Slack abandons screen-control during sharing, recommends Zoom - <AUTHOR> https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/360022908874 <comment><USER2> The way Slack allowed _dual_ control of the screen (both parties keyboard input, two mouse pointers) was pretty unique and astounding. I loved it for remote pairing. It's actually what motivated us to upgrade from a free Slack to paid.

The announcement talks about "remote screen control", but doesn't mention the fairly unusual feature of simultaneous/dual control.

Anyone know of something else fairly affordable, that works well, and allows simultaneous dual control?

</comment><comment><USER3> Our team has been using [https://tuple.app](https://tuple.app) for a few months now, and it works really well for us! We've had much nicer video / audio quality since switching. Definitely recommend checking it out if anyone is looking for a replacement!

Apart from the features and performance of Tuple itself, I find the Tuple team to be a HUGE asset. They are extremely responsive to feedback, are always willing to dig into any issues you might run into, and consistently ship updates and improvements and communicate their progress.

<comment><USER4> Seconded... it's early days but it's nice to finally see a good successor to ScreenHero, which was never fully integrated into slack as well as it worked before aquisition, and with this change it's sort of like it's dead now. They don't have multiple cursor support yet for instance, but they _do_ have a nice system that avoids some of the problems with accidentally both sharing simultaneous control of the same cursor so that you have to click to take over the cursor. Similarly, switching seamlessely back and forth who's sharing and/or which screen you're sharing has been really nice.

<comment><USER5> USE Together has multiple mouse cursors support as Screenhero had without having to pass control, any keyboard layouts support, has a web and integrated client, works on macOS and Windows (a linux version is planned), you can switch who shares at anytime, record the session... there's a reason why Slack mentions us on their email/article ;) you should try it, already available for everyone!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> We have been using Tuple for little over a month now. While it is still in beta they are making amazing strides in a short period of time to bring us the tool that we have been wanting for such a long long time.

I had written an article about the missing tool in the pair programming market when Slack killed Screenhero and didn't fully support its features. The pickings were slim back then. ([https://medium.com/codingzeal/a-guide-to- remote-pair-program...](https://medium.com/codingzeal/a-guide-to-remote-pair- programming-tools-9ee20e06aa0c))

Here is a follow up article that I wrote about Tuple once we had put some time into using it along with an update or two. ([https://medium.com/codingzeal/tuple-the-new-hero-of-pair- pro...](https://medium.com/codingzeal/tuple-the-new-hero-of-pair-programming- ffedfed9099c))

<comment><USER7> I hurt my hands a few weeks ago so I've been pairing out of necessity and I can't believe that it took me this long (10+ years) to get on the pairing train.

Just got access tuple about a week ago. Worked really well, I plan on trying to remote pair a lot more for OSS issues in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Given the direction Slack has been going lately, it does not surprise me in the slightest that they hamstring Screenhero like they have. Our team has completely abandoned Slack because of its' bloat and degrading performance. I'm glad the Screenhero team got paid but it's yet another great product relegated to the scrap heap post acquisition.

We've been using Tuple ([https://tuple.app](https://tuple.app)) for about a month now and are very happy customers. It's about as good as what Screenhero was when it was a stand alone product and is only getting better.

</comment><comment><USER9> Slack has been positioning themselves to be an integral tool used in the workplace. They dominate communication, but now are getting rid of one of the most important features for developer communication... You serious? What good is screen sharing (while pair programming) if you can't share control of your screen?

You're telling me that I have to download another application, and convince me teammates to do so as well? "Oh I immediately see the problem with this code you're showing me, but I can't do anything about it. Let's hop off this call and start another call in a different application!"

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is infuriating because Slack had long ago acquired and killed Screenhero which was built for this specific purpose. We rely on Slack to pass control back and forth during pair-coding operations every day, throughout the day. They suggest using Zoom and have even cemented some referral partnership, but Zoom's control-sharing is more regimented and does not support the multiple (labeled) cursors that Slack / Screenhero had. Why punt on this incredibly useful feature?

</comment><comment><USER10> It's a shame to see slack mishandle the Screenhero acquisition.

I've been a happy Tuple ([https://tuple.app](https://tuple.app)) customer since they released their freelancer plan a few weeks back, and they're knocking it out of the park. If you were using slack calls for pair programming (or any other tool), then I highly recommend checking them out.

</comment><comment><USER11> In a footnote they recommend [https://www.use-together.com/](https://www.use- together.com/) particularly for pair programming. Interesting, looks like a direct Screenhero clone!

All this makes me wonder why they bought Screenhero in the first place, though.

USE Together looks like a pretty small company (judging by their low-fi website design, their usage of Crisp chat "low budget Intercom", etc). I bet (and hope!) this generates them a good amount of new business!

<comment><USER5> We're indeed a small team (3 devs), but have been working hard those last years to build a complete Screenhero replacement tool for pair programming :)

<comment><USER11> Cool stuff! Will try you out for sure and all the best!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> They sent an email about this to Slack admins this morning, with a section "Why the change" that doesn't answer the question at all.

> Why the change:

> • We will be rolling out a new, faster version of calls in early July.

> • To enable this improved experience, we are removing the ability to share > remote control of your screen during a Slack Call.

How does removing this feature enable an improved experience?

<comment><USER4> With no personal knowledge here my guess is that's just marketing speak, and the real reason it was removed is... well... Slack is an enterprise product and a lot of enterprises don't want or need this, and the idea of a vector for remote control even being possible just blocks a lot of sales and complicates security audits in BigCo. I'm sure they offered a way to disable it but the feature was still in there so... just my guess though.

<comment><USER12> Nah, Zoom is an enterprise product, and they have this feature. (Slack is referring people who want remote control functionality to use Zoom.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My company has been a heavy user of the dual cursor pair coding approach since we first adopted Screenhero over 5 years ago. Screenhero wasn't perfect, but it felt like Slack's integration never managed to reach the performance of the original implementation. Hard to see this announcement as anything other than an admission of failure.

</comment><comment><USER14> As someone who had no need for Slack but did need to do a lot of remote pairing, I was really bummed when they acquired ScreenHero and was forced to find another tool.

I've been using Tuple since the first alpha was released and it has been awesome. They don't have multiple simultaneous cursors (yet) but I actually like their current system more, only one person can control mouse/keyboard at a time and you just click to take over. Feels more like face-to-face pairing where only one person is driving at a time. As a bonus the mouse control actually feels right because they don't have to do any weird hacks to trick the OS into displaying two fake cursors, it respects your tracking speed settings and all that stuff properly.

Performance is great too, I've been pairing 20 hours a week with a friend on a slower connection who lives in Arkansas (I'm near Toronto) and even sending 5K back and forth has worked flawlessly for hours at a time.

Really, really good product.

</comment><comment><USER15> Screenhero co-founder here.

Serious question: if I were to make a Screenhero successor, would you pay to use it, or are the current alternatives (Tuple / UseTogether) good enough for your use case?

<comment><USER6> So far Tuple is answering my needs well. It is early in its life so I expect it just to get better, especially since its focus is on Pair Programming, and not all the other things that Slack is trying to solve.

BTW, thank you for setting the Gold Standard in pairing tools. I remember my Screenhero days very fondly and was sad to see what happened when Slack took over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Tuple ([https://tuple.app/](https://tuple.app/)) should thank Slack for giving them this market. It helps that Tuple are doing an excellent job of executing. Definitely try it out if you want this feature. (Happy Tuple user for 1 day here.)

</comment><comment><USER17> Our team already switched from Slack to Tuple since it was just better anyway. Call quality is better, its easier to swap who is sharing, its windowed so its easier to multitask while pairing, etc etc. We are fully distributed, so a solid pairing tool is essential to us, and Tuple is the closest thing we've found to just sitting next to each other with two computers open. Its also worth mentioning that their team is very responsive and helpful.

Now I just need a tool that replicates that magic feeling when everyone is in the same room and running on all cylinders.

</comment><comment><USER18> There's large number of accounts registered in last 17 hours (or less) in this thread</comment>


Hitting all the right marks: Acer Aspire S3 ultrabook review - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/reviews/2011/12/hitting-all-the-right-marks-acer-aspire-s3-ultrabook-review.ars <comment><USER2> Does it work well with Ubuntu?</comment>


Are Americans Fleeing Cities During Covid? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@realblocinfo/flight-from-the-cities-670898e3ab5a <comment><AUTHOR> The answer is yes, where they can afford to: [https://medium.com/@realblocinfo/flight-from-the- cities-6708...](https://medium.com/@realblocinfo/flight-from-the- cities-670898e3ab5a)</comment>


Putin: Snowden will leave Russia at earliest opportunity - <AUTHOR> http://rt.com/news/putin-snowden-asylum-russia-118/

<comment><AUTHOR> He definitely deserves the Nobel Peace Prize!</comment>


New names for our Python packages | Common Sense Computing Initiative - <AUTHOR> http://csc.media.mit.edu/node/119 <comment><USER2> "The csc namespace, most notably, has been a large roadblock to making working installers for Luminoso, because Python installers do not understand namespace packages. It has also prevented us from using useful tools that read Python code, such as pylint, and has prevented Python IDEs from correctly analyzing our code. Most notably, the packages would sometimes be installed in inconsistent ways, making our imports fail for no understandable reason. Using normal, top-level packages should fix all of these things."</comment>


Our "CEO" secretly invested the last 30% of our funding in crypto - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/9p58o4/our_ceo_secretly_invested_the_last_30_of_our/ <comment><USER2> Sound's like embezzlement to me

<comment><USER3> Sounds like the DotCom era too. Tech is due for a market crash.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Free private Git hosting? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for a git host for my rails projects. I'd like to keep them private and I'd like to use a free service. My requirements are low... 100MB would be lots, and I'd rather not run my own server. Can anyone recommend a service that they've personally used? <comment><AUTHOR> To kick off the discussion, I found the following (but I have no idea how good they are). <https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/GitHosting> <http://www.projectlocker.com/> <http://gitorious.org/> <http://offers.assembla.com/free-git-hosting/>

</comment><comment><USER2> I think you're asking for a lot. Not just free hosting, but free admin of git. But nothing is really free, so you're running the risk of your project repo either not being available as needed, or being rolled into some price change later on.

Setting up a git repo is pretty simple; I use gitosis off my own server with no problems for the various things I don't want public.

If you can figure out Ruby and Rails you can figure out git and git servers, and you'll be much better off for it.</comment>


Work for my project or join a company? - <AUTHOR>

I want to know that what was your age when you first started earning from this field?<p>I have been working with Php/MySql/WordPress for a while now, may be like a year. I am an student, so I don't have alot of time, but I have enough free time to do a job too. Do you guys think I should join a company which offers me some money for what I do for them, or should I keep on working on my own as freelancer? <comment><USER2> I completely agree with arkitaip. Focus on school and forget about money for now. What you want to do is spend half your free time learning new (web) technologies AND the other half formulating "dreams."

You're in school so you can afford to dream bigger and thrive to solve bigger problems. Learn to be a great person, not a mediocre developer. Learn how to think and everything else will follow.

If you want to run your own startup some day, then you should start today. Find a problem that interests you now and look for ways to solve it in your own way. Domain names are cheap, hosting is also cheap, work on a project for yourself.

Also, try to refine your development process, php is fine, but you must combine it with patterns such as MVC. Build a cheap computer and create your own development server. Learn Python/Django or Ruby/RoR and more (NodeJS etc.). Host your own version control system (Git, Hg etc.).

Young one, you need to learn to be a hardcore dreamer and level up like mad.

I've been doing web for 10 years and every time I look back, I always think that I learned more this year than many years before combined. Every project I worked on, I always think that I've learned more from it than many before combined. I am 28 now, but I am forever searching and learning.

Good luck and always, stay a hard core learner!

</comment><comment><USER3> Prioritize school, especially since you are freelancing and not doing a startup.

People generally choose freelance work over employment because it means (1) more freedom, empowerment and power over their work and life (2) more money. If you get a job that offers you equal or acceptable levels of (1) and (2), go for the job. If you get the same amount of money, you need to decide how importance (1) is for you. If you by any chance happen to get the amount of (1) but less money, you need to think about how passionate you are about your work and how less money will affect your daily life.

Now, maybe you're really ambitious and still want some of the benefits of employment. If that's the case, get the job but make it clear that you will continue to do freelance work on the side, maybe during nights and weekends. The nice thing about this is that you keep building your portfolio, incredibly important for freelancers, and can pick projects and technology stacks that interests you.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you guys for awesome suggestions. I really loved it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Note: I am thinking of building my own startup some day.</comment>


Professor Frisby's Mostly Adequate Guide to Functional Programming - <AUTHOR> https://drboolean.gitbooks.io/mostly-adequate-guide/ <comment><USER2> previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9884616](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9884616)</comment>


Why Asian Nations Dominate Global Education Rankings - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2014/05/21/why-asian-nations-dominate-global-education-rankings/

<comment><USER2> East Asia(Japan,Korea,China) has the highest IQ in the world as I read somewhere a while ago. Education has also been a traditional priority. Two combined, no surprise.

<comment><AUTHOR> The IQ findings are mostly an effect rather than a cause of the educational achievement differences, based on the historical trends observed in the last century.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> what a bland and general article. doesn't say anything and just makes general statements.</comment>


CSS retina hairline, the easy way - <AUTHOR> http://dieulot.net/css-retina-hairline <comment><USER2> Can't help but think that you shouldn't be trying to create truly 1px lines on hi-DPI displays.</comment>


Getting Started as a Non-Technical Founder - <AUTHOR> http://startupdigest.com/2011/04/17/non-technical-founder-code/ <comment><AUTHOR> I wrote this post in response to getting a ton of recent inquires from "non- technical founders looking for technical people".

I hope after this business people can see that learning to code is not impossible, and can actually be quite fun if you are serious about starting a tech company. It's always better to have an basic understanding of what you are trying to build as opposed to being scared and never trying to learn yourself.

<comment><USER2> This is spot-on (speaking as a developer). As a non-technical co-founder, you really need to learn some code and it really isn't that hard to get started! I also like how you don't trivialize coding, though, as you can get in over your head pretty quickly and need to pass things off to a "real engineer". But the experience that you gain by learning how to code gives you a great advantage in being able to lead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> "How do I get a technical person to build my amazing idea for me?"

By giving something. You have to give to get. I think some non-technical founders get this and some do not. Otherwise, the technical person is going to build their _own_ amazing idea. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> totally agree. I think as a business person you will gain a ton of respect from a potential technical co-founder if you actually took the time to seriously learn how to code yourself.

Even if your code is terrible, it shows a lot about your character.

Vice versa applies too :)</comment></comment>


The Reason You Use Closed Captions for Everything Now - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/closed-captions-everywhere/ <comment><USER2> I wish "proper nouns only" closed captioning was a thing. "King Byanlethroun of House Herethrofod" can be tough to catch accurately.

</comment><comment><USER3> My wife speaks English as a second language (very fluently), but sometimes she has trouble with various accents so we leave the closed captions on most of the time. I seem to catch at least two or three transcription errors every time I watch something. I believe AI is used for most transcription, and it does a poor job when it lacks context for the content.

<comment><USER4> > _I seem to catch at least two or three transcription errors every time I > watch something. I believe AI is used for most transcription, and it does a > poor job when it lacks context for the content_

If AI was indeed used end-to-end (and not e.g. just as a first pass) you'd catch way more than 2-3 errors per show...</comment></comment>


Interview With Mark Zuckerberg On The "Facebook Phone" - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/22/zuckerberg-interview-facebook-phone/ <comment><USER2> Am I the only person that gets scared when I read things like "Instant Personalization"? I don't know that I want IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes to be able to tell Best Buy what film titles I've been looking at.

But, of course, I'm also confused why people want to 'be the mayor' of the Starbucks down the street.

Is the 'social web' the Tamagotchi of 2010? A short fad that some people will find somehow fulfilling ("I've been the mayor of this Starbucks for 49 months straight!") but that most people move past?

<comment><USER3> I'm confused with the success of things like FarmVille, but I can't deny that hundred(s?) of millions of users confirm its success.

<comment><USER4> I think all we can say for certain is that large groups of people like to migrate to new forms of organized boredom.

<comment><USER5> Just like we can say for certain that lots of people think they're witty, when really they're just regurgitating HN red-meat in exchange for karma.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Fascinating, informative interview, that validates most of what TC said in their first article over the weekend. Arrington is on a roll lately.

<comment><USER7> Yes. It kinds of sucks how he got it - he basically spread damaging false rumors until FB was forced into giving an interview to clear it up. But in the end it resulted in a great interview and - amazingly - I came away with slightly more respect for Zuckerberg at the end of it (starting from a low base).

<comment><USER8> The report about the phone was true. Here's (yet more) confirmation: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-23/facebook-is-said- to...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-23/facebook-is-said-to-be- working-with-inq-on-smartphones-that-at-t-may-carry.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As far as practical things to take away from this, I particularly like this quote:

 _And that clarity was so valuable whereas today it's like, Ok, we want to go build an app. Even a new product that we launch. We're working on Questions, and it's like OK. So we build Questions for the web, then we build the "m" site for Questions, then we build the Touch HTML5 version of questions. Then we build the iPhone version of Questions, and then the Android version, and then maybe.. (Elliot Schrage: iPad…) Right, the iPad stuff. And then we don't work on a RIM version and then a bunch of people are pissed because it's not available on their phone.

It's kind of a disaster right now._

</comment><comment><USER10> Mark Zuckerberg: If I knew who leaked it to you, I would've fired them already.

[... snip ]

Michael Arrington: You said Erick's working on something else, what's that?

Mark Zuckerberg: Um, oh he's working on a bunch of stuff.

Michael Arrington: What's the top secret mobile thing he's working on though?

Mark Zuckerberg: I actually think that what he's working on, is like I don't think that any of the stuff is that top secret.

Michael Arrington: So there's a theory in talking to my sources that there are…

Mark Zuckerberg: That there are levels of top secretness [laughs]? I mean, we have a pretty open culture.

Eh?

<comment> brown9-2 The interview makes a bit more sense just a tiny bit further down:

Mark Zuckerberg: The way that the mobile stuff is structured — Erick is really the lead PM for mobile stuff in general. I'm sure there's specific things in there that aren't announced yet. But he's not running a secret project. That's… I think that's more like the type of stuff that Joe is working on or that Matt would typically work on.

Michael Arrington: The secret stuff goes through him?

Mark Zuckerberg: Not in general… I don't think the secret stuff is that secret (Elliot Schrage: There's some cool things, even if they're not secret). There's some stuff that hasn't been announced, but there's nothing like a fundamental departure from the strategy that I am laying out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Basically agree with all his notions about HTML5, which he seemed to mention a lot in the interview. Also the horizontal strategy makes perfect sense because FB wants to be the defacto identity tool for any and every device. Why fight a device war when you don't have to, instead just concentrate on being the platform.

<comment><USER7> Yes - it was fantastic to hear him endorsing HTML5. These days all I hear is chants of "apps, apps, apps" from everybody and I just keep thinking - don't you all know what a disaster this is? Zero interoperability, colossal wasted man hours for all of humanity building duplicated native apps across different platforms everywhere, all to do the same thing, just to pander to the vanity of giant companies like Apple, Google, RIM, etc.

I must say, it feels quite strange to be agreeing vehemently with Mark Zuckerberg, but I hope he keeps talking like this. What he should say is that Facebook will always build a first class HTML5 client before anything else, so it is in the interests of every platform to have a first class HTML5 support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Fantastic interview. Surprised to see how open Mark was about such a collossal strategy.

<comment><USER13> It's about as revealing as Google saying "we want all the world's information."

They don't have to worry about anybody dethroning them for the foreseeable future. They get to play the gloating supervillain all day long with no fear of repercussion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> A social web is one thing, but a social everything is even scarier. Imagine the impact of privacy leaks if Facebook had their tendrils spread to every gadget you used.

</comment><comment><USER15> this just verifies mike's original article- which means facebook overreacted in response to mike's questionable semantics (see: "building").

that said, did anyone _actually_ think techcrunch was suggesting facebook was manufacturing hardware?

<comment><USER16> I think TC was suggesting something in line which Jason asked - that the phone will boot directly into Facebook.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Oh, okay. So they're just going to try to take over everyone else's phone.

</comment><comment><USER18> Reminds me of the famous Steve Jobs quote, "People Don't Read Anymore."

</comment><comment><USER19> good luck Facebook. You will need it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Their user base is big enough to have some percentage of hardcore users who will like such a phone.

This also complements perfectly Microsoft's need for a partner to compensate their late start. So the new market might look like:

       Apple -> iPhone
       Google -> Android
       Facebook -> Windows Mobile 7

<comment><USER20> ?

      Apple -> iPhone ( = h/w )
      Google -> Android ( = s/w )
      Microsoft (!FB) -> WinMo 7 ( = s/w)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I hope everyone who unfairly vented at TC after the initial denial is eating humble pie.</comment>


Things I Wished I Learned In Engineering School - <AUTHOR> http://www.cattell.net/talk/TiwiliesTalk.htm

<comment><USER2> Amusing off-hand remark in a merely 12 year old presentation:

      > Rule 1: Almost all organizations try to do too many things
      > Examples: SGI, NeXT, Apple
      > Lesson: Make sure the company management can make the hard calls

Arguably, that was spot on.

</comment><comment><USER3> While I agree with most of your points, I think that you've mistaken engineering school with soft skills/personal management course that you can attend on weekends or order on DVD for $19.99.

To be honest, I never actually believed anyone can learn these things by being told how it works (in contrary to engineering, BTW). Making a mistake is an important part of the process. Otherwise you will get a two-week lasting hype "I will change my life and be more mature from now on" and then you are back to normal. There has to be some feedback and positive feedback is simply not fast enough.

<comment><USER4> You can't take the "I wish they had taught me X in school" genre too literally. Often what it really means is "it's too bad X can't really be taught in school, but must be learned through experience", "it's too bad that the typical school contains very few people who understand X well enough to teach it", and/or "it's too bad that, when they told me X in school over and over again, I was so young and inexperienced and lacking in context that I didn't really grasp the importance of what they were saying".

What it doesn't _really_ mean is "they should simply start a one-semester course in X and then all the new grads will be much smarter".

Why do we phrase our essays in this manner? Optimism. Optimism and marketing, which often go well together, like chocolate and peanut butter. "Ten things that you could learn from me today instead of spending ten years learning them the hard way" is a good sales pitch. "Ten things that you will spend five minutes reading, but will not truly understand, and then you'll still have to spend ten years learning them the hard way, but at least when you learn them you will already know the _words_ for them" is not as good. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love rule 64

 _Don't get too good at what you don't like doing. Work will gravitate to the most competent people_

As an enterprise dev, I'm always weary of being pigeonholed. I've witnessed it on many occasions yet I don't think I've ever seen the idea expressed so succinctly.

</comment><comment><USER6> He also delivers the talk in some videos accessible from <http://www.cattell.net/book.htm> .

Edit: except the second link he provides doesn't seem to refer properly anymore and the first link has a very long load time, if it loads at all -- an HN-type slashdot effect?

So I guess the slides are your best option.

</comment><comment><USER7> A question (given that this is dated 2000).

What do folks think of Rule 42 (slide 18)? _"Being first is more important than being best."_ Specifically in light of recent discussions about Instagram and 'being first' [1]

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3844820>

<comment><USER4> My feeling is that this rule is often true, but also mostly useless. Because of _why_ it's true: post-facto rationalization. Every product ever made is the first to do _something_ \- though sometimes we are forced to make up new words to describe just what that something is - and if that product is a wild success it will turn out that that _something_ was the important thing to be first in.

I'm fairly sure that the first iPhone camera shipped out of the box with the ability to snap a photo and then email it to a list of your friends. I'm sure that there was a way to post an iPhone photo to Facebook. But in the next five years when two dozen Instagram clones get founded, flail, and die, we will be told that they failed because Instagram was the "first" to "really" get mobile photo sharing. Where "really get" is defined circularly: We know that Instagram was the first to have it, because no earlier company managed to become Instagram.

Similarly: The IBM PC was not among the first PCs to hit the market, the iPhone was not the first smartphone with a touch screen, Facebook was not the first social network, Dropbox was not the first way to sync files between computers, Amazon was neither the first online retailer nor the first online retailer of _books_ :

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000044.html>

More classic examples: Singer didn't build the first sewing machine, neither Swan nor Edison built the first electric light bulb, Henry Ford was far from the first automobile manufacturer (but he was "first" in several other things, which are now known to have been vitally important, because they formed the basis of… the very successful Ford Motor Company!)

One could probably rephrase the rule to make it more useful. (Perhaps a variation on the classic "nobody ever got fired for buying the industry standard"?) But it's surprisingly hard. The subject resists glib generalization. I'd just pay more attention to the other rules. ;)

<comment><USER7> That's kind of what I was wondering. That being 'first' is largely irrelevant since, if you make it, you were 'first' to get it 'right' (terms which are rationalised after the event). Hence, I'd consider them of limited use outside of hypothesis testing.

Thanks for an excellent post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Problem is you only have a limited time to learn. How do you prioritise the curriculum? How long do you spend at uni before going into the real world? I have learned more in the real world but probably because my teachers lacked inspiration...

</comment><comment><USER9> While I agree that these business skills are VERY necessary in life (sometimes unfoutrunately so), you can learn them up to certain degree during school. You need a good teacher with relevant exerience in these skills, he / she will give you the basics and some anecdotes. when finally are in a position you need these skills, then you have the necessary basis to built upon.

And that really is something you hardly learn at university, no matter which major you have.

<comment><USER10> As having gone to engineering school, I agree with you.

But the main issue is that most technical courses are given by people with a strong foothold in academia (and a lack of knowledge of "the outside world")

Good teachers go a long way, you have to be aware of the issues to realize they're happening once in the "real world".

You have to know the technical aspecsts, but if you restrict yourself to that, you'll spend your life in Dilbert's world unable to change things. And when it's your turn to lead, you'll do exactly the same as your boss did.

This list is very important, and the most amazing thing is how many people don't know 10% of it, even in companies!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What is Morris's Law? The closest I could find was Morris's corollary to Greenspun's Law.

</comment><comment><USER12> I was just happy to see that there was NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO rule 6.

</comment><comment><USER13> Image 28 is broken: <http://www.cattell.net/talk/Image28.gif>

<comment><USER14> You can get it here [http://web.archive.org/web/20010904104144/http://cattell.net...](http://web.archive.org/web/20010904104144/http://cattell.net/Talk/Image28.gif)</comment></comment>


Tesla made more money last quarter than the US oil industry made last year - <AUTHOR> https://electrek.co/2016/11/10/tesla-made-more-money-last-quarter-than-the-entire-us-oil-industry-made-last-year/ <comment><USER2> Electrek is generally an awesome blog, it's sad that this post had to be the one that got to HN

</comment><comment><USER3> Coal in particular has seen vast job losses despite production staying the same. The main bottleneck in that industry is shipping & transport, which railroad & what west coast ports have the capacity and willingness to ship the coal after its dug up?

BNSF & UP are going to need some more land grants President Trump! Otherwise job losses will continue in that sector.

</comment><comment><USER4> it's bad when you have to qualify the clickbait title in the first sentence:

      "While there are nuances to the claim made in this headline,
      it is technically true..."</comment>


NYPD rejects request for its freedom of information handbook - <AUTHOR> https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2014/feb/14/nypd-rejects-foil-handbook-request/

<comment><USER2> His response is spot on, but he missed another point:

Part of this rejection completely misstates what is attorney work product privileged, and claims that this is somehow attorney work product, and thus exempt.

Attorney work product privilege only covers things prepared during or in anticipation of discovery or litigation. One would hope their FOIA handbook was not prepared under these circumstances.

On the attorney-client privilege claim, unless it actually made for the purpose of securing legal advice (rather than policy advice), it wouldn't be privileged. It also wouldn't be privileged if it was disclosed, ever, to anyone other than the client.

I have trouble believing this document would meet these requirements.

<comment><USER3> What you say seems reasonable. I think their still is the question of the legal risks of disclosing it, even if they are legally in the right. For example, it does open them up to a (likely easily winnable) lawsuit, and having the high level policy of 'no attorney work gets disclosed' seems like a generally safe thing to do.

<comment><USER2> " I think their still is the question of the legal risks of disclosing it, even if they are legally in the right."

Errr,the law requires they disclose it.

"and having the high level policy of 'no attorney work gets disclosed' seems like a generally safe thing to do."

Actually, many litigants have been heavily sanctioned for this kind of conduct (it used to be standard practice to cc attorneys on random shit and then claim privilege).

It's not generally safe, it's just a great way to piss off a judge.

<comment><USER3> >Errr,the law requires they disclose it.

If you think so, take it to court (as is being done in this case). It is quite possible that when they think about it, they will agree with you. Of course, now that they are in court they are "obligated" to fight it somewhat (or admit they were wrong).

<comment><USER2> "If you think so, take it to court (as is being done in this case). "

I think you are entirely missing the point. You shouldn't have to. This isn't even a close case. It's not even a case.

Also, this one hasn't been taken to court yet, just appealed administratively, since you must exhaust all administrative remedies before you can bring a court action in most cases.

"It is quite possible that when they think about it, they will agree with you. "

Who is they?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Although it is made clear in the letter itself, this is not simply a case of the NYPD not disclosing the document, rather the (laywers of the) NYPD are saying that they are legally prohibited from disclosing these documents due to attorney client privilege. Because they are legally prohibited from disclosing these documents, they are exempt from being required to disclose them under the FOIA.

They could wave their right to attorney client privledge, but that would likely require the consent of every intended recipient of the document, which is a lot of work, and still exposes the NYPD to a large amount of legal risk relative to the risk of not disclosing the document.

This seems like much more of a case of lawyers being lawyers, and wanting to avoid unnecessary legal risk and costs, then any attempt at not being transparent.

EDIT: I am not a laywer, feel free to fact check and correct any statement I made.

<comment><USER4> I don't understand who's exposure would be increased if the documents were released. Would it open up the NYPD to more legal action if the public gained insight into it's official FOIA doctrine? If that is the case, so what? If there is grounds for action, then good. If there is no grounds for action, then such suits will be thrown out.

As for being prohibited by law from disclosing the documents, I don't understand that either. As the appeal letter states, just because a document is written by an attorney for an organization does not make it subject to that privilege. Indeed, if you accept this argument, then it would apply to a vast number of documents that would otherwise be legitimate FOIA targets.

What it looks like to me is that the NYPD has something to hide, and they are stone-walling the process, coming up with nonsense reasons to avoid being transparent. No doubt there is something embarrassing in that policy document that they don't want to get out; or they don't want to set a precedent that these kinds of documents are accessible by the public, because there are other such documents that would be embarrassing.

The message needs to be sent, loud and clear, to the NYPD: don't want to share? Too fucking bad. You work for the public, and if you don't get your act together we'll vote in a new mayor and chief of police that will shit-can and prosecute for gross malfeasance all of you lazy, corrupt fucks that are obstructing the public's right to information on the rules they are subjected to.

<comment><USER3> The concern would be that someone within the department could, in theory, sue because privileged documents got released. The more general theory is that releasing attorney documents, in general, is dangerous, and the safest option for the individual making this decision is to err on the side of caution and not release.

Their response seems like a stock response, I see no indication that they devoted the level of thought to this decision that would be necessary for the level of deception you are accusing them of.

<comment><USER2> "The concern would be that someone within the department could, in theory, sue because privileged documents got released."

No, they can't. There is no claim they would be allowed to make here.

Don't take this the wrong way, but you keep making all sorts of claims about what their legal position, risks, etc are, with absolutely no basis to do so. If you are going to do this, could you please at least cite whatever authority is giving you these ideas in the first place? I'm not even sure where to begin, because, with all due respect, what you are saying is "not even wrong"

<comment><USER3> I did not intend my posts to be of the "here is what is actually going on" variety. My concern is that I have seen no attempt in the article or (at the time of my original posting) in the comments even addressing the possibility that this is non-malicious. As the article is making a claim it has a burden of proof that, in my opinion, it has not even come close to meeting.

As a direct response to my concerns, you have actually addressed some these fundamental concerns that should have been dealt with in the original article article allowing me, as an untrained lay-person in this matter, to take this case much more seriously.

I am still not convinced that this is an instance of policy and not individual incentives, but answering that would involve reasearch into many cases, their incentive structure, comparrisons to other groups, ETC, and would need to be written up into a long and in depth article which would get fewer readers and less invigorate the base as these shorter and less logically compelling pieces. I realize that this is a fundemental problem with any type of activism, and the only solution I know of is to call it out and hope that A) someone will provide the information in comments, B) authors will tend to include (or reference) more information in the original article, and C) other people will that these articles may not show what they think they do.

<comment><USER2> " As the article is making a claim it has a burden of proof that, in my opinion, it has not even come close to meeting."

The NYPD has a long history of doing this, not only shown on this site, but others. It's actually quite bad.

Here's another few examples

[http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/the-nypd-is-foia- proof](http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/the-nypd-is-foia-proof),

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/03/ap-nypd-matt- apuzzo...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/03/ap-nypd-matt-apuzzo-adam- goldman_n_3861444.html?1378244386)

etc

Muckrock has enough history requesting things from the NYPD that they are probably tired of writing up the same case of this maliciousness, again and again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How the heck can a democratic state government have secret documents from its own people?

<comment><USER6> Not every thing an elected official does becomes a public document. Democracy does not mean that every little thing is subjected to a public vote.

<comment><USER7> We're not talking about a "little thing" here. We're talking about a document that defines the official policies of the NYPD being kept secret.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The first rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: You do not talk about Fight Club.

</comment><comment><USER9> There probably is no FOIA guide there or in many parts of government. It isn't a big enough priority to spend time coming up with a process.

<comment><USER10> Their response implies indicates that it does exist:

"This request is denied because the records you requested were prepared by an NYPD attorney..."</comment></comment>


NSA's Prism surveillance program: data collected 'directly from servers' - grey-area http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-prism-server-collection-facebook-google

<comment> grey-area I found this interesting news as it directly contradicts the wording used in the Facebook and Google denials - that no direct access to their servers was involved. The wording of the slide is:

Collection directly from the servers of these U.S. Service Providers: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Paltalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.</comment>


Is there more to VLC's removal from the App Store? - <AUTHOR> http://www.tuaw.com/2011/01/08/vlc-app-removed-from-app-store/

<comment><USER2> That article, and most of its reader comments, mildly sickens me. I love Apple, but that doesn't mean I have to approve of DRM. It's crazy to see everyone piling on Rémi when Apple made the decision to use DRM and thereby exclude a whole category of OSS projects. A license is a license, and if DRM is prohibited, there's not much wiggle room. I feel sorry for Rémi, as he'll probably now be subjected to dozens of misguided angry emails.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, what a strategically brilliant move: fight DRM by removing one of the most popular and full-featured players of unencumbered content from the hands of users.

Because nothing sells DRM-free content like making it more difficult to play.

And it goes without saying that the sight of a single developer torpedoing a popular project over the objections of both other developers and users is an awesome commercial for open source.

<comment><USER4> Both the GPL and VLC were around long before Apple's store. The developer contributed to a project that had a very clear, existing copyrights and Apple chose not to honour that. Simple as that.

And yes, seeing apple fanboys jump on this guy because he wants his rights honoured is pretty sickening.

<comment><USER5> You can have all the right in the world and still be an a __hole.

<comment><USER6> One man's asshole is another man's hero. Who are you to judge him?

<comment><USER5> Obviously the "one man" in your opening sentence. Duh!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The article is very critical of Rémi Denis-Courmont, but isn't it Apple's own fault in the end? They're the ones who decided to make the App Store license incompatible with the GPL.

<comment><USER8> Is it necessarily incompatible? Do the terms of service of the App store prevent the _source code_ of the VLC iOS app from being redistributed freely? (If not, then anyone with a copy of XCode and an iOS device could compile and install it on their own device, and _with an iOS developer license_ would be free to install on others. And in principle to make and distribute derivative works.) As RMS has frequently noted, the GPL doesn't prevent anyone from charging money for binaries of GPL'd code -- it just requires them to permit redistribution of the source.

<comment><USER9> > Do the terms of service of the App store prevent the source code of the VLC > iOS app from being redistributed freely?

GPL is not about source access. Source access is an implementation detail in order to achieve the aims of GPL.

What the GPL is about is ensuring that the following three things apply to every user of the software:

        They are free to run the software, for any purpose.

        They are free to study how it works, and to make changes to
        it. (GPL requires source availability because source is necessary
        to reasonably do this).

        They are free to give away copies of the software (the original
        or their modified version), as source or binaries.

To achieve this for every user, it is necessary for the GPL to disallow distributors of GPL software from contractually or otherwise making recipients agree to refrain from doing the above things.

The problem with the App Store and GPL is that the TOS for the App Store requires the recipient to contractually agree to not do some of the above things.</comment></comment></comment>


Porting to Python 3: An offer for you - <AUTHOR> http://jessenoller.com/2011/12/09/porting-to-python-3-an-offer-for-you/ <comment><USER2> A lot of the recent discussion around python3 has been about how 2to3 is slow and inconvenient, so this seems like a good time to plug my attempt to improve the process. <https://github.com/bdarnell/auto2to3> uses an import hook to run 2to3 on changed files automatically, and cache the results on disk between runs so it doesn't have to run 2to3 over the entire project every time (and the caches are ordinary files so you can see exactly what 2to3 is producing).

This is how I added Python 3 support to Tornado. If you intend to keep supporting Python 2.5, I definitely recommend using 2to3 instead of the contortions required to use a single codebase across all versions (if you're only supporting 2.6+ it gets much easier to do everything in one codebase without 2to3, although even then 2to3 can help keep the primary (2.x) codebase cleaner).

<comment><USER3> The entire concept of 2to3, however, was stupid... what you need is 3to2. You want to be encouraging people to write new code, and support old versions as best as possible, not write old code and support new versions as best as possible. 2to3 should be used as a one-off migration tool, but it is seriously suggested to use it as part of people's builds.

<comment><USER2> In the long term I think we need both 2to3 and 3to2, but for now 2to3 is more important. As long as both my dependencies and the users of my library are mostly on 2.x, I want that to be my primary development platform. If the only way to support both platforms was to do most of my work in python 3 and then backport to 2.x, I'd have never gotten started because that's too much of a change to take on at once. 2to3 gives me a way to support 3.x now (even as a second class citizen), and then a path to flip things around and make 3.x the primary platform when I'm ready.

<comment><USER3> I just find the "for now" pretty hilarious: we are already seeing a shipping version of Python 3.2, with Python 3.x having been released for years, and we still need to encourage people to develop code for Python 2.x and use a build step to convert their code to Python 3.x. The effect of this attitude directly contributes to the behavior described in that recent article by the Jinja2 developer: where Python 3.x support is often considered by people to be just "look, I did it, and while it is a horrible hack and much slower than the 2.x version, it sort of works; now leave me alone", as opposed to helping people slowly embrace Python 3.x.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The problem is, people have been told for so long not to care about Python 3 that it's hard to imagine what could make people actually start caring about it. Practically the only people that have even tried it are Python fanatics or compiler devs.

I understand the desire to make fundamental language changes and why it's cleaner to make Python 3 backward incompatible. I don't agree that it was the smartest thing to prevent any kind of interoperability, though. The way people could begin using Python 3 is if you could still import Python 2 modules from Python 3 code. OK, there would be some tough nuts to crack to get the interpreter to switch contexts gracefully and translate objects from one side to the other. But at least people could _start using_ Python 3 and then begin switching things over one at a time. To ask everyone to keep running 2to3 to maintain a second codebase that nobody uses is kind of silly and unrealistic, and causes this détente where too few people care enough to make a first move.

Also, gripe here. Why the heck is def method(self, actual_first_arg, ...) still all over the place in Python 3? They had a golden opportunity to kick that bizarre holdover from when Python couldn't do OO [1], and they didn't [2]. The only solid argument Guido has against it is about decorators, and it really only applies to @classmethod and @staticmethod, which arises primarily from the stodgy way Python implements these OO features and which could have been nipped in the bud with their own language changes.

[1] <http://beust.com/weblog/2008/10/28/pythons-enigmatic-self/>

[2] [http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2008/10/why-explicit-self- ha...](http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2008/10/why-explicit-self-has-to- stay.html)

<comment><USER5> I love `self`. If it were just magically there, that would break with the entire rest of how the language works - everything is explicitly from something - even the "built in" functions are right there from __builtins__. What appeals to me about Python is the namespacing model is completely consistent throughout and explicit `self` is part of that.

<comment><USER4> So, the namespacing is completely consistent, but the number of arguments between method definition and method calling is not? That breaks consistency both internally (because regular functions do have the same number of arguments) and with just about every other language I've used. Something tells me adding one little keyword that pokes into the namespace would not be the end of the world. It would, however, save me (and anyone else that has to juggle multiple languages) from several groaner bugs per day.

Guido can repeat as many times as he likes that calling an instance method is morally equivalent to passing the instance as an additional argument. It may even be implemented that way. The reality is that nobody except compiler devs actually think like that--to everyone else it's an implementation detail. It also doesn't naturally explain why it would be shoved in as the first argument as opposed to appended as the last.

And the fact that self is an _idiom_ , and not a keyword, just feels wrong to me. If nobody would actually ever use any other word in sane code, there is no point in preserving the flexibility of doing so by defining the same word over and over again.

<comment><USER6> Methods and functions are not different.

Functions implement the descriptor protocol so that when you access them as an attribute of a class they basically return a partially applied function.

If you remove self and introduce methods as a concept a lot of things become a lot more difficult or impossible for the sake of a few people who think that making self implicit is somehow cleaner without any real argument behind it.

<comment><USER4> > Functions implement the descriptor protocol so that when you access them as > an attribute of a class they basically return a partially applied function.

 _Exactly_. You just spoke like a true Pythonista: you used an implementation detail in the language to justify a language design decision. In my experience, people diving into Python will not care (or want to know) about the descriptor protocol (it's not mentioned in the majority of books about the language). They will not be messing with __get__ or __set__ the vast majority of the time. Only _much_ later, when they want to start doing fairly magic things with attributes, will they even realize it exists. There is no analogue for the descriptor protocol in any other currently popular language. How can you consider a magic-method protocol that curries all functions when accessed as an attribute the "explicit" or "simple" way to design this?

I guess this is why proposing this is so hopeless. Methods do not have to be distinguished from functions to create an implicit self. Instead of having FooClass.bar() and foo_obj.bar() do any of this [1] (please tell me with a straight face that the average Python programmer knows or cares about any of that) have the former add to the local namespace FooClass as self and the latter add foo_obj as self when the function is called, defined as the behavior of the language's syntax. Like, I dunno, JavaScript, or PHP, or Java, or C#, or... For the 1% of people that care, allow it to be overridden by redefining __get__ and so on. Maybe even redefine the deprecated apply() [2] so people can specify a different self in the course of calling of function, like in JavaScript.

[1] [http://docs.python.org/howto/descriptor.html#functions- and-m...](http://docs.python.org/howto/descriptor.html#functions-and-methods) [2] <http://docs.python.org/library/functions.html#apply>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My 2 cents: stick with 2.7, it works well with all libraries and it's well supported everywhere. 3.0 provides nothing worth wasting million dollars on. The current mentality is "Avoid adding new feature to P3.0 to give time for people to port to it". What's happening? "Why would I switch to P3 if there's nothing worth switching for."

<comment><USER8> That is incorrect, there is no such mentality and has never been any such mentality. Of course no new features is added to 3.0, because it's unsupported nowadays, Python 3 is up to 3.2, and 3.3 is coming soon.

There was a moratorium for Python 3.2 where no more features was added to the language, to get other implementations than CPython a chance to catch up. But that was not a question of porting, and that did not include new features in general, just to the language. New features in the standard library and other implementation improvements was done in 3.2, and in 3.3 new language features are added again.

So the claim of a mentality of "avoid adding new features" is nothing but FUD and complete hogwash.</comment></comment>


Orgs that embed cybersecurity into their business strategy outperform peers - <AUTHOR> https://press.pwc.com/News-releases/organisations-that-embed-cybersecurity-into-their-business-strategy-outperform-their-peers/s/d24c9bf1-ec81-457f-83d3-0984d798b816 <comment><USER2> So PwC is pushing cybersecurity as this quarter's consulting fa$hion?</comment>


$1.43 of every $100 in America goes toward hospital administration - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2014/9/15/6151861/1-43-of-every-100-in-america-towards-hospital-paperwork

<comment><USER2> Without the context of total healthcare spend in America focusing on hospital administration costs is like rating charities based on their overhead.

Lower does not equal better, administration and management are necessary parts of such a complex system and reducing admin overhead could increase overall costs. To put it in perspective we spend about 17% of our economy on healthcare so the actual overhead costs for healthcare is closer to 8.5% which seems pretty reasonable.</comment>


Connection requests from strangers on LinkedIn: accepting them the right way - <AUTHOR> http://www.pinchofintelligence.com/connection-requests-strangers-linkedin-accepting-right-way/ <comment><USER2> Having accepted a connection, sent a message, and received no reply, is it possible then to "unconnect" from them?

Isn't "connecting" on LinkedIn irrevocable?

<comment><AUTHOR> You can unconnect on their profile page. Updated the article to show you the button!

<comment><USER2> Useful - thank you.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Moving from a support role to engineering? - <AUTHOR> I would love to get some advice or if you could share your story about a similar experience.
My current situation: Right now I work as a support engineer for a SaaS startup that makes dev tools. I rather not say company name to maintain some anonymity since our support team is pretty small.
I have enjoyed my job and learned so much about practically every web stack and build suite. For the past year, I have been trying hard to get a full-time software development position. At my company, I've been writing some automation scripts for our production and business ops and when I have a little extra time I'll pick up bug issues and new feature stories from our PM board that is up for grabs. Outside of work, I've been attending several developer meetups, taking online courses, reading books, practicing with coding challenges, and just recently began a personal RoR project.
My skill set so far is comprised of: decent CS foundation (OOP, algorithms, comp architecture, databases), Math(calc, stats, discrete math), Web development (ruby, rails, javascript),  TDD, DevOps(linux sys admin, ansible, docker, rake, aws, heroku), as well as dabblings with Java, C, Python, Golang.
Unfortunately, this effort doesn't seem like it will be enough to earn a position on my company's dev team. Everyone on the team is a senior engineer with a minimum of 8 years of experience. The feedback I have received from the engineering manager was that I need to be able to produce code at the same level with little to no collaboration with other engineers (except for code reviews or if production is down). Realistically, I know that will take some time (several years) to achieve this, but I want to develop full-time sooner than later. Outside of work, one consistent feedback I received was that I lack coding samples/portfolio that would warrant someone to give me an interview.
Thanks for reading and your potential response! <comment><USER2> Management wise: He is probably trying to keep you where you are. You can't be sure, but he's not willing to give you a shot. Hence: he may not have the resources, doesn't want to bother, thinks you wont cut it at first or at all / etc.

Next: Congratulations. It's the drive that matters.Try to push your manager, if it works, good, stop reading here.

Okay, so: Where do you want to go? Whats your passion? Ignore what you know/dont know. What you _want_ to do?

Lets assume you woke up one day after 10 hours of sleep, opened the windows, inhaled, and said to yourself: I love that I've become the best _________________ ever.

Having said this. Start doing it. Start your new project. It doesn't have to be commercial. Start doing what you love. Google stuff, boot your own Vulkan pipeline for that space invaders clone, write that C++ json parser to replace nlohmann/json or what have you. Just do it. _Pour your passion into it_.

Then:

Go for an interview; and tell them:

I have a great passion for this. I've worked as a support for so long, because I had to pay my bills, but _look_ at what I'm capable of. I want this. This is where I want to proceed in life. It makes me happy, and I can do it. You seem to be a company that needs that skillet. So I'm here, ask me anything.

And that's how I'd start, if I were you. If passion is your dream, the stars will align to pillar you up. But, you have to decide, and start.

Best of luck, unknown stranger. May the math/algorithms and that C that you wrote (and for which I'm replying), keep your sails full.

And for all the gods sake, if you have the brains for discrete math and oop algos and stuff, try to do something that people shy away from and that will amaze them when they see it. Use AVX2 assembler inlines if you have to :)

May you have an amazing journey.

</comment><comment><USER3> Befriend one of the senior engineers and ask him/her to mentor you. Most senior engineers I know will be willing to spend 30 minutes a week mentoring a promising newbie, which you seem to be. And the senior engineer will also be curious to hear from the support team, to learn about what the has been tripping up customers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip. This has actually been a bit difficult for me to accomplish. Most of the engineers are tight for time finishing their sprints, so all "mentoring" and feedback is usually done asynchronously via Slack or code reviews.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hi!

Your progress is very impressive, and you seem to be picking up all the right stuff. Have you considered using triplebyte?

They have an online code screening as the first step, and then they help you find a good fit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for replying! I actually have considered triplebyte, but I've read some mixed reviews about their coding challenges and interview process. The main thing that has discouraged me from applying is the 4-month wait to re-apply if you fail your first interview [https://triplebyte.com/candidate_faq#scroll- link-14](https://triplebyte.com/candidate_faq#scroll-link-14). Because of this constraint, I'm not sure my time is better spent working on a personal project that I can showcase my skills to a potential employer or study/practice to pass triplebyte's coding challenge.

Have you or someone you know used triplebyte? If so, what are your thoughts in their interviewing process?

<comment><USER4> Yes, I went through their process. I was impressed by their extreme focus on finding a good fit, and truly had a lot of fun interviewing with them.

I would just do the online screen without any preparation. So what if you have to wait 4 months to try again? There are plenty of other options in the mean time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh wow interesting. Will definitely give it a shot then. Thanks again!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> some tips, build your resume also

side project - get some kind of side biz/app going. literally no reason not to.

code samples - do some interviews with companies (pass out ur resume ull get code samples), complete the sample questions, verify them with someone, then put them in your github under code_samples/ to prove your coding skills

open source contribs - pick one popular app, say a rails util, or some c app, fix a single bug, and for the next 5 years claim yourself as an open source contributor to popular open source package.

these things helped me get a role, they should help transition or get a new dev role also. especially open source; fixing 2-3 bugs in an existing app (that each have hundreds of bugs) takes only 2-3 days... it will drastically help skills and credibility (and bonus: the oss community).

second tip is just write an app, buy a book, keep it as reference, but most importantly write a complete app, ask questions on irc for expert advice (freenode), and that will get you places (it did for a lot of ppl)

<comment><USER5> additionaly name recognition matters, if you can get one or two bugfixes to a big named app or company, or build an app for yourself, just one previous experience should be enough to get you a dev job because name recognition matters so much.

ask the dev team if you can try to fix a bug. if not on your own, or look through their commits and bugtracking and try to fix one or two open bugs and ask if they want the fix. eventually they will take one and you can use that on your resume to get hired</comment></comment>


Jeff Bezos is the richest person in history - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/09/technology/jeff-bezos-richest/index.html <comment><USER2> Depends how you define richest while saying "in history"

From Forbes... By the time Rockefeller died in 1937, his assets equaled 1.5% of America's total economic output. To control an equivalent share today would require a net worth of about $340 billion dollars.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Forbes put Bezos' net worth at a mere $104.4 billion.

I've rarely seen a less appropriate use of the word "mere"...

</comment><comment><USER4> Sam Walton used to be the richest person ever until he died and his wealth was split up amongst his children. He had $100B in 1992. ([https://www.investopedia.com/university/sam-walton- biography...](https://www.investopedia.com/university/sam-walton- biography/sam-walton-net-worth.asp)) Considering WalMart stock is up 5x since then, and not even accounting for inflation or dividends that would make him worth $500B today.

It makes sense that retail would lead to "richest person we're aware of."

<comment><USER5> Both have full-time employees on public assistance programs, too.

<comment><USER4> This is a good point. But I expect that any large corporation has employees on public assistance programs.

Walmart in particular has really high rates of employees on public assistance. Amazon seems to have quite a few as well. I think both are due to having lots of employees near minimum wage.

It's important to judge this clearly as it may not be the employer's fault or responsibility for employees being on assistance programs. I think this is because assistance programs calculate based on family size and employers pay based on an individual.

I'll give an example with national numbers. The actual values vary quite a bit by state, but the spirit of the example stands.

The national poverty threshold for a single person household is $12k. For the same household with a child it is $16k. Three kids is $25k. And it keeps increasing.

Federal minimum wage is $7.25. That comes out to $15k of full time work or $12k for part time work.

A single person can't make minimum wage and work full time. But add in a few kids or a dependent relative and they drop under poverty. But employers don't change your pay.

So to tell how unjust Walmart or Amazon is, you need to evaluate what assistance programs employees are on and for what reasons.

Or I suppose we could shift to a society where employers pay you based on your household need. But that will likely be really sucky for people who aren't healthy and young.

Source: [https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time- series/demo/income-p...](https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time- series/demo/income-poverty/historical-poverty-thresholds.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The article itself contradicts the headline. Is CNN really taking a page out of BuzzFeed?

 _" The Amazon CEO's net worth reached $105.1 billion Monday_"

 _" Gates ... net worth was briefly above $100 billion back in April 1999, when the internet stock bubble helped to inflate the value of his holdings. Adjusted for inflation, $100 billion in 1999 would be worth $148 billion today._"

</comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone else see this as a scary evidence that technology is accelerating the consolidation of money to the few that succeed? How long did it take historical figures to reach this level of wealth vs Bezos in the last ~20 years? This should be a huge warning sign to nearly everyone, instead of celebrated.

<comment><USER8> Of all the aspects and effects of Amazon's style of business that I find troubling, Bezos' money is the least of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> One caveat: Bezos is the richest out of people that we can get an accurate and publicly available estimate of their wealth. It doesn't count people like Vladimir Putin because we don't actually know how much he's worth- but many suspect that it could be more than 100 billion. It also doesn't count families, such as the House of Saud, which has several members worth over 10 billion, and the entire family might be worth over a trillion.

[http://fortune.com/2017/07/29/vladimir-putin-russia-jeff- bez...](http://fortune.com/2017/07/29/vladimir-putin-russia-jeff-bezos-bill- gates-worlds-richest-man/) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Saud](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Saud)

</comment><comment><USER10> According to this list, Rockefeller and Carnegie were several times richer: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_historical_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_historical_figures)

</comment><comment><USER11> It's a sad commentary on capitalism that two of the richest people in history (Bezos and Walton) companies treat many of their employees like shit.

</comment><comment><USER12> This was pretty interesting in terms of all time wealthiest people:

[http://time.com/money/3977798/the-10-richest-people-of- all-t...](http://time.com/money/3977798/the-10-richest-people-of-all-time-2/)

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm always in awe of Amazon's sustained growth. Bezos has built a company that has innovated constantly (after a tumultuous start in the late 90s) and at scale:

\- AWS was launched in 2006 when Amazon had < 15k employees.

\- Kindle was launched in late 2007 with 20k employees.

\- Echo was launched in 2014 with 150k employees.

It's no surprise he's the richest in history. Will be really interesting to see how he spends his money over the next 2-3 decades.

<comment><USER14> Would you be even more surprised to find out that he's not the richest in history?

<comment><USER13> Nope, doesn't really matter if he's the richest or not. I think lots of companies could learn a lot from how Amazon innovates. I don't think you can deny that they are categorically better than many others at their size / scale.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What would you like to see in a better job board? - <AUTHOR>

Assume the following:
* Job boards are by and large rubbish and full of recruiters raping the database.
* This job board has zero recruiters and is aimed exclusively at Developers.
We are in the process of developing a board with the aim of targeting HN types, Github types, Stack Overflow types, you get the gist. On the other side of the fence we are targeting companies with legitimately challenging Developer roles in interesting organisations ranging from start-ups to large corporates. Our methods on the client side are relatively unique but what we would love to know is what you feel would make a job board better from a candidate perspective.
The product is in Alpha at the moment and not live yet but we are really keen to find out if there are blatantly obvious features that we simply haven't considered.
So, what would do you want to see in a job board? <comment><USER2> One problem with finding a job is the paradox of choice. The more choices you have, the harder it is to make a final decision. That's especially true of startups, where there are literally thousands of potential options and no practical way to evaluate them all.

What if you curated a weekly mail that features amazing jobs the way that Groupon features amazing deals? You'd have to select only the best, hacker- friendly companies. I think simply filtering through all the cruft would put you at a huge advantage to all the conventional job boards. In fact, even people who aren't actively looking for jobs might sign up, since they don't have to do any work, and there's always a possibility that their "dream job" may come along.

The other advantage of having a small number of featured jobs is that you avoid half of the two-sided market problem. You still have to get engineers to subscribe, and a small number of jobs to seed the list, but if you're a good hacker, you could probably start with your personal network for both.

</comment><comment><USER3> Make me a good offer and I'll sell you CoderStack ;)

I didn't really appreciate it before building a job board but adding features for developers has practically zero upside, developers who are actively looking for jobs will use you anyway (assuming you have a base level of interesting jobs) and those not looking won't.

Basically for any feature you have to ask (1) will it result in more applications/candidate (2) will it attract more candidates to your site who would otherwise use another site.

But in the developer market the fundamental market problem is neither of these two, but rather that most good developers aren't in the job market. So to make a big difference you essentially have to attract developers who would otherwise not be looking for a job.

StackOverflow does this through it's stack exchange sites where they have a captive audience, CoderStack does this through a huge amount of advertising and marketing (we've bought roughly 30 million ad impressions this year - that's about 90 impressions for every developer in the UK).

You need to ask yourself what is it that you're going to do differently that will allow you to attract these developers.

If I was building something in this space from scratch I'd be much more inclined to go the route someone else suggested in this thread of the daily deal email route, because that is a feasible way of tackling the attracting passive developer problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> Passive developers are our target market and we have a few tricks up our sleeve in that regard!

Email me about CoderStack. I'm genuinely intrigued.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ratings and reviews by applicants (both successful and unsuccessful) on the quality and characteristics of the interview process.

Links to the Github, Stack Overflow, or HN accounts of the people we'd be working with. Targeting HN / Github / Stack Overflow types works both ways.

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you mentioned this. Linkedin, Github, Stack & HN links are already incorporated :)

I like the review idea. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not sure if this is specific to just a job board targeted at developers but even on a job aggregator like Indeed.com, I can't filter by some elements that I can see people interested in like:

\- Benefits (401k matching, health, vision, dental, free lunch, daycare, etc.) \- Equipment (what is provided? Ergonomic chairs, etc.)

I know some of this may seem like the wrong things to focus on when choosing a job but I personally know many folks who spend a significant % of their income on healthcare and child care and it should be considered as important as salary.

</comment><comment><USER6> Well, I built something like that: <http://jobs.usethesource.com/>

Simple entry procedure: you have to either be a high-karma or long-standing HN member, or beg me.

<comment><USER7> I was debating on pitching my own site, <http://www.linkup.com/>, but couldn't justify starting a top-level comment on it.

Thanks for starting the trend;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Good geographic search, by human language compability, visa compability, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you elaborate? Most job boards have a generic 'enter City & search radius' option. What could be done to improve on that?

<comment><USER9> Some job boards have a geographic search, but they "stretch the radius" so as to return more listings.

So, I'd say that "good geographic search" == an honest one (that is, give me the results that are actually within the radius or area that I specified).

<comment><USER7> Good geographic search is incredibly difficult. Systems could be 100% accurate if each job required an actual physical address (123 Modem Dr, Main St, 55555 for example.) With that, I can give you the lat/lon and do all the great circle geometry needed.

The problem is that cities have multiple names. For example in Minneapolis, Golden Valley is a suburb but people swap the names to suit their needs. So even though Golden Valley is a subset, the simple radius search can still be "honest" while appearing to stretch the radius. And don't even get my started on jobs that are 90% travel!

Would you say that requiring an actual physical address for each job on the site is feasible?

<comment><USER9> > Would you say that requiring an actual physical address for each job on the > site is feasible?

If I'm searching for a job, I've usually got a max commuting time in mind. Some towns are closer, but take longer to drive to because there's no highway leading there, or no train. Some are very far, but the train goes there, and so I'd consider the commute.

So, when a job ad has an address, that's what I'm thinking about when I see it: commute time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A big problem is most jobs say "competitive salary" without specifying what that means, and only after a few phone calls and maybe a full interview you find out it's significantly less than average pay.

It would be nice if a job board could filter out these low paying jobs that nobody wants.</comment>


Americans drove 9.6 billion fewer miles in May 2008, biggest drop in 66 years - <AUTHOR> http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/07/miles-traveled-usa-may-2008-vmt.php

<comment><USER2> "US citizens drove 9.6 billion fewer miles in May 2008 than in May 2007, or 3.7% less. Yet May usually means an increase in traffic because of Memorial Day vacations and the beginning of summer."

I don't think Memorial Day being in May means May this year has an increase in traffic over May last year, that would've only made sense if they compared April and May

<comment><USER3> The confusion is due to selective quoting of the article's source:

<http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/07/us-vehicle-mile.html>

...which says that not only are we seeing a drop compared to last year, but we are _also_ seeing month-by-month drops, which is unusual because May has historically been an "up" month.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The American government could have put a $3 tax on gas when it was $1, and the consumption would have dropped and all those oil profits could have been invested in renewable domestic energy development.

People would have screamed bloody murder then, but they're screaming now anyways. 20-20 hindsight.

<comment><USER5> But their anger would have been directed at the government rather than the oil companies, as it is now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The other day my girlfriend, who is of Louisiana Creole extraction, commented: "I've never seen so many white people on bicycles!"

We live in Houston, and it used to be that most of the bicyclists you see in my neighborhood are Black and Hispanic guys who have to get to work but can't afford a car.

</comment><comment><USER7> What the green lobby can't do, it looks like economic pressures might be able to do.

It's a pity that the gas prices will probably drive higher usage of cheap coal, instead of more environmentally friendly alternatives like geothermal, wind, solar, and (dare I say it) most practically, nuclear.

Edit: Interesting typo in the article -- it seems that this month's usage was actually less than this month's usage.

<comment><USER8> Who's fault is it that we don't have more nuclear plants?

<comment><USER9> I'm going to lay the blame fairly and squarely on the Simpsons.

Seriously.

The show is the only mass market show that I can think of that is continually giving nuclear power (in general) a bad reputation and because of its popularity amongst young people, it is helping to prevent the adoption of nuclear power, even though the technology is much safer than earlier implementations.

<comment><USER10> I think Three Mile Island and Chernobyl have a lot more to do with it.

<comment><USER11> There's a few nuclear power plant on Long Island that never got started due to Three Mile Island :\\. Also, Brookhaven has a few nuclear reactors for research purposes that are still used as well. In the late 60's or early 70's, they (the power company, now known as LIPA, but this was before NY State took over) started to constructed a commercial nuclear power plant.

It was originally supposed to output ~550 Megawatts of power and cost ~75 million to make. Then it got delayed. They went back to planning stages and increased the output to over 800 Megawatts as well as designing plans for another two reactors. However, one reactor was close to Manhattan. That one never got past planning stages due to protests. The other one never got built either. I'm not sure why.

Anyway, by the end of the 70's, the cost of the original plant had skyrocketed to over $2 billion. And it wasn't even finished yet. Then there were protests due to Three Mile Island. By the mid 80's, the plant was complete. However, politics deemed that it would never be opened. So they spent another $250 million to decommission the plant. It cost around 6 billion in total.

And a few years back, anyone remember the big blackout that happened? Power grid got overloaded. There's a cable that runs under the LI Sound now that draws power from Connecticut's nuclear power plant. Around 330 Megawatts of power. By comparison, the unused nuclear power plant on Long Island - that's still connected to the power grid - is supposed to be able to produce around 400 Megawatts of power.

Oh, and we (the taxpayers) are still paying the bill for that unused power plant. And will be for the next 15 years.

Wiki has a good writeup on this, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoreham_Nuclear_Power_Plant>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great. Can someone raise the gas price to 5 dollars. Sure my milk will be more expensive, but it will force more people to work from home instead of going to an office to drink coffee and take smoke breaks.

</comment><comment><USER13> Economics. It works, bitches.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is good news, but we still have the idiotic habit of using airplanes for mid-distance travel, due to the lack of a decent train system.

<comment><USER15> I upmodded you because I share your wish, but unfortunately what you're asking for is impossible.

Both of my parents have been railroad engineers all their lifes, and the main thing I learned was this: railroads are not economical at transporting passengers. Nearly all countries with "decent train systems" use government subsidies to effectively sponsor passenger railroad transport. Even subways can't make any profit.

And I am against paying more taxes. Period. Therefore, no government subsidies to Amtrak from me.

<comment><USER16> In the US, highways get an order of magnitude more government subsidy than transit (not just Amtrak but also urban subway systems, etc). Even if you treat the revenue from the gas tax as a user fee rather than a subsidy, there's still a huge subsidy coming from other kinds of tax revenue.

Chart and link to more info here: [http://www.streetsblog.org/2008/07/22/highway-funding-the- la...](http://www.streetsblog.org/2008/07/22/highway-funding-the-last-bastion- of-socialism-in-america/)

<comment><USER15> I don't get it. We aren't building any new highways (easy to check) yet our expenses are going up. WTF?!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Umm... Supply and demand works... Not much in the way of news.</comment>


Lessons I Learned from Co-Founding a Tech Startup - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sueraisty.com/lessons-learned-from-co-founding-a-tech-startup/ <comment><USER3> Paul Graham said something about startups that I think was very, very wrong for most people. That you "compress your career into a few short years." That might be true for a very small number of very smart people, but for most everyone, it's a long road of several failed startups and well over a decade before they find success. It's like being a musician, only not quite as depressing. You don't know beforehand what you need to be focused on, all too often you're buying in whole-cloth to a idea that hasn't been vetted being implemented by a team that's never worked together and you just ignore all the risks because reasons and oh god this is too hard to think about so I'll just focus on what's in front of me.

You only get to compress your working life if your startup actually finds legs, and manages to find a lucrative exit, and you didn't get screwed on the cap table. Unless it does, you're working awful hard for what's effectively a lottery ticket.

Some people really really really need to work really really really hard. These people would be well-served to do some self-inquiry as to why they need to do this rather than try to find the right vehicle for their efforts, because that kind of effort is rarely rewarded, no matter what vehicle you put it in.

<comment><USER4> > it's a long road of several failed startups and well over a decade before > they find success

How is that not compressing your career into a few short years? Most people start working at about 20 and retire at about 65. That's 45 years of a career.

A decade sounds like "a few short years" compared to four or five decades if you ask me.

<comment><USER5> [http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html](http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html)

It says 4 in there, that's the figure Vince will probably be referring to.

4 years is missing a few of your kid's birthdays. 10 is missing most of them.

Or if you're in your 20s, 4 years is missing out on some great life experiences in your prime. 10 is missing out on all of them.

<comment><USER6> I'd be interested to know how many YC grads actually successfully exited and earned out within four years. I'd guess it's a pretty small fraction.

<comment><USER7> You don't need to exit to stop missing out on your family life. Some people may choose to focus exclusively on work, but there are plenty of founders who have a life outside of work long before an exit/ipo event.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _" It costs roughly 10 times as much for a startup to provide health insurance for a person in their 50s with a family than it does for a single 20-something. (Just one more thing contributing to the rampant age discrimination in Silicon Valley.)"_

Maybe someday we'll get to the point where we realize that it's economically better for everyone to have single-payer health insurance in this country.

<comment><USER9> Putting aside single-payer, what's the rationale for doing health insurance through employers, rather than individuals paying for it out of their income?

<comment><USER10> It's a hold over from World War 2 wage controls. Offering to pay health insurance on the side got around them. It no doubt continues because of the pre-tax benefits. That is, if your employer pays for it then it isn't subject to federal and state income taxes as well as FICA taxes. Depending on your income level and state, those could be around as 30-35% at a programmer's salary range.

<comment><USER11> I know someone who while working for Citbank was paying around 25% that just for his insurance (for him self his partners some FBI officer) - makes the UK's NI at 13.8% seem very good value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Don't sue your attorney for malpractice if he is a named partner at THE > premier law firm in the Valley. (For the record, I did not do this, but one > of my co-founders did. He personally sued John Goodrich, of the law firm > Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Oh yeah, the same guy sued ME and all my > other co-founders too.)

And...? What happened? Such a cliffhanger!

<comment><USER13> Maybe this: [http://blog.sueraisty.com/push-out-founder- prestock/](http://blog.sueraisty.com/push-out-founder-prestock/)

<comment><USER14> Oh, that mentions that the startup happened 15+ years ago. I feel like that might've been relevant to mention in this post too... It's a fast changing world in the valley.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Some VCs won't believe that a 25-year old white woman (who -- gasp! -- wears skirts and makeup) is capable of being a technically solid engineer. We soon figured out that pitches to potential investors went better if I was dressed like a slob in sweatpants."

Sad but I can see this happening..

"No matter how dreamy the startup, it is not worth sacrificing your health."

I just wish more bosses of start ups felt this way about their employees! But I suppose that's because they have much more to gain and not much to lose from making their employees work more than they should.

<comment><USER16> "Some VCs won't believe that a 25-year old white woman (who -- gasp! -- wears skirts and makeup) is capable of being a technically solid engineer. We soon figured out that pitches to potential investors went better if I was dressed like a slob in sweatpants."

I've seen that one happen, and I had a lesser version of it happen to me because I dress east coast prep. I started wearing sloppier clothes for some outside meetings and got treated better. Even inside the company, it took new hires a while before they realized that I have skills.

SV culture on appearance is every bit as stupid as the culture of the dinosaurs, it's just flip-flopped. Instead of 'you must dress professionally', it's 'you must wear unflattering hoodies, t-shirts, and jeans.'

<comment><USER17> I think I missed out on funding once for wearing a collar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Many reasonable points, but misses the biggest lesson you MUST learn to have a chance of being successful at _anything_.

The lesson is simple. It is that you know nothing, and _nobody else does either_.

On the note of cofounders... I can't understand why more people don't end up in business with childhood friends. Met my cofounder aged 12. Started our first business at 13. Then 14, 15, 16... Then 22 - and that one stuck - <USER2> now, both in years and headcount. Trust isn't something we even think about. It just _is_.

<comment><USER19> Agreed on this. My CTO and co-founder is a friend from highschool (~18 years ago, at this point); we've weathered being teenagers together, and stayed closed through the trials of young adulthood, kids, marriages, and mortgages.

It doesn't make starting a company from scratch easier, but it does mean that (a) there are few "hard conversations" that can compare to the ones we've already had at some point, (b) trust is implicit, and (c) we can communicate very efficiently and effectively.

If founding is like marriage, then marry your best friend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> >Order the rug pad for your booth at trade shows.

Old MSFT trick from Comdex/Windows World days. Everybody was always standing at their cubes because they used double pads under the carpet.</comment>


Show HN: Oak - dynamic C# and ASP.NET MVC (Rails Inspired) - <AUTHOR> http://amirrajan.github.com/Oak

<comment><AUTHOR> Just a little bit of background. Oak builds upon ASP.NET MVC, but leverages the dynamic capabilities of C#. I wanted to create a stack that is FRICTIONLESS to work with (a concept that is foreign to .Net devs :-P). I've been working on this project for over a year now and am finally to a point where "polish" is the number one thing I'm concentrating on. So don't pull any punches.

</comment><comment><USER2> This looks intriguing. Thanks for sharing it.

That said, I'm having trouble figuring out what it is. :-) I think the challenge may be that it's multiple things: a way to generate some code, a way to create databases, a way to run automated tests, a way to do model validation, a different "flavor" on top of ASP.NET MVC for things like parameter binding. I guess I'm wondering how those things relate, which could be used independently, etc.

I wonder if others are similarly struggling to understand what this is all about.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can see how that can be confusing. Rails is a development stack. It gives you exactly what's needed to get an app up and running quickly. It also provides the means to keep the app maintainable. Oak tries to provide that same experience to .Net devs. These components can be used independently, but the whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is great stuff but it appears to be simply porting parts of Ruby and Rails to .NET. Why not just use the original?

<comment><AUTHOR> There are just those devs that don't have the privilege of working with something that isn't .Net. This provides those individuals with a way to experience frictionless web development in the stack their tied to :-).</comment></comment>


Apple wants developers to take 1/8th of your phone - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5512772/apple-wants-18th-of-your-iphone-backdont-give-it-to-them

<comment><USER2> I think they missed the point.

There are already apps in the store with banner ads. It's one choice of many for a business model for the app. The purpose of the iAd platform is to make the user experience better for applications which are ad supported.

</comment><comment><USER3> Only free apps have ads. Paid apps don't have ads. Nothing to worry about.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not true.

There's already nothing preventing paid apps from running ads (CNN Mobile is one example) and the iAd framework makes it even more tempting for app authors to do so.</comment></comment>


A DHT-based key-value store with value-stored callback functions [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.usenix.org/events/osdi10/tech/full_papers/Geambasu.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> There's no released code yet, of course, but it looks really cool. Basically, the value you store in the DHT can include some callback functions that get called when certain events happen (onGet, onPut, onTimer). These callbacks execute in a sandboxed environment with a pretty limited API that retains enough functionality to implement custom replication strategies, self- deletion, and custom access control. Among other things, the paper describes implementing cryptography in the handlers such that only properly signed requests get processed.

One application immediately jumps out: cryptographically secure asyncronous messaging. A mailbox would be a lua object at a given key which contains the owner's public key and a list of messages encrypted with that key. The mailbox would append any messages `put` to the key to the list. The list would be returned when a valid `get` request is received which is signed with the owner's public key (note: in this system `get` requests can pass arbitrary arguments in addition to the requested key).</comment>