Why isn't there any good "Application Wish List" site? - <AUTHOR>

I always wished there was a site where I can post/find good ideas for web/mobile/other applications. I know there are many sites on this topic. e.g., internetwishlist.com, many other idea banks and idea sharing sites but I don't find them  user friendly.
What I need is a Web application + Mobile app that lets me:
1. Access the site from anywhere/anytime.
2. Post and manage my ideas easily and quickly - allow options for even anonymous posting - No registration required to submit/view ideas but if you have an account you can manage your own ideas and favorites etc.
3. Up/down rating of ideas (just like HN)
4. Tagging of ideas/ Tag wise idea list
5. Effective search system.
Do you know any such site? If not, I will make one as my next weekend project.
Edit : Also suggest me a good domain for such site. <comment><USER2> Great!! I have this idea in my list of ideas as well. I had thought about this for sometime, and will share a few of thoughts.

1\. Ownership of the resultant product: If some likes an idea, and builds upon it? who owns the products? Does, the person with the idea owns a part of it? I hope US has first to invent system, that means the person who first runs with that idea, has the most advantage. How do we tackle this?

2\. Incentive for the thinker: I'm willing to share ideas that I'm not ready to work on. But, others may find it useful and that may also go on to become a billion dollar business. But, I might like to have something out of it, not money necessarily, may be a recognition that the inception happened in my mind.

3\. Business model possibilities: Site can employ intention marketers, which can work with the people with ideas to sell license them on their behalf, which may also be a viable model. Note: Invention marketers, not patent lawyers or market research approaches. Invention marketers only get paid when the idea get licensed.

4\. Pairing Geeks and Non-Geeks Service: Since, these you are talking about tech products, the site can pair non-developers with great ideas with great developers to get a prototype or product of the ground. The structure could be like revenue share on the product, this way people with idea doesn't have to invest a lot of money at the beginning, and they will get developers, who believe in the idea, might be a success.

This has great potential IMO, when done right.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your valuable feedback.

1\. Idea is not a product. If the concept is patentable, patent it first to protect your assets. The whole concept of this tool will be to share and validate idea, or to just share the idea that you can't develop due to lack of skills, time but would like to use.

2\. Again, one can't claim he owns an idea. A person not using this tool can come up with same idea. You earn money for execution of idea not the idea itself. The best that can be done is to have a HN like karma system. If developer of product wants, he may give credit to you but can't be forced to do so.

3\. I'm planning to make a twitter like "follower" system where the followers can be categorized in developers,designers,funder,promoter etc. Idea owner can contact them to form a group to kickstart a project. It can be excellent for open source project ideas.

4\. As mentioned in point 3, it can be done but negotiation can't be done just on basis of idea. It is out of scope of this tool.

We can add a feature to keep ideas private and share it with limited people and make them agree to a Non-disclosure agreement first. Not advisable but can be done if required

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ag- R_ZlGO21NdE9...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ag- R_ZlGO21NdE9HSWRkbjNyUGRxS2JIV3NxYVdiaXc&hl=en_US#gid=2)

this spread sheet was posted on HN sometime ago. You can have a billion ideas, its more about execution. More than likely if you didn't think of the idea organically or have some passion in the idea, then it really doesn't matter. Even if you're doing for customer dev purposes, its still a hard sell to get people to participate. Look through the spreadsheet i posted here, and really is your app really solving any problem ?

</comment><comment><USER4> Not quite what you're looking for, but may be useful regardless: <http://builditwith.me>

</comment><comment><USER5> My guess is that it could be a supply and demand problem — I bet that for almost any niche you can think of there could be a mobile app (or even dozens of apps). So do a test: Come up with the ten most niche ideas you can for a mobile app, google them and see if there are any results.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't get your point. Are you trying to say there is more supply of ideas than demand? or vice versa?

I believe there are many unshared and undiscovered ideas to share with people and there are many hackers who are looking for new ideas/problems to solve. It's just that there isn't a proper tool to do it which both idea sharers and idea searchers feel excited to use.

<comment><USER5> Honestly yes I do see a ton of bad ideas, way too many "solutions looking for problems". If you're looking for a problem to solve find some existing software that's terrible (and there's a ton of it) and figure out how to make something much better. Often these are overlooked areas hat are in front of your nose.

For example back in the day your database wouldn't have listed a social media website for a youth market because MySpace was out -- so Facebook by that way of thinking wouldn't have happened. Same with other success stories: Why do an iPod when there were already MP3 players on the market?

Also I think part of the problem is that there's so much venture capital that many of the obvious problem areas are over covered.

I'd also add to this the following: Software isn't about "having an idea" so much as the execution. The idea that software is about an idea always seems to be promoted by non-tech types who don't make software (usually MBAs or lawyers who are frustrated because they can't express their creativity).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would love this. I experiment far more with mobile apps, but still often find myself thinking "nah, not now". Unfortunately, there isn't a good way to flag something and come back later armed with more information.

Let me know if you build it!

</comment><comment><USER7> There's <http://www.reddit.com/r/SomebodyMakeThis>, which is moderately active.</comment>


Scalable incremental data aggregation on Postgres and Citus - <AUTHOR> https://www.citusdata.com/blog/2018/06/14/scalable-incremental-data-aggregation/ <comment><USER2> The hook, for me, was a few paragraphs in:

> We tested this approach for a CDN use case and found that a 4-node Citus > database cluster can simultaneously:

> \- Ingest and aggregate over a million rows per second

> \- Keep the rollup table up-to-date within ~10s

> \- Answer analytical queries in under 10ms.

</comment><comment><USER3> The example sounds pretty similar to Cloudflare's old pipeline:

[https://blog.cloudflare.com/scaling-out-postgresql-for- cloud...](https://blog.cloudflare.com/scaling-out-postgresql-for-cloudflare- analytics-using-citusdb/)

<comment><USER4> (Samay from Citus)

This blog post is quite different than Cloudflare's old pipeline. I can think of three fundamental differences.

(1) Cloudflare's pipeline used an old version of Citus. On that version, Citus was still a proprietary database that forked from Postgres. Since then, Citus became an extension of Postgres (not a fork) and went open source.

(2) Features highlighted in this blog post weren't available in the old version of Citus. Example features are hash distribution, distributed roll- ups, and sharding by site_id and partitioning by time.

These features help in two ways: (a) They simplify the overall pipeline quite a bit. You don't need to rely on a single Postgres node and Kafka queues to do roll-ups. (b) Your end to end price-performance improves by 4-5x. You can ingest larger volumes of data through sharding + time partitioning. You can also do parallel roll-ups inside the database. Neither of these were possible back in the day.

(3) Similarly, Cloudflare outlined issues around single point of failures around Postgres / Citus: [https://blog.cloudflare.com/http-analytics- for-6m-requests-p...](https://blog.cloudflare.com/http-analytics- for-6m-requests-per-second-using-clickhouse/)

Postgres streaming replication and Citus' HA solutions have come a long way in the past three years. These points shouldn't be an issue in newer versions.

Overall, the database space is an exciting market, where products continuously evolve. This blog post presents a reference architecture that uses new features in Citus - that have been added in the past three years and that our customers are using today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Isnt there a race condition ? you get the sequence before acquiring a lock.

<comment><USER6> I don't think so. The lock there just ensures that no pending transactions are going to write new rows with smaller sequence number.

<comment><USER5> got it - my bad</comment></comment></comment>


Fame/Reputation building seems key motivating factor for user uploaded content. - <AUTHOR> http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Marketing/Digital_Marketing/How_companies_can_make_the_most_of_user-generated_content

<comment><USER2> I completely agree with this article. And a startup that could efficiently tap into people's hunger for fame and recognition on a broad basis could become a destination for user generated content that far outdoes current web 2.0 offerings.

"We observed that users cite a variety of reasons for posting content online-- chief among them, a hunger for fame, the urge to have fun, and a desire to share experiences with friends"

What's interesting about the notion of reputation and fame is that, for a user to feel like they belong or are "having fun" or a held in esteem by a group of people, that group needs to be a compatible reference group meaning, they need to have things in common (this idea was touched upon in the article "The Problem with Social News" <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50015> and the discussion of homophily, meaning loosely birds of a feather flock together). For examples, entrepreneurs are much more likely to be concerned about the opinions of other entrepreneurs than other people. I take more seriously the music suggestions of people that have the same tastes as me (obvious, right?).

So if everyone on a site could be plugged into a compatible reference group, the fame and reputation motivation could be leveraged across much larger populations of users, not just the ones that want to be, for example, on the top viewed videos on youtube. Each user would be compared against those users with which they have common interests, so the idea of having a reputation becomes more salient, so people spend more time contributing, and the content becomes better for everyone at an individual level. Lots of sites are able to harness the reputation motive on subject specific areas (like Y Hacker news), but no site has tried to harness the motivation for reputation across all interest groups. Definitely email me if this interests you because it fascinates me and I have plans to build such a site.

</comment><comment><USER3> Register now to read this article? What are they thinking?

<comment><USER4> It's pretty common for business research companies to sell studies for lots of money. McKinsey, Forrester, et al. use their reputation to sell content, and the content propagates reputation.</comment></comment>


Unleash the potential of animatronic toys - <AUTHOR> http://www.indiegogo.com/CUI

<comment><AUTHOR> Thought by many to be an April Fool's this simple piece of tech could revolutionize the market. Among our many ideas are the user-programmable toys we've wanted but never got. Add this to their social communities and wireless connectivity, we think we have a winner.</comment>


Study: How Yoga Alters Gene Expression - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/05/study-how-yoga-alters-genes/275488/?single_page=true

<comment><USER2> This is an excellent example of two things:

1) How to not design a study. There is no control group!

2) How not to do scientific reporting. There was no critical thinking or fact checking involved in the writing of this piece. If there had been, the author would have noted that the lack of control group was a serious problem instead of pronouncing that yoga alters gene expression. They would have also noted that a similar study was recently published (and hyped) which noticed similar results between the practicing meditation and group therapy. [1]

[1] [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cncr.29063/full](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cncr.29063/full)

<comment><USER3> Quoting the study :

"Our study design is composed of both prospective and > cross- sectional features (Fig. S1). The prospective aspect of the study involved enrolling 26 healthy subjects who had no prior RR- eliciting experience (Novices, N1) which served as their own controls. They then underwent 8 weeks of RR-eliciting training (Short-term Practitioners, N2). The cross-sectional aspect of the study involved enrolling another 26 healthy subjects who had significant prior experience of regular RR-eliciting practice for 4– 20 years (Long-Term Practitioners, M) to be compared with novices either before or after their 8-week RR training."

Then

"We collected blood samples and biological measures when study subjects attended morning laboratory sessions, during which M and N2 listened to a 20-minute RR-eliciting CD and N1 listened to a 20-minute health education CD (control)"

So if I understand correctly, it means the "novices" went through :

* a period of time during which their blood was tested before, shortly after and then later after doing basically nothing

* a period of time during which their blood was tested before, shortly after and then later after doing meditation/yoga/whatever

The same experiment being done with people with more experience.

I'm no researcher, so I'm curious what would be an acceptable control group for this experiment ?

A group of novices that would gets their blood tested before/after doing nothing at all (sleep ? another activity ?)

Is it the fact that the same person serves as its own control (by doing different experiments over time) that invalidates it ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seriously what is this? Why is this here?

</comment><comment><USER5> What a shitty caption and article. It makes me sad.</comment>


The Algorithm: Idiom of Modern Science - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~chazelle/iPod This one is a long read, with somewhat "boring" subject. This article did not generate much interest on programming@reddit and I found it to be an unfortunate fact.<p>For all younger hackers I strongly suggest to at least bookmark it if you don't have time to read it, this text is a very nice collection of short "popular introductions" into various exciting fields of CS. <comment><USER2> Great read.

</comment><comment><USER3> Really well written</comment>


Ask HN: Who advises your startup/consulting corp on finance and taxes? - <AUTHOR>

I'm in the SF area and would love suggestions for somebody who can competently consult on things such as s-corp vs. llc fillings, write-offs due to travel, etc. I have a two person freelance consulting group. <comment><USER2> A friend of my fathers. He's been fixing startups who started out wrong for the last 10 years.

Get references for people that are near you.

</comment><comment><USER3> Dan,

Email me. I know some people in SF. . . .

Email address is in my profile.

Phil.</comment>


Authorities believe they have identified a suspect, source says - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/17/us/boston-blasts/index.html?hpt=hp_inthenews

<comment><USER2> (CNN) -- [Breaking news update at 2:36 p.m. Wednesday]

"There is conflicting information as to whether someone has been arrested in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings. A federal law enforcement source told CNN's Fran Townsend that someone was arrested. But later, two senior administration officials and another federal official told Townsend that there had been a misunderstanding among officials and that no one has been arrested."

(CNN) -- [Breaking news update at 2:44 p.m. Wednesday]

"Investigators in Washington and Boston denied Wednesday that an arrest had been made in the bombing of the Boston Marathon. They had earlier said there was "substantial" progress in the case."

<comment><USER3> CNN won't expose their source on this, either. Flame-fanning cowards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sigh. No, they don't, CNN was wrong and still refuses to admit it by describing "conflicting information". The only conflicting information is in the CNN newsroom.

How much would the world lose if we just waited 30 minutes for verification before reporting? News being such a cut-throat competitive environment isn't always a good thing. They may well have arrested someone and chosen for it to not be announced in order to guarantee safety. Who knows. All I know is that I don't trust CNN to make sensible decisions around this.

</comment><comment><USER5> Using the phrases "believe" and "source says" together doesn't exactly instill trust especially considering all the recent speculation.

With that being said, I hope this is true and isn't just a move by law enforcement to arrest _someone_ due to the pressure.

<comment><USER6> I'm sure there's considerably more pressure and personal motivation to arrest the right person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Even though I deeply sympathize with all the people in Boston (and everywhere else) that suffered from these attacks, I still believe HN is no place for this kind of news.

From the FAQs:

> If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I flagged hours ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nothing on Google News. Remember Richard Jewell and that the news industry invented click bait.

[http://www.popehat.com/2013/04/16/richard-jewell-cannot- acce...](http://www.popehat.com/2013/04/16/richard-jewell-cannot-accept-our- apology/)

<comment><USER8> "Details about the suspect's identity and motive were not immediately available. News of the arrest was first reported by CNN."

No doubt in the effort to include that second sentence in the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> [http://edition.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t1#/video/crime/2013/04...](http://edition.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_t1#/video/crime/2013/04/17/boston- marathon-suspect-king.cnn)</comment>


Cash Mob: A very modern boost for a bright button - <AUTHOR> http://www.theage.com.au/small-business/trends/a-very-modern-boost-for-a-bright-button-20120820-24ha3.html

<comment><AUTHOR> interesting process how this works here:

<http://cashmobs.wordpress.com/want-to-cash-mob/>

<http://cashmobs.wordpress.com/about-us/></comment>


Rackspace Interview Process - <AUTHOR> https://journal.paul.querna.org/articles/2014/04/27/rackspce-interview-process/ <comment><USER2> I interviewed at Rackspace a few years back on the ops engineering side. It was part of a bigger recruiting push they were doing across the metroplex area I live in.

It involved a similar schedule of interviews across multiple teams in one day. Only 11 people apparently passed the tech pre-screening to get to that point out of the whole area. Interview process went great. It included a number of different fields at varying depths, yet didn't feel over the top at all. It was a very fair and positive experience. There seemed to be real interest from several of the interview teams.

Then the offer came. They wanted me to relocate for a swing shift chat support position at half my current pay even after shift bonuses. I don't know how you go from discussing Openstack production implementations (back in the Essex/Folsom days when you couldn't find anyone that knew that stuff) to basic Linux chat support.

<comment><USER3> I had this same experience about a year ago.

After going through several screens, I was asked to take an entry-level ops position, in a completely different metro at a lower pay, while I was applying for a senior applications role.

My primary reason for applying was the location and type of role, so I declined. But I've never felt so disrespected by a companies hiring practices like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The Rackers that I have contact with are generally terrible. Once in a while I get someone who really knows their stuff, but most of the time it takes me 3-4 'tries' to get an answer to my questions.

>> Culture, not just code

Rackspace appears to employ a lot of non-technical people that have been placed in technical roles. They don't understand the why's. Maybe their goals are to be able to train anyone and they don't want people being creative etc. I know a handful of people that work there that I would have never suspected they would work at Rackspace doing web or server support.

>> Flexible for multiple roles

This bugs me. Mediocre employees shuffling around from position to position. I would suspect the amount of people that can perform 'very good' at a number of jobs inside Rackspace is pretty low. Or any other company, for that matter.

>> Trained

Most of the Rackers at the first and second support tiers are not much more than script-readers it seems.

<comment><USER5> Ex-Racker here. There are different levels of support available. AFAIK, there exists a level of support where you talk to devops engineers directly, but I believe its kinda pricy.

In general, I think you get what you paid for: most customers don't want to pay a lot for support.

Its true that Rackspace does employ a lot of non-technical people and train them. I actually really like how they do this: I've worked with many people who moved from support to developers, and they are not only top-notch, but understand the pain points of customer-service and help make the offerings very user and support friendly.

<comment><USER6> Rackspace costs roughly 10x of many of their competitors. I thought that extra cost was for support?

<comment><USER7> When you call Rackspace, you will probably get an entry-level person. That makes sense, since answering calls all day is an entry-level task. If necessary, the call will be escalated as high as it needs to go, to meet the need.

When you call AWS, Digital Ocean, or Linode... just kidding, you can't call them, at least not without paying at least as much as Rackspace.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am a technical recruiter in Zurich. We have a tiny Rackspace dev team here and from what I've heard from the guys here Rackspace has a very reasonable recruiting strategy.

The take-home assignment is a set of tasks that the candidate can choose from, which I believe is a smarter way to gauge tech-talent than giving an arbitrary algorithmic coding task and forcing the candidate to solve it on the spot like Google / Facebook does.

<comment><USER9> I might be moving to Zurich in a year or two. How is the tech scene there?

<comment><USER8> Some Swiss IT-highlights include:

\- The biggest Google software engineering office outside California (around 2000 employees).

\- Logitec, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco

\- ETH university

\- Many ETH-spinoff/startups: Doodle, Bitspin (bought by Google), Teralytics, Archilogic, Fashwell, Getyourguide, Numbrs and I surely forgot many others.

It is a great place to live and is the only place where net-salaries are on par with New York / SF. Salaries are in the range of 7000 - 10.000 CHF / month after taxes. However apartments can be way cheaper than in San Francisco. You find more on Zurich from me here: [https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight- reasons-why-i-moved-t...](https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why- i-moved-to-switzerland-to-work-in-it-c7ac18af4f90)

Also, if you have a EU-passport, you can find my email address in my HN- handle.

<comment><USER10> _The biggest Google software engineering office outside California (around 2000 employees)._

Makes sense, Switzerland is a major tax haven.

<comment><USER8> When they decided to make Zurich the Google tech-hub in Europe I can assure you that taxes were not the main driver.

One of the big guys at Google at that time studied at ETH and therefore knew the place is full of talent. Also, the Zurich is more or less in the geographic center of Europe. So is Munich, Germany, but would a French or Italian programming prodigy move to Germany? Maybe, but maybe not. The probability of different people to move to (neutral) Switzerland is higher so it is a natural place to attract talent from all over Europe.

<comment><USER9> Hey, I sent you an e-mail, but haven't gotten a response. Not sure if I sent it at the correct one? iwang -at - fastmail dot net

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I interviewed there 5 years ago. It was a pleasant process and I was impressed with everyone that I met. My experience was consistent with the article, it was a 'no bullshit' interview, no Google-style zingers.

</comment><comment><USER12> When I interviewed at Rackspace 3 years ago I had 8 interviews. Things have changed since then but I remember the process really being comprehensive for both culture fit, technical, and overall just who you are. I used to do interviews when I was in Support and this article is indeed accurate.

<comment><USER13> 8 interviews?? All with Rackspace? That seems crazy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sounds pretty horrid to me. I mean:

 _11:00 to 12:00: Computer Science and Algorithms_

Do you _really_ need a full hour to tell if somebody has a good basic grasp of CS and algorithms? I can't see it. At least not in the best case. The way I'd suggest doing it is this: Ask a question that can result in a "1 question yes". That is, pick a sufficiently advanced / interesting algorithm, and ask questions about it, and/or ask the candidate to implement it. If they pass on that, move on from CS/algorithms to something else. If not, move to the 2nd choice algorithm, and repeat. Do that for a few iterations. This way you only fill a full hour if the candidate forces you to dig really deep into your list of topics.

The same methodology could be applied to the other domains as well.

<comment><USER15> If you complain about CS requirements for software engineering jobs your complaints are going to fall on a lot of deaf ears because people desire competency. Dunning-Kruger is having its impact felt in these threads. If you think computer science fundamentals aren't a requisite for software engineering it's probably because you don't have the experience and skill necessary to understand what engineering competence looks like.

<comment><USER16> Mindcrime isn't saying CS isn't required, they're saying it doesn't require a full hour to judge whether they're competent or not

<comment><USER14> _Mindcrime isn 't saying CS isn't required, they're saying it doesn't require a full hour to judge whether they're competent or not_

Yes, exactly.

That said, I should add the disclaimer that I'm referring to fairly general roles. If you're genuinely hiring for a highly specialized role that requires more specific knowledge, then that might change the equation a bit. I should have been more explicit about that earlier.

<comment><USER15> I find it very difficult to imagine how an engineering position wont benefit from having strong CS fundamentals. If you write code you need to understand how the code you are writing works. How the libraries you depend on do what they do. If you run into problems you'll be need to able to think of solutions. This idea that you'll look up how to do some computer science algorithm when you need to is ignorant, because you may not know when you need it.

A lot of the CS fundamentals in interview questions demonstrate an ability for problem solving and abstract thinking. It demonstrates your ability to handle coding problems under stress. Resorting to complaining about hard computer science problems is the exact opposite response you should have. It should motivate you to improve and learn more, not feel bitter and angry. Likely this attitude indicates a poor culture fit as well. So in effect asking computer science question is doubly useful, because it helps filter out candidates who opt for alternatives to self-improvement and overcoming challenges.

<comment><USER14> You were replying to me, but I agree 100% with all of that, and it doesn't contradict anything I said, so I'm not sure what else to say. I guess I could just be more clear in saying that, for me personally, I'm not "complaining about hard computer science problems", I'm just thinking about how to optimize use of time. Personally, whether I'm the interviewer or the interviewee, I'm not partial to interview processes that take all day. That and I'm not partial to asking people to implement difficult algorithms on the whiteboard. My take is this:

1\. If you're doing whiteboard stuff, keep it high level, see if the conceptual understanding is there, and move on.

OR

2\. Give the candidate a computer, editor / IDE, compiler, google, etc., and let them work they way they work, implementing $WHATEVER.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Rackspace missed my phone interview 3 times in a row...

<comment><USER18> Don't worry, it's not unusual for recruiters to just forget about you, or trying to get travel expenses reimbursed for a couple months after the unsuccessful interview process. Given that interviews are free form and you didn't enter a contractual agreement beforehand, I'd just start looking elsewhere, while pinging them regularly as long as you're still looking. Heck, there are firms that return to you 12 months later, especially on Wall Street, so it's not that unusual.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'd never heard of the STAR answering format mention in the article. It looks really useful and I'll definitely give it go next time.

Does anyone have any real world experience using these kind of techniques?

<comment><USER20> Yes this is pretty common in my area (finance in London). Especially in the HR interview which is sometimes called a competency interview. You will get questions of the format "tell me about a time when you persuaded your manager to do something", or "tell me about a time when you had a conflict with another team member."

The interviewer generally expects a STAR format answer to these questions. Typically the candidate would come with two or three good stories in mind, and be able to tailor them to the particular question - many good workplace "war stories" would fit one or more of these sorts of questions if you emphasize different aspects.

<comment><USER21> So interviewees are supposed to read "how to interview" books to know that they should generate a STAR format answer? What does this have to do with being able to do a job?

<comment><USER22> I don't expect a candidate to have STAR response out of the box at all.

I would ask each part of STAR, directly to the candidate.

The goal is to actually understand what the candidate did, less what "we" did.

\- Tell me about a time there was a production outage?

\- What was your role in the team? Were you on call?

\- [ questions about what happened ]

\- How was it fixed? What was your part in this?

\- What did your team change afterwards?

\- How do you think about production outages now based on this one?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I interviewed for a non-customer-facing ops position at Rackspace UK in 2006 and one stage was them handing me a pack of coloured pencils and blank paper and telling me to draw what my idea of "fanatical support" looked like.

<comment><USER24> If you want a job at Rackspace, a huge proportion of your result, assuming you are ok competent, would be to completely embody FANATICAL SUPPORT, for whatever role you are doing, I don't care if it is technical or product or marketing or sales or legal or operations.

Basically, what it means is that you will do WHATEVER IT TAKES to satisfy the needs of WHOEVER happens to be your customer. Most times "your customer" is a real customer, but you also have internal "customers" (for example, the legal team's customers are mostly internal).

Look at this page and internalize it.

[https://www.rackspace.com/talent/culture/](https://www.rackspace.com/talent/culture/)

A lot of the "culture" component tends to also be kind of cheesy, but I think that it is a sub-thread of Rackspace that is not necessarily part of the culture but perpetuated by HR. I have been told that during their "onboarding week" (yeah, it can take 3 days for the onboarding), people are encouraged to be silly and wear silly hats. Not everybody is up for that, but many are.

So for you, being in an ops position, be able to know what that is. They are not asking you to draw a Picasso. They are gauging whether you know what FANATICAL SUPPORT means for your role and whether you have even thought about it.

<comment><USER25> Not so sure how FANATICAL SUPPORT applies to "satisfy the needs of WHOEVER happens to be your customer". I have a client with a $2k a month hosting bill with Rackspace. Which is small for big companies or startup tech companies, but a lot for a small non-tech business.

There have been occasions where we've received FANATICAL SUPPORT from individual techs, but mostly we're stonewalled by being on an infrastructure plan that doesn't allow for their FANATICAL SUPPORT it appears.

<comment><USER26> They have a page specifically noting what they support:

[https://support.rackspace.com/how-to/cloud-servers-with- mana...](https://support.rackspace.com/how-to/cloud-servers-with-managed- operations-support-for-linux/)

Speaking as an ex-Racker, yeah, if your infrastructure isn't listed on that page and you have something like Tomcat running or Cassandra, or Headless VirtualBox an dedicated box, it was best effort. If you want externalized customized support for that client outside the standard tech stack supported by Rackspace, you need to bring in an external MSP, consultancy, or FTE willing to take on your tech stack and provide an SLA, and pay for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Rackspace seems to like to hire lovable losers. They claim they are exceedingly selective, but they never go into details about what traits they value. They seem to value people who are not as driven as others. Those that'll hang around for average wages. People who won't be bored and want something better. They frame this as being 'more selective than Princeton' but that can mean a lot of things. My friends coworkers were a bit lol. Everyone was likeable but they all seemed flawed personality-wise.

</comment><comment><USER28> I like that you have a framework for conducting interviews. This all seems civil, sane and well thought out. This is refreshing. More companies should codify their process like this. Most of the time it just feels like companies are just winging it.

Can I ask what the focus of the San Francisco office of Rackspace is? I know its a large company.

</comment><comment><USER29> Did they ever drop the "Strengths Finder" testing? It was the oddest part of my interview there - they found I'd not taken it before flying out and put the entire process on pause to have me take it, only to find the results were incompatible with the desired results for the position they were filling.

</comment><comment><USER30> A whole hour for "10:00 to 11:00: Background and context"? That sounds very inefficient. Interviewers need to be able to explain the context and background in about 5 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER31> if you can take multiple people and pull them off their work for an entire day, while having meetings about the meetings you'll be having, there's not enough real work being done.

[https://www.google.com/finance?q=rax](https://www.google.com/finance?q=rax)

</comment><comment><USER32> the problem to me seems that those overly technical interviews focus more on what you know (memorize) than what you can do (learn, troubleshoot)

i guess they are top tier enough to be worth the effort

</comment><comment><USER33> just reading all that caused me to want to shoot myself honestly

<comment><USER34> The interview consists of 4-5 panels of 2 interviewers. Each panel is generally 1 hour long.

I'm already out. The kafkaesque bureaucracy must be epic. I suspected it the moment I read "Mailgun team (level II or III)." This stratification metric means the owners lost control of the organization. When you no longer have the capability to assess and judge your individual employees (nor trust your management to judge) at any level, let's at least give them some increasingly narrow vector title so we know who is more competent than someone else in a pinch. Because our concern is not looking foolish, so we rely more on the people who get paid more in a vicious cycle of incompetence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> "We currently use a white board for most of the coding exercises. I am not satisfied with this because it penalizes different ways of thinking and communicating."

So ask the interviewee to bring in a laptop (since he'll already have everything set up the way he's used to). Or buy one for this specific purpose. The answer is so simple. Instead they choose to complain about it. Any other solution is wrong. And while you're at it, shut the fuck up while your interviewer is working on your stupid problems. That will go a really long way.

Then again, a place that hires someone who can't see this obvious solution is not a place I want to work at.</comment>


The New Book Unveiled: The 4-Hour Body - <AUTHOR> http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2010/09/29/the-4-hour-body/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timferriss+%28The+Blog+of+Author+Tim+Ferriss%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher <comment><AUTHOR> This is mostly a promo, but this article gives a taste of the book. From Geek to Freak: How I Gained 34 lbs. of Muscle in 4 Weeks [http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/04/29/from-geek- to...](http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/04/29/from-geek-to-freak-how- i-gained-34-lbs-of-muscle-in-4-weeks/)</comment>


How to deal with hyper growth? - <AUTHOR> Hello,
I would like to understand some of the strategies how to deal with hyper growth? For example we need to add around 10 engineers a month, it is taking a toll in how one could hire them and onboard them. Did you encounter a situation where you said NO to new clients due to hyper growth?
Thanks
Thanks <comment><USER2> How big are you already? Growing from 3 to 13 engineers in a month is very different from growing from 100 to 110 (and even the latter would be considered hyper-growth, especially if recurring for multiple months).

The former level of growth is dangerous in many ways. It incentivizes you to hire below your standards. It completely replaces your carefully cultivated team culture with a wave of people who will form their own culture. It overwhelms your existing people with onboarding.

And then if the new clients don't stick around in the long term you're stuck paying salaries for a whole bunch of people you don't have work for, or letting the lot of them go.

Classic worth reading: The Mythical Man Month.

If you're starting with a very small team, I'd suggest hiring a couple full- timers and a couple contractors, and letting go of some of the potential clients.

Another option, if you're doing bespoke work (you didn't say what your company does) would be to subcontract to another agency. That gives you a lot more boots on the ground without the additional people complexity. Then, as you grow at a more reasonable rate, you can gradually bring more of that work back in house, since you generally don't want to outsource your core competency.

</comment><comment> swingline-747 That's a good problem to have, but be sure it's necessary to solve customer pain rather than to impress anyone or follow a "grand plan."

Talk to Triplebyte, get on Github jobs, go to related tech meetups... make it your mission to try out people and get more than you need, because some won't work out.

Always be hiring (at least long-cycle interviewing) so you won't be caught without some staff potentials whom are warmly interested, and able to speed up the process when scaling is needed.

Ask solid hires to recommend people they really want to work with because they'll be happier and it makes for faster interviewing.

You have to say "not right now" (rather than no) until you can deliver. Help them find suitable alternatives if you can't deliver in a reasonable timeframe.</comment>


Ask HN: is there a startup school 2009? - <AUTHOR>

looking at: http://startupschool.org/ I don't see the application for startup school 2009
If I recall correctly, around this time last year, the application for startup school 2008 already started.
Thus: is there a startup school this year? or is it delayed / (worse yet ... canceled) due to YCombinator moving to CA? <comment><USER2> Yes. It will be in the fall this year.</comment>


An AI for AI: New Algorithm Poised to Fuel Scientific Discovery - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2018/01/12/an-ai-for-ai-new-algorithm-poised-to-fuel-scientific-discovery/ <comment><USER2> This article is mis-titled. The ORNL project seems to be entirely about optimizing DNN hyperparameters (like Google's AutoML, I think), and _not_ about inventing novel DNN architectures.

Worse, the work has absolutely nothing to do with Scientific Discovery, which is a difficult and hugely ambitious area of ML study which involves generating novel induction of necessary mechanisms, not just the mostly random generation and testing of plausible patterns against outcomes.

Unless a ML method proposes hypotheses that are based on the induction of novel mechanistic principles, it ain't discovery. It's mere trial and error.

[Edited for clarity.]

<comment><USER3> Yes, when I saw 'fueling scientific discovery' at first I thought of Adam and Eve:

[http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/robot-scientist- becomes-f...](http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/robot-scientist-becomes- first-machine-to-discover-new-scientific-knowledge)

[http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/artificially- intelligent-...](http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/artificially-intelligent- robot-scientist-eve-could-boost-search-for-new-drugs)

Or work by the likes of Hod Lipson on discovering mechanisms/explanations from observations:

[https://www.creativemachineslab.com/eureqa.html](https://www.creativemachineslab.com/eureqa.html)

I thought AI-applied-to-AI might be related to the work of Schmidhuber et al on self-improving search algorithms:

ftp://ftp.idsia.ch/pub/techrep/IDSIA-16-00.ps.gz

[http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/goedelmachine.html](http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/goedelmachine.html)

[https://arxiv.org/abs/1210.8385](https://arxiv.org/abs/1210.8385)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The nvidia article is recent, but the referenced scientific paper is from 2015:

[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steven_Young11/publicat...](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steven_Young11/publication/301463804_Optimizing_deep_learning_hyper- parameters_through_an_evolutionary_algorithm/links/57ac9b7c08ae3765c3bac448.pdf)

Presentation:

[http://ornlcda.github.io/MLHPC2015/presentations/4-Steven.pd...](http://ornlcda.github.io/MLHPC2015/presentations/4-Steven.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER5> In the article:

> the team developed an algorithm that automatically generates neural networks

Title of the paper:

> Optimizing Deep Learning Hyper-Parameters Through an Evolutionary Algorithm.

I don't know how to feel when things like this happen.

</comment><comment><USER6> I stopped reading at "Modeled loosely on the connections in the human brain, these do the "learning" in deep learning."

</comment><comment><USER7> "Scaled across Titan's 18,688 Tesla GPUs, ". I am sure that's all Nvidia really cared about, they'd write anything that made their customers look smart.

</comment><comment><USER8> Like most automated machine learning, this looks incredibly intensive/expensive computationally. I look forward to the day it's within reach for more researchers. Until then, it's a weird kind of news that has little impact on how most NNs get tuned.

</comment><comment><USER9> However, I disagree about the lack of a connection between ORNL's work on MENNDL and scientific discovery. I'm going off of what ORNL told me, but according to them, using DL has been hard for scientists and this could make it easier. I am a writer, not an engineer, but here is how ORNL explains it: "Because scientific data often looks much different from the data used for animal photos and speech, developing the right artificial neural network can feel like an impossible guessing game for nonexperts. To expand the benefits of deep learning for science, researchers need new tools to build high- performing neural networks that don't require specialized knowledge."

Their news release has more technical detail than I could put in my blog. [https://www.ornl.gov/news/scaling-deep-learning- science](https://www.ornl.gov/news/scaling-deep-learning-science)

<comment><USER9> and the papers mentioned below have yet more detail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The math behind Gene Regulatory Networks is basically the same as that used in Neural Networks. Gene Regulatory Networks control cell state and cellular development (including neurogenesis) and we can see neurogenesis as natures way of using neural network technology (Gene Regulatory Networks) to build a higher level neural network technology (Neural Networks).

</comment><comment><USER9> You are right about the 2015 publication. I believe ORNL waited until it had results from a user (Fermilab) to release the information. There are also two related papers: \-- one is about the Fermilab's neutrino research using MENNDL [http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7966131/](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7966131/) \-- and the other is about evolving deep neural nets in HPC: [https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=3146347.3146355](https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=3146347.3146355)

</comment><comment><USER11> So neural architecture search turbo charged into 24 hours with the help of a supercomputer?

</comment><comment><USER12> How is this different from a parallel set of EA runs to tune hyperparameters and topology?

<comment><USER13> Seems like these articles are becoming more common. Someone claims new meta-ai alg will change everything. In reality, just another team's hyper-param optimization setup.

<comment><USER14> Are the AIs writing their own press now?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The ORNL next gen computer is Summit. Lots, and lots of Teslas in there. [https://www.olcf.ornl.gov/summit-early- science/](https://www.olcf.ornl.gov/summit-early-science/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Somewhat off topic, but I like that they named it "MENNDL". Kinda like a fellow named "Mendel".

</comment><comment><USER17> Sounds like this is one of the cases where an "evolutionary algorithm" is essentially brute force search.

</comment><comment><USER18> Folding AI against itself does seem like the theme of the next major AI frontier. Already we have GAN networks doing incredible things.</comment>


Can Yahoo be Fixed? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/business/yourmoney/01yahoo.html?ex=1340942400&en=5fd6d95bc00279dd&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss <comment><USER2> Well heck, if Charlie Munger recommends her, she's got to be pretty smart. Seriously. If she's doing operations, meeting numbers, all that stuff, that should make Wall Street happier.

But Jerry's in the hot seat here. He's got to find the right things to focus on for the future, in a company that does a lot of stuff already.

By the way, here in LA there's already some wringing of hands in the business press about how the Santa Monica office may be losing some of its movie- producer types and their projects now that Semel's out. Not sure it will happen, but it doesn't sound tragic to me.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is Yahoo's model worth fixing? The massive portal/service centers (Yahoo, Microsoft, Google) are trying to do everything. To be everything to everyone.

Isn't this a bad idea? Isn't this an __awful __idea? Small agile companies can focus on one corner of the larger garden and nibble on it, siphoning off customers and making a superior product by focusing on having one product that does one thing well.

My insane plan for Yahoo? Spin off tens of seperate units that each develop their one specific product. Have the main Yahoo page be a mashup of these different services, but if a competing product comes along and its better, use it instead. Keep the ad program and share revenue with new partners to keep them around.

Having one company try to do everything will eventually fall apart. Yahoo and MS are further in the cycle, but Google and Facebook are both making the same mistakes, and I think the result will be the same.

<comment><USER4> I think it is worth fixing.

The only thing Yahoo still has working for them is the huge consumer base. Some small startups with a fraction of Yahoo's size are also able to charge for services and have revenue sources beyond advertising. A service for which Yahoo users(consumers not businesses) are willing to pay, is there one? Maybe Yahoo needs to be in the same space as PayPal, they have the perfect consumer base(trust and penetration) to action something that facilitates micro- payments. The goal should be to make it as ubiquitous as a yahoo email address was in the past.

The problem isn't going to be solved by bringing in management folks, Yahoo needs a technology upgrade. They haven't done anything amazing for quite some time now - Yahoo is a fairly old company. Not enough hackers graduating from college have Yahoo on the top of their list.

PS: I know they do hosting and other stuff but that isn't a significant contributor to their revenue.

<comment><USER5> What they need is an innovation upgrade-- the list of failures of innovation and indecisive product strategy in that article is frightening.

Yahoo needs to look farther into the future and start making some longer-term bets, both in product development and acquisitions. Their market position makes true innovation difficult, though, and they might have to sacrifice the stability of the mid/mass-market, where they've had (albeit lukewarm) success, in order to gain competitive advantage against Google.

Has anyone heard about how well Caterina Fake is doing with the Brickyard initiative? Maybe more of the company's overall strategy should come out of that unit.

Overall, though, Yahoo needs a really solid breakthrough in ad-serving technology-- so much of their money comes from content/ad-serving partnerships with other properties, and a real ad-serving advantage will enable them to deliver a lot more value on those partnerships. YPN is a good start, but it only moves the ball forward a smidge.

<comment><USER5> like this:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32038>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Who's Google going to one-up if Yahoo goes away?

<comment><USER7> They'll be relegated to ten-upping Microsoft.</comment></comment>


Brands and publishers blinded by Google Analytics real time data bug - the-dude http://www.thedrum.com/news/2016/09/08/brands-and-publishers-blinded-google-analytics-real-time-data-bug <comment> the-dude Is it working for anyone?</comment>


The Secret Origin of the Action RPG - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@obskyr/the-secret-origin-of-the-action-rpg-254a180079dd <comment><USER2> Diablo was far from the first ARPG, but given how influential it has been for the genre, I was floored to learn that it was actually designed and implemented as a turn-based game, and only turned into an Action RPG by request of folks at the main Blizzard office.

The founder of Blizzard North (David Brevik) thought it was a dumb idea, and only agreed to do it because it seemed like a large enough work item to justify requesting an additional budget milestone from Blizzard, which his office was hurting for sorely.

Brevik then got it working over the course of roughly an afternoon, by just running the turn system automatically and responding to clicks a little differently. It was only after seeing the action-oriented click-walk-attack- click flow actually work for the first time that he realized: they'd struck gold.

He told this story (and lots of others!) in a pretty excellent post mortem at GDC[1] a few years ago.

1 - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VscdPA6sUkc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VscdPA6sUkc)

<comment><USER3> It must have been the original "time only moves when you do".

<comment><USER4> I'm pretty sure NetHack works that way (Perhaps the whole genre all the way back to the original Rogue, but nethack is the one that I've personally played)

<comment><USER5> Yes, of course, that's how they all work. A real time game wouldn't work over a tty.

<comment><USER6> I swear there was a real-time game I played over a tty long ago. An ascii shooter, maybe star trek or similar?

At first I thought snake did it, but now I think that might have been move- countermove.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> PC-88 and PC-98 software is super fascinating. Thousands of games, many with mind-blowingly beautiful pixel art which was leaps and bounds better than their American counterparts. Displays really needed to be better in Japan because of the challenge of displaying elaborate Japanese characters.

As an aside, both were infamous for huge libraries of pornographic games (eroge). Game companies like Enix, Square and Nihon Falcom made eroge for those platforms before they found mainstream success.

Anyways, there's a ton of very cool and cutting edge gaming history, and the sad thing is how inaccessible a lot of it is since most of it never saw translations. For example, Yu-No was a groundbreaking visual novel that influenced games like Steins;Gate (both had similar themes of parallel worlds), but never got brought over because it was text heavy and (unsurprisingly) laden with smut. Many japanese games and series that we now consider classic first came about on PC-88/PC-98/MSX2 or had side games on them.

One of my favorite twitter bots is PC-98 Bot, which posts screengrabs of PC-98 games: [https://twitter.com/PC98_bot](https://twitter.com/PC98_bot)

<comment><USER8> Someone needs to feed that stream into a GAN and make [https://thispc98gamedoesnotexist.com](https://thispc98gamedoesnotexist.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The Tower of Druaga was an arcade game, release in June 1984, that has many action-RPG elements. No "stat points", but lots of items, akin to Zelda.

With this "Dragon Slayer" game from September 1984 being pushed in this article... I'd argue that Tower of Druaga has the realtime elements (being an arcade game), as well as being released a few months earlier.

I don't know if Tower of Druaga is the earliest "action RPG" game, but... it has to be one of the earlier ones. Just a few months predating Dragon Slayer.

\</comment><comment>---

Tower of Druaga as the nasty arcade game that was unbeatable if you forgot to pickup items from earlier floors. Once you advance to the next level, you can never return to an earlier level. If you have an "unbeatable" scenario, then I guess try harder next time, thank you for your $0.25.

\</comment><comment>--

EDIT: With that being said, this "The Caverns of Freitag" game is 1982, predating both Dragon Slayer and Tower of Druaga. So Caverns of Freitag sounds like the earliest known Action RPG.

The article doesn't go into Freitag until a bit later. I guess I read the lead and assumed it'd be about Dragon Slayer.

</comment><comment><USER10> Caverns of Freitag was beaten by 2 years by Adventure on the Atari 2600.

It seems to me the definition of Action RPG is somewhat arbitrary and where you draw the line determines who is first. The only hard requirements being that it is not turn based and is role playing in some respect.

<comment><USER11> Leveling/character progression of some sort would probably be in most ARPG definitions and that's in CoF and not in Adventure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> So many great action role playing games,

for NES all I played was Zelda, I felt like snes really turned out alot of great titles, Lagoon, Wanders from Ys III, Secret of Mana, possibly Equinox(maybe more puzzle than rpg) but all great.

<comment><USER13> If anyone reading this has not played Secret of Mana try it out, you are in for a treat. IMO the best game on SNES with a good story, playable for three players at the same time and AMAZING music: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3oxjanw72w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3oxjanw72w)

If you don't have time to play but love music check out the soundtrack: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFN0GLAMJ3k&list=PL30CA55009...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFN0GLAMJ3k&list=PL30CA5500906F0A4B) according to wikipedia it has "inspired several orchestral concerts"

The sequel Seiken Densetsu III is great too, got playable for non japanese through fan translations. You can choose your party of three from six characters. Found a nice video intro [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSTwjVnlNss](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSTwjVnlNss)

The Sountrack contains some gems too [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hymtc5BBPQ8&list=PL4649F0DBF...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hymtc5BBPQ8&list=PL4649F0DBF0FC09E3)

edit Originals are rereleased in Collection of Mana: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnhkGt09NQI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnhkGt09NQI) Both have been remade for the Switch, have not played them. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AR5So5gdSI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AR5So5gdSI) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6blpWJVwDTo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6blpWJVwDTo) tide

(Disclaimer: just a fan)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anyone here remembers "The Maze of Galious" from the MSX era?

It was released in 1987 by Konami and it was a masterpiece.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xczSIuB2J68](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xczSIuB2J68)

<comment><USER15> How about 1982 Indiana Jones Raiders of the lost ark, could that be considered an Action RPG?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Anyone interested in an Action/rougelike from yesteryear should check out Cave Noire for the original Gameboy. Surprisingly comprehensive rougelike for the time.

</comment><comment><USER17> This was an interesting, fun story. The I was pleased that it took place in Beep. I visited Beep last time I was in Tokyo and was just amazed. It's tiny, but packed with Japanese PCs, many of them running games you can play, along with software, and more. Well worth a visit.

</comment><comment><USER18> This recent video by Games Developer Toolkit also had in depth information about the genre.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJiwn8iXqOI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJiwn8iXqOI)

</comment><comment><USER19> Gateway to Apshai was also early in 1983, though I think it didn't have a level up mechanism. Same pathfinding tricks were required to survive harder monsters.

</comment><comment><USER20> Errr....try starting with Rogue and Roguelikes.

<comment><USER21> They aren't counting turn-based RPGs as 'action RPGs'.

<comment><USER22> It's a silly thing to do. Diablo copies a lot from roguelikes. In fact, it is considered the first commercial roguelike.

"Diablo by Blizzard is considered by many to be a commercial roguelike, a roguelike that was graphical and real-time. Developers Brevik and Schaefer had in mind a graphic version of the "old Unix-based games". Eight months into development, the decision was made to make the game real-time as opposed to turn-based. Diablo is by all accounts a Roguelike, but with graphics and real- time gameplay."

[http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=D...](http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=Diablo)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Zelda is definitely not an ARPG

<comment><USER24> Why don't you think it qualifies? You have an inventory, you have money and buy items, you advance your character (not through experience points, but through finding secrets and beating major enemies).

What specifically do you think it's missing?

<comment><USER25> You don't really make choices in most Zelda game. All the character advancement is coupled to story progression (you get an item in the 1st dungeon that lets you access the 2nd dungeon and so on). I think that reduces the "role playing" that goes on and makes Zelda more of an Action/Adventure series.

<comment><USER26> not true for botw

<comment><USER27> It's not even true for many of the "classic" Zelda games like Link to the Past or Ocarina of Time. Sure, there's a series of mandatory quests with associated items -- but there's also a bunch of side quests to pick up optional items, like extra heart containers, additional bottles, and various tools (like the Cape of Byrna in LttP or the masks in OoT).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Hmm i thought dark souls was the best and only ARPG.

<comment><USER29> The best, debatable (I'd say yes,) but definitely not the only one.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Yagol, a Game of Life sandbox built with React.js - <AUTHOR> https://sarcadass.github.io/yagol/ <comment><USER2> If you're mesmerized by the "Game of Life" like I am your going to enjoy the Continuously Domain versions like smooth life. Check out the video[0], and an implementation in python[1] on HN.

[0]: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KJe9H6qS82I](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KJe9H6qS82I)

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17152481](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17152481)

</comment><comment><USER3> Well done! Have you considered a menu to change the automata rules?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you :). Yes I have considered it, I will maybe implement it later if this project is liked by the community.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If anyone else was also puzzled: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life)

<comment><USER5> I'm always surprised by how few programmers are familiar with the Game of Life. It used to be that anyone with a degree in Comp Sci would have come across it at some point in their education -- maybe it's a casualty of the shift from hard computer science to software development?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Life? Don't talk to me about life." ;)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAA67a2-Klk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAA67a2-Klk)

</comment><comment><USER7> double glider

eyJuYW1lIjoiZG91YmxlIGdsaWRlciIsInNoYXBlU2l6ZSI6WzUsNV0sImxpZmVNYXAiOlsyMCwxNSwxMCw1LDAsNiwxMiwxOCwyNCwxOSwxNCw5LDRdfQ==

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice double glider :). You can add it as a default shape if you want : [https://github.com/sarcadass/yagol/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING....](https://github.com/sarcadass/yagol/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#adding- a-default-shape)</comment></comment>


Facebook says service hindered by lack of local news - <AUTHOR> https://apnews.com/790d194cbec347149be8b598009ad1c4 <comment><USER2> I actually think Facebook should start a news department and engage and develop journalists in local communities. You could then use that as a resource to get a handle on the fake news epidemic as well.</comment>


How Browsers' Explanations Impact Misconceptions About Private Browsing [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.blaseur.com/papers/www18privatebrowsing.pdf <comment><USER2> There's a site [1][2] that shows just how bad fingerprinting can get. You enter your name in private mode, close your browser then visit the site again and it has remembered you.

It would be great to know exactly what percentage of visitors had your same fingerprint. It uses clientjs [3] which I guess let's the "tracker" choose how strict to be.

While it uses a different library, this site [4] can show just how unique you are amongst other visitors. Again that fingerprint will not change even if you close your browser ,wipe your history, restart your computer, etc.

1\. [https://www.nothingprivate.ml/](https://www.nothingprivate.ml/)

2\. [https://github.com/gautamkrishnar/nothing- private](https://github.com/gautamkrishnar/nothing-private)

3\. [https://github.com/jackspirou/clientjs](https://github.com/jackspirou/clientjs)

4\. [https://amiunique.org/fp](https://amiunique.org/fp)

<comment><USER3> Since I roll with JS disabled everywhere except a few sites I trust, I get an eternal "Loading... please wait...". Fingerprinting defeated, or just defeated fingerprinting 'test'?

<comment><USER4> Of course they need to use JavaScript to fingerprint you to test JavaScript fingerprinting. As far as the whether they keep the information for themselves, since it's client side, you could potentially audit that.

<comment><USER3> I was under the impression that browsers could be fingerprinted in other ways that didn't require JS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> From 4.5.1

> A surprising 56.3% of participants believed that even while a user was > logged into a Google account, their search queries would not be saved while > in private mode. The large majority of participants (144) believed this to > be the case because private mode does not save search histories, conflating > the browser's local history with Google's.

<comment><USER5> I first read your comment as: Google associates your browsing history with your Google account when your not logged in and using private browsing.

They can definitely tell it's the same user who just opened a new private tab, but they're not saving that, right?

<comment><USER6> _> but they're not saving that, right?_

If you are logged into your Google account in the "private" session, your private session will carry session-level data (i.e Google's cookies) that will persist until the last private window is closed and that data can _and will_ be associated with your account.

So if you are logged in to Google, even in a private window, they will be tracking you through and and all of their properties. If you don't want to be tracked as you in private windows, don't log in as you in private windows.

This part isn't Google (or anyone else in their position)'s doing, it is by browser design. Browsers do what they can to make it difficult to detect the difference between normal and "private" windows so Google can reliably detect is that at the start of the private session you have no Google cookies, which is the same behaviour if you had moved to using a fresh new browser (in private mode or not). It _is_ currently possible to work out that you are in private mode in many browsers using various tricks (some browsers/versions disable cookies in private mode in a manner detectable via navigator.cookieEnabled, some disable all local storage options in a way that can be detected by exceptions firing when you try use them, some disable service workers, ...) but none of these tricks are 100% reliable (even, I suspect, if you try use them all) and may all become 100% unreliable at a later date. _If they can 't reliably detect you are in a private window, then they can't reliably turn off tracking of your logged-in activity in private windows._

 _> They can definitely tell it's the same user who just opened a new private tab_

This is a slightly different matter. Here the link may contain information that can be used to pollute the private island. So they know opening that advert link in a private window was done by you because the URL contains a code that was only given out to use (in a non-private window). But again, if they can't reliably detect the privacy settings they can't be expected to do anything about them.

 _> Google associates your browsing history with your Google account when your not logged in and using private browsing._

This could partly be the case, though not in a practically avoidable manner. This is the problem because people will assume that Google and their ilk _can 't_ continue to track you, not that it is difficult to know they should stop tracking you, when you do something like right-click-open-in-private-tab. The trick is to never log into your account in a private window and never follow links from non-private windows in private ones (without verifying they don't carry personal/session data first), but try explaining that to the average user who barely knows what a cookie is.

<comment><USER7> "so they know opening that advert link in a private window was done by you because the URL contains a code that was only given out to use (in a non- private window)"

Nope. See, people are idiots and in this case that helps us. They absolutely will paste that URL (with the code in it) into an email to grandma, or their Slack channel, or Hacker News.

Now, Google _could_ try to figure out what happened here, and guess if it's still you to fill out the profile - but that would always be somewhat inaccurate, and it's also evil, so between those two factors it's not a huge surprise that they don't do this.

One thing Mozilla has done more recently in Firefox is make available a "Facebook container" extension, which isolates Facebook inside its own session. So whenever you follow a Facebook bookmark, or tab-complete it in the URL bar, or whatever, you get a tab that's inside this special session where it's logged into Facebook, but your other tabs aren't. So Facebook can't correlate your non-Facebook activity to Facebook activity. None of this works if you use the "Login with Facebook" feature on other websites, but too bad, might as well have labelled that "I hate privacy" when it was invented anyway.

<comment><USER6> _> people ... will paste that URL (with the code in it) into an email to grandma, or their Slack channel, or Hacker News. Now, Google _could_ try to figure out what happened here,_

In all those other cases the is likely to be a significantly larger delay between the link being generated and it being followed. So while it isn't 100% reliable they could correctly guess if it is you, or someone else you have passed the link to, significantly more often than not. Especially because, of the potentially many signals they get from a given link, the person or was initially generated for is likely to be the first to follow it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm curious about Brave browser's fingerprinting protection. Does that really works ? Let's say I combine that with a VPN, private browsing, tracking protection, and other protections provided by the browser except disable scripts, would google still be able to track me ?

</comment><comment><USER9> A quote I read a while ago: "Good UI is like a joke,if you have to explain it then it's bad"

I've always felt browser security and privacy UI should be more obvios and verbose with the ability to view increased verbosity as needed. Ideally an average user should be able to view messages pertaining to privacy and security relates events on the page in plain english with increasing verbosity and this format would be a cross-browser standard.

</comment><comment><USER10> It doesn't handle screen rotation, so I have two identities? Mr portrait and Mr Landacape</comment>


Toxic management cost an award-winning game studio its best developers - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/20/17130056/telltale-games-developer-layoffs-toxic-video-game-industry <comment><USER2> The extra terrible thing is that this is completely counter-productive. E.g. see this takedown of crunch time by someone who works in the game industry: [http://www.igda.org/?page=crunchsixlessons](http://www.igda.org/?page=crunchsixlessons)

But this is a problem outside the game industry too, though it sounds like they're even worse than usual. If you're a software engineer stuck in one of these jobs, you need to realize working fewer hours is good for you _and_ your employer. More here: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/08/18/productive- programme...](https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/08/18/productive-programmer/)

<comment><USER3> Yup, it's an endemic problem that has no sign of going away due to the constant influx of young people willing to take it on the nose to get into the industry.

Ironically if you look at Gamasutra's yearly survey you see a huge cliff of experience right at the ~3 year mark as those people get burned out and the cycle repeats.

<comment><USER4> > due to the constant influx of young people willing to take it on the nose to > get into the industry.

I mean, I guess. I'm in my late 30s and I just got sucked in to a project that was behind schedule by miles to try to meet an impossible deadline. The expectation seems to be that the 90 hour week I had last week is going to be repeated again this week and, most likely, also next week, come hell or high water, and any sort of common sense or evidence about how short-sighed this effort is be damned. I like my job, for the most part, but this has me considering my options.

My point is, I see this as an upper management issue. I can't fault people, including myself, for doing what we have to do to keep the paychecks rolling in, and especially when the power dynamics are as uneven as they are. You are right that younger people (and, also, let's not forget our friends in this industry on work visas) are less capable of dealing with the issue than veterans. But, from my point of view, it's not us who are wrong. Instead, it's the management chain who is unaccountable to their bad planning, poor decision making, etc... who create this situation.

<comment><USER5> That's why people are calling for a guild. A way so that developers can push back against this, and not have to worry about being fired.

<comment><USER4> I'd love to have something of a union to back us up, I honestly don't see any way to improve the situation otherwise.

<comment><USER6> I think a lot of the HN crowd has enough experience and clout to keep from getting exploited, but I'd personally love to be a part of a large union where I can help mentor junior engineers and get help in turn from more senior ones.

I think beyond shared negotiation, what a union could really help with is managing younger engineers' careers. I stuck around in a bad first job way too long because I just didn't have enough experience or exposure to successful engineers to realize how crappy my job really was.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I dunno what it is about the gaming industry relative to other software- related industries, but they have a horrid reputation for effectively treating employees as disposable.

Not coincidentally, a _lot_ of games end up having technical problems from the constant rush.

<comment><USER8> People romanticize working in games and are exploited for it. Once you realize the string allocator you're coding isn't much different than the one that other person working on enterprise software is making, but you're getting paid 1/2 what they are and on deadlines dictated by a calendar based on $200 million worth of marketing decisions, you jump ship only to have your void filled by someone exactly like you a couple years more novice.

<comment><USER3> Yup, the pay thing is a double edged sword too because most studios are usually in high CoL locations.

When I left the industry it was an instant 2x income increase. I went from paycheck to paycheck to being able to actually afford living in the Seattle area.

I remember running the numbers on the hours I was working at my salary rate and realized that I would have been better off flipping burgers instead. It wasn't the breaking point but it definitely was a contributing factor.

<comment><USER9> I don't think the double-edged sword is the metaphor you're looking for... in that, at least one edge is working for you. :p

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The trick is working for companies doing 3D application development that's not related to games. I've never had a job where management treated us like this in almost a decade so far.

<comment><USER11> This is one thing I've never understood. For almost any skill set, there are multiple industries you could work in.

And furthermore, the industry with the worst treatment of employees is likely not the best paying (given that bad treatment tends to stem from popularity / availability of naive new employees).

So, if you don't like your work life... find a related industry!

<comment><USER5> But that's a pretty terrible suggestion. It should not be required to change industries to be treated with basic human dignity.

<comment><USER11> Working conditions are a product of three variables:

Employee supply * employer demand * legal regulations

If supply and demand aren't going to change in your industry... expecting conditions to change is a long wait for a bus that's not coming.

<comment><USER5> That's great and all, but that's still extremely evil.

<comment><USER12> Right, but, capitalism. The only ways to change the behaviour of companies is either legally mandating them to do something (which has a decent hit rate), or starving them of employees willing to put up with their shit.

Nothing else works. Evil would be the word we would use to describe a person behaving as amorally as companies are expected to behave.

<comment><USER13> Those are not the only two options.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is what I call a full of shit company. People will stab you in a back to work for those but when they are there they start to realise how rotten it is. Then it's too late for them as they are getting into the Stockholm syndrome. Afraid to go, being pushed around because they do not believe they can do something better somewhere else and such CEOs take advantage of the situation to use them as much as possible and throw them away like a used condom.

I hate this and it is not worth wasting life working for such companies or such people even for one day.

</comment><comment><USER15> We need more of this kind of honest writing. In the tech world, we tend to use euphemisms to talk about this kind of destructive behavior. Go to a Meetup full of VCs and they say stuff like "Oh, that startup died because of team dysfunction."

Well, okay, but what does team dysfunction actually look like? How ugly does it get? Why does it happen?

Self-sabotage is remarkably common. We all know the failure rate of startups is very high. The estimates I've read vary, but they are all in the range of 80% to 90%. And clearly, much of the failure comes from suicide, not homicide. That is, the startup isn't out maneuvered by a giant like Google, but rather, it fails because of its own internal flaws.

The essay "Why do entrepreneurs engage in self-sabotage" is on this theme:

[http://www.smashcompany.com/business/why-do-entrepreneurs- en...](http://www.smashcompany.com/business/why-do-entrepreneurs-engage-in- self-sabotage)

</comment><comment><USER16> Between reading the link title and the page loading, I had a little fun guessing which studio it was going to be about. EA? Konami? Ubisoft? Nope, I was wrong. But there are just so many possibilities…

Thank goodness we're in something of a golden age of indie gaming. If you want to vote with your wallet against all these toxic AAA charnel houses, you have plenty of other quality choices to waste your time with.

By the way, no gamers take game awards shows seriously.

</comment><comment><USER17> Sorry but the way this article describes this Kevin Bruner and its' "toxic management" sounds very close to how people describe Steve Jobs: egocentric, abusive and a micro-manager.

What distinguishes a toxic manager from a leader, then?

Edit: a phrase from the article: "This was one of the biggest issues with him as a CEO: he was pretty convinced that his taste was everyone's taste."

<comment><USER18> Steve Jobs the manager went through several iterations. The terminal model was an opinionated manager who listened, respected and promoted those who could argue against him.

Yes, was probably horrible in many ways. It's sad his asshole image clouds everything that was good in his management side and people thinj they need to act like assholes to emulate him. The asshole part was a pathology, not a feature, but perhaps an inseparable part of him as a person.

<comment><USER19> > and promoted those who could argue against him.

I've worked with managers like this, and although it might work for some, it was hell for me. Having to constantly argue to defend your ideas is draining, soul destroying, depressing, and lead to me burning out multiple times. Discussing and critiquing ideas should not involve force from either the idea's champion, nor who they are pitching it to. If, at the end of the day, you're evaluating ideas based on the force by which they're presented all you end up with is ideas that support being presented and defended forcefully - not deftly, nor intelligently.

<comment><USER18> "I've worked with managers like this, and although it might work for some, it was hell for me. "

In that context argumentation is merely an unskilled testosterone filled show of force. I would hate that as well.

That's a bit limited view of argument. Argument is not necessary a fight, or a show of force, but merely two sides defending their view and trying to persuade others.

True teams use argument as a daily tool to reach - not consensus - but an agreed path forward that all respect. Everyone agrees to a "disagree and commit" policy where they whole heartedly proceed on the agreed course and see where it will take them.

The argumentation part is critical to reach this commitment level. Unless everyone has a chance to defend their view, commitment to disagreeable strategies is lower.

If this disassembly of group psychology is unfamiliar I can whole heartedly recommend Patrick Lencioni's "Five dysfunctions of a team".

That said, I have no idea of the quality and nature of late Mr. Jobs version of argumentation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> In my experience demands for working > 40 hours, nights, weekends, etc. almost always comes from management and planning failures.

What makes this scenario occur so often is that the business side wields too much power when it comes to culture, estimates, technical decision making, etc. For them you solve a problem by throwing more time at it and passing responsibility when possible (along with a few extra meetings, for good measure). Not only does this approach work poorly for development, but they are often the "final stop" in the product lifecycle, thus making it impossible to avoid taking responsibility, even for others work (like, say, for incomplete or nonexistent requirements).

Perhaps worst of all is that surviving these crunches makes things worse as the wrong lessons are learned and the process continues to repeat itself as those who push for change become disgruntled and leave.

Personally I've noticed a correlation between the pushing of "team culture" and toxic environments like this. The most egregious example of this was when it was suggested that I work unpaid on the weekend to "complete the sprint work as a TEAM."

<comment><USER21> > Personally I've noticed a correlation between the pushing of "team culture" > and toxic environments like this. The most egregious example of this was > when it was suggested that I work unpaid on the weekend to "complete the > sprint work as a TEAM."

The military has known for a very long time that [group] loyalty is absolutely necessary to get people to do things that they wouldn't normally do (for better or for worse), whether it's working extra hard, putting in more hours than usual, treating other groups as enemies, or even, yes, killing other people. The Stanford Prison experiment was a pretty good example of this in a bad way.

This quote from Australian Defense Corps training also shows an understanding of this principle: "Willingness to apply lethal force requires . . . sufficient bonding within the team to override each individual's natural human resistance to kill. The toughness and bonding required increases the closer the contact with the enemy." [1]

So I wouldn't be surprised if team building exercises etc. were encouraged not only because of the actual productive results, but also because it's at least implicitly known to raise the boundaries of what individuals are willing to do.

[1] McGurk; et al. (2006). 'Joining the ranks: The role of indoctrination in transforming civilians to service members', (in 'Military life: The psychology of serving in peace and combat [vol. 2]'). Westport: Praeger Security International. -- snagged from Reddit: [https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/853218/in_bo...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/853218/in_boot_camp_recruits_to_the_military_are/dvux36v/)

Edit: Even being aware of these kinds of tactics doesn't do much to help as the tactics (and stress and lack of sleep) themselves wear down your resistance to them and affect your ability to make decent decisions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Nothing is going to change, there are to many stars in to many programers eyes, when they here games-industry. They literally can afford to burn the best talent, knowing it grows on tree for cheap for them.

Its the same thing why model agents can harass or molest young woman, while they literally allmost starve to death to be in a industry they can only work in for 15 years and will never earn more then the basics to live.

These actors are irrational, and there is a cornucopia providing new ones.

Best idea to dry this swamp is for other industries who lack talent- to provide a dual path- meaning- if you come to work for us, we will teach you also the tools of the game-design trade- and provide you with a chance to parallel realize the game of your dream in a sabatical.

<comment><USER23> Creating a modern full-fledged "game of your dreams", even if not AAA, can take years if not decades when you're going alone. People join development studios so that they actually have the chance of finishing a project in a reasonable timeframe and so that they can focus on one or two disciplines.

<comment><USER22> You are totally right- it takes decades.

But lets face it - in a company- there are two or three people doing the game- design, the others usually get not even a chance to contribute.

They are put into a silo, connected to a part of the pipeline and start crunching until the ilusion wears off. Even if you get a chance to realize a idea- in a modern title, the fear of risk, sees to any new concept that it is marginalized.

So even if it takes years, i think by now, its far more realistic to produce a title as a indy dev or open source dev by now.

Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light;

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I think this has something to do with the so-called Parkinson's law, where an organization tends to "corrupt" when it is growing its headcount if its top leader is not aware of it.

I used to work for a startup which has a 'flexible' working time culture too. It was not that bad until the company grew its size to an extent that the middle management layer was established. Then all the shit exactly like what a typical Parkinson's law story happened.

Edit: [https://www.economist.com/node/14116121](https://www.economist.com/node/14116121)

</comment><comment><USER25> I've floated around the Game industry as a developer, and I have to say its one of the most toxic management industries I've seen. Too many times I've seen folks who just don't qualify, running developer teams like its some sort of feudal village .. the inclination towards prejudice and bigotry is just too damned high.

I wonder why it is that this industry in particular has such a problem with toxic management? My personal theory is that its because games are fundamentally a total decadence, and decadence just brings out the worst in humans ..

</comment><comment><USER26> Insecure managers are a plague and I'm very glad I'm no longer working under one.

"A real leader is thrilled when team members achieve great things. A mere manager is threatened."

</comment><comment><USER27> _> For others, the inevitable outcome of what sources familiar with the company describe as years of a culture that promoted constant overwork, toxic management, and ~creative stagnation~_

Having never worked in the game industry, I have a very naive view of what is the day-to-day of game developers. Being inherently creative work, what would _creative stagnation_ look like in this case?

<comment><USER28> It's somewhat described in the article.

Sleep deprived/overworked people have less creative energy (all sorts of productivity studies prove this over and over again). Poorly managed people watching their flanks for toxic attacks at their ideas allow themselves less creative freedom.

<comment><USER29> Also stuff like having someone else habitually take credit is less than inspiring to bring forward your best work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Toxic management costs all shops its best developers. Why are they not considered a direct threat to ROI?

<comment><USER31> The toxic managers know how to negotiate politics and bureaucracy.

[http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/15/the-wetware-crisis- the-t...](http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/15/the-wetware-crisis-the- themocline-of-truth/)

<comment><USER30> Thanks for this article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I work 37.5 hours a week, maybe a bit more if I want to bank some hours for a vacation.

Of that, maybe 30 hours is actual productive work. Dunno who thought that a software designer can actually produce useful stuff for 90 hours a week.

</comment><comment><USER33> French newspapers Mediapart and Canard PC have teamed up and released a bunch of articles about the video game industry and its toxic practices.

The articles are available online [1] but they're in French and some of them are behind a paywall.

The situation got to the point where a labor union for video games creators, « Le Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo » (STJV) [2], was created in France last year. There are currently around 70 members (out of 5000+ video game related employees in France). A strike is currently on-going in Eugen Systems [3], a French studio author of RTS games like Steel Division.

[1] [https://www.canardpc.com/online/crunch- investigation](https://www.canardpc.com/online/crunch-investigation) (French)

[2] [https://www.stjv.fr/en/](https://www.stjv.fr/en/) (English)

[3] [https://www.stjv.fr/en/2018/03/already-more-than-3-weeks- on-...](https://www.stjv.fr/en/2018/03/already-more-than-3-weeks-on-strike-at- eugen-systems/) (English)

</comment><comment><USER34> Hmm, I expected this to be about Squad, the makers of Kerbal Space Program...

</comment><comment><USER35> Isn't this normal and the reason for the rise of indie games?

People want do make games, but they don't want to be crunched into oblivion, so they leave theae studios, go indie and do their own stuff...

</comment><comment><USER36> Isn't this what happened to Kerbal Space Program too?

</comment><comment><USER37> Toxicity also loses gamers.

</comment><comment><USER38> Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on you. I'm starting to think that game developers enjoy their toxic work environment until they finally realize that it is taking a toll. By then, they find that they're often stuck / lack the confidence to move on.

<comment><USER39> They definitely move on, or at least drop out. But there are always more to replace them, so the company doesn't feel a lot of pressure to change.

<comment><USER40> Fashion industry is similar: so many inexperienced twenty year olds would do the job for free. So conditions are poor and people get paid a pittance. Why have one experienced person when you could get 10 x 22 year olds?</comment></comment></comment>


Payphone Controller for Asterisk - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hharte/1dcoinctrl <comment><USER2> "This project is based on two other open-source projects (see References below) and has the following goals: [...] _4\. The ability to be red-boxed._ "

I don't care if it's pointless nostalgia, I just turned into a 13-year-old again. Where did I leave my radio shack tone dialer??

</comment><comment><USER3> It is a bit odd to see a new phreaking project pop up. I barely ever see pay phones anymore, but this is neat. Back in high school I always kept a little music player with redbox tones on me. I often used it to get a ride home from my after-school labs, clubs, etc.

</comment><comment><USER4> I had no idea these payphones operated at 130 VDC. Seems crazy in this day and age.

<comment><USER5> Even the ringtone on POTS is 90VAC - used to excite the coils for the big ring bells you see on the top of old phones.

Phone technology is pretty crazy in general - the ringing, dial, and busy tones used to be generated by a magneto attached to a crank and later by racks of DC motors attached to generator sets in phone company offices.

I think some ancient phone systems even used the AC frequency of the ring tone to ring different phones on a shared party / conference line.

<comment><USER6> [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_line_%28telephony%29](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_line_%28telephony%29)

> Later, independent systems applied multiple ringing frequencies for fully > selective ringing. (The Bell System eschewed frequency selective ringing.) > The ringers in party-line phones were tuned to distinguish several different > ringing signals so that only the desired party's phone would actually ring. > In this arrangement the only inconvenience of a party line was occasionally > finding the line in use (by hearing talking) when one picked up the phone to > make a call. If one of the parties used the phone heavily, then the > inconvenience for the others was more than occasional, as depicted in the > 1959 comedy film Pillow Talk.

I was going to say "not that ancient!" because I remember using a shared party line but that was in the 1980s, so pretty old I guess.</comment></comment></comment>