Looking for Australian startups to feature on my new blog - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
I'm starting a blog dedicated to Australian startups, I'm going to concentrate on interviewing startup founders, getting insights into starting Australian companies and as well as the business aspect question them on how they were able to tackle the technical side.
Just looking for Australian startup founders/companies to be featured in the opening weeks, so please if your based in Australia I would love to hear from you.
website: http://aussiestartups.com (Currently in Prelaunch)
You can contact me directly at email@example.com or you can use the contact form at www.aussiestartups.com/contact
Thanks a lot <comment><USER2> The Australian startup scene seems to have more 'startup hubs', startup accelerators, startup workshops, startup advisors, startup publications, would-be startup gurus, etc. as it has _actual startups_.

At times the mental image I have is of a tiny handful of miners surrounding by an enormous throng of hundreds of merchants eagerly promoting their particular brands of picks and shovels.

<comment><USER3> hahaha this is brilliant! At the moment that is probably the way it is - "We need to build the forest before putting the animals in." is how I would describe it.

<comment><USER4> The biggest startup industry in Australia is certainly milking other startups.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Stuart from Crowd9 here, we have a few products (plus quite a few unfinished ones):

StoreCrowd, Couponzor & Thinng. Melb based, all bootstrapped, all profitable.

Check me a line on @thegyppo if you want to chat.

<comment><USER2> There are some excellent example pages here. We had a lot of fun reading out selections from <http://fleshlight.couponzor.com/>

Have these companies signed up, or did it just seem like a _particularly_ good idea to use Fleshlight as an example?

<comment><USER5> These are purely examples, and run off an affiliate basis. There's a bit of education needed in this particular marketplace as to why hosting your own coupons locally is a good idea :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice one Will.

I've written a couple of lists that might be a good starting point though the first is a bit out of date being from 2009: <http://www.mynameisned.com/awesome-melbourne-tech-startups> [http://www.mynameisned.com/australian-innovative-startups- ke...](http://www.mynameisned.com/australian-innovative-startups-keep-their- heads-down)

We do a bit of inhouse product development though I wouldn't call them startups just yet: <http://talkbackapp.com>, <http://fanbomb.com> \+ <http://themepivot.com>

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm keen! I'm the founder of Goodfilms: <http://goodfil.ms>

We're based in Melbourne and building a site to help you figure out what films you're going to enjoy. We're about to step out from behind a private beta into a public one, and it's great to see such support for Australian startups.

You should check out our blog post about what we do and why we're different ([http://blog.goodfil.ms/blog/2011/10/07/a-better-way-to- rate-...](http://blog.goodfil.ms/blog/2011/10/07/a-better-way-to-rate- films/)), and if you think we'd be good to feature on your blog, get in touch.

All the best, -Glen Maddern @glenmaddern

</comment><comment><USER8> Hi William,

I'm the founder of TestPilot CI — Heroku for Testing.

We're based in Melbourne and gearing up for a launch in a couple of weeks. I'd be more than willing to take part in your blog and answer any questions about what we do, problems we've solved and the hard life of being a startup. Feel free to contact me (ivan at testpilot dot me) or @IvanVanderbyl

</comment><comment><USER9> It would be great if you didn't include any clone me-too companies.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll try not to, at the moment I'm trying to get into contact with some of the startups that came out of Startup weekend Melbourne.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hey I'm Andrew, co-founder of Noosbox (<http://noosbox.com>). We were one of the first batch of Startmate companies. Happy to share some insight and war stories. Reach me at ajessup _AT_ noosbox.com. We're based in Sydney @ Fishburners.

</comment><comment><USER11> AJ has already plugged noosbox, but the other Startmate companies are

Chorus <http://www.getchorus.com> \- in this batch at 500 Startups

Grabble <http://grabbleapp.com> \- just sold to Walmart

IRL Gaming <http://www.irlgaming.com/> \- not sure what they're up to...

and us BugHerd <http://bugherd.com> \- were in the last batch of 500 startups.

I'd also recommend getting on to Startmate directly, <http://startmate.com.au> and speak to Niki. There is a new batch coming up in January (applications close in a couple of weeks).

<comment><USER12> Co-Founder of Grabble here. IRL Gaming are going well. Another Aussie company that has just moved to the states is <http://recoveryrecord.com> \- an eHealth startup. Disclaimer: I helped build their MVP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hi William, I'm the founder of Jasondb, a cloud NoSQL database based in Melbourne, although we have just registered in Delaware as Jasondb LLC. We have spent the past 2 years in dev mode and are planning to launch early next year. Went to SF as part of AnzaTech last year and to TechCrunch in SF this year, and I have to say the focus seems to be on startups that can whip something up in a week and launch in a month. After spending over 2 years in dev mode on a database written in C/C++, I have gotta say it seems that we are the exception rather than the rule in the startup space. Love to hear from anyone who has experienced similar. Our back story is at blog.jasondb.com

</comment><comment><USER3> Hi William, I'm Co-Founder of Barkles ([http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/11/13/barkles-is-twitter- for...](http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/11/13/barkles-is-twitter-for- debates/)) based in Australia.Would love to answer a few questions for a different angle of what we do.

I would recommend getting in touch with these places (all on Twitter) @inspire9, @yorkbutter, @angelcubemelb and @startupaus. There are so many amazing Australian Startups coming out of the woodwork through these hubs and teams and they will surely give you enough companies to profile.

A great time to feature Aussie startups - The melb scene especially is on the rise.

You can reach me @diesellaws on Twitter if needed.

</comment><comment><USER14> Excellent idea for a startup hub. I'm the founder of Axle Technologies : <http://www.axletech.com.au> \- GPS Vehicle tracking and fleet management for the masses (Web based, that's where the fun is right).

Based out of Brisbane we've spent the last 12 months in software development, hardware development, penning legal paperwork and sourcing customer feedback for features. Bootstrapped through self funding, personal savings and some rusty dreams. We've just finished all our new advertising material designs and are going straight into launch next week.

If you want a chat you can get in touch with me through our contact form on the site.

-Leon

</comment><comment> ryan-allen I work for what you'd have considered a start-up but we're successful now so I don't know what you call us? <http://envato.com/>

We still qualify I think, we're one of the ones that made it! We've been featured on 37signals' Bootstrapped, Profitable & Proud series: [http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2594-bootstrapped- profitable-...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2594-bootstrapped-profitable- proud-envato)

</comment><comment><USER15> We're an education aggregator and reseller out of Sydney <http://coursesnow.com.au/>

Also checkout <http://wearehunted.com/> out of Brisbane.

BTW, we have an awesome shared office space at Mermaid Beach on the Gold Coast. Balcony, 100m from surf, cool tunes. Space for a couple extra people if anyone is interested.

</comment><comment><USER16> Hi,

We launched <http://www.cheapstart.com.au> last month to help small business select cloud software. We're Melbourne based. Being the dreaded 'business- guys' (70%) from a tech background, we crowdsourced everything very successfully, which is busy spawning the next startup! Happy to chat about how to tackle the technical side.

</comment><comment><USER17> Hey William - nice idea. I'm Jenna, Stanford Institute for Entrepreneurship 2011 grad, PhD Clinical Psychology dropout and Aussie Founder of early stage E-Mental Health startup <http://recoveryrecord.com>. Would love to chat about the Australian startup scene, and my experiences in it.

</comment><comment><USER18> Hi William. Great to hear the booming Australian start-up scene getting some deserved dedicated coverage. I work for Flippa.com - worlds largest website marketplace (over $61M websites sold so far) and BRW Fast Starter + SmartCompany Innovation Award Winner. We're based in Melbourne so happy to shout lunch if you're ever in the area!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, thanks for the support I'll be in New Zealand for the next month but I'll be at RMIT uni next year and would love to meet for lunch then.

You can email me and I'll stay in touch. Cheers

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> What kind of startups are you looking for? My father runs Tyro Payments (<http://tyro.com>) and I could try to get in touch with Mike Cannon-Brookes (Atlassian), although I don't know if he would be willing. Are those startups too old/big?

<comment><AUTHOR> As long as they are based in Australia I would love to hear from them, big or old they all would of started somewhere and that's where the valuable information lies.

So if you could get a hold of them for me that would be excellent.

<comment><USER19> Ok, I will look into it (no guarantees :-])!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Just so you know your contact form is broken, "Failed to send your message. Please try later or contact the administrator by another method."

Since I couldn't post it there I shall here.

Sydney based here. Currently running <http://searchco.de/>

<comment><USER21> Hey Boyter,

Is your whois info correct on searchco.de? If so, you should have gotten an email from me. If not, would you mind emailing me?

Thanks, Alex.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Are you including New Zealand startups? There's lots going on over here, Wellington especially.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm actually from New Zealand going there this Wednesday so I would have no problem featuring New Zealand startups

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Hi,

I'm the Founder of Lexim (<http://www.lexim.com.au>), eLearning software designed for teachers not CIOs. We're based in Melbourne, and would love to help.

Feel free to reach out to me at email@example.com or @michaelshimmins on twitter.

Cheers,

Michael

</comment><comment><USER24> Hi William, I have contacted you by email.

I would love to discuss with you about <http://goalstribe.com>, a startup that helps people achieve their goals (and democratize coaching).

We are based in Sydney.

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER25> Of course @kaggle (Melbourne-launched, though I hear they're at least part moving to SF) would be a highlight for your start, given they just raised $11m from some very high profile investors in the Valley.

</comment><comment><USER26> Hi great idea.

I've currently moved to Perth and I'm looking for any regular meetups / shared office space. I'm bootstrapping 2 products right now.

I think I'd benefit massively from some type of shared work space. Anyone know of anything?

<comment><USER27> I'll come to a Perth meetup! Recently moved to Perth as well and tinkering around with my own apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Hey, Tom here, co-founder of Bindle (<http://bindle.me>)..

I'm based in Melbourne---the other founder is in SF. Happy to catch up whenever/however. tom _at_ percolatestudio.com

</comment><comment><USER29> Looking forward to reading the blog. It'll do a lot of good to give the Aussie startup scene some exposure. We've just formed a team, with one founder based in Melbourne, Australia and me in Boston, US...

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER30> Awesome news. So much going on in the Australian tech scene at the moment, the coverage it can get the better. We're launching our beta Friday (ggBet.net), if you need content :)

<comment><USER31> I'd be interested in hearing about the legal hoops you guys have to jump through to launch a betting agency in Australia.. I'd imagine it wouldn't be easy?

edit: oh and by the way, I only knew what your site was from the title bar, though I'm sure you'll have more up there on Friday. Good Luck!

<comment><USER30> We use virtual currency, its fantasy, so we havent had to deal with many legalities. All will be revealed Friday. <http://ggbet.net>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Setkick.com

Online pre-production for film and television. Helping to schedule shooting and communicate with cast and crew.

We are in private testing right now.

I'm a co-founder and happy to talk about anything. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER33> I work for Pollenizer (@pollenizer on twitter) - I'm engineering lead on Pygg. I do a lot of stuff out of work hours too, would be more than happy to chat.

I'm @arcwhite on Twitter

<comment><USER33> And I should probably link to the project _ahem_ : <http://pygg.co>

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Cool. I'm Alex from OrionVM. I just sent you a message on your contact form. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to email me. Talk to you soon.

</comment><comment><USER34> Check out FilterSquad (makers of the Discovr apps), they are based in Perth. <http://discovr.info/>

</comment><comment><USER35> hi - we are a boot strapping startup, <http://geodica.com> Our touchpass product helps business & individuals conduct eCommerce more securely. We can certainly provide insight into starting a business on the side, registering patents, the constant decisions and tradeoffs of a new start and the Australian market place Cheers Ben

</comment><comment><USER36> I would love to see more sites like this. Please don't let it end up in a graveyard of empty wordpress sites like I have on my server!

</comment><comment><USER37> Excited for a this exact thing. Is there any other resource which lists Australian Tech Startups in a readable and up-to-date manner?

<comment><USER38> Here are some blogs:

<http://www.startup-australia.org/blogs>

Not sure how current it is. There's also:

<http://www.startupsmart.com.au>

who have posted a few stories here and anthill which does a lot for the AU startup scene.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'll double check, but I'm pretty sure <http://99designs.com> would be interested.

</comment><comment><USER40> We're always up for a chat. Sydney based, been in the marketplace since Q1 2011.

<http://pinion.gg>

</comment><comment><USER41> A friend of mine is a cofounder of Rome2Rio.

They are in Melbourne, nominally. At the moment I think they are in LA, or Florida or somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER25> Great! Looking forward to reading this.

</comment><comment><USER42> I've enjoyed working with <https://stillalive.com/>

</comment><comment><USER43> Hey mate! Great you are doing this! XHTMLized.com and X-Worlds.com are some to add to the list.</comment>


"Once Wal-Mart decides to go after Amazon, there's no contest," Analyst(1999) - <AUTHOR> http://www.barrons.com/articles/SB927932262753284707 <comment><USER2> Microsoft's cloud business is growing almost twice as fast as Amazon's, with Google far behind

[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/27/microsoft-azure-growing- fast...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/27/microsoft-azure-growing-faster-than- aws-google-cloud-behind.html)

At some point investors are going to ask why are you distracting our aws cash cow with this giant e-commerce/retail behemoth.</comment>


Scott Aaronson on Philosophical Progress (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://intelligence.org/2013/12/13/aaronson/

<comment><USER2> > One final note: none of the positive or hopeful things that I said about > philosophy apply to the postmodern or Continental kinds. As far as I can > tell, the latter aren't really "philosophy" at all, but more like > pretentious brands of performance art that fancy themselves politically > subversive, even as they cultivate deliberate obscurity and draw mostly on > the insights of Hitler and Stalin apologists.

Wow, that about sums it up. :-)</comment>


Hundreds of Army PSYOP Specialists to be promoted this month - <AUTHOR> https://taskandpurpose.com/army-psyop-promotions <comment><USER2> PSYOPs sounds like their operations are funny, but what has been leaked is actually quite chilling and terrifying.

I highly recommend the book The Men Who Stare at Goats. Don't bother with the movie; they fictionalize a lot of it and changes the names of the very real military operatives.

One theory proposed by people interviewed in the books goes back to Abu Ghraib: the soldiers seen posing with the sexually abused Iraqis were pawns. Others reported plain clothes operatives in the facility encouraging the photos and the interrogation techniques.

The various people the book's author interview suggest that it wasn't because of a lack of procedure leading to abuse, but the opposite: intentional abuse. Photos were encouraged to be taken and intentionally leaked to the public, in an effort to scare Iraqis by showing how they could be humiliated in prisons.

This is a terrifying military division that probably does operations similar in ethics to MK Ultra. (The book I mention even suggested one of the suicides in MK Ultra may have even been a coverup for more bizzare PSYOPs operations).

<comment><USER3> That doesn't seem possible. The US are the good guys.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is the second time that this article (from May 2019) has been on the front page of HN in the past 24 hours.

Presumably this is due to the news about the Army being on alert for Involuntary Celibates planning a mass shooting in US theaters for the screening of Joker. [1]

[1] [https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/army-warns- soldiers-a...](https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/army-warns-soldiers- about-incel-threat-joker-movie-report-83451)

<comment><USER5> Why are domestic threats related to incels relevant to the Army whatsoever? This should be entirely within FBI/law enforcement's purview.

Are they worried they are coming from incel service members?

<comment><USER6> As a former service member I can tell you the US Military is pretty much defined by involuntary celibacy. This is especially true in the lower ranks. If you know of an incel, please encourage them to sign up for the military. The structure, discipline, and sense of purpose the military gives you is the greatest inoculation of the anger that comes from involuntary celibacy in young men.

<comment><USER2> What?! That's the opposite. Not to be crass, but people in uniform are the least likely to go periods without reciprocation from advances. Both being in uniform plus the fitness aspects of being in the military make officers and enlisted personal incredibly attractive. It may be anecdotal, but people I know in the military talk about how they often clean up any time they're in a bar.

<comment><USER6> There are definitely guys that clean up when they're in a bar. After all, most soldiers are young, fit, and horny. They are, however, likely describing experiences when they aren't near the base, such as being home on leave, or on vacation. I'm sure you're aware of the propensity for some guys to exaggerate stories of conquest.

When you're on base, or deployed, it's another story. There is a severe dearth of satisfactory partners. Bases grow small, civilians tell their daughters to avoid soldiers, available females line up for the top 10% of males and completely ignore the remaining 90%. The reality is most male soldiers are not having much sex. Now think of a deployment, sailors on a boat (where consensual sex with another service member can get you in trouble), or some mountain top in the middle of nowhere (the goats start to look cute). Those periods last a year or more, and can be very tough.

Why do you think prostitution and strip clubs are so rampant around military bases? It's not because the guys are "cleaning up at the bar" I can tell you that.

If you want to experience the tension created by a room full of drunk undersexed young incels in peak fitness take a trip to any bar outside a remote military base. It's frightening. Good thing they only take that aggression out on each other in a ritual of tribal fist fights and reconciliation by the base MP (military police). Better that than at home polishing their AR-15 while they watch Hentai. On base we keep the guns under lock and key.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't really understand how this is news -- not because of the date of publication, but because this is basically just a gimmicky HR stunt being pulled by the Army to increase retention. They're telling PsyOps soldiers, hey you're so special that we're going to promote a big chunk of you so you can have higher status in the Army. The Marine Corps has done this a few times in recent years with the HUMINT community; it's a kind of intuitive thing to do when you have an MOS community with relatively low numbers, a selective and long training pipeline, and worse-than-expected retention. I'm sure they're giving out great reenlistment bonuses too. What totally bewilders me is why the HN community thinks this is interesting and upvoting it.

<comment><USER8> > What totally bewilders me is why the HN community thinks this is interesting > and upvoting it.

Must be psyops ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if the Army is currently conducting any PSYOPS on domestic targets, particularly via social media.

Influence bots seem quite rampant, I'd be surprised if they weren't working on this - but would be quite the scandal if their operations also targeted Americans, even incidentally.

<comment><USER9> It was legalized in 2013, so the answer is "yes."

[https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals- propaganda-...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/07/14/u-s-repeals-propaganda- ban-spreads-government-made-news-to-americans/)

<comment><USER10> To be fair, social advertising accidents do happen all the time, everywhere.

But USAGM (VOA/RFERL/etc) broadcasting to America is still barred today as it was then. That cited law was a modernization to Smith-Mundt recognizing that internet works very differently than the old method of pointing a shortwave antenna toward somewhere and bouncing the signal off the atmosphere.

There was a relaxation clause for affiliates that often gets misinterpreted and intent of that relaxation was to permit any private news agencies to request and use VOA material. For example, a Minnesota radio station can use VOA Somali material, but that part is up to the free market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For those that don't know, Specialist is a rank in the army.

Each of the individuals being promoted are _already psychological operations soldiers_. They are just going from the rank of specialist to sergeant or corporal. This is honestly a non-story. Soldiers are being promoted all the time, this is just a single large ceremony to account for an organizational reshuffle for the PSYOPS corps, Im assuming.

<comment><USER12> Clearly you haven't read the article. They are all either E-5 or E-6 and being promoted because 'the current rank authorizations were "inadequate to account for Soldiers' extensive training and education in influence theory, human dynamics, psychology, sociology, language, culture, and politics," per the release.'

<comment><USER6> Still, the service branches are always shuffling the deck to maintain the appropriate mix of senior and junior service members, especially in the more technical fields (such as psyops). This could represent an uptick in the use of psyops capabilities and the need for additional senior NCO's, or it could reflect a crop of senior NCO's that are retiring and need to be replaced. Sometimes a field can become bottom heavy, thus they reduce the points necessary for promotion (yes they use a point system), and when a field is top heavy they will offer early retirement, re-classing, and other options.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >Involuntary Celibates planning a mass shooting in US theaters for the screening of Joker.

This sounds exactly like PSYOPs

Heck, this whole "mass shooting" wave sounds like PSYOPs

Which means those guys deserve their promotion

</comment><comment><USER14> I am curious if they are open to some friendly competition, like an Army vs. Civilian PsyOp Hackathon.

e.g. Pick a soft target, get points for manipulating people into doing {x}. Get points for identifying the other sides psychological attempts and neutralizing / countering them. etc.. I would imagine that civilian marketing companies should be some good competition for the Army.

<comment><USER2> and how many points for encouraging depression or suicide? Facebook teams would probably score higher than anyone.

<comment><USER14> I think that would be out of bounds for a friendly competition. Those types of PsyOps occur on some of the lower echelon forums (chan sites) daily. That would not be much challenge either, as many folk there are already struggling with issues.</comment></comment></comment>


How Disney creates snow - <AUTHOR> http://www.disneyanimation.com/technology/publications/55

<comment><USER2> This is interesting, but the post title is inaccurate. This is a new way of doing dynamic modeling of snow, put together by a group of researchers, most of which are affiliated with Disney. Perhaps this model -- or something based on it -- might be used in a CG movie someday. Perhaps such a movie might be made by someone other than Disney.</comment>


Open letter to Google DeepMind - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/fishcooking/ExSnY8xy7sY <comment><AUTHOR> Stockfish developers point out the issues in the match between AlphaZero and stockfish.</comment>


Apple's design process - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2008/03/apples_design_p.html?campaign_id=rss_blog_techbeat <comment><USER2> That was better than I thought it would be. The bit about manager's saying "I want a pony!" really resonates with me. My latest project caused me immense problems because I got one damn long shopping list from the client's head honcho, who finally said (as he left the room) "Oh, and it should look exactly like the one we have now because then we won't have to train people to use it." Now he keeps changing his mind. So the thing about "pixel-perfect mockups" had occurred to me as a way to avoid this in future, and it's nice to have it confirmed.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, this is interesting. I'd like to learn more about their process, but considering how secetive hey are, I'm surprised we learned his much. These processes seem pretty obvious for success, though, so I'm not surprised they make 10 comps for each feature. It ensures the absolute best.

<comment><USER3> Hmm. So I was using the iPhone version of News.YC by the Buxfer guys, and when I went to submit the comment, the iPhone didn't seem to register the click. I kept tapping it, wondering if I missed the button with my finger, then turned the iPhone sideways and pressed it some more.

Apparently it was posting. Sorry about that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So the Apple Design Process doesn't involve _external_ usability testing? I guess I kind of already knew that ... since they're so secretive and all...

</comment><comment><USER5> What really impresses me about Apple is that they manage to not only do truly good design work, but they manage it on a consistent basis.

</comment><comment><USER6> Hey, umm Paul? Don't mean to trouble you in your temple of Arc-ness but it might be time for a little something to keep _this_ from happening... maybe, please sir...

<comment><USER6> For those of you modding us down... the first post was duplicated 25 times, filling the comments on this story.

It is fixed now. Thanks Paul!</comment></comment>


Denial-of-Service in "qs" module (used by express, restify, hapi, +286 others) - <AUTHOR> https://blog.liftsecurity.io/2014/08/06/denial-of-service-in-qs

<comment><AUTHOR> Related advisories:

[https://nodesecurity.io/advisories/qs_dos_extended_event_loo...](https://nodesecurity.io/advisories/qs_dos_extended_event_loop_blocking)

[https://nodesecurity.io/advisories/qs_dos_memory_exhaustion](https://nodesecurity.io/advisories/qs_dos_memory_exhaustion)

</comment><comment><USER2> How to check for this vulnerability in your app:

      > npm install -g nsp
      > nsp audit-package // Run in the same dir as your package.json

This will also report any other vulnerabilities, in addition to the "qs" vulnerability.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great find, looks like this has already been patched in node-restify v2.8.1.</comment>


R7RS Considered Unifier of Previous Standards (2015) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://andykeep.com/SchemeWorkshop2015/papers/sfpw1-2015-clinger.pdf <comment><USER2> What's the general state of the Scheme community? I'm getting the impression that after the backlash against R6RS and R7RS most people moved on to Racket, Clojure, or Common Lisp.

<comment><USER3> Isn't Racket Scheme? They have an R6RS language for Racket ([http://docs.racket- lang.org/r6rs/Using_R6RS_with_DrRacket.ht...](http://docs.racket- lang.org/r6rs/Using_R6RS_with_DrRacket.html)).

I don't see how that's "moving on" if it's still Scheme.

<comment><USER2> No, Racket is a separate language, though it grew out of a Scheme implementation (PLT Scheme) and still includes its predecessor.

<comment><USER4> Yes, but I think it continues in the general spirit of Scheme, despite things like immutable cons cells that make it not fully backward-compatible.

<comment><USER2> Well, you can say that Scheme continues in the general spirit of MACLISP, yet we separate them.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you get started on contributing to open source projects? - <AUTHOR> I've been doing freelance web development for about a year now. I want to start contributing to some open source projects, but I don't know where to begin.<p>Every couple of months I feel like I've learned so much more, it makes me think I need more experience before being able to contribute something worthwhile to any of the open source projects I use. <comment><USER2> Github.com is a great place for this. When you use an open source project from here, go ahead and contribute any issues you find, or comment on them if others have had them. Read a little of the code every once in a while and when you see something you can improve, make it happen.

But if you want to do a lot quickly, you need to find a project in active development. If possible, get in contact with the developers and find out how they are coordinating and planning. Are they using email? Slack? irc? Hangouts? Meetings? Join in if you can!

Once you've decided to get involved, read the code and really understand it. Make sure you are meeting the standards and conventions the others are using, and that your additions are compatible with the rest of the system.

If your not familiar with git, you need to be: [http://think-like-a- git.net](http://think-like-a-git.net)

If you get a good idea, make something simple and open source it. Put it up on Github and maintain it, to show that you are capable and interested in contributing. This might help you with teams that are a little skittish.

And if for some reason you can't find a good project to join, then get a friend or two together and make one. You want to make something that is useful to people, and actually gets people interested.

Some items to you might want to pay attention to when getting your project off the ground are mentioned in the ChangeLog article they are discussing here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2162078](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2162078)

</comment><comment><USER3> find a project you enjoy, see if they have any bugs and try to fix them. Even writing documentation is a contribution to open source.</comment>


The 21st Century Video Platform Apple Should Build - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/7ef8670fe325

<comment><USER2> I don't see it. Sure Apple could do it, but usurping all of the companies that are filling its pockets right now with media payments would not necessarily be the best course of action.

I don't know how a company like Apple could do this and not piss off their media partners. "Don't worry ESPN! We don't need you for our new content streaming appliance, but we'll still sell your content on our other App store!". Somehow I don't think Apple is quite ready to open the floodgates on something like this.

Apple is either going to do an Apple TV with all of their content in tow or not at all.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, please.

But after reading that rather interesting profile of Samsung earlier today[^1], I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see Samsung enter the ring before Apple did. Copy the best ideas from the PS3/PS4, copy the best from the upcoming Xbone, try not to give in to feature creep[^2] this time, and they might have a shot.

Just saying.

[^1]: <http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/01/how-samsung-got-big/>

[^2]: Feature creep tends to kill its hosts.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think most people overcomplicate what the next Apple TV should be and we confuse the service model with the device.

Just open up the current Apple TV to developers. iPad didn't have many purpose-built applications before it launched, and now most major broadcasters, cable networks target the platform. Open it and they will come.

Oh yes, and spend as much of that cash that you need to to get the NFL Sunday Ticket away from DirecTV. ([http://www.adweek.com/news/television/directv-may- punt-away-...](http://www.adweek.com/news/television/directv-may-punt-away- sunday-ticket-rights-147820))

<comment><USER5> If Apple spends the cash for NFL rights, I would hope that they can find a way to add playoff games, show preseason and Thursday/Friday/Saturday/Monday games, and eliminate all blackouts.

I don't care if the price goes up somewhat to compensate, but its absolutely aggravating when you're paying real money for this and you get a crappy product. There's no worse feeling than curling up to watch a game and finding out its blacked out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> yes, apple should embrace distributed live streaming and make it really easy and google glasses or apple glasses should support it. These guys are doing it right now: <http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/bittorrent-live.html> It has been on the drawing board for years, we are still hosting websites on single servers... slowly moving to 'clouds' (owned by single companies).. but we should really be moving to media swarms.

</comment><comment><USER7> Not knocking this article at all, but my minor gripe is with the title.

The original "Modest Proposal" was a satirical article suggesting the Irish eat their children. If this essay is actually following that style, then it's far too subtle for my radar.

<comment><USER8> I plead guilty to being too clever by half. Playing off the Swift original, but using the word "modest" quite literally, not with irony. This is a modest proposal for an Apple TV...

<comment><USER9> But... there's no word play, there. You're just using the actual meaning. I was confused by the title, because I started the essay expecting satire, and then I had to context switch when I realized there was none.</comment></comment></comment>


No one cares about your programming language - <AUTHOR> http://adamghill.com/2012/12/03/no-one-cares-about-your-programming-language/

<comment><USER2> With apologies---'Program what thou wilt an it harm no one'...</comment>


Food allergies and dietary restrictions in Japan - <AUTHOR> http://blog.gaijinpot.com/food-allergies-and-dietary-restrictions-in-japan/

<comment><USER2> White privilege</comment>


Ask HN: Looking back, what have you wasted lots of time on? - <AUTHOR> Personal life, career, dev work, trying to be "clever" about saving money: anything will do. What were/are some of the biggest time wasters in your life?
This is anonymous account, so can be candid about mine... Things I regret as of today:

  * Taking too many business/economics courses, e.g. Managerial Economics, Marketing, etc..
  * Some DevOps stuff, particularly Ansible
  * Django/Python - should've started with Rails
  * Failed side projects that I kept working on for a long time
  * Facebook - deleted it several years ago
  * TV - havent watch it for more than 5+ years
  * Porn - havent watched for several months
  * School, memorizing useless facts - nothing can be done about that, I suppose?
  * Studying Calculus/Linear Algebra because I wanted to go into AI/ML
  * Some video games
 EDIT: added mine <comment><USER2> Analysis Paralysis. I don't think I have any bigger wasted-time-sink in my life then over analysis/planning/selection.

* Loosing an entire evening trying to find the _best_ library/language/engine/etc for a side project idea, rather then actually getting the idea going.

* Loosing entire days trying to find the _best_ design/structure for a project rather then adding features.

* Loosing hours comparing and reading reviews for trivial purchases.

* Designing and redesigning an idea over and over in my head or on paper, but never getting it started as the design wasn't _done /perfect._

* Rewriting a side-project in a new language because it will be _faster, more organized, more elegant, etc_... rather then actually finishing it and releasing it.

* Waiting for the _perfect_ conditions, weather, time, mood, etc to do something.

<comment><USER3> I realize this doesn't add to the conversation but, it is losing, not loosing. English is strange. Lose is unable to find (or the opposite of win), you lost your time, you're losing your mind. Loose is the opposite of tighten. Not sure loosing is a word. If you're not tightening it, you're loosening it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Math.

They tell you it's useful (it is) and beautiful (in a way, for a slightly stretched definition of beauty). What they don't tell you right away is that there's no end to the stuff. Sooner or later you have to say "enough." And since a significant fraction of what I learned before I said that was useless [1], I wish I had said it sooner.

[1] I know you're not supposed to say math is useless. It's the kind of thing a disaffected sixth grader would do. But there are a lot of unnecessary proofs in math: things that seem perfectly obvious and are in fact true, but that require a long and counterintuitive argument to prove. Time and again I read the argument, pondered it, more than half-memorized it when the books could just as easily have said "A complex argument is necessary to establish what is obviously the case. Find it if you want to in Appendix J."

<comment><USER5> > things that seem perfectly obvious and are in fact true,

The problem is there are lot of things that seem perfectly obvious and are, in fact, false. It's not easy to tell them apart.

<comment><USER4> I think it depends on what you mean by false. I've always thought of falsity as a continuum. At one end are obvious _non sequiturs_ like 1=3. A little further along are the novice blunders everybody makes while learning the theory. At the far end are propositions where you have to cook up a really abstruse counterexample to show they aren't true. But that's tantamount to saying that they _almost are_ true. And in fact a lot of the time you can treat them as true and not get into trouble.

Physicists, to take a notorious example, spend a lot more time on the real line than mathematicians do, but in their day to day work they ignore most of what we know about the real number system.

<comment><USER6> > At the far end are propositions where you have to cook up a really abstruse > counterexample to show they aren't true. But that's tantamount to saying > that they almost are true. And in fact a lot of the time you can treat them > as true and not get into trouble.

It seems as if you totally didn't get the point of proof based mathematics. Falsity is not a continuum, either something is false or its true. If you can produce a counterexample the proposition is false.

<comment><USER7> This is not entirely true and depends on the logic system that you choose. Something that helped open my eyes to the different possibilities is this article, which talks about producing a formal logical system for statements in Buddhism:

[https://aeon.co/essays/the-logic-of-buddhist-philosophy- goes...](https://aeon.co/essays/the-logic-of-buddhist-philosophy-goes-beyond- simple-truth)

This is written by a professor that I think has produced some really interesting results. Anyway, he discusses something called a plurivalent logic, which is a kind of paraconsistent logic:

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

These logical systems allow for more than true or false. For example, they allow for neither true nor false as well as both true and false. Outside of their general theoretical interest, there are direct applications to systems with contradictory information. I like the paper "A Useful Four-Valued Logic" by Nuel Belnap:

[https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-010-1161-7_...](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-010-1161-7_2)

which discusses a 4-value logic system and its application to databases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Reading Hacker News.

Even the time I spent on video games was more useful (in teaching me discipline, consistency, etc) than the time I've spent reading Hacker News and getting caught up in the latest insight porn/Javascript framework/argument about the "optimal way to interview"/etc.

<comment><USER9> Is it really wasted time if it's intellectually stimulating, and you can finish what you need to while maintaining your required 8 hours of butt-in- seat office time?

<comment><USER8> The question isn't whether it's intellectually stimulating or not. The question is whether a minute spent on Hacker News is best spent on Hacker News or better spent on something else.

Is reading about a new Javascript framework on Hacker News more intellectually stimulating than actually writing some code? Even if you're just trying to get your 8-hours-of-butt-in-seat-time in, it's a pretty questionable assertion, IMO, that HN is the best you can do with that time.

<comment><USER10> I would say in general depending on where you are in your career, knowing about a lot of stuff on a shallow level and knowing one or two things deeply is a competitive advantage. Especially as you move more into architect or consulting roles or even CTO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Higher Education and academia;

Apparently, maybe that's more of a local thing, there are no job offerings in industry* for Physics BSc or MSc other than web development or data science, since most R&D Jobs either require experience and/or a PhD.

Although I chose Physics mostly due to my curiosity, desire to understand how things work and the romantic idea of working in large scale physics experiments or performing researched that mattered.

I soon realized, after working in different groups over 3-4 years, that academic R&D is fully driven by the publishing frenzy and scientific rigor is sidelined most of the times.

Naively, I assumed that this was mostly due to the fact that I was not at PhD- level, and thought that the academic research world was not like this.

I applied and got a PhD grant at a different institution, and to my surprise+shock nothing really changed, other than the added weight of pseudo- responsibility that was bestowed upon me.

Maybe I have been unlucky, but the work just feels empty most of the time and void of any of the "spark" that initially got me into physics(and higher education for that matter).

With that in mind, I should have pursued a CS, EE, Math degree or a professional/technical degree.

Ironically, I'm currently pursuing a new master's degree in parallel with my PhD in an attempt to pursue a job in a different area(non physics academic research/webdev/data science).

*Non-academia

<comment><USER12> Not sure where you are, but I pursued physics as well and found the exact same endpoint as you. I'm currently teaching, but there's just not the jobs for physics unless you're going to pursue a higher degree. Now, when I talk to students interested in physics, I always tell them to just do engineering and take some physics electives on the side, or to double major in something engineering related.

My most apt description for physics is "useless engineering" when it comes to jobs; a decent overlap in content, but none of the opportunities.

(I also wish I had done math; I've come to realize _that 's_ what I like about physics, outside of astro)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Television and video games are high up on my list of time-wasters. Mediocre girlfriends, PHP, music career, freelancing for crappy clients, electronics repair - the list goes on and on.

Remember that you are not a robot, not everything in your life needs to 100% optimized. It's all a learning experience no matter how much time you fritter away.

<comment><USER10> I don't consider watching television a time waster. I'm either working out while I'm watching TV or spending some down time with my wife. Yeah we have "date nights" at least twice a month, but we often don't want to go out or even talk about what we jokingly call our "feelings and emotions", sometimes we just want to _be_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Trying to figure out the "perfect" tech stack, game engine, etc. to use instead of just going with one for my personal project.

<comment><USER15> This! I'm always thinking of 'does it scale'. and How perfect does it scale, can I do better? I'm a perfectionist so it's hard to commit to a side project because of the tech stack conundrum... I think I'm about to nail down my perfect stack though... Quasar Framework + a custom postgres/hasura backend w/ koa+knex+passport for auth and migrations. Hasura provides full api via graphql. Migrations take care of 90% of the api code needed, so I can then focus on just migrations and frontend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Doing a lot of pet projects but without finishing or digging deeper in any of them. Pretty much 90% of the wasted time can be distributed tot his single reason.

<comment><USER17> I can relate to this. I look back on all of those projects and I do see the basis of the learnings that really moved me forward in terms of technical skill and reasoning. School was horrible for teaching practical knowledge and if I had simply followed the patterns that were applied at work, I would be no better than I was 15 years ago.

So yes, probably some level of time wasted, but best to take some of the learnings from that and count a few victories however small.

<comment><USER16> Yeah agreed. Victories are very important, and a completed project, however crude or badly organized, is better than anything else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here. Can't edit the post anymore, but I would add the following points:

* Following mainstream news -- Lots of clickbait, glad I don't do it anymore.

* Watching random YouTube videos -- however, I've also stumbled upon some great videos that have had huge positive impact on my life (and not only mine)

* Tracking currency exchange rates trying to save few bucks

* Buying cheap electronics -- time you spent fighting with it just doesn't worth the savings, unless you're in dire need

</comment><comment><USER10> A job I should left three years after I started instead of 9.5.

My first marriage I should have left after a year.

Real Estate before the crash.

<comment><USER18> This is a good list. I dumped my house right away - it was such a time suck

<comment><USER10> My personal house that I lived in was not a time suck -- it was a waste of money. Considering that now, 16 years after I bought it and 7 years after I did a "strategic default", it's only worth $7000 more than it was after I bought it.

Now the two rental properties I owned at the time -- those were time and money sucks.

On the other hand, walking away from three houses and five mortgages, and buying a new house in a better neighborhood less than four years later was one of the smartest things I've ever done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> non-entity Daydreaming, imagining myself in better positions and even planning goals to get there, but never actually starting

<comment><USER19> I think daydreaming is not a wast of time, if you can use them to motivate yourself. You have to make a habit out of remembering that you need to start in order to make that daydream come true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Hacker News :)

</comment><comment><USER21> Time:

* Falling asleep /// Waking up at a fixed time, also during weekends. Not eating or drinking (other than water) atleast 4 hours before bed. No screens 1.5 hours before bed. Wool duvet (comfortable temperature range is much higher than down or synthetic, less sweat).

* Waking up /// Drink a glass of water, turn on daylights, do push-ups.

* Styling my hair. Going to a barber /// Trimmed it to 2mm and maintain it bi/tri-weekly.

* Shaving /// Grew a beard and trim it weekly.

* Washing clothing /// Replaced t-shirts, sweaters and socks with merino wool. Doesn't stink wearing it a few times, dries quickly, good for hot and cold weather. Underpants are synthetic because of increased moisture wicking and durability.

Money = time:

* Using shampoo and conditioner /// Use 'No Poo' method (also when I had very long hair).

* Using perfume /// I use deodorant (coconut oil based) to prevent smells.

</comment><comment><USER22> Video games. I think Dota 2, Street fighter 4, and Halo 2 comprise about 3000 hours of my life. It was fun in the moment and I have great memories, but I think it sort of stunted me socially, especially since I took those games so seriously. In retrospect I would've loved to have sunk that time into guitar or other activities like athletics.

</comment><comment><USER23> I wasted the first 8 years of my life after college not knowing what to do professionally and being too depressed to actually get anything done in the meantime.

I also used to wasted time being addicted to the 24/7 news, which not only made subtly upset all day long, but actually made me less informed because the news puts spin on everything and winds up getting almost every key fact wrong in the long run.

I wasted time caring about memes and internet culture, but it did teach me about how ephemeral and quick-changing culture is. Everything is fashion and I know that better now.

Other than that, video games make me happy, my coding forays have made me smarter, my unused accounting degree has made me financially responsible and knowlegable, reddit and hacker news have taught me cued into new things and connected me to people from across the globe.

<comment><USER24> Sounds exactly like me. I was and am still in somewhat depressed states. Lot of anxiety preventing me from putting myself out there, impostor syndrome whispering "you're not smart enough to be a developer", self shaming, etc. The internet being too accessible, yet not having enough of a BS detector myself, and getting sucked into believing polarized, weakly true viewpoints (9-5 is not the way to go! Etc...).

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Possibly this depends on the definition of "wasted". In a life sense, the question is "how could I have spent the time better?".

As it happens, I did some Windows 10 support today, for someone using Outlook for their email hosted by 1&1\. But then, there's helping a neighbour out...

</comment><comment><USER26> Definitely pure math. I spent a ton of time in college studying linear algebra and abstract algebra, and I remember very little of it. The issue with the advanced classes is that the time investment is enormous (1 class took more time than 4 others combined), and they're not worth doing halfway. I think if I'd stuck to computer science, I would have graduated a stronger programmer, and if I'd taken more sociology/art classes, I would have had more fun.

A lot of people talk about beauty in math, but the beauty part of it never clicked for me the way it did for art. I think there's a sterility about proofs and numbers. If you don't _love_ pure math, you will grow to hate it.

<comment><USER27> For all the starry-eyed love that math gets here, I'm glad it's (currently) 2 out of the top 3 voted responses. Throughout a so far 20 year career in tech spanning device drivers, 3D graphics, video, maps, and location/GPS, the highest math I've really had to apply was high school trigonometry and some matrix math. I'm sure some programmers use graph theory and differential equations all the time, but they're probably not plumbing one API to another or copying JSON around all day like the rest of us do.

> I think if I'd stuck to computer science, I would have graduated a stronger > programmer

I took the minimum math needed to graduate with a comp eng undergrad degree (which imho was still way too much) and I agree with you, I'm probably a better general purpose programmer for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> * using public transport / not having drivers license: I got a driver's license only in my mid 30s and I really regret not doing it earlier. So many beautiful days wasted at home, lost touch with friends etc because getting out of town was too much trouble.

* related to that: staying at home too often instead of finding a SO. While I am very happy today, sometimes I wish I'd have found my wife and I had my children earlier. And maybe more children.

* procrastinating and eventually giving up on too many side projects. I have a history of starting awesome side projects and not finishing them for whatever reason, starting as a teenager. If I had finished even one of them, I may be able to live without a day job.

<comment><AUTHOR>
        staying at home too often instead of finding a SO

I am still struggling with that. I am working from home and don't go out too often. I am quite an introverted person, plus not big on dating apps, since they're mostly waste of time :')

I realize that this is a problem, but still don't know what to do about it..

<comment><USER19> I never used dating apps, it always seemed like a ridiculous waste of time, at least for men. But as I am semi-introverted and don't drink, I also had no idea where to meet people. One day I found meetin.org, which was a very active community 15 years ago (today not so much, but meetup.com is somewhat similar). Through meetin.org I attended a Salsa class with other members, then started taking other salsa classes on my own and eventually found my wife at a party when my dance teacher introduced me to her. I think the key is just to a) get out and b) male-dominated places don't count.

<comment><AUTHOR> Dancing classes is indeed a great way to meet people. Thanks for sharing your story!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> with awareness, time cannot be wasted. Everything happened just the way it needed to. Everything happening now happens just the way it should.

<comment><USER29> "Needed to". "Should".

This sounds like you want to have, as Francis Schaeffer put it, "a mysticism with nobody there". You want the assurance of some guiding hand (God or god- like) controlling what happens, but without any guiding hand actually there.

That is, without someone there to have a purpose or intent, there is no "needed to" or "should", there is only what _did_ happen. This sounds like an attempt to have the emotional comfort of someone there, without actually believing that someone is actually there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Reddit :)

</comment><comment><USER31> Why do you regret Django/Python and wish you started with Rails?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't want to start a flame war here, but I think Rails (and gem ecosystem in general) is a _better_ choice than Django, at least for SaaS apps.

These are all my personal opinions, take it with a grain of salt. Having said that, here we go:

* Authentication - it is a pain if you'd like to deviate from the standard Django User model (using username to login instead of an email). I don't like Devise either.

* Asset pipeline, even though it is not updated anymore (sprockets) and partially replaced by webpacker is still better in Rails

* Configuration in multiple files, by environment, instead of a single config.py file

* Sidekiq has a _better_ API compared to Celery. Also, Celery's default broker is RabbitMQ, not Redis. It is really hard to find managed RabbitMQ hosting, for Redis there are plenty

* Mailer previews, small but quite useful utility

* Testing - Minitest and Capybara is just a joy to work with

* I prefer ActiveRecord over Django ORM

I could go on and on, but I remember struggling a lot with Django/Celery when building a SaaS app. I decided to switch to Rails and haven't looked back (Rails has its warts as well). YMMV

<comment><USER32> > I don't like Devise either.

What don't you like about it?

<comment><AUTHOR> It works great if you won't deviate from the common use case. Otherwise, you have to do all sorts of crazy monkey patching. On top of that, it is a relatively old project that has to keep legacy code for backwards compatibility.

I decided to roll my own auth, but was very cognizant about the risks of going down this route. I used primitives provided by Rails (has_secure_password, has_secure_token) and made sure that my implementation is not susceptible to known exploits, such as session fixation attack: [https://guides.rubyonrails.org/security.html#session- fixatio...](https://guides.rubyonrails.org/security.html#session-fixation)

<comment><USER32> > It works great if you won't deviate from the common use case

What have you needed to do that isn't well supported by devise?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> A relationship that took too much work. (I have a work mentality, so tough to recognize.) Maintaining old wordpress blogs. What a nightmare, but I hate to lose old blog posts of mine.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not familiar with WP, but can't you export your blog posts as HTML/CSS or as markdown at the very least, and deploy it to Github Pages or Netlify? THis way, you won't have to manage anything, except making sure domain names renew on time

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> My parser - [https://sparser.io](https://sparser.io)

I was really burning the midnight oil on my previous military deployment with that thing. I was staying up late and waking up early to write code and test features for months. I gained some weight from not exercising. I dreamed about features and defects while sleeping. While in the office when I wasn't writing code I just thought about accomplishing the next set of language support.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why do you think your time has been wasted? I suppose you have had some expectations for the project you didn't meet

EDIT: wording

<comment><USER34> Incomplete expectations is perhaps the best description for how I feel. I am generally satisfied with the project, but it is an amazing amount of work for something that I, perhaps, do not communicating well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> World of Warcraft. :)

<comment><USER36> And now it starts all over again with official classic servers

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Interested to hear about what your issues with Ansible were. It's been a game changer for us over the past couple years. Manual processes that used to take an engineer a week to do manually are done in 20 minutes and correctly every time.

</comment><comment><USER38> I have wasted a lot of time trying to develop people that are content. I tried to invest in them because I wasn't where I wanted to be and was unhappy with myself so I thought everyone was unhappy. I've realized that many people in my immediate network don't know what they're missing because they don't know what's possible. So instead of focusing on my own race, I was lugging dead weight across the finish line while people were stopping to ties their shoes or drinking water. I was moving about unsatisfied until I found startup school and see that I could bumble around in the dark until I find success. I wasted a lot of time preparing for success and researching and planning. I wanted to "get it right" but I had no barometer to measure success.

</comment><comment><USER39> Filtering my decisions through the lens of 'what will other people think'. Especially in my teens and twenties, I spent entirely too much time trying to impress and not enough time doing my thing.

</comment><comment><USER40> Time is only wasted if you don't live in the moment, so I don't waste time. Maybe I could have achieved more if I stopped "wasting" time enjoying life, but I am not sure it is worth it.

</comment><comment><USER41> Javascript frameworks

</comment><comment><USER42> Kubernetes.

<comment><USER43> Why, if I might ask? What were your use cases? Asking as someone deciding whether or not to use it for certain projects.

<comment><USER44> Your projects are never big enough to justify kubernets unless they are.

Rule of thumb: If you can manage it alone you can manage without kubernets. If you have kubernets you can manage it alone.

<comment><USER10> I've never used kubernetes and only have the vaguest idea about what it does. But, in another life I used Nomad+Consul for orchestration of Docker containers and thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

These days I'm all in on AWS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Alcoholism.

</comment><comment><USER46> Warhammer 40'000 ... lots of time and money

</comment><comment><USER47> ( _) Investing my time and effort into friendships.

(_) Television viewing.

(*) Caring about other's opinions of me.

<comment> non-entity I've managed to somehow fall into a seemingly opposie situration where as a kid / teenaer I couldnt care what people thought of me, but as an adult, I'm extremely self conscious.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Overthinking. The introverts' nightmare. :(

</comment><comment><USER49> Gentoo, and a couple unrequited loves :-)

</comment><comment><USER50> Nethack

</comment><comment><USER51> Reddit & Video games

</comment><comment><USER52> Reading hacker news!

</comment><comment><USER53> Computer science</comment>


Feynman Algorithm - <AUTHOR> http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?FeynmanAlgorithm <comment><USER2> Somehow, I'll take that "I have an unusual toolkit" theory over the "he's just super-smart" theory, especially since the later theory isn't really a theory but a "throwing-up of the hands" - and also, Feynman might know Feynman a little better someone else (though that's never certain either).

One thing I noticed in the Feynman book I read was that he seemed good at being willing to going for an outcome without engaging in the usual activity people think of as leading to the outcome - his safe-cracking involved a lot of social engineering rather than insight into the safe's mechanism. He got the safe open without "cracking" it.

<comment><USER3> Once you see the problem the right way, the solution will present itself. Instead of trying to "solve" the problem, work on trying to see the problem from different perspectives.

Like in chess -- "see the whole board."

Feynman said, "You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, "How did he do it? He must be a genius!"

This was one of his "tricks" for finding associations among things others had yet to see.

The more associations you can find, the better you will see the problem and draw from different domains of knowledge. This helped him see things in way where solutions presented themselves.

<comment><USER4> "A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points." --Alan Kay

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I once had this taped to the wall of my cube when I worked for a small internet company. One of the C-level employees saw it and loved it.

In company meetings when we would be talking about a genuinely hard problem, this exec would say "well what I think we need to do is write this problem on the white board, think real hard, and come up with a solution". Silence + confused looks. This happened multiple times.

He ended up being fired within 3 months.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think a huge reason Feynman seems so brilliant is because he didn't learn physics or math in a traditional way. He explored. He had passion for it.

Not unlike the manner in which many successful hackers learn.

Nothing kills your interest in a subject like taking it as a class and getting grades.

<comment><USER7> _Nothing kills your interest in a subject like taking it as a class and getting grades._

Maybe if you have a terrible teacher. The good teachers did nothing but enhance my interest in a particular subject.

<comment><USER8> For me, the teachers will enhance my interest, but the grades aspect of it will muffle it. I'm not exactly sure why this is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really like the variation offered by IraCooper on that page,

       1. Write down the problem
       2. Become convinced it's very important, then think about it
       3. Write down the answer

My own problem solving attempts are often thwarted by me working for 20 minutes and then getting discouraged and convincing myself that what I'm working on isn't really that important. After which I, of course, waste the next hour watching hour tv or something.

If I've heard anything about Feinman it's that he was always deeply interested in everything he did, and his accomplishments reflect it.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think that many such great thinkers have, due to circumstances and early on, have developed

(1) a unique, uninhibited way of looking at problems, i.e. not different from what's generally prescribed to entrepreneurs: Consider _every_ possible lead, even if people say it's stupid/has been done, etc. Einstein, famously had difficulty at school as a kid, so he actually thought about many concepts that we take for granted or find silly ("what would happen if I shine a flashlight while riding a bike").

(2) power to concentrate on a problem. When asked how he came up with his solutions Newton said that he thought on the problem until the solution came to him. This sounds simple but embedding yourself in a problem like that is beyond most people's focusing skills (I can't go by 10 minutes without checking HN, for example).

</comment><comment><USER6> I can't help but feel like this page does a huge disservice to what he was all about. He wasn't some mystical super brilliant genius. He was a guy who had some particular skills in thinking about problems and communicating them effectively. I have enormous respect for him.

Maybe I'm being too sensitive, but it seems like WAY too many things on that page miss the point completely.

<comment><USER11> "mystical" -- no. But "super brilliant genius" -- yes. That's just the best quick way of summarizing it.

Alas, this is a "method" for achieving greatness that you or I can't replicate.

Feynmann was not "just a guy who had some particular skills in thinking about problems". This is just not accurate.

At age 24, his Princeton advisor suggested he join the Manhattan Project. He routinely dazzled the other physicists there, probably the greatest collection of physics talent (Bohr, Oppenheimer, Bethe, Fermi) gathered in one place since the Cavendish Lab in the early 1900s. And that was only the start of his long career.

<comment><USER12> Feynman and other physicists built a mass destruction weapon that they knew it was a mass destruction weapon. Feynman is a murderer [http://science1.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/ten-most-wanted- phy...](http://science1.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/ten-most-wanted-physicists- for-crimes-against-humanity/)

<comment><USER13> Things to consider.

\- Feynman got involved in the belief that the Americans needed to build this before Germany did. Which Germany certainly had the talent, motivation, and resources to do. In short if the bomb was going to be used, he didn't want it used against his country.

\- Once the nuclear bomb was exploded, and Feynman realized what he had helped do, he fell into a significant period of depression.

\- In later years he publicly criticized himself for getting caught up in the project _and continuing it_ after Germany surrendered and it was clear that there was no race.

\- Feynman died believing that his work on the nuclear bomb is what caused the leukemia that killed him.

It is easy to paint a picture of black and white and make people out to be pure villains. But reality is seldom so simple.

<comment><USER14> Do you remember the source where you read he died of leukemia and he believed it was caused by work at Los Alamos?

His ex-wife died of leukemia. On the other hand he died of stomach cancer. (he had 2 cancers).

<comment><USER13> Sorry I don't remember the source on that. I'm going off of memories of what I read some 20 years ago. As my misremembering the the type of cancer shows, my memory is imperfect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How to Solve It, by G. Polya

<http://www.math.utah.edu/~pa/math/polya.html>

</comment><comment><USER16> I think I remember reading Feynman saying that you should always have 15 or 20 problems that you have percolating in the back of your mind at any given time. Then, any time you learn a new trick or technique, apply it to all of those problems. Sometimes the new technique will work really well on one of those problems and you'll look really smart, but all you did was apply a technique from one person to one of your old problems.

I can't find the reference now...

</comment><comment><USER17> The story that best illustrates Feynman for me is in Surely You're Joking Mr F (I think - it might be the sequel). On a trip to Japan he insists on going to an area where there is 'nothing to see' rather than the standard tour, and of course discovers a unique and unspoiled part of the country. But even if he hadn't, he would have considered it a win - in another of his stories, he talks about going to bars and waiting for something interesting to happen, knowing that much of the time nothing of note would occur. That drive to keep experiencing something new, and the understanding that the drive would often lead to nothing, is inspirational to me, and I think is what led Feyman to so many interesting things in so many fields.

</comment><comment><USER18> Reminds me of another classic Feynman/Gell-Mann quote, from _Surely You're Joking_ :

 _Telegdi also sent us a letter, which wasn't exactly scathing, but nevertheless showed he was convinced that our theory was wrong. At the end he wrote, "The F-G (Feynman-Gell-Mann) theory of beta decay is no F-G."_

</comment><comment><USER19> This works, sometimes. The other one that works even better is when explain the problem to your dog.

</comment><comment><USER20> Here is what I would prefer to do:

      1. Write down the problem.
      2. Think real hard.
      3. Program the solution.
      4. Understand changes caused by the solution.
      5. Iterate.

<comment><USER21> I think between 1 and 2 it also helps to talk to other people in your network who might have knowledge / wisdom to share about the problem at hand.

<comment><USER20> Would totally add that! Real problems never get solved in isolation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This must be later version — while a kid he skipped steps 1 and 3 (I am reffering to "He fixes radios by thinking" in _Surely You're Joking_ ).

</comment><comment><USER23> For people not familiar with Feynman, here is a recent review of one of his story books:

<http://goo.gl/5QLaG></comment>


Show HN: We send live atmosphere data from Android phones to scientists - <AUTHOR> https://market.android.com/details?id=ca.cumulonimbus.barometernetwork&3.0

<comment><AUTHOR> We launched pressureNET 3.0 today, which enables our livestream to Dr. Cliff Mass at the University of Washington. I'm currently working on the API to let others query the live data as well. The project is open source and we're working hard to improve weather prediction by improving data inputs to models. Here's our 3.0 announcement blog post:

[http://www.cumulonimbus.ca/pressurenet-3-0-sharing- visualiza...](http://www.cumulonimbus.ca/pressurenet-3-0-sharing- visualization-research/)

<comment><USER2> Really cool use of technology. My only question is why doesn't my iPhone have a barometer? :(

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Yeah, the iPhone is tough. I sit on the edge of my seat with baited breath every time a new iOS device is announced. No luck so far, but I think it'll happen eventually.</comment></comment></comment>


Which project should be "the one" to work on? - <AUTHOR>

I have multiple start-up projects (early demos) but I am having a problem deciding which project should be the project on which I will spend majority of my time.
I can't work on multiple projects simultaneously so I've made the decision that I'll work on only one project :)
What questions should I ask myself? What criteria should I use to pick the right project? What else could be important in my case?
I need your help! :) <comment><USER2> Whatever you need to use yourself first and most.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good idea :) Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> There's something you need to learn about everyday reality, and that is that no one can predict which of many competing projects will turn out to be the most useful, rewarding, successful.

The best advice is to learn basic skills that can be applied to any project that comes along, but don't try to choose the single perfect choice, because _there are no perfect advance choices_.

Another way to say this is with an old saying: "The first casualty of battle is the battle plan."

> What else could be important in my case?

Focus on broad, transferable, general knowledge and skill. Don't specialize too much, because you might specialize yourself out of any interesting occupation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Really good hint</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should you vendor in dependencies instead of using a package manager? - <AUTHOR> So I came across this comment recently (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10604168) through a blog post (Dan Luu's post on monolithic version control: https://danluu.com/monorepo/).
Some cursory googling shows that a lot of the internet really hates vendoring (the first hit on a very neutral search like 'vendoring dependencies' tells me it is 'evil'), but at the same time giant companies like Google most definitely vendor in all their dependencies (and AFAIK, build everything from source).
So as a discussion point... 1) Should we vendor in our dependencies? Is there a point/size of company/size of codebase at which it starts making sense? 2) Have you ever experienced a catastrophic versioning error that actually caused some monetary damage? 3) What were your experiences with vendoring? Was it worth the effort? <comment><USER2> For building your software and its deployment you should actually use package manager instead of vendoring and package manager. That is, a binary package manager (e.g. APT or Yum) with properly prepared source packages (ones that never touch network while being built).</comment>


Vote to Open Source This - WYSIWYG Website Builder utilizing ContentEditable - <AUTHOR>

http://shouldweopensourceit.com/<p>I want to play with the source code, so everyone vote to open source this! Thanks. <comment><USER2> I have not seen WYSIWYG editors as powerful since <table> editors.

Control is empowered and beautifully shown: <http://youtube.com/watch?v=u2fc-1mDlLE>

Is it real? CSS friendly? Somewhat compliant? Iff it is, open sourcing is honorable.

<comment><USER3> Hi, I'm the lead developer.

Yes, it's real. Send me an email to email@example.com and I'll give you access to a demo.</comment></comment>


Cowsay.me - <AUTHOR> http://cowsay.me/

<comment><AUTHOR> The entire hack runs in one line of bash:

while true; do { echo -e 'HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\n'; fortune -s | cowsay; } | nc -l 8080; done

<comment><USER2> Consider changing the headers to text/plain rather than text/html - then it will be perfection.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good call, fixed :)</comment></comment></comment>


Police dispatch records for Michael Brown shooting - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zta9FyoA7TU

<comment><USER2> Thanks for posting this... I can't believe the incident wasn't even called in. St. Louis County asked Ferguson Police Dept about the shooting and were told they are unaware of it.</comment>


Second Life affair leads to real life divorce - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/nov/13/second-life-divorce

<comment><USER2> "He set himself up in a winter chalet with a Cobra helicopter gunship parked next to it."

</comment><comment><USER3> i'm so confused after reading that.

i don't even take my real life as seriously as they take their virtual lives...

<comment><USER4> It almost seems like a publicity stunt to get people interested... sex, betrayal, prostitutes...

<comment><USER5> Have you ever heard of the EVE assassination? Gamers on EVE infiltrated a huge organization, rose to positions of power, then killed the CEO, destroyed her preserved body, and removed billions of credits in-game. The out-of-game cost was something like $16,500 according to inside traders, and the assassination took those players a _year_ to set up perfectly. Of course, EVE was flooded with new users after this.

PC Gamer article about it here: <http://eve.klaki.net/heist/>

The online world is fascinating. You can do so much nowadays.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't see how this is hacker news. flagged.</comment>


Ambiguous ampersands - <AUTHOR> http://mathiasbynens.be/notes/ambiguous-ampersands

<comment><USER2> The reason it's confusing is that the spec is attempting to document the confused logic that browsers implement (almost certainly for backwards compatibility with bugs in older browsers). As an HTML author you shouldn't waste the brainspace on learning these rules, but rather just encode ampersands correctly.

<comment><USER3> It's not even backwards compatibility though. Incorporating common mistakes into the spec is just plain silly (as in the &amp without the semicolon).

I don't understand why HTML maintains its relaxed attitude. Back in the day, it was understandable since humans wrote HTML pages one by one but nowadays it's all written once and then generated through templates. Thus, we can afford to have a strict standard that just breaks when it sees nonconforming markup. If you don't want your customers to see the "page broken" sign, fix your damn website! Losing money and customers is a very good incentive to conform to a standard.

The reason I support stricter markup is because it makes parsing and rendering way simpler. As it is, browsers have "quirks mode" to guess at what the author really ment when they wrote their markup, and no two browser guesses the same. Then there are specialized "html parsers" like beautifulsoup that deal with the bad markup. Away with all that!

<comment><USER4> You go ahead and make a browser that breaks like that, and I'll go ahead and spread the word to everyone I know how crap it is, and generally do my best to wipe it from the surface of the earth - on the principle that it thinks the page encoding is more important than delivering value to the user.

<comment><USER4> I wish the people who downvoted me would tell me what software they work on, so I can avoid it...

The kind of personality dysfunction required to deprioritize the authority and autonomy of the user in favour of machine concerns is enough that I don't want them involved in software I use. Such user-hostile malice is common in open source (due to the intrinsic incentives involved); IMO it's one of the primary reasons Linux fails on the desktop. Everybody is always eager to please the machine, forever creating new "consistent" abstractions, but not so happy to compromise even if such compromise lets the user win.

It's a serious problem. These dysfunctional people are far too numerous.

<comment><USER5> I think the downvotes may have been less about the point you're making and more about its delivery. While I generally agree with you, the rationale behind making stricter markup is to ultimately push web developers to write cleaner code, which makes parsing easier, and the page load faster - so in the end it does come back to what the user wants. In reality not all web developers are so careful.

<comment><USER4> The medium is the message; if I didn't deliver it in the way I did, much of the vehemence of what I said would be lost.

C'est la vie, though, I don't really mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> mike-cardwell Stupid handling of ampersands is exactly why I prevent viewtext.org from displaying articles from <https://grepular.com/>

Viewtext.org rewrites all links to a redirector on their own site, but doesn't decode the entities first. So if I have this link on my site:

      link

Clicking that takes you directly to:

      http://example.com/?1=2&x=y

However, clicking the munged viewtext version of the link, sends you to:

      http://example.com/?1=2&x=y

That is a _different_ URL! Can everyone _please_ learn how to encode/decode html entities and uris properly.</comment>


Rank-and-File Workers Get Bigger Raises - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/rank-and-file-workers-get-bigger-raises-11577442600 <comment><USER2> Instead of paying everyone a "guaranteed income" for doing nothing as some propose, one can cut taxes, reduce regulation, and sanction employers hiring illegal aliens, so that a strong economy will boost wages. The unemployment rate is at a 50-year low of 3.5%.</comment>


Artsy Hacks: Surreal Paintings Jacek Yerka - <AUTHOR> http://vospe.com/2010/09/27/artsy-hacks-surreal-paintings-jacek-yerka/ <comment><USER2> I'm missing something, how they are hacks? Surreal juxtapostions yes, but hacks...

<comment><USER3> I agree. The word 'hack', while we're on the subject of surreal paintings, would be more appropriate for some of Dali's works such as 'Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea which at Twenty Meters becomes a Portrait of Abraham Lincoln' (yes, that's the full title). As the name of this work suggests, it is a painting of a woman looking at the sea which, when viewed from a sufficient distance, becomes Lincoln's portrait. [http://www.authenticsociety.com/about/GalaMediterraneanLinco...](http://www.authenticsociety.com/about/GalaMediterraneanLincoln_Dali)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Masters of Deception" covers this kind of stuff really well: [http://www.amazon.com/Masters-Deception-Artists-Optical- Illu...](http://www.amazon.com/Masters-Deception-Artists-Optical- Illusion/dp/140275101X/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b)

In particular the cover was done by Rob Gonsalves: [http://www.discoverygalleries.com/ArtistGallery.asp?artist_i...](http://www.discoverygalleries.com/ArtistGallery.asp?artist_id=23&category_id=2)

interestingly the same name was used by a hacker group in the 80s: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_of_Deception>

</comment><comment><USER5> These paintings are... amazing. I _love_ this guy's style. I wish there were a game stylised like this (it's sort of like Braid, but somehow better). Thanks for this post.

</comment><comment><USER6> it is strange that this link have made it to the front page of HN.

<comment><USER7> Yes, the word 'hacks' somehow has become appropriate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Direct link to artist's site: <http://www.yerkaland.com/>

</comment><comment><USER9> These paintings are definitely surreal but I was expecting something a little more Escher-like, like his Waterfall for example. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_(M._C._Escher)>

</comment><comment><USER10> Awesome paintings this is truly some great art. But how in world did this get on the front page of HN, this is reddit material.</comment>


Ask HN: Accept offer to apply free online courses to CS degree if I continue it? - <AUTHOR>

This past week, an unsolicited offer was made to me while hunting for cofounders at the university I went to:
The administrator I was speaking to offered to let me apply free online courses as transfer credits to me degree, as well as test out of courses in their dept. On top of that, he offered to speak to instructors from other depts who teach courses courses I need to seek similar flexibility.
I have about a year to go to complete a CS degree, but have been out of school for 3+ years & essentially taught myself most of what's left for the degree. I quit my job in December to pursue my own startup & have a potential investor. I highly value education, but feel degrees from most schools don't represent attained knowledge, so much as the ability & desire to graduate by any means possible.
Plus, it feels as though my desire to become a serial entrepreneur is steadily moving forward. I've lead teams that have placed at or won Startup Weekends, am a "buspreneur" for the Louisiana StartupBus that leaves Tuesday & afterward, I'll have some initial funds (ie. won't need to get another consulting gig for a while after I finish the current one).
I've approached friends and family members for advice & the majority opinion is, as it always has been, to finish the degree. I'd rather start a discussion with the administrator about implementing a general system that others can take advantage of. So far, the advice has been to complete the degree for credibility to start that discussion, but I don't think that's the only way to get that cred.
What's the HN take on this? <comment><USER2> Trust your heart on this one. Education is good because it forces you to fill in gaps that you wouldn't normally want to take. If you have opportunities open now that won't come up later, go for them.

Could you pursue both at the same time? Twelve months isn't very long and you might be able to knock out a degree without much effort and not lose momentum on your startup. The structure might be good and you might make good connections. What would you lose if you started down the path of doing both and bailed after a few months?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think I'd risk losing local credibility if I bail again, unless there's some highly visible progress being made with the startup.

Also, while I'm confident I can manage my ADHD to do one or the other, I'm just not sure if I can handle both. I suspect doin both could also be a hinderance to getting investors, but I'm not sure. I'll definitely be meeting with him after SXSW to examine the options & estimate how much time can be shaved off from the degree. I also want to explore what, if anything, he's willing to do on a larger scale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Take the offer. It might come in handy 15-20 years later, e.g. you might decide to get a graduate degree in some other field, and you don't want the lack of a degree to be the obstacle.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm going to see I this is a one-time offer or if we can revisit it in the future or maybe even set a date in the future for when I'd begin. Having that explicitly defined goal would probably help prep the startup for when I do go back.</comment></comment>