YC S12 Single Founders Wanted - <AUTHOR>

Applications for YC S12 are due in five weeks. I suspect there are many great people here wanting to start a venture. However many of us may lack an idea or prototype to apply with. Others may be in need of a founding partner. I know that it is risky to apply with someone you barely know but marriages do follow from speed dating, after all.  The best example of founder speed dating I can think of is Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi deciding to apply to YC after meeting twice to start Dropbox [1]. So, who is in need of a product idea or a cofounder before applying to YC?<p>Please tell what you can offer to your founder match.<p>[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriabarret/2011/10/18/dropbox-the-inside-story-of-techs-hottest-startup/ <comment><USER2> I'm fearing this will going to look like a personal ad, but here we go anyway.

Who am I? I'm Dirk, a 32 year old Dutch jack-of-all-trades. I have a background in communications/PR, taught myself to hack (PHP mainly, Python OK too) some 7-8 years ago. I'm not the best designer in the world, but I know when something 'works' or not and know my way around photoshop/illustrator et al.

Our family dog (I have a wife+2 young kids) is a lab. As with most dogs, his owner has similar personalities: easygoing, playful, more intelligent than you'd say at first sight, and a puppy-like naivety well into adulthood. Oh, I'm housebroken, too.

About my project: No paint just pixels Two years ago I started No paint just pixels: a project that will disrupt the art world. A lot of media have made the transition from analog to digital, from offine to online. This is clearly not the case with art. I made an online marketplace where digital artists and art lovers can buy, sell and display their art. The project is written in PHP and is about 75% finished. Check my YCW11 appliation pich here: <http://dirktheman.posterous.com/private/oDCxnvrzme>

Who am I searching for? I'm looking for someone who is a jack of all trades like me: part hacker, part design guy/gal, part marketer, part sysadmin. If you have strong coding skills but lack a sense of design or marketing that's okay, but coding skills are a must. Personalitywise: if you're easy going, love art and/or photography, want to make the world a better place and have a sense of humor contact me! The one thing I can do without is a big ego though. If you're already based in California that's a plus, but by no means a prerequisite.

What's the deal? For sake of equality, 50% of the company and its proceedings.

</comment><comment><USER3> Generalist developer seeking biz or designer cofounder to launch AudienceAmp, an app to make attending presentations/conferences more enjoyable & meaningful via realtime interaction. Core features include standard stuff usually available as single services, like polling or surveying. Few apps/platforms consolidate them & the ones that do have a lot of pain points.

My team & I won Startup Weekend Baton Rouge in November with this idea. The long-term roadmap is pretty solid, too. Hint: loosen your definition of presentation/conference, but we can discuss that later. There's been a lot of interest expressed in the idea & I've got a plan for launch, but nothing's set in stone, of course.

Ask away if you've got questions!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think it's important that founders match primarily on personality compatibility and not on the project idea. The idea will most likely change. In a way, the project application idea is a means to get past the YC judges.

</comment><comment><USER4> ME! firstname.lastname@example.com firstname.lastname@example.com facebook.com/igor1glinsky. I have 3 brilliant ideas: 1 incredibly complex but written in such detail with so many connecting points --you'll love it. The other so effing simple that it's got EASY capability of making around 4 billion a year.. by the second year. This is not a joke. And the third one I'm still mulling over in my mind, once I figure out the mechanics it also will be pretty freakin awesome

So for idea one and two, need developer/engineer, coders

<comment><USER5> Only in the second year? Why not the first?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting forum for finding like minded individuals. I have been near applying to YC several times, but never pulled the trigger due to the fact that I have no partner to bounce ideas off of. Would be interested in applying this round.

I am a great generalist. Currently work in marketing and fundraising at a nonprofit (an orchestra), hack on side projects (just launched on the app store), and have a degree in classical music and an MBA.

Contact info is in my profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Our Lists is a neat app idea. I keep thinking everything that could be shareable already is but I am always surprised. You can find my contact info in my profile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think the main issue here is that probably _everyone_ has an idea/project.

How do you match two founders who both want someone to work on their own idea? Maybe we should be looking for someone who is prepared to agree to give both ideas a go, equally.

I know it's a tall order, and I see (ego) trouble ahead, but think of it this way : surely it doesn't matter which idea succeeds if you're both sharing the profits?

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm not sure the best idea would be to apply because you simply want to get in. Surely it would advantageous for you and the application if you were passionate about something and want it to come to life.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm looking for a co-founder (assuming we match). I have a project idea/WIP but am fairly flexible. I'm a programmer.

Reach me at firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER10> You may get more replies if you put your contact details in your profile. The email field is only visible to admins.

<comment><AUTHOR> Contact info added. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3614884>

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe 2012 will be remembered as the year that the education revolution took off. Rising education costs and poor quality of instruction are the catalysts for educational innovation. Current products fall into video lessons, memorization and digital textbooks. They all use visual stimulation and repetition as the primary means for learning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Anyone interested in the publishing industry? Email me, contact is in my profile.

<comment><USER13> What aspect of publishing?

<comment><USER12> I'm creating a marketplace for writers to meet artists and editors to self publish their book. Trying to cut the margins of big middlemen companies like lulu etc. It has a built in escrow system to make transactions safer. Most of hte code is done. Should be able to launch soon.</comment></comment></comment>


Building an analog looping piano - <AUTHOR> http://blog.majormega.com/looping-piano

<comment><USER2> These kinds of projects really highlight how awesome embedded linux really is. It's the marriage of everything small embedded systems can do (gpio, analog inputs, low level communication protocols, ability to run on batteries, etc) with PC level specs, and the breadth of software that linux provides (every networking protocol under the sun, audio/video processing, countless languages to program with, etc). Best of all, the only thing you have to buy is the board, of which there are several offerings at $50 or less.

</comment><comment><USER3> > _Raspberry Pi 2 booting in 2.9 seconds_

Has the kernel they mention been released anywhere?

<comment><AUTHOR> I would start with rpi-buildroot and build up from there. If you have low latency audio questions feel free to email me.

[https://github.com/gamaral/rpi-buildroot](https://github.com/gamaral/rpi- buildroot)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> sooperlooper is such a solid program. Awesome use and smart to not reinvent the looping core of the system.</comment>


Voltage-Gated Sodium Channels: Therapeutic Targets for Pain (2009) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1526-4637.2009.00719.x/pdf

<comment><USER2> I work for a company that has a Nav1.7 candidate in the pipeline. It would be great if it was successful, but there have been many failures so far.

The challenge really is that opioids work really well. The addiction potential is unfortunate, but they are very effective against pain (I acknowledge not all pain).

<comment><USER3> I'm curious, what is the name of the potential compound? I have to take opioids for chronic pain due to Ankylosing Spondylitis and would love to stay informed on potential alternatives.

<comment><USER2> The molecule I'm thinking of has no name at this point, it's that early on. There are a number of companies working on the Nav1.7, and you can find them via google search. I think the earliest launch is close to 2020.

The anti-NGF are another pain MOA that seems promising. Pfizer is moving into phase 3 in the near-term.</comment></comment></comment>


The death of the web design agency - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/net-magazine/the-death-of-the-web-design-agency-a79dd531bee2 <comment><USER2> This article jumps around a lot. It seems the main point is the death of the design agency as a model. That's a trend which has been in slow motion for quite some time. Web design as a term probably should be buried along-side the term webmaster.

The articles pulls examples of top agencies and then goes on to talk about services such as Shopify eating into the low-end. As if the top agencies sustained themselves on low-end work.

The article also makes the case that talent is difficult to come by and expensive.

TLDR: Running a business is hard, especially one which has lots of competition and employs a lot of expensive talent in a fast moving industry. You need to adapt. At times adaptation goes well. At other times not so well. But there is no shortage of work for talented developers.

Open up some archives and follow any big company. One year it's a star, the next year it's in trouble.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd wager that the margins are diminished because a well-accepted minimum bar has been established that is fulfilled by templates, frameworks, and libraries, that have all reached critical-mass.

Also I've spent several months of development time over the course of my life designing and implementing dashboards in angular 1.x and just the other month I googled "angular dashboard templates" out of boredom and frankly I could've saved weeks implementing $10 solutions that ultimately were better then what I came up with on my own (superior responsiveness, better styling, whatever).

Oh and finally all the start-up design jobs are tied to start-up funding. If the funding goes south companies in the Bay Area will be much less willing to drop $5, 10, 20k on design work.

<comment><USER4> From my experience Facebook is killing the low-end web design. Smaller companies who would normally need a web site no longer hire an agency for one. They put together a simple one-page landing page using a ready-made template and do all their business through their Facebook page.

<comment><USER5> Can't say I blame them either. For a one-person company the minimum fee for a good web design shop might well be a month of revenue. And Facebook is perfectly acceptable these days for consumer focused small businesses like restaurants, salons, bars and similar small-time retail/service business.

<comment><USER4> It's not just acceptable, it comes with built in marketing tools. Rather than spending $2000 on a site and then more to advertise it, they make a Facebook page for free and pay $500 on Facebook ads to get some traction. To me it sounds like a better deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Web design is cheap now. Eastern European and Southeast Asian talents can deliver at a fraction of a cost.

Next up is going to be mobile app design.

Additionally every other person in Silicon Valley is in a coding school or graduating from one.

Salaries are going to drop.

Programmers are the new lawyers.

<comment><USER7> Consider another aspect- agency costs. I recently asked for a quotation for some custom work in php. To generate pdf and zip files from database with a dashboard. Agencies quoted it as roughly US$ 340. That is steep.

So its good that a lot of help is available at sites like stackexchange. We completed the stuff ourselves.

<comment><USER8> Is it steep?

I suppose you paid the salaries for the person(s) doing that work in-house. Assuming your programmer's salary cost (~1.3x their gross salary) is $5000 per month and the median month having 20 work days, that price is about the equivalent of 1 day of work for your in-house programmer.

So that price needs to pay for 1 work day for the outsourced freelance programmer+overhead/profit margin for the company itself...Sounds reasonable to me.

Below a certain threshold it doesn't make sense to put in the time/effort to get a new client.

<comment><USER7> true i agree on the threshold principle. A minimum time slot or billing is reasonable. But as a client let's say thats just a slice of the entire web- project. And if this simple stuff takes $10/hour x 34 hours. It is steep.

<comment><USER8> Which programmer rates at $10/hour in salary cost? Here (Germany), this is just about minimum wage.

So even a cashier in the supermarket or a street cleaner earns about that or more.

EDIT: I guess the situation is different in India (just saw you're based there from your comment history), although I remember reading that even there developer salaries are slowly closing the gap with their western counterparts.

<comment><USER7> Like i said, I am not disputing the wage or salary as such. However with respect to a custom project it makes it costly. Again compared to having your own people do it using help from the net. As they may not be experts themselves.

<comment><USER8> I started writing this before having seen your other comment :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Facebook is killing the low-end web design. Instead of hiring an agency for a small website, they just use a FB page. And before Facebook there were MySpace and AOL(albeit with a smaller world wide reach).

</comment><comment><USER10> I read this article, or a version of it, four years ago when I quit my last job to go work at an agency. Since then business has only picked up.

It's not like these big name agencies employee hundreds of people. It's not like GE folding. So I don't think it's fair to judge the state of the industry mostly on the status of those companies.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm not sure how much you can really read into a couple of big name agencies being bought out by a couple of much bigger name companies with very deep pockets. Presumably the founders of the big name agencies are in their 40s by now, and perhaps they thought that taking a huge pile of money and accepting a position as "EVP of Design" at a huge company would be a pleasant way to spend a few years whilst they think of a new hobby to take up.

</comment><comment><USER12> This article is stick in the weeds.

"Web designers" were an anomaly and stuck in the past. "Web design" of 1998-2010ish was mostly designers used to paper trying to translate it to the web (think complex use of huge tables to constrain presentation). Photoshop was the chief mockup tool tells you how out of touch they were.

The fact is that magazines had converged on a number of useful core ideas like black text on white pages, page numbers (mostly), text width constrained, breaking into multiple columns if necessary, etc. People who deviated too far from this ended up with "art" rather than a magazine. A lot of designers thought the web would allow them to go bonkers, yet at the same time had a command-and-control mindset that was straight out of paper-land (they'd tell you what size to make your browser in order to read their web page, for crime's sake).

So we ended up with some more conventions and are starting to have online (not just web) design that fits the medium -- e.g. finally we have reactive designs that aren't rigid table layouts that model paper so at least work to some degree on different sized devices.

Good riddance to those old fashioned losers. Anybody can now do an OK job using templates, and there is still room for experimentation. Hell, theres _more_ experimentation, and a lot of it involves UI research, something anathema to magazine and poster designers!

</comment><comment><USER13> "A few high-profile acquisitions coupled with a downturn in business has led to speculation that we are witnessing the end of an era"

A downturn? The article reaches a conclusion then supports it own conclusion with anecdotal evidence.

Maybe the amount of money spent in the design agency industry has increased but it's being spent at bigger firms.

</comment><comment><USER14> Apps, social media presence and content marketing have all been eating away the 'website' budgets, while costs (with responsive design taking more time) have gone up. One way to stay relevant as an agency is being able to integrate all online chanels. Adapt or die.</comment>


Alastair Morgan talks to Anthony Burgess (1983) - how-about-this https://literaryreview.co.uk/alastair-morgan-talks-to-anthony-burgess <comment><AUTHOR> My recollection is that the foreword to _The End of the World News_ said essentially that it wasn't worth writing well any more. But I read that thirty-five years ago or so, and may have it wrong.

Burgess's autobiographies, _Little Wilson and Big God_ and _You 've Had Your Time_ are worth reading and quickly read. The former says a good deal about languages, and his experience teaching English to those whose first language might have been Malay, Chinese, or an Indian language; also the revolution in his thinking caused by learning Malay, where semantics trumped syntax.

And I do like "I always quote the word violence, because the word violence is the most unviolent word in the world, because it contains violin, viol, violets." With a bit of searching on YouTube you should be able to find a Rocky and Bullwinkle sketch on just that notion.</comment>


False start on ProductHunt? - alexander-g Somebody just submitted our product to PH. We weren't ready for this at all.
Is it possible to "hide" it and re-submit later when it's ready?  I feel like it's a real false start.
What should we do?<p>ps: here is a ProductHunt link: https://www.producthunt.com/tech/chatbottle The service we're working on is not yet released. It works fine, but we planned to redesign the website and cover kik and skype. <comment><AUTHOR> Unsurprisingly, their FAQ covers this:

[https://www.producthunt.com/faq#my-product-was-submitted- by-...](https://www.producthunt.com/faq#my-product-was-submitted-by-someone- else-before-we're-ready-how-can-i-have-it-removed)

Please try to find an answer yourself before asking for help.

<comment> alexander-g I missed that. Thanks you Writing an email to email@example.com...</comment></comment>


Show HN: 4x4x4 Rubik's Cube solving machine - <AUTHOR> https://ballcuber.github.io <comment><USER2> Boy you've been working in this for a while now, the patent was introduced april 2019

</comment><comment><USER3> What a beautiful and tiny mechanism, but why did you patented it?

<comment><AUTHOR> It was for the exercise of filing a patent without the help of a lawyer. I've always wanted to see how difficult it is. Although this is a novel manipulation device, I'm not sure if it will ever have an industrial application, but it's been accepted so it's cool, I'm glad. I don't care about intellectual property and I wouldn't sue anyone.

<comment><USER4> It looks like a nice exercise, but for a real patent you sadly need a real layer. There are a lot of standard patenting tricks to ensure nobody can make a stupid generalization of your patent and get a patent that includes your idea. Does you patent apply to cubes with N layers? Does your patent apply with cubes painted with less (or more?) colors?

<comment><AUTHOR> I worked very hard to get it accepted as is. But it's obvious that if a professional had written this patent, it would have been more general and robust. But it's expensive, especially to make it world-wide, and that's not at all what I want. This patent was a non-technical aside in this project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I understand how you rotate slices in the middle, but I do't understand how you rotate the slices that have the corners.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly the same way as the middle layers. A motor rotates each outer layers. On the other hand, the complicated thing to understand is that the cube has 6 outer layers (left, right, front, back, top, bottom). But in this kinematics, only 3 outer layers move (left, front, top) and the 3 others remain fixed during the resolution, hence the fact that we see the fixed corner common to all these 3 fixed layers. If the algorithm calculates that we must move a fixed layer, the 3 others will move in the other direction. That's why, although it's a 4x4x4 cube, there are 3 motors per dimension, so 9 motors in total.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is pure awesomeness.

</comment><comment><USER6> Very cool!</comment>


Ask HN: What does the Y in Y Combinator stand for? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed- point_combinator](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-point_combinator)</comment>


Rails is omakase - <AUTHOR> http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/2012/rails-is-omakase.html <comment><USER2> What is this post responding to? And who is the target audience?

Reading this feels exactly like reading the passive aggressive facebook posts of someone currently in a fight with their boy/girlfriend. We get it, Rails is "opinionated", sorry I guess we're saying "omakase" these days. Who really gives a fuck?

The reason DHH is getting loud complaints is because people feel that they carry a legitimate grievance but also feel no way to voice that opinion (or are trolls). Douchetastic talking down to them like exemplified in this post won't help (and will encourage trolls).

People with limited knowledge and understanding of something and/or restricted mobility in tech aren't in a place to see things the way you see them. Help them get to that place, instead of just telling them how to see things with metaphors that only work once you're at that place. Or just don't engage them at all.

Edit: Huh. This DHH blog post doesn't really feel on par as a response to the conversation in that github issue. But if it is, know that my post was written assuming the criticism was of the type he describes, not the type that transpired.

<comment><USER3> I'm not knee-deep in this specific issue with the binstubs, but I generally agree about the legitimate grievances. The Merb effort and the Rails 3.0 refactor resulted from people unable to voice what they need. We seem to keep repeating history.

Asset Pipeline is also the wrong area of innovation to focus on. Rails should be baking in support for creating API only apps, make it easy to shed template-driven code and write UX-agnostic backends. Mobile is driving a need for creating API-only apps, and something like Asset Pipeline is an evolutionary dead-end. There are more smartphone-like devices in the world than personal computers; there are kids growing up with a smartphone as their first computing device; people of our generation have a bias towards thinking of UX and web-apps as desktop-first; when the tooling around API-only Rails apps mature, then template-driven apps will start dying into irrelevance.

But, I'm done with it. I'm looking at the next wave of leading edge of innovations for the masses, and it won't be in apps.

<comment><USER4> > Rails should be baking in support for creating API only apps, make it easy > to shed template-driven code and write UX-agnostic backends. Mobile is > driving a need for creating API-only apps, and something like Asset Pipeline > is an evolutionary dead-end.

This has never been Rails' focus. Let Rails keep doing what it kicks ass at. Sinatra works great for API endpoints. There's probably an opportunity for an API-focused extension to Sinatra. Of course, Grape works too (<https://github.com/intridea/grape>).

The nice thing is that all of these are built on Rack now. GitHub.com runs as a Unicorn rack app that mounts over 30 Sinatra apps and a massive Rails app together. I'm not saying this is an optimal solution, it's just where the app is at in its current evolution. But it is very possible :)

<comment><USER5> For things like APIs, Rails has <https://github.com/rails-api/rails-api>, an excellent project.

<comment><USER3> I've taken a look at it. It does not really use the Rails 3 architecture (Russian Doll Pattern) to its fullest potential. I have written <https://github.com/intermodal/intermodal> back in 2010 to demonstrate it, and have put that code into production.

There are some people trying to revive Rails-API. I have already sent them an email begging them to steal ideas from Intermodal. [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rails-api- core/LoJap...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rails-api- core/LoJap3IzOig)

Maybe they will, maybe they won't. I got a polite brush-off so I doubt they really looked at it, but since I am exiting, whatever.

In writing Intermodal, I've had to muck around with some of the guts of Rails. I've found that Rails 3.0 very much follows the principle of Russian Doll Pattern, but Rails 3.1 onwards started moving away from it. There are baked-in assumptions in the code for a template-driven app. This is where the Rails leadership is focused on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Basically, here's the deal: this is a change that every member of Rails core (and others with commit, like me) who is not an employee of 37 Signals disagrees with, as well as the entire maintenance team of Bundler. Every single one. And DHH's response is that we all 'haven't really paid much attention to how things are run on a day-to-day basis.'

This change 'breaks every single new Rails app on Heroku that uses rbenv', in the words of Heroku's Ruby platform lead. It is not a trivial change. This is David going against the wishes of every other maintainer of every other piece of software Rails works with, as well as other Rails maintainers, and then painting their comments as 'nerd rage' and 'organizational failures.'

Ugh.

<comment><USER7> Why is it such a big deal? It's not like you can't add a line to gitignore?

<comment><USER8> Because sane defaults matter. Defaults that get in the way of people being productive are bad defaults.

<comment><USER9> Why does Rails do anything related to git anyway? What if I use some other version control system?

<comment><USER10> I think DHH's article succinctly addresses exactly your question from his perspective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Alright, somebody has to draw the line somewhere.

Every time DHH goes off on one of his little rants and angers a lot of people in the process it's not just those people that get affected, and not just emotionally either. These Ruby [on Rails] dramas have a real-world impact on the rest of us, the hundreds of thousands of us that use Rails every day to make a living. It affects us in that it makes us all look like unprofessional schoolground children. Rails already has a stigma of "hipster" developers that tend to be up their own asses, and episodes like this really don't help our image. Especially not when the global developer community is not as massive as you'd like to believe, especially when people talk - to other developers, to potential and existing clients that then get per-conceptions of unprofessionalism, and to newbie developers that shy away and look into alternative languages and frameworks because they don't want to be associated with this wankery.

DHH's post, particularly the second paragraph, seriously comes across as if the core "team of chefs" is doing us all a massive favour and if we want to keep benefiting from the really beautiful thing that Rails is then we should shut the fuck up and take what we're given. Well this isn't Pyongyang (if we're going to play with metaphors) and DHH is not our dear leader. Yes of course I, and all the other Rails developers and immensely grateful for the framework's existence, but it's OSS now. There are thousands of contributors and so many more times commits than that to the projects since it did become OSS.

The community either needs a revolution or a fork because this downward spiral of foul air is just going to continue spreading and affecting us all. I'm sure if a couple of well respected individuals decided to take that route, a whole lot of people would back them up - I know I sure as hell would.

Pawel - a Rails developer.

<comment><USER12> > _Pawel - a Rails developer._

I'd like people adding those kinds of claims to also give an estimate of how much they have contributed to the project.

I.e.

John S., Linux Kernel developer, contributed maybe 10 lines of code, or 0.0001% of the kernel source

or:

L. Torvalds, Linux Kernel developer, wrote the kernel code from scratch, that's my name on the project, biatches

Else, this "a Rails developers" signature tells us we should give extra credit to your opinion, but we don't know how much compared to DHH.

I don't mean it about you, Pawel, or your comment (I don't follow Rails that much anyway the last 2-3 years), I mean it in general.

<comment><USER13> Are you sure they're all claiming the same thing? Maybe one "Rails developer" actually works on the framework itself, while another "Rails developer" is a developer who merely uses it to accomplish something else.

Either way, you're looking at a brag-fest as people try to one-up each other. That can't be productive. I don't think any good would come of this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just read the whole thread here and on github ([https://github.com/rails/rails/commit/61b91c4c55bcbd5a2ec85d...](https://github.com/rails/rails/commit/61b91c4c55bcbd5a2ec85d6e1c67755150653dff))

Technical: DHH is wrong, plain and simple. No amount of defending the decision makes it right.

Community Management: DHH, while not as abrasive as Linus (another thread here linked to a kernel thread), IMO, DHH is (much) worse than Linus. Linus is abrasive and swears and yells. DHH is dismissive and condescending. DHH thinks he has better opinions, more depth of experience, smarter, more insight and generally "gets it" more than everyone around him, including the other maintainers.

<comment><USER15> I really don't see how you could say he is wrong. It's _his_ open source project that he's put thousands of hours into and is providing for _free_ to everyone that wishes to use it. You might not agree with what he says or decides on, that's completely fine. In that case you're completely free to use a different framework. Plenty of choice out there.

<comment><USER16> It's not completely _his_. Other developers have put in much more than him alone into rails, and you need to respect them for that.

<comment><USER15> You're absolutely right. The thing is if, as he (DHH) writes in his post, if _they_ were to make a suggestion he would take them very serious.

<comment><USER17> But they did, and he didn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This site doesn't tell its encoding (neither via HTTP nor via meta tags), so my Firefox displayed the first sentence as "There are lots of ГЎ la carte software...".

Also, I don't understand why the article was written, every software developer makes their own decisions that not everyone will like — isn't that obvious?

<comment><USER19> > This site doesn't tell its encoding

Same problem here. So much for the master chef with a decade of experience...

<comment><USER20> This is just his blog. He's the chef of a framework, not an avowed HTML guru.

Have you seen the design for YCombinator.com? 1998 called and it wants its Arial font, <table> and <center> tags back. By your logic, YCombinator is worthless for helping Web startups launch.

<comment><USER21> If you wanted your password reset for the first couple of years, didn't you have to email pg personally?

<comment><USER22> haha

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Aren't all frameworks like this? The designer picks what he/she thinks is the best architecture and builds it around that idea. That's why there are a thousand different frameworks. I think DHH is experiencing what I call "Linus Hell." Which is the hell Torvalds has to go through every _n_ amount of time when dealing with obtuse programmers.

<comment><USER24> Not necessarily. Padrino [<http://www.padrinorb.com/>] builds a rails-style framework from components which are exchangeable. You get to pick your testing library, the templating engine and the orm of your choice. If you don't like the router you can swap it out. It offer more flexibility and freedom of choice in that respect, but on the flip side doesn't achieve the same level of deep integration. It's more "a la carte" in DHH words.

<comment><USER25> Rails allows you to choose your own testing framework [1][2][3] and plugins[4][5][6], templating engine[7][8][9], and ORM[10]. It's my understanding that before Rails 3, swapping out many default Rails was a bit hacky, but it's pretty standard now.

[1]: <https://github.com/rspec/rspec-rails> [2]: <https://github.com/cucumber/cucumber-rails> [3]: <https://github.com/thoughtbot/shoulda> [4]: <https://github.com/thoughtbot/factory_girl> [5]: <https://github.com/nulldb/nulldb> [6]: <https://github.com/notahat/machinist> [7]: <https://github.com/haml/haml> [8]: <https://github.com/josh/mustache- rails> [9]: <https://github.com/stonean/slim> [10]: <https://github.com/brasten/sequel-rails> [11]: <https://github.com/datamapper/dm-rails> [12]: [http://mongomapper.com/documentation/getting- started/rails.h...](http://mongomapper.com/documentation/getting- started/rails.html)

<comment><USER24> I know that and it's been posted often enough. However, the rails approach is fundamentally different from the padrino approach: Rails is very opinionated about which component should be used - as DHH stresses in his blog post. Padrino asks you when you generate your project. Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages.

<comment><USER26> Changing the defaults takes 2 minutes in Rails. What's the problem? Besides, there are gems like Rails Composer [1], which allow you to create new projects based on a template.

[1] - <https://github.com/RailsApps/rails-composer/#your-options>

<comment><USER24> Nobody ever said it's a problem. It's a different view of the world, that's all.

<comment><USER26> And what is the fundamental difference?

You can tell Padrino what you want during the creation of a new project.

You can tell Rails what you want immediately after the creation of a new project. Rails simply saves you time by having sane defaults. Convention over configuration at its best.

<comment><USER24> Padrinos fundamental philosophy is to be a framework built up of independent components and with limited opinions. Rails is by default opinionated: You can swap out certain components but all in all you're expected to do stuff "The Rails Way". That's the difference. It may or may not matter to you and in many ways produce the same end results, but the approach still differs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is why I like the Clojure community, which in this regard is very different from Rails. Clojure has developed a culture that favors small libraries over monolithic frameworks. The eco-system of Clojure is all about picking and choosing among a variety of tasty dishes, which is the exact opposite of this:

"Rails is not that. Rails is omakase. A team of chefs picked out the ingredients, designed the APIs, and arranged the order of consumption on your behalf according to their idea of what would make for a tasty full-stack framework. The menu can be both personal and quirky. It isn't designed to appeal to the taste of everyone, everywhere."

The folks who like omakase are of course free to enjoy Rails. More power to them. I personally learn more, and enjoy more, when I get to assemble a different menu for each project -- a menu suited to the project.

<comment><USER28> Same with the Node.js community. When I moved from Rails to Node.js, the focus on small libraries held together by an exceptional package manager was a huge breath of fresh air.

If anything, Rails poisons things in the Ruby community because the monolithic approach of the biggest framework in the community simply works against small libraries with small interfaces that are very compatible and remixable.

In fact, one of the best developments in the Ruby community lately has been the increase of other frameworks like grape, padrino, rack, sinatra, etc. I know some of these have been around for a long time, but it wasn't until Rails started getting long in the tooth that they started getting more and more attention.

<comment><USER21> You really can't lump Rack in there, given that it's a meta framework, and a meta framework to which Rails has been built around since 2.3.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> DHH vexes me on a few issues but I respect his passion for what he believes Rails should be.

The conventions being enforced result in existing Rails code being easier to penetrate for new team members and more maintainable over time than was the case pre-Rails for web apps.

Rails is stronger for it.

<comment><USER30> But if you actually read through the github thread, you will see that DHH is going against conventional practice in this case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The analogy here is just off. DHH might consider just saying "I have good intentions. Rails is my thing. I will ultimately make the choices but do consider feedback."

The reason the analogy is off: when was the last time you went into a restaurant and said, "i'm going to base my work/livelihood on this menu"? Never. Sometimes when I go for a meal I know what I want and I order that. Often I'm looking for an experience and I'll ask, "If the chef were going to die tomorrow what would they eat tonight?". Omakase is a formalized way to see what the chef recommends at that moment in time.

Rails is not the same as me going into a restaurant looking for a great experience at that moment. I might have a mind-blowing meal but I'm not going to base my livelihood on it.

I'm not saying that DHH or Rails are flaky. I am saying that comparing a serious tool for serious work to omakase/the whims of the chef does Rails a disservice.

<comment><USER20> DHH has long held that Rails meets his (Basecamp's) needs first, so the whims of the chef hold true. Implicit in this post was the idea that it's not the only serious tool for serious work, and if you don't like the chef's choices, you're better served in a different restaurant than complaining about the menu in this one.

Even if you've staked your career on Rails, it's important to realize it's your choice, but his framework.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> He lost me at "á la carte". Incidentally, no proper unicode support is why I never used rails (or ruby) for anything more than a tutorial. Yes, that was a long time ago.

<comment><USER33> This has nothing to do with Ruby or Rails. Setting a proper HTML encoding (UTF-8) would fix it.

<comment><USER32> Hence "incidentally". Couldn't help but to make a connection.

<comment><USER20> Yes, you could help it. The connection you made applies to any language/framework.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> There's an old saying that goes something like, the lower the stakes, the more bitter and destructive the disagreement. It goes along with that old anecdote about how the disputes among people involved in volunteer organizations are more charged than in situations where money is involved.

In this case, this drama was triggered by... a one-line change to the default gitignore file.

<comment><USER6> This 'low stakes' change breaks every single new Rails app on Heroku that uses rbenv.

<comment><USER35> Honest question: how popular is rbenv? Should I be using it rather than rvm? <https://github.com/sstephenson/rbenv> lists apparently bad things that rvm does; are those significant reasons to prefer rbenv?

<comment><USER36> It doesn't really matter.

I switched for a little while and ran into all sorts of path issues. As I was working through my issues, I noticed there seemed to be a lot of attitude around it and what I thought was unwarranted criticism of rvm. Soured me, and I haven't bothered with it since.

I'm sure it works great for some people though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Rails doesn't have to be a one size fits all framework if you use it as a web delivery mechanism. That is the point of the Obvious Architecture <http://obvious.retromocha.com/> You can see an example "twitter" app here: <https://github.com/RetroMocha/obvious_status>

In the case of my example you could swap out the /delivery/web/app.rb or delivery/api/app.rb out for rails no problem. You wouldn't need to change any of the code in /app or /external to do so whatsoever.

Just because DHH thinks you should write your code one way and you don't agree doesn't mean you have to throw rails away entirely to have a different or better structure. Rails might be opinionated, but that's just like their opinion man.

</comment><comment><USER28> I think it'd be funny if one day they even start prescribing the production environment via a Vagrant box.

</comment><comment><USER38> So use Sinatra instead of Rails and create the stack and build system that works for you.

People are way too into Rails...

<comment><USER39> I don't know about you, but every time I've attempted to use Sinatra for a project, it's either been for something that wouldn't ever see the light of production, or I've just ended up with franken-rails.

We had this problem at work: a Sinatra app that had pieces and pieces of ActiveSupport bolted on, and it got to the stage where we needed a beefier database than Redis before the CTO eventually generated a new rails app and transplanted the Sinatra app on top of it.

It's all well and good saying "use Sinatra", but when you get to the stage where you're adding ActiveRecord because it's the most mature ORM out there, it's usually late enough in the game that you're actually writing a poor excuse for a Rails application.

<comment><USER40> I hear that sentiment a lot (I blogged about it here: [1]). Basically, "every time I use Sinatra, I ended up with franken-rails" means that Sinatra was either picked for the wrong reasons or misused. If you want to build something large based on Sinatra, for the love of $deity, please use organization systems people have built for you, be it Padrino, some Sinatra stack or something else. It doesn't mean that Sinatra is bad, but its often misunderstood.

[1]: [http://www.asquera.de/opensource/2012/10/22/the-rails- monoth...](http://www.asquera.de/opensource/2012/10/22/the-rails-monotheism/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I've come to enjoy Rails defaults and "just solve the business problem" attitude, coming from ASP.Net MVC3 it's a breath of fresh air.

It's quite liberating to have things have a default naming convention and location. I can imagine it makes working on teams exceedingly easier other alternatives.

<comment><USER42> I think this an interesting point. I feel like the ASP.NET Web Forms stack got a bad name because it so closely coupled a web application framework with proprietary, abstracted, controls (which I agree was bad).

But an empty MVC4 application makes no assumptions about frameworks (JS, CSS, ORM, Tests, View engine, etc.), and yet it generates criticism that there isn't enough dependencies built-in. It seems MS can't find the middle ground.

I agree that it fragments open source projects (you won't find any two MVC4 apps that follow the same methodology), but I find the flexibility for an internal team to be more desirable than Rails.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Rails has become extremely popular over the years, but we have to remember that in the end it's a software created by a guy containing his particular beliefs. And this is great! A good web framework need its own set of core beliefs.

</comment><comment><USER44> This is assuming that those who make rails are master chefs. This is debatable.

Also, the analogy does not hold well because at a sushi bar, the one who orders is the end consumer. Rails is a tool for developers so a more accurate metaphor would be I am the chef, my customer orders omakase and Rails supplies all my tools and ingredients. If those tools and ingredients are what I need to make my customer happy, then great. If not, then I'd prefer to throw them away and do it right instead of dogmatically defending my framework like it's a religion.

<comment><USER41> Who would you consider 'master chefs'?

<comment><USER44> Good question. Web development has been around for only about 20 years and changed significantly during that time (CSS, JavaScript, Ajax.) Cooking has existed for thousands of years so I would argue that there has not been nearly enough time for any master chefs to come into being.

That does not mean that many (mostly due to Dunning-Kruger) will claim to be masters and that even more will rush to the charlatans hoping for a magic spell that makes complex, new and continuously emerging technology easy without the need to learn or practice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Granted, everyone should be able to choose their own tools. But different tools can sometimes (in extreme cases) create inconsistent behavior. And you don't want to see the consequences of that roll into production.

That's the one reason I wouldn't recommend each dev using a different package manager.

However, if we follow that logic, only experienced devs will venture to choose a different package manager. Which implies that he/she would be knowledgeable enough to edit his own .gitignore and whatnot.

</comment><comment><USER46> I guess that makes Python/Django an international buffet.

<comment><USER23> Django does not accomodate all. The architecture is a bit more adaptive than rails, given the way the desginers allowed for plug-in "apps" inside the system. Aside from that, its the same stuff basically.

<comment><USER47> Huh, i'd say Django is LESS flexible than Rails, as it comes with it's own ideas about end-user UI (Rails does not).

Rails doens't have "plug-in apps" in the same way as Django, because Rails doesn't have "apps" at all, apps are what you build with Rails, not part of Rails.

(And Rails does sort of support plug-in apps in the form of 'engine gems' -- but there are no conventions for how different engines interact with each other, because Rails doesn't establish conventions for end-user UI, it consistently does not go to as high a level of abstraction as Django. This has plusses and minuses of course).

<comment><USER48> > own ideas about end-user UI

Really, like what? I don't consider the admin to be end-user and even if it is, its highly customizable.

Django is really more modular and customizable than people give it credit for. Perhaps, because it works one way "out of the box" and you have to look deeper and learn it to have it work some other way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Come on, this isn't how porn stars work! Now, someone diagram this discussion and put it up on slideshare.

</comment><comment><USER50> There appears to be a lot of disgruntlement about rails lately. I like Rails but switched to Sinatra about 5 years ago b/c I didn't like Rails 2 and realized that the Rails APIs were a lot less stable than I'd expected.

DHH is right, there is no reason to complain.

</comment><comment><USER51> Does DHH post regularly? His "Archive" shows 3 posts in the last 4 days, you'd think he'd have more history posting.

<http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/archive.html>

<comment><USER52> He used to have a blog called "Loud Thinking": <http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/posts/archives>

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Just saw Tenderlove's tweet, which is pretty funny "while we're at it, we should check in the .so files too. Binfiles won't work so well without them."

</comment><comment><USER54> á la carte. UTF-8. Use it :-)

</comment><comment><USER55> I think what this guy is trying to say is that Ruby on Rails is . . . on rails.

</comment><comment><USER56> Is anyone else suddenly craving some unagi?

</comment><comment><USER57> > "Nobody ever got to have a meaningful impact on the direction of Rails by > contributing no code and just showing up in a Github comment thread and > yelling about the evils of CoffeeScript"

I think it sums up some kind of state of mind on the internet today. it's not just about software or programming.

<comment><USER58> eh, its kind of always been a meritocracy...</comment></comment>


Examples of Segmentation in Email Marketing - <AUTHOR> http://blog.getvero.com/three-killer-examples-of-segmentation-in-email-marketing/

<comment><USER2> Call me whatever you want, say I'm wrong, I don't care, but I hate kinds of Email Marketing, no matter what, because everything comes with a catch.

Would I like a ticket with 50% off from Brazil to NY? OFF COURSE I WOULD! But I know that if you had to send a mass message about that, it certainly has a catch, so I won't even bother looking at it.</comment>


Highly Illogical: What Sci-Fi Writers Get Wrong About the Future - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/3731977/science-fiction-future-wrong/ <comment><USER2> Highly Questionable: What Time.com Gets Wrong About the Present.

Actually, a decent article, it just doesn't go far enough, or maybe it ignores that old saw about how "Science fiction has always been about the present, even when it's dressed in futuristic trappings" ([https://hbr.org/2009/07/predicting-the- present](https://hbr.org/2009/07/predicting-the-present)). That is, what "extractive institutions" do we suffer under today, what "extractive institutions" are we building up right now?

I'd say that the big push to own ideas (in the form of "Intellectual Property") is just about the biggest "extractive institution" we've got floating around today, and if the leaks of the Trans-Pacific Partnership are any indication, our upper crust is trying to strengthen.

</comment><comment><USER3> Criticises the Romulans for being 'extractive' and thus not having the momentum to become a galactic empire. But ignores expansion, which can fuel growth.

Hm, maybe a better argument for Klingon empire building. The Romulans are well-known for being reclusive.</comment>


House tells NASA to start planning two Europa missions - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/05/house-budget-provides-260-million-for-two-life-tracking-europa-missions/ <comment><USER4> Note that the text that came out of the subcommittee ([http://appropriations.house.gov/uploadedfiles/bills-114hr- sc...](http://appropriations.house.gov/uploadedfiles/bills-114hr-sc-ap- fy2017-cjs-subcommitteedraft.pdf)) mandates that NASA use the Space Launch System (SLS) to launch the missions.

SLS is a stunningly overpriced rocket that Congress is forcing NASA to build to keep former shuttle contractors and NASA centers employed. Congress is sending ~ $1.8 billion every year to states including Alabama, Florida, Utah, and Louisiana to develop it. There are very few payloads manifested for it. Launching the Europa missions on it would be a tremendous waste of money—the benefits would not warrant the cost.

It would be worth exploring the lobbying performed by SLS contractors including Boeing and Orbital ATK, as well as that of people close to the main NASA centers involved with SLS, the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

<comment><USER5> This is how things get approved since states want funding and jobs. That said the SLS has a lift capability twice the size of a Falcon heavy which hasn't been launched yet, so no I'm not sure that it's a waste since if we want to get to Europa quickly it's probably the best rocket we got atm.

SLS is also our best current candidate for serious human space flight past LEO, SLS brings up back to Energia and Saturn V launch capacity and while it is the usual cross state designed by a committee project it's good to have it since we do need it.

<comment><USER6> There isn't exactly a rush to go to Europa, why not wait until cheaper rocketry is developed?

<comment><USER7> I guess because its projects like the Europa mission that _make_ rocketry cheaper.

<comment><USER6> I don't see how we're going to make launching cheaper by doing 2 launches on a well understood but expensive platform.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> While water is not uncommon in space, liquid water is a very rare. This is due to the fact that liquids in general can only exist in a relatively narrow range of temperatures and pressures (see phase diagram [1]).

Europa is one of the few places in the Solar system where we expect to find liquid water. One of the others is Mars, but most water there is solid - <USER2> small amounts of it occur in liquid form and only briefly. By contrast, Europa has a freaking underground ocean! Moreover, by some estimates it is larger in volume than all oceans on Earth combined [2].

Should we go check it out? Hell yeah!

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_diagram](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_diagram) [2] [http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120524.html](http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120524.html)

<comment><USER9> Imagine selling bottled Europan water. Fiji, move over. That would help fund the mission, and no more battles with environmentalists over Nestle taking too much out of the aquifer etc. of course, that's assuming the Europans won't object.

<comment><USER10> At a probable price point around 20 million bucks a liter, I'm not sure that there'd be many customers.

<comment><USER11> I wonder what a water acquisition mission would cost. Under $10 billion? That would require 500 customers at $20 mil each. That's 500 out of several million people who could afford it. Or even more if people pool their resources and spring for a teaspoon of water each. It almost seems like it could be feasible.

<comment><USER12> That's only 498kg. Considering the Falcon Heavy's payload to Mars is 13,000kg (not sure what the return payload is), that would truly be a reasonable amount of water to bring back. And speaking of Fiji water, they could bring it back in Fiji bottles. Since those bottles have a special ability to make people pay $5 for $.001 of tap water, imagine what they could do with Europan water.

Joking aside, something like this actually _could_ be used to fund space missions. I suspect that some people with hundreds of millions would be willing to pay top dollar for something as exclusive as an item from Europa.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Something that commenters here don't seem aware of is that Saturn's moon Enceladus has liquid water which is similar to Europa's and much cheaper to study. Enceladus sprays its water into space via ice volcanoes - all we have to do is fly by and we get samples of the sea itself ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enceladus_Life_Finder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enceladus_Life_Finder)). On Europa by contrast we have to land on a heavy moon with no atmosphere and then deal with a huge coat of ice, just to try to get a sample. It's an interesting mission but a bad allocation of resources.

<comment><USER14> I think NASA might hesitate to aim a precious probe at space geyser. The speeds are insane. But, if we could find a rock that has already traveled near enough to Enceladus ... and is coming our way. Then perhaps we can get that sample without actually going to Enceladus. We already have Mars rocks raining down on us. If we caught them while still in space we might have already found samples of Mars water.

<comment><USER15> NASA did just that. They flew Cassini through the geyser plumes at Enceladus to sample the presumed ocean beneath the ice on that world. At least twice. Once at an altitude of 30 miles.[1][2]

[1] [http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_15...](http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1510.html)

[2] [http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4759](http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4759)

<comment><USER14> But did it come back? That sort of thing would require a much larger craft and/or one moving at a much faster relative velocity (free return). A rock that once passed through those geysers might be passing earth right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Europa sounds like a valid and important target for a lander. Just imagine if evidence of life is detected; it would drastically change our perception of our role in the universe. Suddenly we're not the only game in town. Religionists would have to adapt, conspiracists would spin their theories, and money for new expeditions would magically appear.

The question in my mind is, why is this initiative coming from the Congress rather than from the President or from NASA itself? What's happened to our national sense of adventure and exploration?

I remember the space fever of the 1960s and 1970s, and how it faded in the late 70s into a dull pride that we'd built a space bus, albeit a very expensive and compromised design that could take a team to low orbit and not much farther.

I guess we should celebrate the fact that someone with the power to fund new missions into deep space is making it happen, for whatever reason. But I'd like it better if Nasa were getting the kind of funding it really needs and the bold leadership it deserves to accelerate these sorts of spectacular missions that will advance our technologies and inspire more young people to go into the sciences.

<comment><USER16> Life outside Earth is not a binary question. Its a matter of probabilities, and with the vastness of the cosmos it would actually be very surprising if life did not exist anywhere else at all. But inside the solar system, its a different matter altogether. If we find life on Europa then it increases the chance that life is in many more places than we thought.

<comment><USER17> To your point, Kepler's recent announcement suggests the probability of tens of billions of Earth-like planets "just" in the Milky Way.

[http://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/kepler/briefingmaterials160...](http://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/kepler/briefingmaterials160510)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> As a European who has travelled to the US and back already I have to say that you don't need NASA to come here. Visa or a good passport plus a ticket for Deutsche Lufthansa is enough!

<comment><USER9> Why did they name it Europa anyway? Seems like it will cause all sorts of confusion amidst hilarious typos. "Scientists speculate about Europe's ability to support intelligent life." Perhaps we should rename it "Vulcan" or "Krypton" or some recognizably alien name to reduce the chances for misunderstanding.

<comment><USER19> The Galilean moons are all named after Zeus' lovers. They were named shortly after their discovery in the early 1600s by Simon Marius, a German astronomer who apparently discovered the moons independently of Galileo at roughly the same time as Galileo.

<comment><USER20> Then Europe, the continent, was defined _later_ by this guy:

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

<comment><USER21> Huh? It's a geographical term for the mass of land that has been in use since the classical antiquity: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Etymology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe#Etymology)

<comment><USER22> Similarly, "Asia" has been used since antiquity as a term for the Near East, but for almost all of that time it certainly did not refer to what we now call "the continent of Asia". Are you more likely to think of Asia as containing Syria or China?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> John Culberson receives money from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX, Orbital ATK and Northrop Grumman.

Whenever a US politician makes a statement, I look Why they made that statement - and the why is often that they get paid in campaign contributions to say precisely what their donors want them to say. Whether it's about foreign policy or anything else, it's easy to go on opensecrets.org and see who their donors are and thus why they made a statement.

Nothing is done in America's interests - it's done to stuff pockets full of cash and contracts. [http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=201...](http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/contrib.php?cycle=2016&cid=N00009738&type=I&newmem=N)

<comment><USER24> > Whenever a US politician makes a statement, I look Why they made that > statement - and the why is often that they get paid in campaign > contributions to say precisely what their donors want them to say.

I think this is a gross simplification - companies find politicians that are sympathetic to their positions to begin with, and then help finance those campaigns. I don't know about John Culberson specifically, but I'm quite sure that if you spoke to him or to numerous other politicians receiving the contributions you are complaining about - they would staunchly defend the positions they have adapted as being independent of donations. It's really not black and white.

<comment><USER25> But isn't that the same thing? Left just to the votes of the people and equal opportunity campaign investments, those candidates and those policies wouldn't get the power. You are describing that, instead, candidates are essentially put in power by companies, who are therefore still in effect buying policy. Then, the representatives are no longer representing the people but the money.

<comment><USER24> > But isn't that the same thing?

Sure, it is the same thing in practice - but it's not what OP is suggesting:

>> Who would want to admit they are guilty of being essentially corrupt?Of cooooourse they would find excuses. But it's incredibly naïve to say US politicians aren't influenced by money. They are all bought.

> Then, the representatives are no longer representing the people but the > money.

The representatives are probably accurately representing the balance of power in US society, which is weighted towards economic/financial interests.

<comment><USER23> > The representatives are probably accurately representing the balance of > power in US society, which is weighted towards economic/financial interests.

Obviously you are assuming that I'm pulling my statements out of thin air (or some other place where the sun don't shine :D ).

Here's a paper from Princeton University that essentially says that public opinion as almost ZERO effect on US policy:

[https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/fi...](https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf)

<comment><USER24> If they have almost no effect than they have almost no power - isn't that tautological?

Also it should be noted the paper contrasts public opinion to 'organized interest groups':

> Our third and fourth theoretical traditions posit that public policy > generally reflects the outcome of struggle among organized interest groups > and business firms.

But in a number of cases organized interest groups are representative of a significant sector of public opinion (the NRA being one such example, or the ACLU is another).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26>
       Galileo... had a resolution of only about 10 meters per pixel.
       The spacecraft stored those images on a tape recorder with a
       capacity of 114 megabytes, but a flawed rewind mode hampered
       even that modest device

With the technology we have now, I'm surprised why we're not sending out a lot more tiny (therefore cheaper to launch) flyby probes across the solar system. Apart from the RTG and antenna, a probe today could probably be the size of a TV set.

<comment><USER27> > Apart from the RTG

You stated the problem: radionuclides used to supply said RTGs (Pu238) are in shortage ([http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1132236...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113223613)) because with the fall of the Soviet Union there is no (big) demand for new nuclear weapons, and Pu238 was a "waste by-product" of producing nuke cores.

<comment><USER28> In late 2015 the US has demonstrated new production of PU 238 for RTG use at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory High Flux Isotope Reactor. This was undertaken in 2013 with NASA funding.

[https://www.ornl.gov/news/ornl-achieves-milestone- plutonium-...](https://www.ornl.gov/news/ornl-achieves-milestone- plutonium-238-sample)

<comment><USER27> Cool. I hope this gets out of lab stage soon.

<comment> iso-8859-1 It will not leave the lab stage, it will continue to be produced at Oak Ridge. See [https://www.ornl.gov/news/ornl-achieves-milestone- plutonium-...](https://www.ornl.gov/news/ornl-achieves-milestone- plutonium-238-sample)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Worth pointing out that Representative Culberson (R-TX) represents Houston, TX, home of the Johnson Space Flight Center. There's a two dollar dollop of pork to go along with the nobility of science here.

<comment><USER30> Why is that worth pointing out?

Culberson represents the 7th district. NASA in Houston is on the other side of the city. Further, the Europa team is out of Pasadena, California - <USER3> Propulsion Laboratory.

You're over-reaching and then some.

<comment><USER29> My apologies for not replying sooner. I went to bed.

I hoped it might provide at least one person context for what might seem abnormal -- Congress mandating and funding a mission NASA was not actively pursuing via the political process. It's unfortunate but perhaps not unexpected that at least one person did not find value there, the internet being what it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Should Europa really be a top priority? The surface temperature is -160C and it receives 5400 mSv of radiation. Enough to kill a most life in a few hours. We barely have the technology to operate a robotics in that environment for short while. Even if there's some buggers under the ice, I think money would be better invested on developing space capabilities in more hospitable environments, such as bases on the Moon or Mar with ability to synthesize materials, food and fuel.

<comment><USER30> It sounds like an excellent opportunity to leap our robot technology forward and attempt something challenging.

Besides that, NASA has (almost) no choice. It's not coming at the expense of other projects, this is running on a budget that exists solely to go to Europa. It's being pushed forward as a pet project by John Culberson, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees NASA's budget. He's ensuring they get the extra funding necessary to make it happen.

[http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/11/attempt-no-landing- th...](http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/11/attempt-no-landing-there-yeah- right-were-going-to-europa/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm all for giving NASA more money for something that I assume is more difficult given the distance, hopefully it's spent well.

</comment><comment><USER14> Am I the only one thinking that the fastest way to "find life" will be remote sensing? Imho, rather than throw billions at craft to sample dirt we should put that money into telescopes to detect evidence of life. I'm tired of probes staring at red rocks without ever finding anything interesting. I'd rather see a dozen space telescopes measuring the spectra of every body possible. I don't want microbes. I want to find dagobath.

</comment><comment><USER33> "ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS—EXCEPT EUROPA

ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE".</comment>


Millennials Aren't Entitled–They're Just Better Than You - <AUTHOR> http://thoughtcatalog.com/tucker-max/2016/12/millennials-arent-entitled-theyre-just-better-than-you/ <comment><USER2> >Their success is 100% contingent upon how valuable they make themselves to their employer, and how much crap they accumulate. Boomers see success as zero-sum. Your title comes at the expense of someone else. They believe that young people should be queuing up for these soul crushing admin positions, because they WANT people beneath them. People at the top of the system requires new entrants to prop it up.

This article is really enlightening in that it puts to words what is wrong with the loudest baby-boomers, but what about the others? HN has an older userbase and why do they dislike Millennials (if for reason different than the article)?

<comment><USER3> Well first off I'd say stereotypes are bullcrap. They exist for a reason, but those reasons are almost always such an oversimplification that they draw the wrong conclusions. But I'll play along...

There's always a certain amount of crap handed down from one generation to the next. It's cheap, and self rewarding. Boomers have been given crap continuously since the beginning, by the previous generation, their own ranks (it's a highly varied generation), and generation X. Now that their biggest critics are dying off, they're feeling encouraged to dole this criticism out themselves. They know better than to do it to generation X, because Xers (I'm an Xer) are nearly tone deaf due to the incessant whining by boomers. Plus, boomers are actually starting to go deaf so they yell a lot more than they used to. So they're skipping us over and going straight for the millenials.

My advice is to take it like simple teasing rather than taking it seriously. The boomers' bark is worse than the bite.

I like millenials. They've got a relatively decent balance of idealism and reality check. My only complaints are they spend way too goddamn much of their income, as a percentage, on housing and foo foo bar drinks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Dupe.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13199625](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13199625)

</comment><comment><USER5> "They see how meaningless their lives are, and how they try to use the markers of status and prestige to pretend otherwise."

How are millennials any different? Social media is mostly used my millennials to show off to others and to make themselves feel important.

Baby boomers aren't trying to become Youtube stars.

"Millennials want to be a part of something they find meaningful. Their work needs to matter, both to them and to the world."

The problem with this mindset is that they want something that will immediately matter. When you are 20 and with virtually no experience, you will not be given this sort of responsibility and achieving it yourself is next to impossible.

"In 2011 alone, almost 30% of entrepreneurs were Millennials"

So, 70% weren't? Am I reading this statistic correctly?

"Millennials build companies they find meaningful, and are only fulfilled when they believe they're adding value to the world, not just making the rich richer."

This is actually a reason why many founders fail. Money is the life blood of any company and will allow you to keep creating great things that can help the world. This money has to come from somewhere. If your company can't sustain itself, you are presumably getting money from non-millennial investors.

"Study something you don't care about in college, because it looks good on a resume."

Most boomers I know gave me the same advice: study something in college that you enjoy, but also make sure you can get a job doing it. If you don't enjoy it, you won't last very long in the work force. If you study something that you are passionate about, but you will never actually be able to pay it back, you are taking a huge gamble (and will be saddled with debt for many years).

"Apply for a safe job with a career path that is clear and structured."

I run my own company. I was in the corporate world for almost 8 years before I quit and started my business. I think it's better to actually see how a successful corporation functions before attempting to create your own and make many unneeded mistakes.

"Give away your twenties, thirties, and forties grinding yourself into oblivion for your company"

How is making it on your own any different? As the old saying goes: I work 60+ hours a week, so I don't have to get a job working 40. Running your own company is more difficult and you will spend many more hours 'grinding'.

I have have found that many people (millennials included) love the idea of starting their own company, but either aren't willing to put in the work or don't realize how much work is actually involved. Unless you start out with lots of money, you will be doing all of the lower-level jobs yourself.

"Their success is 100% contingent upon how valuable they make themselves to their employer"

If you have investors, your value is 100% contingent on how valuable you make yourself to the investors.

If you have customers, your value is 100% contingent on how valuable you make yourself to your customers.

This idea of making yourself valuable doesn't change. It's pervasive throughout life and the most successful people bring a high level of value to the right people.

"They believe that young people should be queuing up for these soul crushing admin positions, because they WANT people beneath them."

Companies aren't out to get you. They hire you for a position where you can bring the most value, based on your experience and skill set.

Do you really think you can't learn ANYTHING from and admin job?

"Millennials are succeeding precisely BECAUSE they are rejecting the system that Boomers built their lives around."

I'm not sure why you think they are succeeding. Living with your parents at 35 with no career, business, or assets is not a success.

"getting in on the bottom of the ladder in the hopes of someone else rewarding you is the opposite of taking ownership"

What get-rich-quick scheme are you talking about? This is how life works. Nobody is going to just hand over power to you. You need to earn it.</comment>


Valve: The Steam Box's biggest threat is Apple TV - <AUTHOR> http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/147260-valve-the-steam-boxs-biggest-threat-is-apple-tv-not-next-gen-consoles-from-sony-or-microsoft <comment><USER2> It seems to me that Apple TV and Steam serve entirely different segments of the market. Those most likely to buy Apple TV and those who would buy the Steam box are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Apple TV fans will be looking for a better, smoother, and less confusing television experience. Steam fans are more technical gamers and geeks who want the functionality of multiple devices (including a PC) on a single device.

Apple is a threat to Steam much like the iPhone is a threat to Windows.

<comment><USER3> Apple is a threat to the Steambox like smartphone games are a threat to the PSP, Nintendo DS, etc.

If Valve never intended the Steambox gain more than the hardcore gamer niche, then no it isn't a threat. But Apple could capture the much larger mainstream consumer with cheap casual games that are optimized for TV.

<comment><USER4> Agreed, but I think that if and when the Apple TV does wireless mirroring without noticeable lag it will compete against the living room consoles.</comment></comment></comment>


IPv6 support coming to Fail2Ban, the SSH brute-force login protection system - <AUTHOR> https://www.slightfuture.com/security/fail2ban-ipv6 <comment><USER2> SSHGuard has supported IPv6 for a long time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not available in all Linux distributions and it only supports a few limited log formats. Fail2Ban can read any log file with configurable regexes.</comment></comment>


Politicians funded by the NRA - <AUTHOR> http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/recips.php?cycle=2012&id=D000000082

<comment><USER2> Why is this on HN? It's not tech/hacker related at all. It's purely political on an issue on which members of the HN community are likely to fall on both sides of.

<comment><AUTHOR> "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting."

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Thank you. Now I now have a list of politicians that may potentially value individual liberty.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow, most under 7K each. Buying a politician is sure cheap.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Vote.</comment>


Career Counselor: Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/03/20/career-counselor-bill-gates-or-steve-jobs/rival-philosophies-both-compelling

<comment><USER2> Hitler or Stalin?

<comment><USER3> That's probably the fastest instance of Godwin's Law at work.

Regarding the article however, I'd agree with Bill, though I can see both of their points. The problem with kids/teens is that most are lazy by default. I was relatively lazy too, but only because I was lacking some sort of motivation and until I got to university (this last september), and until I came down to the Valley, for an internship, I figured how much I could have done instead of wasting my time. So I think it all boils down to motivating kids. You motivate them, and they'll do well either by themselves or on tests and whatever other else standard teaching entails, but until you motivate them, and get the ball rolling, as soon as you let them off the hook, they'll go back to their old habits.</comment></comment>


Samsung Electronics CEO resigns - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/business-41604860 <comment><USER2> Whether or not this decision is based off their political scandal, Samsung has always been good with replacing their leaders before it's too late. They have always put the company first before their high ranking positions. This is why Samsung has been able to be successful throughout all these years and keep up with the constant change in the industry in contrast to other companies' decline.</comment>


Blockbuster book lays out the first 20 years of the Smartphone Wars - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/12/blockbuster_book_lays_out_the_first_20_years_of_the_smartphone_wrars/

<comment><USER2> This is a good article about the problems in developing the on of the first Smartphone OSes. I take it since it didn't get much traction in America, and the word Symbian isn't in the title people haven't picked up on this.</comment>


When the Mac mini goes pro, will the pros get Mac minis? - <AUTHOR> https://www.macworld.com/article/3300182/macs/when-the-mac-mini-gets-pro-will-the-pros-get-mac-minis.html <comment><USER2> It is a funny situation, Apple wants most of the people to move to iPad, and leave the Mac for pro uses. That is a perfectly fine strategy excepts its execution has been rather poor by Apple's standard.

The iPad aren't anywhere near ready for business uses. And the Mac aren't being loved by the Pros.

In the old days Apple would have continue to do small improvement to the Mac and milk the hell out of it, until iPad overtakes it.

<comment><USER3> > It is a funny situation, Apple wants most of the people to move to iPad, and > leave the Mac for pro uses. That is a perfectly fine strategy excepts its > execution has been rather poor by Apple's standard.

I agree with you on this, but not on the rest of your analysis.

> The iPad aren't anywhere near ready for business uses.

Didn't you just say that it was the mac that was for pro users? Business users are the largest professional segment, by far.

I think this is where most pundits mess up. A pro computer is not a rendering farm or a rack for software compilation. And rarely do you need to run several virtual machines locally in order to code in an IDE.

A pro use case is someone who works on a machine all day. Compared to an "amateur" machine, it has to stand up to more wear and tear and it can afford to be "nicer" to use, because it is cheap compared to the monthly wages of the professional user. Business class doesn't fly faster, it is just "nicer" to sit in.

Apple's pro features have traditionally been heavily skewed towards usability. 10 years ago, "pro" was aluminium body and backlit keyboard. But now that these features are common-place they are struggling to differentiate their pro line-up.

But with that being said, I think Apple could use a little bit of Ballmers "developers, developers, developers", as they don't offer anything for larger businesses to use for rendering and compiling. Instead we have large app developers cutting screens off MacBooks and racking them ...

<comment><USER2> >Business users are the largest professional segment, by far.

I disagree. Most business segments, by large majorities are ERP, CRM, PowerPoints, Word Processing and Emails. Some spreadsheets and other fairly light computational requirements. And trust many of these people may very well work longer on the computer than what most "Pros" do. Staring long at the computer doesn't make it pro usage. Very little in the business segment are in the Pro category.

But business are very reluctant to changes.

<comment><USER4> Those people _are_ pros.

Anyone who uses a computer for their profession is a pro user, regardless of whether they're making power points, sending emails, or developing software.

<comment><USER2> So all these "pros" will have to get a "pro" machine for Apple?

Macbook Pro, iMac Pro, iPad Pro?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Weird to cite "adventurous hackers who want to figure out how to fit a Mac mini into their car" as a target market, but not app or web development.

</comment><comment><USER6> My guess is there won't be separate Mac mini and Mac Pro lines but rather something that covers both use cases.

<comment><USER7> I agree, they hinted at a "modular Mac pro coming in 2019" and what's more modular than a little macmini with an external GPU, external storage, and lots of USB-c ports.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's basically for doing iOS app development. The other options are either too weak or not cost effective. Higher end models are usually too expensive.

</comment><comment><USER7> I have a solution for Apple: that surely no one has thought of: spin off the Mac into it's own company. They can keep their shareholders happy with wonderful sales of the iPhone, and the pro users who rely on these computers will have access to real pro gear.

<comment><USER9> A good chunk of the appeal is the ecosystem.

Your solution works for shortsighted shareholders who don't use the products and basically no one else.

<comment><USER10> The ecosystem integration is valuable for personal computers, but I don't think it matters so much for professional use.

Think it'd ever make sense to spin _that_ off? Just the pro market?

I guess then they wouldn't control the means to producing iOS apps, so probably not.

Imagine a world in which ApplePro exists independently and isn't compromised by AppleConsumer's priorities. Would we have waited so long for a MBP update? Would the pro desktop ever be permitted to go years without an update? Would thin & light still be prioritized over repairability and upgradability? Would we have a touchbar?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Will the Mac Mini Pro also be designed with insufficiently derated capacitors, shitty ribbon cables that short out, crappy thermal dissipation structures, and a shitty no-fix warranty just like every other post-2010 Apple product?</comment>