How do you know it's time to do the next thing? - <AUTHOR> Hive mind:
We've all had good career runs (for varying values of "all" and "good") working with one particular technology or another. But at much as we may have loved it, there comes a time when it becomes apparent that that particular string has played out and it's time to figure out what's next.
How do you know when that time has come -- and how do you figure out what your Next Thing is? <comment><USER3> I don't know how representative it is as a whole, but my experience (working for various companies of 15-200 employees) has been that there are two classes of engineers:

\- Those that have been there for years (3/5/since the beginning), are usually underpaid for the long hours they put in, and may or may not have stock options.

\- The rest of us.

And it seems that the first group rarely moves on. I suspect it's because they're too heavily invested in the company with some sort of golden handcuffs, or they've become too comfortable and don't want to look for a new job. They also seem to prefer ignoring the fact that they're underpaid comparatively to more recent hires or to the market.

The second group usually moves on after 10-12 months on the job, sometimes up to 18 months. Sometimes it's a lateral move, sometimes it's a step up, but it's almost always for more money and slightly different technologies or a better work situation.

Short of the usual advice that if you're dreading going to work, aren't feeling challenged anymore, or your managers don't support you then it's probably time to change jobs; it would seem that the typical time to move on is every 12-18 months.

Keep in mind that these are my anecdotal observations, it may or may not be representative.

<comment><USER4> 12-18 months job change sounds a bit too much, especially after you have a few years of experience under your belt.

<comment><USER5> It feels to me that a period as short as that would prevent you from learning a whole bunch of interesting things.

Technical lessons about design, architecture, and infrastructure choices one has made, how they cope with scale, subtle mis-steps, etc. Interpersonal lessons about how people develop and communicate. Lessons about why some approaches work and don't work organisationally.

<comment><USER3> The places I've seen this at were either agencies (so short/medium term projects) or startups where employees churn so much that a year later almost everyone is new again.

Like I said, might not be representative but has been my observations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It appears you are talking about a MAJOR shift, not just a job change.

First part - When to know when it is over? In the simpliest form, when the jobs available suck. Either the pay or the volume. When I have changed it was both. So actually this is how you know you should have changed a year or two ago.

Second part - What to do next? That is a gamble. Anything that is up and coming has a risk of being overplayed (too many others going into it) or fading out. This then becomes an issue of your objectives: 1) Write books 2) Become the industry expert 3) Just make good money 4) Be happy If you are #2 or #4 then it involves exploring a few technologies, I recommend either MOOCs or reading on forums, to decide what excites you. If you want #2, you need #4. #3 You still need to explore, but I would start with what you see job demand for. Then explore MOOCs to see if you can stand the tech. Then be sure there are enough resources available for you to learn enough to be hired. You might have to do some pro bono work for resume food. #1 - sorry no clue.

What ever you choose you cannot rest. You must evolve, why? 1) others will compete and drive down the value of your skills 2) because you do not work cheap, there is a large profit motivation to make your skills more of a commodity (easier for #1)

</comment><comment><USER7> You know it's time to move when either you've lost motivation for what you do, and/or your KPIs aren't encouraging enough even after you've already adapted the model a few times. As to figuring out your next thing, ask yourself what you'd spend so many hours doing without counting the hours. It's always worked for me. Hope this helps.

<comment><USER8> What if there are multiple answers to this question? How do I filter?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Speaking generally, I think one's intuition continues to be under-valued.

 _If_ you are a reasonably aware and informed person with regard to the matter at hand (and additionally, shouldn't your own well-being be a principal "matter at hand"?), it is yourself cluing in, ahead of constructing a fully- conscious analysis and argument.

The times my intuition has really -- in the gut -- pushed me, it's been right. Often, later -- days, week, or longer -- I find myself placing that gut feeling into context and events in a way that totally makes sense.

Some might argue I'm just rationalizing it. Seemed much too immediate -- and then crystal-clear, in hindsight.

</comment><comment><USER10> For me, it was when I reached a point where there was nowhere else in my area that excited me.

For eight years, I had worked in both small and large agencies as a .NET developer, working on a whole range of sites - some tiny ones, mostly medium ones, and the odd behemoth. I had a few user group talks behind me and a good reputation amongst my peers.

My breaking point was when I thought to look who else was hiring, and couldn't find anyone I was either excited or scared to work for. Sticking with agencies would've been no different to what I was doing, and the larger .NET houses were fairly boring affairs. I had made a career as a .NET developer without moving into enterprise, so I had no intention of doing that now.

So, I decided to jump not to the next big thing, but for something different. I now work with startups outside of the .NET stack, and the challenge of switching from being a solid .NET dev to a beginner in various languages on the Linux stack is both exciting and scary. Sure, I could make more elsewhere, and I've put myself in a position to look stupid, but I forced a change and hopefully the change in scenery will push me towards a more complete understanding of development, and onwards to the next big thing.

</comment><comment><USER11> When you have realized your present goals or have new goals that cannot be achieved by what you're doing.

I greatly enjoy my day job as a developer. But my organization is floundering (aspects of my team need improvement, but also the multitude of others across the org). I want to improve it, I can't do it as a developer (alone). So I'm moving up closer to management (but doing my best to stay out of management proper) to a position where I can have more sway on decision makers, and advocate for the resources, training, and improvements the product producers need.

I have other goals with respect to learning and improving my craft as a developer, but they're slightly (just) lower priority than getting this organization to function better. And if I fail, I can at least say I tried. To pursue my developer craft goals, I'd need to leave this company. And I'm not ready to yet (I'd have to move, which is not something I'm ready for).

In the worst case, I tried. I learn something new about how management functions. How to be a leader. And that'll prepare me (success or failure) for my next role.

</comment><comment><USER12> > how do you figure out what your Next Thing is?

Good framework figuring out your next thing in the book Designing Your Life by a couple of Stanford professors-

Here's a podcast interview with the authors, to give you a flavor of what it's about > [http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2016-10-03/using-design- th...](http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2016-10-03/using-design-theory-to- build-a-better-life)

Also, NY Times review > [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/fashion/design- thinking-s...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/fashion/design-thinking- stanford-silicon-valley.html?_r=0)

</comment><comment><USER13> When conversations become bitter, when i feel defeated and nothing interests me then i move on to not drag the team down, i start completing documentation to not keep any knowledge to myself.

</comment><comment><USER14> First, you have to have somewhere to go. Most people don't and so they stay at the same spot until retirement.

Somewhere can mean anything - a career improvement, or benefits like child care. Maybe even a team that clicks with religious beliefs. In some cases it's money.

More often, it's a kind of experience one longs for. Maybe you just really want to make a game or a CRM. Maybe you just want to enjoy traveling the world on company money.

Second, you just measure how you're going along this path. Ideally your job will take you there.

</comment><comment><USER15> In terms of moving on from one technology to another I have found that the best indicator is when the large consulting firms start hiring lots of staff with a specific technical skill, most of them poorly qualified for that technology. If you prefer to contract directly to the larger client firms, then the big firms start being your competitors.

In my experience high demand and high rates environment lasts 3-5 years. Bit of a challenge to pick the next best technology. Not too soon on the adoption curve and not too late.

</comment><comment><USER16> IMO it's not the actual move that is interesting, but when one switches on "search/scan mode"... probably when one feels a downarrow in every morning's answering the question "why should i get out of bed". (somebody formulated it this way some time ago here on HN)

Then figuring out what/whether/is-it-worth is the on-going interesting part, and it can last months - or even years.

</comment><comment><USER17> When you find yourself asking yourself if it's time to do the next thing, it's time.

</comment><comment><USER18> When the challenge is gone. And how do you know that? When you're bored - <USER2> bored for a day, but bored for six months.

That may not mean that it's time to change careers. It might just be time to change jobs.

</comment><comment><USER19> Once you'd rather do nothing, than do something.</comment>


"A force of nature:" an acoustic analysis of Freddie Mercury's voice - <AUTHOR> http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=163213&CultureCode=en <comment><AUTHOR> The actual paper is free to read in its entirety. Direct link is at the bottom of the news release ([http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/14015439.2016.11...](http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/14015439.2016.1156737))</comment>


How 30 days without social media changed my life - <AUTHOR> http://stevecorona.com/how-30-days-without-social-media-changed-my-life <comment><USER2> I stopped using Facebook last November. It's been a fantastic experience.

Whether you realize it or not, FB changes your emotional health. FB used to make me oddly depressed. Its like sitting in front of the TV and feasting on Sour Patch Kids for two hours. I would sit there staring at how awesome people's lives were and wonder why I wasn't doing such awesome things myself. I heard about the passing of family members from family friends before family members would have a chance to tell me personally.

After I stopped going to FB my important friends started CALLING me. Can you believe that? They picked up the phone and CALLED me. I went out to dinner more. I stopped engaging in those destructive conversations like "Can you believe so-and-so's status message..."

There have been some drawbacks though. I don't always hear about last-minute parties. I don't get to see the pictures my friends take from events. And I don't have the luxury of sending a message to someone I don't quite know very well who wouldn't have my phone number or e-mail, most likely through group activities like Crossfit that I'm a member of.

But all things considered, ditching Facebook is highly recommended.

<comment><USER3> I don't understand this at all.

FB (and social media in general) is the only thing I've found that enables me to organize going out for drinks with more than 2 people at once.

Also the only thing that lets me post "Hey, anyone wanna go out for ice cream tomorrow evening?" and actually having 5 people come. Three of which are completely new outside twitter/facebook.

It's really quite awesome.

Hell, I have _very_ scatterbrained friends who are always busy with something. Without twitter, facebook and irc I'd never get to talk to them at all. Let alone be able to see them almost every other day like I do now.

And that's not even accounting for the fact that some of us tend to leave the country for months at a time, but still wanting to keep in touch.

Seriously though, how do you usefully and efficiently keep in touch with more than 1 person via telephone? I can't even imagine it working.

Oh and, word of advice from a "silly 24 year old". If looking at other people's lives makes you depressed, lead an awesomer life. Friends being better than you should be an encouragement to do better, not a depressor.

<comment><USER4> When I signed up for Facebook, that was my dream. That I would post stuff like "who wants to get ice cream tomorrow night?" and, just like that, people would take me up on it.

Never happened.

On the contrary, people I met would "friend" me, but still keep me out of their real-world cliques. Example: A guy invited everyone to a party at his house. Everyone else who responded knew where he lived. I sent a message asking. He ignored me.

I had an experience like the GP's. Facebook was an opiate, making me think I was keeping up with friends, when it was really pointless chatter. After I quit, I emailed an overseas friend and we had a far more meaningful exchange than anything during the year we were connected on Facebook.

I guess it depends who you know. Most of my close, in-town friends use FB minimally or not at all. So they weren't the same people I was talking to on FB.

<comment><USER5> Well, I think this says more about your understanding of friendship versus acquaintance rather than facebook itself.

Just because you added someone on facebook doesn't mean that you are now good friends. It means they know you somehow. You'll get invited to people's parties when you're close to them. Facebook supports existing friendships. It doesn't create new ones (well, in general).

In fact, if someone you know but don't certainly like adds you on facebook, it's socially awkward to not accept their friend request, because it is an outward social refusal to not do so. Essentially, you can "force" your way into friending someone. This weird social dynamic allows people's friend lists to grow way beyond proportion even if the feeling isn't mutual for everyone.

<comment><USER4> I think you're making the same point as me: "Facebook supports existing friendships. It doesn't create new ones." That's my experience too: Facebook did not turn my acquaintances into friends. But the person I replied to claimed otherwise — he posted an ice cream invite and 3 people he'd never met offline came.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This essay could also be called, "Life in the 80s (and early 90s) for most people." Back then, you had to be relatively informed to have access to "social media" (i.e. Usenet, gopher, BBS).

It's amazing how much productivity has been disrupted by social media. There are of course huge upsides as well, but sometimes I wonder if the full downside is recognized. A lot of people I know do very little work in the workplace, as they spend all day on Twitter and Facebook. They get around IT bans by using their smartphones... sometimes I wonder if the only thing running corporations these days is automated software.

<comment><USER7> I was a news hound in the 80s which was great because TV news didn't suck.

Another 80s early 90s information device was the magazine, there were tons of magazines which were mostly killed off by the Internet.

Social media is a whole lot of everything and 1% substance on a good day. It's a habit it's like Entertainment Tonight you sit there and one day think "why am I watching this?". That actually happened to me in the late 80s I realized I had a half smile grin Joker sort of thing watching banal celebrity news. These days instead of a dumb smile it's my left elbow with osteoarthritis from leaning on it reading about cats, rage faces and other memes or arguing with strangers over things 5000km away.

<comment><USER8> Ditched my TV last week and have been cutting back on my internet habit when I'm home for a while now. I suddenly have hours of free time every evening and I'm re-discovering magazines. But you're right, lots of them have been under pressure or have disappeared.

One thing I found out about myself is that internet made me lazy. These days I find it easier to read short articles - online articles used to get bookmarked and never read. I'm also trying harder to work on stuff without the net. I'm in electronics/embedded and I used to click around for every little thing. Now I sit down with pencil & paper again until I crack it by hand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a great blog post -- I can't help but feel like its an argument less against social media and more about how we use social media.

I think it's particularly ironic that he singled out Reddit for providing "absolutely 0 value to me", since Reddit's original use was a news aggregator devoted to separating signal from noise. Nowadays, its a place for people to spout memes.

<comment><USER10> I use reddit, but I had to unsubscribe from most of the default subreddits, and also from a few subreddits that I'd hand picked. It's a shame, but it's difficult to get programming news from reddit these days. Apart from silly memes, it's sipping from a firehose. So these days I largely stick to the backwaters where there's a much smaller amount of total content and good signal:noise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I ditched Facebook, and while I miss the ease of social engagement (getting invited to events via friend-spam was nice, since most people never invite me personally) i'm glad for no longer needing to constantly check my feed.

However, I noticed that Twitter and Hacker News tend to replace Facebook in that way, so I may follow your lead and ditch those too. But I sometimes find myself in a bar, searching through the internet, trying to find something to read rather than make conversation with a stranger. So i'm going to go one step further and ditch my smartphone. (Protip: Google supports syncing contacts/calendars using SyncML and S60 devices)

I'm not sure how well I will do without Google Maps and GPS to be my Hitchiker's Guidebook, but something tells me that not knowing where your going will lead to a more interesting destination. Or, since I live in Baltimore, getting shot. Either way it's an adventure.

<comment><USER12> Baltimore, eh? Get to live your own Homicide - Life on the street moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Paul Miller, one of The Verge's editors, is taking one year off from the Internet. He's blogging about it (via a USB stick that someone else publishes from) <https://www.theverge.com/label/offline> It's very interesting, especially "Ghost Limbs" and "Ignorance".

<comment><USER14> I've been following this, there is a hacker news thread about it, and The Verge have published a P.O. box for Mr Miller. I'm hacking out a letter over the weekend (typed, on onionskin paper, on my uncle's Olivetti).

I use Miller's page with teenagers (I'm a teacher); and the article here will be added to my collection. The pitch is 'control and focus your attention'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I agree short breaks are good ideas: they can give you time to mull over the things you've learned and seen, for ideas to finally sprout, etc. But to extend this to any broader theses like 'you should quit social media' is unwarranted; for a counter anecdote, I'm reminded of Hamming's You and Your Research <http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html>

> Another trait, it took me a while to notice. I noticed the following facts > about people who work with the door open or the door closed. I notice that > if you have the door to your office closed, you get more work done today and > tomorrow, and you are more productive than most. But 10 years later somehow > you don't know quite know what problems are worth working on; all the hard > work you do is sort of tangential in importance. He who works with the door > open gets all kinds of interruptions, but he also occasionally gets clues as > to what the world is and what might be important. Now I cannot prove the > cause and effect sequence because you might say, ``The closed door is > symbolic of a closed mind.'' I don't know. But I can say there is a pretty > good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who > ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed > often work harder. Somehow they seem to work on slightly the wrong thing - > not much, but enough that they miss fame.

</comment><comment><USER16> Meanwhile, in the real world, millions of people use Facebook to keep in touch with friends, share photos, and set up events, in addition to meeting in person.

Defining yourself by _not_ using something is no better than defining yourself by using it. Just let go and accept that it's a useful tool, nothing more, nothing less.

</comment><comment><USER17> I enjoyed this writeup and it's well-timed for me. I'm going to try it!

Anything you would add to the blacklist that you didn't initially?

<comment><USER18> If 30 days is too much, we're launching a free app that lets you cut off social media for 30 minutes at a time.

<https://monotask.com> (downloadable now)

We also have a pro version that lets you customize your whitelist and blacklist.

We hope you use the time to make some awesome stuff!

<comment><USER19> Amazing! If you can charge 10 dollars a month for something which really doesn't do much and for which there are many free alternatives (some even provided by you) then I applaud. Do you have any paying customers at the moment?

<comment><USER18> We're just launching the pro version now. The parent post is more promotion than just about anything we've done so far. But I'm a fan of transparency, and would be happy to share numbers in a month or three.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I understand the urge to keep away from facebook or twitter. However, Hacker News is very important resource for career and personal development IMHO.

Since I came to know about Hacker News, my life has changed. Not only I stay away from social media such as facebook, twitter, but also I am away from news websites such as cnn and bbc.And, let me say, it is very good for mind and body to not consume so much news.

<comment><USER21> My sarcasm meter is faulty. Are you being sarcastic, or genuinely serious?

<comment><USER22> I'm confident he's serious, and I feel much the same way. I use cperciva's Hacker News Daily (<http://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/>) to help avoid spending too much time at Hacker News and to make sure I don't miss any big stories.

<comment><USER21> Hey thanks for the link. It looks useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I ditched Facebook for about 8 months (I've been back since January) last year and it was incredibly liberating. As a result of my complete withdrawal for such a long period I don't check nearly as much as I previously did, although I must admit I have been starting to slip back into old habits. Also when I re-activated my Facebook I also joined Twitter which I now spent far too much time on. Despite some regression, I still feel that by having taken such an extended hiatus I am far less addicted to receiving the constant stream of information, as I once was.

This post has inspired me to take some steps to make sure I don't completely revert to the state I was ~1.5 years ago. I too plan to be more consciousness of my Twitter/Facebook/Reddit usage and not just spend large chunks of time mindlessly browsing them, when I could be doing some productive.

Great post, thanks for the reminder!

</comment><comment><USER24> I don't really know what social media is well enough to say I would go without it. I am simplifying it and getting off Facebook though (Strangely about a month ago I just quit signing on-- I suppose I should announce to people that I am no longer going to be there.)

But social media can be a larger thing. Email lists, discussion forums like this, blogs, etc. Some of those are central to my ability to stay informed and some are central to my actual productive work. I don't know you can separate email lists from something like Hackers News.

So I am separating things into three piles.

1) Discard: Facebook 2) Check 1-2 times/day (HN, a few blogs) 3) Check occasionally (LinkedIn, etc)

I haven't gotten on the Twitter bandwagon, so I don't have any experience with that.

</comment><comment><USER25> (spoiler) i lived life. the end.

<comment><AUTHOR> elegantly put. but it's funny how much of our lives we live with our eyes shut.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Last week, I tried to make producing something instead of consuming something the first thing I did in the morning. Practically, this meant working on a bunch of blog posts that I've had queued up for ages, plus actually writing about those "a ha" moments you have at work. It was really great and I felt good all day.

I was inspired by a Reddit comment I stuck in my Evernote a long time ago, but unearthed somewhat randomly: [http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/pbjk1/what_are_the_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/pbjk1/what_are_the_small_lifestyle_changes_youve_made/c3o3ejr)

<comment><USER27> Fascinating. I remember that comment very well, but have forgotten about it since reading it. Thanks the reminder.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I was about to say I just spent my lifetime without social media but I had no idea Hacker News was social media too. I guess that's good. Means I'm getting on with the times and not living in the 80s as one commenter put it.

</comment><comment><USER29> Giving values and more hobbies? OP sounds like he's doing PUA's inner game stuff.

I guess I'm a bit on the high horse since, I can do social media, and still be able to Judo, workout (6 days a week with insanity,gym, and hiking), dance at clubs, hang out with friends, self help stuff, and study for fun.

I don't think social media is the problem but his lack of discipline.

And everybody is jumping on the bandwagon "Whooa he's right! It's all social media fault." Hello, what you do with your time is up to you, it's not social media fault at all. It's your lack of time management skill.

<comment><USER30> Hmm… I don't think that what the author was getting at. I felt it was more closely aligned with the point that social media put some of wall/distance between us and our connections/relationships - in the sense that we are assimilating stories of our friends through status updates instead of a more personal face to face interaction. ie: Getting the news your friend is pregnant through status update vs. them breaking the news to you face to face and the emotions that happens as you congratulate and hug them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm not sure which corporate internet filter application our building uses (I think Sophos?) or if they use their own custom rules or subscribe else where but, steve corona, your entire site is blocked to me as:

       Access to the web page you were trying to visit has been
       blocked in accordance with company policy. Please contact
       your system administrator if you believe this is in error.

       URL: stevecorona.com/how-30-days-without-social-media-changed-my-life

       Category: adult-and-pornography

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe it's because of my running naked blog post, haha. That sucks though, I swear I'm not a porn site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I use a plugin in firefox (my default browser) called leechblock [<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock/>] and use a inspirational block page with links to my personal projects.

]The beauty of this plugin lies in the ability to configure time zones. You can say - block <insert your site here> after 1min, every six hours.

I am sure there is an equivalent in chrome.

</comment><comment><USER33> Facebook, like most other social media platforms, are tools. You can use tools to benefit or enhance your life or you can use it to destroy or negatively affect your life. Money is a tool, for example.

Other than that though, this was a great article and I'd be interested to start a similar experiment. I do think you if you are more purposeful with social media, you can still be as productive and do cool things like the writer did.

</comment><comment><USER34> Great post - I've been using RescueTime to be more mindful of how I spend my time and curb my social media use.. Great idea to have a 30 day challenge

</comment><comment><USER35> Giving up social media for 30 days (well except for using Facebook 5 times). That doesn't really sound like giving up social media at all.

<comment><USER36> I go to facebook.com probably 5 times in less than 5 minutes. To me, that is giving up social media. I'm sure I'm not alone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> It's funny how he couldn't do any of these things before while using social media. This is BS. I knew even before clicking the link exactly what it would say. Incredibly cliche. Someone should write an article - Moderation. How does it work?

<comment><USER38> > It's funny how he couldn't do any of these things before while using social > media.

Yes, almost as if our brains evolved in an environment where social media didn't exist, such that social media constitute an exploit for a security vulnerability in our motivation systems. Oh wait, they do.

> Incredibly cliche.

So is "don't take drugs". Sometimes something is a cliche because it's both true and worth repeating.

> Moderation. How does it work?

Step one is to be lucky in the genetic lottery. Seriously, there are people who can indefinitely maintain a moderate habit with cookies, whiskey, cigarettes, cocaine, poker, television and Facebook; and there are people who can't, and need to go cold turkey. As it happens I'm one of the former (well I haven't tried it with cocaine, but I can do the others), but that doesn't make me a better person than the people who can't, just luckier.

It's also worth noting some people have found going cold turkey for a while, was enough to break the addiction such that they could then go back cautiously, in moderation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> It reminds me that Knuth was on an information diet since 90s -- no email at all.

</comment><comment><USER40> But you're the CTO at Twitpic? Do you still want your company to do well?

</comment><comment><USER41> Balance and moderation. You can still use it, just not be obsessive.

</comment><comment><USER42> I have yet to read an obituary (even one of a young person killed in an accident) where FB was ever mentioned as being a hobby or passion or an admirable part of the deceased's life.

</comment><comment><USER43> when you will discover the warm water, write a blog post and you will win the Pulitzer prize

</comment><comment><USER44> Does anyone else spend like 20 seconds 5 times a day on Facebook or are we all really only capable of none or 3 hours a day?

<comment><USER45> Ha ha. I actually have a running joke now. I log into Facebook about once a day with a hearty, "time to check Facebook!" About 30-40 seconds later when I've skimmed the latest posts, I quit with a boisterous, "well, that was great!"

I'm assuming that anyone who can spend more than ten minutes on Facebook has way more friends than I do, and/or those friends are much more prolific than mine.

<comment><USER44> Or more interesting. I have a small number of friends and an even smaller number that I allow to see updates from. And even then, I rarely do more than scroll to wherever I left off last time or lose interest before I even get there.

I have the same reaction as you do most days. Oh well, sure glad I checked that! (not). Google+ is actually the opposite. There is such a tech focus from the people I follow that there are demo videos, technical papers, etc that I want to read but don't. Certainly not this, I'm happy because other people are, nonsense.</comment></comment></comment>


libarchive use after free vulnerability - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> [https://blog.firosolutions.com/exploits/libarchive/](https://blog.firosolutions.com/exploits/libarchive/)</comment>


What's the deal with AirPower? - <AUTHOR> https://daringfireball.net/linked/2018/06/13/airpower-claim-chowder <comment><USER2> It's tempting to speculate that they're having difficulty with the technology, but "iMessage in the cloud" was also announced at WWDC 2017, and was released just days before WWDC 2018, so it is (perhaps?) more likely that Apple is having more systemic problems internally developing things.

<comment><USER3> Same thing with the HomePod, it was announced in June and then it was shipped 8 months later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Couldn't this post have just been a tweet?</comment>


Anonymously Post/Compare Startup Salary & Equity Offers - <AUTHOR> http://www.ackwire.com/ <comment><USER3> Don't do this without very good guarantees that your data is not going to be tied to your identity somehow, you could be a in a lot of hot water for disclosing this stuff.

Sorry to rain on the parade but this is _not_ a good idea.

If you do decide to go through with it use a proxy and a throwaway email address.

downmodders: you're clueless.

<comment><USER4> As an employer, I wouldn't be particularly displeased by an employee revealing information like this anonymously (although I agree you should definitely not do so in a way which can be tied to you, just in case).

There is (some) justification in not identifying salary data within a specific company, to avoid jealousy and unproductive behaviors. At this level, it's not much more detailed than "how much do you make" on a loan application.

I don't think an employer has much right to try to pay the same people differential salaries based on their negotiating skill (at least for engineering/non-sales positions). There is a good argument for being 100% open with salaries and equity internally, at least in terms of ranges for given positions with given levels of experience. Joel on Software, [http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090401/how-hard-could-it-be- em...](http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090401/how-hard-could-it-be-employees- negotiate-pay-raises.html) I'm seriously considering doing "opt in to having your salary/equity public within the company", and Strongly Encouraging any senior person to do this; I think seeing a CEO making ~$60k and early engineers making $80k or so would help avoid runaway $140k for junior developers salary inflation, and I'd value my equity a lot more highly at a company where I saw the founders were still mainly motivated by equity upside vs. cash compensation.

Even at the granularity of per-employer salary stats (which Glassdoor type sites do), there is a net benefit to everyone in knowing that e.g. Netflix pays a 30-50% cash salary premium over Facebook, and that Twitter is particularly stingy with equity (relative to valuation) compared to other tech companies. If I were trying to hire people at Twitter, I'd be annoyed to be wasting my time with candidates who wanted >0.1% equity for anything but super-senior engineering positions, and I'd be sad if I were hiring at Netflix and people didn't know about the great cash component in deciding to apply.

If your first interaction with a company is them trying to mislead and/or fuck you through inaccurate perceptions and lack of information, this does not bode well.

<comment><USER3> Agreed in general. But: this form asks for your email address, if you post from your corporate IP the company is known, if you add in all the rest of the data then the company might identifiable as well, if you have posted stuff in fora from your email account and tied it in to your corporate identity then that can be put together. After all, how many companies with between 'x' and 'y' employers in such and such an area making profit with a market cap of 'z' have active members on HN.

You're not nearly as anonymous as you think you are and this is very juicy data.

On the whole transparency is a good thing but this is probably not the best way to go about achieving it.

<comment><USER4> A lot of university hiring offices collect this level of stats (although in less useful form) from recent graduates, and often republish.

Post from home, use a throwaway email address or at least a gmail-type address vs. @palantir.net work address, is probably enough. The most personally detrimental leak would probably be "I work for Yahoo and am currently interviewing with Google and Facebook" vs. that Google and Facebook extended specific offers, and in that case, you're already trusting the HR departments, recruiters, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This information would be valuable. Unfortunately, getting such information _reliably_ is incredibly difficult.

If life has taught me nothing else it's that people lie about their incomes _even anonymously_. Plus you have a selection bias to deal with anyway.

Oh and email validation is pretty meaningless.

</comment><comment><USER4> An extension of this which would be even more socially beneficial would be "graduate of x degree program and y university job offer stats"; ideally with some kind of actually trusted third party going over legitimate offer letters.

This data could be blinded at the level of industry or role (and thus not commercially sensitive to any employer), and then published to prospective students; knowing that Bentley College majors in Communications are offered $20-40k while Stanford CS graduates are offered $70-140k would be exceptionally useful to everyone, much more so than the 5-year graduation rates which I think universities taking certain federal financial aid programs are required to disclose.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps... although there may be little or no correlation between where one chooses to go to school and how good of an engineer they'll be.

<comment><USER4> This is much more relevant outside SW engineering/internet. Knowing about law schools, medical schools, etc., or different types of degree, would be useful for a lot of otherwise uninformed students taking on debt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know if requiring people to enter & verify their e-mail address is such a good idea for anonymity... (it is for data quality).

<comment><USER8> The data is meaningless if it can't be trusted. Email addresses are stored encrypted and will always be kept confidential.

<comment><USER9> That's nice, but _you_ get to know all the details and link them up to people. You might end up meeting those people in networking events, or being asked about those people.

What's to stop _you_ from making use of that data?

I'm not attacking your character or suggesting you _will_ make use of the data, but it's a pretty tempting pool of data to sneak a look into. "Oh, so- and-so at Twitter earns that much, interesting. Holy crap, I met this guy last week, I had no idea he got screwed so badly by his current startup. Huh, looks like startup X has a fair bit of money."

A lot of this is actionable data. If the startup has IPOed, you might even fall under insider trading regulations and need to make sure you don't trade on it. On a purely ethical level, you might want to consider what sort of level of access _you_ should have to the data.

Finally, there is, of course, the possible issue that someone might offer you a tidy sum of money to buy that data off you, once there's enough of it.

I would not advise anyone to put their data in there as this stands.

<comment><USER8> "What's to stop you from making use of that data?"

The vision of Ackwire is to make startup compensation data transparent to prospective employees and employers.

Email addresses are encrypted and stored in a different database. It's true that they aren't hard to manually access, but this presents a reasonable barrier.

The same argument applies to any web service that stores personal information. I'm sure there are administrators at Facebook, Gmail, etc. who could read all your private messages, view your photos, etc. But we assume they don't, and most of us use these services anyway.

"A lot of this is actionable data. If the startup has IPOed, you might even fall under insider trading regulations and need to make sure you don't trade on it."

I'm not a securities lawyer, but this doesn't seem to pass the material non- public test. Significant shareholders in a public company already have to disclose their holdings, publicly.

"Finally, there is, of course, the possible issue that someone might offer you a tidy sum of money to buy that data off you, once there's enough of it."

I think this is jumping the gun a bit, but any buyer would have to keep the current user agreement intact (posts are confidential and anonymous) or explicitly ask users to opt into the new terms.

<comment><USER10> I think the point of the OP was that there is no mechanism in place to enforce your promises. It basically asks people to just trust some guy on the internet that they've never seen or met and most likely never will, and who may or may not be who he says he is. I don't have an answer, I just think it's a valid concern and if your only response is 'oh but I won't do that', well to me that shows that you don't understand the actual concern.

<comment><USER4> If the operator of Ackwire used this data in sufficiently malicious ways, I think there would be potential civil liability (at least enough to bring a credible suit; maybe not to win).

I wouldn't trust a random person with this data, but I'd trust a member of a somewhat-meritocratic community like hackernews or quora, university alumni association, etc. It's fairly clear why this data is being collected, what is being done with it, and my potential downside risk is fairly capped. At some point, being overly paranoid is too much of a cost.

Yes, a technical solution to this class of problem would be preferable to social trust. (and is one of the things I'm working on, actually...)

<comment><USER9> I think you're not being paranoid enough. The "HN member" in question has a karma of 18 (yes, karma does count), and I don't recognise his username.

The questions you need to ask yourself is:

1) is there any potential downside whatsoever to submitting my data here? If this data is on the front page of the new york times tomorrow, and everyone I know knows it, do I stand to lose anything because of it?

2) is there any real upside to submitting _my_ data here? (seeing other people's data has obvious upsides)

Unless 2 is clearly bigger than 1, submitting your salary info here is an irrational decision.

<comment><USER4> Actually, I mixed up the submitter and the creator (892 vs. 18); I agree I'd trust someone I recognized as a member of the community more than others, but I still think hn-member alone is worth something. So, I don't disagree with you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm currently negotiating for a director level post... This confirms what I thought : way too low !

I'll wait for more data, but this is a great help for me !

<comment><USER12> It's not all about the money too. There is happiness at work, prospects, experience gain, distance from home, day to day...

At least that's what I found from the highest paying jobs I got.

<comment><USER13> depends. if you're single then that be great but if you have a family then that's another story.

<comment><USER14> I have a family and still consider the money I minor part in the whole job choosing scheme. A minimum of overtime and no weekends and reasonable vacation days so that I actually can spend time with my family is much more important to me. As is having a boss who doesn't get pissy if I have to stay home to take care of a sick child now and then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> We have TheFunded for VC/Angel investors, stuff like Glassdoor and this for compensation, and CPM/traffic/etc. are fairly well established through compete and other sources, and it would be great to see a few more anonymous data pools: 1) Non-employee costs (offices in SoMA and PA/MV, insurance, anything sold in a non-transparent market) 2) Sales cycles and cash to cash time (how long does it take for initial interest to become cash in the bank account for various types of product and market)

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm a little suspicious of this dataset.

$122k + 3.5% for a mid level product manager who joined Q1, 2011 at (presumably) Groupon?

$320k + 1.5% for a C-level bizdev who joined Q1, 2011 at Groupon?

5% of equity to late entry employees at a company where, presumably, first employees have been diluted into sub .5% ranges seems not just ridiculous, but impossible. I mean, they just closed a series G for crying out loud -- they don't have 5% to throw at new employees.

Unless of course there are other group buying startups in Chicago with a valuation greater than $10bn that I haven't heard of.

</comment><comment><USER16> It may be pretty hard to compare US and foreign offers. For instance, in France, you'd be earning 36000 euros in cash --what's landing on your account --, however it would actually be nearly 48000 euros with charges (that's what you're taxed for): social security, retirement, etc. Then the company will actually pay some 20000 more euros in other salary charges. That means that 36000 euros in cash in France translate to (36000 (cash) + 32000 (charges)) * 1.30 = about US$ 90000 ...

<comment><USER10> That's the same everywhere (well the extent varies, but not by the margin you suggest), which is why you should quote your gross pay (i.e. the amount before deduction of social security, pension and related costs). On top of that there's extra costs for the company obviously, but those are not 'wages'. Quoting the gross salary is standard here in the Netherlands because the amount that is left after taxes varies depending on personal circumstances. In the Netherlands (and Belgium and to the best of my knowledge France) the contributions are withheld by the company, in the US you pay them yourself. Quoting the gross salary makes for the best comparison (not perfect, but better than stating net pay, i.e. the amount you are paid each month - <USER2> number is in this context meaningless).

<comment><USER17> Only his point seems to be that you should compare the gross salary before _employers_ taxes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 As others have said, it's not "compleetely anonymous" if you are supplying an email address.

</comment><comment><USER18> Would be nice if the column headers could act as filters rather than just sortable. I wanna see just postings in SF Bay Area, Pre-Rev, and Engineering. I don't care about all the other stuff.

</comment><comment><USER4> For data quality, you should probably provide definition by example for the level (director vs. Vp vs. Senior can be ambiguous in early stages)

<comment><USER8> Good point. Generally, Senior is the most experienced title for an employee without direct reports, e.g. Senior Engineer. Lead, Director and VP usually entail direct reports, e.g. a Lead Engineer or "Engineering Lead"

<comment><USER19> I worked for a company where there were a bunch of Engineering Leads with no direct reports. Makes no sense, I realize, but titles rarely do. You might want to make that a checkbox.

<comment><USER4> I'm used to engineering lead vs. manager being "leads technology" vs. "leads team" within a group, so an engineering lead should never have direct reports.

Sometimes the engineering lead is sort of a mentor to junior members of the team, too, and it can be training for becoming a manager. It would be unusual for an engineering lead to be responsible for HR-type management of Senior Engineers, at least at every place I've worked.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Does 'Engineering' imply software developers too, or is there just no software development in these startups?

</comment><comment><USER21> It'll be interesting to see when the startup was founded too, but I guess that would make it less anonymous

</comment><comment><USER22> Hmm... Industry = "Group Buying", Location = "Chicago", Valuation = ">$10B"

I'd say Groupon pays pretty darn well, huh?

</comment><comment><USER23> bug report: clicking 51-100 employees doesn't filter correctly; filters list on 1-10 instead

<comment><USER23> also, sorting the headcount column sorts alphabetically and not as you probably intended

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> why do you need to supply an email? Is that even necessary? Most people will fake it anyway

</comment><comment><USER25> it would be nice if they had fields for the hire number (1st employee, 2nd, etc..)

<comment><USER8> I try to capture this with the Headcount field. Don't want to get too specific though, in order to preserve anonymity.

<comment><USER26> Along these lines, it would be great to have at least country-level information instead of "Outside US". Otherwise, data on the UK is indistinguishable from data on Cambodia, for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> What about spammers?</comment>


Ask HN: Simple server metric monitoring tools? - <AUTHOR> Is there a simple server metric monitoring tools which does not need to configure a lots.
What I mean simple is, just want to set how much CPU%, RAM% and Disk space usage and when server got over that percentage then create alert.
Is there simple tool like this? I saw once on HN and now I can't search it back. <comment><USER2> Did you mean Nagios? Nagios shows you everything. Only the installation takes longer than 2 minutes.

[1] [https://www.nagios.org/downloads/](https://www.nagios.org/downloads/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Munin is nice too.</comment>


US Patent: Method of Recording and Saving of Human Soul for Human Immortality - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/patents?id=CS20AAAAEBAJ&zoom=4&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false

<comment><USER2> It's a patent application, not a patent. The difference is important.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing out, I cannot make the title any longer, though.</comment></comment>


Under pressure, afraid to take bathroom breaks? Inside Amazon's warehouse - <AUTHOR> https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/under-pressure-afraid-to-take-bathroom-breaks-inside-amazons-fast-paced-warehouse-world/ <comment><USER2> here's a related video with the author:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NBdX6FHg2k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NBdX6FHg2k)</comment>


Chinese drone maker DJI acquires Swedish camera maker Hasselblad - <AUTHOR> https://luminous-landscape.com/hasselblad-acquired-dji/ <comment><USER2> this is a strange acquisition, or majority ownership purchase, does dji use hasselblad lenses for their drones? i have the phantom 4, my guess is no. perhaps that's what will change, though it seems hasselblad is in the business primarily of making standalone bodies and lenses, it seems a bit orthogonal to dji's current business.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A top quality camera deeply integrated with a reliable, easy to operate drone could be a boon for wedding photography and film making.

</comment><comment><USER3> Surprising that it's this way arround. Hassleblad has a very good name with professional photographers.

</comment><comment><USER4> webcache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=cache%3...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?hl=en&q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fluminous- landscape.com%2Fhasselblad-acquired-dji%2F)</comment>


Ask HN: How do you curate your address book? - <AUTHOR>

I'm participating in a Startup Weekend (#swperth on Twitter), and I pitched an idea called "Tactopus", which is a service for curating your contacts for you.
A placeholder site is up at www.tactopus.com with links to a discussion page, by the way, if you'd like to help us out with some feedback.
I figured it's basically a universal truth that we all get a bit annoyed when emails to old friends bounce, or at the thought of letting everyone know about our new phone number or email address. And I also figured that going through your address book and fixing up all your contacts is so much more painful that we just accept this all as how it has to be.
But what I'd like to know from the HN community is this: Am I in the minority here, or have I struck a chord? Does everyone already use some amazing tool that I'm somehow unaware of, or is it just not that big a deal?
So how do you make sure all your contact information is correct and complete? <comment><USER2> Windows Phone has a great integration with Facebook, that surely helps. But a lot of my contacts are divided across my personal gmail, official emails, LinkedIn and Facebook.

But surely my address book if far away for being complete. Either few are missing phone numbers, emails, or pics.

<comment><AUTHOR> I try to manually unify all my contacts into Gmail, since that's what I mostly use for email, and I can sync them to my phone. But it's definitely missing entries. It's weird that this is such an unsolved problem.</comment></comment>


Is Crispr the Next Antibiotic? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/28/health/crispr-genetics-antibiotic-resistance.html <comment><USER2> Using a bacteria-derived antiviral mechanism against our own viruses sounds obvious to anyone who hears about CRISPR's origins for the first time, I'd hasard.

A less-explored idea is the one I first got from the title: would oversuse of CRISPR lead to "superbugs" issues like we had with antibiotics? This sounds like something interesting to work on, even before starting their large-scale use.

I guess a lot could go wrong if viruses started to become resistant to bacteria's immune system mechanisms.

<comment><USER3> I've been thinking about the nature of security in biology. How do you keep enemies out when you are guarding something valuable like an oasis or your heart/brain?

Well, we can install layers of access control like cell membranes which apply access control. We can cordon off the nuclear power plants (like mitochondria) with a "dumb" API that produces energy in return for nutrients and avoids "smart contracts".

In the medieval sense, we can dig a moat and install a drawbridge. Bridges adds latency, but at least you can retract them during wartime. But the enemy is pretty clever, so they carry long ladders across the desert that can span the moat.

So you add a winding cave before the moat so the ladders don't fit. But then they wisen up and pay spies behind your lines to lower the bridge, which is analogous to hijacking your immune system, or they invent a folding ladder, and so on.

But none of this helps you if your enemy can consume you at a macro scale by swallowing you whole. So complex species tend to grow larger or add multiple layers of specialised topology (organs) with disposable individuals - not to mention growing their societies.

I suspect there exists a "Shannon Information Theory of Survival" that can guarantee a defensible strategy as long as you can inject sufficient variance into the environment (high pressure, low pressure, vacuum, hot, cold, acidic, etc.) so that it would be more costly for an attacker to usurp you than to forge an alliance.

<comment><USER4> In the large intestine, mucus is your moat (Fig 3D). [https://www.pnas.org/content/105/39/15064](https://www.pnas.org/content/105/39/15064)

The key is that you can't really stop the bacteria from coming in. You have to actually feed them so that they don't get desperate enough to blow a hole through your defenses. But what you feed them is a complex mix of polysaccharides that take take a long time to chew through. [https://www.nature.com/articles/nature23292](https://www.nature.com/articles/nature23292)

Your variance hypothesis is basically correct. The goblet cells of the epithelium express ~20 enzymes that decorate the protein backbone of mucus with six O-linked sugars in such a way that the composition is never the same, because of all the different types of linkage combinations possible, which means that no one bacteria can sweep through and gain permanent access. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4982847/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4982847/)

<comment><USER4> I was looking for this reference yesterday but couldn't find it:

Cooperative Metabolic Adaptations in the Host Can Favor Asymptomatic Infection and Select for Attenuated Virulence in an Enteric Pathogen [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30100182](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30100182)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The delivery method is generally the missing piece.

For the first of the reports mentioned here the authors used bacterial conjugation [1] as the delivery method. They note that:

"In culture conditions that enhance cell-to-cell contact, conjugation rates approach 100% with the cis-acting plasmid."

So, I guess what is less clear is if this would me the case in a real bacterial infection. And would this generalize to a broad spectrum of pathogenic bacteria?

The delivery mechanism in the second, anti-viral, paper is less clear to me. Perhaps someone else can comment.

In general, I still like the idea of using bacteriophages. But finding broad spectrum bacteriophages seems problematic. Using DNA sequencing as a diagnostic to target therapies seems like in interesting idea (once DNA sequencing becomes cheap enough and easily available).

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

<comment><USER6> I'm not so convinced about using phages anymore, at least not on the same large scale that antibiotics are used (which is an economical necessity). Bacteria co-evolve with phages, especially using CRISPR ([https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1662-9](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1662-9)) and can adapt much faster to a given phage strain than to antibiotics.

<comment><USER7> documentaries rarely, if ever, talk about phage resistance

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The really wild thing will be if autologous CAR-T or CAR-M can become a thing. Then you can just dump in already targeted and angry T-cells or macrophages to fight the infection. Additionally cool, fighting things like mold, yeast, and protist infections could then become "routine".

If the patient isn't too sick, you could even get to in situ programming of endogenous lymphocytes and myeloid cells a la Matthias Stephan's nanoparticle loaded with DNA or mRNA. [https://stephanlab-fhcrc.squarespace.com/research- projects](https://stephanlab-fhcrc.squarespace.com/research-projects)

</comment><comment><USER9> I wonder if using Crispr would create a new class of pathogen that are tailored to a small set of population (or even to one individual). That would make research on that impossible and so cure also impossible. We can use Crispr only if we have studied and understood how the pathogen impacts our DNA. But over time, if the pathogen and individual DNAs divert far apart then no single research can be used as a generic cure. That would really suck and make cure a feature for the rich. Hope someone tells me I dead wrong.

<comment><USER10> Sure. You could even do a STUXNET type attack where the pathogen is highly transmissible and perfectly benign to everyone but your target. Release it in a train station in Budapest and wait.

<comment><USER11> Extremely unlikely. Viruses would lose the gene if it's non-essential, before it got to your target. They're designed to make lots of mistakes in replication to diversify quickly, and without selective pressure, will not retain high fidelity genetic material. Sure, you could mutate the polymerase, but then you have a replication problem as well. How is this virus spread? Particularly without inducing a cough. There's no guarantee of exposure.

Bacteria have more genetic stability but are even harder to spread because most people are already colonized and disruption of that homeostasis is often difficult, and symptomatic.

None of that even addresses how you'd engineer something to be benign to everyone but one person.

<comment><USER10> I know you're right but technically neither of us mentioned virus. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If our DNA were like clean code I wouldn't be so worried.

<comment><USER13> Comparing DNA to a really horrible code base sounds like the perfect analogy.

<comment><USER14> No dependency too old to be pulled in! If it doesn't literally kill ya it ships!

<comment><USER15> Also copy paste all over the place, bugs and all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > > [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines)</comment>


Ask HN: Are there any good online communities for macOS devs? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> #macdev on irc.freenode.net is still the prominent place specifically for macOS developers that I can think of.

Not able to think of anything else off hand. Twitter or stackoverflow could be supplements. There's other communities for Swift or other specific projects.

</comment><comment><USER3> Make one! I put a Slack together for remote workers ([https://helloremote.life](https://helloremote.life)) and it's been really fulfilling to see the group and the level of conversation grow over time. Also a good way to network, both for you as the organizer, and for people in the group (a hiring or jobs channel in particular)

<comment><USER4> Just curious: why Slack vs e.g. Discord for these types of communities? I've seen both used but I'm interested to know from a community organizer standpoint where each platform makes more sense.

<comment><USER3> Good question. The chat actually started in Discord, which I think is actually a better tool for community chats (no archive limit, better permission management).

The issue, and in my case, this is specific to the remote Slack, is that a lot of people who use it /already/ have Slack open for their day job.

Lots of people joined the Discord, but no one really chatted. When we moved to Slack it was like an instant adrenaline shot into the daily activity of the group.

Again, I think this is specific to the group — I'm in a couple crypto Discord channels that are SUPER active. It just happens that a lot of the remote workers in the group already have Slack open.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I feel like the answer is "Twitter". Find a bunch of prominent macOS devs and talk to them. There might be a Slack or Discord or something you can get them to invite you to.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you point me to some of those macOS devs?

<comment><USER5> Here are a couple off the top of my head (I'm not too closely connected to the scene, and these are mostly people I follow for other reasons, but it's a start):

\- @tapbot_paul

\- @marcoarment

\- @cabel

\- @chockenberry

\- @stroughtonsmith

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are a bunch of us at [http://chat.coreint.org](http://chat.coreint.org)

<comment><USER7> They have a good podcast too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I feel like there were great communities a decade ago, but these days I've been out of the Mac indie dev/customization scene for so long I wouldn't know where to turn.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, I'm still (primarily) a Mac dev, but I think the community has been sort of been subsumed/replaced by the much, much bigger iOS dev community.

For what it's worth, I still find the cocoa-dev mailing list useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think this is a case of finding a topic community.

In other words: If you are a macOS dev who uses AWS, Unity, or Swift, then find an AWS, Unity, or Swift community and you'll find many people there using macOS.

</comment><comment><USER11> can anyone please recommend a book similar to Windows Internals for MacOS? Thx

<comment><USER12> MacOS and iOS Internals, Volume I: User Mode by Jonathan Levin

[http://a.co/7PhFmag](http://a.co/7PhFmag)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The silence here is stunning. Most of the support I've found is on slack or Google groups related to Mac administration (google macadmins) / munki packing tools. Not quite macos development, but a good place to learn how to package things.

</comment><comment><USER14> Isn't the Mac dev forum protected by a pay wall?</comment>


US Currency Re-imagined to Celebrate Ideas, Not the Dead - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/28/7082169/us-currency-redesign

<comment><USER2> The $50 note looks awesome. Although, overall the designs are not the most practical looking. Have any of you seen the new Norwegian notes? -> [http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/10/nor...](http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/10/norways- new-banknotes-are-works-of-art/381240/)

<comment><USER3> Do you mean practical in the sense of anti-fraud capabilities, or in the sense of likely-to-win-general approval?

I think the designs are really great. Norway's are great too.

I really wish Americans were more properly suspicious of tradition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That currency is offensive to the increasingly large number of Americans who do not or can not "work", or choose not to participate in the soul-destroying crapitalistic exchange of slave labour for artifically-backed so-called "currency".

(Please don't downvote me, I don't actually feel that way, but that's the reaction I would expect from the current culture of the easily-offended.)

I rather like them myself, though I agree they're a little on the impractical side. I do wish we'd consider something more radical of a design change one of these days, if for no other reason than to at least make the current counterfeiters have to go out and get new equipment.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I really like the $50 dollar note and the designs overall, but I'd agree they are not the most practical. I've seen those Norwegian notes, they look great.

</comment><comment><USER5> Needs more triangles.</comment>


Choosing Between AWS, GCP and Azure - <AUTHOR> http://blog.armory.io/choosing-between-aws-gcp-and-azure/ <comment><USER2> Hi, this is the CTO of Armory. If any of you have questions about cloud adoption or want to learn more about what setup might work for you, feel free to ask me!</comment>


New contact lenses with LEDs and circuits could become a tiny personal display - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jul/03/led.contact.lenses <comment><USER2> Cool stuff, although wont this cause near sightless?

<comment><USER3> Focusing images with displays close to the eyes has always been an issue. My advisor, Thad Starner, has been wearing a heads up display that clips onto his glasses for 10+ years. His has the ability to move the image farther or closer so he can set it to appear where his eyes naturally focus.

<comment><USER4> Would you happen to know what make/model your advisor uses?

<comment><USER3> I believe it's the Micro Optical SV-6. Although the company site seems to be something else. I believe they are now in the business of making those HUDs for ipods (ala MyVu).

<comment><USER4> thanks</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Startup naming - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
my cofounder and I are about to start a startup: we have a good impression, how our MVP might look like and we also have a quite clear & partly validated view, who might buy it for the first service. (which is a service for individual consumers btw.)
The issue is: we don't have a proper name for the startup yet and ask for advice on how to go on there. (we found that even other companies use e.g. interesting URLs ;-)
We have a good naming for the first service, which will grow out of the MVP, but we feel that putting the name of this first service on top of the whole company might limit us later. (as future planned services would not quite fit under this name) Customers for these other service (likely) wouldn't search for us under the name of our first service. (but this is an untested assumption) We expect only a little or no overlap between the customer segments of our services.
So we see the following options: - start the first service as a standalone service (with own url etc.), coin it like "XYZ - a service from ABC company", and (maybe) connect the web presences of the different services later.
- come up with the current company naming proposals (even if they are not the best names), establish a company web presence and put all the services below it (like XYZ-Service.ABC-company.com) and (perhaps) rename the company later.
What is your advice?
Are there other good/bad examples, where a company markets its products in a standalone manner? Do you specifically have any hints, on how to deal marketing-wise with domain name changes?
Kind regards,
Daniel <comment><USER2> 1\. It sounds like you are talking about two different companies/start-ups. If they are not truly linked, than treat them as two different companies.

2\. To use "endorsement branding" like "XYZ - a service from ABC company" is for many reasons not viable for a start-up. Take the user/buyer perspective: Why are they telling me this if the two services are not related? What brand should I remember?

3\. If you use a generic describing name on your company that is to narrow to be an umbrella for all related services, then you have a real problem. The company "BestNewYorkTaxis" will have a problem expanding into Boston...

4\. Always check that your new business name is not confusingly similar to an existing trademark. You can do that comprehensive trademark search for free at our site <http://www.markify.com/>

Benoit

<comment><USER3> It's not that you can't expand with #3, it's just more difficult.

A friend of mine runs onlyattech.net. It was initially launched for Georgia Tech students, and then when it came to expand, they became the "Only At network" and got onlyatuga.net and onlyatuf.net

Of course, in the taxi example who's to say that BestBostonTaxis isn't already taken? You'll end up spending a lot to keep your branding and moving into a new network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think there becomes confusion when a company looks at each service as a separate company. It is true while having one encompassing brand name is best practice, having distinct names for product lines and services is imperative. Each one of these products or product lines over time will become its own brand. Apple, Google and 37 Signals are major brands in the tech world to model yourself after.

Additionally, don't fall in the trap of naming your company a weird alteration trying to define your service. Building a brand is about creating a name people identify with a service. The goal is to make it easy for people to remember.

</comment><comment><USER5> As a startup you can effectively build only _one_ brand (and even this is quite hard), so even if you chose a second name for the company, don't put too much stress on it. You'll be selling the service's brand all the time.

You don't want to water down the message by introducing clutter (i.e. two brands). And also, people won't care.</comment>


More evidence Apple falsified images in court documents - <AUTHOR> http://pocketnow.com/smartphone-news/more-evidence-apple-falsified-images

<comment><USER2> This is the desktop version of the article, replete with ads and with a 200kB download size. The mobile version:

[http://m.pocketnow.com/smartphone-news/more-evidence- apple-f...](http://m.pocketnow.com/smartphone-news/more-evidence-apple- falsified-images)

is less than 6kB, and has just the article. The mobile version has also been submitted here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2913629>

</comment><comment><USER3> From what I've read, the Judge actually hold the devices in his/her hands. So this sensationalism feels so yesterday...

</comment><comment><USER4> And if the judge only read the document for the pictures, this might mean something.</comment>


I did a study of white supremacist channels on YouTube. All of them still up - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/chick_in_kiev/status/1136444280602595328 <comment><USER2> I find it disingenuous how the "study" lists Jesse Lee Peterson as a "white supremacist".

Jesse Lee Peterson is a black, conservative christian radio host.

Not saying I believe/care for his views but let's all calm down with the flinging of labels such as Nazi, Racist, White Supremacist at everyone who has a differing opinion (IMO).</comment>


Ulyp – A mighty son of debugger and flamegraph - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/0xaa4eb/ulyp <comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.reddit.com/r/java/comments/f3pn4u/java_code_visu...](https://www.reddit.com/r/java/comments/f3pn4u/java_code_visualizer_via_bytecode_instrumentation/)</comment>


Hey Microsoft, How 'bout We Do That First Deal You Offered? - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/14/hey-microsoft-how-bout-we-do-that-first-deal-you-offered/ <comment><USER2> Sorry but I got to completely disagree with Arrington's analysis. Yahoo is a media portal and they do graphic ads in search pretty well too. Where Yahoo went bust was in trying to usurp Google's lead in search. That is the only area where they are #2. Yahoo still is the #1 media portal on the web and the following they have is very loyal.

If Yahoo had taken MS's deal it would've struck at the very heart where the competencies lie. They would've had to give up on their Panama system which is being tweaked and is currently showing better prospects. $1B for putting paid to all Yahoo research and their tech is an insult to Yahoo techies. MS just provided an opportunity to increase the current operating income and cash flow but in all other quarters straitjacketed Yahoo. Yahoo would be forced to stop managing and hiring search engineers and just display ads. It is an industry fact that MS's per query revenue projected is lower than Yahoo's current revenue.

What Microsoft was asking Yahoo to do was too risky. They have a history of screwing up internet deals and straitjacketing Yahoo's core competencies in exchange for cash is too much to ask.

I will agree Jerry mismanaged Yahoo a bit much, but running a $2B company isn't a joke.

I believe Yahoo was right in rejecting MS's deal. They needed Yahoo more than it needed them.

And Icahn isn't an angel. He is just itching for a fight to make a few hundred millions.

Focusing on the Google alliance gives Yahoo enough leeway to get marginally additional revenue while concentrating on their media and Panama divisions.

The stock might be down now, but the market is quite open for experimentation. And if they get it right, who knows, the stock will perhaps shoot up like before.

</comment><comment><USER3> First good TechCrunch article in a long time - it's nice to see Arrington can still write a decent, fair, and sensible article once in a while.</comment>


Edit Over SSH Using Your Favorite Locally Installed Editor - <AUTHOR> http://collaboradev.com/2014/03/06/edit-over-ssh-using-any-locally-installed-editor/ Edit over ssh using any including your favorite locally installed editor.  No more FTP/SCP-ing files around. <comment><USER2> [https://www.gnu.org/software/tramp/](https://www.gnu.org/software/tramp/)</comment>


Show HN: Color Code Your Twitter Feed - Chrome Extension - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/iaedgcanhaimehailogginhkhlnecken

<comment><AUTHOR> Created this simple Chrome Extension to color code tweets on twitter.com. Feedback is very encouraged!

Use: Hover over a tweet and press a number 1-9. Each number has a color assigned to it, and all tweets from that user will be highlighted with the number's color. Press 0 or click the icon in the address bar to toggle highlighting on or off.

I personally use it as a sort of replacement for Twitter's horrible list functionality. I color friends one color and news another, and when I'm bogged down with unread tweets I can skip the less important ones.</comment>


Google Walkout's Demand for Changes - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/GoogleWalkout/status/1057804203895283712 <comment><USER2> Primary discussion here- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18352275](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18352275)</comment>


Top 25 Companies For Work-Life Balance - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/07/19/top-companies-for-work-life-balance/

<comment><USER2> Direct link to the Glassdoor report that this post is based on: [http://www.glassdoor.com/Top-Companies-for-Work-Life- Balance...](http://www.glassdoor.com/Top-Companies-for-Work-Life-Balance- LST_KQ0,35.htm)

It's interesting, although not surprising, to see the top companies being dominated by tech.</comment>


$1000-a-day Pinterest scammer claims hoax - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailydot.com/news/pinterest-scammer-hoax-controversy/

<comment><USER2> This is a prime example of how to not write a correction piece.

The gist of the story is that they used a screenshot to verify somebody's identity, and it turns out the person faked it. However, instead of saying "we made a mistake and didn't verify our sources properly," they go on to spin stories like "But is Steve a prankster, or is he a spammer having second thoughts" and "Regardless of its validity, Steve's story helped expose a very real issue for Pinterest." Both could possibly be true, but they are just speculating to save face.

The part that annoyed me to make me comment was this paragraph:

 _"So who is this spammer? Unfortunately, there's no way to tell right now. Even if another person claiming to be final-fantas07 came forward, the only way that individual could prove his or her identity—a screenshot—could be faked (again)."_

Really? A little bit of critical thinking and you could have him make a post using one of his bots' account, or delete a post, or use any other more reliable, actually verifiable source.

<comment><USER3> I wish I could make them read this: [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/blog/2012/03/retracting- mr-d...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/blog/2012/03/retracting-mr-daisey- and-the-apple-factory)

So they can learn something about journalism.

<comment><USER4> OR you could just link here: <http://www.dailydot.com/ethics-policy/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm from the IM community and $1000 a day is not unheard of, but most of the other people using pinterest are not making this much, especially since they stopped sending all pins to the front page (now only 1 per hour or so). The traffic coming from Pinterest is also not converting that well, it seems that the women like to browse and aren't that into buying. Regardless, pinterest traffic can be used in a clean way to send traffic to a legitimate store, and those people are seeing positive results...

<comment><USER6> What's "IM community"?

<comment><USER7> Internet Marketing community.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article keeps using "scam" and "spam" interchangeably. As far as I can tell, no one's actually getting scammed in any way, it's purely spam.

<comment><USER9> I'm just happy they didn't call him a 'Hacker'

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Seems like a pretty lame "hoax." My money's on the guy fell for the appeal of fame, quickly realized how it was going to impact his finance and backpedaled.

</comment><comment><USER11> Smells like linkbait to sell bots on the blackhat forum that was mentioned.</comment>


Airhelp and Fixed help you fight airlines and parking tickets - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/airhelp-and-fixed-help-you-fight-airlines-and-parking-tickets-2014-7

<comment><USER2> Super cool! I wish these boys teach the airlines a lesson about air passenger rights as the airlines seem to have forgotten what it was...

</comment><comment><USER3> This has got to be the most hilariously inept series of sockpuppets I've ever seen. I'm tempted to add some of my own.

</comment><comment><USER4> Great concept. I will have to go through all my past flights and make some claims.

</comment><comment><USER5> Love the idea of your company finally someone sticking up for the people

</comment><comment><USER6> Best business idea ever!

</comment><comment><USER7> That's exactly what we all need! Airlines just do not care about their customers!

</comment><comment><USER8> Already a customer!

</comment><comment><USER9> Marvelous idea!

</comment><comment><USER10> Great idea!</comment>


Should I Fire a Recent Hire if I Find Someone Better? - <AUTHOR> http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/13/should-i-fire-a-recent-hire-if-i-find-someone-better/?partner=rss&emc=rss

<comment><USER2> " _I'm not worried about my reputation, and I sleep well at night_ "

I believe him ^_^.

That said, despite all his defenses of how doing this is OK, he's hired the second one without firing the first (in part because the 2nd does not require the supervisory overhead that was his #1 constraint) and plans to keep both "if conditions warrant".</comment>


Wikipedia: The Text Adventure - <AUTHOR> http://kevan.org/wikitext/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hint: type help for valid commands (there's more than you might expect if you aren't familiar with text adventures of old)</comment>


Low-Competition Niches In Retail Software - <AUTHOR> http://successfulsoftware.net/2011/06/08/3-low-competition-niches-in-retail-software/ <comment><USER5> Herd mentality is the result of domain knowledge. All programmers experience problems with ToDo lists.. How many programmers experience retail analytic problems?

There are many, many more of these niches. If you want to find a good market start talking to people outside the software development industry. The further the better:

      - <USER2>
      - <USER3>
      - <USER4>
      - Elementary school teachers
      - etc..

You will come across some many problems begging for solutions you wouldn't know which one to pick.

<comment><USER6> And you'll learn how hard it is to sell into these niches. I've met people that have built surprisingly good software for janitorial services, recycling centers, among other niches -- who found it really hard to sell, despite the need being there.

I would love to see some stories about people who successfully sold into these sorts of niche markets.

<comment><USER7> Sounds like there's an opportunity to create software that will help niche developers sell to niche markets ...

<comment><USER8> I have been trying to figure out how to simplify selling to enterprise. The problem is sales decisions are made by managers who don't use the software. Getting the attention of these managers is expensive and the sale takes months.

I think if you could let the enterprise user try the software first, then let them push management to buy the software you could sell to enterprise for less money w/o the sales people.

The idea has holes, but I am working through it.

<comment><USER9> I think that's pretty much the model of every "freemium" business SaaS app? See Basecamp, Zoho, Google Apps, etc.

You can use it yourself (or in small groups, 5-10 people) for free, but if you want to grow it into a 50 user service, or 50000 users, then you need to speak to a sales person (or dig out a credit card).

<comment><USER10> Those are enterprise? Except Google Apps, which > $100 million rev/year companies are using basecamp or zoho on a company (not departmental!) level? Departmental sales are easy, you just need a few users and there is no 'big manager' involved usually. But to get companies to pick your software as the company standard... I don't believe basecamp or zoho are there. But I could be wrong.

<comment><USER9> Basecamp's front page lists Kelloggs and Adidas amongst their customers, and I've seen it in other large corporate environments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What you don't realize is that this happens with ALL businesses and ALL entrepreneurs. For example, in a college entrepreneurship class our teacher had to make a rule about not writing a business plan for opening up a chain restaurant. In fact, most of the ideas from the class were opening a bar, restaurant, pawnshop/payday loan, rental property website, computer repair service business, etc. I'm surprised starting a used car lot wasn't a common idea, but I digress.

It's not just software developers who tend to follow trends. It is almost anyone who has ever tried to open a business. Most people aren't that creative beyond "I'm going to open a widget factory but mine will be red instead of blue" without ever considering any idea that is outside their everyday life experience.

<comment><USER12> This may be fairly well justified. When reading about successful entrepreneurs, I always try to figure out what the genesis of their idea is. Typically they seem to have industry domain knowledge _before_ they start a company and not the other way around.

It might be that learning about a new industry _is_ the best path to riches, but my guess would be that you're best off doing focused research on that industry for a while first (ideas: get a job in it, do consulting for it, go to industry conferences, read books, read industry forums and blogs).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have a little experience in retail management. I can't speak to #2 because I didn't deal with suppliers. I can however tell you that my fortune 500 employers had #1 and #3 in place already; these are basics that every retail software must have, these features will not sell your software.

In the companies I worked for, middle managers liked using terminal-style tools and see most upgrades as a huge waste of money. Your system better do something pretty good to get the attention of some of these guys (and you better be able to illustrate it in saved wages). I'm young (under 30) and I felt this way, too. These guys are smart and they know their business.

Now from a software designer's standpoint, the tools they use are terrible. There is a huge opportunity to improve them in too many ways to enumerate here. However, this article just covers the necessities retail software needs to be functional. Most retailers who have POS systems more sophisticated than a register from Staples will have this stuff already.

<comment><USER14> True, but they are ideas worth pursuing, no? What you say just means that you'll need to do more research than just this blog post to get yourself started.

<comment><USER13> Oh yea, lots of room for improvement. In my experience, the concrete suggestions (for niche 1 and 3) aren't necessarily potential niches, but starting points to build more powerful software.

I should note, there is probably a huge opportunity to bring IT services to "mom and pop" style operations. But it needs to be dirt cheap or they won't be able to afford it. Lots of these people are struggling as it is and won't see a direct increase in sales as a result of new software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's not really a herd mentality issue, it's more like if I'm going to quit my already boring job to start a company, I need to be passionate with what my new company is going to do. Maybe most entrepreneurial devs aren't into niche retail software, they'd rather write something that's directly useful to them... like a to-do list.

<comment><USER16> I half-heartedly started down the path of researching and developing a couple of apps with this in the back of my mind. Rental property management software and janitorial service management sw was where I went. I had experience in both and areas and I knew that there's boatloads of money waiting to be made in just these two fields, but finally I realized it was boring beyond belief, so I lost interest.

And that was a big mistake! The mistake was in focusing on how exciting it was to write code for that domain but instead I should have focused on how great it would feel to help _people_ in that industry with their problems. Approached that way it becomes, for me at least, much more interesting.

Going back to the article, I'm sure that many entrepreneurial devs would love to start a business in retail software if they deeply understood how much impact they would have on people's lives and livelihoods.

<comment><USER17> _"- Look in obscure places- We're often fascinated with the shiny things in the internet industry. Many overlook the obscure and unsexy. Don't make that mistake. If your goal has primarily monetary motivations, look at the unsexy."_

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1447467>

(This is a part of the best comment I've ever read here on HN. Well worth a look.)

<comment><USER18> He later turned it into an article on his blog, which has nicer formatting and I think some extra content (though I don't feel like comparing the two side- by-side to confirm it): [http://jasonlbaptiste.com/startups/how-to-become-a- millionai...](http://jasonlbaptiste.com/startups/how-to-become-a-millionaire- in-three-years/)

<comment><USER17> I hadn't seen that. Thank you very much!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Pentagon's "Plan X" - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-05/30/pentagon-plan-x

<comment><USER2> Twenty years ago I read a book on strategy. The author's thesis was that large-scale warfare were going to be a thing of the past, because defensive weaponry was so much cheaper than offensive weapons. A tank can be taken out of service with a guided rocket a 1/50 of its price, same thing for an aircraft.

I think what we are seeing here is a revolution in warfare, like it happened in World War I, when the introduction of the tank brought movement back onto the battlefield.</comment>