Ask HN: Review my app - LeagueSmart.com - <AUTHOR>

Hey everyone,
I recently pushed out a lot of updates to my LeagueSmart web app, as well as started charging leagues for upcoming seasons.  I am not sure how many people here are league organizers, but I would still really appreciate any feedback from you guys (the more brutally honest the better).
http://leaguesmart.com
http://demo.leaguesmart.com
http://demo.leaguesmart.com/teams/1
Thanks <comment><USER2> Looks decent, though obviously it puts the onus on whoever is doing the score- keeping to get notes and stats the the coach who would then put them up there.

What would be incredibly cool is if you created player accounts (for free) where they could sign in, look at their schedule and their stats.

Then the players who want accounts/stats would jump all over their coach to make sure he signed up.

The league view could use a redesign but overall I'd say this was a beyond decent app. Way to go!

<comment><USER3> Right now players can be added to be able to do exactly what you said. Once team captains have been assigned to the teams they are able to add as many players as they choose.

In the demo.leaguesmart.com account if you check out the "Frogs" team, you will be able to see a list of players and their season stats.

demo.leaguesmart.com/teams/1

I have "redesign" on the list of things to do, although the design side of things has never been my strength.

BTW I had to create a new account since I have the noprocrast setting turned on my other account

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Really well laid and easy to understand. Your landing page was great for showing me exactly what it was and what the features were.

One bit of confusion was the "View Demo" link on the Pricing. Because it said "View" AND had a picture of a TV next to it, I was expecting a view to pop. I got confused and actually clicked it a couple of times before I realized a demo was being show for me to use. Suggestion: change text to "Try Live Demo" or "Try the Demo" or "Try Demo" and maybe change the icon. Mouse cursor?

I see you have an FAQ page, awesome. May I humbly suggest you use my <http://breezyfaq.com> app to power it? It has some really nice features.

Anyway, great stuff. I wonder if you could easily branch into video game leagues? Those are notorious for being unorganized.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comments.

\- I will definitely put the "View Demo" confusion on my todo list.

\- Never even though of video games. Are there leagues out there for that? (I don't play video games that often)

\- I will take a look at your site. My faq's are pretty static right now, but that could definitely change.

Thanks again.

<comment><USER4> Oh yeah, there's a huge amount of video game leagues. A lot of even make decent profit.

I'm not sure if it's a market you want to try to tap into right away, especially if you aren't a gamer. Probably best to focus on sports and then maybe start looking into video games later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just some design points:

The right side of your screenshot on the homepage has a sheer edge, kind of awkward because you show the left edge in the browser. Probably should balance that out because I thought the image was cut off.

If I wasn't paying attention I would try and login to check my Basecamp projects when landing on your site...I know they have an attractive minimalist style, but just be careful...

<comment><USER6> I second that on the 37Signals influence. I was actually confused at first and thought I had some how landed on the Highrise site at first--they're remarkably similar.

<comment><USER3> I think the green signup button makes things look very alike. I have made some changes to the similarities in that respect.</comment></comment></comment>


Don't Use These Lame Acronyms If You Don't Want to Get Nabbed by the Feds - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-02/to-nab-traders-prosecutors-hit-ctrl-f-for-suspicious-acronyms <comment><USER2> Whenever you write an email, you should envision how it'll read as evidence in a court transcript. Envision a jury reading over your shoulder. That's essentially what will happen if there's a preservation order and a court case.

This is just one of tons of reasons why email is overused. Live, interactive, two-way conversations are better for most things. Making better use of interactive conversations does require some planning and discipline, to keep a list of what you need to discuss sorted by person. But the benefits of that practice are numerous, and increased privacy and plausible deniability is a comparatively minor benefit.

A few reasons to prefer interactive discussion to email:

\- plausible deniability and increased security

\- reduced chance of misunderstanding

\- less time spent and potentially wasted carefully crafting the perfect message, because you can monitor your recipients reactions in real time and dynamically alter your delivery depending on which parts are immediately understood and agreed upon

\- collaborate on the ideas interactively and rapidly, rather than a simple one way transfer

Email is good for some things, but it's seriously overused.

<comment><USER3> I had this illustrated to me early in my career in a mostly harmless way.

I worked on an early-childhood / social work combo grant program as a "Data Consultant"[1]. We were in a building that had celebrated its 100th year, and it had one bathroom. The nurse had accused the males of "poor aiming". In a memo about fairly normal stuff, I included a paragraph in my status rebuking this claim and pointing out we have young children using the bathroom who might not be quite up to our level. I also pointed out this would be something that the early childhood people might need to work on with the children. I am pretty sure every word of it was viewable by a nun since we had one on staff. I was a very sarcastic person and not a bad writer of tales at the time.

About two weeks later, I got a call from the assistant project officer inquiring about this bit of information. He also informed me all of our correspondence internal to the program was reviewed by the project office in DC and a section of my memo was "well reviewed" in said office. Given the data requirements, I am pretty sure there is a box in a warehouse with this memo in it.

Since then, I write e-mails and memos like they will be reviewed.

1) It was a research grant and they needed help with data reporting and I sure as heck didn't come up with that title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "They use terms to find evidence of whether someone is trying to hide their activities because _evidence of a cover-up is frequently more potent than the evidence of the alleged crime_ "

Each of these steps towards a surveillance state would be easier to stomach if the path weren't so clearly identified in 20th century fiction.

<comment><USER5> This doesn't really sound like the surveillance state to me. This is regulators combing through the e-mails of the people they regulate who control vast swathes of the United States and global economies.

And unless you want to bug every single person's office which sounds a lot more like a surveillance state to me, I don't particularly think looking at the activities of people who are taking things offline is particularly egregious.

The funny thing is, if the people just discussed it by e-mail, they might get away if no one ctrl-f's for their terms! Ha!

<comment><USER6> When investigators are sifting through e-mails they have already executed a search warrant* to get them in the first place so there is established probable cause to investigate further leads based on suspicious contents. This isn't government overreach in any way.

* Assuming the Judiciary is doing its job properly and not just rubber stamping everything and that investigators would never lie to a judge.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _"Taking a conversation offline provides evidence of intent because if you're trying to cover your tracks, you probably know what you're doing is wrong,"_

I can't tell if this is big business trying to make investigating white collar crimes harder or the federal government trying to drum up support for mass surveillance. I'm leaning towards the former based on where the article is.

<comment><USER8> Why can't it be both? It's not like they're going to use one type of investigative procedure on one group and not on another.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This article is a waste of space. Clearly if your work emails are being subpoenaed by a federal investigator, you're already under suspicion (the article is talking about federal insider trading investigations). All this means is that if you refer to an out-of-band conversation, then they will look there.

<comment><USER10> I disliked this article as well. Saying 'Ctrl-f' instead of 'search' irks me, it's unprofessional, and furthermore we all know Ctrl-f is forward-char.

<comment><USER11> Seems mostly like a reflection on Bloomberg's target demographic - those who will think ctrl-f is fancy tech stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What's exactly the case here? The Feds won't grab anyone who's PMing some one on Facebook "I'll call you" or "Lets talk on the phone".

This is a very specific case where Traders (that either were under suspicion directly or indirectly through suspicious dealing on an investment firm) were intentionally communicating with each other using office provided communications and constantly asking to go offline or to talk through other means.

This is nothing more than any other pattern one would find out through exploring any other media, for example one of the ways LEO's find illegal activity usually drug related is when by identifying numbers that only receive or make very short calls, this activity is then usually correlated with creating social networks of the phone numbers and what in many cases you get is a binary relationship with phones being used only to receive or make calls.

While this might sound suspicious to you, or just interesting after investigating how those criminal networks work through actual investigations criminologists identified this pattern as direct correlation to illegal activity which can be used as supporting evidence to get a wiretap or a search warrant.

There are a metric ton of various behavior patterns that might be suspicious and are usually related to some sort of a "illicit" activity if you are looking at some one who's leaking information and you have a GPS location on your suspects then some one who's driving every 3rd week out to the middle of no where might be your prime suspect, now he can be stargazing, he can be cheating on his wife, or he can be meeting with a contact or making a dead drop.

</comment><comment><USER13> I usually defer to a different mode of communication when it's more convenient or appropriate to the discussion. Instead of trying to type a novel to explain something, I'd prefer to engage in a conversation in order to identify parts of the topic that can be skipped. This usually reduces the time cost to communication.

<comment><USER4> Well, if you cross paths with this new breed of prosecutor, it will be incumbent upon you to prove your innocence. It appears that they no longer need evidence of a crime, just perceived _intent_. This may be starting in the financial services industry, but it will obviously spread to become a pervasive "best practice" in the future. Couple this with machine learning and the tone of your conversation may eventually be sufficient "proof" of intent.

<comment><USER5> Did you read the article Todd?

And I quote: "Simply highlighting suggestive phrases isn't enough, of course."

If someone starts talking about Jihad, you can't charge them with a crime, but they're probably the person you want to look into when it comes to investigating terrorism. It's the same vein.

Why would you expect prosecutors to look blindly?

<comment><USER4> Yes, I did read the article. You make a valid point. The context is important. My point was that they are suggesting that these phrases are indicators of guilt. It doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to see how this can be applied across all communications channels, and used as indicators of intent, such that they are eventually used prior to having a warrant and, indeed, used as sufficient "evidence" to secure a warrant.

These types of things help establish precedents. Once their utility is demonstrated, and tools developed to make the technique more effective, they will begin to be deployed elsewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is just insane. Email communication is completely open, it is like writing on the postcard.

</comment><comment><USER15> The lines on a trading desk are recorded anyway for regulatory reasons. All this is doing is telling the authorities when it might be a good idea to pull those records.

<comment><USER16> Sell side, not buy side.

<comment><USER17> Maybe a few years ago but I work buy side and my phone is recorded 24/7.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Anyone conspiring to commit criminal acts should remember what Martin Lomasney said[1] about 100 years ago about the importance of discretion:

       Never write if you can speak;
       never speak if you can nod;
       never nod if you can wink.

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

</comment><comment><USER19> Privacy implies guilt. Otherwise, you'd have nothing to hide.

<comment><USER12> This isn't "privacy" this is a pattern if a trader communicated with 50 other traders but only asks 2 others to go offline every time they talk and they do the same that's an artifact that anyone with half a brain would think is worth looking into while investigating financial misconduct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> And then you think you're clever and use "call my CP" (for cell phone) and the feds come confiscate all of your hard drives

</comment><comment><USER21> Wow, so asking for a PGP key or asking if they have TextSecure on their phone must be REALLY bad!

<comment><USER22> What are you trying to encrypt citizen? If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to worry about!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> BRB TTYL LOL

<comment><USER21> "We're still on for dinner on Thursday, right?"

Some things are better said in person...

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why not use PGP?

<comment><USER25> Because the average person has no idea how to use it?

Because _both parties_ have to have it set up for it to work?

Because setting it up _wrong_ will grant you no protection?

Because it just encrypts the communications in transit but when you're already under suspicion they can grab your computer, which has the unencrypted files on it?

Because in a setting like this (trader's work computers) you're often not even allowed to install _any_ software?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> When I was a child I loved USA, thought it was great country, and dreamed of visiting it one day. Now, when I'm grown up and finally I can afford intercontinental travel I am seriously afraid to even enter USA. I might be arrested for no reason, or have my cash forfeitured, also for no reason... I think that few remaining free countries in the world are Switzerland, Singapore, Australia, and maybe Hong Kong

<comment><USER27> Citing Singapore and Hong Kong just make you sound a bit silly.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to upgrade small pet project and make it commercial-grade? - <AUTHOR> <comment> git-pull For bulletproofing, I do tests + mock network calls.

I use pytest with parametrize: [https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/parametrize.html](https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/parametrize.html)

Then responses for mocking network stuff from requests: [https://github.com/getsentry/responses](https://github.com/getsentry/responses)

Using fixtures and writing your own factory objects to simulate scenarios: [https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/fixture.html](https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/fixture.html). Fixtures in pytest are like setup/teardown.

I keep the code live in production, and have sentry errors email me if someone hits a snag.

Decouple generic code into separate git repositories. Split up billing / generic django / ux stuff so you don't need to repeat it with every website.

I maintain a changelog [https://devel.tech/site/updates](https://devel.tech/site/updates). Helps to stay motivated while you build out your own IP.

At work, when a project flops, the code tends to go to waste. When you write your own code, unencumbered by any outside agreements/conflicts, it stays with you to reuse, improve, license to others, turn into a SAAS, use in a separate website, etc.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here. To add context to this question, I have a small project in Flask that I made for myself, but it's not multi-threaded, there isn't comprehensive testing suite, etc.

How do I get from a very bootstrapped pet project to something a thousand people can use? Are there any resources/books that could offer guidance on this process?

<comment><USER2> Do not assume that you necessarily need to make things much more complex in order to scale to a thousand users. I have several client projects running on flask + sqlite.

There are ways you could simulate a lot of users at once, if you're worried about it.

For running multiple processes, I use gunicorn with an nginx proxy. Requires little to no additional code added to your application.

<comment><USER3> Have you had any success or failures with the single-threadedness of sqlite and multiple simultaneous users? Does buffering interactions using gunicorn help solve this? I ask because I love using sqlite for some localhost programs but always transfer away to postgres once I push the app to a server/VM. Thankfully sqlalchemy makes the transition possible with just a config change and no real retooling of the codebase.

<comment><USER2> I mostly use it on low traffic applications, but it depends on what those simultaneous users are doing and how many of them there are.

Multiple processes can access a single sqlite DB, they just can't write to it at the same time. So yeah, gunicorn (or any forking server) should help.

See: [https://www.sqlite.org/whentouse.html](https://www.sqlite.org/whentouse.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dev Bootcamp is shutting down - <AUTHOR> The email sent out to alumni (closing paragraphs elided, in consideration of the character count):
"I am reaching out to let you know of some very sad news. After considering all of our options, we have made the heartbreaking decision to wind down DBC operations. In other words, DBC's final cohort will start on July 17 and will graduate in December 2017.
Campuses will officially close on December 8, 2017, as we are committed to providing our currently enrolled students with full delivery of the program, including seeing them through the entire curriculum and providing at least six months of career support for these students after graduation.
Please know that we did not come to this decision lightly, and it is one that deeply affects us all. We're so proud of what our students, alumni, DBC team (past and present), and community and employer partners have accomplished over the past five years. But despite tremendous efforts from a lot of talented people, we've determined that we simply can't achieve a sustainable business model without compromising our mission of delivering a high-quality coding education that is accessible to a diverse population of students.
DBC has been committed to providing access to careers in technology since 2012, pioneering a new industry, and championing a radical form of education -- one focused on hands-on practical training over theory. This talented community of over 3,000 is proof positive that the educational experiment we launched five years ago could make a real difference in people's lives when combined with the passion and grit of our students. If our staff is the heart, you all are the soul of DBC. You and your continued work in the industry will keep DBC's spirit alive." <comment><USER2> (I'm a cofounder at Hack Reactor, a competitor.)

DBC launched an industry. Early students/staff went on to start Hack Reactor, App Academy, and Hackbright Academy. Early students/staff of Hack Reactor went on to found Zipfian Academy (acquired by Galvanize -- went on to lead Galvanize's education efforts), Codesmith, and a half-dozen other bootcamps. I'm sure AA and HB alums went on to pass the gift on in their own ways.

DBC also launched several thousand careers. I attended a coworker's birthday happy hour today, and I told a story of a former student that brought me to tears. DBC launched an industry where real lives get changed in real ways. Staff and alums alike participated in a very personal transformation.

DBC was a rock in a pond and its ripples will extend past where its story ends today. I can't speak for DBC, but they were probably struggling (like the rest of our sector) with growing past the bootcamp industry's early days, when starry-eyed optimism clashed with the operational realities of a highly- regulated industry. Kudos to everyone that tried, and there were many that poured their hearts and wallets out.

Staff/students/mgmt/etc -- reach out if I can help. email@example.com

For nostalgia's sake, here's the HN post where Shereef launched DBC: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3267133](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3267133)

<comment><USER3> Shawn was actually the person who sent me that link and said "some guy wants to teach people to code in a coffee shop or something, you should check it out." Back then, I had been hacking things together and had an engineering job, but never felt like I had enough credentials to be a 'real' programmer. I ended up deciding to join the first class of DBC to see what it would be like. There ended up being 21 of us in a tiny sublet at 923 Market. We literally had to go in through a door that was part of a larger garage door. CEO's and CTO's would come speak and everyone was very excited about what we were building together.

I think the thing I learned from the most was the way that Shereef carried himself and ran the community. We all felt like we were building something bigger than ourselves. Shereef was a next level community manager and wasn't afraid to cajole people into the uncomfortable spots for them. I think literally everyone in my class cried at some point. DBC was more than just a technical education, it was an emotional education. I've tried to emulate and embody the emotional balance I learned while in DBC, especially as Shawn and I were creating HR. I think DBC's longest mark on the industry will be in the insertion of 'engineering empathy' into the curriculum.

Shawn, don't forget that the founder of Epicodus came out of that first class of DBC, as did the founder of Codeunion. And the Bloc folks were working out of DBC early on as well. DBC set in motion a whole industry.

As a member of the industry, a former student at DBC, and a former staff member at DBC, I feel for the people (staff, students, alums) affected by this event and am saddened by the void that it will leave for many. I still have my dog tags, and took them out tonight in reverence. Props to everyone on the team who no doubt fought this closure until there wasn't fight left.

Anyone have great DBC memories to share? My two favorites: 1\. Speed chess that happened just about every lunch in the first class 2\. White water rafting with DBC2 students and staff

<comment><USER4> @sharksforcheap 'founderS' of CodeUnion and how was the graduating party of that first cohort not on your list ?

:)

<comment><USER3> Woops. Sorry John. :)

The graduation of your cohort was pretty amazing, though I'll say you being a mixologist during the event would be a welcome improvement. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As a former employee I have to say that Kaplan did a very fine job keeping the company afloat when it would have otherwise collapsed years earlier. I know the story of an evil corporate takeover is a tempting one, but that's not what happened here. Frankly, I was astounded at just how massive a bet they were willing to make on us. More than once they provided an influx of capital while Dev Bootcamp's leadership attempted to find a sustainable business model. In the nearly four years I was there they exerted _shockingly_ little influence over DBC, and largely left it up to us to figure out how to make this work.

DBC failed because _DBC_ failed, not because Kaplan made us fail, and I think it's important to own that. Without their deep pockets our quirky, beautiful, compassionate little place of learning would have fallen apart a long time ago. As far as I'm concerned, Kaplan bankrolled an amazing thing far past its expiration date, and gosh am I glad they did, because I had a blast.

<comment><USER6> I was a part of Matt's first cohort at Dev Bootcamp and he saw us all the way through the program. I remember telling him afterwards that he was the best teacher I have had and I think everyone else in my cohort felt at least similar if not exactly the same. It was teachers like him that made Dev Bootcamp an awesome experience for many. He developed extra lectures beyond the curriculum on stuff like SQL injection and really thought out how to present them effectively, sought out things that we were struggling with like at one point I think it was scoping in Javascript when we had primarily been dealing with Ruby, or this one time where he was really excited to show us something he repeatedly said would "blow our minds." I think it was predicate methods and how you could compose them to make new ones. I remember thinking at the time something like "That's it? Or am I missing something…" Still, it was the effort and caring that stood out. I also remember him staying late with us to refactor a Javascript challenge that was already meeting specs to be object oriented, even though it wasn't part of the challenge.

I think it was experiences like that that make so many DBC grads so fond of it and why so many graduates still come back to pair with current students. Yet it wasn't all good. I saw a cohort after us, if I recall correctly have around half of the students help back and have too many students and not enough teachers. Still, I think they tried to do the right thing most of the time. Why else would you allow students to repeat portions of the course and take up to 6 weeks longer instead of just churning through students as fast as possible or make a special effort to try to make the program more accessible underrepresented persons?

Personally, I was miffed by some stuff like finding out during the course that average salaries were lower and average time to employment longer than listed on the website and not seeing an urgency to update those numbers publicly. Or hearing about a plan to try to collect money from potential employers upon hiring a grad when the job search already wasn't easy and they had already collected thousands from each student in tuition. Like student needed another barrier to being hired. I felt bad for people coming after me having to compete both with more Dev Bootcamp grads as more campuses popped up on top of all the new competing bootcamps, but I really hope most people made it work. DBC did always say that it wasn't graduating there that'd get you a job, but what you make of that experience and how far you continue after, but still I always wished they were more forthright with their statistics and outcomes.

I don't know where I'm going with any of this. Guess I'm saying it was a special place, but also a mixed bag in my experience.

<comment><USER6> The stupidest/silliest thing we ever built is still works. [http://berniesbistro.herokuapp.com](http://berniesbistro.herokuapp.com) IIRC, we were having trouble coming up with an idea of what to build and made this in the last 30 minutes before we had to present.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a former employee I have to say that Kaplan did a very fine job of running the place into the ground. Kaplan management managed to take an industry leader with first mover advantage and completely squander it by myopically focusing on quarterly profits. They really should have switched to a pay- after-getting-a-job tuition model that schools like AppAcademy offer. That would have simultaneously better met the mission of serving diverse students (students who can't afford $17,000+ and living in an expensive urban area for almost five months) and improve long term outcomes.

The pay-after-getting-a-job model creates virtuous cycles, because the schools that implement it suck up the most prepared students. Schools not offering that model end up with the leftovers after admissions to the top schools.

Arguably colleges and universities should also adopt pay-after-getting-a-job but that would probably hurt their bottom lines substantially. It definitely creates the correct alignment of incentives for the school to educate well.

Pretty amazing too, considering Kaplan has very deep pockets and could easily have financed the slight lag in revenue switching to models would have required. To me it just reeks of old-school short sighted corporate management thinking.

For a bootcamp to not adopt pay-after-getting-a-job just shows that they lack faith in their own product. Funny because many schools end up having to hire lots of their alums as a way of bolstering their employment numbers.

On a closing note, huge props to all the extremely hardworking teachers and students who went through DBC, they made it an amazing place despite all hardship. I made many of my most meaningful relationships there and I witnessed tremendous transformations in people.

<comment><USER8> Why is that superior? Strictly speaking, Dev Bootcamp doesnt have to worry about the success of students because it takes the payment upfront. AppAcademy take the first year payment with average graduating salary of $83K which works out at around $13K return for AppAcademy - the same tuition fees roughly as Dev Bootcamp - am I missing something here?

<comment><USER9> Former A/a grad here. The average graduating salary in SF for App Academy is 105k [1]. They charge around 20% which is 21k. They also have other revenue streams, so on average they likely make more per student on average than that.

[1] [https://www.appacademy.io/](https://www.appacademy.io/)

<comment><USER8> Thanks dbz thats really useful to know!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Even though a direct competitor with DBC I just wanted to say: solid team and leadership; we respect everyone there, especially in pioneering the market in the early years.

It was in DBC's NYC campus that I did my first LGBT advocacy event. Still remember the passion of the students and instructors two years later.

I know I speak for everyone here when I say I'm sorry to see a leader and organization leave the community.

\- Team Thinkful email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER11> Related tweets:

[https://twitter.com/devbootcamp/status/885332026030796801](https://twitter.com/devbootcamp/status/885332026030796801)

[https://twitter.com/devbootcamp/status/885339039548805120](https://twitter.com/devbootcamp/status/885339039548805120)

</comment><comment><USER12> This is truly a sad moment. I was part of DBC's first cohort in Chicago, and was so inspired by its capacity to transform lives that I founded something similar, Code Platoon, a nonprofit coding bootcamp for Veterans. DBC literally changed the lives of thousands of people. Strictly from a job training perspective, I can think of no training model that does a better job at addressing underemployment. The good news is that many great coding bootcamps followed DBC, and the model will continue to thrive.

</comment><comment><USER13> Kudos to the school who started it all, and the vision behind it. Thinking about the future, and the million of people who could benefit from learning coding, is DBC going to open source their curriculum?

I think they should consider it, and I think that they could reach out to Free Code Camp to see if they can do something together. Hope to see this happening!

From the European side - [https://codeworks.me/](https://codeworks.me/)

</comment><comment><USER14> So sad to see this. DBC is one of my largest clients and despite all the crap bootcamps take, I saw them first-hand transform lives and careers. End of an era. Incredible careers team, incredible instructors, incredible students, terribly sad and shocking development.

<3 Amir @ skilledinc.com

</comment><comment><USER15> (Current Teacher at DBC)

First, thank you all for the positive feedback. It means the world to us. Most of the teaching staff only found out about the decision a day or two before it became public, so we are only recently processing this. Trust me when I say that the gratitude that we're seeing...I'm just not sure what we would do without it.

Second, for our remaining cohorts, I want to give you an idea of the sentiment of the teachers at the moment.

We see this as an opportunity to go out on a high note. We know this is our last chance to have a deeply positive influence on students' lives. We don't want to squander that privilege.

</comment><comment><USER16> (I'm founder and CEO of coding bootcamp, We Can Code IT)

Dev Bootcamp pioneered an industry that has changed lives. It's not an easy business to compete against the "We've always done it that way" mentality, and they did it well for 5 years. They were well-respected and will be missed. Hats off to them for maintaining their principles, passion, and giving it their all! I always appreciated that they focused on inclusion and diversity in technology. I'm sad about that loss, but We Can Code IT promises to continue carrying that torch.

</comment><comment><USER17> Why did they shut down?

This whole page is long on emotion, not that that's not important, but very short on facts.

Regulation? No tenable business model? Couldn't charge enough to pay instructors? etc.

</comment><comment><USER18> I haven't actively followed DBC's trajectory but as a long time CS educator I've long said that education doesn't scale in the way that other tech sector initiatives scale, particularly if you want to maintain quality.

I'd really be curious to hear more about the obstacles to maintaining your quality that helped lead to this.

</comment><comment><USER19> Wow. End of an era.

</comment><comment><USER20> DBC was really inspiring for me. Just before we opened the 1st coding bootcamp in Tel Aviv (@Elevation Academy) I came for a visit and they were so open, generous and helpful. Thank you for the breakthrough and the hard work!

</comment><comment><USER21> This makes me really sad. DBC changed my life dramatically. I wasn't a fan of some of the changes/decisions they made over the last few years, but I would be in a much, much worse place overall without DBC.

</comment><comment><USER22> I would love to buy it and give it another go. Wonder how that would work and how much it would cost, and if it's even an option. Seems a shame to see it close.</comment>


Its raining Haskell - <AUTHOR> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/YOW-2011-Simon-Peyton-Jones-and-John-Hughes-Its-Raining-Haskell

<comment><USER2> The most important part in here by SPJ is "haskell is a playground for language design" and by John that "haskell's strength is playing with DSLs". Haskell started and is a research language; that is PRO and not a con. It gives simon the ability to give a talk at POPL saying look at this cool dependently-typed feature, and btw, the compiler you just downloaded already compiles these programs. We need more languages that are bridging the gap between cutting edge research and production compilers.

<comment><USER3> I somehow got the feeling that, working for Microsoft, SPJ couldn't say "Haskell is the language for everything", even if he wanted to, because that would undermine the official position of his employer.

But then, maybe he could say it. I don't know.

<comment><USER4> haha that what they should answer at the clever flipped question. Haskell is the answer for all the questions, in originality order.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would like to hear the "silly question" referenced at 10:55 but can't seem to find a link to Simon Peyton-Jones's keynote.</comment>


Multiple Login's on the same page - <AUTHOR>

We are at the stage where we are getting ready to integrate with a potential client and the topic of how login should work came up.  Currently the potential client has its own proprietary login system, we have built our tool so that you do not need to login at all, you can purchase the product without ever logging into to our system.  We only require your email address so we can send you a confirmation.
This is causing a technical challenge, the potential client wants us to integrate into their login system, however we think that building links to proprietary login systems for all clients is not scalable.  The other option we have is to offer the clients two login's, which we think is stupid.  The challenge with that is from a UI perspective, having 2 login's on the same page seems confusing and amateur.
Any advice? <comment><USER2> Can you not just make the format of your default login different from that of the client?

W/o knowing more details, take this with a grain of salt. BUT, I would just have the standard user/pass login form, and let your backend do the heavy lifting (figure out the login type from the format, or from trying to login with one method first).

Don't put it on the user to choose. This should be simple enough to do with some backend magic.</comment>


I got 400 signups with a video of a product that didn't exist - <AUTHOR> https://www.lunadio.com/blog/i-got-400-signups-with-a-video-of-a-product-that-didnt-exist/ <comment><USER2> I can see the appeal of doing this, and for things like UI design it makes alot of sense, but it seems too easy to cross ethical lines. Theranos basically did this, though of course on a vastly larger scale and over a longer time period. In the beginning, it's easy to tell ones self that filling in the gaps will come naturally once funding and interest are available. when there are difficulties executing on promises, it creates a choice between perpetuating the dishonesty for a low cost, or coming clean for a much higher cost. As time goes on, the feedback continues until there is some kind of breaking point. If you're going to do this, you had better be damn sure you can deliver, and have some sort of pre-determined go/no-go points to prevent things from getting out of hand.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, we delivered and the people who signed up got invitation to the beta. This approach is everywhere but we forget somehow look at them differently.

Look at the [https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck](https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck) ... They even collect money, but we are not sure if the whole company Tesla will be here in 2 months. Can we trust that companies will show us only super functioning thing?

<comment><USER3> It's all in the way you communicate things... People should never feel fooled, but you can show them something that doesn't exist yet to start their imagination.

But there are of course ethical lines. Here's an interesting read: [https://www.mironov.com/lying/](https://www.mironov.com/lying/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! :) I will take a look.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is something I mentioned before as well ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18858703](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18858703)):

I'm creating an open source todo list + calendar webapp ([https://getartemis.app](https://getartemis.app), source at [https://github.com/satvikpendem/artemis](https://github.com/satvikpendem/artemis)) made by just me, and I can tell you how I approached the problem. The video you see on the front page does not exist in code, it is simply a prototype designed with Figma ([https://figma.com](https://figma.com)) and animated with Principle ([https://principleformac.com](https://principleformac.com)). I created the landing page and video, added a Mailchimp form, and I posted on Twitter, Reddit, and here on Hacker News, the communities in which it made sense. For me, it's a productivity / task management tool, so I would post on reddit.com/r/getdisciplined or reddit.com/r/productivity.

It's all about creating a minimum viable product, as you might well be aware, but what you may not know is that an MVP need not have code. Indeed, it could be a video as I did, and I think for software, a video works best as people can actually see what it looks and feels like, without you necessarily creating the product architecture (full frontend and backend plus devops etc). Now I have over 150 subscribers (edit: now 1100 as of July 2020) in only a month due to rapid creation of this type of MVP, and based on this feedback, I changed my designs, and only now I am beginning to really create the heart of the product.

Using non-code MVPs is the best way in my opinion to sell quickly before building.

<comment><USER5> I think I'd make a huge distinction between a reasonable demonstration, which may be a video, and a minimum viable product, which must have code associated with it. If it isn't functional, and could not be sold in its current state, then it isn't a viable product.

<comment><USER4> Sure, I made clear they were just signing up for the mailing list, not the product itself. They're not paying customers but they're an audience I can sell to later. I expect only 10 percent will convert to the paid product, but that's better than 0%, when you have no audience.

<comment><USER5> Got it, and that sounds perfectly reasonable. I'd describe it entirely differently from an MVP, but it is reasonable to make a demo to judge reactions and see where points of confusion are in how the product will work.

<comment><USER4> As well, there are two large categories of MVPs, low fidelity and high fidelity ([https://www.robotmascot.co.uk/18-types-of-minimum-viable- pro...](https://www.robotmascot.co.uk/18-types-of-minimum-viable-product/)), and subtypes within that.

What I did was a "fake door" MVP, as the article states. It is not necessarily intended for directly measuring sales but whether its worth my time to build it in the first place. Having over a thousand sign-ups now, it validates that I should indeed spend my time on it.

Then, I would make a high fidelity one, a "one feature" MVP as the article calls it, which would cut the product down to its essence and see if it can still solve a specific problem, and whether people would still pay for only one feature. I am doing this now with a mobile app instead of web/desktop app as the reduced screen space forces me to think about the problem of time block productivity from its essence.

Perhaps your definitions of MVP are different than others, which is perfectly fine. There are others I've seen over the years like simple, lovable, complete (products), and so on ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22955085](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22955085)).

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I think we are arguing semantics. For me, not being an entrepreneur, the "viable product" portion of MVP seems like it is a useful distinction. In your original post, when you said that you had an MVP that just consisted of a video, I interpreted it as a form of fraud. (i.e. "I sold customers a product that doesn't exist, using a video to fool them.")

<comment><USER6> This terminology fuzziness is a direct result of SEO. "MVP" = Good Thing in entrepreneurial circles, so things that are not viable products are labeled as such because they want to be associated with that keyword.

<comment><USER7> 100%. satvikpendem is doing wordplay. A video of a nonexistent piece of software is a useful tool, but a viable product it is not.

That he's denying this proves your point.

<comment><USER4> I don't think so. Look at the other comments replying to my thread. The definition of MVP can mean finding the fastest way to validate with the least effort, as Eric Ries is quoted in the other comment. Perhaps at one point MVP did literally mean the smallest usable product but now the product does not necessarily need to be usable, it just has to validate a hypothesis.

<comment><USER7> Edit: Agree to disagree.

/shrug

<comment><USER4> > And a WIP can mean something I haven't even started on yet. /s

> You're twisting the meaning of the words in the acronym. I really don't > care, but it renders the words meaningless to use them that way.

Again, I'm not sure how to explain that MVP does not literally mean an actual product. It's a tool for hypothesis testing, you don't spend time and energy building out your entire product before you show something to customers, that would be a waste of time and energy. That's why I, and others, define MVP as anything that let's you understand something new about your market and eventually you use that knowledge to make a product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > to do around 1500 banner ads. ... We got 6 products in 5 colors and the aim > was to create ad banners for 3 countries. The goal was to create 15 formats > of each banner ad

Such product exists: Alibaba Luban. It was announced back in 2016 and here's a real world generated example of it:

[https://www.bilibili.com/read/cv59884/](https://www.bilibili.com/read/cv59884/)

There's few demo GIFs show how text and picture align differently in position with different size of layout.

Product page (in Chinese):

[https://luban.aliyun.com/](https://luban.aliyun.com/)

some blogs

[https://www.alibabacloud.com/blog/alibaba-luban-ai-based- gra...](https://www.alibabacloud.com/blog/alibaba-luban-ai-based-graphic- design-tool_594294)

[https://www.alibabacloud.com/blog/the-evolution-of-luban- in-...](https://www.alibabacloud.com/blog/the-evolution-of-luban-in-designing- one-billion-images_596118)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing! In the past all graphic materials were done by graphic designers. In Photoshop, there is huge flexibility what you can do. Basically, you limit only yourself what you want to create. And the plugin leverage mostly this.

If you see, Bannersnack basically do the same thing, problem is, that they don't have that reach functionalities as Photoshop has.

Thanks for sharing anyway, good to know! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Depending on your business model, a sign up can be considered a conversion, or not. If you're selling a subscription service, a sign up would not be considered a conversion, in my view.

</comment><comment><USER10> How is this title different from "I lied publicly and people believed me" ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well. I showed them the future tool and if they liked it, they could subscribe. If you call this a lie, then whole Tesla is a lie [https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck](https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck)

\+ I haven't collected any money from people.

What would you say on Kickstarters? When they are just in "prototype" phase and they even not sure if they can deliver? And they are even collecting money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Ok Dropbox.

I get tired of these startups thinking they can just throw up videos of non- existent products and get signups as some kind of validation.

Consumers patience will wear thin when they find pretty much every new startup pulls the same crap, until interest in new startups reaches all time lows and this strategy doesn't work anymore.

Then the only way to validate things will be the old fashioned way: take a risk and build shit up front. If it doesn't sell that's your problem, the consumer doesn't care. Not everyone is entitled to cheap and easy validation.

Don't fake, just make.

<comment><USER12> > I get tired of these startups thinking they can just throw up videos of non- > existent products and get signups as some kind of validation.

Why? I'd suggest they take it one step further: Offer discounted pre-orders and use that to measure if people are interested. The only way to be sure that someone is willing to pay for what you're building is to ask them to pay for it.

> Then the only way to validate things will be the old fashioned way: take a > risk and build shit up front.

This is bad advice. You should never take on risk that you don't have to. A startup is full of anticipated and unanticipated risks, there is no reason to expose yourself to even more.

For reference, we tried your approach at my first startup. We built something people found really cool but that no one wanted to pay for. We wasted eight months doing this.

Our next product was launched with minimal tech investment (1-2 weeks of development) and accepted pre-orders. We made $x,xxx this way and things went very well. If we hadn't sold enough we would have refunded all of our pre- orders and chose to work on something that people actually wanted.

<comment><USER11> As a consumer, you want startups to build stuff up front. That way you can immediately tell if they executed correctly and you want to spend money.

Startups though don't want to build shit. They want to pass on the risk of a failed product to the consumer. They'll get consumers hopes up and then say "whoops, not enough people wanted this so we're not building it too bad"

This is also why even if you do build something people might not even use it until you reach a certain level of success because consumers don't want to invest time and money into some product that can disappear overnight.

<comment><USER13> honestly, i've stopped paying attention to products that startups fake launch. i'm sure im not the only one and also not the only one that's worked in the sphere and realizes just how poorly built/thought out everything is. moviepass is a prime example. your sign up pages that lead to nothing/nowhere because you got demotivated or too lazy or didn't find funding or the other plethora of reasons are exactly why i ignore them all and close out of the tab. your "secretive" coming soon pages are stuck in 2013. if this is a product that is serious/legitimate, then i'm sure i'll hear about it through friends, HN or TC or something. i'm starting to think that the "startup" field is mostly populated by people who do it just to put "CEO/Founder" in their linkedin bio.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm sure that if your product is "hot" enough, and checks all the trendy boxes, a fake video / pitchbook will not only yield signups, but actual investor money.

</comment><comment><USER15> Right so that is called "lying". I mean it's the worst form. Normally people at least say it's "coming soon" or something. Rather than just falsely saying it exists.

</comment><comment><USER16> Although tangential to the point of the article, interestingly enough, this product _does_ exist to some extent. A really talented developer that I used to work with has created a pretty neat Figma plugin to generate production ready ad banners on the fly ([https://www.figmaticapp.com/bannerify](https://www.figmaticapp.com/bannerify)). I have no financial benefit to sharing this - just a fan of his work.

</comment><comment><USER17> I know its very important to validate the Idea before starting the work, and such videos are great way to do that. But I strongly believe such videos must embed some sort of information like "Conceptual working of Future product" or "Video represents the basic concept of our targeted product".

These types of info/notes will high likely give you the list of possible future buyer using the forms like "Add to wish-list","Be the first one to know when we release".

<comment><AUTHOR> While I was posting this to the groups, I spoke to people and I told them the facts about that, if they asked. Nobody was pissed off, everybody was happy, that somebody was solving their pain.

<comment><USER17> In-person discussion is always a key to understand the client needs.They will surely be glad to discuss their problem because they are searching for some solution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Silicon Valley normalises these sort of lies as ethical.

It's not lying, it's "hustle".

There's ways to present that aren't outright deceptive.

It's a strange blog post because it's not an admission to be proud of.

<comment><USER19> It's a valid concern but a weird to criticize it on a website that exists specifically as a marketing arm of a business dedicated to that purpose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The website for the plugin is full of spelling mistakes, bad grammar and has light gray text on white backgrounds in places.

</comment><comment><USER21> How many has Elon Musk gotten with the same strategy?

<comment><AUTHOR> And lot of people love him, lol...</comment></comment>


Tesla Autopilot retrofit on a classic P85 (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://skie.net/skynet/projects/tesla/view_post/14_Autopilot+Retrofit+on+Classic+P85 <comment><USER2> I was not expecting the massively negative responses here. For a site called "Hacker News," you folks sure seem to stand in complete opposition to any hacking that's outside your comfort zone.

<comment><USER3> People are afraid of stuff they don't know about. Most of us work in offices and don't even own a 3/8 socket set. (Of course they have no problem with some dude who barely reads English, or whatever language the service literature is in, performing service on their vehicle because he's a "professional"). There's also the fact that with physical objects you can't just revert them if you do it wrong like you can with code. People here are used to having that capability. Working with things where you don't have a near-zero cost option to revert is going to make a lot of people here uneasy. There's a vocal minority here who just hates cars to begin with and has no problem saying things that feed those fears. Then there's the fact that lot of people here are afraid of liability so they start going crazy when any entity that isn't a multi-million dollar company they can sue starts modifying anything tangentially involving safety even if the risks involved are on the order of being eaten by a shark on dry land in Kansas.

Tl;DR the subject matter and the user-base of HN react in a way that brings out more negativity than each one could normally on its own.

<comment><USER2> This isn't my story, I'm just an early upvoter hoping to come back to find interesting commentary instead of a bunch of whining.

I think your assessment is correct. Adding even more negativity to the mix, a lot of HN users are skeptical of Tesla in general and Autopilot in particular.

<comment><USER4> Autopilot continues to be advertised [0] as if it were fully or even near- autonomous driving, so I think those of us who know better are reasonable to start from a position of skepticism.

[0] [https://www.tesla.com/autopilot](https://www.tesla.com/autopilot)

<comment><USER2> I don't see how Autopilot marketing is at all relevant here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So many people here shitting on this guy but it's going to be the future pretty much. Hell I have a GM truck and to add a front camera (for off roading) I'd have to pay like $2,000 for a 480p camera...

That said this guy is brave, not for the mod, but for posting pretty much all of the vin, the name of his car, and showing the color. Will not be hard for tesla to find it and blacklist charging, updates, parts, etc. Musk's ban hammer will be swift and harsh.

<comment><USER6> > Musk's ban hammer will be swift and harsh.

A friend of mine is highly regarded engineer at one of electric car manufacturer. He supposed to be getting 8% corp discount for buying their vehicle. He doesnt so I asked him why since he's so lucky. He told me eventually the day will come that local government or LE will force them to update their car's OS to report continuesly on the speed you drive, similar to how tachometers work on trucks where cops stop you and can review your speed for the last 14 days you drove your rig nd either report you to your employee or guve you a retro-ticket for speeding. This update, he says will come and nothing you can do to stop it. I take my friend's word very seriously although getting EV is as tempting as never before!

<comment><USER7> I don't see how this is unique to EVs... Couldn't any car have this kind of tracking?

<comment><USER8> They already do. Most modern cars have what's effectively a black box data recorder in them. Unlike Tesla however, most cars cannot receive over the air updates and require you to take them to the dealership.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Amazingly detailed write up. I would love to know the reference material used to figure out the pinout's of the control units. One of the things I miss from older cars is how hackable they were. It feels like new cars are just a bunch of black boxes strapped together with no labels on them, so reading someone able to actually mod one is super impressive.

</comment><comment><USER10> > _First, don't expect this to open the floodgates for people to start > retrofitting autopilot on to older Model S. This was a pretty crazy project > to take on, and honestly I'm not going to do it again. It requires the > ability to modify the vehicle's internal configuration and the ability to > calibrate and VIN-burn various modules once they're installed and wired, > none of which I am disclosing methods for accomplishing, sorry._

:/

The difference between showing off and publishing research, I guess.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, its not great, but unsurprising considering how this person's website has a floating bottom bar asserting that all rights are reserved. Just looking to show off, not help others follow in their footsteps.

<comment><USER12> Well, VIN-burning could be used to launder stolen or un-QA'd parts from salvage-titled vehicles, so it's understandable to refrain from publishing the methods used.

<comment><USER10> Jailbreaking can be used for piracy. Exploit code can be used for illegal access. Lock picks can be used for burglary. Guns can be used for murder. Cars can be used to rob banks. Radios can be used to jam communications. Encryption can be used for child porn.

We'd better not discuss methods. Hackers might pick them up.

<comment><USER12> IMHO the decision which methods to publish and which not solely relies upon the person who discovered them.

Some people might feel fine with the knowledge that their work might be used for evil, some not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Excellent write up and project! Wish I had that much patience.

I am suprised it actually worked. Probably required some good connections at a Tesla service facility / input from someone who knows these cars in and out.

</comment><comment><USER14> Surprising rhetoric in the comments. Serious question, at what point does working on a car become irresponsible? Does changing the brakes or tires count? How about changing the power steering fluid? Both of these examples can kill yourself or others if performed incorrectly. Should only mechanics be allowed to change this then? I wonder what is the threshold for "common sense" modifications and what is "an easy way to kill him and his wife"?

<comment><USER15> Should people be allowed to build their own computer or upgrade/install software? /s Working on cars is no harder than working on other things especially when they are just swapping components.

<comment><USER16> If you build a computer and it fails, I doubt most people will care.

If you try to fix a car and fail, you could end someone's life.

While I'm not against these kind of projects, to equate these things is ridiculous. Where is the line drawn? Vehicles are far more dangerous than your own PC.

<comment><USER17> I'm edging on hyperbole here but wanted to play Devil's Advocate. You can easily misconfigure a computer build and have it be part of a botnet that does substantial harm and potentially causing death. In fact, there are millions of people who have such computers.

Vehicles are dangerous to the few people around you, but a PC can be dangerous to millions.

<comment><USER18> At least in the case of an unsecured computer, there needs to be a malicious actor added who will take control and direct the botnet. But in the case of a car, the negligence of the owner can lead directly to fatality without anyone involved being malicious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I love it! the last time I tinkered with cars, I was boosting and racing sufficiently powerful 4 bangers. Glad to see that hacking and modding electric cars is going to be a thing and the future generation can keep the tradition going.

<comment><USER20> 'Boosting' and racing cars within their designed safety parameters and to defined racing scrutineering approval is one thing, grafting very immature self driving technology into an early version of a mass produced EV and then driving it on public roads is something very different. I say this as a very current car builder and modifier.

<comment><USER21> What you're saying holds true if you assume that everyone modding their car is doing so for the benefit of passing inspection at a track day.

How many people slap a turbo on their car without touching the wheels or brakes?

Nevermind if the upgrades or tune are sound to begin with.

<comment><USER20> I put different, more powerful engines in street cars too, also update drive trains and brakes. My point is there is a world of difference between generally understood car building safety metrics and what the insurers are ok with and grafting immature 'self driving' tech into a vehicle. I'm not knocking it or saying it's wrong, just a very different project with very different safety implications

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Opening up wire harnesses introduces corrosion - I would not trust an autopilot car with hand soldered wire harnesses. There is a reason Tesla would replace all of the harnesses if they were to do this...Sure its fine now but in a few years those connections will start to fail.

<comment><USER23> Disconnecting or cutting the wiring harnesses does not introduce corrosion. Assuming the connections are made well using the correct methods it will not be an issue. From the pictures it looks like they soldered and heat shrunk the connections which should be a long lasting repair.

<comment><USER22> It absolutely does. A wire inside of a harness is a closed system. You have water tight sealing on the end of the connector on both ends of the cable. As soon as you open the sheath and expose the bare copper to atmosphere, corrosion starts. You cannot splice an automotive harness and keep the same characteristics as when it came from the factory.

<comment><USER24> None of this is true. Wiring harnesses aren't water tight, primarily to prevent corrosion. If you have a totally water tight harness, and water some how gets in, it has no way to dry and will cause corrosion. You absolutely can splice a harness and have it have the same characteristics, I do it every day.

<comment><USER22> We are talking about two different things. Notice I did not say wire harnesses are water tight. Each individual wire inside the harness - the copper inside - is sealed to the environment. You will get corrosion on copper if you expose it to atmosphere - exactly what happens when you splice it. By the way - I do development / testing of automotive electronics and am well aware of the specs / test procedure and design decisions of wire harnesses...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is amazing! Takes serious guts to open up a car like that! Of course there's lots of questions like how did you recalibrate the radars later on? And also how did you get hold of that new firmware to flash?

</comment><comment><USER26> It's hard to believe that $9000 + 50 hours of labour + time spent planning would be worth less than trading in the car for a new one.

<comment> King-Aaron I guess the same comment could be made about modifying any consumer product.

<comment><USER2> Or about most of the hobby software projects that show up on the HN front page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

As others have noted, this seems like a terrible idea. One small mistake, and it could kill his wife, himself, or someone else on the road. All the other self driving Teslas have at least gone through testing to make sure they are road safe.

I know I'll be avoiding any yellow Teslas from now on!

<comment> King-Aaron Let me describe to you the 900-kilogram car I'm building, with forged pistons and a turbo big enough to fit your head inside. It probably won't hold traction until third or fourth gear. One small mistake and it would kill all sorts of stakeholders.

People like me drive highly modified cars day in, day out. Though I'd honestly trust the handiwork of someone who can figure out the sophistication behind a tesla and it's electronics more readily than I'd trust your general backyard mechanic.

It's not uncommon to see 40 year old cars driving around with stock suspension and brakes, that have had a 6.2L LSx engine fitted (as an example). I'd be more concerned with those kinds of conversions before I'd worry about the one Tesla in the united states that has a jerry-rigged autopilot.

<comment><USER28> > Let me describe to you the 900-kilogram car I'm building, with forged > pistons and a turbo big enough to fit your head inside. It probably won't > hold traction until third or fourth gear.

Sarcasm is hard to pick up via a written media so i'm going to assume you're legit. Where is this thing even legal to drive??

<comment><USER29> What he described sounds like a lot of street legal cars in the US. As long as it has turn signals, windshield wipers, seat belts, and some other things on a short list, it's allowed on the road.

Here's one example: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Atom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Atom)

EDIT: And another: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_MX-5_(NA)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_MX-5_\(NA\))

<comment> King-Aaron Yeah not to mention guys like Saleen and Hennessey who make some downright ludicrous road cars. When you're talking about the power levels they make, the difference between 900kg and 1200kg is negligible :P

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

Edit, and a more serious note, this is the flip side of the kinds of things we're discussing though. Not all modified cars are built to equal safety considerations, and not all modified car stories end well.

[https://jalopnik.com/man-dies-after-crash-in-home-built- hond...](https://jalopnik.com/man-dies-after-crash-in-home-built-honda-civic- based-ka-1825681533)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Great write-up. Elon talked last week about Tesla cars constantly evolving. Sounds like he figured out workable combinations of different parts from the software update metadata. Nifty.

Also expecting it to be blacklisted by Tesla next week.

<comment><USER31> This post is from 2016 and has been well-publicized. If it wasn't blacklisted thus far, why would it be now?

<comment><USER32> Sometimes even well publicized articles don't reach just the right person for action to take place. On top of that company culture and their legal stance changes over time, they could have seen it in 2016 and figured it's not a big enough issue to their liability to ban the guy that did this.

<comment><USER6> Okay so provide us some evidence that this time it reached right person or whos working at their legal department now that didnt before that you assume this time it will get banned.

<comment><USER32> You misunderstand I'm not saying it has all I was saying was the fact that it was from 2016 and he hasn't been banned doesn't me he won't be. Company's tolerance for things like this wax and wane over time and sometimes news flies under their radar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This reads like a very sophisticated method to kill his wife.

<comment><USER34> Sort of agree, sort of not. There are people who can do such modifications safely. The problem is, one might have the belief of belonging to said group, while being mistaken.

<comment><USER35> I'd say the problem is that it is pretty much impossible to make such an assumption in the first place without extensive inside information.

I would not be surprised if there is not one single person at Tesla that would be confident in knowing each possible pitfall from doing this. And I would certainly not expect anyone from the outside spending a few weeks on this to gain that knowledge either.

Very impressive, but in my eyes he have ruined a perfectly fine Tesla.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Friends at Tesla?

<comment><USER37> Probably. Otherwise changing firmware would be the main topic of article :)

<comment><USER38> I remember a blog post from a year ago that at least explained how to get root on a Tesla. So I don't know if that's so much of a big deal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Can't see the point on publicizing this. There is so much that can go wrong; auto steering could fail due to a slight misalignment in sensors, noise from the custom wiring, any kind of mismatch in the hardware or software. It is irresponsible to use the feature on public roads.

Tesla has _all_ the reasons in the world to find this car and take it out of service. On top of that, he killed the resale value.

<comment><USER40> > Tesla

Police as well. For sure it's going to be suck getting hit by this and having their insurance refuse to cover the damage

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Not something I'd consider roadworthy due to lack of rigorous testing.

<comment><USER42> Seriously. The thought of this thing being on the road scares the heck out of me. All it takes is for there to be one assumption the autopilot software makes about the hardware that didn't get retrofitted, and you've got an accident on your hands.

<comment><USER43> People are always so paranoid about autonomous cars, as if we expect cars and drivers to otherwise be infallible, contrary to all available evidence.

People have been modifying their cars since there have been cars. Sometimes the modifications are problematic. Sometimes problems result in accidents. Those cases are rare. Moreover, since the modifications are all bespoke, the odd erroneous one affects only that single vehicle.

On the other hand, the modifications let people learn. It's how we get new ideas. That improve safety. For more than just one car.

<comment><USER44> If the modifications a person makes have the potential to kill members of the public, I think you're wrong.

This is new technology; laws and regulations need to reach a stage where they're able to protect against the worst from happening.

People have to take driving tests. Is there an equivalent safeguard for an autonomous vehicle?

<comment><USER43> > If the modifications a person makes have the potential to kill members of > the public, I think you're wrong.

Literally everything has the potential to kill members of the public. A bug in your mobile device app could interact with a bug in the hardware and cause the battery to catch fire in the middle of the night and burn down an apartment building. If you install casters on the office copy machine, it may slide down an incline, through a 10th story window and kill someone in the street.

> This is new technology; laws and regulations need to reach a stage where > they're able to protect against the worst from happening.

There are two classic methods of discouraging harm. The original, which works fine for low volume modifications, is that if you do something reckless you get held liable after the fact.

The method you're proposing is to do safety testing ahead of time. But that is only reasonable for products that are mass produced. If you're going to make a million of something, it makes sense to analyze it ahead of time because the high fixed cost of doing that can be _amortized_ over a million units whereas the amount of harm prevented is _multiplied_ by a million units. That method is highly inefficient for one off modifications where the opposite is true.

<comment><USER44> I think you're greatly underestimating the danger involved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> richiebkidd[1] is that you?

1\. [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfV0_wbjG8KJADuZT2ct4SA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfV0_wbjG8KJADuZT2ct4SA)

</comment><comment><USER46> Apart from getting home from the pub after a few too many beers, what's wrong with just driving a car?

Despite the billions of $ being poured into autonymous vehicles I've yet to find anyone who actually sees the need, or even less so would buy one.

<comment><USER47> Auto-Driving cars have the potential to help the world cut carbon emissions. Cars that can synchronise their travel, and coordinate their movements can use fuel more efficiently.

People are not good at driving efficiently. Over-braking, over-idle, under- steer .. all of these things contribute to fuel waste at scale.

<comment><USER48> That sounds likely to be massively cancelled out by people taking car journeys that otherwise wouldn't happen because they don't have to be awake, sober or focused on driving for hours at a time, because the cheapest autoparking is way outside the city centre or because the taxi/courier is really cheap now the driver salary isn't included.

And electric vehicles are already relatively efficient in energy use even if driven badly, particularly if charged using renewables.

<comment><USER47> Could also go the other way: people ride-share more frequently, even as a socialising activity, since they can sit and talk with each other while the car does all the work ..

And, the next obvious step: private car ownership becomes a distant memory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Impressive</comment>


International Money Transfers - <AUTHOR> https://www.simple.com/blog/Banking/international-money-transfers/ <comment><USER2> Great article and very insightful - thanks for adding it! It's amazing how complex the process is, and it'd be great to see some innovation in this space despite the high barrier to entry.</comment>


Boston beats Silicon Valley when it comes to transit & bike sharing - <AUTHOR> http://www.xconomy.com/national/2012/03/16/bikes-and-business-can-cities-cycle-their-way-to-prosperity/

<comment><USER2> I've never lived in Boston, but I've lived in SF and current live in the Valley and I have to say that SF is awesome for public transit (when it's on time) and SV is better for bike because of the bike lanes. SamTrans on the peninsula is a joke, but the VTA and CalTrain are pretty good. They don't have the extensive coverage of Muni in SF, but if you aren't willing to walk a few blocks to get from a transit stop then you need a car.

</comment><comment><USER3> Bike sharing is coming to San Francisco and the Valley this Summer. [http://sf.streetsblog.org/2012/02/02/bike-share-coming-to- sf...](http://sf.streetsblog.org/2012/02/02/bike-share-coming-to-sf-and- silicon-valley-this-july/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I've used this system in Minneapolis, which is almost identical to the costs and station density here. It's OK for certain people I suppose. If you are a local, it's better to bring your own bike. If you are visiting, the fees are very high since you have to start paying extras for a few minutes overage. Overages are easy to get because the stations are usually no where near where you are going unless you are doing short tourist jaunts. So you end up walking for 30 minutes to a bike, riding the bike for 15 minutes to a station roughly in the direction you are going, parking to avoid the fee, transferring to a new bike to continue, now you have to go further, then you get to closest destination station, park, walk 30 minutes to actual destination, and reverse to go home. Spend too long stuck at a red light and now you pay a fee for late. Want to ride somewhere, drop something off, then come back? To save on fees you have to factor in a bunch of stations and swaps, so a 40 minutes bike ride round trip if you had your OWN bike is now 90 minutes including all the walking to stations and swapping.

So just pay the fees. Or take the bus, which is cheaper and faster. Or rent a car and be done with all this.

The idea such inefficient systems are being taxpayer funded in some cities is offensive.

I agree with the other comment that it is quite difficult to navigate Boston traffic with a bike since the city is not built to accomodate it for the most part. Police are also highly aggressive, belligerant, uneducated, ignorant and thuggish and risk of being arrested and harassed for not being in the correct lane or whatever are significant.

<comment><USER5> I'm the CEO of a startup company that creates a different type of bike sharing technology, viaCycle: www.viacycle.com

While you're right that bike sharing doesn't make sense for all commuters, the idea that these systems are inefficient is actually incorrect. Yes, you have a capital outlay to set the program up - just like you do for every subway, bus system, and public road in the U.S. Often, these outlays are taxpayer funded. However, once a bike system is running, it's cheaper than almost any other form of transit. Capital Bikeshare in DC recovered almost all of it's operating expenses last year. B-Cycle Denver pulled a profit. Compare that to the T or almost any bus/metro agency in the country, which usually hover around 30-40% cost recovery.

Hubway or NiceRide might not work for your situation, but it's effective and affordable for a whole lot of people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I live in Boston, and have lived in Silicon Valley. Biking in Boston is downright scary.

Having a bike sharing program is great, but Boston needs to invest in more dedicated bike lanes, and bike paths before it can get anywhere near SF in bikability.

Plus you are visiting when its 40ish degress out, not 20 and the Hub system isn't available in the winter.

<comment><USER7> SF != Silicon Valley

<comment><USER8> That being said, Silicon Valley is very bike friendly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow it's a redbox for bikes, neat.

But unfortunately it would be destroyed and/or gross as hell in most cities that I've lived in.

Nothing wrong with owning your own bike, $150 buys a really descent bike these days.

<comment><USER10> This is the same line of reasoning many people put forward in London as well (and before that Munich when I lived there). The reality is it works well. Yes the occasional bike gets vandalized, but the system provides reliable transportation for thousands of people every day.

It reminds me of the indoor smoking ban. Everywhere I live, people say "yes, that's fine in X, but it will never work here." Then it comes and it works fine.

<comment><USER9> Our city, well a private group of enthusiasts, tried making a free bike loan program here and it failed horrible from theft and vandalism.

If there is a way to record people's info and/or financial responsibility, maybe that is the key.

<comment><USER10> In my opinion your problem was being free.

Here in London it costs 45 GBP (about 65 USD) per year - you can also pay just per trip. Either way it works out to very cheap, much cheaper than the tube, bus, taxi, etc. but not free. You have to pay by card so they know who you are. Also the bikes are big bulky bikes, the parts won't fit with normal bikes. Based on the picture it looks like the Boston system is the same company, their bikes and software are used in several cities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hubway has a real-time feed of bike availability [1]. I built a little web site that shows the bike stations and T stations on a map [2], along with real-time data for both bike and T stations. Bike stations with available bikes are shown in green and ones without are red. Also, it's open source [3].

[1] <http://www.thehubway.com/data/stations/bikeStations.xml> [2] <http://bikeboston.herokuapp.com/> [3] <https://github.com/amonat/bikeboston>

<comment><USER10> If you like that, feast your eyes on <http://bikes.oobrien.com>

<comment><USER11> Very cool! Are you involved with that site?

I see it's got a map showing bike share docks in London (by default, with a bunch of other cities available), with a circle for each docks whose size is proportional to the size of the dock, and a color ranging from blue (for empty) to red (for full), and the color scheme is configurable. And it's got a neat graph showing the number of bikes in the dock over time for the last 24 hours.

One minor irritation is that the graph is overlaid on top of the distance scale line (labeled "1km 1mi"), so it looks like that line is part of the graph. Also, it'd be nice if the graph were labeled by time of day rather than hours ago.

(One funny thing is the use of "scheme" even for the US pages, since as Wiktionary notes "In the US, generally has devious connotations, while in the UK, frequently used as a neutral term for projects: "The road is closed due to a pavement-widening scheme."".)

<comment><USER10> I can't take any credit for the site, I'm just a fan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As someone who spent a long time biking, driving, and taking public transit in Boston this is sort of laughable.

A bike sharing program is a neat idea, but actually riding bikes in Boston is a terrible experience. The roads are in bad shape, there are no bike lanes, and the drivers are homicidal.

Public transit in Boston certainly isn't bad, it's better than most cities I've lived in and it may very well be better than the valley. But the subway is generally only helpful if you're going to and from downtown. If you say live in Somerville and work in Allston, you're pretty much out of luck, unless you're willing to transfer between the bus and the subway a few times.

In general I found having a car was a pretty key part of living in Boston.

<comment><USER13> The rail lines (red and green respectively) go straight through Somerville and Allston. Obviously there are some places in both towns without nearby rail access, but it's sort of a stretch to claim "multiple transfers" for that ride.

The roads are in no worse shape than any other northeast city (potholes are a fact of life in that climate). The drivers are agressive but broadly competant. Maybe a better complaint would be lack of bike lanes, which is true: old streets don't always fit them.

I grew up in Boston; lived, studied and worked there until I was 27; and never once felt the need to own a car.

<comment><USER14> You simply don't take the Red Line to Park Street, change to the Green Line, and ride out to Allston. That's utterly moronic. As I recall, you would take the Red Line to Harvard Square and change to Bus 77 to Allston.

<comment><USER13> Sigh. I wasn't doing mikeocool's transit planning, I was responding to the assertion that you have "to transfer between the bus and subway a few times" to get between Somerville and Allston. Whether it is "utterly moronic" to take the subway into Boston seems to me to be situation dependent. If there's snow on the ground and the buses are all running late, that's certainly the first choice. If it's a nice day, you'd probably decide to just walk the half mile across the river from Harvard Square.

Look: if you don't like Boston don't live there. The Bay Area is really nice too and I liked it a lot. I'm currently really liking Portland. But flaming about transit options in what AFAIK is the densest city in north america is just dumb, sorry. Carless bostonians have absolutely no grounds for complaint.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Equity Robo-Research FinTech through NLP - <AUTHOR> http://www.retnio.com/# <comment><AUTHOR> Here's some examples curated for the HN crowd. Check out how these ideas are implemented/discussed by companies in the real world. For example, Docker shows up as a theme for RHT and MSFT starting in 2016. And you can see what they're saying about it. Hopefully this is obvious but all the themes are clickable so you can see what is actually being said in the public filings.

Open source: [http://www.retnio.com/open%20source](http://www.retnio.com/open%20source)

CRISPR (for cancer): [http://www.retnio.com/crispr](http://www.retnio.com/crispr)

javascript: [http://www.retnio.com/javascript](http://www.retnio.com/javascript)

Red Hat: [http://www.retnio.com/RHT](http://www.retnio.com/RHT)

Microsoft: [http://www.retnio.com/MSFT](http://www.retnio.com/MSFT)

</comment><comment><USER2> This could become very useful. I am surprised you got 0 comments.</comment>