Ask HN: Should I choose a managed or unmanaged VPS? - <AUTHOR>

Background:  I'm about to complete an upgrade to an existing web application and need to decide between a managed vs. unmanaged VPS.  I'm bootstrapping the project at the moment and although I'm comfortable managing my Ubuntu Karmic laptop, I am concerned about having administer a production server.  I've read the tutorials on Slicehost and Linode and implemented a local test server, but  feel that there is likely much more to managing a real server.
I am very interested in the Xen VPS servers, as they seem to offer better price/performance than traditional Virtuozzo CPanel-based VPS servers, but feel that the added work/time required is not worth the tradeoff.
Question: For those who have already made this decision and were not already experienced sys admins, do you feel that the initial time spent learning and the ongoing time spent managing your server is worth it?  I am leaning towards the managed server option, since having managing  development, sales and customer service is already time consuming.
Site specs: PHP5 (Kohana v2.3.4 framework); ~90% dynamic db-driven (MySQL); APC caching; ~10-15K unique visitors per month. <comment><USER2> IMHO, if you need to ask, then managed is the way to go ;)

In all seriousness, I would agree that your time might be better spent elsewhere. There's only so many hours in a day and if you're using it to generate income, your time is better spent elsewhere than playing around with things.

Security aspects are the most timeconsuming part of managing even a test server. Installing software and configuring it is a walk in the park compared to doing the dance with all the script kiddiez out there. Good Luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> I manage my own, but I do that for my other jobs as well. So I guess you could say I'm a part time sysadmin.

I say do it yourself. You don't have that much fine tuning to do. I just personally doubt that you're going to get very good "management" from your provider. It will be most useful in a situation of "please install nginx to run on a separate IP so I can serve static content." It will not be useful in preventing attacks, etc.

Although I guess they could have really high service quality, I believe most places will scrimp on the services b/c they need to compete on the price. And the whole reason for going managed is the services.

</comment><comment><USER4> You need to look at exactly what you are getting with the managed service packages. The service levels and security guarantees are critical. As always you pay for what you get, but you may not get what you pay for.</comment>


Exhibition at MoMA takes down irrational exuberance about tech w sardonic verve - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/pjmaurel/status/683871627873005568 <comment><AUTHOR> "tremendous fortunes are made and lost on the basis of slight modifications of existing technologies for gaming, music and video streaming and other sorts of entertainment."</comment>


Opinion: Why Google has lost its mojo -- and why you should care - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=324097 <comment><USER2> Article removed. Read it here: [http://126.96.36.199.nyud.net:8090/search?q=cache:www.compu...](http://188.8.131.52.nyud.net:8090/search?q=cache:www.computerworld.com/action/article.do%3Fcommand%3DviewArticleBasic%26articleId%3D324097)</comment>


Netflix Plan to Test Varying Play Speeds Meets Filmmaker Backlash - <AUTHOR> https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/netflix-plan-test-varying-play-speeds-meets-filmmaker-backlash-1250533 <comment><USER2> I would love to have this control. Speeding up slow dialogue/plot development is worth a half-star rating.</comment>


PQProteus – Quantum-resistance for the prekey exchange of Proteus - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/wireapp/pqproteus <comment><USER2> There's not a lot of information given here. The blog post is better [1].

Long story short, they decided to augment Wire with experimental post-quantum security using the NewHope key exchange scheme.

You can read more about NewHope here [2]. It's a lattice-based cryptosystem using the Ring-Learning With Errors (R-LWE) problem. It's also the same post- quantum key exchange scheme Google experimented with in Google Chrome [3]. R-LWE is pretty common in state of the art lattice-based cryptosystems (there are several such, including NewHope, in Round 1 of the NIST PQCrypto CFP [4]).

Among the mathematical "tribes" of post-quantum cryptography, lattice-based (and code-based) problems are particularly good for speed. On the other hand, their key sizes are significantly larger (this phenomenon is somewhat inverted in supersingular isogenies, which offer fantastic key sizes but much slower key exchange). For those interested in learning more about the learning with errors problem (and its ring-augmented cousin), the first few pages of the NewHope specification (and most lattice-based specs from NIST PQCrypto) are a good brief [5]. And while it's not related to NewHope specifically, Peikert's survey on lattice-based cryptography is relatively recent and accessible [6].

I'm interested in what impact this will have on latency in Wire. In the context of the Google Chrome TLS experiment, the median connection latency increased by 1ms, the slowest 5% increased by 20ms and the slowest 1% increased by 150ms [7]. The increased connection latency was attributed to the increase in message size, which in my opinion is pretty interesting in consideration of the fact that we (generally) consider key size and operation speed separately.

______________

1\. [https://blog.wire.com/blog/post-quantum-resistance- wire](https://blog.wire.com/blog/post-quantum-resistance-wire)

2\. [https://newhopecrypto.org](https://newhopecrypto.org)

3\. [https://security.googleblog.com/2016/07/experimenting- with-p...](https://security.googleblog.com/2016/07/experimenting-with-post- quantum.html?m=1)

4\. [https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/Post-Quantum- Cryptography/Rou...](https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/Post-Quantum- Cryptography/Round-1-Submissions)

5\. [https://newhopecrypto.org/data/NewHope_2017_12_21.pdf](https://newhopecrypto.org/data/NewHope_2017_12_21.pdf)

6\. [https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~cpeikert/pubs/lattice- survey.pdf](https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~cpeikert/pubs/lattice-survey.pdf)

7\. [https://www.imperialviolet.org/2016/11/28/cecpq1.html](https://www.imperialviolet.org/2016/11/28/cecpq1.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> "fewer than 50 quantum bits"

D-wave's 2000Q released in 2017, is supposed to have 2048 qubits.

<comment><USER4> That's marketing-speak from D-wave, though. 72 error-corrected qubits [1] is state-of-the-art.

[1] [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610274/google-thinks- its-...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610274/google-thinks-its-close-to- quantum-supremacy-heres-what-that-really-means/)

<comment><USER5> That's a great resource. Thanks.

The noise issue does seem problematic. Especially once you're beyond what's doable classically. I suppose that you could just check for reproducibility. But maybe there could be systematic problems that wouldn't show up doing that.

But for cracking encryption, the end results seems pretty clear. You either get sensible plaintext, or you don't. And you can try multiple times. Systematic effects that consistently yield incorrect plaintext seem unlikely.

Or am I just confused?

<comment><USER6> It's not always obvious whether you've gotten sensible plaintext, especially if the plaintext is a binary file format you weren't expecting, or if the plaintext has been encrypted multiple times.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Army looks to tap civilian talent for cyber force - <AUTHOR> https://fcw.com/articles/2017/12/05/cyber-civilian-army-hire.aspx <comment><USER2> Five officers per year is a total embarassment. NSA has (estimated) 40k staff, and unknown additional contractors and outsourced solution providers.

NSA officers already deploy with US forces, so the only reason is to have people in your chain of command. But then they won't have access to the resources of NSA.

It also seems to be a bad career track, because, being restricted duties, they could not command anything significant. The corollary is that there will never be people educated in offensive infosec making informed decisions.

</comment><comment><USER3> That $70 billion a year increase in budget, while they keep whining they "don't have money for free college" must've helped quite a bit. The military industrial complex keeps growing.

</comment><comment><USER4> Does the US Army work with the NSA? Because I wouldn't be surprised if the reason they can't find staff is because a lot of techies are against the government spying on all it's citizens. They might not want to be involved in helping the government surveillance plans.

I guess there's also the financial aspect that the private section will pay more than the government. But I think the job (if you removed the betraying your country by spying on them stuff) would be rewarding enough to attract some people.

</comment><comment><USER5> > applicants must be under 41 compared to 32 for OCS, and can skip the > traditional basic and combat training requirements, but they must be able to > pass a physical and meet basic fitness standards.

> applicants are sent to Ft. Sill for four weeks of direct commissioned > officer training and 12 weeks of condensed cyber basic officer leader course

> security clearance backlog of more than 700,000 applications, making it > possible for cyber officer candidates to report for duty in as little as > four to five months from initial application

This makes applying to Google and Amazon seem like a breeze. And at least private companies try to hide their ageism.

And am I missing something? If you're sending techies to the battlefield, you're doing it wrong.

<comment><USER6> My guess is two-fold: one issue is that there is a culture and this was the best compromise that the institution could do.

The second is that there might be cases where you want to send techies to bases in, say, Afghanistan, to take a closer look at computers you might not want to expose over any kind of external connection, or where you need to talk with local assets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can't tell if they have waved the requirement to have better vision than 20/100 or whatever it is in your weak eye.</comment>


Do you own 400 companies? So, you are not too busy - <AUTHOR> http://www.ajkesslerblog.com/you-are-not-too-busy/ <comment><USER2> and he doesn't worry about the day to day operations of any of those 400 businesses</comment>


SoundFocus Raises $1.7M to Protect Hearing in Post-iPod, XBox Era - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2014/02/21/hardware-startup-soundfocus-raises-1-7m-to-protect-hearing-in-post-ipod-xbox-era/

<comment><USER2> Cool app. I see it makes good use of the three band equalizer audio unit in iOS. This app would be great for hearing impaired.

Shameless plug: My start up also concerns audiology apps. Like the founder of SoundFocus, I've had hearing issues all my life- just had my second typmpanoplasty in November. Right now we have two apps that address tinnitus on iTunes. Check us out, www.bxtel.com

</comment><comment><USER3> Awesome - glad to see someone trying to prevent hearing loss. I've had tinnitus for a few years now and am very protective of my hearing these days. Now that I'm forced to be more aware of it, I'm consistently amazed at how unnecessarily loud the world often is. Always have a set of ear plugs in my pocket!

</comment><comment><USER4> Awesome guys, congratulations. I struggle with hearing and i'm sure years of headphone abuse hasn't helped!

</comment><comment><USER5> Awesome, love this app!</comment>


High-Speed C++ MVC Framework for Web Application - <AUTHOR> http://www.treefrogframework.org/ <comment><USER2> Do many people use this?

<comment><USER3> I don't think so. In addition, they need to add node.js and go's results to their performance comparison page.</comment></comment>


Generation Squeezed - <AUTHOR> http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/generation-squeezed <comment><USER2> >As an American creative worker, I confront a global workforce that has, with the opening of markets, expanded by three billion people from the other side of the world, 300 million of whom are English-speaking middle-class Indians, every other one of whom is writing a novel or crafting new design-template software but will soon ...

But the other half of the cup has now added three more billion potential customers for you! Yah! but these people don't even have shoes, sell them shoes!</comment>


Ballmer on Ballmer: His Exit From Microsoft - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303460004579194150724298162-lMyQjAxMTAzMDEwNDExNDQyWj <comment><USER3> I can't believe that the article doesn't contain the slightest mention of any of the numerous disasters that took place under Ballmer's leadership. The writer makes it sound like Ballmer's only fault was that he was only a little too slow to change the company. In reality Microsoft lost billions due to tactical business errors like the Surface, Xbox hardware failures, Windows Phone, and the Zune.

<comment><USER4> That is an interesting narrative. Microsoft didn't "lose" anything, they have made billions over the last decade. So you have a profitable company bringing in billions of dollars that is pretty much qualifies as "doing a good job."

So when people talk about the 'lost billions' they create a hypothetical Microsoft, the one of today which made billions of dollars but _also_ dominated in new markets and made billions more. There is absolutely no evidence that Microsoft could have done both, regardless of who was at the helm. It would have been epic, but it isn't clear that it was possible.

So this article was Ballmer's take on his reign, he's not going to say "I didn't capture the smartphone market" he is going to remember that he made a lot of money off enterprises for his employees and his shareholders. I would happy to be that successful.

Google has never made serious money off their hardware products or operating system products, Apple has never made serious money off their operating system products or their network products, and Microsoft has never made significant money on either network products or hardware products. All three have a space where they are really good, all three are so so in the other two spaces. Why is Ballmer presented as an idiot and Page and Cook not?

<comment><USER5> Imagine if Apple spent billions on boondoggles that made it such that instead of having $150B in their bank account, they only had $100B or $50B - <USER2> that's what's evident - MSFT might have double it's current cash ($80B) [1] if it had executed well on those new key ventures.

Is it any less a managerial failure to repeatedly fail to execute like this than it is to push a company from profitable to unprofitable (or run it into bankruptcy)?

And that's ignoring the cultural morass that failed policies like stacked ranking promote - that could likely have poisoned Microsoft's productivity well.

<comment><USER4> Well if you are unconstrained from reality you could argue that Apple _could_ have made MacOS available for _any_ x86 laptop and sold it from $50/copy and completely STOLEN what was left of the technical Windows market. But no, their stupid reliance on only putting it on some over priced hardware left BILLIONs on the table.

You see how that works? In lots and lots of ways MacOS is much better than Windows 8, and yet Apple won't sell it to Dell or Lenovo to pre-install on their laptops, they won't even _talk_ to them about it. But it would be cool (and we know its possible with all the Hackintoshes out there). Everyone agrees that Microsoft fumbled on the phone business and Apple executed very well. Apple so far has totally fumbled their network products offering, social music network? icloud? not stellar.

<comment><USER5> "Unconstrained from reality" is an understatement for your example.

I'm not arguing that Microsoft should have abandoned their cash cows and say "put office on the web" as a target.

Instead they should have, for example, actually stove to make money from their Xbox division (it's still in the red from it's inception).

Or made phones that didn't suck back in the early 00s - I had a colleague doing testing for mobile enterprise software for WinCE and each weekend he'd show me his return list - a half dozen or more OQO, HP, Dell, or Compaq handsets that just up and died during his testing - every week.

Ultimately, Microsoft could be making so much more than what they are. Apple's 1st and second most profitable areas didn't even exist 8 years ago. Microsoft's have existed for 20+, they simply can't make a new profitable venture. That's a failure of management.

<comment><USER4> I don't know of anyone who set out to not be successful. That is why looking backwards in time is so strange sometimes. You say "Gee, that decision cost you so much time and money!" but you don't necessarily get to see what they were looking at when they made it. Imagine one comes to a fork in the road, unmarked, both lead in the general direction of your goal, one of them has a bridge washed out. At the bridge it is obvious which fork to take, at the fork, which cannot see the bridge, not so much.

I'm not apologizing for Microsoft executing poorly, what I am saying is that there success is a matter of positive degree rather than one of success or failure. We can productively discuss if they may have been _more successful_ had they invested differently but there shouldn't be any discussion that they are _not successful_.

I don't know where you are in your career or life, but I know that everyone gets a chance to look back and see some things that look obviously stupid in the future looking toward the past. If you are like me, and you see some things that would have really made things different (I turned Bill Gates down when he offered me a job in 1978, I held my tech stocks in 2000 hoping there would be a recovery, Etc.) don't dwell on them. Figure out whether or not you made the right decision with the information that was available, and if so let those past decisions lay in peace and not haunt your dreams.

I have found that this statement : _" Ultimately, Microsoft could be making so much more than what they are."_ is nearly always true. When looking back in time, a path can be plotted which would have made you more money (I could have bought 1000 BTC for $250 for example, I didn't) but that exercise is useless unless it helps to learn something about how to make better decisions right?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's refreshing to see Ballmer's attitude towards Microsoft: he's willing to do whatever's in the best interests of the company, even if he personally would prefer to stay around longer (and make more money in so doing). How many professional CEOs can you say the same of? How many people who worked their way up the rungs of leadership would voluntarily step aside, thinking they weren't the right person for the job?

<comment><USER7> I take your point, but can making more money possibly mean anything to Ballmer?

Isn't it more about what Gates said (basically _meaning_ and Microsoft being Gates' and Ballmer's big project)?

<comment><USER8> Yes - for them the share price isn't about the cash, it's about keeping score.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The thought of the CEO of Ford taking over Microsoft just seems crazy to me.

I'm sure he's a competent manager, as Balmer seemed to be, but is he a tech visionary?

<comment><USER10> Bear in mind Mulally not only saved Ford, but saved the Taurus:

 _" I arrive here, and the first day I say, 'Let's go look at the product lineup.' And they lay it out, and I said, 'Where's the Taurus?' They said, 'Well, we killed it.' I said, 'What do you mean, you killed it?' 'Well, we made a couple that looked like a football. They didn't sell very well, so we stopped it.' 'You stopped the Taurus?' I said. 'How many billions of dollars does it cost to build brand loyalty around a name?' 'Well, we thought it was so damaged that we named it the Five Hundred.' I said, 'Well, you've got until tomorrow to find a vehicle to put the Taurus name on because that's why I'm here. Then you have two years to make the coolest vehicle that you can possibly make.'?"_ \- [http://www.fastcompany.com/1573670/what-other- automakers-can...](http://www.fastcompany.com/1573670/what-other-automakers- can-learn-alan-mulally)

As the driver of a sixth-generation (2011) Ford Taurus, which is in fact a pretty cool car, somehow it doesn't seem so crazy that Mulally could save Microsoft as well...

<comment><USER11> That's a very interesting comparison. For a while there the Taurus was the laughing stock of the company, and now they're pretty damn nice.

So... we gonna back FrontPage now?

<comment><USER12> Yes, that's interesting. I think the decision to keep the Taurus brand was a mistake, since Ford tarnished it with too many shitty cars over the years. They have some really good brands (Fiesta, Raptor SVT, even Focus) but I would consider Taurus irreparable, just like FrontPage.

The company logo needs an update too, IMO.

And they have an incredible iconic brand, "Model T", I think they would do well to use it again.

<comment><USER13> Some new innovation in trucks would certainly be interesting. As a driver with over 200k on my F-150, I could see some sort of T-150 being a pretty sweet redesign.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The larger the company and its existing revenue streams, the greater the resistance to any significant change. Even with Ballmer out, this law of corporate inertia still holds.

As entrepreneurs, the above is actually good news - it's why we have a decent chance of blowing past the incumbent.

</comment><comment><USER15> Regardless of what some may say about him, spending 30+ years at a company and serving as CEO of your remaining years shows the trust that Steve had. Similar to when Bill Gates left, it will be a sad day when Ballmer is not around.

<comment><USER16> I'm sure that all those people who were screwed by the stack ranking system will be _really_ upset.

<comment><USER17> I'd imagine being a Microsoft alumni, regardless of the details of exit, means many hiring managers would at least take a look at your resume.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I got more insight from this article as to the type of person Ballmer is than anything else I have read about him. Good read.

<comment><USER19> It certainly is more insightful than a Youtube video of him sweating and yelling "DEVELOPERS" or another rehash of his iPhone-will-never-amount-to- anything quote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> "The Ballmer Years" stock price graph is extremely misleading because the number of outstanding shares has changed. If they want to track Ballmer' performance they should graph market cap.

<comment><USER21> It depends on your perspective. If you're one of Microsoft's shareholders (the perspective the WSJ may be writing for), market capitalization is not directly relevant.

If Jane owns 100 shares of ABCD that most recently traded at $10 apiece, and then the issuer issues 1,000 new shares to its employees but the shares continue to trade at the same price, the market capitalization has increased but Jane's stake hasn't changed in value.

Shareholders do care about price return and dividends. They might also care about total return, subject to some reinvestment strategy and tax regime.

Market cap is also problematic because it can't be calculated in real time. Reporting companies generally only publish a share count once a quarter. They publish two numbers: the gross count of shares outstanding on a particular day (which doesn't count in-the-money options and other live claims on a company's equity) and the fully-diluted share count averaged over the quarter (without publishing the strike price distribution of the options).

Neither one is exactly what you'd need to calculate an implied whole-company market valuation anyway, so in general any attempt to measure market cap is necessarily going to get an uncertain, out-of-date, imperfect metric. (A useful one, don't get me wrong! But not what principally matters to the shareholders.)

<comment><USER20> That's a good point. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What would Elon Musk do as CEO of microsoft?

Just wondering...

<comment><USER23> He would probably be really bored.

This is pure speculation, but I don't think Elon would like a "turnaround guy" type of job. He seems to be driven to do really big things that people say can't be done. I don't think Microsoft's shareholders would appreciate the distraction, and to Musk, I'm pretty sure that even "put Windows on top of BSD and open source it" wouldn't be his idea of "big things that people say can't be done".

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> "Steve was a phenomenal leader who racked up profits and market share in the commercial business, but the new CEO must innovate in areas Steve missed—phone, tablet, Internet services, even wearables."

Why does MS insist it has to be everywhere there's any money to be made? Apple is happy being a phone/tablet company, Google is the Internet gig, but MS has to have a finger in every pie, right?

<comment><USER25> "Google is the Internet gig"

That's not really true. Google is trying to capture nearly everything, too. Enterprise (docs), phone, tablet, computer, search, advertising, social, ISP, wearable products (Glass), etc.

<comment><USER26> And cars and solar power

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> My question is what's next for Steve? Being Bill's bulldog has been pretty much a lifelong career for him. In his place I don't know that I'd be happy anywhere else; I might decide to enjoy the huge sacks of cash money I'd made and spend more time with my kids.

<comment><USER28> Retirement I imagine, he's absurdly rich. Maybe he'll join Bill and start giving some of that money away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> To me Ballmer = Cook where Bill = Steve. Cook is taking over a company dominant in it's markets. It's raking in huge sums of cash selling legacy products. There's no sign that Cook can ensure Apple makes the leap to the next big thing. Indeed, coming up through Apple he's probably not the right guy just as Ballmer is now realizing his deeply engrained MSFT strains makes him not the right guy for a new environment.

<comment><USER30> I think people should wait at least five years before bothering to analyse Tim Cook's tenure over Apple, because at this point, it's just stupid to even try.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> So he finally realized he's fail for the last 5+ years?</comment>


How do I grow an invitation only site? - <AUTHOR>

Not the "you have to apply and our autoresponder will let you in after 24 hours" kind - but the real deal, ie. "somebody who is actually an active member of the site actually intended to invite you and you actually accept it and join the site" <comment><USER2> I agree with the two posts about offering your users something and testing the percent of invitations sent out. I believe expanding your site through this model takes two things, some type of reward for bringing in new members even it is is marginal because it will make the user who is inviting people that much more likely to send out invitations and secondly, most obviously, having a great product. If you have a great product, something that people truly find useful and important, user's will without question want to tell their friends. People love to be the first to tell their friends about something useful and not only do they have that ability with an invitation model but they are in a position of power by being their "in" to the website. The key is creating a product so great that users will have to talk about it. Also depending on what type of site you are running, because you did not go into specifics, you have to examine whether the user base is better by having more users. Is this a social network? In a social network more users is obviously better for people because it allows them to connect with more people and more of their friends. The only value in a social network is by having people to interact with so the user base would be very motivated in adding people. The same could be said if this was a skill gaming site where having more people means more potential money to win meaning a higher incentive to invite people. The nature of your site will highly influence if people want to invite other people to it. You have to distinguish your's and if its not one that is made better by inviting more people then you have to focus on creating a great product and providing users with a reward for sending you business.

</comment><comment><USER3> Assuming your site is something your users find worth inviting their friends, your best bet is to A/B test the hell out of your invitation process.

What percent of your user's send out invites? What can you do to improve this? What percent of sent invites lead the recepient to your site? What can you do to improve this? What percent of these convert to an account? What can you do to improve this? What percent of new accounts stay active? What can you do to improve this?

</comment><comment><USER4> Is there anything you can offer your active members as reward for sending out invites? E.g. Dropbox offers additional space for each successful invite and that helped them grow.

</comment><comment><USER5> Every site is different. What works for someone else might not work for you. That being said, your question is too broad and generalized.</comment>


Wheaton College (Massachusetts) promises full scholarship to student refugees - <AUTHOR> http://wheatoncollege.edu/president/2017/01/31/reaching-out-to-refugees/ <comment><USER2> This is grandstanding to the elitists in the left, and shenanigans like these are why Trump & Co. got elected in the first place.

Lower middle class in the Midwest/rest of the USA will see this as a giveaway to the migrants, and become even more disenfranchised.

If we are going to import immigrants from the rest of the world, let us be selective upon intellectual and artistic abilities, not on what is politically trendy today.

<comment><USER2> Edit: yes they are private and can do whatever they want, but if they are taking federal funding then this should not be tolerated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> While I like this idea, the burden is shifted to the students couldn't get a scholarship; Students who are probably working to pay for school or have taken out loans that will take years to pay for.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow a 4 year education there will cost ~$250k.</comment>


Practical Foundations of Debugging (x86)  - <AUTHOR> http://www.dumpanalysis.org/blog/index.php/foundations-of-debugging-x86/

<comment><USER2> Just the slides in book form. Bad typesetting and _lots_ of white space :)</comment>


Why software shouldn't be free - <AUTHOR> https://devletters.com/letters/software-shouldnt-be-free/ <comment><USER2> I never tried to be a publisher on the Apple, Google or Microsoft app stores, but judging by my own consumption of both apps and content, I see no significant issue beyond discoverability in those ecosystems. It is, of course, harder now than it was in the 70's to make money out of, say, a spreadsheet or text editor, but that's beside the point - the market, any market, changes and what was a cash cow a number of years back may now be either a crowded landscape nobody can expect to profitably enter or an ecologic disaster with only the most resilient and aggressive lifeforms in it.

<comment><USER3> If you operated a mall that costs money to enter, then you will put only the stores that give free samples at the front, to attract more customers. In that environment the stores will compete to give bigger and flashier free samples, and at the same time work on ways to monetize the customers.

If you had a store that just sold your product upfront you will be pushed far to the back. You don't attract customers to the mall, and everyone else is offering free samples.

Google and Apple's incentive to feature and promote free apps created what is a very toxic race to the bottom in their app stores. They put the platform ahead of the product. This is their doing rather than a natural occurrence. Nintendo has been selling game for full price for decades but even it couldn't do it on the app stores, and they had to resort to variations of gambling and f2p.

<comment><USER2> The other way to think about it is that the model of selling software is dying and the thing to do now is free admission and in-app purchases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The only way to compell someone to overpay for something that is cheap to distrubute is to develop a personal relationship with them.

Customers must understand that if they don't support creators, eventually the stuff they love will either go away or never come into existence.

It's a tough sell. 99% of people don't think like this. They want to buy things off the shelf for next to nothing and be done with it. And people have a hard time saying no to "gratis".

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right. Selling, when done by an individual is considered evil, especially when the cost to the seller is so low (i.e. not sitting everyday in a physical shop, not coming door-to-door to one's house, not managing a factory with unsatisfied employees).

I guess this is something that can only be fixed with time.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for writing :) I see the tides turning. The internet is allowing a lot of people to draw an income from crazy niches. Patreon proves this.

But, it's not stable, and walled gardens are always a problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> It can be quite stable if you have multiple sources of income. And that is not that tough with the Internet.

In fact, I think it will be more stable (~reliable) than having a single traditional source of income.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Consumers are driven by self-interest. Reminding them about some kind of "morale" that is driven by your own self-interest as a developer will not change that.

Your product has to deliver a value beyond what it costs me or otherwise I won't purchase it.

If there is a competitor offering a product or service for "free" that solves the same problems as yours, then why should I pay for an alternative?

That's the benchmark you have to compete with.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. Consumers will and should do what is best for them.

But, there are some consumers who are rattled by the priced software and give the developer a hard time for it.

They think the money being charged is too much when it's mostly not the case. And they are the same folks who pay $$$ for an overpriced physical entity. This article is targeted mostly at them.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there an existing *Amazon* for fair-trade goods "Made in Africa"? - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I was just wondering whether any of you have heard of any e-commerce websites that sell fair-trade products (besides coffee/ tea) that have been produced in African countries ? I could only find individual organizations with such websites, and most of them were not really fair trade certified. If you know of any such place, please let me know. I am looking into the idea of getting a mock marketplace just to gauge the interest in this niche, and if any of you could provide any criticisms of the the idea[1], that would be much appreciated.
Thanks.
[1] Idea: To have a consolidated space dedicated to connecting fair-trade certified products made in African countries and consumers in first world countries (primarily usa).
Also, by Africa in title == African Countries. <comment><USER2> Have a look at <http://www.novica.com/>

They specialize in home decor products form all around the world, West Africa included: <http://west-africa.novica.com/>

They claim they operate under fair trade principles: <http://www.novica.com/customerservice/> \- although, i do not see any fair trade certificates clearly displayed on their site (do fair-trade certificates exist at all? i'm not an expert on that).

 __* as per your idea: any scarce product, accompanied with a great story, could sell really well. go ahead and let the world know of the unknown beauty Africa is.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not sure, but I wager Amazon will be doing it in 1-3 years if there is a market there (or someone does some powerful fair-trade marketing).

If you have found a market, then you could build a import-export business and then maybe sell out to Amazon in 2 years.

</comment><comment><USER4> You could actually run your entire backend operations from Amazon, as they offer operations as a service so you can get them to do your stock management, warehousing, etc.

</comment><comment><USER5> I occasionally wish for an e-commerce site that specialises in 'Not made in China'...

What ever happened to quality products from other Pacific Rim economies?</comment>


A Woman Who Can Smell Parkinson's - <AUTHOR> https://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/joy-milne-can-smell-parkinson-s-before-it-is-diagnosed-a-1295601.html <comment><USER3> This is awesome. I've always been a super 'smeller' and seem to be able to taste/smell very minute concentrations of bad stuff well before others. Being careful what I say, I also work in EMS and have been able to identify 'sick' patients, even just on walking in the room, often their smell of their 'sickness' gives them away - even when they're not showing a lot of outward signs.

Hopefully someday we'll have some kind of tricorder device that can identify disease processes by gas/scents/smells.

<comment><USER4> I can identify when a woman is ovulating by the smell of something being exhaled on the breathe and excreted through the skin.

Only ever happens with close female friends, but I've identified the smell from regular standing conversation distance away with friends I haven't seen for weeks and don't otherwise know their cycle.

<comment><USER5> Oh, I have this "condition" or something similar, too. Not even with close friends but with strangers I pass in the supermarket. It doesn't happen often but it's very significant.

I think I somewhere read, but unrelated to ovulating, that this was made by nature to find suitable partners. Probably that natural smell is intensified by ovulating.

edit: And to be honest: I never told anyone before that I sometimes sense this different smell and I'm not sure I should. Women could probably feel uncomfortable and think their smell is somehow "bad" when others can sense it. Not sure.

<comment><USER6> You're likely perceiving female pheromones. There have been studies that men can reliably detect fertile phases from sniffing worn shirts alone. I've tried diving a bit into this topic after noticing something fruity (a good smell) in the middle of my cycle, which somehow intensified when being around my so. Interestingly it disappeared in the years I've been on hormonal contraception (stopped now due to a couple of more severe side effects, luckily I haven't been on them for long).

Asking the women whether your perception is true would likely have led nowhere as most women are not aware of their fertile phases.

Search keyword seems to be 'copulins', but the area appears a bit underexplored. Lots of companies trying to sell snake oil. Lots of urban legends about mind control. Some girls do try using their natural perfume to their advantage though.

The thing about compatibility you mention is more related to the immune system I think, and mutual.

<comment><USER4> Pheromones is the word, thanks for the reminder.

I have a tendency to associate with alternative types who are aware of their cycle and are happy to talk about it, and have confirmed my observation by asking on multiple occasions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My mother, my brother and I all have this smell ability to some degree. I remember when I was a child, my mother could diagnose me with strep by smell. (She would also take me to the doctor.)

None of us in the family can tolerate things like fresh paint, dry cleaner establishments, nail polish, and other chemical smells. My mother tended to avoid the "better living through chemistry" cleaning products popular in the 70's and 80's because they bothered her a lot. I, unfortunately, have developed extreme chemical sensitivity, so I'm on the extreme end of this.

FWIW, nobody on this side of my family has ever gotten cancer (knock on wood). I often wonder if our profound awareness of toxins is also protective, in that we completely avoid things that others would be comfortable working with on a daily basis.

<comment><USER8> I've been able to smell infections (which makes sense, the immune response of an infection would mis with your whole microbiome). That's pretty different from smelling Parkinson's.

<comment><USER9> Exactly. Parkinson's is a mechanical issue and doesn't affect the microbiome -- they proved that with science.

<comment><USER10> That's diametrically opposite to the latest research coming out [1].

There seems to be a "gut-brain axis" at work, to the point where some are starting to think the gut is the starting point.

We're seeing an increasing number of disorders -- psoriasis [2], lupus, schizophrenia, among others -- where there's an underlying connection to the gut microbiome and to inflammation in general caused by "pathobionts" [3].

[1] [https://parkinsonsnewstoday.com/2019/02/12/understanding- gut...](https://parkinsonsnewstoday.com/2019/02/12/understanding-gut-brain- connection-critical-parkinsons-disease/)

[2] [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738081X1...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738081X18300476)

[3] [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3426444/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3426444/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I worked in Biotech for a while and spent years working with various cell lines i.e cancer. Cancer has a distinct smell. I was out shopping one day and the scent hit me, I turned around and next to me was an elderly man in a wheelchair. I am definitely a super smeller. After developing chronic migraines I'm now very sensitive to scent, every product I use has to be unscented and I have to avoid crowded areas due to the risk of setting a migraine off. It's the super power I wish I didn't have.

<comment><USER12> excuse me, which brands are you using? (face wash/ shower/shampoo) cuz I am a sensitive smeller too, I haven't found good products so far.

<comment><USER11> I use Whole Foods 365 fragrance free body wash, shampoo and conditioner. For a moisturizer I use Alba very emollient original unscented, for face I use Body Merry, night cream along with Cosmetica pure hyaluronic acid serum and the blue unscented type of chapstick. For a leave in conditioner I use my kids Little Twig unscented conditioner. They also sometimes use the Equate kids 3 in 1 unscented body wash/shampoo/conditioner. For deodorant I use a small bit of Secret unscented, it has a masking fragrance which is noticeable to me but the least offensive unscented deodorant I've found, and I've tried a lot of products. I also like the Alba leave in conditioner and styling cream which are unscented but possibly discontinued. I hope this helps!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Different article, same title, 2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10434974](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10434974)

Related from earlier this year: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19528250](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19528250)

</comment><comment><USER14> This is incredible.

The thought of her ability potentially leading to advances in disease diagnosis is a humbling reminder of how complex the human body really is. And that there is still more to know.

</comment><comment><USER15> My favorite thing about articles about super smellers/tasters/whatever is how whenever they show up, everyone in the comments also has this rare ability.

<comment><USER16> I can smell selection bias.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There's an organisation that trains rats to detect tuberculosis by smell. Sounds like this could be another candidate.

[https://www.theguardian.com/global- development/2017/dec/26/g...](https://www.theguardian.com/global- development/2017/dec/26/giant-rats-tanzania-tb-tuberculosis-african-pouched)

They also train them to find land mines.

[https://www.apopo.org/en](https://www.apopo.org/en)

<comment><USER17> Oh and it turns out this lady has actually met the Apopo rats. :)

[https://www.apopo.org/en/latest/2018/04/The-woman-who- smells...](https://www.apopo.org/en/latest/2018/04/The-woman-who-smells- Parkinson-s-meets-the-rats-who-smell-TB)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I see some comments talking about human pheromones and I just wanted to point out that there really isn't any strong evidence (yet) that human pheromones exist.

"It is emphasized that no bioassay-guided study has led to the isolation of true human pheromones, a step that will elucidate specific functions to human chemical signals." [1]

[1][https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15470677](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15470677)

<comment><USER19> Does it have to "elucidate specific functions" to be a pheromone?

Or is it sufficient to be a "subconscious smell," signaling or otherwise?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> When I first heard about this years ago, I knew exactly what the scent was, because I'd noticed it on my grandfather years before. I don't think I have a particularly great sense of smell - in fact, from a childhood of secondhand smoke and oddly narrow sinus passages / allergies, I've always felt like my nose didn't really work. But, the smell of people with Parkinson's is very distinct and I've noticed it on people since. Likewise, the last time I was at my grandmother's house, I noticed very distinctly that the smell was no longer there as it was one of the few times I'd been back at her house since grandpa passed away. Parkinsons / Lewy body / Althzeimers are all fascinating yet horrifying for what they do to people and I'm thankful there are people researching and seeking remedies.

</comment><comment><USER21> I know that I can smell when I am coming down with a cold or similiar - <USER2> inside my nose and others. I would call it a sour curdling, "sick" smell. I have noticed it in some other people as well.

</comment><comment><USER22> Theres an interesting article about the technology behind the story by the company worked with MIB on this. [https://www.anatune.co.uk/resources/blog/the-smell-of- parkin...](https://www.anatune.co.uk/resources/blog/the-smell-of-parkinsons- the-technology-behind-the-story/)

</comment><comment><USER23> The article itself is very well written - intimate and sensuous.

<comment><USER24> Makes me think of the book "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer"

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Fascinating. Cool that they try to teach a device to smell, but similarly interesting would be trying to find the origin of her smelling ability - is it genetic?

</comment><comment><USER26> Perhaps we could teach dogs to smell it like we teach them to sniff drugs & explosives?

<comment><USER27> At the moment it isn't terribly important, there's no known intervention that stops the onset of symptoms and there's no treatment that does anything other than address the symptoms.

It's _useful_ to identify it early, but for the most part the early symptoms are mild.

<comment><USER28> I suspect the only way to develop a method that stops the onset of symptoms is to detect the symptoms really early and figure out what to do from there.

Otherwise there is no way to distinguish between someone who never got cancer and someone who did but had the progression stop before it became a problem.

<comment><USER27> Yes, that's why I said it would be useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This site is yelling at me in German about my Adblocker, it's hilarous.

[https://imgur.com/EFKp8Wa](https://imgur.com/EFKp8Wa)

<comment><USER30> It's nice that you attach a screenshot, but I got the same message, and I don't even have an ad-blocker, just the default tracking protection in Firefox. (I don't even care about tracking itself, just the fact that most of it slows down my computer significantly for entirely useless JavaScript computations and slowdowns, so, it's got to go.)</comment></comment>


Domain "hackathon.co" on sale - <AUTHOR> http://flippa.com/auctions/2852958

<comment><USER2> That domain is worth about $50, not $5,000.</comment>


Why I'm going back to capturing credit cards up front - <AUTHOR> http://planscope.io/blog/why-im-going-back-to-capturing-credit-cards-upfront/ <comment><USER2> I also tried every sort of SaaS signup process (CC-first, every type of free- trial, etc) with my app ([https://carelogger.com](https://carelogger.com)).

I actually agree CC upfront is better overall than not. Depending on the audience of course (some business users don't have access to CC's without approval from finance dept).

That being said. I found a higher conversion rate via what I call "resource- based" trials. One's not based on time ('14-days') but resources/services your app provides.

For example, in our app users can create 10 free entries with no time restriction. This sounds like a good deal to the user. But what makes it effective is the type of user who ends up paying for our app, was always creating 10 entries the first day already. So it was essentially getting them to commit and signup for free, then give us their CC the same day.

I've been meaning to blog about this for about 2 years now :P

<comment><USER3> I think it's called "freemium"?

<comment><USER2> Freemium = offering a free service (sometimes with ads) with premium upgrade options.

That's different from a "free trial", because there really is no way to use our app for free on an ongoing-basis without paying for it.

<comment><USER4> Your explanation made it sound like freemium because many freemium apps use that kind of resource-limited trials - e.g. 3 seats are free, but you pay for more seats. Your "10 free entries" sounded like the same model, but a quick look at your product shows there is no ongoing value to 10 free entries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Another possibility that's not discussed:

Get the CC number up front, _but_ still require an 'opt in' after trial expiration to begin charging. You won't start automatically charging, you'll require the user to do something -- but the 'something' is just clicking a single 'yes, start charging me' button, with no need to enter the CC at that point, cause they entered it up front.

I have no idea if that will work to get the conversions he's getting with, well, automatic conversion. But I can't help but think products where a free trial automatically starts charging your CC on a certain calendar date if you don't opt out -- are getting conversions via trickery, and is not going to build a sustainable customer relationship.

<comment><USER6> This actually looks shady. If you're not going to charge me, then why the hell do you want my CC number?

<comment><USER7> Think about it this way.

If you're not ready to pay, then why the hell are you trying my service?

It's not a charity, it's a small amount of money each month.

<comment><USER8> Ha! There's a very simple answer to that: _because your service might be shit_. And I'm not handing over anything until I've proven to my satisfaction that it is not.

Of course, your business is not there to make me happy, so it's up to you what you do. Just surprised that this question even gets posed when it has such an obvious answer ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> hmm. I've spent more time thinking about the ethics of recurring billing than the effectiveness of recurring billing; The big problem I have with recurring billing is that recurring billing tends to capture money from the 'I forgot about it' customers... users have to take an action to cancel the account. Especially for small-dollar items, a recurring charge can go for months unnoticed.

I don't feel good about 'capturing value' from users who forgot to cancel... but the alternative (what I'm doing) is to make them take a positive action every renewal. (In my case, the account auto-renews, but it sends the user a bill that they have to actively pay; if they don't pay, the account goes away.)

Now, some people do prefer the 'bill me every month without asking' model... but I think the right thing to do is to make this an option; one option where the account will expire if the user doesn't take positive action to renew the account, and another option to automatically continue billing until the user asks to stop.

I don't know if many others feel this way, but as a user of subscription services, this is something I think about. I know that I'm probably going to forget to cancel, and that canceling is often difficult, so generally I consider services that don't autorenew to be much 'cheaper' even if they are the same price in terms of dollars.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, this sentence jumped out at me: _(Conveniently, lots of people seem to miss /ignore the "Your trial is expiring and credit card will be billed" emails, but no one ever misses the "Billing receipt" emails that come a few days later!)_

But of course, people are missing the billing receipt emails!

<comment><USER11> Some services don't send invoices (which really, _really_ bothers me. I don't want to remember that I'm paying for a service after looking through my AMEX statements.)

Others, like KissMetrics, sends you an email a few days before billing you... but their price points start in the 3-figures.

I think a policy of "We will bill you monthly and send you an invoice every time we bill you, and we'll always refund your last month's payment if you'd like" is best.

<comment><USER12> "Some services don't send invoices (which really, really bothers me."

Would like to point out that separate from the fact that it bothers you and/or might not be right or ethical or whatever there is no doubt that _in general_ in business you don't want to make it to easy for someone to think and cancel.

I don't think everyone feels that they are "ripped off" just because they didn't get notified that they were still paying for something that they agreed to.

An example is, say, with cable and a premium channel.

We decided to get showtime so we could watch Dexter. We forgot to cancel. The cable company didn't ask us each month "by the way we are still charging you for Showtime, ok?". By some of the comments in this thread it's as if people would expect that would be the "right" thing to do.

Forgetting personal responsibility for a moment if, as a business, you constantly give people a chance to bail many of them will bail (even for the wrong reason) and you will make less money.

The credit card companies by the way will approve charges even on expired credit cards. (Under a certain dollar amount you just have to put in the current month to get an authorization). Apparently they haven't found that practice to be a problem with consumers (although I'm sure they do get complaints.)

<comment><USER9> >Would like to point out that separate from the fact that it bothers you and/or might not be right or ethical or whatever there is no doubt that in general in business you don't want to make it to easy for someone to think and cancel.

Eh, I think if I have a product that the consumer doesn't want, I've pretty much already lost. 'extracting value' from people who aren't paying attention is best left to the professionals. I mean... the line between making it hard to cancel and outright fraud... can get fuzzy. I think it's best to make, as it were, a "Good faith effort" to insure that you are only charging people who want to be charged.

Now, you can argue that recurring billing with an easy way to cancel can count as that 'good faith effort' \- It's certainly the industry standard.

If you start doing things with the goal of making it hard for users to cancel, though, you are certainly stepping outside of that 'good faith effort' \- and where the line is between that and outright fraud, I do not know. I do think that my current system, with it's manual cancellation process would be unacceptable by my standards if I pulled money from customer accounts. I don't think it would be unacceptable by legal standards, but it would be well into the gray area.

<comment><USER12> For any individual of course it all comes down to what allows someone to sleep at night, right?

What I've found as a general rule is depending on where the line is people tend to think that someone who does something that they wouldn't do (wherever the line is for them) is either a) "really honest" or b) "a crook, cheat, dishonest etc."

Same with paying taxes. If we can assume that most people fudge a bit then someone who fudges 5 times as much is a cheat but someone who goes to extraordinary means to pay every cent is "really honest". Because it's usually in relation to how you view what you do as being "the right middle ground".

You strike me as being really honest by the way simply because (using my own ethics) you do things that I don't do more in the direction of being transparent and to the benefit of your customers at your own expense.

<comment><USER9> >For any individual of course it all comes down to what allows someone to sleep at night, right?

That, and risk tolerance. You could just as easily call me a coward. Especially when it comes to taxes; There are few mistakes I can make that I can't get out of through bankruptcy. Screwing up my taxes is one of those mistakes. (and I'm in a situation where my revenue, but not my profit, is fairly significant. So obviously, if a substantial portion of my revenues are ruled profits, I'm... in trouble.)

It's also, I'm given to understand, important to maintain a 'good faith effort' to pay the taxes you owe... my understanding is that has a lot to do with what happens after you are audited. If they think you intended to defraud them, that's criminal. If you just made a mistake, well, you've still gotta pay it back plus penalties, but you aren't getting a criminal record.

>You strike me as being really honest by the way simply because (using my own ethics) you do things that I don't do more in the direction of being transparent and to the benefit of your customers at your own expense.

That is the goal I aspire to... I don't always live up to those standards. Usually my failures can be attributed to (or framed as) incompetence rather than dishonesty, but... that can be difficult to determine externally. I personally see dishonesty as way worse than incompetence, even when the effect is the same, though I acknowledge and have a hard time arguing with the argument that the effect is what matters. I actually have some conflicts here because I /know/ I'm overconfident about how quickly I can get something done... but by how much? it varies a lot. Does this mean I shouldn't take jobs? I've chosen to take jobs. I pad my estimates a lot (like 2x) to cover the uncertainty, but sometimes that's still not enough. (and sometimes, it's way too much) I personally see that as a little bit dishonest. But, I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to re-frame it as incompetence, which is easier for me to swallow.

A good way, I think, for me to get around this is to take more 'pay upon completion' type projects. If I make it? great. If I don't? I don't get paid. I'd feel pretty good about that. Unfortunately, most of my good-paying contacts want to go hourly; all the per-job offers I've gotten have been... much less remunerative, for any reasonable estimate of how long the project would take.

I'm not entirely sure that a focus on honesty and transparency is entirely 'at my own expense,' though; It could also be seen as me trying to turn one of my weaknesses into a strength.

I'm sure you can get ahead by pushing that line if you are good at it... but because my line is so, for lack of a better word, conservative, once I step over my line... I have a hard time seeing where other people would set their line. I suspect (partially supported by some tentative exploration when I was younger) that I'd be bad at pushing that line. Worse-off than if I was too conservative.

I don't really see the line between the normal schmoozing and quid pro quo of enterprise sales and the unacceptable kinds of kickbacks. Pushing that line is... difficult; there's a sea of cultural norms that don't make any sense at all to me, and knowing how to give the acceptable gifts and not offer the unacceptable kicbacks is essential to enterprise sales. If you do it improperly, well, everyone sees you as very unethical, and your behavior can easily be seen as criminal. So again, here is both self-knowledge (that where other people draw that line makes no sense to me, so I can't predict where that line would be) and cowardice, in that I don't want to 'guess and check' where the consequences to being wrong are so high.

But yeah, a lot of it is also just what makes me, perhaps irrationally, feel good. I can make a pretty good living as an individual contributor, and my financial needs are small. I

A good example of how it is just irrational good feelings is that I'm mostly okay working for body shops and having someone else do all that shady shit. As long as I do my job, I feel pretty okay. I'd class this as the same variety of hypocrisy as eating meat but being unwilling to kill animals yourself.

<comment><USER12> Yours is probably a textbook case of someone needing a partner who has a better idea of where that line is seat of the pants wise. I've never needed that it comes naturally. I simply weigh the downside to any decision vs. the upside. It's almost automatic. After a while your brain just works that way.

I'll give you an example (which doesn't relate to business). My state requires front license plates. But I have a nice car that I don't want to mess up. But I also don't care if the cops stop me. So I didn't put the license plate on the car. Worst case is I get pulled over. I get a ticket for $85 or whatever. Maybe in some extreme case something even worse will happen but it shouldn't. So I decide to take that chance. (Nothing has ever happened not that it couldn't etc.).

In the case of the body shops you are probably shielded enough from the down side both legally and also emotionally so you are ok with it. I think that's fine from the way you are describing it.

<comment><USER9> >Yours is probably a textbook case of someone needing a partner who has a better idea of where that line is seat of the pants wise. I've never needed that it comes naturally.

My life partner, actually, is sort of stepping into the role you describe. It's hard for me letting go, but I'm far more likely to be okay with my partner taking that role than some random sleazebag. I mean, her background is more technical than mine; which is a downside in that role (though an upside for me actually following. Like most technical people, I have a hard time accepting leaders who don't have a technical background.) but eh, hiring for that role is really hard; judging from my past, when it comes to evaluating business people? I'm worse than random.

But it's still ultimately my business, and ultimately mistakes (or unethical decisions) made by that business are still my responsibility. Perhaps I will feel differently if someday I'm no longer the majority shareholder? (my partner is vesting in over time, so I am still the majority shareholder by quite a bit..)

But it's probably good that it's her; we have a lot of shared values and cultural background, and ultimately I see her as a good person, so while she's probably not the best businessperson available, she might be the best at working with me.

>I simply weigh the downside to any decision vs. the upside. It's almost automatic. After a while your brain just works that way.

Yeah, but almost nobody weighs moral concerns as zero. I mean, for an extreme example, you wouldn't murder someone for money even if you were certain you wouldn't get caught, and wouldn't face any negative consequences save those you imposed yourself.

(I'm not claiming that 'sharp' business practices are anything like murder; I'm just pointing out that you have the same line I have, even if yours isn't quite in the same place as mine. Almost nobody does a pure cost benefit analysis with no ethical or moral overlay.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The problem for me as a potential user is that I no longer trust some.random.dude.com with my CC info. I have no way to know if they're storing it locally unencrypted or if they're using a trustworthy third party provider.

I'm down to maybe three places that have my CC on file. Everyone else, I enter it - every month - at time of payment. I don't exactly like this, either - there is still the possibility that a poorly written component is logging the card somewhere[1], but it's better than handing over my wallet and walking away.

[1] seen it...

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure your concern is warranted. Your bank provides a lot of protection against such fraudulent transactions, both at the time of authorization and after the fact if one does slip through. In any case, if you're really worried about your card number being stolen use a secondary card that you use for internet use only that just lives in your "backup wallet".

You're spending more of your life entering your credit card number every month than is likely to be spent dealing with fraud.

<comment><USER13> That seems far more of a series of workarounds than a solution in order to save myself a few minutes (collectively) a month.

<comment><USER14> I do it myself and I'd struggle to call it a workaround. Your solution is certainly a workaround though.

The time to pull a different card out of a different wallet is seconds. The time and tedium to re-enter your credit card every place you want to make a payment is greater. You should have backup bank accounts and credit cards anyway. What if you lose your wallet? If I do, I have my backup one ready to go.

You're worrying over nothing. You're so heavily protected by the bank that you're just making work for yourself for no benefit. If your card details get nabbed, you're not going to lose anything anyway. And hey, who knows, they might be storing your card numbers behind the scenes anyway with your order, and therefore you're not at any advantage! Or they might have been compromised and your card details are floating off every time you enter them. Who knows? In any event, I'd be more worried about my card being skimmed at an ATM. That's definitely more likely than having it compromised online.

<comment><USER13> As someone who used to work in the credit card industry, perhaps I'm more sensitive to the costs that my bank's protection of me incurs. Because you're right - _I_ am covered. But someone is still paying.

 _And hey, who knows, they might be storing your card numbers behind the scenes anyway with your order, and therefore you 're not at any advantage_

Indeed. Frustrating as hell.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Downtime. What was changed? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Global hacker productivity rose by 25% as a significant outlet of procrastination was temporarily placed out of reach

<comment><USER3> Refresh. Nope. Refresh. Nope...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7872239](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7872239)

</comment><comment><USER5> Downtime message:

      Changing how profiles, passwords, items and votes are
      stored on disk.

<comment><USER6> changed how passwords are stored on disk is something that might be worth elaborating on.

<comment><USER7> rot13()? :-)

Edit (for the benefit of the downvoter(s)): Yes, I do understand that HN is not really that poorly written; it was a joke.

<comment><USER8> Twice, just to be extra secure!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My productivity this morning.

</comment><comment><USER10> The worst part is the lack of fresh content in my morning.

</comment><comment><USER11> I really think it's a disgrace that HN is down for hours just to do some (probably important) back-end work. Here we are, talking about scalability, high-availability, what have you - and the medium we're using to host those discussions is built on 90s web technology and operated as one.

I understand that Hacker News is probably run by a small crew, but I think it's a disgrace anyway. If you guys need money to make these things go away, then I'd be more than happy to pay. But to have such an important forum go offline for what is basically internal plumbing - that won't do.

EDIT: To the down-voters: please explain yourself? I know this message is harsh, but the truth is that having a site go offline for hours for internal maintenance is highly unprofessional and unbefitting to a high profile outlet such as Hacker News. Also, I'm offering and more than willing to pay (on a subscription basis or something) to make sure they have the capacity to properly deal with things like this in the future.

<comment><USER12> First of all, thanks Dan for all the hard work.

Think about it this way: you need your fix so badly that within _minutes_ you're back here to vent your frustration.

And yet you have nowhere else to go. So HN can afford the downtime easily, and with what I know of the way it is put together the reliability is astounding.

Now imagine it shuttin HN down for a month! (I sensed a disturbance in the force there when you read that.) Within an hour of switching it back on the traffic would be right back where it was before.

Hm, maybe there is an idea in there somewhere. A website for hackers with 'opening hours' that simply refuses connections from your locality when you're supposed to be at work.

It would probably be sponsored by some VPN supplier ;)

<comment><USER4> > thanks Dan

Thank Nick! I did keep him company though.

<comment><USER12> Ok, thanks Nick!

I hope you guys did not lose too much sweat. Messing with a live site like this always makes me lose weight.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook takes down Trump ads 'for violating our policy against organized hate' - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/18/tech/facebook-trump-ads-triangle-takedown/index.html <comment><USER2> > The ads targeted the far left group Antifa

So are we just accepting this now? It's not a group, at best it's an ideology.

<comment><USER3> Why do people bother with antifa moniker anyways? Is one syllable worth the loss in clarity that would come from having your opposition be forced to speak the word anti-fascist? To rule out willful ignorance of the public to discount "antifa" (strangely pronounced with the accent on the i, undermining the reception of the "anti" prefix) as some foreign set of concepts when in reality it is the basis of this nation.

<comment><USER4> It's because saying you're anti-anti-fascist would make you sound like an asshole.

This lets them pretend they're talking about something different, but all the dogs hear the whistle.

<comment><USER5> Naming is irrelevant. You can make a group named anti-evil do anything. They would say "Are you anti-anti-evil? Are you for evil? What is wrong with you?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> OH BOY! If he signed an executive order for Twitter applying a fact check to a single tweet, what will his reaction be to the removal of a reaching ad campaign that he spent real money on?

<comment><USER7> Well... he could sign another futile executive order?

Attempting to force advertisers to carry political ads probably wouldn't fly with the courts.</comment></comment>


How Is This Huge Yahoo Stock Deal Not Insider Trading?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-stock-deal-insider-trading-2013-7

<comment><AUTHOR> Here are the main points...

This morning before the open yahoo announced that 3 board members were leaving. This has understandably caused their stock price to drop.

At the same time yahoo is buying back a large block of stock from its biggest investor at the price of Friday's close.

They made this transaction with the knowledge of the board change, knowing full well that the stock price would drop on Monday morning.

This article asks the question "Is this illegal", or put another way, did this constitute insider trading where Third Point and Yahoo did a stock trade with insider knowledge based on a price that was obviously going to drop when the news was made public.</comment>


How to Improve Typography In Your Designs - <AUTHOR> http://www.aisleone.net/2009/design/8-ways-to-improve-your-typography/

<comment><USER2> Manually adjusting the ragged edge of text on the web seems like silly advice to me. In print, sure, it makes sense because you have absolute control over everything. But with variable screen sizes, fonts and display devices used for viewing web content, I don't see the point in manually tuning text spacing when the chances are good others will see different spacing.

<comment><USER3> A lot of (product) websites routinely use fixed size div containers for the markup. So if you know your audience, it _is_ really quite simple to manually justify the text for the target browser/OS combinations. This clearly doesn't apply to expansive blog posts, news sites, forums and such, but the improvement of the visual appearance of the smaller blocks of text is very much worth the effort.

<comment><USER2> You can specify the exact size of the div, but you won't know for certain the font being used. Yes, if you know your audience well you can get it right for a lot of them, but I think that misses one of the strengths of the web. Instead of spending your time optimizing for a particular configuration, optimize for a design and layout that looks good in many configurations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> this was posted last week when it was in smashing.

<comment><USER5> I was looking for the link but you already posted this comment :)

[http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/03/8-simple-ways- to-...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/03/8-simple-ways-to-improve- typography-in-your-designs/)</comment></comment>


10B Parameter Neural Networks in Your Basement [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://on-demand.gputechconf.com/gtc/2014/presentations/S4694-10-billion-parameter-neural-networks.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> The video link of the presentation: [http://on- demand.gputechconf.com/gtc/2014/video/S4694-10-bil...](http://on- demand.gputechconf.com/gtc/2014/video/S4694-10-billion-parameter-neural- networks.mp4)

<comment><USER2> This was a fantastic presentation. It wasn't just a brain dump like too many other presentations. The speaker clearly took the time to craft his talk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I gotta say this is pretty impressive, particularly the part where he reproduced the results of another paper. Being a PhD dropout in computer vision, I can appreciate that having reproducible results in this field is, ehem, novel.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wish they would post source code. Actually does anyone know if they do publish the source code and perhaps setup instructions to re-create their results?

</comment><comment><USER5> I think there's a lot of possible advances in optimizing the training of neural networks.

(My suspicions is that the initial layers can be "frozen" or trained separately, low-level features are pretty much the same for most images, also, maybe someone will figure out a way of merging several NNs in one, so you can paralelnize the whole training)

This presentation is only one small example.

<comment><USER6> [citation needed]

Sure, there's a huge amount of research happening in the field right now. But you make it sound like there's a ton of low hanging fruit, which is emphatically not true.

Also, freezing the representations in the bottom layers usually doesn't lead to very good results. The representation the bottom layers learn in the standard formulation of deep feedforward networks is informed by gradient information in the output layers[1]. If you stop training the bottom layers after some time you're sacrificing representational power and in fact increasing the ultimate amount of computation that will need to performed to train the network to some level.

In fact, in a recent paper [2] some folks at Google describe how they achieved great performance training a huge CNN by inserting temporary output layers in the middle of the network while training (among other things). This increased the amount of gradient information that was propagated back to the bottom layers, forcing them to learn more powerful representations.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpropagation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpropagation) [2] [http://arxiv.org/abs/1409.4842](http://arxiv.org/abs/1409.4842)

<comment><USER7> Regarding backpropagation and training sections of the NN at different times, there are other training algorithms. Evolutionary training algorithms come to mind, and you could really evolve any section you wanted. You could even train the output of each layer one by one to represent a certain form of input to the future layer.

<comment><USER6> Virtually everyone uses gradient based methods in the end to fine tune the weights.

Yes, there are other methods. Contrastive divergence seems to be king right now - of note is Minimum probability flow learning [1] (of which CD is a special case of). However the flavor of these methods tends to be tuning the weights of the model in such a way to maximize how close the model comes to sharing the probability distribution of the data. One can generally not constraint the model parameters (ie by freezing a layer) and retain the models ability to 'learn' the data distribution.

[1][http://arxiv.org/abs/0906.4779](http://arxiv.org/abs/0906.4779)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder, if GPGPU becomes more common would that mean that it's time to switch to chips that have smaller cores, but more cores ?

I mean current GPU architecture is very good at vectorization, but is it possible to have a chip that has bigger cores than GPU has, but smaller that the ones on a CPU ?

It really seems that we have big cores because managing an OS requires it, but I wonder how realistic it is to make a computer that use more massive parallelism, there are many algorithms out there that can be alternative to sequential ones.

</comment><comment><USER9> Great talk. It really brings the technical details into focus.

</comment><comment><USER10> Does this imply that to tune 11b params your basement needs to have 16 machines with 4 GPUs each (64 GPUs in all)?

<comment> m-i-l Slides 28 and 35 suggest it was 3 servers, each with 4 GPUs, i.e. 12 GPUs total. If that's the case, then you can probably build a Google scale network (1 billion parameter, 9 layer neural network, which needed 1,000 machines and 16,000 cores running for a week in 2012) at home for around £4K (US$6.2K).</comment></comment>


The next coronavirus crisis will be a shortage of doctors and nurses - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/2020/3/26/21192191/coronavirus-us-new-york-hospitals-doctors-nurses <comment><AUTHOR> I wrote this yesterday but it remains true:

I know a lot of doctors and some other healthcare workers. This question isn't getting enough play in the media, particularly because many hospitals aren't doing enough to protect workers. I know a resident whose program director ordered her to keep working even though she has COVID-19 symptoms, including dry cough and loss of taste, but she can't get tested for COVID-19, so she's continuing to work because she's afraid of what will happen if she doesn't. Other doctors are bringing their own personal protection equipment (PPE) into work and horror stories about hospital administrators ordering them to remove unapproved PPE are being spread through Facebook groups.

And that's separate from simple incompetence, like not getting tents set up, not separating respiratory distress patients from other patients, and so on. Healthcare workers are not only putting themselves at risk, but also their families and patients.</comment>


Did blind orchestra auditions benefit women? - <AUTHOR> https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2019/05/11/did-blind-orchestra-auditions-really-benefit-women/ <comment><USER3> I did not find this very nuanced. The comments from Pallesen seem to try to advocate for extremes.

One such comment: "Table 4 presents the first results comparing success in blind auditions vs non-blind auditions. . . . this table unambigiously shows that men are doing comparatively better in blind auditions than in non-blind auditions. The exact opposite of what is claimed."

I had a look at the linked paper. And it is true that the table shows that women perform worse in blind auditions. However, the paper does not claim that this table shows that women perform better. Instead the paper elaborates on the options of why women perform worse by arguing the following:

"One interpretation of this result is that the adoption of the screen lowered the average quality of female auditionees in the blind auditions. Only if we can hold quality constant can we identify the true impact of the screen."

The paper goes on to explain how they discovered that during blind auditions there were a lot more under-qualified women and that this was skewing the data. They discovered this because they had the names of all the participants and saw that some women would participate in both blind and non-blind auditions while others would only participate in blind ones.

The following was the papers conclusion on this matter: "When we limit the sample to those who auditioned both with and without a screen, the success rate for women competing in blind auditions is almost always higher than in those that were not blind."

<comment><USER4> > "One interpretation of this result is that the adoption of the screen > lowered the average quality of female auditionees in the blind auditions. > Only if we can hold quality constant can we identify the true impact of the > screen."

There's something of a repeating theme lately. Study of blind interviews/tests in various fields => women found to underperform despite experimental controls and expectations => commentary and authors grasp at straws to explain the result with anything but the fact that perhaps men and women don't have the same performance envelope in every walk of life.

How many more of such studies and straw-grasping explanations will we have to go through before someone considers occam's razor?

<comment><USER5> Would you care to enlighten us with the truth?

<comment><USER6> They're suggesting that women, on average, just aren't as good as men at some things (and vice versa):

> perhaps men and women don't have the same performance envelope in every walk > of life

<comment><USER7> No, they are suggesting that the top performing women just aren't as good as the top performing men. A small but important difference.

I believe what they said is right. At the same time, I also believe that the worst performing men perform worse than the worst performing women - <USER2> have a wider spread of ability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you're trying to justify the practice of blind auditions, it might be better to target a _different_ prejudice. Sexism may well not be a significant factor in hiring musicians today, but it's likely that other prejudices persist. Although it would be hard to quantify, if you could show that unattractive people or people who do not dress like typical musicians do better in blind auditions to a significant degree, then you might well have justified blind auditions.

<comment><USER9> This can be true, but orchestra is a performance act. If I look at it as a business, I don't see anything wrong in giving higher value to more attractive performers. On the other hand it's important how much higher value they get (and the multiple round audition when only one of the rounds is blind makes sense).

<comment><USER10> That's essentially saying the orchestra should cater to the audience's prejudices, and could be used to justify any prejudice.

<comment><USER11> That's how entertainment industry works though?

<comment><USER12> Yeah but what is the point of having culture when it isn't allowed to change views, give new perspectives and so on.

Also: Give me the best orchestra. I don't go to the concert to gaze at a bunch of beuatiful penguins and ladies in dresses. I go there to listen to music. If they are good I don't give a damn about their looks.

<comment><USER13> Visual appearance is indisputably part of the orchestral experience, otherwise they'd play out of sight (to reduce distractions from the audience) in comfortable clothing.

<comment><USER12> Well sonic waves travel with the line of sight, if you wanna get a direct signal, they will have to sit there either way. And you want to see them playing ans performing. Do they need to look really pretty to do that? Not necessarilly. Some of the best classical musicians are not beauties at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Did no one follow up on this study since 2000? Presumably more blind auditions have taken place since then, and the basic problem seems to have been lack of data.

</comment><comment><USER15> Perhaps it is a problem when the investigator's entire career would be destroyed if they were to discover anything to contradict the zeitgeist of the field.

It seems to me that tenure was meant to solve this, but it doesn't. Academics are groomed and selected to be career climbers, willing to sacrifice anything to please the gods of their establishment. 1000 years later, still a monastery.

</comment><comment><USER16> Honest question, how does it work if you are trying to have a good balance man/women in your team? Especially in IT trying to keep a good mix and avoid man only teams? Is this kind of advise even "safe" to ask these days?

<comment><USER17> Why do you want to avoid "man only" teams?

<comment><USER18> Making software is about asking questions. You ask the questions necessary to figure out the best solution to a problem. If you have a "man only" team, or " _anything_ only" really, you're less likely to have people asking different questions - they're all going to ask the same questions if they all have the same perspectives, biases, etc.

Diverse teams gather more information which leads to better insight of edge cases, and ultimately to better products.

<comment><USER11> Hmm, it's a good idea, but it relies on men and women being fundamentally different (which I think they are) which goes directly against modern feminism.

If men and women are fundamentally different then there are good reasons to choose men or women only in a given situation (along normal stereotypes: women are better caregivers, men are better manual labourers).

Recruiting in this way is illegal in a lot of places.

>they're all going to ask the same questions if they all have the same perspectives, biases, etc. //

Then shoudln't you choose people based on their ability to consider the specific perspectives you need?

One of the things about people is the ability to adopt the perspective of others readily.

<comment><USER12> I don't think there is a widespread consesus within Feminism for the idea that women and men aren't different — and honestly, everybody who says so didn't bother to inform themselves.

Different genders/races/cultural backgrounds/educational backgrounds are connected to having different experiences in life. Of course you can _imagine_ what e.g. sexism looks like, but when it happens to you every other day as a woman you will have it much more present than a man. Same thing with other aspects, people who have different racial/educational/cultural backgrounds bring different experiences with them and they might offer them precisely at the point where you didn't think about it, not because you are a bad person, but because emulating all other perspectives your self is exhausting.

The variance between individuals of both genders and within races/nationalities/etc is big enough for you to look on the individual level. When you say "women are statistically on average better caregivers" and hire only women, not only are you missing out on very talented men, but the functionality of your team is reduced as well. E.g. because in some situation a male caregiver might be a better fit for a given client. Not because they are better or worse at their job, but because beeing male brings a whole set of experiences, cultural expectations etc with itself. The same apparently goes for other traits your employee might have.

Most jobs require teams to react to new and unpredictable challanges and having a broad range of backgrounds, helps them to always have a team member whi knows how to deal with it, because of their background ans life experience.

When you hire a team where you have a monoculture, it is hit or miss. It might work well for a certain job at a certain time, but if anything changes, your team might be less resilent, flexible and able to solve problems compared to a more diverse team.

<comment><USER19> > I don't think there is a widespread consesus within Feminism for the idea > that women and men aren't different — and honestly, everybody who says so > didn't bother to inform themselves.

Apprently there is, otherwise why claim that any gender imbalance in the workplace must be the result of discrimination? I agree with you that diverse points of view can be useful; but diverse points of view imply (average) psychological and cultural differences, diverse attitudes and interests, and these might well be the reason of the gender imbalance. To use a steereotype (don't kill me for this) if female software developers can bring value to a team because on average they have a better eye for UX or design, then it is also probable that more females will be in UX or design than males, creating a gender imbalance in the number of candidates for software development positions.

<comment> Anthony-G Feminism is a broad church. The point being made is that there isn't a consensus on the idea that "any gender imbalance in the workplace must be the result of discrimination". Many of the louder voices within the movement express this view but it's not a consensus.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>