Ask HN: Who's been hired through whoishiring threads? - <AUTHOR> I was sifting through resumes in July's "Who wants to be hired" thread and got to wondering if anybody had found work through the whoishiring threads, and whether it was through "who wants to be hired" or "who is hiring".<p>And are there any comments on the quality of the jobs or applicants? <comment><USER2> This is not quite what you're asking, but seeing there are no replies yet regarding the whoishiring thread I will include my anecdote detailing my _not_ getting hired (or even an interview). I haven't since applied for any jobs through the monthly whoishiring threads.

I am a fresh college graduate. The job posting seemed appropriate for someone like me in my current situation (and was the only one in any whoishiring thread I felt was a great fit and not merely a good fit). I did a six-month internship in the same domain, using many of the same technologies as requested for the job. A perfect fit and the obvious next step, I thought. I would be doing what I had already measurably succeeded at, while also being able to use some of my public speaking experience I gained in school to present the modeled data I would be working on. I submit the application, noting all of this. I hear nothing back. A week later, I follow up with the email listed in the post. Still nothing back. I simply assumed they filled the position, however...

I see them post again the subsequent month in the whoishiring thread, still hiring. I do not get it.

<comment><USER3> Have you found a programming job elsewhere?

<comment><USER2> No, but to be fair I have not been looking. I am continuing my education: going for my MS in mathematics likely followed by a PhD beginning this fall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I initially didn't expect Who Wants To Be Hired to be useful. It seemed like a big spammy list, but I put up a quick summary of myself and got contacted by more than a handful of good companies (many of which I'd heard of before, so not obscure companies either). I decided to only pursue an interview with one of them (I received an offer, but ultimately decided on another company I'd been introduced to by a friend).

</comment><comment><USER5> I got a job through "who wants to be hired": [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9127238](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9127238)

An employee from the company saw my post and reached out. Really enjoying the job so far.

</comment><comment><USER6> We (CircleCI) have hired a lot from the whoishiring threads, where we have posted on-and-off for the few years they've been running. We found our first engineer there, and made somewhere in the range of 5-10 hires from it total.

</comment><comment><USER7> I got an interview and an offer from a company that I found via [http://whoishiring.it/](http://whoishiring.it/) (featured a couple weeks ago, puts all the whoishiring posts on a map). In this case they took a while to reply because of the holiday week / weekend, but I've also had (non-HN) applications that just disappear into nothingness.

</comment><comment><USER8> I just hired (like signed an offer yesterday) by making a "How to" blog post on my blog two months ago.

I posted this post in a couple of relevant linked in groups and that's it.

As it happened the company was looking for an expertise in the exact thing that I've posted.

Just sharing ...

<comment><USER9> The old 'you make your own luck' phrase applies to you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I didn't get hired from the monthly thread, but I did get a job at a YC startup through an HN post. Since then, we've found the quality of HN candidates to be overall strong. I definitely recommend it as a way to connect with companies and possibly bypass the standard application flow.

</comment><comment><USER11> "who is hiring" actually had some of the best quality job posts I encountered in my job search.

I didn't try posting in "who wants to be hired."

</comment><comment><USER12> Nobody. I am tempted to think it is a giant scam by some marketeer to get people to post email addresses that they can send spam to. That means by extension all the people here saying "yes" are the same marketeer that is harvesting emails.

<comment><USER9> Sounds like you had a bitter experience.

Yes an individual job post __could __be a scam, for example a recruitment company instead of the hiring company. This would be super-rare I 'd think.

However the whole system is clearly not a scam, and is amazingly beneficial to the community.</comment></comment>


Thoughts on Toxic Masculinity - <AUTHOR> https://bitsnbytes.blog/2019/02/05/thoughts-on-toxic-masculinity/ <comment><USER2> The term toxic masculinity is itself sexist. Isn't that what we're trying to avoid?

<comment><USER3> If the term toxic masculinity is sexist, then masculinity, itself, is equally sexist.

<comment><USER4> Consider that statement with sexes reversed. Is it still true? Because I never hear of women being 'toxic'. The term is just name calling, and has a history of a specific agenda. We can move forward with unsilvered tounges.

<comment><USER3> >Consider that statement with sexes reversed. Is it still true? Because I never hear of women being 'toxic'.

"toxic masculinity" isn't calling men toxic, it isn't even calling masculinity toxic, it's referring to a subset of masculine behavior which is harmful both to women and men, but mostly to women. Why would you consider calling women toxic to be the reverse?

Is there such a thing as "toxic femininity?" I don't know, I'm not a woman.

But whether or not there is has no bearing on whether toxic masculinity exists or what it represents. After all, as many people like to point out in discussions of gender, men and women are different, right? So there's no reason to assume the _cultures_ of men and women shouldn't have different pathologies. That's what terms like "masculine" and "feminine" exist to describe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good thoughts.

In my mind, "toxic" is just another epithet used in meaningless and unproductive name-calling. This doesn't spur moral progress, but in fact impedes it.

Name-calling and shaming _never_ help, but sometimes you can put yourself in a state of having a pure heart, talk with kindness to someone who is doing something wrong, and change the world.

</comment><comment><USER6> Good points here. There is no such thing as "toxic masculinity." There are only individual bad behaviors. Being a male does not automatically condemn one to such bad behaviors. Even the social and cultural norms imposed on men don't require bad behavior. Each person can take individual responsibility for how he wants to present himself.

There was a time when we thought that women were "less than." In many countries, this is still the case. We also thought that black people were "less than" and this isn't the case, either. It's possible (and important) to claim our masculinity and the things that make us male without being a negative factor in society.

We should not be less male, but better males.

<comment><USER3> >Even the social and cultural norms imposed on men don't require bad behavior.

They kind of sometimes do, though. The items on the "negative" list in the article are often reinforced by cultural pressures and stereotypes associated with masculinity and "manhood."

To simply focus on individual bad behaviors by people who happen to be men is to ignore the societal and cultural weight of masculinity and the negative feedback loops a boy or man can feed upon when finding their identity. These behaviors don't exist in a vacuum, they persist in part because they signal conformity to an outdated template of masculinity.

I'm starting to agree that we shouldn't use the phrase "toxic masculinity," though. Not because it doesn't exist - I think it does - but it seems impossible to use without men getting triggered by it. You're disagreeing with the premise even as most of your comment agrees with what the term describes and what the goal of recognizing it should be.

<comment><USER7> When I see people use phrases like "toxic masculinity" I always inject the idea of "toxic Muslim faith". It maps so directly to the language people use around masculinity, and yet most people who would use the phrase "toxic masculinity" want to see themselves as tolerant.

There are a lot of negative aspects of Muslim faith, terrorism being one, that are reinforced by cultural pressures and stereotypes associated with Muslim faith. To simply focus on individual bad behaviors by people who happen to be Muslims is to ignore the societal and cultural weight of Muslim faith and the negative feedback loops a Muslim can feed upon when finding their identity. They persist in part because they signal conformity to an outdated template of Muslim faith.

But there is a big problem if we use the phrase "toxic Muslim faith". It does not spur moral progress, common understanding, or empathy. It is impossible to use the phrase without Muslims getting triggered by it, even if they agree that terrorism is a real problem among Muslims. A Muslim that hears the word "toxic Muslim faith" will uncritically, and not unjustifiably so in my view, see it as an attack on all Muslims and Islam and not just the subset of negative Muslim behavior and culture among Islam practitioners.

<comment><USER3> Fair enough, and I don't want to even attempt to open the can of worms about whether "toxic Islam" exists and whether it _is_ an expression of toxic masculinity, given the patriarchal nature of Islamic cultures and the gender roles enforced by Abrahamic religions, so on and so forth.

But the objections here still aren't to the premise, but the term. Meanwhile, women just want to live in a society that doesn't demean them, deny them agency over their bodies or which uses violence against them as social currency. It seems petty that the only response many men seem to have is that it's mean and hurts their feelings.

Call it what you want, call it something else, it's still a real thing.

<comment><USER7> What we heard primarily from people favoring restrictions against Muslims such as the travel ban, is the need for security against the bad behavior which is associated with the targeted demographic.

It was not petty when Muslims only response to the travel ban was to get their feelings hurt. They can not accept the framing of the narrative that all Muslims are responsible for terrorism any more than men can accept that all men are responsible for sexism. It is impossible to have a civil discussion with such starting point and thus what we get is a singular response of objection to the narrative rather than a civil debate about the real down to earth problems that society has and how to fix them. Only by removing the framing around the demographic and focusing on the individual can any real progress be had.

> whether "toxic Islam" exists and whether it is an expression of toxic > masculinity

Or maybe "toxic masculinity" is an expression of religion, given religion role in defining gender roles. Opium of the people and all that jazz.

<comment><USER3> >Or maybe "toxic masculinity" is an expression of religion, given religion role in defining gender roles. Opium of the people and all that jazz.

I think it's more that toxic masculinity is an expression of culture as informed by religion.

Many of the negative archetypes around women in the west (woman as deceiver, woman as seductress) derive from Genesis, and beliefs that women should naturally be subservient to men (literally, that woman is to man as man is to God) derive from the New Testament. Political conflicts and power struggles between the Church and Crown denied women rights as an attempt to control property rights and inheritance, codifying gender prejudice into law and social strata. Traditional gender roles and expectations in this case evolved from these status and class roles and the Christian ideals they were based on, which viewed women as property, viewed womens' bodies as inherently sinful and womens' sexuality as being taboo unless it served men.

These attitudes persisted with the secularization of the west and manifested through media and pop culture by way of the male gaze[0] and rape culture[1] which normalize the portrayal of women as sex objects, and of sexual aggression and violence against women as a healthy expression of manhood and signal of virility and status, or else blames women for their own victimhood.

...all of which just describes toxic masculinity in different terms.

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

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

<comment><USER7> If we look at the Abrahamic religions we see a lot of support of violence, hate and general unpleasantness. If we wanted to support the idea that everything that is wrong with the world is caused by Muslims we only need to pick some quotes from the Quran that shows a belief that violence is acceptable against non-believers. It all describes toxic Muslim faith but in different terms.

In the end through, talking about terrorism by framing it as part of Muslim faith is not an effective method to bring civil discussion and progress in eliminating terrorism. All it does it nourishing hate and polarization in society which in turn result in increased risk of terrorism. It forces people, Muslims in the case of toxic Muslim faith, to defend themselves regardless if they are terrorists or not and distance themselves with those who work against terrorism. If one want to actually eliminate terrorism it is better to avoid associating Muslim faith with terrorism and instead focus fully on the individuals that do the act of terrorism.

We could be standing all day long talking about how a secularization of the middle east has normalized the idea that a healthy expression of Muslim faith is to slit the throat of unbelievers and blowing up bombs, or blame the west for their own victimhood. With the full knowledge that this will not help in reducing terrorism and only hurt those that identify as a Muslim and are not terrorist, why continue with such narrative? Why cause harm?

<comment><USER3> >why continue with such narrative? Why cause harm?

Because toxic masculinity exists, and it causes greater harm than wounds to the ego. Refusing to address the subject except through analogy only serves to create a false impression of the nature of the arguments being made, and to distract from the subject at hand. Pretending it doesn't exist as a systemic phenomenon only serves the status quo.

Even if using the phrase will only result in men being defensive and getting triggered by it. It exists regardless, and society if left to its own devices will probably do nothing about it, or the harm that it causes, unless confronted and dragged kicking and screaming into a more just and equitable future.

It is incorrect to claim that everything wrong with the world is caused by Muslims, but no one is making an equivalent claim about everything wrong with the world being caused by men or masculinity. It is incorrect to equate Islam with terrorism, but it is correct to equate toxic masculinity with male culture, because the two relationships are not perfectly equivalent, and not all analogies between them apply. And to cut to the chase, and what I believe is the intended implication of the equivalency you're trying to draw here, feminist critique is not equivalent to bigotry.

So if you disagree with me, as you seem to (and fair enough,) then perhaps you could address the subject on its own terms?

<comment><USER7> Refusing to address the issue is the catch phrase of the far rights view about immigration. It is a poor argument for hate speech regardless if it target someone based on gender or race.

And no, status quo is not served by active addressing the issue rather than mud slinging. It is a well established fact that immigrants has a higher rate of crime and sexual assault. To take Swedish numbers, a Muslim immigrant is 1000% more likely to commit rape than a christian born Sweden. Refusing to debase the discussing by focusing on race and religious demographics does not mean Sweden ignore rape, nor that it is pretending that the problem does not exist (which the far right constantly accuse the government of). Instead the government create policy that address segregation, low income and other factors that plays into crime regardless of skin color or religious faith. A far cry from refusing to address the issue and serving the status quo.

We know how to take the high road in regard to racism, and as a bonus it actually work. Feminist critique when used as an excuse for hate speech does neither. "Toxic masculinity" is misandry, plain and simple, and by continuing with such language all we get is more hate rather than effective policies that address the problems at hand.

That is the disagreement I have with you.

<comment><USER3> Alright, I can see we can't even agree on terms here, so I'm going to bow out.

Thanks for the mature discussion on the topic, though. Even though I disagree with you I'm glad you put more effort in than the usual casual dismissals and snark this sort of thread usually attracts.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook's Cassandra paper, annotated and compared to Apache Cassandra 2.0 - <AUTHOR> http://www.datastax.com/documentation/articles/cassandra/cassandrathenandnow.html <comment><USER2> "Open source has had the reputation of producing good imitations, but not innovation. Perhaps Cassandra's origins as a hybrid of Dynamo and Bigtable did not disprove this, but Apache Cassandra's development of lightweight transactions and CQL are true industry firsts."

Cassandra's misleadingly named "lightweight transactions" are, at best, a novel implementation of a feature that has been around for a long time - Compare and Set.

We wrote a blog post about this called "Those Are Not Transactions". [http://blog.foundationdb.com/post/60455516312/those-are- not-...](http://blog.foundationdb.com/post/60455516312/those-are-not- transactions-cassandra-2-0)

<comment><USER3> As I made clear [1], the novelty is in allowing opt-in to linearizability in a Dynamo-based system. To the best of my knowledge, Cassandra is indeed the first to offer this.

The "lightweight" qualifier was carefully chosen to suggest both that it is based on optimistic concurrency (no deadlocks) as well as less general than traditional "heavyweight" transactions.

Thanks for reading!

[1] [http://www.datastax.com/dev/blog/lightweight-transactions- in...](http://www.datastax.com/dev/blog/lightweight-transactions-in- cassandra-2-0)

<comment><USER4> (Jonathan, please read this comment in a completely respectful tone of voice, because I'm not, and I'm sure Nick was not, trying to start a FoundationDB vs Datastax pissing contest!)

I can easily believe that adding CAS in combination with Cassandra's other features and design choices was harder than providing it in other contents, and that it required novel ideas! As an architect of a distributed, transactional, ordered, fault tolerant k/v store I know quite well that providing multiple properties in combination is usually superlinearly difficult :-) It's also clearly not true that open source projects only copy, unless you are inclined to believe that there is nothing new under the sun at all.

But in your view, do (for example) MongoDB, Zookeeper, HBase, Couchbase, and etcd also provide "lightweight transactions"?

If not, why not? If so, why is a new name for this feature necessary?

<comment><USER3> "We can easily see how to get linearizable consistency if we route all requests [for a partition or region] through a single master [like all the systems you listed]. In a fully distributed system, it is less obvious."

Again, the innovation here is not the functionality per se, which is surely not novel to any INGRES user from the 70s. The innovation is in implementing and integrating it for an eventually-consistent, Dynamo style system.

As for the name, well, there are two hard problems in computer science. Early talks about "putting CAS in Cassandra" got me a lot of blank looks; lightweight transactions seems to work quite well to get the audience/reader in the right conceptual neighborhood.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best VPNs around? - <AUTHOR> What do you use everyday for Internet browsing and downloads? I'm feeling the urge to start using a VPN since where I live, the network is shared with hundred of people. Thank you! <comment><USER2> Vote: Private Internet Access

These sites agree: \-- [http://lifehacker.com/5935863/five-best-vpn-service- provider...](http://lifehacker.com/5935863/five-best-vpn-service-providers) \-- [https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your- anonym...](https://torrentfreak.com/which-vpn-services-take-your-anonymity- seriously-2014-edition-140315/)

<comment><USER3> I'm another PIA user, and for the price, it's been great for me.

One of the founders sometimes comments on HN, which to me is another good sign.

<comment><USER2> I'll stick with PIA for the foreseeable future because it's OpenVPN-based and they allow me to choose my cipher. I get great speeds from every location I've used, and they have quite a large number of locations. That's all I want in my VPN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't use one yet but recently came across this top 5 list [http://lifehacker.com/5935863/five-best-vpn-service- provider...](http://lifehacker.com/5935863/five-best-vpn-service-providers).

</comment><comment><USER5> have you looked at this? [https://www.tunnelbear.com/](https://www.tunnelbear.com/)

<comment><USER6> I've had TunnelBear for a while now and I love it! Highly recommended.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I keep an updated list of reliable VPNs with good support: [http://www.greycoder.com/best-vpns-2014/](http://www.greycoder.com/best- vpns-2014/)

</comment><comment><USER8> I've only used Private Internet Access, Air VPN and Hotspot shield.

But i'd recommend Airvpn.

The problem I had with the other two VPN's I tried was the lack of decent port forwarding. PIA has port forwarding for some of their servers but you can only forward one port. I haven't been able to play games like hearthstone while having the VPN enabled because it needs multiple ports forwarded and I haven't been able to torrent while using a nearby PIA server since the closest server that can port forward is France. Hotspot shield blocks torrents and can be slow so I don't recommend it.

<comment><USER9> +1 airvpn, fast and good tutorials for every device

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you are expecting faster speeds you will likely be disappointed, you're still going through the network you're on.</comment>


Comcast training materials require a "sell" phase, even in support calls - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/2014/08/leaked-comcast-employee-metrics-show-what-we-figured-sell-or-perish/

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure you could have ever called Comcast support and not been aware of this. It's quite obvious. And I'm not entirely sure it's even all that interesting. Plenty of companies do this sort of thing. I've had a credit card company pressure me to buy some additional protection services when I called to activate my card. Just the other day I was chatting with an Adobe support person because I had a question about licensing, and they were absolutely incessant about getting me to buy something right then and there. I don't think this is really some scandalous thing that they're doing. Don't get me wrong -- Comcast is a pretty horrible company. But I just don't see this as being some outrageously over-the-top thing they are guilty of.

<comment><USER3> It all depends on the details. Bringing up possible additional services as part of a support call is fine. If done well, it can be a good thing for both sides. Maybe you actually _do_ need additional services, after all. However, it needs to be brief, to the point, and they need to immediately take "no" for an answer. If Comcast is excessively pushy and isn't actually trying to help you by getting you additional services you actually want, that would be bad. The article doesn't contain enough detail to know which category it falls into.

<comment><USER4> It's very pushy and obnoxious, but it's also well known, so I agree that this is quite a non-story as far as that goes.

My worst experience with an ISP, though, is Megapath. They used to be Speakeasy which had absolutely incredible techs once upon a time.

Once bought out, it was slowly ruined. When trying to cancel, they "lost" my cancellation and the cancel web form (the only way they accepted cancellations) mysteriously failed to work until I was on the phone with a supervisor. Only the fact that the expiration date on my card had changed gave me enough leverage to finally force them to cancel, as I pointed out that I would not authorize any charges until I had absolute confirmation that I was cancelled.

<comment><USER3> Note that a company can't dictate the way in which you communicate with them, although they might pretend to.

Send them a certified letter saying you're canceling their service. If they charge you after that, it's fraudulent. Since you sent it certified, you have proof. If they don't listen to _that_ (which they probably will), let your card company to reverse the charges, or take them to court, or whatever.

Not that this helps you with your old ISP, but if it comes up again....

<comment><USER4> Yeah, looking back I should have kept better documentation and they knew to call me on it, so I used the threat of not letting them charge me (as the card's expiration had changed) to get out.

If I knew to expect shenanigans like that, I would have played it differently, but they had always been good to me prior to that, so it blindsided me. I was only leaving because their DSL offering was no longer remotely competitive and I had already kept it longer than made sense. They simply didn't have a product to offer me at that point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very much worth reading for the magic phrase that will stop the upselling:

 _There are a few things customers can do, per the document, to avoid the sales plays: one of them is to flat-out instruct the agent to not attempt to sell you services. "Customer volunteers a 'Don't sell to me' statement" is explicitly listed under the section titled "Transition to Offer is Not Applicable in the Following Scenarios."_

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm assuming AT&T has this exact same protocol, because a few weeks ago I called them to get my modem fixed because our internet was down for a day and after talking for 45 minutes and assuring them that yes, I have reset the damn modem, the customer service person tried to sell me more channels on my TV service. Which was hilarious because I don't have TV service with them anymore, only internet.

I let him know that it's not appropriate to try and upsell someone on a support call, when the customer's current services aren't even working, much less trying to sell them an upgrade on something the customer doesn't have in the first place.

Pretty amazing how well they set their reps up for failure. A little bit of training could go a long way, but I guess what's the incentive if most customers are basically locked into specific service providers depending on their address.

<comment><USER7> Once I called AT&T for a support issue and they showed me how I could save money on my bill and get more data by switching to a new family plan, that was nice :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> My roommate was recently employed (he quit) at a Comcast branch south of San Francisco. His responsibilities included helping customers with their technical issues, but the only metric of his success was his ratio of sales to customers seen. As a result, he was ranked lower than other employees who saw less clients, solved less problems, but had more sales. I can't think of a better way to discourage customer support and encourage up-selling.

</comment><comment><USER9> The things most companies fail at when it comes to customer service are:

\- Effectively training employees to fully understand the product they are supporting.

\- Enabling communication channels between departments that lead to timely resolutions.

Often you're talking to someone who doesn't know how to fix your problem, isn't sure why things are messed up, has to use a bunch of internal tools that only partially work, may have to communicate with other departments who might as well be black holes and then has to halfheartedly sell you products unrelated to your call.

Companies should be using metrics to help guide decisions, but all too often companies are working for metrics instead of having the metrics data work for them them. Instead of diving deeper into the overall customer experience to figure out if they're even measuring the right things, companies often focus success on driving a narrow spectrum of metrics ever higher, at the cost of everything else.

</comment><comment><USER10> I worked tech support at Gateway (computers) for a short time in the 2001 timeframe. I quit when they based our bonuses on selling upgraded equipment to customers.

Worst part? Most techs would _lie_ and tell the customer their blue screen/crashing problems were because they didn't have enough memory (or similar). Tech gets bonus for selling, I have to install the memory and troubleshoot and fix _the actual problem_ , and I get dinged...

Comments to management of course went into the recycle bin.

</comment><comment><USER11> I hate services which require a phone call or other work to unsubscribe, beyond other changes. There is some argument for higher level security validation for certain service changes, but it shouldn't be done for revenue protection reasons.

(I tend to let American Express cancel services for me if the site makes it very difficult.)</comment>


Video: Watch a site's UI get refactored - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6-q5BheEYU <comment><AUTHOR> I liked the end result much more than the original. It was handy to hear the thought process behind the design, and watch it happen, rather than just a before & after screenshot.</comment>


Ask HN: Why is Erlang so unpopular? - <AUTHOR>

It seems like internet is filled with articles about Python and Ruby on Rails and .NET and LINQ and all that stuff.<p>Why don't people post more info on Erlang? <comment><USER2> Given how popular Erlang was three or four years ago I think that its current popularity is quite stunning. Back then the learning curve was quite a bit steeper since we lacked Joe's book, lots of interesting and informative blog posts, and the current variety of modules and systems to examine and play with.

Info about Python, Rails, .NET/LINQ, and even Java is the sort of stuff that helps a large portion of the programming community get things done in their daily tasks. For most people languages like Erlang, Haskell, Clojure, and Lisp are interesting diversions that they might one day aspire to be able to get paid for, what info that is out there is mostly provided to share the joy of the language and the problems it can solve rather than trying to keep you from going postal at your day job.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think that more people don't commit to Erlang because they're afraid that it's just "the cool thing" - for now. It seems like more and more people are becoming aware of the importance of learning at least one functional programming language, but perhaps aren't sure which to commit to. I personally was a bit torn: Erlang has some great features and is production tested, Clojure is Lisp-esque (kill two birds with one stone) and has access to the Java libraries, OCaml is blazing fast, Haskell seems to be the pick for the "eggheads" and has lazy evaluation (purists seem to gloat over this one), etc... I think it comes down to risk...

</comment><comment><USER4> Why is chocolate more popular than brown rice?

<comment><USER5> On the contrary, brown rice is more popular than chocolate. Consider that most of the world's population survives primarily on rice with some other protein sources and water.

<comment><USER6> Yet in regards to chocolate's sugar and instant gratification versus rice's underlying substance and scalability, I think kirubakaran's analogy was subtly accurate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> People don't post more info on Erlang because people don't use Erlang as much.

.NET, Python, and RoR have much wider use.

The better question is, why don't people use Erlang?

<comment><USER2> People do, but most problems can still be solved just as easily by the standard set of programmer tools. Most desktop apps don't need to scale across multiple processors (yet) and most web services can get by without needing serious scaling muscle. Some of this is starting to change, which is why languages like Erlang are being noticed and talked about (and even used) at the bleeding-edge. Revisit this question in four or five years and the question will probably be more along the lines of "why are people still using <insert current popular language here>?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Doesn't seem too unpopular right now.</comment>


Linux exists only because of a happy accident - <AUTHOR> https://augustl.com/blog/2019/linus_and_linux_happy_accident/ <comment><USER2> It's also an accident that Linux won the mantle of "most popular Unix clone". It could just as easily have been a BSD, and frankly, many wish it actually was

<comment><USER3> At this point, Linux's chaotic bazaar nature as compared to the BSDs is more a symptom of its success than any intrinsic technical decision. If a BSD were today's Linux, it would probably look broadly like today's Linux in all the ways that BSD fans dislike.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The accident and then the pain of spending another whole week to re-install Minix. A very interesting case of necessity being the mother of invention.

</comment><comment><USER5> Trivia: it was called 'freax' at first.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, some FTP server maintainer with a fedora hat (at least last I saw him) renamed it Linux. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wasn't aware of this anectode. It's rather nice, actually.

</comment><comment><USER8> A case of "eXtreme Dogfooding".

</comment><comment><USER9> Nice story, didn't know about it. Dual-booting is older than I thought! 1991

</comment><comment><USER10> Hell, we all only exist because of a happy accident.

(Well ok, not so happy for some cases.)</comment>


Introverts prefer mountains - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150227181329.htm

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure I buy this. Sure the mountains can make you secluded. However, I prefer mountains because I'm into action sports - and where else can I get good mountain biking, whitewater kayaking, backpacking, and hang gliding? Or maybe that makes me an introvert that prefers things to move quickly?

<comment><USER3> You can be into all those things AND be an introvert. It's about how you connect with people or not.

I'm not saying the study is true or anything, just that it could be. I find it interesting that in a mountainous region, there's less paths in/out, so it's like a civilization level example of a controlled social experience. Ports and to a certain extent plains allow approach from everywhere.</comment></comment>


So hard to have a date: js calendars review. New jquery calendar-picker - <AUTHOR> http://roberto.open-lab.com/2010/03/23/so-hard-to-have-a-date/

<comment><USER2> Am I the only person who likes to be able to type in a flexible date format and have it autocorrect that to a known date? (I set this up for an internal work tool using <http://www.datejs.com/> and it worked great.)

I type faster than I use the mouse. But everyone wants me to use a mouse. :-(

<comment><USER3> The problem with all the date pickers that take text input is that they can't differentiate between 03-05-2010 being in March or May. I worked on some software for a company doing federal compliance consulting for employee hiring processes and requirements. We found that most people don't read (MM-DD-YYYY) type notifiers most of the time and immigrants were most likely to write dates as DD-MM-YYYY where as those born/raised in the US would write MM-DD-YYYY. When dealing with hiring issues getting those things wrong can lead to fines for the employer, incorrect eligibility for benefits for employees and other issues. What we ended up doing was having the date picker automatically show up and start moving to the date as it was typed in. If you entered 03-05-2010 and you meant May 5th 2010 you would see the calendar on March and then most users would switch to the date picker widget to correct the error.

Localized date pickers such as datejs don't solve this particular problem because all that happens is the assumption about what format the date will be entered in changes. So an American in Germany might enter MM-DD-YYYY and the date picker will just assume that it's DD-MM-YYYY because that's the format specified in the de-DE.js file.

I agree that flexible text entry fields are preferable, but I've seen several business cases for preventing the user from being able to enter the date any way they want due to the ambiguity in date formats.

<comment><USER4> Did you test about asking the people to enter the date as ISO yyyy-mm-dd ? I'm not raised in the US and am usually confused of the meaning of some dates, however stating the year first makes it always understandable.

<comment><USER3> Most people ignored any note about what format the date needed to be entered in. We also found that many people were confused by the ISO format, or were simply irritated by it. The solution presented above has eliminated the most errors and seen the least number of complaints for us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What problems does this new approach solve? I see one that it creates: I can't see the whole month at once, so I have to take extra action to get to a date. I completely lose the spatial view of the grid which, among other things, helps me find a date when I don't know the day, and find a day when I don't know the date.

</comment><comment><USER6> What's the difference between the yellow border and shaded highlighting?

<comment><USER3> Selected date vs current date.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> 13 jquery calendars reviewed +1 new cool component

<comment><USER8> Why, if I may ask, would you have one account to submit the story with and then another to reply to the story with? :)

I'm curious!</comment></comment>


Menu Mind Games: Menu Tricks - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/restaurants/features/62498/

<comment><USER2> What a neat blog post. Some comments:

1\. I think that the upper left hand corner is where the eye usually goes first (because we read from left to right in English). In this case, the picture draws the eye to the upper right corner first.

2-4. Classic sales ploy.

5\. Spot on. I scan the prices when they are in a column. :)

6\. I didn't realize that box was part of the menu. My eyes skipped over it, kind of like ad-blindness.

7-8. Nice points.</comment>


First replicating creature spawned in life simulator - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627653.800-first-replicating-creature-spawned-in-life-simulator.html

<comment><USER2> When I read the headline, I thought they had created a pattern that would generate an endlessly increasing population of clones, but as far as I can tell from that video, it's just a big ship disassembling and reassembling at another point on the grid.

Is it really replication, or just an obfuscated form of movement? Perhaps it should be called a transporter?

<comment><USER3> There's already a term - "spaceship" - for patterns which, after a certain number of generations, are translated images of themselves. Indeed, the forum post by the pattern's author describes it as such. However, it seems that the mechanism by which this pattern is translating itself is self-replication followed by self-destruction (if I'm reading the original post correctly - I'm not an expert on the Game of Life), which is unique.

<comment><USER4> You have to see it in action to appreciate how cool this is. Get yourself a copy of Golly, load the pattern, and let it run for 34 million generations (which will take about half an hour on a modern machine). What you will see is a long diagonal line. If you zoom in to the upper left corner you will see the replicator itself. The rest of the pattern is an instruction tape that extends down and to the right. When it runs you will see the tape "running through" the replicator, which builds up a copy of itself piece by piece very, very slowly.

The cool bit is not that it replicates and destroys itself, but that it does so under the control of the instruction tape (which gets replicated along with the replicator itself). This allows you to fine-tune the behavior of the replicator. For example, you can change the rate at which it replicates by adding no-op instructions to the tape. This kind of fine-grain control over the behavior of a Life replicator has never been achieved before.

<comment><USER5> Good summary. It is unique and novel - indeed, as one 'Lifer' said, it is in a category of its own. But I was a little disappointed insofar as it is not quite self-contained or self-replicating yet. By the latter I mean spinning off an independent copy of itself which in turn reproduces, etc.

Incidentally, does anyone happen to know of any '3d life' platforms, rather than the basic Cartesian variety?

<comment><USER6> For 3d "Life", see Carter Bays <http://www.cse.sc.edu/~bays/d4d4d4/>

<comment><USER5> Many thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The original forum post: [http://conwaylife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=399&...](http://conwaylife.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=399&start=0)

</comment><comment><USER8> Makes me think we were engineered, then seeded, and from there we evolved.

But the architect(s) may or may not still exist/influence our destiny. As we may never be able to see our creations flourish when we seed other worlds.

<comment><USER9> Interesting. But doesn't answer any real questions. For--where did the engineer come from?

<comment><USER10> The First Cause? The Unmoved Mover?

<comment><USER9> One might as well refuse to give answer instead.

<comment><USER10> Negative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is there a javascript version of the game of life where we can see this?</comment>


Apple is building a social network, you just don't see it - <AUTHOR> http://paulbjensen.co.uk/blog/2012/02/17/apple-is-building-a-social-network-you-just-dont-see-it

<comment><USER2> With their new OS version Mountain Lion, Its more evident that they are slowly bringing everyone into their product cyclone. It seems as if they are building out what they have envisioned without publicly saying it. Allowing them to own the majority of conversation mediums, including a social network.</comment>


WheresYourDuckBeen.com - A photo sharing community with a unique twist  - <AUTHOR> http://mixreadblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/wheresyourduckbeencom-photo-sharing.html WheresYourDuckBeen.com - is a photo sharing community with the unique twist in idea of rubber duck(s) being included in each and every photo uploaded by all members, this creates much more of a community feeling as members then have a common interest towards other members while seeing them follow the same trend and idea than themselves. <comment><USER2> I read that as "WheresYourDickBeen" and briefly thought that someone had cracked into the next-generation e-stalking scene.

Sadly, the actual product is a lot less scintillating.</comment>


2 weeks after ProductHunt Launch - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/_7OI00Z3UFY <comment><USER2> I really love and appreciate when product makers record their project journey like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks.</comment></comment>


Hello Android - <AUTHOR> https://flak.tedunangst.com/post/hello-android <comment><USER2> > After turning on, it starts applying security updates. Good. One month at a > time. There are many months. This is bad.

I have the same experience with a Pixel.

Today I bought a heavily discounted brand new Pixel 2, because I wanted to try (pure) Android (and migrate to pure AOSP afterwards). After booting the device, I was downloading updates for _6 hours_ while doing nothing else. I really wanted to like this phone, as I don't like iOS either. But I was disappointed. Not a polished experience at all.

First many updates of applications. Fine. Quite quick. Then updating Android 8 to 9. Quite quick too. Then an insane loop of installing nth security update and rebooting. Why can't I get a fresh image in a single step? [1] Especially given that this is a flagship device from Google itself?

Furthermore, the process is really slow and full of glitches. Sometimes updates would stop downloading because there was phone activity, yet I never touched the phone throughout the process. After every update, my phone would spend a lot of time and energy "optimizing apps" (bytecompiling?) only to request rebooting and doing the same thing again and again. Very wasteful.

Lastly, I never got any notification once updates where installed and a reboot was necessary. So I had to keep checking to speed up the process.

Updating from Android 8 to 9 was quick, but there was also a serious glitch I didn't mention. I don't have a wireless connection, just LTE. For some time, there was no option to force the update to be downloaded using LTE! After installing some app or rebooting, suddenly an option to go ahead and use LTE showed up in the same window where previously there was none.

Also, the default settings in my out-of-the-box Pixel 2 out drained battery quite quickly, which I found shocking. Only after disabling NFC, bluetooth, location services and a few other things battery consumption was quite reasonable. I think also lots of services were initially polling for updates, and this drained energy.

[1] Apparently you can do this with adb. Many other users have had the same frustrating experience, though: [https://reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/b04yxp/brand_new_p...](https://reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/b04yxp/brand_new_pixel_2_xl_followed_by_6_hours/)

<comment><USER3> that sounds like an awful experience. All i can say is i did not experience any of this when i moved from an iphone 7 to pixel 2. I was actually impressed how much data transferred over and felt like it took less than 20min for everything to be done

<comment><USER2> I thought I was doing something wrong. But if you read the r/pixel thread I linked above, many other users have the same unboxing experience. I will try to fill in a bug somewhere.

It seems like Google needs to focus on providing a more coherent experience on all devices. Not focusing on just released ones. I understand the Android ecosystem is more complex than the iOS one. But still, the Pixel lineup is quite small.

<comment><USER3> in my day job i work on my company's android team (and ios) so I am pretty familiar with a lot of android devices. I've never been a samsung or moto fan but I've had positive experiences with LG and the Pixel devices. Outside of the Pixel, I doubt google cares too much

<comment><USER2> Yes. What I meant is that Google only seems to care about the current Pixel i.e., Pixel 3 now.

Pixel 2 was only discontinued a few weeks ago, and the unboxing experience is bad as I discussed above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I kept getting told to go android. That the Apple ecosystem doesn't jive with my normal hacker/ricer/keyboard warrior persona.

So I got a oneplus one (when they were new), and it was a fairly decent phone truth be told, but the store was woeful and it felt a lot worse put together. On the whole I was left with a pleasant idea of what Android could be, and aside from the huge size of the device and the motivation span I was pleased.

Fast forward to the release of the iPhone 7/8, and I'm rocking my 5s which is what I was using when testing the oneplus- and now Apple are making phones as large as the oneplus and removing the headphone jack. Also that protruding camera is gaudy.

So I bought a Samsung Galaxy S8, which is large but the curved corners made it fit my hand quite well.

I figure since it's a flagship phone it will be a premium android experience and preceded to make it my daily driver (which I had not done with the oneplus)

Now, something of note: I roll my own carddav/CalDAV and mail servers, in iOS these slot right in to the default apps and you can do nice things like push notify on email if you set your server up to do so. I spent weeks trying to find apps in the play store that could handle CalDAV and carddav. There's a heavily promoted one that just doesn't work. The default apps definitely didn't work, Samsung's version of android (at the time) was simply incapable of it.

Not to mention the UI bugs, the themes that had black text on black backgrounds in menus, the freezes and crashes and after 4-5months I had started to get quite sour.

The thing that tipped me over the edge with going from disliking the phone to hating it was when it decided on my behalf that it wouldn't let me send an sms without signing up for a Samsung account.

I had avoided making a Samsung account for over 5 months and then it brings up a dialog that never goes away while I try to open the messaging app.

I gave that thing to one of my colleagues and he's happy. I went back to an iPhone SE.

<comment><USER5> Too late now I guess, but davDroid is great and is available on F-Droid: [https://f-droid.org/en/packages/at.bitfire.davdroid/](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/at.bitfire.davdroid/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> My biggest grievance with android and smart phones in general is their pathetically short support period. I have a stack of phones which are perfectly functional hardware but no longer updated. If you wait for the price of a newly released phone to come down to the knee in the price curve, you've waited too long because that phone will only be supported for about one more year. This angers me greatly and I have a strong emotional aversion to even the idea of buying a new smartphone. I may even cut off my nose to spite my face in this regard and buy a dumb phone.

<comment><USER7> Buy only bootloader unlockable phones. But Googlers are doing their best these days to disable them as "insecure".

<comment><USER8> Does that really make such a difference? If the baseband and wifi require closed binary blobs which are cryptographically signed to a specific kernel version, what is the point of having an unlocked bootloader or installing alternative ROMs?

<comment><USER9> How common are blobs cryptographically signed to a specific kernel version?

My impression was that with AOSP running it's fairly easy to update the Android versions (the blobs can still contain vulnerabilies, of course).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I feel like the android ecosystem is so diverse its hard to write any comprehensive review about it.

I've had a fantastic experience on my OnePlus devices over the last few years.

To this point, I would have titled this "hello moto whatever and samsung whatever"

<comment><USER11> > the android ecosystem is so diverse its hard to write any comprehensive > review about it

That in and of itself is the basis for a meta-review. The OP says this, in fact:

> I suppose this is really my fault for not spending enough time, not doing > enough research, not reading enough forums to buy the correct phone. Maybe > some people are just too stupid to deserve a good phone.

and this is one of the reasons why I can't bring myself to buy an Android phone. There's not enough hours in the day to do adequate research, and then, as other comments here note, the experience even changes pretty rapidly as e.g. Google's focus shifts away from the Pixel 2 when they release the Pixel 3!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I want to pile on the hate of both that garish startup screen. Seriously, it's not just terrible, it turns the brightness to the max and switches between high saturation colors so fast it literally hurts my eyes. If anyone working for Moto is around here please speak up about it, it's _that_ bad.

</comment><comment><USER13> When buying phones for the USA, buy a phone for the USA. Buying grey market/used phones intended for other markets will cause problems. Not to mention those grey market phones are often stolen and black listed elsewhere.

If you want it to "just work" like an iphone, you'll likely be happiest to get a Pixel.

Especially with google fi, get a USA phone. Then your phone will work in most foreign markets... including Canada.

</comment><comment><USER14> Well, pretty much expected for Google software on Android. Surprisingly, the base OS is fine, it's just the proprietary stuff on top that sucks. You're unlikely to get Fi working with AOSP, but it looks like you're unlikely to get it working anyway.

Sent from my LineageOS phone, getting security updates weekly, very stable, and better looking, in my opinion.

<comment><USER15> Wow cool, I've been wanting to run a more true Linux based phone. What country and carrier are you using?

<comment><USER14> It's still Android, just minus the Google stuff (no Play Services, all open source minus binary drivers, etc). I've used both AT&T and Sprint in the US and have had no problems at all. People who want the Google stuff can still flash Play Services before the first boot if they want and that works good too.

The device list covers lots of stuff you can buy cheaply used (upgrade a Galaxy S4 to Android 9, for instance) as well as high-end new devices: [https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/](https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/)

<comment><USER7> Won't pass Safetynet check without a lot of cat-and-mouse games, so it will be crippled by Google's fiat.

<comment><USER9> I run Nitrogen OS with Magisk on my Pocophone F1 and it passes the SafetyNet checks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I use so many apps in the Google ecosystem like Gmail and chrome and they simply work better on Android. I still can't get push notifications in the browser on iOS. Now Google has brought the Chromebook into play and it's rocking. I can see how if you have been using Apple for a long time and then you switch to something foreign to you then of course it's going to be awkward at first. That's perfectly normal but this article is just silly.

</comment><comment><USER17> My third smartphone was an android, and unfortunately Android is a 'death by thousands cuts' type of experience....

I remember, even when their Dev APi and kits came out, the API was convoluted, unnecessary complex, and also a 'death by thousands cuts' type of experience. IOS development is much better, (the pain point on iOS has always been the signing/cert and test distribution experience, but working with XCOde and iOS Simulators is still a much better experience).

Since then I turned into iOS and never looked back.

I think the reason is that google keeps hiring people that know how to implement Radix sort in top of their heads, and balance a Graph under 2 mins, but really know nothing about UX/UI and overall user experience. Good (native) client work is just not part of their DNA. Youtube, Maps and Gmail being an exception. While Music and all their myriad of chat/social apps being a failure.

I don't think there is going to be a change in the company unless they start fresh with new priorities, user experience before Academic Experimental mental exercises that their APIs tend to become.

Perhaps Fuschia OS is that change.....

</comment><comment><USER18> I have that exact phone, the Moto G6, I love it, about one third the price of an iPhone. I turned off the sound on the intro, I only turn the thing off and on every few weeks anyway. The security updates install when you let them. I doubt there's anything you can do on the iPhone that you can't do on this.

</comment><comment><USER19> The author mentioned the Galaxy Tab S5e but I don't see anybody discussing it so I thought I'd give it a go seeing as I'm typing this on one. In short, I think it's great. Very thin and light considering the screen dimensions. Also, that screen has very thin bezels that are just thick enough to make holding it comfortable. The screen is extremely vibrant OLED that makes my iPad 2017 look washed out in comparison. The tablet has a light Samsung skin overlayed but it's still very fast and responsive though not quite as smooth as the iPad.

Android on a tablet is not for everybody though since depending on your app choices you could be in for a lot of programs intended for a phone looking blown up on this screen. So far, that hasn't been an issue for me since I mostly stick to the browser, Anki, Ghost Commander, Moonreader, emulators like SNES9X and PPSSPP which all either have tablet UIs or it's just not relevant.

The last thing I got this tablet for and which also works great is Termux to have a real command line interface and, though I didn't plan for this, Linux on DEX which gives you either a full blown Ubuntu desktop or you can just start up a BASH interface in a couple of seconds. It's great and it's the real thing right on the tablet. Even works with a keyboard and mouse with the Ubuntu desktop appearing on the tablet rather than external display. It's amazingly responsive too. Much moreso than I expected on a Snapdragon 670 with 6GB of RAM.

If you're thinking about an Android tablet, give this thing a shot. I don't work for Samsung; I'm just a happy user and since OP mentioned it and seemed to be satisfied as well, here's my 2 cents.

Edit: also my girlfriend has a Motorola Play Z something or other and that splash screen really is something else with the "HELLO MOTO" blaring and the robot doing a backflip I cringe every time she reboots it.

</comment><comment><USER20> Counterpoint: I got a Pixel 2 while also switching from T-Mobile to Fi. Surprisingly only took like 20 minutes to transfer my number over and get the phone set up.

The only problem I've had with the phone is the dumb USB to 3.5mm audio dongle. Each one I've had breaks after only a few months of use. Very frustrating because I generally dislike bluetooth headphones but am forced to use them.

I've been loving Fi (it's great if you travel a lot but are also usually on wifi), I've used it in several countries and I end up paying around $35-40/mo (2 GB data or so). If I need to use more data I just go ahead and do so, without having to worry about what kind of plan I'm on, and I'm billed for it in a straightforward manner. Some people complain that their pricing is bad for heavy data users, but my usage just naturally lands at the 2Gb/mo mark so it works for me. I've had much better coverage in the US with Fi as well.

</comment><comment><USER21> In case anyone wants to avoid bad Android issues by buying an AndroidOne phone: I have one (Nokia 3.1+), I'm stuck at Android 8.1, the security update is from February 5th...

After having been burned w.r.t. security updates by Samsung, then Motorola, and now Nokia, I'm more or less done with Android (once I have enough money to ignore the wasted Euros...).

It seems only people able and willing to spend 500+ Euros every year deserve basic security on Android.

not amused

</comment><comment><USER22> > _Finally it stops, with January's update. It is no longer January. I'm stuck > at Android 8.0 January 2019 Security Patch. I manually check for updates > again, and again, but my phone insists it is up to date. I do not like > Android. Android is a liar._

No, it's up to date. I have the same phone - Jan security patch is the latest.

</comment><comment><USER3> i was an iphone 4-7 user and switched to pixel 2 and now im on pixel 3. I've enjoyed my pixel device a lot. my setup experience was nice and the transfer of data from my iPhone 7 to my pixel 2 was very smooth. one thing i should note however is my day job is being a pm for my company's android & ios teams. So i've had a lot of experience with an array of android devices that has made my experience pretty seamless.

</comment><comment><USER23> > I suppose this is really my fault for not spending enough time, not doing > enough research, not reading enough forums to buy the correct phone. Maybe > some people are just too stupid to deserve a good phone.

A common conceit among those who uses a tool or product that is impenetrable to others. It's particularly bothersome when this weak rationalization forms an equally weak pillar of that person's identity, a.k.a. the fanboy / fangirl.

</comment><comment><USER24> I switched in 2012. I never went back to iOS. For me, iOS died with Jobs. Once Jobs got really bad health, he couldn't guide the OS to the next level and iOS became dull in all senses. Android instead jumped to the next level with Kit kat and then with Material design. Material Design is really awesome and i loved all the gestures, customization and services around the OS.

</comment><comment><USER25> iPhone / iOS may sometimes be a pain due to how closed it is, but it just works. And it doesn't spy on you (allegedly).

<comment><USER26> Nor are they apparently as talkative, even when idle

* [https://digitalcontentnext.org/blog/2018/08/21/google-data-c...](https://digitalcontentnext.org/blog/2018/08/21/google-data-collection-research/)

* [https://i.imgur.com/sy9VZO1.png](https://i.imgur.com/sy9VZO1.png) (image from report)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> >First, we need to order a SIM. You can order a sim with a new number, which is what I did, but you must also enter a phone number for the delivery address. If you are trying to sign up for Fi, but do not currently have a phone number, I guess you're out of luck. Somebody didn't really work that user story all the way through.

Fi is designed for phones with eSIMs. With any model of Pixel and a small list of other phones, you don't need to wait for a physical SIM to be shipped to you, and (anecdotal) the 3 times I used it the activation was complete in <10 minutes.

>Once it turns on, the screen plays this insane Hello Moto video thing with flashing colors. Possibly the most garish thing I've ever seen, without exaggeration.

Let me guess, you're an American who lives in suburbia? In places where the smartphone market is competitive you get a lot more garishness, so I guess your views don't align with the majority of customers on that one.

>I pass through the airport and get to the bus stop. Still no data. Fortunately, I already knew which bus to take. I arrive at my destination downtown. Still no data. I wait a bit longer. I wait a whole fucking week. Still no data. I do not know what Google defines a few minutes to be, but I think reasonable people will agree it's less than a week. I do not like Google Fi. Google Fi is a liar.

Project Fi has had the best support of all 8 cell phone carriers I've ever used, so if anyone else is in a similar situation, don't be afraid to check with their support, since one of the selling points of Project Fi is ease of access to support on a smartphone.

>The on screen keyboard defaults to shifting the first letter of a sentence, which is helpful. Unless I'm doing something esoteric like entering a username into a website. So then I press the shift key, which... turns on caps lock. Nobody wants that.

You've been able to choose what keyboard you want for a decade on Android and the case you describe is the only time I've heard of that problem since a couple generations ago. AOSP keyboard will still capitalize if the website has incorrectly marked the field as text rather than a username, but that's not really the keyboard's fault.

There are way maybe genuine criticisms of Android in this comment section than there are in the article. If you approach a new piece of technology expecting to dislike it - or expecting it to perfectly mimic it's competitors - you're going to have a bad time. Most of the criticism in the OP (to me) smacks of someone who doesn't really want to be using Android. For most of 2018 I was using an SE alongside my Pixel 2; I noticed plenty of issues with Android and iOS in the course of that usage, but not one of those overlaps with the article, which makes me think either mine or the OP's usage was superficial.

<comment><USER28> >Project Fi has had the best support of all 8 cell phone carriers I've ever used...

There are many reports of Project Fi having excellent support that turned into total horror when Project Fi ended and was replaced by Google Fi. They frequently show up here on HN, they often involve GFi charging people money for GFi errors, and they nearly always center around the fact that the service has only the thinnest vernier of front-line support followed by forced cancellation. The only effective next step anyone has been able to demonstrate is 'Internet shaming'.

This all makes me sad, as I was hoping to transition to the service late last year. I'm still hoping that things improve eventually, but the trend seems ever downward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> How is this at the top of HN? There's a lot to argue against Google and Android, but this is just inane. Complaining about the _splash screen_ of a phone? This is clickbait for /r/apple at best...

<comment><USER2> He complains about more fundamental things than the splash screen, which I agree is an unimportant issue as it is manufacturer dependent.

For example, he mentions the issue of getting updates one by one, or being stuck with an old system.

<comment><USER30> > I agree is an unimportant issue

It literally yells "Hello Moto" at you…do you not feel like this is unimportant if you wanted to say reboot your phone in a quiet place?

<comment><USER31> Exactly this. The Moto G6 boot animation resembles more a video game cut scene. Its inappropriately loud and flashy and doesn't match the rest of the Moto G5/G6 experience. It cannot be muted, I hated rebooting it.

Edit: it can be switched off. settings=> sound=> advanced=> startup sound

[https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=hello+moto+boot](https://m.youtube.com/results?search_query=hello+moto+boot)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I just got a pixel 3 about 3 months ago.. They delivered it in about 48 hours, and it was ready to go w google fi. Have been using it like crazy, and it takes the best pictures of any camera I've ever owned. The voice recog is flawless to the point where I literally rely on it. I've never seen it download an update. Granted it cost me about 1g all together, which is more than I've ever paid for a phone.. but so far my experience has been fantastic.

<comment><USER14> If you've never seen it download an update, then either it is downloading, installing, and rebooting into them them in the background without you noticing at all (impressive) or it's not receiving security updates (very scary).

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Ok, so you chose a random Android phone because it is mentioned on the Google Fi homepage, although a simple search would let you know that any unlocked phone is adequate. You realized you bought a bad phone for you without previously looking into what are you buying and you're dissatisfied with Android? You know what, stick to your iPhone.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, unless the author just wanted to write in a dismissive and flippant style, it seems they didn't do much research first

<comment><USER34> I think it's meant to be at least a little tongue-in-cheek.</comment></comment></comment>


Why Mobile Apps Will Soon be Dead - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/26778/?p1=blogs

<comment><USER2> This argument can be summed up by simply stating "huge installed userbase + new technology == native app competition". In terms of new tech, he mentions offline access to the application.

This argument has been made before - heck, as he says, the iPhone originally ONLY accepted web apps - and has been demonstrated to be completely wrong through user behavior. Native apps almost always have a better UI and better user experience due to their access to the underlying system API. The API access lets them make their interface components look right, lets them perform tasks in the background, lets them send messages/alerts to the user, and numerous other things that a web app simply cannot perform due to inadequate access to the system API. Until the user experience with web apps is the same as that with native apps, this argument will continue to be wrong.

On a related note, John Gruber has an excellent writeup on this topic here: [http://daringfireball.net/2009/11/iphone_web_apps_alternativ...](http://daringfireball.net/2009/11/iphone_web_apps_alternative)</comment>


'Big K' raided by hackers: Kmart warns customers after malware discovered - <AUTHOR> http://www.itgovernanceusa.com/blog/big-k-raided-by-hackers-kmart-warns-customers-after-malware-discovered/?utm_source=social

<comment><USER2> Getting worse and worse</comment>


IBM puts Oracle to the sword with EnterpriseDB | The Open Road - CNET News - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10224908-16.html <comment><USER2> Putting aside the hyperbole of the article's title and the PR-release tone of its content, one may ask why IBM would feel the need to add to DB2 the ability to run Oracle apps. Well, to steal customers from Oracle, of course. To me that's more or less an admission that Oracle are the gorilla in enterprise RDBMSes and DB2 is the monkey.

The fact that Oracle disdain compatibility with other databases and their tools are generally horrible is a reflection of their hubris, borne of their market position.

Disclaimer: I am an Oracle DBA. I'm not in love with Oracle as a company or anything, they've just enabled a lazy person to be paid far better than he deserves for a long time.</comment>


The current state of Open Source Hardware 2008 - over 60 projects - <AUTHOR> http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/11/_draft_open_source_hardwa.html

<comment><USER2> _ArduiPilot - Navigation for UAVs_

 _MAKEcontroller_ \- read a lot about it. Seems it's very easy to program than the Arduino.

 _Reprap 3D printer_ (these guys have a very good parts list page which mentions different vendors and also generates a shopping cart for you in the respective vendor's website. So it shouldn't be easy to buy and make it if you have the time and money)

Damn! I wish I wasn't a no-buck-making student anymore. Everytime I look at these stuff, I wanna start making a lot of money to buy and tryout all these stuff and build something... something that's atleast half-good as an IronMan suit.

</comment><comment><USER3> Two packages that didn't get any coverage on that page:

1) Megasquirt automotive ECUs

2) GNU Radio software defined radio companion hardware

Both fairly esoteric or not generically applicable. I'm glad to see Arduino is becoming so popular -- a lot of people that would have otherwise never learned anything more technical than Adobe Flash are picking up Processing/Wiring/Arduino and making some pretty neat stuff.

</comment><comment><USER4> I built a Sanguino this morning as it happens. It was quite easy and instantly gratifying. Definitely recommended for any aspiring hardware hackers.

</comment><comment><USER5> Is open source hardware that much harder to do thats why there aren't a lot of projects out there?

<comment><USER6> It seems like almost everyone prefers to play with purely virtual things. It always bugged me that there are so many startups out there and almost all of them seem to do web development stuff while so few do more of what I call "real" (i.e involving hardware) After all, we live in a physical world, so shouldn't we be more concerned about stuff that connects to it one way or the other?

There must be reasons to it: software is more easily controllable (you can do everything by the keyboard), software scales more easily (hardware needs factories for mass-production), and inertia of thinking (powered from the previous reasons)

I think that many interesting upportunities utilising the hardware technologies remain unexplored.

<comment><USER7> I think a lot of it has to do with the cost; software is more or less free to create. So the barrier to entry, hardware-wise, is much higher and requires more capital.

<comment><USER6> If we don't bill our working time by the hour, software is more or less free to create. Desktop software, that is. But here and now, web-bassed software seems to be all the rage, doesn't it? To accomodate decent amount of concurrent users (tens to thousands) you will need hosting that should cost somewhere around $20 to $300 a month. Maybe somewhere on the $20 a month side for the starters.

Many of the hardware projects, and definitely most of those listed in the original post, can be built with that much worth of parts.

EDIT: But that's just the prototype. After that, you need to build the real product (scale, hardware needs factories for that) and sell it (again easier with software). But this doesn't mean we should only do software because it's easier; otherwise we would be like the proverbial drunkard who kept seeking for his money under the lamppost, because it's brighter over there.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Myo armband controlling 2048 [video] - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/24/watch-the-myo-armband-make-one-2048-addict-feel-like-hes-a-part-of-the-game/

<comment><AUTHOR> at the wearscript hackathon at the media lab right now, this tech is pretty crazy awesome. check it out at wearscript.com

making a pokemon game in real life using go, wearscript, a myo, a pebble, and google glass, along w/ a couple of dead long json files.

<comment><USER2> That sounds really awesome but I don't see anything about it at wearscript.com

<comment><USER3> This maybe? [http://wearscript.media.mit.edu/](http://wearscript.media.mit.edu/)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What equity should the first employee get? - <AUTHOR> What equity should first employee get given that he will be offered below market average(30% pay cut approx)?
The role of first employee will be principal developer whereas there are 2 founders(1 technical and 1 non technical).
I saw a relevant post in HN before but it is over 7 years old. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=973060
What is the current market trend in giving equity to first few employees? <comment><USER2> Think of your startup as a gamble (because it is). People place "bets" on the future profits or sale price. Bets are placed in the form of UNCOMPENSATED time, money, ideas, relationships, supplies, equipment and facilities.

Your employee is betting 30% of his market salary.

You, the original founder, are betting part or all of your market salary plus cash to pay the 70% of the first employee's salary and anything else you have bought.

Later you will add more people and they will place bets too.

You have no idea how long the betting will last and how much will be bet until the company breakseven or raises a Series A round.

At that point you will be able to see how much each person bet.

Their equity should be based on their bets.

For example. If you and I start a company and we each bet $100,000 (in various forms) before we reach breakeven we each deserve 50% of the equity. However, if you bet $300,000 and I only bet $100,000, you should get 75% and I should get 25%.

Anything else isn't fair.

This is the essence of the Slicing Pie model (www.slicingpie.com). The Slicing Pie model uses the fair market value of a participant's contribution to not only determine a fair equity split, but also a fair buyout (if any) when someone leaves the company.

Traditionally, equity splits have been based on rules of thumb, industry averages, negotiations or guesses about the value of the company and a person's promised contributions.

Traditional splits are always wrong.

Slicing Pie is used all over the world.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're going to use market rate as the basis, I'd suggest using the same source for equity that was used to determine the 30% reduction in salary.

However, to me, market trends should not be the basis for this decision because the value of the employee will be measured against the survival and success of the company. If the employee is fungible, then it might be better to contract out the work than to invest in the hiring process.

Good luck.</comment>


A non-linearity that works much better than ReLUs - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2fLWGBeaiI&feature=youtu.be <comment><AUTHOR> Could one benefit from it by replacing ReLU with sine activation functions in all DNN (conv.) architectures? In this paper they only show that it works better in MLPs based (non convolutional) deep neural architectures, if I understood it correctly?

Traditional ReLU-CNNs do perform better than Sine-MLPs in one of the tasks(Supp. Table 4).

</comment><comment><USER2> Sounds very interesting, although it has huge prerequites on the kind of problems they are addressing</comment>


Hacking Small Town America - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/05/hacking-small-town-america-the-unexploited-market-of-tyler-texas/238584/

<comment><USER2> I can't bring myself to take this person seriously. As someone who grew up in a real small town, hearing some guy worry about having to make sacrifices in a small city of 100,000 people just seems so silly. Things like "There might not be a Subway within walking distance from my house".

Proximity to other cities is also a big factor. I line in a city of 28k people, and the closest real city is 2 hours away. This place he's moving to is a mere 40 miles from Ft. Worth, TX, a city of over 700k people.

Ultimately it just sounds like a guy who thinks he's "roughing it" by driving his motor home to campground with electricity and running water.

<comment><USER3> Minor note: Tyler is 100 miles east of Dallas. There's a distance marker at US 69 and I-20 that says "Dallas - 100" that I've seen about that many times so it stands out. :) To compare, there are about 40 miles between the city centers of Dallas and Fort Worth, or Fort Worth and Denton.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sure, maybe the polling place info may not be online, but I'll bet that the polling places haven't moved for years and that folks don't have problems finding them.

as to "), but no one seems to have done any analysis of it (disappointing since the town has four colleges)." - what is the benefit of said analysis?

>I expect to spend a great deal of time actively disagreeing with people. ... > The list goes on. Tyler has information that could be freed. Tyler has government that could be opened. ... > Instead I'm going to hack Tyler to be what I need it to be.

Ah yes, the big city kid is going to teach the yokels how to do things.

If Tyler is at all typical, it's about 100x as open as Chicago.

If the author wants Chicago, he should stay there.

</comment><comment><USER5> "I'm going to do my best to live without being a consumer of gasoline, just as I did in Chicago."

Good luck with this. I don't think he realizes how pedestrian unfriendly cities in the Southwest are. He'll quickly realize a trip to pick up groceries will take 2 hours via bus, and he'll be forced to walk without sidewalks in 105 degree heat to the bus stop while everyone else drives by in airconditioned cars looking upon him like he is homeless.

<comment><USER6> <https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Tyler,_Texas> is in east Texas. Big stretch to call that Southwest.

Also at 100k people it isn't exactly "small town America" as the article claims.

<comment><USER3> Tyler is the county seat of Smith County; that's why it has 100,000 people. For comparison, the Tyler/Longview (nearest city of size that isn't a suburb of the other) area has about 415,000 people. The population of the next- nearest major area in Texas? Dallas/Fort Worth at 6.6 million people. The question of what makes up "small town America" is somewhat fuzzy, but Tyler, compared to an 70 minute drive (not at all unreasonable for a state the size of Texas) west, fits the bill.

The other point from anamax about the city slicker teaching the yokels how it should be done is very apt. There is a reason why hackers gravitate towards Silicon Valley: people like to be with other people who are doing the same thing. Tyler is by no means dumb. As the author--who admittedly also posted here that he didn't want to debate the article--points out, there are two universities (University of Texas-affiliated, I might add) and two junior colleges. The area is also home to pipe and robotics companies. It is also very insular, especially when it comes to "being shown how things are done" because the Dallas area has been the older, wiser brother to Tyler for decades.

Oh, and "nothing about local politics?" I guess the reporting from KLTV, the oldest television station in Tyler, doesn't count.[1]

1 - <http://www.kltv.com/category/74361/politics>

<comment><USER7> Erm, 100K is not small town America.

I grew up outside of a town with 5K people; it was the largest town in a 50-mile radius.

Small towns have under 1K people, at least where I come from.

<comment><USER8> I live in Scotland, where the entire country has less people than Dallas/Fort- Worth - and even here 1k people isn't a 'small town', it's a village.

The town I grew up in had a population of ~35k, and it was definitely a 'small town'.

These things are all relative to your local norms, but I think demanding that 'small towns' have at most four people and a lame horse is excessive.

<comment><USER9> It has an urban population of 96,900 that is fairly large by Scottish Standards. Inverness and Stirling have ~70,000 each and they are cities.

<comment><USER10> In Europe (at least continental), there is a clear distinction between "village" and "town", because historically, "town" was a legal status granted by the king or church (city would be perhaps the town where the archbishop would have his seat), but it wasn't necessarily distinguished so much by its size, they'd be all very small.

Personally, I'd but the line between "town" and "city" to having some kind of rapid rail transit. (That'd mean, for example, that in the country where I live is just one city.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> @all I'm the author of the post (@onyxfish). I'm not even remotely interested in debating its merits here. You all seem well-equipped to form your own judgements. However, for the sake of clarity, I wrote a __blog__ post that got __aggregated__ by The Atlantic. The original post is at <http://hacktyler.com>. It wasn't written for anyone but those who know me, but people liked it so its become public. Think what you will.

<comment><USER12> What did the Atlantic offer you. Just a platform to republish and reach a wider audience?

<comment><USER11> Yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> All his assumptions from the blog posts seems to be based on what he found online. Wait till he goes there!

</comment><comment><USER14> I know Tyler, Texas only as the home of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, where all the patent trolls take their cases. I always just assumed it was because the jury pool were morons. Which isn't fair, kind of like this article.

</comment><comment><USER15> Offtopic, but for some reason I wanted to take a closer look at Tyler, Texas. Loaded it up in Google Earth's streetview and "drove" around a bit.

Where is the city centre of Tyler?

I started around where Google placed the "Tyler, Texas" sign but the area looked like some rundown neighbourhoods that you could expect to find at the far edges of a big city.

<comment><USER16> I'm from Tyler. There's not really a "city center". There is a downtown area, which is where Google drops you, but the surrounding area is mixed; some of it is fairly nice, and some of it is a bit run down (as you say). The downtown area mostly hosts legal stuff—courts, lawyers' offices, city government, etc.

South Tyler is generally considered to be somewhat nicer than the downtown area (which is further north). For instance, one of the nicer neighborhoods in Tyler is Holytree, which is off of Grande near its intersection with South Broadway. There are also some nice areas around the southern parts of Paluxy, which runs roughly parallel to Broadway. A lot of the nicer areas, though, are not actually within Tyler itself, but in the surrounding suburbs.

<comment><USER15> Thanks, I'll "drive" some more! ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What ever happened to The Atlantic's attention to detail? Articles don't use balanced quotes, have '--' rather than '–' emdashes, and now sound like a teenager's angry blog with opening lines such as "things are fucked up" referring to one's private life.

<comment><USER18> He is obviously not particularly thrilled with getting divorced and having to move from a city that he is fond of, to a smaller, less interesting location, so I think we can cut him some slack. This subject didn't seem to require that he write in the style of John Updike, after all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Looking forward to seeing what he accomplishes. What are some of the better "hack gov data" orgs or apps?

I know of the Sunlight Foundation and OpenSecrets -- what else?</comment>


Starting in 2009, Beijing Internet cafes will photograph every user - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081017-beijing-smile-youre-on-internet-cafe-camera.html <comment><USER2> The reality of the situation: When I was in china over a few months in 2007/2008, I spent a lot of time in internet cafes. What would happen is that I'd go in, and ask to use the internet. They'd ask me for a passport. I'd say I didn't bring mine. They would then take out a card with a chinese persons face on it (i.e, an already registered internet card with some random person on it), and type those details in. I could then go do what I wanted. They had several of those cards with various people on them. This was true in 4 or 5 different cities. I never showed my passport and they never insisted that I leave.

So, even though they build in these mechanisms, there is little enforcement, and the internet cafe owners are more interested in making money than in following some government regulation.

By the way, when we say internet cafe here, in china, it's not usually like a 10 seat cafe. It's usually a pretty big hall with 100-200 computers, you can smoke in there, and it's usually packed with people.</comment>


A Google Interview Question - <AUTHOR>

I recently interviewed with Google for a product manager position. I wasn't really looking since I have been actively working on my startup.  But since the Google recruiter found me on LinkedIn and reached out to me, I went ahead and gave the whole interview process a shot.  Overall, the process was professional and well organized.  I thought I answered most of the questions well except for this one:
For any given day, calculate the total number of miles traveled by all the passengers using the subway.
Just want to share this! <comment><USER2> Here is how I would have approached. The average commute time is 40 mins for New Yorker. The population is 12 millions and during a work day it goes up to 20 million.

So I assumer 20 Ml . Out of the 40 mins assume 20 mins spend on 15 mins- 20 mins spend on path, LIRR, NJ Transit etc.. so this gives around 20 - 25 mins of average commute in subway.

Assuming arounds 40 percentage uses subway

8 million * 5 - 7 miles= 40 - 50 million miles..

</comment><comment><USER3> Approximate population of NYC = 20 million Assuming 40% of population rides subway everyday no. of passengers = 8 million Avg miles ridden by each passenger let's say is 10. Total miles ridden = 80 million miles.

Way too many assumptions. Are they sensible? I don't know.

</comment><comment><USER4> Any chance you can share your contact information so I can ask you some questions about the process?

</comment><comment><USER5> select sum(distance_between_subway_stops(entered,exited) from subway_info where date=any_given_day;</comment>


When people get married around the world - <AUTHOR> https://www.statista.com/chart/19119/global-marriage-ages/ <comment><AUTHOR> I'm Italian, and not surprised at all to see Italy at the #1 spot (getting married at the oldest age).</comment>