A transcoding FUSE filesystem for music - <AUTHOR> http://khenriks.github.io/mp3fs/ <comment><USER3> I'm hoping that this type of 'filesystem as a utility' becomes a common method of chaining programs together, simmilar to the pipe.

On a related note, another FUSE filesystem I have used is ciopfs [1] which makes a case insensitive filesystem from a given folder. Very useful for running windows programs that are incidentally platform independent (as in written in a language like Java) and break on case sensitive filesystems.

[1] [http://www.brain-dump.org/projects/ciopfs/](http://www.brain- dump.org/projects/ciopfs/)

<comment><USER4> Whoa, my mind is more than a little blown at this idea. Like Dropbox, but for actions or operations. Just drop a file and now its being converted or manipulated. I hope this becomes a reality!

<comment><USER5> I've written a few data processing systems over the years and one of my foundational principles is to eschew complex command line parameters and instead just use the filesystem to infer things.

For example: building a comic book library? Where do I store the publisher, title and issue metadata? Why not just infer it from the organization of the file system?

D.C.Comics/Batman/The Batman #123.cbz Marvel/Avengers/Avengers - <USER2> #12.cbz

I once built a text processing and conversion system that used a different scheme.

You mount or copy your text files into a folder "source" and it picks up whatever's in there processes it and dumps the converted result out to "sink".

Later I set it up to have some filters on the data. So "sink" turned into a hierarchy of different pre-filtered results.

sink/Car_Makers sink/countries/France sink/countries/England sink/Truck_Makers

And in the end, only documents that fell into one of those classes appeared in the relevant sink folder. At a glance you'd know if there was something relevant to that class of documents or not just by running "ls" or "dir" on it.

It cut hundreds of hours off of analyzing the results since you'd know a head of time if it was likely you'd find something productive related to one of the output classes.

This work with fuse is really exciting.

Imagine dumping in your text files wherever, fuse mounting it and then just exploring the results in all kinds of useful ways. Maybe you write an "entity extraction" filesystem.

So "Mobydick.txt"

Gets turned into

/mnt/mobydick/characters/ishmael/chapters/1 /mnt/mobydick/characters/ishmael/chapters/4 /mnt/mobydick/characters/ahab/chapters/4 /mnt/mobydick/characters/queequeg/chapters/3 /mnt/mobydick/characters/queequeg/chapters/4

/mnt/mobydick/chapters/4/characters/ishmael /mnt/mobydick/chapters/4/characters/ahab /mnt/mobydick/chapters/4/characters/queequeg

/mnt/mobydick/locations/Nantucket/chapters/1 /mnt/mobydick/locations/Nantucket/chapters/4 /mnt/mobydick/locations/Pequod/chapters/4

/mnt/mobydick/chapters/4/locations/Nantucket /mnt/mobydick/chapters/4/locations/Pequod

/mnt/mobydick/chapters/1/text.txt /mnt/mobydick/chapters/2/text.txt /mnt/mobydick/chapters/3/text.txt /mnt/mobydick/chapters/4/text.txt

And now you can use the fuse filesystem as an analytic tool

<comment><USER6> I'm using Plex for comics. I don't worry about where the metadata is stored. There's an interface to enter it manually, and an API to write an agent script that grabs the metadata for you.

Trying to shoehorn it all into the filesystem as directory names seems... destined for disappointment.

<comment><USER5> Out of curiosity, how are you using plex for comics? The photo gallery feature? I keep asking the developers to add cbz and cbr support but it doesn't seem to be coming.

<comment><USER6> Yeh, the photos. The developers are assholes, it's a closed source project... but everything else is so bad it's tough to not go with it.

I've also figured out how to do audio streams (radio stations).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This reminds me of a very fun assignment we had in college: we had to implement a FUSE filesystem to extract ID3 tags from MP3s. This was part of our OS class to learn about the filesystem (while at the same time we were diving into the Linux kernel).

I'd really recommend to anyone who wants to understand more about filesystems to write your own FUSE filesystem. It isn't difficult (assuming you have a basic understanding of C), they run in userspace so they can't mess things up too badly, and it is really gratifying to drag/drop files into a folder and have _magic_ happen.

<comment><USER8> Actually, you don't even have to know C; you can do it in Python. Here's an example: [http://www.stavros.io/posts/python-fuse- filesystem/](http://www.stavros.io/posts/python-fuse-filesystem/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Huh, I had used MP3fs or something like it years ago. I see this project's code dates back to 2006, so maybe this was it? Glad to see it lives on :)

<comment><USER10> Yeah, mp3fs has been around a long time. It's really useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Very cool. I had this same idea (and of course secretly hoped I was the first to have thought of it, but that's rarely the case) just the other day, as I found myself having to re-encode a bunch of FLAC files purchased at HDtracks.com to M4A, since Spotify for some absurd reason doesn't support FLAC. It's straightforward enough with ffmpeg, but it's yet another annoying step required before you can listen to the music.

</comment><comment><USER12> Alternative: This script synchronizes a music collection recursively one way from a lossless format source directory to a lossy file format target directory.

[https://bitbucket.org/ghorvath/music-collection- sync](https://bitbucket.org/ghorvath/music-collection-sync)

</comment><comment> michel-slm Nice! I did this a few years ago as a class project but didn't take it as far as this project is doing. Impressive.

</comment><comment><USER13> Been using this for years - very useful and nice to see it being maintained again.

</comment><comment><USER14> A while back I saw a similar project that used Samba to transcode on the fly.

</comment><comment><USER15> Why specifically MP3? Something more up to date like Opus could be more interesting.

<comment><USER16> Probably because it's the most commonly supported format by portable players?

<comment><USER15> Hard to say, for portable players I only use something that can run Rockbox and it supports Opus just fine. But the general trend now is decline of their usage altogether. With the rise of handsets and tablets portable players became more exotic, like PDAs of the past. I barely see them being used anywhere. And with general purpose mobile OSes and software media players, supporting more codecs shouldn't be an issue.

When I get some music in lossless format like FLAC I encode it in Opus for regular usage.

<comment><USER17> I guess because it's better to use a format everyone has heard of rather than one no one has heard of ?

<comment><USER15> Not really. It's like proposing to use IE6 because people "have heard of it".

I wonder what people here like outdated patented codecs. It's like a lose lose in all aspects.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Domain hacks with unusual Unicode characters - <AUTHOR> https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2018/11/domain-hacks-with-unusual-unicode-characters/ <comment><USER2> Under "How does this work?", the post refers to the text in RFC 5895:

> map characters to the "Simple_Lowercase_Mapping" property (the fourteenth > column) in > <[http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/UnicodeData.txt>](http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/UnicodeData.txt>), > if any.

as if that were responsible for turning ℡ into TEL. But the fourteenth column in

> 2121;TELEPHONE SIGN;So;0;ON;<compat> 0054 0045 004C;;;;N;T E L SYMBOL;;;;

is empty!

What we're actually seeing is a Compatibility Decomposition, used when Unicode normalisation form NFKC is applied to the text.

Whether it's appropriate for browsers to be applying NFKC may be questionable. RFC 5895 calls for the use of NFC (which would not apply mappings like this), but it also says that

> These form a minimal set of mappings that an application should strongly > consider doing. Of course, there are many others that might be done.

which leaves things rather open.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was hoping this would work on the "Regional Indicator Symbols" used for flag emoji, since they encode the same country codes used in ccTLDs.

🇩🇪 is actually two Unicode code points 🇩 (U+1F1E9 'REGIONAL INDICATOR SYMBOL LETTER D') 🇪 (U+1F1EA 'REGIONAL INDICATOR SYMBOL LETTER E') that fonts display as a single flag grapheme. But google.🇩🇪 becomes the Punycode google.xn--h77hc and fails to resolve rather than mapping to ASCII as these other characters do.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I found it rather curious to see which symbols converted back to "pure" ASCII.

For example, ℡ goes to TEL, but ℻ goes to punycode!

<comment><USER4>
      http://℻zero.com works for me.

Apparently just doesn't work as a TLD (chrome/linux).

<comment><USER5> most likely because .fax is not a valid TLD but .tel is

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This kind of stuff is fun, reminds me of decimal IP addresses.

like [http://3520653040](http://3520653040) should take you to hn (atleast to the IP I'm resolving for hn right now)

Also, I know this is off topic, but that python example really bothered me.

original:

      python -c 'import sys;print sys.argv[1].decode("utf-8").encode("idna")' "℡"

Should have been

      python -c 'print "℡".decode("utf-8").encode("idna")'

Or in python3

      python -c 'print( "℡".encode("idna"))'

<comment><AUTHOR> Pull Requests welcome :-)

More seriously, I just copied that codefrom somewhere. Why is the other way better?

<comment> half-kh-hacker Brevity - You don't need to `import sys` if you just use the literal character instead of reading from argv

</comment></comment></comment><comment> dane-pgp This makes me wonder what if there are new ways to consider the question of "What is the shortest possible domain name?".

An amusing approach is the one taken here:

[https://www.namepros.com/threads/worlds-shortest-domain- name...](https://www.namepros.com/threads/worlds-shortest-domain- name.1061981/)

leading to the domain used for this URL shortener:

[https://l.tl/](https://l.tl/)

However, the ccTLD for São Tomé and Príncipe allows single-letter second-level domains, so perhaps this is a contender:

l.ſt

<comment><USER7> A few TLDs have A records, like ai. or dk.

[http://ai](http://ai). [http://dk](http://dk).

<comment><USER8> How come, they don't seem to resolve to anything? I tried both via my browser and curl.

I can see the records and if i curl the ip-address for the dk-records I only get a nginx 301 redirect loop to the http-s version which serves a certificate for [https://eksempel.dk](https://eksempel.dk).

Similar exprience with ai, curling the ip seems to point to a [http://offshore.ai](http://offshore.ai) page.

Is the top level A-records used for some other protocol? Do they server any purpose?

<comment><USER9> I tried both in Chrome in Android and they are working fine for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> @edent did you submit this to HN as [https://xn--69f31l4t57c0mag4b613h.xn-- 7uh4898msjaso/🆆🆃🅵/](https://🅂𝖍𝐤ₛᵖ𝒓.ⓜ𝕠𝒃𝓲/🆆🆃🅵/) or the ASCII variant?

edit: whoa, HN autoconverted it to Punycode. 🅂𝖍𝐤ₛᵖ𝒓.ⓜ𝕠𝒃𝓲/🆆🆃🅵/

<comment><USER11> It's a little sad that we ended up with punycode, given that utf8 is so elegant as a forward compatible character set with ascii.

DNS' concern over backward compatibility is a bit of a pain sometimes. And now we even have two competing standards, where multicast DNS, mDNS, allows utf8, but "standard" DNS does not.

<comment><USER12> An important benefit of punycode is that it provides some protection against homograph attacks [0]. There are so many similar-looking characters in Unicode that it seems reasonable to trim the allowed characters to a subset. Of course it's a compromise and ASCII's not perfect, but it's a lot easier to spot g00gle.com compared to gооgle.com.

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

<comment><USER13> At the same time there's sites like flüge.de which is not reachable under any domain except the unicode domain, and while ü could be written as ue, fluege.de is already owned by a competitor.

Over time, punycode is going to cause more phishing problems in non-ascii countries than it's going to solve, because users aren't going to see a difference between xn-blabla.de and xn-blablu.de if all domains are unreadable to them.

<comment><USER14> I feel like this is a browser UX problem, right? A browser designed to prevent phishing of readers of both ASCII and non-ASCII languages might display both the punycode and unicode versions of a website, and if a heuristic is detected that a homograph is used that would otherwise result in an Alexa Top 100k site, display a dialog to warn against a phishing attack. (Your flüge.de example shouldn't trigger that warning, for instance.)

[https://github.com/phishai/phish-protect](https://github.com/phishai/phish- protect) is an attempt to do this, but I think there's a better middle ground for international users that doesn't simply block-by-default all punycode domains.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I recommend setting network.IDN_show_punycode to true in Firefox via about:config. This will help keep you safe from this phishing vector.

<comment><USER16> Vivaldi shows domains in punycode by default. I believe this is the only reasonable solution, otherwise browser makers will always be playing catch-up with exploiters.

<comment><USER11> At that point, how much value is there in supporting Unicode? By only using ascii (punycode), it pretty much eliminates the reason it exists: To allow software to show a domain in someone's native language.

Should we perhaps instead be restricting the domain characters to the glyphs of ascii (rfc1035 compliant) and those glyphs that appear in their locale? Otherwise revert to punycode when the glyphs fall outside those ranges.

<comment><USER17> > At that point, how much value is there in supporting Unicode? By only using > ascii (punycode), it pretty much eliminates the reason it exists: To allow > software to show a domain in someone's native language.

Allowing a user to _enter_ a domain in their native language is very much worthwhile, I'd say, even if we revert to ascii for display.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> this is fascinating. given how many pixels can fit in a character, the possibilities are in the tens of thousands at least.

It's almost possible to write a simple math paper using unicode instead of Latex

these characters can also be used to evade username restrictions and other spam filters when character substitution does not work.

you can even use these codes for bitcoin wallets

</comment><comment><USER19> Also: wordpreß.com</comment>


Help sponsor Mercurial development - <AUTHOR> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.mercurial.general/19643

<comment><USER2> Perhaps someone should point out that Matt Mackall is the creator and lead developer of Mercurial (according to wikipedia). I've been using Mercurial for some time but I had no idea who was the author of that email.

What I would like to see is some way to "vote" towards some features. For example, FSEvents support on OSX.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hopefully Fog Creek is putting some cash towards Mercurial development.

<comment><USER4> The are plenty of big companies that could stump Mercurial some cash or development time. Mozilla for one uses Mercurial heavily.

<comment><USER2> Oracle also uses Mercurial a lot (through Sun).</comment></comment></comment>


TagTime: Stochastic Time Tracking for Space Cadets (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://messymatters.com/tagtime/ <comment><USER2> This brought me to the article by Joel Spolsky (Evidence based scheduling) [1] and then to the Reporter app created by Nick Feltron [2]. Apps following this method all seem dated or not maintained anymore at all. Any good recommendations?

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=72952](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=72952) [2] [http://www.reporter-app.com](http://www.reporter-app.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> Great idea! I've witnessed firsthand what a negative impact traditional time tracking can have on someone. Now I'm wondering if this idea can work for calorie tracking...

</comment><comment><USER4> This looks great, and is still actively maintained on Github. It keeps your data locally, which is a hard requirement for any kind of company use. Uploading work activity to some third party is an absolute no-go for most companies.

The approach taken by many other tools is either a huge database of applications/websites that someone maintains tags for or a custom set of rigid rules. Neither approach works very well on my experience. The statistical approach taken by TagTime sounds much less rigid and more flexible.

<comment><USER5> Bullshit. ADP, Quickbooks, Kronos, etc. all have wildly popular hosted time tracking software. Some kind of online time card is practically a requirement to sell payroll and/or invoicing services these days.</comment></comment>


We're Not Rock Stars Anymore - <AUTHOR> http://howtosplitanatom.com/the-news/entrepreneurs-surviving-the-economy/

<comment><USER2> True words: "The secret to surviving in a bad economy is to become a real business."

However:

Given the snarkery is in this article, and that the author is a 'digital marketing expert', I'm sensing some resentment toward programming 'rock stars'. I've never been called a 'rock star', 'ninja', or what have you in the course of my work. Since I don't currently work in the Valley, I haven't been in the kind of situation where my work environment has video games and huge parties and whatnot. (Though this might change.) As such, I've always worked with a mind toward profit, and for businesses that were like-minded. If there's no revenue at the end of the day, VC or no, the project has failed.

It doesn't take a marketing guy to figure this out, regardless of how anxious they may be prep an 'I told you so'.

No talented programmers are going to go without work, though they might expect less in the paycheck. No solid companies are going to fold, though their next VC round might be more cautious. If you're good, and if your business is good, there's no fear.

So relax or panic, as quality dictates.

<comment><USER3> Good points (I wrote the article in question).

I'd like to put this out there -- I am talking to people on the business end of things a lot more than the technical talent (I've been on both sides).

Also, I am responding to the video that was embedded that implies that the sky is falling and everyone is going to be out of a job soon enough. I've always been opposed to that sentiment because it ignores what you so elegantly put at the end of your comment -- people doing good stuff (from both a technical and a business perspective) will continue to do well.

As for "digital marketing expert," ugh . . . I think it follows the same line, us "experts" will need to relax or panic as quality dictates.

<comment><USER4> What's digital marketing expert mean? Just extensive experience with online advertising or?

<comment><USER3> Online advertising management, social media (whatever that means), branding and image building in digital. Knowing how to deliver your content (video, blog post, product) effectively online and in the best of cases making it so people -care- about that product.

That's my definition, at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We were never rock stars.

</comment><comment><USER6> _In short, the industry is going to be forced to mature from its bed wetting phase and you know what?

That's not really such a bad thing, is it?_

.COM buble 1.0 Déjà vu!

</comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone here think that the tech/software industry is in the bed-wetting stage? I don't.

<comment><USER8> Depends on where you're looking. Enterprise/consumer level software, no. The business models for web applications, well, bed wetting might be generous.

<comment><USER9> business models? what are you talking about?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Get back in the van, Jagger"

Phrase of the day

</comment><comment><USER11> Wow, that reporter sure is attractive.</comment>


Time Tracking Like There Is No Tomorrow (with Javascript and HTML5) - <AUTHOR> http://www.mostlymaths.net/2011/11/time-tracking-like-there-is-no-tomorrow.html

<comment><USER2> Interesting part will start with analyzing the data and comparing it with others'.

<comment><AUTHOR> Somehow, yes. But I will be ashamed when I see how much time I waste compared with othes ;)</comment></comment>


Lego Cuts 1,400 Jobs as Sales Slump on Weak 'Batman' Demand - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-05/lego-cuts-jobs-as-profit-declines-amid-change-of-leadership <comment><USER2> Poorly ripping off an existing waning franchise was never going to make 10% of their global sales. The batman movie may be a metaphor for their downturn, but clearly not actualy a large factor.</comment>


How to listen to vuvuzela without all the annoying football - <AUTHOR> http://vuvuzela.fm/ <comment><USER2> "Hi we did a site with a very bad concept, we did it in an afternoon , to surf on a meme that seems to be expanding around very fast lately. It has a sleek web 2.0 design, no content, and most of the site space is taken by advertising and links to social media sites. At least it's a bit fun, for a few seconds"

Ha i'm just jealous i didn't have the idea myself ;)

<comment><USER3> I think it needs another Twitter button, Facebook has three after all. I'm also wondering how this got on Hacker News without a "share on HN" button.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I enjoyed checking it out, although it seems to be a very short loop.

On the topic of annoyances, we have white noise generators in our offices - these are terrible. I hunt them down and turn them off wherever they are nearby.

Apparently the thinking is that it is better for the entire environment to be noisy than for it to be library-quiet such that you can distinctly hear a conversation down the hall.

<comment><USER5> _On the topic of annoyances, we have white noise generators in our offices - these are terrible. I hunt them down and turn them off wherever they are nearby._

The fans in your servers? :-D

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Finally, a website that caters to my beekeeping fetish.

</comment><comment><USER7> Great opportunistic timing for whoever did this.

</comment><comment><USER8> I thought this would be instructions on how to configure my TV to cancel out all frequencies EXCEPT the vuvuzela. Alas :(

<comment> demo- [http://lifehacker.com/5564085/how-to-silence-vuvuzela- horns-...](http://lifehacker.com/5564085/how-to-silence-vuvuzela-horns-with- an-eq-filter)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Aside: ever since I started hearing about vuvuzela, my goal in life has been to play that word in Scrabble. Unfortunately, it's not in the OPSD4 or the TWL06. I hope this will soon be rectified.

<comment><USER10> 1) Play word in Scrabble

2) When disputed, produce vuvuzela

3) Blast vuvuzela in disputer's face

4) Disputer concedes. You win.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Hacker News - Hovering Over the Shark"

</comment><comment><USER12> > Without all the annoying football

Yes!!

<comment><USER13> Is that what those gentlemen in shorts are doing at the Vuvuzela concerts?

(stolen from esoterik@reddit)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> glad my noise cancelling headphones don't cancel the vuvuzela :-)</comment>


Set Up to Fail: How Bosses Create Their Own Poor Performers (1998) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.insead.edu/facultyresearch/research/doc.cfm?did=46698 <comment><USER2> Unfortunately I was one of those bosses. I was not trained in the art of managing a team with asymmetric talents, so this paper read exactly how my team and I were acting. Eventually I figured out that each person on the team can shine if they're given independent projects that they themselves had spec'd out rather than having everyone tugging on the same rope and fighting over who is pulling the most. This is one of the unfortunate fallacies of the scrum teams that everyone is equally capable to take any story and the point size will be the for everyone, that just sets up the false expectation of everyone can do every story just as fast. I essentially dropped the everyone is a talented clone aspect of scrum and just let some people drive hard on their own project, and they delivered good stuff.

The manager also has to stop and applaud each accomplishment, make sure everyone's effort is recognized, it's easy to forget that in a busy environment.

<comment><USER3> Recognizing people's successes and what they are doing well is a 1000% more effective than harping on what people have messed up. It's very easy find yourself in or create a toxic culture that is overly focuses on the negative, but it instantly kills motivation.

People who feel like they are doing great work and motivated to do great work.

<comment><USER4> _> Recognizing people's successes and what they are doing well is a 1000% more effective than harping on what people have messed up_

Yes, this is (verifiably) true. One must be aware, however, that positive feedback is _usually_ going to be ineffective, thanks to natural "regression to the mean" effects, elucidated wonderfully in this Veritasium video[1].

(The point, in the end though, is that performance is going to statistically improve if people do worse than average, and do worse if they do really well, regardless of the feedback you give them", which is called "regression to the mean". The net effect is that you might get a false positive for negative feedback, and a false negative for positive feedback if you don't account for the natural tension that brings everything back to average.)

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> People management is one of the poorly understood and performed roles in a corporate hierarchy. Most middle management ( in technical organizations ) is promoted either due to 'Technical competence' or 'In-the-club'. Unfortunately either of these 2 selection criteria are not necessary functions for good people mgmt skills.

Ace people managers are strategic physiologists. They understand emotion and motivation while developing a great understanding of their employees. Each employee has a profile that determines what motivates them and these managers have a good holding of this. All this while knowing that their employees are humans and not robotic machines.

</comment><comment><USER6> Very true. This can play itself out different in different organizations.

At a large consumer products company I worked at, the solution was trying to fit square pegs in round holes. People could only "perform" their way into new good positions.

At a consulting firm with an up-or-out policy, we had rigorous micromanagement of poor performers. Surprisingly it actually worked half the time, though it took a lot of managerial attention.

At a software firm that I worked at, the boss fired people as soon as there was a hint of misperformance. "People just don't turn around, and you waste a lot of time of managers."

Unfortunately after the first two experiences, I began to have sympathy with #3. It would be great to find an environment where everyone is allowed to find their niche to shine. Office politics make this difficult. The reality is MOST people can thrive somewhere, but there is still a small subset that is in the wrong place and spot. It is important to note where the hiring mistakes happened too.

<comment><USER7> So if they had a sickness spell or similar for a few weeks and performed at %70, he would fire them!?

<comment><USER6> Mayharm - He was quick to pull the trigger on most anything. I can't get into too many more specifics without identifying people, other than to say he gave people good cause to get lawyers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In large part the article describe Leadership-Member Exchange interaction. Wikipedia has summary here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leader%E2%80%93member_exchange_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leader%E2%80%93member_exchange_theory).

The classic criticism of the LMX model is that "it isn't fair." Generally those of LMX say "it isn't about fair, it is about reality."

The best advice probably goes to the worker that understands LMX, "Get on the inside track immediately."

</comment><comment><USER9> Hell, now we just have HR departments to create poor performers and then select them as the next leaders and managers.

</comment><comment><USER10> Yikes. I have read First, Break All the Rules ( affiliate link: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684852861/ref=as_li_tl?ie=...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684852861/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0684852861&linkCode=as2&tag=j02-20) ) which argues for the behavior of playing favorites. This would/could cause the exact problem his paper examines... Different treatment. Now what do I do?

</comment><comment><USER11> nice article, why don't bosses read it?

<comment><USER12> Bosses do, but the article does not necessarily provide any real solutions. The only clear thing to take away is "be aware that you may be causing a vicious cycle, and try to look out for that/get out of it" \- which is a level of self-awareness that any semi-decent manager should have and keep in mind.

Management is a fundamentally messy and error-prone process, and dealing with differences in abilities is always hard and complicated :-/ The other thing about running organisations seems to be the "Anna Karenina principle" \- all organisations that function really well are similar, but almost each organisation that fails fails in a different way.

<comment><USER13> > the two parties have to "sit down and talk" [quote from the article]

As the paper is addressing a social problem rather than a technical one, the definition of what a 'real solution' may be is debatable.

I definitely think the paper provides suggestions about how to reverse such a cycle.

<comment><USER12> Agreed; I guess my complaint could be best phrased as "the paper does not sufficiently address the complexities of determining whether you are in such a cycle, and the fact that many people that struggle actively search for more concrete guidance". This doesn't detract from the fact that it was a good read.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This may be "(1998)" but it's timeless and everyone who's had (or been) a micromanager or a bad boss could stand to read it. It describes the micromanagement death spiral well. It also explains why about a third to a half of people in closed-allocation companies, no matter how talented they would be in a better context, are going to fail. Open allocation gives the individuals multiple opportunities to roll the dice and takes that failure rate down to about 2%.

For all our noise about "meritocracy", the truth is that social status matters a great deal in the workplace. I've written about this here: [http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/07/13/how-the- other...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/07/13/how-the-other-half- works-an-adventure-in-the-low-status-of-software-engineers/)

In addition to what's described in the paper, and very relevant to the sorts of ultra-hard-working people you find in tech, high status is right-to-care. If you have low status and care a lot about your work and doing things the right way, you're "pushy" and "entitled". If you're of high status, you're dedicated and creative.

Working hard from a position of low social status does absolutely nothing. In fact, it makes your situation worse because it lowers your status even further. A low-status person who puts in long hours is seen as compensating for inability, and if that person stops putting in long hours, the relative drop ("downward trend in performance") is what will be noted.

This paper doesn't discuss the real way out. It's not to work harder. It's also not "communication" (even though "communication breakdown" is the polite term for this scenario) because the communication between the manager and low- status subordinate is destined to be one-way. The best odds are with escape: transfer to another group under someone who likes you. However, if that can't be done, the next best option is _social proof_. Gain the blessing of a high- status person. You can't really do this on your own team (the high-status people don't want to be associated with the low-status ones) so you need to gain the approval of someone of equal or higher status (formal and informal) to your boss and to have your boss know. Of course, this can be dangerous (you appear to be a flight risk) and if you're caught or you fail, it'll be interpreted in the worst possible way, but it's the only reliable way out of the bottom on this one, and it's surprisingly quick when the "magic" of social proof works.

<comment><USER15> There is another option for the under-performer - they might be on the sociopath track:

 _The future Sociopath must be an under-performer at the bottom. Like the average Loser, he recognizes that the bargain is a really bad one. Unlike the risk-averse loser though, he does not try to make the best of a bad situation by doing enough to get by. He has no intention of just getting by. He very quickly figures out — through experiments and fast failures — that the Loser game is not worth becoming good at. He then severely under-performs in order to free up energy to concentrate on maneuvering an upward exit. He knows his under-performance is not sustainable, but he has no intention of becoming a lifetime-Loser employee anyway. He takes the calculated risk that he'll find a way up before he is fired for incompetence._

[http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais- principle-o...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or- the-office-according-to-the-office/)

<comment><USER16> Remember, this is in the context of trying to analyze a fictional program -- The Office. Although there's some truthiness there, it's all a bit too neat. Wow, there's only three kinds of workers. Okaaay.

<comment><USER14> I've done some analysis on my own of that. There are more, but those 3 tend to dominate the culture of an organization.

Organizations want 3 things from people: subordinacy, dedication, and strategy (working on the right things). You'll almost never see all 3, because a person who is strategic will either optimize for minimum discomfort (and not be dedicated/sacrificial) or for maximum personal yield (and, while he might follow orders, won't put the organization's goals above his own).

Moreover, people who have zero or one of those 3 traits are generally maladaptive and fall into a "Lumpenloser" category that excludes them even from the Loser in-group, and they'll usually be quickly let go.

This means that the interesting people will have 2 of those 3 traits. If they're subordinate and strategic (but not dedicated) they become minimum- effort Losers. If they're subordinate and dedicated (but not strategic) they become the middle-manager Clueless who clean up the messes made below and above them. If they're strategic and dedicated (but not subordinate) they fall into the category called "Sociopath".

The labels are a bit unfair. Most of the "Losers" aren't dislikable or inept people, and often the "cool kids" are MacLeod Losers. (In startups, the cool kids are Clueless.) Likewise, most of the "Sociopaths" aren't bad people-- just ambitious and not willing to sacrifice their own goals for the benefit of an organization that wouldn't return the favor.

<comment><USER17> >> Organizations want 3 things from people: subordinacy, dedication, and strategy (working on the right things).

Uh, where did "able to do good work" go??

Edit: "Dedication" and "productivity"/"capability" are different concepts. Trust me on this, I had an undetected bacterial infection for a while that lowered my capabilities seriously.

<comment><USER18> >> dedication

<comment><USER17> I'll expand on my "Edit:"

I had lowered productivity a couple of periods from undetected health problems (allergy troubles and a bacterial infection).

I have been both a high producer and a problem producer. And I have surprised bosses in both good/bad ways, and they have changed their opinions about me.

The main personal difference was self confidence ("I burn out easy these days? :-( More exercise/relaxation don't help?! I am old?! :-(". Afterwards, my reaction was/is "So I was physically sick, I am not a complete luser that turn everything I touch to shit.")

The only difference in "dedication" was a later natural effect -- of burnout from working like an animal to get productivity when it was failing.

And the lesson I have learned is compassion; the cynical failures that are a depressing pain on us others might not be stupid or sociopaths. I am happy for the insight, it made me less of an asshole, but it was probably not worth the high cost.

Edit: To make this into a point, I do believe in the "Pygmalion effect" and I have seen it in action. But it is far from the whole story. There are probably also many other effects than bosses' behaviour and those I know personally which influence workers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> it's called "office politics" in a nutshell, and its constantly hovering around all workplaces.

i don't think it's possible to eliminate these sort of biases from group interactions...i personally think there will always be a bell curve of dislikes/likes among managers who see over a large group of individuals.

that's why it often pays, esp. in this day and age, to keep your employment options open.

<comment><USER20> It can be eliminated, and it's extremely simple to lay out exactly how to do so. Getting there is not so simple, but the analysis is.

This type of office politics are a direct result of a specific set of ingrained beliefs about people, and a lack of scientific understanding of three areas: psychology and behavioral theory, statistics, and systems theory. In sum, they produce Quality. Lacking, you get the problems we see in the original article.

Knowledge of these three areas, and fundamentally the recognition that the solution lies in this knowledge, is pivotal.

1\. Psychology. Knowledge of human behavior and motivation. The article does a good job of identifying the individual breakdown of motivation, but it doesn't go further. The now-famous Dan Pink TED talk is a good start: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose.

2\. Statistics. Knowledge that in a complex production line, whether it be software or widget making, all performance is fundamentally a statistical process highly influenced by a myriad of confounding variables. Even individuals are bound to this model, and strings of good performance or a string of bad performance are probabilistically likely. This brings a new level of understanding to employee performance and an attitude that's wholly beneficial to all employees. [http://blog.deming.org/2013/08/is-the-results- due-to-mathema...](http://blog.deming.org/2013/08/is-the-results-due-to- mathematical-probability-or-individual-merit/)

3\. Systems Theory. Knowledge that most of the performance _deficit_ able to be optimized in any production is within the systems surrounding it, not the individuals themselves. Even the best individuals are often doing their best in the context of extremely poor conditions. The best company improves the process of production continuously, focusing on the system and not the individuals. This type of thinking is also supported by the knowledge of statistics and psychology above.

"A bad system, will defeat a good person, every time." -- Deming

If everyone has even a basic knowledge of these three concepts, then the entire organization improves.

And more importantly, the beliefs about people that stem from a lack of knowledge of these important concepts begin to dissipate. The belief that individuals are fully responsible for their own success and performance, the idea that bad performers can't be improved or utilized effectively, the belief that individuals are best motivated by carrots and sticks; all of this flies out the window in the face of solid scientific fact.

The challenge is getting everyone in the company to adopt this new philosophy. For that reason, it must come in the vessel of leadership from the top.

Start with the 14 points: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming)

<comment><USER21> I can't believe I had never heard of Deming before. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The paper looks more anecdotal than scientific to me. No tables, no graphs, where is the data coming from?

<comment><USER23> It's not going to be popular in an environment that prefers the quantitative "big data" approach, but qualitative research is a thing.

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

<comment><USER15> Qualitative reasoning was also a fairly active area in AI research for a while:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitative_reasoning](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitative_reasoning)</comment></comment></comment>


The hard way to recover the IBM 5100 Non-executable ROS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/stepleton/5100NonExecutableROSDecode/blob/master/WRITEUP.md <comment><USER2> Seems like he made a lot more work for himself by trying to save a bit of space on the original capture and doing it at low resolution and with an unsynchronized v-blank.

I did something similar to this many years ago from a screen recording using a copy of gocr and netPBM. Cutting out blocks of text using netPBM tools and feeding them into gocr ended up working out quite well and didn't take enormous amount of cpu training some ML model.

<comment><USER3> I think masochism has to figure strongly here.

Otherwise he would have re-shot at higher resolution and more frames per screenful. Or something. One goal was to get the bytes out, but the other goal was to achieve it the hard way, and maybe learn some ML on the way.

<comment><USER4> At least reshot, even better write a small program to output each page in base 2/4 (with characters chosen for very easy distinguishing) plus a checksum.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love this write up.

There is some information about the 5100, with lots of photos, here: [https://www.oldcomputr.com/ibm-5100-1975/](https://www.oldcomputr.com/ibm-5100-1975/)

<comment><USER6> I love vintage computing and have wanted a 5100 for a few years now. Unfortunately the only time I've ever seen one on sale was about a year or two ago and I just couldn't afford it

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great write up. I loved the computation time estimates based on the target hardware. I have designed a number of CMOS chips during the last 20 years and I have always been amused that the 4 month fabrication time is quicker than the time required to do full chip simulations, assuming they were even possible. I like to refer to chip prototypes as custom real-time simulators.

</comment><comment><USER8> That was an excellent read!

I'd be curious if he could have leveraged the CRC check as part of the verification loop.

</comment><comment><USER9> You are much smarter than I, reading this article is evidence of that.

</comment><comment><USER10> this write up gave me a headache just thinking about this task :D wow what a battle to dump some bytes! excellent and interesting write up for sure! props!</comment>


Show HN: I open-sourced one of my projects that wasn't launched - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ajhai/FileProxy

<comment><USER2> This is really bad PHP code. I don't want to ask this, but are you not protecting against MySQL injection? (Thats not my only reason)

<comment><AUTHOR> I admit that the code is badly written. I'd mentioned that it was still in development when ditched. Please check config/connect.php where I'm taking care of magic quotes.</comment></comment>


Would you hire designers and developers from Cuba? - <AUTHOR>

I am thinking in promoting great Cuban freelance designers and developers to work remotely for start-ups that need to save money. It has worked for me and my brother in the past, we has worked for start-ups in Sf and Finland but so far can't get more work easily, so maybe I can create a channel to find more jobs at better and interesting start-ups.
sorry for my English,
Thanks <comment><AUTHOR> Answering to some of your doubts:

There are probably restrictions, but I can't be sure, I have to do some research (that would be just for US right? and in case of developers), from the designer perspective I don't see any issue (I have worked for a NY start up with just and NDA contract signed, worked for a Finish Agency with a long term contract and NDA signed for over a year, my brother worked for a start-up in SF) no problems so far.

Connection is an issue indeed, but as was said in previous comments, 'Sometimes people from constrained countries HAVE to develop some skills ...' Finding Internet access is hard but not impossible. the most evident con it has, is that most of communication should be by IM chat, Skype is blocked and even if we could use it, or use a similar service, there is no enough connection speed to support this ... but as I said some my have this possibility as well if their payment is enough to cover a high speed internet access (i mean a faster speed connection, saying high is not quite accurate). But as I said I've been several years working like this.

And I know there might be some cons, but wouldn't save money be a pro? And not because I am Cuban, but there are very talented people living here, and there are more living outside Cuba that might benefit as well who knows ...

Another thing that happens often is that Cuban freelancers relocate in a country with no need for visa (with high speed internet connection) like Serbia or Ecuador and keep working with the client from there, with no need for higher salary.

... but overall, I think the opportunity to do some work you are proud is invaluable imo.

thanks for your time ... and sorry for my English

</comment><comment><USER2> Aren't there still trade restrictions? I wouldn't inherently be opposed, anymore than anywhere else, but I wouldn't want to step on legal landmines.

<comment><USER3> There are still pretty heavy economic restrictions on US Citizens & companies doing business within Cuba. IIRC there is also US imposed restrictions on foreign companies who do business in the US doing business in Cuba as well. It makes for a very messy question.

<comment><USER4> There's also software specific rules, such as sharing high encryption code with embargoed countries. I'm no expert but it seems to me that even sharing a JVM or git repo that has crypto in it might be illegal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No problem and please bring some cigars with them ;)

Now talking serious one friend of mine worked with Cuban Programmers. What he said:

"They have old and outdated machines so they are ninjas in optimizing the code to run faster"

It is not scientific but it was a first impression. Sometimes people from constrained countries HAVE to develop some skills that may be very useful for some companies.

</comment><comment><USER6> Great talented people can be live in any country and by any means I think the world is interested in interesting things created by talented people. The short version...please do.

</comment><comment><USER7> what about internet access? my understanding is that is very limited

</comment><comment><USER8> It would be great if you do this.

</comment><comment><USER9> I would, viva la cuba

<comment><USER9> especially because it is a near shore, I have worked for several years with Costa Rica, and the selling point is the time zone, another is language, and thirdly culture, CR is a very American country. I would need to research the community in Cuba and understand its needs and desires before i would start working relationships, another question is money transactions and accountability. Things would have to be paid post delivery and the price would have to be cheap enough to entice Americans to take the financial institutional risks.</comment></comment>


Porous, 3D forms of graphene can be 10 times as strong as steel but much lighter - <AUTHOR> http://news.mit.edu/2017/3-d-graphene-strongest-lightest-materials-0106 <comment><USER2> So this is just saying that the shape of a material determines its strength? From what I gathered from the video, they didn't actually use graphene in these objects.

I was reading a introductory book on metallurgy over the holidays and realized that I had no idea what "stretching" was. I still hardly have any idea, but from what I was able to gather from the book, in steel at least, when stretched, there are these molecular "fault-lines" that can shift and still stay stable without actually breaking. Apparently, steel can be put under stress to fall to this final state to avoid further shifting during use in machines and whatnot.

Maybe I'm completely missing the point and the plastic is somehow stronger than steel, but the quote

>"You can replace the material itself with anything," MIT's head of Civil and Environmental Engineering said. "The geometry is the dominant factor."

makes me think that this is the case?

<comment><USER3> But the article says:

> In its two-dimensional form, graphene is thought to be the strongest of all > known materials

Doesn't this imply it is stronger than steel in 2 dimensions?

<comment><USER2> I think this implies that GRAPHENE is stronger than steel, but this 3d printed thermoplastic is definitely not stronger than steel given the same shape.

<comment><USER3> What I mean is "in 2 dimensions" may be relevant, since the shape seems to be a 2D sheet folded into 3D space.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The original journal article is open access [0], and I think it's pretty well- written and accessible.

This is a really great example of theory-driven materials design.

[0]: [http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1601536.full](http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1601536.full)

</comment><comment><USER5> (ten times stronger than _mild_ steel, at 2.7 GPa tensile yield.) Nobody is deciding between mild steel and graphene. Comparing to PAN carbon fiber (which can achieve 7.0 GPa yield with careful manufacture) would be more useful.

</comment><comment><USER6> _> MIT says that this is because the thinner walls allow the structure to deform gradually while the thicker one stores the deformation energy, which releases all at once_

I'm not sure that's the failure mode I want load-bearing things to have...

<comment><USER7> It's a perfectly fine failure mode in applications where failure of any type is automatically catastrophic anyway - for instance, a submarine's pressure hull.

<comment><USER6> I don't know much about submarines, but I assume that you mean once the pressure hull is penetrated, the resulting pressure difference will quickly make short work of the hull.

My point was that, if I could _choose_ the failure mode, I wouldn't pick fail- all-at-once, if I could avoid it (for most things that bear load). If I could design/create a pressure hull that somehow didn't fail all at once, I think everyone would be happy?

<comment><USER8> If it was torpedoed a moderate diffence in hole size is not going to matter. A larger issue would be how flammable this stuff is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is it just me or are prestigious institutions such as MIT frittering away their respectability with press briefs such as this?

<comment><USER10> You should compare the actual university press release [0] to the article written by an external organization above.

[0] [http://news.mit.edu/2017/3-d-graphene-strongest-lightest- mat...](http://news.mit.edu/2017/3-d-graphene-strongest-lightest- materials-0106)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yes, yes, graphene is awesome, we know. Can you make cheap sheets of it?

</comment><comment><USER12> Imagine the burj al arab ten times higher.

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't know if the writer really understood what's going on there. Those models are just plastic. Understanding how to make strong shapes is useful for eventually building real structures with graphene in the future, but nothing about that research used graphene.

I think they're saying that if that plastic model was graphene then it would be 5% as dense and 10x as strong as steel...but no such thing was actually created. The title here is pretty click baity.

<comment><USER14> Title is very click-bait. The MIT News article it links to is much more informative: [http://news.mit.edu/2017/3-d-graphene-strongest-lightest- mat...](http://news.mit.edu/2017/3-d-graphene-strongest-lightest- materials-0106)

<comment> gene-h So they show that a graphene gyroid structure could be quite strong compressively. Now, the challenge is actually make such a structure. Making a template for graphene to grow on like this is bound to be quite challenging, minimizing the amount of defects in such structure even more so!

<comment><USER15> Yes that was what I got out of it, and at the same time I am totally updating the Slicer infill pattern on my 3D printer to make stronger structures :-)

<comment> gene-h While this is worth trying for the sheer coolness of it, I'm a bit skeptical about how it will perform. For FDM things are much weaker in the Z-direction than they are in the x-y plane.

<comment><USER15> Exactly correct, the Z direction is a challenge in FDM printing. I built some "strength tester" forms (basically thinks I could crush or pull apart or bend) to understand what sort of structural stability could be expected out of a given filament and the process in general.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Identify company type by IP address - <AUTHOR> https://smartip.io <comment><USER2> What was the sales process like for the FBI? Apple? NASA?

<comment><USER3> > _What was the sales process like for the FBI? Apple? NASA_

There was no sales process with any of the linked companies.

The logos are used simply as a marketing strategy to create hype.

<comment><USER2> I was being more subtle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I know products like this are ubiquitous but I really like the response one gets. Kudos on launching!

The pricing, however, is a little confusing. A seemingly very-generous free- tier (though the "Up to 250,000 IP requests / mo" is a little confusing, what dictates whether one gets the full quota?) and the next tier-up at 250$/m is a bit too rich for my blood. Wouldn't it make more sense to have some in-between tier where you charge per 1000s of requests or something? I fear the jump will preclude people from going to the 'Pro' tier.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot @somada141! Apologies for any confusion.

Let me clarify: the Free tier covers the first 250k API requests made in a single month. If the number of requests in a month goes beyond the threshold, the API will start returning Forbidden errors. The counter gets reset at the first of each month.

If your service gets more than 250k hits a month, then you will be a perfect match for our "Pro" tier.

This pricing structure, puts us on a league of our own, offering to the developers a huge package of free API calls every single month. Nobody else does it!

<comment><USER4> Hm a 403 when one runs out of credit can be misleading as one would expect that for an authorization error. You may want to consider the `402 Payment Required` status code instead which seems to be used by some big players [0].

Best of luck with your launch!

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes#402](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes#402)

<comment><AUTHOR> I confirm we updated the API to return a 402 error message when the user reached the limit of the her pricing tier. Thanks again for this suggestion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is this a clone of ipinfo.io?

<comment><USER2> I mean, probably. But there's also ip-api.com, ipapi.co, ipstack.com, ipgeolocation.io, ipinfodb.com, ipify.org... List goes on and on.

Most of these providers just package MaxMind data and send it back. Some of them have more data that they inject themselves.

<comment><USER6> We use ipstack.com, I'm curious which have the most accurate and complete data?

<comment><AUTHOR> We offer additional datapoints which ipstack doesn't.

We expose high detailed ASN data which include company name, company type, ASN network, web domain.

Also we expose a crypto datapoint, which flags if an IP is an active Bitcoin node.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Would have been cool if it gave the actual type of the company as a result. Like if someone from Toys R Us visits your page, you could give them a retail use case front and center. Is that planned?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a very good point. We constantly try to improve the data accuracy of our API. We currently support the following company types: "education", "isp", "hosting", "government", "business". We also expose the domain assigned to the ASN of the IP currently looked up, this would probably give you enough info to implement the logic you are suggesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> how is this in the front page?

<comment><USER9> Good question. Only 3 points. User has 6 karma and is only 65 days old. And there are other posts around the same time with more votes on /newest that aren't on the front page.

At first I thought it may have been a second-chance resubmission by a moderator[0], but it has a recent submission id so that's probably not it.

I guess one of the other two points came from someone with a lot of karma, or there's not a lot of new posts right now?

0: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20206120](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20206120)

Edit: And now it's gone entirely from / and /show, but is still on /shownew ...</comment></comment>


Amazon ranked #1 for corporate reputation - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/b/?node=14068504011 <comment><USER2> For those who are also curious, I looked up the methodology of this poll. It's basically science-free, fact-free nonsense (as you might have guessed upon reading the headline).

More here: [http://www.theharrispoll.com/reputation- quotient/](http://www.theharrispoll.com/reputation-quotient/)</comment>


Hard work and high skills - notch and the value of the individual hacker - <AUTHOR> http://thestartuptoolkit.com/blog/Hard_work_and_high_skills/

<comment><USER2> _I'm thinking more and more that lean startup is overly conservative in what it's willing to build well._

If you are a business person who does not know how to program, it makes sense to be conservative on what you build, since programming resources are scarce and expensive. If you are a programmer, the only scarce resource is your time.

<comment><USER3> There is a difference between making something amazing and something that sells. Both are inspiring. Talented programmers can build incredible things, but that doesn't mean they will make money. Businesses can makes lots of money without necessarily being all that beautiful or elegant. The Lean approach is more about business than craft, right? The goal is different.

<comment><USER2> I agree.

Your main goal is either to build software or to build a business. If you care about software craftsmanship, then your focus will be on elegant code, test coverage, etc. If you care about business craftsmanship, then your focus will be on the customer, revenue, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wish I had thought it through when I saw he was live-streaming a coding session. I ignored it, and wish I hadn't.

Later, someone posted the first 3 hours of it on Youtube, and I watched that... It was awesome and inspiring. I wish I had the other 37 hours to watch the rest. (I will admit, I'd probably skim parts of it.)

Watching a master work has always been a great way to learn a trade, and programming is no different. I used to work with a guy who was similarly amazing, and I learned a ton from him in the 3 months he was with the company.

<comment><USER5> Some more was recorded by Justin.tv: <http://www.twitch.tv/realnotch/b/293076467>

<comment><USER4> Those are definitely bits I haven't seen. Thank you so much! (My girlfriend may not like you as much as I do!) ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In some way notch really is a model for what a programmer should be. Still I am not sure, if I really want to be like him. I want that ability to focus on something for 2 days straight without any deviation. But living like that for many years (which is nessesary to develop so much skill I guess) is just not really a life I want to live.

<comment><USER7> I would wager that if you could maintain that focus for three days, you could probably take a four day weekend every week and still stay ahead of people who might work 40 hours but are slaves to their distractions.

<comment><USER8> I doubt anyone could maintain that focus for three days on a consistent basis. This was a speed programming contest, I do not think he routinely programs that fast.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't think he got distracted much, but he was only streaming the second monitor (or computer).

</comment><comment><USER10> This is also an example of someone with creative vision. It's akin to Led Zeppelin sitting around jamming for 10 hrs straight and coming up with "Good Times, Bad Times" or "Kashmir". It's a work of art and also a blessing when you know what you want to create, and you have the ability and skills to create it.

I imagine the streaming video of him doing expense reports will involve a lot more web surfing.

</comment><comment><USER11>
      He worked for roughly 40 of the 48 available hours. That's a
      full work week in 2 days. You also won't see him flipping
      between his editor and news or chat programs.

Notch has more than one computer. Knowing that you have a couple thousand people watching your every move also helps to focus your mind.

</comment><comment><USER12> _He worked for roughly 40 of the 48 available hours._

That's really not good for your health.

<comment><USER13> That's why ludumdare isn't someone's full-time job.

40 hours could be 16 hours of work followed by 8 hours of sleep and then another 16 hours of work. (I don't know if that's what he actually did.) That's essentially what you do in the last few months of an engineering program, except it's 5-7 days a week, instead of for 2 days.

<comment><USER14> 16 + 16 = 32, you need to fit four more hours of work per day in there.

<comment><USER15> hehe.

1\. I'm pretty sure he was suggesting, wake up right about the time the conversation starts.

2\. work 20 hours.

3\. get a good 8 hours sleep.

4\. wake up, work till the end of the competition.

So, this is a brutal, impossible, long term kind of schedule to keep.

I think the grandparent's point was, you could schedule time before and after the event, to make the event itself bearable, perhaps even enjoyable. Code that's fun to write is just so effortless. 12 hours isn't a big deal, but 20 would be really pushing it for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This post was about as informative as a sneeze.

<comment><USER17> I guess your sneezes are inspiring.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How useful is 'Ask HN: Who is hiring?' for cos. outside the valley/US? - <AUTHOR> Do people looking for a job outside the valley/US browse through the 'Ask HN: Who is hiring?' monthly thread?<p>If you are a founder/recruiter outside the valley/US, have you engaged with candidates via the thread? <comment><USER2> I browse HN's "Who's Hiring", but its focus on SV useless to me. I'll never work there so for me it's strictly academic.

I understand that YC's interests and most of their readership are SV-centric and that's unlikely to change. For the rest of us... oh well.

<comment><AUTHOR> So I understand that an "Ask HN: Who is hiring in X" for your particular country/geography would be useful for you. Given enough job postings.

<comment><USER2> Yes, if someone were to regularly post startup / smallCo / R&D job openings in more affordable locales than the usual megabuck cost of living megalopoli, I'd subscribe. Raptly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> There's generally a decent number of non SV or remote positions in the thread. Obviously it's biased heavily in SV's favor, but each month it seems like there's more remote opportunities.

<comment><AUTHOR> Noticed a similar increasing trend for remote in the past few years. As someone who is not even in the US, even remote jobs do not add value since most don't provide VISA sponsorship.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'll speak in terms of outside the valley. My company is based in Austin and we have hired a couple of candidates from the Who's Hiring thread. We have noticed that quite a few of the people that interview candidates here really like the people that come from Hacker News.

</comment><comment><USER5> Take a look at [https://whoishiring.io/search/34.2614/-38.8137/2?source=hn](https://whoishiring.io/search/34.2614/-38.8137/2?source=hn) It started off as a map of the Who is hiring threads a few years ago and now actually pulls from a number of sources. It's not perfect so if there is a country you're interested in, it's worth searching for the country.

</comment><comment><USER6> My experience: I've posted SF only jobs before and often the only response I get is from candidates outside the US. Since I'm just an IC trying to hire for my team, I can't comment on anyone's eligibility for visas etc and end up having to refer them to the recruiting staff- which is a confusing maze of pipes and tubes.

</comment><comment><USER7> I realize you asked for input from founders, but I wanted to post a relevant anecdote from my point of view as a freelancer in continental Europe.

One and a half years ago, I was hired by a startup in the UK via the freelance-focused whoishiring thread.

</comment><comment><USER8> Not the exactly question, but I got several contacts and was hired through "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired".

</comment><comment><USER9> I just ctrl+f remote to gauge how that market is going.

A thread specific to that sort of employment would be welcome.

</comment><comment><USER10> Trivago has had success</comment>


The QueSST for Quiet: NASA - <AUTHOR> https://www.nasa.gov/feature/the-quesst-for-quiet <comment><USER2> 'Since 1973, supersonic flight over land has been forbidden in the United States because of the noise from sonic boom.'

For some reason I imagine the situation might have been different if the US had had a competitor to Concorde..</comment>


Is The Hot Hand Fallacy A Fallacy? - <AUTHOR> https://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2015/10/12/is-the-hot-hand-fallacy-a-fallacy/ <comment><USER2> Well timed, this article. I just got back from a trip to Vegas. I kno intrinsically that my chances of winning from one deal to another at a blackjack table are equal (card counting notwithstanding). And yet I can't deny that there were times when I was "hot." Of course you'll occasionally win a few times in a row, but it seemed to change with dealers and new shuffles.

About the only thing I could attribute it to was my own change of pace and self awareness. If I was hot, I might hit out of confidence without second guessing myself. Incidentally, this is what the dealer will also do, only they do it under the guise of requirement.

<comment><USER3> It seems almost impossible to me that physical sports maneuvers like a golf shot, basketball shot or baseball hits are truly random variables. In my own (laughable) sports experiences, I am working to build muscle memory -- a good move or bit of mechanics absolutely increases my likelihood of recreating that move. And, as time drops, the correlation between my mechanics and that 'great' mechanics moment drops -- my body forgets, and that's where the benefits of practice come in.

Blackjack though, maybe. I suppose it depends how on point you are with playing the odds.

<comment><USER4> Neurologically, sports performance can be envisaged as a search for a target in a space. If you are a beginner, then any training that takes you closer to the target is beneficial. So eg a beginner learning tennis will benefit from playing badminton, squash, etc.

However, as you become more expert then the risks are greater (your opponents are better) and the margins are increasingly minimal. So your training has to become incredibly specific. No more badminton if you want to be an excellent tennis player.

Also, for even the world's finest sports players, performance degrades just minutes after practice or competition. This is the purpose of warming up : to fine-tune the nervous system, to bring your performance in the search space as close as possible to the target.

Human systems are chaotic, so performance is subject to fluctuation from even the tiniest perturbations. This is why even the finest sports player cannot expect 100% reliable performance every single time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A study found there is a mild hot hand effect in the NBA, but players who've made several shots in a row and guarded more closely by the defense, negating the effect. As n example, If a player hits 2 50% shots in a row, his next shot will be a 45% shot, which he will hit at a 47% clip

<comment><USER3> I think the point of the article is that if you use the naive selection criteria, anything over 41-43% on a 50% random chance is actually 'hot'. So it's probably worth reviewing that study's selection criteria to see if in fact there's a larger hot hand factor than you might think at first glance.

The second point the article makes is that it's very likely the selection criteria in your NBA study is not precisely defined enough to determine the baseline percentage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The fallacy here is in the definition of random.

</comment><comment><USER7> Here is Stephen Jay Gould on Joe DiMaggio's great 1941 hitting streak: [http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1988/aug/18/the- str...](http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1988/aug/18/the-streak-of- streaks/)</comment>


Ask HN: Anyone else have long-standing GMail filters that have stopped working? - <AUTHOR> Some filters I've had working in Gmail for years seem to have intermittently stopped working over the last year or so. I'll have a filter with a simple subject line match, and now I'm getting these messages in my Inbox, when they should be bypassing it.<p>Haven't been able to discern any pattern to this yet, but I haven't really dug into it. I wonder why the regression? Is this some kind of throttling? Like approximate matching? <comment><USER2> I have noticed that occassionally the filters seem to run on a delay...I have filters to bypass the inbox and apply a label. I will see the email in the inbox for up to an hour before the filter runs and then later I see the label applied and the email is no longer in the inbox.

<comment><USER3> I've noticed the same on Spam filtering as well. It used to be instant but now more and more I see things show up for a few minutes before disappearing. I also just recently set up a new gmail account that required some filtering to a sizeable inbox and it was very painful because of the delays.

<comment><USER4> This is what you call eventual consistency.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I had all my filters stop working about 5 or 6 months ago. I had to remove them all. New ones made exactly the same worked fine, but since I don't trust them now, I don't have any filters any more.

No idea how it broke, but I guess it's a matter of software upgrades without the requisite data migration. Google's data composition is _very_ complex so I can see this happening from time to time.</comment>


Apple Files Brief Calling Department of Justice Remedy 'Draconian' - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2013/08/02/apple-files-brief-calling-department-of-justice-remedy-draconian-and-punitive/

<comment><USER2> i think the punishment fits the crime. Severe punishment should be expected for trying to steal from their customers.</comment>


Stuck On Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Or AOL? Gmail Just Made It Incredibly Easy To Switch - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/05/13/stuck-on-hotmail-gmail-just-made-it-incredibly-easy-to-switch/ <comment><USER2> The feature is powered by TrueSwitch, a product that as its name implies makes it easy to switch from one provider to another.

More abstractly, I think business models which are predicated on reducing switching costs of customers in a given industry are interesting, because they lower the pain that another company is trying to maximize, and therefore is probably valuable to both the end-user and competitors in the industry (either of which may be willing to pay).

Another example I can think of is CellTrade, where users can get out of their cell phone contracts by trading them.

Anyone have other examples of this sort of business model?

<comment><USER3> During the current recession I've heard ads from various Financial Services firms in my city making it clear that their staff will do all of the paperwork in switching your super (401k) or other investments to them, at no cost.

Most Health Insurance countries here in Australia offer the same service, and then meta-provider iSelect also make it simple to compare and recommend where you switch to.

Regarding business model, it's basically a question of loyalty. If we pay you or one of our staff to help you switch, we want the pay-off to be revenue from you for a long period of time. That's fine if combined with decent client service or a loyalty program, but if you're just as crappy, and your industry starts making switching easier, it will cost you in the long run. Not the easiest way to get clients and make money.

</comment></comment><comment> 8-bit_Blaster FYI, this feature is only visible in the "Standard" AJAX version of Gmail... The HTML version has no option for importing...

It's too bad this feature does not work on importing from one Gmail account to another Gmail account. A few years ago I [accidently] got onto some e-mail spammers list and have been getting spam mails ever since!

I'd love to be able to migrate all my old Gmail e-mails to a new account (including my RSS feeds and stars from Google Reader). Maybe someday?

</comment><comment><USER4> I've been trying to get my wife to switch from Hotmail to Gmail for years and I was excited by this development, but.. it doesn't help with the e-mail forwarding problem, alas :( There are some workarounds but they either involve money or third parties.

Of course, Microsoft is smart enough to realize that if they made forwarding available for free, there'd be a major exodus ;-)

<comment><USER5> Hotmail now has free POP3 so you can let Gmail download new email from your wife's Hotmail account. Shh, don't tell anyone!

<comment><USER6> I've been following this for a while and was under the impression that the POP3 access was a paid feature. Got a link to the free-ness?

nevermind:

[http://www.liveside.net/main/archive/2009/03/13/pop3-technol...](http://www.liveside.net/main/archive/2009/03/13/pop3-technology- has-now-rolled-out-to-hotmail-customers-worldwide.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm surprised that the other email providers have allowed the switch to be technically possible. Oversight by them, or intentional?

<comment><USER8> How could you possibly prevent this? If the user can access the emails at provider X, so can a webapp that has the username and the password.

<comment><USER9> Preventing it entirely would be difficult, but given a list of IPs belonging to Google and TrueSwitch, it would not be very hard to put some serious brakes on the feature. Even reverse DNS could mostly work.

<comment><USER10> Not necessarily. If they did do something like that it would be a pain to TrueSwitch but hardly the end of the line. All they'd have to do is embed a hidden a hidden iframe and parse with javascript. Then the webmail provider would have to implement iframe busting, then TrueSwitch would switch to an ajax request that parses the source and it would essentially turn into a massive arms race that I don't see the webmail provider winning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So _that_ is why Mom switched to Gmail today. Thanks, I had been wondering!</comment>


Ask HN: What about the black bar? - <AUTHOR> This morning I found a small black bar above the orange HN title bar. I was wondering, am I the only one seeing it? Why is it there? <comment><USER2> It's because Andy Grove died, see top posting on the homepage.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, thats sad. Thank you for the clarification.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What's up with the /s.gif though? It's just an empty 1x1 pixel, perhaps used to track (e.g. browsers vs scrapers)?

Edit: Actually it's scaled to 5px height, so the black background is applied? Perhaps just a result of YCs CSS skills. It's Hacker News after all.</comment>


Show HN: Coding noob - first weekend project - <AUTHOR> http://aflanagan.com/weekend-project/

<comment><USER2> I think every programmer made their own task manager at least once in their life.. welcome aboard :)

Also, don't be to hard on yourself, creating a real project from scratch takes time and passion. I understood in half a second what your app was about and why I should use it.. What many apps/site cannot even do in weeks :)

Finally, I like the idea about adding/removing stuff by replying by email.. so intuitive but I never thought of it. Maybe a kind of "delayer" might be useful:

\- Do that tomorrow night

\- Do this next week

So at least, if your 'digest' is empty, you don't get an email but you're sure that you will receive it when it matters.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot for the feedback. I like the idea of having some sort of scheduling/reminder feature. I was wondering if I could set up a simple way to do SMS reminders. There could be a special code to set an SMS reminder (like * SMS 7pm) to get a reminder at 7pm.

That was a friend's idea though so I can't take credit for it ;)

<comment><USER3> Twilio SMS is super easy. Documentation is here: <http://www.twilio.com/docs/api/rest/sending-sms>. And there's a python library to help you get started. (Full disclosure: I work at Twilio)

<comment><USER4> Do you guys have any timetable when to better support the german market? I really would like to use your products, but since most german carriers do not accept SMS from your system right now, it is not feasible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great job! I also used GAE to build ThatHigh.com and it's working pretty well.

But like you're probably aware, GAE has a learning curve in addition to python/django/whatever. The datastore, mainly. This is a shameless plug, but I'm the co-founder of Djangy.com and we're in private beta. We're doing Heroku except for python/django. we'll support other wsgi frameworks in the future, but for now we make deploying almost any django app instant and painless.

in private beta now, but email me and we can set something up if you're interested.

<comment><USER6> Regarding Djangy (and all apologies for how offtopic this is), you REALLY need to give some idea of what pricing is going to be.

The "only pay for what you use" statement only works when I have a relative idea of how much a given computational unit costs, or how much the average customer is paying.

EC2 could make the same statement, but there's a huge difference between a small and medium instance, cost-wise.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, we're rolling out a ton of changes in the next week, so expect that. RE: pricing, it'll be comparable to heroku. I JUST finished building the billing system two days ago :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You should make something happen when the Konami code is entered on your website.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I completely agree! I had that planned, and just decided to launch this before completing that. It will happen soon.

<comment><USER8> Like make your page break ;) <http://www.chromeexperiments.com/detail/gravity/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Reminds me - one of the things on my list is to build (yet another) chore tracker with that gaming incentive everyone's done (earn points of some sort) but avoiding the fault those all have: too easy to cheat yourself.

I envisaged multiplayer action, even just with a wife, for example, where each person would allocate 'points' to be earned and traded for chores. She might be more likely to avoid creating a floordrobe if she could trade the resulting points for dinner out, making me watch rom-coms with her, etc. It's a little juvenile, but I would get a lot of house cleaning done were there sexual favours up for grabs.

What do people think?

Also been thinking that there seem to be few/no decent to-do apps out there with 'dependency trees'. We've just built a house and have progressed to the landscaping - every thing seems to hinge on something else. As an example, we can't put in plants until the driveway is done and can't do that until the water meter has been relocated. Or can't clear out weeds until I've bought fuel for the lawnmower, etc.

<comment><USER10> Sounds good. Have you seen Epic Win or Chore Hero? Both are iPhone apps that seem to do most of what you say here (haven't used them myself).

<comment><USER9> Chore Hero talks about reward points, but doesn't mention what's done with them. Epic Win seems to be the one that made me think "XP, for what?".

I've seen a few of these sorts of sites around, but they seemed to lack incentive or real motivation. How many people have tried a bunch of To Do apps and never stuck with any of them? I just keep going back to scraps of paper.

Of course, to-do apps and choretrackers are like black holes for developers but I can't help but wonder if there's a tack yet to be tried with both.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The email address validation is incorrect. Neither email@example.com, firstname.lastname@example.com., test@io, test@io., test@::123, test@[::123], or test@[::123]:456 are accepted, and likely other cases. I suggest you take the easy route and just only check `emailAddress.indexOf("@") !== -1`.

<comment><USER12> Or have a look at the full RFC 2822 regular expression for matching email addresses: <http://code.iamcal.com/php/rfc822/full_regexp.txt>

I'd personally stick with Sephr's advice, though ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've jsut started using it. It would be nice if it were easy for my wife could email things to be added to my queue. (Then again, maybe that wouldn't be so nice...)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion. I hadn't thought about letting other people add stuff to your list, but it's a great idea.

<comment><USER14> Just make sure it is not anyone who can add something to your list. Great job on the app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Great Job! I also wanted to let you know that your website, seems slightly broken in chrome: <http://imgur.com/liF73.png>

I am not sure if it is due to being in chrome-dev, but it took me a second to understand that the actual content was down the page. After widening up the browser the main content div popped into the right place.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I had never noticed that before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have question about the Google App engine. How does pricing work? Their webpage says that you pay $8 per user per month, which seems pretty high for any webapp.

And how do they decide how many users you have? I am sure here you are not counting each person that submits their email for chore reminders as a user or this would bankrupt you pretty quickly. So how does it work?

<comment><USER17> That's App Engine for Business which is determined by "intranet users in your Google Apps domain." The service is free for a fixed quota set by App Engine, you pay extra for a billable quota, for resources used above the fixed quota.

App Engine for Business: <http://code.google.com/appengine/business/>

Terms:<http://code.google.com/appengine/terms.html>

Quotas:<http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/quotas.html>

Billing FAQ:<http://code.google.com/appengine/kb/billing.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> One thing noobs don't realize is that every project takes vastly more time than you think it will. Seems like you've learned that lesson.

</comment><comment><USER19> Good job. Even if you ended up not finding the application as useful as you had imagined it, the fact that you built it has to be satisfying enough. Plus, you gained valuable experience. It's stuff like this that make me wish I was not so busy with classes and work so that I could work on projects like this. Hopefully soon I will be able to. And again, nicely done.

</comment><comment><USER20> Great job! Can't wait to see what your next project is. I'm also learning python and your post has inspired me to take a look at GAE.

</comment><comment><USER21> Awesome work making it happen, I know many people who have been professional programmers for years who never created anything outside of their jobs. Love the design too, how did you go about coming up with it?

</comment><comment><USER22> Nice job! I just tested it out and it works great. I see you're using google app engine, I'm building a couple of apps on it and love working with. My platform of choice for sure.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! GAE is definitely a great way to get something up and running fast.

After spending a few months with RoR though I definitely am enjoying writing in Ruby more so than Python. I might try JRuby next time I do something on app engine - <http://code.google.com/p/appengine-jruby/>

<comment><USER23> congrats on the launch, it's really great for a first effort!

I also hear app engine can tolerate a fairly large amount of traffic before you have to pay, so it seems like a solid choice to start on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Do all of these "daily" chores extend on the weekend? I feel that would be a good distinction between chores, as I don't do most of my weekday "chores" on the weekend.

</comment><comment><USER25> Great job on your first project! I think a cool next step would be to use twilio so that users could add lifechores through text message.

</comment><comment><USER26> The site doesn't seem to accept email@example.com as a valid address. Could you update your validation logic?

</comment><comment><USER27> +1 for being honest about the pitfalls about your application and your ideas to improve it.

</comment><comment><USER28> Kudos for launching - nice one!

</comment><comment><USER29> Reminds me of my first coding project, Wipee List. Congrats, it's a great feeling!

</comment><comment><USER30> Congrats man! I'll try to use this as motivation to code something myself.

</comment><comment><USER31> Looks like a simpler version of streak.ly

</comment><comment><USER32> I like this project with the email replies, I use gmail so labelling and filters etc don't make it spammy

I put "buy my girlfriend a new ring" hopefully that will annoy that crap out of me until I do it lol

adding and optimizing the email replies would be great, its a great idea

</comment><comment><USER33> How do we know this guy's not a spammer collecting email addresses?

<comment><USER34> How do we know anyone's not a spammer collecting addresses?</comment></comment>