Silk Road Founder Says Bitcoin Booms And Busts Won't Kill His Black Market - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/04/16/founder-of-drug-site-silk-road-says-bitcoin-booms-and-busts-wont-kill-his-black-market/ <comment><USER2> It is ridiculous to talk about the Bitcoin "bust" when it is still trading at $60-70 which was the _all-time high_ as of March 20, a mere 4 weeks ago ?!

"Bust" means "a complete failure". Bitcoin, so far, is an incredible success. Let's not let the temporary bubble of the past week blind us from the big picture.

Edit: the only failure are the buyers who lost money because they failed to realize it was stupidly dangerous to buy during a price bubble.

<comment><USER3> Yep big vendors such as OKCupid (today) announced they were accepting bitcoins [1]. A ton of hype was created thanks to the "boom" and people started paying attention.

The only losers were the speculators who hoarded BTC at higher prices and didn't cash out.

The average consumer used it as a decentralized [2] transactional tool and not a rational capital investment.

There is still, very much so, legitmate value in bitcoins. Assuming legitimate value exists, stability always comes after bubbles.

[1] [http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/04/16/okcupid-partners- wi...](http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/04/16/okcupid-partners-with- coinbase-to-become-the-latest-web-service-to-support-bitcoin/)

[2] [http://paulbohm.com/articles/bitcoins-value-is- decentralizat...](http://paulbohm.com/articles/bitcoins-value-is- decentralization/)

<comment><USER4> The 'average consumer' has almost no way of obtaining bitcoins, AFAICT, without going through long validation processes at an exchange or paying significantly (50%) more to some other service.

Huge barrier to entry there.

<comment><USER3> What? When was the last time you tried?

In Canada you signup at <https://www.cavirtex.com/> then go to any of the big banks and deposit cash into an account with an account number. No validation required, takes 2-4 hours to complete.

In the USA with <http://bitinstant.com/> you go to CVS/Walmart or other vendors and use MoneyGram to deposit cash. No validation required, takes 30-60 minutes to complete.

Or just use <http://bitlocal.com/>

It's as easy as paying a bill...

<http://howdoyoubuybitcoins.com/>

<comment><USER4> UK here.

Localbitcoins relies on someone close by selling at near market rate, which seems unlikely (bitlocal.com is not a bitcoin site, btw.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _To insulate those sellers against Bitcoin fluctuations, the eBay-like drug site also offers a hedging service. Sales are held in escrow until buyers receive their orders via mail, and vendors are given the choice to turn on a setting that pegs the escrow's value to the dollar, with Silk Road itself covering any losses or taking any gains from Bitcoin's swings in value that occur while the drugs are in transit._

I was wondering exactly how vendors could have withstood a > 50% loss of value while their Bitcoins were in escrow. Silk Road is a remarkable service and provides an experience that will keep the value of Bitcoin alive at some level for a long time.

<comment><USER6> _So while Bitcoin's crash last week from $237 to less than $100 means that the Dread Pirate Roberts was likely forced to pay out much of the extra gains Silk Road made from Bitcoin's rise, most of his sellers were protected from those price changes and continued to trade their drugs for Bitcoins despite the currency's plummeting value._

Is that a good assumption that most sellers would have taken this protection? Given how Bitcoin was rising I would have thought at least some would have taken the gamble (and lost), but no idea how many.

<comment><USER7> I think many were taking the gamble. What ended up happening is that a bunch of vendors who did not take the hedging canceled the orders. Since hedging doesn't protect buyers, the buyers just get their original btc back; this made a lot of people upset and their are multiple threads on reddit and the silk road forums calling out these vendors who essentially cheated the escrow/hedging system.

I wonder if it will have an effect with buyers demanding hedging as well.

<comment><USER3> > I think many were taking the gamble

The article says many _didn't_ take the gamble:

> As a result, only about 1,000 sales listings out of more than 11,000 were > taken off the site during the crash, according to DPR. "Those were from > vendors who didn't protect themselves," he (or she) says. "The volatility > only hurts vendors who don't hedge their escrow balance."

<comment><USER6> Did the 10,000 take the protection, or did some of them gamble, but chose to honour they sales (and/or had already shipped product with funds still in escrow before the price dropped)?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _"If I spend $100 on drugs now and the price of [Bitcoin] doubles in a week, then I've effectively spent $200 on those drugs by next week."_

Even if you're buying drugs with hard cash on a street corner, the fact remains that you would probably be financially better off by investing that money rather than trading it for drugs - hell, you could buy some Bitcoins with it as your (somewhat risky) investment if you so wish!

From the same person: " _Addicts. People who need their drugs and will pay for them, despite knowing that they could buy twice as much for the same money in a week._ "

I don't get why he is ignoring the fact that Bitcoin could also halve in value in a week's time (errr, like it just has!), or why Forbes are quoting someone who seems to think that investing in Bitcoin is guaranteed to make you money. Or why that person is a user on Silk Road if he thinks that every week he doesn't spend on there he can double his money.

<comment><USER8> > _the fact remains that you would probably be financially better off by > investing that money rather than trading it for drugs_

False. Investment is risky, the higher the return the riskier. Dealing drugs has potentially a lower rate of return but also a lower financial risk, typically.

<comment><USER6> I was talking buying drugs, not selling drugs, as the question in the article was "do I buy these drugs, or hold onto my Bitcoins".

<comment><USER9> Many people who buy drugs on SR buy them to sell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd like to speculate that the name of the founder(s) is a small hint towards them being US-Americans:

The Dread Pirate Roberts is a fictional character from The Princess Bride (book and movie), who in the novel turns out to be not one person, but a title given from one retiring pirate to the next successor because it's easier to work as a pirate when everybody is scared of you.

In this case, it's a fun way to hint that Silk Road is not operated by a single person, but by a group from what I think are US-Americans. There I merely speculate: I think the movie was a success in the US but not much in any other country. In fact, the only people who've quoted the movie to me are US-Americans.

Can people from other countries weigh in on this? Would non-Americans choose this as a pseudonym?

<comment><USER11> The Princess Bride is extremely popular among 20-40 year olds in the Anglosphere. Australia, Canada, USA, UK.

This narrows down your search for the Dread Pirate Roberts to like 150 million people. So the fact that this English speaking Silk Road founder is from the English speaking world and was probably a child or teenager in the 80s is not really narrowing it down much.

<comment><USER10> 150 million people out of 7.079 billion possible candidates? In my view that is narrowing it down a lot!

<comment><USER12> It does narrow it down, but not to any useful level. For all intents and purposes, trying to pick someone from a pool of 150 million vs 7 billion is essentially the same level of impossible.

<comment><USER13> Really interesting article on using information theory to narrow down suspects of crime: <http://www.gwern.net/Death%20Note%20Anonymity>

<comment><USER12> That is pretty interesting. The wikipedia edit time example is particularly revealing. The AC hum stuff is truly fascinating!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Elon Musk Thinks Automation Will Lead to a Universal Basic Income - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2016/11/06/elon-musk-universal-basic-income/ <comment><USER2> If he's "not sure what else one would do," he needs to think bigger. I'm amazed that America seems so locked in to maximum laissez-faire that the idea that UBI is the actual solution has become remotely popular.

When truck drivers are replaced by self-driving cars, they won't see their monthly allowance as a benefit. People want to have control over their lives far more than they just want to survive. Sure, you have income. You can spend it on more plastic goods sold by the company that took your job, more consumer electronics sold by the company that took your job, more fast food from the company that took your job, all delivered on a fleet of drones from the company that took your job, while trying not to piss off the government infested with lobbyists from the company that took your job, lest they cut off your allowance and leave you for dead. Cycle that money right back to the same rich guys who claim to function on meritocracy and judge every applicant into their world by their ability to speak the arbitrary jargon, bolstered by a nice degree, the right level of expensive casual dress, and your race and gender. Or you could buy a gun.

Giving people comfort without giving them power is a recipe for revolution, and Silicon Valley doesn't get that they'll be the first against the wall; they'll still be wringing their hands and wondering why people voted for Trump when neoliberalism could give them so many cool new phones. Very few people in America are actually starving or on the streets; far more are committing suicide, either directly or through slow drug addiction, not because they don't have the means to survive but because they don't have the means to control their own lives, create their own future for themselves and their families, have the level of basic dignity that a solution like "here's your allowance, now go back to school and study hard" will never provide. Collective ownership, working democracy, a real attempt at a post-scarcity society is "what else one would do."

Welfare is important. UBI could be a fine way of making sure people don't starve to death. That hasn't been the major issue in the developed world for a long time now.

<comment><USER3> Just because people are not actively starving to death does not mean they are not going hungry, skipping or skimping on meals due to a lack of cash flow; I encourage you to look more deeply into food security (for lack of a better entrypoint, the University of California recently did a study as part of the "Global Food Initiative" and concluded 42% of its students are food insecure). Maybe food isn't an issue in your world, or in my life, but remember: we are the kind of people who sit around and read Hacker News and are the kinds of people whose professions and in some cases _hobbies_ either directly or indirectly have massive effects on other people's lives by undermining the need for not just their job, but all jobs similar in nature to their job; we will have "the last jobs" :/.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "I don't know what else you could do."

This article regurgitates the same crap I've heard for 45 years, and people have been saying it for longer than that. What else can you do? Same thing that's always been done: automate, take the extra profits for yourself, and the line workers can piss off. I have zero reason to believe it will ever be otherwise.

<comment> norea-armozel Or we can take the means of production and hold them in common for the workers? Automation would be the added benefit of not having to slog through 50+ hour work weeks.

<comment><USER4> Too bad the U. S. has had almost a hundred years to drill into us that anything even slightly along what you mention is to be met with an immediate reaction: "that sounds a lot like COMMUNISM!". At which point common protocol dictates that the discussion is now over.

<comment> norea-armozel Absolutely true, but it's weird that socialism had it's chance in states like Minnesota and Kansas. It's sad to see it never went anywhere.

<comment><USER5> Minnesota has a significant Scandinavian heritage, that's where the socialism mindset comes from. And I think it works pretty well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While I think UBI would perhaps be a good solution to unemployment that increased automation is going to cause, I fear we will end up with a situation like in Kurt Vonnegut's Piano Player[0]: those who aren't working will have much lower status and living quality than those working, even if they do have some UBI.

[0]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano_\(novel\))</comment>


Ask HN: How do you regularly upgrade java libraries in huge code bases? - <AUTHOR>

I'm curious as to how other companies or teams upgrade libraries in huge code bases. For my particular use case, I'm having to deal with an ancient guava java library jar (4-5 years) and any new library I try to add pulls in the latest or a much newer version than I have and wrecks havoc. At this point, I'm not sure if upgrading guava is worth it given the vast amount of code fixes that needs to be done and runtime issues that will be hard to reproduce. So, I wanted to ask how others upgrade their library jars and keep them up to date. <comment><USER3> It depends on the target. If this is a server, then you could potentially keep multiple copies of Guava in your lib (with different namespaces) and use the appropriate one (this will also require some jiggering with the compile flags for various modules to make sure the right one gets pulled in). It'll add a lot of bloat, but that may not matter.

If you're deploying to Android... you're kinda screwed. You can't afford the space to duplicate.

Honestly, I think the best way is the facebook/google way here - <USER2> frequently and aggressively. Which might not be helpful advice after a long time of not doing exactly that.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are spot on, upgrading frequenty and aggressively is the right way to go when the libs themselves are on the stable version. I was planning to upgrade them by release by release to avoid huge updates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Try to avoid huge upgrades but update regularly. Create an automated process that checks at least daily if there are updates and integrate them as fast as possible. Keeping your frameworks up-to-date is important security wise.

If you use maven take a look at [http://www.mojohaus.org/versions-maven- plugin](http://www.mojohaus.org/versions-maven-plugin) . This can be integrated into a maven build and it checks if there are any new versions to your dependencies.

</comment><comment><USER5> You should always have sufficient unit tests and integration tests for your code base. so that you can confidently upgrade all your libraries whenever you want if the tests pass.</comment>


Faceparty tells critics to F*** Off, suspends entire site - <AUTHOR> http://uk.techcrunch.com/2008/06/24/faceparty-tells-critics-to-f-off-suspends-entire-site/ <comment><USER3> Not a marketing ploy.

My (old) firm used to represent the founder behind faceparty (Lance). He really is like that in person and would certainly shut the site to spite the users.

Good to see it has had a positive effect though!

</comment><comment><USER4> From the headline I was thinking, "there goes techcrunch being sensationalist again".

But no, they're pretty much dead on here.

</comment><comment><USER5> Good for them.

Running a social network is like running a bar (or pub in this case). If the owners get fed up and are willing to live with the consequences, why not lock the doors and go to the zoo for the day?

<comment><USER6> Looks like their traffic has been in decline a bit though. But as they say, it's not like they are paying customers.

Some users can get pretty abusive after a while.

I'm not sure why they didn't just direct the troublemakers to this page, and let others access the site though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> C'mon guys, it's a time tested business strategy.

Anyone remember Cartmanland?

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

</comment><comment><USER8> Am I the only one that wanted to sign up after reading the message? ;-)

<comment><USER9> For their sake, hopefully you (and others) do.

<http://www.google.com/trends?q=faceparty.com>

It might reverse the trend (pun intended).

<comment><USER10> _> pun intended_

<http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=puns>

;)

<comment><USER11> No, actually, the phrases "pun intended" and "no pun intended" don't mean anything of the sort. Stop whining, they're just a friendly gesture. ;)

<comment><USER10> _> Stop whining_

You are telling maddox, not me, right?

<comment><USER11> Maddox being the author of the link, I suppose that yes, I was. Sorry if that sounded too aggressive -I just don't think that the link really added anything or was appropriate to the parent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is the most entertainment I've gotten from a social network in a long time.

</comment><comment><USER13> Am I the only one who can't stand that horrible spelling? "TO THA HATERZ" indeed.

<comment><USER14> Somehow, fake gangsta-isms are even more irritating coming from Brits.

I know, I didn't think that was possible either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wow, but then again, I'd be pissed too. People's attitudes about what they are 'owed' can be offensive sometimes and the Internet just seems to bring out the worst jerks. Maybe if Faceparty shuts down for good, people will learn to not expect things for free? Hopefully, but I doubt it.

</comment><comment><USER3> A rare case of reverse psychology actually working on the net? (...especially for a "social" media site).

Anyone know of other successful cases?

<comment><USER6> I think it's a _bit_ early to tell if it's worked yet or not.

<comment><USER3> Point taken.

All the publicity I have seen so far has been favourable i.e. not bad and will encourage people to join rather than leave.

Was wondering about other precedents?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Unlike Twitter, you've got to have good uptime for this sentiment to be effective.

Tags: [Faceparty] [Twitter] [uptime] [reliability] [denied]

</comment><comment><USER17> Can we please keep the poor language (or allusions to it) off the frontpage? It used to be the sort of thing that separated hacker news from the rest.

<comment><USER18> Our goal isn't to be the most Christian social news site. That's not how we want to be separated.

<comment><USER17> > Our goal isn't to be the most Christian social news site.

"Our" goal? You.. claim to represent the hacker news community? And - <USER2> presume only - downvote me for my opinion?

I don't want it to be Christian. Just refined :) Just because it's a social setting on the internet doesn't mean it has to be trashy.

If someone goes through my comments and finds I've broken my own standard here somewhere in my history on the site then I admit my hypocracy in advance. I think I've been good though - hacker news tends to be civilised and there's a feedback loop in that.

<comment><USER19> As omouse pointed out, "fuck" was starred out. Besides that, "Fuck tha Haterz" was what was plastered on the faceparty site. I actually am glad that the OP included "F __*" in the headline, because it's accurately conveys the newsworthiness of the article.

Shutting down your social site with a profanity ridden rant on the front page isn't something I've read of anyone doing before, and it will be interesting to see the result (if anyone ever follows up).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Math ∩ Programming - <AUTHOR> http://jeremykun.com/primers/

<comment><USER2> It seems there are a lot of gaps in his primers -- he includes topology and some intro to Python, but the actual heart of programming -- algorithms and algorithm techniques -- is mostly missing.

This is of course his right -- it's just a collection of blog posts after all -- but caveat lector.

I would probably go for textbooks instead. Textbooks usually do give a bigger picture in the topics mentioned and they usually have an acceptable learning curve, so no additional primer is required (though as always, googling additional info is a plus).

If you're learning CS, it's often super useful to mix and match two or three textbooks to get a nice picture of things. For example, when you're reading an Algorithms book about graph traversal, it's nice to read a book on graph theory as well. Conversely, several equalities in graph theory can be proven by a simple algorithm (greedy or DFS, for instance).

My personal favourite is mixing up Dynamic Programming (from an Algorithms textbook) with recurrence solving in a discrete math book (which is what DP is actually about) and mixing all that with a more advanced chapter of discrete math -- generating functions.

<comment><USER3> I agree it would be nice if the gaps in his primers were filled in, but it's to have a resource like this that can help give an understanding of at least some of the topics related to math and programming.

I know from my experiences that trying to read a discrete math or algorithms and data structures textbook can be very daunting. I've also tried viewing the lectures of the algorithms class on Coursera and usually give up because of the difficulty of trying to learn these things after spending 8 hours coding at work. Not having a background in computer science makes this into an uphill battle. Any resource to make this struggle easier is greatly encouraging to me.

<comment><USER4> I have a similar problem. It's really hard to work 8 - 10 hours then come home and try to have the steam to dive into a mathematics or algorithms textbook and go through it in a way that really lets me internalize the material.

Could be that I just haven't found the right books or rhythm for this kind of learning, though. Doesn't help that I'm a pretty disorganized person with my time outside of work, heh.

I've read a few posts on this blog before, and remember enjoying them. I'll have to read a few more. I think it's partly because of how much I hated formal education, and partly because a blog doesn't have the same physical presence as a textbook, but blog posts are less psychologically draining to think about than a book, for me.

<comment><USER5> I'd recommend downloading some lectures. I struggled with Linear Algebra before downloading Strang's MIT lectures, and I didn't understand the Dragon Book before following Coursera's Automata Theory course.

<comment><USER4> I have Strang's calc and linear algebra books.

I had a really math light college degree, and never went through calc. It's always been pretty interesting and seams to show up enough places to warrant learning it, but I'm awful with time management. I'm bad about not giving myself consistent blocks of time to work through things. I think I'll give strang's calc videos another shot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What communities are best for discussing mathematics when learning? As Jeremy describes in another post ([http://jeremykun.com/2013/02/08/why-there-is-no- hitchhikers-...](http://jeremykun.com/2013/02/08/why-there-is-no-hitchhikers- guide-to-mathematics-for-programmers/)), it's really difficult to learn math without talking to other people. StackExchange seems alright, but are there other good places to ask questions? Maybe an IRC channel?

<comment><USER7> You might find this interesting - <http://functionspace.org/discussion/new> There is lots of interesting stuff on Math, Physics and Computer Science

P.S -I founded it.

<comment><USER8> it would be slick if your site could store notes of this sort. perhaps that's what the articles feature is for?

but what about storing notes mainly intended for personal use and referencing in discussions? other users could see these by viewing a profile or following a link in an article or discussion, but such notes wouldn't necessarily appear under a navbar link.

then, after there was this notion of personal space, there could be a feature like the github activity tracker (on saturday you pushed 2 definitions and a lemma), content could be reviewed (so-and-so agrees that this proof is correct), and these notes could be restructured into discussion topics, articles, and whatnot.

<comment><USER7> We have been working on the notes feature.It should go live within 2 weeks :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thanks - I'm currently studying comp. sci. and we have a linear algebra courses in the first two semesters - reading this surely won't hurt.

<comment><USER10> Linear algebra is great. It wasn't required for my major, but it really should've been. Definitely check out Salman Khan's videos [0], I found the KhanAcademy selection for linear algebra to be especially helpful. I took a grad course titled "Axiomatic Linear Algebra" and even at that level, the videos were helpful.

[0]: <https://www.khanacademy.org/math/linear-algebra>

<comment><USER9> Thanks! These videos do seem quite useful, I'll make sure to check them out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The level seemed mismatched to the audience for a "Primer." I clicked on the Fourier series link. Anyone who needs a basic explanation of a Fourier series doesn't know enough mathematics to understand the explanation provided.

Next looked at the Linear Algebra link - another example of making something much harder than it needs to be. Sorry.

<comment><USER12> Just as a quick note: I'm a counterexample to the assertion that anyone who needs a basic explanation of Fourier Series doesn't know enough maths to understand the primer.

I've got a strong (pure) mathematical background (degree in Maths & Philosophy from Oxford), and am now doing a PhD in CS, but my degree was entirely pure maths, and I never did any applied calculus. Admittedly, this isn't a common background, but one of the joys of writing on the internet is that you can write for whatever audience you choose!

Jeremy: thanks very much for providing these primers! For me, they've been great: there are lots of areas of maths which I've not looked at, and for a while I'd been wanting a good introduction to them which was at the right level for me: i.e. mathematically clear, without having to go into too much background, and these have been great at that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Thanks! That stats stuff looks exactly like what I need. I have been really disappointed with my current stats class, and I am actively looking for more computer science related stats stuff. Any suggestions?

I am more looking for places where stats has been applied to CS related problems, rather than the other way around.

<comment><USER14> Machine learning sees a lot of stats. See "Elements of Statistical Learning" [http://www.stanford.edu/~hastie/local.ftp/Springer/OLD//ESLI...](http://www.stanford.edu/~hastie/local.ftp/Springer/OLD//ESLII_print4.pdf) though it may be more advanced (a graduate student friend of mine is reading this right now)

<comment><USER15> I would recommend familiarity with linear algebra before cracking EoSL open.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Bookmarked! I'm a visual learner and there is not much out there for visual learners. Just a suggestion :)

</comment><comment><USER17> Bookmarked. Thanks Jeremy, this seems like an excellent reference. I've been taking a few Coursera courses on this subject matter, and this will be a good supplement to that.

</comment><comment><USER18> As much as people point out things that are missing, I gotta believe that this does fulfill the "Help me get a job" purpose of the posts.

</comment><comment><USER19> I was just looking for something like this the other day. What a great way to keep the skills sharp.

</comment><comment><USER20> Wow, really nice! I need to catch up on my math work :-)</comment>


Why Roam Is Cool - <AUTHOR> https://divinations.substack.com/p/why-roam-is-cool <comment><USER2> This blog post says nothing about why Roam is actually cool. It seems like a waste of opportunity, given that it has reached the front page and it's not really telling anyone why they should use it.

I have seen people praise Roam because of different features. Some say the ability to link concepts bidirectionally allows them to create the wiki they always wish they had, only now they can look at every single context where a topic has been mentioned. Others love the ability to use logic constructs to query chunks of text depending on their tags and content. For me personally, it's the ability to reference any fragment of the text so that it lives in multiple places at the same time. Hence, I can reuse ideas in different contexts. Alternatively, if I'm looking at a specific idea, I can tell where it's being drawn upon.

I have been using Roam every day for the last 2 months, and it has completely changed my note-taking habits. I have always strived to digitize all my thoughts, but for me, it never felt like I was fully engaged with my note- taking, Roam changed that. Because the main view is a daily page, it invites you to pour everything right there, relieving you of the duty of having to think if something's well placed under a hierarchy of folders. If you link your thoughts, then your thoughts will not get lost.

A cult is a cult when the members can't shut up about the cult and Roam is making a lot of noise right now.

<comment><USER3> > it's the ability to reference any fragment of the text so that it lives in > multiple places at the same time.

I've seen Roam being mentioned as a graph database for notes before but your comment helps me see it! Would this be a good working model - each `note` entry is logged to a central table in something like a relational database and each `page` is a materialised view over that relation. In contrast, for most of the other note taking apps, the abstraction for a note seems closer to a file.

Would be fun to implement something that works locally with an embeddable graph database library.

<comment><USER4> Are there decent embeddable graph databases? I tried Roam but my network connection makes SaaS unusable. Would love a local version.

<comment><USER5> Zettelkasten is the original name of the concept of networked note-taking. It even worked on paper. Roam took the concept close to users with a polished UI. Some history: [https://fortelabs.co/blog/how-to-take-smart- notes/](https://fortelabs.co/blog/how-to-take-smart-notes/)

<comment><USER6> > Zettelkasten is the original name of the concept of networked note-taking.

No, it's not. Zettelkasten is just the german word for "Box of paper slips", a common tool for certain people. There are many famous Paperboxes from artists and scientist over the centuries, but the ojne responsable for this new zettelkasten-cargo-cult would be Luhmanns Zettelkasten.

Niklas Luhmann was a sociologist who had the habbit to gather notes to an excessiv level on paper slips and collect those in boxes. He was famous because he used common organizing-methods of scientist for notes, instead of just quotes, books and articles.

Some years ago serious research started about his notes, which are now all scaned and online available, and since then some kind of irrational cargo-cult around him has started.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As an alternative Emacs org-mode based bidirectional linking enabled note- taking workflow, check out org-roam [1].

1: [https://github.com/jethrokuan/org-roam](https://github.com/jethrokuan/org- roam)

<comment><USER8> OK, this is good, we have moved from "proprietary only" to "free, but Emacs"...stay cool everybody, just another jump or two and the rest of us will be able to sink our teeth into this ;-)

<comment><USER9> "free, but Emacs" is pretty much an endpoint...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is yet another example of a case where no matter how many people are working on a problem or have worked on it, that there's still room for improvements which create an explosion of a positive response.

I can't believe that nobody has thought to build an application with bio- directional block linking like this. Every app I have used with links can link to a page. Fewer apps can link to a specific page. None of these give you much "at a glance" insight about what the thing is linking to without clicking the link.

I have thought about this and I have tried to build it, but I haven't had the time. Clearly time isn't an issue for the note building world though. Not taking apps are a dime a dozen. That's not to say that my app would have been Roam. I just wanted the functionality Roam brings to the table. I know I'm not alone from all the praise Roam gets. I'm just glad I didn't have to build the thing.

<comment><USER6> > I can't believe that nobody has thought to build an application with bio- > directional block linking like this.

bi-directional linking is not new. It's a known idea with some implementation in wikis and other software. But it usually comes with certain problems, so implementation is hard and performance sucks. Maybe those problems are today less visable with better hardware and more battle-tested software.

> Every app I have used with links can link to a page. Fewer apps can link to > a specific page.

What do you mean with specific page? A block/paragraph on the page?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I really like the referencing and transclusion features of Roam. Being able to reference any fragment of text anywhere else, _and_ edit them them in-place with all changes propagated to every other reference... it's the defining feature that I'm willing to pay for once it monetizes.

</comment><comment><USER12> We need to pay to read this article?

"This is a free preview of a premium members-only post."

<comment><USER13> Author here! The Roam part is free. This is an edition of a newsletter that has three short things - the Roam part is first and here in full.

<comment><USER12> thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Fully free and open source note-taking app with a similar focus: [https://zettlr.com](https://zettlr.com)

<comment><USER10> Is this spam? You created an account just to post this link? Did you read the article?

I looked through the features and this appears to be the same dime-a-dozen-me- too app which doesn't have the one feature everyone loves about Roam.

Cheers to the person who built this. I don't want to crap on anyone's work. But this isn't at all like Roam from what I can see.

<comment><USER14> Indeed, this shouldn't have been a top comment. It is more a reply to the `org-roam`. Also no, I'm not involved in the development of that app, I just happen to like it.

BTW, if your intention is not to crap on anyone's work, maybe don't call something a dime-a-dozen app?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The thing I really like about Roam is there is a new daily note created automatically every day.

It's simple, but lessens friction and I can jot anything down without having to think about organization.

<comment><USER8> That's cool to hear. My own system works this way, but over time I updated it so it creates a new note / journal file [0] about 24 hours in advance. Sometimes I have just the right amount of energy to start frameworking my next day ahead of time.

I am also refining the "look back in time" feature to a global keyboard shortcut, to make it easier to flip through past journal entries, for example "open all the entries from last week," etc.

0\. [https://pastebin.com/nFpRzUbe](https://pastebin.com/nFpRzUbe) in case it's helpful to anyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> So, it's a like a wiki? It reminds me of the note taking app in Gnome, Tomboy. Didn't have the cool lines linking things though.

<comment><USER6> Basically yes, but it's a new development'drive with modern technologies. Wikis were big in the 200x years, and since then development slowed down significantly since all relevant features were explored and the most well working ones surved. Now the ones which were to early for the time seems to appear here and there, and development starts again all over the areas. Quite good I would say.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Note: the article is a premium members-only post preview and cuts off just after getting into a competitor's valuation.

You can't read the whole thing and I regret starting to read it, only to be left mid-thought.</comment>


Ask HN: Who is hiring? (December 2018) - <AUTHOR> As the official "who is hiring" account has not posted it yet
Please state the job location and include the keywords REMOTE, INTERNS and/or VISA when the corresponding sort of candidate is welcome. When remote work is not an option, include ONSITE. Please only post if you personally are part of the hiring company—no recruiting firms or job boards. Only one post per company, please. If it isn't a household name, explain what your company does.
Commenters: please don't reply to job posts to complain about something. It's off topic here.
Readers: please only email if you personally are interested in the job—no recruiters or sales calls.
To search the thread, you can try kennytilton's https://kennytilton.github.io/whoishiring/, gadogado's https://hnhired.com/, or kristopolous' console script at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10313519. <comment><USER5> TransferWise | Estonia, UK, Hungary | Software Engineers (Java,iOS,Android,Sec)| DevOps (K8s, AWS, Ansible, Terraform etc) | VISA + relocation support

Since 2011, TransferWise had a clear mission: money without borders. Built by and for people who live global lives, we're the fairest, easiest way to manage your money across borders.

Find all roles here: [https://transferwise.com/jobs/roles/engineering](https://transferwise.com/jobs/roles/engineering)

</comment><comment><USER6> Adobe is changing the world through digital experiences. We give everyone - from emerging artists to global brands - everything they need to design and deliver exceptional digital experiences. Adobe's Marketing Cloud Platform is a once in a lifetime opportunity for engineers to build core services that will be used by all Marketing Cloud solutions for achieving their business goals. We currently have 3 openings within Identity Services. Identity Services builds consumer Identity Graph that links consumer identities across devices and across customer's systems, to create a wholistic consumer profile for marketing & analytics. Manager role: [https://adobe.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/external_experienced/job...](https://adobe.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/external_experienced/job/San- Jose/Technical-Manager-Architect_64982) Sr Engineer (requires previous ML experience): [https://adobe.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/external_experienced/job...](https://adobe.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/external_experienced/job/San- Jose/Sr-Software-Engineer_65081) Sr Engineer (no ML experience required): [https://adobe.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/external_experienced/job...](https://adobe.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/external_experienced/job/San- Jose/Sr-Software-Engineer_64983) For more information, you can email me directly at firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER7> Kessel Run | Software Engineers, Product Managers, Product Designers | Boston MA | ONSITE

Kessel Run is an organization that brings commercial software development best practices into the Department of Defense. We focus on designing applications that improve warfighter capabilities. Kessel Run product teams constantly solve user pains through iterative processes of continuous feedback and application deployment. We hire high-caliber airmen and civilians who aspire to learn lean and agile development methodologies, to build software that our users love, and to promote an open culture. Most importantly, we are looking for individuals that can adapt to the latest technology practices to enhance and revolutionize the way we fight and win wars. Kessel Runners work on balanced teams consisting of product managers, product designers, and software engineers. Each day you will pair with a colleague on your team to help solve user pains and develop joyful software through user-centered design. We release software at a pace that is unprecedented for the DoD by using methodologies that are of higher quality, greater security, and better design. The culture we foster drives creativity and a genuine, enjoyable work environment.

Information on roles: [https://kesselrun.af.mil/join](https://kesselrun.af.mil/join)

Express interest in joining the alliance with an email to: email@example.com

<comment><USER7> US Citizenship Required

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Lumin Digital | San Ramon, CA | Senior Site Reliability Engineer | Onsite or Remote | US Employees Only

Lumin Digital ([https://lumindigital.com](https://lumindigital.com)) exists to build a vibrant and sustaining environment where creative people can do meaningful work. We build online banking software that allows credit unions to connect with their members and compete with the big banks. We have three core values (Trust, Respect, and Boldness). We want to foster an environment where people feel like they are doing meaningful work, are productive, and have the ability to take risks and learn from failure.

Lumin Digital is looking to grow the SRE team to make that happen. Our primary goal is to engineer solutions that will allow us to deliver a robust application, as frequently as possible to our customers. This includes things like automated blue/green deployments with rollback, and automated testing (integration, performance, security, reliability). Some of the tools we currently use to accomplish those goals

-AWS -Jenkins -Python -Node.js -Kubernetes -Promethues -ELK

We offer -Health/Dental/Vision -Unlimited Vacation -Yearly Performance Bonus -401k Match -Free Lunch per diem if working onsite -Gym Membership if working onsite -Well stocked kitchen if working onsite

If you are interested in learning more, send an email to email@example.com and mention hacker news in the subject.

</comment><comment><USER9> Vidsy - a Series A StartUp using technology to change the way brands (Facebook, Netflix, L'Oreal, Warner Bros, Google) and Creatives work together to create social video content - is actively hiring in their London office. Full time positions (with flexible hours and WFH options) based onsite.

We use a modern stack of Go, React, Redux, TypeScript and Microservices, and our team is growing across the board right now! Including the following Tech and Product roles..

Lead Front End Engineer - [https://goo.gl/icHkQA](https://goo.gl/icHkQA) Senior Back End Engineer -[https://goo.gl/QjkU4B](https://goo.gl/QjkU4B) Senior DevOps Engineer - [https://goo.gl/seYpu2](https://goo.gl/seYpu2) Senior Front End Engineer - [https://goo.gl/eKvGP2](https://goo.gl/eKvGP2) Senior Product Manager - [https://goo.gl/2wuqWv](https://goo.gl/2wuqWv)

If you're interested in the opportunities either apply using the links above, or email Todd (Head of People) via firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER10> OmniSci | San Francisco, CA | Backend Developer, Frontend Developer | ONSITE/REMOTE

OmniSci ([https://www.omnisci.com](https://www.omnisci.com)) is a venture funded Series C startup company that builds a software platform for interactive analytics of big data. Our product features a lightning-fast open source GPU-accelerated database and visual analytics platform that leverages the massive parallelism and high memory bandwidth of GPUs. We can run queries against big data sets orders of magnitude faster than other systems, and since the results are on the GPUs, we can efficiently visualize the result sets with the native GPU rendering pipeline. Check out our 350-million-record Tweetmap demo ([http://www.omnisci.com/demos/tweetmap](http://www.omnisci.com/demos/tweetmap)) or our 11.6-billion-record ships demo ([https://www.omnisci.com/demos/ships](https://www.omnisci.com/demos/ships)) for an idea of what the system can do.

We're looking for:

\- Backend Developer: Engineers with strong experience in C++ and database/systems programming. Knowledge of CUDA/OpenCL, LLVM, X64 Optimization, and/or OpenGL are a major plus.

\- Frontend Developer: Engineers with strong experience in JavaScript and React/Redux. Ideal candidate has good design sense and a data visualization background.

Compensation, equity, and benefits are competitive. Apply at [https://www.omnisci.com/company/careers/](https://www.omnisci.com/company/careers/)

</comment><comment><USER11> BCG Digital Ventures| London | ONSITE | [https://careers.bcgdv.com/](https://careers.bcgdv.com/)

BCG Digital Ventures is an innovation led organisation. We invent, build, launch and invest in startups alongside the world's most influential companies.

Founded in 2014, we have major Innovation and Investment Centres in Manhattan Beach, Berlin, London, Sydney, San Francisco and New York, as well as DV Hatches in Silicon Valley, Seattle and Mexico City, with more locations opening soon.

We embrace polyglotism and adopt the 'right tool for the job' approach. We use modern frameworks such as React and Redux in the front-end and invest extensively in data science, machine learning and IoT, and experiment with emerging technologies such as blockchain.

Our ventures are autonomous, close-knit, built by cross functional teams with product ownership from conception to release.

Engineering career paths include the opportunity to become part of the founding team of a startup you've built from scratch in the role of CTO or Head of Engineering. You'll also have the rare opportunity to be part of multiple startups while you grow as a DV engineer.

Tech we commonly use: Python, Go, Ruby, JavaScript, React, Node, AWS, Serverless

Current vacancies:

Lead Engineer, BCG DV London Senior Front End Engineer, BCG DV London DevOps Engineer, BCG DV London Head of Engineering, Stealth Venture, London Head of InfoSec, Stealth Venture, London

If interested in learning more please apply directly via our careers page (careers.bcgdv.com), it's a 5 second process requiring your CV or LinkedIn page.

</comment><comment><USER12> Pinpoint Predictive | San Mateo, CA | Full-time | Onsite | Senior Full Stack Engineer

Pinpoint Predictive is a VC and Stanford StartX-backed startup that enables companies across a wide variety of industries to more effectively forecast and influence human behavior. Leveraging the latest advances in behavioral science, artificial intelligence, and privacy-safe analytics, Pinpoint's Psychometric AI-powered Thinkalike™ technology allows organizations to better understand intentions, reduce risks, and persuade people to take positive actions.

We are currently a small and growing team. You will have a great opportunity to grow and shape the product

Apply here:

Senior Full Stack Engineer: [https://easyapply.co/job/senior-full-stack- software-engineer...](https://easyapply.co/job/senior-full-stack-software- engineer-1)

</comment><comment><USER13> Ninety Percent of Everything | Data Scientist | London & Kiev | ONSITE | [http://90poe.io/careers/](http://90poe.io/careers/)

Come join the 90POE team as we revolutionise one of the oldest industries in the world — the maritime and shipping industry! We're a London-based startup bringing cloud computing and data-driven technology to ocean transport. Contrary to popular belief it is not aeroplanes but huge sea-faring vessels which are responsible for transporting more than 90% of all products across the globe each and every day. It is our vision to make the next generation of apps which enable this to happen with the click a button. Our office is in the heart of London, next to both Hyde Park and Oxford Street.

Tech: Python, pandas, sklearn, tensorflow, flask, SQL, git, http, influx, elasticsearch. Theory: mathematics (statistics, probability), physics (mostly mechanics).

We welcome applications from junior candidates. Please send your resume to email@example.com. No recruiters please.

</comment><comment><USER14> QuotaPath | Backend or Full-stack Engineer | Philadelphia, PA or Austin, TX | Full-Time | ONSITE | [https://www.quotapath.com/careers/](https://www.quotapath.com/careers/) Sales compensation plans can be shockingly complex. Too often, salespeople are forced to use unfriendly accounting software from the web 1.0 era, or worse, to pass around Excel spreadsheets, without the ability to verify the calculations or understand how they work.

At QuotaPath, we're solving this problem in a new way. We're creating a platform that's built for salespeople, not accountants. This means our business model is unique, both consumer-facing and B2B ("B2BC"; think Slack). Good UX and beautiful design are at the core of our process. The demand for a product like this is intense and we're working as hard as we can to deliver features to eager users.

We're looking for engineers to help us accelerate our development as a product and as a company. If you're interested in having a huge impact on a small team, this is a great opportunity. We're well-funded, but we're still only 8 people: 3 engineers, 1 UX and 4 others in product and executive team. I'm one of those 3 engineers, and I'm also the technical co-founder. Please ask me questions if you have any!

Our stack is Python + Django on the backend, TypeScript + React on the frontend, but we're more interested in working with people who are smart and capable than people from any particular background. If you have strong opinions about using different tech, we'll hear you. Like most startups, we're built on lots of open source tech and we plan on giving back. We value building a culture of inclusion and transparency. We care about diversity and hope you do too.

Feel free to reach out to me directly: eric at quotapath dot com

</comment><comment><USER15> Aclima | Software Engineers, UI Engineers | San Francisco, Portland | ONSITE | [https://www.aclima.io](https://www.aclima.io)

Aclima works on the most challenging problems with measuring air quality. Aclima delivers hyperlocal air quality data and insights, at block-by-block resolution. We combine leading-edge sensor technology, climate science, enterprise software and machine learning to generate high-resolution maps of emissions across pollutants –– from CO2 and methane to particulate matter. Translating real-time data into environmental intelligence, Aclima transforms how we understand and manage our communities, cities, and industries to improve human and planetary health.

Some of the tools we use: GCP, BigQuery, Python, Kubernetes, React, D3.js, ElasticSearch, C/C++

Positions:

* Senior Backend Software Engineer * UI Engineer * Full Stack Engineer * Data Engineer

If interested please visit: [https://jobs.aclima.io/](https://jobs.aclima.io/)

</comment><comment><USER16> ProdPad is hiring developers! [https://www.prodpad.com/jobs](https://www.prodpad.com/jobs)

We're building a product that's used by thousands of product managers, and we're a company full of product people ourselves. As such, we're surrounded by smart people who challenge the way that amazing products are built – we're constantly striving for the best product management practices ourselves, and aren't afraid of trying crazy things to improve the product for our customers.

ProdPad is cloud-based product management software used by 1000+ companies, including market leaders like Spotify, WP Engine, Rackspace, Autodesk, and Automattic.

We're based in Brighton, UK, and can sponsor and relocate the right candidate.

\- Front-end: VueJS, Javascript, HTML, CSS (SASS)

\- Back-end: PHP (Symfony), NodeJS, Eventstream processing

</comment><comment><USER17> Poq | FULL TIME | LONDON onsite

Poq are the leaders in the App Commerce Industry. We have built a platform which is scalable and develop native apps on both iOS and Android for retailers across the UK, US and Europe.

iOS Developer - [https://workable.com/j/A35C6A0269](https://workable.com/j/A35C6A0269) Swift, MVVM

.NET Developer - [https://workable.com/j/0F2D993101](https://workable.com/j/0F2D993101) C#, .NET, Azure

We are growing and now looking for talented Developers to join our Platform team. You will be working with some of the brightest Developers in London, where your innovation and creativity will be greatly rewarded. Your code will be used on over 30 apps, meaning you have the ability to create a huge impact.

If you would like more info, send me an email: email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER18> Tigerspike| iOS Tech Lead| FULL TIME | SYDNEY onsite with some remote working possible|[https://tigerspike.com/](https://tigerspike.com/)

Tigerspike is a Digital Products company with a mission to 'Improve people's lives through technology'. We have 10 offices across 4 continents, each creating web & mobile (consumer & enterprise) apps for a range of industries, with clients such as Emirates, New Look, The UN & Westfield.

We're growing and now looking for a Tech Lead with Objective C & Swift skills. The role is 70/30 hands-on/ pre-sales/ management with opportunities to enhance your skills, work with new tech in a global company with travel opportunities. bit.ly/TLSyd

Drop me an email if you'd like more info: email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER19> Entrepreneur First | Founders | London, UK; Berlin, Germany; Paris, France; Singapore; Hong Kong; Bangalore, India| ONSITE

[https://www.joinef.com/](https://www.joinef.com/)

Entrepreneur First is on the hunt for its next cohort of exceptional individuals who are ready to become startup founders. If you have rare technical skills or deep industry experience, and want to build a globally important tech company, get onto EF. We help you build it from scratch - <USER2> need for an idea, a co-founder or anything else. Just your skills and commitment. You can apply here: [https://www.joinef.com/apply- now](https://www.joinef.com/apply-now)

Drop me an e-mail if you'd like more info: email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER20> Velodyne LiDAR | SE, ME | Full-time | ONSITE | San Jose

We are looking for a:

\- Software Engineer _with_ hardware integration / robotics experience (C/C++ & python)

\- Mechanical Engineer _with_ Solidworks and industrial automation expertise

to join our Automation and Robotics team.

Independent thinkers and problem solvers.

If interested, please send an email with your resume to Martin Wojtczyk <firstname.lastname@example.com>

 _We build the world 's best lidar sensors for self-driving cars, robots, and drones:_

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3ELziPYn5k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3ELziPYn5k)

</comment><comment><USER21> TrueLayer | DevSecOps Engineer | Full Time Permanent | London ONSITE with flexi working and 1 day/week WFH

We're a FinTech startup with team members consisting of former employees of Apple, Stripe and Nexmo. We build secure, universal APIs that are powering the future of financial innovation. Having recently secured Series-B funding, we're now taking our offering into the European Union.

We're currently looking for an experienced engineer to come and help us with our infrastructure security (AWS based) [https://truelayer- careers.workable.com/j/BF7E491E59](https://truelayer- careers.workable.com/j/BF7E491E59)

Feel free to email me email@example.com for more info.

</comment><comment><USER22> Catawiki | Engineers | Amsterdam, Assen (Netherlands) | Full Time | ONSITE | VISA | www.catawiki.com

As one of the fastest growing online companies in Europe we offer a great opportunity for you to grow as a developer working with an amazing team of 70+ engineers inside a diverse company with 40 nationalities and counting!

We have vacancies for back-end, front-end, engineering managers and data engineers. On a daily basis you'll work with Ruby, JS, Swift, Java and Python. If you're into lower level technologies we have challenges for you helping us scale Nginx, MySQL, Redis and ElasticSearch, all running in a multi-tenant environment (metal, AWS, GCP).

Our challenges today include migrating our old Rails platform, create a seamless integration between our hosting providers and establishing sane abstractions across all of our applications/services. As well as this we're building out our microservice architecture (40 services and counting) and building out new features for our millions of users.

You can work from two locations in the Netherlands (Amsterdam and Assen) and we've gotten pretty good at the whole relocation business, so even if you're outside the country feel free to drop me a line at firstname.lastname@example.com with your resumé (Github/Gitlab will suffice if you don't have a CV handy) if you're interested in learning more.

You can also apply direct on our careers page: [https://www.catawiki.com/jobs](https://www.catawiki.com/jobs)

and you can read more about our recruitment process here: [https://github.com/catawiki/join-us](https://github.com/catawiki/join-us).

Finally, I can say that Catawiki is proud to be sponsoring the #AdventOfCode 2018! You can sign up on our private leaderboard for the chance to win €€€s in Udemy Courses, Amazon gift cards and Catawiki vouchers! Sign up link here: [https://www.catawiki.com/p/477-catawiki-advent-of- code-2018-...](https://www.catawiki.com/p/477-catawiki-advent-of- code-2018-raffle)

</comment><comment><USER23> Freetrade | Free stocks and shares trading, for everybody | [https://freetrade.io](https://freetrade.io) | Permanent | London (Spitalfields/Shoreditch) | Onsite (with flexi hours and WFH options)

Language-agnostic hiring, current stack => [https://stackshare.io/freetrade](https://stackshare.io/freetrade)

Current team of 20 (engineering 8), growing significantly next year. Lots of scope for ownership and impact on the product and team.

Read more about us on our blog: [https://blog.freetrade.io](https://blog.freetrade.io), our community: [https://community.freetrade.io](https://community.freetrade.io), our previous crowdfunding round: [https://www.crowdcube.com/companies/freetrade-2/pitches/b3M2...](https://www.crowdcube.com/companies/freetrade-2/pitches/b3M2Ql)

What we're looking for:

\- Principal Software Engineer (individual contributor rather than manager): [https://www.workable.com/j/7976F658E5](https://www.workable.com/j/7976F658E5)

\- Senior Software Engineers (back and front-end): [https://www.workable.com/j/B16346E671](https://www.workable.com/j/B16346E671)

\- Senior iOS Engineer: [https://www.workable.com/j/59D102619E](https://www.workable.com/j/59D102619E)

\- Senior Android Engineer: [https://www.workable.com/j/61E51094B9](https://www.workable.com/j/61E51094B9)

Ideally looking for folk with strong consumer product experience.

Aside from joining at an exciting stage with plenty of learning and development opportunities, we offer health and life insurance for you and the family, flexible working, enhanced parental leave, and more.

</comment><comment><USER24> Activision Blizzard Media is hiring! Hi - We're looking for a few SWEs to join our team here in San Francisco. Here's a brief job description for our Sr. BE vacancy: [https://king.com/sv/jobs/senior-back-end-engineer-ads- activi...](https://king.com/sv/jobs/senior-back-end-engineer-ads-activision- blizzard-media-1229?breadcrumbs=/sv/jobs&location=san-francisco) FOR ONSITE ONLY pease

Feel free to reach me (reh(dot)hassan(at)king(dot)com)) if you are interested in the above role or any of our roles at king.com/jobs

Thanks - <USER3>

</comment><comment><USER25> Auth0 ([https://auth0.com/](https://auth0.com/)) | Seattle - Buenos Aires - Remote | Full-time | Engineering

Auth0 is a Series D/400 employee company with major growth plans for 2018. Our vision is to provide the simplest and most secure identity platform for developers, to make the internet safer. Ultimately, we strive for an internet with fewer passwords. We're looking for people to join us on this journey.

Open jobs:

Director of Product Management: [https://jobs.lever.co/auth0/5ed3b232-602e-49df-902e-57b0cb4f...](https://jobs.lever.co/auth0/5ed3b232-602e-49df-902e-57b0cb4fe92e?lever- origin=applied&lever-source%5B%5D=Hacker%20News)

Senior Software Engineer, Site Reliability: [https://jobs.lever.co/auth0/e90541c4-d211-4d47-be6d-e0f1dc26...](https://jobs.lever.co/auth0/e90541c4-d211-4d47-be6d-e0f1dc2673be?lever- origin=applied&lever-source%5B%5D=Hacker%20News)

Senior Software Engineer, Users Directory: [https://jobs.lever.co/auth0/90483251-ce4e-4129-9682-ce464825...](https://jobs.lever.co/auth0/90483251-ce4e-4129-9682-ce46482508f3?lever- origin=applied&lever-source%5B%5D=Hacker%20News)

Engineer, Core Runtime: [https://jobs.lever.co/auth0/43085e35-7650-49a9-8ca4-755ae670...](https://jobs.lever.co/auth0/43085e35-7650-49a9-8ca4-755ae670a1fc?lever- origin=applied&lever-source%5B%5D=HackerNews)

Engineer, Multifactor & Anomaly Detection: [https://jobs.lever.co/auth0/5a2d98a7-9bf1-4797-ae9a-f21dae11...](https://jobs.lever.co/auth0/5a2d98a7-9bf1-4797-ae9a-f21dae11fae7?lever- origin=applied&lever-source%5B%5D=HackerNews)

Product Manager, Developer Productivity: [https://jobs.lever.co/auth0/a79d4f3f-12a5-440d-b84c-68b4486e...](https://jobs.lever.co/auth0/a79d4f3f-12a5-440d-b84c-68b4486eb7e6?lever- origin=applied&lever-source%5B%5D=Hacker%20News)

Full Stack Engineer, Engineering Tools: [https://jobs.lever.co/auth0/8190b67a-6bda-46d4-acd4-241bc8e7...](https://jobs.lever.co/auth0/8190b67a-6bda-46d4-acd4-241bc8e7529f?lever- origin=applied&lever-source%5B%5D=Hacker%20News)

Senior Software Engineer, Engineering Tools: [https://jobs.lever.co/auth0/e2c00f91-e4d8-41ff-b161-2ef51c24...](https://jobs.lever.co/auth0/e2c00f91-e4d8-41ff-b161-2ef51c24849c?lever- origin=applied&lever-source%5B%5D=Hacker%20News)

Full Stack Developer (Marketing): [https://hire.lever.co/jobs/postings/edit/37dab5b4-81fd-48a9-...](https://hire.lever.co/jobs/postings/edit/37dab5b4-81fd-48a9-9022-c292b86f64bd?view=all&status=published&jobsQuery=full%20stack)

Developer Experience Advocate: [https://jobs.lever.co/auth0/078be347-ee99-4d73-9d13-17b77951...](https://jobs.lever.co/auth0/078be347-ee99-4d73-9d13-17b77951a207?lever- origin=applied&lever-source%5B%5D=Hacker%20News)

Principal Node.js Engineer: [https://jobs.lever.co/auth0/ba4c9c85-ad15-4af3-b98d-a81fb6ba...](https://jobs.lever.co/auth0/ba4c9c85-ad15-4af3-b98d-a81fb6ba46dd?lever- origin=applied&lever-source%5B%5D=Hacker%20News)

Our hiring process is documented here: [https://auth0.com/blog/how-we-hire- engineers/](https://auth0.com/blog/how-we-hire-engineers/)

We are a remote-first company and every year we organize a company offsite. Below are some pictures from our 2018 offsite in Panama. We hope to see you at next year's offsite!!: [https://twitter.com/YavorGeorgiev/status/996467095742361602](https://twitter.com/YavorGeorgiev/status/996467095742361602) [https://twitter.com/woloski/status/997884112928215041](https://twitter.com/woloski/status/997884112928215041) [https://twitter.com/barmercedes_/status/997975455755096065](https://twitter.com/barmercedes_/status/997975455755096065)

</comment><comment><USER26> Relayr | Berlin/Munich/Chicago| ONSITE | Full time |[https://relayr.io/](https://relayr.io/)

We enable The Internet of Things. Relayr is a well-funded and rapidly expanding start-up. We have an extremely international and very friendly team of 200 IoT experts in 8 cities across 4 countries on 2 continents! Our IoT platform development is driven by our engineers and built using recent technologies. We value good working relationships and engineers who stand up for their ideas. Using our tools both internal and external integrators are able to create valuable customer solutions.

We are currently looking for developers to join our teams in Berlin, Munich or Chicago. Your outstanding passion for all things tech, combined with your desire to solve our customer's biggest challenges with innovative solutions could make this the perfect job for you! We'd love to hear from you! Take a look at our job postings and see what's right for you.

Open Positions:

NodeJS Developer (m/f) - <USER4> [https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=39](https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=39)

QA Engineer (m/f) – Berlin [https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=37](https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=37)

Linux Software Developer (m/f) – Berlin [https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=110](https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=110)

Full Stack Solution Engineer (m/f) – Berlin [https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=71](https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=71)

Python Developer (m/f) – Berlin [https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=119](https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=119)

DevOps Engineer (m/f) – Berlin [https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=5](https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=5)

Scrum Master (m/f) – Berlin [https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=112](https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=112)

Agile Product Owner (m/f) – Berlin [https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=121](https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=121)

Senior Product Owner (m/f) – Munich [https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=49](https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=49)

Agile Coach/People Developer (m/f) – Munich [https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=7](https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=7)

Backend Engineer (m/f) – Munich [https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=81](https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=81)

Solution Engineer (m/f) – Chicago [https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=118](https://relayr.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=118)

Check out our career page for other open positions at [https://relayr.io/about/join-us/](https://relayr.io/about/join-us/) Any questions? Don't hesitate to get in touch! email@example.com</comment>


Success Against The Odds: Filling My Technology Knapsack From Scratch - <AUTHOR> http://butyoureagirl.com/13871/success-against-the-odds-filling-my-technology-knapsack-from-scratch/

<comment><USER2> Thank you Adria. This should have been on the front page all day.</comment>


Online Early Childhood Education Program - <AUTHOR> https://braiby.com <comment><AUTHOR> feedback/suggestions/etc are very welcome</comment>


Ask HN: Splunk vs. ELK vs. others? - <AUTHOR> I have used Splunk extensively before in a corporate banking tech job. Now with my own startup, I am wondering which path to go. ELK and some alternatives like Prometheus have gotten really better with time.<p>Can anyone recommend whether the cost of Splunk is worth it for a startup or it's better invest time in using open source solutions? <comment><USER2> Splunk and Sumologic both have query languages, and store the raw log lines now, and let you parse and analyze them later. ELK doesn't have anything like that; you have to configure ELK to understand the logs before it can index and store them, and it has no query language allowing you to re-parse and analyze them afterward -- all you can do is search on the fields you've already indexed. ELK can't, for instance, store 20G of logs today with no parsing applied, and let you parse out key-value pairs and graph all the latency numbers next week.

If you have more money than time, use Splunk.

If you are on AWS, dump your logs into Redshift -- you already know SQL and you don't have to learn another query language; and it's easy to see how to run extract/transform/load jobs. If you're on GCP, I'd investigate BigQuery before bothering with Splunk or Sumologic.

<comment><USER3> If you are a start-up, I second the approach of dumping logs into Redshift. Lots of start-ups are doing exactly that (including yours truly).

Few things to keep in mind when you do that:

Create separate schemas for your raw data and your analysis. Dump the logs into a "raw schema", run your aggregations, and write the results to a "data schema". Once your data grows and you're running more reports, it will make your life much easier.

Separate your users from the start. Create a user each for your data loads, for your aggregations and for your ad-hoce analysis. As you ramp up query volume, the separation of concerns will make it easier to use the Redshift workload manager and keep concurrency high.

Ping me if you have more questions about the set-up. lars @ intermix dot io

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We have been using the ELK stack and so far we are very happy with it.

ELK is doing both centralized logging and service metrics.

Usually services log to syslog which ends up in a file like /var/log/$service.log and then we use filebeats (also from elastic) to send that file to an ELK server.

</comment><comment><USER5> Use fluent to parse the logs to json, then the BigQuery sink to put the data in there. Then just do exploration on that data in sql.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been in an ELK shop before, and will definitely be putting one up first chance I get with my new gig.</comment>


Can you short Uber? - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/707947/investors-have-placed-a-one-way-bet-on-uber-which-made-us-want-to-figure-out-a-way-to-short-it/ <comment><USER3> > if all or most of its cars are propelled by robots, and it will simply be > paying to insure and maintain them—its profit should be astronomical.

No, then Uber will have to lower prices to stay competitive against competition that exactly like uber will be in the same situation.

<comment><USER4> Well, assuming that its competition has made it that far. If Uber is years ahead of everyone and has the volume it could expand like crazy and crush future competition on the economies of scale alone.

if.

<comment><USER5> While there are other companies like ZipCar or Car2Go have already the technology, the experience, and the infrastructure on how to own cars, how to service cars, and how to bring the users and those cars together.

On the other side, Uber does not own any car neither have any infrastructure for those cars.

So it should be easier for ZipCar, Car2Go and alike to exchange those cars with self-driving cars vs. Uber to build up that infrastructure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One of the trends propelling Uber is that of self-driving cars.

HOWEVER: What's stopping the car companies from simply running it themselves and cutting out uber as the middleman? Tesla already announced they plan to facilitate ride sharing. ([https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part- deux](https://www.tesla.com/blog/master-plan-part-deux))

<comment><USER7> >HOWEVER: What's stopping the car companies from simply running it themselves and cutting out uber as the middleman?

Ignoring tesla for a minute:

1) Engineering prowess. User-facing software in cars is notoriously poor, and the idea that the same people that greenlit the nissan cube can deploy and scale an uber rival seems generous to say the least.

2) Exclusivity/overcrowdedness. Uber and lyft don't have strong opinions about brand of car (though the prius is the default, and they care about newness). This is likely not true of more traditional car companies. This leads to one of two scenarios: in the first, companies try to limit their ride hailing to on-brand cars, meaning you can only hail fords with ford-uber, etc, requiring that users have multiple apps and pit them against each other. This seems silly. In the second, they allow others brands to be hailed as well, and then you've got mostly identical ride hailing apps, each from a different car company, and the car companies are now competing on experiential nuances that aren't even centered around their vehicle offerings. That's nutty too.

This wasn't my thought going in, but having written all that, tesla seems like a much better buy all of the sudden, because it's the only player that feels like it has the software skills to solve 1, and the apple-esque brand clout to solve 2.

<comment><USER5> You seem to ignore that those car companies have such services already in place and run them successfully. Car2Go from Mercedes was first and started with the Smart. It is now being supplemented by higher-end models.

BMW has the same service running together with SIXT in Europe with BMW Mini and other smaller models.

Also VW started the same just a few years ago, but is not widely used, AFAIK.

<comment><USER8> BMW also recently launched ReachNow[1] in Seattle, which lets users rent BMWs and Minis.

[1]: [http://reachnow.com/](http://reachnow.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like Uber. I use it from time to time. I use it less frequently nowadays because the government here blocked UberPop. I enjoy using it as much as I hate using taxis. I particularly enjoy it because I can rely on Uber when I travel abroad when I am most vulnerable to taxi scams.

Having said that, I am one of those who does not get this type of ultra high valuations. That's another topic of course, I am not going to claim anything as I am not an expert.

The thing is if yet another company pops up, maybe a local one, with similar offerings as Uber, I might as well start using their service. It's so easy to switch or use them both, I don't have a emotional connection to Uber, why should I? I'd always use whatever works for me. So, I see Uber is not something irreplaceable. The most valuable thing is the idea itself, car sharing etc. It's not like building up a search engine, with secretive ranking algorithms that works better among competitors. Of course, what Uber had been doing is phenomenal, they probably do a lot of things behind the scenes. Uber had more capital and did more. The others will catch up. Which is a good thing, I'd rather have multiple service offerings, it's good for consumers.

To me, Uber is a ice breaker ship. Started exploring in the frozen seas. Opening up new paths. That's expensive. They have to do a lot of things right. It's difficult. They are ambitious. I am excited that new paths appear in the frozen seas that I can benefit eventually. On the other hand, what I see is, once the paths are open, others can follow easily. They don't need tank-like ships to overcome the icebergs, they don't need the best captains and crews, they don't need the most of the crucial stuff Uber needed. They will just sail along the paths Uber opened.

</comment><comment><USER10> After reading the very long article (it's extremely detailed, I recommend it, but only if you _highly_ value business strategy), I'll save everyone the trouble:

No. You can't, currently.

<comment><USER11> TL;dr Buy taxi medalllions

<comment><USER12> I don't ride private transit in NYC without seeing a medallion first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think there are a lot of interesting points to the article. It's currently not possible to short Uber directly, but you could go through a derivatives broker, or you could short a company indirectly, like Xchange, or buy stocks in a company that would profit if Uber collapsed. I think that while you can't directly short Uber, you can get creative... and I'm sure that with the number of people that want to short Uber, and if it did a down round that would be even higher, that there will be some possibility of shorting Uber directly before IPO.

I'm curious why Uber isn't on any of those private exchanges. Is Uber worried it would be shorted if it were?

<comment><USER14> Private companies often want to control who and how many of their shareholders are. It is likely not because they fear being shorted. The market for short selling private companies is currently a very distant threat.

Let's say you place a short bet on Uber through one these "creative" methods that uses a smaller exchange, then you have to worry not just about Uber's price rising, but also that you will not be able to unwind the trade should it become profitable. Doing so could prove to be impossible either for legal reasons (e.g., if Uber or some other company launches lawsuits as their price drops), or if the exchange simply goes belly up. In short, you better be very, very sure that Uber's price will drop substantially in order to make sure a risky bet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What is Uber isn't a car/personal transport company at all?

As has been pointed out numerous times, network effects don't really have the same power in the "taxi competitor" market as they do in - say - <USER2> networking.

But there is a business where network effects are potentially at least as powerful as social networking, where market leadership is divided between multiple ~$40B companies and where there is proven huge potential for market disruption.

It's a market where software powered efficiencies can make a huge difference, where automation can increase margins and improve service and where the company having the most drivers (or automated devices) in each city has a huge advantage. What's more, it is one of the few markets where international expansion gives critical network effects beyond what is possible in the US market alone.

Finally, Uber is already aggressively moving into this market, and yet no one seems to talk about it - I guess it just isn't as sexy as cars.

As they say: _amateurs talk tactics, professionals study logistics_.

In this article's defence, it does at least mention this. But I think the potential here is _huge_. Think of Uber as an Amazon competitor, taking responsibility for everything after the production of a product.

<comment><USER16> > _Finally, Uber is already aggressively moving into this market, and yet no > one seems to talk about it - I guess it just isn 't as sexy as cars._

No, it's because right now, they're not a logistics company, they're a taxi company. All they do is match supply and demand in a very localized setting, which is a far cry from the likes of DHL or FedEx.

Uber is not exactly printing money [1], so I have no idea why you assume that they'll have an edge in the transition to a very different business model?

[1] In fact, their only moat seems to be their brand name, and the expensive legal and lobbying battles they fight profit their competitors just a much.

<comment><USER17> _> , so I have no idea why you assume that they'll have an edge in the transition to a very different business model?_

Like gp, I also think Uber is pursuing the more ambitious goal of _generalized logistics_ rather than just replacing taxis in cities. I have no insider knowledge of this so I just base it on factors such as the number of developers exceeding 1200[1]. It doesn't seem like you need 1200 programmers just to dispatch taxi rides via mobile phones.

My wild guess is that they want to turn the mass of drivers out on the streets into a massive "packet switched network" or "mesh network" of transportation. Instead of transporting just people, imagine you could move _packages /groceries/deliveries_ from one car to the next. The drivers don't even have to make the complete trip from point A to point B. The drivers could hand off packages to the next driver using the mobile phones' cameras as builtin "barcode scanners" to track progress within the network. The so-called "Uber logistics network" would be innovative in the sense that they don't require "hubs" like UPS/Fedex. An Uber driver could simultaneously take a passenger to the airport while there's a package in the trunk for delivery to a business that's next to that airport. Today, we have a lot of cars wasting gas on "single purpose" trips. A multi-purpose utilization of the cars already on the road via "smart logistics" could offer cheap same-day deliveries while _reducing_ gas consumption by society. This type of network coordination would require crazy mathematics and algorithms in graphs and combinatorial optimization.

Like I said, it's just speculation but the above scenario seems more immediate than the arrival self-driving cars. The "Uber network" is actually complementary to the future of self-driving vehicles. They could first deploy the network of "package delivery" to human drivers and in 15 to 20 years, it is then 100% driven by robots. The underlying graph algorithms stay the same.

If Uber isn't the company working on that, then I'm not sure who else is pursuing it. If other companies like Lyft/Amazon/Fedex/UPS are looking into crowdsourced logistics, they are really doing an amazing job of keeping their "skunkworks projects" a secret.

[1][http://www.businessinsider.com/the-power-players-of- uber-201...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-power-players-of- uber-2016-1?op=0#/#thuan-pham-makes-sure-the-uber-app-stays-up-and-running-3)

<comment><USER18> I can see this maybe making sense for food deliveries, but I don't see the economics working for parcel deliveries. A UPS truck probably costs under $4/mile (including the driver) and carries hundreds of packages. An Uber costing only $0.54/mile (GSA rate) and carrying 1 package is ~20x as expensive on a package-mile basis (and that's not leaving anything for the driver).

Uber will need to either dramatically increase the packages per car or (more likely) Uber delivery will be confined to very time-sensitive packages (food delivery and maybe competing in the bike courier space).

<comment><USER17> _> Uber delivery will be confined to very time-sensitive packages (food delivery and maybe competing in the bike courier space)._

Yes, it seems like the most obvious pricing advantage would be same-day deliveries.

To send a 5 pound package from my address to another address in the adjacent zipcode (~10 miles), the transit time is 1 day and costs $9.85. For that price, I also have to get in the car myself and drive my package to a retail store and drop it off.

If I arrange for UPS driver to come to my house to pick it up, the price shoots up to $19.55!

Let's say my house is point "C" and my ship address is point "D". If the Uber servers can determine that point "C" is a very minor detour for an Uber driver going from point "A" to point "B" ... then he can cheaply pick up my package and drop it off at point "D" with minimal increase in gas costs. Uber could charge way less than $19 while the driver gets a revenue boost. The UPS "hub" model doesn't make that type of dynamic rerouting cost effective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > For the major carmakers, [car sharing] could mean catastrophe.

I don't see this. A car currently lasts for 100,000-150,000 miles. Typically, several different owners use it for 10-15 years before it's worn out. If a car is 80% utilized, it will rack up the mileage much faster, and the owner (whether you, Uber, or Ford) will have to buy a new one in a year or two.

Maybe the fleet market will start demanding longer-lasting cars. If so, manufacturers will have reason to charge more. Or maybe cars will move to a two-year obsolescence cycle like phones. In any case, the amount we spend on cars will roughly track how far we travel.

> Starting as soon as a decade and a half from now, large numbers of people > around the world will get around by hailing driverless taxis that operate > like robots, so ubiquitous that they will arrive an average of a minute > after being summoned by an app.

I only partly see this. People who live in city centers already hail taxis. Uber may well displace the taxi industry, but they aren't growing the market (ignoring future takeout delivery plans). Outside the densest cities, it's still not clear that fleet cars make sense unless the price seriously undercuts the status quo (the notorious 10X improvement).

</comment><comment><USER20> I really don't get Uber's business model. It seems to me that the whole company is just based around the brand. Anybody could start an Uber clone tomorrow. There is totally no lock-in potential (except they could claim exclusivity for their drivers, but I think this is limited). This means that any large party with sufficient marketing budget could just push Uber away.

<comment><USER4> Uber's primary barrier to entry is a network effect - if more cars are on Uber that means more word of mouth for Uber less people interested in the other app which means less drivers interested in the other app. They reinforce this not by pure exclusivity deals but by paying drivers who drive more on Uber higher rates (which is a tactic I've seen in the stock photo industry as well, which is also reliant on a marketplace model where a big player brokers access to lots of individual contributors.)

Its secondary barrier is that getting quality software right is more expensive and harder than it looks and benefits from economies of scale. (I don't trust Uber further than I can throw my cell phone but the app is far slicker than Lyft or Karhoo or whatever.)

That's not insurmountable but it's nothing either.

<comment><USER20> Interesting.

> more word of mouth for Uber less people interested in the other app

This is branding, which I mentioned. Or am I missing something?

> Its secondary barrier is that getting quality software right is more > expensive and harder than it looks and benefits from economies of scale.

I'm not sure this is true. The software of Uber does not need to scale larger than, say, the size (in users) of a city. Phrased differently, a city is a natural sharding point. Of course, there is software that needs to use the full dataset (for statistics etc.), but this software can run in batch mode.

<comment><USER4> > A city is a natural sharding point.

No no, wrong type of scale. I'm talking _economies_ of scale.

Uber needs to pay N SFBay-area engineers upwards of $200,000 USD/yr (including health expenses, employer-side taxes, and other overhead) for N years in order to build a well-functioning, city-scale software ecosystem - including server software, devops and maintenance tools, payment provider integration, antifraud efforts around payments, client software on multiple app stores, internal tools for the support team, business tools for the traveling consultants who want easier expense report receipts, all sorts of fun data collection for the business analysts, and all the ongoing maintenance and operations costs associated with that mountain of code. With all that effort expended, all those millions spent, they have a bunch of software they can deploy to one, single city and do a top-notch bang-up job of it.

But now this $N million piece of software can be deployed to its second and third and three-thousandth locality with little more than extra computers, some clever sharding work, and maybe some localization: a puny fraction of the original development effort.

If they need a whole new _country_ , throw in some more internationalization/localization and maybe a new payment provider integration.

 _Those_ are the economies of scale. Every feature that Uber adds for $N in developer time is hundreds of times more impactful than if Single City Carshare [tm] were to add it, even if they can use cheaper developers outside the Bay Area.

Of course, there are diseconomies too (if only because of managing additional headcount on the per-city operations side of things), but as you said, cities are a natural sharding point, and this keeps those diseconomies down.

<comment><USER20> Then perhaps I am the only one here who is not convinced of the complexity of Uber's software. Basically, it is just a CRUD application, with some realtime features to make it look a little more sexy. Yes, software like that could cost on the order of millions, but there are lots of companies/investors who could cough up this kind of money without even blinking. I just don't understand Uber's huge valuation. They seem to have no secured business position, other than by branding (and perhaps a little by binding their "employees").

<comment><USER4> Oh no, this isn't to justify the valuation by a long shot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> TL;DR: No, you can't.

</comment><comment><USER22> I read the article and couldn't find anything about liquidation preferences. I'm going to go out and a limb here.

If you think that if you could short Uber, you could do so at a $62.5 billion valuation, you should stay away from making those kinds of risky financial plays.

</comment><comment><USER23> That was a long piece simply to suggest someone is creating swaps against the valuation.

</comment><comment><USER24> self-driving cars are a no-no in indian roads! the chaos is and will be beyond AI that we will get to see in the near future.

reference : me (an indian)

<comment><USER25> India needs to get its act together with traffic. I'm heartened that there are anti-honking groups already --- that's a big start. The first step in fixing driving in India is changing the honking culture. Seriously.

Efficient transit is just table stakes for being a serious economic power. Indians are smart. They'll figure out how to fix things.</comment></comment>


Predominantly - <AUTHOR> http://predominant.ly/spiro-disco-ball

<comment><USER2> The page load time is currently pretty good. I love the idea. I chose pink and got some nice looking donna summers album. Really cool. I am 29 and used to buy cds on artwork merit.

The simple idea of admiring art is what i like. clicking the itunes button is not something i would do.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is incredible, definitely the most random way to discover new music. Would be nice if there was a hex search function.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ha, reminds me of the SF Music Hack Day project we did way back when: [http://huesound.org/](http://huesound.org/)

I guess there's nothing new under the sun :)

Their design looks a bit nicer, but I am going to guess they spent more than 24 hours on it as well.

<comment><USER5> Couldn't you have omitted the last two sentences, which amount to a polite version of "we've already made this and theirs only looks nicer because they spent more time?"

<comment><USER4> I suppose I could have. I've no idea how much time they spent, perhaps it was a quick hack too. It was just unexpected to see someone else's implementation of the same idea, so it made me laugh at the strange coincidences of life in general. Certainly I meant nothing ill by my comment, I apologize if it turned out mean-spirited in any way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Brilliant. It's great to see new takes on navigation and ways to explore large data sets.

</comment><comment><USER7> Great project. I can appreciate the work put into this.

I built [http://colorhits.com](http://colorhits.com) a few years ago. another option with a few more features. cross genre color connections and keyword search starting point.

<comment><USER4> Awesome!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have a hard time understanding what this did, partially because the page load is so long at this point (so maybe server stress wasn't part of the execution).

When I finally figured out that I was finding albums by album art color, I closed the window.

I'm not sure why this is titled "great execution." There's nothing wrong with the execution, really--but it doesn't strike me as particularly excellent in any regard.

All that said, it's useless to search by album color.

<comment><USER9> I was confused since I had no idea that "Spiro Disco Ball" is apparently the name of a color (as opposed to the name of a band or an album or something).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> nice work! I'm liking the naming of the colors :)

I'm _slowly_ building something similar in my spare time. It's a multi-color search engine for street wear (and perhaps other stuff)

[http://www.inthatstyle.com/](http://www.inthatstyle.com/)

</comment><comment><USER11> I thought this was fun. If it loaded quickly enough, I can imagine spending more time playing around with it. It's not loading reliably for me right now, but I got it to work a few times.

I enjoy an element of randomness in music discovery, and this combines that with beauty, IMO.

</comment><comment><USER12> The particular cute thing is that they seem to have a name for every color.

<comment><USER13> I assumed these were like standard Pantone names or something but what do I know. I'm pretty sure they didn't create the names, regardless.

edit: Oh, it's explained when you click on the question mark on the right side of the page. It's from an xkcd color survey: [http://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey- results/](http://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/)

<comment><USER14> As an aside, that post is fascinating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Doesn't work in the latest version of Chrome (Windows 8 v. 40.0.2214.91), but works in IE.

Interesting concept, but not sure how predominant album color helps me discover music.

<comment><USER16> Same Chrome version here, Windows 8.1. Works fine. Perhaps it's just that the site's a bit loaded.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Its cool and works, but not useful in any usual sense. I have never and will never choose my music by the main colors of the album artwork.

Interesting work non-the-less

<comment><USER18> I don't understand why people that say it's not useful or not interesting get downvoted, but the ones that say the opposite, don't. What's the logic in this?

<comment><USER19> A lot of things on HN aren't useful - there are games and experiments and little fun things all the time. And as someone else in the thread already stated, if you think a submission is uninteresting then not commenting or upvoting it is probably the best way to express that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Really nice way to discover music. One problem though: The colorpicking works with my touchscreen, but not with my mouse, TP w510..., Chrome

</comment><comment><USER21> Sorry, neither the idea nor the execution impress me very much.

This seems about as useful as the "random radio" function in every existing music player. Except it is slow and cumbersome to use.

EDIT: Please note this reply was written when the submission title was: "A great execution of a simple idea". The title has since been changed by the 𝐦𝐨de𝐫at𝐨rᶰ𝐬.

<comment><USER22> >Sorry, neither the idea nor the execution impress me very much.

I don't think they created it to impress you. If your reaction is "meh" you can express that just as well by not commenting.

<comment><USER23> I think people are taking the GP's comment out of context since the original headline was "Predominant.ly: great execution of a simple idea" ([https://www.facebook.com/hnbot/posts/794421357279814](https://www.facebook.com/hnbot/posts/794421357279814)) and it has since been shortened.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Pretty cool! I can't imagine many real uses, but definitely fun to play around with.

</comment><comment><USER25> Super cool! It would be awesome to see something like this for books and movies, too!

</comment><comment><USER26> really like the loading spinner, a fun extrapolation

</comment><comment><USER27> What is it?

<comment><USER23> Seems like music discovery via the color of the album picture, which I personally don't find to be all that useful. (I know somebody in real life who at least used to organize their DVD collection by color of the box which I find to be equally as useful.)</comment></comment>


Why Your Programming Language Sucks - <AUTHOR> https://wiki.theory.org/YourLanguageSucks <comment><USER2> Many valid points in there, but many weak arguments also.</comment>