Sorry, Virginia, there is no... - <AUTHOR> http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.santaclaus13dec13,0,591322.story <comment><USER2> Santa Claus is a useful lesson for kids. They learn not to blindly trust authorities, and to think critically about things that are too good to be true.

I remember when my sister discovered there was no Santa Claus. Literally seconds later, she asked "wait, does that mean there's no God either?" My mom was shocked. Funny how that works.

<comment><USER3> If only more kids were as astute :)

Santa Claus often serves as an entry-level fairytale, a kind of prep for what will be believed later in life.

<comment><USER4> Maria Montessori had an objection in fairy tails for kids. She argued that it does more bad than good when used at wrong age.

Read more at here [http://www.archive.org/stream/mariamontessorih000209mbp/mari...](http://www.archive.org/stream/mariamontessorih000209mbp/mariamontessorih000209mbp_djvu.txt)

(look for "The Question of Fairy Tales")

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Someone needs to get in touch with their young self a little. Jeez lighten up. Go watch Miracle on 34th street a few times.

Believing in Santa is _FAR_ far better for the world than being religious.

>> "children... - they want the truth - "

BS. They don't want to know just how completely fucked up the world is. _that's_ immoral. Give them at least a few years of blissful ignorance.

Here's what happens when you tell kids the truth (I know, article wasn't quite saying this, but it reminded me):

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP1hqaN8riU>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFfb4dWB9vM>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8iyxFLaSXw>

<comment><USER6> See, the issue here is that you seem to think without a heavy layer of delusion, the world is fucked up. What about those of us who think the world is incredible and wonderful, and that there's more than enough magic for kids to spend a lifetime in love with without ever needing to be lied to in order to obtain it?

Here's where I point out that the Santa Claus we know and love was invented outright by Coca Cola in the early 20th century in order to sell product. So it's not even that you're perpetuating an ancient fantasy, it's that you're perpetuating a marketing myth. I'm fine with pervasive marketing, but the fact that you think without it kids will be fucked up goes to show how effective Coke's strategy was.

<comment><USER5> I can see you're the dad in those clips ;)

Lying (selectively and in moderation) is the foundation of having human relations with other people. That doesn't mean you can't enjoy the wonders of the world, share love and grow up to be well rounded interesting people. It's just another thing people need to learn - when to lie, and when to tell the truth. The idea that all lying is bad, is ridiculous.

My daughter lost a tooth yesterday, and we've told her to put it under her pillow so the tooth fairy can give her some money for it. Is that also wrong in some strange way? It's an example of many lies that people tell when people are worried/in pain, that make them feel better.

And FWIW, Cokes strategy is lame, since we buy Pepsi due to the better taste. I don't think the connection between Father Christmas and Coke is extremely strong in the UK, it's just another corp. that has TV ads on around xmas featuring him.

<comment><USER6> Coke's strategy was back in the 20s, dude. I don't think anybody on this site was old enough to remember it. But they created the modern image of Santa Claus, and we still use it. When you show your kid the cheery fat guy in the red suit, you're showing him what was once an ad.

I'm not saying that lying is inherently evil or anything. I'm just saying that I don't see the point in telling fibs to kids, particularly dull, unimaginative ones. If I'm going to peddle in myths, there're a thousand more fascinating ones to tell, and I can tell them and let my kids know it was a story. Or d'you think that letting kids know it's a fiction spoils the fun?

But me, I'm a fan of telling people the truth even when it's not socially correct. So perhaps I'm not this perfect little social nook that fits into your model. I see nothing wrong with letting young kids know that there's pain to go with all the pleasure. Means growing up they won't be the cynical shits I'm forced to deal with daily right now.

<comment><USER5> I know this fairy tale sounds good - coke invented santa and it's all a marketing ploy - but it's untrue.

[http://www.christmascarnivals.com/father-christmas/father- ch...](http://www.christmascarnivals.com/father-christmas/father-christmas- figure.html)

"The figure of Father Christmas as a jolly and friendly old man, with a small stature but a big heart, emerged through the writings and paintings of the artists during the 1800s. Clement Moore was the first to describe our Father Christmas as the chubby old man, with rosy cheeks, wearing a furry overcoat and hat in his poem, which inspired Robert Weir to paint the first portrait of Santa Claus in 1837. He made Santa wear a short suit and a stocking hat as he puffs at his long clay pipe. Finally it was in 1863, that we get to see Santa more as a real person through the pictures drawn by Thomas Nast. This is the final Father Christmas figure that we now commonly see being used for Christmas accessories and ornaments."

And a picture from 1800s shows him as the 'cheery fat guy in the red suit'.

[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic- art/522799/67600/M...](http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic- art/522799/67600/Merry-Old-Santa-Claus-by-Thomas-Nast#)

So no, when I show my kids pictures of Santa Claus, it's absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Coke.

<comment><USER6> Coke consolidated the image of Santa Claus and popularized that exact image of him. They didn't _invent_ the red, but without their work it would not have become the de facto standard.

<comment><USER5> Maybe in America, I don't know. Over here, it's as I quoted above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Death: Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape. Susan: With tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Death: Yes. As practice, you have to start out learning to believe the little lies. Susan: So we can believe the big ones? Death: Yes._

Some of my favorite Pratchett. If you know how the passage continues then you know why its relevant here. If not, I strongly recommend!

</comment><comment><USER8> I suppose the "I don't lie to my kids" gang tells their kids the _real_ truth about how they were born when asked?

Give the kids a break. Let them have some fun and holidays. They don't need to grow up on day one, do they?

... further more, its perfectly reasonable, I presume, to tell them about an omniscient being who listens to the prayers of billions of people every second, every day and answers them? The Santa Claus "lie" is much more benign compared to that one.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

<comment><USER6> _I suppose the "I don't lie to my kids" gang tells their kids the real truth about how they were born when asked?_

Is there anything wrong with that? Conception is really, really cool. Like how having sex with people leads to babies.

You don't have to get into the details when they're young, but saying "Me and Mommy made you" is a simple, honest answer that _might_ provoke more questions and an interesting talk.

<comment><USER9> I think he was referring to the "20 sweaty minutes in the back of a Volkswagen after the club and we forgot the condoms" part; but omitting that might fall under "unnecessary detail" rather than "outright fibbing."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My favorite part is the warning at the beginning. Apparently, they don't believe that kids shouldn't be told about Santa Claus _that_ strongly.

</comment><comment><USER11> "Okay. I know you're not the real Santa... But I know you work for him." ~ Kevin McCallister.

How about teaching your kids about the boogie man who will snatch them if they misbehave? Anybody ever had German fairytales read to them when they were young? Gory stuff.

<comment><USER12> Are you familiar with motion-based alarm systems that show a red LED when they detect motion? I heard of one parent that told their offspring that those were video cameras linked up to Santa and that the red light meant he was watching.

<comment><USER11> Fantastic! There's also this thing: <http://www.elfontheshelf.com>

It's an elf that sits on the shelf and at night "goes to talk to Santa".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The site comment equating the strong a-Santa position with cold oatmeal, gray pajamas, and a cheerless disposition made me think of Eliezer Yudkowsky's essay about joy in the merely real--<http://lesswrong.com/lw/or/joy_in_the_merely_real/>

It seems applicable to the article as a whole, as well as most of the reactions to it.

</comment><comment><USER13> Somebody isn't getting much from Santa this year...

I could take the easy route with "Geez! Dude! Lighten up!" But since I hate telling the fat guy stories myself, I'm probably best to defend them.

First, we live in a world of incomplete knowledge in which creativity is the natural way to explore. Creating group myths that we then perpetuate is a perfectly natural method of action. Little ones believe everything, medium- sized ones realize they were tricked and believe nothing, and old ones realize the story is more important and has more immediate value than the proof. (This is not a defense of fideism, just an acknowledgement that enjoying stories and pretending has a wonderful immediate impact while being a sour puss does nothing for one's disposition)

Second, it keeps kids from being greedy. (This is the one I like the most). If kids knew you were the ones buying all that crap? They'd be hounding you day and night for more. About the time kids realize that resources are finite is also about the time they figure out the fat man stuff, so it all works out.

Finally I take exactly the opposite view of the author: being purposely lied- to about the suited-one is a great introduction to how people screw around with the truth when talking to each other. It's a great life lesson in what to believe (or not). Some kids will take the lesson and choose that selecting what to believe is like going to a buffet -- logic has no role. Some kids will err on the other side and choose that unless you can prove something beyond a shadow-of-a-doubt it's not worthy of consideration. Either way, it's a great introduction to both extremes of thought. And these extremes have to be managed throughout one's life.

Like I said, I'm definitely not a fan of the fat-guy story. I tend to err on the brutally-honest side. I also feel like society has foisted this on me as a parent against my wishes. But having said that, it really is a valid criticism of the article to just say "Geesh! Get a life!"

We all get stuck on the golden rule -- do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But there is a better rule than that, sometimes called the platinum rule -- do unto others as you would have them do unto you _if you were them_. We need to treat people by putting ourselves in their shoes and in their world first. Life sucks enough and it takes a good long while to learn to dance above the abyss. Making up fun stories for kids as a crutch for a few years is a natural, productive, and useful tool, even if it bugs lots of folks, including me.

<comment><USER14> Your platinum rule is messed up, because it requires you to know their thoughts

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I can't recall ever actually believing in Santa/Tooth Fairy etc. Can others?</comment>


Indictment in Heartland hacking case - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2009/08/gonzalez.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> I find the 130,000,000 number that is being bandied about to be rather low for what had been happening: Heartland processes about 100,000,000 transactions per month.

The indictment stated that they broke in during December 2007. Heartland was contacted by Visa Security in October 2008. This means that the hackers were sniffing transactions inside the datacenter for 10 months. Since all transactions inside their datacenter were in the clear, I suspect the number actually acquired by the hackers is about 10x what the official news is stating.

[http://www.storefrontbacktalk.com/securityfraud/heartland- sn...](http://www.storefrontbacktalk.com/securityfraud/heartland-sniffer-hid- in-unallocated-portion-of-disk/)

Maybe I'm getting too cynical in my old age, but Heartland released the news of the attack _during_ Obama's inauguration, hoping it would get lost in the noise.

Some more reading: [http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/heartland-breach- co...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/heartland-breach-cost- company-126-million-so-far)

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/20/heartland_payment_br...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/20/heartland_payment_breach/)</comment>


Ask HN : Experience with C++ Boost and Spirit? - <AUTHOR>

I am starting a project where I need to write a small parser in C++ and was looking at various options and one of the options that came up was Spirit C++ library which allows you to specify EBNF grammars inline. However I have heard horror stories about Boost in general and am worried about adding it as a dependency in the project.<p>Does anyone have experience with Spirit or Boost in general? The project is expected to be crossplatform targeting Vista32, Vista64 with VS2005 and VS2008 and Linux64 with GCC 4.3 <comment><USER2> I once used Spirit successfully, even though at the time I was not as well- versed in C++ as I should have been. I tend to like boost, because it makes a lot of things easy that would otherwise be difficult and/or time-consuming to write in C++.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks.

Do you remember if Spirit increased compile times significantly (a usual complaint with Boost?)? Also what architectures/compilers were you using?</comment></comment>


Intro to Google's open source JavaScript rich text / HTML editor - <AUTHOR> http://closuretools.blogspot.com/2010/07/introducing-closure-library-editor.html

<comment><USER3> It requires literally dozens of .js files to get it working... Is there a bundled and minified version of this in a single file?

I'm very much interested in a basic rich-text editor that is either uses jQuery or is just framework independent. I've liked 37signals's wysihat, but it uses Prototype. I'm sort of working on porting it to jQuery, but that takes time.

<comment><AUTHOR> It (like the rest of the Closure Library) is designed to be used with the Closure Compiler:

<http://code.google.com/closure/compiler/>

The general philosophy is: for development, loading lots of files is ok and in some cases easier to debug. For production, the compiler will often strip out much more code than just minification would.

<comment><USER3> I saw that, and agree with that philosophy, but does the compiler also pull in all the extra files too? I didn't see it spelled out... I'm guessing yes, so I'll play around with it later tonight.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure exactly what files get pulled in by the compiler, but it will remove any dead code (meaning 100% of any extra files) and output a single minimized file.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How does this differ significantly from something like TinyMCE? From what I can tell, it's still using contenteditable.

I'd be interested in seeing an open implementation of the editor Google is now using with Google Docs, where they completely avoid using contenteditable.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's unbelievable how broken online RTE's are. I'm building websites for quite some time now and I never figured out why browser makers are neglecting such a basic feature, it should not be that hard to implement a basic RTE.

It's nice to see Google is trying to do something about it and making it easier to implement an RTE with projects like this, but it would be nicer if they would push other browser builders to standardise.

<comment><USER6> A big problem is that contentEditable has never been part of an official spec until now (HTML5). My fingers are crossed that we'll see some improvements over the next few years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hello, I have a question.

Does anybody know about javascript rich text / HTML editor, that could easily show small popup under carret (or certain word) while the user is typing? I mean something like the spell-checker in this google wave demonstration - <USER2> at 0:44:40 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ> Or lets say, you want to implement something like this <http://doc.trolltech.com/4.6/tools- customcompleter.html> but in web browser. How would you go about it?

</comment><comment><USER8> This is the first time I've heard about the "Closure Library".

Do you think this is what the new m.youtube.com HTML5 site is built in? Is Closure a replacement for GWT?

<comment><USER9> It is not a replacement for GWT. Closure is for people that want to write Javascript. GWT is for people that want to write Java.

<comment><USER8> It looks like there's a "Library", "Compiler", and "Templates". The Library looks like a Javascript library, the Compiler looks like a Javascript optimizer, and the Templates look like the GWT-ish thing that builds HTML from Java (or Javascript?).

source: <http://code.google.com/closure/>

<comment><USER10> Closure Library: a JS library containing a bunch of useful stuff.

Closure Compiler: A compiler that takes Javascript as input and produces Javascript as output. Removes dead code, does various optimizations, and usually beats other minifiers by a small but significant margin.

Closure Templates: a templating system that generates Java or Javascript code. Handy if you want to generate a bunch of HTML from templates in Javascript, and you don't want to write all that by hand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Double BR's, DIVs used as containing elements... ugh. I was expecting better from Google. The problem of all RTE remains: their HTML is fucking ugly.

<comment><USER12> The Google one is pretty poor - enter some text and then indent it. The resulting HTML is browser-specific, Firefox produces:

one

While IE produces:

 one

Having written code to normalize the junk produced by a simple contentEditable editor I hate this kind of thing - there are editors out there that produce relatively nice well-formed XHTML.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The GMail editor feels a LOT faster than the demo provided. Any specific reason?</comment>


Beachheads and Obstacles - <AUTHOR> https://stratechery.com/2019/beachheads-and-obstacles/ <comment><USER2> This article is written as if we don't already know if Alexa (and its competitors) are the next big computing platform. We already know it isn't.

Alexa first came out in 2014. If it was the world changing product that people said it was going to be it would have spawned multiple billion dollar companies by now. Much like smartphones led to Uber.

Amazon can keep pooping out Alexa into 15 new products every year. Google will copy them because they don't actually know what a good product is but they're the internet company version of Samsung, a fast follower, so they'll do it because they're competitor focused and _just in case_ it takes off.

None of that will change that this product category isn't going anywhere.

<comment><USER3> In a website or an app, there are specific affordances i.e buttons, dropdowns, gps and text boxes that bound the input and steer the user input to help the user achieve the task.

For the speakers like Alexa and Google Home, voice being the only input allows user to say whatever they want hence making the task space infinite. But the voice recognition and NLP is not in a place where it can recognize everything the user has said. This creates a less than stellar experience with the user having to repeat, rephrase or even worse abandon the task. I think this platform will blow up when NLP/AI is able to detect user intent with near perfect accuracy and is able to make the interaction with the user as fluid as with a well designed app. It doesn't hurt for Amazon to have a large installed base ready to use the platform if/when intent recognition becomes par.

Of course it will never replace phone/desktop as there will be things which we cannot say over voice (secrets) and where it is not possible (loud places) or just not courteous behavior.

<comment><USER4> > _This creates a less than stellar experience with the user having to repeat, > rephrase or even worse abandon the task._

Not to mention: constant wondering whether the task can even be accomplished. When a voice assistant rejects your query, in many cases you can't be sure whether it's because it couldn't understand you, or because it can't possibly accept what you said as a valid input in the context it's in. In regular interfaces, visible constraints matter as much as affordances.

<comment><USER5> Norman would refer to these constraints as "signifiers", indicators of possible affordances. It's interesting how weak voice assistants are at signifying what you can actually do with them.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for introducing me to the term. Damn, I need to finally read that book.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A few months ago, I was debating with a friend about the next major computing interface.

Is it Voice or Spacial Computing (AR/VR/xR)?

It's clearly voice, for many reasons. To cut the argument short, realize that language is what separates humans from other animals, and recognize that voice is the natural form of language, not writing. The advancement of AI requires major advancement in understanding human emotions, which are conveyed through subtleties in voice, and not picked up in text.

But it doesn't need to be either/or. Why not both Voice and xR?

Over time, voice and xR will converge, as voice interfaces get integrated into more consumer services, and xR gets more productive applications (right now it's all games and porn). But by then, Amazon will be well-positioned to get into the fun, but Facebook will not be taken seriously.

Unless Facebook can disrupt the global monetary system, pushing Libra by providing a discount for all purchases made within Oculus.

<comment><USER7> I know the Portal wasn't exactly a huge hit in terms of sales (though the reviews of the product functionality alone were fairly positive IIRC), but it's pretty clear evidence that Facebook _is not_ ignoring voice as a piece of its xR portfolio. Oculus is pretty clearly the leader in consumer VR at the moment, and Portal sits within Boz's AR/VR org. I wouldn't count them out based on their ability to ship products quite yet. So unless you think people will avoid anything made by Facebook as a rule (possible, though I don't think there's much evidence of it at the moment), I still think they're in about as good position as they could hope for re: being the xR platform.

<comment><USER6> That Oculus is the leader in consumer VR (games and porn) does little to spark confidence in Facebook as a hard product design firm. Oculus was an acquisition, and we know Facebook is good at acquiring amazing companies.

But can Facebook create innovative products that people want? This is still an open question. After all, Facebook's success comes from out-executing on the ideas of others.

I haven't used a Portal, but isn't it video-focused? And doesn't it integrate Alexa?

I'm sure Facebook is aggressively trying to build a competing voice interface, but it's far behind Google, Amazon, and Apple. It will be harder to out- execute Amazon than Snapchat. And Facebook will need to improve its branding to even have a chance.

<comment><USER7> Oculus was acquired long enough ago to attribute the product success of pretty much all of the consumer success to Facebook's ability to ship. The Quest was designed and shipped entirely under Boz, for example. They didn't buy Oculus and simply stop working.

<comment><USER6> Facebook deserves credit for iterating on solid foundations.

If they make VR useful outside of games and porn, then they will deserve credit for meaningful innovation.

To clarify why FB cannot be satisfied with the games and porn market is that theres a big gender imbalance in those markets, and it runs against the demographics of Facebooks other apps, which have equal or even female-majority user-bases.

Given its PR and branding issues, Facebook does not want to be a games and porn company (techbro) company.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Linux Mint Pulls Ahead of Ubuntu - <AUTHOR> http://beginlinux.com/blog/2011/11/linux-mint-pulls-ahead-of-ubuntu/

<comment><USER2> _This ranking system is considered to be one of the most reliable around. Even if it is only a measurement of one website's traffic._

What? This is even more ridiculous than the TIOBE index.

</comment><comment><USER3> "I feel like GNU/Linux needs a stand out distribution that represents how easy Linux can be for beginners and new users. This used to be Ubuntu but now I think Linux Mint is in a position to take over."

I think this statement _really_ misses the spirit of what is probably driving Mint to the top of the charts. "Beginners" and "new users" aren't the ones flocking to Mint (assuming we believe distrowatch.com is an authority). Disenfranchised Ubuntu users who are unsatisfied with the changes to their favored platform are. To the contrary, beginners would more likely favor Ubuntu's Unity interface because it is undeniably simpler. Beginners don't have any concept of features customizing panels, so they don't miss them.

<comment><USER4> It's the myth of the novice Linux user. This magical creature is both sophisticated enough and has the desire to install a new OS on his machine (perhaps even in a dual-boot configuration!) and learn to use a completely different computing environment, yet needs to be coddled with an unconfigurable, brain-dead GUI.

There's also the other myth about how you can have the same interface on a desktop and on a tablet, but that's so crazy that most people who believe it are locked up in institutions.

It's great if more people want to use Linux, of course. But it would be better if in so doing they came to have an appreciation for their device as one of the most powerful tools ever conceived by the mind of man, rather than another way to upload photos to Facebook and look at cat videos on Youtube. Those use cases are more than covered.

At any rate, Linux Mint is switching to Gnome 3 next release, although with some extensions to remove the suck apparently. So beware.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for bringing this distribution to my attention. I've been trying to force myself to adapt to Unity but I'm still not enjoying it. I feared switching to another distribution because I've grown accustomed to Ubuntu's ease of package management and hardware support. I don't have the time or inclination to fiddle with text file configurations any more these days.

Mint appears to address all of my concerns, providing a distro based on Ubuntu but stressing ease of use in ways Ubuntu was not willing to (including flash, full multimedia support, Oracle's java, etc in a fresh install). I am excited to give the live dvd a try!

I am especially encouraged by their plans for reconciling users' workflow patterns with Ubuntu's switch to Unity and the Gnome's new interface. Very pragmatic approach in my view.

</comment><comment><USER6> A more realistic comparison is with Google Trends.

[http://www.google.com/trends?q=Linux+mint%2C+mint+Linux%2C+U...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=Linux+mint%2C+mint+Linux%2C+Ubuntu&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0)

<comment><USER7> How is that more realistic? People using Ubuntu as a search term does not accurately reflect install base.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Interested in an "SEO for Hackers" course? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a web developer with a previous background in SEO.
SEO is often misunderstood and unfairly treated by hackers and it's clear _some_ of this is down to a misguided idea on what doing SEO actually involves. Considering there is possibly no better way to get free traffic to your site, it's surprising how quickly hackers are to dismiss SEO. Instead, endlessly pursuing a single Techcrunch publication.
I'm keen to get some feedback on what hackers feel they would like to know more about in regards to SEO? Onsite optimisation? Link building? Finding profitable keywords? I'm contemplating putting together a course designed specifically for hackers/web developers doing a startup.
It'd be great to get some input first on what people want to learn about. <comment><USER2> It might be a good mixture for bootstrapped startups. The technical founder (who often has no knowledge of SEO/marketing) has to perform some of that role - and share it with a non-technical co-founder.</comment>


Kotlin M12 is out - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jetbrains.com/kotlin/2015/05/kotlin-m12-is-out/

<comment><USER2> For those who want to try it out: There is a small web-based editor with syntax highlighting, compile checking and code completion at [http://try.kotlinlang.org/](http://try.kotlinlang.org/).

It currently runs on 0.11.91.1, but will (hopefully) soon be updated to 0.12.200 (M12). The reference documentation was already updated for M12: [http://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/](http://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/).

</comment><comment><USER3> Its a shame nobody cares, since this is a really nice language IMO.

<comment><USER4> Kotlin is a really good language. I really want it to be my primary language for android development. The only problem I have now is build times. It's about twice as slow to build a Kotlin app than Java app.

<comment><USER5> Is this a jvm specific problem? Scala seems to have huge build times too.

<comment><USER4> Big programming languages are built from big JARs (compiler, runtime, stdlib). Loading those each time in memory is a long process. Using nailgun saves ~10 seconds on my laptop.

Another problem is compiler performance (both Kotlin and Scala compilers compile less statements per second than Javac), but it's not that dramatic.

Finally, dexing languages with runtime (kotlin - ~200KB, scala - more than 1MB) takes time.

Luckily, Buck optimizes most of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm now trying to use Buck build system with Kotlin. It looks like in the M12 kotlin-compiler.jar the annotation NotNull.class is embedded twice.</comment>


Visualizing a Job Search Or: How to Find a Job as a Software Engineer - <AUTHOR> http://kellysutton.com/2016/10/20/visualizing-a-job-search-or-how-to-find-a-job-as-a-software-engineer.html <comment><USER2> Tip to shiny new CEOs: Ghosting a job candidate is not only grossly unprofessional, it's extremely rude at a personal level.

The candidate went to all the trouble of engaging with you; you owe them (at the very least) a timely and professional rejection email if you don't want to proceed.

Yes, a rejection letter, because that's what you're doing -- rejecting them. Ghosting is still a rejection; it's just a rude rejection. There is no way to candy coat that, and you shouldn't try. Grow a spine, and write that rejection letter in the kindest way you can.

<comment><USER3> LinkedIn and Apple both ghosted me, it's not just new CEOs.

<comment><USER2> Maybe I should've written, "shiny new managers".

<comment><USER4> Ah, but it's the CEO (or at least someone at the director of engineering level) who sets the tone, and sets priorities and guidelines for their underlings to follow.

So when you get ghosted, it's not the engineers who fizz-buzzed you who "did" it... and it's certainly not the office manager (and/or "talent specialist") who's doing it. As with everything else a company does, "message"-wise -- it's coming from the top.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is the first time I've seen a data visualization of the job search process for a software engineer and it's amazing to see the variability in responsiveness between companies.

This is actually the most surprising thing I've seen since we started Triplebyte. Originally I'd assumed that every company complaining about how difficult it is to hire engineers, would be moving every candidate through their process as quickly as possible. In practice we learnt to stop working with companies who were too dysfunctional to get back to candidates promptly - even if it's just to let them know they needed a few more days to make a decision.

We'll also often see dysfunctional companies switch to the extreme opposite end of the responsiveness spectrum once they've made an offer and start pushing candidates to make a decision immediately. Better to have been responsiveness throughout the process. I suspect companies still underestimate how much that makes a candidate more positively inclined towards them once they're at the decision making stage.

<comment><USER5> What are reasonable time frames for a company then? What should we aim for with:

1) Phone Screens

2) Interview responses (moving to next interview?)

3) Final decisions

4) Negotiation/confirmations of receiving a response to an offer

<comment><AUTHOR> They key thing is to minimize the amount of time a candidate is waiting back to hear from you on the next step. We see a strong correlation between the companies who have the highest closing rates on candidates (70% or more) and how responsive they are in every interaction. The best companies will respond to a candidate on next steps within 24 hours at every step of the process.

<comment><USER6> I suspect this is highly related to the ghosting mentioned in the article and by pjlegato in a top-level comment [0]. This is so much the norm at this point, that no response is typically seen as an implicit rejection and the candidate mentally moves on.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12764521](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12764521)

<comment><USER7> Agreed; I've futilely tried to mentor a recent grad who is applying to jobs he has no qualification for and then sitting around waiting for them to follow up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Having gone through this process recently, there's a lot of truth in this post. I experienced more companies "ghosting" during the process than slow turnaround times, but it is remarkable how short-sighted companies are during the recruiting phase. It's as if common courtesy has gone completely out the window in tech recruiting. Basic things like not missing phone interviews at times that have been previously scheduled or informing candidates politely that you've decided to move forward with other candidates can't even be taken for granted anymore. Candidates' initial experience with a company is typically through the recruiting organization and negative impressions during the recruiting phase are often applied to the company as a whole. I could see it being a competitive advantage to be known for having a good recruiting process even if it is very selective. For example, I have a very positive impression of DigitalOcean despite not receiving an offer because of the professional and courteous way they handled their interview process.

<comment><USER9> The "ghosting" is just something you have to get used to as a candidate. Most companies do it. It's likely there are far, far more candidates than jobs, and companies simply can't get back to each and every person. Also, a lot of times, the company can't make a clear yes/no decision and will stall and delay on a borderline candidate in order to try to luck into a better one.

<comment><USER10> Something that I'm seeing more and more these days are companies that are actually not trying to fill the positions they are posting.

I've seen companies fully-contained within 4-person WeWork spaces showing pictures of their non-existant 20+ person team and listing as many or more open positions that don't exist. I've seen companies that list positions that aren't actively looking to hire but want to keep the funnel open in case that 'special snowflake' comes along.

I don't know if it's 'wishful thinking' or something else, but it's fairly poisonous.

<comment><USER11> If you aren't "actively looking" but would bite if "that special snowflake" came in, aren't you actively hiring?

Maybe you're more like passively hiring, but I'd still consider them hiring.

<comment><USER10> I didn't want to be obviously derisive in my post. The two companies in question were obviously stroking their own egos.

They didn't have an actual need for someone and it was all about how many/what type of degrees someone had and from where before they'd even consider looking at a candidate. In one of the cases, when the company did actually hire a person, that person had no work to do -- it was purely a means to justify their ask to investors for more money. We hire the best people!

<comment><USER11> Does that make you angry? They'll soon fail anyway.

Some people don't internalize that this is a sellers market. There are orders of magnitude more open jobs out there than there are qualified people to fill them. You shouldn't concern yourself with a bunch of toxic idiots trying to milk VC for a while.

<comment><USER9> > Some people don't internalize that this is a sellers market. There are > orders of magnitude more open jobs out there than there are qualified people > to fill them.

The "shortage of engineers" meme that just won't die. If this were actually true, one or more of the following would be happening:

1\. Qualified people would not be having difficulty finding work

2\. Salaries would be increasing and low-paying open jobs would decrease in response to short supply until the market went into equilibrium

<comment><USER11> The market is in equilibrium.

Physics and Math graduate unemployment rates are virtually zero, and practically all of us work in software.

That a lot of CS graduates actually can't do the job may be a pity, but its not our problem. Qualified people don't have difficulty finding work (by definition - if they're qualified, they will get hired).

Shortage of engineers is a meme?

"If you gave us another 100k great engineers we would only hire about 15k of those" \- said none of the big 4 ever. They are perpetually hiring and they will absorb any capable engineer who comes their way. You know that. Don't pretend there's a shortage of jobs for qualified software engineers. That's just silly.

<comment><USER9> > Physics and Math graduate unemployment rates are virtually zero, and > practically all of us work in software.

How many of them are overqualified for what they're doing and would jump if the market were paying more or if there were better opportunities? You can't say much about whether it's an employer's or employee's market merely by citing unemployment %.

> "If you gave us another 100k great engineers we would only hire about 15k of > those" \- said none of the big 4 ever. They are perpetually hiring and they > will absorb any capable engineer who comes their way. You know that. Don't > pretend there's a shortage of jobs for qualified software engineers. That's > just silly.

Any discussion about a shortage or surplus of jobs/talent is meaningless without specifying compensation. Many companies would gladly take 100K great engineers at a salary of $20K/year. What if the going rate were $1M/year? Would there still be a shortage of engineers? When the bid and ask are far apart, both sides will complain about how hard it is to make a deal.

<comment><USER11> > How many of them are overqualified for what they're doing and would jump if > the market were paying more or if there were better opportunities? You can't > say much about whether it's an employer's or employee's market merely by > citing unemployment %.

A lot of them are overqualified. But they are handsomely compensated. They could do less boring work, but there's less of a market for it.

> Any discussion about a shortage or surplus of jobs/talent is meaningless > without specifying compensation. Many companies would gladly take 100K great > engineers at a salary of $20K/year. What if the going rate were $1M/year? > Would there still be a shortage of engineers? When the bid and ask are far > apart, both sides will complain about how hard it is to make a deal.

I made that statement under the assumption of current market rates. Whatever google/facebook/uber/apple/microsoft are paying. Quit pretending that they wouldn't hire more engineers if there was supply. They clearly are willing to. Sure there's some hyperbole to it. But the entire valley + amazon/microsoft could easily absorb another 100k engineers without that event drawing down salaries significantly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> 35 days, 23 companies, 4 offers. Is this typical?

This, for me, was the key section of the article:

> I had the luxury of having a few weeks free due to gaps in my consulting > schedule. This time block is something that is a rare case in a job search. > Performing such an exhaustive search must be _nearly impossible if you also > have a full-time job._

(Emphasis added.)

The amount of time off required to do this is insane. Is this how most people do it?

Also, I agree that speed of communication is key. I want to be on site within 2-3 weeks if everything is going well. Take much longer than that, and I'll probably either have a job by the time you get back to me, or be too busy talking to people who actually want to talk to me.

<comment><USER13> As a younger engineer (about 2 years of experience), trying to break from my post-college job into a "real" software job in NYC, it took me almost a year. You're not worth a lot until you're proven with a big name on the resume.

<comment><USER12> "proven" and "big name on the resume" are two entirely different things. I wish more hiring entities knew this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Two things are worse than ghosting:

1\. A company ghosts and the comes back months after (when you already took another offer) and says: "wassup, you still down for that thing?"

2\. A company ghosts and comes back a month and a half later saying "oh btw we hired a guy". Yeah thanks I figured it out.

<comment><USER15> 3\. A company agrees to hire you and gives you a start date. The Friday before you're supposed to start, you send a quick email to confirm which of their several buildings you should show up at on Monday morning, and they reply, "Oops, we actually reorganized staff, and we no longer need you."

<comment><USER16> Assuming US, is this legal, even for an at-will state?

Whether it's worth suing over, is a different matter...

<comment><USER17> It's legal in all Europe I know about.

There is a probation period, during which you can be fired in 24h without reason.

Depending on the jurisdiction, The law might force to wait for the 1st day of employment to cancel the contract.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Tried to sign up at TripleByte, got this:

"Unfortunately we're only able to work with people with legal status permitting employment in the US. We hope in the future to help set up visa sponsorships."

I appreciate that they cleared expectations upfront. I tried to sign up on Hired.com once, after going through effort of filling up their lengthy registration forms, which took me several hours, they conveniently told me that their services are not available in my country.

<comment><AUTHOR> We wish we could work with you :(

In the meantime, we're working on making companies more aware of the H1-B transfer options ([http://blog.triplebyte.com/gaming-the-h-1b-system-for- good](http://blog.triplebyte.com/gaming-the-h-1b-system-for-good)) and the recent OPT visa STEM extenstion ([https://www.uscis.gov/working-united- states/students-and-exc...](https://www.uscis.gov/working-united- states/students-and-exchange-visitors/students-and-employment/stem-opt)).

<comment><USER19> I would love to hear a timeline on remote opportunities if you have one.

<comment><USER11> Triplebyte only works with YC companies and YC tells its startups in pretty clear terms that remote employees don't work for early stage startups so go figure.

<comment><USER20> > Unfortunately we're only working with programmers who can be based in the SF > Bay Area.

Yeah, there's that too. :-(

<comment><USER21> Seriously? There is no mention of either only YC companies or the Bay Area in their FAQ or on their website. Tacky.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > My job search lasted a total of 35 days [...]

> I communicated with 23 different companies [...]

> to receive 4 offers to make a single choice

> I was rejected 9 times [...]

I liked the article but with today's hiring procedures I can tell you that these numbers are baby steps. I have spent so much time during the last two months doing technical and non-technical interviews that if I were to write an article like that it would take me days to complete it. To be fair, it gets harder when you are a foreigner trying to apply for a position in a company who wants your skills but that expects you to be 2x smarter to justify the immigration process.

I visit /r/cscareerquestions from time to time and it is sad to read the stories of recent graduates struggling to find their first job or even an internship. If that happens to American citizen with an university degree and fresh knowledge about algorithms and data structures, what can we _(non- Americans with rusty algorithmic skills)_ expect? I would be happy to work remotely if it wasn't because many banks limit the transactions that come from foreign companies or simply don't let you create an account because you are from a _risky_ country.

<comment><USER23> I'm American, I've been to a decent US university (Northwestern), and trying to get my first job has been an awful experience. I hear "there is so much demand for CS right now," but it honestly seems like employers only want people with professional experience instead of entry-level candidates like me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is there more to the Google doc or has it been edited?

Never heard of Triplebyte, so I looked into them. According to their candidate FAQ:

"We save you time. ... Most candidates save hours that otherwise would be spent on phone screens. We turn an O(n) process into an O(1) process."

The phone screen is where I can screen the companies, so this system will not work in my case. I reject more companies before getting to any actual interviewing when it is clear our shared goals are not being met. Most companies just want a warm body, whereas I am very specific in what I want.

<comment><AUTHOR> We save you the time of repeated technical phone screens across companies. Companies will do a pitch call with our candidates as the first step, where they pitch themselves to you and after that you decide if you'd like to move forward with them.

<comment><USER21> Perhaps the pitch call is done differently via Triplebyte, but for the most part, the initial non-interviewing phone call is with someone in HR or with little technical knowledge. Most questions are answered with "oh, let me find out and get back to you". I want the phone screen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> A related problem also hard to solve, how to find a job as a software engineer for a pleasant highly functional sane company. Let me know if there is a solution.

<comment><USER25> Keep in touch with your pleasant highly functional sane ex-coworkers and use your network to vet companies/orgs/teams.

<comment><USER26> No easy answers, I agree. Jobs are the opposite of a commodity(as are people) and so the solution to finding the right match will use technology, but can't be replaced by technology.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I find it interesting that the author doesn't mention anything about the product as priority during his job search. No mention of tech stack, product- market-fit, growth potential, or being convinced that a product is filling a genuine need. These are the things that I would prioritize when considering a job search. The author mentions as a priority responsiveness of the recruiter. Also:

\- How nice are the employees? \- What's the vibe in the office? Noisy? Quiet? \- Do employees look happy? \- How's the food? \- and so on and so on…

Is this typical?

<comment><USER11> The author was a consultant before.

Its usually our job to deal with the circumstances and to actively change them. We are not "good employees". We call bullshit and we get to call bullshit.

We are not hired to help our bosses achieve things, we are hired to save their asses. We are hired because someone goofed up. We are hired because something went wrong and its our job to patch it up.

We come in with the expectation of getting things back on track. We are meant to blend in with the "regular employees" but we never will, because we are free agents. We can walk away from this job and we WILL walk away if what had been promised does not happen. We will walk away unscathed because we have other gigs in the pipeline anyway.

We do not conform. We come in with a plan, which we communicate in pretty clear terms - with the expectation that the person who hires us will, to some extent, play by our rules. Because that's what they brought us in for.

That's the mindset. In some way, we are mercenaries. What remains is whether the people and amenities are nice.

At my current gig, I'm fixing telecommunications software - highly concurrent stuff. Etching out another 20% of performance is actually important here. Today I've had an email about working for someone who wants to set up a new crypto currency and from someone who needs to port their badly engineered python code to awesome pretty shiny new Elixir code. They all know my rate and its certainly not cheap, but I'm going to reject most of them anyway. The average gig is 9 months but there won't be a week during which I don't have some kind of request in my inbox. And its all done remote. Most of my clients haven't even seen my face.

Whether they've got product market fit is simply irrelevant. I pick the jobs that are intellectually challenging, because that's what I want to work on. Their business logic is irrelevant to me. Their stack is irrelevant to me. If their stack sucks, I'll tell them to switch technologies or I won't be available anyway.

Sometimes I entertain the idea of working for some startup. Getting involved. But the reality is: 40 hour salary with a 60 hour expectation - no interesting work (we need to get this frontend thing fixed so heres your react native good luck not dying of boredom) - cramped office space; and I don't mean "crappy" office space, I mean cramped. Where you can't have a thought without someone being an idiot right next to you for no particular reason, etc. It just doesn't make any sense to be an employee in 2016.

<comment><USER28> This is the path I've just started to take; I'm currently on my first 6mo contract and it's great so far. This post really captures all of my reasons for contracting beautifully, thank you!

A question, if you don't mind my asking: I'm a little hesitant to start filling the pipeline before close to the end of my current gig. Do you find people are planning months out, or do you have to wait until a few weeks before you're free to start engaging with potential new clients?

<comment><USER11> If you know for sure when your gig ends, you take every "meeting" (emails, calls, however you acquire "leads"), discuss what they're looking for and let them know when you'll be available.

Right now. Just be up front. You're no longer an employee, you are running a business. You no longer have bosses, you have customers. Let them know your terms.

Since this is your first one, you should be aware that the companies you work with will want to play this gambit with you where they make it seem like they want to extend your contract and then never actually do it right up until the point where you depend on it. And then they try to gouge you. You need to have options and they need to know that if they want to continue working with you, they have to pay market rate - and market rate is going up the longer they wait.

You engage with clients all the time. Doesn't matter whether you can'T sell any time right now. You are a business. Engage with your customers.

<comment><USER28> Thanks for the advice, and thanks again for that great post. I'll get on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> After reading the article, I think it would be appropriate to mark it as "sponsored".

<comment><USER30> Author here.

Nope.

I just genuinely enjoyed my experience with Triplebyte and Gusto enough to write about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> >They only source under-represented candidates via outbound recruiting efforts.

Is this not a violation of the equal opportunity act?

<comment><USER11> Some people are more equal than others. Its just flipped directions. Deal with it. Be above this equality nonsense. People want to hire you or they do not. Nothing you can do about it.

<comment><USER32> +1 on the approach - I've been in situations where I wasted my time when later it became clear they were looking for an "under-represented" candidate.

This is very visible in large companies where sometimes trying to move within the company you get blocked by the invisible HR quotas. Everyone knows who applied where and what kind of skills they have so it's very hard to hide, but still they won't admit this straight up.

That said though - the very openness with which this institutionalized discrimination is taking place is more than a little annoying. Imagine if they went the other way around :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Interesting to see that they had one offer that they sat on for 30+ days - seems like a long time for the company to wait?

<comment><USER10> That was my immediate takeaway as well. What company was okay with this?

<comment><USER9> I remember a company contacting me about 2 months after the phone screen asking me to come in for a first round of on-site interviews. I had already accepted a different job and moved across the country to start with them by that point.

<comment><USER10> Don't you hate that? That happens at least twice in every job search phase I make.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is close to what Inwant to build for my own personal CRM - something that just says "you last contacted person X 22 days ago".

Somehow I can then overlay tagging for projects but it seems doable

<comment><USER30> Author here.

I actually built exactly this during some downtime, and you can sign up: [https://personal.network](https://personal.network)

<comment><USER34> Interesting - I am not signing up with Google but it looks similar to my thinking - grab gmail, LinkedIn etc and store centrally.

I am planning on using the infrastructure for this as the base example for a book - so I am afraid this is going to become a duplicate project - but I hope it will be fun.

Just need to get a few weeks free ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I wish there was a One Day hiring process. From initial phone screen to offer all in one day. Wondering if interviews taking so many weeks is just a logistics failure.

<comment><USER36> On the other hand, it means that, as a candidate, you need a full day off each time you start talking to a company. I'm happy to do a few phone calls here and there before taking half a day off to go on site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I assume this post is geared towards all those just starting their career?

Once you have a few years of software dev experience or even less jobs just come to you (I love recruiters .. use them to get the best deal).

If your smart with each new job you can give yourself a nice/big raise. Like 20 to 40k more with each new job especially govt. contracting gigs and at the big silly valley tech companies too.

</comment><comment><USER38> With the similarities between job searches and dating, I wonder if a Tinder for Jobs can work. By lowering the barrier to entry it could get more of the passive not-really-looking-but-curious workers into the mix.

<comment><USER28> That's kind of what Angel List is. I found my current contract through them and they were fantastic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Wish the author tried job search platforms, since I'm curious how they compare to old fashioned recruiting. Job platforms are those where the candidate is the customer.

</comment><comment><USER12> I wonder how much of the numbers reflect that the author seems to be a man with a typically female name (Kelly)?</comment>


Can Basic Income Plus the Blockchain Build a New Economic System? - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/40482312/can-basic-income-plus-the-blockchain-build-a-new-economic-system <comment><USER2> Can >Buzzword1< Plus >Buzzword2< Build a New Economic System?

</comment><comment><USER3> To answer the headline, sure, and you don't even need the second.</comment>


Show HN: FAD.LY – A Daily Deal from Popular Brands - <AUTHOR> http://fad.ly

<comment><USER2> Maybe you should show past deals to give cues as to how the site works and what one can expect from it. Like you swipe right and you get yesterday's deal, you swipe left and you get a big question mark and a timer till tomorrow. And the cart is sort of obsolete in a model like that isn't it?</comment>


A/B testing significance calculator (spreadsheet in Excel) - <AUTHOR> http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/ab-testing-significance-calculator-spreadsheet-in-excel/ <comment><USER2> It's been years since I last cracked a statistics book. Would a t-test be more accurate than a z-test or chi-squared for small samples? I've love to see a write-up on the statistics equations for A/B testing and guidelines on when to use which.

<comment><USER3> _Would a t-test be more accurate than a z-test or chi-squared for small samples?_

No. Here is a brief overview of the different tests.

The z-test depends on the assumption that the sum of random events is well approximated by a normal distribution. This happens with a large enough sample size. But is wrong for small sample sizes.

A further weakness with the z-test is that the same sample data is being used to estimate variance and averages. Depending on the specifics of your actual sample, both estimates can be off in a way that confuses the test. The t-test corrects for this possibility _but_ assumes that the individual measurements you are making are normally distributed. It is quite sensitive to this assumption. Unfortunately in A/B testing the measurements are binary yes/no, 1/0 decisions, which are decidedly not normally distributed.

The g-test is designed to be a very good approximation to the exact problem that A/B testing tries to solve. Unfortunately it requires you to compute logs, which was hard before computers.

The chi-square test is designed as an easily computed good approximation to the g-test. It only needs you to square numbers and add them together. It therefore became the most widely used algorithm, and is the one that people have heard of.

Now that we have computers, the g-test is the test we should use. But nobody has heard of it. (However you're still free to use it! And should.)

If you get a large enough body of measurements then all tests converge to the z-test.

 _I've love to see a write-up on the statistics equations for A/B testing and guidelines on when to use which._

<http://elem.com/~btilly/effective-ab-testing/> goes through this in some detail.

<comment><USER4> A/B testing is a Bayesian decision problem. Hypothesis testing is really the wrong way to frame this problem. Dynamically it is a bandit problem and statically it's just about maximizing expected utility, where the expectation is taken with respect to the posterior distribution. This becomes especially crucial when doing lots of tests or experimenting sequentially. All the frequentist proposals don't have their advertised coverage rates in these situations. Unfortunately most write-ups seem to be completely ignorant of Bayesian statistics.

<comment><USER3> I mostly agree with you. However if you've ever tried to explain those concepts to a bunch of PMs, you'll quickly discover that it isn't worth the complication of trying to describe things the "right" way. There are more important problems to deal with.

My one point of disagreement is that dynamically it is a bandit problem. The reason that I disagree is that the things we are tracking and trying to optimize have very strong time dependencies that aren't obvious. (Behavior varies a lot by time of day, day of week, week of month, and month of year.) Therefore attempting to dynamically optimize can very, very easily go astray. That's not to say you can't do it. For instance I am quite supportive of using dynamic techniques to explore a multi-variate space. But in the end I wouldn't be comfortable unless you did a classic A/B test to validate the results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you're interested in a web-based calculator, I've found this one to be useful: <http://www.usereffect.com/split-test-calculator>

<comment><USER6> Yup, but do note that the calculator you linked is based on Chi-square and the one in excel is based on z-test. So, results may differ slightly!

In case you need to use a web-based calculator (z-test), here is one on my site: [http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/ab-split-significance- calc...](http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/ab-split-significance-calculator/)

<comment><USER3> Why did you choose to use the z-test?

<comment><USER6> Z-test gives you confidence intervals on conversion rate with G-test or Chi- square test doesn't

<comment><USER3> Good point. Confidence intervals that shouldn't be trusted too much, but confidence intervals none the less.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Everything Old Is New Again, and a Compiler Bug - <AUTHOR> https://randomascii.wordpress.com/2016/09/16/everything-old-is-new-again-and-a-compiler-bug/ <comment><USER2> That's some seriously cool debugging.</comment>


Google: Let it snow - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/#q=let+it+snow&fp=1 <comment><USER2> Hey google folk - snow is pretty and nice but how about considering making your home page black or put a black ribbon (ala "censor" band) to alert more people to the SOPA vote moved to the 21st?

<comment><USER3> Google's homepage shouldn't have anything to do with politics IMO. Leave it to the organisations that specialise in those sorts of issues.

<comment> mike-cardwell Exactly. Why do people want yet another hugely rich corporation using their money to interfere in politics?

What if Google was pro SOPA? Would you be happy with them advertising for it on their front page?

America needs to learn to govern it's self without the intervention of corporations. America doesn't need more of them getting involved.

<comment><USER4> > What if Google was pro SOPA? Would you be happy with them advertising for it > on their front page?

You're writing that as if SOPA was one side of an argument where good people could reasonably be on either one side or the other, and HN and Google just happens to be on the same.

But it's not, SOPA has a right and a wrong side. We're on the right side, Google is on the right side and good people are either uninformed or on the right side. It's not unreasonable to wish for Google to employ some of their considerable clout in evangelising the right side.

<comment> mike-cardwell "My opinion is right because I say it is. Anyone who doesn't hold the same opinion is either bad, or needs educating"

Well, that's me convinced.

<comment><USER5> I don't know why you're getting downvoted. People get stupid when they're this opposed to something. His argument had absolutely no value and your characterization of it was spot on.

<comment><USER6> I don't think mike-cardwell deserves downvoting either, _but_ I don't think your (and his) characterization was quite fair.

mseebach didn't intend to make a convincing anti-SOPA argument, he was commenting under the assumption that his audience was already opposed to SOPA. He may have been wrong — that's a danger on the internet — but I don't think that makes him stupid.

<comment><USER5> Lets break it down.

mseebach: "You're writing that as if SOPA was one side of an argument where good people could reasonably be on either one side or the other, and HN and Google just happens to be on the same. But it's not, SOPA has a right and a wrong side. We're on the right side..."

parody: "My opinion is right because I say it is."

mseebach: "Google is on the right side and good people are either uninformed or on the right side."

parody: "Anyone who doesn't hold the same opinion is either bad, or needs educating."

mseebach: "It's not unreasonable to wish for Google to employ some of their considerable clout in evangelising the right side."

I was wrong. This part has value. The "right side" part of it is overreaching though. In my opinion.

Also, I didn't call him stupid, I called the downvoters stupid. I meant it in the way people usually do: I don't like it. The people who can downvote are supposed to be the pillars of our community. Yet they seem more interested in policing opinions than quality. More interested in SOPA than HN. Then they turn around and complain that it's all going to shit. Come on... lets promote the strongest arguments and promptly refute the lousy ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I see Google has decided to turn their search results page into every website from 1998.

<comment><USER8> Except that using modern technologies it uses a ton of CPU time to accomplish.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you didn't notice, this also ties into an orientation sensor if you've got one. On my MacBook Pro, for example, just tilt your laptop left or right and the snow will fall that direction.

<comment><USER10> You can also draw doodles in the fog and then send them around to your friends or post them on websites:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=let+it+snow&frostwriting...](https://www.google.com/search?q=let+it+snow&frostwriting=1;GZB0BABACADADADADACAEBDBDCCBDCFCFDEDFEEEEEEFEDDFEFDFDFEEDFDFEGDGDHCGCFDICGDGDKEJCIEKDKDJEKEJEIEHDGEGEGEFDFCDCDCDBCBBBBBABCBBBBBBBBCAABBABABBCACACADACBDABADACABABAhA!H_DxhAjAlDmEnFlFmGkFjFjGkGkGjEkFjFjEiEiEjEjDiEkEoJnHnJkFkFiChChChBhBAB!GLF5)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Lots of bitterness here. Come on, it's christmas time, that's just a little fun for normal people.

</comment><comment><USER12> Why is this on top of Hacker News? What is amazing about this?

<comment><USER13> Can someone extract and de-obfuscate (or de-compress) the snow JS here so other people can use this on their sites?

<comment><USER14> You could search on Altavista for nice Javascript snow effects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I was hopeful the "defrost" button would simulate someone running their hand over the screen.

<comment><USER16> If you click and drag across the screen, then it will have the effect of doing this with your finger :)

<comment><USER17> I think that part of the effect only works on chrome. Actually I can't get any of it work work on IE9 on Win7, it just shows regular serach results.

Edit: oh I see, you have to wait for the "Defrost" button to show up before you can "wipe" the frost off. Still doesn't work in IE though :)

<comment><USER18> Works on Firefox 8 (Linux).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Do they announce these things somewhere, or did someone actually input "let it snow" and thought to post it here?

<comment><USER20> Yeah, different results for different platforms. Tapped the link on my tablet and just got a list of videos of Sinatra singing "Let It Snow". Nice sentiment, but didn't see why it topped HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The "Defrost" button was a nice touch.

</comment><comment><USER22> Eats one cpu core for me and makes the fan blow loudly. Which is why I never like these things.

<comment><USER23> Funny, half year back the same bunch of people said the same thing to Flash.

Now imagine a world where every banner or sidebar is full of HTML5 canvas animation ads.

<comment><USER24> Firefox takes one core, while Chrome seems to split it across two cores, with a lower combined CPU utilization. I'm using the Nightly's for both browsers.

With open source technology we get multiple implementations and a lot more people working to improve the technology.

<comment><USER23> > multiple implementations

Remember Android fragmentation? Talk about open source as golden hammer to solve problems.

<comment><USER13> Android fragmentation is not the same matter that was being referred to here. A better analogy might be Android and MeeGo or OpenMoko.

Having a real choice is great in my opinion, and having three mainstream browsers (one open, one mostly open, and one totally closed) to choose between is awesome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder why they didn't enable this in their tablet layout. I thought performance at first, but It runs acceptably well on my iPad 2 when identifying as OSX Safari in terra browser, and the desktop version even responds to changes in the accelerometer.

<comment><USER26> not sure about why not on the ipad, but on my playbook it seems to work fine as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Another easter egg I found is that they added a row of stars of David on the result page for "hanukkah".

</comment><comment><USER28> In somewhat related news, searching for "Chanukah" results in a nice decorative border.

</comment><comment><USER29> Doesn't work on the iPad. :(

<comment><USER30> Google is becoming notorious for not supporting the iPad. I found Google+ to be totally unusable.

<comment><USER31> It is because the defrost with pointer effect wouldn't work on ipad because that is how you drag

<comment><USER32> Defrosting with the cursor didn't work for me in Firefox either, and Firefox used about 2x the CPU that Chrome did.

<comment><USER33> Well, yeah. It's Firefox.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hrm. Xsnow did that back in the 90ies. Wonder if they'll do an xroach thing where you click on results and the roaches scurry out from under them to other result blocks...

</comment><comment><USER34> Anyone wanna tear out the source and package it up?

</comment><comment><USER35> Ah, reminds me of another search trick that doesn't work any more -- make fart noises and voice recognition recognizes it as New York.

<comment><USER36> Oh, damn, I could've used that to antagonize my New Yawk cousins on Christmas.

<comment><USER37> Reminds me of [http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=i...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=iu6a1-9ajUQ)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Just plain old awesomeness from Google...

<comment><USER39> Hacking away at the Labs is awesome. This? It's just tinkering with the UI. There are a gajillion different key word searches they could do; tilt tilts the screen, scary ghost scream waits ten seconds and then flashes a scary ghost on the screen with a scream; etc etc.

And, while they're doing that, and Google just works for most people there are a small group of users who'd really appreciate better documentation for searching. Wanna-be power users need to know how to combine terms or have options or how to use stemming etc. I dunno why a single page of instructions with examples is so hard to get.

<comment> mkr-hn [http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...](http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=136861&rd=1)

Advanced search (bottom of search results)->Advanced search tips (top of the advanced search page)

<comment><USER39> repeated words count?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Enjoyed the defrost button :)

</comment><comment><USER41> Doesn't seem to work on ipad

<comment><USER10> Look again?

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Sadly, searching for "make it rain" does not produce the desired results.

</comment><comment><USER43> Also, if you type "Hanukkah" you'll see a row of Jewish stars.

</comment><comment><USER44> i found "tilt" accidentally a while back

</comment><comment><USER45> xsnow anyone, like 20 years ago? Awesome!

</comment><comment><USER46> It is so cool!

</comment><comment><USER47> Very laggy on latest Chrome on 2010 MacBook Air.

<comment><USER48> Try on Firefox. However odd that sounds, given this has been made by Google, its smoother for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Pretty cool. I want to see that on twitter.

</comment><comment><USER50> the world will be a better place when the humanity stop putting lots of effort and interest on snow scripts.

</comment><comment><USER51> This is awesome!!</comment>


Masterminds That Have Redefined Startup Life - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2010/04/22/startup-masterminds/

<comment><USER2> The agenda of press writers is to get readers. Ask any editor that wants to keep their job (just look at Gizmodo and this iPhone 4G circus). It's in their interest to write about the pop culture icons of our industry so they get readers. It's economics.

Of course this isn't meant to belittle anyone's work. Having your work read by the masses (or your code in the hands of millions) is an exciting thing and an achievement.

</comment><comment><USER3> Really, #1 (pg), #3 (Gary V.), and AVC (Fred Wilson) were the only real "titans" that influenced my decision to go off and build a startup, and they might make up only 20% of the first order influence. The rest of the people were close friends and random HN posters. The power of a community is not in the leader its in the masses.</comment>


Does Our Education System Stifle Entrepreneurs? - <AUTHOR> http://www.good.is/post/does-our-education-system-stifle-entrepreneurs/ <comment><USER2> I liked what I saw in Lima, Peru: excellent private schools everywhere I walked throughout the city. Even the poor send their children to private schools. The elementary schools are brightly painted with pictures of happy children, flowers, and mottoes about healthy bodies and minds. Notices are posted about upcoming parent-teacher events. One prominent example is the "Albert Einstein Institute" for kids. Trade schools and universities abound. Near one major shopping center for computers and software, which occupied 5 whole floors of a building, I saw a large computer training school. I looked in the large windows from the street and saw rows of huge Apple monitors (30 inch I guess), must have been 50 of them, each with a student concentrating intently. I thought: _there's_ the future, right there.

</comment><comment><USER3> The education system, in India or any other nation, is largely broken. And it can't be fixed. The system has always been designed taking into account what suits the vast majority of students, and it's fair in a way. There is a lot to improve upon but even the improvement is going to focus on the dense parts of bell curve.

The onus lies both on the parents and educators to realize that every kid is different from other and it isn't necessarily a good idea to force them to fit within the existing framework. No one can claim to create Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Page etc. All that can be done is to provide environment and encouragement for kids who tend not to follow the convention.

More than the super smart kids who suffocate in a system designed for mediocres, it's about kids who are living someone else's life - kids studying medicine because their parents asked them to, kids struggling through engineering because all their friends chose engineering, kids trying to be programmers because they have been told again and again that that's where the jobs are....

The article kinda nails the point but then goes astray citing bi-polar as CEO's disease. If you are reporting on a supposedly thought provoking subject, greater amount of responsibility is expected.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ideally Education System should create Employers and not Employees</comment>


Ask HN: What's your personal website's tech stack? - <AUTHOR> I want to spend some time this weekend re-doing my site (www.garysahota.com) in a platform other than Google Sites. I'm learning web dev now and would love to get your thoughts on what tech I should use!<p>My requirements:<p>- Minimal cost (free via Github Pages or the like if possible)<p>- Semi-frequent blogging<p>- Static site<p>- Mobile ready <comment><USER2> I recently migrated away from Hugo to Gatsby because I wanted more control over the Markdown content I write. I had technical debt piling up [1] from the hacks I had in Hugo to get writing completed and wanted minimal vendor lock- in.

My approach was to start from bare-bones Gatsby and make incremental additions. Key pieces that help me have virtually limitless control:

\- React: I subscribe to the philosophy of component-based systems.

\- Remark: Plugin-based approach to extending Markdown capabilities.

\- MDX: bring component-based systems to Markdown. opens up virtually anything possible in React to be possible in Markdown.

\- Gatsby: Builds on top of React and a plugin-based system for extensions.

\- Netlify: Super easy deploys.

Key highlight: I needed BibTeX citations in Markdown. I implemented a plugin from scratch myself (effectively amounts to manipulating the Abstract Syntax Tree given by MDX) which was fairly straightforward ([https://github.com/activatedgeek/website/blob/master/src/plu...](https://github.com/activatedgeek/website/blob/master/src/plugins/gatsby- remark-bibtex/index.js)).

Website: [https://www.sanyamkapoor.com](https://www.sanyamkapoor.com) Source: [https://github.com/activatedgeek/website](https://github.com/activatedgeek/website)

[1]: I had a non-elegant hack to use Distill as my theme in Hugo [https://github.com/activatedgeek/distillpub](https://github.com/activatedgeek/distillpub) and had to go through some hoops to get everything coherently working (but brittle).

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm using NUXT.js. Interestingly, I tried NEXT.js before and I do prefer the formal framework. It has been really easy to create your own personal blog since you can build a static site out of the framework. Super elegant! Definitely mobile friendly but that will depend on the CSS styling, which there are many templates out there.

Since I can create static sites from NUXT.js, I practically just need a static file server like Nginx to serve my files, and my server costs like 20bucks/year? Can't find anything cheaper than that.

Here's my site, I also write a few learnings and findings from my journey as a Software Engineer. Hope you find something useful from here! Cheers (:

[https://blog.phuaxueyong.com](https://blog.phuaxueyong.com)

</comment><comment><USER4> Netlify + a site generated using Metalsmith.

I like Metalsmith because it's a tool, more akin to Gulp or Git that is easy to reason about, uses JS and can be used to do other things, so it seems like a longer term investment than using Jekyll or Hugo.

With Hugo I found if I got stuck I was really stuck. It has it's own DSL which is bad. With Metalsmith I can hack my way around any problem with JS and write my own plugins easily if I wanted to.

Then I used NodeJS for some interactive bits hosted on a free EC2. That NodeJS talks to a free postgres instance for storage, and uses nginx and letsencrypt.

</comment><comment><USER5> My current blog is hosted on wordpress.com. It's good for writing but it's quite awful for technical writing (inserting code and such).

I'm in the slow process of making a new blog for technical content and notes, using org-mode + html export / publish functionality + custom css. So far I've got some pleasing css, gitlab-ci and now I'm working on adding some automation and templating for pages and blog entries.

I'm not sure whether I want to host it directly on my own hardware or host it into something like S3 or gitlab pages.

</comment><comment><USER6> For presentational sites, I use PHP + HTML + CSS + JS. I still use PHP because it allows for cheap hosting, easy templating (can import files in other files), no compilation step, files can be edited directly on the server if necessarily and I can add at any point any extra functionality that even requires server-side processing or a database. I add CloudFlare on top with "cache everything" cache level, so the site is fast and server usage low.

<comment><USER6> Because you mentioned blogging, I also needed to add a blog to my landing page, so I create a tiny blogging platform that displays markdown posts: [https://github.com/Cristy94/markdown- blog](https://github.com/Cristy94/markdown-blog)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm just using Firebase + React, but it could've as easily been done in vanilla HTML/CSS/JS or jQuery. I built it in React partly just as practice. Firebase is great though because it provides free hosting and allows me to do analytics (although I haven't done much of that yet).

</comment><comment><USER8> I use my very own static site generator (which I'm constantly working/upgrading to make it usable for public audience): [https://lukaszkups.net](https://lukaszkups.net)

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm currently building one using Next JS. It's simple and easy. You got to write CSS to make it responsive. You can finish the Next JS docs in an hour if you already know a bit of React.

</comment><comment><USER10> Terraform, Hugo, S3, Cloudfront.

It's low maintenance, cheap, and simple. No "moving parts", and on the off chance I ever put anything up that gets attention from HN or bigger sites it will easily handle.

</comment><comment><USER11> \- NEXT.js

\- Hosted on a 5€ DigitalOcean droplet (alongside 3 other projects)

\- Deployed via a one-liner script (ie not automatic but really easy)

</comment><comment><USER12> Netlify + vanilla html / css / js. It's free, easy deploy with a push to gitlab.

</comment><comment><USER13> PHP/CSS/HTML

I just have php files in which i put everything, then use make to build a static version

</comment><comment><USER14> I setup a simple static + blogging site using Ghost. Used docker to run it on a Ec2 instance.

</comment><comment><USER15> \- Linode \- Ghost CMS \- Cloudflare

</comment><comment><USER16> github pages and only html, no css or js</comment>


Ask HN: Where is Google website for coronavirus? - <AUTHOR> Where is Google website they keep talking about on news? Is there a domain for it already? Or at least "under construction"? Searched on Google.com and did not find anything useful. Or this is another hoax? Please advice. <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22572526](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22572526)</comment>


UK energy bills 'used to subsidise nuclear submarines' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48509942 <comment><USER2> > bill-payers will give price support to the Hinkley Point C nuclear station > at a cost of £92.50 per megawatt hour, compared with £55 for offshore wind.

Something ignored here, is that electricity generation is not fungible. Wind power is not reliable, but nuclear is. Nuclear power is really the only practical solution for the UK to eliminate fossil fuel use from electricity generation, around the clock; we don't have the geography for adequate hydro.

<comment><USER3> People keep arguing this, but it is now really too late. Nuclear power is too slow to build, has trouble with suitable sites (need to be away from populated areas but near water). If we started planning a new power station _now_ it wouldn't be online until about 2030. The intermediate strategy of "overprovision wind and fill the remaining need with CCGT" is actually working pretty well. Hopefully people can start talking about battery storage, or some other modular deployable solution.

(Cost is another issue, but it seems the parties are happy enough to spend $100bn on a nuclear weapons system that we hope never to use)

<comment><USER4> Tend to agree. The window for nuclear is closing now. We should be doing a fuckton of R+D into energy storage solutions, and overprovisioning offshore wind.

<comment><USER5> To substitute a single 4GWe nuclear plant, one would need ~96 GWh storage, which there is no technology for, plus ~48GW wind farm, while UK has ~22GW installed total now..

And you talk of overprovisioning. Crazy.

If anything, we must invest into making nuclear cheaper.

<comment><USER6> Given these numbers, how was it possible for Germany to cut nuclear energy production from 156TWh in 2002 to 72TWh in 2018? ( _source:_ [https://www.energy-charts.de/energy.htm?source=all- sources&p...](https://www.energy-charts.de/energy.htm?source=all- sources&period=annual&year=all))

<comment><USER7> They buy their baseload from France, which at this point has one of the most vibrant nuclear industries in the world (and no surprise, fought hard to make sure ITER was on French territory).

<comment><USER6> In 2018, Germany imported 10TWh of electricity from France, while it produced 545TWh. That's not even 2% - how are you supposed to cover baseload with that?

<comment><USER3> A lot of people seem to be saying "baseload" when they mean "peak". That's the benefit of the international links - countries not having their peak consumption at the same time of day can average it out between each other.

<comment><USER5> Can't send power over thousands of kilometers without losing half of it, sorry. Not to mention oceans.

It is just not happening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Good. One of the biggest tragedies of modern British history is the apparent implosion of her homegrown nuclear industry. The recent 'new' nuclear power station debacles using French and Japanese technology paid for by the French and Chinese governments are beyond embarassing.

Rolls Royce has been banging the 'small modular fission reactor' drum for a while now [1] — i'd love to see a discussion about the concept's merits or otherwise.

We need smart, adventurous thinking on power generation to fill the gap before fusion comes on line ( _fingers crossed_ ) — the UK has one of the healthiest renewable markets in the world, I see no reason we shoudn't be pushing nuclear alongside. Just smart nuclear, not dumb monolthic last generation nuclear with little benefit for local industry.

\- ed

[1] [https://www.rolls-royce.com/products-and- services/nuclear/sm...](https://www.rolls-royce.com/products-and- services/nuclear/small-modular-reactors.aspx#/)

</comment><comment><USER9> I hardly think this is surprising - countries that use the same reactors for power generation and production of materials for weapons are going to have some cross subsidies of some kind.

What I find surprising is that nobody ever comments on the fact that the UK literally operates US nuclear missiles with warhead designs heavily influenced by US designs. Not to mention the lack of permissive action locks on the UK weapons...

Edit: I should have been clearer that I meant was discussion _outside_ of the UK about these issues.

<comment><USER10> _UK literally operates US nuclear missiles with warhead designs heavily influenced by US designs._

The thing being this was a negotiated outcome to prevent the destabilization of a system by the introduction of an independent nuclear source. France was bad enough: the Americans and Russians didn't want Britain making ICBM. (Obviously I doubt the Russians were consulted)

This is why black arrow was cancelled: the US promised Polaris if the UK ceased rocket tests in Australia.

<comment><USER11> As a "junior partner" it's good to see that the US allow us a few toys.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nicelear dispatchable energy can be argued is cross subsidising the intermittent wind...

<comment><USER13> I'm not sure why this is being downvoted, I think it is a fair point. The cost per hour of wind do not, I think, reflect all the infrastructure required for the other power plants that are required when the wind is not blowing. Yet, this is a very real cost of using wind power.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It will be interesting to see the UK, a nuclear power, hindered in maintaining their last nuclear delivery capability by consumer environmentalist groups refusing to cross-subsidize in this manner. Interesting, in the sense used in the Chinese saying "may you live in interesting times".

<comment><USER15> It's not "refusing", it's "not being given the option not to."

There's an official defence budget, and in a democracy voters express their opinion about the state of defence spending through the ballot box.

Real democracies don't scam their citizens with a secret defence stealth tax.

<comment><USER16> That's not really what this is, though. This is about industrial policy and maintaining local industrial and technological capabilities that are, in turn, useful or necessary for defence.

There are plenty of examples of this being done all over the world, because many defence industry capabilities are pretty fungible into areas like aerospace, chip design & manufacturing, optical engineering, and so on. So an industrial policy that results in development in those areas has dual benefit.

Half the reason Silicon Valley exists is because of this sort of cross investment. It's likely Airbus wouldn't exist in its current form either without it. If it's all humming along nicely, you get good cross-feed in between too, with a lot more stable and long-term low-TRL investment on the defence side feeding into the civilian sector, and high-TRL investment producing better completed systems for the defence side.

What will be important to prove in this case is whether the UK investment in civilian nuclear power is done solely to benefit the military nuclear energy industry, or whether there is a valid and viable argument for that investment on its own. I'd be interested in seeing the research.

<comment><USER14> >solely to benefit the military nuclear energy industry

For the state's POV, maintaining a nuclear capability is a very sufficient argument on its own! The voters may disagree, but no state really lets voters pick national security mechanisms they'd like.

<comment><USER16> True as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "Ministers expect that, before long, wind energy will operate without support."

Not when there is a anti-cyclonic high pressure system anchored over the UK and the wind isn't blowing. No wind, no turbine rotation and no electricity.

<comment><USER18> If the wind falls below 2.5 m/s across the entirety of Britain's coast... that would be an unusual event to say the least. But in the incredibly unlikely event that happens, the UK can buy electricity from the continent (and vice versa). This already happens today with non-renewables.

If the wind stops blowing across a significant area of Northern Europe then something has gone seriously wrong with the Earth.</comment></comment>


Compass.co - Benchmark your startup metrics with your peers - <AUTHOR> https://www.compass.co/?hn

<comment><USER2> Thank you for posting!</comment>