EmberJS and Confusion, Part 2 - <AUTHOR> http://1fifty9.com/post/45053521205/emberjs-and-confusion-part-2

<comment><USER2> This article hits the nail on the head.

Remember, "MVC" means so many different things. Originally, the "controller" was needed for low-level keyboard processing, something no modern "MVC" framework needs in the same way. (See Martin Fowler's history of the term if you're unfamiliar with it).

So really, all "MVC" means these days, is, "Hey, we put some thought into how to have better separation of concerns in our UI code."

But past that point, it is hard to make simple, true statements that include all of the MVC frameworks out there. Rails controllers are different from Ember's controllers are different from Backbone controllers, etc.

So when someone tells you, "Here's an MVC framework," the only reasonable expectation you can come in with is that they put some thought into separation of concerns. Where that thought led them is likely to be very different from other MVC frameworks.

And in Ember's case, the particular details are, "Our whole philosophy was strongly influenced by Cocoa."

Ultimately, we seem to just now be getting to the point where we can, as an industry, intelligently figure out what concepts do make sense in a single- page javascript framework that "puts some thought into separation of concerns." It's not likely to be any of the approaches we've already tried, because our "javascript platform" was immature, and all we have done so far is borrow ideas (from Rails, or from Cocoa, or wherever).

</comment><comment><USER3> Another interesting post! It's even more interesting for me, since I've been testing with various JS frameworks in the last two weeks; namely the three major ones - BackboneJS, EmberJS and AngularJS.

Aside from the points you've raised, here's a small conclusion I have made.

"Creating a complex web application with Views, Sub Views & Deep-linking is difficult, no matter what framework you use".

I feel comfortable with BackboneJS because there isn't too much abstraction and convention. Therefore, once you get the hang of it, you know what you are doing (not sure if it sounds right, but it feels... pure, or purer than others).

But BackboneJS does in fact make me repeat a lot - which is why there are a number of plugins and other frameworks that try to cover this (e.g. Backbone Marionette, Backbone layout manager, Backbone.Subview, Backbone.Courier).

After 'giving up' on EmberJS, I've looked at AngularJS. Their example was quite simple and made sense. But as soon as I tried to create a complex app, I got stuck.

Working with these frameworks has been quite interesting, because we are trying to somehow capture the state of the app in the URL (e.g. <http://a/#b/c/1/3/2>) so that if that URL was bookmarked and user directly goes there, we want the web app to be able to render all the parent + child views, grab the necessary data (sometimes making sure that the order is correct) and display them as expected.

It's all do-able in either BackboneJS, EmberJS and AngularJS, but this type of apps are complex and I'm not sure if any one of these frameworks make it "magic".

<comment><USER4> I'm going to have to agree with your statement, "Creating a complex web application with Views, Sub Views & Deep-linking is difficult, no matter what framework you use". I tried using emberjs, their docs at the time were all over the place since they were not in-sync with their distributed code-base for learning. I've noticed more people have created good tutorials working with backbonejs and seems the right path moving forward for atleast making something remotely understandable.

<comment><USER5> the documentation has improved rather drastically as of late. the router api is stable going forward, so it's actually a pretty good time to be experimenting with ember (though this was not true about 4 months ago).

Personally, I really like ember. I think most people would have a better experience with ember if:

(1) they avoided learning off of the master branch during the crazy api changes over the last few months

(2) avoided ember data for the time being (or ever, I have my doubts about how viable it is)

(3) they asked questions on stack. the ember core team is actually pretty snappy at answering questions.

but there is still a bit of lingering weirdness with the router that people should look out for, the things that come to mind are:

a) back button errors

b) awkwardness in the serialize/model hooks depending on whether you're navigating through the app, or trying to get to a url in a new browser window

but despite its shortcomings, I've really grown to love the organization that ember gives to my javascript code base, and how it would make my program scale as it grew in size and complexity.

<comment><USER6> When I took a look at emberjs a few months bach ember-data was one of the most appealing parts. What are your concerns regarding viability?

<comment><USER5> read-only attributes comes to mind, but that was four months ago and it seems that it's been pretty much worked out here, <https://github.com/emberjs/data/pull/303.>.

Regardless, I still think it's a bit overkill. You'd be surprised to see how much of the basic ember-data functionality you can achieve just by using Ember.A and Ember.Object.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Manuscript – Project management, issue tracking, and support - <AUTHOR> https://manuscript.com/ <comment><USER2> This was previously submitted here:

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15696713](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15696713)

<comment><USER3> Sorry, the duplicate detector is not so smart and this submission had a different URL. We've merged the threads.

<comment><USER2> No worries!</comment></comment></comment>


Are you experiencing huge downtimes during application deployments? - <AUTHOR> https://www.imaginea.com/zero-downtime-deployment-whitepaper/ <comment><USER2> No.</comment>


Ask HN: Had an idea for a web app to trade favors with strangers. Feedback? - <AUTHOR>

I had an idea this morning and put this landing page together: http://minutefavors.com/
To be more specific, my thoughts at this point on the process are as follows
- A user ("requester") posts a new favor request, something that can be done in 1 or 2 minutes at a computer
- Someone else (the "helper") sees the favor as something he can do and marks it as "spoken for"
- The helper has 5 minutes to complete the favor
- If it gets marked as complete, and the requester user accepts it, the asker gets (karma|points|rewards|something|credits-to-post-favors|something?)
- If it gets rejected or it isn't completed within 5 minutes, then it goes back into the pool of open requests for someone else to fulfill
Possible favors include stuff like:
- Converting a PSD to a PNG, for people without Photoshop
- Testing a small website feature in a version of IE that you may not have
- Combining multiple PDFs together into a single PDF
- Anything else that can be done in a minute or two using only a computer, by a person with the know-how and necessary software
Is there any potential here? I'm having trouble finding a business plan (and I'd be happy doing it as a free for-fun service, but I'd love for it to be a startup if possible) since paid memberships doesn't really make sense in this context (am I wrong?), so do you have any ideas there? <comment><USER2> I think you should consider a business model similar to fiverr.com, but with your unique timer/availability concept. I've gotten decent results from Fiverr (as a buyer), but find it impractical to send work over there needs to be done right away.

<comment><AUTHOR> So basically you're talking about having people pay real money to get requests fulfilled, and receive real money for fulfilling requests? Maybe like $1 per request, and I'd keep 15% of that or something, so the fulfiller gets $0.85?

It's an interesting idea - I'm not sure how willing people would be to pull out their credit card for such small favors, and I'm also not sure about the logistics of charging such small payments, but I'll do some market research and gauge some interest on it.

Thanks a lot for the thoughts!

<comment><USER2> You can always have buyers purchase a bundle of credits and then pay for favors with their credits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You can monetize with this: add the feature that the ones who do the favors also can explain other how they did it, if you want to know how to do it you have pay a very small fee (maybe 10 to 50 cents). I know there are already code review pages outthere, but I would definitely add the feature to review/add code snippets.

You would rather "tax" the user for digital services (a bit like itunes which "taxes" users for digital products). Depending on a lot of stuff this might actually be a very good idea. When you have your fvp send me a mail.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, interesting idea. My initial reaction is that once people had the request fulfilled, they wouldn't usually be willing to pull out their credit card to find out how it was done (no matter how cheap it is), but I'd love to be wrong. You think there'd be some interest in that feature?

Also, what are your thoughts on keeping it simple and just charging $1 (or some other very small amount) per favor, and I take some percentage of that (20% or so), and the person who fulfills it gets the rest? Seems like that might be a good way to get a steady stream of people fulfilling favors since it's a way to make easy money, but again I worry that the "requesters" won't be willing to pay for such small things.

Thanks again.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you that the one who will get the favor done wont be interested in buying the solution. It also depends of course on the favor...(i.e. reviewing code cant be done twice in a row since each problem is going to be different). However, the following people that have the same problem maybe will. Lets say the initial favor costs 1 USD and the solution 50 cent....then you might opt for the solution. Didnt Amazon have a small-task service? You might also check out mightybell.com for some inspiration on that...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You might want to take a look at <http://favo.rs>.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://minutefavors.com/>

</comment><comment><USER5> Pretty much sounds like Zaarly

<comment><AUTHOR> You think? Zaarly seems pretty different to me in that 1) it's not quick favors, it's anything, 2) it's meant to be used only with people in your local area, and 3) you are doing the buying and selling yourself with actual money, rather than the site handling it with karma or credits or whatever.

Basically, Zaarly seems a lot closer to Ebay + Craiglist than my idea. Do you disagree?

<comment><USER6> Zaarly solves the problem you are trying to solve. The other parts are just details.</comment></comment></comment>


ItWillGetCheaper.com - Hackathon product, continue development? - <AUTHOR> http://www.itwillgetcheaper.com

<comment><AUTHOR> I made this with a friend at AngelHack Toronto a few months ago. Is this a service you'd use? Improvements?

</comment><comment><USER2> I would probably use it if it worked for sure with Newegg as well.</comment>


Distributed Systems Theory for the Distributed Systems Engineer - <AUTHOR> http://www.the-paper-trail.org/post/2014-08-09-distributed-systems-theory-for-the-distributed-systems-engineer/ <comment><AUTHOR> Just to add on to the fantastic article: Designing Data‑Intensive Applications is a great book which tries to bridge the gap between distributed systems theory and practice.</comment>


Redundancy does not imply fault tolerance - <AUTHOR> https://blog.acolyer.org/2017/03/08/redundancy-does-not-imply-fault-tolerance-analysis-of-distributed-storage-reactions-to-single-errors-and-corruptions/ <comment><USER2> DNA information in our bodies is constantly being checked, and if necessary, repaired; that way the redundancy provided by the double part of "double helix" does in fact become a very high degree of fault tolerance (and correction.) Maybe it's time to imitate nature, and to decide that constant inspection and repair are part of the storage task. This would mean that nearly all faults were detected and corrected before the information was requested, as with DNA.</comment>


Ask HN: How can I know what's wrong with my interviews? - <AUTHOR> Hi, I'm a product manager and about a year ago I moved to Berlin from my home country, which is not trivial to emigrate from.
Before moving, I worked at one of the biggest public internet companies in the world for a couple of years. Let's call that company "Z". Z has google-like interviewing processes, where software engineers have multiple onsite interviews with a lot of computer science theory questions. Also, very popular next steps in career for Z employees are companies from "big five". This should mean, Z is a nice place to work at.
I was moving to Berlin together with my SO and I didn't have much time interviewing, so I took the very first offer for a senior product manager position from a company with similar product I worked on at Z. I thought, I'd be able to easily change it, if I didn't like it.
Turned out the company was mediocre. Product managers here were just product owners, responsible for prioritizing backlogs without really doing any product work.
The job was boring. After a year of trying to change things here and take more responsibility, I gave up and decided to move forward.
I started applying for a job in companies, which looked like companies of the same level as Z or at least close enough. Within the last few months I applied to about ten of them. Most of the companies invited me to an interview, but then rejected me after it.
As a person, who takes interviewing seriously, I always prepare a lot, trying to learn about the company as much as I can. I try find out their strategy, their competitors and possible ways of improving their product. This is very exhausting and I'm already tired of interviewing.
Now I feel like I'm stuck in the current company and my self-esteem has never been any lower.
The main problems are that I have no idea why those companies reject me, I don't have any feedback on my mistakes and I don't know how can I improve to finally get hired.
Is there anything I can do in this situation? <comment><USER2> I think researching the companies where you're interviewing is a good idea. Going into an interview with a list of ways to improve the product might not be because:

1\. In most cases the detailed knowledge of the product and the customer base and the logistics and the costs are not available and an interviewee simply cannot have expertise.

2\. In those cases where the product really is so bad that an interviewee could come up with feasible well structured changes, it's not unlikely that those changes will come across as "you people don't know what you are doing".

3\. In cases where the people know what they are doing, an interviewee pushing changes can still come across as in item 2.

4\. While every company isn't a 'We are all A players' type company, few companies want to hire someone whose world view is my coworkers are all mediocre and my current employer sucks...because that attitude tends to be portable across employers.

So my random internet advice is that next interview, mostly listen and let people talk about themselves and the company and to not offer unsolicited advice and to not slide into the role of 'the expert in the room.' Go into the interview and learn.

As a last thought, ten applications is not very many. It may simply be a case where the statistics are stacked against you.

Good luck.</comment>


A Camera 10 Microns Thick that Creates Images with Math - <AUTHOR> http://www.petapixel.com/2011/07/08/scientists-develop-a-camera-10-microns-thick-that-creates-images-with-math/

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a litte more information in this submission: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2745270>

The lunk to paper in this one seems no longer to exist, and it's very derivative, so go read that one instead.</comment>


With ~$2M, where should I move to have impact and relax in life? - <AUTHOR> I can liquidate for around $2M. Where can I move to in the world that will allow me to participate greatly in local business and community while also living a luxurious, relaxed life? <comment><USER2> Other people won't share your preferences, so rather than an arbitrary list of cities, here's a process for finding your own.

First, given your goal of "[participating] greatly in local business and community," use language as a first filter. This question will either eliminate or open up most of the world: "Am I willing to spend 3-6 intensive years to learn a new language (and not be very effective during that time)?"

Near-native fluency isn't required to live somewhere, but it is basically required to make an impact there outside of any expat bubble.

Second, from that scope, pick any 3 cites that meet your cost of living requirement and live in each for a month. Airbnb makes this relatively easy. Aim for significant differences - continent if possible, city size, culture, weather, similarity to your situation now, etc - between the 3. The specific 3 cities matter less than ensuring you experience a month in maximally different situations.

Use what you like and don't like at those places to decide where to live/test next. After living briefly in 1-3 more places, you'll either have a strong, informed opinion about what you like (and probably a favorite place), or an unexpected result, like that you actually enjoy moving around, or aren't happy anywhere, or don't want to leave where you are.

(Source: I did something like this, though not with the goal of relaxing)

</comment><comment><USER3> To reach financial independence you need 25x your annual spending. Then you invest it to earn over 7% and have a SWR (safe withdrawal rate) of 4%. The extra 3% should cover inflation. So you can enjoy the same lifestyle 'forever'. So if you can live on 80K yr (6.6K/mo) you are all set on the luxury part.

Put the money 90% in VOO and 10% in BND (like Warren Buffett tells his heirs). Or get fancier as you learn how to invest.

More (read the sidebar on right): [https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/)

'participate greatly in local business' Your time and energy are probably the best thing you can give.

<comment><USER4> [https://www.reddit.com/r/leanfire/](https://www.reddit.com/r/leanfire/) is another good subreddit for early retirees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some spot in the south of Spain, where there's so much to choose. Málaga and surroundings for international community (avoid Marbella if you don't want to burn your money in 2 days), but Cádiz and Granada are probably awesome too. Almeria has some very nice spots (Cabo de Gata) and Sevilla is worth visiting often.

Bonuses:

\- North Africa round the corner. Actually there are two Spanish cities in North Africa, so you don't even need another visa to step on the continent.

\- You also have Huelva and the Portuguese Algarve somewhat close.

\- Very cheap flights to anywhere in Europe (my last Málaga - London Luton was £24) and easy to jump to Madrid or Barcelona for long haul.

</comment><comment><USER6> You might find the Financial Independence subreddit[1] useful. Here are some threads that might be of interest:

ER Cities in the U.S. - [https://redd.it/3cjtth](https://redd.it/3cjtth)

The Reality of Expatriating for a Lower Cost of Living - [https://redd.it/5w4p92](https://redd.it/5w4p92)

Where do you plan on retiring early? - [https://redd.it/5kj438](https://redd.it/5kj438)

[1] - [https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/](https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Are you sure luxurious and relaxed is what you want for the rest of your life?

It could be a path to mediocrity.

<comment><USER8> What's wrong with mediocrity? Once you "won" (have FU money), the rat race terms are no longer relevant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Vermont. Depends on your idea of luxury and taking "in the world" to not mean exclusively outside of the US. I think it definitely fits the rest of your criteria though.

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't mean to hijack the thread but would you mind sharing how you got to where you are?

</comment><comment><USER11> Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Croatia, Crna Gora, Serbia, Canary Islands, ...

<comment><USER12> Which one is the safest ?

<comment><USER13> I've spent a couple of years in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia. All of those countries are incredibly safe. The worst that ever happened was a couple of taxi drivers trying to charge me double what a local person would pay. I'd rank Montenegro and Serbia a little below the others, but don't get the wrong impression, they're still very safe.

Croatia is one of the safest places I've ever lived. I think I'd rank it higher than Canada. I hitchhiked in Slovenia and all three times I was picked up by women (I'm male), once by a mother and her daughter, once by two friends, and once by a mother and her son. How many places in the world do women trust picking up random male hitchhikers? That gives you an idea how safe these places are to live.

<comment><USER8> Poland is similar, the matter of safety when choosing where to live is not a concern for people here - it's just very safe everywhere. The worst that can realistically happen is some non-physical harrasement by drunks at night.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I want to move to a distant island in Alaska.

</comment><comment><USER15> Norway

<comment><USER16> High taxes, high cost of living. I don't think this is the right call.</comment></comment>


UDP remote code execution in Linux <4.5 - <AUTHOR> https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2016-10229 <comment><USER2> Dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14105718](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14105718)

</comment><comment><USER3> Fantastic, this is what I wanted to be doing with the rest of my day.

EDIT: [https://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu- security/cve/2016/CVE-2...](https://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu- security/cve/2016/CVE-2016-10229.html)

Looks like Ubuntu already patched it for all supported versions so I'm good since I'm patched up to date on everything.

I wonder how much stuff out there isn't though.

</comment><comment><USER4> Does it mean that virtually all (old) DNS servers could be potentially hacked now? If I don't run anything UDP based, am I safe?

</comment><comment><USER5> Clearly it's a go-back-to-bed kind of day.</comment>


First Look: OpenMoko's Linux-based open smartphone platform - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/open-moko-software.ars <comment><USER2> Not sure about the GUI... The browser looks terrible ([http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/open-moko- software.media/o...](http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/open-moko- software.media/om2browse.png)) with it's two scrollers.

<comment><USER3> What else did you expect? I'm not sure about you, but I have no faith in open source GUIs. "A camel is a horse designed by a committee" comes to mind.

<comment><USER4> Take a look on Nokia's smart-phones based on Symbian, their GUI is just horrible, it's proprietary and yet it is most popular smart-phone platform in the world. One must be very talanted to design usable GUI nowadays, especially for mobile devices, and it does not matter open sourced it or not.</comment></comment></comment>


Our favorite "forgotten tech" - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/08/our-favorite-forgotten-tech-from-beos-to-zip-drives/ <comment><USER2> Oh man. I went through like four MiniDisc portables and had that awful Sharp MD component that could dupe a CD to MD at 4x. I can't tell you how many hours I spent spinning a dial to choose alphabetic characters so all the tracks would be properly titled. My dream for years was to get an in-dash MD receiver. I wonder how much longer I would have used them if I had actually managed to do that. They were just so cool. A terrible waste of space and technology, but really damn cool. I actually thought about getting another one last year, just for nostalgia, but wound up not--even though they can be had for like $20-40 on eBay.

Around the same time I was trying to run BeOS as my desktop. I would have liked to have developed for it, but at the time I was just barely grasping Python and C++ with threading really wasn't within reach for me. I'm happy Haiku has been getting press and may try to run it in a VM (haven't had much luck with that in the past) but there was something really liberating about running an OS on the metal that booted in ten seconds. Everything was so snappy. Of course, you couldn't do much with it, but what you could do, you could do really well. :)

<comment><USER3> I knew a DJ who had a MD dash unit in his car. It seemed like the coolest thing ever.

I had a MiniDisc component unit and a portable or two, one of which was the one pictured in the article. I dumped the component quite some time ago. I can't bring myself to throw the portable away -- I've got tons of archives of my old college radio show on MiniDisc in a closet.

That particular portable depicted in the article was one of the last MD portables at all before Sony decided to pack it in; I think it came out in 2002. It had a USB input, and you could use your PC to push music onto a disk. It suffered from the classic Sony problem that they own a record label and they also make stuff that can copy music, so they made using it a complete pain in the ass in some misguided effort to protect their own interests.

You had to use the bundled NetMD software, which would transcode MP3s to the proprietary ATRAC compression format. Then you had to "check out" the songs to the device, in which case they could not be put on any other device until they were checked back in. It encrypted the stuff as it sent it down, and you could not get any digital audio back off the device -- USB was only one-way and it had optical SP/DIF in but not out.

<comment><USER4> I bought a MD device for sermon recording under the misguided notion that it was a digital device that connected via USB and that live recordings would thus be simply drag-dropped from the device. It cost me many hours in real- time playback of recordings in to my computer. But for that one missing link I'd still use the device now. At the time I should have purchased a slightly more expensive MP3 device.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> T-hawk [http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-T-CL13-TrackMan-Marble- Wheel/...](http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-T-CL13-TrackMan-Marble- Wheel/dp/B00004L8IG/)

Trackballs. Back around 1996, optical trackballs came onto the market, a few years ahead of optical mice. Using an optical trackball was a smooth dream compared to the clunky hair-clogged mechanical rollers of mice. And the unfamiliar device was a great deterrent for college mates trying to grab and use my machine, heh.

Trackballs still exist, but are about as unsexy as any piece of computer technology these days. Logitech and Microsoft haven't made any significant updates in years. Trackballs are seen mostly as lame mouse alternatives for RSI sufferers or some such. And a laser mouse is faster than a trackball for desktop usage, but for lying down on the couch with a laptop, there's no pointing device that can match a good thumb trackball.

On another topic, the article mentions the NES and its odd cartridge slot. Do folks here know why that came to be? The design was to make the NES look less like the older Atari and Intellivision systems (which had just endured a famous industrywide crash) and more like the form factor of the nascent and successful VCR.

Finally, in the software category: DesQView. I spent many hours running DesQView for DOS multitasking, with a BBS download going in one window, an offline mail program in another, and a MOD music player in a third.

<comment><USER5> I wish they would remake this. I've been forced to use their wireless model [http://www.logitech.com/en-us/mice- pointers/trackballs/wirel...](http://www.logitech.com/en-us/mice- pointers/trackballs/wireless-trackball-m570) , which isn't bad, but is a little small.

Trackballs are especially useful in a cramped desk space situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How is the TI-83 forgotten technology? Go to any college or high school classroom and you'll find plenty of them, albeit the 84 and 89 are becoming more common.

<comment><USER7> I have no clue why they consider that forgotten. Particularly, in a world where the HP-16C is no longer sold.

<comment><USER8> I understand everyone's HP-10 series nostalgia, but to replace the TI-83 on that list would have to be the HP-48 series. Full graphing and programming capabilities, released 3 years before the TI-83, and of course using the all- but-forgotten RPN.

<comment><USER9> I always wanted an HP-48 in place of my TI-83.... so much so that I ran an HP-48 emulator under Linux. If I was working from a campus lab, I would VNC into my own machine just to run the emulator.

<comment><USER10> There's a great HP-48 emulator for Android in the play store (and some great TI-8x emulators too).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My favorite forgotten tech is the Garmin iQue, which is a PalmOS-based handheld GPS unit. Because of its color screen, its battery life wasn't great, so it wasn't suitable for backcountry use, but as a dash-mounted GPS is was great. While other GPS units at the time required you to navigate through confusing menus to enter an address or find a point of interest, the iQue allowed me to use Grafitti handwriting recognition, which was a lot faster.

<http://www8.garmin.com/products/iQue3600/>

</comment><comment><USER12> Floppy disks, of the 3.5" variety, were way more useful than Zip disks to me. You could get huge packs of them for cheap and distribute your files with zip or rar, and every computer had the drive. With Zip you'd have to lug around your dad's lone drive with parallel port cable to use it on general computers and wait a year to copy your files. Sure I could carry around Zipslack in my pocket, but where could you boot it?!

Developing on floppy disks also taught me about embedded applications and operating systems. I built some weird stuff. Floppy routers, floppy X11 net terminals, memory-resident openMosix clusters, voice-activated car entertainment and navigation systems, rescue disks, minimal network packet filters, system management daemons, even CGI applications in C (which turns out to be a horrible idea).

<comment><USER13> Speaking of floppies, in junior high, one of my buddies ran a BBS system off a pair of 8" floppies. Yeah, 8". I don't know where the hell he got them, because 5.25" floppies were the standard at the time.

Once we went to high school, he had upgraded to a 10MB Cider HD, which at that time cost like $1K.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This reads like my life 10 years ago. Running BeOS with a zip drive sneaker net. Apple had the hot swappable bays much earlier than 2000, I remember using them as early as '98; compaq had the feature as well (floppy drive or LS120).

The one thing in that list that I'm sad to have missed was minidisc. It still sets off my nastolgia meter.

What about dial-up modems, IRQ settings, and serial ports?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think anyone misses IRQ settings :)

<comment><USER15> NOW I don't, but while setting IRQs was annoying, some of the weird stuff that sometimes happened in the earlier days of plug-and-play was worse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The Vadem Clio was brilliant! Glad to see it getting some love here.

</comment><comment><USER17> > Alas, WASTE never caught on, in large part because it was disavowed by AOL > shortly after it acquired WASTE developer Nullsoft.

Does the author imply that Nullsoft was acquired after WASTE's release ? Because I am almost certain Nullsoft was already a part of AOL at that time (and that the waste source code was online for a very short time before being pulled of).

Confirmed by wikipedia: Nullsoft was acquired in 1999 and WASTE released in 2003 (Justin Frankel left Nullsoft/AOL that same year).

</comment><comment><USER18> lets not forget the palm. combined with intellisync it was truly the best thing on earth.

<comment><USER16> Along with a Stowaway folding keyboard:

<http://danbricklin.com/log/stowaway.htm>

People used to be amazed when I showed them how much real work you could get done with a Handspring Visor and a Stowaway keyboard. It kind of amazes me that today we have portable devices that are a thousand times more powerful than the old PalmOS devices, but only feel really useful for consuming media, not creating it. Shows you the importance of input devices in the creative process, I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> My Favourite forgotten technology is the dialup BBS. It's like facebook, if it wasn't designed by your accountant.

There were dozens in any medium sized city, all with different flavours. They hosted ANSI art, message boards, walls(!) and online games. Exactly like Facebook, but 20 years earlier.

They disappeared in the late 90's as the internet became popular.

</comment><comment><USER20> MO disks caught on and remained popular in Japan for decades. Their popularity has only started to wane recently.

</comment><comment><USER21> Can't say I miss zip disks that much.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_of_death>

</comment><comment><USER22> Full title is 'Our favorite "forgotten tech"—from BeOS to Zip Drives', much more descriptive than what sp332 submitted.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was trying to start a discussion here on HN about our favorite forgotten tech. The examples in the article were just to get the conversation going.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Abot Anonymous Messaging for Slack is now free for educational purposes - <AUTHOR> https://abot.app/ <comment><AUTHOR> A few university teachers are already using the app to facilitate and encourage asking of the "stupid" questions during remote learning. I've decided to make the app totally free for educational purposes. Just reach out to get permanent free access.</comment>


Show HN: Two HN tabs I found together, that concern me - <AUTHOR> I was reading Chappe and Chaudhary's essay The Supermanagerial Class, by way of a comment (2) and kept getting confused about which article I was reading, because the next tab over was Tetzeli's A Short History Of The Most Important Economic Theory In Tech (3).<p>It's a little disturbing when you're reading about Nazi Germany and realizing the economic model there sounds a lot like the top post on Hacker News about an economic model for Silicon Valley.<p>(1) https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-supermanagerial-reich/ (2) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12948142 (3) https://www.fastcompany.com/3064681/most-creative-people/most-important-economic-theory-in-technology-brian-arthur <comment><USER2> You definitely don't want to read any decent history books like _The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich_ at the moment if you want to sleep well. I would particularly avoid focusing my attentions on the fiscal and legal history of the Weimar Republic, whose constitution nominally obtained until 1945 though it had been a dead letter for 12 years by then.</comment>


Ask HN: Best Lego Mindstorms alternative for fun programming projects? - crypto-jeronimo What are the best Best LEGO Mindstorms alternatives out there? No upper age limit. <comment><USER2> I wrote these resources you might like.

[https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/?interests[]=ro...](https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/?interests\[\]=robotics)

There's even an Ali Express shopping list for you. You can probably build a buggy for about _$20.

Resources are also on GitHub and issues and pull requests are always appreciated.

[https://github.com/raspberrypilearning/build-a- buggy](https://github.com/raspberrypilearning/build-a-buggy)

Disclosure - I work for the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

_(Edit - $20 not including the price of a Pi)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd recommend you look into the Raspberry Pi, Arduino, or micro:bit - <AUTHOR> offer a great introduction to physical computing with huge libraries of online content to dive into.

[https://www.raspberrypi.org/](https://www.raspberrypi.org/) <\-- Basically a pocket sized computer which can run a full Linux stack and exposes a heap of useful IO options.

[https://www.arduino.cc/](https://www.arduino.cc/) <\-- More akin to embedded systems - traditionally very low powered micro-controllers programmed in C.

[https://microbit.org/](https://microbit.org/) <\-- Designed specifically for education and provides a number of high level abstractions for development including visual programming languages and MicroPython.

As well as these there is a huge range of other options targeting different niches such as Javascript, Internet of Things, ultra low-power systems, etc.

It really depends what you're interested in getting into. All of the platforms have starter kits, add-ons, and tutorials to get you going. Feel free to message me (e-mail in profile) if you want to discuss further!

[https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/raspberry- pi](https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/raspberry-pi)

[https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/arduino- microcontrolle...](https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/arduino- microcontrollers)

[https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/micro-bit- uk](https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/micro-bit-uk)

(Disclaimer - co-founder of Pimoroni)

<comment><USER4> Calliope mini plays also in this category: [https://calliope.cc/en](https://calliope.cc/en)

<comment><USER3> Yes! Calliope is a spin on the micro:bit that has been developed in Germany. They are a great team too!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Depending on the users experience, a 3D printer and Arduino or a Raspberry pi plus some servos, lights, and other motors may be all you need.

I recommend a quality printer like the Prusa i3 MK3: [https://shop.prusa3d.com/en/3d-printers/180-original- prusa-i...](https://shop.prusa3d.com/en/3d-printers/180-original- prusa-i3-mk3-kit.html)

You can build things like this with it: [https://youtu.be/f5JPLIyKOfE](https://youtu.be/f5JPLIyKOfE)

<comment> crypto-jeronimo Thanks for your response! This is absolutely wonderful! Could you provide some further links to example projects (eg, interesting open-source designs and/or source code)?

<comment><USER5> Hey thanks!

I've been pushing hard on new developments and need to spend more time documenting my projects. But I have some info on another robot here: [https://hackaday.io/project/158458-rover-v2-four-wheel- drive...](https://hackaday.io/project/158458-rover-v2-four-wheel-drive- robot#menu-description)

There's lots of cool robots on hackaday: [https://hackaday.io/list/158174-thp-2018-semifinalists- open-...](https://hackaday.io/list/158174-thp-2018-semifinalists-open- hardware-design)

I also recommend browsing [http://reddit.com/r/3dprinting](http://reddit.com/r/3dprinting) as there is a lot posted there. And check out [http://reddit.com/r/RobotBuilding](http://reddit.com/r/RobotBuilding)

I also run a website to discuss projects that have a social impact. That's at [http://reboot.love](http://reboot.love)

There's a lot of good stuff online!

<comment> crypto-jeronimo I have to admit I wasn't aware of any of these fascinating and useful resources. Thanks a million once again!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm a fan of the BBC micro:bit. The basic board is very inexpensive but comes with a lot of possibility already soldered in. You can choose among several well-supported programming languages, from Scratch on up to C++, so it can grow with you for quite a while.

There's not really an official robotics kit that I know of, but there are several 3rd-party options on the market.

<comment><USER7> (full disclosure - I work for micro:bit)

If you're looking _specifically_ at Lego, then the sbrick-plus [https://www.sbrick.com/](https://www.sbrick.com/) can talk directly to a BBC micro:bit [https://github.com/vengit/pxt- sbrick](https://github.com/vengit/pxt-sbrick) so you can use the micro:bit and Lego together. There are also a huge range of micro:bit accessories from third parties that do robotics, sensing, lights, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How about... Mindstorms? What constraint makes you seek out an alternative?

<comment><USER9> It is obscenely overpriced.

<comment><USER10> I used to think so too, but you get a lot of value for the price, especially when you consider the variety of projects you can build, the relatively beginner-friendly programming toolset, and the number of videos, books, and other supporting resources available.

<comment><USER6> Overpriced is maybe a strong word (I get that Legos are expensive because they're a higher build quality than other interlocking blocks), but Mindstorms is a very expensive option, all the same. At that price point, even though I could afford a set, I don't really consider it an option for trying to get a kid interested in programming or robotics, because I'd feel pretty chapped about hundreds of dollars down the drain if they didn't end up taking to it.

<comment><USER11> FWIW, I had the first generation Mindstorms and I definitely consider it the most important factor in getting me interested in engineering and software.

Resale on LEGO is good, so if it works out and gets the kids interested, it's a small price to pay to introduce them to logic and mechanical concepts (make sure you don't lose any pieces). If it doesn't work out, sell them and take a small hit - it's really a win-win in my book.

<comment><USER12> I had basically the same experience.

It would be really hard to beat the LEGO Mindstorms experience for ease-of-use and learning through experimentation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I got a Cozmo ... has vision and a Python API, which seems like a good idea. Haven't had a chance to really use it. It was also a bit expensive.

I have made my own robots in the past. Frankly, my flakey hw killed my sw enthusiasm. That's why, I am happy to pay a bit for functioning robot hw.

Next, I want to get into robot arms. Something with the DoF of a kuka arm but doesn't need to perform as well and on a low budget. My current prospect is the Dobot Magician but I am still on the fence.

</comment><comment><USER14> If hardware isn't a requirement, I'd point you at processing.org and the various related projects (openprocessing.org for a javascript front end.). It hits that logo sweet spot for me when introducing kids to actual programming. Then, add a pen plotter to the mix for that "look what I made" kick.

</comment><comment><USER15> Surely [https://littlebits.com/](https://littlebits.com/) It's a fantastic educational tool

</comment><comment><USER16> We got our eldest child a SparkFun Inventor's Kit last year. He seemed to find it fun to play around with. One of the projects is a robot.

[https://www.sparkfun.com/products/14265](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/14265)

</comment><comment><USER17> I haven't picked one up (yet), but the Edison[1] looks like a pretty decent Lego-compatible platform.

1: [https://meetedison.com/](https://meetedison.com/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Depends on how many prebuild (proprietary and expensive) components you want. I think the absolute best platform for robotics is Arduino. Pretty much anything you can think of has been done, and there's likely a step by step tutorial out there somewhere with component lists. Arduino UNO clones can be had for as little as $3-$4. And the components like LEDs, motors, servos, etc can be had for a tiny fraction of what a lot of the proprietary systems cost.

The downside comes when you want to do things like attach a motor to a lead screw, or attach something to a servo. You'll probably end up needing a drill press or an improvised lathe. But, I think compared to the cost of the proprietary systems, you can still come out ahead. And you don't have to worry about breaking something or dedicating a motor or controller to a project because they can be replaced cheaply.

</comment><comment><USER19> Plywood, jigsaw, pololu, some servos and your regular computer or laptop or a rasberry pi. Add sensors to taste, stir.

<comment><USER20> And don't forget regular cardboard. One can do surprisingly much with that.

</comment></comment><comment> 52-6F-62 I'm not sure if this is very helpful, but I know here in Toronto you can use 3D printers and borrow Arduinos and other parts for free from certain locations of the Toronto Public Library (or virtually free? Haven't done it yet).

Maybe something like that exists where you are and you can create your own? There are a lot of projects online with schematics and even step by step instructions. Not an exact alternative or anything, but might fulfill similar requirements in learning.

<comment><USER21> Arduino and 3D printers to make Lego Mindstorms/Technic-compatible parts is what I do. (I call my parts "Bitbeam".)

I used to use Lego to prototype the robots and machines I make. Now I design my own "Lego" with OpenSCAD and program the bots with AVR microcontrollers. Have been doing this for 7-ish years. However, Lego Mindstorms is still a great (although expensive) system for learning.

<comment><USER22> Can consumer 3D printers pull off decent lego compatible parts? I'm fascinated by the idea of 3D printers, but I don't really have a good use-case to justify getting one. (And I've been waiting for them to come down in price.)

I ended up getting my five year old the Lego "Boost" set - I wanted some motors &c that were accessible to him. He's had fun putting together the projects, and playing with the scratch programming.

It is tied to their app, but I see that someone has python libraries to talk to it, so I have options if the app goes away.

<comment><USER21> Nothing can truly match Lego's perfectly tuned injection molding process, however 3D printing can be good enough for many things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Not sure if its an alternative, but Lego Boost is awesome and not well known yet. [https://shop.lego.com/en-US/LEGO-Boost](https://shop.lego.com/en- US/LEGO-Boost). I'm not sure if its supposed to replace Mindstorms or is an alternative track for ipad driven robots.

</comment><comment><USER24> I have found the Makeblock mBots both at a reasonable price and a lot of fun. Not quite as versatile as Lego but in the same ballpark.

[https://www.makeblock.com/steam-kits/mbot](https://www.makeblock.com/steam- kits/mbot)

<comment><USER25> I've gotten (and extended) the ranger kit this summer: [https://www.makeblock.com/steam-kits/mbot- ranger](https://www.makeblock.com/steam-kits/mbot-ranger)

I've been generally happy with the price and hardware, but I've grown to really hate Arduino. Makeblock publishes a bunch of code, but it's highly redundant and poorly organized, and I find myself constantly using the slightly wrong version of different pieces of code. But IF I ever figure this stuff out, I'm slightly hopeful about controlling the Makeblock hardware from RaspberryPi.

The basic approach is to have the RPI connected to the Arduino board via a serial connection (this has also difficult to setup, but sometimes I can do serial over the USB), and then there's just a very simple protocol that runs. Once this is actually working properly, there's a fairly small Python library to do the talking, and you get the benefit of the RPI environment (logins, wifi, camera access, etc), but with the hardware of the Makeblock unit (on- board sensors, no direct GPIO handling or contention, and pluggable sensors and motors). But getting there... ugh, it's been really challenging and I only got hints of it really working so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> [http://www.finchrobot.com/](http://www.finchrobot.com/) is a fun little programmable bot for kids.

</comment><comment><USER27> If you are happy with Arduino or MicroPython, the M5Stack [1] blocks and ecosystem are pretty nice (and Lego-compatible). It is basically an ESP32 microcontroller with a display, speaker, sensors, and connectors in a 5x5x2 cm case. Documentation and build quality are not yet perfect but good enough for most applications.

[1] [http://www.m5stack.com/](http://www.m5stack.com/)

</comment><comment><USER28> We're playing with a Raspberry Pi 3 b+ together with the CamJam EduKit 3 – Robotics: [https://camjam.me/?page_id=1035](https://camjam.me/?page_id=1035)

Bought a small bluetooth speaker so our robot can make some noise, possibly with Sonic Pi as the sound engine: [http://sonic-pi.net](http://sonic-pi.net)

</comment><comment><USER29> 1) Buy a Raspberry Pi and an Arduino 2) Pick a project: telepresence robot, autonomous robot, sous vide machine, thermal camera trigger, etc. 3) Buy minimal pieces for that project: AdaFruit, SparkFun, or various OEM pieces from Amazon, Ali Express, etc. (higher cost = more documentation and fewer lemons) 4) Goto 2)

</comment><comment><USER30> A good alternative for FUN programming projects would be [http://www.meccano.com/meccanoid- programming](http://www.meccano.com/meccanoid-programming) It is drag and drop. It may be not as good as raspberry pi or arduino but it is at least easier

<comment><USER31> In fact I worked with this before. Its simple but enough to learn alot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Jimu is very nicely done. Only product I know of in this segment that ships with servo motors

[https://ubtrobot.com/collections/jimu- robots](https://ubtrobot.com/collections/jimu-robots)

</comment><comment> DC-3 Potentially look into VEX? It's not cheap, but it's good fun.

<comment><USER33> VEX has announced a new micro and accompanying electronics - which should hopefully mean that their current Cortex system will become cheaper secondhand. Lots of benefits to the new micro but for hobby use their Cortex is sufficient.

Also a lot of good programming options available with this system - the same ROBOTC for C-like programming/graphical as is used with LEGO Mindstorms, but also Python ([https://www.robotmesh.com/studio- editions](https://www.robotmesh.com/studio-editions)) and actual C ([https://pros.cs.purdue.edu/](https://pros.cs.purdue.edu/))

<comment><USER13> Last I looked at Vex, I seem to recall being surprised that the software was not free. Was a non-starter for me as a hobbyist.

<comment><USER33> The RobotMesh python software listed above is free for individual use, and the PROS C/C++ option is completely free and open-source.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> microblocks.fun is still in Alpha, but check it out nevertheless! It works on lots of 32 bit microcontrollers.

It's been tested on the micro:bit, circuit playground express, calliope and several Arduinos.

</comment><comment><USER35> If you are looking to explore programming, there is a great python library for interacting with the LEGO Mindstorm.

Possibly a stepping stone into more programming intensive projects.

</comment><comment><USER36> One of the coolest ways to learn programming I've ever seen is the Snap! visual programming language, which is written in JavaScript and runs in the browser.

[https://snap.berkeley.edu](https://snap.berkeley.edu)

It's the culmination of years of work by Brian Harvey and Jens Mönig and other Smalltalk and education experts. It benefits from their experience and expert understanding about constructionist education, Smalltalk, Scratch, E-Toys, Lisp, Logo, Star Logo, and many other excellent systems.

Snap! takes the best ideas, then freshly and coherently synthesizes them into a visual programming language that kids can use, but is also satisfying to professional programmers, with all the power of Scheme (lexical closures, special forms, macros, continuations, user defined functions and control structures), but deeply integrating and leveraging the web browser and the internet (JavaScript primitives, everything is a first class object, dynamically loaded extensions, etc).

Y Combinator demo:

[https://i.imgur.com/cOq8tvR.png](https://i.imgur.com/cOq8tvR.png)

[https://snap.berkeley.edu/snapsource/snap.html#present:Usern...](https://snap.berkeley.edu/snapsource/snap.html#present:Username=jens&ProjectName=y%20combinator)

Here's an excellent mind-blowing example by Ken Kahn of what's possible: teaching kids AI programming by integrating Snap! with existing JavaScript libraries and cloud services like AI, machine learning, speech synthesis and recognition, Arduino programming, etc:

AI extensions of Snap! for the eCraft2Learn project

[https://ecraft2learn.github.io/ai/](https://ecraft2learn.github.io/ai/)

>The eCraft2Learn project is developing a set of extensions to the Snap! programming language to enable children (and non-expert programmers) to build AI programs. You can use all the AI blocks after importing this file into Snap! or Snap4Arduino. Or you can see examples of using these blocks inside this Snap! project.

[https://github.com/ecraft2learn/ai](https://github.com/ecraft2learn/ai)

[http://lntrg.education.ox.ac.uk/presentation-of-ai-cloud- ser...](http://lntrg.education.ox.ac.uk/presentation-of-ai-cloud-services- integrated-with-snap-at-the-connective-ubiquitous-technology-for-embodiments- center-of-the-national-university-of-singapore-and-keio-university- on-16-march-2017-by-k/)

Use devices with Snap!:

Orbotix Sphero guide by Connor Hudson and Dan Garcia:

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/11wR53OTnofRtTtxZCmxnCUjI...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/11wR53OTnofRtTtxZCmxnCUjIlFQjnGewM21A0vmjtFw/edit?usp=sharing)

Lego NXT package by Connor Hudson:

[https://github.com/technoboy10/snap-nxt](https://github.com/technoboy10/snap- nxt)

Nintendo Wiimote package by Connor Hudson:

[https://github.com/technoboy10/wiisnap](https://github.com/technoboy10/wiisnap)

Finch and Hummingbird robots package by Tom Lauwers:

[https://www.hummingbirdkit.com/learning/snap- programming/](https://www.hummingbirdkit.com/learning/snap-programming/)

Parallax S2 robot package by Connor Hudson:

[https://github.com/blockext/s2](https://github.com/blockext/s2)

LEAP Motion by Connor Hudson:

[https://github.com/technoboy10/snapmotion](https://github.com/technoboy10/snapmotion)

Speech synthesis by Connor Hudson:

[https://github.com/technoboy10/snap2speech](https://github.com/technoboy10/snap2speech)

Arduino package by Alan Yorinks:

[https://github.com/MrYsLab/s2a_fm](https://github.com/MrYsLab/s2a_fm)

Arduino package by Bernat Romagosa/Citilab:

[http://snap4arduino.rocks/](http://snap4arduino.rocks/)

Fischertechnik ROBOTICS TXT Controller by Richard Kunze:

[https://github.com/rkunze/ft-robo-snap](https://github.com/rkunze/ft-robo- snap)

Snap! for Raspberry Pi by rasplay.org:

[http://downloads.rasplay.org/pisnap/](http://downloads.rasplay.org/pisnap/)

More Snap! extensions for CS education:

snap-apps.org provides Edgy for graphs, Cellular for multi-agent simulation, and more.

[http://snap-apps.org/](http://snap-apps.org/)

[http://www.snap-apps.org/edgy.html](http://www.snap-apps.org/edgy.html)

[http://www.flipt.org/#cellular](http://www.flipt.org/#cellular)

Netsblox for multiplayer networking.

[https://netsblox.org/](https://netsblox.org/)</comment>


Uber Office Had Separate Bathrooms for Drivers and 'Employees' - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjwwqw/uber-office-had-separate-bathrooms-for-drivers-and-employees <comment><USER2> Uber's PR department's "This was a mistake and we regret it." can't hide that this is a reflection of Uber's internal culture and approach to their drivers. Removing the signs does nothing to change that.</comment>


[Programming Language] Syntax Guide - <AUTHOR> http://www.kennethfriedman.org/thoughts/2015/programming-language-syntax-guides

<comment><AUTHOR> An idea for a uniform syntax guides, for when you're learning your n-th programming language and don't want to go through an entire tutorial. Would love to hear your thoughts!</comment>


Abuses Hide in the Silence of Nondisparagement Agreements - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/technology/silicon-valley-sexual-harassment-non-disparagement-agreements.html <comment><USER2> In the medium term, it seems like there needs to be a federal mandatory public policy exemption to nondisparagement, rendering the agreements unenforceable in cases like these and sanctioning illegitimate attempts to enforce.

In the short term, it would be good if people could organize legal aid for people in our field working under nondisparagement clauses. Some of these clauses may be _prima facie_ difficult to enforce due to language; others may leave room to report companies to legal authorities.

Finally, and I'm a broken record on this: if a significant fraction of engineers at any company organized themselves and demanded reasonable limitations on their nondisparagement clauses, for instance to protect whistleblowing, _they would get it_. What's a significant fraction? At many companies, it's probably less than 20%.

I hope a lot of tech industry employees are, as we speak, talking with their friendly peers at their companies and starting to think about how to reach out to labor lawyers to start this process. It's not that hard, and, for the time being, federal law protects you extensively in the process of organizing your workplace.

<comment><USER3> There might be unintended consequences to rendering these agreements unenforceable. Over the course of my career, I've seen plenty of cases where employees have been part of a layoff and I've had it happen to me a couple of times as well. In almost all of these situations, employees have been asked to sign one of these non-disparagement agreements. Rarely, if ever, has anyone intended to disparage the company. But in any contract, both sides are supposed to receive consideration, and the agreement is what the company wanted for piece of mind. What the employee got was money, often quite a bit of it. If these agreements are ruled unenforceable, I'd expect companies to dial back the amount of severance they offer since there's little other consideration they could ask from departing employees. For those of us that have little interest in engaging in a public war of words with a former employer (regardless of the company's behavior, it's rare that doing so will do anything other than hurt an employee's future job prospects), unenforceable non-disparagement agreements would only cost us money.

Where I think it would be reasonable to make changes is to carve out exceptions to these agreements that are always allowed. Sexual harassment, for example, shouldn't get to hide behind a signature that was made to receive severance. Likewise, it should always be allowed to report a crime to police, even if it means accusing a former employer. Making these carve-outs explicit might make these agreements more reasonable without limiting their attractiveness to companies offering severance.

<comment><USER4> you of course where paid for the "non-disparagement" aka compromise agreements ?

Otherwise id be thinking well if they want me to sign this they must have done something wrong in the redundancy process

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As someone who has regrettably had to use one of these, I can say I'm happy they exist. They are certainly abused so we had a policy of only using them as part of a legal settlement.

We had someone who became mentally unstable on staff and they mounted a full on campaign against the company online whilst still employed. This included impersonating executives, other employees and key customers on social media and other things meant to damage our image. They got a sum ~30% of their annual salary and we got a non disparagement agreement. They were let go as part of that. 1 month later they were at it again and we were able to get our money back. Right before it bankrupted them...guess what stoped happening. We dropped it without taking a cent of their money (we wouldn't actually do that) Hasn't been a problem.

They can be absused, sure but there are legitimate uses too.

<comment><USER6> I am not a lawyer, but is there a line between truthful disparagement and untruthful disparagement? Similar to how we adjudicate slander and libel claims?

<comment><USER7> That line depends on the jurisdiction and you'll have to pay to find out where it lay. If out happens to be in your favor, you may have to pay again at the next court up.

The only winners in this game are the lawyers.

<comment><USER6> > _The only winners in this game are the lawyers_

Because nobody benefits from the rule of law except the lawyers...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> From the article: Employees increasingly "have to give up their constitutional right to speak freely about their experiences if they want to be part of the work force," said Nancy E. Smith, a partner at the law firm Smith Mullin. "The silence sends a message: Men's jobs are more important than women's lives."

I don't understand how the second quote is related to the first except in the case of the discrimination settlements.

<comment><USER9> I'm guessing it has something to do with the missing part of the first quote. It doesn't look like the lawyer quoted used the word "employees" to start that sentence, and I'd wager it was more specifically about women in the workforce being made to sign these agreements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Someone I know had to sign one of these as a prerequisite to getting a severance, but before the actual amount of severance was revealed to him. He asked my advice on it and I suggested he sign bc it would be reasonable for both parties. (But basically his very new boss was very authoritarian and vindictive and didn't like him, he was doing fine for years..). So he signed it. And then he got an astonishingly tiny severance check. So much so that I nearly disparaged the company.

<comment><USER11> I'm not a lawyer, but don't contracts require consideration for both parties? Usually when employers require an employee to sign something, there is an implicit consideration "and you get to keep your job." But in this case he was already fired. I suppose it may have said "...in exchange for severance, at [employer]'s sole discretion" but it seems a bit fishy to me.

<comment><USER12> The non-disparagement clause may have been bilateral. The consideration, in that case, is "we won't talk negatively about you if you don't talk negatively about us."

Here's an example of a former reddit employee disparaging the company and the CEO stepping in and giving his side: [https://np.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2iea97/i_am_a_former_r...](https://np.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2iea97/i_am_a_former_reddit_employee_ama/cl1ygat/?context=3)

<comment><USER13> > The non-disparagement clause may have been bilateral. The consideration, in > that case, is "we won't talk negatively about you if you don't talk > negatively about us."

Cannot offering of such a clause be considered a blackmail?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Slander can get you in trouble. Anti-disparagement agreements should be considered unconstitutional, or at least have some kind of high bar for being allowed at all.

<comment><USER15> They are not unconstitutional for basically two reasons. One is that, for there to be a valid contract at all, it needs to be voluntarily agreed to. Hence, the clause itself would be voluntarily agreed to. Second, it's not the government limiting speech, which is all the first amendment covers.

<comment><USER13> > Second, it's not the government limiting speech, which is all the first > amendment covers.

Oh boy. I was born in a totalitarian country. It saddens me that people are happily making the same mistakes.

The dichotomy between the government and private institution you (and many libertarians) present doesn't really exist. Your rights are something that you cannot sign and trade away.

The reason why free speech exists (as a concept) is that so you, as an individual, could freely discuss wrongdoings and bad practices without fear of retribution. The idea is, ability to discuss these things leads to more efficient society. And this is true regardless whether the subject of criticism is the state, or any other institution, or any other human, even.

In your argument, somehow, you forgot the reason, why you have free speech. And so had been tricked into thinking that it is less valuable (because you don't understand its value), and you are willing to trade it away. Don't be that stupid.

<comment><USER16> Hmm...

Your employer can disallow you to carry a firearm on their property. You can sign a confession. You can let them search without a warrant.

I guess I question your belief that you can't trade your rights. I am not saying you should, but it appears you can. You can even waive your right to a speedy trial.

<comment><USER13> I am talking about human rights, not about U.S. Constitution. I don't think there is a human right to carry a weapon. Confession and not being searched - not sure, maybe the right for due process.

And yes, I mean people should stand for it, of course it's not guaranteed. At least, they should educate themselves about rationale behind human rights, so they wouldn't foolishly trade them away for nothing.

<comment><USER4> Depends the 2nd descends from common law which has the right to self defense which is its self a human right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is one of the advantages to have a very strict labor law in France. This is something which cannot be enforced (should it even appear in the contract).

There are disadvantages to that law, but in average the pros > cons.

</comment><comment><USER18> I work in the world of politics, and I've yet to see one of these. I think this is because in this world, if you talk negatively about your old job, your old boss, or whatever, no one is going to hire you. You become a liability. This has probably led to some horrible things happening to good people, but they keep their heads down, say nothing, because they want to still be employable. I have a similar situation in which I could probably become a whistle-blower against my former employer, but I don't, because if I do my career is over.

</comment><comment><USER19> How enforceable are such agreements? IANAL, and I'm genuinely curious.

<comment><USER20> From what I understand, that tends to be two separate questions. How enforceable are they if the individual in question _can_ afford lawyers, and how enforceable are they if they can't.

It it something that would get thrown out immediately or would have to be argued extensively, and is it something that the various activist organizations would provide lawyers for or that lawyers would take on contingency?

<comment><USER10> Excellent point. And now I suppose that every legal question is really two questions ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> My company has a non-disparagement policy (just something you can get fired for, not sued), but when people ask me what it's like to work there, I usually tell them, but with the explicit caveat that the non disparagement policy is in place, so my (or any current employee's) expressed opinion on the matter can't be trusted. Kind of a shame though because (and of course you can't trust me on this), I actually do quite like it there.

</comment><comment><USER22> "The incident was described by two entrepreneurs who were told about it in the weeks after it occurred but were not authorized to speak about it."

May be unfair to all parties involved that a situation is described on hearsay, with the source not identified, and not even being a direct source (someone who wasn't at the event, and who heard about it weeks later.)

<comment><USER23> Angel is free to waive their NDA and we can hear from a primary source. Their unwillingness to do so makes clear what that person would say.

<comment><USER20> Or they have blanket rules, specifically so that people _can 't_ make reliable inferences from their behavior in specific cases.

There's even a standard joke on this, IIRC the setting is some sort of court case:

        "Did you sleep with Joe on Monday?"
        "No."
        "Did you sleep with Joe on Tuesday?"
        "No."
        "Did you sleep with Joe on Wednesday?"
        "I refuse to answer that question."
        "Thank you."

<comment><USER24> If you are innocent and care about how your company is perceived, you don't have blanket rules. If you are guilty, blanket rules are the easiest way to deny the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I have been thinking about Yishan-style CEOs and getting rid of nondisparagement in things like severance.

</comment><comment><USER26> How practical are these in a glassdoor world? There is no way an employer could track down an anonymous posting online and force you to relinquish your severance.

<comment><USER27> They could certainly get an IP address from the website then a customer from the ISP. Whether this process would lead to the poster depends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> NDA != Slavery</comment>


Young Workers in Free Fall: 1/3 Under 35 Live with Parents - <AUTHOR> http://www.alternet.org/workplace/142386/young_workers_in_free_fall%3A_1_3_under_35_live_with_parents/ <comment><USER2> It's ironic that this report was put out by the AFL-CIO, an organization who has done as much as anyone to preclude the movement of younger workers into the workforce (via union seniority policies, minimum wage laws, etc.).

<comment><USER3> Let's think logically about this for a second. If the presence of minimum wage laws prevents a young person from moving out, then a young person should be able to move out on a salary less than the present day minimum wage.

Is that true? Not in my hood.

<comment><USER2> You're not going back far enough.

The problem with minimum wage laws is that they precludes marginal young workers from getting job experience that would help them build the skills and references needed to get better jobs. There is plenty of research showing that every time the minimum wage goes up, teenage unemployment goes up disproportionately.

<comment><USER3> Riiight. There is always an explanation. So the theory is someone is going to hire a teenager for less than minimum wage to begin with but then will give them wonderful opportunities later on. Or better yet, someone working for less than min wage will use that on their resume to great effect.

It would be great if we all lived in the world of conservative economists.

<comment><USER2> You may take it for granted, but a major trait that employers look for is simple _employability_ : someone that can show up on time, not cause problems, not throw attitude, and not steal from the company. I'll take someone who spent three summers lifeguarding for the same company over someone with no work experience any day.

Pretend that starting a company wasn't an option for you. I guarantee there is some minimum wage level that would have knocked out the bottom rung in your career ladder.

<comment><USER4> TBH, my career ladder didn't start until I was offered a part-time credit+pay position by my programming teacher in year 2 of community college.

Before that, I was making 126% minimum wage at my first job (movie theater). So, I suppose if minimum wage had been higher I wouldn't have wasted three years of my life cleaning up used condoms and dirty diapers from the floor of a theater.

But it probably wouldn't have kept me from being offered the (mostly credit) 3-month development project at the school I was going to. And arguably, that set up my career more than anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I know of many people who live at home with their parents out of necessity (I did for a little while after college). I also know people who live at home with their parents with the intention of saving up money to put a down payment on a house (a few have done that). But I also know some people who have spent themselves into debt even while working and living at home, guaranteeing that they won't be leaving any time soon.

I don't think it's possible right now for the average person to do what our parents or grandparents typically did (get married, buy a house, have 2.5 kids, and send them to college) at as early an age as they did.

All of these life events have become insanely expensive by our parents' standards:

Marriage: avg. wedding cost in the US is now about 30k, avg. ring is about 5k. (I'm not saying this makes sense, I'm just saying this is where money is allocated.)

House: avg. housing costs are still up over historical norms and anyone who was able to buy their first house in the last few years is probably upside down on payments.

Kids: More expensive than they used to be. All signs point to dramatically increased costs across the board: health insurance, clothing, education, activities, and food.

College: College prices have bubbled as much as housing and the cost of a degree has nearly doubled in 15 years. By the time your kids take the plunge, it may have doubled again.

And this is on top of individuals carrying higher levels of debt from all of these events later into their lives even while real world wages have stagnated.

All indications point to jobs trickling back into the economy more slowly than they left. My only hope is that a good portion of those who are stuck at home are working on ways to extricate themselves (startups, consulting, freelancing, etc.).

<comment><USER6> Expense is just an excuse to avoid commitment in most cases.

You think your parents started out with 2 cars, a nice house, and college funds all wrapped up and ready to go? I know mine didn't. In most cases, those people have worked hard for years to earn that kind of lifestyle. A lot of the coming generations are accustomed to it and expect it, without realizing all of the time and work their parents invested to earn that.

My parents moved into a small apartment when they got married. They worked to save up for a down payment on a home. They had bought one by the time I was born (4 years after their marriage), and they continued to save to provide all of the luxuries that my siblings and I enjoyed as we grew up.

But they didn't use it as an excuse to put off the family.

My wife and I shared an apartment with another couple when we first got married. It sucked, but we did what we had to do, and we were happier to be together than to put it off and stay at our parents' houses alone just because we couldn't afford a spacious living condition.

You don't have to spend 30k on a wedding. My wife and I got married for less than $200, and our rings were under $50.

You don't have to have your own house. Apartments work just as well, and have less general expense.

You don't have to send your kids to college. They can work to get there -- there are plenty of options for that, and they may not even have to go to college. I dropped out of high school and my last full-time job paid me a salary of $65,000; not bad for a 21-year-old, imo.

Plenty of people get by with their kids on $10-$15/hr or less. It's possible, you just can't be demanding and you can't nourish entitlement. Accept that you won't be able to buy that $300,000 house right away and move on with your life. Don't put off love for convenience; that trade will rob you blind.

<comment><USER7> > _You think your parents started out with 2 cars, a nice house, and college > funds all wrapped up and ready to go? I know mine didn't. In most cases, > those people have worked hard for years to earn that kind of lifestyle. A > lot of the coming generations are accustomed to it and expect it, without > realizing all of the time and work their parents invested to earn that._

It doesn't help if the parents don't really do a good job of instilling in their kids what they have gone through in their life. If all they tell their kids about their life are a few choice bits here and there, then it's little wonder that their kids don't have a clue that their parents were sometimes in dire straits for cash or food before working their way up to where they are today.

> _You don't have to spend 30k on a wedding. My wife and I got married for > less than $200, and our rings were under $50._

My wife and I were able to do ~$5k for a wedding for ~50 people, which included a banquet at a nice Chinese restaurant (There was so much food that people were taking food home, they added an additional course to the meal at no charge, and let us bring our own alcohol even though we technically needed to get some expensive license to do so). And ~$3k of it was just for the banquet.

But I've known people that go overboard with weddings. One wedding we were invited to was in the Caribbean on a cruise. If we wanted to attend we would have had to purchase our own way on a 7-day cruise. (Apparently the service was going to be on some small island in the middle of the cruise) I can't imagine how much that must have cost. My wife also had a co-worker whose fiance broke up with him because they weren't going to be able to immediately move into a nice house/picket fence/etc when they were married because he ended up losing his job. People put too much relevance on money and possessions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "...34 percent of workers under 35 live with their parents for financial reasons"

I'd like to see "workers under 35" defined a bit more precisely. Is it literally "anyone under the age of 35 who holds a job", which would include teenagers working at McDonald's and (quite unsurprisingly) living with their parents?

<comment><USER9> This is exactly what I was thinking. 23-30 would be a much more appropriate percentage. Many students would even still call their parent's house "home" until they graduate and move on to "real" jobs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am considering moving back in with my parents right now, but it'll be a two or three month transitory stay until we can establish a regular cashflow (I quit my job recently and am starting my own business ... it's gaining clients, but they take a while to pay, and my wife is applying for part-time jobs). I don't see a problem with this. I don't think there's necessarily an issue with living with your parents after 18 or 21 or whatever (I'm 21).

I think it's kind of a wasteful philosophy to assume that everyone should have their own independent piece of land. If both parties are content to stay under the same roof, what's the problem?

I do think that we should think about other ways to compel maturity, though. For at least the last twenty years, college has been a means of extending adolescence. We need to address the problems there that teach kids to fear love and commitment (a symptom of the high divorce rate and perverted concepts on the family).

The marriage age needs to come back down to ~21-25, kids in college shouldn't be given a pass to party or live recklessly. People do what's expected of them.

<comment><USER10> "I think it's kind of a wasteful philosophy to assume that everyone should have their own independent piece of land. If both parties are content to stay under the same roof, what's the problem?"

I think that for the majority, living with parents when you are adult is a huge psychological burden. Not only the society that does not approve such lifestyle, but also the fact that an adult person must have their own personal area to which their parents do not belong (sexual life is one example).

<comment><USER7> I think it depends on the parents. I know people that have parents that get drunk with them/smoke weed with them. On the other hand, there are parents that feel the need to treat their 30-year old children like 3-year-olds and second-guess every move that they make; ready to talk down at them with 'advice.'

If your parents are going to treat you like a child and/or you don't have an open enough relationship with them to feel comfortable bring home a girlfriend / having sex with your wife, then there will be inevitable conflicts.

<comment><USER10> I agree that it depends, however I don't think that it is that easy. Even if you have a good, open relationship with your parents what about your wife/girlfriend or friends? Will they be comfortable to get drunk at your place with your mom around or to have sex with you when your mom is sleeping in the next room?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I get along great with my family, and love them very much. However I moved out when I was 16 and have lived on my own since. I have an independent nature and it's important to me to support myself and provide for myself as much as I'm able. If I had to, I could and would move home, but if there was an option to be supporting myself, I'd take it.

</comment><comment><USER12> You know, that isn't a problem. My dad and my mum lived at home in Europe for quite a while, while they were finishing degrees and all that. It seems to be a North American thing to move out when you're not even finished university.

</comment><comment><USER13> The U.S. is slowly (and inevitably) becoming Europe, where living with parents while in your 30s is not abnormal.

<comment><USER14> That's a pretty broad generalization of a continent with a lot of variation in cultural patterns, economics of housing markets, structure of workforces, etc. Here are some numbers, from 1994, but should give an illustration of the range:

        Share of those at age 25-29 still living in parent's home, %
                          Men   Women
        France            22.5  10.3
        Germany           28.8  12.7
        Great Britain     20.8  10.8
        Spain             64.8  47.6
        Greece            62.6  32.1
        Italy             66.0  44.1

Source: <http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/spru/research/nordic/gerdem.pdf> \- it quotes source as EUROSTAT Data by Fernandez-Cordon 1997, itself quoted by Lauterbach and Lüscher 1999, p.430:

Lauterbach, Wolfgang and Kurt Lüscher (1999), 'Wer sind die Spätauszieher? Oder: Herkunftsfamilie, Wohnumfeld und die Gründung eines eigenen Haushalts. Eine empirische Untersuchung über das Alter bei der Haushaltsgründung', in Zeitschrift für Bevölkerungswissenschaft 24 (4), 425-448.

<comment><USER15> Interesting, the countries in the sun belt of Europe: Spain, Greece and Italy have the highest live at home rates, they also have some pretty pricey real estate due to demand from Germany, the UK, and other northern Europeans.

<comment><USER16> I guess it's more likely about the culture and family values rather than the economic facts when it comes to countries those called to have meditterenean culture (Spain, Greece, Italy and a bunch more). ie. in Turkey a guy is simply not expected to move out until marriage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Intresting note from the study: "...young people with college experience are significantly more likely to have Facebook accounts than non-college respondents, and significantly less likely to have MySpace accounts. It's also more common for young people with college experience to rely on Web-based media for their news."

<comment><USER7> > _"...young people with college experience are significantly more likely to > have Facebook accounts than non-college respondents, and significantly less > likely to have MySpace accounts. It's also more common for young people with > college experience to rely on Web-based media for their news."_

Why is that interesting? Most people outside of college were introduced to social networking through MySpace. Most people inside of college were introduced to social networking through Facebook (when Facebook started out you needed to have a .edu email address to register; it was for university students only). Most people that have college experience probably lived in a dorm for some length of time, where they had relatively cheap, fast internet service; therefore they are more likely to be using the internet to take care of things like getting their news.

I don't think that you really need a study to get this information, though real-world data never hurts.

<comment><USER17> It's interesting because it's, as you said, real-world data. Where I live facebook wasn't available nor popular during the ".edu only"-era. Here Internet access is cheap and fast for most people so I would also imagine college attendees get more of their news from newspapers and other non-based source then non-college attendees, because of the academic focus at college.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> this is true for I, yes

<comment><USER19> Where do you live?

It's interesting for me to hear this kind of stuff since I live in Tulsa Oklahoma. Nearly all my friends, single or married, have bought their own homes in the last couple years. My wife and I rent but only because we would rather save up to build our own house outside of the city.

I have a feeling that a lot of this 'lost Generation' stuff stems from people who live on the east and west coasts but that may just be my bias. Anybody else have an insight?

<comment><USER7> I'm sure that this affects places like Tulsa too. It just happens to a small extent than places with larger populations and/or your group of friends selectively excludes people that are likely to be in this sort of situation.

<comment><USER19> That's probably true, good observation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's called being a bunch of spoiled, lazy liberal kids who think they're entitled to whatever they want. It says the number who cannot afford their bills rose 14%... Probably bc their bills rose 200% b/c they need (and are entitled to) the macbook, they need tivo, they need starbucks, they need... ETC

LAME!

<comment><USER5> I think that's a complete overgeneralization. People who are just starting out didn't cause the current economic crisis or the housing bubble. Neither did they foot the bill for over-consumption for the last twenty years. Some may have been raised with the expectation for nicer things, but I don't actually see how that would be their fault.

<comment><USER21> One of my favorite things about HN is how often I read a well-articulated and reasonable response to a nutjob rant, rather than a response in kind. Kudos and a vote up to you, sir.

<comment><USER22> Agreed</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Any open access alternatives to Google's knowledge graph? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> A completely equivalent alternative, that's ready to use "out of the box"? Probably not. But a lot of the pieces you need to build something like Google's knowledge graph are out there.

For starters, you have things like Wikidata[1] and dbPedia[2] which give you access to Wikipedia data in a structured form. Then you have datasets like OpenCyc[3] and Freebase[4] that you could include.

Then, there are tools like Stanbol[5] which can, to a certain extent, extract structured data from free text. Of course this isn't perfect, since you'd basically need to have solved AGI to do this completely. But you can get _some_ "knowledge" from free text. Combine that with a crawling system like ManifoldCF[6] or Nutch[7] or something, and you could imagine building a pipeline to crawl websites and add to your knowledge-base.

If you decide to use RDF as the representation for the knowledgebase, there are things like Jena[8] that let you store and query your KB and do inference against it. Do all that, and probably add in a little more AI / NLP and you can build your own knowledge graph.

OK, yes, the "add a little more AI" bit is kinda hand-wavy, but that's an area of open research. Still, there are practical things that can be done today... and if you're looking for a thesis topic, well, here ya go. :-)

[1]: [https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page)

[2]: [http://wiki.dbpedia.org/](http://wiki.dbpedia.org/)

[3]: [http://sw.opencyc.org/](http://sw.opencyc.org/)

[4]: [https://developers.google.com/freebase/](https://developers.google.com/freebase/)

[5]: [http://stanbol.apache.org](http://stanbol.apache.org)

[6]: [http://manifoldcf.apache.org](http://manifoldcf.apache.org)

[7]: [http://nutch.apache.org](http://nutch.apache.org)

[8]: [http://jena.apache.org](http://jena.apache.org)

<comment><AUTHOR> It seems like a lot of people are moving into the space to be the provider for creating structured data. I haven't seen any applications that are building a knowledge graph like Google for other to build applications on top of. Google turned theirs into a "knowledge vault" in order to build their own applications on top of it. It seems like it would be a good space to do what Google is doing but open it up for other to build apps.

Thanks for the response. Very informative.

<comment><USER2> FWIW, the reason I'm familiar with the "stack" mentioned above is exactly because we're working on something like that. Our focus is more in internal knowledge than the general web, but there's no reason that overall methodology couldn't be applied more widely (although making it all scale is a technical challenge to be sure!). I could see us offering a "knowledge graph API" service of some sort down the road, depending on how other initiatives shake out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> @mindcrime has put a pretty extensive list and explanation.

The things is, you are probably looking for a solution that does the reconciliation of data arriving from multiple sources and formats for you and preferably exposes it over an easy to use API.

You can try [http://unigraph.io](http://unigraph.io), the API Sandbox (GraphQL) is available at: [http://u01.unigraph.rocks](http://u01.unigraph.rocks) and an extensive documentation covers it at: [https://github.com/unigraph/docs/wiki](https://github.com/unigraph/docs/wiki)

Currently Unigraph combines data from:

\- wikidata

\- geonames

\- freebase

\- crunchbase

\- SEC EDGAR

\- Companies House (UK).

A datadump is on its way and more sources will be added soon.

Disclaimer: I am building Unigraph, precisely for the reason of the question: "An open alternative to GKG".

</comment><comment><USER4> There would be, of course, one (if not the no. 1) google knowledge graph source: Wikidata.

[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page)</comment>


Ancient astronauts - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_astronauts <comment> java-man Funny story: when I visited Japan and went to the Tokyo National musem [0] specifically to see the Jomon figurine [1] which, during my childhood, I remember reading about in the context of "ancient astronauts" in the Soviet pop sci.

When I came out of the museum, I saw a man with a face that looked nearly identical! The guy had the same slit eyes and the kind of puffy bags around them. Too bad I did not ask him for permission to take a picture :-)

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

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stone_statue,_late_Jomon_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stone_statue,_late_Jomon_period.JPG)</comment>


Ask HN: Free (Quality) Financial/Stock Content/Widget? - <AUTHOR>

Hey,
Quick question. I've been searching endlessly for a simple, unobtrusive, stock quote/chart widget and/or data source, etc, that can be freely used on a website. Something similar to Yahoo! Finance Badges but not ugly and bulky. The end-result would be something I could use dynamically per the stock in mind.
Thanks alot.. <comment><AUTHOR> Oh yea..

I'm currently using Google/Yahoo mobile finance quote pages in an IFRAME, but they are pretty ugly and I'm not sure if thats legal..</comment>


Begley: Was Darwin Wrong About Evolution? | Newsweek Voices - Sharon Begley | Newsweek.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/id/180103?gt1=43002 <comment><USER2> There are good comments about this by a biologist at Pharyngula.

[http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/01/sharon_begley_how...](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/01/sharon_begley_how_could_you.php)</comment>


Ask HN: Tools you use for remote working? - <AUTHOR> I work at accredible(www.accredible.com). We are a remote team now with people in around 3 continents. We use this tool for team to function: 1) Slack -- for team communication 2) Trello -- Project Management 3) Skype/Hangout/Uber Conference -- for meetings 4) Google drive -- for document storage and sharing between team 5) Bitbucket -- for code hosting 6) Airtable -- for Growth management.<p>Will be glad to know, what other people are using here on HN for remote team? <comment><USER2> As far as software recommendations to ensure easy communication, Yammer is a good one to setup your own private social network. One that is a bit less intense is Hip Chat which allows for company discussions and group instant message, I'd say more or less like an upgraded Skype kind of communication if you are familiar. And another free alternative to Skype for free video chat (with great screen sharing) is Google Hangouts. G+ has done a great job here, it seems to be more stable quality and connection than others. There are also many great remote time tracking programs like we are building at Worksnaps ([http://www.worksnaps.net/www/](http://www.worksnaps.net/www/)) that keep people on track, accountable, and allow for complete transparency for all involved.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1\. Google drive for collaboration/sharing of docs and other work 2\. Skype for chat, group chat, and calling into conference calls. 3\. Conference calls. We're using uberconference now, but it has been less reliable than is acceptable. We're going to try our own skype server. 4\. We host our own git repos. 5\. I do most of the project planning in org-mode and Redmine. 6\. RT for bug reports

</comment><comment><USER4> I like [http://www.interviewzen.com/](http://www.interviewzen.com/) to do 15 minute code quizzes of candidates where the hiring managers and HR are all dispersed geographically.

</comment><comment><USER5> We have a very similar setup - with remote team members in Europe, USA and Africa at Resource Guru we find the Slack/Trello/Google Drive stack vital for our day to day communication and collaboration.

</comment><comment><USER6> An alternative to skype/hangout is [http://appear.in](http://appear.in) I find it works way better than the other, don't know why.

Can you detail why and how you use airtable?

</comment><comment><USER7> Here are some tools recommended by HN users. [http://www.hackertoolbox.com/tags/collaboration](http://www.hackertoolbox.com/tags/collaboration)

</comment><comment><USER8> NearFar ([http://getnearfar.com](http://getnearfar.com)) for chat and project planning; GotoMeeting for video conf, and Drive for docs.</comment>


Those Build-a-Business-in-48-Hours Conferences are a Lie - <AUTHOR> http://inqk.net/weblog/2011/857

<comment><USER2> The real lie in those events is the promise to create a team in 48 hours. And I say this from my own experience. Kodesk won the grand prize of the jury of the Startup Weekend Brussels in last January and a week after the event, it was clear to me that I could just not create a business with people I had met a week before. Co-founding a company requires trust, complicity and complementarity. And if you don't have that, your "team" can blow up a good concept with a good visibility.

</comment><comment><USER3> 48 hour hack challenges? Group gatherings? Learn-from-each-other meetups sponsored by a grant or some friendly companies? Great.

I agree, this sort of stuff is just a cash-in.

(Or providing more grist for the local VC/Angel mill.)

<comment><USER4> I help run <http://nodeknockout.com/>, a 48-hour hackathon. It's free and we run it as a service for the community. One or two of the best apps of the contest usually become legitimate businesses.

Not all of that happens in 48hours, there's a lot of strategizing that happens before the competition, and a ton of work that happens afterward. BUT, you can create a hell of an MVP in 48 hours if you know what you need to do.

<comment><USER3> Oh, definitely! I'm a huge fan of the Node.js Knockout.

(My point is that you're not charging people $100 for the privilege.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you put the right team together in the right environment, you can launch something valuable (MVP, prototype) in a weekend.

My main experience with this was a corporate hackathon where a bunch of developers just decided they wanted to build a new product that was different than the one we worked on everyday. That was 7 developers for 24 hours and I'd say we launched a pretty cool product. (<http://www.metrodenverapartments.com/> , and about 9 other domains. Looks like the images have broken since.) Also, I was able to demo the product I'm currently working on to potential customers after less than 20 hours of development. At that point the demo was enough that people were willing to commit to paying for it.

It's experiences like this (and seeing others doing the same thing) that make me think these events have value. Here's a quote from <http://startnorfolk.com/> (an event my employer and other local businesses are putting on.) Emphasis is mine.

"an intense 48 hour event which focuses on building a web or mobile application _which could form the basis of_ a credible business"

Where is the snake oil in that? My experience is that you really can do something awesome in one weekend if you get together with the right people. It could also form the basis of a credible business. The registration fee is well justified, as it covers food and drinks throughout the weekend. The $10,000 prize is paid for by sponsors.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think the author is being unfair. On the Launch48 link provided, I don't see any copy promising riches to developers.

I attended a StartupWeekend before and didn't feel that anyone thought it was a get rich quick scheme or anything close to it. I personally learned a lot from the weekend, and while the odds are not high, startups have gotten funding through it.</comment>