say, a DB design job :)).

Also; it is ok to write a short prose section under "interests" or something, which is where you can be a bit more creative and sell yourself.

Otherwise, pretty good :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll second pretty much everything ErrantX mentioned, specifically the skills comment, move them. I appreciate you are probably trying to keep it to one page but I promise you that this does not give you any advantage whatsoever.

As for specifics, list your day to day duties and responsibilities in a format that will stand out and be easy to read such as a list of bullet points under each brief.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for all the comments to ErrantX and Kozen. Will try to make relevant changes soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is great and I think I can help as well from a slightly different view point(not to steal any thunder!).

I'm head of development for a search related company and as part of my role review all incoming CV's(with advice from one of my senior devs) as well as handle the most of the interviews.

If you'd like two perspectives(Recruiter who will work to get you an interview and HoD who will ultimately hire you) feel free to send them over to me as well. My email is in my profile though I can only honestly help if you're targeting development roles.

Same disclaimer about time though, I will try to do any I get through over the next couple of nights though.

Edit: If you could include what type of role you are targetting(tech startup, agency, finance, etc) it would really help with my advice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great offer sanswork!

It would be interesting to see how your feedback would differ to mine on certain CV's. I definitely think that you will get flooded with CV's though!

<comment><USER4> Well I've definitely gotten hit. For everyone that has sent a CV through I'm going to spend a few hours going through them in more detail tomorrow night(AU time, already 2am here) before I send replies though I have hit them all quickly and made first impression notes already.

<comment><USER5> It would be very interesting if sanswork and KoZeN could throw up a quick blog, where each blog post contains: (1) the original CV; (2) the CVs formatted as each of them would recommend; (3) a few points from each highlighting why the changes were suggested. I'm sure a handful of representative CVs could be chosen and the proper permissions obtained. Might be too much work or simply not of interest. I'd like to see this though. Let me know if I can help in some way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The current trend to offer things on HN is amazing. I can't wait until I can figure out what I can offer in return :)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's exactly what prompted me to post this.

Communities such as HN, where intelligent discussion is rampant and trolls are minimal, are a rare breed these days and to see the community step up and start assisting each other in the real world is admirable to say the least.

Whilst I may not be a genius developer or a powerful CEO, I still have skills that could be of use to the element of the community that are looking for a new challenge or those who are struggling to find work.

I think a huge amount of people on this site will have something to offer that others will find incredibly useful so hopefully this will have a knock on affect and we'll see more and more offers of legitimate, useful assistance.

<comment><USER7> This is so true. It had been a few months since I last visited HN and then I dropped by last week and it was shocking how intelligent and considerate the posts are. I can't believe how much easier it is to find posts I care about reading here vs Reddit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm think my CV is pretty well polished, but I've never asked for professional feedback on it, so let me know what you think: <http://www.puremango.co.uk/2009/08/php-cv/>

I'm particularly interested in whether you think the order of sections (education->work->general->personal) works, and whether my copy sells.

Thanks for the offer!

PS: I'm not looking for work at the moment, so please prioritise my request lower than those who are currently seeking.

<comment><USER9> Generally you only put education first while you're still in education, after your first proper job you put that first.

<comment><AUTHOR> I completely disagree with this one and it's been a bone of contention in the past.

The majority of clients I deal with prefer to see the education & relevant qualifications listed first if the candidate has left University within the last 5 or 6 years.

Once again it's a matter of opinion but I have researched it a bit and this seems to be the general consensus.

<comment><USER9> Curious, my background is in a fairly similar area to you, I've worked as a developer for investment banks and financial tech firms. Generally I get the feeling that if a candidate is at an associate or higher level then work experience is more important.

From my experience (and I suspect most developers would agree) real world development experience is a much better indicator of performance than university.

Are the candidates you normally field changing sectors ? - in the case that a candidate doesn't have industry experience I can see why a company might want to see educational background first, but it seems strange that a company would care more about educational level than directly relevant experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you want to make notes directly on peoples' resumes, you can use crocodoc (YC W2010) to view and mark them up online. (Disclaimer: I'm one of the co- founders!)

Just forward their emails (w/ attachments) to firstname.lastname@example.com, or upload them directly through crocodoc.com. Either way you'll receive a unique crocodoc URL you can use to view, mark up, and share each resume with its creator.

Would love to hear your feedback if you end up giving this a try!

Note: You don't need to create a crocodoc account to use the service (which is free), but I'd suggest doing so to keep track of all the resumes it looks like you'll be working on :)

Example document: <https://crocodoc.com/demo1> (note: since this is a demo document your changes won't actually be saved)

</comment><comment><USER11> Does anyone have any recommendations for paid services that do this sort of thing?

KoZeN's offer to review CV's is really (really) nice, but with well over 40 to read, his offer won't likely meet the demand.

I've thought a few times that there must be something wrong with my resume and I'd like to have it reviewed professionally.

Has anyone paid to have their resume reviewed? If so, where, how much did it cost and was it worth it?

Google brings up plenty of options, but I'm nervous to use any of them for fear that they may not have experience in tech / I.T. / programming or worse, that they'll simply find a couple of grammar mistakes and charge me a few hundred dollars.

Any help?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm glad you brought this up.

Firstly, regardless of the size of the response, I will uphold my promise and provide feedback on every single CV I get, it may take some time but I will deliver.

Secondly, as for a paid service, you absolutely hit the nail on the head as far as your concern about _for fear that they may not have experience in tech / I.T. / programming or worse, that they'll simply find a couple of grammar mistakes and charge me a few hundred dollars._

This is the sole reason I haven't set up a paid service myself. How can you charge $100 dollars only to receive a CV that is essentially perfect or even convince your market that you won't just give generic feedback?

Send me the CV and I will do my absolute best for you.

<comment><USER12> > _How can you charge $100 dollars only to receive a CV that is essentially > perfect..._

Well, that case is easy. If you can't help them, don't charge.

Unfortunately, I don't have any idea about convincing your target market. I think word of mouth would be most effective, maybe you could come up with some ways to generate that (like what you're doing now!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Out of interest, as a recruiter, what did you think of the two 'reverse job application' posts?

first:

<http://www.reversejobapplication.com/>

and in response:

<http://www.thejohnnybrown.com/?p=21>

<comment><AUTHOR> RE: <http://www.reversejobapplication.com/>

I thought this was a really entertaining read. Will it generate his dream job on it's own merits? Probably not. Will it generate a ton of job offers due to the publicity it's received? Probably.

More and more employers want 'celebrities' working for them. I recently placed a gentleman who had a relatively average CV but he had been published in numerous Insurance related publications and his name was well recognised throughout the industry, when people heard he was open to offers I had multiple interviews lined up for him within 245 hours.

That's a minor example but it's definitely a growing trend.

<comment><USER13> Do you know why employers would want celebrities?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question.

I believe it's the credibility factor. If someone has a lot of positive exposure be it online, in print media or what ever the case may be, then that is going to attract attention to who the person works for.

Take actual celebrity examples; almost everyone in the world knows who David Beckham is and now most of those people know who LA Galaxy are. I can assure you, before he joined the team few people in Europe had ever even heard of LA Galaxy and now they are a recognised and respected brand purely because of their association with Beckham. On an infinitely smaller scale the same applies to certain industries in larger cities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Thanks a lot for doing this. Here is mine

[http://snikolov.weebly.com/uploads/3/9/0/4/3904101/snikolov-...](http://snikolov.weebly.com/uploads/3/9/0/4/3904101/snikolov- resume-oct2010.pdf)

if you or anyone else has time to take a look. My goal with the colors was to make it scan-able by highlighting where I worked as well as approximate position titles and letting gray-colored description stay in the background. But it might also be too harsh on the eyes.

Another concern is having too many things and not saying very much about any one of them. I am a student, and many companies seem to want to hire people who get things done for internships, rather than people with very specific skills. So I want my message to be "I've done things", rather than "I've done these very specific things that your job description lists." Is this misguided? Should I take certain parts of it out depending on where I am applying?

Thanks again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Instant opinion: The colours are drastic. I appreciate your intention but the same affect can be achieved by using slightly larger fonts.

On a side note, I see you worked @ Numenta Inc. A colleague & I have been experimenting with various potential applications for NuPIC. When I have a more detailed look at the CV I'll throw in a few side questions that you might be able to assist with.

<comment><USER14> Thanks for the quick reply! I feared as much. I will try making everything gray/black.

re: Numenta -- certainly shoot me an email (firstname.lastname@example.com) and I'll see what I can answer (if I am allowed to answer it :-)) If I can't, I can direct you to people who would be a lot more knowledgeable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Thanks for your offer!

Currently I do not really have a CV anymore, I link to my linkedin or make a dump of my linkedin to doc/pdf.

What do you think of this practice?

Anyone else who has opinions on "moving the CV to linkedin"?

<comment><USER16> I was asked some time ago to provide my CV and I also used a pdf export of linkedin cause it's such a simple option.

I believe it's a bit lacking in some areas eg, I recall it does not have anything about human languages (when you are moving around in europe that is kind of useful). I may be wrong though.

<comment><USER15> i too missed that option in linkedin!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What a coincidence! A few days ago I had some ideas about CV reviewing, and since you're a recruiter, could you provide some feedback if the service would be useful? :) [http://www.inerciasensorial.com.br/2010/10/14/geral/crowd- re...](http://www.inerciasensorial.com.br/2010/10/14/geral/crowd-review-a- resume/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting approach.

To be honest any recruiter posting someones CV publicly asking advice on suitability for a specific job is going to get torn to shreds.

Recruitment is an incredibly cut throat, incestuous market and any recruiter worth his salt won't be faced with ambiguity over whether or not a CV would be suitable for a job.

Most CV's that are difficult to interpret tend to be specialist skillsets and 9 times out of 10 a vacancy that requires a niche skillset will have agencies that specialise in that area and understand the skillset working on it.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Over 200 CV's received so far so can I ask that you don't submit any more new requests?

I intend on responding to everyone who has emailed me up until now and I am going through each request chronologically.

Thank you so much for all your messages of support.

</comment><comment><USER18> Great idea and offer -- thanks for putting this forward, KoZeN. I sent my CV over, but I figure I'll throw it up here too; more feedback is always a Good Thing (TM). <http://daeken.github.com/CV.html> <http://daeken.github.com/CV.pdf>

I recently rewrote it from scratch, as my previous CV was simply thrown together when applying for a random job. When I decided to put myself on the job market seriously, I figured I'd go ahead and spiff it up a bit.

</comment><comment><USER19> Great offer. Perhaps a small idea for those looking to put an original element in their CV that I used successfully:

Put your Skills in as a Tagcloud. Strong skills get a bigger fontsize than minor skills. Additionally I used grey tones to indicate which skills have been used more recently and which are older (more grey than black, paling so to speak.)

It is somewhat daring, because not necessarily everyone gets tagclouds yet - but I was invited quite a few times for the tag cloud to interviews.

</comment><comment><USER20> Thanks very much for this. I've never had much luck with recruiters and my C.V so any feedback you have would be greatly appreciated.

I've also decided to upload it here. <http://www.alanhollis.com/Alan_Hollis.pdf>

Please note I'm not actively seeking employment at the moment but might as well take advantage of the opportunity to get some constructive criticism whilst it's here.

<comment><USER8> I'm not a recruiter, but my opinion is that 'experience' should mean 'commercial experience'. By saying you've got seven years (4 commercial) you look like you're trying to bump up your figures.

Page 3 is ridiculous. Shorten your borders and margins and get it onto 2 pages.

Overuse of bullets for my liking, esp when really you're putting paragraphs in. Bullets are for <5 word points ideally. Nested bullets are always ugly.

Tell people what they care about. Eg:

> Livenumber, a blackberry application...

Nobody cares that it's called Livenumber. Say:

> A blackberry application...

It looks a bit wall-of-texty.

Just my opinion though, don't take it for gospel!

<comment><USER20> The way I see it if you're thinking it, others looking at my C.V will too. I agree with every point you make and will make the changes accordingly.

Thanks very much for your feedback!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I remember <http://www.razume.com/> being a useful (and free) service back in 2008, where many _professional_ recruiters would give visual feedback and good advice. Not sure what it is like now (seems more crowd-sourced), but maybe be worth a try.

</comment><comment><USER22> do you have any generally applicable advice based on your past experience and the responses you've received so far?

i'm attempting to write my first CV as a developer applying for an open position and am feeling a bit overwhelmed.

thanks for the offering up your expertise!

<comment><AUTHOR> General advice is quite difficult.

If you're looking for structural ideas, take a look at user24's CV that he linked below. His structure is ideal. Simplistic and logical but make sure you read the feedback I gave him on listing his responsibilities.

Once you have the CV put together, send it to me and I'll do my best to be as constructive as possible as it's much easier to advise when referencing a specific CV.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Great offer ! Here is mine : <http://cv.david.cx>

Also, I'm a French citizen seeking employment in the US (Orlando, Florida to be precise), do you have some special advice for what I should change in my CV in regard to this ?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've only had a quick look but like everyone else, I will have a detailed look over the next few days.

Firstly, my market is London & the South East of England so advice on modifying your CV to suit the American market is probably best fielded by someone with more experience in that area.

Secondly, you have been working on your own company for over a year and you have surmised that experience in 45 words whereas you spent 6 months with INA and your description for your time there is almost 90 words. Simple things like that raise a concern in my mind about your current position and how relevant it may be to your career.

<comment><USER23> Thank you ! That's a great point. I'll try to change that. Don't hesitate to give me more feedback, if you have time, of course.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> That is a great offer KoZeN, especially for those that are currently seeking a job...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I just hope people will be patient with me as the response has been immense!

As a recruiter I get frustrated when I hear about great candidates not even getting a look-in purely because of their CV.

Unfortunately few people are willing to pay to get their CV reviewed because a lot of people believe that it's purely a matter of opinion which can vary from employer to employer which is essentially true but there are a lot of fundamental errors that are universal and that's the advice I'm hoping to offer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Giving private feedback seems like a wasted opportunity to share your knowledge widely. Would you consider publishing somewhere both the CVs and your assessments, after removing personal data and companies names? Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER26> I am actually studying financial mathematics, so my resume might be up your alley, www.ivanbercovich.com/resume. I have been working on this piece of paper for quite some time, so I hope you like it.

</comment><comment><USER27> Is this a good opportunity for identity theft?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really.

As stated in the original post, I'm prefectly fine with people censoring their personal details as well as employer details. If you believe that a CV can furnish you with enough info to steal peoples identity then pay a job site $100 and you will get instant access to tens of thousands of CV's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> A recruiter collecting a big pile of resumes? - Imagine that! Call me a cynic, but I hope the motivations here are pure or at least balanced.

<comment><AUTHOR> _The logical critic in you will assume I'm offering to do this in order to generate leads or recruits and to counter-act that, I have no problem with you removing your personal details and even censoring company names._

If one single member of this website comes back to this page and complains that I abused this oportunity for my own personal gain then I will officially hold my hands up and accept the title as 'Worlds Biggest Idiot'. If you click my username you can clearly find my full name as well as the name of the company I work for. A quick google search with that info will furnish you with the address of the office I work from along with my direct line number.

Considering the fact that my career would be at stake, do you honestly believe I would abuse peoples trust like that?</comment></comment>


A must use tool for web designers - <AUTHOR> https://secure.proofhub.com/proofhub/signup?unlimited/monthly

<comment><USER2> I'm already using this and I'm loving it</comment>


Steve Jobs Says, "Fuck You Ruby Fanbois" - <AUTHOR> http://oppugn.us/posts/1270855147.html

<comment><USER2> This is one of Zeds weaker rants. He wants to piss of the Ruby community, yet it is far too obviously filled with bait. Time will show if the fish bites, however.

What is really going on is a war fought by proxy on the iPhone. The combatants are Adobe wanting to commoditize all platforms for their flash apps and Apple, who wants to keep the control of their platform. Ruby, Lisp (any), Haskell, Python, and Lua are not participants in the war, yet they got hit by the nuclear fallout.

The interesting question is how much Apple needs to do to piss off developers - which they need in their eco-system. While other platforms lags somewhat behind the iPhone, there is no doubt that the scales can tip quickly. I may be wrong, but I think rather few programmers make their pay from iPhone revenue streams.

<comment><USER3> Well, Rhodes guys say that they were not affected by the "nucler fallout": <http://rhomobile.com/2010/04/09/iphone-4-0-sdk-rules/>.

If that's the case, you can still code in Ruby for the IPhone.

If not, maybe xmlvm can do the job (<http://xmlvm.org/overview/>)

<comment><USER2> It is a legislative defensive move by Apple. I hardly doubt they would go after a highly successful and well-written Ruby application. Rather they want a way to pull everything flash at a whims notice with reference to the agreement. In other words, they set up a trap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This essay is basically based on the flaky foundation that the best way to develop software is to code for the underlying computation device. This is an unproved assertion, and so the rest of the essay basically falls apart.

The underlying device is severely limited in many ways. Programs are not composed of "blocks of memory". There are an infinite number of integers, not 2^64 of them. Etc.

It doesn't make much sense to structure functionality around these flawed assumptions unless you are absolutely sure your application's functionality is a subset of the computer's functionality. Since most iPhone applications let you do much more than just add numbers modulo 2^32, it makes sense that it should be built in terms of higher-level abstractions. Who cares if your app isn't "coded for the underlying machine". It works, and it's easy to add new features without breaking everything else!

(Some C-level abstractions are quite good, of course, like the function call stack. But a Scheme-like call _graph_ is even more natural.)

The goal in creating software is for your program text to describe the solution to your problem. It's easier to do this in the "problem domain" instead of "C", so we have created abstractions that allow us to think at the high-level of "problem" instead of the low-level of "electrons being pushed around through semiconductors".

Anyway, if you want to use an unpopular language so you can think you're better than everyone else, why not use Haskell instead? At least that way you get type safety, fast automatic memory management, composable libraries, interactive development, portability, and a friendly irc channel to hang out on.

Oh yeah, because you're a luddite, not a programmer. Sorry, I forgot.

<comment><USER5> Forget a flaky foundation, the whole 'essay' is full of meaningless hyperbole, and poorly written at that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _"getting up and running with Ruby on Rails on a Mac takes a metric fuck ton of ass raping"_

If by that colorful phrase you mean, "gem install rails". I'm pretty sure we ship a Rails product, and I'm pretty sure that we only issue people Macbooks running OSX, and I'm pretty sure he's wrong about that.

<comment><USER7> It's not that simple. You have to prepend that command with "sudo" and then, immediately after pressing enter, you have to type your password.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> <http://twitter.com/zedshaw/status/11909132752>

_"Now, work with me people, I want to get "Fuck" on HN front page again:<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1254189> ._

Touching how he cares about us...

</comment><comment><USER9> Eh, usually I like Zed's stuff; but this one sounds like every conversation I've had with every C developer ever.

It's not that learning C is a big deal, it's that it contains a lot of unnecessary work and there are nicer (read: more convenient) languages to work in. Good Ruby developers will probably make good C developers, and bad ones will be obviously bad.

I guess Zed's not over having his feelings hurt by the Ruby community yet.

I give this one a 5/10 (although, I should give a bonus point for successfully getting "fuck" on the front page again, I guess).

</comment><comment><USER10> Clearly, I only write Ruby because I never learned C (or Modula-2 and Java for that matter) first. And I'd never write in a high-level language to deploy to multiple platforms with totally different APIs.

Is this article supposed to be ridiculous ad-hominem, or is it sarcasm?

<comment><USER11> _These are also the guys who love Apple. Mostly because DHH loves Apple._

 _Well today, I am in love with Steve Jobs. He apparently agrees with me that these guys shouldn't be coding._

Flamebait, mostly. Sarcastic ? Not really, sarcasm implies some degree of subtlety.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I thought this was going to be something interesting about Apple's own MacRuby project, which many people were keen to see on the iPhone, but it's just a weird rant.

</comment><comment><USER13> Since when does blatant flamebait get 64 points on Hacker News?

I miss this site.

EDIT: Oh, it's Zed Shaw again. I'll continue in my delusional belief that blatant flamebait _not_ authored by Zed Shaw would be flag'd to death by now.

</comment><comment><USER14> can i code in c? yes.

do i want to? no.

<comment><USER15> Although I dislike a lot of what he said, this was part of his point. I was 'raised', so to speak, on C. I work with a lot of people who have only worked with mainstream high-level languages. What I find very often is that a lot of people spend a huge amount of time trying to understand the cause of some 'bug', and it essentially comes down to them not understanding what is actually going on when it comes to references, memory management, etc... I hate coding real-worlds apps in C, but as a language it's still one of my favorites because of what it forces you to truly understand. Convenience is nice, but not at the cost of misunderstanding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I thought Zed gave up on this style of posting. Really, the novelty wore off years ago.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm a big Zed Shaw fan, and I plan on sending a rant to this site, but I have to disagree with him here.

The real issue isn't that they're forcing developers to use C. The real issue is that they're forcing developers to conform to an arbitrary standard.

If people can write apps in Lua or C# that build and run on the phone, and that meet Apple's quality standards to get into the App Store, why should they care? What business is it of Apple's to tell independent iPhone developers how to do their jobs?

So, if I were going to write a rant about this, I'd write one about assholes who are too nosy about how I use the stuff they sold me. That might just be me though.

</comment><comment><USER18> "... gotta embrace the curly-brackets, and they can't call them fucking stache or mustache characters. They're called fucking curly-brackets, and if you can't call them that then me and my damn C friends are gonna laugh at you every day you come to work."

Oh noes! I'm a full-time C programmer doing linux-based networking OS stuff and I call them staches! I am probably going to get beat up at work now. Than being said, I don't think I really ever use "stache" or "curly-brace" in actual conversation, its just sort of implied when necessary.

</comment><comment><USER19> They won't have to learn C or much of memory management or anything about pointers because of that other Smalltalk influenced language full of fancy abstractions.

That dragging things around in Interface Builder and copy/pasting TableCell code off the web is more hardcore than a typical Ruby on Rails website is unfortunately not a realistic argument. That's why we have so many "haha, I farted" type apps.

</comment><comment><USER20> RoR is hard to get running on a Mac? WTF? I just compiled Ruby and Rubygems last night with zero issues. A simple "gem install rails" and it was done.

</comment><comment><USER21> While you can't deny Apple's right to control the app market (and even the development methods), why would anyone work with a vendor that _does_?

</comment><comment><USER22> OK, I think we get the point here.

Is it time for a flood of stories about how Erlang is no longer permitted on the iPhone, hint hint?

</comment><comment><USER23> Well, unless anyone is willing to re-implement Foundation and UIKit framework, writing iPhone apps with pure C will take forever.

</comment><comment><USER24> People should program in C because it is more difficult ? Then people should use punching card for the same reason.

People should program in C because some people programing in ruby are morons ? Great argument ...

I really don't see any valid argument why knowing C is such an enlightening experience (I would argue it is not).

<comment><USER25> Linus Torvalds famously said the same exact thing whilst bashing C++ (instead of Ruby as Zed does here).

      C++ is a horrible language. It's made more horrible by the fact that a lot
      of substandard programmers use it, to the point where it's much much
      easier to generate total and utter crap with it. Quite frankly, even if
      the choice of C were to do *nothing* but keep the C++ programmers out,
      that in itself would be a huge reason to use C.

[http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version- control.git/57643...](http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version- control.git/57643/focus=57918)

<comment><USER26> thanks for the amazing link (I'm 100% with the 'dinosaurs' on that one), it is worthy of a separate post

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> G-d forbid iFart be written in Ruby. Such important work should be left to C if you can't get all the way to assembler.

</comment><comment><USER28> There's a deeper socio-philosophical aspect to this rant. When you elevate a group of people to the level of Gods and give them totalitarian power, it certainly is funny when they use this newfound power to oppress you. Totalitarianism is possible only when the people behind a dictator allow it to exist. When it comes back to bite you in the backside, it's funny to observe how you react.

Is Apple a totalitarian government with Steve Jobs as it's dictator that was made possible by a decade of Ruby-like fanboyism? I don't know. Maybe, or maybe not. But is it funny to observe how all the Ruby fanboys squirm with this new Apple development? It sure is.

</comment><comment><USER29> Is he saying that Apple is doing this because of quality control? As in, programmers who program in C, C++ or OC are better programmers so you get better software?

<comment><USER30> More like programmers who program in C, C++ or ObjC are slower, so if their idea is actually worthy, we can copy it before they've grabbed enough land.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> _Nope, now they have to learn C and how RAM actually works, and what a fucking pointer is_

Those topics are _really_ important in Objective C..

</comment><comment><USER32> It's trolling, but it's spot-on trolling.

</comment><comment><USER33> Writing iPhone apps requires very little C. Objective-C is actually quite similar to Ruby.

<comment><USER34> [Why [Not [ThingsThatAreLikeOtherThings RubyTheProgrammingLanguage] ObjectiveCTheProgrammingLanguage] BecauseItsFuckingWordy]

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Way to go Zed!</comment>


A Google Prototype for a Precision Image Search - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/technology/28google.html?ref=business <comment><USER2> It not about improvement of image search in general (aka visual image search, CBIR etc), but about improvement of Google image search.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looking at the source paper, "PageRank for Product Image Search", it's clear this is the same approach Peter Norvig described at SS08.

Namely, start with a large set of candidate images based on textual context. Then, create a similarity graph between them using extracted features that are somewhat robust against scaling and other transformations. Then, find the central clusters of that graph, picking the 'most representative' images in the clusters as good, unique results.

<comment><USER3> PS #1: If Munjal Shah of Riya is quoted accurately -- "I think what they're trying to accomplish is largely impossible... Our belief is, there is not large-scale solutions." -- then Google is lucky to face such easily- discouraged competitors.

<comment><USER2> To be fair, they tried first THEN got discouraged. I also suspect that they are talking about different things.</comment></comment></comment>


The Real Value of $100 in Metropolitan Areas - <AUTHOR> http://taxfoundation.org/blog/real-value-100-metropolitan-areas-0

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://github.com/TaxFoundation/data/tree/master/real- purch...](https://github.com/TaxFoundation/data/tree/master/real-purchasing- power/current)

The data they used is available there.</comment>


Ask HN: Jobs & Startups in Seattle (urgentish) - <AUTHOR>

Urgency is relative - and this is a single serving account just for this question.
I live in NYC and my wife just got an offer for her dream job in Seattle. While I love my work here she put her carrier on-hold a long time so I could pursue mine. Long story short: me+her+kid are moving in 4 weeks or so to sunny tropical Seattle.
So I'm a developer (JS, CSS, PHP, 'HTML5', various CMSs, 3rd party API (Google, Twitter, FB, Bitly, Chartbeat, etc) browser plugins, PhoneGap and so on) with 7+ years experience who recently moved more into Product (ideas, prototyping, pitching, building, launching). All this on a web site with millions of pageviews a day. I know how to look for a 'developer' job but clueless as to product/developer roles.
We both need jobs for this move to be viable (she is in the culinary world) so I'd appreciate any tips on:
- large and small companies in Seattle that deal with the web that you'd recommend
- recommendations on job sites for (other than indeed.com - more like jobs.37signals.com)
- anything else you think could help!
I'll be at SXSW Interactive in a few days so if you know of any Seattle companies that will be there please respond too.
In many ways Amazon might be a good fit since I also come from a publishing/media company but I can't filter through their job listings enough to know what's a good fit or not... anyone from Amazon care to talk?
Thank you. <comment><USER2> Seattle 2.0 is pretty involved in the Seattle startup scene. You can check out their job board here at: <http://www.seattle20.com/jobs/>

Also, I know some TechStars Seattle companies are hiring. These jobs aren't listed on a particular website, but you can check out all the companies that launched in Seattle here: [http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/11/techstars- launches-ten-new-...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/11/techstars-launches-ten- new-startups-in-seattle/) If there is a company you're interested in, I can connect you to the founders as I am friends with alot of those TechStars folks.

TechFlash(<http://techflash.com>) is a good source that blogs about Seattle tech startups. You can keep an eye on that blog to see which companies received funding. I know BigTip.com just raised $500,000 and they are looking for a "hardcore web dev person".

Founders Co-op is an early stage investment group/incubator. Andy Sack(@andysack), the managing director of Founders Co-op and TechStars Seattle, has a list of his portfolio companies here <http://founderscoop.com/portfolio.php>. Some of them are hiring as well. You want to follow Andy Sack if you want to get on the ball with the Seattle startup scene. his blog is <http://asack.typepad.com>.

Hope any of this helps. I'll get back to you if I think of some more.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm an engineering director at Zynga's new Seattle office. Your skill set matches our open job reqs. Email me if you're interested.

</comment><comment><USER4> +1 on the STS list

FWIW - I did this exact thing in 2004 - I am one of the founders of PayScale (www.payscale.com). We (wife+3-month-old) moved from NYC to Seattle after we got funded. The 3 month old is now 6.5 and PayScale is doing pretty well :)

There is a pretty active startup community here. <http://www.seattle20.com/> is a good place to start.

There are a lot of startup events going on in Seattle. You can view <http://www.seattletechcalendar.com/> to see _some_ of them.

</comment><comment><USER5> You mentioned Amazon. Some other large companies are: Google (Fremont, Kirkland), Microsoft (Redmond, Bellevue), Facebook (near the Market).

</comment><comment><USER6> So, how do I get in touch with you? I'm the CTO at Cheezburger and we're looking for people just like you...<http://jobs.cheezburger.com>.

I'll be at SXSW if you'd like to meet in person. My contact info is on my blog: <http://scottporad.com/contact>.

</comment><comment><USER7> Hey, let's get in touch. I'm working on a cool early stage product that's just about perfect for a product/developer guy. Small focused team, consumer web, interesting product. I'll be at SXSW - hopefully we can meet for a beer and a demo.

(plus - if it turns out this isn't gig for you, happy to intro you to a friend at Amazon - etc).

</comment><comment><USER8> We just launched a recruiting promotion at SEOmoz (<http://www.seomoz.org/dp/engineer-page>) and would love to have you apply! If you know or bump into other dev friends at SXSW or in Seattle, feel free to send some of those folks over too :-)

You're gonna love Seattle - it's an awesome town, and the opportunities for engineers are incredibly right now.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you're willing to learn Rails, Whitepages.com is in Seattle and is hiring engineers. I used to work there and left only to pursue my own passions, but there's a great team there and it was a fun job.

[https://whitepagesinc.tms.hrdepartment.com/jobs/208/Software...](https://whitepagesinc.tms.hrdepartment.com/jobs/208/Software- Engineers-All-Levels-Seattle-in-Seattle-WA)

</comment><comment><USER10> Heh, it's funny, I'm about to do almost this exact same thing. We're in the Bay Area and my wife-like-person / girlfriend got a job at Microsoft in Redmond so to Seattle we go. My company is actually based there and is hiring: <http://pathable.com/hiring-front-end-back-end-developer/>. Might be a good fit.

</comment><comment><USER11> Email me. I'm at amazon.

</comment><comment><USER12> We've got a few open positions in Seattle at Brightcove: <http://www.brightcove.com/en/company/careers>

</comment><comment><USER13> Joining the Seattle Tech Startups mailing list can't hurt. You'll meet some interesting folks on there, and should be able to get some leads on jobs.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks everyone for the suggestions, help, and direct info - this is much more than I imagined. I'll follow up directly with those who posted contact info tomorrow - I'll get my resume dusted and up to date first.

I've added an e-mail address to my profile. Spoiler alert: firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER14> Check out substantial - <http://substantial.com/> \- I think they have some guys who will be at SXSW.

Also, check out opscode (opscode.com) - Both are promising startups.

</comment><comment><USER15> Great recommendations everybody. One more:

Once you're in Seattle, NWEN events are also great places for networking with startups. <http://www.nwen.org/></comment>


German Students Hit 201 MPH in SpaceX Hyperloop Contest - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-28/german-students-hit-201-mph-in-spacex-hyperloop-contest <comment><USER2> Half as fast as a train: [http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/21/asia/japan-maglev- train-wo...](http://edition.cnn.com/2015/04/21/asia/japan-maglev-train-world- record/index.html)

<comment><USER3> That's not really the point—this test track is very short (0.8 mi). I don't really think the competition proves anything, but at least it's good PR.</comment></comment>


Can stablecoins live up to their name? - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2018/10/20/a-new-form-of-cryptocurrency-promises-to-defy-financial-gravity <comment><USER3> In a word, no.

To have a usable, stable exchange rate into something (other than a related cryptocurrency), there must be another party who stands willing to buy and sell the thing at that pegged rate.

Read up on the history of currency pegs. Generally speaking, even with the best efforts of nation-states with millions of citizens, actual gold mines, and literal armies, maintaining a peg is a fool's errand.

<comment><USER4> > there must be another party who stands willing to buy and sell the thing at > that pegged rate.

Most stable coins claim there is. For example, Tether claims that they hold equal US dollars for Tethers issued. If true, they would be in a position to be able to buy or sell at the pegged rate and never run out of either dollars or Tethers (since they can be manufactured).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The title is clickbait.

TLDR: Gotchya! This is a Stablecoin 101 article. Stablecoins on an exchange are pegged to a certain value via algorithms and you park your money there temporarily so you don't have to cash out in fiat in order to avoid volatility. Some stablecoins are known to have lost their peg, so be careful.

<comment><USER6> They don't all work the same way. Some, like Tether, claim to be fully backed by USD. But it's similarly unstable and is spectacularly shady.

<comment><USER7> The smoke is already going up when, right now Tether has been at a value of $0.95 for more than a week and Bitfinex who is likely to be behind the Tether corp has its Bitcoin price above 5% above market average.

Reminds me of MtGox when it its price was going off the rest of the market until collapsed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Crypto currencies have created something called triple entry accounting. Double entry accounting, invented in Florence in 1300's has enabled debt which is the reason the city flourished. I wonder what does triple accounting enable?

<comment><USER9> Can you elaborate on how double entry accounting enabled debt?

Debt existed way before Pacioli invented (borrowed?) double entry accounting.

For instance, in the Bible, Proverbs 22:7 - "The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender."

<comment><USER10> Debt existed several thousand years before _money_ was invented[1]. Regarding the bible's many references to debt: note that it doesn't talk about _inventing_ debt. The concept of debt - and the problems it creates - <USER2> already commonplace enough that for priests to add social commentary about debt into religious texts. Predating the book of Proverbs by ~700 years, Leviticus 25:8-13 discuses the concept of a "Jubilee" every 50 years where slaves/prisoners were freed and _debts were forgiven_.

Double entry bookkeeping was a great idea that expanded many aspects of business and finance because it was a type of _error detection_ for complex accounts that could be done - in the era before calculating machines - by hand using _only addition_.

[1] See David Graeber's writings/talk for a good overview of the ancient history of debt and the invention of early forms of money from the need to standardize debts/payments/etc.</comment></comment></comment>


A 40-year-old computer demo that still amazes - <AUTHOR> http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/12/11/A_40yearold_computer_demo_that_still_amazes_1.html

<comment><USER2> Here's the demo on Google video: [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8734787622017763097...](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8734787622017763097&q=engelbart)</comment>


A graveyard for good domains you let expire - <AUTHOR> http://goodbye.domains/ <comment><USER2> Can't wait to find this on archive.org when the OC lets this domain expire

<comment><USER3> Haha, actually my original domain for the unlaunched project was restinpeace.website, which I let expire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like this site very much. As a hoarder, it's a pleasure to read the ideas that others have had, and abandoned. It makes me want to finally let go of some of my domains, so that they may be memorialized.

</comment><comment><USER5> This has happened to me too many times. When I was a teenager in the early 2000's, I got pseudoquasi.com, and even back then people were surprised it was available. Now I have sound.fm, which is way better and more relevant to my interests, and I think I've literally woken up in a cold sweat thinking I let it expire. Never again.

</comment><comment><USER6> laughed out loud at the old AOL goodbye sound byte

</comment><comment><USER7> Oh I need to add 10 domains to this list.

<comment><USER3> Looking forward to finding out what they are! We'll memorialize your best ones.</comment></comment>


Your startup needs to understand: Aesthetic vs Design - <AUTHOR> http://patrickalgrim.me/posts/9-aesthetic-vs-design

<comment><USER2> I like seeing articles like this every now and again up here. It's not particularly novel, and it's not particularly groundbreaking, but I still regularly meet people who forget what role design should play in project/startup/etc.

On a slightly related note, I feel like software developer should see the design process as a valuable tool in his/her tool belt. It's worth it to take a brief class if you are still able/willing.

</comment><comment><USER3> I had a hard time with the way this concept was expressed.

I can't imagine directing a designer to _create a cost-effective simple and desired result for a transaction_ and expect to get anything meaningful.

I would like to see specific ideas and use cases in which design improves product, marketing, sales or other business areas.

<comment><USER4> That's a great point. And its something I may have to write about. There's a way to achieve this, it just takes practice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The premise functions in a world where one's design ontology permits the separation of "aesthetic" and "design."

Sadly it is nothing more than a rehashing of late Modernist Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's privileged ontogoly peddling.

I would hope modern work aspires higher.</comment>


Why aren't we serving rss feeds as json? - <AUTHOR>

Just curious why we are still serving them as xml and not json???  Then they would basically become a REST interface, right? <comment><USER2> I was wondering the same thing. I think it would make sense. Here are a couple of interesting pages I found:

<http://rssjs.org/> [http://scripting.com/stories/2012/09/10/rssInJsonForReal.htm...](http://scripting.com/stories/2012/09/10/rssInJsonForReal.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> The nerd in me likes this idea. But I can't see the practical use. Nevertheless, seeing the DEATH of the RSS INDUSTRY following the killing of Google Reader, a new format wouldn't feel out of place. Fresh new start and everything... :)

</comment><comment><USER4> a) What benefit would you expect from JSON over XML justifying a new standard?

b) REST does not imply JSON.

c) Question marks are not pack animals.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think its the same reason html isn't json. json wasn't as widely used when the spec was created.</comment>


Google gives users a clean desk.  Yahoo gives them a messy house. - <AUTHOR> http://n8.tumblr.com/post/77817247/forgot-about-probably-the-most-popular-example-of-a

<comment><USER2> one is a search, the other is a portal. Big difference.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, totally, and I'm trying to say that too. I totally understand they are different things. And maybe that's still the best strategies for them respectively.

But, you still can't help notice that Yahoo has and is still disintegrating going with "portal", and Google doing search as their primary entrance to all things Google has won so much from Yahoo: Search,advertising,maps,etc

Maybe things could have been slightly different for Yahoo if portal had been moved as a second priority to a clean desk search.</comment></comment>


Car makers ask the US to slow down on rules for self-driving tech - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2016/04/09/car-makers-oppose-fast-self-driving-regulation/ <comment><USER2> The way I see it, self-driving cars are going to decimate car sales. When self driving cars can operate 24/7 and be shared among all users of transportation network companies, there will be far fewer cars sold. So many car assets sit parked and unused for most of the day. Slowing down progress, lets car manufacturers sell more cars for more years.

</comment><comment><USER3> An attempt by legacy car makers to hobble the likes of Tesla and Google.</comment>


Did Einstein say that?: Testing content vs. context in quotations (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/x8db2/ <comment><USER2> Sorry to "hijack" this, but I wonder if someone can either debunk this being by Rosa Luxemburg, or give me a pointer towards a source? I love this quote, but I'm skeptical to say the least.

 _My dear,_

 _Have you noticed how those who move, move fast? And those who don't, just stand still; motionless?_

 _Yes, you can go ahead and rant to me about how an object in motion stays in motion, and how an object at rest stays at rest. But, I think there's more to this than physics._

 _I think those in motion have seen something the others have not; their imprisonment._

 _While those who do not move, do not notice their chains._

 _Truly yours,_

 _Rosa Luxemburg_

<comment><USER3> A great source for this sort of question is Wikiquote. It classifies the quote as "misattributed"[0], and says that it "appears to be something Luxemburg could have said or written, but searches for a source have been unsuccessful". It cites this page[1] as evidence.

[0] [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rosa_Luxemburg#Misattributed](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rosa_Luxemburg#Misattributed) [1] [https://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2013/07/06/referenc...](https://librarianshipwreck.wordpress.com/2013/07/06/reference- desk-unanswered-questions/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have fallen into some incredible quotation-source searching a few times, spending hours looking through old scans of documents that only exist in archives. But when I think I find the original author, I'm astounded how some people can prove that even those are a paraphrase of a more ancient example. And then you have sites like [https://quoteinvestigator.com/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/)

What are some of the tricks in quotation investigation?

<comment> GuB-42 Isn't it possible that quotes have simply been rediscovered many times?

There are billions of people on earth, and we all have witty things to say. And inspirational quotes don't carry much information, so many people are bound to say the same thing, especially if you consider the meaning instead of the literal formulation.

The same thing happens with jokes, especially puns. For example, try making a joke on someone's name. Even if you just made it up, there is a high chance that the person in question have already heard it.

<comment><USER5> A simple example for this is all the equivalent proverbs that exist in different languages which are not translations of one another.

Edit: an example is "venturing into the lion's den" in Spanish is "falling into the wolf's mouth" (Ir a caer en la boca del lobo).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've always been fascinated by these misattributions of wise/witty sayings to famous figures. The words aren't allowed to stand on their own, they have to be vouched for by a suitably impressive and high status person.

My favorite is how, even in the realm of conspiracies that Shakespeare didn't write his plays, the posited true author is invariably another famous Elizabethan personality, e.g. Francis Bacon.

God forbid the Shakespeare plays were actually written by some random nobody.

<comment><USER7> I have a theory of "quotation attraction". It explains my observations that a good saying from someone relatively obscure often gets misattributed to someone more famous, especially someone witty such as Dorothy Parker. Any famous, witty person will have a bunch of cool quotations attiributed to her that were actually said by someone else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Likely more misattributed quotes go to Mark Twain than any other person to ever exist.

Examples: [https://newengland.com/today/living/humor/mark-twain- didnt-s...](https://newengland.com/today/living/humor/mark-twain-didnt-say- that-incorrect-quotes/)

</comment><comment><USER9> "Quotations allegedly of me on the internet are rarely legitimate" AlbertEinstein.

<comment><USER10> 85% of quotes on the internet are made up. - Abraham Lincoln, probably underestimating the percentage considerably.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are internships mainly for college grads? - <AUTHOR>

I hit my 3 year first-post-college-job anniversary a few months ago, and I want out of my industry because it bores me to tears (storage, fwiw). Not sure what's next, but I've had a lot of fun lately playing around with Python (it's C/C++ at work). I'm thinking maybe a hip, young web biz is a better fit for me, but I have nothing on my resume remotely related.
I know some common advice might be to build something in Python and show it to a potential employer, but I don't think anything I've coded thus far is substantial enough to impress anyone.
So I was wondering, would an internship doing something web-ish/pythony be an option? Even with 3 years work experience? I'd rather not live off savings, so living expenses would be nice...but is this taking a step backwards? Should I do something instead like work harder writing a neato python app? It's just tough finding the hours to build something cool in my free time after burning out at work all day.
Sincerely, -BoredInMassachusetts <comment><USER2> Internships are generally for University students, but it's not a completely strict rule. I worked with a going-on-thirty intern, a graduate student with a wife and a kid! You'll definitely get some odd looks as a non-student, but there's nothing stopping you.

However, given that, I would shy away from the intern route. It is a step backwards in terms of respect and resumé building, and you have enough seniority to set your goals higher than an intern.

I would seek out a full-time job doing some interesting work. Amazon might be a good pick: they have a lot of interesting problems there, and they're looking for solid talent. I had an interview with them for an internship a while back, but ultimately declined the offer for a better position.

Also, don't reject anything that's non-webbish. I know the Web 2.0 / AJAX / Social shopping cart siren is appealing, but there are a lot of cool problems being solved in big established companies too.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why don't you want to live off savings? Taking 2 months to make something impressive seems like money well spent, to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's actually an option I hadn't considered...taking time off to work on something myself, as opposed to an internship. I know a lot of people around here can operate on 5 hours of sleep and pick up their personal project immediately after 10+ hours of working for the man, but I just don't have the energy reserves for it. I will consider doing that, thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What kinds of things would you like to work on instead of storage?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure on specifics honestly, but it would probably be a web based business (facebook, reddit, amazon) and use python. But maybe it's naive to narrow my search by what language they use.

<comment><USER4> Why does it have to be web-based?

<comment><AUTHOR> Because that's what I find interesting I guess. Having a living, active product is just sort of fascinating to me. But I'm sure there's non-web stuff out there that I would dig too. The question was more about the internship thing.

<comment><USER4> Well, its pretty important to know what your interests are. It sounds like you're not too sure about what you want. From my experience, one learns a helluva lot from an internship when you're not thinking about the money and spending more time loving whatever it is your working on. I don't think there are many Python shops around here, but I do know a few openings you might be interested in ;-).

<comment><AUTHOR> That is true...I'm not too sure at all. I guess my plan is just to see what's out there and what sounds cool to me. If you know of a few internships or jobs, I'd love to hear about them, 0xdefec8 at gmail dot com Much appreciated, thank you!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Postful Allows You to Send Snail Mail via Email - <AUTHOR> http://startupmeme.com/2007/04/09/postful-allows-you-to-send-snail-mail-via-email/ <comment><USER2> This sounds like someone took Gmail Paper -- <http://mail.google.com/mail/help/paper/index.html> \-- a bit too seriously.

</comment><comment><USER3> Number 1 problem is privacy, how safe is it to put in things?</comment>


Lessons Learned from the Long-Awaited Shutdown of Google+ - <AUTHOR> https://www.adweek.com/digital/lessons-learned-from-the-long-awaited-shutdown-of-google/ <comment><USER2> hangouts killed the whole thing. As soon as I joined, I had a sea of hookers etc at my door wanting to 'hangout' with me. I have zero interest is wasting my time with fools like this who want only money and time. Anyone who is denied can get any number of burn accounts to pester me with. The Chinese are correct in trying to make each person have one and only one personal account so you know you have a true identity on both ends

<comment><USER3> How many accounts do you have? Who would you want and trust to consolidate every one of them for you?

<comment><USER2> One gmail, who needs more, and for each thing I sign up for

<comment><USER3> That's a reasonable answer for leisure access, since I also do the same wherever possible. It does open the door to seamlessly trying different web apps and services without the pain of lengthy registrations for something you might only look at once.

But gmail can't and shouldn't do it all.

I'm not sure if gmail facilitates your online banking. I didn't think that was even legal. I'd be irate if Google ads started presenting stock advice to me based on my qtrade transactions, or drug brands based on my doctor's online communications with me. Separate accounts all the way.</comment></comment></comment></comment>