It Started With a Jolt: How New York Became a Tech Town - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/technology/nyc-tech-startups.html <comment><USER2> One of the biggest lessons I've taken from New York's approach is not to try and be the next Silicon Valley (as every community is trying to be). You can't beat the Valley at its own game. That's foolish.

Instead, look to what industries your community has long been successful in, and develop the tech to disrupt those industries before the Valley does.

NYC's example was to focus tech on advertising, finance, and media -- the industries it has long dominated.

I'm from a small mining city in Canada (Sudbury, Ontario). I see the same desperate hope to become a tech center. But the best startups are the ones focused on areas where our community has traditionally held a significant leadership position: mining.

One such startup, and arguable our most successful one, is Minalytix. They develop software for analyzing mining and exploration data.

Another is Symboticware, which creates hardware and software to gather real- time data from machines on the ground and analyzing it back at the office.

Jannatec is focused on solving the challenges of getting quality wireless data in and out of complex underground mines (those many kilometers of hardrock don't exactly make it easy).

TesMan is focused on mine safety. Dura21 works on better pipes. Hard-Line is tackling robotics. ClickMox does lidar. There are many others.

These are small but thriving startups. They're not sexy. They're not likely to be the next Facebook or Google. But they're solving problems our community has long established itself as being experts at solving. It's also transforming our economy from one being tied to a dwindling resource (easily accessible ore), to one that leads in mining operations around the world.

A lot of towns want to be the next SV. It's not going to happen. Trying to be SV is to live in denial about what made SV successful in the first place.

But tackling a smaller niche in the wider tech space? Building on the resources, expertise, and reputation you already have? That's a very doable approach and the field is wide open.

<comment><USER3> Your whole post missed the important part about what can get funded and where.

NYC is coming up, but the graveyard of quirky disruptors would still only be pursued in Silicon Valley. These non revenue generating companies acting as developer daycare need to be flipped from one portfolio to the next until you have a deal size big enough to matter, swap out the board and executive team and shop it to the public markets, ka-ching. New York VCs and other markets cant and wont chase developer daycare companies on a broad enough scale to grow these into deals.

<comment><USER4> Maybe I'm missing something, but why are you talking only in terms of massive funding and growth. The GP stated that they're seeing success in smaller (I don't actually know the size) companies due to capitalizing on a local or hyperlocal need. That's far from disrupt, fund, flip, and retire, and it's a perfectly viable way to start, grow and maintain a business.

Again, I could be missing the entire point of your comment.

<comment><USER3> The point is that disrupting local industries gives only a narrow field of what can get funded

The graveyard of seemingly pointless portfolio pieces is a key component which nyc cant replicate

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I realize the anti-Amazon movement was a limited (but loud) group of individuals, but if their level of influence has lasting power, NYC tech is in trouble.

Consider NYTimes' own article on the amazon exit. Half the people angry at Amazon were commenting that Amazon wasn't going to pay living wages (thinking that corporate HQ2 jobs are fulfillment jobs.) The other half were angry that Amazon was going to pay _too much_ and would drive up rents. _Which one is it?_ I don't know, but both sides banded together.

One major issue AOC had with Amazon was the fear that Amazon couldn't guarantee they would only be hiring local NYers -- since when did NYC become a country? Where could/couldnt workers come from -- would it be only from Queens? Would Brooklyn be OK? What if someone commuted from NJ? What if someone commuted down from the suburb? At what point does someone who moves to NYC become a NYer? This type of in-city protectionism was shocking and completely ignores how local economies work.

<comment><USER6> The backlash was mostly about the tax breaks and government subsidies that would have been given. The argument was that New York is New York and doesn't need to bribe companies to put big offices here.

<comment><USER5> They definitely didn't need to bribe Amazon. There was a time to argue against that. _True leadership_ would have been to have these protests when the incentives package was put together, not later when we already bagged the win and would lose everything.

<comment><USER7> > True leadership would have been to have these protests when the incentives > package was put together,

Which is hard to do, since Amazon convinced most city leaders across the country to keep the majority of the incentives _secret_ , and therefore no one could know how bad it was until it was already too late.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/05/technology/amazon- headqua...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/05/technology/amazon-headquarters- hq2.html)

There's a strong argument here that the protesters were the only people involved in this whole ordeal that actually did their job properly.

<comment><USER8> To add to this -- even when it was a secret, they were still protesting the idea of providing those incentives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The NYC tech sector is indeed growing quite strong and is also quite grounded in the realities of business because of the diversity of NYC's overall economy. Few cities in the world have the economic diversity that New York does. That drives the mindset to be noticeably different, mostly in a good way.

At several meet ups recently the moderator wasn't shy about warning Silicon Valley companies "I'd advise you to be clear about how you plan to make money and be profitable because if you don't the audience here is just going to grill you on how you plan to make money and be profitable."

<comment><USER9> Which is why it will never really be Silicon Valley. No risk, no reward. NY is too expensive for anyone to sit around and take risks, likewise, it will never see the real reward.

<comment><USER10> Implying Silicon Valley is affordable compared to NYC is silly.

The Californian "Try It" attitude is basically the equivalent of throwing shit against the wall while using other people's money. It works sometimes, but it's a terrible strategy that only works because VCs hit a unicorn that wipes out all the mistakes every so often.

<comment><USER11> > it's a terrible strategy that only works because VCs hit a unicorn that > wipes out all the mistakes every so often

The "only" part of that doesn't actually invalidate the fact that it works. What you said is: it's a terrible strategy that has worked extraordinarily well.

It's a great strategy that has been shown to work across five decades of tech upheavel, precisely because it does pay for itself over time and keeps generating returns for institutional money. That it works so well is why it has all kept getting bigger as the positive results roll forward. It also produced the greatest concentration of tech dominance and invention the world is likely to ever see in one place.

<comment><USER12> Maybe it's time for some daring innovators to disrupt this rickety archaic model?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've been wanting to move to NYC for years. I love big cities, and since I was a kid I loved NYC. I went on holiday there a few years ago, and it only reinforced the idea of living there.

In practice, finding tech jobs as a Brit has been horrendous. I've applied for countless roles, including roles at all FAANG companies, startups crying out for people with my experience, and established medium-sized companies hiring (and offering sponsorship of work permits)...and nothing. Either immediate rejection, or emails saying "actually, we don't sponsor visas".

I don't know if this is an America thing, but I've had other companies more than happy to fly me over in other parts of the US California and Washington). Given how mixed the culture is in NYC, with so many immigrants throughout the city, I have been very surprised that it's so hard to get a job there.

This is purely from my experiences, and maybe it's just that all these companies hate me for some reason, but IMO you can't be a tech town if you're not willing to bring talent in, at least in the same ways other worldwide tech hubs will.

<comment><USER14> What kind of Visa sponsorship are you expecting? An L1 visa for transferring from an international company location to the US? That would rule out startups. An H-1B? That takes months, and has less than a 30% success rate. An O-1? Do you have documentation that would support "extra-ordinary" abilities?

An E-2 visa is kinda neat though--have you thought of taking matters into your own hands?

[https://workpermit.com/immigration/usa/e2-visa-investors- and...](https://workpermit.com/immigration/usa/e2-visa-investors-and- employees)

<comment><USER13> Isn't the low success rate for H1B down to how it is used for consultancy roles, whereas large companies looking for full-time employees tend to have a very high success rate for "straightforward" applications? If not, then why do the likes of Google and other FAANG companies even bother interviewing people?

<comment><USER14> So!

Like I said, the visas in play are, L1,O1,H1B

L1--a common option for large companies, that can accomodate having an employee first work in a European office, before moving them to a US based one. So perhaps you get hired, and you work in Zurich, or perhaps even Canada, for a year, before moving to the NY office. Also abused by large offshore consulting firms, who move employees between countries. Obviously, not an option for most companies.

O1--are you well known in your field? Published? Won awards? Print articles about you? Then you have a good shot at an O1. Possibly, FAANG have the ability to hire those top ~5% people disproportionately...

H1B--for "specialty" occupations. You HAVE to apply through a lottery (and be sponsored, etc). The applications are ONLY accepted first few days of April, for work that begins October 1 (six months later). Last year, 190,098 people applied. There were 65,000 regular openings, and 20,000 openings for people with Masters degrees.

After you get selected in the lottery (if you're not chosen, your application is returned, UNOPENED) your application is reviewed. Google etc. has about a 100% acceptance rate during review, body shops do much worse (it's basically a disqualification process..applicant is not sufficiently skilled/experienced/educated, doesn't have a job waiting for them, etc.)

[https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/it- consulti...](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/it-consulting- industry-hardest-hit-by-jump-in-h-1b-denials-1)

So the upshot--

Google wants you bad? They will work with their immigration lawyers (who are skilled, and do this routinely,) and Google may not care if it takes months or years to complete the process to bring you over to the US.

Small, or even midsize company company? A lot of overhead, and expense, and waiting, and it may not work out. Hence the lack of enthusiasm... (Caveat-- already _here_ on a legal work visa? Then lots of smaller companies would be happy to take it over.)

<comment><USER13> Thanks for the detailed post!

To be honest, I've always viewed the H1B visa as the "default", since it's the visa type associated with FAANG type interviews. As far as O1 goes, I'd be interested in how many developers make it over on a O1 visa to see where the bar is for being "known" in your field.

The L1 visa sounds interesting, though! I've looked at a few jobs in the UK where companies have offices in different cities, but I often get the feeling that few of them want to hire someone in their office when they have an eye on their sister office. As suggested in the other reply, banking sounds like a good idea, but the downside is that...you're working for a large company on (I assume) boring corporate stuff.

<comment><USER14> You can google for people's experiences with O1. You can move the needle a bit by writing articles and getting some awards...you can also apply for an O1 and H1B.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Watching from afar, it seemed to me that the catalyzing event for NY's startup scene was the collapse of the banks. The big banks had a lot of very strong tech talent, for whom it was a huge financial risk to leave and join a startup (because the salaries were so high at the banks). It wasn't until the banks collapsed that that talent was released. Prior to that, NY had tech companies, like any major city does, but was not one of the leading centers on the east coast at all.

</comment><comment><USER16> I remember raising money in mid-2004 and having VCs lose interest when they heard we were based in NYC. One offered to invest on the condition that we move to the Bay Area or Boston. Around the same time, post-9/11, a lot of the big banks were moving their engineering operations (at least, as much as they could), offshore or to cheaper parts of the US. It was difficult at the time to envision NYC becoming a real tech city.

</comment><comment><USER17> One of the reasons for this is that NYC is very livable with a tech salary.

I've never been in the Bay Area, but here you can make just above $100k and live comfortably with a <60 mins commute to work. I know that because that's what I do.

You won't be able to buy a house and having a kid without a spouse with a similar salary may be tough, but for a single person it lets you enjoy the city and actually be able to save money.

<comment><USER18> You can do the same in the bay area. People who are complaining about how unaffordable the bay area is on six figure salaries are either wanting to be much closer than one hour from hot spots, owning a house, having a kid, or some combination thereof.

<comment><USER19> I think the point is that in NYC, you don't have to be over an hour from the hot spots if you aren't making lots of money. It is totally possible to live in Manhattan on 30 grand a year (hell, I've done it). To do so in San Francisco or the Penninsula would be much harder.

<comment><USER18> The point of the grandparent was that you could live "less than 60 minutes" from work on over 100k a year.

I don't doubt that someone can live in Manhattan on less than 30k per year -- my wife worked in nonprofit when we met and I saw lots of people she worked with managing to live in salaries that were half of what people on HN regularly decry as being effective poverty for the area. However, when you do a simple search for apartments for rent in Manhattan, studios are routinely around $2k/month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> New York is not a tech town.

It is a finance town. It is a marketing town. It is a fashion town. It has so many things that dwarf it's tech industry.

It's not a tech town, and I honestly don't expect it to become one.

<comment><USER21> Yeah, my sense is that tech in NYC is tech as an enabler of finance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> People forget that Bloomberg himself owns a major financial technology company.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> One point, not mentioning if big companies like Amazon are a problem or not, is that this is a market with higher income, coming to a city with a very high living cost. So in my view these companies are moving to NY because they can afford paying employees that want to live in NYC.

<comment><USER23> I too am concerned that this point is often missed. The choice of where to live, for those who will find well-regarded (and paying) positions in any case, is one given as much weight as the organization for which one will work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Part of the story with the rise of tech in NYC is that finance has become a large consumer of technology, data, and statistics. This helped create a talent pool that other tech companies could draw on.

</comment><comment><USER25> I really expected this to be about a hacker movement and JOLT cola

<comment><USER26> Same. Jolt, apparently actually from New York [1], was the first hacker drink I learned about. The best one though, is the German Club Mate.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> [http://beta.trimread.com/articles/113](http://beta.trimread.com/articles/113)

</comment><comment><USER28> "The company's leaders didn't have high hopes, assuming all the best software engineers were in Silicon Valley. But they told him he could go ahead if he could find "Google-worthy" talent in New York" \- Major city of couple million won't have "google worthy" talent.

</comment><comment><USER29> makes you wonder how the south is transitioning

</comment><comment><USER30> When a city is dominated by one industry, particularly finance, that can spell ruin for its inhabitants. Good for the wealthy and the people in the industry, mediocre for many others. Tech might smooth things out a bit, but there is no reason we need to give anything to a behemoth for coming here. Many are already make NYC home.

Although not the only one, NYC has some of the best universities, many top- tier companies, pools of talented people, and the best cultural amenities. There was no reason to kowtow to a behemoth to come here. NYC is big and innovative, and it will stay big and innovative for the foreseeable future. Tech was here before and will it be here after, without being dominated by a single company.

</comment><comment><USER31> NY is not a tech town.

Google is not tech, it's advertising. Amazon is a mail-order company. Uber is a taxi company. Stop calling "tech" technology. The revenue generated by those companies is not the technology itself.

A semiconductor fab, a satellite construction facility, a defense contractor; those are "tech".

/rant

<comment><USER32> Language is forged by consensus, and consensus won that battle a _long_ time ago.

Besides, that's an extremely narrow view of what those giant companies do. Cloud? Hardware? AI? Car/drone autonomy? Natural science research, even?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Google? DoubleClick? Perhaps the more accurate headline would be: New York Became a Tech Town (Because SV Ran Out of Space and People)? Not a criticism, simply an honest observation.

But what industry doesn't have outposts in NYC? Why would we expect tech to be any different? Where is the story here? Where is the news?

<comment><USER34> DoubleClick was founded in New York.

<comment><USER33> I sit corrected. Thanks. None the less, don't cha think we need more than on such entity to declare "victory"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> New York is the most important city in the history of world civilization, this shouldn't come as a shock to anyone.

Everything genuinely important in this country ends up run from New York City eventually. People forget the Rockefellers made their money in Cleveland.

But that aside NYC has always had a serious tech community since the electric grid was invented in lower Manhattan, or the transistor in suburban New Jersey.

<comment><USER36> > New York is the most important city in the history of world civilization, > this shouldn't come as a shock to anyone.

I wouldn't even consider New York to be the most important city in the history of the US, much less world civilization

<comment><USER37> Found the guy from Jersey! Kidding...

But, I agree. Obviously NYC is an important city, but to say it is the most important city in the history of world civilization is a bit outlandish and US-centric.

<comment><USER38> It seems like a very "New York" thing to say, though.

Everyone else in the US knows to enthusiastically agree, quietly raise prices by 40%, and wait to roll their eyes until after the New Yorker's back is turned.

<comment><USER35> Not a problem, we can afford it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Europe wants robots to count as people - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/06/22/europe-wants-robots-to-count-as-people/ <comment><USER2> Taxation I assume. But who pays, the owner or the robot?</comment>


Craigslist Redesign - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/17-09/ff_craigslist_makeover

<comment><USER2> Those are all terrible, they are all making the ridiculously incorrect assumption that it is confusing. It's possibly the only site that my Luddite family can make full use of, without ever having asked me for help.

The designs that change the layout make it less usable by preventing you from seeing everything it has to offer on one spectacularly ugly, usable page.

The design that kept mostly everything the same but modernized the colors, fonts and spacing is still worse that the current site: the current site has an effect of the design dissappearing behind the content, and the redesign has the colors and highlights push past the links and draw my attention away.

<comment><USER3> I disagree. A few were bad, but in my opinion the one by the New York Times designer was a usability improvement, while still keeping things simple. The layout was practically identical.

I think the problem you're experiencing is that craigslist is practically _defined_ by its crappy design. Paradoxically, making craigslist better looking makes it less like craigslist. Every popular website experiences this kind of backlash when it is redesigned, because people get used to it the way it is, and don't want to re-learn what they already know.

<comment><USER2> I'm not experiencing any problem. The NY Times design is a disaster. It banishes the useful events feature to the most obscure part of the page, while giving tons of space to a feature that would only be used by the tiniest fraction of the users. Most users don't have an account and will not take advantage of that feature.

I'm not married to the bad design, and I don't think that a better design would inherently decrease usability; but these specific ones do, and the current design is usable. Uglyness doesn't necessarily mean poor usability.

<comment><USER3> _"The NY Times design is a disaster. It banishes the useful events feature to the most obscure part of the page, while giving tons of space to a feature that would only be used by the tiniest fraction of the users."_

I think you're exaggerating. The NYT designer's redesign is extremely similar to the existing layout, with perhaps a bit more spacing and better colors. You may not like it, but it's a stretch to call it a "disaster".

When I said you have a problem, I wasn't trying to imply that you're irrational or confused. I just think you have an opinion that's rooted intensely in the way that _you_ use the site (totally understandable), and you're trying to generalize that opinion to everyone. For example, I've _never_ used the events feature that you find so important, and before I saw the NYT design I had no idea that you _could_ create an account. If I didn't know it, maybe there are millions of other people who don't know about it either -- a good reason why the feature might be under-utilized.

<comment><USER2> > For example, I've never used the events feature that you find so important, > and before I saw the NYT design I had no idea that you could create an > account. If I didn't know it, maybe there are millions of other people who > don't know about it either -- a good reason why the feature might be under- > utilized.

And that proves my point. The NY Times redesign dedicates lots of space to a new feature that relies on a feature that no one uses. Craigslist is designed specifically to be anonymous to the point where you don't require an account. Putting something that personalizes an account goes against one of the things that made them popular in the first place.

This reply shows that you are posting on the redesign without doing any research. I don't use the events feature, but if you bothered to do any research before commenting then you would see that it is quite popular.

The most cursory research on what the posts are will tell you that most people use the site to get/get rid of something (e.g., jobs, items, sex), or for the community features.

A design that requires marginalizes one of these things to the least visible location is a disaster.

<comment><USER3> _"This reply shows that you are posting on the redesign without doing any research. I don't use the events feature, but if you bothered to do any research before commenting then you would see that it is quite popular."_

Why do you have to take such a hostile tone? I'm not attacking you. This isn't an argument that can be won or lost.

That said, I still think you're exaggerating your case -- the redesign puts the event calendar on _every_ page on the site, as opposed to the current design, where it only appears on a few pages. It may not be as prominent as you think it should be, but that's fairly subjective. Calling the design a "disaster" is a stretch.

The bottom line is that neither one of us knows the practical implications of the redesign, nor _could_ we, without doing usability testing. It's a matter of opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is blogspam. The guy just lifted every photo and juicy quote from Wired and republished it on his blog.

<comment><USER5> Even better, he violated Creative Commons and didn't attribute the header image to me: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/timdorr/3726252344/>

<comment><USER6> It's Tim!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article confirms a number of things to me, all of which I already believed: 1\. pure designers are not good at useful web apps (Studio8), 2. the NYTimes people couldn't design their way out of a paper bag 3\. the BarackObama.com guy is a freaking genius of usability

Some people here love the NYTimes version but I really think it devotes a ton of space to features nobody really uses in an effort to force people to use them more -- something the NYTimes itself does. Of course, I hate the design of NYTimes.com itself, so maybe I'm biased.

SimpleScott's design simply reinforces existing usage patterns, and for that reason I like it best.

<comment><USER8> The NYTimes example is by Khoi Vinh (<http://www.subtraction.com/>). He's certainly no design slouch, particularly when it comes to grid based layouts.

NYTimes is an enormously complex site. Given the ridiculous number of priorities they have to juggle, and number of people they have to please, I think they do an admirable job. The site has to balance looking like a historic newspaper with the constraints of the web.

I particularly like Vinh and Boulton's presentation "Grids are Good" [http://www.lifeclever.com/khoi-vinh-mark-boulton-grids- are-g...](http://www.lifeclever.com/khoi-vinh-mark-boulton-grids-are-good/) which applies a grid layout to a Yahoo type homepage.

<comment><USER7> > The site has to balance looking like a historic newspaper with the > constraints of the web.

See, that's certainly what they're trying to do, but I have absolutely no idea why they think "look like a newspaper" is one of their key constraints. You're a website: look like a website. The reason people don't read newspapers anymore is because they're inconvenient, why on earth would try to emulate a dying format?

<comment><USER8> Because your paying customers like newspapers but want the convenience of a website?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One thing that seems to have been missed is that the Craigslist design is part of their business model - it results in pages that are very small and keeps their bandwidth costs down, enabling them to offer free listings.

</comment><comment><USER10> The phone book isn't pretty either, but that's not what it is made for. The current site is functional and straightforward.

<comment><USER11> Not a great example as fewer people are using the phone book every year in favor of sites like YellowPages.com that look a lot more like what the "after" designs in this article were.

<comment><USER12> None of those people are using YellowPages.com over the physical phone book because the aesthetics are better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Don't make something unless it's both necessary and useful; But if it's both necessary and useful, don't hesitate to make it beautiful." - Shaker Dictum.

It's entirely possible that Craigslist is successful on account of its ugliness. It's also entirely possible that it's successful in spite of its ugliness. I'm inclined to believe the latter.

Aesthetics are extremely important. One can certainly succeed without beautiful design, but more beautiful products are perceived to be more useable.

On the one hand, the right designer could significantly improve the look and feel of Craigslist, without affecting it's structure: a carefully applied colour scheme, better typography, whitespace and a fine attention to detail would help.

On the other hand, Craigslist is the mother of all outliers. Everything they do seems totally counter-intuitive.

Is there room for improvement? Definitely. Should it be improved? It's worthy of a debate.

</comment><comment><USER13> The problem with craigslist isn't the graphic design. It's functional and clear.

The problem is that useful data isn't required and available. For instance, partment listings should require at least cross streets, so that it's possible to search geographically. Computer parts should be split into component (laptop, monitor, cpu, keyboard, etc).

Craigslist is based around location, so every listing should have at least some rough neighborhood geolocation.

A little customization by category would render the site much more usable, while changing nothing that would be confusing to users.

</comment><comment><USER14> I agree with edmccaffrey: it's not confusing at all! Here's what I'd like from a redesign of Craigslist:

1\. Automatic spelling correction from posting-lingo in Standard English.

2\. Automatic stemming of arbitrary description of location into zipcode.

3\. Avoid scams by something like reputation points.

The front-page navigation is not their killer feature.

<comment><USER15> 4\. Automaticly fix all uppercase posts.

<comment><USER16> You mean, automatically _block_ all-uppercase posts. Let the people figure it out for themselves, don't let them think that "computers just do that" so that they start sending e-mails that way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Craigslist works.

People who complain about it being a crappily designed site are missing the point. It gets information to people who need it.

See <http://blog.topix.com/archives/000095.html>

</comment><comment><USER18> I like one or two designs, but I can't say that any of them is "better". It's easy for designers to pop Photoshop open and start moving things around to provide a final "web 2.0" layout or a "more beautiful" look and feel, without looking at analytics and studying user behavior. CraigsList is useful, but not very usable. And sometimes a useful product with low usability score is better than a usable product, that 50M existing users need to re-learn. Muscle memory plays an important role for existing customers, especially frequent visitors.

Craigslist is a profitable business. And they need to evolve incrementally the same way Amazon does.

The fact that it's simple and basic doesn't mean that it's broken. It works. At least 95% of the time :)

</comment><comment><USER19> No matter how the site is re-designed, people will hate it. This is simply because people _hate change_.

The NYT team (for example) could test their deign and produce empirical evidence that their design (with tweaks from testing, of course) is better, faster, and generally more usable in every task for every kind of user---and long-term Craigslist users will still hate it, claim it's unusable, unintuitive, and is confusing.

</comment><comment><USER20> they should have run this attempt with HN as well ;-)

</comment><comment><USER21> [http://idsgn.org/images/redesigning-craigslist/craigslist- st...](http://idsgn.org/images/redesigning-craigslist/craigslist-studio8.jpg)

1\. This approach likely pentuples bandwidth, and that's optimistic.

2\. If you've never posted to Craigslist, don't try to redesign it. Anyone who's posted with an image knows that no such "product zoom" would be possible because of how CL transforms uploaded images to a suitably small file size.

Craigslist is a paragon of usable design, and you don't want someone who's critical of it for aesthetic reasons to be touching your website.

I got started in this industry as a web designer and I'm considering a move back. There are so many clowns who don't know a thing about usability and think that too much whitespace plus an anorexic serif equals quality.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's about time.

</comment><comment><USER23> Half of me loves the idea of a redesign, while the other half hates it.</comment>


Ask HN: Why don't India have big open-source projects? - <AUTHOR> India has great programmers and an abundance of brilliancy similar to china but somehow there are no big open-source projects / libraries / languages coming from in India.
I would like to ask this question to HN readers. also if you are Indian, please share your opinion. <comment><USER2> I can comment on few factors

\- Lack of time/resources: If you consider young professionals, most of them are forced to start their careers working for Multi National Companies with very low starting salary, the starting salaries are almost the same since last 10 years despite significant increase in rents/commodity prices.This forces many to commute for more than 3 hours in noisy traffic heavily draining their out of office energy.

\- Lack of inhouse leadership: Most of the bright college students are drawn to global programs like gsoc or spend time in internships abroad, contributing but not in Indian programs.

\- Attitude of faculty: Indian universities have a lot to catch up in their teaching style. Often, feedback is harsh and faculty are hard to find. In contrast, most US universities have a lot of grad students who are able to fill in and guide youngsters.

<comment><USER3> As an Indian, I totally agree and most of them have a mindset of a) churning out money or finish something very fast in substandard way from OS projects and that too out of the box and if they cant then rather tuning it they will look for another EASY option b) being a user of product rather being creative and motivation to create one

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> United Nations has 193 member countries. Of those only a handful can lay claim to having one or more big open-source projects/libraries/languages. So the question does not relate solely to India.

Looking at what factors lead to such results might provide some insights as to what could be done to foster such contributions.

</comment><comment><USER5> 97% people are Poor and earning bread/butter for the family is top priority for them; [https://archive.vn/pOmij](https://archive.vn/pOmij)</comment>


Let's Help Hackathons Change More Lives for the Better - <AUTHOR> http://news.mlh.io/lets-help-hackathons-change-lives-better-09-24-2014

<comment><USER2> I love the focus on Diversity and Inclusion during this hackathon season.

Sam Altman said in a blogpost "People who are not white males will start many of the best companies of the future, and we'd like to fund them," and I think that's true of people making and accomplishing incredible things in the hacker community too.

Everyone has the potential to become a fantastic hacker/potential founder given the opportunity and I'm really proud of MLH for focusing on this.

[http://blog.ycombinator.com/diversity-and- startups](http://blog.ycombinator.com/diversity-and-startups)

</comment><comment><USER3> Hackathons have personally changed my life. At them i've met some of my closest friends, and some of my best mentors. The work that MLH is doing is great they are really improving the quality of the events and the community as a whole.

Rock on!</comment>


Call Girl: What I Learned During My Year as a Customer Service Representative - <AUTHOR> http://bygonebureau.com/2013/04/23/call-girl-what-i-learned-during-my-year-as-a-customer-service-representative/

<comment><USER2> >If you think you're talking to an expert when you call a customer service center, you're probably not.

This strongly affects my opinion of a company as a consumer. _Some_ companies have great support.

For instance, I've published a book with Createspace. They are phenomenal. They call me when I put in a support request, and within ten seconds I have an expert rep.

Usually the call takes only 20-40 seconds, including authenticating my ID, because the reps are very knowledgeable and efficient.

Contrast this to most support calls where I waste about 20 minutes of my time waiting (I do other things), and often 10-15 additional time speaking to a rep who doesn't know things, and eventually transfers me to someone who does.

The company pays those reps by the hour, so they lose money, AND make me hate the company.

This doesn't mean it always makes sense to provide knowledgeable support, but I suspect there is a stronger case for it than many companies suspect.

<comment><USER3> I think it comes down to scale and cost.

I've spent a bit too many hours in a call center, both as an employee, and a few years later developing the software that ran one.

In both instances, there were people there who really knew what they were talking about, and a lot more who read from a script. I was a script-reader my first month or so, before moving up the chain, and I was shocked by how often the script worked. Something like 3/4 of my calls were resolved with a one- line fix in a knowledge base I could search.

As I moved up, so did my pay, and I cost the call center more per hour (nearly double). So it made sense for them to a.) not have very many people like me and b.) to make sure that my time was spent only on the problems that couldn't be solved by following the script.

In fact, hell hath no fury as the per lower-level call center person who forwarded through a call to me that could have obviously been resolved if they'd just followed the script! I'd berate them in notes for not reading the numerous knowledge base articles I'd carefully prepared, or for not bothering to check a few simple things clearly outlined in their training before even engaging the script, or searching the knowledge base. They'd just wasted everyone's time. The customer who sat on hold waiting for me, the manager who had to approve the escalation, mine because I'd spent thirty minutes assuming they'd done their job when they hadn't (and double-checking just made the customer furious if, in fact, they had.)

You might think that it makes some fiscal sense for companies to ONLY hire people like me, and eat the cost as a marketing thing, or accept that by offering great support, they'll get better customers. But you literally could not find enough support people like me to handle all the calls if you tried.

So you hire relatively dumb, but friendly and resilient people, because that's what you can find. They're cheap and readily available. If one of them shows promise, you promote them. You try to find experts that are desperate for the job, but they're few and far between and generally come with baggage.

You work with what you can get, and optimize around it.

<comment><USER4> I disagree with this premise. The cost of quality customer support can easily be mitigated by factoring it into cost of your product.

"Software is eating the world"... and it's allowing companies to scale customer support more easily through active knowledge bases and better more intuitive searching. The 3/4 of calls that could be resolved with a one-line fix should never make it to a phone call, they should be directed to an online support tool that could more efficiently answer their question and if not then funneled into a call or chat system.

It isn't happening quickly, but more and more companies are understanding that the relationships customers build with companies matter immensely and those relationships often begin with customer support reps.

Quality, friendly support scales and you don't have to create a shitty work environment for employees. Look at companies like Rackspace or on a smaller scale, 37 Signals for proof. It's not just about finding "friendly and resilient people" it's about finding people who are passionate about your company's mission.

 _disclaimer, currently building<http://awesomatic.com> and tackling this very issue_

<comment><USER5> >The cost of quality customer support can easily be mitigated by factoring it into cost of your product.

Sure, but that only works for high end products. Apple might be able to get away with this (and, in fact, they do exactly this by virtue of offering free in-person support at their stores). But the high end is a miniscule part of any market. But Dell? Samsung? Do you really think you can sell ten million units and offer expert support for all of them?

The Rackspace and 37 Signals examples don't apply. In both cases, they can assume a certain level of competence on the part of their customer. My mom isn't going to set up Basecamp. My grandmother isn't going to be spinning 30 or 40 Linux VMs. Rackspace and 37 Signals offer excellent tier 2 support, with the assumption that you're competent enough to do your own tier 1 troubleshooting. That most emphatically does not apply to the vast majority of products.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Pretty easy to identify the company she's talking about (CSN Stores, now Wayfair). They've significantly changed their strategy, and consolidated their various speciality stores into one shopping destination ... and made it into the top 50 internet retailers.

That said, I'd imagine most retailers have pretty comparable customer support experiences once you get to a certain scale. I'm not sure the 37 Signals experience really scales ... and from my, limited, experience, customer service work get really monotonous fast.

</comment><comment><USER7> Even the most calm and cool among us will become on edge when they have to go through 10-15 levels of voice menus, dropped transfers and being forced to listen to ridiculous and inane advertisements for the company website ("did you know you can find information about our products on xxx.com?".... thanks for that 20 second delay).

When I have to call a customer service rep, by the time I finally get to them, I'm usually in a worse mood than when I called.

</comment><comment><USER8> _> 4\. Okay, so this one's not a huge surprise: people are jerks._

I try really really hard to be as pleasant and understanding as possible when I'm speaking to a customer service rep (and I think that I behave decently). I've found that rather than raise my voice, trying to be understanding of their position and limitations gets me closer to "what I need/want" from the support organization.

That being said I _have_ had cases where the person had absolutely no idea what I was referring to and gave me wrong information, etc. But even then, I can't blame them (a DTC stock transfer isn't something that a bank's retail branch person is going to deal with very often. They didn't even know what a DTC number was, and I don't blame them. I managed to get the correct info on the 3rd try.)

</comment><comment><USER9> seriously, what did she expect?

if you work any kind of helpdesk, inbound call center or even management - your job is to help people fix their problems.

now, does a calm, rational, smart person have a problem? unlikely. something is not working, hard to figure out, etc. the person is frustrated, angry, feels stupid for not figuring out - and _now_ you come into the picture.

it is assymetrical, one side has build up emotions, one hasn't. if you get affected by this, the job is not for you - and it is great to realise this as early as possible to prevent yourself from causing harm to others by being a shitty helpdesk, inbound call center, management person.

i think this assymetry is the prime cause of all the BOFH (<http://bofh.ntk.net/BOFH/>) behaviors encountered in IT departments. young males wanting to work with machines, but suddenly being forced to interact with and help other humans in an assymetrical, emotional state.

<comment><USER10> >seriously, what did she expect?

now, first? you are saying "this is completely normal and expected" - and if by 'normal' you mean 'average' I agree. this is how customer service usually is.

But it's not acceptable. Certainly not acceptable from the perspective of the poor kid getting yelled at.

>it is assymetrical, one side has build up emotions, one hasn't. if you get affected by this, the job is not for you - and it is great to realise this as early as possible to prevent yourself from causing harm to others by being a shitty helpdesk, inbound call center, management person.

Here, you seem to think that it is mostly the employees fault. I'd argue it's mostly management's fault.

Yeah, a lot of the problems you list are real; sure. But they are hugely exasperated by companies that setup their callcenter such that employees can't be anything but emotional punching bags for angry customers. The place I worked as a tech support person? you were judged by your call times, not by actually solving problems. (fortunately, I got promoted to NOC before I got fired for, you know, actually helping people.)

It was exasperating, because, at the time, I had a bunch of experience helping old people operate windows boxes (I was a helpdesk tech in highschool for an office with a median age around 45.) /and/ I had a basic understanding of IP, routing, and the like. And I liked helping people. But my supervisor kept giving me a hard time about how long I'd spend on the phone with a person.

I mean, I was pretty good at focusing on the actual problem, and generally? when they figure out that you are actually solving the goddamn problem, even angry people calm down. And you know? actually solving the problem feels pretty good, even if many of the people start out angry. (the hard cases are the problems you can't solve, of course, especially when the problem is probably between the keyboard and the chair and they won't try the thing you ask. It's /way/ easier to do this in person.)

Seriously, if you (the company) aren't going to put in the effort to maintain a decent callcenter? why bother at all? people buy products without phone support all the time. The way it's set up most places, not only are most employees not technically qualified, you don't train, and you don't expect employees to be technically qualified.

But my main point, here? is that as a callcenter employee? you need to recognize a bad callcenter and /leave/ - if management's goal is to get complainers off the phone, well, you aren't going to be successful if you try to actually help people.

(I mean, I think firing your expensive customers; the customer who need the most help is a reasonable business model. Hell, I put a lot of effort into scaring that sort off at signup. But having a really bad callcenter is about the worst way to do that firing, especially from the point of view of the kid who has to answer the phone.)

<comment><USER9> i never said it is her fault. but listing this as some kind of hard obtained, new knowledge?

of course the company should properly train their support staff, etc. but this is not the point here.

people needing help are in a stressful mental state. they don't act rational, some stay nice, some turn into monsters. first step is to calm down, then solve the problem. some need tough love, some need love.

dangerous analogy: sort of like dealing with an argument with your female partner in a relationship. it's first and foremost about the emotions at play, the factual problem is secondary.

if you get stressed out by other people's emotions, you can't help them. basic human triage is calm down first, establish sympathy/empathy, then move to the issue. a good doctor works like that, a good sales person as well.

<comment><USER10> >people needing help are in a stressful mental state. they don't act rational, some stay nice, some turn into monsters. first step is to calm down, then solve the problem. some need tough love, some need love.

If you solve the problem, the rest of it goes away. Yeah, if you exasterbate the emotional bullshit, you can make it harder to solve the problem, but my experience on the phone? Playing the autistic nerd works just fine. They called for help on a problem, if you just bring the conversation back to the problem, and, you know, fix it for them, they are usually pretty happy with it, even if you don't "build rapport" or whatever.

Of course, this assumes they are contacting you because they are trying to solve a technical problem. If you are sales or what have you, I'm sure the rules are completely different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's worth pointing out that all callers aren't arseholes. It follows an 80/20 or more probably a 90/10 rule. As long as your queues aren't hitting 20 minutes, most people just get on with it and you go your separate ways. It's just that the arseholes really stick out.

I once did customer support for a telco. I'd have people ringing up to pay their $900 phone bill with zero concern or hesitance, and one old man who rang to contest a single 20c flagfall charge.

But the funniest demographic were the people ringing up to complain about having their internet cut off for non-payment. So many of them were 'brokers' who were 'losing thousands of dollars an hour', yet for some reason never had backup internet, never paid their bills, and never bothered to move off a residential-class connection with all that moolah they were making, nor show interest in moving to a business-class when offered.

<comment><USER12> I'd also say that by the time I've waited 20 minutes, I'm a bit of an asshole (probably). While managing call centre service levels is a very challenging problem, I haven't been particularly impressed in the past.

Slightly off topic, but a different story regarding cutting off for non- payment: I recently had my ISP invent a new credit card number for me while I used a free trial account in parallel with my actual subscription for a while (it was "123456..."). They then tried to debit this imaginary card to pay for my actual subscription, eventually adding a penalty fee which brought my account into arrears. All of this without my knowledge of anything strange happening. As a result, my account was disconnected a few days before the end of a month I had already paid for. This type of incompetence seems to be fairly widespread these days, and after several emails, phone calls, etc, all I got out of them was a "oh yeah, you should probably change those payment details".

<comment><USER11> _I'd also say that by the time I've waited 20 minutes, I'm a bit of an asshole_

The flip side of the coin is that the busiest call centres are generally for the cheapest services - and you get what you pay for. Running a support service is extremely expensive. For most services, there's usually an option where if you open your wallet wider, you get better service (often at another company), but the general public don't like that option.

 _This type of incompetence seems to be fairly widespread these days_

Not just these days. I worked for the telco 9 years ago, and we had a main product and a rebadged rural-friendly product. We could access the main product webpage to help talk people through how to log in (very useful), but the side product was banned for us. I emailed management: please unlock our own product page, it will help us help the customer and shorten our queue times. Management's response? "That's an IT decision". So I emailed IT the same thing. IT's response? "That's a management decision". Come on guys, I'm taking calls 100% of the time and I have the political power of a newt.

At this same job I would work 15 minutes unpaid overtime just to finish off the paperwork for the day and leave good notes that I didn't have time for. The other calltakers thought I was deranged for working when not paid. After the above story, it's not hard to see why. Management really didn't care, and that filtered down. It's not like my colleagues were motivated achievers in the first place, but there was also no high bar set at any point, no leading by example. Next time you're angry that no notes were left in your account, realise that more likely it's a management issue. Curiously as a counterpoint, in my next job it was expected that 30% of a field technician's time was put aside for paperwork. Didn't quite work out that way, but that was the nominal benchmark (as opposed to 0% at the call centre).

Clusterfucks in billing were the usual error on our side. It was interesting - the call logs off the exchange were almost always rock solid (in those cases where investigations were launched), but billing had mistakes six ways from Sunday.

<comment><USER12> I hear you, it's a complicated problem with many sides to it (I was also involved with call centres from the software side). In my particular case, I was just disappointed with everything from the implementation of the actual free trial, their silent changes to my billing details, adding penalty fees when it was clearly their mistake, daring to deny me access during a month I'd already paid for, completely indifferent call centre agents, and lack of any response from their management when I pointed out the original problem to them (multiple times). And this was a small company who supposedly pride themselves on service - I suspect they've grown in size sufficiently to be flooded with support calls now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My girlfriend used to work in customer service of a hosting provider and this is funny because I feel like I've heard every single one of these stories before.

She wasn't that pessimistic though, I think she liked explaining stuff to other people.

</comment><comment><USER14> In college I worked phone support for the IT department--learned a lot about talking with people and being patient. You get an awesome range of human communication: "I want this right now now now" to "You are the best thank you for the help <3 <3" to "I have a simple problem and I know it's really easy and can you just do this" to "WHAT THE CHRIST GOD CANT YOU EVEN FIX THIS SIMPLE THING".

It's also a great chance to get out of your shell if you are nervous about talking to strangers; you are effectively anonymous and don't have to worry about getting stalked or screwing up too badly if you do your job and help the customer.

Honestly, I think it's every bit as valuable as, say, a job as a waiter or server or some service industry experience.

<comment><USER15> I spent 6.5 years in a call center for a smallish (really only covering a single state) dial-up internet service. Everything you say is true. Though I'd add the caveat that while I am more comfortable talking to strangers after that experience (I was, and still am, a shy introvert), I now _loathe_ speaking on the phone, even to friends/family, where before, I had no problem talking on the phone for hours. I now try to use email/text messages as much as possible.

<comment><USER16> On-call work makes you hate phones too. Phones ringing with annoying things for you to do at annoying times.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't think the pun in the title is in good taste.

<comment><USER18> I think it is, and Good Taste is having a good time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Why would she work in a call center when she could probably make $200+/hr instead of $10/hr as an actual call girl? (i.e. a prostitute)

Beats me why anyone would do something that pays 20 times less what they could earn WHILE ALSO getting laid, working whenever they want and being more appreciated than in any other job.

And yes, it's illegal in the U.S. but it's not really enforced and she could anyway move to several European countries where it's legal.

<comment><USER3> …because I'm betting the joy she gets from not having disgusting men enter her vagina with their penis is worth more than $190/hour to her.

<comment><USER18> For all I've read about the topic, the kind of men who are able and willing to pay $200+/hr tend to be not so disgusting, and the kind of women who gets $200+/hr can afford to be somewhat choosy in their clients.

The direct downsides seem to be more psychical than physical, and not necessarily worse than regularly being verbally abused by irate jerks while having to remain calm and polite yourself.</comment></comment></comment>


Changing the Culture of Python at Facebook [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRtp9NgtXiA <comment><USER2> The punchline:

\- Python is popular at Facebook

\- Python 3 is the default for new projects

\- Changing to Python 3 needed an internal advocate to update build and dev tools to push the change

\- Facebook is a big user of the new ``asyncio`` module

Perhaps the most subtle point of the talk is that Facebook managed to change from 2 to 3 from the efforts of just one person. Of course there were more folks changing code than just the speaker, but it appears he was able to heavily influence the culture change. Enabling 3 for the build tools probably made a big difference.

<comment><USER3> Changing Python versions is hardly a "culture change". Changing to Go or Rust might be.

The main problem is library support, not the language changes. A large company like Facebook can afford to put someone on library compatibility to make this happen.

<comment><USER2> Apparently that wasn't even necessary. The big change for library compatibility was simply changing the settings of the build system. According to the speaker.

In my own experience, most libraries are 3-compatible.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure if you watched the entire video, but I seem to have gotten the impression that all through 2014.. he fixed hundreds of libraries that did not work with Python 3.

<comment><USER2> I watched it while working on other stuff. Must not have noticed that part.

But note that a small company will have correspondingly fewer dependencies. So I'm not sure a small company would need a dedicated upgrade engineer.

<comment><USER4> The size of the company doesn't dictate the number of libraries used. The scope of the work does.

<comment><USER2> Size of engineering team and scope of work are correlated, in my experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > \- Python 3 is the default for new projects

What teams are using Python at Facebook now? So far job requirements seem to be mainly C++ and PHP.

Do they use Cython to speed up? What about PyPy?

<comment><USER6> Instagram uses django

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> one of the interesting things in this video is that Facebook pretty much invented an equivalent of Flatpak/Zeroinstall/Click-packages to deploy their python apps.

<comment><USER7> See also [https://github.com/pantsbuild/pex](https://github.com/pantsbuild/pex)

I've had great success using pex to bundle up tools that use a few dependencies. It's a lot simpler than tools that try to bundle a full python distribution.

<comment><USER8> I wonder why someone hasn't built a simple loader for Windows that wraps pex in an exe with pythonxy.dll. You'd pretty much solve distribution of Python scripts on Windows.

<comment><AUTHOR> there are lots of projects that do this - we had a QT app with embedded cherrypy that we bundled using cx_freeze.

Worked in production at a hundred different merchants

<comment><USER8> [https://sourceforge.net/p/cx- freeze/mailman/message/34695906...](https://sourceforge.net/p/cx- freeze/mailman/message/34695906/)

And PyInstaller is quite complicated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> We've changed the link from [https://youtu.be/nRtp9NgtXiA](https://youtu.be/nRtp9NgtXiA). Please submit the full URL, since HN kills links from shorteners as they break the referential integrity of the post.

<comment><AUTHOR> interestingly, this is because of mobile apps. I used the share function in the youtube app, coupled with the "copy link" intent on android that pops up. This is the link that was given to me and i pasted it here.

On a mobile device using a native app, it is quite hard/impossible to get a different url. Could you whitelist the youtu.be url ? because I'm guessing this will start to happen more frequently.

<comment><USER10> Or, perhaps hn could just auto-dereference the links to a whitelist of the most popular shorteners & then everyone can be happy?

<comment><USER9> Thanks, that's a good idea that has come up before. We've got it on our list to look at.

<comment><USER11> Part of the reason Youtube provides the youtu.be link is that their systems disambiguate between mobile and desktop websites.

Mobile versions have the 'm.' subdomain, and provide a less optimized experience for desktop.

I would also argue that the youtu.be link is a canonical form, since the identifiers are identical to the source. It is just an optimized canonical proxy.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ministry of Justice told to 'get its act together' on prison data - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/government-law/public-sector/news/index.cfm?newsid=17472

<comment><USER2> Why did online news decide to stop with the dateline? I mean how hard is it to start a story with "UK -" or "London -" or whatever. It took me 2 paragraphs to figure out which country this was about.

I know that it is computerworlduk now, but i don't pay that much attention when I click links.</comment>


China trumps SpaceX and James Cameron in same week - <AUTHOR> http://edition.cnn.com/2012/06/25/world/asia/china-space-sea/index.html

<comment><USER2> Should read: " China, the most populated country with the second highest GDP, trumps Elon Musk and James Cameron, two individuals who self funded their own exploration company and project."

What was the cost to China for this stunt $1b, $2b? I bet they paid much more then Elon and James.

"Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for China's manned space missions said the program, which began in 1992, would cost a total of almost 40 billion yuan (US$6.27 billion)."

<comment><USER3> SpaceX's success is extraordinary, but I'm sure it would be much more harder to reach where they are without the helping hand of NASA, years of government backed research. They can also hire scientists and engineers trained on-job by NASA, again funded by American public.

Elon Musk couldn't do what he did in South Africa, for example. It's just like being a startup in the wally, everything is more smoothe there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Title is incorrect. There is nothing about SpaceX or James Cameron in article. Even more: there is nothing about price in relation to SpaceX and as far as it is known to me SpaceX is cheaper. James Cameron reached 11000 kilometers while China reached only 7000 kilometers. Please don't invent your titles if you are not sure about the topic.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's hardly "trumping SpaceX and Cameron", that's pure linkbaiting.

What's notable about SpaceX and Cameron's sub is that they're both wholly privately funded -- that's a novel, and significant, development. That a world-power government can do these things is hardly news, and in no way overshadows the significance of SpaceX & Cameron's projects -- being important milestones towards commercial exploitation of the solar system & deep ocean.

Compare China's current position to the traditionally dominant players -- i.e. other world-power governments -- if you want the comparison to be even remotely meaningful.</comment>


Trans-Pacific Partnership bans requirements to access source code of software - <AUTHOR> http://www.keionline.org/node/2363 <comment><USER2> How does this affect GPL?</comment>


Ladder of Algebraic Structures - <AUTHOR> https://jwkennington.com/blog/algebra-ladder/ <comment><AUTHOR> I first encountered a diagram of algebraic structures at the end of Jeevanjee's second chapter, "Vector Spaces", which elegantly summarizes the high-level differences in structure between sets, vector spaces, and inner product spaces. I've attempted to augment this map along two dimensions: a structure dimension that aims to measure the number of attributes an algebraic object has, and a specificity dimension that measures the number of constraints placed on each attribute.

This is aimed primarily at mathematical physics, and is intended as a quick reference -- it's obviously incomplete and isn't a substitute for Hungerford, Lang, or [insert favorite algebra book].

I hope you find it as helpful as I did in making it!

</comment><comment><USER2> There is also the abstract algebra cheatsheet [1]. Not my work, I have just bookmarked it a couple of years ago.

[1] [https://github.com/mavam/abstract-algebra- cheatsheet](https://github.com/mavam/abstract-algebra-cheatsheet)

</comment><comment><USER3> Most algebraic structures are best understood by which axioms it satisfies. For example basically every subset of axioms of an abelian group is useful enough to have a name. Wiki has a really nice table:

Semigroupoid

Small Category

Groupoid

Magma

Quasigroup

Unital Magma

Loop

Semigroup

Inverse Semigroup

Monoid

Commutative monoid

Group

Abelian group

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

<comment><USER4> I'd like to seen an extension of this table with the negation of these axioms

<comment> hope-striker What would you do with that?

For example, I can see the use of _commutativity_ (ab = ba) and _anticommutativity_ (ab = -ba), but I'm not sure what I'd do with the negation of commutativity (ab ≠ ba).

<comment><USER5> Nope: the negation is "there is a couple a,b such that ab!=ba", which means just "strictly not commutative group": I do not think there is a relevant theory to be done about them (otherwise, I guess it would have been done).

<comment> hope-striker Ah, whoops. That seems even more useless, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Regardless of the "ladder" (or any other attempts to organize algebraic structures), what I find interesting (and somewhat unexpected) is that each particular structure exhibits so many features exclusive to it and such a rich behavior that is not found in any other structures - even closely related ones (like, for example, commutative vs. non-commutative rings) - that these attempts of organizing them and of some kind generalization seem to have not much value. It is only category theory that has managed to bring in something of a common viewpoint on many mathematical constructs (and not just those in algebra).

</comment><comment><USER7> Slightly related: [http://nicolas.thiery.name/Talks/2018-10-08-CategoriesPyData...](http://nicolas.thiery.name/Talks/2018-10-08-CategoriesPyData.pdf)

(How this is implemented in SageMath.)

</comment><comment><USER8> Likewise this is a pretty useful chain of inclusions:

commutative rings ⊃ integral domains ⊃ integrally closed domains ⊃ GCD domains ⊃ unique factorization domains ⊃ principal ideal domains ⊃ Euclidean domains ⊃ fields ⊃ finite fields

<comment><USER9> Was just about to post that. You can get very fine-grained from sets to any mathematical structure based on sets, where the inclusion chain is a spectrum of structureless to structured.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Categories are Algebraic structures, that are related to this hierarchy:

\- Monoids are Categories with a single object.

\- Algebras (Non-commutative, Associative) are k-linear Categories, with a single object.

\- Any object X in a k-linear category comes with an algebra: R = End(X) = Hom(X,X).

\- Any other objects comes with an R-module: Hom(R, X)

\- In some cases, we can use this to describe the category as a category of R modules: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel%E2%80%93Popescu_theore...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel%E2%80%93Popescu_theorem)

</comment><comment><USER11> See page 4 of [https://leanprover-community.github.io/papers/mathlib- paper....](https://leanprover-community.github.io/papers/mathlib-paper.pdf) for a part of the hierarchy of algebraic structures in the Lean theorem prover. (If you give it a normed field, it will use this hierarchy to automatically deduce that it is also a ring or a topological space, etc...)

</comment><comment> hope-striker Small note: people often (but don't always) assume that a ring is unital (has an identity element), and that an algebra over a field is unital and associative.

Also, the label "algebra" is vague here, and refers to an "algebra over a field", but sometimes it refers to an "algebra over a ring".

</comment><comment><USER12> This diagram doesn't show semigroup and monoid. Although these structures aren't used in physics much, I find them very useful for understanding groups.

</comment><comment><USER13> Out of clarity this is an "algebra over a field" vs a more general concept of an algebra over a ring. More generally an algebra A, over a ring R, _an R-algebra_ , is a ring A equipped with a map Hom(A,Z(R)). Algebra over a field is a special case. Here's a "fun" object for you to consider:

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

<comment><USER14> > More generally an algebra A, over a ring R, an R-algebra, is a ring A > equipped with a map Hom(A,Z(R)).

I don't think that's the usual definition of an algebra. For example, it would mean that there is no difference between an algebra over a non-commutative ring and over its centre, which seems weird; and it clashes with the usual habit to regard every non-0 commutative ring as a non-trivial ℤ-module, whereas, for example, the only homomorphism ℤ/2ℤ → ℤ is the trivial one.

I would expect rather the datum of an R-algebra structure on a ring A to be a ring homomorphism R → End_{gp}(A). EDIT: Now that I think of it, maybe got your A and R mixed up and meant the more restrictive definition, whereby the ring homomorphism I mention is supposed to factor through R → Z(A) → End_{gp}(A)? I'd call this more restricted notion, at least over a unital ring R, a unital algebra A (but often people want implicitly to assume unital- ness).

<comment><USER15> I think that usually when people say "algebra over a ring" they assume that ring to be commutative, so that the word "bilinear" in "bilinear multiplication" is useful. It's possible to define an algebra over a non- commutative ring as a bimodule (rather than left module or right module) equipped with a bilinear multiplication, but I have rarely seen this used.

The definition the parent poster used (or intended to use, but wrote the wrong way around, I believe) was that an algebra over a non-commutative ring is just an algebra over its commutative centre. (In which case, we're still really just talking about algebras over commutative rings).

<comment><USER14> But the definition doesn't work even for commutative rings; as I mention, it says that the only ℤ-module structure on ℤ/2ℤ is the trivial one, which is not the usual understanding of the term. I agree that, if you switch A and R in Hom(A, Z(R)), then an element of the Hom space Hom_{ring}(R, Z(A)) makes A into an R-algebra, but I would argue it's not the only way; there's a map Hom_{ring}(R, Z(A)) -> Hom_{ring}(R, End_{gp}(A)), but it need not be surjective if the rings aren't assumed unital. Consider, for example, a polynomial ring R = k[t] and its ideal A = tR, which has a natural structure of an R-algebra.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Somewhat ironic that lattices are missing from this lattice of algebraic structures :-) Though I guess they might not be as important in mathematical physics as in some other areas.

</comment><comment><USER17> Max Tegmark has a larger diagram for math in his paper:

 _Is "the theory of everything'' merely the ultimate ensemble theory?_

[https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9704009](https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9704009)

and a sketchy one for physics in his paper:

 _The Mathematical Universe_

[https://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0646](https://arxiv.org/abs/0704.0646)

</comment><comment><USER18> Robert Geroch's _Mathematical Physics_ is organized around algebraic structures, motivated by category theory.

<comment><USER19> +1 for Geroch's book

It's a really unique book -- was pleasantly surprised with it. It's probably the most lucid introduction to category theory I've read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Another attempt at that diagram, with more structures but less detail on how they differ:

[http://us.metamath.org/mpegif/mmtopstr.html](http://us.metamath.org/mpegif/mmtopstr.html)

</comment><comment><USER21> How does geometric spaces like affine, projective etc come into this taxonomy.

<comment><USER22> A projective space is defined as a quotient of a vector space under the equivalence relation x ~ y <=> (exists k =/= 0 such that x = ky).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projective_space#Definition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projective_space#Definition)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why is "commutative +" a step up rather than a step to the right? I guess there should be Abelian groups and commutative rings somewhere between groups and modules.

<comment><USER24> Probably because the diagram originated in a Vector Spaces book, and commutativity is viewed more as a valuable property than a structural constraint.

Do physicists have any use for non-commutative algebra? It already seems pretty niche in mathematics.

<comment><USER25> All of quantum mechanics is non-commutative algebra. The commutative relation [x, p] = i*hbar gives you the Weyl algebra, for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Not often that something on HN causes me to hit print, but that figure is worth printing and tucking into a book.

</comment><comment><USER27> Questions:

1\. Isn't this more like a tree, where only one path is shown?

2\. Is it possible to find a pattern and extend the ladder in the most logical way?</comment>


Ask HN: Data Science enthusiast looking for advice - <AUTHOR> I recently completed the Deep Learning specialization from coursera. I am attempting to work on projects/competitions on Kaggle and it has been an uphill struggle. I live in SF and would love to find someone to collaborate with. Also, I would really appreciate some advice from career data scientists on what it's like in the industry as in what you do in your day-to-day job and what are the minimum requirements for getting that one interview call? <comment><USER2> You won't use much deep learning. You'll spend about 10% of your time doing predictive modeling, 90% doing other stuff like preprocessing data and communicating/reporting results.</comment>


A Point of View: Sex and the French - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25756961

<comment><USER2> Maybe I'm unusual for an American, but generally speaking, I couldn't care what a politician does in his/her personal life. I do care what they do officially, as office-holders, and it's a problem when the press or public obsessing over the personal things detracts from government and policy.

When it's a case of personal conduct itself diverting the official from his/her job (Rob Ford, Marion Berry), the person should resolve it quickly or leave office. If it's something that would otherwise be irrelevant (Clinton, Hollande), then it is a fault of the media and they ought to be pressured to change their focus to real public issues.

As for why this differs from France to the Anglo-American world, I suspect that a historian or sociologist would trace it to catholic vs. protestant culture. Whatever the ultimate roots, the public's fascination with sex scandals (and sanctimony about "role models", etc.) provides a means for the press or political opposition to distract the public from real social problems (along with celebrities, idiotic TV shows, sports etc.), and for this reason it will continue being exploited as long as they can benefit from it.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's also this tongue-in-cheek leader from The Economist: [http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21594257-our- wildest-f...](http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21594257-our-wildest- fantasy-if-only-french-ran-america-la-maison-blanche)

</comment><comment><USER4> Despite of being a bunch of gloomy presbyterian nuns, they do have sex in the UK (and the US), too.

<comment><USER5> And under the sea. Those fish have to be getting it on too. Need my sushi.</comment></comment>


United States v. Microsoft: Deposition by Bill Gates - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_2m1qdqieE

<comment><USER2> This was absolutely fascinating.

The use of Microsoft's own dictionary to pin down definitions was particularly interesting.

I'm no Microsoft fan, but I have to agree with the general sentiment that this use of dictionary definitions is a bit absurd.

</comment><comment><USER3> 15:44 - I love the irony of watching Willy say that on YouTube.</comment>


The Founding of Google Maps (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@lewgus/the-untold-story-about-the-founding-of-google-maps-e4a5430aec92 <comment><USER2> I sold my mobile maps startup to Google around the same time and worked closely with the where2 guys. This article sounds like the result of a casual conversation with Noel and not a well researched piece. A number of inaccuracies as far as I can remember. (not blaming Noel to be clear)

<comment><USER3> > A number of inaccuracies as far as I can remember.

Do you mind clarify these?

<comment><USER2> Two clear inaccuracies are that the team worked out of the mountain view office and they joined months before the ipo.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> tech-historian For an in-depth visual history of Google Maps, check out Version Museum's coverage (48 images):

[https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/google-maps- website](https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/google-maps-website)

<comment><USER4> This is such a cool website! Thanks for sharing

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> 'But Larry Page and Google were not interested in application software. "We like the web," he is said to have told Lars Rasmussen, one of the Gordon's fellow co-founders. And he set the team a deadline to get their idea working in a web browser.'

Building for web still underrated

<comment><USER6> Now you can build for Google Amp or Google Play, and soon another of Google's walled gardens, Google Stadia.

Long live the web!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was hoping for a little more detail around the beginnings of AJAX. I know it was added to IE to support Outlook in IE but I thought Maps was the first big use of it outside of Outlook.

<comment><USER8> Whenever people talk about how IE ruined the internet, I think about AJAX. I actually thought IE was _great_ for the web. A poignant example I remember was, if you got a /TR /TD out of order, Netscape wouldn't show the web page at all. It'd work fine in IE though.

IE just made it so much easier to move fast in web development. People blast IE, but I really don't think the web would be as good as it is today without it.

Contrast that with what Chrome has done to the web. Not good.

<comment><USER9> AJAX is the one feature people can point to as something good that came from Internet Explorer. That and maybe their take on the box model. But virtually everything else they got wrong. Worse yet, they got complacent with their lead and web development stalled for years as a result.

Other browsers have done far more to get us to where we are.

Chrome introduced a modern security model and many useful APIs and protocols (including HTTP/2). Firefox popularized the concept of browser extensions and developer tools like Firebug. Safari made much possible by opening WebKit, such as Chrome and mobile browsers. Opera invented half of the original browser concepts including tabbed browsing.

AJAX was largely responsible for the initial push to modern, dynamic websites, but it doesn't score enough points to make Microsoft the good guy in this history.

<comment><USER10> > Safari made much possible by opening WebKit

Just to give credit where it is due: they had to, since they used KHTML, under LGPL, a pretty good browser engine at the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does anyone remember Microsoft Terraserver? An extremely slow mapping solution that predates Google maps.

<comment><USER12> Yup - [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp- content/uploads/...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp- content/uploads/2004/07/tr-2004-67.doc)

<comment><USER13> Wordpress really is everywhere

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Great read! I recently read Bill Kilday's book: Never lost again[1] which is a fantastic read if you want to learn more about the pre-google-maps and google earth days.

[1]: [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062673041](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062673041)

</comment><comment><USER15> Not to be confused with Google Earth, which was purchased from Keyhole.

<comment><USER16> I was about to say. The book about Keyhole, Never Lost Again, is a great read. I burned through it in less than 48 hours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Someone unrelated but I met Luc Vincent, an instrumental leader in developing Streetview. Although he's at Lyft L5 now, it's amazing to see how Google is able to expand to so many domains.

</comment><comment><USER18> This story is told really well in one of my favorite podcasts, the Acquired Podcast: [https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/google- maps](https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/google-maps). Highly recommended as are all of the other episodes.

<comment><USER19> The two co-hosts' valleyspeak inflections became intolerable. I'm sure their story was more complete than the medium article, but it was like Guy Raz times two.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The good old days when it had a from: and to: by default instead of needing extra steps.

</comment><comment><USER21> Typical medium article. Scant and clickbaity (fell for it this time).

Is there a way to block all medium articles from my feed?

<comment><USER22> I am sure you'll find an article on medium about that. Probable title: "7 great ways to block all medium articles from your feed"

Sorry for the irony... I hate medium too :)</comment></comment>


"Why netbeans' rails support is so creamingly good" - <AUTHOR> http://lifeonrails.org/2007/8/27/netbeans-the-best-ruby-on-rails-ide

<comment><USER2> NetBeans looks great. Perhaps you can help me with something, though. Every time I try to evaluate one of these spiffy, does-everything-but-brush-your- teeth IDEs I go through the following process: (1) search for half an hour to find exactly the right thing to download; (2) download, install, and run; (3) now what???

In other words, I've found the documentation for fancy features to be rich, but instructions for just getting started are piss poor. Particularly critical is the lack of docs for step 3---how do I start or import a Rails project into the IDE? I've tried Eclipse, Aptana, and NetBeans, and given up in despair each time. I eventually figured it out for RadRails under Linux, but that was only after much effort. (I've since switched to Mac/TextMate.)

Any help with the three steps above would be much appreciated. If anyone can post a nice step-by-step guide to getting started, I might even switch to NetBeans!

<comment><USER3> yeah its hard if you are not familiar with the IDE at hand. Its not unlike say, setting up SLIME for CL when you are _gasp_ not an emacs user ;)

<comment><USER2> Heh. I did set up SLIME for CL (in XEmacs), after like 8 attempts. I forget how I eventually got it to work, but IIRC I cycled through several CL implementations before cracking it. (SBCL didn't, alas, work with SLIME out of the box.)

This brings up some advice for Arc adoption, in case it hasn't yet been addressed: don't assume people will know (or will be willing to learn) Emacs. And don't count on NetBeans support. :-)

<comment><USER3> you got it. Powerful tools require a large investment of your time. I was never an emacs user but I am slowly changing that, as it seems to still be relevant and you can get it anywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been using the most recent stable dev releases for several months now and love them.

<http://deadlock.netbeans.org/hudson/job/ruby/>

Also, the devs are incredibly quick to respond to bugs if you run in to a problem.

</comment><comment><USER5> i posted something on this a couple hours ago... this is the only way anyone should work on RoR

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I saw you posted the screencast: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47886>

I'm going to watch that later and then give it a trial run. Did you try it already?

<comment><USER5> yup... setting up debugging is a bitch though

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Cool. I wish the editor could be modified to act like Vim. I'd switch to it in a heartbeat.

<comment><USER7> I think you can use vim as the default editor if you want

<http://externaleditor.netbeans.org/>

<comment><USER6> Well, I meant full vim integration. The code completion looks wonderful. Vim already provides syntax coloring and RoR itself provides svn integration (append -c to script/generate or script/destroy commands).

The only reason I can see to use Netbeans is the great code completion and auto-documentation. (Those _are_ huge reasons, though.)

Edit: Hmm.. _"We have been working closely with the owner of Vim and he has incorporated our netbeans integration code into a vim 6.1 patch (patch number 366). Currently these sources are not available in a vim release."_

So I'm confused as to whether it does or it doesn't fully integrate with Vim. I'll have to try it after work..

<comment><USER8> There is a plugin for vi keyboard commands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really don't want to know the etymology of that one.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is Netbeans free?

<comment><USER3> Yes. GPL.</comment></comment>