Maven Repo Has Invalid Cert, Breaks Downloads - <AUTHOR> Just go to https://repo1.maven.org to see the error or try to compile anything.<p>Does anyone know the right person to ping about this? <comment><AUTHOR> Looks like they are on it: [https://issues.sonatype.org/browse/MVNCENTRAL-2870](https://issues.sonatype.org/browse/MVNCENTRAL-2870)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link: [https://repo1.maven.org](https://repo1.maven.org)</comment>


The federal government wants EVs to make some noise at low speed - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/11/the-federal-government-wants-evs-to-make-some-noise-at-low-speed/ <comment><USER2> This is not new even if Ars' article is. My 2013 Nissan Leaf has the VSP, Vehicle Sound for Pedestrians. It's the law, passed in the US in 2010.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_warning_sound...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_vehicle_warning_sounds#United_States)

It sounds like an engine winding up. It's supposed to cut out at 18.6 mph, 30 km/h.

This is a good thing; I remember seeing my first EV, the GM EV1, in Noe Valley. I couldn't hear it as I jaywalked aimlessly in a residential neighborhood.

<comment><USER3> The law isn't new, but the final rule is new. As per the Wikipedia article you reference:

> In January 2015, the NHTSA rescheduled the date for a final ruling to the > end of 2015. Since the regulation comes into force three years after being > rendered as a final rule, compliance was delayed to 2018. ... A final ruling > was delayed at least until mid-March 2016.

Sounds like an update is in order; the rule is finally final and compliance is now + 3 years = 2019.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That is for sure a needed design, and we've seen it in few sci fi. We are used to hear car and it's part of our safety system, EV vehicle will make a lot less noise and should definitly have recognizable sound.

</comment><comment><USER5> If we can have a Jetsons mode.</comment>


Effectiveness of Polypill for prevention of cardiovascular diseases - <AUTHOR> https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)31791-X/fulltext <comment><AUTHOR> Related: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15604180](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15604180)

'The Polymeal: a more natural, safer, and probably tastier (than the Polypill) strategy to reduce cardiovascular disease by more than 75%'</comment>


Kubity: A free App to convert 3D files to Cardboard - <AUTHOR> http://productivity.mmoser.com/sketchup/?p=2648 <comment><USER2> You can also convert Minecraft Maps !! It's absolutely AWESOME ! Check Minas Tirith [https://www.kubity.com/p/RVnBlP](https://www.kubity.com/p/RVnBlP) and blow your mind !

</comment><comment><USER3> not only Cardboard, to WebGL too</comment>


The Master, The Expert, The Programmer - <AUTHOR> http://www.zedshaw.com/essays/master_and_expert.html <comment><USER2> great article; the piece about the phase most developers go through where they like complexity for complexity's sake definitely resonated (or fancy algorithms, or design patterns, or whatever other programming-related book they just read.) if you've worked with developers like this (or gone through these phases ;)), you probably had flashbacks too -- wading through AbstractVisitorManagerDelegate classes, or half-baked home-grown heap allocators makes a little part of me die inside.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know I did hehe...I still fall back into that pattern from time to time. But wake up calls in the form of unmanageable code keeps me back in line.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Wow. That's one of the best pieces of writing I've read. It paints wonderfully vivid pictures and tells succinct stories.

I went through a templating phase once. Everything I wrote in C++ had to be a template. Every policy decision needed to be made at compile-time, and a pointer was never used in favor of a smart container. I finally realized the simple truth that _you don't need to include a header file to use a float pointer_.

</comment><comment><USER4> Zed Shaw must be the coolest programmer in the universe

</comment><comment><USER5> When I started programming I would go with the simplest solution I could because I was ignorant of any other way . Now I go with the simplest solution I can because I know the other ways

If I hadn't gone the other ways I would never have learnt to appreciate the simple solutions. I just wish it was a faster proces ;-)</comment>


Microsoft Is Ending Support for Skype Classic on November First - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-is-ending-support-for-skype-classic-on-november-1st/ <comment><USER2> Removed it a year ago and have no regrets. There are much better alternatives.</comment>


Oculus Rift co-founder killed by gang trying to escape police - <AUTHOR> http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/local/orange_county&id=9122999 <comment><USER2> I feel badly for his family and coworkers. :(

Make sure you let your family know how much you care about them. Also make sure they will be taken care of in case you're suddenly gone. Firstly by picking up enough term life insurance to cover your dependents' needs until adulthood. Secondly by writing up a will and giving it to someone you trust. [1][2]

We joke about "getting hit by a bus" and a project's "bus factor"[3] but it really does happen. It could happen to you or to a critically important person on your project team. Make it a policy to have all critical info recorded in some systematic way. You don't have to get all iso9000 but you should, at the very least, have everyone do a brain dump into a wiki once a month and keep it in a central location (along with the password file, list of client info, etc.)

-

[1] DIY will: [http://www.wikihow.com/Write-Your-Own-Last-Will-and- Testamen...](http://www.wikihow.com/Write-Your-Own-Last-Will-and-Testament)

[2] Reasonably priced template: <http://www.legalzoom.com/legal-wills/wills- overview.html>

[3] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor>

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a good reminder to always be a defensive and aware pedestrian. Just because you have the light or the right-of-way doesn't mean you are guaranteed a safe crossing of the street. Whenever I cross an intersection as a pedestrian I always look both ways (even on one way streets) and I always keep an eye on cars that are still in motion, especially those that don't appear to be slowing down. It's good to make these sorts of things just an innate habit, it could safe your life one day.

<comment><USER4> I've grown up in Lebanon -- a third world country still recovering from a 15 year civil war(1975-1990). Traffic lights and rules are merely suggestions to people around here. If something is physically possible, like a car being able to fit in an pedestrian-only paved road or two cars being able to fit in a one-way street you can be sure that people will do it. It becomes an innate habit to always check both ways and never assume that a car will stop or slow down or that the driver has even seen you when you're crossing the road. It's not "you might get hit" if you don't, it's "you _will_ get hit" if you don't. It's sad, but it's true.

As an anecdote, there's a road that ends in an entrance/exit to a freeway that I use pretty frequently when driving from my home to Beirut. Two years ago, because the fact that the road was a 2-way road(people could use it to leave the freeway as well as enter it) was causing a lot of traffic they changed it into a 1-way road you could only use to enter the freeway, you had to leave from an exit further down the line. This reduced traffic jams immensely. However, before that could happen they had to go through several iterations on how to enforce this. First, a simple traffic sign was tried, this was largely ignored. Then they placed plastic barriers(those triangular things that can be filled with sand or water). Every night somebody would stop, get out of their car and move them to pass and things went back to how they were before the next day. Now they've closed it off with concrete barriers. It's working, but occasionally, especially at night, somebody will stop after the entrance, then back up into it and then use it as an exit. I once almost rear-ended someone doing that while I was going onto the freeway.

<comment><USER5> I live in Canada in a small town with a fairly large (per capita) Lebanese population (Tweel, Haddad, Rashed, Jabour).

We have bad drivers here but I am willing to bet we exported the behaviour to Lebanon not the other way around.

<comment><USER4> I highly doubt it. The behaviour has nothing to do with bad drivers, it's mostly because of lack of enforcement. The only thing you can get a fine for is speeding, and even then most speed traps are easy to spot. Otherwise, just do whatever the fuck you want and you won't get a fine. I'm serious, anything goes.

I've seen people burn red lights right in front of police officers and get no reaction. Heck, I've seen police cars burn red lights(for no reason, sirens weren't on, they were driving pretty slow, they just felt like it). I have a friend who got rear-ended by a police car and then verbally abused for being an idiot by stopping at a red light at night.

We didn't use to have speeding tickets a couple of year back. Then they started enforcing speed limits. Lo-and-behold people started paying attention and generally trying not to speed. But going the wrong way(even on a highway, I was once almost killed by a guy doing that because there was a traffic jam at the only exit and he didn't feel like waiting so he just U-turned and went the other way, but that's another story) will not get you fined.

I'm pretty sure that if traffic rules were enforced properly then people wouldn't so easily ignore them. But we don't have the necessary amount of police to even do a significant fraction of what's needed.

<comment><USER5> You just described my town.

A lot of ex-hockey goons are police, three cars go through the red light, people don't signal turns not even police, lines on the road are ignored, people park anywhere, tailgaters everywhere, cars without license plates, road crews make the roads stupid because they can't drive so how would they know a road is wrong and on and on.

I feel your pain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> After watching police chases on TV my whole life, I really want to know:

What's the logical strategy in a police chase? Just keep driving after each other? It risks the lives of hundreds living and walking in the path of the chase all for the sake of punishing 1 or 2 individuals. It just doesn't seem to add up to me.

What a shame we lost someone so brilliant for nothing.

<comment><USER7> According to the article they killed a police officer and ran, if you don't pursue them how are you going to catch them? Aftersll, they did murder someone, and apparently they had warrants, so it seems reasonable to assume we dont want them out running around anymore as they sre likely to commit more fiolent crimes. Furthermore, if have a policy to not pursue, then every criminal is always going to run.

The fault is on the criminals, not on the police trying to apprehend them or the pursuit.

<comment><USER8> You know, police in EU normally don't chase criminals at high speed and they normally found them easily after the fact (especially if they wound/killed a cop). High speed chases are extremely rare, there is no rational need for them (and the consequent danger for passers by).

<comment><USER9> There isn't a EU wide police or justice system. It's all done at the national level. Policing standards can vary widely around countries.

<comment><USER10> Your statement is true. The parent poster's statement is also true.

<comment><USER11> Not really, the typical action in many EU countries is to go for pursuit. This is case in Finland and Sweden, for example.

<comment><USER12> I don't know enough about all the countries to say either way, but if FI/SE were the only two countries with this policy (not saying they are - I've no idea) then it would still be accurate to say that the opposite is true in the vast majority of the EU.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It is always sad to lose someone in your community. The Oculus Rift seems like a pretty cool invention and hope things turn out well.

What do you even say when stuff like this happens? He was a developer and in a way we never know when each of us will meet our ends.

<comment><USER14> A couple of weeks ago, one of the VPs in my company suddenly passed away. A day of vomiting and diarrhea, followed by hospitalization, and shortly after that, gone.

He was 43 years old. Incredibly active, healthy and fit guy. He died of a very rare staph infection. By the time he was diagnosed, it was too late.

I think the lesson is that life is really short, and you never know when it will end. So you better make the most out of the time allotted to you, and the fact that you don't know how long you have left should only fuel your efforts.

R.I.P. Andrew.

<comment><USER15> Rare staph infection you say?? Was he recently in the hospital for an unrelated reason?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's a sad day. His many contributions to the open source and the gaming communities will live on, like his work on VBjin-OVR, a Virtual Boy Emulator.

[http://code.google.com/p/vbjin- ovr/source/browse/oculus/Comm...](http://code.google.com/p/vbjin- ovr/source/browse/oculus/CommonSrc/Render/Render_Font.h?spec=svn1ee8be125188906dcab23a818641453bc4e52b4e&r=1ee8be125188906dcab23a818641453bc4e52b4e)

</comment><comment><USER17> Last night, I was walking to the store (the Walgreens next to the Berkeley Bowl, for you Bay Areans) and a drunk driver shot up onto the pavement about twenty feet in front of me. It was mere coincidence that my partner and I avoided the hospital or worse. This is a sobering thing to read the morning after that.

Seriously: there was nothing I could have done to avoid that. By the time I was reacting, the car was already on the sidewalk. It was luck. Yeah, be careful out there, sure. Can we have self-driving cars REALLY SOON PLEASE? I hear rumors that they work, and don't drink on the job.

<comment><USER18> I don't know why, but I regularly see drivers who are clearly, obviously plastered, weaving about between the Ashby BART and the Shattuck/Adeline split.

<comment><USER19> Get the plate, note the direction they're heading in, and call the police. That's what they're there for, and you may just save a life (or lives).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Was it responsible for the police to chase them at this time?

 _two vehicles full of people involved in some type of criminal activity_

Was this yet another incident where the police self-escalated the situation?

I sure hope there was a precise reason this happened and not that "they smelled pot".

<comment><USER21> How can we even judge? The police back off often when they sense that a chase is too dangerous, they make a judgement call. Sometimes they don't have perfect information however, and shit just happens. It is not like the movies.

I'm sure the officers involved are second guessing their behavior now, its not like people die every day like this. But really, its a tough job, we aren't really in a position to judge.

<comment><USER20> Police in the US are notorious for causing chases in dangerously crowded areas and endangering innocents.

So much so they had to pass laws to make it illegal for police to do chases in many cities/situations to stop them.

<http://www.pursuitsafety.org/>

<http://kristieslaw.org/>

[http://abcnews.go.com/US/police-chases-california- injured-10...](http://abcnews.go.com/US/police-chases-california- injured-10000/story?id=16605443)

 _More bystanders are injured or killed during high-speed police chases than by stray bullets. In California, more than 10,000 people have been injured and over 300 people killed because of police chases in the last decade, according to newly released statistics from the California Highway Patrol._

 _Nationally, it's estimated nearly 300 people die each year as a result of high speed police chases._

<comment><USER22> > Nationally, it's estimated nearly 300 people die each year as a result of > high speed police chases.

That's a huge number. I'd love to know how many of those 300 are innocent bystanders. The fact that people involved in the chase (i.e. those running away) lose their lives seems like it's part of the risk.

<comment><USER20> They don't count those - they don't even count the baby that was in the SUV one guy stole and it flew out of the window during the police chase.

<comment><USER23> Are you seriously blaming the police for the death of that? Surely it is the guy's fault for stealing a car with a child in it and recklessly driving it.

<comment><USER24> I think he's just suggesting that the baby definitely should count as an innocent bystander.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I just wanted to say two things here. One, this is an incredibly damaging tragedy. I truly wish the best for the community, for the Reisse and Oculus VR family.

Secondly, my father has been an officer of the law for more than 25 years -- can we please not turn a thread which is being used to inform the community at large of a tragedy as a way to defame those who wish to do good in their community.

I ask out of respect of Reisse, and my good natured father that we keep at the very least this thread on topic.

<comment><USER26> So because your father is a cop, you don't even want people to question the actions of the cops in the story? And anyway, so what? It sounds like the gang members were the ones out of control, not the police. If the police had struck Reisse that would be different, but they didn't. But then what if the police had done something reprehensible? Nothing should be said because we need to respect your good natured father? It's not about you or your father.

<comment><USER27> This site is about hacking and startups, not political ranting. There are other sites for that.

<comment><USER14> Sorry, what?

[https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=aaron+swar...](https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=aaron+swartz)

<comment><USER28> That particular case was where HN really shifted, but that doesn't make the parent comment incorrect.

<comment><USER26> This is a story about the literal intersection of police, guns, gangs, speeding, pedestrian crosswalks, motor vehicle accidents, and the sudden, traumatic, and innocent bystander death of the co-founder of a visible startup. And you guys expect no discussion of politics?

Can you point to a single story since the inception of Hacker News that quite obviously involved the intersection of hacker/startup culture with the rest of society where politics were not discussed? What is any discussion about wealth or economics if not politics? Is it a vanishingly small percentage of PG's essays that express a strong political opinion?

As far as I'm concerned, discussing politics as they relate to hacker culture is on topic. Discussing the Boston Marathon bombing, not so on-topic, but nevertheless people here had interesting things to say from a hacker perspective. I'll be the first to agree that political extremism is aggravating, but the solution to political extremism is not the avoidance of politics altogether.

<comment><USER28> > I'll be the first to agree that political extremism is aggravating, but the > solution to political extremism is not the avoidance of politics altogether.

On the contrary, avoidance of all politics is a _wonderful_ individual solution to political extremism. Which is why so many "normal" people refuse to get involved at all, which is why all of us "normal" people end up so surprised every 2 years over a bunch of reactionary representatives being elected.

At least on HN you were able to have reasoned political discourse, which is far less aggravating. Even where I disagree with others I love being exposed to angles I hadn't considered, cultural nuances that might explain why something would work in the EU that wouldn't work in the U.S. (and vice versa), and all of that.

But from what I can tell even on HN we're shifting farther and farther away from that into the creationist mold of "I have decided what the answer must be, now I need only twist the facts to suit". Even where the answer that's decided on is actually right, that's no way to conduct a 'debate'.

<comment><USER27> > avoidance of all politics

Who ever said anything about that?

I'm quite interested, and in my own way, involved in politics. I also follow bicycle racing with a passion, for that matter. But I don't think either one belongs on _this_ particular web site.

<comment><USER26> I looked back through your comments and I noticed you've been repeating this request somewhat frequently. What do you mean by politics, exactly?

<comment><USER27> This site has been a great resource for me in terms of startup material, also a good place to learn new things about 'computer stuff', and also occasionally read something genuinely new and interesting. I hate to see it dragged down into the mud of political debate, which tends to wreck communities such as this.

<comment><USER26> Ok, agreed more or less, and the mud slinging is terrible, but by political debate, what exactly do you mean?

I don't think you mean simply election politics, so my assumption is that you mean any kind of debate over government policy. In this example it would be a debate over the US government policy of pursuing suspects in high speed car chases.

I can understand how these kinds of things are off topic in the general case (Istanbul protests, Boston marathon, etc.), but are you saying they're still off topic when there's a fairly clear connection to a hacking / startup story? Are the discussions about rent control in SF off topic, for instance?

My belief is that there's a grey zone where considered discussion of the pros and cons is okay, even good. For instance, I wasn't even aware that there were debates about high speed chases at all, so for me this was something new and interesting. Most of the community wrecking I've seen has happened due to in- fighting and drama, but yes political mud fights are a common enough precursor to that, because they encourage people to hold grudges and take sides, at least in my experience.

<comment><USER29> > My belief is that there's a grey zone where considered discussion of the > pros and cons is okay, even good.

Considered discussion is welcome on HN. Unfortunately there are some topics where considered discussion is unlikely. Abortion; circumcision; Israel / Palestine; gun control; etc etc. It'd be fantastic if there was a site like HN where these topics could be discussed, especially if that site fostered calm rational discussion.

But these discussions too often deteriorate into noise, and worse into wider ranging down-voting and derailments in other threads.

<comment><USER26> Well there's lesswrong I suppose, although I'm not a member. I strongly believe that if PG changed the policy from upvote agreement, downvote disagreement to upvote civility, downvote incivility, the quality of discussions would improve. For example, I was not particularly civil in the comment that started this sub-thread, but nevertheless I got 42 upvotes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I've not been following the Oculus Rift very much, other than waiting for its release and keeping an eye on which games might support it once it's released. So I don't really know much of the history or the company.

Can someone share how Reisse was involved w/ the Oculus Rift? Looking at the company's profile[1], it makes no mention of Reisse, and lists Luckey as the "Founder".

Even searching their site[2] makes no mention of Reisse, other than a recent discussion[3] about his untimely death. And those discussions seem to only refer to him as an "employee".

Is calling him "co-founder" in the title truly accurate?

[1] <http://www.oculusvr.com/company/>

[2] <http://www.google.com/search?q=reisse+site%3Aoculusvr.com>

[3] [https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&...](https://developer.oculusvr.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=1362)

<comment><USER31> Many early employees are truly better called founders, just ones that didn't officially work at the company until after it's founding.

He could have been moonlighting for them, he may have helped come up with the original idea, or work with the company to solve some of the core design challenges.

Just because his title wasn't co-founder doesn't mean he wasn't as important as any other founder or early employee.

<comment><USER30> I agree, and I wasn't trying to diminish his role. I was just trying to understand where the "co-founder" in the title came from. How did the submitter know he was truly a co-founder?

I couldn't find mention of this anywhere, so I was assuming the submitter knew some history of him that I couldn't find on their site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I was about to lament how reckless the police were to be in a high-speed pursuit, but it's hard to fault them when this began with a fatal shooting of an officer at the beginning of the encounter.

Just a really sad turn of events.

<comment><USER33> >there was a physical altercation between police and 26-year-old Gerardo Diego Ayala that ended with a fatal officer-involved shooting.

That doesn't necessarily mean the officer was shot.

<comment><USER34> It was not. A man got out of the vehicle, the police shot him, and then the chase began.

[http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2013/05/santa_ana_pede...](http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2013/05/santa_ana_pedestrian_police_ch.php?page=2)

He died of his injuries. His name was Gerardo Diego Ayala.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> People are missing the main point here. This was a terrible, but not a senseless, tragedy, and there is an important lesson to learn.

It's not "be more careful when crossing the street". Being a super-defensive pedestrian might have saved Andrew Reisse, but that's not the main point. It's not "don't have high speed chases". Perhaps different police policies might have averted this tragedy, but that's not the main point, either.

The main point is that roving paramilitary gangs rule large swathes of Santa Ana, California, and virtually every other big city in America. These gangs have not been broken because the police lack the mandate to break them. (My father consulted for the Santa Ana police department for nearly 30 years; they feel powerless against the gangs.) The gangs probably wouldn't last a week against a vigorous application of military-grade force, but such an application of force is politically untenable at present. This means that _the current political system itself is complicit_.

Don't blame the pedestrian or the police. Blame the gangs and the system that protects them.

<comment><USER36> "...The gangs probably wouldn't last a week against a vigorous application of military-grade force..."

No... they would last much longer than a week. I'm going to recommend some reading to you:

[http://www.amazon.com/Marine-Corps-Counterinsurgency- Field-M...](http://www.amazon.com/Marine-Corps-Counterinsurgency-Field- Manual/dp/0226841510)

You don't go into neighborhoods, kicking in doors with guns blazing. They recently did that in Detroit to serve a warrant. Post Mortem: 1 dead 6 year old girl, 1 injured 72 year old grandmother, 0 arrests.

Think of it this way...

For every enemy, or (gang member), you kill, you create one. For every innocent you kill in pursuit of a gang member, you create 10 enemies. (Keep in mind, the people in the neighborhood KNOW who is innocent, even if you don't.)

These are hard problems. They defy simple solutions. In fact, the application of simple solutions to this PARTICULAR class of problems only creates more problems.

<comment><USER35> Thanks for the link to a counterinsurgency manual; here is my favorite work in the genre:

<http://www.civilwarhome.com/liebercode.htm>

It describes the code (developed by Prussian jurist Francis Lieber) used by the victorious Union to suppress armed opposition ("insurgency") in the defeated Confederacy after the end of the American Civil War. If you compare its prescriptions to those in the "modern" counterinsurgency manual you linked to, you will see why the Union succeeded where present efforts fail.

 _You don't go into neighborhoods, kicking in doors with guns blazing. They recently did that in Detroit to serve a warrant._

No, you start by declaring martial law and enforcing a curfew. Santa Ana's gangs are a _military_ problem, and they demand a military solution. If you're serving warrants, you've already lost the battle.

I understand that this is off the political map. _That's the point._ The kinds of policies needed to successfully defeat these gangs are anathema to prevailing civil libertarian views. But civilized 4th Amendment–style liberties only work when basic conditions of law & order hold; they don't work in a war. Indeed, when applied in a war, they only make things worse. This is why the present system, which serves warrants to soldiers in the opposing army, is complicit in their crimes.

<comment><USER36> It's not off the map.

It just won't work.

For instance... let's say you have a curfew... well gang members already ARE indoors by curfew! Minding their drug dens, which get maximum business during evening, (curfew), hours. In fact, drug gangs would LOVE martial law... because it would rid them of their chief competition... the low level, open air, street drug dealer. Currently, the only way they can get rid of those guys is through targeted violence. Which brings them trouble. Your recommendations would actually CEMENT the gang's hold on a given drug market.

You approach what you see as a war... but everyone else sees as a business. The police are having a lot of success right now disrupting business. The core of the strategy in NY was not "quality of life", as so many people parrot. Rather it was "disrupt business" wherever you see it. Even the "Squeegee-men" were targeted. And the results have been fantastic.

Now, are innocent people still getting hurt? Of course. But collateral damage is nowhere NEAR the level it was during the crack wars of the 80's and 90's. At the same time, violence is WAY down relative the crack wars. That's because we have gotten MUCH smarter. Well... most of us. Violence is down in places like NY, LA and even Chicago relative the crack wars. But places like Detroit persist with old tactics and have not made as much headway. Many of the "squeegee-men" equivalents still operate with impunity in Detroit. Which tells you that Detroit is not serious about cleaning up it's city. They only care to crack down on gangs with military zeal. Which is why they have the problems they do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Saddening news aside, this is terrible reporting. Reisse was killed in a car accident caused by gang members who were fleeing from the police.

</comment><comment><USER38> This is extremely sad, but it made me think of an important topic: contingency planning.

Pretty much every organization I've worked for was missing a "key developer got hit by bus" plan for at least one major project.

<comment><USER39> If that key developer did get hit by a bus then:

1) A new key developer would be hired to maintain the project, and things would be a little rough for a couple months but the company would survive.

2) Every decent person would care more about the key developers life than the "major project".

This so called "bus factor" has always bugged me. Documentation is good, but talk of untimely death by bus is silly.

<comment><USER40> _This so called "bus factor" has always bugged me. Documentation is good, but talk of untimely death by bus is silly._

The reference to untimely death by bus strike is an example of macabre geek humour; not a serious suggestion that the greatest threat to developers is posed by motorized mass transportation.

Most often developers leave projects -- and especially open source projects -- for far more banal reasons: They move to a different position and don't have the time or inclination to continue maintaining their old code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> This reminds me of something my dad, a minister of religion, used to repeat constantly "No-one is promised tomorrow". I'm pretty sure he was trying to impress on a given audience "Repent now, you may not get another chance".

I tend to approach it from a different angle. Be brilliant and live your life now, you may not get the chance to do so later. It sounds like he was doing awesome things, so one can only hope that his work lives on.

My condolences to Andrew's family.

</comment><comment><USER42> Terribly sad news, at least he got to experience the VR dream in his lifetime and see that Oculus is destined for the history books.

</comment><comment><USER43> This is truly upsetting. We just lost a brilliant mind and creative genius. RIP, Andrew Scott Reisse.

</comment><comment><USER44> Damn, news like that surely make you note the fragility of our lives. Too bad. Condolences to the family. Keep yourself safe fellow hackers.

</comment><comment><USER45> My prayers go out to the family and his colleagues. I was just watching the Kickstarter video about Oculus yesterday.

</comment><comment><USER46> The HN headline's grammar is ambiguous and could be improved. It could be read to mean "The co-founder was killed by a gang while he (the cofounder) was trying to escape police," or it could mean "The co-founder was killed by a gang while they (the gang) were trying to escape police." (According to the article, the latter meaning is intended.)

The HN headline is still many times more informative than the linked article's headline, "Santa Ana police chase: Pedestrian identified." Even considering the newspaper's audience (who, unlike HN, might not know or care enough about Oculus Rift to merit its mention by name in the headline), the fact that the pedestrian was killed by a gang while the gang was trying to escape police would presumably still be of interest.

</comment><comment><USER47> My co-worker and I were talking about the Oculus Rift only a few days ago. We finally got our hands on the Leap motion device and were thinking up wondrous mashups with the Oculus Rift. What a terrible tragedy. Such a pity he can't be there to witness the Rift's success.

</comment><comment><USER48> This is sad. Condolences to the friends and family. I do hope that this won't kill the momentum behind the Oculus Rift - seems like amazing piece of tech and will be sad to be lost because of that.

<comment><USER49> Unfortunate choice of words...

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> It's so easy to focus on the bad in a situation like this but I wonder how many successful police pursuits that resulted in lives being saved. It reminds me of airbags, if they save 99% of lives but end up causing 1% of deaths then it is seen as a bad thing, but in reality it is really saving lives. It's just a terrible situation that's hard to understand, there is no black in white right answer.

</comment><comment><USER51> Seriously? :( this sucks.

</comment><comment><USER52> Wow this is just a couple of miles from our office. This is definitely shocking, and scary at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER53> You can be a defensive pedestrian, but that's not always going to work. Something like this, a police chase, it defies predictability. It could happen so fast that it doesn't matter if you're completely present and aware, you could still get hit.

</comment><comment><USER54> This is really sad and a great loss to the community over in Santa Monica. With this sort of thing happening so infrequently in tech, it makes events like these all the more of a loss, for our entire industry.

Condolences to the family and Oculus team.

<comment><USER55> This happening so infrequently in tech makes it _less_ of a loss. There are communities terrorized by criminal- and police-related violence, that lose so much more. Events like this should be a wake up call to be aware that tragedies happen all the time outside our bubble. And what can we do to prevent them?

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> This is horrible. The Oculus is just gearing up to be something great.

It is kind of morbid, but This is going to turn into an interesting case study on how a company stays afloat when a major influence is removed from the picture.

RIP Andrew Reisse

</comment><comment><USER57> It's always sad when someone brilliant loses life at such a young age. It's even worse that it was at the hands of a piece of shit criminal trying to save his own skin and is still alive.

Very sad. Rest in peace.

<comment><USER58> I totally agree. It's the fact that a degenerate like that can end the life of someone awesome--the asymmetry--is what is really curse-worthy hard to understand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Just terrible :( Why does it always seem like the worst and most insignificant wastes of human beings always take away great ones?

<comment><USER60> Just because he wrote some code that was used so widely doesn't make him more significant than a janitor who cleans after you, or the "gang" member who was evading the brutal cops for a chance for his freedom. The sooner we realize people are equal because they're human fucking beings the greater hope for humanity to avoid its imminent demise.

<comment><USER61> What makes someone more significant, then? What's your measure?

People aren't equal, you can't make it so by saying it.

The man who died was more significant than the man who killed him.

<comment><USER60> It's like asking what makes 5 greater than 5. Humans are all significant simply because they have rational minds and are rational beings. A human being cannot impose on others a value or worthiness, because we are rational beings and have independent minds. As you probably have noticed by now this is not me saying these things, it's from Immanuel Kant. I found these lectures on the topic absolutely amazing to watch: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdfcR-8hEY>

<comment><USER62> It's worth mentioning that all humans are -humans- just like 5 == 5.

However, the fact humans are humans doesn't make them equal. Unlike a number humans have dimensionality. They can be taller, shorter, stronger, weaker, smarter, dumber, richer, poorer etc. Along with any number of other attributes like job, geographical location, father, mother etc.

Equality is a very precise thing and humans are anything but equal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> RIP Andrew Scott Reisse, you wont be forgotten.

</comment><comment><USER64> Horrible news. He seemed like a brilliant guy,

</comment><comment><USER65> a guy dies, and the number one comment is a guy spouting off a public PSA about pedestrian safety?

</comment><comment><USER66> Rest in peace Andrew Scott Reisse. Cliché but true, nobody is ever promised tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER67> Too sad. What a loss. Condolences for the poor family. We never know the day or the hour when death will come, which is something to be mindful of. I have found this an interesting site to reflect on our eternal destiny: <http://needgod.com/>

</comment><comment><USER68> So depressing...a grim reminder that some things are simply out of our control

</comment><comment><USER69> Saddened. RIP, sir.

</comment><comment><USER70> legalize the drugs and the gangs will die.

</comment><comment><USER71> And they even let the driver recover in a hospital, at tax payers expense.

And of course no mention of the officers name.

<comment><USER72> > And of course no mention of the officers name.

I'm guessing you think a police officer was killed, because of the ambiguous (I would say misleading) wording of the article. Or are you saying you want the name of the officer that killed Gerardo Diego Ayala?

<comment><USER71> I want the name of the chasing officer.

Not to harm him, I just want to show his family the picture of the guy their father helped kill.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> This is just awful

</comment><comment><USER74> F __* this.

</comment><comment><USER75> W T F :(

</comment><comment><USER76> so sad!

</comment><comment><USER77> .

</comment><comment><USER78> I believe if I remember correctly, LAPD had a stand down on high speed chases years ago due to the property damage and personal injuries of innocent bystanders.

The police have a job to do, but in some areas, the level of aggression with which they pursue their duties is beyond reasonable and seems like adrenaline addiction.

</comment><comment><USER79> my heart goes out to his family and friends.

<comment><USER80> We've lost one of our own. May the oculus team benefit -- not suffer from his passing. Makes me sad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> That's what happens when a government gives rights to it's citizens to own guns!

<comment><USER48> <sarcasm>That is what happens when a government gives rights to it's citizens to own cars and have freedom of movement.<sarcasm/>

He was hit by a car.</comment></comment>


YC Summer 2017 Invites/Rejections - <AUTHOR> Has anyone received an invite/rejection email for the Summer 2017 batch yet? <comment><USER2> Just got the glorious rejection email :) [https://mail.mixmax.com/m/kWxSBXQlxWO9sN6AC](https://mail.mixmax.com/m/kWxSBXQlxWO9sN6AC)

We interviewed in-person for W17 in October and got rejected because we didn't articulate a good plan for growth. \- we grew 4,000% since October \- launched huge features for both sides of our marketplace \- received acquisition interest in < 3 months of being live \- most importantly, made something that people are loving and using on a daily basis.

It's a bummer for sure but not the end of the world.

To anyone who got an interview, Figure out your biggest weakness and a plan for how you overcome it. Your interviewers will exploit it.

Here's some notes on our experience going through the interview [https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/YC-Interview- Experience-L45KzT...](https://paper.dropbox.com/doc/YC-Interview- Experience-L45KzTpfufdiYSHmvhsiw)

Good luck all

<comment><USER3> Can you provide any tips on how you reached out to other alum in preparation (you said you prepared with AlphaFlow and Snapdocs for example).

Also, are you allowed to share any of the questions you had that you found surprising?

<comment><USER2> Sure. We simply emailed other YC founders asking if they had advice on the interview process.

The questions are no secret. It's really only 3 questions: 1. what are you working on. 2. How do you grow. 3. How does this become a billion dollar company.

Articulating the problem, how it scales and is defensible is key.

Here are a few links we used

\- [http://henrikzillmer.com/dos-and-donts-at-the-y- combinator-i...](http://henrikzillmer.com/dos-and-donts-at-the-y-combinator- interview) \- [http://blog.trak.io/ycombinator-our-interview-experience- aft...](http://blog.trak.io/ycombinator-our-interview-experience-after- flying-5351-miles-for-10-minutes/) \- [https://medium.com/@octal/maximizing- your-chances-of-getting...](https://medium.com/@octal/maximizing-your-chances- of-getting-into-y-combinator-summer-2014-b0a75aa7401f#.ysammbhed) \- [https://medium.com/startup-lesson-learned/we-just- interviewe...](https://medium.com/startup-lesson-learned/we-just-interviewed- at-ycombinator-heres-the-full-transcript-187312cd2cf5#.2o9l3aimh)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for sharing

<comment><USER2> of course! Feel free to reach out if you need any help with prep - jaymeh13(AT)gmail

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hey everyone - I work at YC. I'll keep you updated on the status here.

We're now sending the rest of the response emails. You should get yours by 7PM.

<comment><USER6> When do the non profits hear?

<comment><USER7> My non-profit application was rejected half an hour ago.

<comment><USER8> Don't give up your idea. Keep going! It will be hugely successful.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the vote of confidence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was turned down after an interview last batch. I think I probably won't apply again. YC's standards now seem so high that, by the time I expect to meet them, there won't be much point in YC anymore. If I have 2,000 users, which is pretty tiny, that's $40K a month at $20 per person. If I get 50 signups a week, that's a 10% per month growth rate. If I have $40K in high- margin monthly revenue with a 10% per month growth rate, why sell stock at a $1.7M valuation, in the hope of getting some connections to sell more stock at a $5M valuation? It just doesn't make business sense. All you'd have to do is wait a few years, and you'd have more profits in the bank, in cash, than the "valuation" you'd get from California VCs.

<comment><USER10> Yep. The thing though is that they can leverage their network to get the ball rolling for any companies they sign. That means it doesn't really matter if it's awesome or bad, as long as they decide to promote a company, people will buy it. Pretty much like apple products... so it's not rational anymore to go through YC. Do you think airbnb would have worked without YC? No. Would dropbox be dropbox today without YC? No. They are cool ideas because a large amount of people are using these products. And there were other alternatives prior to these companies. It's just that no one ever promoted them like yc did with their own companies. Otherwise they would be like any other products out there. There was an airbnb before airbnb I think it was an australian company. I came accross their website one day (pre-airbnb era) and was like WTF is that. So again, if a large amount of people buy, you'd most likely buy. YC has that marketing power. I think if you become a billion dollar company without going through YC, you'll become the next google or apple.

<comment><USER9> I've never heard that YC helped companies market their products, beyond providing a little advice. How would they? It's not like they have a huge advertising budget or a TV studio. They can help advertise it to other YC founders, but that market is tiny.

<comment><USER10> Marketing is expensive, a company needs money to promote a product. To get money a company needs investors. To get investors (in silicon valley) a company needs a warm introduction. The warm introduction is the marketing I'm talking about, not the first one. YC will lineup 100 investors in front of you looking to spend their money. When YC says it's worth it (they sign you up), VC's act like Apple customers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Guys - As I impatiently wait as well, I just want to say whatever happens today won't define your success. Whatever the outcome is, I want to encourage everyone to continue to build a great company.

<comment><USER12> Going with an incubator should be one of the plans we must have, not the only one.

<comment><USER13> I feel like an incubator increases responsibilities and risks, and potential rewards, but some people see it as the "where they want to end up".

<comment><USER14> I'm fully agree!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> spencer-matonis Planning a possible YC "reject" event. Post here if interested: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14144922](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14144922)

Would have our own presentation day, pitch feedback, try out each other's products, etc. I think it would be great! :)

<comment><USER15> This is brilliant!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Dear Fellow Rejects - did any of you go back and take a look at your application and find questions added that were not on the application that you submitted? I was ultra scrupulous in double checking before I submitted. Look in 'Progress' section. There is a forced choice question 'Which of the following best describes your progress?' which offered a couple of answer options. My post rejection application review shows the next question as 'When will you have a prototype or beta? that is not completed because I do not remember it being on the application template. Just a little further down, there is a question 'Do you have revenue?' to which I answered 'No'. But then there are 6 additional questions that I do not remember seeing on the pre- submission application. The first is 'What was your revenue last month? (Please use USD. If none, enter '0'). If that question was there on my pre submission application I certainly would have entered '0', but it appears empty on the post rejection review. Worse, if the application processor could not find a '0' in that space, it might have rejected the whole application as 'incomplete'. Even worse, the next 5 questions 'Your revenue 2,3,4,5,6 months ago?' would have also registered incomplete. But I don't think these questions were on the my pre-submission application form. Also take a look in the equity section. The first question is 'have you incorporated....' which I answered 'No'. I did not answer nor remember seeing the next 3 questions:'What kind of entity and in what state...', 'Please describe the breakdown of the equity ownership...', 'List any investments your company has received..."

Please check your post rejection applications - do you see these questions? Did you answer these questions, or does it look like they were added after submission? If I am wrong or misunderstand, I apologize. I submitted my application on 3/22.

<comment><USER16> YC was kind enough to check my application and found it complete. They say that they do add, modify, delete questions from the application template during the application period. Apparently the Submit button locks each application so that subsequent template changes have no effect. I really appreciated their kind response to my inquiry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> For all the "rejected" : "There are always two choices. Two paths to take. One is easy. And its only reward is that it's easy." Let's keep going guys,even after 1000 rejections. At the end, the difference between an unsuccessful person and a successful one is that the latter never gave up.

</comment><comment><USER18> Got invite just now, they started sending invites. From india.

<comment><USER19> Well done! Time to prepare for an interview :)

<comment><USER18> Thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> got an invite now. happy to get it. still cant believe btw! :) time to prepare.

<comment><USER21> Congratulations and good luck on your interview! :)

<comment><USER20> thanks a lot m8!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have to be honest, this is an emotion I'm not entirely familiar with.

I totally get rejection, I've been rejected for all sorts of things, but normally for rejection I can understand on some level _why_.

This I don't get. Not only are we applying with a company that fits with an RFS, not only is our team really solid, not only is concept proven, but we have a possibility to do real social good that both makes money and helps people.

Even in talking to other people, the reaction was either "why are you even _doing_ YC" or "Sheesh I'm embarassed to by applying next to you". I know that sounds really arrogant, and Im sorry for sounding like that. I'm just...confused, I guess? I really wish that the applications came with a reason why they were rejected, even if it was one sentence.

I can't honestly believe that typing a one sentence "rejection for reason" would take that much extra time. Even a drop down of "we rejected you for this one of the following 5 canned reasons" (your team was bad, your idea was bad, you have no revenue, etc.) would be helpful.

Is it because my cofounder is from another country? Or because we don't live in the bay area?

I seriously do not understand this. I know that sounds a little bit whiney, but it's just frustrating to have put this much emotional investment into something[1] and to get rejected for it without even a _brief_ explanation of why.

[1]: For people that don't live in the bay, applying to this program is a big deal. I skipped out on events next week because we _might_ have to block out time for an interview, I moved things around this week specifically so that I could schedule an interview if possible, I moved things around this summer so that if I needed to be in SF I could etc.

I get not counting your chickens and all of that, I don't think we did. Nothing is lost for us here, and moving events and things around isn't a big deal, obviously that is just part of doing business. It is just frustrating to get a rejection email that doesn't even include a few seconds explaining _why_.

Forever onward, obviously. It just really sucks not having feedback on why you were rejected.

<comment><USER23> Sorry if this sounds harsh but who gives a flying F. If you're a startup founder you not only need to have this mentality but truly believe it.

You need to re-ground yourself and come to terms that if you're running a company you're going to punched in the face, a lot. You're going to get rejected, a lot. This will happen again and again and again and then once you think it won't happen anymore, bam - it'll happen again.

The fact of the matter is this - the only thing, and I mean the only thing that matters in terms of acceptance is what the market thinks of your product. Who cares if an accelerator said you weren't good enough? Who cares what your friends say (good or bad) or other founders say (good or bad) about your startup - it doesn't matter. My last company, my mom loved it, raved about it! But it failed because the market thought it was crap.

The only thing that matters is if the market wants your product. Startups have become obsessed with acceptance into an accelerator or raising money as an indication of success. It is not an indication of success and if you mistake it for this, you're not thinking straight. Build a business.

To me it sounds like you're looking for validation that you're good enough and you were hoping to get that from YC and they told you that you aren't. You applied to Harvard and they said no and now you're sitting there wondering if you're smart enough.

Look at it the other way. Per what you said you have an amazing startup and now you won't need to give away 7.5% of your company. Don't get me wrong, YC from what I have heard is amazing but if you think YC is what is going to make or break your company - boy, I'd be worried.

<comment><USER22> Hey thanks for the feedback. You're right, and reading that again it sounds stupid. I was frustrated just at not getting at least a brief explanation of why for the rejection, maybe that is asking for too much, though.

YC definitely was not the make-or-break for us, it just sounded like a really good program, and my cofounder and I were, imho justifiably, disappointed at not getting accepted.

We've had other offers, and we turned them down because we wanted to wait to see if we got into YC or not. So I at least hope we weren't looking for validation. We've (at least in my eyes) already gotten that from other investors.

<comment><USER23> Best of luck to you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's a lot of work that goes into these applications, and I absolutely don't sweat the rejection (hurts a little, but that's all right, we're not in the business of passing the YC application), but as a future suggestion maybe — and I absolutely understand YC gets a ton of applications — if there was a way to just get a short comment on why an application was rejected, it would be so incredibly helpful. One sentence, perhaps even just a standard tick-box canned-response the reviewer hits at the end of reading it ("market-fit not clear", "worried about team", etc.). No interest to argue about it, but the value given back to startups would be tremendous, with very little time required (ticking the final rejection-reason box, even if it just says, "not really something I'd be interested in").

I would even pay for it. I know that's absolutely not within YC's context and mindset, but I'd pay to just read one short line that helps us see what you saw (or hoped to see but didn't).

<comment><USER16> Also a Summer17 reject. I support and would pay if required. YC encourages me to resubmit (50% of recent batches have applied multiple times), yet I have no clue what to clarify or resolve. It makes no sense to me or YC for me to keep submitting applications if there is some glaring flaw. If they don't like my idea, so be it. But if there is a hint that might make the next application better than a crap shoot, I want to know about it. If they would consider me a stronger candidate if I had more progress, have more users, be less serious on my video, have revenue, have a longer runway, have a tech founder, didn't understand something, thought my forecasts were unrealistic, needed a fact that I failed to include, etc. that would help immensely. You are right, they have the money, so they can decide on whatever basis they choose, but if there is something that they expected to see but didn't or didn't expect to see but did, or wanted to see less/more of, or more proof of, that would really go a long way to increasing my confidence that I did all I could in my application and the decision was truly beyond my control - I could live easier with that, and move on. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> So when do we get the rejections? so we can move on.

</comment><comment><USER26> They should be responding to everyone by evening today.

Till then have your lunch, breathe, work on your product and check your emails later this evening. :)

</comment><comment><USER27> A rejected application the second time in a row. Had applied to YC W17 batch wherein got rejected after interview. I really doubt if I'm going to apply again in future. As someone marked in the previous comments, YC is now all about high standards and the companies they sign would anyways had done great without them as well. Since the last time we applied, we experienced quite a good growth in terms of revenues and customers. plus we introduced some unique engagement model which previously was not at place and was hypothetically roaming around in our minds. I thought YC support could help us gain networks over in different sectors with experts and that's where we have been seeking support since long. Even in the application we clearly mentioned our "ask" and what we expect from YC. I think they don't deal with hardware startups or even if they do, those startups are the ones who already might be enjoying millions of dollars of revenue.

<comment><USER28> To your last point, not true. I think I fit the category of hardware and got an interview with a prototype.

<comment><USER27> I'm happy to hear that! I think it's more off a personal luck with the same. How YC partners take in you is totally dependent upon the partners only. Good luck with the interview.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This is our 3rd time applying. S15 - Rejected. S16 - Invited then rejected after the interview. S17 - Rejected (we grew to a much higher MRR since S16 with a stronger product). YC's decisions can be unpredictable and I believe you have to get lucky with the batch (your startup showing more promise than others in the pool).

</comment><comment><USER17> This is my third application with the same company. We got investors and launched our product since the first time we applied. Even though it would be amazing being selected, life will continue even though YCOMBINATOR rejects your idea. ;) Keep building an awesome product! Good Luck to everyone.

<comment><USER30> Same with me. I build a startup and submitted the ideas for a couple of times but YC continued rejecting us. Even though the first time we got interview request but weren't selected. I pursued and raised funding in multiple rounds. So life continues. Now in 3 years, we dominate the car rental market in ride sharing. Keep building :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> We received our second rejection for an interview yesterday, but luckily for us YC was just a nice to have and not end all.

As I read through the comments, I believe many businesses forget the fact that business is ran by the numbers. Yes, can YC help you get attractive numbers for investors, but you can do the exact same thing on your own if you build something people need (love). I find it hard to believe that any investor that YC can introduce you to will turn down your meeting if you have built a business that has attractive numbers. That's what they look for anyway...YC funded or not.

For those that got an interview, congrats. For those that didn't, keep going and be great in what you are doing.

<comment><USER27> You are absolutely right and for a founder whose truly committed to his/her business should only consider these rejections as a bump on the road. However i still disagree with how YC select the startup for the interview. I mean the founders who really needs their support are mostly rejected by them while founders who already has raised a million dollar round (or enjoying revenues) are welcomed and signed by the YC team. I think YC has now become more of a Standard tool for businesses rather providing actual support to founders who need them badly. I'm from India and i personally know at least 10 founders here who already had raised so much of amount before getting into YC. This doesn't makes sense to me as to why the heck would someone get into an incubator/accelerator who's already enjoying the business with healthy unit economics. Startup incubators have now lost their vision and are now more into what i think has just restricted to the investment game.

<comment><USER7> You make a good point; perhaps YC should switch to a tiered system?

<comment><USER27> I can't comment upon that. However that's my personal experience which spoke.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I will make my company the most successful with YC or without YC, you decide YC :D

<comment><USER32> I agree with you.

I've come a long way in my entrepreneurial journey, and one thing I've come to realize is that elements like YC are just factors for success. They are nice to have but ultimately won't determine the fate of my plan.

It was a milestone in my personal development to reach this insight and very liberating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Just got the invite! Best of luck guys!!

<comment><USER34> Heck yeah! Celebrating for you down here in San Diego!

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Want to launch anyways? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14144922](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14144922)

</comment><comment><USER36> Does anyone know if they send in one big batch or smaller batches. Also has anyone received rejections yet or rejections get sent out last/later.

<comment><USER37> I spoke to a friend who hasn't received either. We got ours

<comment><USER36> Yea or neh ?

<comment><USER37> we have an interview It was sent 8:24pm ET

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> We received an invite earlier this afternoon! This came after a pre-interview earlier in the week. So stoked! This is our 5th or 6th time applying.

<comment><USER39> Congrats! Do you mind sharing what was the 'pre-interview'? I was not aware that this was a step in the process.

<comment><USER40> They did video interviews (10 min) with some companies at the end of last week, but no telling yet whether that's a good or bad sign.

<comment><USER39> Thank you!

<comment><USER38> Yea, it was mostly clarifying questions about our application. And a chance for them to talk to us live via video. I'm assuming a lot of the pre-interview video calls were teams on the cusp of getting an invite and they were filtering teams out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Congratulations to those of you invited an interview! If unfortunately you don't get in, check out a group which is getting together to set up a Demo Day for rejects after the YC demo day: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14144922](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14144922)

</comment><comment><USER22> Sounds like the emails come in later this evening. That's not going to stop me checking my email every 5 seconds until then.

Anybody else in Phoenix? My cofounder and I are going to hang out and get some beers/lunch together while we try to wear out the refresh buttons on our laptops if anybody wants to join us.

<comment><USER34> Not in Phoenix but this made me lol.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Good Afternoon All

Today is Monday, April 24th. I'm super ancy. I applied with a late application 12 days ago and haven't heard anything. Did anyone else apply late recently? Have you heard anything? I keep checking my email and junk box obsessively, scared I might miss something from YC.

</comment><comment><USER37> Just got our invite

</comment><comment><USER36> Congrats to all who received their invites. We are still waiting for a response.

<comment><USER22> Still waiting too! Suspense is killing us!

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I guess a successful exit in my last startup and revenue in our first 6 weeks for this startup weren't good enough, LOL. Kick some ass everyone! :)

</comment><comment><USER44> It's 6:11 here in Birmingham, AL. I have also been patiently waiting! Best of luck for the ones who have already received an invitation!

<comment><USER3> What are you building? I'm 4 hours south of you in Niceville, FL!

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> For some reason i thought answers would be given yesterday. So this is the 2nd day I'm biting my nails (not much left from yesterday)

<comment><USER46> lol

<comment><USER45> If we don't get called for the interview at least I saved on the manicure...:-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> We're not selected to interview. We were invited to the pre-interview (video call) last week. Solo founder. Good luck everyone!!

<comment><USER48> Same boat. How did your pre-interview go?

<comment><USER47> It wasn't different than what I expected: intense and bold. In the end, we spent more time talking about the characteristics of an enterprise business (my case) rather than my team, product or growth, so it felt superficial. I think that's what you can get in 10 min. And you?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> No news till now....is anyone else still waiting?

<comment><USER21> me lol

<comment><USER49> btw did you get an acknowledgment mail on submitting the application ?

<comment><USER50> Still waiting and got an acknowledgement email. Submitted a few hours before deadline.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> We haven't received anything either and we're on the east coast in U.S. We're guessing it will be very late tonight.

</comment><comment><USER46> Just got our invite! Good luck to everyone else!

<comment><USER52> Congrats! Good luck in the interview.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I'm pacing and my dog is just staring at me

</comment><comment><USER34> Nothing yet! I'm super interested to hear when/if any single founders get interview invites though. Let me know, pals!

</comment><comment><USER15> Congratulations to everyone for applying, and giving it a shot, whether or not you got an interview! Go get 'em! :)

</comment><comment><USER54> Received an invite last year at 8:15 pm est so looks like we have around seven hours to go if we're judging by that.

<comment><USER32> >... we have around 7 hours to go....

!

Surely, they have made their decisions long ago. Why not just create a script to run at 00.00hrs and automatically send the results ?

Can't speak for anyone else, but the waiting is killing me :)

<comment><USER54> Maybe..but I'd bet a fair number of final reviews take place today

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Are they sending the rejection mail as well today? Or if we are not getting an e-mail,does it mean that we are rejected?

<comment><USER56> They will send rejection emails today as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Has anyone applied just a few days late in the past? Any idea how long your application decision is delayed by?

<comment><USER58> Last year, we applied the week after final decisions for S16 were made. 10 days after, a partner messaged us via HN with some follow-up questions. A week later, we had a Skype call with another partner. We were ultimately rejected 3 days after that call via their standard email template.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> We haven't received an invite or rejection yet. (eagerly waiting).

When will the invites/rejections be sent out anyway?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's mentioned in their website that they'll be sending the invitations by April 18,2017.

<comment><USER59> Yes but at what time? I think they send it out around afternoon or evening.

<comment><USER60> Historically, in the evening.

<comment><USER61> Evening SF time?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Anyone here applying as a single founder?

<comment><USER63> I am! Solo female

<comment><USER35> We want all the solo founders to come out to our demo day ShowYC.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Didn't receive anything yet, South East Asia passed midnight here but only 11am in Mountain View.

<comment><USER65> whats the historic time they reply ?

<comment><USER66> In my experience they sent invites/rejections emails about 12AM UTC (global time gmt) which is 17h/5PM San Francisco local time

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> We haven't received anything yet as well. Egypt/Cairo is 9 hours ahead of Mountain View.

</comment><comment><USER68> Guys, do you get the invites to your mails or is there a way to see it within the hacker news?

<comment><AUTHOR> You'll get the mail for both invitation as well as rejection.

<comment><USER68> Thanks. I see a (1) sign next to my user name in hacker news but can't see what that is since there is no link there.

<comment><USER69> That's your karma count. It has nothing to do with your YC application.

<comment><USER68> thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does anyone know if all the people who got invited so far were pre-interviewed before?

<comment><USER58> We were pre-interviewed on Thursday and so far have not heard anything. We submitted our app an hour or two before the deadline, if you give any credence to the rumor that invites are being sent according to the date of app submission.

<comment><USER17> No pre-interview for me so I guess I can start working on application number 4 ;)

<comment><USER58> I wouldn't necessarily say that! I think pre-interviews are simply an indication that a partner wanted more information about the startup. That might be because the information was omitted or because it wasn't within the scope of the application. I suppose the only certain conclusion you can draw is that prior to the pre-interview you hadn't yet been rejected. But seeing as each application is read by at least one other reviewer, and the 450 highest weighted applications are sent invitations, I don't believe that a single pre- interview has an extremely positive or negative bearing on your chances of being invited to final interviews.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Received my 2nd rejection mail from YC. had applied for W17 as a hardware startup.

<comment><USER35> Doing anything with routers/modems?

<comment><USER27> Nope. Pure hardware model with some embedded stuff

<comment><USER35> Do you want to come to the yc rejection demo day and show your stuff?

<comment><USER27> Would love to. However, i'm based out in India. Let me know how can i connect?

<comment><USER35> ShowYC.com for a demo/pitch party day

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> I wonder how many international companies are getting invites for the interview!

<comment><USER45> Don't know how many but this one from Colombia will..........:-)))

<comment><USER71> We are from Medellin and are also waiting :) Which city are you at?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> How many startups, do you guys think will get invited for interview this time?

<comment><USER73> ~450 Source: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13951136](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13951136)

<comment><USER72> Edit: The whole comment was wrong, so I am removing it

<comment><USER74> you mean 5%? Btw what's the source for 10,000 applications?

<comment><USER72> You know what. Ignore whatever I wrote. I was watching match and don't know where I came up with the numbers, lol.

<comment><USER75> Last batch had around 7,000 applications-I found the number on Quora so 10,000 actually makes sense.

<comment><USER72> Yeah, I remember someone projecting it to be 10,000 for this year but I can't find it now.

<comment><USER32> 10000\. Whew! Suddenly I don't fancy my chances of getting in any more!

Seriously though, some of the founder videos I saw on YouTube were very very good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Do you know what time you will re start sending invitations and rejections

</comment><comment><USER3> Just got our invite! wooooo

<comment><USER77> Awesome! Congrats!

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> Appears they are starting to send invites based on date of applications.

</comment><comment><USER78> Rejected. Thanks everybody. Congrats to invites and good luck to all!

</comment><comment> spencer-matonis Anyone receive a rejection yet? :/ I think we're toast ;-;

<comment> spencer-matonis Yup, "We're sorry to say that your startup was not selected to interview for the upcoming Y Combinator batch. Please don't take it personally." TRICKSY HOBBITZES! :(

Thank you for opportunity! You're darn right we're applying W18!

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> Anyone still waiting? Do they save the rejection emails for the end?

<comment><USER63> I think it's just rejections now :/

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Does everyone get an email? Even those who have not been selected?

<comment><USER81> Yes

<comment><USER17> Sorry for asking but did you receive an invitation or a rejection?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> I haven't received any answer yet. Is anyone still waiting?

</comment><comment><USER83> Are a lot still waiting to hear?? Its 11pm MST, and no news...

</comment><comment><USER84> Got our rejection. I guess it'll be Winter 2018 for us.

</comment><comment><USER85> South Germany (9 hours ahead) - not yet so far... awaiting

</comment><comment><USER86> Rejected as well. I will keep making progress regardless.

</comment><comment><USER87> Am I the only one who checks the emails every 1 minute?

</comment><comment><USER27> Anyone with hardware concept applied for this batch?

</comment><comment><USER76> It is 1200 noon in Mountain view. No email yet.

</comment><comment><USER6> Has anyone pitching a non profit heard back?

</comment><comment><USER88> Denmark 18:00 right now and still nothing

<comment><USER75> It's almost mid-night from South East Asia - we're 14 hours ahead of SF. I think they won't be sent for another 6 hours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> Check your YC accounts...it changed.

<comment><USER46> Hey, not seeing any changes. What changed for you?

<comment><USER89> It moved the application to "previous applications" and removed ability to "edit" founders profile and application

<comment><USER90> That happened just after the application deadline, I think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> No, I started searching at midnight.

</comment><comment><USER92> Rejection mail just hit the inbox.

</comment><comment><USER46> This is the slowest day ever, lol

<comment><USER70> tell me about it :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> Thanks for the update cheers!!

</comment><comment><USER65> yes it is the slowest day ever. Havent received anything so far 12.14 AM India

</comment><comment><USER76> It is 5:06 Am 18 April 2017

<comment><AUTHOR> It's 5.37 PM IST here in India :)

<comment><USER60> Good point :), but I think they are likely working on Pacific time

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> Just received my rejection.

<comment><USER15> Keep going!

<comment><USER94> Thanks! Mine is not a technology business at all, not sure how much that weighs on the decision.

<comment><USER15> What is your business?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> just received mine. rejected! Well, good luck for the interview guys!

<comment><USER15> Keep going, you can do it next time!

<comment><USER17> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> did all the international founders were called for a pre-interview ?

<comment><USER96> Was this a video call? Our team isn't international but we had a video call scheduled a few days ago. We were also wondering what that signified, if anything.

<comment><USER97> same here. We are not international and we had a video call last week.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Just received rejection.

<comment><USER15> Keep going! Next time!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Slowest day of my life

</comment><comment><USER98> YC just missed me ;)

</comment><comment><USER99> we just received our rejection. Good luck guys!

</comment><comment><USER22> Rejected. Sad :(

<comment><USER15> Cheer up! You totally got this next time!

</comment></comment><comment><USER100> anyone else? Rejects or Interviews?

</comment><comment><USER101> Got invite!

<comment><USER54> Do you know when exactly you got the invite?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> time is not ticking at all.

</comment><comment><USER102> Okay, I finally got rejected once more as solo founder:

www.mountwish.org

Problem and solution:

Most companies struggle with the high complexity and ever-increasing regulatory burdens associated with managing their FX, commodity price and interest rate risks. Not to mention that costs in financial risk management are rising fast (currently firms spend on average around 2.86% of their revenues on hedging these risk). Hence, they usually would prefer to have a simple, straight-forward insurance covering these risks rather than having to deal with derivatives and the related administrative requirements. That's where we come in with our product called FinGuard, which is an ERP system plugin doing exactly this – measuring the exposure and automatically insuring it at a cost which is at least 40% cheaper compared to traditional hedging methods (as we can effectively match contrary risk positions of different customers).

Top three customer advantages:

1\. Significant EBITDA boost

Savings coming from our cross-customer hedging approach can increase EBITDA by up to 11.5% p.a. which is equal to an increase of 16% in sales, while additionally saving any kind of fixed treasury expenses (e.g. treasury systems, staffing, research data, special admin processes and legal services,…). Hence customers' EBITDA will go up sharply.

2\. No compliance hassles anymore

It reduces compliance burdens , just think of KYC checks, MiFID II, EMIR and the likes, which for an insurance policy from a customer's perspective are no longer applicable

3\. Convenience and more time for your core business

Increased focus on your core business with automation taking all the financial risk management hassles (e.g. going global w/o worrying about FX rates) and potential human errors (e.g. no litigations with banks about the agreed on derivatives pricing) out while using big data to improve results further

Status Quo and Key metrics:

\- A solid team is in place and shall be hired with the next funding round (or accelerator money), but until then it's just me working full-time on the project (by the way I don' understand the bias against solo founders anyway: [https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/26/co-founders- optional/](https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/26/co-founders-optional/))

\- Validated concept (based on historical data), business processes defined, thorough business plan written (100+ pages) and software design sketch ready; first prototype shall work by end of April

\- Currently discussing cooperation with other financial services providers as they can help us to drive sales significantly (attracted leading players including bulge bracket banks and household names in the insurance industry among others)

\- 300+ sales leads each with more than 100m in revenues (our own pricing is derived as a percentage of their revenues); currently reaching out to them to get signed LoIs

\- 2.97tn USD total market size; expecting USD 546m in pre-payments in year 1

\- positive VC feedback in general

</comment><comment><USER103> Not yet.

</comment><comment><USER104> rejected :(

</comment><comment><USER105> Just got an invite for an interview. Great news! Can anyone swap interview slots who has one booked for the week of May 1, which is now full? I'm at TED for the prior week. Thanks...

<comment><USER106> Congrats! did you have a pre-interview before today?

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> live conversation: [https://t.me/yc_summer_2017](https://t.me/yc_summer_2017)

for all those who click the button every single minute :D

<comment><USER107> We detached this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14142444](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14142444) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Quick reminder on the live conversation, feel free to join us and share your thoughts and experiences!

[https://t.me/yc_summer_2017](https://t.me/yc_summer_2017)

<comment><USER107> Come on you guys, one link is probably ok but at 5 you're well into spamming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Live conversation just started, everyone's invited!

[https://t.me/yc_summer_2017](https://t.me/yc_summer_2017)

</comment><comment><USER85> Share your thoughs with us, even if you were rejected!

[https://t.me/yc_summer_2017](https://t.me/yc_summer_2017)

<comment><USER107> We detached this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14142628](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14142628) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> thanks Jared!!! we are all waiting for you here and on [https://t.me/yc_summer_2017](https://t.me/yc_summer_2017)

<comment><USER3> Hopefully this doesn't come off too rude but you've linked this 5 times now in this thread and to me this has passed the point of promotion and reached spam.

Any chance this can be the last one?

<comment><USER66> this is just a group on telegram!!! you get updates and chat with mates faster...</comment></comment></comment>


Scaling a Microblogging Service - Part I - <AUTHOR> http://www.hueniverse.com/hueniverse/2008/03/on-scaling-a-mi.html <comment><USER2> Microblogging is more like IM and email, so people who are talking about caching and databases and scaling twitter like a traditional web site all miss the point. This is rare exception, too bad the author abandoned his own attempt at doing it right. I think there's still a chance that somebody other than twitter will be first to general adoption.</comment>


Israel bars academic Chomsky entry to West Bank - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE64F23H20100516

<comment><USER2> From another article on the same issue:

> _In a telephone interview with Channel 10, Chomsky said the interrogators > had told him he had written things that the Israeli government did not > like._

> _"I suggested [the interrogator try to] find any government in the world > that likes anything I say," he said._

[http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/noam-chomsky-denied- ent...](http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/noam-chomsky-denied-entry-into- israel-1.290701?localLinksEnabled=false)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Ideas are dangerous.</comment>


Tips For Running an Online Design Contest - <AUTHOR> http://blog.kickofflabs.com/9-tips-for-running-an-online-design-contest

<comment><USER2> Ugh. Say "no" to spec work: <http://www.no-spec.com/about/>

<comment><USER3> I read the no-spec site and while I kinda see the POV when thinking about large design projects, I don't see what the problem is for small things like a banner ad as the Kickoff Labs post was discussing.

There are creatives all over the world eager to get paid a few hundred bucks for a bunch of small jobs. Sites like 99designs/crowdSPRING provide an efficient market for them.

I needed a logo for a super-lean startup idea. In a few days, spending $400, I got a kick-ass logo via one of these sites.

Customer happy. Provider happy.

What's the problem?

<comment><USER4> The problem is that there were other almost-providers who worked for free, didn't get paid, and aren't happy.

<comment><USER3> But those 'almost-providers' knew they might not get the deal. They choose to participate knowing there was a risk.

They didn't "work for free", they made a decision that the risk/reward was worth it.

Oh, and if you down-vote someone on HN for asking a question the least you can do is fess up and explain why.

<comment><USER4> OK, I "confess" that I downvoted your post because I considered the question disingenuous. The risk/reward may not always be clear to all participants, and in a fairer world such choices might not have existed in the first place.

My vote is really against encouraging people to view design contests as fair enough, not you personally.

<comment><USER3> Kudos for 'fessing up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No topic has made me more disappointed in the Hacker News community than this one. It's frustrating to see my livelihood attacked by the very people I try to help every day. It's not the "big agencies" that spec work hurts. It's people like me. I've dedicated my life to design. I work with startups and small business to provide great design on small budgets. I don't want to go back to doing corporate work. I stopped when I realized the only people that cared less about the work than me were the clients themselves. So I decided to focus on small business. People that care about fresh ideas, innovation and quality products, like I do.

I'll spare you the book-length essay on why it's wrong to exploit the design industry like this. I'll just leave you with this: the only people that care about ethics in business are ethical businessmen. You are what you do. You can stab, claw and bite your way to the top or you can take a stand for something more important: integrity.

Next time, give yourself a couple of hours looking at local freelance designers. Call them. Ask them about rates, their design process, previously successful design campaigns and their approach to design. If you aren't satisfied after having at least tried, then go ahead and submit it to the design sweatshop in the cloud.

<comment><USER6> I do fully support the local design community. In fact our site and product design comes mainly from local resources. However... most of them simply don't like or want to take on small projects like this.

Sure, if I have to spend $500+ dollars they can tackle larger things that I would never farm out. But the GOOD local designers are generally too busy for the small stuff. And the ones that have time simply aren't as good.

Also - for smaller projects like this - the small entrepreneur (me) has a limited amount of time. Why should we spend it calling around to see if someone has a couple of hours to do this. I've tried. The people I trust are busy... so contest away.</comment></comment>


Quicksort is broken. Is it worth fixing? - <AUTHOR> http://www.angelfire.com/pq/jamesbarbetti/articles/sorting/001_QuicksortIsBroken.htm

<comment><USER2> the bigger news here is that people are still using angelfire. i half expected that the ads on top were from linkexchange.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's curious the OP doesn't mention introsort (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introsort>). AFAIK most standard libraries use introsort instead of quicksort.

Introsort uses heapsort when the recursion is too deep and insertsort when the entry is too small.

<comment><USER4> The article seems pretty old - at least from 2004 ( [http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://www.angelfire.com/pq...](http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://www.angelfire.com/pq/jamesbarbetti/articles/sorting/001_QuicksortIsBroken.htm) ), probably even older. Angelfire was popular in the late 1990s ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A really nice essay about Quicksort and it's quirks and border cases. Worth a read!

On the other hand, when developing an application, you should think twice if you really need to write your own sorting routine. Better stick with the system library unless you have some use case that really requires your own sorting implementation.

</comment><comment><USER6> It is possible to find the median in linear time (quickselect). Pivoting on the median makes quicksort optimal (O(n log(n))) while only using constant space. This is rarely used in practice because the overhead is large compared to the probability of being given a worst-case problem.

</comment><comment><USER7> [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2105737/has-anyone- seen-t...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2105737/has-anyone-seen-this- improvement-to-quicksort-before) Another nice discussion on how to deal with the duplicate problem.

</comment><comment><USER8> There is an algorithm for calculating median in O(n). I was wondering if choosing a pivot that is always a median would speed up quicksort. In theory it should always give O(n log n) time, as recursive calls would always take a half of input array.

</comment><comment><USER9> Variations of mergesort are starting to have overall higher throughput, while having better worst case complexity.

Timsort is a good example, used in Python and JDK 7.</comment>


The critical role of systems thinking in software development - <AUTHOR> https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/the-critical-role-of-systems-thinking-in-software-development <comment><USER2> I'm the author of this article.

If you find it interesting, here are some links to a couple other articles I've really enjoyed on the topic:

# Queues don't fix overload

[http://ferd.ca/queues-don-t-fix-overload.html](http://ferd.ca/queues-don-t- fix-overload.html)

# There is no happy path in programming

[http://multithreaded.stitchfix.com/blog/2016/01/29/no- happy-...](http://multithreaded.stitchfix.com/blog/2016/01/29/no-happy-path- in-programming/)

Also, if you're looking for a whole book on systems thinking, albeit in a more general context, it's worth checking out "Thinking in Systems: A Primer" by Donella H. Meadows.

Once you start thinking about this stuff it's impossible to not see it everywhere. But for programmers, ops people, etc. that's a good thing... because our jobs depend on it.</comment>


What Lies Below at the South Pole - <AUTHOR> http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=84947 <comment><USER2> Have you seen a topographic map of the Antarctic surface under the ice? It's pretty creepy: about half of it is below sea level. It's weird to think there's ice piled kilometers high on top of it. Of course, if/when all that ice melts, most of it would pop above (now higher) sea level, due to isostatic rebound.

[http://www.zonu.com/detail-en/2009-11-18-11159/Antarctica- to...](http://www.zonu.com/detail-en/2009-11-18-11159/Antarctica-topography- and-bathymetry-2008.html)

<comment><USER3> Isostatic Rebound: I didn't know it existed! According to [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post- glacial_rebound](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-glacial_rebound) , it could be in the order of magnitude of 1.8cm per year at some places of Antartica and Canada.

<comment><USER4> _it could be in the order of magnitude of 1.8cm per year at some places of Antartica and Canada._

Here's a visualization of elevation over time recorded by a GPS observatory at Baker Lake, Nunavut, relatively near the fastest modeled rebound in Canada: [http://www.sonel.org/spip.php?page=gps&idStation=2407](http://www.sonel.org/spip.php?page=gps&idStation=2407)

By eyeball, that's 0.08 m over 2003–2011, or just about 1 cm/year. (Notice the tabs on the bottom: the x and y velocities also show clear trends. That's continental drift. And when the news says something like "the earthquake permanently moved the ground almost two feet south", the data comes from observatories like this one, among other methods.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Something about "East Antarctica" confuses me.

<comment><USER6> _Something about "East Antarctica" confuses me._

I hear you, because of course the continent of Antarctica straddles the South Pole, so it seems hard to establish what part of the continent is east of the remainder of the continent. But "east Antarctica" is a standard geographic term, at least in English,[1] and I frequently see the term in news reports about climate research in Antarctica. I see that the presence of the Transantarctic Mountains makes it feasible to distinguish different parts of the continent for a label like this.

[1] "East Antarctica, also called Greater Antarctica, constitutes the majority (two-thirds) of the Antarctic continent, lying on the Indian Ocean side of the Transantarctic Mountains."

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

<comment><USER7> my off-the-cuff personal rule for determining what would be "east" with respect to a pole would be to treat the GMT line as the "north" line. arbitrary but consistent and something you could orient with respect to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This link is worth visiting for the cross section image alone.

</comment><comment><USER9> those transantarctic mountains have very jagged peaks - is this a result of less wind exposure, and therefore less erosion? the article also mentions that the horizontal scale is different from the vertical scale, so it might just be that.

<comment><USER10> The scale is _extremely_ compressed on the horizontal. If they were scaled the same, the image would be about 150 times wider than it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> No Elder Things i hope...

<comment><USER12> They must be using Professor Pabodie's special drill...

[http://www.wired.com/2012/12/antarctic-gothic- horror/all/](http://www.wired.com/2012/12/antarctic-gothic-horror/all/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Transarctic mountains underneath..that's pretty dope</comment>


Help Women Take the Stage - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/02/help_women_take_the_stage.html <comment><USER2> I may be the one misremembering, but I recall Sandberg's hand raising story differently from the author. From what I remember, Sheryl said that she would take one more question. It was not until after she took the supposed "last" question that the women put their hands down, whereas the men kept their hands up under the assumption that the "last" question was not truly the last. And the men were right, Sheryl kept answering questions, and it was not until later that she realized what had happened. I think a woman from the audience came up and told her what had occurred.

Why do I bother pointing out the difference? Because it's not that women don't think that their questions are important, as the author claims, but rather that women are more likely to play by the stated "rules." At least, that is what I take away from the story.</comment>


Ask HN: fastest mac today: iMac or MacBook Pro? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> According to Geekbench the iMac has the best single core performance of any Mac, and best multi core performance vs the MBP:

[https://browser.primatelabs.com/mac- benchmarks](https://browser.primatelabs.com/mac-benchmarks)

</comment><comment><USER3> I really enjoy my 15 inch MacBook Pro (late 2016) despite not having dedicated fn keys and a few other issues. With the 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports I have attached a Razer Core with a GTX 1070 and can use my HTC Vive different places with little effort. Took a bit of hacking to get running however. Make sure you bump the fans, it seems apple wanted these things to fail quickly with normal unmodified temps of 80-90c... Mine runs at about 70c with the fans maxed doing VR.

<comment><USER4> could you provide details and instructions for how you got the razer core working with a mbp? thx!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have the 2015 iMac maxed-out (32 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, 4Ghz QC i7) as a desktop and I can't really compare the 5k, 27-inch screen experience with _any_ laptop I can think of.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I am opposed to the Mac Pro it is not what I need.

Should I buy a fully-dressed iMac or MacBook Pro?

Mostly need CPU speed, not so interested in GPU speed.

multiple cores a plus

</comment><comment> ng-user Comparing a laptop vs. a desktop? Which do you need? I've got no idea what your specifics are or whether you'll be permanently stationed at a desk or if you'll be working on the subway 24/7.. the current state of this post provides very little beneficial information for the HN community.

<comment><USER6> OP added more details two hours before your comment ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14066852](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14066852)). It's about raw CPU speed, not form factor or mobility.</comment></comment>