Ask HN: How not to be a computer addict? - <AUTHOR>

I'm always sticked on to HN, reddit, Github and my site. I'm turning anti-social and have no intrest to do anything else either my day job as a ruby coder! <comment><USER2> I had this problem and I simply didn't get internet at home or on my phone. I would access the internet at the office or I'd go to the library (and get free books/DVDs at the same time) or coffee shops or my parent's house. This forced me to go out or to do different things at home such as reading books, watch a DVD (mono-tasking). It forced me to use my computer in creative ways (offline mode) rather than consuming from the internet (you need to balance these two), I'd listen to interesting talk radio or music (via radio waves). Blocking all the information flow from coming into your house will open some room for your creativity which is suffocated by being constantly bombarded by infinite never ending amounts of information. In addition, since you're not connected to the web 24/7, you'll be more selective about what you consume online since your access will be limited and inevitably will have to be optimized. My solution is perceived as extreme by many who cannot live without internet, but hey you gotta learn to know what works for you. Don't forget to exercise!

<comment><AUTHOR> "infinite never ending amounts of information" has become my drug :( It's so tough to go offline!

<comment><USER2> It's a form of bulimia.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> First off, don't get down on yourself about this! A lot of people struggle with internet addiction, and it's easy to turn it around. It just takes one step at a time.

Get rid of reddit and HN first, later you can tackle your blog and Github (as they are at least slightly productive).

If you can break that first impulse to visit these sites, it's a lot easier to control yourself. But you do need to make sure you're not using proxies or some other workaround to access the sites and that will take self control and some reflection.

Reddit: Reddit is nearly a complete waste of time these days. Block Reddit using your hosts file. I redirect reddit.com to localhost where I host a page that says "no reddit! get productive".

HN: Let yourself occasionally browse HN as it's not all trash like reddit. Set up anti-procrastination in your HN user preferences. Make sure to go with the most extreme settings.

two more tips: * Dont bring your computer into your bedroom. I set the power of my router to not provide internet in my room.

* As danso said, USE A TIMER!

</comment><comment><USER4> Firstly, lets make sure you do your day job well, and then others will (hopefully) follow. I do this in two steps:

For interesting articles during work time I always save them for later. This is usually using Pocket (getPocket.com) but there are other tools. Later I read them when I am in the mood to read the interesting articles. This way, I try to limit wasted time.

For when I want to add a comment, I actually plan to only do it 2-3 times a day, and at most in 15 minute slots each time. This again puts an upper limit on my time on non-work tasks.

Once you do the above, you realize how much time you were wasting on non- essential things. And from there, you can take on other fun projects.

<comment><AUTHOR> My day job is not affected. I have pocket installed but don't use it much. Can't restrict myself so easily like you did! :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I sticked on to HN,weibo,path too.But i also like coding,product design.Maybe you relax by travel.

<comment><AUTHOR> I also doing coding and I feel frusturated if I don't update my blog with some intresting code/post :( It 90% technical stuff so far have 450+ articles..

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Find other things that are more engaging.

Find ways to be more comfortable engaging in them.

Physical activity and (healthy -- no need to be Arnold) strength tend to promote self-confidence and a sense of well being.

Take some walks -- even if by yourself. Walk in interesting/enjoyable places.

Buy some dumbells and spend 10, 15, 30 minutes a day on some basic exercises. Depending upon your work environment, you might keep them at your desk and do a few reps now and then or when you're tired or blocked, anyway.

Don't paint too big a target. Start with small things, and see where it builds.

Oh, and look at other things that leave you feeling more socially comfortable. A haircut. Clothing that blends in with the crowd you're approaching. You don't have to "sell out". Just... nibble at the edges of some of the emotions that might feed what you're describing as an anti-social tendency.

\-- Your friendly neighborhood hermit (i.e. take this with a grain of salt, but I have noticed these factors, myself)

P.S. Ok, I'll add: I've had some abusive neighbors that made my life a hell. After several years, recently they've gotten somewhat better, but I still live in fear of recurring abuse.

The resulting seclusion has been... a self-perpetuating downward spiral.

It became easy to turn to and hide out in "online". But this did not stop the downward spiral in other aspects of my life.

Don't let such a pattern set too deeply. The longer it lasts, the worse it gets, and the harder it is to get out of.

</comment><comment><USER7> Make it hard to get on to the social sites:

* Have one browser, your least favorite browser, reserved for your social sites. It makes it harder to switch from your github-viewing/work browsing to HN/reddit/etc because you don't have the ability to comment or track discussions as easily (from the work browser).

* If that's not enough, change your passwords to your social accounts to a random string and paste it into a text file, and then log off your accounts. When you need to log back in, find that text file and copy-paste the password in. This creates enough friction that you can slowly break the habit of compulsively checking social sites when you don't need to.

* Use a timer to work. I like using the iPhone Ambiance app (99 cents), which lets you download from a huge library of ambiant noise sounds, from static noise to train stations, and I set a timer for half an hour in which I do nothing but the current task.

This sounds like small-time stuff but breaking habits _is small time stuff_. As with coding, don't think of it as "I need to build this awesome web app/uber-function", think of it as the smallest parts leading to the major goal.

With habits, especially, it's important to just follow routine until it's muscle memory. In this case, the routine is: not compulsively/instinctively checking websites for leisure.

<comment><AUTHOR> I feel frusturated if I don't update my blog with some intresting code/post :( It 90% technical stuff so far have 450+ articles....

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Go out!!!

<comment><AUTHOR> Need to...very badly.</comment></comment>


Making Your System Observable from the Outside In - <AUTHOR> https://lightstep.com/blog/making-your-system-observable-from-the-outside-in/ <comment><USER2> Logging and diagnostics in general seem to be cross-cutting concerns whose solutions keep getting discovered again and again. I wonder what happened to aspects, or monadic logging, etc.</comment>


New form of matter may lie just beyond the periodic table - valiant-comma https://phys.org/news/2018-06-periodic-table.html <comment><AUTHOR> _" If quark matter is found (or produced in accelerators), it may be stored and then fed with slow neutrons or heavy ions. The absorption of these particles means a lower total mass and thus a release of energy, mostly in the form of gamma radiation. Unlike nuclear fusion, this is a process that should be easy to initiate and control." \-- Bob Holdom_

Oh really? Does the paper give any idea about how that might be accomplished and where the energy would come from?

EDIT: Ok, I read the paper (it is pretty short) and now I'm tracking down this reference: [34] G. L. Shaw, M. Shin, R. H. Dalitz, and M. Desai, Growing drops of strange matter, Nature (London) 337, 436 (1989).

<comment> time-of-flight Neutrons are a pain to control as a beam because they have no charge, so methods employing electric or magnetic optics are not applicable. Typical pocket sources use the alpha(9Be,12C)n reaction to produce neutrons; if you have a reactor handy, you can moderate (slow) the neutrons produced and use them... this would be by far the most economical option.

As a nuclear chemistry PhD, I am highly skeptical of the practicality of this as an energy source.

<comment><USER2> You'd just just a neutron reflector to shape an omnidirectional source, right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Neutron stars would presumably consist in large part of QM, if it exists.

Colliding neutron stars spray large chunks of material therefrom, into interstellar space. It is said that this contributes a significant percentage of the gold and uranium on Earth.

If QM were stable, would we not therefore expect to observe it in nature, with abundance at least on the order of gold and uranium? Perhaps there is some factor that depresses its abundance somewhat, but to have gone entirely unobserved, it would have to be many orders of magnitude less abundant than gold. Is there any theory that reconciles stable QM with the observed upper bound on abundance?

</comment><comment><USER4> While possible, this seems like an even more tenuous argument than usual for theoretical work on phys.org. The original paper is an ocean of maybe's and if's, all couched in unsupported models that may well have no bearing on reality. I'm also a little turned off by the term "continent of stability" which sounds like a grandiose rephrasing of the more commonly hypothesized "island of stability" further down the table. That island is very much hypothetical, and the stability referenced is in comparison to other super heavy elements, not matter in general.

</comment><comment><USER5> I couldn't find anything on the expected half-life of udQM in the paper, just how stable are we talking here? The theoretical "island of stability" is only relatively stable (minutes to days) and useless for practical applications.

<comment><USER6> The article did say that udQM could come in via cosmic rays, this would have to be quite stable over the thousands of years it would take such rays to get to us.

<comment><USER7> So what is the QM that is found in colliders? "When produced in a collider, quark matter typically decays within a fraction of a second into stable hadronic matter (with bound quarks)." Obviously not udQM, right?

<comment> time-of-flight The udQM they're talking about is in a very different regime than the quark matter produced at RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider) and other colliders. In those, heavy ions are collided ultrarelativistically (speed just under C) and for a very brief instant, quarks and gluons are liberated from their confinement inside proton and neutrons to become quark-gluon plasma, or QGC. There are up and down quarks just like in normal protons/neutrons, but also other quarks can be created (strange being the most common). At high enough energies and with particular kinematics, you can make all six quark types: see BaBar experiment, LHC, Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC) experiments.

In the paper, they're talking about udQM being more stable at _zero temperature and pressure_ , basically "competing" with normal elements. The wiki diagram is useful for reference: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark%E2%80%93gluon_plasma#/me...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark%E2%80%93gluon_plasma#/media/File:Phases_of_Nuclear_Matter.JPG)

<comment><USER8> Link to diagram is broken, correct link here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phases_of_Nuclear_Matter....](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phases_of_Nuclear_Matter.JPG)

Apparently wikipedia uses some sort of horrible AJAX crap now; please check that your links work before posting them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Very interesting. Would it be correct to say that if true this could lead to an earlier end of the periodic table[0] than had been previously predicted?

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_periodic_table#End_of...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_periodic_table#End_of_the_periodic_table)

<comment> time-of-flight Yes, one could phrase it that way... but keep in mind that all these theoretical models suggesting an "end to the table" make huge assumptions that are not well-grounded in experimental results. We don't even know where the neutron dripline is for light systems (Z=12), much less the high end of the table (Z=100+).

The periodic table is only a useful model (and it is very useful) for nuclear systems acting as a zero-temperature Fermi gas (e.g., nuclei here on Earth). At extremes of temperature and pressure (neutron star merger, say), the idea of a discrete periodic table loses meaning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The comments on the article poked at this question but the answers given there were not very clear for me, so I'll ask here: If this udQM is so stable, why didn't we find any of it in nature so far?

We certainly would know we don't understand this matter if we stumbled upon it... right?

<comment><USER11> We actually might have already stumbled upon it: [https://www.centauri- dreams.org/2017/03/28/the-challenges-of...](https://www.centauri- dreams.org/2017/03/28/the-challenges-of-przybylskis-star/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If this udQM with A above 300 were stable it would have been produced in neutron star collissions, along with other heavy elements such as Au, and there should be traces of it in the earth. So far no such udQM has been found.

<comment><USER13> Hard to find something when you are not looking for it, and don't know what it looks like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Neat. Reminds me of the smartmatter from world of Anathem.

</comment><comment><USER15> This page, or something it loads, is causing Firefox to use 100% CPU. Cryptocurrency malware, perhaps?

<comment><USER16> physorg has been a very popular site ever since 2004 and well respected for its compilation of scientific and technical papers. It's probably not malware - a more reasonable and common explanation for bad CPU performance is that one of the web or ad frameworks they use is poorly made.

<comment><USER17> Well respected? It takes in science (sometimes) and futurist hype (mostly) and belches out something resembling pop science. There are quite a few decent sites that turn papers and headlines into brief articles, but Physorg is _not_ one of them. They are to science what clickbait is to news.

<comment><USER18> Do you have references to sites that are good in your opinion? I am looking for better ways to keep track of progress outside my area of expertise.

<comment><USER17> Sorry for the late reply!

[https://www.sciencenews.org](https://www.sciencenews.org)

[http://www.sciencemag.org](http://www.sciencemag.org)

[https://www.nature.com](https://www.nature.com)

[https://www.eurekalert.org](https://www.eurekalert.org)

[https://physicsworld.com](https://physicsworld.com)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Non-mobile link: [https://phys.org/news/2018-06-periodic- table.html](https://phys.org/news/2018-06-periodic-table.html)

<comment><USER19> Thanks! Updated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> _... quark matter has the potential to be used as a new source of energy_

A new kind of weapon? Renewing the nuclear arms race?

<comment><USER21> What would be the point ? We can already destroy a medium country with a few nukes. We probably have enough nukes to blow the entire planet.

What would a bigger boom accomplish ?</comment></comment>


JavaScript Promises: There and back again - <AUTHOR> http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/es6/promises/#! <comment><USER2> Broader adoption of JS on the server will only begin after ES6 generators land in Node. Due to the complexity of async code, writing JS on the server is not easy for the average team.

As of now, you could use Promises but it is still kind of messy without generators. Here is a simple example:

      #Without generators
      Credentials.get({ token })
          .then (credentials) =>
              User.get({ username: credentials.username })

      #With generators
      credentials = yield Credentials.get({ token })
      User.get({ username: credentials.username })

We use FaceBook's regenerator project to compile ES6 features down to Node's currently supported Javascript features. If you don't want to use the --harmony flag, you should really try it out. [https://github.com/facebook/regenerator](https://github.com/facebook/regenerator)

<comment><USER3> Good but can you yield from the global scope? if not you still need to write at least a function.

The hardest stuff in JS is that :

        function F(){throw "error"}

       try{setTimeout(F,1000)}catch(error){ console.log("error")}

we cant catch async errors outside the async callback , will generators fix this ? ( by the way , that's why you should never throw any error yourself in js ).

<comment><USER4> You cannot yield from the global scope; you have to explicitly be inside a generator function. This isn't really a problem in practice except for one- off-scripts, since most modules don't have side effects but instead export functions (possibly generator functions). But for those one-off scripts it is indeed a bit awkward... you could imagine ways to get around it.

You can catch async errors with generators and promises; see e.g. the linked post, or [http://jlongster.com/A-Study-on-Solving-Callbacks-with- JavaS...](http://jlongster.com/A-Study-on-Solving-Callbacks-with-JavaScript- Generators)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I recently found that AngularJS has supports for promises. I replaced some of the callback code to use promises and it's a lot more readable.

Callbacks:

        Backend.CallA(param, function() {
          aDone = true;
          if (aDone && bDone) { doC(); }
        });
        Backend.CallB(param, function() {
          bDone = true;
          if (aDone && bDone) { doC(); }
        });

Promises:

        var promiseA = Backend.CallA(param);
        var promiseB = Backend.CallB(param);
        $q.all([promiseA, promiseB]).then(doC);

<comment><USER6> IIRC Angular's promises are based on stripped down version of Kris Kowal's Q. You may want to check it out:

[https://github.com/kriskowal/q](https://github.com/kriskowal/q)

<comment><USER7> As of AngularJS version 1.2, the promises provider ($q) is fully Promises/A+ compliant.

[http://blog.angularjs.org/2013/11/angularjs-120-timely- deliv...](http://blog.angularjs.org/2013/11/angularjs-120-timely- delivery.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What version of Javascript has Promises and does anyone know the estimated time it might take to make it over to V8 and subsequently node.js?

The biggest issue I had with promises is interfacing with non-promise code. There are methods to 'lift' node.js code that uses callbacks into promises, but the resulting code is much noiser.

I'm a bit disappointed that the official JS version didn't cut down on the visual noise of the piping so the actual work being done stands out. Maybe there needs to be a different type of syntax highlighter that mutes the promises piping and highlights the actual calls.

<comment><USER9> I've just been using the Q promise library and it works fine in NodeJS. The Q wrappers for NodeJS style functions is a bit ugly, but it works very well.

The real problem is the core NodeJS libraries aren't promise compliant. I don't know if there's a module that cleanly wraps all of these in their promise analogs but that'd be the best thing here.

Calling Q.nsend() on everything is messy, but is a lot better than dealing with ridiculously nested callbacks.

<comment><USER10> > The real problem is the core NodeJS libraries aren't promise compliant.

This isn't a problem at all in practice.

To say that node core is not "promise compliant" gives people the idea that there is something that prevents them from using promises in node. In reality, most promise libraries have a "denodeify" function that will convert any function that expects a node-style callback into one that returns a promise instead.

      var fs = require('fs');
      var rsvp = require('rsvp');

      // Create a version of fs.readFile that returns
      // a promise instead of expecting a callback.
      var readFile = rsvp.denodeify(fs.readFile);

      readFile('/etc/passwd', 'utf8').then(function (contents) {
        // do something with the file contents
      }, function (error) {
        // handle the error
      });

It is similarly easy to convert functions that expect other types of callbacks (read: not node-style callbacks where the first argument is always an error) to functions that return promises using deferreds.

<comment><USER9> That's a good pattern, but obnoxious to apply on large numbers of functions. If something just did this for you in advance, that'd be what I'm looking for.

Trouble is, NodeJS set a convention and now everyone adheres to it. I'm not complaining there's standards, in fact that's a good thing. Part of me is just disappointed that the promise standardization happened too late in the game for NodeJS to build around it.

<comment><USER11> It really isn't much of a problem. A lot of the time its as easy as replacing

      var lib = require('lib');

with (given var Promise = require('bluebird'))

      var lib = require('lib');
      Promise.promisifyAll(lib);

And in case of classes, you'd use promisifyAll on about 2-3 prototypes instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interesting. I found that TameJS or Iced CoffeeScript mostly solved the async terribleness problem in node, but you basically are using a non-standard toolchain at that point, and setting that up for a whole team is sort of absurd.

Also, I'm not fully convinced that node is worth the code complexity that all of these solutions bring with them when go or scala can give you better performance with much cleaner code.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've been really enjoying ToffeeScript, which provides implicit continuations. It was trivial to implement coroutines on top of it: [https://gist.github.com/luciangames/7776345](https://gist.github.com/luciangames/7776345).

It works very well if you bear in mind what's happening to the call stack. In my case, every call to pause! or wait! is scheduling a continuation to be called later by the game loop. If I'm not mistaken, the overhead of each continuation is just that of a closure.

It's very comfortable, coming from a background in Stackless Python, Lua, and Unity.

I wish more people would take a look at ToffeeScript.

</comment><comment><USER14> Fantastic! I don't know if promises are the ultimate solution to async programming, but they're a hell of a lot better than plain old callbacks.

</comment><comment><USER15> Unrelated to the article content, I just noticed the table of contents on the left side. The slow fade in/out when you mouse over it is perfect! It's fixed position so you always see it, yet it's totally unobtrusive while reading the article. Brilliant!

</comment><comment><USER16> Slightly off-topic but the new HTML5Rocks site is much more responsive and easier to read.

<comment><USER17> Agreed, it looks great. I was poking around the site hoping to find a link to a Bootstrap-esque code repository of the base HTML and CSS.

<comment><USER18> [https://github.com/html5rocks/www.html5rocks.com](https://github.com/html5rocks/www.html5rocks.com)

Is that what you were looking for?

The article linked looks to be at [https://github.com/html5rocks/www.html5rocks.com/blob/master...](https://github.com/html5rocks/www.html5rocks.com/blob/master/content/tutorials/es6/promises/en/index.html) .

<comment><USER17> I didn't realize the entire site was on github (obviously I didn't realize any of the site was on github to be honest). Thanks so much for the links.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Hopefully we will see ImageBitmaps soon:

[http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current- work/multipage/...](http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current- work/multipage/timers.html#imagebitmap)

</comment><comment><USER20> Call me crazy, but I fail to see the improvement in this weird syntax and I've had enough. Go, there we go.

<comment><USER14> Composibility and error handling.

<comment><USER20> I have that already with libraries like caolan/async and node.js convention of first-argument-error + callbacks. Now, of course I would like to have that features natively, but not at the cost of having more (ugly) syntax. My point is that if I have to learn new syntax, I would then use the time to learn a modern and efficient new programming language.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> does this mean anything for NodeJS programmers that rely on an existing promise library (eg Q)?

<comment><USER22> Well presumably this makes it's way into V8 and therefore node. I'd assume the performance is better than Q.

The biggest issue for me is Q's habit of hiding errors despite me defining a Q.onerror handler. Hopefully a native implementation would fail a little louder.

<comment><USER8> I've had this issue with Q and when. Sometimes, things would fail inside a then chain, and then I can't figure out where exactly it failed, because though it fell through a couple thens, I'm not sure exactly where it came from, or how it got that way.

<comment><USER23> Have you tried setting

        Q.longStackSupport = true

? This is invaluable for debugging (although it does slow things down a lot, so don't use it in production)

<comment><USER11> Yep, and this is exactly why its so nice to have promises built into the language. That way, the implementing engine could provide long stack traces for them as well as extra inspection and tooling of all currently pending async operations - and it could do that at the lowest possible performance cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Are there tools that visualize code as a flowchart, like he did halfway through the tutorial?

</comment><comment><USER25> does latest NodeJS has this?

<comment><USER26> npm install es6-promise for a shim</comment></comment>


Announcing the General Availability of Azure Event Grid - <AUTHOR> https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/announcing-the-general-availability-of-azure-event-grid/ <comment><USER2> 99.99% service availability and compute when I need it down to the second, really excited at what comes next!

</comment><comment><USER3> Excited to see how people use this.

</comment><comment><USER4> Serverless compute needs serverless messaging to trigger functions; that's what we're aiming to build with grid.

</comment><comment><USER5> Nice one - the neural network infra behind functions/lambdas! Microsoft gives infrastructure which can PUSH the events to your Event REACTOR listening for any events (including Azure-native events)! No more polling code!</comment>


New Relic experiencing major system outage - <AUTHOR> https://status.newrelic.com/ <comment><USER2> Wondering if their back-end logging is down as well in a way that isn't recoverable (i.e. when they come back up, there will be a hole in all of the graphs).

EDIT: Nope, it's back up, and there are no graph holes.</comment>


Why We Built the ARKit Sudoku Solver (Computer Vision and Augmented Reality = Wow) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@braddwyer/why-we-built-magic-sudoku-the-arkit-sudoku-solver-306dde6c0a77?fixLink <comment><AUTHOR> (Sorry for the re-submit; got the link wrong the first time)

I'd really like to have a discussion around this; is my hypothesis correct?

Is computer vision the missing link for making useful AR apps? If not, what is? And what makes for a good AR app?</comment>


Efficient logging using Django and Apache - <AUTHOR> http://james.lab6.com/2011/04/13/efficient-logging-using-django-and-apache/

<comment><USER2> Logging in Django is meant more for writing out application logs, which can be seriously useful for support purposes.

But in no way is anybody suggesting writing an access log to the database using django, it's not what it's designed for.

</comment><comment><USER3> At our company we have to log API usage (we're using Django+Apache). First we tried the database way, then moved to Apache logging as described here, but have finally settled on using redis. We push data into redis and have another worker which just pulls off redis every X seconds/minutes and update the database like that.

Redis is amazing at this sort of thing and the python client for it is nicely written, with great docs.</comment>


U. of California leaders support dropping use of SAT, ACT - <AUTHOR> https://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article237704404.html <comment><USER2> How else are they going to dupe these kids into undischargable loans? "Hey! Think the education system already fucked you over?! Well we've got more for you!"</comment>


Chrome DevTools extension for ClojureScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/binaryage/cljs-devtools <comment><USER2> Thanks for posting. I'm the author. AMA

<comment><USER3> How was/is your experience using Clojurescript for a project? Is it worth it? (besides learning it)

How sane would it be to go full nodejs/CLJS instead of nodejs/JS?

<comment><USER4> What would be the advantage of going nodejs/CLJS over running Clojure (not ClojureScript) on the server? Would it be to have an "isomorphic" app?

<comment><USER5> You can have an isomorphic app while still using Clojure on the server. CLJ and CLJS can share code using cljc files.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So I have been curious about cljs in particular, and another transpile-to- Javascript languages: what is the state of plugin development for Chrome and Firefox using these languages? Is anyone doing this in a deep way?

I was taking a Typescript course with Coursera IIRC correctly and one day I looked for this out of curiosity. I found lik one person doing this.

It seems like it would be a pain because the JS runtimes in the browsers have minor syntax changes that would be frustrating.

[https://github.com/mooz/keysnail/pull/176](https://github.com/mooz/keysnail/pull/176)

I know litte about frontend-dev, but I am curious.

<comment><USER2> Well, technically speaking cljs-devtools is not a Chrome extension. It is just a piece of javascript you include in your javascript project running on client side in the browser.

I don't follow development of Chrome or Firefox extensions to really tell, but I think writing extension in some transpile-to-javascript language should be transparent to us users. It might be even not advertised.

I think developing extensions is not difficult, the difficult part is developing extension for multiple browsers. Not javascript, but the browser APIs differ.

I follow just development of Blink/Chrome DevTools. One notable recent development is an attempt of TypeScript community to extend DevTools to support transpile-to-javascript language extension points: [https://codereview.chromium.org/1264133002](https://codereview.chromium.org/1264133002). See the video here: [http://ham.io/files/dt.mp4](http://ham.io/files/dt.mp4)

This would help cljs-devtools to offer better development experience for ClojureScript as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Neat, saw in an issue that there's an implementation for mori users too - [https://github.com/roman01la/mori- devtools](https://github.com/roman01la/mori-devtools)

</comment><comment><USER8> This is really great, and here I am thinking that ClojureScript couldn't be more pleasant to work with :)</comment>


Dreamhost is currently experiencing downtime - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/#!/DreamHost

<comment><USER2> there we go again - after two major brownouts / outages the last months</comment>


Uninstall QuickTime for Windows: Apple will not patch its security bugs - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/14/uninstall_quicktime_for_windows/ <comment><USER2> They should trigger an alert if it's possible within the software. I have something called "Apple Software Update" on my PC, it could be used to display an alert or even ask the user to remove Quicktime automatically...

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a major issue for media production. Many toolchains depend on Quicktime. Premiere and AfterEffects just got a lot less useful on Windows.</comment>


Why Indian TV news ignored the first ever caste discrimination lawsuit in the US - <AUTHOR> https://www.newslaundry.com/2020/07/29/ignorance-or-design-why-indian-tv-news-ignored-the-first-ever-caste-discrimination-lawsuit-in-the-us <comment><USER2> As per #SaveJournalismFromBrahmanism 70% Editors are Brahmin who are just 3% in India;

I propose a separate country to Brahmin since [https://archive.is/h3TBP](https://archive.is/h3TBP)

[https://twitter.com/0x101/status/1291001732051263489](https://twitter.com/0x101/status/1291001732051263489)</comment>


Scroogled: Why So Negative, Microsoft? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/10/scroogled-why-so-negative-microsoft/ <comment><USER2> I almost spat out my drink seeing the ad on TV yesterday. Before I get into the content, for some reason even the quality of production appeared poor. It seemed as hastily put together as it was poorly thought out.

Microsoft must feel it's so far from the powerful juggernaut it once was that people will feel sympathy for it rather than the deeply ingrained mistrust it engendered a decade ago. Still, Microsoft saying don't trust those evil Googlers, come to Microsoft and we'll do you right, just seems bizarrely unlikely.

Even if you accept that though, there's the product. I mean Outlook.com isn't bad. I have taken my name on there, and I use it for one of my spam-safe accounts, and it's better than the old hotmail was. But it's still a shoddy product. It's buggy. It's really slow. It has some really weird behaviors with formatting sometimes working sometimes not. And it crashes my browser on regularly shortly after opening a link in another window, if you follow links within emails. In short it's a terrible experience if you're moving from GMail. It feels unfinished, if slick looking.

In the end all I feel is desperation oozing through the screen from a company I'd not really thought was feeling so desperate, until I saw this ill- conceived waste of advertising dollars.</comment>


Supporting high-dpi pixel-dense displays like iPhones/iPad with CSS or IMG - <AUTHOR> http://www.hanselman.com/blog/SupportingHighdpiPixeldenseRetinaDisplaysLikeIPhonesOrTheIPad3WithCSSOrIMG.aspx <comment><USER2> I think this should be done by using content negotiation. The browser should include a header with the desired resolution (in DPI, not screen pixel width).

The server should then redirect to a new image url (to maintain caching). Something like images/foo.png;dpi=100

Or, perhaps better:

        <img src="images/foo.png" dpi="100 70 200">

A browser with support for the dpi attribute would pick the best one from the list, then send a request for an image:

        images/foo.png?dpi=100

Older browsers would use the regular image. This would avoid the redirect and the need for special programming on the server (which is hard with ordinary hosting).

One thing that would still need to be worked out is the scaling factor for pixel sizes written in the css for the image.

</comment><comment><USER3> Good article to a very common problem. The only thing I'd add- use CSS when possible instead of an image. I often see low resolution shapes as images (like rounded buttons for example) that could easily just have been done in CSS- which look great on any resolution and all modern browsers.

</comment><comment><USER4> and if you're dealing with <canvas> —[http://joubert.posterous.com/crisp- html-5-canvas-text-on-mob...](http://joubert.posterous.com/crisp- html-5-canvas-text-on-mobile-phones-and)</comment>


Ask HN: Switched back to programming at age 35 after 7 years of management - <AUTHOR>

I did 5 years enterprise java then 7 years project management. Now I'm a python/django developer at a hipster/startup company and feeling like I'm home.<p>Anyone else?
What will I do at 40?:) <comment><USER2> 48 now and I still love to code. I would recommend to any of my older friends to keep doing what you love. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is a ton of opportunity out there, regardless of age!

</comment><comment><USER3> 39 here. Held titles such as CTO, Director, Architect and have always managed to spend at least 75% of my time coding.

Now I'm just a programmer and enjoying it. Thankfully I'm at a company that values good developers so you don't have to jump to management for that pay increase.

</comment><comment><USER4> Im 32 trapped in a management quagmire. Long tunnel ahead and clocks ticking I Code at night but struggling to stay focussed.

Business ears distract more.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm considering something similar. I code for fun regularly but I worry if I'll cut it as a modern coder. Check in code to prod on day 1 seems to be a considered a badge of honor these days. I worry that I'll bring down the site :-p Also, 7 years ago, methodologies such as SCRUM and TDD weren't pervasive. How are you adjusting? Also, how did you prep for the technical interview?

<comment><AUTHOR> I managed scrum teams a lot so I know tdd and xp and the like. As for the interview, I did a couple of pet projects in the last 1-2 years in the evenings so I've been able to answer all of the django questions. Plus I'm awesome:) Just kidding. No I'm not kidding - it's pretty important to be on the same page with your team/employer.

Also I bought a c64 as 6810 assembly is on my bucket list. So as AI and Lisp.</comment></comment>


Design errors Satoshi made - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/deadalnix/status/1007548856375095296?s=09 <comment><USER2> No expertise to comment about the tech/crypto design, but Satoshi definitely seemed to care about the users.

I once skimmed through Satoshi's code while I was in college and found this: [https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/v0.8.2rc3/src/base58...](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/v0.8.2rc3/src/base58.h#L7-L14)

I've neither seen any such decision in any other project, nor have I come across any strong advocacy for such things online. FAIW, Satoshi might be a kick-ass UX designer too.

In a different tangent, do any of you remember or still see/make such decisions (mostly to build a better UX)?

<comment><USER3> A downside of base58 as implemented by Bitcoin: leading zeros are optional, so there are multiple possible valid encodings of a single address, and addresses don't have a fixed length.

<comment><USER4> That's a lot better than the typical 'pay this invoice with the exact description' you get from municipalities here where the 'exact description' is a string without spaces and a ridiculous number of leading zeros.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The original Bitcoin release (and whitepaper) made the mistake of reaching consensus by selecting the longest chain instead of the chain with the most accumulated work. The distinction is subtle but important, since the amount of PoW per block varies. This was quietly fixed early on in Bitcoin's history: [https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commit/40cd0369419323f8d7...](https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/commit/40cd0369419323f8d7385950e20342e998c994e1#diff-623e3fd6da1a45222eeec71496747b31R420)

<comment><USER6> Great find.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's important to remember that Satoshi is not a god, but I also agree with this reply to the OP tweet:

> Great summary. However all issues you mention are technical ones (mostly > coding). I think the people that praise Satoshi or follow his "gospel" are > more attached to his concept and design which is, in most cases, the White > Paper.

Any software engineer will write buffer overflows, miss a few corner cases that break your model, or write hard-to-maintain code that needs to be refactored. However these issues are ephemeral, do not block the broader vision, and have since been fixed. I would even argue that it's totally understandable that the initial PoC of Bitcoin was buggy and flawed. It should be expected of any first-try implementation of groundbreaking tech.

<comment><USER5> Agreed, the thread highlights some decent implementation issues but largely misses the design problems, both ones that were present in the whitepaper but fixed and ones that are still with us today.

<comment><USER7> Would you be willing to expand on some of the errors in the white paper? I'm admittedly not too familiar with the whitepaper (only skimmed it), but some of the other errors mentioned in this thread (for example, not including accumulated work of a chain in consensus calculations and only considering chain length) are pretty interesting.

<comment><USER8> The "freeing up disk space using Merkle trees" section doesn't make much sense. The Merkle tree structure turned out to be useful for other purposes but reducing disk usage wasn't one of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> m-i-l Agree with other comments that these are more coding issues, that aren't uncommon in pre-beta versions of software.

But if we're talking about design issues, there is one big one that everyone seems to be missing - and that is the Proof of Work incentive mechanism. The first issue with this is that it disproportionately rewards early adopters (both via difficulty increasing every 2 weeks and rewards halving every 4 years) and requires a constant addition of new adopters just to sustain the price (to counteract the deflationary nature of new coin generation), which makes it appear more like a traditional pyramid scheme than a new financial paradigm and may in the long term behave like one. The second issue is that this has led to the concentration of almost all of the wealth in a handful of anonymous and in many cases very shady characters in a completely unregulated market which has completely inverted the original goals of the project. The third issue is of course that Proof of Work is an environmental disaster.

<comment><USER9> You misconstrue the algorithm, difficulty only increases when hash power increases to maintain a 10 min blocktime. Difficulty can decrease too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> well thats why its open source software

but yes the Satoshi as Gospel stuff is quite uncanny! Even the Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Cash crowd debate each other over the meanings of Satoshi writings and then debate about the context! Cryptocurrency's regulatory problems will be solved by the IRS designating all of it as a religion.

<comment><USER11> > Even the Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Cash crowd debate each other over the > meanings of Satoshi writings and then debate ...

Of of the few actual debates between the two party's interpretation of the whitepaper is about running full nodes. Core believes that Satoshi expected anyone transacting on the network to run their own full node to validate each blocks even if the person isn't trying to mine (generate coins). The Cash party believes that Satoshi never intended end users to run a full node unless they were also trying to generate coins.

Other than that though, there doesn't seem to be much debate coming from the "Bitcoin Core" side. They seem to be of the opinion that the whitepaper describes a system that simply cannot work in it's original form. It's hard to know what people really think though because of the censorship (or strict moderation if you prefer) in r/bitcoin.

> Cryptocurrency's regulatory problems will be solved by the IRS designating > all of it as a religion.

Does that mean they can apply for tax exempt status? ;)

<comment><USER12> I would change

"Core believes that Satoshi expected anyone transacting on the network to run their own full node to validate each blocks"

to

"Core believes that Satoshi expected anyone transacting on the network to BE ABLE TO run their own full node to validate each blocks (without needing a supercomputer or anything near that)"

But actually even this is not right. Bitcoin Core devs are taking distance to the words satoshi said... at least when necessary... they correctly say that time has passed and they try to do what's best for the project from todays point of view (mostly it is the same anyway, but they don't try to argue with "satoshi said this"... of course it happens now and then because many people work on bitcoin core, but these are not arguments with which you win the fight/consens)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If the first "design error" you list is a bug it seems like you don't understand the concept:

> Early version of bitcoind allows you to spend any coin by using "op_true > op_return" as signature.

<comment><USER14> He does. Early versions allowed you to spend anybody else's money by using this script as "signature".

Spending money involves prepending the input script to the output script, then executing and checking the result.

Normally the output script is something like "[pubkey] OP_CHECKSIG" (for the old P2PK), and the only input script to cause the combination to succeed would be the valid signature, such that "[sig] [pubkey] OP_CHECKSIG" succeeds.

With "OP_TRUE OP_RETURN" instead of [sig] it would also succeed as OP_RETURN would stop execution.

This was fixed by ensuring OP_RETURN stops execution AND fails the script.

<comment><USER13> How is this not a bug?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> [https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1007548856375095296.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1007548856375095296.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> I've been waiting for something like this. I take it as a sign of maturity of the bitcoin/blockchain ecosystem when people can actively discuss all the issues that the founder missed instead of letting hero worship getting in the way.

</comment><comment><USER17> Good list of technical flaws in Bitcoin. I have a comment on one of them:

> Input value were not [directly] covered by signature, making it impossible > for offline devices to check how much is spent and paid in fees.

It is true that the input value (amount) being spent is not covered by the signature. This got fixed in Bitcoin SegWit signatures (BIP 143) and in Bitcoin Cash (mandatory).

Even in traditional Bitcoin, it is possible for offline devices to avoid being tricked by incorrect input values. The idea is to feed every input transaction into the device, let the device extract the input values, and let the device compute the transaction hash - instead of the unsafe shortcut of feeding the hash and value.

<comment><USER17> Additionally, some mistakes in Bitcoin are reflected in [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Hardfork_Wishlist](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Hardfork_Wishlist)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Tying energy consumption with profit? Or externalities don't count?

<comment><USER19> Not a mistake of the protocoll, but a bad consequence. The difference being that there is no easy fix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Verifying signatures was O(n*m) where n is the number of checksig ops and m > the transaction size. This makes it possible to generate transaction that > are absurdly expensive to validate.

That's what sigops limits are for: [https://curiosity-driven.org/low-level- bitcoin#signatures](https://curiosity-driven.org/low-level-bitcoin#signatures)

<comment><USER14> Not really.

The problem is that with twice as many sigops, you would also have to hash ~twice as much for each sigop. Hence O(n*m). A problem known "quadratic hashing".

This is solved by using a different way to hash the signatures that doesn't require full recalculation on each input.

In Bitcoin Cash it is fixed for all transactions; in Bitcoin it is only fixed for SegWit transactions so an attacker could still do this, by not using segwits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This seems like a historical list of major bugs... are those really "design errors"? Or are we expecting perfect code on v0.1?

</comment><comment><USER4> Those are not design flaws. Besides that, who here has written software that scaled through many orders of magnitude as seamlessly as bitcoin has. I certainly haven't, and the amount of forethought that has gone into bitcoin consistently surprised me.

</comment><comment><USER22> these are common bugs and not design errors. Bufer overflows are never design errors. Deadalnix for those who don't know is the coder of bitcoin cash, an altcoin.

</comment><comment><USER23> edit: never mind/fuck this thread/not wading into a holy war

<comment><USER24> Aside from the fact that there is no evidence for that, what state actor would benefit from the existence of Bitcoin?

<comment><USER25> North Korea comes to mind first

<comment><USER24> Why?

If it's about money laundering, they had no problem doing that with the many currencies that already existed before Bitcoin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> old news...</comment>


KX Systems (KDB/k/q) overhauls its website - <AUTHOR> http://kx.com

<comment><USER2> Any HNer uses K/Q/KDB for personal/commercial purposes? What do you use it for?

<comment><USER3> Use it professionally for what it's intended for. After 5 years, I've come to realize that the language's limitations are too severe for building a robust analytics system. Also, the shortcomings of the database engine will eventually make you pull your hair out. Extending the language is a mean undertaking too.

Great for prototyping though.

<comment><USER4> ...and your solution to production ready code is?..

<comment><USER4> so in trading what thing would you describe as robust for trading?..

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Which one of the top ten investment banks don't use it? :)

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm curious why they chose those particular syntax and operator naming conventions. Of course, syntax is superficial to some extent, but this seems a bit extreme.

<comment><USER7> If you're referring to the language, it's derived from J, which is derived from APL. There's a whole philosophy underlying this terseness, which is basically but probably inadequately represented as: mathematical notation isn't designed for amateur readability, it's designed as a tool for the mind of the working mathematician, so it doesn't need to be all that approachable to the newcomer.

<comment><USER8> > it's derived from J, which is derived from APL

Q is derived from K (it's a thin wrapper that uses words instead of sigils for some verbs), which is derived from APL; J is a completely separate lineage, also based on APL.

<comment><USER9> Yes! Also, interestingly Arthur Whitney created the initial one page fragment that started Roger Hui on J

<http://www.jsoftware.com/jwiki/Essays/Incunabulum>

<http://keiapl.org/rhui/remember.htm>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Spelling clearly wasn't a priority: "spohisticated"</comment>


Important SSH patch coming soon - <AUTHOR> http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-tech&m=145278077820529&w=2 <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10901588](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10901588)

</comment><comment><USER3> What does "UseRoaming" do?

[http://linux.die.net/man/5/ssh_config](http://linux.die.net/man/5/ssh_config) contains no mention of it, and DDG hits a reddit thread of 2014 asking the same thing (and giving an indication that it was also subject to another vuln) and they stated that it was added undocumented but "it does nothing yet"...

I found a commit message saying "Request roaming to be enabled if UseRoaming is true and the server supports it." So in addition, what is "request roaming"?

<comment><USER4> It allows re-connection to an SSH session after you are dropped from what I understand.

This is for people who are on cell connections/spotty internet.

<comment><USER5> That was the idea, but it needs server support and the server side was never implemented in OpenSSH.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps roaming makes some kind of man-in-the-middle attack possible?

<comment><USER5> The roaming thing occurs post negotiation, so the connection is already fully encrypted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Impact: a malicious server could read client memory, including private client user keys.

</comment><comment><USER8> More details: [http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20160114142733](http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20160114142733)

<comment><USER8> This link is a separate thread that is in top. Maybe we should chuck this parent altogether.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Do not manually change your server configuration if security updates are already available for your platform. Ubuntu is already providing the patch.

[https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openssh/1:5.9p1-5ubuntu...](https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openssh/1:5.9p1-5ubuntu1.8)

*Edit : it does seems like a good idea to disable the feature on your local `ssh_config` in case you or a software you use connect to an unpatched evil server.

<comment><USER10> > *Edit : it does seems like a good idea to disable the feature on your local > `ssh_config` in case you or a software you use connect to an unpatched evil > server.

The vulnerability is in the OpenSSH client, not the server. ssh_config is the client configuration. Unpatched servers are not relevant and putting this option in your server configuration (sshd_config) will simply make it not start, because the configuration is invalid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> More info on the issue: [http://www.openssh.com/txt/release-7.1p2](http://www.openssh.com/txt/release-7.1p2)

"experimental support for resuming SSH-connections (roaming) ... could be tricked by a malicious server into leaking ... private client user keys."

</comment><comment><USER12> Asking people to make changes without explaining why. What if that actually enables the vulnerability?

</comment><comment><USER13> > undocumented "UseRoaming no"

Come on Theo, this isn't Linux

</comment><comment><USER14> TL;DR IIRC, add

      UseRoaming no

to your ssh_config systemwide or add

      Host *
        UseRoaming no

to your ~/.ssh/config. It's a client bug: no need to change sshd_config.

<comment><USER15> There are 34 words in the link. It doesn't need a TL;DR.

<comment><USER16> in this case, maybe: MD;DC (mobile device, didn't click)

Most of the web sites have a tendency of emptying your data plan, so, I would understand if people are hesitant on opening the web page.

<comment><USER17> That web page is literally 34 words of text, with no images and a small two line CSS file. It isn't going to empty your data plan, unless you are using a 300 baud modem :-)

<comment><USER18> The problem is that people can only know it after going there, and risking (with what 90% certainty?) emptying their plan.

<comment><USER17> Sounds like visiting HN is a risk to them then. The whole point of HN is to provide links to interesting sites.

And the person visited the website who gave the summary. Presumably they already knew.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Breakthrough in Converting Heat Waste to Electricity  - <AUTHOR> http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2011/01/converting-heat-waste.html <comment><USER2> If this is as cheap as it sounds, could we not make long, thin versions of this and drop them down a deep hole? The advantage over traditional geothermal would be producing electricity directly, rather than bringing the heat to the surface to convert it. I dunno what all the relative efficiencies add up to :)</comment>


Fine-Tuned Constants - <AUTHOR> https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fine-tuning/#FineTuneCons <comment><USER2> To me, the mere act of calling the fundamental structure of the universe "fine-tuned" sounds fallacious; it seems to assume that there's any sort of tuning involved. It seems equally valid to assume that a random process exists that happened to give rise to our universe. We don't know how long it took for the universe to begin, or whether it's the only one, or even if the question makes sense.

Lots of religious people like to use fine tuning to imply that there is a designing intent behind the universe, usually completely ignoring the fact that only a vanishingly small part of it can harbor life at all. Are we certain that there aren't parameters which would produce even more life? What about universes with an entirely different structure?

I also personally object to the notion that it's somehow acceptable to assume a creator has to exist, but not acceptable to assume that the universe has to exist; the latter assumption is much less far-fetched.

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe there's a multiverse--an infinite series of universes, containing all possibilities of existence, some with similar, slightly different constants, others completely unrecognizable as a universe at all. And life exists because we're in this one.

<comment><USER4> That is called the anthropic principle. The universe doesn't owe its self- aware passengers any answers. It just is. It's up to us to characterize it, and following logical paths that require baseless assumptions such as "beginnings" and reasons for relative constants are not fruitful. You could give up when it gets hard and just say "the reason the relative constants are what they are is magic" (see: god of the gaps). That doesn't change the fact that there is a deeper connection there that a more complete model would explain the constants. Is 9.81 m/s^2 a constant of the universe? We have are empirical constants that fit into our mathematical models. There is more work to be done.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What does it take to get a job at Google? - <AUTHOR> What kind of things a person should be able to do to get a job at Google? Do you have to be a genius or can a normal competent programmer find his way there? Is it possible to do for a self-taught programmer or do you need a CS degree? What sort of stuff do you need to have in your portfolio? How does the application process look like? Can you share some experience/advice? <comment><USER2> What killed me was speed.

I didn't think the questions were particularly difficult. Certainly they were (mostly) all solvable in about 20 minutes and the code shouldn't take more than one whiteboard-height. Use this knowledge to your advantage: you're not going to get a super complicated algorithm that will take lines and lines of code. The problems were also pretty interesting, they weren't textbook crap like "Go through a binary tree in some order". Lots of the questions are online, and you may as well practice using what people have leaked. At least two problems came up in my interview that I'd seen before (one was even mentioned in a Google talk about interviewing technique).

Being concise and correct matters, maybe this was easier because I coded in Python and there's less boilerplate.

My feedback was that they had no problem with my problem solving skills or communication, but that I was simply too slow converting ideas to code. The best interviews were the ones where I finished early and we went on to chat about other problems in a more casual manner.

Similarly test the crap out of your solutions.

1) Make sure you understand what you're being asked to do. Whiteboard a test example without any code at all.

2) Discuss your approach and mention any big O problems (e.g. "I could brute force this by searching all the pairs, but that would be O(N^2)"). Settle on a solution that your interviewer approves of, _then_ start coding.

3) Test your code again with known input/outputs. You should be comfortable using your brain as a REPL.

Otherwise have fun - enjoy the office tour, the free food and drink and the problems. They're all friendly, smart people.

Would I work there? I don't know. If you're good, you can soar in Google. If you're not pro-active, you can rot in a boring department forever. What concerned me is that they couldn't guarantee what job I'd be doing when I started, even though I'd explicitly applied for a niche computer vision role that I was well suited for (PhD level).

</comment><comment><USER3> Also recognize that getting in there may not be what you really want, despite reasonable compensation and having them on your resume. Aspirants are, more often than not, hired into a candidate pool and don't know what they'll be working on at interview time. If being a Googler is worth years of working on crufty ad sales dashboards, then have at it.

<comment><USER4> I totally agree, and this was the scariest part when I was hired. But you do have some choice in the matter, and you are expected to stay in your first role for 18 months. I was hired into a "crufty ad department" and made my move after 18 months into a department I love.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Google is famously more selective than Harvard (both places have self-selected applicant pools, but Harvard admits 5% while Google has "millions" of applications and only tens of thousands of programmers hired over multiple years). However, by a similar argument it is less selective than Major League Baseball.

Google hires self-taught programmers. But the median autodidact has low ability compared to the median formally-educated computer scientist. Google cares less about credentials than they used to, and even in the early days they were willing [[http://www.codersatwork.com/jamie- zawinski.html](http://www.codersatwork.com/jamie-zawinski.html)] to hire jwz- caliber self-taught programmers. But your interview performance must be on par with traditionally educated candidates. You must be able to write plausible code in 45 minutes to solve a challenging problem that can be described in 2 minutes. That essentially requires that you are familiar with fundamental algorithms and data structures (or that you are a genius who can reinvent these on-the-fly) and some popular programming language.

The portfolio doesn't matter very much. The hiring committee will expect if you are young that you are capable of contributing in some way immediately and show promise for doing much more in the future. If you are older they will expect that you have a track record of exceptional accomplishment that they can expect you will extend at Google.

For info about the process, see [https://www.google.com/about/careers/](https://www.google.com/about/careers/). It's going to be (1) submit your application (2) do phone screens (3) do onsite interviews (4) review offer.

The penalty for trying too early is that it will take some of your time to do interviews and you won't be able to try again for a whole year. So you should put some effort into it if you seriously want to work at Google, but you should not dedicate years of your life to taking a single shot at it because you can and many do successfully reapply after rejection.

<comment><USER6> There is a limit though - I think it was 3 lifetime rejections before HR stops considering you as a candidate. So don't be shy about re-applying if your circumstances have changed, but also don't "scattershot" apply to Google if you think there's no chance at all of getting in.

<comment><USER7> Does it count as a rejection if they don't even call you back for an interview/ i.e. all you get back is an automated reply?

<comment><USER8> No. It only counts if you fail the subsequent callback interviews. Google takes a long time to respond. I applied right after I graduated and didn't hear back from then until two years later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Google is just another big company at this point. They want early career people because everybody there thinks that he/she is the expert.

</comment><comment><USER10> If you want to work there so desperately, then read "Cracking the Coding Interview." Past that, it's about getting a response from a recruiter or getting someone who works there to refer you. Once that's done, you should perhaps look into other (better) companies. You can use sites like Glassdoor, Comparably, and Paysa to get insight into what it's actually like at these companies (ie, you may hear something you don't like).

</comment><comment><USER11> I think this link [http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at- goog...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-google.html) is by far the best advice you can find out there.

<comment><USER11> I also want to add my 2 cents on that. I am terrible at white-board/ phone interviews but recently I think I was able to crack at it, and here are my thoughts about it:

\- go to the root of the problem, run some examples by hand and try to think as a computer. e.g., I was at apple interview and there was this trick question that could be solved using a modified version of binary search. When I ran some example I kept asking myself "if I know that this element in the middle of the matrix is smaller (or larger) than X, what does that mean?"

\- be very comfortable about big O notation. If necessary, be ready to present some formula.

\- show that you can do the brute force solution. Sometimes the brute force solution seems very stupid (e.g., enumerate all possible subsets and find the best one), but you need to say it!

\- most of all, be confident, but not arrogant. It is not the end of the world to not know something, but it is important to show what you do know!

<comment><USER12> Can you suggest any resources to freshen up on big o notation and fundamental data structures & algorithms that are not academically dense (i.e CLRS)?

I'm currently working through Cracking the coding interview & Elements of programming interviews but I really need to revisit the fundamentals, specially recurrence relations and calculating the order of complexity for an algorithm but I can't find any resources that are not too academically verbose, I have a really hard time reading mathematical notation.

<comment><USER11> This is my personal recommendation, please notice that I have read "Introduction to Algorithm by Cormen" about 4 years ago, so for me everything was more a catch up than really learning:

\- Skiena algorithm book: [https://www.amazon.com/Algorithm-Design-Manual- Steve-Skiena/...](https://www.amazon.com/Algorithm-Design-Manual-Steve- Skiena/dp/0387948600/ref=nav_signin?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1471460903&sr=1-5&keywords=the+algorithm+design+manual&)

for this book one can focuses on the first 7 chapters (revision)

\- Leet code editorial solutions [https://leetcode.com/articles/](https://leetcode.com/articles/) . They provide with the solution and complexity analysis of a few problems. I suggest you try to solve and give your complexity analysis then compare it with the "official" one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Search for Google Foobar if you're interested in an alternative way to get in contact with a Google recruiter. I was essentially blackholed until I went through Foobar (understandably so since I lack a CS degree; note that this means they may be interested without one). Be aware that they may take upwards of a year to contact you though.

</comment><comment><USER14> Be good in algorithm. If you can do same work in most efficient and effective way than any one else in this earth. You will be part of google.

Also, google has many other job opportunity than programmer. Try them out, if you are too much google lover.</comment>


Holding a country to ransom - <AUTHOR> http://gowers.wordpress.com/2013/10/15/holding-a-country-to-ransom/

<comment><USER2> the tea party seeks to stop tyranny of the majority. The US constitution established "limited government" as outlined by the 10th amendment. Is there anything wrong with wanting the government itself to actually obey the law?</comment>


Dongly Things (1998) - <AUTHOR> https://douglasadams.com/dna/980707-03-a.html <comment><AUTHOR> Another old article by Douglas Adams, which (if we apply a few find-and- replace) is still up-to-date...

Just replace "power adapter" with "USB dongle", or for a different take "voltage" with "USB-A (micro, mini, normal) / USB-C / lightning / HDMI / DVI / DisplayPort (mini and normal) / ThunderBolt" and you can have a good laugh at our own expense...</comment>


Intel Leverages Chip Might to Etch Photonics Future - <AUTHOR> http://www.nextplatform.com/2016/08/17/intel-leverages-chip-might-etch-photonics-future/ <comment><USER2> Caution, excessive buzzword density.

Summary: data centers expected to be using more optical interconnects within the data center. Optical interconnects at chip/board level a possibility. Problems of board assembly with fiber interconnects glossed over.

</comment><comment><USER3> > "The other commercially silicon photonics products out there use externally > created lasers based on the 3/5 material system that are then completely > processed off chip and are placed either down or next to a silicon photonics > integrated circuit, and these have to be meticulously aligned with high > precision instruments to couple the photonics to the circuit. It is not > really a full silicon platform"

The fact that Intel can appatently fab the laser diodes in silicon on the same die as a chip seems really huge. It was all the way down at the bottom of the article but I think that's the really interesting part.

<comment><USER4> Intel's been making announcements about mastering silicon photonics for a long time - but they've yet to ship anything. I suspect that Omni-Path & associated switches are intended to be an implementation target this time around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It seems like Intel is working on everything except a 10nm transistor. I'd invest in TSMC if I had money.

<comment><USER6> "TSMC's 10nm shrink would retain a 20nm minimum feature size, while its 7nm would deliver a 14nm minimum feature size (10/20 and 7/14, respectively)."[1]

Intel is the only company with a "true" 14nm and 10nm process.

Considering the number of people that don't seem to realize TSMC 10nm != Intel 10nm, Intel should change their marketing.

[1] [http://www.extremetech.com/computing/228806-arm-announces- ne...](http://www.extremetech.com/computing/228806-arm-announces-new-artemis- cpu-core-first-10nm-test-chip-built-at-tsmc)

<comment><USER7> Intel has similar issues.

When 22nm came out (for Ivy Bridge and Haswell), replacing 28/32nm, the density of the chip did not go up 45%, but the feature size dropped, thus allowing better power efficiency and lower waste heat.

When 14nm came out (for Broadwell, Skylake, and now the upcoming Kaby Lake), again, the density of the chip did not go up 57%, but, again, better power efficiency and lower waste heat was a noticable improvement.

Chips are not getting faster realistically because of this.

The largest problem that people should be focusing on is not the difference between fab techs (since GloFo and TSMC != Intel anyways), the problem people should be focusing on is, until last year, the largest power user (in desktops, workstations, game machines, and some laptops), the GPU itself, was still fabbed at 28nm by both Nvidia and AMD.

Also, on the server side, the SoCs for HBAs and NICs, the SoCs for drives, are still being fabbed at both 28nm and 45nm.

It isn't that TSMC and GloFo are slow to bring new fab sizes to market, it is that they are prohibitively expensive early on due to volume. As new fabs are constructed, only when "important" chips stop using old fabs do NICs, HBAs, drive controllers, other tertiary chips finally move down to the next size.

And to play devil's advocate, unless you're doing insanity-tier stuff (four, six 40/100gbit ethernet ports; three, four many-port HBA; several dozen drives; "zero" power wireless SoCs running off button cells; high heat tolerance industrial hardware), you don't NEED the improvement in thermals and power usage; only CPUs and GPUs and other math-/parallel-heavy chips need to continually chase that.</comment></comment></comment>


How to promote your website the smart way - <AUTHOR> http://www.designer-daily.com/how-to-promote-your-website-the-smart-way-58051 <comment><USER2> That is almost obvious advertising for Wix. Wouldn't be surprised if this is paid content.

The funny thing is, the post even describes the (probably) sole purpose of this blog:

      SEO doesn't work like it used to, keyword stuffing and tricky tactics will not lead you anywhere anymore. You'll need to have ideas to regularly create content to promote.</comment>


Experiment: To work primarily on an iPad for a week - <AUTHOR> http://blog.inkmobility.com/post/58068032644/experiment-to-work-primarily-on-an-ipad-for-a-week <comment><USER3> I tried this as well 2 weeks ago. The OP has a much more comprehensive breakdown of why it didnt work than I do (and a much more involved workload than i was intending).

Personally and in my conversation with folks, I find that as a productivity device, iPad users fall into 2 buckets.

Bucket 1: Creators: developers, designers, writers and such - folks who need to create documents and other work product. Broadly speaking, in terms of available apps, and interconnectivity with apps (eg leaving Photoshop to go research something in a browser and coming back, copy paste workflows etc) the iPad is simply not there yet. For stand alone workflows, it goes some of the way there (Eg if all you're doing is writing, you can probably get away with it), but if your role involves using several tools, the tools simply arent there yet.

Bucket 2: Decision makers. I know a few successful CEOs who only work on an iPad. For them, most of their workflow is digesting data and decision making - they arent writing code or making slide decks. They just process emails, do product review and look at data and conclusions. For them, the iPad is perfect because all those workflows are easily completed on an iPad.

I think the iPad will get there eventually - the type of creation that is done will shift somewhat, and the tools will get better, but for now, even the most dedicated folks have a hard time using an iPad exclusively.

<comment><USER4> _I think the iPad will get there eventually_

I don't think we'll get to a point where _professional_ or _enterprise level creation_ happens on an iPad, outside of typing text or filling out forms (if that even counts). Apple's direction with the iPad is purely as a device for buying and/or consuming data, and will maintain as much control as they can.

<comment><USER5> There are iOS mods (jailbroken) which currently enable keyboard commands and mouse use for the iPad right now. Multitasking is a big weakness that other tablet OS's are addressing or moving in the direction to address.

Let's hypothesize a 25" tablet, suspended from a monitor arm, with support for keyboard commands, mouse, and multitasking. That is effectively a desktop. The downside is processing power, which I am assuming will continue on an exponential upward trend in addition to seeing CPU intensive processing offloaded to remote servers (compiling, rendering 3D images, converting video, stuff that already is often done remotely today.) The part of this vision I find hardest to believe is a 25" tablet, so I assume it will have to wait for an advance in display tech leading to lightweight/fold-able/roll-able/etc.

Sure, Apple is going in one direction today, but if iOS falls too far behind the feature/usability curve their tablet dominance will fall.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> After trying really hard to use an ipad as a work tool for the most mundane tasks since the very first generation, I'm back for good on an 11" MBA and not looking back. Now that the battery life is 7h+ there's no real reason to carry the awkward tablet & keyboard combo and the ipad collects dust as a hi-end ebook reader.

<comment><USER7> Agreed. I tried the iPad + external keyboard combo for awhile, but after getting an 11" MBA and using my smartphone for things that I can do completely handsfree (like Skype calls), my iPad has fallen by the wayside for the most part and only comes out for reading comics and PDFs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If tablets are ever going to come into their own as productivity tools, we need some input device innovation. As it stands now, touchscreens and styli don't afford as much utility to the user as the mouse/ keyboard combo for the sort of precision most productive work requires.

The big limitation is the number of unique single-step interactions that can be performed by the user. With mouse + keyboard, you have ~100 keys, >=2 mouse buttons, and enough screen real estate to afford at least several hundred unique clickable areas. On a touchscreen, our fat fingers limit the number of unique tappable/swipable areas to, depending on screen real estate, maybe 50. There just isn't as much information that can be expressed in one interaction, and breaking the task into multiple interactions causes cogitive overhead and discomfort for the user.

I wish we all had really small hands so we fit an appropriately scaled keyboard in the footprint of a smartphone, or something. But that ain't gonna happen. So, I guess... Innovate or die! But here I have a fear that modern keyboards have so much lock-in that when better input devices arise, people will be afraid of switching to them.

</comment><comment><USER9> I tried this with the 1st generation iPad when my workstation failed and was in for service. I mostly SSH'd into my entertainment centre but I was able to do original editing on the iPad using DropBox.

It was awkward, but good enough to GetShitDone.

I later bought both an Air and an iPad Mini, and the Mini is small enough to be a substantial improvement on the Air when doing short trips to conferences. I can edit my presentations, take notes, and do all sorts of other things on the road or in a coffee shop.

Now my Air sits at home.

Disclosure: I started programming on punch cards. It's all amazing to me, so when comparing an iPad Mini to a desktop computer, I can logically tell you I'm way more productive on the desktop, but at the same time I'm emotionally satisfied either way.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is someone using a Surface Pro full time? It seems like a good compromise between tablet and notebook, because its only 50% heavier than an iPad and solves the inter-app data exchange and the App Quality problems.

<comment><USER11> I've tried this recently after receiving a Surface Pro as a gift. I find myself gravitating back toward an iPad and a MacBook -- the Surface, despite doing many things right, feels trapped in a worst-of-both-worlds situation.

\- It doesn't make a great laptop; the awkward kickstand-and-lightweight- keyboard setup feels unbalanced and doesn't really work on your lap, for example. The keyboard, by virtue of being a cover, is not awesome and the attached trackpad is pretty terrible. The screen is small enough that coding feels cramped.

\- It doesn't make a great tablet; the aspect ratio is too tall for reading and the extra weight really does make a difference when holding it for even a few minutes.

I really like drawing with the pressure-sensitive stylus, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't understand the point of "experiments" such as these. The developers and promoters of the iPad have never suggested nor pretended that the iPad is a viable replacement for a laptop -- any more than it's a viable replacement for a smart phone. It's indeed a "third device" \-- just as it was designed to be.

If you have a laptop and smartphone, chances are you don't "need" an iPad -- but once you figure out exactly what you CAN use it best for, it quickly becomes your "go to" device for certain tasks. I have all three within easy reach, but when I need ebooks, Facebook, Reddit or other leisurely entertainment, the iPad experience is far superior to that available on either of the other two devices. Meanwhile, my wife, who couldn't care less about Reddit or ebooks, finds it's the best platform for recipes, Pinterest, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> You may want to check out what Jobs had to say about this. See quote from 7:12PDT : [http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20006442-56.html](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20006442-56.html)

The goal was to understand, if we are there yet with respect to the readiness of iPad software. Bucketing iPads as a consumption and leisure device is short selling its potential.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> [http://yieldthought.com/post/31857050698/ipad- linode-1-year-...](http://yieldthought.com/post/31857050698/ipad- linode-1-year-later) <\- guy who tried it for a year.

<comment><USER14> Seems very forced. I've used vim on an iPad for a bit just to try it, and it was very inconvenient compared to a small laptop.

<comment><USER13> Well -- the new Macbook Air IMHO took a lot of wind out of the sails of such an idea. If I got an Air that I can leave the power cable at home because it will legitimately go all day... why would I even consider such a goofball setup?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Well, considering it isn't designed as a primary content creation device, not a surprising result (which so many of us have tried despite knowing this).

Next experiment: To consume content primarily on a non-tablet non-phone for a week. (It will fail a comparable way.)

No matter how much you squeeze an apple, no matter how tasty the results, you won't get orange juice.

<comment><USER16> The convergence of the PC and the tablet is inevitable. The awkward solutions that have been presented thus far are simply prototypes. We will eventually get it right, and when we do, the resulting experience will seem like it should have been the obvious choice from the start.

We already see the value in responsive web design, which is also in it's infancy. Eventually, we will have responsive operating systems, applications, and maybe even hardware.

<comment><USER15> _The convergence of the PC and tablets is inevitable._

Far from it. I've been watching major companies try to converge them for 20 years, all to abject failure (tiny niches aside). The iPad succeeded precisely because it _avoided_ "convergence".

<comment><USER16> It took over a decade to make a decent touch-screen device, because our technological capabilities hadn't yet caught up to our aspirations. Now that we can, m-commerce is the fastest growing segment of e-commerce, which is the fastest growing segment of commerce in general.

Basically, the iPad succeeded because the technology behind it had finally matured, and Apple paid close attention to all of the mistakes that were made over those 20 years.

I may be wrong, but only time will tell for sure. Right now we are still in the phase where companies creating hybrid devices are making a lot of mistakes. I'm betting that someone is eventually going to get it right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The way I've interpreted Ubiquitous Computing is that you walk into a room, and there is a computer. You pick it up and use it as casually as you would a magazine or a pad of paper.

You've done a valid experiment, but I think it illustrates why "if I only had one" is a wrong interpretation of Ubiquity. You don't just have one. If you are like most tech people you have a few, and maybe a lot, of functioning and current hardware. You probably have desktops and notebooks you can use.

And so in that environment a tablet should be good for the things you want to do when you just grab a tablet, in a room or an environment which isn't intended for serious work. And part of grabbing a tablet should be good integration with the other elements of your ubiquitous computing network.

</comment><comment><USER18> On several occasions, I've used my iPad as the primary device, mainly since I had no other choice since I had forgotten my laptop at work, but what I realized was that the limitation wasn't the apps, but the lack of real multitasking.

I was watching Netflix and an iMessage comes in. Do I click on the iMessage to reply and interrupt my flow or do I ignore it. Hey, look an mail notification came in, looks semi-urgent, should I interrupt my movie to respond? I ended up using my phone as a mail / chat client and my iPad as solely a movie player. At the end of the day, I still love my iPad despite it's shortcomings.

</comment><comment><USER19> I also attempted this for a while. I could accomplish work (I worked primarily through SSH), but it was always a little forced. Since then I've decided to make the iPad primarily used for its design, i.e., entertainment and my MBP used for its design, i.e., work.

I've found it really helpful to separate the two domains. The separation allows my mind to know which mode to be in and thus allows me to focus when working and relax when relaxing.

</comment><comment> k-mcgrady Not a great test. All of the editing problems stemmed from using Google Drive. Why not test using iWork which in my experience is pretty good.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm working on a book, and wanted to do some editing and writing when I went on holiday a couple of weeks ago so I took my iPad and a bluetooth keyboard with me.

Whole experience convinced me that if I was do do it again I'd get something like a Chromebook or Netbook.

There's no real way to drive the iPad using only a keyboard and you have to reach for the screen too many times e.g. flicking between document being edited and a reference PDF or presentation.

Pages on the iPad has some really weird quirks that I've not got to the bottom of e.g. copy some text from a table cell, paste it into the document elsewhere and it's still a table cell with no way to remove the formatting - <USER2> copied it all out an stuck with markdown (but need to port it back at some point).

<comment><USER21> Android has a few nice keyboard shortcuts baked in, including a basic alt-tab app switching menu.

Shame Apple can't see clear to adding some basic features like that for keyboard users, who while admittedly are a minority would really love to have some functionality like that.

<comment><USER20> I've never tried the bluetooth keyboard with my Nexus 4 or the wife's Nexus 7 so will have to give it a go.

I could just about cope with the differences between Android 2.x and iOS but since I've moved to Android 4.x I find iOS so frustrating to use so next tablet will probably be the new Nexus 7

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I guess that the reason I've been able to migrate almost entirely to using my iPad for everything must be the way I used to use my computer previously.

I've pretty much always ran applications "full-screen". The only time I really ever have more than one thing on screen at a time is if I'm splitting a tmux window.

I use my iPad how I imagine people use Chromebooks (with the addition of being able to use more than just the web browser).

That makes me wonder if over time tablets will become used for more and more because they increase in functionality/complexity (mimicking how people use their PC's currently), or if they'll remain the way they are, but people will just adopt their usage paradigms.

</comment><comment><USER23> I use my iPad as much as possible. For writing, I use Leanpub so I need to be able to edit markdown files out of Dropbox. iaWriter works great, and I usually don't even bother to use a bluetooth keyboard.

For accessing servers, the Prompt app provides SSH and a special Linux/bash friendly keyboard.

For research, a web browser and Evernote work fine.

So, top level comment: writing works well on an iPad, programming much less so.

Edit: I hardly ever use the bluetooth keyboard: I use my MBA if I need a keyboard. The advantage of the iPad is that it is comfortable to hold while writing as-is.

<comment><USER23> Also: one of our neighbors has an Internet business that involves making a lot of short informational videos; she hired a consultant who got her set up filming, editing with iMovie, and publishing to youtube - all on her iPad. I was curious enough to buy iMovie for the iPad and try it myself, and it is not bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Half the problem stems from the apps used, and while it _is_ about the apps, I feel that's an unfair test of the iPad itself, and more test of Google Docs and WebEx on the iPad.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is true that app quality has a lot to do with the experiment. I was surprised by how many of the problems could be solved if the apps upped their game. Hardware limitations were secondary only to the software experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Ideally if I could have an 11" MBA where I can twist the screen and snap it in place over the keyboard to turn it into an 11" iPad that would be ideal but would never happen.

Sometimes I want to play/browse and iOS is perfect for that with its apps and form factor and touch screen. Sometimes I want to work/create and OSX is perfect for that with its keyboard and multi-tasking and desktop applications.

</comment><comment><USER26> By playing enough games with the job title and the "daily tasks" list, any conclusion could be engineered. I think it interesting this was the desired conclusion, leading to ... what? I'm curious if there's an interesting new startup, or app, or whatever, oriented around this particular report.

</comment><comment><USER27> I've been using an iPhone (3 different generations) every day for 5 years, and I still type at maybe 30% of the speed I did on my Treo before them...

So, I tend to just not type.

</comment><comment><USER28> Using the Google Drive application on iPad you can edit spreadsheets.

Is the author saying that Google test documents with tables aren't displayed? I haven't tried that.

</comment><comment><USER29> I wish I had a job where I could pull this off. I'm not even sure sales guys could with some relying on fancy projecting spreadsheets....

<comment><USER30> that's my first thought as well: "what's this guy's/girl's daily job?!". and i wasn't any wiser when i read the job title ("Customer Success Manager") on the infographic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> It would be interesting if OP tried Android tablet which seems to have better Google integration, multitasking and inter-app-communication.

</comment><comment><USER32> Why iPad? Why not a surface pro or a nexus 10 running Ubuntu?</comment>


Startup School acceptances are out - <AUTHOR>

Go check your email. <comment><USER2> I'd love to know which other HN'ers are going to be there, but without each of us spamming up this thread.

Any clever solutions?

<comment><USER3> If you're attending, send a tweet to @YCRSVP.

List of attendees: [https://twitter.com/search?f=realtime&q=%40YCRSVP](https://twitter.com/search?f=realtime&q=%40YCRSVP)

<comment><USER4> Does that mean you decided to go?

<comment><USER3> No, it means I thought that repurposing Twitter's search capability was a cute hack.

... but yes, I do plan on attending.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hey, let's do a San Francisco meetup this weekend!

How about 4pm, Sunday September 21, Ritual Coffee on Valencia Street?

If interested, ping me at firstname.lastname@example.com or [http://twitter.com/yurylifshits](http://twitter.com/yurylifshits)

</comment><comment><USER6> I got accepted but I've to travel a long way -- from India, is it worth it? I do have plans to set up a bunch of meetings pre and post event, though. (oh and how difficult is it to get a meeting scheduled with big names? I know it's a naive question but still...)

<comment><USER7> Yes, it is worth it because you can potentially meet a LOT of interesting people. I say 'interesting' because I prefer meeting people who are fired up and ready to take on the world as opposed to those who made it.

Scheduling meetings with big names is mainly a credibility thing. You either have the right connections to get an introduction or an 'unicorn'.

P.S. Remember that this is still just a 'conference' in the purest form. Getting 'accepted' is not a big deal. You can stand outside the building, hangout in the bars/meetup groups around the venue and watch a few podcasts/youtubes for the same effect. What you make of it, is up to you.

<comment><USER6> Fair point. I'll have to try and use connections in the valley to see if any introductions can be made. Thanks a lot for your inputs. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I got an acceptance letter and a rejection letter. Someone please let me know which lol.

<comment><USER9> Did you try to rsvp using the link in the acceptance? If that works, just pretend you never saw the rejection!

<comment><USER2> Certainly fits the "it's easier to apologize later than ask for permission" ethos ;)

<comment><USER8> True dat :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Facebook group for those interested in connecting:

[https://www.facebook.com/groups/286093088248929/286099334914...](https://www.facebook.com/groups/286093088248929/286099334914971/)

</comment><comment><USER11> I'll be renting a car from SF. For folks wanting to carpool with me, sign up here with "techtivist". Others with a car, feel free to add yourself here as well. [http://www.groupcarpool.com/t/97khv4](http://www.groupcarpool.com/t/97khv4) First come first serve. It should come to around $20 each (including gas and rental) per head, against $80-90 Uber ONE WAY! I'll be leaving from Richmond, but can pick up from anywhere within SF or a short diversion from 101.

<comment><USER12> I booked a spot and will be from either Ingleside or Tenderloin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Odd. I've been going for multiple years, and I got rejected this time. And just my luck that I already bought my plane ticket and booked an Airbnb.

That sucks.

<comment><USER13> I got accepted in NYC, had to turn it down because I'd already decided to go to a conference (ironically also in NYC) since I'd assumed I'd be rejected, emailed my cancellation and was told this wouldn't DQ me for SF, and then got rejected. We should have a meetup for all of the rejects, lol.

<comment><USER14> Anyone else coming from NYC? Kinda sucks going solo.

<comment><USER15> Also going solo from the east coast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Last year I hosted a tour of the Eventbrite offices for Startup School folk. Is that something that is of interest to attendees this year?

<comment><USER16> Yes! I would love to visit the Eventbrite office! Always inspiring to be around entrepreneurs that are living the dream.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Dumb question from an out-of-towner: Does it make sense to stay in a hotel somewhere in the Mountain View / Sunnyvale / Cupertino area and use Uber to get around? I'm not a fan of bay area traffic, so I'd prefer to Caltrain from the airport to a hotel and use Uber after that if it's feasible.

<comment><USER2> (information in case you drive, or are wary of your uber driver making you sit in traffic)

Saturday traffic is not bad (though all things being equal, 101 will always be a bit iffy).

Friday rush hour will be relevant since the reception (if you are going) is from 7pm at the YC office. FYI try to avoid 85 south between 101 and 280, 101 entirely, and 280 south after 85 or thereabouts.

<comment><USER17> Is the reception on Friday invite-only? I got accepted, but didn't read about it anywhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Got accepted, not sure whether to be excited or not. Could be one of those things where most everyone who applies gets accepted because most people don't end up coming. (anyone know numbers on that?) Pretty sure I will go...2000 miles isn't really that far...

<comment><USER19> I was told by someone who has been trying to attend for years that it's hard to get accepted. Not sure if that's accurate or not but I was accepted and am excited to learn and listen.

<comment><USER20> AFAIK, generally the people I see getting in are technical and have somewhat interesting projects that they've worked on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> How do people from other countries attend the event? Do they send invitations, so I can get visa and be there? I'm crazy enough to travel 6506 miles to feel that experience.

<comment><USER2> Can you not use their email to you as the invitation letter for visa purposes? (Or does it need to properly address you by name and address?)

<comment><USER21> I'm from Mongolia, which is pretty small country, so the embassy won't be giving visas so easily and I would need some paperwork. How does YC deal with this kind of issue???

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Boo. Got rejected. I wonder if I screwed myself by applying twice (once a few weeks ago and once on Sept 11) For some reason the system let me....

<comment><USER2> FWIW, I doubt it. I did that (or more) and was accepted.

<comment><USER22> Cool. Good to know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Strange, I haven't yet gotten an email. Has everyone gotten an email or just people who've gotten in?

</comment><comment><USER24> so there was a typo in the email i entered in the application. is there a way for me to check if i'm on the list?

</comment><comment><USER25> Sounds like a potential Show HN project, but I'd love to arrange some carpools from SF...</comment>