Online payment integration does not have to suck. - <AUTHOR> http://getwillet.com

<comment><USER2> Looks good guys! Congratulations to founders on going live with the site!

I'd love to try this out, but a facebook login wall is preventing me from doing so. I personally don't have an account, but I can see others not wanting to connect their facebook accounts with their businesses.

<comment><USER3> We're considering allowing users to have a Willet account (ie. new user name and pw). Aren't people sick of having so many logins these days? That was part of the incentive to use FB - keep things simple!

<comment><USER2> I personally don't mind creating an account for a service I find valuable. Especially if it's going to be dealing with money. In that case, I would rather create a dedicated account than rely on some external party.

I think when you're talking about a payment integration system, having to create an account is not what will stop "sellers", as you call them, from signing up. It's probably different for end users though.

<comment><USER3> Fair enough. I'll bump this to the front of the feature queue!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What is the limit for spending based on? Like in the Apple iTunes store I have my credit card info registered and can purchase freely. Not sure I understand?

<comment><USER3> Willet works the same way. Spend away until you reach $3 of purchases, then you enter a credit card at this point. We securely store your credit card info in our digital vault. When you reach your limit again, we'll run your credit card and email you a receipt!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting that there have been so many payments start-ups in the last few years. Maybe these guys are the ones who will finally get it right.

<comment><USER3> That's what we're aiming to do!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice! How you deal with the risk involved with letting willet users' customers run up a tab? Or am I not understanding this correctly...

<comment><USER7> Most content has a marginal cost of almost zero (eg, apps, music, etc)… So the only real "risk" is lost sales (ie, people who would have purchased if they weren't able to steal it). But IMO it's unlikely that there are many people who would rather go to the effort of stealing content which they could get for ~$1.

(full disclosure: I'm a friend of the Willet devs)

<comment><USER8> Funny, I recall billing one of my last clients significantly more than almost zero to develop an app for them. Apps cost real money to build, and real money to maintain.

<comment><USER7> Sorry, I'm not sure I understand the context of your comment.

Are you pointing out that the upfront cost of digital content is high? Because, if that's the case, I entirely agree. I'm simply saying that the marginal cost of digital goods is close to zero, so theft of such goods is only a problem if it's done in lieu of purchasing them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow, the site design has come a long way since the last time I took a look.

Really nice guys, I'm digging the new UX.

<comment><USER10> Thanks Matt

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think psychologically people like to pay small amounts, kinda like SAAS but on a micro scale, taken to the extreme.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, most people don't see 'spare change' as 'real money', funnily enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Taking 10%? Making developers wait for you to cut a check?

I guess it's better than Apple's terms, but still.

<comment><USER10> We aggregate small payments (5c - $3) without any upfront or monthly fees and no invasive signup process. Its a much better deal than you can get from virtual currencies because the tab makes converting users much easier!

Waiting for a check is the norm because there are (unfortunately) costs involved in sending money. $100 is not too difficult to make for even a small app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sounds promising, can't wait to see what people use this for

</comment><comment><USER14> Looks great! Really looking forward to see how it's used.

</comment><comment><USER3> Cofounders are here and in chat (<http://getwillet.com/getstarted>) ready for your questions!

</comment><comment><USER15> Yay! I can make money without PayPal taking a big cut.

<comment><USER3> Exactly! Furthermore, you can charge small amounts. Look at all of the success of the mobile app stores and in-app payments. YOU CAN DO THIS ONLINE NOW!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I love the South Park reference!

</comment><comment><USER17> WILLET WILLET WILLET!!!</comment>


Suggest Best Open Source Software to Create Website - <AUTHOR>

Please suggest best Open Source Software to Create Website at its best level <comment><USER2> ASP.NET vNext:

[https://github.com/aspnet/Home](https://github.com/aspnet/Home)

</comment><comment><USER3> That depends on the website you want to create.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reply how about a e-commerce website</comment></comment>


That wild ass recruiting idea - <AUTHOR> http://dave.cheney.net/2014/06/22/that-wild-ass-recruiting-idea

<comment><USER2> I'm going to offer the contrary advice that hiring by employee referral is not a good approach, for these reasons:

1\. Your genius employee does not necessarily know lots of other geniuses. In fact, he might not know anybody. Yes, there are brilliant programmers and engineers who are well-connected, but there are ten times as many brilliant programmers and engineers who are solitary, independent types. If you press them for a referral, you'll get a referral to his brother-in-law who took some computer courses or the guy that was nice to him in university but hasn't found a job yet.

2\. Friends hiring friends leads to cliques. For a startup, two or three friends working together is ideal. But for a larger enterprise, you want to avoid that. Of course, cliques will form by themselves, but why create them from day 1.

3\. It's very cynical to say this, but chances are that your employee is not going to recommend someone smarter or harder working than he is. Why make himself look bad? (One of Paul Graham's articles says that this is true of mediocre programmers, but not of the top ones. Perhaps when you're starting out, you want to work in a room full of geniuses, but what if you are the top dog in the room? Are you going to bring in someone that can obviously show you up?)

Many hiring methods lead to negative quality direction. Example: Making all your hires from Monster.com would be a negative trend. But a lot of people seem to believe that hiring based on employee referral is a positive. I'm sure it's not the worst way--and it's probably much better than relying on Monster.com for instance--but I think that employee referrals lead to quality _loss_ over time.

<comment><USER3> I still don't think he's got the point that every last one of his expanded suggestions are likely to result in a mediocre monoculture.

And yay for sending your employees to places they can meet more young white straight guys.

<comment><USER4> Why young white straight guys?

Honest question. Is this an issue at conferences?

<comment><USER3> Honest questions deserve honest answers:

Even conferences aren't particularly diverse. If they were, you probably wouldn't have had things like the PyCon incident. ([http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/PyCon_2013_forking_and_do...](http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/PyCon_2013_forking_and_dongles_incident))

(Note that here the conference organizers were trying to be diversity aware, but the backlash from people who didn't want them to be was huge.)

More on the state of women's employment in the tech industry: [http://aboutfeminism.me/](http://aboutfeminism.me/)

When I started paying attention to this, I thought there was an issue, but it wasn't that serious. The more I learn, the more serious I think it is.

I don't know as much about race and sexuality as I do gender, but I get the impression isn't all dancing through the flowers there either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We should acknowledge the second edge of this sword. When a company invests in its employees' networks, it not only expands its ability to recruit more people directly, it also expands its employees' ability to find new jobs.

This may still be a net win for everyone, but it's complicated. Imagine you run a company and have identified a few bad employees. Surely you should not reward them by sending them to conferences, right? But wait, maybe you should, because then not only might they spend time learning, recruiting, and doing other things that might be more productive for your company than whatever they're currently screwing up, but they might also find a new job which is both better for them and solves your problem of how to get rid of bad employees without undue liability.

So send your best, most loyal, most enthusiastic employees out into the world to meet other people and spread the word about your company. And send your worst ones too!

<comment><USER6> If you can identify legitimately bad employees, fire them; they are not just a waste of money but an anchor around the neck of the employees who aren't bad.

Of course, this assumes a lot of things such as that you have USA/California style "at will" employment, you are capable of determining that the employee(s) in question are legitimately bad and not just hamstrung by stupid process or demoralized due to reasons you could reasonably fix, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's a wild ass idea: have you engineers do all the resume reviews, screening calls, and interviews. Leave HR and most of management entirely out of it.

Then just hire people who can intelligently speak to a relevant resume, and who get along well with your group. If they don't work out, fire them.

People spend entirely too much time obsessing over how to hire people, usually mumbling some nonsense about how they'll destroy their team or be sued out of existence by a bad hire. Personally, I think it's a combination of desperation to cover one's own ass at all costs, and providing an illusion of control. If they'd focus on improving the workplace and their own communication rather than fretting about voodoo hiring theory, they'd be much better off.

<comment><USER4> Thats what we do. We give HR a spec, they handle talking to recruiters etc.

We get a stack of CVs. We break them into a pile that sound OK and we give each a telephone interview.

If the telephone interview sounds good we send them a scenario that should take a couple of hours, we have a few tailored for different specialities. If we get a good sample back from them we move onto face to face.

Face to face tends to be about an hour with a couple of senior developers and a more management type.

Seems to work well so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cronyism is the main problem. How do you solve it?

[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FindingGreatDeveloper...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FindingGreatDevelopers.html)

Employee referrals: may be slippery when wet

<comment><USER9> Yes. This is great for improving the quality of the immediate next hire, but not great for the diversity of the system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Seems like a poor prescription to ONLY go off of referrals. The bigger the company gets, the more likely people will not want to bring in talent that they might view as competition. I know that's cynical, and perhaps placated by referral bonuses, but it could happen. Also, what about people straight out of college that find you on LinkedIn and apply to a job posting (which I did in NYC since I knew no one), and end up getting trained to be a senior employee? There are just too many scenarios where you're limiting your pool of prospective employees, why not try everything and double down on what works without discounting new opportunities to bring talent in.</comment>


Startup School notes on GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/charlesfeng/startup-school-notes/tree/master/2016 <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, I'm here and taking notes -- I've put some from the morning talks onto GitHub; please PR if you have any improvements or more details! Let's make the best notes ever :)

</comment><comment><USER2> This is very useful. Thanks for doing it, I was gonna attend but something came up last minute.</comment>


Crocodiles and humans live side-by-side in African village (2008) - <AUTHOR> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/earthnews/3394964/Crocodiles-and-humans-live-side-by-side-in-African-village.html <comment><USER2> Currently known as a different species since 2011, desert crocodyle (Crocodylus suchus) a smaller and less vicious species than C. niloticus. There is a lot to discover still about african species of big animals. Many cryptic species that are being discovered just now. Two different african elephants. Several species of ostriches, etc.

Desert crocodyles live in small relict ponds and springs of water disconnected from the big rivers. Any specimen harming any human in such small and "nowhere to hide" ponds will find a lot of problems quickly.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder to what extent they've become domesticated, vs. this just being plasticity in their behavior. (i.e. learning from a young age that humans are friends, not food)

</comment><comment><USER4> Do you know how you can tell a crocodile from an alligator?

It depends on when you see it. If it's later when you see it, it's an alligator. If you see it after while, then it's a crocodile.

:)</comment>


Kid Automates Work, Is Fired, Hired Back, Automates Business - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/vomtn/update_my_friends_call_me_a_scumbag_because_i/ <comment><USER2> For those of you who want the short version of his story, the OP wrote a password-protected program on company time that automated his data entry, and because he was so accurate, was getting most of the bonus money meant for the rest of his group (without anyone knowing he was automating it). He told his boss, who fired him, but then the boss and manager asked for the password to the program. OP refused, called up the boss's boss, OP was brought in to talk, and given a new job as a software engineer.

He negotiated for a salary as good as what he was making before (with bonuses), and negotiated for all the other employees who would be fired from data-entry to get other jobs in the company. OP's original scumbag boss gets fired, all the old data-entry employees/friends are better off, OP gets amazing new job.

Now that being said, perhaps I'm skeptical, pessimistic, or just being negative, but this story seems too perfect. Clever employee gets huge promotion, and negotiates for all of his coworkers to be better off as well. Scumbag boss who fires employee gets fired himself. All within the span of a month.

Perhaps I have a negative view of companies as well, but when he said he programmed it on company time, and wouldn't give up the password, I was surprised that the company didn't just sue him for not giving up company property.

<comment><USER3> I agree. this story plays out exactly like every teenage coder's wet dream. It's got everything: persecution, vindication, crap boss who for some reason gets fired for firing the teenager ( _in the real world, firing someone who refused to turn over company property is not a reason to get fired_ ), teenager saves everyone else's jobs, and even gets a promotion to a much better job.

This kid apparently also has insane negotiation skills, and somehow managed to negotiate his own salary increase and salary increases for everyone else around him.

All this, in a month...

We'll probably see an update in the next day or two that this story was a hoax.

UPDATE: More evidence of a hoax: the kid was making more money in an entry- level data-entry position than a manager-level employee in the company. And that entry-level data-entry position paid substantial bonsuses (which is the alleged reason the kid was making more than his manager.) And on top of all that, the boss was not eligible for bonuses bases on the productivity of his supervisees. Finally, the kid is now apparently the lead programmer in his _own frigging department_ but somehow does not have the authority to change his desk chair. Yeah, that's all completely believable.

<comment><USER4> Upper-level bosses probably never had any intention of firing all the workers just because some script automated a portion of their work. If it's a large- scale, decisions like that probably wouldn't be made without considering MPL abstractly or without considering the costs and bad PR incurred when laying off a significant number of people. That part of the narrative was likely more significant in the kid's mind than reality.

And apparently, the sub-boss was already on thin ice. This may have just been the final excuse needed to get rid of him.

<comment><USER5> Also, I'd guess that when all his employees were re-assigned, there wasn't much point in keeping him on.

<comment><USER6> The post states that one of his coworkers was promoted to the role.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have a similar story which I posted on HN before, here is the repost:

A fair number of years ago I worked a non tech office job for a few months. Basically a large portion of the job was checking though a spreadsheet looking at figures and checking them against a corresponding row in another part of the sheet. Assuming the figures matched you would copy the figures elsewhere in the sheet, append some characters to them and mark ones that were wrong in red. The data I think came from some legacy database.

There were a few more steps that I don't quite recall but basically they provided a list of instructions on how to do this part of the job and I immediately recognized that this was basically psuedocode, there was nothing "human" required at all. They expected a human error rate of around 1% with this and sheets were often checked twice.

A few days into the job I decided to try writing a Macro to do this job, so that night at home I wrote my macro and emailed it to myself. Next day I loaded it up, ran it and then checked the results by hand. I did this until I was satisfied that the error rate was 0.

Next few days I just started running my macro instead of working by hand, meaning I got about 3 hours work done in under a second and could spend the rest of the day doing other (marginally less monotonous) work.

Now in this office they tracked people's productivity levels as well as their error rate, so naturally I end up with obscene performance stats and no errors.

So the team manager of course asks me to explain myself and I show her the macro and offer to show her how to set it up on other computers and explain how well I tested it etc. The response I got surprised me somewhat.

"You are cheating your stats!" was what I was told. Of course I explained that it wouldn't be "unfair" if everyone had the software. Now at the end of every month they had some (cheap) prize for the person with the highest productivity and lowest error rate and since other tasks were not so easily "scored" the spreadsheet task was a big part of the deal.

No matter how I tried to explain it was like hitting a brick wall, because in her eyes I was "cheating". They had been doing this monotonous work for so long and were so used to it that wasting probably hundreds of man months was preferable to questioning if there might be a better way.

Of course I offered to forfeit any "prize" I might win (despite potentially saving them thousands of pounds), but no we type figures and then somebody wins a prize at the end dammit!

<comment><USER8> I had a similar experience, that was at least as groan inducing. I was working a low-level IT job, as an AS/400 operator / network tech. The "IT manager" was a complete fraud who knew about as much about technology as I know about the culture of ancient Mesopotamia, and she had some project she was trying to get done, involving moving some data from an old database into a new one. OK, easy enough, right? Well, a couple of her "pet" subordinates spent a couple of weeks trying to migrate this data and couldn't get it done, so they gave up. I came into work one evening and found a fracking HUGE stack of greenbar on my desk, and then she comes in and goes "we're going to rekey all this data into the new database over the next couple of weeks, so start chewing through as much of it as you can tonight."

My first thought was "WTF?" My second and third thoughts were something like "Are you f%!#ng shitting me?" and "You are f%!#ng braindead."

So, after everyone else left for the evening, I found the machine with the old database (running Paradox 4 for DOS), exported the data to dbaseIII format (because I knew it was a commonly used and widely supported format), put it on a floppy, took it to the machine with the Access database and loaded it up. Turns out I had to write one update query to populate one of the fields, but that took something like 5 minutes. 30 minutes into the whole thing and the entire database is finished.

Next day I see the "IT Manager" and she's like "How much of that data did you key in last night?" I looked at her and said "none." She about blew a fuse and started yelling "Why not, I told you to <blah, blah, blah>?" Then I told her the whole thing was done and she's like "But.. wait, what? But..but... _splutter_ _cough_ _splutter_ but, but... So-and-so and You-know-who spent TWO WHOLE WEEKS trying to migrate that data and you mean to tell me you did it in one night?"

Of course she never forgave me for showing up her "pets" like that.

Needless to say, I didn't work at this place very long.

Edit: there's another fun story to tell about that place, and how this same IT manager used the AS/400 system message queue facility as a poor man's IM system, and - more to the point - used it to talk shit about anybody and everybody she worked with (myself included). Of course this dim-bulb didn't realize that when I was logged in as QSYSOPR I could read all her messages. So, on my last night there, I printed out copies of a few "choice" messages from her, and then sent a systemwide message saying something like:

"Foo: You should probably be aware that a QSYSOPR can read all of your system messages, and knows what you've been saying about everybody in this company. You should probably hope that _somebody_ doesn't take offense, and print out copies of some of these messages and distribute them so that _certain other people_ can see what you've had to say about them."

In the end, I decided not to leave the printouts to be found, but a co-worker told me a few months later that I nearly gave this "IT manager" a heart-attack and that she spent weeks doing damage control and trying not to get fired.

That was like 13 years ago, and I'm guessing she hasn't forgiven me for that either. _shrug_

<comment><USER9> I love stories like these. God knows if they're true:

<http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/The-Indexer.aspx>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I remember reading the original post when he was asking for advice, nice to see him coming back with a good follow up.

The company he works for is definitely doing it right, they've spotted an opportunity to put someone in a correct role with no hiring process, and with them up to speed on the corporate background. They've optimised a department out and managed to retain the staff in other areas, and saved once again money on hiring, and saved money on firing the dead weight (I'm not sure what Dutch employment law is like but it's notoriously difficult to fire someone in the UK). Pragmatic and sensible, companies take note.

EDIT: from my limited experience, every Dutch person (all 6) I've met has been pretty pragmatic and sensible, maybe a cultural thing. I could be wrong though!

<comment><USER11> Firing people in the Netherlands is sufficiently hard that it causes me to think that this story has been fabricated or at least been exaggerated a little. I can see how his original 'cheating of the system' could be seen by his employer as misconduct and thus be grounds for firing, so I'm willing to believe this part. However, the firing of the other people in his department and his old boss smells a bit fishy. Unless they were temporary workers, the employer would have to start a redundancy procedure. The story makes it seem like they were fired on the spot as well.

<comment><USER10> I'd guess they were temp. workers from how it sounds with bonus based on performance and a few other bits from the first post, but even if they're temps you'd still have to begin a firing process unless you can say 'hey, no work left'. But then shifting temps elsewhere is unlikely so who knows, I'd lean towards potential exaggeration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> 1\. Kid disrupted his entire company through the combination of a resentment towards manual labor and a skill set that allows him to automate it.

2\. Kid did not respect the authority of Boss. When Boss fired him, Kid went over his head and sold his actions to Big Boss.

Skill, resentment towards inefficiency, and careful disregard for authority. That is a good combination to get ahead.

<comment><USER13> I the the password he attached to the program also helped a bit. It would seem the boss wanted to continue using it. It's possible he would not have received proper credit without it.

<comment><USER14> Depends on how hard it is to setup. He seems to think it is a little brittle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> BS, BS, BS.

Way too perfect. At the end, all of his coworkers get transferred to other places in the company to do translation work, for the same pay? Uh huh. The only thing this kid did is spin a good yarn and rack up a ton of reddit karma.

Between this and the passing out at 10, I'm more and more of a grumpy, cynical old man...

<comment><USER16> you don't get karma for self posts on reddit

<comment><USER17> Like that matters. Getting front page is satisfaction enough. People are way to credulous about Reddit stories, as if the usernames make them more credible than 4chan.

<comment><USER18> Now listen here, " _jquery_ ", if that _is_ your real--oh, whoa, wait, _jquery_? The javascript framework!? Dude! Oh I'm sorry, man. My bad, I was just... I didn't... I'm really sorry!

<comment><USER17> Now let me tell you a really cool nerd fantasy story that never happened.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> When I was 14, bunch of my cousins and I started working at my uncle's start- up as a summer "internship." Bulk of our job was to find product images and resize them in various sizes. For a while, my cousins were using photoshop to do them and at the least, each image would take a minute. I saw the repetitiveness and wrote a Visual Basic tool that would process entire directories in seconds. Their work was significantly reduced.

We decided not to tell my uncle about my tool for a while so that we could all finish our work a bit early and get out to play cricket together before it got dark.

</comment><comment><USER20> I wonder what the thought process of the original boss was? It seems like his decision to fire the clever programmer was based entirely on the fact that he wasn't doing what he was "supposed" to be doing, regardless of the massive benefits.

I'm glad I've never worked for someone like this. But I'm afraid it's because I've mostly worked in start-ups or small companies where efficiencies and clever hacks are always appreciated. Is that kind of "logic" common in power structures?

<comment><USER21> I think the problem is the boss manages, say, 10 people. Someone points out that the work of those 10 people can really be done by one person part-time and now the boss is redundant because no management is really needed anymore.

<comment><USER22> Pretty much it. This is also a good illustration of the difference between the private and the public sector. In the private sector your boss would rather keep all his employees, but your boss's boss, or your boss's boss's boss, would rather cut costs and increase profit.

Start working for the government, though, and _every_ level of management is keen on having as many people beneath them as possible, and there's no real desire at any level to reduce costs; the less efficient your department is the bigger your budget is and the more important you look.

Occasionally a politician will sweep through with an attempt to cut costs (they're the only ones who even pretend to care) -- the bureaucracy will respond by firing the most _useful_ and publicly visible of their employees to ensure that service levels drop thus justifying their case for an increased budget later on.

<comment><USER23> I had a co-op job with the Navy (civil service) while in college. I sat next to a really nice lady named Peggy who was on the phone every day fielding lost password requests. She'd reset the password, then read the new password to the person over the phone, day after day after day.

I went to my boss and offered to add a forgot password link to the site. His response: "But then what would Peggy do?"

<comment><USER24> This is what I imagine when I hear the phrase "job creation."

If you want something done - your lawn mowed, a meal made, etc - you'll hire someone. But a job for its own sake? What, are you going to hire somebody to move a pile of rocks back and forth across your yard?

A job starts with a need, not vice versa.

<comment><USER20> I have a pile of rocks in my yard... need work?

<comment><USER25> After a couple days of rock moving, I'll just build a pick-n-place robot in my garage to do the work for me, ok?

<comment><USER26> I know you say this in jest... but if you can solve unstructured pick-n-place (ie. non-uniform, unmodeled objects in arbitrary configurations with difficult outdoor perception), you could make some serious bank. This is actually a _very_ difficult problem.

<comment><USER27> He'd rather just go home early than share his robot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I've mentioned this here before, but this sort of thing has been going on for a long time.

When the SF writer Arthur C. Clarke was a young man he had a tedious civil service job that involved merging and consolidating figures (IIRC, it had something to do with government pensions, and he got the job because he scored well on a math test). Since the final numbers only had to be accurate to within a few percent, he started using his slide rule to get his day's quota done before noon then take the rest of the day off.

</comment><comment><USER17> Reddit needs a 4chan disclaimer at the top--"only a fool would take these stories as fact". Real life rarely has bookends.

</comment><comment><USER29> Preface this by acknowledging don't know much bout the OP and his professional experience, but he is likely young.

I don't care for the "I'm now the Lead Software Engineer with my own department". If he was in manual data entry, he is likely young and has limited professional coding experience to cut his teeth on.

He is likely soloing himself, will limit his advancement by not having peers, and when he changes jobs he may have unrealistic expectations not realizing these.

<comment><USER30> He didn't have the resume to get a job in a proper software house with strong peers before. Two years from now he will, assuming he wants to leave his one- man-band operation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Don't see why he was told he shouldn't have done it on company time as the time he spent writing the script was more than made up for by the increased rate of record entry

</comment><comment><USER32> This would never happen in the USA. I had a somewhat similar experience and was fired.

I had a young, naive friend insist on giving two week notice at a job after I warned him not to, and he was terminated immediately. Just doesn't work like that anymore, maybe high-end salary jobs but not hourly wages.

<comment><USER33> Depends on the manager, and probably labor supply. I worked a minimum-wage stocking job a while back, gave my two-weeks' notice, and worked those two weeks. YMMV.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is reddit nerd fan-fiction.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm not entirely sure this guy is a "kid", and this clearly isn't just data entry that he's doing (as many people are claiming). He claims to be making 250,000 USD with bonuses a year [0]. I'm surprised no one has questioned what's really going on here, but if the author's claims are accurate this certainly isn't the story of someone fresh out of college guy working a mindless data entry job just barely scrapping by.

[0] [http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/tenoq/reddit_my_f...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/tenoq/reddit_my_friends_call_me_a_scumbag_because_i/c4m2owc)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> don't normally like linking to reddit, but thought this was awesome.

also, felt i had to give different title as original not informative.

<comment><USER36> Reddit is a diverse place. And sturgeons law applies.

(I even found some thoughtful discussion on youtube recently.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> As a backup strategy, the guy should have made a version of the program that is buggy and only gets 7x the regular production rate of the other workers. Then if company wants his code, they get the inefficient program and he gets hired to make it work 100%.

He can explain his bonuses as script + great manual work in case they wonder.

<comment><USER38> I really don't like this idea. While it might have helped ensure the OP's longevity in the company, it's selfish and is really doing more harm then good in the long run. And that doesn't really seem like the OP's style.

I hope you and others don't view the world this way. If you do, you're only holding the rest of us back. It reminds me of the other comment here about screwing things up on purpose just to increase budget:

 _Occasionally a politician will sweep through with an attempt to cut costs (they're the only ones who even pretend to care) -- the bureaucracy will respond by firing the most useful and publicly visible of their employees to ensure that service levels drop thus justifying their case for an increased budget later on._ \- <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4167459>

<comment><USER37> How is that any different than adding a password? He's protecting his own interests so he won't be fired without a chance to come back to his job and finish automating the whole company. He made himself indispensable with the password. This would be another way to do it in case they figure out the password with some other methods, such as a keylogger, before letting him go.

<comment><USER39> There's a difference between protecting a buggy alpha, which he probably didn't realize (or maybe wouldn't be) company property, and intentionally making an artificially weaker program in order to ensure your job security.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I searched the threads and couldn't find anyone asking this question, but this is a red flag to me:

> they have a 90% accuracy rating and 60-100 transactions > a day completed. I > have 99,6% accuracy

If there's no automated system to do this, who or what is calculating the accuracy down to a fraction of a percentage?

</comment><comment><USER41> Automating something and efficiency may or may not be desirable thing depending on the alignment on incentives.

Let's say you are a small company with a relatively flat structure and you as the owner, also work as CEO. Then every bit of efficiency is precious to you.

Let's say you, a techie hotshot, come to work for a big company, and automate some process that suddenly makes 20% of staff in your department redundant. Essentially that means that your boss and may be boss of your boss will have to lay people off (which is bad for morale and relationships), they get smaller headcount and budget numbers.

Let's just say you may see a lot of resistance.

</comment><comment><USER42> I'm skeptical. The story seems fishy to me. And who would trust an employee who develops something, keys it to his machine only, password protects it, and goes around boasting about it?

TLDR: Believability low + employee proud of poor ethics

</comment><comment><USER43> This is fantasy, of course. My guess is that it's some college course doing a social experiment rather than an individual troll. Perhaps it's called The Creation of Myth (user's name is CM-NL). There's probably some college class out there patting themselves on the back for convincing so many people through a cleverly-crafted-but-just-a-little-too-perfect story that was tailor-made for Redditors.

After all, the follow-up is basically created from the most popular responses to the original post.

</comment><comment><USER44> Assuming the story is true, I especially like the part where he insisted that his former coworkers keep their employment with the company, even though he automated their existing jobs out of existence. Nice solidarity!

<comment><USER45> _even though he automated their existing jobs out of existence_

He didn't automate away their domain knowledge or the company's understanding of them as known quantities. Immediately getting rid of someone just because their narrow job description doesn't fit anymore is incredibly wasteful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> This is the dream of many HN readers.

</comment><comment><USER47> I remember reading the original post as well. And, man, that could not have ended much better. I'm glad to see that someone at the company realized the potential of what this person created. I would have expected pride to get in the way of all that, so kudos for him having the balls to go above his former boss's head. That was crucial.</comment>


Can I get your opinion of my startup ideas? - <AUTHOR> http://writings.withoutfriction.com/some-startup-ideas-february-2011

<comment><USER2> I took a quick look - you do have some interesting ideas in there.

I was wondering though, how would you go about implementing this:

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>==

Webapp: Search engine for search engines

You enter your search and it directs it through the most relevant search engine.

chinese restaurant -> Yelp

ruby tutorials -> delicious

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>===

What I mean is, with _so_ many possible keywords/phrases, how would you go about determining a relevant destination corresponding to each different query?

We've been working on something pretty close to this for quite some time; have had some breakthroughs; but it's been an _uphill battle_ , to say the least. :-)</comment>


French Minerve submarine is found after disappearing in 1968 - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49068823 <comment><USER2> There is a little more info in [https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy- ships/a284720...](https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy- ships/a28472065/minerve-submarine-found/)

The ship used is the Seabed Constructor: [https://www.swireseabed.com/assets/vessels/seabed- constructo...](https://www.swireseabed.com/assets/vessels/seabed-constructor)

And there is commercial info in Ocean Infinity official website: [https://oceaninfinity.com/](https://oceaninfinity.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> What's weird is that year three other submarines also sank with unknown causes. One was the USS Scorpion which was also found. Another was the Israeli submarine also found much later. Last one is the K-129 of Soviet Union.

<comment><USER4> > sank with unknown causes.

do you really think military intelligence would always release information in these cases?

money down, 9/10 times in cases like these someone protecting a source or hiding some knowledge for sigint/opsec/? purposes

<comment><USER5> They aren't going to release everything....but that doesn't mean they know what happened.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ocean Infinity also found the ARA San Juan[1] last November.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARA_San_Juan_(S-42)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARA_San_Juan_\(S-42\))

</comment><comment><USER7> Very light on details, any idea what "new technology" this is referring to?

<comment><USER8> depth of object is impressive - coul make an interesting documentary

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It says in a different article that they will leave it untouched as a sanctuary? Does this mean they won't try to investigate clues as to what took it down?

</comment><comment><USER10> It's wonderfull for all the parents... Now the real challenge is to understand... Why it sunk. Families will also want this info.

<comment><USER11> It sunk in 1968. There's probably only a couple parents who aren't dead.

<comment><USER3> Family. Not necessarily just parents but brothers, cousins, etc.

<comment><USER11> Well sure. But the comment I was replying to initially said "parents" and left it at that.

<comment><USER12> "parents" in french means parents, but can also mean relatives.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Eterni.me - Become Virtually Immortal - <AUTHOR> http://eterni.me A team of engineers, designers and business people at MIT EDP tries to defeat death by preserving your memories into an intelligent avatar, that can interact with your close ones after you pass away. <comment><USER2> I've had a somewhat similar idea related to storing memories and I suspect that it's a fairly common idea that's occurred to lots of us.

However, this sounds ridiculous. The worst and most tone deaf example of how ridiculous this sounds is the part that shows an image of the deceased person with, "Hello Mike! Remember that time we went fishing?" with a spot for a reply.

I mean this literally, not rhetorically: who would honestly engage in that type of "conversation"? If you were someone who truly loved the deceased person and mourns their loss, I simply can't imagine this "conversation" taking place, unless you are in a spot of such grief and emotional pain that you're no longer able to cope and will grasp any straw that is offered. If you didn't truly love the deceased person, perhaps you would engage this way just for kicks? But it's still weird.

<comment><USER3> Sadly their marketing pitch does not convey an understanding of human interactions. The example you pointed out is reminiscent of a bad Turing test chat bot with a lexicon of topics to crawl through.

Still, the ability to dynamically generate a topical chat bot from a corpus of digital artifacts is interesting. I'm currently envisioning their work as a natural language parser front end with subject specific response decoration and a machine learning algorithm to trigger "self-initiated" conversation and topic selection.

<comment><USER4> I think their marketing pitch may be reflective of a lack of understanding of human interaction on the part of the founding team. 5 engineers, a business exec, and two HR people - but no psychologists or social scientists.

Too much what, not enough why IMO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wasn't this an episode of Black Mirror? In particular this season 2 episode titled "Be right back": [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-iZTSC9Ml8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-iZTSC9Ml8)

And if you're not familiar with the series, you really ought to give it a go! [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror_(TV_series)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Mirror_\(TV_series\))

<comment><USER6> I must second this. An excellent series with nice twists and dilemmas!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is really unsettling.

When first reading through it I thought it was going to be some kind of digital journal or time capsule thing, maybe one that has strong guarantees against data loss.

But then I got to the part about interacting with the virtual you.

They're trying to emulate a person, a (formerly) living, breathing person, by looking at them from the outside. And then they want to speak for that person.

Am I the only one who's bothered by this? Who finds this disrespectful? They're trying to emulate you based on the things you share with them, presumably. But that is a very far cry from preserving the person as a whole, and presenting it that way is disingenuous. Because you won't be interacting with that person. That person is gone. You'll be interacting with a crude facsimile of that person's _branding_.

If I were to have immortality, I'd much rather have it by _not dying_.

<comment><USER8> If chat logs are incorporated into the model the emulation might be quite realistic, to a point.

<comment><USER9> Better still would be to incorporate the expectations of people who interacted with the person; unfortunately even the conscious memories of living beings are currently rather hard to access.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Horrifying. This sounds exactly like "Be Right Back"[0] from the Black Mirror series.

[0] [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2290780/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2290780/)

</comment><comment><USER4> In the end, you are still dead. Living people interacting with a digital mishmash of your digital leavings seems both disingenuous and kind of creepy.

<comment><USER11> Achievement unlocked: Dixie Flatline.

Another point for team Gibson.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It gets really scary when you imagine that the path to monetization for this thing might be advertising. Great, I can remember that fishing trip I took with grandpa, but he'll be subtlety shilling for some online retailer at the same time.

<comment><USER12> More likely, appliances and devices will be given personalities and 'avatars' meant to interact with their owners in a humanlike fashion, both in 'reality' and online, and these personalities will be subtly tweaked to resemble those of their relatives, and projected models of the sort of person they might find attractive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If this is satirical, well done - it's both horrifying and hilarious. If not, please forward my communications to:

        1A small flax hut
        Adjacent to large boulder shaped like waffle iron
        Fjordland National Park, New Zealand

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd love to see some publications from their R&D to outline how this won't turn into another one of those chat bot apps that you can have write Facebook posts in your style based on frequency analysis of your past posts.

<comment><USER14> You are looking at it backwards....

The "I see dead people" pitch is veneer of scientific respectability, to get academic funding. Marketing spam is the intended application.

<comment><USER3> No doubt it will be used for marketing spam. I can just imagine my digital ghost telling anecdotes about how in my day and age Intel was a respectable company and that most of my computers used their CPUs, so my ancestor should consider them for their computing needs... <sigh> reminds me of a Futurama episode.

I'd still like to see why they think they can do better than what's already out there. Especially if they're making a play for academic funding, they need to publish something.

Note: this comment is without the benefit of searching for each of the team members prior works; if the company is not pointing to any particular technique or publication I'm not enthused enough to dig deeper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This makes me wonder how far away something like the "Be Right Back" episode of Black Mirror, as others have already mentioned.

This seems more like another memorial service that may make sense with the kind of in-roads technology, the Internet, and social media are making into more and more lives. I think an interesting application of this would be having QR codes that match up with digital memorials like on headstones, or in-line akin to a hyper text function in epitaphs.

It's not necessarily something I might want for myself or loved ones, but this is a fascinating aspect of how people deal with death and a person's digital life.

</comment><comment><USER16> I hope they intend to collect the data the people are _willingly_ giving to them, and not just collecting it from the Internet or wherever they find it.

I have no problem with "digital immortality", and I think it can be a good idea, but only as long as people themselves want it to remain immortal, rather than being collected NSA-style.

The difference is that you may not want to save all of your sex scandals, and porn watching habits, forever, but only _certain_ information - like a biography. That's why it needs to be voluntary, and you need to know exactly what it is you're giving them to store for you.

</comment><comment><USER17> I love how unsettling this is. I'm unconvinced that it will work well, and doubly unconvinced that anyone will use it, but surely all the most exciting ideas are ones that scare us a little?

</comment><comment><USER18> I think immortality of any kind is a poor description for what this actually offers. This seems like a chatbot with a deeper personal context to work with, which is cool and interesting in and of itself, but not something that would allow for that grandiose of a description.

A project claiming to offer digital immortality I think would need to offer at least one of two particular features to live up to that description. (A) It would have to directly augment the human body to extend its lifetime indefinitely or (B) it would need to emulate the target human in such a way as to provide extensional equality. Extensional equality [1] in this context I think would mean that for any given situation, the human and the emulator would need to behave equivalently. This automatically entails that it would need to have the same thoughts, contain the same memories, etc to provide the necessary context for its decision-making.

Neither (A) or (B) consider any ethical implications of course. I'm just musing off the top of my head. My point is that although I think eterni.me could still pan out to be a cool project, it falls short of achieving digital immortality.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensionality](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensionality)

</comment><comment><USER19> I know that care in spelling is not a good way of judging stuff like this, but I am not sure I have much faith in their _Artificial Intelligence algorhitms_ (sic).

</comment><comment><USER20> Anyone ever see the weird, underrated Robin Williams movie "The Final Cut"? That was the first thing that came to my mind. Same basic concept

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364343/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_30](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364343/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_30)

</comment><comment><USER21> Given that this is entirely an AI project - and an amazingly difficult one at that - the lack of AI researchers in the people section is a huge red flag. Looks like a VC cash grab more than a real project. Good luck to them, although I feel sorry for any VC involved.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is mis-pitched in the sense that it shouldn't be pitched at you to have a conversation with your deceased dad... it should be pitched at you to enable your great-great-grandchildren to have a conversation with their long-deceased great-great-grandfather (or -mother).

Even with the limited technology today, with enough material you could create a passable replica of a person's writing style, stories, opinions, etc. Of course, that is a very shallow "solution" to death... but it is better than nothing.

How much would you pay to be able to have this shallow conversation with your great-great-grandfather?

Considering how much people pay for ancestry research stuff, I'd guess most people would pay a lot for that.

<comment><USER23> ( codependent ( target demographic ) wealthy ) ( narcissistic ( target demographic ) wealthy )

I don't infer predatory intent by the creators, but the above seem far and away the largest groups of likely customers.

What I imagine would prove more successful due to viral potential while also being more socially constructive is if the same technology were used to simulate famous historical figures. Tweet the most poignant quote from your conversation with Frida Kahlo. Or Dostoyevsky... though that would probably need to be an FB or blog post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Straight out of Altered Carbon (the Takeshi Kovacs series of novels by Richard K. Morgan):

"In the novel's somewhat dystopian world, human personalities can be stored digitally and downloaded into new bodies, called sleeves. Most people have cortical stacks in their spinal columns that store their memories. If their body dies, their stack can be stored indefinitely." ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_Carbon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altered_Carbon))

In addition, the stacks can be hooked up to a rig that allows living people to interact with the sleeve-less stack in virtual reality (this is also used for interrogation and torture).

</comment><comment><USER25> Great idea, I've been thinking about a similar system. Wish you the best of luck Marius, all you'd need now is a human scale robot that can project a composite image of the deceased, and voila! You've become a digital necromancer.

</comment><comment><USER26> Exactly like Caprica [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caprica_(TV_series)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caprica_\(TV_series\))

</comment><comment><USER27> This seems like it will suffer from a very large uncanny alley of sorts where photographs and videos don't because they aren't trying to be realistic.

When machine interaction gets 'her'-like, this kind of thing might be something. Until then, it's just going to be creepy.

</comment><comment><USER28> I don't trust that this company will be alive in 50 years. I wouldn't even trust Google or Facebook with a task like this. Who can guarantee that any company will be around in 1,000 years.

</comment><comment><USER29> So it's a series of cleverbots each seeded by only a single person?

</comment><comment><USER30> Once again, Max Headroom proves to be the most prophetic show of the 80s. "Deities" has a church using exactly this sort of technology to offer "immortality".

</comment><comment><USER31> So I would give them some of the things I've created, but it's only accessible via chat? I'm all for a time capsule, but not in this format.

</comment><comment><USER32> Well! I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who finds this outright horrifying.

</comment><comment><USER33> *algorithm is spelled wrong in the index page >> "algorhithms"

</comment><comment><USER34> %s/algorhitms/algorithms/g

</comment><comment><USER35> this is creepy in every way - like the time a friend of mine suggested he could get rich doing funeral videos the way people pay for wedding videos.

I bet BING buys this to challenge google in AI!</comment>


Show HN: Intro – HTML theme for developers - <AUTHOR> https://weeby.studio/intro/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everyone,

Want to share the "Intro" theme I made with a friend of mine. Our goal was to make a template which allows developers to share their profile and story.

We prepared 10 different color variants, you can also easily create new one. There is also a simple static website generator included - entire page can be configured in single JS file. In a result you'll get HTML file, which you can host anywhere (i.e. GitHub Pages or Netlify).

Hope you'll like it. Theme costs $19.99, but we prepared "hackernews" code with $10.00 discount.

Any questions - let me know.

</comment><comment><USER2> Beautiful and clean. I love how straight-forward your pitch is as well. Nice work, guys!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is there a live demo?

Edit: Found it, [https://weeby.studio/intro/preview/](https://weeby.studio/intro/preview/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that's the right URL. Let me know if you have any other questions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The fact that these designs are so aesthetically pleasing is mind blowing!

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you like it, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's really great, i might try it :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice to hear it, thanks :)</comment></comment>


European Commission: Why We Need a United States of Europe Now (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-12-796_en.htm <comment><USER2> I can list many things that are 'needed', and not just in Europe. In this case, I disagree. With the assaults on individuals, christianity/religion, journalists and whistleblowers, freedom of speech, gun rights, the constitution, democratically elected presidents, etc, etc.... Just no. There is far far too much corruption to say that the idjits who think they will lead, can. Really just that simple for me. Until we can properly govern ourselves there is no way in hell I can trust someone else to do that. Especially when speaking of religious, language, and cultural barriers that have existed for many centuries in Europe. The US is but a blink of the eyes as far as leadership is concerned, and that govt. is as corrupt as most if not moreso.

</comment><comment><USER3> Exactly this - thanks for sharing!

The real problems we face today are not of national, but global scale. There is no need to stick to national states in boundaries drawn in the horse and cart era. Differences in local culture etc. can be accommodated in a federal state (like in the US or Germany).

Was interesting to see that this was a generally agreed policy throughout Europe until the treaty of Maastricht in the 90s, when monetary and economic unity were pushed, but political unity was dropped. Apparently, this was due to a) Neoliberalism, which supports power for markets not states and b) good old British eurosceptics.

Finally, this is obviously not the position of the European Commission, but the view of one commissioner who wants to start a local debate at Passau university.</comment>


An Incredibly Detailed Map of Europe's Population Shifts - <AUTHOR> http://www.citylab.com/politics/2015/06/incredibly-detailed-map-europes-population-shifts/396497 <comment><USER2> Ireland is interesting. It's long been the sick man in terms of population growth since 1845 up until the late 1980s and now is the odd man out in Europe as being one of the few countries that can grow its population.

Ireland has had a recession since 2008 but ended last year with a return to slow growth and during this time had high unemployment and high emigration. It's expected to be the fastest growing European economy by far over the next 12 months. Still Irelands prosperity, high minimum wage and generous welfare benefits are attracting immigration from Eastern Europe and North Africa in particular. This compounded with Irelands high fertility rate accentuates her population growth above her neighbours.

These trends are expected to continue even as Europe exits recession and returns to growth.

The images surprised me though - it suggests all of Ireland is growing somewhat evenly when the truth is that while most if is growing Dublin and her surrounding area and Cork are growing much faster than the rest and the picture doesn't indicate that though I'm sure the data will.

<comment><USER3> > It's long been the sick man in terms of population growth since 1845

That reminds me of a section from the book "1493", discussing the introduction of the potato to Europe and later the potato-famine:

> Today Ireland has the melancholy distinction of being the only nation in > Europe, and perhaps the world, to have fewer people within the same > boundaries than it did more than 150 years ago.

<comment><USER2> The Famine made Ireland "Irish" in the sense that we understand it today. The famine caused people to become more pious in their Catholicism, even more impoverished and detest the British even more than what they previously did. It probably was the single most important factor in shaping modern Ireland.

Many here are probably aware that Ireland had in 1845 a population of 9 Million but only 6 Million today (all Island pop). The entirety of the UK at the time had a population of 22 Million people. This means the Britain (Scotland, England and Wales) was only 25% bigger than Ireland at that time which is completely different today with the UK having >60 Million people and Ireland (Republic) having 4.5 Million. Ireland had a similar agricultural output compared to Britain which is at least three time larger.

If the famine didn't happen Ireland could easily have a population of over 30 Million. However it did happen and alternate realities are hard to predict.

<comment> guard-of-terra "If the famine didn't happen Ireland could easily have a population of over 30 Million"

Would you really want to become Bangladesh? 30 Million seems an awfully high number for a country of such size and latitude.

<comment><USER4> If Ireland had similar population density to Southeast England, it would have a population of around 39 million.

<comment> guard-of-terra England has forests, nature reserves, fjords elsewhere. That's why this region can be so dense? Why would you want to build up everything? Where's the gain I wonder?

<comment><USER4> Setting questionable English 'fjords' aside, the point isn't that it would be _desirable_ to have a population of 30 million in Ireland, but that it would be _possible_ , without having the population density (and presumably poverty) of Bangladesh. You asked how a small island in the north atlantic could sustain more than 30 million people - well, South East England has a population density of about 1200 people per square mile, at a similar latitude. Transplant that same population density to Ireland and you'd fit 39 million people. So, if you want to know what an Ireland with 30 million people in it would look like, don't imagine Bangladesh, think of Southeast England.

And Southeast England is still considered a pretty beautiful, green part of the world. It contains the South Downs and New Forest national parks, the Chiltern hills, and about 60% of the land in the region is actively farmed. Of course, in the middle of it you've got London, which accounts for the overall density. So yes, a populated Ireland would be _different_ ; Dublin and Belfast would be vastly different cities; - but it wouldn't have stopped being the emerald isle if in an alternate history its population had reached 30m.

<comment> guard-of-terra Yes it is possible, but why would you ever want that?

Why want Dublin faster grown and thus soulless? Why want Irish spirit to be abolished and replaced with hive mentality?

I could totally understand you if Ireland would be declining, but it's thriving, attracting people, growing naturally when most nations struggle at that. You're in a perfect position and you want to replace it with something random?

<comment><USER5> Why would anyone ever want that? Because people have different opinions about what is best. You are absolutely entitled to think that a more populous Ireland would be a bad thing, but you're being downvoted because you can't seem to see that that's just a personal preference, not an absolute truth.

Personally, I live in New Zealand (population: 4.5 million), and I'd strongly prefer it if we had twice as many people. A bigger population can sustain a healthier economy, with more opportunities for everyone. However, I'm well aware that I'm an outlier; most people think differently and I respect that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Links to high-res downloads from BBSR:

JPEG: [http://www.bbsr.bund.de/BBSR/DE/Home/Topthemen/Downloads/bev...](http://www.bbsr.bund.de/BBSR/DE/Home/Topthemen/Downloads/bevoelkerungsentwicklung.html)

PDF: [http://www.bbsr.bund.de/BBSR/DE/Home/Topthemen/Downloads/Bil...](http://www.bbsr.bund.de/BBSR/DE/Home/Topthemen/Downloads/Bild.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> Here's a dynamic map I've made on the same subject, showing a macro view, country-level shifts : [http://laem.github.io/eurpop/](http://laem.github.io/eurpop/)

</comment><comment><USER8> "Scotland's Northeast shows remarkable population gains, a likely result of the North Sea oil industry concentrated in Aberdeen."

I think you can probably explain the two red blobs near Aberdeen on oil and the wealth it has brought to that area but at least one of the other red blobs further west must be the Aviemore/Strathspey area which has become incredibly popular for outdoor sports and general high quality of life.

Amusingly, although Aviemore is described as a "boom town" it's population only grew by 36% in the decade to 2011 adding an extra 956 people :-)

[http://www.strathspey-herald.co.uk/News/Aviemore-hailed- as-a...](http://www.strathspey-herald.co.uk/News/Aviemore-hailed-as-a-boom- town-17012014.htm)

</comment><comment><USER9> There are some really interesting things on that map. The apparent huge influx of people into France and the UK is one. Another amazing thing is that after what I think is around $1 trillion dollars spent in former east German states post reunification, the outflow of people still looks to be strong.

<comment><USER10> _" still looks to be strong"_

As you know, you can't tell that from this picture. An area that has had large annual population decreases for the first 5 years, and slower growth for the second 5 will still show up as red.

Also, quite a bit of the population decreases in the countryside will be of people moving into the cities.

Because of differences in population density, that can give the impression of population decline where there is none.

Looking at Germany, for me the picture 'confirms' that their population is shrinking (no growth in the west, apparent decrease in the east) that makes the strong growth of their economy in the past years even more of a miracle.

<comment><USER11> Why should the growth of economy be a miracle if the population is shrinking?

Mostly that's why the population is shrinking, people who live in the better economies, mostly have less kids, mostly due to the fact that they don't have the time and mostly working harder than others.

Also our economy grown mostly cause of the fact that our strong export got a huge increase since we had a european currency ("Deutsche Mark" or "DM" was just too good for the export market), while the Euro is / was way better since other countries brought it to a lower level.

<comment><USER10> If your population grows, you get some growth 'for free' in the sense that it doesn't require productivity to increase.

If the population shrinks, keeping the economy flat already requires productivity improvements. Growing it at a time where other economies with growing populations can't is a bit of a miracle. Those increased exports still have to be produced.

<comment><USER12> He's partly correct: German growth is by design.

First, enter a monetary union with weaker economies with dubious credit, at a really advantageous rate for these economies but effectively substantially depressing the new Deutsche Mark.

Second, lend like crazy to these countries whilst markets believe Greek paper to have the same default risk as German.

Third, as the neighbouring countries are using the newly available borrowing and their strong new euros to go on a spending binge, provide the products.

With both guaranteed demand in Europe guaranteeing large volume, and an effective 40% discount on German exports vs where they should be with the Deutsche Mark, you can take market share from the Korean and Japanese let alone Americans and even avoid having your manufacturing sector destroyed by Chinese competition. In Europe it's even worse, VW thrives as Rover goes under.

The best part is that when Southern European credit finally catches up with where it should be trading, you get to brag about your wunderbar Mittelstand values and insult those pesky lazy Southerners, whilst reinforcing the very actions that guarantee you the continuation of de facto devaluation policies without being responsible for them (and therefore getting booted out of office by an angry German electorate annoyed at being underpaid on a global basis). Invisible tax FTW. Even those Germans who might have pieced it together will hesitate before putting any real pressure towards, say, a Grexit, because their pension fund is invested to the neck in Greek paper. Meinen Kinder will sort it out, but I arbeit so hard all my life, surely I deserve to enjoy my pension...

So, not a miracle, it is by design, a rather magnificent one too. One that, long term, seems to beat sending the Fallschirmjaeger on Kreta.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Shows percent change... but not the magnitude of the change.

Seeing a map that combined both percentage and magnitude to compute the colors (perhaps similar to the Tf–idf calculation?) would be much more interpretable. 50% of people leaving the middle of a forest doesn't really tell me much, versus 50% change in a dense city.

<comment><USER14> True.. I see the big blue shades between Portugal and Spain and imagine those areas growing, but that region is basically rural

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Anyone know of anything like this for the States?

<comment><USER16> Here's a county-by-county map showing population change in the 2010 census:

[http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/map](http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/map)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It is interesting that many NH posters have a negative view on immigration from eastern europe. However, the effect on the countries from which people emigrate (I am somewhat familiar with Baltics) is quite tough. Imagine having a large portion of hard working energetic people suddenly leave.

<comment><USER18> I imagine (and see it daily all around me actually). This poses to local authorities a hard problem, the outcome of which will either be a spiral down or a remedy of some sort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Looks like people are moving to the coastal areas. And I can't blame them. Once you live next to a large body of water, being land-locked is suffocating.

Another obvious trend is people moving to large cities.

</comment><comment><USER20> They've left the Falklands off the map! How come? I mean, Guyane's there!

<comment><USER21> Guyane is considered part of France (so part of the EU), but the Falklands (and other overseas territories, there are a few) aren't part of the UK, or the EU.

<comment><USER20> Ahh I see, excellent answer, very informative. Thanks for taking the time to help :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Anyone have any idea why in the countries most hit by the recession (Spain, Italy and Greece to name a few) there's striking divergence between population growth specifically decreasing Greece on one hand while increasing in Italy and Spain in general despite the three of them share the same dynamics at play and especially Greece and Spain?

<comment><USER23> Eastern Europeans are much more likely to migrate to Italy and Spain than to Greece. Romanians especially. One reason is that Romanian is closer to Italian and Spanish than to Greek.

<comment><USER18> It's true that the language plays a role in deciding where one prefers to go, but there are also the somewhat more prosaic considerations like the economical ones. The state of Greek economy is nothing like that of Italy or Spain. I have a romanian relative that left Greece after seven years (time in which she learned Greek, accommodated herself and everything) and settled for Italy recently. The hardships exist and this move wasn't easy (from an economical point of view, compared to her previous pre-recession Greece settling experience), but with all that it seems that it still does worth it.</comment></comment></comment>


Rivets.js: Lightweight and powerful data binding and templating - <AUTHOR> http://rivetsjs.com/

<comment><USER2> I used Rivets on a decent-sized SPA and I have to say, it worked out really well.

The rendering was a bit slow, and in more than a few places I had to force a refresh to get it to pick up data changes. Those are really my only complaints though: the templates were a breeze to write, and with the ability to write custom formatters, Rivets is pretty expressive and extensible. I wound up with a codebase that was quite straightforward and easy to reason about, with minimal cruft. Overall I'd say it was a win.

Nowadays I use React.js and am very happy with the switch, but I definitely recommend Rivets to anyone who just wants to add a smidgeon of data-binding without pulling in a heavy framework. If I were doing that medium-sized SPA project again though, I'd definitely use React.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's interesting to me - I posted this up because I'm doing a small app right now and was getting frustrated with the amount of code I had to write to get React to do what I wanted (basically, editing a large, fairly complicated data structure via a big form). Rivets cut my codebase by about 2/3 and made it easier to understand, but I have to say that given everyone else's positive experience with React I feel like I must have been doing something wrong.

I'll have to revisit it again later I guess. One thing that was particularly annoying with what I was doing was that the whole form would fail to render on any error, and I'd often be left without even a console message to tell me what React didn't like. How has your experience been with debugging React apps?

<comment><USER3> Did you use react by itself or with (re)flux? That makes all the difference.

<comment><USER2> What has your experience with reflux (and other flux libraries) been like? I haven't tried any of them yet, currently using a home-rolled solution with PouchDB. They all look a bit overly ceremonious for my liking (same thing that drove me away from Backbone early on).

<comment><USER3> In my experience, React isn't worth the hassle without Reflux.

I was a bit apprehensive at first since it's the only flux implementation I've come across that gets rid of the dispatcher altogether, but after building a couple of internal apps I think it's the cleanest, simplest implementation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really wish projects like this wouldn't register their own domain names.

The likelihood that vanity domains for new JavaScript libraries will still be renewed in 10 years time is pretty low - if they used rivetsjs.github.io instead there would be a much higher chance of links continuing to work far into the future.

<comment><USER5> Does it really matter if [project].github.io is used when github.com/username/[project] will exist just as long if not longer?

Also, I've been noticing a handful of project sites hosted at github.io that apparently once used to work have been returning a "site has been disabled due to a misconfigured custom domain" message. I realize its a configuration issue but this is just as annoying as a custom domain like rivetsjs.com potentially disappearing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What is the reason of releasing a new JS framework every week? What is the reason?

<comment><USER7> > releasing a new JS framework every week

mikeric/rivets/ v0.1.0 on Jul 13, 2012

[https://github.com/mikeric/rivets/releases?after=v0.3.6](https://github.com/mikeric/rivets/releases?after=v0.3.6)

That's a strange definition of weeks.</comment></comment>


We Shot Our Film with a $600 Camera, 3 Lights, and No Budget - <AUTHOR> https://nofilmschool.com/no-budget-film-cosmos <comment><USER2> I used to belong to a filmmakers' group, so I read the article. Some good suggestions about gear, not so much about filmmaking or editing.

Ironically, they overexerted themselves:

\- the "theater experience" is not about the camera or image quality, it's about the sound quality/sound track. You can show grainy film with stereo CD- quality sound, and nobody will complain. Try the reverse and see what happens.

\- looked like years of editing - for VOD. Why? They could have done two more films in that time window.

\- sounds like a lot of SFX - why? A lot of movies have only a handful.

\- as far as "oldversion" software - well, when do you think the engines for that softwarwe were written? Probably the 80s or 90s.

If you look at any music studio, they're using like 2010 Macbook Pros (you can replace the battery and they have Firewire), along with DAWs from ... the oughts.

"The original Blair Witch Project was not shot with a DSLR, it was shot with a Digital 8 camcorder and 16mm film."

A data point from another low-budget film, but that one made it to theaters even.

<comment><USER3> BWP was intended to look crappy, homemade. To a trained eye it doesn't because shots were definitely produced by a skilled camera man and director, not an untrained amateur.

It is not about the gear but about your skill and creativity. If you have experience you can take scrappy tools and figure out their strengths and weaknesses to produce interesting results.

In all comparisons I ever saw of amateur with expensive gear vs pro with cheap gear the pro always wins.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> To watch the movie: [https://www.cosmosmovieofficial.com/watch- cosmos?fbclid=IwAR...](https://www.cosmosmovieofficial.com/watch- cosmos?fbclid=IwAR0ta7BhqwtvJWsoo_P3mFKQ7_qFwb2i7XbM6Zt3e9X54Jmwqx9-SiWuBQI)

(took a while to find)

</comment><comment><USER5> Their $600 camera links to a search which produces 4K body at $1200 as the cheapest camera option... Maybe it once included an 1080p one, but it does not at this point.

Relevant:

"Primer" won many rewards on a similar budget ($7K)

"House" had an episode shot entirely on a Canon 5D (A $2000 camera at the time, IIRC; however, the production likely cost >$1M per episode at the time)

<comment><USER6> The original Blackmagic Design Pocket Cinema Camera would go for around $500 these days. It is a 1080p camera.

There might have been used suggestions or new stock in that link when the article was published, as there typically is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a Steadicam operator, I like this one:

>> 4\. Wheelchair Dolly

For those not in the know, lots of shots in The Shining were shot by Garret Brown (Steadicam inventor) sitting in a wheelchair being wheeled around with the Steadicam rig.</comment>


Show HN: Active Circles invite friends with snaps - <AUTHOR> Hi, my name is Rushi and I launched Active Circles.
The idea behind Active Circles is simple to gather a crowd and use the FOMO effect to pull it off.
So why did I build this? I have a whole article on it on medium: https://medium.com/@rush86999/what-facebook-and-gambling-hav...
long version short: I think social networks are becoming too unhealthy for everyone due to their effects on the reward system of our brains. I am a family doctor and I see that in young adults and how it's ruining our social fabric.
here's what I came up with in response
Planning for a new party, need friends for a quick yoga session. How about going for a run? Active Circles allows you to give a shout out to your close friends all at the same time. Have you ever noticed that sometimes that's not enough? A picture may be worth a thousand words but more than that it creates a great story to tell and a great FOMO effect. Sometimes enough to give someone an extra little nudge to get up and get going to come over to whatever you are doing.
This is the premise for Active Circles. A simple FOMO effect to invite friends over and create huge crowds! If more common friends are present at the same place then stronger the FOMO effect.
What can I do with it?
Anything that needs gathering a crowd- a huge party, yoga session, play a sport, cheer for an event.
You can show off your snaps to friends' friends, even your school or workplace as long as you have an authenticated email address.
So have fun and let me know how I can make it better! (Only Available in North America for now)
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/active-circles/id1348466506?... <comment><USER2> Launch HN is only for YC startups. You may want to do a Show HN instead.

<comment><AUTHOR> how do i delete this?

<comment><USER3> We've updated the title, thanks for getting in touch!</comment></comment></comment>


Using Hypnotic Content Marketing to Increase Conversion Rates - <AUTHOR> http://www.seovisions.com/hypnotic-content-marketing.html

<comment><USER2> Inbound.org is the correct place to dump links to low-quality SEO-related articles.</comment>


Mac-like FreeBSD Laptop - <AUTHOR> http://trafyx.com/?p=2551 <comment><USER2> This is great! Rare to see FreeBSD with a GUI focus. Unfortunately I'm more likely to check out Macbuntu (which I didn't know about before) than try to replicate his setup.

There are many many things that makes life in macOS better than Unix/Linux, not least having Cmd-XXX that don't clash with Ctrl-. I love being able to use Emacs keybinding in nearly all text fields on Mac whereas on Linux they control the app and I feel my hands tied as I seek the cursor etc keys. The more my Linux environment can mimic macOS, the more time I'll spend there.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, I got a little discombobulated with your life in macos is better than unix/linux comment, but only because macos is unix. Thus life is better because macos is unix - unix with an excellent window treatment, no less.

<comment><USER2> If you are HN, you are expected to be able to understand that we all know that macOS is Unix and any reference to Unix/Linux means non-macOS. I contributed the first SCSI driver to Linux 0.12 so I've been around. Calling macOS "window dressing" doesn't suggest deep insight nor working experience with macOS.

The fact is that my professional working experience with daily driving macOS is, in my opinion, a nicer experience that the equivalent Gnome/KDE (though it goes deeper than that). Still I spend a roughly equivalent amount of time there (and some in FreeBSD).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Awesome peek into the FreeBSD desktop ecosystem. Being a long time Linux user, it was nice to get a peek at what seems the same and what isn't

The hardware is:

      Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga laptop
      Intel Core i7-6600U 2.60 GHz CPU (Skylake)
      8 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD
      Intel HD Graphics 520 integrated graphics
      14″ WQHD 2560 x 1440 touchscreen with Retina-like 210 dpi

Looks nice! When I saw Mac-like I secretly hoped they'd found a good aluminum unibody laptop I could throw linux onto. Can anyone speak to the durability and the flex of the chassis on these things?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am not a hardware expert but X1 Yoga feels somewhat more flimsy than MacBook Pro, although not as weak as a typical modern mid-range laptop out there. I mean, if I apply a little force I can bend it a little if it's open. Can't do that with MacBook Pro of course. Not sure if that analysis is worth anything. I think I need to add a few more comments on the touchpad. Apple touchpads are too awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think the write up is good, functional. But it feels littered with "layer violations" of OS, WM, App.

His underlying OS abstractions that he can _see_ are mostly good, OSX is a BSD-like OS, and he has good OS level analogues for most of what he engages with as an OS. I don't think day-to-day anyone realises "grand central" exists. Filesystem, I think OSX filesystem journaling is comparable in behaviour to ZFS. The whole 'is it case sensitive or insensitive' thing is a bit of a mystery to me: Why did OSX make that design decision?

Secure boot, crypted partitions, trust in the privacy of the system? I think comparable.

WM level, He's got clone-a-like things. He gets most of what he wants, I suspect I'd be good too.

App level, I think he's walked into a space where there is a tiny core of OSX apps like Preview, which are just really hard to get in the free domain. If you run a mac with homebrew you're doing cask install of things which exist in ports or pkg, so there is a large overlap, but once you call up an OSX app like preview, you have gone into a space its hard to replicate.

Chrome users will see next to no difference if you live inside chrome. Electron app users would see little difference.

I don't know I'd walk directly to libreoffice, if I could get O365 working. But the moment where you have to install linux runtime compatibility laters, or Java, are the moments where for me pain re-enters the room: these things are not always nice to live with.

<comment><USER6> > _Why did OSX make that design decision?_

Principle of least surprise. Decision predated OSX.

What non-engineer thinks "name" and "Name" are different names?

I recall this, and just Googled, found a Lisa era engineer says the same:

[https://www.quora.com/Why-does-OS-X-choose-to-have-a-case- in...](https://www.quora.com/Why-does-OS-X-choose-to-have-a-case-insensitive- file-system-instead-of-a-case-sensitive-one)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > I still can't get Firefox smooth scrolling to work right

I'm not sure if it's the same on FreeBSD, but as a longtime former Mac user who now uses Linux, I've found you need to

1\. set MOZ_USE_XINPUT2=true to get per-pixel scrolling

2\. disable smooth scrolling, either completely in preferences, or just for mousewheel by settings general.smoothScroll.mouseWheel to false in about:config

</comment><comment><USER8> It feels like more of the Linux desktop world is increasingly tied to things that are either dispositionally incompatible or incompatible license-wise with the BSDs. For example dbus, Wayland, and systemd are all problematic for _BSD for various degrees of problematic.

If I were interested in a long-term stable desktop ecosystem on _BSD, and I were part of a core team, I'd start a cooperative project to build BSD- licensed cleanroom implementations of launchd, the NeXTStep APIs, and a desktop environment that stayed as close to macOS metaphors as possible.

I have to imagine that there are some corporate sponsors who'd be delighted for a mostly source-compatible, BSD-licensed path to writing apps for both macOS and also appliances and other devices.

A while back Sony seemed poised to work on a NeXTStep compatible UI layer, going as far as posting some code IIRC, before pulling the plug.

<comment><USER9> There have been several failed attempts at launchd. There was also a NeXTBSD.

* [http://jdebp.eu./FGA/launchd-on-bsd.html](http://jdebp.eu./FGA/launchd-on-bsd.html)

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13899766](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13899766)

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14983970](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14983970)

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15161361](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15161361)

I mention nosh there. I am going to release version 1.38 soon.

<comment><USER8> Wow, looks like others have had the same idea. Wonder what stalled things out? Maybe there'd be something worth picking back up.

<comment><USER10> The big sticking point the last go-around was adding Mach IPC to FreeBSD. Mach IPC affects the security of the system in potentially subtle ways (it seems Apple struggled with Mach IPC security for a while in the early days of OS X). In addition to security concerns, there was a question of whether FreeBSD should have Mach IPC, as a sort of project identity question.

Some suggested using plain Unix sockets instead of Mach IPC, but the effort required for that seemed to be very non-trivial.

There was some concern about XML plists, which no one is excited about, but I view those as somewhat trivial. (FreeBSD launchd could easily use a JSON or "libucl" format plist.)

Finally, the developer behind the Mach IPC and launchd port didn't really want to do the politics required to land a big change like this. I can't really fault him that; it's tedious and thankless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I always appreciate posts like these as a direct comparison for getting things done in linux vs a mac. For day to day I still personally feel there is enough on offer from my mac that I'd be driving around the n-x version of what I really want. However, that being said it's getting so much closer!

</comment><comment><USER12> I love FreeBSD. But I wish more hardware vendors support for FreeBSD.

</comment><comment><USER9> The "dual-pane file manager" is more usually termed an _orthodox file manager_.

Umlauts and suchlike, on the kernel virtual terminals at any rate, are a simple matter of picking the right keyboard map and putting it in /etc/rc.conf ; and custom keyboard maps are not particularly hard to create. The GUI is a different kettle of fish, though.

Boot environments would help with a couple of the points raised, too.

</comment><comment><USER13> Keep up the good work - I did abandon freebsd for linux some years ago, and I regret it most days.

<comment><USER14> Your always welcome back, I have a nice XPS 13 going with firefox, Vscode and a rust, go, javascript, and C development tools/environments going and its great.

<comment><USER15> Was it difficult to install the Broadcom drivers? I've been looking into using FreeBSD and given how they're a headache even on Linux, I imagined it was even worse for FreeBSD

<comment><USER16> Fairly cheap to pickup a USB Wifi dongle (and many of them are almost flush to the port), might be a better bet than a Broadcom internal card (thou no experience of FreeBSD with Broadcom, just a general thought).

<comment><USER14> Yea I just went with a $20 wifi dongle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Missing a crucial ingredient, system wide consistent keyboard shortcuts.</comment>


Ask HN: What do you do on weekends? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Depends.

Depends on the weather; time of year; any freelance work to get done; etc...

Right now in Winter? Usually just try to relax and spend some time with the wife. If we go out with friends, ok. If there is some freelance work to be done - ok. I'll usually clean the house before she get's home from work mid- day Saturday. One of the few days we cook dinner together.

Summer is different; bike rides, yard work, beach if it's hot enough, dinner / drinks out with friends, etc... I like to consider myself a intermediate to pro car detailer so I'll spend 4-6 hours on a weekend day detailing our 2 cars (1 suv, 1 convertible). That's relaxing to me - blast some music and wax, vacuum, multiple glazes, waxes, etc...

Or whatever. Concert, go down to the water front - usually anything but sit in front of a laptop...

</comment><comment><USER3> Try to get out as I spend enough time in front of a screen during week. We're lucky to live 2min walk from Atlantic beach with great surfing.

Enjoy taking the family shopping, although I rarely buy much. I like the hustle and bustle and going for a coffee / meal etc.

During the summer I spend time taking photograph for my web site, half hobby half income generating but certainly my passion.

Now my kids are older and can be left I spend an hour or so at the gym, sometimes they come along and go swimming.

My wife works Saturday nights so I spend this time on whatever my current project happens to be.

Sunday nights my wife and I always watch a film together at home.

</comment><comment><USER4> Play is important to keep me interested in programming - experimenting with new deep learning ideas, playing with webgl, writing pathfinding algorithms in unity, or increasing my scraping infra to more interesting datasets.

I leave weekends for whimsical ideas and intellectual chase the shiny-thing, it stimulates my creative side and gives me things to think about during the boring parts of the week

<comment><USER5> What do you scrape?

<comment><USER4> \- Weather data (tabular) \- Satellite imagery (lots of providers, lots of different bands) \- Forex currency pairs (70 pairs) \- Cryptocurrency pairs \- Crime data \- Macroeconomic indicators \- Fuel prices \- Bitcoin trades \- P2P downloads \- Twitter feeds

those are just off the top of my head...

<comment><USER5> Why?

<comment><USER4> Because having large datasets allows me to merge the data with proprietary sets, or increase my own predictive models.

I have real estate models, Energy Trading models, cryptocurrency models, mechanical failure predictive models, insurance models, sentiment models and clustering models

Everything is monetised

<comment><USER5> That is the interesting part! "Everything is monetised"

But it's also your secret so I won't ask more

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Spend extra time with family, study for a couple of hours, turn off phone and computer on Sundays and try to get bored. Practice my instrument.

</comment><comment><USER7> Spend time with the kids and wife.. do chores.. and that is pretty much it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Hang out with friends, record music, play video games, home improvement stuff, and pet project coding.

</comment><comment><USER9> Ride my bike, do yoga, cook meals, work on OSS... or whatever else.

</comment><comment><USER10> I cook and run trails

</comment><comment><USER11> Swimming.

</comment><comment><USER12> Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, hiking, lots of reading</comment>