Ragel State Machine Compiler - <AUTHOR> http://www.complang.org/ragel/ <comment><USER2> This seems to have a copy of the HTTP1.1 ragel parser C from Mongrel <https://github.com/fauna/mongrel/tree/master/ext/http11>

Would be interesting to see how its performance compares to Ry's HTTP parser from the Node.js library: <https://github.com/ry/http-parser>

<comment><USER3> Ry's is faster. Ragel does pretty good and it gets you most of the way there when you need something that runs really fast, but it can't beat what a skilled programmer can do to optimize a parser.

<comment><USER4> > it can't beat what a skilled programmer can do to optimize a parser.

What sorts of clever things does Ry's parser do that Ragel can't figure out?

<comment><USER3> A sure-fire way to beat a Ragel parser is to look ahead several characters and test the limited possibilities that are present when a language has literal strings like GET and POST. You can essentially fall back to extremely fast string searching algorithms in certain places.

Ragel assumes character-by-character parsing and it's difficult to generate fast code that looks ahead without running into buffer block boundaries. It could be done though.

You can also use character classes to reduce the number of tests. Ragel doesn't try to figure those out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ruby but no Python. :-(

<comment><USER3> A few people have stopped by the mailing list wondering how much work it would be to add a python generator. You could send a few motivating words in their direction to increase the chances of it being worked on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There seems to be a JavaScript target available too: <https://github.com/dominicmarks/ragel-js>

<comment><USER3> That's not in the trunk yet ... it is queued.

There is also C#. It's been in testing for a while and there are a few known bugs. Should get worked out in the next release.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think a Go backend was added a while ago, but since there hasn't been a release in 2009, it isn't part of the official release yet.

<comment><USER3> That's right. That patch is waiting to go out. Unfortunately I didn't get a release out in 2010. By spring I'm hoping to have one. It got stalled because I was trying to include a revamp of conditions and I got hung up wrestling with the complexity of that problem. I now know what I'm dealing with and my plan is to push out a 6.7 with all the submitted patches, then later on do 7.0 with the new condition stuff. It's gonna be awesome :)

I've also been distracted by another project, which is also going to be awesome :)

<comment><USER7> Awesome. Thanks for the update, and nice work.</comment></comment></comment>


Spacecraft to be controlled by artificial intelligence - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/8320245/Spacecraft-to-be-controlled-by-artificial-intelligence.html

<comment><USER2> The article is interesting, but it is also an example of sensationalist journalism. All spacecraft and even regular aircraft use computers to make critical flight decisions faster than humans can. That is not artificial intelligence, and neither is what the article describes.

Edit: I made my comment less harsh. You clearly thought the article was interesting (and in a way, it is) so I apologize for my original comment's tone.

<comment><USER3> _All spacecraft and even regular aircraft use computers to make critical flight decisions faster than humans can. That is not artificial intelligence, and neither is what the article describes._

It actually is considered "artificial intelligence" according to a strict definition of the term. This would be a kind of weak AI called an "expert system".

The article is about extending this system beyond traditional expert systems by allowing greater environmental feedback to influence future automatic decision making. Still firmly in the weak AI sphere, but exciting nonetheless.

Many journalists are guilty of leaping right into the Hal 9000 strong AI angle and then sensationalizing the dangers of strong AI run amok. I thought this article did a good job of not going too overboard, although Hal got the obligatory mention.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_AI_vs._weak_AI></comment></comment>


China is investigating FedEx after it diverted packages to the United States - <AUTHOR> https://www.msn.com/en-us/finance/news/china-is-investigating-fedex-after-it-diverted-packages-to-the-united-states/ar-AAChFK3 <comment><USER2> This keeps getting re-posted. It's likely thousands of packages are sent to the wrong place every day, Hauwei is complaining to the chinese government about (2) misrouted boxes. This is a non story.

<comment><USER3> I agree that it's likely a non-story, but the number of packages isn't the relevant part. Every delivery service misroutes, damages or loses packages, that's normal. If it's done on purpose, it's something very different.

I doubt that they'd openly show the tracking to the customer, though. If US intelligence wanted to check the contents, they'd likely just do it somewhere in FedEx's local facility.

<comment><USER2> Yes. The tracking number showed the package was in the US. That's why this is a non-story. FedEx is also a US based private company. Not all shipping pairs are point to point, it would totally make sense for rare routes to exchange mail at a US hub.

I'm not sure why this story is getting traction in major publications, the premise is rediculous. It's like shipping through Royal mail and complaining your package to Asia stopped in the UK</comment></comment></comment>


Chernobyl Fungus Feeds On Radiation (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20070422222547data_trunc_sys.shtml <comment><USER2> So following up later papers that cite the original [1] doesn't seem like this has gone very far. A number of papers collecting extremofile exemplars, and a few thinking about energy sources. But nothing on 'space food', 'radioactive remediation', or analysis of the energy source in humans. Sigh.

[1] [http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=14704617567455474393...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=14704617567455474393&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=en)

<comment><USER3> The problem is that the active molecule itself has a complex structure, and it is very hard to get a high-resolution image of even one of its structures (melanin can be folded in lots of ways). There's some potential for better imaging with fairly recent discoveries in partial-wavelength resolution microscopy using weak-measurement, but it's still a new technology. Melanin's mechanism for absorbing ionizing radiation, if understood, will definitely open up major applications for a perfected, synthesized solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So, radiation is a big risk factor in sending astronauts to Mars and around the solar system.

What if we could genetically engineer ourselves to use this melanin pathway for ourselves?

We wouldn't use energy from radiation in the fungi-melanin pathway (although we could), but it could be good to make our bodies recognize that a radiation storm is happening and that could trigger biochemical changes in our bodies. Either to become more radiation proof (hide yo' DNA in chromatin) or take some radiation-resilient actions (heavily increase the reproduction of cells in our gut lining).

This isn't a very realistic idea, just a sci-fi thing. We have a hundred years of ethics and technology to accomplish before this would be realistic.

<comment><USER5> From what I understand of this, the fungus basically "eats" radiation in the sense that plants eat sunlight, but that only prevents the radiation from damaging the fungus to the extent that the radiation hits the melanin instead of hitting the DNA or whatever.

So if you made a human that did this, you would have a human that could refrain from eating much food for energy and instead choose to hang out in a nuclear reactor _(they would still need to eat to take in nutrients, but would need fewer calories I guess?)_ ...but they'd _also_ still get radiation poisoning / cancer / etc.

Also, it isn't clear to me how these could be used to "clean up" messes anymore than sunbathers could clean up the sun. It seems they just absorb gamma rays, but nothing about them doing that should make that material decay faster... Maybe the idea is that they intake the radioactive particles and consolidate them so that cleanup then entails finding the fungus (which is presumably easier to visually locate) and scooping it all up? Maybe you could engineer the fungus to also bioluminescence strongly to aid in this.

<comment><USER6> Likelihood of cancer may be related to the general chance of reproductive mutation, and the chance of reproductive mutation is also likely to be something that changes through evolution.

If you have a species in a high-radiation environment, is it not possible that it evolves to have fewer reproductive mutations in general - and therefore lower chance of cancer?

<comment><USER5> Yes, I think it makes sense that certain arrangements of DNA would be less susceptible to going cancerous than others. In one strand you might have a possible '1 bit flip' _(I 'm not a biologist in the slightest)_ change that would turn the routine into _" while(1) {fork();}"_, but perhaps in another functionally equivalent strand you would need to flip 2 or 3 bits to get the same effect.

So basically you want to select for DNA that has a large (DNA equivalent of) Levenshtein distance to cancerous DNA. Perhaps that is something that you could even deliberately engineer (though I don't think a general _solution_ is possible since determining if DNA is cancerous might be the halting problem?)

Maybe it would be easier to construct a strand of DNA that has the same effect as another strand of DNA, but with more error-checking. Throw in a bunch of asserts or something to send cells with DNA that fails the error checking into suicide mode...

<comment><USER7> In practice, I suspect that we have numerous ways of dealing with mutations. However, if I recall my high-school biology correctly, during DNA replication there is error correction. My guess would be that evolution would tend to regulate mutations rates through the efficiency of error correction mechanisms (and the accuracy of the primary duplication mechanism) more so than a meta- evolution in the structure of DNA. Having said that, it is reasonable that there would be evolutionary pressure to have DNA that requires more mutations before becoming dangerous.

Responding to the content of your post. DNA is not executable code as much as data. The 'primary' purpose of DNA is to provide the blueprints for proteins. DNA sequences can be thought of in by grouping the base pairs in 3 called codons (this grouping is not reflected in the molecular structure). The beginning and end of a gene are marked by "start" and "stop" codons, which are just a specific DNA subsequence. Conceptually, a gene is converted into a protein by replacing each codon with its corresponding ammino acid (based on a lookup table) [1]. The function of a gene is determined by the chemical properties of the resulting protein.

As it turns out, there are parts of DNA that do not code for proteins, yet still have significant effect. However, I am not aware of any evidence of a naturally occurring use of DNA that resembles executable code.

[1][http://www.biogem.org/codon.jpg](http://www.biogem.org/codon.jpg)

<comment><USER5> I suppose what I am suggesting is something along the lines of littering the DNA with _lots_ more "stuff that does nothing" that has a very small edit distance from _" encodes the creation of a protein that kills the cell."_

So while you might normally have:

      ... ACGATTACGATACG ....
      ---|</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>--|---
           |
           useful protein

You would now have:

      ... ACGATTACGATACG TACC TACC TACC TACC TACC TACC TACC TACC TACC ...
      ---|</comment><comment></comment><comment>--|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|---
           |                |
           useful protein   pointless proteins

The trick with the TACC being that perhaps TAAC, AACC, and TAGC all, rather than encoding a pointless protein, each encode a protein that will kill the cell. Any random damage to TACC will have a high chance of producing a sequence that will be deadly to the cell.

So each time you get whacked by a gamma ray, you spin a die and see what it hits. Maybe it hits a naturally occurring sequence like _' ACGATTACGATACG'_ and maybe you get cancer. Or maybe it hits one of those artificially inserted _TACC_ segments that is designed to _usually_ break in such a way that the cell is killed. Add more and more TACC segments and you become less and less efficient, but the odds get stacked more in your favor the more you add.

It would kind of be the "electric fence" approach to arresting unintended behavior ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Fence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Fence)).

I suspect actually pulling this off isn't something that is doable in the foreseeable future, since it would require being able to make strong statements of the nature _" This segment of DNA should have no effect"_, and similar, but it makes sense in my head at least ;)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a very cool fungus, I'm glad this was posted! The trickery of its survival comes from its use of melanin, specifically pheomelanin. Basically what happens is when ionizing radiation strikes pheomelanin, an incident electron is generated because of something known as the Compton effect (think photoelectric effect but at really high energy). Somehow, pheomelanin is able to strip down the energy of the electron until it is no longer capable of acting as a free radical and destroying surrounding matter. Unfortunately, that mechanism is still unknown, hopefully with the development of higher resolution microscopes we can get a more thorough understanding of the molecular structure.

</comment><comment><USER8> This reminds me of the fungus you see growing on the sides of distillery facilities (if you ever go through bourbon country in Kentucky, all the whisky aging warehouses are covered in the stuff). Instead of radiation, they thrive on ethanol.

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

<comment><USER9> If you're bored and want a story about it: [http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/05/ff_angelsshare/all/1](http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/05/ff_angelsshare/all/1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting. Only 2 photosynthetic molecules are known so far in all branches of life, chlorophyll and rhodopsin, so the existence of another photosynthetic pathway is pretty surprising! I hope it's not another case of hype followed by debunking like for "arsenic dna" or "antideluvian dna".

The study seems to be done properly though, and hints at a possible mechanism, so maybe. I'd need a couple follow up studies of the mechanism to be convinced!

</comment><comment><USER11> (2007)

Very interesting, though. Just not very new.

<comment><USER12> Yes, I remembered hearing about it back then. But this does make me wonder if anything new has been found out about how it works. A quick wikipedia/google scholar suggests it hasn't, sadly.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is almost out of a Michael Crichton book. So close. [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain)

</comment><comment><USER14> I hope this could be cultivated and embedded around sites in Japan.

</comment><comment><USER15> I am pretty sure I've heard something about Japanese wanting to try radiation "eating" fungi at Chernobyl ago in order to decontaminate the area almost a decade ago.

<comment><USER16> The fungi can't break down radiation, no known method can do that(1), and probably not even collect it. The amount of radioactivity is unchanged regardless of the presence of these fungi. They only use the radiation that is there as an energy source.

(1) Bombarding with neutrons or high energy charged particles may change the amount of radioactivity. Also, positron-emitting nucleotides can have slightly faster halflife at very low temperatures. None of these methods are available for the fungi.

<comment><USER3> Melanin has about a 30% absorption rate of ionizing radiation in the gamma spectrum, and remains stable (not oxidized in the traditional rate) while producing a current. The fungus is able to produce an acidic fuel source from the current that it feeds off of. The fungus is definitely breaking down radiation, incredibly, but it's mechanism is very poorly understood.

<comment><USER17> The fungus is (apparently) absorbing the radiation and using it as an energy source. But it is _not_ making the radioactive atoms decay faster. So the time we have to wait until the area is safe and has a low radioactivity level doesn't change.

<comment><USER18> True, but a layer of fungus would presumably act as an insulator, as it's absorbing part of the radiation? Perhaps it would be easier/cheaper/prettier to cover the sarcophagus in the fungus than in more concrete? Depending, of course, on a) how much it actually absorbs and b) how thick you can pile the stuff?

<comment><USER19> Nah, when gamma photon is absorbed it doesn't matter whether its energy will be used for fungal metabolism or converted to heat right away. And in case of gamma absorption rate mostly depends on mass density, so fungi will be likely as good as water. Concrete not only absorbs more radiation for the same thickness but is far more stable than anything alive.

<comment><USER20> what about the toxicity of the water as a result of being exposed to radiation, versus the toxicity of the fungi?

<comment><USER21> I'm not a nuclear scientist, but I can't think of any way pure water may become "toxic" due to exposure to radiation (instead of dissolving radioactive materials, which would definitely be a problem). Maybe excessive neutron radiation could build up tritium, but that already sounds like a stretch. (Most radioactive elements don't emit neutron spontaneously.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> [http://fukushima-diary.com/2013/06/black- substance-170000-cp...](http://fukushima-diary.com/2013/06/black- substance-170000-cpm-possibly-130000140000-cpm-from-%CE%B2/?/)

A black organism that bioaccumulates radionuclides has being known of in Japan for a while.

I wouldn't go so far as to say this is a good or bad thing before we've studied this radioactive monster; considering how very hot it is I'll leave the studying to up someone else...

</comment><comment><USER23> Funghi absorb radionuclides strongly. The reindeer and other grazers who eat lichen, etc. are all highly contaminated now. Look up radiotrophic funghi.

</comment><comment><USER24> "Just as the pigment chlorophyll converts sunlight into chemical energy that allows green plants to live and grow, our research suggests that melanin can use a different portion of the electromagnetic spectrum - ionizing radiation - to benefit the fungi containing it,"

One problem with that. Ionizing radiation is not on the electromagnetic spectrum. It's particles with rest mass.

<comment><USER25> According to the infallible Wikipedia ionizing radiation can refer to either electromagnetic radiation or massive particles.

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

<comment><USER24> I should have looked that up, huh? :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Would be awesome if this could be developed as a method to decontaminate or stabilize areas affected by nuclear accidents.

</comment><comment><USER27> So the fungi essentially absorbing some of the radiation and transforming it.

Does this mean that this is positively affecting the radioactive halife of the area because the fungi are essentially living off the excesses radiation present and will help contribute to reduce the radiation levels over time?

<comment><USER28> No. Just like shining a flashlight on a traditional plant doesn't make the batteries wear out any quicker or slower.

However, every gamma it adsorbs, is, well, adsorbed. Its probably not a very good shield compared to sandwiches of iron and water, but its probably better than empty air. Perhaps in the future you could grow a reactor core using a tree. This would make a good minecraft mod.

If it were very aggressive about growth, maybe it would physically block rainwater from hitting the contaminants and running off contaminating downstream. Rainwater hitting harmless fungus and flowing away would help, a little.

<comment><USER27> I can't quite tell if you are trolling me, but I'll assume for the best as I am truly curious on this.

To take your analogy the torch will loose battery at the same rate but with the plants leaves receiving more light it would be less light that goes in the face of the person standing behind the plant. Do the plants absorbing radiation lead to less radiation being around to be absorbed by humans and animals instead? Maybe I am fundamentally misunderstanding something here.

<comment><USER28> radiation adsorption occurs at an atomic level too fast for anything chemical to happen WRT the adsorption, so a peculiar arrangement of atoms can't have any effect on overall shielding levels other than bulk density (like how much "stuff per inch" depends on what stuff is). The hack of the system is the very peculiar arrangement of atoms for this specific fungi can make productive use of the gamma energy which most living things can't do. From a nuclear standpoint long after the gamma is ancient history the chemistry can get started (theres a big timescale mismatch). A plain old mushroom or any ole biomass will block the gammas as effectively as this one. Of course a plain old mushroom or biomass can't live in that location; nothing to eat.

It would be like building a firewall that acts like any other firewall, except under DDOS conditions it uses a whole network of diodes and stuff to store up the electrical energy of each attack packet. This doesn't work with routers because they take maybe "hundreds of watts" to run but the received laser power might only be "hundredths of watts". For a fungi that grows slow enough and has no competition in its niche, gammas are apparently enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Older news: "Exotic Underground Bacteria Thrive On Radiation Rather Than Sunlight"

[http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20060919234956data_trunc_sy...](http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20060919234956data_trunc_sys.shtml)

</comment><comment><USER30> Amazing, I guess its easy forget life on earth is billions of years old and extends deep into the planets crust. It has adapted to some completely different environments than what we normally associate with life.

</comment><comment><USER31> This isn't really "new" but still pretty interesting.

EDIT: Title changed.</comment>


Y Combinator's Snipd Launches To The Public - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/30/y-combinators-snipd-launches-to-the-public/ <comment><USER2> Congrats to Snipd! I'll check you guys out.

Two things on your front page, though, which I'll ask about because I'm a pest:

"forget sending links, send snippets."

What makes snippets so much better than links? It takes longer to manufacture them and to send them.

"Establish a community of followers."

This is incredibly convoluted. "Establish" is too elaborate a word to use here, the user isn't getting a "community" of followers - Snipd is - and in general, this does not set the mood in a very pleasing way.

EDIT: using Snipd right now. I don't see how to snip things. I get the green window up top, and a bunch of links, and a chance to tag things and make them private - totally unnecessary images, by the way, neither one helps me at all - and there is _nothing_ that either lets me save my snip or get a link to it.

EDIT TWO: Okay, so I can't just click it to save a link. That's inconvenient. Threw me off a bit. You also made me lose what I was writing: that's a shame. When I highlight, the fact that I have to click once more to open the menu and then click snip is yet another annoyance. This is not a streamlined process for me, even if I have Snip It attacked to a keyboard shortcut.

EDIT THREE: Tumblr's bookmarklet will let me highlight BEFORE I hit the bookmarklet. You should do that too.

Your opening webpage is ugly. The highlighted part? Not necessary. The Snip It bookmarklet's font looks off compared to everything else. The coloring scheme is ugly. And cramming three lines of links at the bottom is ugly, too.

EDIT FOUR: Why is the bar green? The aesthetic of the rest of your site is brown and non-jarring. I like that more.

EDIT FIVE: Honestly, give me a link to what I've snipped. (Not "snipd," because that reminds me of "snipd" and looks stupid. I love how Tumblr never once admits that they have a stupid URL: it's what makes it bearable for me. Don't be cute. I hate cute.) The fact that when I've snipped something, I need to look around for it, just really, really pisses me off.

And I still don't see why I'd use this over a better-integrated plug-in system, or a system like Tumblr or Posterous, in which you take snippets of things but it doesn't feel like amateur hour while you're doing so. Frankly, I'd take Posterous over this in an instant: easier to register with, and click-and-drag-to-email-client works beautifully. I could even make Automator do it automatically. This system has no advantages, and it's inferior to an existing YCombinator product.

But that's my opinion: feel free to explain why this helps more and I'll rant a bit less. :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> The video tutorial on vimeo needs to be louder.. I maxed all volumes on laptop and the player, even with headphones on, cant hear what they're saying.

I think this tutorial video is key. This software is totally new to anyone so learning how to use it fast in the short-attention internet mindframe is needed.

Apart from that its very neat. I can snip text,video and images. Awesome.

Also LOVING the bookmark thing too... how is that done?

<comment><USER4> Hmm, seems good enough volume for me

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ooh, they finally launched. Congrats Alex!

Edit: some feedback...

1.) It doesn't seem to work on IE6. I added the bookmarklet according to the instructions (some of the formatting is messed up there, BTW, like the vertical "Feedback" link is overlaying the center of the page), but clicking on it doesn't do anything.

2.) Is there anyway to get the green snip bar to disappear once you've clicked the bookmarklet? I guess it goes away when you navigate away from the page, but it's distracting until then.

3.) For better browsing convenience, it'd be neat if the Snipd bookmarklet toolbar _didn't_ disappear, and followed you around as you surfed. I don't see a way to do this, though, short of proxying pages through snipd.com and using the hash URL trick like TheSixtyOne does.

4.) I'm glad that snips are easily unhighlightable.

5.) It's clever that you put the vimeo tutorial in the bookmarklet, but it'd be even cleverer if it wasn't necessary at all. I'm not sure what to _do_ once I've selected and snipped something (and I guess I'm only aware that I'm supposed to _select_ first because I've talked to you in person), and users tend to have their fingers on the back button. If you could make the value proposition for the snipper _immediately_ clear from the text & appearance of the bookmarklet bar, that'd help new users immensely.

6.) Grammar is off on the blog - "You can follow blog". Clever that you're using Snipd itself as the blog. How about renaming it as "The Snipd Blog", so that the sentence reads "You can follow The Snipd Blog." Also works better with the next sentence as well.

</comment><comment><USER6> Congrats. Although I was never a huge fan of web snippets I like how easy you've made it. I was a bit confused though initially on what to do after I pressed the snippet bookmarklet. Perhaps make that more clear :-)

</comment><comment><USER7> I saw all the "this is useless" comments on TechCrunch, so I thought I'd look up what that community thought of "twttr" when it launched:

<http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/07/15/is-twttr-interesting/>

"I do not understand the utility of adding the SMS messages to a public webpage or making messages from my network public. I would have to pass on that type of offering. The ability to make messages private should be added asap."

vs.

"What a silly app… well, more like useless."

<comment><USER2> You know, a lot of people still _do_ think that Twitter is stupid. Myself included.

I've said before and I'll say again that I don't understand the utility of Twitter. While I think some people write amusingly on it, I've never seen what makes people so fascinated in it. I doubt I ever will.

Just because something's successful doesn't mean it's useful.

<comment><USER8> The only use I've seen for Twitter is the ability to follow companies for status updates or important announcements. The local university here is looking to do this for students, and I've seen several online services use it for downtime/updates.

But an RSS feed does the same thing already, and is in a format that doesn't make me have to subscribe to yet another site. With feedburner, there's no worry about feed traffic getting out of hand either. So I don't really see the point, except maybe as a marketing tool to the Twitter crowd...

Then again, my startup uses it too (in addition to our blog/RSS), and my business partner really likes it. So maybe I'm just clueless :)

<comment><USER8> Just to clarify, I don't mean conversation is useless, but I see other sites enabling that in a better way already. As a conversation tool, Twitter seems more like a feature than a full service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> is now a good time to ask...

'how are you going to make money?'

<comment><USER10> What's the next step after getting covered by TechCrunch? Finish college? Alex Schliker is clearly enormously blessed with talent and intelligence but even a wunderkind like Ben Casnocha didn't skip college. I worry YC's siren call may be luring some college students onto the rocks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like it. The simplicity and privacy settings are great.

</comment><comment><USER12> Great job Alex!

Some immediate feedback:

\- Green: no good.

\- Going to nytimes.com and trying to snip article segments on the front page: doesn't work well. I'd make sure the front page on the alexa top 100 works flawlessly

\- I think you need to highlight what you're about to snip when you're in "snip mode"

Besides that, great work: When can I subscribe to other people's snips?

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't particularly have any use for snipd, but the idea of a bookmarklet which loads external javascript backed by a central site feels like it's full of potential.

</comment><comment><USER14> I haven't read the article yet, but my first reaction to the name was: wow, vasectomies over the web?

</comment><comment><USER15> First thought that came to my head after reading the name: "Snipd: It's circumcision 2.0."

</comment><comment><USER16> 1\. Subscribe to TechCrunch RSS

2\. Submit every possible TC post

3\. ???

4\. PROFIT!

<comment><USER5> It's more like "submit every TC post that announces a just-launched YC startup". YCombinator startups have always gotten lots of upvotes here, because, well, it's news. _ycombinator_.com.</comment></comment>


Did The 900-Pound Gorilla Just Vanquish Your Startup Or Validate It? - <AUTHOR> http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/105249/Did-The-900-Pound-Gorilla-Just-Vanquish-Your-Startup-Or-Validate-It.aspx

<comment><USER2> It usually validates the existence of the market, but not which part you play in it.

My last business was in a market with two very well funded, very large competitors. But they were only interested in the larger deal sizes, leaving lots of smaller customers completely underserved. After burning through a couple rounds trying to go toe-to-toe, we refocused on these smaller customers with new messaging, sales approaches and product and immediately had the biggest year we had ever had to date.

One of the other things we did with product was to try to bring capabilities only the big guys had, but in a cost efficient way to the smaller customer. This gave them an opportunity to compete on a bigger stage.

We were also able to convert some small customers into bigger customers as they grew. Having a long history with them kept us onboard with them and kept the bigger players out.

In anything, when there are only big players involved, there are always gaps that can be filled. It's why, despite there being Bing and Google, there's still domain specific search engines, or despite there being Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, there's still space for companies like Hyperkin, Valve or Ouya to have a go.

<comment><USER3> The quote below is sooo relevant to me. It's what sidetracked me at my previous startup, getting caught up with what my competition was doing. I know better now. Listen to your customers. Iterate in THEIR direction. All else will fall into place.

>This is the most important takeaway. Sitting here a few weeks since Google's launch, I can tell you with absolute certainty that nothing has actually changed. Looking back at the 6 years we've spent building BuySellAds, it's clear that any time we spent thinking, researching, or reacting to our would- be competitors was a complete waste of time. In fact, there's no better way to waste time than to think about (or even follow) what your competitors are doing. The only thing that truly matters are YOUR customers. I can't tell you how hard it has been to get this engrained into my mind. It is by far the most important thing in building a business (to focus on your customers), yet so hard to practice when you see other activity and the glorious tech-headline touting presumed (or actual) success. They call it "customer driven development" not "competitor driven development" for a reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've always thought that it was the _800_ -pound gorilla, so I thought that the OP just made a mistake, but no, the 900-pound gorilla is a thing: an article ([http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-01-05/features/ct- tr...](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-01-05/features/ct-tribu-words- work-gorilla-20110105_1_gorilla-idiom-elephant)) in Chicago Tribune talking about the origins of the 800PG phrase has this:

Sometimes the gorilla surpasses a mere 800 pounds. ("Whose the 900-pound gorilla now?" asked a headline on a recent tech story about Facebook overtaking Google as the biggest web site in 2010. Sometimes the gorilla sheds a few hundred pounds. ( Colorado's governor-elect was quoted last month calling the state's billion-dollar shortfall "the 600-pound gorilla.")

For some reason, the 900PG is common in tech posts, this may be due to the effect of a rock band with that name. We may be witnessing a the emergence of a differentiation like the _soda_ / _pop_ one.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow. I had no idea. Though I'm not the author of the article, I came with the title. I didn't even know there was such a thing as an "800 pound gorilla".

Thanks for pointing this out. Learn something new every day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice story. I've added to to my collection of articles that validates the view that Google is in a world of hurt with respect to meeting growth expectations with their Ad business. We've seen a continual (now 10 out of 12 quarters) fall of CPC, we've seen rapid expansion of "inventory" (additional ads on Google properties, and additional properties) and now we're seeing pressure on the Ad buy/sell markets directly.

I'm curiously waiting to see when that lands them in court (they are checking the boxes for monopoly, and abuse of same, as far as I can tell.) Microsoft got away with it for a long time, but eventually it whacked them hard. So when the Internet advertising space is artificially constrained by Google using its position in the space to control pricing or competition, I expect there will be legal action at that point as well.

<comment><USER6> There was a time last year when they banned us (BuySellAds) from advertising on AdWords. I doubt that it was any sort of intentional target toward us; however, it seemed rather convenient to ban us for having customer testimonials where our users spoke of earning more money through BuySellAds than through AdSense.

It took me a while (month or so) and dozens of emails to get our AdWords account un-banned by them, all while using the AdSense landing page to show the contrast of the language they use to advertise their OWN products and how it was much more aggressive than the language we use (through customer testimonials) to advertise our product.

We didn't read too much into it though, as I suspect they had better things to do than strong-arm a (comparatively speaking) super-tiny competitor.

Edit: spelling mistake

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> >> The truth is that if Google actually wants to compete with your business, there is a decent chance you will lose. Google wins everything.

Says who?

People used to say the same thing about Microsoft.

<comment><USER8> I think it used to be true about Microsoft as well. The adage doesn't hold forever, but we're in a time right now where Google being in a particular arena will tend to be more of a competitive beast than a market validator (it can be both, but it'll be perceived more as competitor). This might change again in a few years, but right now Google is a beast. MS used to be. The question might be do you have enough patience/money/runway to wait out that market shift to where you can be competitive again, assuming Google is in your market (many people couldn't outlast MS back in the 90s).</comment></comment>


Ask HN: My daughter wants to build a web site - <AUTHOR> My daughter, a beginning college CS student, wants to build a web-site for her World of Warcraft Guild. I could make recommendations about AI, OS design, or Cryptography, but I stopped playing with front end programming years ago. (She knows a bit of Java and a bit of Scheme, so she isn't restricted to a static-site generator, but maybe that  would be best.) Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> I hate to say it, but Wordpress runs 1 in 6 websites on the Internet. Its super easy to install, and you can get really nice themes for free.

If her goal is to get the site up and running and focus on content, this would be the way to go.

If the Guild does not care about updating content or can wait a while for a website, then building your own CMS might be the way to go.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestions you right about Wordrpress. It will definitely be a fast way to get a nice site up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What the functionalities the website should have?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, from what she's told me it sounds like she'd like to post reviews of Guild activities and schedules of upcoming events. She would like to allow Guild members only to make comments. It sounds a lot like a blog to me.</comment></comment>


KWin/X11 is feature frozen - <AUTHOR> https://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2018/01/kwinx11-is-feature-frozen/ <comment><USER2> It basically boils down to

      > On Wayland we are able to test the code. Let's take an
      > example: we get input events through libinput. For this we
      > have unit tests through mocking. Thus we can automate the
      > testing of the lowest layer.
      > ...
      > What we did in the past was taking these new features and
      > bring them to X11. But there we cannot test. There is no
      > way on X11 to e.g. fake a touch screen. On X11 we cannot
      > test how this behaves if we lock the screen or used
      > Alt+Tab.

I'm not a fan of the move away from X11 (or away from an X11-like model, at least), but it's hard to argue with the above.</comment>


US teacher tracks his bike rides by GPS - and creates some stunning artwork - <AUTHOR> http://road.cc/content/news/51232-us-teacher-tracks-his-bike-rides-gps-and-creates-some-stunning-artwork-gallery

<comment><USER2> I was hoping for emergent beauty rather than intentional doodles. This art is mildly charming but I do not believe the term "stunning" is applicable.

</comment><comment><USER3> This artwork is not stunning.

</comment><comment> the-kenny Nothing special, and nothing new. I think I saw more beautiful work.

As for for the pictures: I expected a human male reproduction organ...

</comment><comment><USER4> Link to his website gallery with more pictures: <http://www.wallygpx.com/#!map-gallery></comment>


Quora User Data Compromised - <AUTHOR> https://help.quora.com/hc/en-us/articles/360020212652?share=1 <comment><USER2> Comments moved to [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18594564](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18594564).</comment>


Interviewing, 1 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dizzyd.com/blog/2015/01/28/interview1/

<comment><USER2> I've been on both sides of dizzyd's interview process and highly respect it, he should be a mentor to other software engineering managers on how to improve their hiring practices.

<comment><USER3> I've been only on the interviewee side, and it was the best process I went through.</comment></comment>


Paul Lansky: The Music Composer, an IBM 360/91, and Radiohead's Kid A - <AUTHOR> http://paul.mycpanel.princeton.edu/radiohead.ml.html <comment><AUTHOR> I _think_ it's the four chords that start at 00:45. The radiohead song is one of their best and the Lansky sample plays a key part in that. Lansky's piece is 18 minutes long and ... fascinating.</comment>


The best languages and frameworks and tools for doing web startups?? - <AUTHOR>

I m planning to do so web startup , so where do I start.... As of now , I know c,cpp , java....give me an insight into the kind languages , web frameworks and tools used by startups today... <comment><USER2> I like mzscheme (a variant of Scheme, which is a variant of Lisp), but Python is growing on me. When I need database interactions, I use PHP, and when I want neat effects, I use javascript.

</comment><comment><USER3> I personally think that you can't beat Visual Forth ++.</comment>


BitBar by Grouper - Buy drinks with bitcoin at bars in 23 US cities - <AUTHOR> http://bitbar.io

<comment><USER2> How are you dealing with the recent slowness of BTC transaction confirmations? Transactions can easily take over an hour now, especially if naive users don't understand how to set fees.

<comment><AUTHOR> Currently we use coinbase, which automatically sets a reasonable fee on transactions. So far all my transactions have been faster than a few minutes.

<comment><USER3> You should switch to dogecoin since it has a faster confirmations.

<comment><USER4> I assume you're joking, but faster confirmation times doesn't necessarily mean they're equally secure. Blocks take time to propagate across the network, so if the confirmation time is too short miners will be working on old blocks for a larger portion of that time, essentially wasting some of their hashing power, making it easier for an attacker to beat them.

<comment><USER3> I was joking, yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Grouper founder here. Would love to get feedback on BitBar.

<comment><USER5> Why would someone use this over just paying with cash other than to make a social statement? I support bitcoin but this doesn't seem especially convenient.

<comment><USER6> sounds like you could skip a line at crowded bar. (i.e. sitting at your table pay and wait for your alias called) But i might be wrong.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, a few of my friends in Milwaukee put together a product called Tappr[1] which did this, except with credit cards (and it was super convenient). Unfortunately I moved out West, so I haven't been able to use it in a while.

[1] [http://www.gettappr.com](http://www.gettappr.com)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: do US banks allow access to their backend for me to automate payout? - rush-tea

I am new to payment services.  I am currently using Stripe as my payment gateway to process buyer payment to my business bank account.  I would then need to payout the seller from my business bank account using either ACH, wire transfer, or mailed check.
All of these payouts require human input to enter the amount and whom I make it to manually.  So it's not efficient if my startup takes off. So as I explained it to the bankers what my startup is and what I intend to do, they told me that it's not possible to do this automatically with my software accessing the bank backend API.
What they told me instead is that use a Quicken or Quickbooks?
I am curious that either I explain it wrong or the bankers have no clue what I am talking about.  Or really there is no way to do this?
Maybe there is a banking term that I am not aware of.
What do I need to do?
Thank you for the advise. <comment><AUTHOR> Hi there -- I work at Stripe.

First, "aggregation" (something many of the other commenters have brought up) is a pretty fuzzy term. A lot of it depends on customer expectations -- whether they expect to be paying you (and not the seller), whether you're handling customer support, refunds, disputes, and so on. I wouldn't immediately assume that you're in violation of our ToS if you're a marketplace; many that use Stripe (Lyft, Exec, Postmates) are not.

Second, we actually have an API feature that allows you to programmatically transfer funds via ACH to a bank account almost exactly for this use case -- it's in private beta right now. I'd be happy to give you access (and help figure out whether you're actually violating our ToS) if you want to drop me an email (firstname.lastname@example.com).

</comment><comment><USER2> Hey! I'm a co-founder of Balanced, a payments API that allows for just this type of functionality. We support next-day ACH deposits to bank accounts within the US for 25¢ a transaction.

Here's a sample CURL command (copy/paste to your terminal to test it out):

      curl https://api.balancedpayments.com/v1/credits \
            -u da3da6de7c9311e288c9026ba7f8ec28: \
            -d "amount=10000" \
            -d "bank_account[routing_number]=121000358" \
            -d "bank_account[type]=checking" \
            -d "bank_account[name]=Johann Bernoulli" \
            -d "bank_account[account_number]=9900000001"

Learn more: <https://www.balancedpayments.com/#payouts>

</comment><comment><USER3> Short answer: yes, but it'll cost you, figure out a better way.

First thing to know is, if you're talking to banks you're sort of talking to the wrong people. You need to be talking to Banking Host providers, or Core Banking System providers (they go by a few names). These are the companies that actually provide the back-end for the banks. So if you're talking to bankers, they won't have any clue because that's not something they do.

Second, read up on ISO 8583 - that's a common API that's used. You may need to implement it, although there are a few open versions around.

Third, it's going to cost you lots of time and money. If you're solo or small, figure out someone who has already done the hard work and pay them for this.

<comment> rush-tea I see. Thank you for your input. Yes, currently I am starting it on my own and of course, I prefer to use an end to end solution rather than build it myself.

Can you recommend someone who has done the hard work? Is it Balance Payments as ig1 said?

Thanks.

<comment><USER2> See my reply to OP re: Balanced' payments API: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5801627>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Look at BrainTree and Balanced Payments. We use BrainTree at <http://nextproof.com> to process payments and then ACH funds to our customers a few days later. It works great but you will need to contact them.

Also, be aware you are likely violating Stripe's terms of service (see section 12). You are doing what is called 3rd party payment aggregation. It has higher risks and usually requires special permission. Stripe would probably prefer you use Stripe Connect so payments go to your users' accounts (but you can still levy a fee so it may fit your needs).

<comment> rush-tea Thank you for your response. What confused me is why one payment processor (Stripe) would not allow it while others (in your example, BrainTree) is OK with it.

My question is that if this 3rd party aggregation policy is just custom made for each payment gateway (means they make their own policy), or is it legally bound by the US law?

I want to make sure that I do not break any laws here.

Thank you for your input.

PS: also I notice some marketplaces like zaarly or airbnb has some kind of insurance for protection / safety while other marketplaces do not. If I want to offer insurance or some kind of protection, how should I start? I tried to find information on google, but probably due to my limited knowledge on this area, I do not find information that is relevant.

Thanks.

<comment><USER4> Stripe is about simplicity (for developers) and being fairly standardized and automated. Payment aggregation has higher risks and Stripe probably doesn't want to deal with them at this point.

BrainTree, if you contact them directly, can work with various merchant accounts. We had to get special permission to do payment aggregation. Also, our underwriting merchant held a % of our funds in escrow for the first 12 months of our operation.

The main issue with payment aggregation is increased fraud. We had to deal with it and you will too if you get any sort of traction. What happens is people will make fake seller accounts and then make purchases through those accounts using stolen credit cards. Once you ACH those funds to them, guess who is on the hook for chargebacks? If you said _"I am"_ , you are correct. In 2011, we lost a good amount of money (five figures) in a 3-month span. Also, if your chargeback rate is too high (> 1%), you will likely get a warning from your merchant processor and possibly get booted.

FYI, there is a YC company helping people deal with some of these issues: <https://siftscience.com>

Using something like Sift Science or simply manually reviewing and approving accounts is the best way to go initially.

To answer your other question, I don't think there are US laws regulating payment aggregation (yes). I don't think the new money transmitter laws apply here, but I could be wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Are you running some kind of marketplace matching buyers/sellers ? - if so you're probably breeching Stripe's Terms and Conditions. Because such solutions can essentially be used for money laundering, etc. and are high risk fraud targets you typically need to abide by various compliance standards and be insured for the additional risk.

One option would be to use a dedicated solution such as Paypal X or Balanced Payments, or alternatively make a custom agreement with a merchant account provider.

<comment> rush-tea Yes, the startup I am working on is a marketplace matching buyers and sellers. buyer pays the seller service fees to my site, then the site holds the money until it's done, then site payout the seller minus the site commission. so it's similar to odesk or zaarly fee structure.

I can do it this way, or if not, have buyer pays the seller directly and then I charge seller the % monthly.

How do I payout using other alternative like wire transfer or mailed check if I use Balanced Payments?

how do I get insured to ensure I am covered for fraud or other risks? I am not familiar with these side of entrepreneurship, the legality of running an online marketplace.

Thank you for your help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> You can link your bank account with Venmo, and then use Venmo Payouts: <https://venmo.com/payouts></comment>


Ask HN: What tutorials can compare with Handmade Hero? - <AUTHOR> I'm really impressed by the depth and commitment of Casey for creating this excellent resource. I'm sure there are lots of comparable resources here is your chance to list a few you've been impressed by: <comment><USER3> Ben Eater has a great series of videos on building an 8-bit computer from scratch on a breadboard. It's a wonderful bit of explanation.

[https://eater.net/8bit/](https://eater.net/8bit/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I would love to have a look at that, I already have a Masters Degree in Electronic Engineering (from a lifetime ago), but was so impressed to learn more about low level game programming with such an accessible guide - <USER2> would have been the holy grail of knowledge when I was growing up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In N2T you build a small modern computer. It's neat and it teaches a lot about the infrastructure of today systems.

[http://nand2tetris.org](http://nand2tetris.org)</comment>


It's Official - Cell Phones are Killing Bees - <AUTHOR> http://inhabitat.com/its-official-cell-phones-are-killing-bees/

<comment><USER2> I particularly liked this comment from @proscriptus: _"You're treating the Daily Mail as a reputable source? That's like quoting Fox News on the Liberal War on Marriage. Celphones and beehives are seldom in proximity, and the inverse square law means there would be essentially undetectable emissions from the phones even a few meters away. This is junk reporting."_

I don't know if it is junk or isn't, but I wouldn't call it 'Official' myself based on this.

Edit: There's also a link to the research this is based on - <http://www.kokopelli.asso.fr/documentation/favre.pdf> . Self-published and not claiming that cell phones are killing bees, so a good point to begin further studies but, again, hardly 'Offical proof'.

</comment><comment><USER3> Have they tried putting the cell phones on vibrate?

</comment><comment><USER4> Seems like awfully close proximity to the bees, compared to what you see in nature, even in suburbia.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you read the article at the Daily Mail there's a lot more info.

</comment><comment><USER5> Anyone know how to build a Faraday Hive?</comment>


Do interviews predict job performance? How about dating for marriage? - <AUTHOR> http://andrewchenblog.com/2009/07/28/what-if-interviews-poorly-predict-job-performance-what-if-dating-poorly-predicts-marital-happiness/

<comment><USER2> In Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, he referenced how Professor Gottman can predict which couples will survive the long-term with just a short meeting.

"University of Washington researchers who have been putting marriages under the equivalent of a microscope say it is possible to predict which newlywed couples will divorce from the way partners interact in just the first three minutes of a discussion about an area of continuing disagreement.

Couples who later divorced began these talks with significantly greater displays of negative emotions, words and gestures and fewer positive ones than did couples who remained married over the course of a six-year study."

And with a longer study (one hour interview, past relationship research):

"Psychologists trying to determine why marriages flourish or end in divorce have refined a tool that predicts with 87 percent accuracy which newlywed couples will remain married and which will divorce four to six years later. It is also 81 percent accurate in predicting which marriages will survive after seven to nine years."

[http://www.washington.edu/newsroom/news/1999archive/09-99arc...](http://www.washington.edu/newsroom/news/1999archive/09-99archive/k092799.html)

[http://www.washington.edu/newsroom/news/2000archive/03-00arc...](http://www.washington.edu/newsroom/news/2000archive/03-00archive/k032700a.html)

<comment><USER3> Kudoz to Professor Gottman. However, a more relevant question is: can _you_ predict the long term relations around you just by "blinking"? I can't, hence I don't see any practical application of Malcolm's "Blink".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> An interesting take on short-term predictors and how they bear out in the long-term.

To continue the dating analogy, you don't just get married after a romantic dinner for two (unless, perhaps, you're a celebrity); you 'test drive' the relationship first. You also, hopefully, maximise chances of success at bringing up kids, sharing finances etc, by getting a chance to learn the other person's values and attitudes.

This seems to me bang in line with the 'give an interviewee some real work to do' school of thought. I do wonder why so few types of jobs involve a trial or probation period, though; perhaps due to mistrust? When you start dating someone, you're not committing to the next _n_ years with them, yet when you join a company, you kind of are.

I've seen from MMO guild leadership that having a trial period can really help stop significant problems further down the line (although, unfortunately, not always). Yet I'd not consider hiring an employee, at least in the software dev world, on spec (i.e. the 'do some real work' part of the interview is actually the start of the job). The only intermediate is perhaps contracting someone first, then bringing them on fulltime. I wonder how customs have evolved this way; respect for other people's need to pay the bills? Desire to minimise short jobs, churn, and to maximise the ability to seek new jobs while still in one? Hmm.

<comment><USER5> >why so few types of jobs involve a trial or probation period, though; perhaps due to mistrust?

Good employees might be risk averse due to life circumstances (family obligations, etc.). Asking someone to leave a job where he's liked and feels secure for one where he knows he's being "auditioned" for the first few months might not sit well around the dinner table at home.

<comment><USER6> Indeed, I am sure for many a trial period wouldn't be acceptable, but companies should give those that show potential a choice if the alternative is an outright rejection.

<comment><USER5> Agree. There might be some nasty adverse selection bias for the employer as well. Those who are at risk of getting fired at their current employer will probably jump ship for anything, and those who are rockstars (to use a cliche) won't worry about the auditioning process. However, those in the middle, even though they would probably be great employees, might not take the job due to risk aversion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Recently we've started giving automatic IQ tests to everyone that applies to us - then we take the top 20-30% and look at their resumes to get 10-15 candidates for the in person interview. So far it's worked remarkably well - precisely in directing us to candidates that looked weak on their resume but turned out to be brilliant on the job.

<comment><USER8> Surely you can't evaluate whether it works "brilliantly well" until you have compared the success of your selected sample against another randomly selected sample.

You may find that carrying out interviews on the roll of a dice is equally as effective at letting you meet candidates who wouldn't otherwise make the CV- lead cut.

<comment><USER7> One of the things I looked for were candidates that previously would not have made the cut because of a crappy resume - and there were quite a few of those.

I didn't do any kind of controlled study - so this is definitely anecdotal evidence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You _can_ turn an interview into real work: <http://www.asktheheadhunter.com/gv981229.htm>

Nick Corcodilos was a pretty popular voice 10 years ago and was one of the first to give that sort of hiring advice.

</comment><comment><USER10> For both the interviewing and dating analogies, OP overlooks the most critical detail that any good salesman could tell you: decisions are made by emotion and confirmed by logic. He barely touched upon the emotional aspect.

What could companies do to better employ emotional considerations?

First they must treat the recruitment process as a _two way street_. Why hire someone who will become unhappy or disillusioned and just leave? Yet companies continue to hide their underwear until after the candidate is hired. Do you really think they won't notice that you misrepresented yourselves?

They must also focus more on the people side of things. Take the candidate out for dinner or drinks. Invite the spouse. Take them to an event. You can learn just as much about each other as you can from a technical test.

I'm surprised companies don't do this much anymore. Have we gotten so technical that we forgot that we're human?

<comment><USER11> I have to agree with that.

I've been in my current job for 10 years. One of the things that initially sold me on the company was that besides the technical stuff, they took time to get to know me as a person during the very long interview day. A bunch of us went out to lunch and chatted, back in the office we discussed everything from hobby projects to old work, etc. Since they had flown me over 1,000 miles for the interview, people suggested some places to visit until my return flight two days later (I came up on Friday and left on Sunday) so I could see if I might like living in the area, etc...

And in the end I had a really good feeling about working for these guys that has pretty much persisted for the time I've been here.</comment></comment>


The Art of the Pivot - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/magazine/20110201/the-art-of-the-pivot.html

<comment><AUTHOR> > For some entrepreneurs, the toughest part of a pivot may be setting aside > their personal convictions-and egos. "It's very hard as an entrepreneur to > move away from your core idea," says Phumbhra, of Chegg. "But if your > customers are telling you to, you have to learn to be flexible."

My experience has been that many founders are contrarians with a grand vision, which can make a pivot towards a mainstream/less-grandiose direction particularly hard to decide to embrace. Has anybody else noticed that a founder is often the last person at a company to embrace a pivot?</comment>


Ask HN: Will Bitcoin Create Our First Trillionaire? - <AUTHOR> Will bitcoin create our 1st Trillionaire? <comment><USER2> The largest bit coin address has 130,248.45240828 BTC so for it to reach 1T USD. 1 BTC would need to be worth 7.7M USD.

<comment><USER3> That is a single address. Isn't it very reasonable to assume that persons with the most bitcoins will have them distributed among multiple addresses?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It might, there are few crypto-billionaires who have a big headstart now in investing in other things.</comment>


Ask HN: Programming books that are desk worthy? (reference material) - <AUTHOR> I'm looking to buy some new programming books and I'm not sure to go just digital or hardcopy.<p>General programming or ones specific for what stack you work with. <comment><USER3> Desk Worthy to me is a good reference guide. Other good books that I don't need at arm's reach then are "shelf-worthy."

Heres a couple Deskworthy ones: tyling with CSS by Charles Wyke-Smith - <USER2> quick reference to grab to get some CSS point clarified. The Visual Quickstart HTML guide is good too also for quick reference.

</comment><comment><USER4> No desk would be complete without the C programmer's _K &R C_.

<comment><USER5> Also, C: A Reference Manual by Samuel P. Harbison and Guy L. Steele Jr.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Clean code by Robert Martin if you're an application developer.

<comment><AUTHOR> This was in my Amazon cart before my original post!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> 1.) The Pragmatic Programmer 2.) The Passionate Programmer 3.) 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know

</comment><comment><USER8> Code Complete 2

<comment><AUTHOR> This was in my Amazon cart before my original post too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Java Concurrency in Practice is an example of a nice go-to book if you're into that

</comment><comment><USER10> Programming in Ruby;1.9 & 2.0. Dave Fowler et al aka Pickaxe book

</comment><comment><USER11> Foundations of Multidimensional and Metric Data Structures

Hanan Samet

</comment><comment><USER12> What exactly is meant by desk-worthy?

<comment><USER13> Ones worth keeping by your desk either for your own reference or for handing out to anyone who is interested.

Alternately if your company has a library, ones you'd recommend for inclusion there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Couldn't have said it better.</comment></comment></comment>


Project Hospital: a realistic take on hospital simulation - <AUTHOR> https://jgeekstudies.org/2020/03/08/project-hospital-a-realistic-take-on-hospital-simulation/ <comment><USER2> This looks awesome</comment>


Radiation cloud from Russia still a mystery - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/23/world/europe/russia-radiation-cloud.html <comment><AUTHOR> This may be the source for some of the new NYT information... although not speculation on why it was covered up or political effects:

[http://rosatom.ru/en/press-centre/news/nuclear-scientists- ar...](http://rosatom.ru/en/press-centre/news/nuclear-scientists-are-setting- up-a-commission-to-find-out-ruthenium-106-source-of-origin-/)

tl;dr likely to be a transportation spill from a reprocessing plant based on the specificity of the element.</comment>


Excelbook is launced, a Facebook UI looks like Excel - <AUTHOR> http://davaidavai.com/2011/06/18/genius-diesel-launches-excelbook/

<comment><USER2> Evolution of the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boss_key>

</comment><comment><USER3> Please should look more into Diesel viral campaigns, they are really good at it. This is just genius.

</comment><comment><USER4> Checkout Spreadtweets (<http://elliottkember.com/spreadtweet/>) by Elliot Kember which is Excel meets Twitter

</comment><comment><USER5> quite possibly the most obnoxious promo video I've seen all month.

</comment><comment><USER6> Too bad it's not really Excel. The Adobe Air thing is not working behind my corp proxy..

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Unlimited Facebook time for Excel people. Nice way to kill time for PMs at corporations.

</comment><comment><USER7> Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /2011/06/18/genius-diesel-launches- excelbook/ on this server.

<comment><USER8> <http://vimeo.com/25268732>

<comment><USER9> If you want to skip the annoying introduction, the screencast starts at 0:49.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm pretty sure that excel looks significantly more suspicious to your coworkers.

</comment><comment><USER11> Somebody with enough karma please flag this.

</comment><comment><USER12> Yeah, let's make being stupid cool!</comment>


Visual Studio "15" Introduces New JavaScript Language Service, Salsa - <AUTHOR> http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/news/visual-studio-15-introduces-new-javascript-language-service-salsa <comment><USER2> I believe that this is what VS Code has been using for a couple of releases now... I mostly ignore it, but if VS proper is switching, hopefully that will improve intellisense, which can cause VS to become unbearably slow in larger web/js projects.

Also looking forward to some of the .Net Core changes coming into play in the future, as it may get me working with C# again.</comment>


IBM tailors Swift relationship after 'review of open source priorities' - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/12/17/not_so_swift_ibm_pulls_back_following_review_of_open_source_priorities/ <comment><USER2> tailors Swift lol</comment>


Rest Made Simple (part 3) - <AUTHOR> http://www.spire.io/posts/rest-made-simple-3.html

<comment><USER2> [transparency: I work at spire.io] It says part 3, but we wrote it thinking it to be reader-friendly enough for someone unfamiliar with earlier posts to jump in. Comments and feedback are always helpful. Thanks a bunch.</comment>


Microsoft's Windows 10 licensing fees forces manufacturer to ship with less RAM - <AUTHOR> http://www.dramexchange.com/WeeklyResearch/Post/2/4118.html <comment><USER2> > Microsoft's new license fee formula and the demands from the computer > vendors have forced DRAM manufacturers to make plans to restart production > of 2GB modules, which were originally destined to be phased out.

This is ridiculous.

<comment><USER3> The same sort of license conditioning restricted "netbooks" to the absurdly low resolution of 1024x600, effectively killing them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Microsoft for the first time calculates its OS license fee based on a > device's display size, memory capacity and HDD/SDD storage capacity. The > formula also factors in device type and will be different for tablets, > notebooks and desktops.

This feels quite strange. The OS itself is the same in all cases, isn't it? So just make them pay different amount because "we can"?

<comment><USER5> If you don't like it go ahead use Linux, kill you business ;)

<comment><USER4> How is this addressing the "same product - different price" issue?

(by the way, I'm using Linux myself on a Lenovo laptop that was sold without OS, was awesome, better hardware than the corresponding Windows lineup at the time)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Less demand for memory means memory prices go down. Thank you Microsoft!

<comment><USER7> What is fun is that the 2GB memory modules use different x16 4Gbit DRAM chips. Interestingly, I hasn't seen any DDR4 DIMM/SO-DIMMs based on x16 chips, not even 8Gbit ones. Are they really not allowed?</comment></comment>


Cryptocup: March Madness-Like Brackets for the World Cup (built on Ethereum) - <AUTHOR> https://cryptocup.io/landing?ref=hn <comment><USER2> It's a great project! It combines two passions football and cryptocurrency. Already have my tokens.

</comment><comment><USER3> Awesome project, really well executed and beautiful UI.

</comment><comment><USER4> Honestly a very good idea guys.. How long have you beeing on this project?

</comment><comment><USER5> Great idea! Use to play March Madness and was thinking about moving it to crypto. Will definitely buidl my token :)</comment>


My Own Successful Startup Story ... In 1984 Mar - <AUTHOR> http://codist.biit.com/fiche/thecodist/article/my-own-successful-startup-story--in-1984 <comment><USER2> Great article which reiterates the point that even a failed startup can be a great experience. It is also an important reminder that the best software does not always (or even often) win out, so it is important to consider other issues when working on your product. It also demonstrates that a failure does not necessarily indicate a lack of ability or innovativeness on your part, but perhaps simply a small oversight or an inability to overcome inertia.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, the past was an awful place... :)

The video is fun to watch too: <http://www.archive.org/details/Business1987_3></comment>


Six hours in: launching a niche microsite - <AUTHOR> http://www.newmediacampaigns.com/page/how-to-market-your-company-microsite

<comment><USER2> That's actually a pretty interesting idea for a website. It held my attention for longer than I thought it would. I voted on probably 10 of the random races.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, we were expecting the avg person to vote around 5 times. However, people have so far been voting an average of around 7 or 8. It's fun to see that people are actually using it and fully interacting with the site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You should make the voting the home page. Get people into it right away. After their first vote, then give them more info.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, we had an internal debate about that. Whether a marquis race should show first (presidential), a random race, or the info page. We thought the presidential race might make it look too partisan and distract from people really delving in, and that a random race could have 2 really ugly sites and also disenchant someone. So, we decided to put our philosophy up front and encourage people to delve in. The bounce rate has been really low, so we've been pleased with that.

<comment><USER3> You could combat that by picking a couple 'featured' matchups that have high- quality sites. Or pull from the top x% of popular ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Besides the report, what are you going to do Nov 5th?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question - we're going to gather a lot of relevant data in addition just to winner vs. loser. We haven't settled on all of the criteria yet, but it will be things like: video on the front page, social networking links on homepage, blog feed to homepage, etc.

Also, after the election, we'll live the site up w/ the results so people can keep going back and checking it out.

Have any other good ideas for things we should be doing after the election?</comment></comment>


Practicing Safemath for Smart Contracts with Solidity and Openzeppelin - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@zitterbewegung/practicing-safemath-with-solidity-and-openzeppelin-cde4cba9ce39 <comment><AUTHOR> I'm the author so if you have any comments reply to this and I'll try to answer them.</comment>


5 predictions on the future of databases (from a guy who knows databases) - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2013/12/14/5-predictions-on-the-future-of-databases-from-a-guy-who-knows-databases

<comment><USER2> "However, it's still not an endorsement of MySQL as much as it is a recognition of Facebook's database chops."

That's certainly one way to interpret Facebook's dilemma (I know a few DBAs, and this statement certainly isn't false). Another way is that nothing else scales as well as MySQL, or nothing else offers the same tools to manage them at scale.

Relational data stores aren't going anywhere; there are still quite a few use cases they fulfill that NoSQL, NewSQL, and Graph DBs do not. This just triggers the "use the right tool for the job" reflex in me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, after all, this _was_ Michael Stonebraker, the salesman, talking. Not Michael Stonebraker, the computer scientist...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> >in-memory architectures for transactions

Can someone explain this to me ? In terms of acid principles wouldn't you want your transactions to be durable.

>Durability means that once a transaction has been committed, it will remain so, even in the event of power loss, crashes, or errors. In a relational database, for instance, once a group of SQL statements execute, the results need to be stored permanently (even if the database crashes immediately thereafter). To defend against power loss, transactions (or their effects) must be recorded in a non-volatile memory.

<comment><USER4> I'm a cofounder at MemSQL. The explanation around durability and in-memory databases is more nuanced than what is assumed with disk-based systems.

First, it's worth mentioning that you use in-memory databases when you have performance requirements that far exceed physical capabilities of hard disks or even SSDs. The workload will have a high degree of contention, high concurrency, etc.

Second, you're probably working with non-human-generated data. If you're not a bank that needs to guarantee a debit and credit went through (and that's slow human-generated data anyway), then you're looking at in-memory technology because you can guarantee every read will hit memory.

For writes, you basically have to use more machines to guarantee durability.

Any in-memory database worth its salt will write a transaction log to disk, so in the event of a power failure, it will read back from disk into memory.

You can increase the probability of 0 data loss, even in high contention and concurrent workloads, if you run the dataset across a set of machines, which both multiplies the number of disks capable of writing a sequential log as well as storing an extra copy in memory for high availability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think VoltDB could be huge, but the utter reliance I stored procedures is misguided in my opinion. The reasoning behind it is really to optimize database access at the database level, including targeting features like JIT compilation and leveraging zero-copy, but it's so hard to get this all to work right, unit test, debug, etc... On the other hand, his "NewSQL" approach can probably become a good replacement for many use cases where MongoDB would otherwise be used.

<comment><USER2> I have a separate problem with stored procedures - it's pushing more and more work into the single hardest piece of software to scale - your database.

<comment><USER6> > pushing more and more work into the single hardest piece of software to > scale - your database.

I never understood this argument. Maybe you can elaborate a bit? Almost all our apps use sp for data lifting work (most of the so called "business logic"), and we never got scaling problems. Well, we don't have that much users or data either, but how many users/data do you have that your stored procs could not keep up with? What numbers are we talking about?

What makes the db slow is throwing bad sql at it, not Stored Procs.

<comment><USER2> Terabytes and 5-6 thousand queries per second.

> What makes the db slow is throwing bad sql at it, not Stored Procs

Absolute statements are absolutely wrong. :)

Particularly with DBs like PostgreSQL where you can (and people do) run Python scripts as stored procs. Great way to slow down your DB.

<comment><USER6> > _Terabytes and 5-6 thousand queries per second._

That is not much info :)

Just for reference: a simple query by pk index on my veryveryvery low end pc¹ on a table with 1mil rows takes about 0.04 ms (so says pgsql analyze). That is 25000 queries per second. What type of app are we talking here where the db needs to scale? Something like reddit? Stackoverflow? Just curious. Never saw such a beast where a DB server needs that much power. Where I work we have 200 apps on the same DB server, and it's idling most of the time.

¹i5 CPU 2.40GHz with 2GB of RAM

> _run Python scripts as stored procs. Great way to slow down your DB._

There is more than one way to shoot yourself in the foot :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One prediction about databases. Codd will rule forever.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! This:

[http://www.opensourceconnections.com/2013/12/11/codds- relati...](http://www.opensourceconnections.com/2013/12/11/codds-relational- vision-has-nosql-come-full-circle/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> One size could fit everything. With a good flexible query language and an sufficiently smart compiler, it might be possible. Which means: one size, one winner and SQL isn't flexible enough. SQL will fall down to earth.

</comment><comment><USER9> At some point, I think traditional database platforms like Oracle and SQL Server will build things that make it easier to treat them like a NoSQL store (simpler replication, ability to distribute read only queries across multiple replicas, a few enhancements to sparse columns) and the NoSQL stores will add ACID, a query language, ODBC support etc. At which point talking about the "relational market" or the "NoSQL market" will not make a lot of sense. They'll all just be competing storage engines.</comment>


Oscilloscope hacked to display oldskool style demo - <AUTHOR> http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=196 Yes, yes I know this points to a youtube vid, but I thought it was a neat 'repurposing' of technology. <comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48104>

<comment><AUTHOR> oops - missed that one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> probably the coolest thing I've ever seen.</comment>


Dagen H – the day Sweden switched to driving on the right - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H

<comment><USER2> It seems to me the 4 year campaign was key to do the transition successfully.

> In 1963, the Riksdag approved the change and established the Statens > Högertrafikkommission (HTK) ("state right-hand traffic commission") to > oversee it. It also began implementing a four-year education program, with > the advice of psychologists.[1]

> The campaign included displaying the Dagen H logo on various commemorative > items, including milk cartons, men's shorts[1] and women's underwear.[2] > Swedish television held a contest for songs about the change; the winning > entry was Håll dig till höger, Svensson ('Keep to the right, Svensson') by > Rock-Boris.</comment>