Uber reportedly losing $2B per year, with passengers paying 41% of each ride - <AUTHOR> http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2016/12/02/uber-losses.html <comment><USER2> This another "article" that's really just rewriting someone else's blog post.

There was already a HN discussion based on a link to the original Naked Capitalism blog post about Uber: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13079023](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13079023)

With that said, the actual financial analysis of Uber's numbers in the writeup is so amateurish and frankly incorrect that I can't recommend anyone waste time reading it. I'm not trying to defend Uber's valuation, but this person's math is just wrong. Also the data is stale, just not worth it.

<comment><USER3> Some examples of how it's math is incorrect?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How is Uber meant to make money? Is the idea to push prices up once (and if) the alternatives die?

<comment><USER5> The biggest cost is labor, so if they could theoretically shift to self- driving cars soon, fares would pay for more than 100% of ride cost. What that timeframe is would be the $69 billion question. Given that self driving car technology is in its infancy, and will likely require a driver to be ready to take over, they can't ditch drivers anytime soon (unless they make passengers serve as backup drivers?).

<comment><USER6> Let's say driverless cars happen in the next five to ten years. I see two scenarios happening - neither do I need uber. First scenario is my local car at my house becomes driverless. I can simply call my car to pick me up from anywhere. It can return home and wait (or go and pick up others as it's own on demand taxi). I now don't need uber at all - even though I use them now. So that is not a good scenario.

Second scenario is I am traveling and need a car/taxi as my local car is at home. If so, why would not other people in that city simply allow for their cars to pick me up while they are not in use. Every driverless car is now a taxi.

Basically all that is needed is an app and some service where owners subscribe and let their cars be used as a taxi. Perhaps uber controls the app and service as the dominant leader. But I bet there will be a lot of competition in that area with car rental companies, manufacturers, local cab companies, individuals and uber all competing.

I suppose the third scenario is that many people do not own a car in the future and we just subscribe to a car service. Perhaps in that area uber is the choice. But perhaps the manuacturers roll their own service too that you subscribe for a time share of a car.

<comment><USER7> Or could you actually get rid of your own car and ride only on Uber? Due to it's scale, Uber might be able to offer competitive pricing.

If there is no driver involved the cost structure for you and Uber is pretty much the same. Except Uber can probably negotiate better deals on new cars and service (due to volume) and also achieve higher utilization. On the other hand, Uber of course needs to make a profit.

<comment><USER8> > Uber can probably negotiate better deals on new cars and service (due to > volume)

Same argument could be applied to car rental businesses (some of which are owned by automakers which makes the relationship super-cozy), yet I've never seen a deal from Avis or Hertz to make it a worthwhile replacement to owning.

Big cities have an added cost of parking and extra miles driven to find a gas station or a public charger. But big cities also have low-cost public transportation (or so I've heard, I live in LA).

In smaller towns the cost of ownership tends to be lower and with sub-$10,000 products on the market [http://jalopnik.com/5072303/new-pricing- of-9990-makes-2009-n...](http://jalopnik.com/5072303/new-pricing- of-9990-makes-2009-nissan-versa-cheapest-new-car-in-usa) you have a reliable guaranteed ride whose cost is usually spread over 6-7 years.

<comment><USER9> I actually find the cost of renting cars makes a decent amount of sense for me, given how infrequently I use them. However, it's such a hassle, since I've got to go quite out of the way to where they're kept and I can only return them at inconvenient times (or I have to rent for two days because they're not open at the weekend, for example).

Being able to book one to use for a journey then let it go home would be great.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, agree on that. Some rental places don't mind delivering the car to you, e.g. [https://www.hertz.com/rentacar/productservice/index.jsp?targ...](https://www.hertz.com/rentacar/productservice/index.jsp?targetPage=HLEpickupservice.jsp) and I vaguely remember some startup car rental place advertising just that.

Important to note that currently it's the Uber and Lyft drivers that are subsidizing the cost of getting the car to you - they are not getting paid for the miles driven. Whether or not this cost will be subsidized by Uber/Lyft in the future remains to be seen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> They came to my city recently, I've only used them here once - but this is the only place I can directly compare them to a taxi for the same journey. They were about 10% cheaper for that journey. If they kill taxis and need to break even, we'll be paying over 2x as much then?

</comment><comment><USER11> If this is true then I expect the competition regulators in some countries to start taking action. Such pricing is illegal in some areas because its only reason for existence is to drive out the competition. For instance loss leading in supermarkets in the UK.

</comment><comment><USER12> What's an investment of a few billion, Uber is in for the long game.

You can to compare them to other big names in the transportation/logistics industry, like Webvan ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webvan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webvan))

<comment><USER13> That was moderately clever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> They lose 6,6 shots at net-gain fusionpower per year.

<comment><USER15> Why invest in a benefit to humanity with long-term capital returns when you could buy a global monopoly on taxis?

/sarcasm

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> [https://twitter.com/EricNewcomer/status/804470167899996160](https://twitter.com/EricNewcomer/status/804470167899996160)

</comment><comment><USER17> Given their downright ethical behaviour, and utterly confused marketing do- over, does anyone a. Really care, or b. feel surprised?

If you run your company in an ethically abhorrent way across the globe from the get-go, is it any wonder you eventualy will go belly up?

<comment><USER18> Every day you (and other people) vote with their wallet which company is getting their money. So simply vote against Uber and inspire lots of people to do so, too, if this is your opinion.

<comment><USER17> I've never used them and will continue to never use them :-)

<comment><USER18> > I've never used them and will continue to never use them :-)

... and convinced your surroundings to never use them? ;-)

<comment><USER17> Pretty much. I've shown the things they do with customer data and many of my friends and colleagues have decided to stick with taxis.

HTH.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Marketing Strategies for Solo Businesses with $0 Budget - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ollil/uncommon-but-powerful-marketing-strategies-for-one-man-businesses-with-0-budget-77857b081668 <comment><USER2> These are what I would consider high-effort, low-reward marketing strategies.

It takes a lot of time and manual effort to identify communities and pages where this activity should take place, and then to initiate the activity in a way that doesn't get flagged as automated/spammy. For your troubles, you may luck out and get some new followers who are mildly interested in your product, or some clicks that probably won't have high conversion rates.

They may be "powerful" in terms of getting views or initial interest, but they likely won't be powerful enough to get people further down the funnel.

<comment><USER3> Do you have alternative strategies for one-man businesses with 0$ budget?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's neither "uncommon" nor "powerful".

Most of the these "strategies" lie pretty much on the surface. Also, half of them amounts to blatant comment/blog spamming, basically. Ditto with Reddit - it may work once, but try sneaking your promo there under a disguise of a genuine RFC _again_ and it'll get you promptly flagged and banned.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'll make it simpler: participate in whatever community you're in.

</comment><comment><USER6> Off-medium: [https://outline.com/4RYJ8T](https://outline.com/4RYJ8T)

<comment><USER7> This is a cool app. I can't seem to find any more info about it. Does it have an API? Browser plugin? Open source?

<comment><USER8> You can see some info on their frontpage [https://outline.com/](https://outline.com/)

There are some links at the bottom.

As far as I can tell it seems proprietary software, couldn't find the source or anything about it being opensource anywhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> ok. I have now signed up to Instagram. Is there a limit of how many posts I can like? Can I get shadowbanned? Should I only like relevant stuff?

<comment><USER10> There are some limits, but as a human user you likely won't hit it. They are good at catching bot traffic.</comment></comment>


IBM looking at adopting Bitcoin technology for major currencies - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/12/us-bitcoin-ibm-idUSKBN0M82KB20150312

<comment><USER2> adoptation of blockchain is spreading ... ability to make payments anonymously, instantly, and without government regulation</comment>


Show HN: A RottenTomatoes for Books - <AUTHOR> http://idreambooks.com

<comment><USER4> Love, love, LOVE the idea - It's one of those things that I would use every week if it worked.

Critical feedback from a potential fan:

#1 - When looking at best sellers, one of the first things I saw was, "A Dance With Dragons, 29 critic reviews | Published: August 28, 2012" - <USER2> "Published" date is obviously for something different than the book (Softcover? Trade Press?) - regardless, for book reviews what's most important is not the publication of the format (I can get that at Amazon in 2 seconds) - but the publication of the _content_

#2 - I wanted to see how Peter Hamilton's books were reviewed (very popular author, so lots of reviews of his work out there), so I typed, "Peter Hamilton" and got 17 hits, but not a single one for Peter Hamilton's books. Typing the same thing in Amazon.com, despite how common the name is, got me a page of hits comprising _only_ the Science Fiction author Peter Hamilton.

In general, it's better to focus on the 99% of what users are looking for than the long tail. Not sure if you just don't have all of the reviews entered here, but the content needs bulking up before you introduce this to the general populace.

Love the idea - I'll check in from month to month to see how it comes along.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Our db isn't that big yet. We are adding books & ratings every day though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Your search is... awkward.

I'm searching for "Count of Monte Cristo" (no quotes), and I get barely- related results (starting from "The Pregnancy Countdown" to "Fifty Shades of Grey" - _please_ tell me that "of" is a stop-word in your search algorithm!).

Sidebar: Is your review aggregation automated or curated?

EDIT

When a cover image is not available, the results are meaningless as you must hover over each coverless result to see the title. I think the text should be always visible for images with no cover:

<http://imgur.com/uwnBB>

<comment><USER6> I think that's probably a bug. When the page first loads the results, the overlay w/ the title is visible. It's only once you've moused in and out that the overlay disappears (at leas, that's the case in Chrome).

<comment><USER7> While visually I really like the design, in terms of usability I'm not entirely sold on it. Book covers can be hard to read (for both the title and the author) and there can be many different cover designs which people may not recognise. I would strongly suggest adding adding the title and author as static text that you can see at all times.

One other point, I don't think the disparity between positive and negative cloud icons is big enough. On Rotten Tomatoes it's crystal clear.

Love the site concept. Have been looking for a site like this for ages. Looking forward to seeing it grow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Small comment: you are using faux bolds on your headers (Bestsellers, Recent in Fiction, Recent in non-Fiction in dark gray along the top.) This is hurting readability, especially since the font is _already_ bold. Essentially, you are applying a low-quality bold (generated by the browser or text rendering layer) to the high-quality bold that was designed by the typographer. This isn't just font wankery, it makes it hard to read the headings.

The easiest way to fix this is remove the bold declaration from your CSS. The text will still be bold, because you are using a bold font.

The other way to fix it is to go into your @font-face declarations for droid sans bold, and change the declared font-weight to be bold. This tells the browser that the font is already bold, and not to make it more bold.

Here's a before and after in FF (latest) on OS X. Faux bold: <http://cl.ly/image/3R0B0z1s0A3g>. Real bold: <http://cl.ly/image/2A1N3w083h47>.

<comment><USER9> I've given up and started modifying sites directly via the Stylish plugin, if I must use them, or simply ditching them, if I needn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Firstly, I love the idea. Part of the reason I've stopped reading fiction is because of the unknown quantity to whether it will waste my time — amazon reviews can be hit and miss, and often missing.

<http://idreambooks.com/newbooks/19-Moonwalking-With-Einstein> reckons that the NYTimes review is negative, but reading it ([http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/books/review/book- review-m...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/books/review/book-review- moonwalking-with-einstein-by-joshua-foer.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all)) it appears to be positive? How do you work out which are positive and negative?

Also, could you make it possible to blacklist certain reviewers? Is that what the thumbs up and down do, personalising your result? Say, if I went to the review page of 50 shades, and downvoted all the positive reviews, will those reviewers stop counting?

<comment><AUTHOR> In the case of Moonwalking with Einstein over 70% of critics gave it a positive.

If 7 out of 10 critic reviews are positive, the rating is 70%. We recommend a book if it scores over 70%. More info here: <http://idreambooks.com/toread_or_nottoread>

Thumbs up/down doesn't personalize yet...

<comment><USER10> Sorry, I think you misunderstood me, I am specifically referring to the New York Times review of it, which is one of the 4 negative reviews of the book, but if you read it is in actual fact positive. My mistake though, because I accidentally linked the same page twice when I wanted to link this the second time: [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/books/review/book- review-m...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/books/review/book-review- moonwalking-with-einstein-by-joshua-foer.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all)

<comment><AUTHOR> We have a strict set of criteria when rating a review as positive or negative. In general, if the review is even slightly negative we rate it as such...in the case of Moonwalking, NYT expresses a few disappointments about the book. This is to help surface only the very best of books in each genre.

<comment><USER11> Any review of sufficient length and thoroughness is likely to include at least some criticism, if for no other reason than the reviewer not wanting to look like a cheerleader. The NYT often selects reviewers with relevant domain knowledge, or who are themselves authors in a related genre. So opinions will be expressed, hobbyhorses ridden, and nits picked, even in glowing reviews.

You should be careful to avoid setting up a business rule that could overemphasize a few negative raisins in a positive pudding.

<comment><USER12> The idea of a binary positive vs negative is really troubling to me as far as an algorithm goes. It should very much be on that sliding scale that Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes uses--sentiment analysis shouldn't return just a 1 or a 0.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I spent about 10 minutes doing searches and couldn't find anything I was interested in. No Larry Niven, no James Michener, no William Gibson, no Max Brand, no several other authors.

So I tried some current best seller type stuff. No Stephenie Meyer, no Suzanne Collins, no Charlaine Harris. Finally found some Stieg Larsson.

The blue headlines and grey text are hard to read. The little cloud thingie seems odd. Other than that, I like the site. I clicked on links, got the review, from the original site. More content and I'd probably be a user.

<comment><USER14> Yeah... in the Travel genre, there are exactly two books. Nice idea, but not enough content to be ready for release.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Nice work. I like the idea and it looks like you've executed it really well.

I'm curious how you determine whether a given review is positive or negative, did you use something like <http://nltk.org/> ?

</comment><comment><USER16> I like the concept. But the content is crap. I read a lot of fantasy and scifi. When I went into the list of top rated books in that genre, so many of them are pulp garbage that look like Twilight fan fiction and the like.

<comment><USER17> And while perhaps this speaks more to my prejudices than anything else - <USER3> have a hard time trusting a review aggregator where a bodice ripper has a "100%" rating on the site's home page.

It took me a couple of minutes looking over the homepage to realize that it was organized by genre. I'd recommend making those columns more visually distinct, so you don't offend snobs like myself.

To address patja's concerns - it looks like you've got some young adult fantasy/scifi mixed in with normal fantasy/scifi. Separate those out, and you'll likely get a better response from fans of the genre.

Also - this looks quite exciting. It's amazing how few effective tools there are out there for finding my next book. Thanks for making another!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The scorings are terrible. Rottentomatoes is fairly reliable for getting solid recommendations as a cinephile, but this site is giving high marks for what is clearly crap.

Maybe there just aren't enough book critics, or you're not aggregating them all, or you aren't selecting for the top critics like rottentomatoes.

</comment><comment><USER19> random honest critical 5 minute feedback:

The reviews are below the fold on my 1050px height. I wondered what was so special about the site before randomly scrolling.

The justified text with the font for the description is hard to read and ugly.

Encoding issues in <http://idreambooks.com/newbooks/140-Drift> ? Lots of issues on other entries too. Did you scrape other sites for this, not using a legal and well-formed source...?

Thumb-up/-down icons are pretty much not disginguishable for me. Looked like rotated stars on first glance.

The "overall rating" is not intuitive, I only noticed it when I checked what else was on the page. Rottentomatoes is not better for either though, I always have to think what they might mean before I get it (the symbols).

</comment><comment><USER20> You need to put in some form of CTA for purchase of said books.

I kept looking for the Amazon link to check the pricing and other relevant metadata.

<comment><USER21> I kept looking for the same but the closest action was to add to a reading list.

OP, also check out Amazon's affiliate program.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I actually love this, found myself unconsciously clicking through on a few books to learn more. Sometimes all I want is a simple browsing experience to spark my interest and take me down one path or another and I feel like this provides it. Keep on keep'n on!

</comment><comment><USER23> Fantastic, just sent the link to like 5 people. There is definitely a need for this.

That being said I don't love the cloud icons. Also the layout of the social media icons when viewing a book is ugly.

I predict tremendous success.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think what makes RottenTomatoes' rating system pretty good is their clear indication of 'good' and 'bad': A fresh tomato and a rotten tomato.

The clouds on this website aren't bad, but I didn't even realize they were there for a few minutes while I looked over the book covers. They blended into the background and didn't instantly provide a positive or negative connotation.

Since the site's name is 'I Dream Books', perhaps a nice fluffy pillow represents a good book. Or a dream bubble with a happy face. Perhaps the badly reviewed books get a dream bubble that's bursting, or has a nightmare inside.

</comment><comment><USER25> With book search, you need to put exact titles before more popular matches. Amazon used to get this wrong, they don't any more. A telling example is "We" by Zamyatin - a classic, but there are many more recent big sellers with that word in the title, so if exact match is not prioritised, you plain can't find it if you can't remember the guys name. I can't tell if you've got this right - maybe your database isn't big enough for it to matter yet.

</comment><comment><USER26> Beautiful and useful website that I look forward to come back to. I, however, thought that the "RottenTomatoes for Books" was Amazon. In what is this site different?

<comment><AUTHOR> Amazon is user reviews only. We like RottenTomatoes aggregate from professional critics like NYTimes & select bloggers to create a book recommendation of higher quality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The column layout is confusing because there's no real separation between the columns. My natural instinct is to read from left to right.

Love the aesthetics.

<comment><AUTHOR> most def...we need to differentiate them better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> One difference I notice is that RottenTomatoes uses color more effectively. Looking at their homepage I see the red and green tomato icons and instantly see which movies are highly/poorly rated. The blue and gray clouds here don't contrast as much and it took me a second to even realize what was supposed to indicate good or bad. Great idea, though and a good start. Best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER29> Really nice! I love the concept.

Can you make the slider (move me) and the category names (bestsellers, recent- in-fiction etc..) a fixed/floating bar on the page? As I scroll below / load more to view more books, I sometimes forget what category I am looking at and if I need to switch to another one.

</comment><comment><USER30> Nice UI!

Two minor comments:

1) Sometimes the same book shows up in different columns (e.g. Bestsellers and Recent Fiction). This feels redundant (and possibly unintentional?)

2) There's a Sign Up link. What does signing up do? Is it to write reviews? Subscribe to new books? Something else?

<comment><AUTHOR> The redundancy is unintentional...need to fix. If you sign up, you get to add books to your 'Reading List' (link under book show page image), enter giveaways and receive a newsletter with top rated books. We plan on adding more features...

<comment><USER30> Also, Amazon links would be great. You got me interested in a few books, and I'm ready to buy them. The site should definitely get an affiliate fee for that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> You know what I like about books? They're printed using black ink on white pages. I have to believe that other readers prefer this high contrast approach or we'd see more variations after centuries of printing. Do your visitors a favor and use black text for your main content. The light grey on white surrounded by light grey makes me reach for my glasses, then I realize I'm already wearing them.

Other than that, I really like the site and added it to my bookmarks. I would like to see the number of reviews without having to hover over the cover, though. It helps put the score in perspective.

<comment><USER32> Books are constrained as much by medium as readability. If you want the book printed cheaply, you're relegated to black text on an off-white background. Also, there's a big difference between text on a back-lit display and text on a page.

I think dark gray text is a good choice for text on computers.

<comment><USER33> What the dark grey (it isn't really super dark) text actually achieves here is to allow your attention to be drawn to the pictures of book covers.

This, of course, makes the site prettier, because book covers are colorful.

Personally though, I'd rather just have a list of [book name - author(s)]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I love it. I looked into doing this a while back with one portion of the business model being Amazon affiliate sales; you should be doing that. Not only is it good for you ($$$) as a user I want it too. Nice job!

</comment><comment><USER35> Looks nice. Is it possible to have separate categories for Science Fiction and Fantasy?

EDIT: Also, you should put the author's name wherever the title is displayed. (eg. in the subgenre pages)

<comment><AUTHOR> Didn't think you could get more granular than SFF. We tried to group genres together for simplicity. But some users don't seem to be liking that. All genres/categories are currently listed in the dropdown in the header.

<comment><USER36> The dropdown doesn't have Fiction, which was surprising since that's what I went looking for first. Also, when I figured out that I could click on the "Recent Fiction" heading on the homepage, I was disappointed to see that there was no way to filter down to Literary Fiction, the way most publishers do. Otherwise, all the top items are mass market fiction, which is a very different genre.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I never understood review sites like Rotten Tomatoes and the like. Don't sites like Amazon, where you can actually buy the product, already accomplish this? Unless you have actual authors or news critics writing critiques for a book, there isn't much that makes it different from sites where you can buy the product.

Anyway, why no technical literature section? Why isn't there a genre on text books? Novels are fine, but I like learning something when I read.

<comment><USER38> On Rotten Tomatoes they _do_ have actual news critics writing critiques. That's the whole point of the site. It's an aggregator for critical reviews of movies.

I think that this site is doing something similar.

<comment><USER37> Might as well just forget about a technical section then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> There are quite a few book sites providing good discoverability combined with community, combined with curated selections, etc. etc.

You've added a nice design, but the categorization of the books is weak as is the selection itself. I looked at History, which seems to be comprised of 'historical fiction' and I looked for "Tony Judt" who was a significant recently published historian but is not represented.

<comment><USER40> Can you list them? The one I'm familiar with is Goodreads, but if there are others, I'm interested.

<comment><USER39> Aside from Goodreads, my list includes:

<http://www.librarything.com/> <http://www.shelfari.com/> <http://49thshelf.com/> <http://openbooktoronto.com/> <http://www.filedbyauthor.com> <http://www.thecopia.com/home/index.html> <http://www.booksprouts.com/> <http://www.bookglutton.com/> <http://weread.com>

You'll note that some of these are dead or dying, which leads me to the small point that I'd make: creating a book site is pretty easy: the audience likes print-media and there are rafts of digitized content available, but getting a site to sustain is hard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> This would be awesome if i could set personal preference for the review sources. I really don't care what Yahoo voices or some of the other 'critics' think but you are bound to have some reliable critics in there that i do care about.

Maybe even more so than for movies readers tend have more in common with some critics then others and the 'meta' opinion is just not that interesting.

</comment><comment><USER42> Really cool idea. As you grow you should definitely keep news papers in mind as a possible acquirer. Best of luck!

</comment><comment><USER43> I love this idea and I have bookmarked your website. Well done, I will keep on checking your website!

</comment><comment><USER44> This is NICE. Really. If only it had more titles... Also, think about foreign, not-yet-translated-to-English books. For example, there are fabulous SF books in Polish (not just by Lem, and not just SF, actually...) which should be there.

</comment><comment><USER45> Interesting but lacks way too much content still. I could not find Brandon Sanderson, Patrick Rothfuss, Brent Weeks, etc. Every Fantasy author I tried that did not have an HBO series currently did not come back..

</comment><comment><USER41> Just a tip: the confirmation email went straight to my spam folder (with a very high spam rating). You might want to think about using something like mailgun or sendgrid for better deliverability...

<comment><AUTHOR> oh no. what email service was it (yahoomail?)...dont forget to unspam it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Very cool. One feature that RT has that you don't have yet is the ability to see all reviews by a reviewer/institution.

Actually, being able to see all books by the author would be especially useful. And it's a view more particularly essential than it is for RT (since an author has a more singularly important role in the quality of a work, compared to the actors/studios/directors/writers/producers/financial backing that go behind a successful movie)...being able to see an average for an author's books, or even a sparkline (to see if he/she is going downhill) would add a lot of value with minimal effort.

Related to that: I know it's kind of important to people to see the blurb, which necessitates a multi-column layout for the listed reviews. But I'd rather see it in a tabular format, with Reviewer Name, Date, Rating, and then a long field for 20-30 word blurb. It's easier to see distribution of reviews in a tabular format.

<comment><USER47> To put a slightly finer point on it: sites like this are incredibly relational. Everything (almost) should be clickable for a collection view.

<comment><USER48> That's taking it a bit far, eh? Tasteful user interfaces answer relevant questions - not just any question at all.

<comment><USER47> For sure it's an ideal, but come on, you should be able to click on a reviewer's name to get their other reviews, or an author's name to get their other books, or a date to find other reviews posted at the same time (with its own range functionality), as well as by-publisher, by-review-site, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Searched a couple books, found none:

2666 (none found), Vanished Kingdoms (none found), Twilight War: After the Fall (tried 'twilight war' and 'after the fall', each gave unrelated results).

</comment><comment><USER50> I am currently working on something similar, not related to books though. Thanks for the inspiration provided by your site and the comments on here, HN is once again very helpful.

</comment><comment><USER51> Get in touch if you are interested a better domain name, I've got bookjury that may need a new home -- despite a large % of the code being done. :)

</comment><comment><USER52> This is well-executed, but I thought those were happy/sad little pieces of poo for a little while and I'm not exactly inattentive.

</comment><comment><USER53> Sounds cool. But where are all the books?

No Hemingway, Vonnegut, Faulkner, Kerouac, Fitzgerald.

Why no classics?

<comment><USER54> I know, I'm dying to know what snarky sophomoric Internet dweebs think about Cat's Cradle rather than just read it for myself. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Seems like search tool needs some work. I can't find books that I am looking for 3 out of 3.

</comment><comment><USER56> Nice --- really like the layout

</comment><comment><USER57> Please, add OpenID login.

</comment><comment><USER58> Needs a new name. Otherwise, terrific.

</comment><comment><USER59> Great idea!

</comment><comment><USER60> _cough_ Goodreads. Already has network effects going for it, and a very vibrant author community. It does pretty much what all the comments on this HN page suggest you should add/change.

Also, your site took almost _5 minutes_ to load. That is simply unacceptable.

<comment><AUTHOR> We focus on critic reviews to create a recommendation of higher quality (they don't do critic reviews).

<comment><USER61> There's a problem with "critic" reviews, at least from where I'm sitting: critics don't review anything that's not backed by a huge publisher, effectively locking out all of the small-time authors who might actually have something good.

For example, I was interviewed about my book for School Library Journal, but the book reviewer side of the house refuse to even consider it for a proper book review.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Good stuff.

Can you please make the text darker - I suffer from some sight problems which make grey on grey quite hard for me to read.</comment>


Crowdfunded Game Console Is Made Out of Tape, Cardboard, and Fake Circuits - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/crowdfunded-coleco-chameleon-game-console-is-a-mess <comment><USER2> This has been an entertaining (but unfortunate) situation to follow. It seems they are in a whirlwind of deception and denial now. Their top FB post has comments disabled/invisible.

What gets me is even when they were being deceptive, they didn't try hard at all. Did they not expect that people would notice they stuffed an unrelated PCI card into a plastic shell?

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, this is an interesting story. Reminds me a bit of the Phantom games console, that 'super system' that never materialised and seemed to be entirely be a scam of some kind.

The most important about all this though, and which was mentioned in the video posted in the article, was about where exactly this console would make money or gain support. Cause only a small audience would buy a retro system like this, and it's likely not enough to sustain any real game development or long term business. And with the core of the system being basically the ability to play games from existing consoles, none of these games would ever really make sense as exclusives anyway.

Bit like the Ouya that. Just not enough of a market, or with unique enough hardware to really support much in the way in terms of original games.

<comment><USER2> That's true. I don't see how any game could make any significant money from this. They would make slightly more being a "bundled" game with the console, but even then, the market for this console itself is incredibly small. On top of that, just a fraction of that market would even concern themselves with buying this.

Most of that community is already collecting games for other systems or playing these games other ways.

Of course, now that their reputation is shot, the market can basically be considered to be approaching non-existent.</comment></comment>


Cell – A functional, relational, reactive programming language - cell-lang http://cell-lang.net <comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for being clear on the front page about the goals of the project, and for providing a detailed overview as well.

However this project also badly needs a "hello world" example. Right now there is no way to get started except to start reading the docs front-to-back, which is more than I can tackle during a lunch break.

That said, I really like the idea of a language specifically for encoding automata and I'm excited to try it out.

<comment><USER2> Agreed. Although I think a bit more than just "hello world".

I still havent't really figured what this language is really about (based on the name and the headline it sounds to me like "a spreadsheet, except without the grid ui", something that I'm still hoping to find/understand.)

It might be I just haven't read carefully enough but I only have so many minutes of lunch break : )

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This looks pretty cool, and the detailed descriptions are great, though I agree with others that an additional, _shorter_ and _more illustrated_ overview would also be nice.

Anyway, I came to complain about the syntax, knowing full well that tastes differ etc.

But look:

        (round, parens, construct, sequences)

and hence for _grouping_ they use braces:

        a = b + {c * d}

and they also have _sets_ built into the language! But as braces are already taken, those are constructed with square brackets:

        [1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3] = [1, 2, 3]

And there are range types as well, using angle brackets:

        <1..31>

The departure from traditional math syntax is just a bit too weird in all this. I'm not saying any other language's syntax is perfect, but really, _not_ using braces for sets is strange. Why do this? Pretty much any other permutation of the different kinds of parenthesis for the different constructs would seem more understandable to me.

If I had designed this language, I would have used [] for sequences, {} for sets, and () for grouping. Or maybe, to be closer to mathematical notation but farther from other programming languages, it would make even more sense to use <> for sequences and [] for range types.

</comment><comment><USER4> "The reason Cell was designed to be a domain-specific language, and its compiler to be a code generator, should be obvious. Choosing the main language for your application has usually more to do with the tools, libraries and support that are available for it than it has with the language itself, and one generally has to be, by necessity, very conservative there. But a domain- specific language that integrates with your primary language, instead of replacing it, stands a much better chance of actually being useful, as it can be adopted gradually, and only when, and to the extent that, it provides a clear advantage. It's just another tool in your toolbox. "

That's a really interesting way of thinking about it.

<comment><USER5> It's also the philosophy behind Clojure and why it's tied to the JVM:

[https://clojure.org/about/jvm_hosted](https://clojure.org/about/jvm_hosted)

Rich Hickey had said this is a purposeful decision and not a matter of expediency.

<comment><USER6> Unfortunately also why I haven't bothered to learn Clojure yet.

I would really like to see a Clojure that targets LLVM.

<comment><USER7> In my opinion that's not a great reason for not _trying_ clojure (although it may be a great reason for not _using_ clojure). Then again, if all you do is native work, then clojure is likely a bad fit in its current form.

<comment><USER6> I suppose a better phrase is, "I haven't had an interest in Clojure apart from the language itself, and dealing with the JVM and toolchain is something I find frustrating enough that I have chosen not to dive into Clojure yet."

My limited experience with the Java toolchain is that it's unnecessarily difficult to use outside of an IDE (classpaths, etc.), and using Clojure on top of it is even more difficult.

My experience is that most people who create tools for the Java ecosystem are quite content with having a bulky mess of tools, and consider IDEs (and nothing else) to be the gold-standard.

It's just something that I'd rather not contend with, even though Clojure (and Clojurescript, which suffers from the same problems) as a language sounds quite nice.

<comment><USER7> Outside of the initial installation ( _brew install_ or _apt-get install_ or whatever you use), you really don't have to deal with the JVM ecosystem or classpaths unless you interop with Java stuff (in which case, you'd be using JVM anyway).

Leiningen (and boot) isolate you from all of that. I've been using Clojure since 09 and I don't remember the last time I even had to think about a classpath. I also use vim (and more recently, spacemacs) and not an IDE. Its not an issue in Clojure.

Although, I agree with you on the JVM in general and can see how its a reasonably assumption, even if not actually true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It seems cool but it's way too hard to find actual code samples on that website. It would really help to grasp the language.

</comment><comment><USER9> On first glance, Cell feels like a very serious effort and I wouldn't be surprised if it has an impact.

The embedding model is a nice and thoughtful touch. I think a lot of imperative systems could benefit by converting their semantic cores into code in an engine that's reactive, structurally typed, transactional, and functional-lite (Cell appears to not even have generalized higher order programming, a bold but defensible choice). The relational automata (actors?) are also quite interesting.

</comment><comment><USER10> From the high-level overview, I can imagine from my experience that there is a need for something similar.

But, at first glance, the web site doesn't address the following questions:

1) What problem does it solve that a conventional approach doesn't? More specifically, what's the ideal use case? Embedded apps / IoT? Protocol implementations? Something else?

1bis) You claim that the only significant project written in Cell is Cell itself, which is quite an achievement ("Bootstrapping"), but does it mean that the ideal use case for Cell is writing compilers?

2) Who are you? What's your long term plans for this project?

3) Are there any alternatives? (Ragel, SMC, SCXML based tools...?) How do you compare to them?

</comment><comment><USER11> The "implicit argument" feature seems really neat. I've grown really tired of needing to thread some random flag through all of creation to pass it to some dark corner of the code.

<comment><USER12> Racket has a really interesting way of doing things. It has sort of global variables that can be set for only a limited time and are only seen by the setting thread.

<comment><USER13> thread local dynamic vars ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Rule #1 of programming language web sites violated:

\- The landing page should always have some sample code (ideally more sophisticated than just "Hello world").

<comment><USER15> Tbh all that does is further enforce the policy that people judge a language based on immediate aesthetics; ie semicolons and parentheses usage.

It might be what people are immediately interested in.. but I'm not sure it should be

<comment><USER16> Add a few examples of known / easy-to-grasp algorithms: sorting, processing of a stream / tree / graph, a concurrent interaction, some easy parsing, etc. A few examples on which your language shines, shows some of the key features that make it different and worth learning.

Also, aesthetics do play a role: if your language is excessively hard to parse, or your examples contain a lot of copy-paste, etc, it might be a _legitimate_ turn-off. It may be worth tolerating if _other_ features are great. E.g. something like computing a convex hull of 2D points in APL or J may look terrible for an untrained eye, but you can nevertheless notice that it's like 40-50 _characters_ total.

<comment><USER15> J has an almost explicit goal of being concise; it is specifically a feature they're reaching for, and thus makes sense to promote in such a fashion.

But its absurd to judge the language on its syntax, if the language is uninterested in the syntax, until its almost unnacceptably noisy or confounding. Looking into a language should ideally be first based on structural and semantic differences, and then syntactic.

And a sufficiently semantically different language will offer little with its code snippets, as it wont make sense without understanding the paradigm. Even J; there's not much to take away other than that its dense from just the snippet. If anything, it mostly serves to scare people away as it approaches line noise, particularly when you don't yet know _why_ it can be successful in such a fashion

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Things like this make me wonder if I can really even call myself a programmer.

<comment><USER18> If you can call merely call yourself, at least you grok recursion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I wonder why this is flagged? At first glance it doesn't seem spammy or inappropriate (although it is a bit dense and confusing, but not as much as those Urbit posts).

<comment><USER20> Yeah, I don't know, have vouched for it. Might just be because it's a new user.

</comment></comment><comment> cell-lang Hi,

I just wanted to quickly answer a few questions and explain why the language exists at all. The points below are pretty much incomplete and in random order, with no clear thread among them. I hope they're useful anyway:

Cell was designed first and foremost to combine functional programming and the relational model, with the former providing the computational capabilities and the latter the ability to easily encode, navigate and update complex information/state, with many different types of entities and relationships between them.

It also borrows other ideas from the database world: chief among them is the practice of removing all forms of redundancy from the data structures that are used to encode the state of an application. There are two main reasons for this: first of all, a data structure that contains little or no redundancy is much less likely to be left in an inconsistent state by a buggy update. Secondly, the code that updates the state of the application becomes a lot simpler, because there are fewer things to update.

Redundancy includes not only information that is duplicated, but also information that can be derived by other information that is already present in the dataset. Eliminating derived information is more difficult than doing the same with duplicate information of course, because there are in many cases performance issues. In order to address those, Cell is meant to include several form of memoization, but that's a long-term effort.

A paper that came out more than a decade ago, "Out of the tar pit" (google it), explains in more detail the notion of "essential state" and the idea of combining functional programming and the relational model. I'm not connected in any way to the authors of that paper, and the particular flavor of the relational model implemented in Cell is very different from the one advocated in that paper, but until the documentation on the website is complete, that's probably the best reference to those ideas I can point you too.

I believe the relational model is by far the best data model I know of, and that it's far superior to the records+pointers data model used by most programming languages, and by object-oriented languages in particular. I can't explain why in just a few lines, though. It's a part of the website/documentation I'm still working on, but which I hope to put out relatively soon. Note however that the relational model is not the same thing as SQL: in relational databases the relational model is saddled with a number of limitations that would not be acceptable for a programming language (like the fact that the types of the columns in a relation/table can only be chosen from a few predefined datatypes) and SQL itself is of course an abomination of a query language. But that's not the only way to do it, just like C++ is not the only way to do OOP.

Cell is not meant to be an alternative to spreadsheets, or to do computational biology (I'm actually starting to suspect the choice of name is a rather unfortunate one). It's not meant to write compilers either. Quite the opposite, actually: it's designed to build stateful systems. Of course, functional languages are in general a pretty good choice for writing compilers, and Cell does have a (semi-)functional subset, which was used to write the compiler.

The target application for Cell is actually a particular type of stateful systems. Let's agree to call them "reactive systems", or maybe "event-driven systems", in what follows. These systems are usually at rest (meaning that there's no code being executed, no call stack, and no instruction pointer) and when they are the only property they have is their state. They react to external events by changing their state, which is conceptually an atomic, all- or-nothing operation. Their new state after an event depends only on the state before the event and the event itself. They do not do any sort of I/O, and are totally oblivious to the world around them.

It's a very general concept, that can be applied to many types of applications. An example is the Elm architecture. In order to define an application in Elm, you've to define the type of the state of your web application; an initial state for your application; the types of all messages your application can receive; and a transition function that given the current state of the application and a message returns the new state of the application. There's actually more than this, but let's ignore that for now.

Static automata work in a similar way. The two main differences is that you can make use of the relational model to define the type of the application state (as if you were defining a small database schema) and that the transition function instead of returning the new state of the application returns a set of atomic update operations (set/insert/delete/update) that are applied to the current state to produce the new one. This is similar to what you do to update the data contained in a database: you just send a set of atomic insert/delete/update command that are executed by the DBMS.

I'll stop here, this post is already too long. Maybe I'll post more tomorrow, if anyone is still around. Does this make things a bit clearer?

<comment><USER21> > Maybe I'll post more tomorrow, if anyone is still around.

I can only speak for myself but I will definitely be around to read another post if you write one.

The design is fascinating and I'm very excited to see a new language that combines functional, relational, and reactive elements.

One design choice that I'm particularly interested in is your choice to fix the set of possible values in a way that supports generic value introspection and orthogonal persistence. There are clear benefits but some costs include possible obstacles to abstraction / modularity and also extensibility. I'm wondering how you see these trade-offs.

<comment><USER21> (Replying to my own comment because I don't see a way to edit it.)

Another question I have is about recursion. Browsing through the code a little bit, I see loops and comprehensions are often used but I'm not sure I've seen a single recursive function. Is recursion something you've consciously tried to avoid and if so can you speak about the rationale on that topic?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm really curious if there are any plans to have an interpreter for this language? I'd love to be able to provide it in a sort of python notebook type setting to help work with data/events. Imagine using it to create an 'if this then that' type service where signals could be external api references.

I'm really excited to learn more about this language.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is currently a preprocessor to C++. C++ doesn't need it; there is enough rope in C++ to make a reactive programming framework entirely in C++, and hang yourself with the rest.

</comment><comment><USER23> Is this what everyone who creates insane spreadsheets should actually be using? I hope the author is just being too modest to come out and say "Excel killer".

<comment><USER24> I feel it's more of a core building block for eventual Excel killers in various verticals.

It's really cool, but it's hard to imagine an Excel jockey reading this overview and getting enthused - it's still heavy on CS concepts. Apps on top of this would perhaps offer conveniences that hide the engine's full power to some extent in exchange for feature accessibility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder if this is any relation to Kenny Tilton's Lisp project from a decade ago, also named Cells: [https://github.com/kennytilton/cells](https://github.com/kennytilton/cells)

</comment><comment><USER26> Nice ideas but for the love of god what is up with the syntax resulting in lines with nothing but an indented semi-colon?

Pleeeease reconsider this. You may not think it matters but people make terrible language choices every day on such basis.

<comment><USER5> I initially downvoted you for the rude tone, but when I look at the code, I do see the same thing.

[https://github.com/cell- lang/compiler/blob/master/src/main.c...](https://github.com/cell- lang/compiler/blob/master/src/main.cell)

There is a opening colon on if/for/while, and a closing semi-colon. This seems the same ergonomically as an open brace and a close brace, and needlessly different.

I can understand leaving off the closing delimiter for a Python-like syntax. But this doesn't seem to be a good compromise.

The language sounds awesome in many other respects, which I have yet to dive into. But yes unfortunately this is the first thing people see.

My philosophy is to have new syntax where there are new semantics, but old syntax for old semantics. And blocks seems like they have no new semantics, so it should just choose C/Java style or Python style.

It reminds me of when Rust was first released, and they used brk for break and cnt for continue. That was just silly, because they mean exactly the same things as they do in every other common language, with a needless syntactic difference. People program in more than one language simultaneously, and all these differences add up.

<comment><USER16> > just choose C/Java style or Python style.

+1 for this.

I must add that Haskell somehow manages to combine both, so you can use braces if needed, but normally people use indents, and neither leads to syntactic uncertainties.

<comment><USER27> Honestly that kind of extra feature was a bit of a hindrance when learning Haskell. Always felt like I was learning the wrong style no matter which style I went with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Computational biology?

</comment><comment><USER29> "Structural vs nominative debate aside, you might have noticed a major omission in the data model: closures"

Then goes on to explain that they would be hard to serialize.

Not so. If you take at how ruby handles closure members when serializing with Marshal.dump, you will see that it just writes a memory address and doesn't actually store a call graph. So why not just omit it like ruby does?

<comment><USER30> Is Ruby able to deserialize the closure into the same process that serialized it? In any case, it won't be able to do that in a _different_ process; e.g. if the data is sent over the wire.

I think the approach of not allowing closures in data that may have to be serialized is a much better approach than just writing a memory address and leaving the recipient to deal with the problem.

<comment><USER29> Not having closures as members is not better than having them with a simple rule that says "don't serialize". Your reasoning is alien and strange.

<comment><USER30> A "simple rule" that's not programmatically enforced is just a convention, and conventions are too easily ignored. I'd be ok with a type-system based solution that distinguishes serializable and non-serializable types, but silently writing nondeserializable data is just asking for trouble down the road.

This language in particular is built around having value semantics for everything (e.g. writing to a database and reading back is guaranteed to result in an indistinguishable value); and that enables nice features like persisting the complete application state on disk, deterministic replay of logs and so on.

I think for the goals of this language, disallowing closures as data is a reasonable choice.

<comment><USER29> It makes sense to enforce non-serialization using attributes, but then, closures should never be serialized, so you are where you started.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I stopped reading at "There's no such thing as user-defined equality". Defining equality, and other functions, is an intrinsic part of defining a type. Whatever Cell may be good for, it's obviously not for me.

<comment><USER32> You shouldn't have. As explained here [1] the distinction between identity and equality does not exist in cell because identity does not exist.

[1] [http://cell-lang.net/data.html](http://cell-lang.net/data.html)

<comment><USER31> Regardless, I still need to define equality for my types.

<comment><USER33> Why? Give an example?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What are the problems with Big Tech? - <AUTHOR> http://interconnected.org/home/2020/06/29/problems_with_big_tech <comment><USER2> I just can barely see how a 3% tax that companies find another way to evade can have anything to do with the loss of life and dignity that some of these issues bring up. How many tax dollars cover sexual assault? It just seems like a vapid halfway measure when the effects of these problems by most standards can barely be measured in dollars. If it's that serious, ban them, right? But the benefit is just too high, one would assume.

<comment><USER3> (Article author here)

That's why I've been compiling the list of issues with Big Tech. Without understanding what the issues to be remedied are, interventions like a 3% digital tax can't be evaluated as to their effectiveness.

<comment><USER2> True, I realize my comment comes off like it's towards you as opposed to those proposing the measure. Sorry about that.</comment></comment></comment>


Using the Klout API in Google Docs - <AUTHOR> http://www.whitefireseo.com/tools/klout-api-google-docs/

<comment><USER2> Just want to add that when consuming an API like this, it's always good to make sure you're adhering to the Terms of Service.</comment>


Why Polish programmers are one of the best in the world [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.ready4s.com/blog/why-to-choose-a-mobile-app-developer-from-poland/ <comment><USER2> Well? Why? And where's the promised PDF?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you don't want to give your email for whitepaper, you can check the most of the reasons here: [https://www.ready4s.com/blog/why-to-outsource-app- developmen...](https://www.ready4s.com/blog/why-to-outsource-app-development- to-poland/)

For example best java developers according to HackerRank</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is technical project/program manager least valued job at top companies? - <AUTHOR> I read online that TPMs are there to herd the cats. They don't have authority over developers, yet expected to deliver results. They take all flak from managers, developers, and senior management for delivery,project delays and all issues. TPMs are expected to dive deep,code, wear many possible hats but get least credit when things go right. It's never ending rush on the job.<p>What are your opinions? I have an interview with a top tech company for a TPM role but not sure if I should follow a TPM role or people manager role? <comment><USER2> There are a lot of jobs that are valued less than project/program manager.

That is unrelated to whether or not it's a good match for you.

You can be valued by your colleagues - or hated - in any job.</comment>


The Average 29-Year-Old - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/the-average-29-year-old/479139/?utm_source=atlfb&single_page=true <comment><USER2> What does the "Some college" mean for US people?

I'm from Germany, we don't have college here, just universities and everyone who didn't drop out of it gets at least a bachelors degree.

Can you attend college in the US without getting any degree?

<comment><USER3> NB: In colloquial US English, "college" and "university" are used interchangeably (they mean the same thing when speaking casually).

To answer your question, it is possible to begin studies at a college but to withdraw prior to finishing those studies. It's also possible to make such poor grades that you do not earn a degree.

Keep in mind that it is expensive to attend a university in the US. Some people wind up in situations where they are unable to continue paying for their education. Most of the time, though, I think people drop out because it's hard work to earn a degree (as it should be!), and they are unprepared to invest their time, energy, and/or money into their learning. This could be because they were inadequately prepared by their previous schooling, because they had unrealistic expectations about the nature of university life, because they felt pressured to go to university when they didn't really want to, or because of any number of other reasons. I knew several people who dropped out because they burned out on recreational drugs, and several others who dropped out because they wound up having a kid (and one guy who managed to do both -_-).</comment></comment>


Mark Cuban to Kick Wall Street Bailout Ass - <AUTHOR> http://dealflow.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/10/billionaire-mar.html This is why Mark Cuban is an official American hero. <comment><USER2> OK, in my worthless opinion, this cancels out some of his bad karma.</comment>


HybridConf - A new conference for designers and developers - <AUTHOR> http://hybridconf.net/

<comment><USER2> Hey, I'm one of the organisers.

A BIG THANKS to all those who've upvoted this.

We're really trying to get the two disciplines together. As someone who's done well in both fields, I know there's tension and I know that it can be scary to want to learn more. I'm hoping to bridge that gap with some amazing speakers and workshops :)</comment>


Why it's so hard to get unemployment benefits [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ualUPur6iks <comment><USER2> Tech is usually a safe haven (of blaming) when someone needs to hide the malfunctioning system.

I saw several cases where public agencies deployed tech not to make things easier for the end-user (set aside the talk they are trying to sell you), but to offload surge of requests - something like the first line of defense.

</comment><comment><USER3> Blaming website crashes and design flaws on intentional political decisions... really ?

I'm not saying it isn't the case, but as a software developer that would definitely not be the first explanation that would come to my mind (unfortunately for our industry)...

<comment><USER4> Tech solutions are dictated by historical demands, governance and policies. These latter preconditions preclude simplicity, efficiency and robustness. Having talked with developers that now have to route around "classic systems" for handling new "pandemic" requirements; if they decided, they'd just implement UBI. Unfortunately, politicians don't talk to developers and there's just too many intermediaries. So instead, we end up with workarounds piled upon workarounds, for handling all of policy and exceptions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> TLDR; the systems cannot support the load and they're buggy

Why isn't this a federal system? It is in the UK

<comment><USER6> The United States was founded on a premise that federal powers were limited via enumeration and those not enumerated are reserved for the states or the people.

As a result, a great many things that other countries do centrally are done in a distributed fashion in the US.

[0] - [https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/tenth_amendment](https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/tenth_amendment)</comment></comment>


Thank u, next - <AUTHOR> https://words.steveklabnik.com/thank-u-next <comment><USER3> I'm surprised and disappointed to learn that Mozilla didn't value Steve's work enough. The documentation, especially the book [1] which he authored, is the gold standard that every software project should aspire to. As someone who learned the language recently, it's possible that I might have abandoned it if the documentation and learning materials hadn't been so good.

I also thought his work in evangelizing Rust on HN, Reddit and a million other places was hugely important, and a big part of why there's a lot of positive buzz around the language. Steve, I do hope you'll find the time to continue at least a part of this work, because I think it's vital for the success of Rust.

[1] - [https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/](https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! To be clear, the doc work was my job, but the evangelizing wasn't.

I plan on continuing both, as much as time allows.

<comment><USER4> Would it be possible to crowdfund that role? People on youtube apparently earn a living by making videos in which they film themselves watching other youtube videos, so it ought to be possible :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe! I'm not sure I have the kind of skills needed to do such a thing.

<comment><USER4> Maybe setting up a Patreon account and posting what you did each week is sufficient. That seems to work for the youtubers, and it's more audacious to ask money for watching youtube videos than writing docs and promoting Rust ;-)

<comment><USER5> I have done this, and just for reference, my Patreon currently brings in $203/month. I am very grateful to my supporters, but making this scale doesn't look easy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a bummer on many levels, but also personally, a bit of a relief.

For a while I was considering going all-in to try to get a role at Mozilla. I really believe in their mission, and I drink the kool-aid when it comes to the browser market getting gobbled up.

What held me back at the time were the company reviews. The culture sounds toxic, and the management sounds incompetent, and there's no force of change that has done anything to change that in the past ~5 years.

So this is a relief, because random online statements are often a limited glimpse into a company, and I've been worried that I made a bad choice by not going for a role there, but seeing something like this come from steve is very damning for Mozilla.

Best of luck Steve, I'm sure you'll end up somewhere great.

<comment><USER7> Mozilla isn't a monolith. Like most medium and large organizations, your experience can vary greatly between teams and management chains.

If Mozilla's mission and manifesto resonate with you, give it a shot. With Microsoft throwing their weight behind Chromium, we're the last bastion standing against a WebKit-derived monoculture. It's an impossible challenge, but _it matters_ , and we've beaten the odds before. Current openings are at [https://careers.mozilla.org/listings/](https://careers.mozilla.org/listings/), and I'd encourage you to apply.

<comment><USER6> That's the problem though. From the outside, there's no way to know if you're going to end up in the "good" part of the company or not. Sure, you can do your best to screen the company, but it's not too hard in the short interview process to mask a lot of the warts.

You could say this is true at any company, but it feels like more of a problem when comparing a company with lots of really good reviews/testimonials to one with very few good ones.

I think I'd have to have a close friend, or someone who I trust internally, to convince me of the quality of a particular team at this point, and I haven't got that. Also, I've moved off the career path, I think, that would be of value at Mozilla.

<comment><USER8> > _From the outside, there 's no way to know if you're going to end up in the > "good" part of the company or not._

I think this is a serious problem in all sorts of fields, and I've never heard of a good answer. Sometimes Glassdoor is enough to get impressions like "healthy devops team, unhealthy frontend and sales teams", but with companies where the same job title appears on many teams it's even harder to sort out. I suspect you're right that it's a significant reason for word-of-mouth job searches; they're a candidate's best form of diligence.

It definitely cuts both ways, too - no matter what the prevailing culture a large company is likely to have teams out of sync with it. Places like Uber and Riot Games that make the news for bad culture have teams who aren't exposed to that stuff, and on the other side we've all heard stories of localized tyranny and incompetence within otherwise-great companies.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, personally, when I am trying to find this out if I'm speaking with a current employee who is on the team I would be working for, I try to drill down to see if problems are related to poor middle management (a single bad manager can destroy an entire team and any team that is connected to it), or whether it's endemic in the culture, which is harder to suss out, but is usually something you can infer when asking about over-arching company strategy and how plans get executed from the top down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thank you, Steve. You have personally done more to make the Rust community what it is today than possibly any other person. It speaks very poorly of Mozilla that they don't value your work.

Perhaps 2019 is the time to start the Rust Foundation, as mentioned by boats and others[0]. If so, you'd clearly be one of the founders. I would put my name into the ring for that as well, as we're now in somewhat similar circumstances. All it needs is some money, a lot for a pizza cook perhaps but a pittance by Silicon Valley standards.

Wherever our paths lead, I hope they continue to intersect!

[0]: [https://boats.gitlab.io/blog/post/rust-2019/](https://boats.gitlab.io/blog/post/rust-2019/)

<comment><AUTHOR> <3

I am really of two minds about a foundation. I've seen a few different variations of this idea, and they all have a _lot_ of downsides, as well as upsides. It's not clear to me that it would be a win.

<comment><USER9> I'm genuinely interested, could you expand a bit on what the downsides / upsides would be?

<comment><AUTHOR> The pros and cons are both related to a thing that many people don't think about when it comes to non-profits: money. A foundation's job is to administer money. The pros are that well, someone has to do that work. Collectivizing helps; a random person giving $10 once isn't worth the management overhead, but 10,000 people giving $10 (or whatever) means you have a more substantial chunk of money. Additionally, projects also need things like legal support, which a foundation is well-set up to manage.

The cons are, well, that work is hard, and you can also end up in a position where you spend as much time fundraising as you do actually improving the project. This is why people talk about "efficiency" in non-profits, ideally these tasks take as little money as possible to do the administration, and spend as much as possible on the project. Also, when you're in the business of distributing money, you have to manage people's reactions to how you spend it, some people are going to be upset that you picked project A over project B, or person A over person B. That's also a form of overhead.

(and I'm not talking about MoFo here, I know _very_ little about it or how it works. This is based on experiences with other non-profits and foundations that I've experienced and/or heard about elsewhere, and from lots of other people.)

<comment><USER9> Ah, I see what you mean.

Thanks a lot for the explanation, I've never really understood how foundations work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > What I saw in Rust was something that the world really needed. And I wanted > to help it get there. Beyond that, the only real way to get a job working on > Rust was to work at Mozilla. And independently of Rust, that was something > I'm really excited about.

A big part of what drew me into Rust is that the people behind it have reasonable ideas which are very well documented. I know this doesn't sound terribly exciting but the older I grow the more I appreciate that as something very valuable - and amiss in many projects.

Besides other things Steve contributed a lot to these values by writing documentation and first and foremost by being there and answering questions - online and at the conferences.

> Well, the first thing is that I don't plan to stop working on Rust. How much > I'll be able to depends on what's next, but that's the great part about open > source; I can continue to help the thing I love, even if it might not be > full-time anymore.

Glad to hear that he continues working on Rust. I really hope he will find a job that allows him to work on Rust full-time though. Having to split ones attention isn't often going well. Maybe this is kind of litmus test for Rust even: As much as it hurts me to write this but if there isn't a well paying full-time opportunity in the Rust space for someone like Steve then maybe Rust isn't going anywhere.

</comment><comment><USER11> I want to say from his past blog posts- Steve is a very thoughtful writer. And from all my online interactions in comments- a very respectful person.

Knowing him (whatever little) things must be really frustrating for him to call Mozilla out in public.

Rust is what it is- not because its an amazingly well designed language - <USER2> of languages are very well designed Haskell, f#, Scala. But Rust has a very public development and Steve has been great at managing the public aspect.

I sincerely hope Steve takes a public facing role again.

<comment><USER8> > _Rust has a very public development_

I don't know how far Rust will go in adoption breadth and lifespan, but it's already clear that it's had a major impact on the community. Both personally and on HN, I've seen it drive a new cohort of people to take an interest in PL design, low-level languages and safety guarantees, and even kernel design theory. Talented people who have never previously gone in for C or C++ saw a chance to start in on those fields with Rust, to all of our benefit.

It's obvious to me that Steve (and the Rust team more generally) deserve a lot of credit for that. Their communication and community outreach have been unparalleled, and it's sparked great deal of interest and engagement that might otherwise have been missed.

<comment><USER12> " I've seen it drive a new cohort of people to take an interest in PL design, low-level languages and safety guarantees, and even kernel design theory. Talented people who have never previously gone in for C or C++ saw a chance to start in on those fields with Rust, to all of our benefit. It's obvious to me that Steve (and the Rust team more generally) deserve a lot of credit for that."

Exactly. They've done what Ada and other safe, systems languages couldn't do. They made it go mainstream with stronger protections than before on top of thriving community. Quite amazing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This surprises me on so many different levels. To me, Rust is nearly the same thing as steveklabnik. Considering his level of engagement and enthusiasm I figured he was one of those people making easy SV money.

Between this and Jess Frazelle (another household name) never getting a promotion shows how _wrong_ this industry is.

<comment><USER14> > To me, Rust is nearly the same thing as steveklabnik.

I thought it was designed by Graydon Hoare?

<comment><USER15> There's probably room for more than one person in building a new language/platform.

<comment><USER14> Well that's what I meant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > Why'd he quit? ... he told me this: at each stage of a company's growth, > they have different needs. Those needs generally require different skills. > What he enjoyed, and what he had the skills to do, was to take a tiny > company and make it medium sized. Once a company was at that stage of > growth, he was less interested and less good at taking them from there.

This is an aspect that gets overlooked in many businesses & careers. I've heard it phrased that companies go through 3 stages: Startup, Scale Up, Optimize. The above quote is a sub-stage of Scale Up. Some people are built for just a single stage and knowing how and where your skillset fits in is crucial to career happiness. As well as knowing when to encourage employees to move on.

Great post and I wish @steveklabnik continued success in his career!

<comment><USER17> To borrow from the Harry Potter universe, early stage startups need Gryffindors and Ravenclaws, but then as the company grows more and more Hufflepuffs get hired, and sooner or later the company ends up on the radar of Slytherins, who are focused mostly on obtaining fame and renown, and who are more likely to have what muggles call "dark triad" personality traits.

What's most fascinating about the Hogwarts metaphor is that members of each house each bring some useful value, but the core values of each are often in conflict with the core values of the others.

At some point Mozilla went from being a heroic struggle that appealed to people who had a specific vision for the future of the internet, and turned into a status symbol like having Harvard on your résumé. This happens to any successful startup. A company that would never have appealed to a lot of workers suddenly becomes desirable (all else being equal) because of the status associated with it. Not to bash MBAs, but this is why I advise a "absolutely no MBAs" policy for startups.

MBA diplomas are simply status symbols and most people who have the degree joke about how easy it was to obtain and how much partying/networking they did while in school. They also graduate expecting to be placed in a leadership role due to the degree, even though young MBAs typically have little to no actual work experience or hard skills. I've seen overly confident MBAs nearly sink funding rounds for startups because they thought they were being clever with accounting and the investors saw right through it.

<comment><USER18> For what it's worth, I don't know if anyone here, me included, considers Mozilla a "status symbol" on the resume. It certainly is nowhere near FAANG in terms of inbound recruiter volume. People who want status symbols go to Google.

(I chose Mozilla over large company offers a decade ago because the work seemed more interesting, knowing full well it was more of a gamble in terms of my career. I've never regretted the decision.)

<comment><USER19> I obviously can't speak for anyone else on this, but I have actually given ex- Mozilla people a bit of a boost in the past when I've interviewed people because I view it as a) a semi-prestigious company, and b) a company filled with people who _really_ like programming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've interacted with Steve a few times on the Rust IRC channel and he's always been super awesome and helpful. He's also been very receptive to feedback on the Rust documentation and helped me to contribute to it.

Thanks for all your hard work on Rust, Steve, and good luck with the future!

</comment><comment><USER21> Mozilla sounds like your average PHB-led corporation.

This is also one of the reasons I'm skeptical about Rust, since Mozilla is the backbone of Rust development. They don't strike me as an organisation that can shepherd a programming language long term and with their market share taking a nose dive they're bound to get even more desperate and cut non-essential projects or make new data-sharing partnerships.

Anyways, good luck on your next adventure. Based on your work, you don't deserve to be the lowest paid in the team...

<comment><AUTHOR> Mozilla doesn't really "shepherd" Rust development. We've constructed the Rust project so that Mozilla cannot control it; decisions are made via consensus, and Mozilla employees make up ~10% of the overall Rust team. There's never been some sort of mandate to do something specific with Rust from upon high, and I don't expect there to ever be. If they tried, it wouldn't work!

<comment><USER22> The big concern is not that it wouldn't work, it is that they might try, and that you may have been one of the things preventing that from happening.

All the best luck going forward, because you absolutely deserve it.

<comment><AUTHOR> If that's your worry, then you should be relieved by this change. This is one more person who is involved with decisions in Rust who isn't employed by Mozilla.

That said, to repeat, I don't believe this is something Mozilla would ever try to do.

And thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why is it that nonprofit tech organizations see such value in maintaining a San Francisco office location (looking at you Mozilla and EFF) only to lowball employees on compensation?

Surely the perception of having a trendy location can't be worth more than market salaries in the pursuit of talent? Are there other benefits to the location besides perception?

<comment><USER24> > Are there other benefits to the location besides perception?

Definitely. Access to talent pool, networking opportunities, easy customer research, marketing, and so much more.

<comment><USER23> It really seems like a double gut-punch from my perspective. I was approached by a recruiter representing EFF when I graduated (state school in the midwest) and while 75K for a fresh grad seemed like reasonable compensation for a non- profit, when I viewed that in the context of both a cut for the recruiting body shop and the high cost of living in SF for both a company and individual that it was a farcical proposal.

Would the fight for digital liberties really be _that_ encumbered by a location in Kansas City, Austin, Atlanta, or even a generic Valley office park?

<comment><USER25> KC native here. I haven't been to SF, and don't ever plan to. I live 12 miles away from my work (to the East, thank goodness), and bought a home a few years ago in a very nice suburb for $160k. 3 bed, 2.5 bath, gigantic finished basement and 2 car garage. My mortgage is like $1.3k/month

For the same $1.3k in SF, I could get a deluxe cardboard box by the side of the road. No thank you. And KC is google fiber as well, so I'm getting great internet for $50/mo.

I really think more tech companies should try KC or Austin. The cost of living is much lower, so more of people's salaries becomes spending money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Steve,

I don't know you but I wish I did.

You seem like one of those really lighthearted folks that make everything better in life. From reading your answers on IRC and Hacker News, You are always humble and eager to provide answers. When confronted with arrogance and ignorance on several replies here, You reacted with facts and without ever taking the conversation in an impolite manner.

You see, one thing I believe is the cancer of our current line of work (tech) is the notion that we must obey blindly to some kind of savior or master, and that we have to put up with the masters' erratic and disrespectful behavior, for he is the 'bringer of the vision' to us not-as-enlightened folk. We don't need to put names but several come to mind when it comes to FOSS and stuff, right? In your case, I consider you a true master, for that you encourage collaboration without ever being uncouth to others just because of a position of power.

Your honesty and kindness shines specially in your post regarding Mozilla. You are one of those people that are able to talk "uncomfortable stuff" without making people reading it uncomfortable.

Thank you for being an awesome leader and I hope to read more and more of your answers and informational posts here, take it from the unknown no-names of the Internet like me: you are doing it right and being like this is gonna keep making people gravitate towards your works throughout your life.

May you multiply your ability of connect people with your heart, a skill which is much lacking in the current world of ever greater egos.

o/

</comment><comment><USER27> In my opinion Steve's efforts have been nothing short of herculean, proving invaluable to Rust. If Mozilla can't recognize this, then that is a tragedy.

Interacting with him on HN has been nothing short of a pleasure.

Best of luck wherever you go, Steve!

</comment><comment><USER28> Steve, thank you for your work on Rust. I can honestly say that your writing was the most important factor in getting me excited and into Rust. Your book is a _pleasure_ to read, it's a gold standard. Overall, the quality of Rust's documentation is a beacon in the field, and I understand you've contributed much there.

I'm sad (and a bit angry at Mozilla) that you didn't get the career recognition you deserved at Mozilla. I look forward to seeing what you work on next.

<comment><USER29> Agreed, I've started spending more time learning rust, and the book + your comments here on HN about Rust internals makes the learning so much pleasant, thank you for those!

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> For those that missed it, this is a subtle nod to Ariana Grande's "Thank u, next" song/tweet:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl1aHhXnN1k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl1aHhXnN1k)

[https://twitter.com/arianagrande/status/1058888117808070656?...](https://twitter.com/arianagrande/status/1058888117808070656?lang=en)

Never did I ever expect to see that on HN. <3

2019 culture clash is already wild.

<comment><USER31> It's not really subtle thb.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> > Furthermore, I don't have any personal opportunity at Mozilla; I recently > discovered I'm the lowest-paid person on my team, and Mozilla doesn't pay > particularly well in the first place. In order to have any kind of career > growth

A tech company couldn't find a better evangelist IMO. Steve, you should be commanding a top tier salary.

</comment><comment><USER33> I wonder if he was told, repeatedly, "if you don't like it, leave". My experience has been that companies who don't want to change say this to their best employees, whilst dragging along their worst ones indefinitely. The best eventually follow the advice.

</comment><comment><USER34> Re Fuchsia: "They use a lot of Rust, and plan to use more."

When I look at Fuchsia source I don't see much Rust. There is Fargo, a Cargo wrapper that integrates Rust into the Fuchsia build system, but I don't see a lot of actual Rust code in the system.

What am I missing? I've cloned Topaz, Zircon and some other large Fuchsia repos, but I see only a smattering of Rust source.

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18765780](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18765780)

<comment><USER34> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'd be interested to know more about what disenchanted him -- if he's willing/able to share, of course -- from Mozilla, besides what he briefly mentioned regarding pay and opportunity. I can understand the need to move on from a position that is no longer of interest, but are there "political" reasons? He hints at incidents, for example.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think it's particularly professional to get into more detail than I did in my post, as much as I'd like to. As the saying goes, there are three sides to every story. I'd rather focus on the future.

<comment> dao- Why hint at it at all then? Without details it won't satisfy the curious nor help fix whatever problems there might be. As someone who still works for Mozilla out of conviction, this feels like an unnecessary low blow.

<comment><USER6> I can't speak for steve, but having been in a similar position, hinting at it signals to peers that if they are feeling similar things, they aren't alone. It's easy for a lot of toxic culture to go unspoken, and to be gaslighted into thinking things are great, a post like this helps reinforce that stuff (yes vague) is not great and maybe it will lead more folks within Mozilla to pull off the rose colored glasses.

Basically: it's not for the general reader, but a specific subset of them, if I were to take a guess.

<comment> dao- Working for Mozilla, I feel I should be able to make sense of these hints, but I can't. I have no clue what issues or missteps were deal-breakers for Steve, apart from the compensation issue. Any organization of the size will have /some/ problems, and I fail to see the usefulness of signaling that's so vague that anybody can interpret it in any way they want.

<comment><USER36> Maybe you should ask someone in your management chain why Steve was punished for expressing his concerns, thereby ensuring you wouldn't have heard about them internally at Mozilla.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Proponents of the open web should be very, very worried about the terrible mismanagement of Mozilla.

</comment><comment><USER38> Perhaps it's time Rust (which in the meantime has been adopted from many teams, from Microsoft, to Dropbox, FB and more) to get some more independence, and have an independent structure and organization fund them.

If Mozilla doesn't play well with their core business, and actually innovate, and piss people off even in their side projects like Rust, they'll continue the race to irrelevancy in browsing market share and loose their search engine placement deals. It's not that difficult to go from hundreds of millions per year to nothing fast.

</comment><comment><USER39> Steve, just wanna thank you for the excellen twork you've done at making Rust more accessible to normal people like myself. Your book is an invaluable resource to newcomers to the language.

</comment><comment><USER40> Departures happen, but the way in which they happen determines the culture and maturity of a company; its sad to see Steve leave like this.

I hope you go somewhere that truly values you.

</comment><comment><USER41> I'm not a programmer (yet?) in any large sense. I've done some simple old- school web-dev including some JS, PHP, etc. and have only dabbled with other languages otherwise back in college and on my own.

I've read through a large portion of the Rust book and really appreciate how good it is. It's very clear and made me feel like I grasped quite a bit in a short time. Maybe someday I'll be writing or contributing to Rust projects.

Thank you Steve!

</comment><comment><USER42> With regards to Fuchsia it's not really much new in OS design: a microkernel with the same old issues of each 'component' being a server and the complexity it entails.

If I could work on an operating system it would be something like [http://www.barrelfish.org/](http://www.barrelfish.org/) but with a few big changes.

</comment><comment><USER43> > A company that thinks they can take webassembly (and their product built on > it) to the next level

Epic? Unreal Engine was one of the first 3D engines with WASM output, and if you thought you'd never work at a payments company and loved it, you might enjoy gamedev (or gamedevdev in this case). Also Raleigh NC is a nice place to live.

<comment><USER44> Raleigh's nice. I grew up and went to school in Raleigh.

It's not nice enough to move cross country.

<comment><USER45> I dunno. Last I checked Raleigh was one of the fastest growing cities in the country. And I doubt _all_ of those people are coming from the rest of the East Coast. I'm pretty sure at least a handful of people are, indeed, moving cross country to relocate here.

<comment><USER46> We both know Durham is better though ;P

<comment><USER45> And Chapel Hill is better than both! :p

All joking aside, colloquially speaking, I assume that "Raleigh" is shorthand for the entire greater Triangle region when speaking to, or in regards to, outsiders. Personally, I live in Chapel Hill, but I consider myself a "citizen of the Triangle". :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Hi Steve, I looked at the title and I had this gut feeling of what the post is going to contain. It was a real bummer to hear about your leaving Mozilla. You did some serious job with Rust. My first contact with the Rust language was through your posts here. There was a feeling that you are virtually everywhere on the Internet where someone mentions Rust. Always very helpful with your writings. On the other hand, I'm happy for you and hope that you can find a place where your work is appreciated and well compensated.

Your post makes me a bit worried with what's going on with Mozilla, and also for the future of the Rust language. I have mixed feelings about Mozilla myself. Some people mentioned in the comments something about a Rust Foundation. I will definitely be happy to chip in if it's in the plan.

Thank you for everything, and good luck wherever you go next (:

</comment><comment><USER48> I feel fairly certain, Steve, that I wouldn't have learned Rust without you writing the docs and having you contribute here on HN. Thanks! You're amazing.

</comment><comment><USER49> 1\. What happen to the Ruby and Rails part of the History?

2\. How on earth did you came from Pizza to Tech?

3\. I read it as if you were working on Firefox Pre 1.0 and Rust in Mozilla. And I don't think that is the case?

4\. Finally someone pointing out the problem with Mozilla. ( Far to often they want to play themselves as the Saint or as David vs Goliath )

5\. Have you thought about doing something with Rust and BlockChain?

Anyway Best of Luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. It just wasn't super relevant! I left the pizza job for an internship at a company doing PHP, then left that internship to do a startup in Rails.

2\. The pizza job was through high school and college, I transitioned to tech after I had the degree.

3\. I have never contributed to Firefox, but I have been a passionate user for years (I'm writing this comment in Firefox, for example)

5\. I'm not particularly interested in blockhain stuff. There is a lot of Rust in that area though!

Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is sad.

I plan to do Rust in 2019 more. I'm amaze by performance of Rust software(Parity of Ethereum). My friends who read HN that I talked to knew Rust because of Steve. It sounds ridiculous but it's what I observed.

Mozilla do a lots of experiment and weird projects. yet they aren't willing to put him on same level of pay scale.

</comment><comment><USER51> > I started working at 15, when I took a job as a pizza cook. Over the next > seven years, I moved up the ranks, to a driver, shift manager, and then as > part of the "new store opening team."

Driver is up the ranks from cook? I don't know why, but I always assumed that it was the other way around.

<comment><AUTHOR> They're sort of close, status wise, at least at the chain I worked for, but a driver has more requirements (I started as a cook at 15 and so legally could not drive a car) and pays better (tips are substantial, cooks are un-tipped.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Every good thing people are saying about Steve's contributions are true. His efforts stand out not just within the Rust community but across every open source project I've engaged with. Thank you Steve and good luck!

</comment><comment><USER53> Really a bummer. I learned about Steve when he did awesome stuff with Rails, and knowing him work on Rust and frequently answering questions about Rust everywhere makes learning Rust a privilege to me. Thank you, Steve.

</comment><comment><USER54> Yet another Mozilla blunder. When is it going to stop? It's sad, because the world is better for having Firefox as the only competition to Chrome (and more generally Webkit/Chromium browsers).

</comment><comment><USER11> Wyldfire's comment got me thinking- you should go work for Microsoft. They value developer relationship immensely. And I hear they treat their employees well, not just monetarily.

</comment><comment><USER55> It saddens me that he got disciplined for voicing his frustrations

</comment><comment><USER56> Steve, you have inspired me many times over for your diligence and incredible work. Good luck on your future project, whichever one it is!

</comment><comment><USER57> Congrats and all the best!

</comment><comment><USER58> The 2nd half would make a great cover letter to those organizations.

</comment><comment><USER59> The title comes off as kind of an F you.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand that intentions don't always matter, but if you read the lyrics to the song, I think it's more the opposite.

<comment><USER59> I accept this explanation, but am not going to look up a pop song to verify it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> If Mozilla paid well it would be known and people would actually criticize them for doing so (being a non-profit).

<comment><USER6> The Mozilla Corporation isn't a not-for-profit, that's the Mozilla Foundation, though I think your point is that they are intertwined and people would make a fuss.</comment></comment>


DF: Malcolm Gladwell Reviews 'Free' by Chris Anderson - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/06/29/gladwell-free <comment><USER2> The actual review:

[http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/07/06/09070...](http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/07/06/090706crbo_books_gladwell?currentPage=1)

</comment><comment><USER3> hardly a review..</comment>


Hackers find serious problems in California voting machines - <AUTHOR> http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/33137/118/

<comment><USER2> Pencil and paper are a clear solution. But that doesn't involve wasting a great deal of money and promising control. Lots of folks are pretty paranoid about fixed elections. I try not to attribute something to malice which could easily be incompetence. <http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_J._Hanlon></comment>


Here is the average p e n i s length, according to science - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/2015/03/03/here_is_the_average_penis_length_according_to_science/

<comment><AUTHOR> The "penis" word without spaces is deleted from the title. It seems like the antispam measures of HN forgot to handle word variations.</comment>


MI5 criticised over 'unlawful' use of data gathered - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48597111 <comment><USER2> Ultimately, all surveillance, if used, ends up used for some form of extortion.

It doesn't matter why it was collected. It's the spooks' counterpart to "information wants to be Free."

</comment><comment><USER3> "criticising" is all anyone can do (when they get caught...). They are above the law.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'll believe that the MI5 follows any laws when someone in charge actually goes to prison for persistent privacy breaches.

Until that time it's like the drug laws; they only apply if you're not a Tory politician.</comment>