Ask HN: Hacker wannabe demotivated & depressed in need of help - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN,
I have been stuck in the Java enterprise world for the past 5 years and I believe I have lost my passion and the ability to learn new things.
I dream of working at a startup and contributing to open source working with cool technologies like rails, python, clojure, node, android...etc having a github repo full of interesting projects and being part of a community of passionate coders, however whenever I try to teach myself any of these technologies I keep failing and getting frustrated as soon as I hit a wall, I didn't used to be like this but now everything seems too hard! I keep looking at people's githubs and seeing thousands of hackers around the world with so much projects and technologies and I feel like an idiot, I feel like I will never be like them, I feel like I am stuck being a worthless developer for the rest of my life, this has made me depressed and demotivated, I really feel like a failure and I just don't know what else to do...
Maybe I'm just not cut out to be a hacker, maybe I lack or lost the hacker mentality...maybe I should just switch careers and become something else...I feel worthless and stupid but for the past few years my dream has been to become a top notch developer,I have tried "building things" but I never know what to build and as soon as I get an idea everything seems too hard to implement and I loose motivation, this has been building up for the past few years and now I feel depressed and hopeless...
What should I do HN? Sometimes I feel what I really need is a mentor but I keep thinking if I can't help myself then who can? I am desperate HN I am willing to do anything to get out of this hole I have put myself in...but I really need some advice to help me get up again. <comment><USER2> My first program was

10 PRINT HELLO

20 GOTO 10

My second program was

10 INPUT $A

20 PRINT "HELLO, "$A

30 GOTO 10

And so on and so forth.

I worked in total isolation (this was well pre-Internet, the early 80's, and none of my friends had computers), so I was oblivious to how big the hill to climb was. Because every step was interesting as I discovered it, and all I was concerned with was taking the next step.

Don't look at the finish line and don't look around, look down at your feet and be satisfied with each stride. Eventually you will have gone a great distance.

</comment><comment><USER3> > I have tried "building things" but I never know what to build and as soon as > I get an idea everything seems too hard to implement and I loose motivation

Heh. You know all those developers who have all those github repos? _So many_ github repos! Quite frequently, half or more are abandoned projects that never came to anything, that [s]he didn't have the guts to delete. (I am no exception.) So don't feel too bad about that.

I'm not in a position to offer any career advice (being still stuck in the Java college world), but I'll say this with regards to trying to find something to build: don't look at it that way. I spent years going from project to project, never really caring, just trying to get involved in some open source project for the sake of getting involved. It doesn't work.

The adage that "the best hacks come from scratching an itch" is quite true, and important. If you want to make software that others will find useful, you have to put yourself in a position to need that same software yourself. That happened to me when I resolved (for other, more RMS-like reasons) to use only open-source software. All of a sudden, every time something irked my, I thought, "I can fix that!" And about 5% of the time, I actually could :P

You'll have to find what works for you, but basically, I'd advise this: focus on your own computer and what you want to do. Switch to an open-source, hackable OS and use, as much as possible, open-source, hackable software. Then try to get your computer to respond quickly, not use much RAM, be fancy - whatever you want to optimize for. That desire to have "the perfect setup", at least in my case, motivated further endeavors.

Best of luck.

(Edit: and feel free to contact me - I'm always happy to help out a growing hacker, though I'm not sure what I have to offer.)

</comment><comment><USER4> What are these walls that you hit? Is the problem too hard to solve with your amount of experience or something else? Perhaps you should explore why the walls happen.

On finding something to build, it can be tough. You have to keep thinking about things that scratch an itch of yours but are also practical to build. For the longest time, I used to think and even plan out ideas that really seemed to be like science fair projects: 2D drawing using contour maps to design 3D structures like for game design, an app to tell me how to fit a bunch of boxes optimally into a truck/van, a form creator (an ultimate GUI over DB to replace many GUI-over-DB apps). The problem is that I wouldn't use any of these for my own needs because I don't need these things. And I didn't know anyone who actually needed this stuff and could use it if I built it. Find something that scratches an itch. Do you need something but all the existing tools aren't quite right? Go for it. And don't worry about using "cool" tech to get it done. If Clojure can be used to solve the problem and you really want to learn it, great. If not, then stick to what you know but focus on getting the problem solved and building something of value to you.

Perhaps a new job might give you a fresh environment, a change of pace, or something different to learn during work. That could be used to stimulate more or different learning on the side.

As far as feeling depressed when you see hackers who have done a ton of stuff, I imagine everyone looks at someone who has done more than them and wonders the same. What matters is that you do more than what you are currently doing. There are times that I wish I had started sooner on things or been more passionate about things. I can't change the past now. But I can change the future.

</comment><comment><USER5> I can think of a couple ways to approach this.

1\. Pick a very small project, something useful to you but borderline under- ambitious. Anything that bugs you. Nothing that you would necessarily point proudly to on github; don't be thinking about github. I'm talking small, maybe even just a simple command line utility, or not much more. Implement it. Don't give up, learn it. Improve it. Pick another small project. Another. A slightly bigger one. What you're trying to do here is to get a giant heavy flywheel moving, but it's going to take some time before it's really spinning. Once it's spinning fast it will almost sustain itself and you won't have enough time in the day to implement all your ideas.

2\. If you can't think of _any_ small thing to build (hard to believe, but OK), then poke around for some technology that you'd like to learn, that has good documentation, and start going through its tutorials and documentation. Learn as much as you can about it. At some point you'll start to get ideas about things you can build. Start building them. It doesn't have to be an OSS project, it can just be your own if you want. At this stage it's more important that you get that flywheel spinning any way you can.

N. Don't give up.

</comment><comment><USER6> You say that you start "building things" but can never finish. This is normal, we all do it - we start coding on something, it's totally awesome for a couple of hours and then when we come back to it the next day we can't be bothered.

Perseverance is hard, but there's no shortcut around this. To make yourself feel worthwhile & motivated you will just have to finish something. It doesn't have to be the next facebook etc... just get something done.

If you can't thin of ideas, ask people around you what they'd like to have in their life.

You mention Android as a tech you'd like to learn. Surely you know someone with an Android phone. Ask them what they'd like you to build and then build it. Do not stop until they are happy.

Doing this is well within your reach, you know Java - and there is a wealth of info on the net.

</comment><comment><USER7> I have one advice.

Cause of Problem ( Let me know in comment if this doesn't apply to you ) We get depressed because of lots of hopes and expectation, the main we are looking is getting to end as fast as possible, without enjoying the process in itself.We are looking for goals ignoring the values and process it takes. I tell you process and value is more important than the end goal. The main function of goal is what you become.

The simplest advice is keep grounded in action. Start small , do small action and build upon the small steps to bigger ladder.

You are feeling depressed because all the while you have said to yourself you are great hacker and when you start something you are not able to complete it, hence the spiral of de-motivation. Focus on action and work, eveything else is secondary.

</comment><comment><USER8> Since one of your complaints is you don't know what problem to solve, one thing I might suggest is to try doing puzzles / challenges... They are much less daunting than trying to define a big project.

This is a great book filled with such puzzles and advice: <http://www.programming-challenges.com/pg.php?page=index>

Pick a problem and try to solve it. Then you can submit it to a robot judge and get immediate feedback.

There's a lot of pros here: can just do it anytime (commit 1 hr per day to working on a puzzle), can try different puzzles, learn about algorithms, get immediate feedback, and become a better coder!

Keep a git repo of all your solutions... so you can keep track of your progress.

</comment><comment><USER9> You are probably stressed at work, and miss flow <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)> or what programmers call "not being in the zone".

Find a significant chunk of time, like a free Saturday. Make sure it's quiet and you cannot be disturbed. Set a manageable _toy_ goal - easy enough that you can do it, but let it be a bit challanging to keep things interesting. Build it! That should give you a nice push forward.

PS. You could also find interesting questions on StackOverflow - many times they offer a bit of challenge, and you can cherry-pick issues in your comfort zone, also helps you practice writing.

Also, have a break from work! Cut the stress.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm a bit late to the topic, so quite possibly you've moved on, but

> I keep failing and getting frustrated as soon as I hit a wall, I didn't used > to be like this but now everything seems too hard

> depressed and demotivated

Just one of many possibilities, but you could have a neurological disorder ("I didn't used to be like this" and depression, no motivation). Go to a decent doctor and get checked for a bunch of things. Could be something treatable like vitamin deficiency.

In any case, feel free to ping me, emails in my profile.

</comment><comment><USER11> What I learned is you need time, and dedication. Slowly work on one project or OSS contribution... in time they'll grow.

There are many devs that work with OSS full-time, creating and allowed to create new tools daily. Then with their free time they add even more! Keep this in mind.

There is nothing wrong with creating/contributing what you can, when you can, on the side with your free time.

</comment><comment><USER12> Do not quit!!! It's all about your comfort zone. Getting out of it is a daunting task. What you feel is not new. You need 1. assume you're going to struggle getting out of your comfort zone, and 2. find small tasks that can help you transition to a new stage.

Just don't quit! I'm happy to chat about it. If you want just shoot me an email.

</comment><comment><USER13> You already know Java so you have a huge stepping stone into the Android world, buy a book and work through the examples and then start your own project, start small as other people have suggested. It's hugely satisfying watching your app being downloaded and used!

</comment><comment><USER14> I suggest you try to work through whatever you previously started. If you hit a wall, ask questions on stackoverflow. No question is dumb. Ask for help and you shall receive. I assume you started working on something of interest... so this is a start.

</comment><comment><USER15> You need to pick a small project and most importantly finish it, then pick a bigger on, then a bigger one...

If you never finish a project then your always going to be depressed :)

</comment><comment><USER16> Let's build something some of your ideas(the hardest preferably) in node, contact is in the profile.

I can teach you some node also. Let's hack something.</comment>


Sniffing keystrokes via laser, power lines - <AUTHOR> http://hackaday.com/2009/03/20/sniffing-keystrokes-via-laser-power-lines/

<comment><USER2> The actual talk was very well-presented also. Andrea is usually a very lively presenter.</comment>


Web 2.0 IS Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2005/pulpit_20051117_000873.html

<comment><USER2> Right but don't think of it like a data processing container, even though thats what it is. Its end goal is not so much search as it is processing for ad generation.</comment>


Ergoquest Zero Gravity Chairs and Workstations - <AUTHOR> http://www.ergoquest.com/ <comment><USER2> How do you keep the mouse from falling? Like in this picture: [http://www.ergoquest.com/uploads/5/9/1/5/5915120/8821376_ori...](http://www.ergoquest.com/uploads/5/9/1/5/5915120/8821376_orig.jpg)</comment>


Show HN: Find samosas near me (try on mobile) - <AUTHOR> https://samosasnearme.com <comment><USER2> I kinda had doubts clicking on the link, but the results are pretty accurate for me.

I live in a suburb outside of Toronto, Canada that has a lot of east Asian food options. I assumed that the search would be US-centric.

Nice work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey there, thanks for trying it out. It uses Yelp's API, so it will work only in countries where Yelp has a presence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very cool! Can we include custom search? I want to search for pancakes, boba or bikes you know

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that can be done

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I had doubts clicking on the link and they were justified. No results in Sydney.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry :( this uses Yelp's API.

What do you use in Sydney?

<comment><USER4> I'd try aggregating the various food deliveries like Ubereats, Foodora, Menulog, Deliveroo etc.

However I was being tougue in cheek, with a 20m population it probably not worth focusing on Australia first. Wait until you are a unicorn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I apologize, but this will only work in countries where Yelp has a presence

</comment><comment><USER5> doesn't work in india (: have to find smaosas myself

</comment><comment><USER6> what about the metric system? just use km's like everyone else!</comment>


An Inferno on the Head of a Pin - <AUTHOR> https://blog.codinghorror.com/an-inferno-on-the-head-of-a-pin/ <comment><USER3> The talk of older processors not needing heatsinks/fans reminded me of my first (and thankfully last) lesson on this matter back around 2001-ish.

In the past I'd assembled several PCs and my less-than-rigorous setup process typically involved slotting the CPU, RAM, and other cards, then plugging it into a monitor and powering up to run through a quick POST just to make sure nothing was misaligned or improperly seated. Then I'd power off, put down some thermal paste, mount the heatsink/fan, and connect any remaining cables for drives, etc.

Well, in the past, this was fine. Sure, I wouldn't want to run things without at least the crappy little Intel or AMD CPU fan but 5 or 10 seconds was no big deal. But this time I was building for a friend who had me order one of those fancy new 1GHz Athlon chips. I was psyched as well because the small markup I'd added for my time helped me afford my own fancy 1GHz CPU and new motherboard for my own PC.

So I followed my usual procedure and slotted everything for the initial POST (nothing worse than getting everything connected in one of those old PC cases with IDE cables and wires everywhere just to have to unhook it all because something wasn't seated properly) and powered on.

Blink.

Nothing.

Hmm...Did I not get the CPU seated properly? Let's pop it out and reseat it. OWW! Burned the crap out of my finger and got a blister!

Uh oh. It sorta smells like the magic smoke even though I don't see any. Well, eventually I realized what had happened and learned that even a few seconds without a heatsink/fan had been enough to fry that brand new 1GHz Athlon.

Thankfully I had the one I'd ordered for myself and I was able to finish the build that my friend had paid for. But it was a rather expensive (for me at the time at least) lesson in the need for proper cooling on these modern CPUs.

<comment><USER4> You're just not looking at Intel processors that are old enough :)

80286 needed no heat sinks, even 20-MHz models.

80386 used to do well without radiators, too, or with entirely passive cooling, even the faster DX variants.

Frankly, I don't remember low-power i486 (e.g. 40-MHz versions) to have heat sinks, too. You definitely wanted a heat sink, though usually a passive one, on a DX2 (66 MHz) or DX4 (100 MHz).

<comment><USER5> The column "The Hard Edge" in Computer Shopper magazine (Bill O'Brien and Alice Hill) teased Intel's heat output on the new "Pentium" chip by saying they'd get a tiny frying pan made to fry an egg on it. :-) (can't find the original article, but it's referred to in this 1997 article [https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-19334858.html](https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-19334858.html) )

Before then, I don't remember my IBM 386/75 or 486 needing fans ... but the 486DX2/50 had problems with RF emissions from the corners of motherboard traces (IIRC) so they left external clock speed lower for many moons ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From the article:

> I remember cooling the early CPUs with simple heatsinks; no fan. Those days > are long gone.

Interestingly, for desktop machines, this is not quite correct... there is still a "fanless" movement going. My roommate has a PC that doesn't have any physical moving components: no fans, no hard drives.

Fanless designs are not space-efficient, though; see this fanless CPU heatsink: [https://www.quietpc.com/nof-icepipe](https://www.quietpc.com/nof- icepipe) which is rated for up to a 95W TDP CPU - enough to run an Intel i7-6700K, which has a TDP rating of 91W.

If you're willing to build a very quiet machine instead of a silent machine, liquid cooling with very quiet fans (that _eventually_ ramp up based on temps) is very workable, and means your machine is effectively silent (i.e. at or around ambient noise levels) 99% of the time.

<comment><USER7> Due to the problems of office noise I needed to solve the problem of being able to work 'at my desktop' but from somewhere quieter in the office, e.g. an unused meeting room.

So I invested in a cheap and cheerful Chromebook, put linux on it (Gallium OS is the easiest operating system to install, ever), got the NFS mounts working, got my desktop to proxy serve my dev domains, put 'Synergy' on there (so I can use the same keyboard/mouse on all machines from the Chromebook) and made sure I could also work fully remote with it too (local repo). I also got 'X Windows' to work nicely.

As a glorified terminal my Chromebook has full HD, massive battery life (all day) and zero noise. In fact I wish it was 'warmer' in use, such is the low- end Celeron's feeble and fanless heat output.

It seems to me that laptops actually do not last the distance if they are over a certain size - 15". The thermal management is just not up to it and it is only a matter of time before the fan is running permanently with the CPU throttled. After a couple of dead laptops one thinks 'desktop/server', somehow silent and low power so it can be left on... But this doesn't really exist unless you invest in silent cooling.

With my bargain basement Chromebook I can do everything I want to do although for some things like a time doing graphics work, I will go to the faster machine. This faster machine no longer has lots of cables attached to it, the keyboard/mouse is shared from the Chromebook so it becomes a box with power in, network and HDMI out, neatly tucked out of sight in an adjacent cupboard rather than roaring away on/under my desk.

Another bonus of the Chromebook is that it's lameness is a feature. People have rubbish computers as well as posh ones, I need to test for all devices and what will work on a low end Chromebook will fly along on anything more normal.

<comment><USER8> GalliumOS is easy to install, on something that's not a Chromebook perhaps. In order to install it, I had to:

> Put the chromebook into 'developer mode', wiping the hard drive

> Physically open the device, breaking the 'warranty void' sticker, in order > to remove a write-protect screw

> Change firmware flags to allow booting off of unsigned partitions

> Replace the firmware entirely, risking bricking the device

Apart from that it was easy, and the installation program was faultless. I do use my Chromebook as a dev machine, and I agree with you that the poor performance is more of a help than a hindrance. Code editors don't stress out any remotely modern computer, and if your code runs well on the Chromebook then it should be fine anywhere else; very few machines have worse specs. I think they're fine machines, and GalliumOS is everything one would wish, but I really couldn't count ease of installation amongst their features.

<comment><USER7> My hunch is that you opened up a Chromebook Pixel (2013). I thought about it but decided against 'mutilating' the design classic that is the original Pixel, stepped back from the edge and bought an Acer 14" full HD Chromebook with 4Gb RAM for £250.

One thing though - sound. This only works on HDMI which again is a feature - <USER2> can't procrastinate with videos. Installing 'WinZip' on a PC back in the day when I used 'Windows' was harder and certainly more fraught with danger.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The article mentions microcontrollers that use 100 milliwatts as the lower end of embedded CPUs.

There are actually microcontrollers that use around 1milliwatt for very low power applications. For example the msp430. TI have a neat video of one running using power generated from grapes:

[https://youtu.be/nPZISRQAQpw](https://youtu.be/nPZISRQAQpw)

<comment> david-given Last time this came up someone pointed me at the new generation of ultra-low- power ARMs:

[http://www.atmel.com/products/microcontrollers/arm/sam-l.asp...](http://www.atmel.com/products/microcontrollers/arm/sam-l.aspx)

35µA/MHz, so with careful selection of peripherals you probably don't even need a whole milliamp.

<comment><USER10> Designing microamp-level systems can be interesting. From [http://www.ganssle.com/rants/leaks_and_drains.html](http://www.ganssle.com/rants/leaks_and_drains.html) :

      I put one of the boards under a microscope and looked at
      some of the ancillary parts. There's a 22 uF decoupling
      capacitor. No real surprise there. It appears to be one of
      those nice Kemet polymer tantalums designed for high-density
      SMT applications.

      The datasheet pegs the cap's internal leakage at 22 uA. That
      means the capacitor draws a thousand times more power than
      the dozing CPU.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> No issues with the article as a whole, but comparing Intel's processors solely on #cores and clock speed isn't right. The table that compares a E5-1630 with a E5-1680, for example, omits the information that the E5-1680 has twice the amount of cache space, despite only having 1.5x the number of cores.

</comment><comment><USER12> The odd thing here is that no DC I know of has the power and cooling to support a rack full of these things without surrounding them with empty space to meet the watts/sqft budget. That picture of racks full of 1U servers is basically a lie -- for more reasons than power, but power is the killer.

The follow up would be "an Inferno in your Rack".

<comment><USER13> I'd disagree, the fairly newish DC we're in is designed for supplying and cooling 20kW/rack. That's enough for 40 or so 1u servers burning ~450 watts.

<comment><USER14> One thing that burned us in the past was DC that provided 20kW power per rack in power, but required you to only dissipate 5kW in heat. Needless to say we changed the DC provider in like a month after they made this clear (and they combined that with offer of some kind of "cloud provider" package which meant 15kW of both and triple the price). After few another such DC-related incidents (and mostly unbelievable: circuit breakers catching fire, 600V peak on 230V AC line, double flooring collapsing from overload and such) I'm quite relieved that I don't deal with DC procurement anymore.

<comment><USER15> What the...? Were they expecting you to radiate the remaining 15kW as microwaves or something?

<comment><USER14> That's exactly the question I asked them, with "or you want us to radiate the remaining the remaining 15kW into this single mode fiber going to your switch? we can get laser capable of that"

<comment><USER16> Does the wattage coming in entirely converts to heat? I always assumed it didn't, but have no idea in what proportion.

<comment><USER15> Energy in has to equal energy out over the long term. For electronics equipment that isn't doing mechanical work then there aren't a lot of options for how that energy can come out: it'll either be electromagnetic radiation of some kind (i.e. light or radio or similar) or heat. Most computer equipment emits relatively little electromagnetic radiation, so it's essentially all heat.

<comment><USER17> Isn't heat just lower frequency EM radiation?

<comment><USER15> Heat can be transmitted through EM radiation (of all frequencies, but IR is predominant for temperatures we're accustomed to) but also by direct contact between materials. For typical temperatures, radiation doesn't transmit much heat. Vacuum makes for a pretty good insulator. If you want to remove 20kW of heat from a small space, you'll need to do most of that removal by transferring the heat to a fluid of some kind, e.g. by putting it into the air.

To see the difference in practical terms, pick an item that's noticeably warm, but not hot enough to burn you. Hold your finger very close to it. The heat you feel there is radiated. Then touch it, and feel the heat that's conducted through touch. You'll feel _much_ more heat with the latter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> pokemon-trainer >Is this extreme? Putting 140 TDP of CPU heat in a 1U server? Not really. Nick at Stack Overflow told me they just put two 22 core, 145W TDP Xeon 2699v4 CPUs and four 300W TDP GPUs in a single Dell C4130 1U server. I'd sure hate to be in the room when those fans spin up. I'm also a little afraid to find out what happens if you run MPrime plus full GPU load on that box.

What could Stack Overflow be doing that requires such a dense GPU/CPU configuration? I didn't think a commenting site would required that level of parallel processing.

<comment><USER18> He doesn't work at StackOverflow anymore.

<comment><USER13> He was referring to Jeff's conversation with Nick Craver who does work at StackOverflow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As a hardware guy first, and a (wannabe) software guy second this post made me really happy.

<comment><USER20> Hardware guy now doing software and I was all tingly inside reading about hacks to get a happy CPU under unrealistic load.

(Anyone else out there ran Prime 95 and Furmark for fun in the past?)

<comment><USER19> That's how I validate my overclocks. And then after that it's 24 hours of memtest86+

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> How do you measure TDP with a Kill-a-Watt? Energy consumption does not equate to thermal design power. Nor is TDP even a measure of peak thermal output ...

<comment><USER22> >Energy consumption does not equate to thermal design power.

Sure it does, the energy has to go somewhere. If it's not being stored in some way or emitted as EM then heat is pretty much all that is left. If you measure voltage and current for Vcore going into the CPU then you can easily calculate the amount of heat it's generating since the CPU can't really store any appreciable amount of energy and there's basically nothing else that would allow that energy to leave the CPU.

<comment><USER21> Yet, he is not measuring the Vcore going into the CPU. He is measuring the overall wattage consumed by the PSU at the outlet using a Kill-a-Watt. This contains a lot more draw than just the CPU, itself. That's an overwhelming lack of concern for a wealth of other variables that can amount to tens of watts. So to be more concise:

Overall energy consumption of a computer does not equate to only the TDP of the CPU, itself.

<comment><USER23> > Unfortunately, here's what I actually measured with my trusty Kill-a-Watt > for each server build as I performed my standard stability testing, with > completely identical parts except for the CPU:

The two CPUs were in identical test rigs. There is a 80W difference changing only the CPU. While you can expect some of this is lost in the PSU, simple fact is more power is ending up inside the computer and it has nowhere to go but out as heat. The most reasonable explanation given otherwise identical builds would be to expect this difference to be due to the changed component.

So if we assume that Intel's 4-core is actually 140W TDP, then there's no way this 6-core can also be 140W.

Yes, this isn't an exact, scientific test, but it's certainly reliable enough to say "this 6-core processor is emitting more heat than the 4-core, although they are rated identically" which it seems to me was the only point he was trying to make given the context which was "two more cores, slightly lower clock speed, that might be an okay tradeoff - OH WAIT, MORE HEAT".

<comment><USER21> > So if we assume that Intel's 4-core is actually 140W TDP, then there's no > way this 6-core can also be 140W.

Why? How can you say that under typical usage the thermal dissipation for both chips isn't the same? Atwood's numbers measure overall power consumption while idle and under heavy load with mprime, neither of which is what TDP seeks to measure.

TDP is like fuel economy for cars. You don't claim it's a lie when you go one hundred and fifty miles an hour for 20 miles and burn two gallons of gas. You simply realize those highway numbers are meant for more of a sixty mile per hour journey over the same distance.

<comment><USER23> Okay:

Yes, TDP is an inexactly defined and meaningless term and while to the layman it would generally be understood to have some relation to the heat emitted by the CPU during normal operation, it's possible that both chips in fact only generate 1W of heat and were given a 140W TDP because Intel had a pre-existing cooling solution and a warehouse full of spare parts. Yes, you are correct on the semantics. Power consumption has no relation to TDP because heat generated has no defined relation to TDP.

However, given any meaningfully bounded definition of TDP, the case is still made that the TDP of these chips should be dissimilar. The later numbers show that under full load the power draw at the wall increases by 20W/core used. Unless your "typical load" used for determining TDP does not actually make use of the full number of cores (which I would think could be fine for a desktop processor, certainly not a server) then it's clear that the heat generated by these two processors should be dissimilar under any load.

If the 4 core actually needs to dissipate 140W under a typical use case, then the 6 core should absolutely need to dissipate more unless the "typical use case" is uselessly applied.

If we want to talk cars... Let's say I sell a base model with a top speed of 80mph, and a sport model with a top speed of 120mph. But I tell you you only need to put 80mph rated tires on the sport model because that's as fast as a typical person drives. Would you really claim that the sport model's tires are correctly rated? Would you not be surprised when you drove 100mph in the sport model and the tires exploded? Why on Earth would anyone even buy the sport model if it's crippled to nearly the same performance as the base model?

<comment><USER21> Let's get to the crux, here:

> Unless your "typical load" used for determining TDP does not actually make > use of the full number of cores

> If the 4 core actually needs to dissipate 140W under a typical use case, > then the 6 core should absolutely need to dissipate more unless the "typical > use case" is uselessly applied.

Taken from Intel's own specs for the E5-1650:

"Thermal Design Power (TDP) represents the average power, in watts, the processor dissipates when operating at Base Frequency with all cores active under an Intel-defined, high-complexity workload. Refer to Datasheet for thermal solution requirements."

Immediately notice "Base Frequency", not Max Turbo, "all cores active", and "Intel-defined, high-complexity workload." Until you can perform the same test on both chips, you cannot assume that "these two processors should be dissimilar under any load."

In regard to your car analogy, if the sport version had a management interface to limit speed due to the rating on the tires, then it would be like an Intel CPU. Read this:

[http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/...](http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/guides/xeon-e5-v3-thermal- guide.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is cool. I knew a guy who literally painted gallium onto his processors as thermal paste. He said it worked really well.

<comment><USER25> Gallium-based thermal compounds are commercially available, often called "liquid metal". See "Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra" for one example.

They're very effective, but must be used with extreme care because aluminum is highly soluble in liquid gallium. Aluminum is the most common material for heatsinks, and it will literally dissolve if the gallium touches it. Gallium is also electrically conductive, so if you accidentally dripped any into your processor socket I assume you're going to have a problem.

If you're careful with it and make sure to get a cooler with a copper contact area, it'll cool more effectively than traditional thermal pastes. I thought about trying it, but it seemed like more hassle than it was worth.

<comment><USER26> > Aluminum is the most common material for heatsinks,

Aluminium is the most common material for heatsink _fins_. The cold plate is almost always (nickel-plated) copper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I can't see a table like what's in the article without poking at it some more in Excel. Anyway, as you go down the table, the increasing cores do indeed have a higher cores*GHz. If you look at dollars per core-GHz (yes, I recognize this is silly), you get a generally increasing trend as you go down the table, but the E5-1680 is $63.35 per core-GHz and the E5-2680 is only $60.59 per core-GHz.

<comment><USER28> Yeah that is a logical way to look at it, and better than $ per core.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I love how Intel got caught on the TDP lie. I know for a fact many Intel processors run just as hot as AMDs, despite Intel blatantly lying about it.

</comment><comment><USER30> As a mere desktop guy. Where could I find a quality resource on safe ambient temperatures for desktop computers? I tend to assume that the magnetic HDD would be the limiter.

</comment><comment><USER31> For me, the Pentium 60 was the turning point for heat. The 486 was pretty easy, but those Pentiums sure put off a lot of heat. I seem to remember that the Pentium 90 was cooler.

</comment><comment><USER32> Why trying to 'accept' the thermal challenge if you can just buy an HP/Dell/whatever 1U box that already has the engineering effort done for you. Or even better, why buy a box at al, just use cloud.

In the old days, I used to tinker with my machines, improve airflow, better CPU cooler, liquid cooling etc. Now I just want stuff to work, so I buy a laptop.

<comment><USER33> It says so in the article: For therapeutic reasons.

<comment><USER34> I think when one works on software long enough, a sort of pressure starts to build up making the person long to work on hardware in any way possible. I've resorted to woodworking, DIY car repairs, and VHDL... all very therapeutic :)

<comment><USER35> This longing is even worse when one started out one's career working in hardware.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Illinois Exodus Has Its Own Website - <AUTHOR> https://www.getoutofillinois.com/ <comment><USER2> What's wrong with Illinois?

<comment><AUTHOR> Illinois has public pension liabilities that are crushing the local and state budgets.</comment></comment>


Kilotons per kilogram (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/12/23/kilotons-per-kilogram/ <comment><USER2> It would be interesting to see a comparison with Soviet weapons. The only one mentioned is the Tsar Bomba which had a maximum yield of 100Mt (the one the Soviets actually tested was detuned to 50Mt and still burned a hole in the Ozone layer) and clocked in at around 27'000kg.

<comment><USER3> Another thing that was impressive about the Tsar Bomba was how quickly it was developed - 16 weeks from project start to the actual test.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hmmm. A kiloton is pretty close to 1000 tonne, or a gigagram. So kilotons per kilogram is a fancy way of saying "about one million". :-)

<comment><USER5> A kiloton is not a Gg. It is the equivalent explosive energy to the detonation of a Gg of trinitrotoluene. It is 4.184 TJ.

Thus, the kiloton/kg ratio for TNT is set by convention at 0.001, because you need 1000 kg of TNT to produce one kiloton of explosive energy, and the energy released in a TNT explosion is somewhat variable.

<comment><USER6> 1000 kg of TNT produces one _ton_ of energy, not one kiloton, so TNT is set by convention at 10^-6 kt/kg.

<comment><USER5> Too right, and thank you for the correction. This is exactly why we should all just use the SI unit, the joule.

<comment><USER6> The SI unit for kt/kg is 4.184 TJ/kg, but it's cooler to write it as 4.184 Mm^2/s^2, that is the square of a (huge) speed!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Human Rights of Women Entrepreneurs by Reid Hoffman - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/human-rights-women-entrepreneurs-reid-hoffman <comment><USER2> This is what I wrote earlier in reaction to this piece, then decided to not post for REASONS, but given how this is going, I am going to throw it out there now:

 _Oh, give me a break.

This piece posits that we need to punish male VCs who sexually harass female applicants.

First of all, this approach (of doing things like basically boycotting them) is so ridiculous and impractical that it amounts to saying "I want you to think I am a highly ethical person, but I don't actually want to do anything about the problem. I just want to say things that sound good so I will look good."

Second, it gives zero remedy to the women who were seeking funds from VCs.

A much, much better answer would be to find a solution that involves getting money into the hands of the female entrepreneurs who not only had to put up with this shit, but also (in most cases) did NOT get funding from these men who see them as nothing but sex objects.

Failing to find a means to get more funding into the hands of female entrepreneurs also de facto reinforces the current status quo. Advocating some kind of punishment for the men who assaulted them while doing nothing to remedy the material harm done to their career aspirations makes you part of the problem, not part of the solution.

I don't really care if any men get hung high here. What I really care about is how in the hell do women get more opportunities? And everyone is so focused on being angry and outraged and also outraged at the presumed lack of outrage that no one can be bothered to do anything about this critical piece of the puzzle. Yet, it is the single most important thing here and it is the one thing I never see anyone talk about at all.

Why is no one starting a fund to get monies into the hands of female entrepreneurs in the face of this problem? I am not seeing that piece happen.

Am I wrong? If I am wrong, please link me to the fund that someone has started to get money into the hands of women in the face of this._

<comment><USER3> Maybe I am biased because I am not in SV and my company funds itself, but you don't have a right to anyone's money / funding. That is an extremely entitled sentiment.

People aren't starting a fund to fund women entrepreneurs because it is simply a less effective way to make money than funding whoever you feel will be the most profitable regardless of gender or any other such consideration. When I decide what to do with my money, I do whatever I think will be the most profitable, and there is nothing wrong with that. It is not my responsibility to pay to fix the bad things other people do. And you probably do the same with your money.

Edit: I don't want people to misunderstand me, I do believe you have a right to other people's money in the sense that I agree with the government taxing us and helping those in need (like healthcare and education for everyone, etc). But I don't believe you have a right to someone throwing a ton of money at your startup. It just sounds ridiculously entitled.

<comment><USER2> I'm just going to leave this here and then step away from the insanity here on HN:

[http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-crux- of-...](http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-crux-of- problem.html)

<comment><USER3> You "backed" someone who has a large amount of karma on HN and you expected this to result in some significant positive effect on your life? And you think if you were male, this would have been the case? You also feel people on HN are partly responsible for your financial problems? O_O

I am sorry that you are homeless, I think nobody deserves that and that the government should fix this problem but I think you have an unrealistic view of how the world works and an unhealthy relationship with this web site.

<comment><USER4> Your comment here is at least as harmful as edw's "man up and face your problems" comment to aaronsw. You need to restrain yourself in this situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "I don't often write immediate reactions to recent news."

This is a peculiar statement to start with. Was this "news" because it only now came to his attention via _this_ particular article. Was the head of the largest social network dedicated to the "world's professionals to make them more productive and successful" ignorant to the reality that half of them were facing in HIS industry for so long or was it simply not an issue to him until it was reported (for the umpteenth time) in this news article?

While I'm glad he's at least now publicly acknowledging the problem, I think it'd be great for the men who want to solve this problem for women to be a bit more humble, sit down, and listen to how women would like their human rights acknowledged and respected.

</comment><comment><USER6> Takes me to a LinkedIn sign-in page.

"I guess I'll never know."

</comment><comment><USER7> > YES, MANY OF US DO CARE

But this story will still be flagged off the HN front page in 5, 4, 3...

The amount that we care is greater than it appears.

EDIT: Called it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Human -> all sexes. Women -> one sex. If you're going to talk about Human Rights then by definition you can't be talking about a single gender.

<comment><USER9> So... a bunch of school girls in Africa being kidnapped and raped and forced into marriages can't be considered a violation of their human rights because those responsible didn't do the same to little school boys, too?

<comment><USER8> No, obviously not. All cows are animals not all animals are cows kind of difference.

Really, is it that hard? There are no specific Human Rights of Women Entrepreneurs, there are _only_ Human rights of _all_ Humans including Women Entrepreneurs.

That women entrepreneurs have human rights need not be stated because they are humans too.

Which by the way the article uses as a hook but then totally fails to expand on.

<comment><USER5> Focus doesn't mean exclusion. (borrowed)

<comment><USER8> Neither does it mean extrapolation beyond intended use.

If we're going to try to re-frame the whole tech issue with being hostile to women as a human rights issue then we have bigger problems. It's assholes being assholes, they're not going to be impressed by any appeal to higher morality such as the human rights. Besides that plenty of corporations make large amounts of money _because_ they trample those very human rights. If you want to go down that road then what we are looking at right now is a 'first world problem' and can be safely ignored until we've brought the rest of the world up to the level where they can complain about how the women in their tech sector are being dealt with.

The way I see it is simple: shine as much light as possible on those that are _actually_ committing these acts so that it can be made perfectly clear that such behavior is absolutely unacceptable.

No violation of human rights needs to be implied, this is simply a case of inter-human error and frankly a lack of education.

If you're a guy in tech treat women (and in general others) the way you'd want your mom or dad or brother or sister to be treated. That single rule should make things a lot better.

<comment><USER5> "... then we have bigger problems."

Yes, I think this is precisely the point of this issue...that the problem IS bigger than just some outlier assholes and extends to a systemic bias/-ism towards women in tech and probably many (most?) other industries. Which, if true, necessitates that we frame the problem as an attack on the human rights of 1/2 the population.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft, currently the most valuable company, is having a Nadellaissance - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-05-02/satya-nadella-remade-microsoft-as-world-s-most-valuable-company <comment><USER2> It's unfortunate to see Microsoft (along with Adobe, etc) expanding into Ads. If nothing else, they could really differentiate and join forces with Apple from privacy standpoint to oppose Google, Amazon and Facebook.

Instead, "Intellisense with AI now available on VS Code" is Microsoft's nice way of saying "We harvest the shit out of your data". Ah, like a true Ad company. Don't get me started on Windows 10 telemetry.

I really believe that Apple's bet on privacy will pay off well in the long term. They're different companies (Apple is selling hardware) but boy they could have gone into Ads with a MASSIVE user base but they chose to limit Ads in the App Store. It would have been huge expansion opportunity but they didn't pursue it. And it will pay off as privacy awareness spreads and Microsoft could join them as operating system providers.

<comment><USER3> > "Intellisense with AI now available on VS Code" is Microsoft's nice way of > saying "We harvest the shit out of your data".

What? The IntelliCode description says that "Contextual recommendations are based on practices developed in thousands of high quality, open-source projects on GitHub each with high star ratings.". I'm not clear on how you think Microsoft will harvest data from doing this - much less how it is related to ads.

<comment><USER4> > "Contextual recommendations are based on practices developed in thousands of > high quality, open-source projects on GitHub each with high star ratings."

Wait, what? Is there a way to opt out of that in GitHub? I don't want their AI to scan my code.

Realistically, since most of my GH code is Common Lisp with few stars, I doubt it's looking anyway, but I'd like to make sure.

I'm sure it's covered in their TOS, but as a (still) paying GitHub customer I don't want them to do that with my repos.

<comment><USER5> Should have nothing to do with github and everything to do with you putting your code on the internet with a permissive license. Google or Eclipse could do this too (and I expect they do, since it's the best corpus of code available).

<comment><USER6> Google does, in a way, with the GitHub data set in BigQuery -> [https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/public- data/#sample_tables](https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/public- data/#sample_tables)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Satya has done a tremendous job turning around Microsoft. It was headed in the direction of becoming a slowly sinking behemoth under Ballmer, but he's turned it around.

Sundar, on the other hand, is just content collecting $$ and showing more ads.

<comment><USER8> In what way was MS sinking under Ballmer? Maybe they were not exciting but they were super profitable every year. I think it's more about better PR.

Not everything is golden at MS now either. I am working on creating a platform for our medical software on Windows 10 and it really makes me want to switch to Linux or iOS. Windows is a big mess of old and new code and attempts of sandboxing like iOS but only half-hearted. Keeping up with the semi-annual channel is also insane. I would much prefer annual or biannual releases that are actually stable. It's a very developer unfriendly platform now.

<comment><USER9> Windows always been a pain to develop for. And every Windows version redundantly includes "a new api for everything" alongside all the horrible legacy stuff.

But Microsoft's recent efforts on Linux & macOS, i.e. VSCode, has been surprisingly good. They do a lot of things, I think Typescript is run by MS as well.

So that's something that positively changed under Nadella.

<comment><USER10> I believe this is because MS wants to move away from being an OS provider to being a service provider. If a service runs on Linux they won't care as long as its generating revenue for them. Whether this is Nadella's push or obvious from MS's accountants is hard to say.

<comment><USER8> They may turn into an IBM variation long term. Profitable, stable business. Not glamorous, but good money.

<comment><USER11> Don't all companies become IBM at some point?

<comment><USER8> Probably.

<comment><USER10> So it's kind of like baldness?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Having read Nadella's book Hit Refresh as soon as it went on sale, Microsoft performance since then doesn't look surprising at all. Having listed what's wrong (with their product focus, company culture etc), and where they plan to head, its' almost like the book informs the reader where puck is going to be (from Satya's POV).

It's funny that 15 years back I was so anti MS and pro Google and now I think it's the other way!

<comment><USER8> "It's funny that 15 years back I was so anti MS and pro Google and now I think it's the other way!"

Stay skeptical of all of them. No need to be fan of one of the big techs. In the end they are all greedy organizations that want to dominate. None of them should be trusted.

<comment><USER13> I'm both wary of and hopeful about Microsoft _and_ Google.

"Trust but verify" and all that.

<comment><USER2> I've always found this phrase an oxymoron.

<comment><USER13> Where humans are involved, mistakes will happen. Trusting someone but verifying their work is a safe and sane pairing.

<comment><USER14> How is verifying everything because you don't trust people not to make a mistake operationally different from verifying everything because you suspect bad faith? To the supposed trusted party, the result is the same: you not taking them at their word and instead checking whatever they do. Even if you're being honest about only verifying to avoid mistakes, you can never prove it.

This definition of "trust but verify" would be better reduced to "verify", since it essentially claims that trust is, if not impossible, not practically applicable in any situation.

<comment><USER15> @stupidcar we've reached the depth-limit, so I'm responding here.

> In the case of "trust but verify", how does this trust manifest in a > provable way?

Good point. "provable" is the problem here since we don't know eachother, and frankly I can't prove you're trustworthy initially; that's why the question this addresses (namely "trust-or-misstrust?") arises in the first place. Assuming we don't have dossiers on everyone we're going to meet and work with, we have to decide on an initial point on the trust-scale you mentioned with which to begin interaction.

"Trust but verify" is about having faith that people are generally good, and treating strangers that way while protecting yourself. It indicates balance between treating strangers like data-points and getting walked all over is important, and it provides a suggestion about how to approach the situation.

<comment><USER16> > we've reached the depth-limit, so I'm responding here.

There isn't a depth limit.

<comment><USER15> > There isn't a depth limit.

Well looks like you're right, but the nonetheless the reply button wasn't there.

Did I sufficiently address your question?

<comment><USER16> > Did I sufficiently address your question?

What question are you referring to?

Regardless, I suggest that it is better to reply to the comment you're replying to than to reply to some other comment, whether you see a reply link or not. You don't need the reply link to reply to a comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> As an investor I bought few years ago MSFT stock. I did it as I saw two things:

1\. azure

2\. o365

1\. because I knew what happened (and was happening) with AWS

2\. because microsoft moved to subscription model

Those two things, connected with third "secret" incredient: BIGGEST user base (corporate) which WILL use those two offerings = success.

Satya is/may be great. I bought stock around 2014/2015 because of the above and nothing more.

If you have a big userbase you can monetize it really really well.

<comment><USER2> I think your reasoning is a perfect example of Confirmation bias, I do agree with your points but there is no way to analyze this objectively - market is a complex system with game theory and all kinds of players doing unpredictable things, disasters such as password leaks, etc. If results were the opposite, one can come up with various other reasons to explain their losses.

<comment><USER18> Most of the initiatives Satya has gotten credit for were started under Ballmer. Some of the worst moves I've seen regarding current MSFT internal culture were direct results of Satya

Source: Me, at MSFT before Ballmer left and still there now.

That doesn't mean Satya's not had a good effect overall. Part of the investor postives were due to PR differences that Satya made (which are very good), and his ability to talk about the future of the company is far superior to Ballmer.

<comment><USER19> Ballmer started a lot.

Ballmer also subjected all of those new initiatives to the Windows/Office dominance, which is why they all failed.

Nadella's most impactful, and fundamental, contribution was demolishing Windows's hold over every other department.

<comment><USER18> Agreed wholeheartedly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > There's a bit of Silicon Valley cred, too, thanks to its acquisitions of > LinkedIn, the professional social network, and GitHub, the software code > repository.

I would have thought open sourcing so much of it's framework, vscode, and typescript would have had a greater impact.

<comment><USER21> > I would have thought open sourcing so much of it's framework

I have a pedantic correction here.

Instead of open sourcing the .NET Framework they wrote a new opensource framework (named .NET core) that is very similar to their closed source framework. Microsoft is currently supporting and expanding both frameworks.

<comment><USER22> FYI, only way forward is core. Microsoft doesn't really invest much in older net and related (for example PowerShell 5). There may be fixes here and there but are mostly security.

It defies logic to support 2 frameworks, one of which is WAY BETTER then the other and x-platform.

<comment><USER22> And only few days after this comment, is official:

[https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/introducing- net-5/](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/introducing-net-5/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > "I don't know of any other software company in the history of technology > that fell onto hard times and has recovered so well," says Reed Hastings, > CEO of Netflix Inc.

How about Apple?

<comment><USER24> Historically considered to be a hardware company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Microsoft's core revenue is still due to market lock-in of their proprietary technologies: MS Office and Windows itself. There are other office suites out there, but nothing can gain much market share without complete compatibility for MS Office file formats: docx, pptx, etc. Microsoft produced a version of Office for Macs and that allowed Apple to grow greater than niche, but their market share was always tiny compared to Windows.

Outside of Windows and Mac, you're in Open Source land, which is great if you're technically minded and want to tinker and explore, but not much of an option for folks who just want their computers to work with the consumer software and file formats around them. Other than Apple, where are the commercial alternatives to Microsoft?

I'd be much more sympathetic to Nardella's renaissance if it meant real consumer choice. The situation is better than it was under Ballmer, but not as good as it could be in a real free marketplace.

<comment><USER26> Excel is actually an amazing product. Google docs is cool, but it's nothing compared to excel.

<comment><USER27> Excel is a beast, but for my use case Google Sheets is better since I don't need the advanced features and it's always available in any browser.

My biggest problem with Google Docs in general is not about features but that performance is pretty bad.

<comment><USER28> I use Sheets for work and increasingly a bunch of personal stuff. I wish Google would invest more in customization of visuals and such with charts and allow for better pivot functionality, but otherwise it is pretty solid.

I can't see myself ever paying for Excel for personal use at this point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Microsoft's "performance" wasn't bad by any objective metric during the Ballmer era. If the stock market were rational, MS stock would have been doing a lot better under Balmer than it did.

But then again, if the stock market were rational, Lyft would have never been able to go public and Tesla would basically be worthless.

<comment><USER30> MS was basically making money no matter what given the highly lucrative office + windows franchise that Bill Gates left behind. I wouldn't credit Balmer with that too much he just basically kept on milking that. The problem by the time he left was that there was increasingly less to squeeze.

Shareholders tend to look forward rather than backward and it was getting very clear that windows and office were increasingly less critical to users and that there were some serious revenue issues around that going forward. Windows on the server was basically getting less relevant by the day. Windows desktop was feeling a lot of pressure from Apple and increasingly Google. Office sales were suffering when companies started using alternative office tools from e.g. Google. Windows Phone was not working that great either and struggled to gain market share on Apple and Google. The Nokia acquisition that Balmer pushed through was sort of the nail in the coffin here. That was an expensive failure and that is 100% on Balmer.

The keyword in those strategies was windows. Under Balmer it absolutely had to be windows everywhere. Server, desktop, mobile, IOT, and all the rest. It wasn't working. That's why Balmer 'left' (i.e. was pretty much fired but in a nice face saving way).

Nadella killed that windows everything strategy and turned things around. Office is now liberated from Windows and making a lot of money for MS again. Cloud is growing more important as well, courtesy of mostly non windows software running on Linux in Azure. Meanwhile windows on the desktop seems pretty cool now that MS has added Linux integration, a non MS browser, and a few other things that make it a lot more attractive for developers and users and now that they are no longer forced to be in this windows everything walled garden. Even mobile is doing great for MS now that they can focus on treating IOS and Android as first class citizens.

<comment><USER29> If you just look at the time between 2000-2007, the first half of Ballmer's tenure. The stock wasn't doing well, but revenues were steadily increasing. During this time:

\- Apple was still on PowerPC processors until 2006 and weren't really any threat to Microsoft.

\- GSuite didn't even launch until 2006 and even today, it's really not that much competition to MS Office. It has less than a tenth of the revenue and only a few Fortune 500 companies ([https://www.reuters.com/article/us- alphabet-gsuite-idUSKBN1F...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet- gsuite-idUSKBN1FL3ZX))

\- The iPhone didn't come out until 2007 and really didn't start gaining market share until 2010. Even today, Google's "winning" with Android has only netted it less than $30 billion in profit since inception ([https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/21/10810834/android- generate...](https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/21/10810834/android- generated-31-billion-revenue-google-oracle))

\- Microsoft adding WSL only matters to a few techies.

\- Even the Nokia acquisition happened later during his tenure.

<comment><USER30> Balmer missed the boat on all of this because he was out of touch. Android and Iphone indeed happened around the 2006-2008 time frame after having been rumored since about 2003-2006. They both were the logical conclusion from OSS and Linux emerging in the late nineties as a viable platform for development on embedded hardware. The difference between Balmer and Jobs is what they did in the nineties. Jobs ran a startup that produced the software that he later brought back to Apple that indeed also became the basis for the iphone. That's a decade plus of vision, R&D, etc. coming together. Balmer's vision meanwhile was Windows everywhere throughout this. When Jobs went on stage with the iphone, Balmer had nothing meaningful whatsoever to show. The little MS had was quickly forgotten. Once the iphone launched, Windows CE was dead as a door nail.

Windows Phone was a nice effort but years late and bogged down in a continued windows everywhere strategy and aggravated by lousy execution combined with institutional arrogance. They initially launched it as a windows CE shell with severe limitations. Then they alienated their OEMs and users with a highly disruptive and backwards incompatible move to windows NT. Finally, they topped it up with the Nokia acquisition. Nokia had committed early to windows phone which because of the prolonged uncertainty around this platform proved to be a major disaster. I used to work at Nokia, I've seen them fuck this up close. It wasn't pretty and Balmer was right at the center of it. MS ultimately acquired it and then proved it did not know how to fix it either. I still believe they could have pulled it off but not with the leadership (or lack thereof) that they had.

Balmer missed the boat utterly and completely, misread the market signals, and came up empty handed. The doomed Nokia acquisition was the proverbial nail in his coffin: the last in a decade long series of expensive failures.

The Google thing a few years ago was an existential threat to MS. Google was pushing users to chrome books running google office in a chrome browser on cheap hardware that ran Linux. The existential threat was two fold: no windows and no office. Nadella turned that around by making office 365 something that runs well everywhere, including on Chrome OS. The recent reverse takeover of Chromium by making that the centerpiece of Edge, sort of solidifies this. Up until then MS strategy was charging loads of money for windows on expensive laptops. Small form factor laptops became a thing during the mid 2000s and one key problem with those was that the windows license was substantial cost factor. It sort of made putting linux on hardware like that inevitable. It's the same problem they had on mobile. Expensive windows licenses for cheap phones did not make sense. That's why Android happened.

WSL indeed only matters to techies. But if techies pull their nose up for your platform, you have a long term problem because techies are the people that produce the things that make your platform long term viable. Five years ago, no self respecting engineer deploying on Linux would bother much with a windows machine. It was just too painful. Nothing worked and a typical README for developer tools on e.g. Github would be heavily mac/linux centric. Things like node.js, git, etc. barely even worked on it or only with a lot of workarounds and kludges. It was a big reason for Azure flopping in the market because MS sold windows in the cloud when the market was moving away from Windows. Nadella turned that around by embracing OSS, linux, and turning Balmer's mantra of "developers, developers, developers" into something that actually meant something to developers again. VS Studio Code and typescript now dominating the node.js and javascript ecosystem is quite a contrast with half a decade ago.

<comment><USER29> Microsoft not only saw mobile coming, Windows Mobile (CE/Pocket PC) was out years before Android and iOS and was decently popular as a smart phone OS. HTC made dozens of models under its own brand and for other manufacturers.

 _But if techies pull their nose up for your platform, you have a long term problem because techies are the people that produce the things that make your platform long term viable._

Techies don't matter. The people that were making Windows viable were Microsoft themselves with Office, other major software vendors, and the dark matter developers writing bespoke software that never saw the light of day outside of internal use. There is a reason that VB6 still shows up in Stack Overflow rankings almost 20 years after MS abandoned it.

What were developers going to do? Ignore 90% of the market and wait for the year of Linux on the desktop?

IIS was used plenty for corporate Intranets and many low bandwidth sites. The dark matter developers who develop for the enterprise and go home at night and don't post on HN or before that Slashdot are everywhere.

<comment><USER30> MS saw it coming, enjoyed some brief success with OEMs like htc around 2004, and then Android and IOS steamrolled over it by the 2008-2010 time frame. Sitting ducks basically.

I worked at Nokia back in the day. Nokia knew this as well (I read the internal mailing lists, this was debated and speculated on heavily) and they did not act in time either.

2005 was in retrospect the key moment to act. Neither Nokia nor MS managed to do the right things. Apple and Google did. This was not exactly a secret except it did not translate into meaningful action.

Worse, Nokia actually shut down several projects that in retrospect could have saved their ass when it was handed to them by Apple in 2007 with the iphone launch. E.g. S90 (touch UI for S60) was killed in favor of S60 (no touch whatsoever until 2008) in 2005. Then in 2007 they went "oh fuck" and tried to bring it back on S60 ultimately resulting in a prematurely launched device that was everything the iphone wasn't (slow, ugly, unstable, etc.). Subsequent attempts to fix it yielded no results. Bringing in windows phone years later was an act of desperation.

Likewise Debian linux on tablets and phones was a thing in 2005 already. E.g. the N700 and N800 tablets shipped with it long before the ipad or iphone were a thing. Google ff-ing prototyped Android on these devices even before they shipped their nexus phone. Also, the chrome browser that made Android so successful? Guess what, Nokia had a webkit port for S60 in 2005 already. Google literally built Android/Chrome ecosystem on top of R&D done by Nokia (kernel drivers and optimizations, browsers, and other low level linux stuff).

I'm pretty sure MS has similar stories of death by management. Balmer was the key person in charge at MS throughout this.

2005 is also the same year that AJAX browser apps started displacing desktop UIs at a no doubt alarming rate for MS.

By the time MS was trying to push windows phone, their windows only development stack was a huge part of their problem. They needed developers to write apps for windows phone; especially developers already successful on IOS and Android. Only problem: all the IOS developers were on Macs (because Apple). And many of the Android developers were too (because they were pretty awesome). A windows laptop was a really hard sell to developers at the time because, well, they kind of sucked. Google was actively trying to compete with MS and still best friends with Apple so, the two of them created a developer friendly ecosystem outside of the MS bubble.

Because their developer ecosystem sucked, windows phone lacked apps, and therefore it flopped. Techies matter if you are a tech company trying to create and push new tech. If you are milking cobol, vb6, or some other ancient crap: fire all the techies. Basically, that's what IBM and Oracle did. Techies used to love IBM stuff. Not any more. Lets not talk about just how much they loathe Oracle at this point.

So techies not only matter but losing them cost Balmer his job and regaining their trust is a huge part of Nadella's current success.

<comment><USER29> _2005 is also the same year that AJAX browser apps started displacing desktop UIs at a no doubt alarming rate for MS._

Microsoft created AJAX - it was originally and ActiveX extension that only worked in IE.

Even today, GSuite is not that popular among big corps.

 _By the time MS was trying to push windows phone, their windows only development stack was a huge part of their problem. They needed developers to write apps for windows phone; especially developers already successful on IOS and Android. Only problem: all the IOS developers were on Macs (because Apple). And many of the Android developers were too (because they were pretty awesome). A windows laptop was a really hard sell to developers at the time because, well, they kind of sucked. Google was actively trying to compete with MS and still best friends with Apple so, the two of them created a developer friendly ecosystem outside of the MS bubble._

Developers go where the money is. It's not the tiny Indy developers that are making most of the money on mobile. Windows Phone didn't fail to get apps because developers didn't want to program on Windows. They didn't see any money in it. Heck even MS Office was available for iOS before Windows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The new Microsoft is good and Nadella is awesome.

The one product that really sucks from this Microsoft is Azure. I commented in a thread before Azure is the absolute worst cloud provider amongst the big three after we thoroughly evaluated all three. AWS is the best and GCP is next.

But due to management pressure we had to go with Azure.

Unfortunately the best product does not always win in the enterprise. (That is why Steve Jobs never wanted to sell directly to enterprises).

<comment><USER32> Could you please go more in depth? What is so good about Amazon and what is wrong about Azure? Thank you!

The thing is that it seems to be the opposite when you're looking at it as a non-technical manager.

<comment><USER31> We had about 70 pages of solid analysis done on this that I unfortunately can't share but some of the highlights:-

1\. Terrible UI 2\. Unclear Documentation 3\. Frequent service outages. 4\. Scalability issues, they were unable to scale a server in prod past 1000 connections where as in AWS/GCP they were able to 10x that with similar server specs. Something to do with how server defaults were set 5\. Severe performance degradation and network exhaustion.

To be fair there were some positives but nothing exceptional.

But end of the day it kind of doesn't matter as Azure is going to be used in enterprises just because they have the legacy MSFT sales force that is tight with managements high up in the org. No wonder MSFT hit $1T.

Its such a shame for our industry though. Engineering teams at other cloud providers sweat and toil to get things right for their customers whereas MSFT uses other means to beat them. Hopefully they can at least fix things after they get in. But we know the chance of that happening is slim.

<comment><USER33> It's just not Azure. Microsoft has a cultural problem of treating designers as second class citizens. Only some teams get the value of good design and UX.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Personally, I'm more impressed by the company's President, Brad Smith, who seems to want real change in terms of digital rights. He's the man behind every single "pro user rights" Microsoft announcement you've seen in the past few years.

Meanwhile, Nadella is the man behind every single user-hostile and user- tracking feature you've seen introduced in Windows 10 (pretty much).

</comment><comment><USER35> I think Nadella was driving more of a cultural change within the company. Business wise the path to Azure and the cloud was pretty straightforward and he stuck to it.

The question to ask might be, would Ballmer have done something else then focus on cloud? Like focus more energy on phones for instance? That could have led to a different financial result.

</comment><comment><USER36> I like line about market cap being a useless metric for your own success. It's great on the meta-business side of things, but for real-world things it's hardly relevant.

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm failing to see what has changed.

Point is that they still make the lion share of their revenue from milking PC OEMs and plumpy corporate clients.

The fact that they changed tools for doing so, does not change the scheme at large.

Their hosting service Azure just took over their AD and sharepoint clients with some extra being the genuine new clientele

I'd say that under Nadella, they grew even more recalcitrant, and dependent on their main revenue sources.

Ever got a visit from an MS salesperson recently? One that came to us to do AD was almost begging us to switch to AD on Azure.

I'd also say that MS became a little bit akin google in that their new product efforts fall into unending cycles of rebrandings, and half-hearted restarts. A lot of oldtimer MS devs I knew say that now they got a genuine fear of every new tech coming from MS almost customarily becoming an abandonware in 2-3 years term.

<comment><USER8> "A lot of oldtimer MS devs I knew say that now they got a genuine fear of every new tech coming from MS almost customarily becoming an abandonware in 2-3 years term."

That's how I have been feeling from around the time WPF came out...

And they reinforce that fear regularly.

<comment><USER38> UWP feels like it's going to be abandonware.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Is it time to add Microsoft to FAANG?

<comment><USER40> It probably should have always been there. I feel like the only reason Netflix is included in that acronym is to stop it from looking a bit like a homophobic slur.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> It's true. It's always hard to figure out exactly how much credit the CEO should get for successes or failures of the company, but since Nadella became CEO Microsoft made a lot of good decisions that really set them up for the future. Office365 is terrific. Azure is cementing itself as the default cloud for enterprises and a solid 2nd or 3rd option outside of the enterprise. Windows 10 is great.

</comment><comment><USER42> The subscription model is great/easy, but from the tax side I am leaning more towards the purchase model over AWS. I recently saw the Delta Airlines paid no Federal Taxes last year because of accelerated depreciation costs. With AWS, there is no accelerated depreciated, just current expenses. Anywho, I'm off to a new data center ground-breaking ceremony.

</comment><comment><USER43> The higher the rise, the harder the fall. Great old-timers continue to jump ship in droves, and new people only apply after getting rejected by FANGs of the world. Given the size of the company this will take a while longer to play out, but play out it will, eventually.

</comment><comment><USER44> A good article, well rounded in nature by giving the pros and cons to Microsoft's rebirth. How it impacts Microsoft internally and externally to the market in general. We need more articles like this on the internet.

</comment><comment><USER45> Is that a word for poor quality control?

</comment><comment><USER46> Are CEOs underpaid or overpaid?

</comment><comment><USER47> Nadellaissance doesn't work at all and its breaking my soul, fuck off pithy headlines.

That said, the board has done well picking leadership, Satya's driven a lot of amazing cultural change, and business too.

<comment><USER48> > Nadellaissance doesn't work at all and its breaking my soul, fuck off pithy > headlines.

Care to explain? Do you work there? "doesn't work at all" meaning he's lazy?

<comment><USER49> I think parent means the contrived term "Nadallaissance" as a headline gimmick.

<comment><USER50> To be fair, it looks really weird as a word to a French speaker. It reads almost like "adolescence" which roughly means "teenage years". I guess to an English speaker it sounds more like "Renaissance" but even that I'm not sure.

<comment><USER51> To an English speaker it looks more like "wanker"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> What a great difference between him and Ballmer. I'd not be surprised if they eat Amazon's lunch on cloud computing in the next few years.

<comment><USER53> I would never, ever underestimate Andy Jassy. I consider him on par with Jeff Bezos, in terms of leadership and execution, if not superior.

source: worked at AWS 2008-2014.

<comment><USER54> Here is AWS's core weakness going forward...they compete with their own cloud customers. From video streaming, to online shopping, to groceries, to logistics...why would I (as a business consumer) want to fund my own competition? Azure competes with none of its own customers, outside of perhaps AI. Amazon is AWS's biggest enemy. Azure and GCS are going to catch up on features, and customers are going to start fleeing when they realize they are helping to fund their own demise and biggest competitor. Then there will be margin pressure. The next 10 years in the cloud are going to be interesting...and while people seem to think the Cloud already has huge adoption, it's just beginning; and I think Microsoft more than any other will be the biggest benefactor.

<comment><USER29> GCP may catch up on "features" but with Google's horrible reputation for both poor customer support, and abandoning products, any decision maker should have second thoughts on choosing GCP over AWS or Azure.

<comment><USER54> I don't disagree, I think Google will suffer in the Cloud game because of their reputation to 180 and kill products. But I do think they will continue to gain ground in both customers and features. As I said though, Azure will likely benefit the most. The main reason Google will remain in the race...imo is because there is still a deeply seeded hatred of Microsoft amount a big enough part of the community.

<comment><USER29> Decision makers spending five and six figures per month on infrastructure don't generally make decision based on "hatred" of a company.

Decision makers more often than not make choices based on some variant of "No one ever got fired for buying $x" and $x rarely equals "anything made by Google."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> _</comment>


Sushinomics: How Bluefin Tuna Became a Million-Dollar Fish - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/01/sushinomics-how-bluefin-tuna-became-a-million-dollar-fish/282826/ <comment><USER2> It's hilarious that people believe there was an actual, unstaged market transaction selling a fish for $3k/pound.

<comment><USER3> Sure there was, it just sold a lot of publicity and prestige along with the fish.

"Staged" to me implies that the price was not actually paid, and if you have any information that indicates this was the case, please cite it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So, with rising demand you'd expect rising prices which would in turn suppress demand. Unless the object in question becomes a luxury good, in which case rising prices would in turn contribute to an increase in demand due to conspicuous consumption (can't be sure of the net effect but I'd speculate it'd be an increase or flattening of demand at worst).

What would be the economic solution to this problem? One way would be a moratorium but that seems politically unpalatable. One could hope that a previously sidelined fish makes a comeback and replaces Bluefin as the sushi staple; controlling tastes seems hard if not impossible so that would be unlikely as well. Maybe convince a celebrity chef to endorse a cheaper (and less endangered) fish?

</comment><comment><USER5> Quite tragic the way that Tuna and other fish are being overfished. Tuna are like the tigers of the sea, they are at the top of the food chain. I just don't see a way that we're going to stop before an environmental catastrophe.

<comment><USER6> Problem is, even if we stop fishing and decide to not touch a single fish in an ocean, our pollution and the global warming, will turn oceans into an acidic (as in as acidic as regular rain gets) cesspit of jellies.

I don't mean - go on and farm every last one of them, just that it will soon become an extinct creature, simply because we fucked up its environment beyond repair already.

<comment><USER7> Sorry, but could you back up your statements with facts? This sounds to me as a rather generic statement.

I have no idea about the adaptive capabilities of tuna, nor do I know the actual change in pH values, or levels of chemical pollution.

Overfishing and the collapse of ecosymstems in the ocean is major factor (see also whales, sharks, etc).

<comment><USER6> Of course.

Problem is that ocean acidification (low pH) gives jellies advantages

[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121231180617.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121231180617.htm) [http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/content/65/3/414.full](http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/content/65/3/414.full) [http://www.spc.int/oceanfish/en/publications/doc_download/72...](http://www.spc.int/oceanfish/en/publications/doc_download/728-pfrp- proposal-ocean-acidification-impacts-upon-tropical-tuna-populations)

Though some analysis point that there are no benefits to jelly fish. [http://aslo.org/lo/toc/vol_53/issue_5/2040.pdf](http://aslo.org/lo/toc/vol_53/issue_5/2040.pdf)

Generally, from what I've heard, the global warming is already straining the metabolisms of the existing sea creatures to a breaking point.

Problem is we need to a super sharp CO2 reduction right now, to just keep the climate as it is now (i.e. patterns of extreme weather) and hope to restore balance within 50 years. This is ofc based on simulation so God knows, how accurate it is...

<comment><USER7> Hi,

thanks for the papers! I will have a look on them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 230kg?!

Jeez, I never fully realised how big those suckers are.</comment>