'Living Drug' That Fights Cancer by Harnessing Immune System Clears Key Hurdle - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/07/12/536812206/living-drug-that-fights-cancer-by-harnessing-the-immune-system-clears-key-hurdle <comment><USER3> Congratulations! The Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) deployed here is very much unlike the standard 'small molecule' drug that 'disrupts a bad thing', and much more like a rationally engineered tool using the body's very own technologies to overcome a particular limitation. In this case, it gives the patient's own immune system a notion of what the cancer looks like.

If you want to build your own 'living drugs' we've built a digital infrastructure to allow you. Though we just made public our generic protein design software (thanks ShowHN! [1]), we're employing the same underlying digital infrastructure to build, evaluate, and manage CAR designs in high throughput [2]. The drug approved here was painstakingly designed by hand, while we think the technology now exists to permit many more such advances to be created at a much more rapid pace.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14446679](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14446679)

[2] [https://serotiny.bio/notes/applications/car](https://serotiny.bio/notes/applications/car)

Design your own 'living' protein drugs here right now: [https://serotiny.bio/pinecone/](https://serotiny.bio/pinecone/) (and let us know what you think, and how we can make it better!)

<comment><USER4> 3...2..1.. Prion disease!

Seriously though, how would you prevent such automated designing from having unintended side effects?

<comment><USER5> _3...2..1.. Prion disease!_

Can you explain that?

<comment><USER3> Prions are 'misfolded' proteins [1] that, in their misfolded form actually cause other proteins to also misfold - a physical viral cascade. A really crazy concept not too dissimilar from a kind of biological 'grey goo' \- and in real life actually happens to cause diseases like 'mad cow'. The implication is that blindly engineering a protein might create such a physical virus. I would suggest that the likelihood of accidentally creating such a virus is very much like accidentally creating stuxnet. Possible, but extraordinarily unlikely. And further, would such a thing be made, we'd like to know about it while it's still in the lab and can be contained, learned about, and prevented in the future.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The significant thing about CAR-T cell therapy is that it's not very specific to the type of cancer - all cancer cells have damaged DNA that leads to the productions of antigens. Leukemia is the low-hanging fruit because it's easy to inject the T-cells back into the body right where the cancers cells are. It's hard to tell whether you could get enough T-cells to diffuse out of the bloodstream to have an effect on something like prostate cancer. It would be a real breakthrough if you could overcome that hurdle, because then you would have a treatment that works on many different cancers without much modification.

<comment><USER7> Real, actual question: would it not work to just inject t-cells deep into my taint in that case?

<comment><USER8> What I got out of the article was that the approach here seems to be that you create a small number of improved t-cells and inject them. Then these improved t-cells will respond correctly upon contact with cancer cells. At that point they will multiply to meet the required demand. The initial injection would be more like a vaccine than a drug.

<comment><USER9> The t-cells would multiply? I thought they were created in the bone marrow. Do bloodstream t-cells go through meiosis?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A friend of mine is alive today because he was part of one of the early trials. He had been told by his doctor, just before he was accepted into the trial, that he should start putting his affairs in order.

</comment><comment><USER11> NYTimes also covers the story ([https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/12/health/fda- novartis-leuke...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/12/health/fda-novartis- leukemia-gene-medicine.html)) with more discussion about individual patients.

From the NYT article:

> The panel recommended approving the treatment for B-cell acute lymphoblastic > leukemia that has resisted treatment, or relapsed, in children and young > adults aged 3 to 25.

Why so young?

<comment><USER12> A couple of things really surprised me about this article.

First, I'm sure that there is other evidence the FDA is using to determine whether or not to grant this drug FDA approval but a 63 person drug trial seems like an exceedingly small sample size to work with. Perhaps because this disease is so rare they could not put together a larger trial?

Also, it seemed a little bizarre for an FDA panel to receive comments about a decision it is trying to reach from the families of those involved in the drug trial. I suppose there is nothing wrong with that, per se, but shouldn't these types of decisions be reach on the basis of scientific evidence and strive to be devoid of any kind of sentimentality?

Either way, it's always excellent to see new cancer treatments on the market, particularly when they are as groundbreaking as this one.

<comment><USER13> It's not that small, if the statistics look good. And they really do look better than most everything else on the market.

Also, the approval isn't for patients newly diagnosed yet, it's only for patients that have relapsed or resistant to current therapies. You'll see a larger phase IV trial later, most likely.

Now, off topic from your comment, I'm worried about cost. I know that the R&D for this kind of therapy is exceedingly high, but these therapies need to get cheaper for us to be able to justify using them in a larger population.

<comment><USER14> > I know that the R&D for this kind of therapy is exceedingly high

Do you have a source for that? I happen to be involved (genetically only - <USER2> family) into medical research and everyone I know agrees that costs are vastly inflated:

* Marketing for a new drug is not "research".

* Reformulation of trial-targets is not "research", it's re-shaping of the test settings so you can get $drug to market ASAP.

* When the government/"the people" pay for research (through co-operations with universities), it's not your "R&D cost".

* When you do basic research, it's incredibly easy to claim "10k hours". Ok, but can we please claim those 10k hours only once? Not for every variation of the substance you research again and again?

<comment><USER15> (I'm a physician who used to work with large pharma companies on trial design and trial innovation.)

I think the cost of R&D in pharma that we hear about is sometimes vastly inflated and sometimes pretty accurate, but definitely oftentimes misapplied (especially by pharma).

On the whole, trials are expensive. Sure, there's the pre-clinical stuff -- basic research that you're alluding to. There's the stuff that is R&D but fails in the pipeline at some point. There's animal studies.

But in most cases, most of the cost comes from human trials (Phase I-III, and mostly Phase III), which can sometimes span dozens of countries and tens of thousands of participants. For some drugs, the Phase III trial(s) account for over 80% of the total R&D cost. Even when they are relatively small trials (as in this CAR-T therapy trial), the administrative and logistical effort to implement something like this is immense. The whole point of these trials is to collect data, and so that data is subject to the highest amount of scrutiny of any data in any medical enterprise. If you come into my clinic for a pre-op before surgery and I measure your blood pressure to be 140/85, give or take a few (oh wait maybe I used the wrong cuff size, lemme try again, oh it's pretty close), that's fine. But if you come into my clinic because you're a participant on a trial for drug X, and I measure it to be 140/85... I better be damn sure that's right (and the study coordinator at my clinic, and the pharma company, and the FDA), even if drug X isn't a blood pressure drug. We've seen cases where certain innocuous data discrepancies trigger central study monitors (study employees) being flown out to remote clinics to manually verify paper records or equipment logs to confirm/reconcile errors. Inaccuracies can cause you to miss things, or patients to be harmed, or can cause a study or a clinic or a hospital to be shut out from performing research again. And of course it can make the difference between a drug approval and failure. It's a lot of resources around the idea of data integrity.

So even small versions of these types of trials can be very expensive.

Now, is it TOO expensive? We often hear about the cost of bringing a drug to market to be around $1B. (Some studies have put it over $2B when you account for failed drugs, etc.) This may or may not be right, but let's not forget, the pharma industry makes more profit than just about any other industry. And the way CMS and insurers agree to pay for medicines... well, pharma has a lot of freedom in pricing (upwards).

You've hit on a lot of things that make the release of some new drugs/devices/therapies _less_ expensive than we are commonly led to believe: reusing previous data, getting new approval for a specific enantiomer of a previously approved racemic drug, making cosmetic updates to existing devices, the tricks go on and on and on. And pharma keeps saying "R&D is so expensive! This drug should definitely be 2X more expensive than the one we're replacing." Planned obsolescence is a pain with your smartphone; it's a lot worse with your insulin pump or even the insulin itself! And one outcome of the high cost of large trials is that pharma does more of these types of un- innovation in some cases, which (due to the patent and regulatory and reimbursement systems) simply give pharma a free pass at making easy money off of our backs.

The high cost of trials also leads to really high prices of "true" innovation, such as in CAR-T trials. This type of therapy (like a lot of new oncology therapy) is highly customized, and no longer simply some chemical compound you make in a factory and then ship all over the world. You have to take a patient's own cells/fluid/materials/etc, process them, and then make modifications (in some cases unique to the patient), and then return the processed product (to the same patient). This is indeed highly costly on top of the cost of performing a lengthy trial, where for certain rare and/or terminal diseases your study endpoints are pretty tough to capture (um, did the patient die? uh, how long do we wait?).

<comment><USER14> > most of the cost comes from human trials (Phase I-III, and mostly Phase > III), which can sometimes span dozens of countries and tens of thousands of > participants

Uhm. Yes. Again, I'd rather have an actual break down of the costs involved here. At least in Germany insanely overpaying doctors for conducting phase III trials replaced the [at least] $3-4k/day budgets pharma companies had to accommodate relevant practitioners at congresses when it was outlawed.

When the head of a public hospital in a western country can legally triple his/her income by conducting a study for 4h every Saturday morning, I file the costs under marketing, not R&D.

<comment><USER16> It's not that hard to estimate clinical trials costs. Last I checked you were looking at $10-20K per patient per year. It all depends on how much monitoring you are doing.

Now run the math. For a broadly used drug, you might need a trial of 20,000 people over 3 years (if you're looking for a long-term benefit). That's what a lot of the statin drugs did. That alone would be $1.2B at the high end, $600M at the low end.

And you have to run a minimum of two phase 3 trials. Follow on trials are even more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> From the article:

       "Scientists use a virus to make the genetic changes in the T cells, raising fears about possible long-term side effects"

Is this a real risk? Is 'using a virus' in this way, still risky at all? or is it just the word 'virus' that makes writers put this line in every article about gene therapy?

{edit: real risk}

<comment><USER18> Not to be flippant, but isn't a "virus that cures cancer" exactly how the Will Smith movie _I Am Legend_ starts?

<comment><USER19> ok, sure, the pessimistic among us can accentuate the negative aspects of this medical therapy, but it _did_ solve the NYC subway crisis. and don't forget the wildlife habitat expansion.

these things aren't all bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "While Novartis will not estimate the price it will ultimately put on the treatment, some industry analysts project it will cost $500,000 per infusion."

Meanwhile, the latest version of the US Senate's healthcare bill includes the so-called Cruz Amendment[1], which would allow insurance companies to offer health insurance plans without essential health benefits, which would allow lifetime caps on insurance[2], which could mean that your six year old with recurring leukemia gets pulled off their treatment when they're halfway through. Not because you did anything wrong, per se, but because maybe your employer refuses to spring for health care plans with more than an $x dollar cap. Or you never anticipated something so horrific and catastrophic happening to your family.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/13/us/politics/senate- republ...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/13/us/politics/senate-republican- health-care-bill.html)

[2] [https://www.brookings.edu/2017/05/02/allowing-states-to- defi...](https://www.brookings.edu/2017/05/02/allowing-states-to-define- essential-health-benefits-could-weaken-aca-protections-against-catastrophic- costs-for-people-with-employer-coverage-nationwide/)

<comment><USER21> That sounds horrible.

Although, I do wonder what effects there would be if a cancer cure-all were discovered.

Since nearly everyone would need the treatment at some point, it wouldn't really be insurance anymore; more like a mortgage.

<comment><USER22> We're already at this stage - we have many life-extending (there's no life saving, only extending it for smaller or larger amounts) treatments and procedures, and the amount is growing. For pretty much _every_ patient who dies currently we _could_ extend their life a bit more (not they'd always want that, mind you) if we put in more resources in that patient.

It's tautologically clear that it's not possible to do everything for everyone, i.e. a community 100% composed of doctors and nurses wouldn't be able to provide all the possible life-extending things (especially late in life/close to death) to everyone of themselves. So one way or another we need a process to decide where we stop, i.e. what life-extending things will not be provided to which people.

Of course, there's a major practical difference between in a process that takes/costs one day of labor and extends life expectancy by a year, and a process that takes/costs a year of labor and extends life expectancy by a day - but there's no _conceptual_ difference, and we have options all along that scale to find where the tradeoff starts/stops making sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > Another big concern is the cost. While Novartis will not estimate the price > it will ultimately put on the treatment, some industry analysts project it > will cost $500,000 per infusion.

Welp, guess my insurance premiums aren't stabilizing anytime soon.

<comment><USER24> how much is getting cured of cancer at a very young age worth? dying vs. living another 80-90 years?

less than a Tesla? more than a house?

interesting questions arise around immuno-oncology.

should Apple be the most profitable company - or someone that literally cures cancer?

<comment><USER25> > how much is getting cured of cancer at a very young age worth? dying vs. > living another 80-90 years? > less than a Tesla? more than a house?

It's worth so much that a person shouldn't be required to pay for it. Like a right.

<comment><USER26> >> It's worth so much that a person shouldn't be required to pay for it. Like a right.

It can't be a right. That would mean someone has an obligation to provide it. I would say it's worth so much that a monopoly on it should not be allowed.

<comment><USER23> > It can't be a right. That would mean someone has an obligation to provide > it.

By that logic, voting can't be a right, because someone has to register voters, run the polling booths, count the votes, etc.

<comment><USER27> If the health care system was mostly staffed by unpaid volunteers, I might agree. As it stands health care is 17% of US GDP (10% global) and growing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Does anyone know: what are the failure rates like for the gene editing technology being used for this? Thinking like a software engineer, are there transposition errors (GATC --> GTAC) , atomicity issues (GATC --> GA)? Mutations afterward?

<comment><USER3> In this particular case the therapy is being applied to cells that have been extracted from a patient. That allows a reasonable error rate where errors can be filtered out, and success verified before the cells are reimplanted. This is a strategically nice intermediate before having to run a therapy on a living organism. The technology in use here is not quite the same kind of 'DNA editing' as is found with tools like CRISPR, but rather a much more therapeutically mature (if technologically blunt) form of viral 'insertion of a block of code'.

With respect to actual code fidelity, errors in DNA come from a number of different sources. Every time DNA is copied (a cell divides) there is an inherent fidelity rate of the copy (on the order of a single mistake per billion writes). The payload here is on the order of a few thousand base pairs so copies should have a very high fidelity.

In this case a viral protein is 'inserting' its DNA randomly into the genome of the target cells. Imagine inserting a library of code _randomly_ into a codebase. Certainly not ideal, and an issue that CRISPR technologies promise to help improve. However, given that the therapy is only being applied to immune cells that are only running the 'immune' section of the human codebase, and no progeny of those cells will ever have to become a brain or skin or run any of the other programs, the chance that the inserted DNA disrupts the 'immunological' code in the codebase is relatively small. And if there is disruption to some cells' genomes those cells could be screened out if they really distort something they should not.

With respect to DNA generally, common errors arise from undesirable but common chemical modifications to the code itself. The DNA can become damaged (by reactive oxygen, UV light, and through other chemical reactions), and while there are significant systems to repair that damage, oftentimes since there is only a single backup (DNA is 'double-stranded'), it's often impossible for that machinery to determine whether the error is on strand1 or strand2, so 50/50 chance of 'repairing' into the error.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Is this the same CAR-T treatment that Juno Therapeutics tried and scrapped[0] after 5 trial patients died after receiving the treatment?

[0]: [http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2017/03/01/after-trial- deaths...](http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2017/03/01/after-trial-deaths-juno- pivots-and-scraps-lead-car-t-therapy/)

<comment><USER30> No. From the article:

> In the past, a handful of patients who were getting similar treatments > developed by other companies died from serious brain swelling. Although > those sorts of complications did occur in some patients receiving CTL019, > the patients recovered and there were no fatalities, the company says.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31>
      it will cost $500,000 per infusion

<comment><USER32> Making the choice between being indebted for your entire life and just dying is surprisingly hard for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Isn't this how vaccines work?

<comment><USER3> Vaccines work by previewing a foreign object, that if seen again, the immune system will attack. The big difference in treating cancer is that there is nothing 'foreign' about cancer - it arises from one's own cells. Cancer is an unproductive or even malicious mashup of material already found in the human body, very much unlike a viral or bacterial infection. There are no natural differences in kind that can be detected by an immune system that would not otherwise attack healthy tissue as well.

In this case there is essentially a synthetic sensor designed and provided to the immune system that is precisely tuned in the lab to detect the (very subtle) differences between a cancer cell and a healthy cell.</comment></comment>


Hackful - A Hacker News for Europe - <AUTHOR> http://hackful.com/ <comment><USER3> I doubt it'll work. HN doesn't work just because it's there, it works because it has a certain traction among a certain community. Building up such traction is very difficult, and I doubt doing so by adding a link to it from a non- Europe-focused site is going to help much.

Lamernews looked real cool the first 2 weeks as well, and then it mostly died out. How will Hackful be different?

I mean, I'd love it to be different, I'd love a site about hacker culture more focused on European issues, people and businesses. But I can't see why it'll work.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right... but that is why Hackful should be fine: it was born out of an email list called Open Coffee London where there is an amazing community of entrepreneurs helping each other everyday. We saw how open HackerNews is and thought that we should give our European community more chance to flourish.

Our NEXT steps are to make this more shareable: RSS, possibly daily email digests (opt-in only)

THEN we are plugging in a calendar of local events and need-to-know events

AND FINALLY capping it off with a local Angel List

<comment><USER3> Ah, right!

Why not make an about page that explains this? For all i could know, you had simply put a homehacked version of HN for the kicks of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> About page is now live... :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Let me start off by saying that this is a great idea, and maybe we do need more HN-like sites as HN currently has a usefulness monopoly as far as my news browsing habits are concerned.

On a more constructive note: please implement an RSS feed.

<comment><USER5> I can't do without an RSS feed either. Hacker News has the top spot on my iGoogle page and if I can't put Hackful next to it, I'll probably forget about it real soon.

<comment><AUTHOR> RSS is now live

<http://hackful.com/posts/90>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can I ask a simple question: Why?

I live in Europe, but AFAIK none of the places where I've lived/am regular even have an HN meetup. I have no idea we would want a splintered HN.

<comment><USER4> As an EU hacker myself, I'm not exactly crazy about this regional split - <USER2> feels unnecessary and artificial somehow. On the other hand, if we're going to have an alternative HN site, it will probably have to differentiate itself in some way.

<comment><USER7> For the hacking side, I don't see any reason for a split either. But for the business side, it would be very good to _also_ have a EU community to help create a better environment here. Let's not forget that we (from the EU) can move wherever we wish in the EU to set up shop (or work), so it would be helpful to know about the opportunities, the problems etc.

<comment><USER8> This is important - doing business wherever you are in the world will always be subject to local customs in my view. This is despite increasing globalization; there will always be different languages, currencies, market structures, legislation etc.

One of the reasons we intend Lion to be more focused on the UK and the general business community.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A Hacker News for Europe would be great. A lot of the stories on HN are very USA-centric. Currently it looks like Hackful focuses on the UK, especially London. Lets hope it expands to cover all of Europe.

<comment><USER10> Even though I am a fan of Hacker News I have the same feel that it is mostly USA centric. Sometimes after reading some articles I wonder how things are in Europe, similar or not, etc. Hopefully it can become not a replacement but a complement for the european hackers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have to say that I'm a bit conflicted about this.

On the one hand, there's nothing wrong with "splitting" HN, especially by geography. The main reason being that news that would interest only hackers in a specific region/country wouldn't see the light of HN's front page, as global readers just wouldn't care as much. As a matter of fact, I even run an "HN splinter" myself, for Israelis (<https://bitorama.com>), and I'm pretty hopeful about it.

That said, the EU is a pretty big and diverse place. Would a guy from Romania or Finland be more likely to find stories that interest him in an EU-wide site rather than in HN? I'm not convinced. Maybe a more regional approach is required.

Then again, I could be proven wrong. So best of luck to the guys running the site!

<comment><USER12> > Would a guy from Romania or Finland be more likely > to find stories that > interest him in an EU-wide > site rather than in HN?

That was my thinking too. There are lots of small countries with relatively small hacker communities that don't generate that much news on a regular basis.

That said, I've always struggled finding EU-based services, so this might be their chance!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Bad idea. HN is an international effort. No need to contextualize it by continent.

After all, _we exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias..._

<comment><USER14> But that doesn't immediately invalidate geography as a useful filter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Passwords... Again. I can't believe I still have to create an account. Even for a website like HN that I'm completely addicted to, I would've never signed up if it weren't for OpenID. You want me to use your service? Make it easy for me to authenticate, I don't need yet another password...

<comment><USER16> This isn't phrased very pleasantly, but it is a valid point. It would be very cool to have OpenID support like on HN.

<comment><USER17> I'm working on it. Coming soon. (I developed Hackful)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My only concern is that I don't think people in Europe feel very "European". There is no identity in being European like there is in being German, Swedish, or whatever. Bundling us together because we live on the same continent seems a bit artificial to me.

<comment><USER3> This, again, differs very much from area to area and from subculture to subculture. I, myself, feel very European. In the hacker culture context, even more so, given that it's my way of saying "Not USA". We have multiple languages (impacts app design and priorities), a very different set of employment laws (impacts hiring approaches), a more laid back working culture (impacts to what extent VCs can get you to work 70 hours a week), and so on. All of these things are _relatively_ common among most, if not all, European countries, yet very different in the US. Canada is, as usual, somewhere halfway.

<comment><USER18> > a more laid back working culture (impacts to what extent VCs can get you to > work 70 hours a week)

Good point. I havent thought of it that way.

Not identifying myself as european might be because I'm Swedish, and thus a bit off-center geographically.

I feel a stronger international identity in the Nordic countries, sharing a great deal of culture and political history. We don't even have any border controll to speak of between Norway and Sweden.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm in Canada and I can completely understand the sentiments that led to the creation of this site. However, I fear that this may lead to HN_Asia, HN_South_America, HN_Oceania, etc., making it extremely difficult to stay on top of good interesting news, and leading to a lot of duplication.

I would very much like to see instead a single additional site (HN') which would have a larger focus than simply the European scene, and where obvious US-centric post/comments would mercilessly be deleted.

<comment><USER20> It's called tags. Imagine if any post on HN could be tagged by anyone. Then, you are free to only read HN/Europe (all posts tagged Europe). Or browse the regular home page.

It won't happen because HN has made a conscious choice of not going after all the "web 2.0" gimmicks, but sometimes you wish it wasn't completely the case.

<comment><AUTHOR> Would be so much more useful with some restricted tagging :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This looks like a service that tries to imitate Hacker News and assumes the same traffic and audience.

Focus on fewer posts on the front page; no more than 20% of the posts on it should have 0 comments, because it just serves to make the site look barren - which it probably is. You don't even have a community yet, so there is no hive mind nor zeitgeist on the site; bringing people together to discuss a few issues will make people get to get and know each other and help build the community.

Make it scalable.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are trying - we have a core user base that have kept in communication with an email list called Open Coffee (powered by Meetup.com)

That is where the idea came up - we needed a more open method to ask questions of each other, share info and demos

<comment><USER22> Why do I have to sign up with my email? I don't want to.

<comment><AUTHOR> Working on Oauth...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The problem with Europe is the multitude of languages. You can't target Europe with English language, or it will end up UK/US centric. That's pretty much unsolvable problem. Of course we can talk about things happening in Europe, but that doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER24> You're being overly pessimistic on the percentage of Europeans speaking English (though not necessarily as their native language). This language has worked as a common means to communicate for a long time and definitely won't leave this web site end up being "UK/US centric".

<comment><USER23> Almost everyone speaks English of course, but most people prefer joining communities in their native languages. Many of my hacker friends don't participate on English forums although they speak English pretty well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting. I think there's definitely demand for services like this.

We have been working on a community for entrepreneurs and startups in the UK (in addition to our information website), lion.co.uk/community, we're still in the phase of optimizing things.

We've found that there's many entrepreneur and startup websites but gaining critical mass to make a useful community is another thing.

We should probably work together but then again, as others have mentioned, there's different requirements for different people. Founders of businesses other than technology and hackers for example might not have reason to collaborate.

That said, the more resources there are for business founders the better; especially in Europe right now.

<comment><AUTHOR> We will definitely work together! :)

<comment><USER8> Sent you an email.

I posted a submission about this topic about a year ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2454412>.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm missing an "about" section.

</comment><comment><USER26> Please add some OpenID/OAuth option. I don't want to make yet another user account.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, you are right, complete oversight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> One suggestion: hackful.com has no linkage to the differentiating factor of the website. Why not change it to hackful.eu? This isn't a decisive factor, but it could help in the positioning...

</comment><comment><USER10> Bookmarked, lets see if it goes well. One advice, give the page some border on the sides, its pretty bad at least for me to have to look to the edge of the monitor.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm British and I think this is a great idea. I'm interested to read about the startup scene in Europe and the UK.

I do think that we should be trying to move away from the 'hacker' label. People are never going to understand that 'hackers' can be good -- See that AP Press article. And really, our definition is the less popular one, and therefore less correct, and it is we who should change our wording.

<comment><USER28> Does it matter? The people who read Hacker News or Hackful Europe will understand the meaning.

<comment><USER27> Yeah, but these two websites aren't the only places that the term 'hacker' is used as we use it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Wouldn't this be more successful if it would be split across countries? Stories about US-focused topics interest me as much (or as little) as stories about European countries where i don't live.

Also, for more people than you might imagine a site thats in English (and not in their local language) could be a barrier.

<comment><USER27> But you do live in Europe, and can visit other European countries relatively easily. If you are a member of the EU, you could even move to another EU country.

I think most Dutch people would prefer the site to be in English, as the Netherlands is only a small country, and England's an hour or less away by plane. Surely Dutch people would be interested in, for example, sources of venture capital in the UK?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'd be more interested by a HN Asia or something. I mean, political, technological issues in US and EU are different but not that much, after all. Japan, Korea, China, Singapore, India, etc... lots of stuff is happening there and nothing much comes to the surface.

<comment><USER31> right! I live in India, and though I do tend to get updates about local startups irregularly, I am still not aware of any good HN like site which keeps me up to date with all the latest activities in Indian startup world.

<comment><USER32> <http://hackerstreet.in/>

(Originally <http://hackernews.in>, but renamed as a result of this discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1913014>)

I'll let you judge the usefulness yourself.

<comment><USER31> Hey thanks! I think I did go through that thread, but didn't follow up with HSI and eventually it faded out. Looks like it is still going strong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> At first I didn't liked the idea, but it could work as a way to filter out US centric posts and focus more on Europe.

I think it needs some guidelines: is English the preferred language? If this is limited to Europe, is it ok to have posts related to other parts of the world?

<comment><USER34> Post and find out. As with all UGC sites, it becomes what users make it. Waiting for "the rules" will probably leave you waiting for a long time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Cool. I hope it doesn't turn into an OpenCoffee mirror/spam board for events/etc. Bookmarked :)

<comment><USER36> Bookmarked and registered in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> You need to focus on something other than nationality - I do not care if my news comes from the US or from Europe (and I think I am in the majority here), I only care if it is _interesting_. Maybe a Hacker News with subsections, like Reddit?

</comment><comment> why-el The one thing that should really be taken into consideration is username consistency across both sites, that will help. (And I can't have the same user name because the evil "-" is not allowed. Do something about it.)

</comment><comment><USER38> I don't think this will necessarily gain traction without a huge push to build a community.

It would be cool if a system like subreddits was added to Hacker News where it makes sense (e.g. Europe).

<comment><USER8> You're correct regarding traction. We haven't done any marketing yet as our new features are pretty raw. Developing though is far easier than building the actual 'community'. In fact, we're looking for a marketer to help us do this very thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> To be honest, I never go "Damn. I wish the Hacker News articles were more focused around me." Most of the articles here are universal, the rest still make a difference to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Then you will likely carry on benefiting from Hacker News, as we all do. Hackful is for those who want to share amongst their local peers. We aren't trying to be fancy; just an extension of the current Open Coffee mailing list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> The domain was registered 2 days ago, so great job in launching early. You really need a strategy to keep people coming, but all I can say is good luck, have an upvote.

</comment><comment><USER41> We are planning london.hackful.com etc. Watch this space.

</comment><comment><USER42> What I love about HN is that the users here are international - not just USA, or just EU. What's the benefit of having an EU only version?

</comment><comment><USER31> Why doesn't it let me sign up without entering my email?

I think when I registered on HN, it didn't make email as mandatory!! Or is my memory deceiving me?

</comment><comment><USER43> This is a great initiative. Will follow for sure

</comment><comment><USER44> Why, why is email mandatory to sign up???

<comment> mike-cardwell It doesn't even send a confirmation email, so it seems pretty redundant. Actually ... yes, it's required for password recovery. That seems to be its purpose. It seems like you can just put something fake in as long as you are confident you wont forget/lose your password.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> 750users in just over TWO days and approaching 200 posts with several times more comments!

</comment><comment><USER45> Finally something in my timezone!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just wanted to thank all the commenters and those who are signing up to Hackful!

</comment><comment><USER46> A more appropriate solution, I would think, is regional filtering here on HN. Label submissions with the relevant region, if any, and add one more tab which filters results by region according to a black/white list in your profile.

Maybe hackful will show us that such a feature would be heavily used.

</comment><comment><USER47> An RSS feed would be great !

</comment><comment><USER48> Woo! Silicon Roundabout. :)

<comment><USER49> stick-shift recommended

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Looks much like Antirez's lamernews.com. What's the stack behind it?

<comment><USER51> a look at the HTTP headers:

      tahu@laptop:~$ curl -I http://hackful.com/about
      HTTP/1.1 200 OK
      Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
      Connection: keep-alive
      Status: 200
      X-Powered-By: Phusion Passenger (mod_rails/mod_rack) 3.0.11
      X-UA-Compatible: IE=Edge,chrome=1
      ETag: "6972d16343b1a4d0f2a49c9a3174e977"
      Cache-Control: max-age=0, private, must-revalidate
      Set-Cookie: _hackful_session=BAh7B0kiD3Nlc3Npb25faWQGOgZFRkkiJWQ5NzYzMThlNDFkOWVhYTI1YzJiZGI0YzNjMjlkOWFhBjsAVEkiEF9jc3JmX3Rva2VuBjsARkkiMUVRU1gzZkhvcHRockpaWndWY2NRcGk3SElJczBmOEY3TW50YjJRZ0plSTg9BjsARg%3D%3D--572416e3b12cc85dda3675c22d117839535e636d; path=/; HttpOnly
      X-Runtime: 0.017811
      Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:26:04 GMT
      X-Rack-Cache: miss
      Server: nginx/1.0.10 + Phusion Passenger 3.0.11 (mod_rails/mod_rack)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Will the source be available on github for pull requests?

<comment><USER17> Yes, very soon.

<comment><USER53> Where would we be able to get notified about this?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Yes, lets rule out the country that provides us with a userbase for most of our sites. Surely there's nothing relevant there?

Hands up if you have an English-language website in which the US is not the largest segment of users?

<comment><USER54> > Yes, lets rule out the country that provides us with a userbase for most of > our sites.

With the greatest respect, that kind of silly assumption is exactly why a Euro-centric HN-style site is potentially interesting to those of us here in Europe. I can think of numerous ideas for businesses aimed at a particular kind of culture or niche interest where the US probably wouldn't be a particularly big market.

In any case, there are more people in Europe than the US, and a very high proportion of them speak English with impressive fluency even if it's not their native language. And while we have quite distinct national identities, we also have many things in common that are relevant to a business/tech audience and quite different from how things work in, say, North America or Asia.

<comment><USER55> So, if you already speak the language, why not use your larger demographic to promote more relevant articles here on HN?

We benefit from having another perspective represented here more than we do from having it shown in some other far-flung echochamber on the web.

Or is the idea of melting pot a bit much for you old country folks? :)

<comment><USER56> We do ;) There are many Europeans here on HN. For my taste, there could be more europe-centric news on HN, but again, how would US hackers support that? They are as bored of articles on Germany's public transport system as I am of articles on AT&T being unfair to their customers. By melting pot, do you mean the US or Europe? They technically both are..

<comment><USER55> I think getting the articles up there would at least give us a chance to see something we might not otherwise see--say, a German startup innovating in ticketing or something.

As for the melting pot, was a bit of a joke--the perception here is commonly that the US is a big diverse thingy whereas Europe, while diverse, is mostly diverse in terms of the amount of Europeans it has. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> nice, but can you fix editing comments please :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Without too much rhetoric: haters gonna hate.

</comment><comment><USER59> this will be useful if it makes access to European VCs easier. Good luck guys, I'll read HE everyday.

</comment><comment><USER60> Hacker News for Europe = Hacker News.

</comment><comment> mike-cardwell What is on-topic on this board?

<comment><USER57> Europe centric I think ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> what about splitting HN into different sections?

</comment><comment><USER62> ok, so i've had this on my mind for some time now, and i'm going to highjack this thread in hopes of getting this out there.

Hackful has sort of shot itself in the foot by trying to use HN as a medium to expose itself. for a long time now HN has started to cross the line from a place for people to share ideas and experiences with running a startup to a place for people to link to tutorials and hot topics in the tech world, or high ranked questions from SO (i'm guilty myself). I really don't see why we do this, we have r/programming, et al for that. HN is a place to talk about statups.

look at Hackful. I ran through the first 3 pages and here are the topics. i broke them down by irrelevan, relevant, and something i call the grey area, where it could go either way. the count is very off. i could only pick 20 out of 45 posts as 100% startup relevant. or course my opinion is my opinion and i'm sure there are people who will argue that my lists are debatable, and they are, but that's not the point. the point is that it is not 100% on topic, and we need to figure out a way to fix this.

one way is for the community to have the correct mindset and get involved and fixing the issue: 1) don't post irrelevant topics. 2) if we see off topic posts - since there isn't really a way for us to stop that now - just ignore them and let them disappear. we come to HN to read about startups, if we want programming info, tutorials, etc then there are other places to go (reddit, so, etc).

another option is to go sort of the reddit-route and allow for subs. that's an option, but again we would be diverging from the original purpose of this site.

just shooting out some thoughts, and trying to make us think about where we're going with HN.

irrelevant list: (count = 11)

8 reasons for switching to Git(blog.fournova.com)

Git cheat sheet(blog.fournova.com)

How we are using Big Data to solve Social Travel(tripl.tumblr.com)

The switch from apache to nginx(news.ycombinator.com)

Top 10 IT skills in 2012(ciozone.com)

Nicnack for easy multicast testing(adventuresinfabric.posterous.com)

Only 6% of Wikipedia Readers Have Ever Edited Wikipedia Content !!(thetecnica.com)

Tech in "Hollywood Edition"(aaronklein.com)

Teach yourself Git in two minutes(jperla.com)

Show Hackful: Browser Based Strategy Game (Spoils Rotten)(spoilsrotten.com)

Show Hackful: My Digital Guidebook Startup (Artworm)(artworm.hillsbede.co.uk)

relevant list: (count = 20)

Show HF: Cubecolor, a fancy HTML5 colorscheme generator(plainas.github.com)

Dutch startup is building the most simple customer support software in the world(apo.io)

Startupbootcamp to shape up Berlin(venturevillage.eu)

Ask HE: What are the missing pieces of the European ecosystem?

15 startups from Berlin - there is more than Soundcloud, Wooga and Amen(netzwertig.com)

Who is missing from this list of young entrepreneurs to watch in 2012?(yourhiddenpotential.co.uk)

Twitter developer teatime in Berlin(techberlin.com)

Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Helsinki - We Have A Problem(arcticstartup.com)

Show HE: My first RoR-app... a platform for winning a dribbble invite.(showwwdown.com)

Berlin Startup Jobs. Marketplace For Inspiring Jobs(berlinstartupjobs.com)

Marketplace for Startup jobs in Berlin(berlinstartupjobs.com)

SEO Tool & Collectible Card Game. Boost Website Traffic - SERPs & Spyders(serpsandspyders.com)

Ask Hackful: Do UK angel groups work?(t.co)

Flagons Den Beginners' Poker(london.flagonsden.com)

EatSocial - 2nd Feb(eatsocial.net)

A local European Angel List

London needs a place for hackers to hang out

Citymapper - Find your way FAST(citymapper.co.uk)

Show Hackful: adscaped - Monetisation without compromise(adscaped.com)

Digital Shoreditch festival 2012(digitalshoreditch.com)

grey list: (count = 14)

Ask HE: Is the source open?

Hacker News

Tell HE: Hackful sounds (and looks) too much like Hateful

Hackful Team: API please?

Who registered @hackful? Can we have it please?(twitter.com)

Hackful Team: Can we have a daily roundup email please?

Is it ok to post articles in other european languages?

Tell HE: Please improve the contrast between comments and comment-attributes

Hackful Team: RSS feed please!

Founder of german ridesharing startup gives his car away (flinc.org)

Facebook S1 Filing (Official IPO Document)(sec.gov)

Whispero(whispero.com)

Longform - for lovers of essays(longform.org)

Openbrand(eu.techcrunch.com)

Edit: cleaned up the links

<comment><AUTHOR> So you generally found it relevant? And bear in mind it's been up for just over 24 hours... :)

<comment><USER62> I'm not trying to question Hackful. I'm just trying to use them to show the trend of HN and how it's changing it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> A quick but of advice: give the site some personality - visually, I mean. It will make a difference. People will respond to it better and respect it more.

If it looks like an HN clone, that's how people will treat it. Differentiate.

<comment><USER44> I actually quite like the look.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> I'm pretty sure Hacker News can be viewed and contributed to by folks in Europe already.

</comment><comment><USER65> great for Europe and everyone else! love the idea.</comment>


The Blank Box – When lifted, a 12-gauge shotgun blank goes off (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2017/12/19/this-angry-inventor-has-a-special-gift-for-package-thieves-revenge/ <comment><USER2> Instead of constructing all those "traps" recently shown on the internet, wouldn't it be more efficient just to build a deposit box for the packages, which, like a letter box can recieve parcels, but not take from?

<comment><USER3> Or the post office can have a secure storage house where undeliverable packages are held for up to a week, and they leave you a notice to come pick it up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You're skating on legal thin ice by setting booby traps.

If the idea of someone stealing packages off of your porch pisses you off, just wait until they do that and then also sue you.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Video: [https://youtu.be/otKc7zzd4fA](https://youtu.be/otKc7zzd4fA)

<comment><USER5> After the guy with the package has the girl who tried to steal come back to his porch, he tells her to get a job while weilding a gun and she lists off excuses why she doesn't. Perhaps she made excuses for her own self- preservation, but I feel like that part really shows how they practically live in different worlds. It's scary, and I know people who feel similarly to her. I wonder, what structures exist to help such people get into the workforce?

To be clear: I'm not excusing her actions (they were very deliberate and wrong), nor am I saying thieves are all just victims of circumstances. But I do think that bridging the gap between those two worlds would be helpful for both of them.

<comment><USER6> Still think we need a jobs board that can someone parse all of the available jobs in each city that do not do drug tests. (and ones that hire even if you have felony record)

Along with added info for bus routes to this job, daycare near this job with hours, closest place you could afford to live if you had this job. Government assistance you qualify if you had this job, how long it takes to get all that.

there is obviously a need for workers and a need for employers. Job board tech has gotten better in a few ways, yet it still does not serve the undeserved as well as it could.

<comment><USER7> Why would a tech solution change matters? I mean yeah having it all in one place helps, but it's all out there already.

What else is needed to make.it actually work?

<comment><USER6> A tech solution would help the same way that google maps having info right there in app and visible for options for bussing / rideshare , etc helps people using maps to get around.

It's all out there already? Is it though? I am not aware of any source of jobs that do not test for drugs or felony. Maybe there is a reddit thread or forum somewhere I am not aware of? I have not looked for that specifically, only looked at the main job finding resourcing on the first page of google in my area.

So to make it work, I think first a need to find all the jobs that people can actually not waste time reading about and applying for - only list jobs that do not test.

Have additional options for selecting distance, transportation, childcare, which programs they will not qualify for based upon checkboxes like felonies - and all that that becomes barriers would be helpful as well.

I have engaged beggars / homeless in our city many times over the years (and I do not engage purposely most of the time). When I find challenges I don't know the answer to I look up what I can find.

Some things are hard (won't sleep / eat at the mission due to a real conflict with the forced religious sermon) - I get that. Some things are easy when you have broadband, a big screen, the mental capacity to search and call and find and put together pieces of the puzzle...

Easy for me to look up things does not make it easy for others to put it all together - and I have not seen any resource that adds a checkbox to filter options based upon drug test passabl-ity, felony on record, things like that.

One guy down the street says he can't get food stamps and similar things because of felony.

I'd love to be able to point to a resource and save time for people. At the moment I can't think of any resource that lists jobs people can get without tests. Even good resources like indeed which give you nice location based results, you still spend tons of time scrolling through things that sound great until you get to the bottom of the listing and the requirements, and most don't even list all the requirements (tests for example).

Certainly the bigger problem with people feeling they need to steal in order to eek out a living in the US society is going to take more than tech to fix - but here is something that should be simple to add some solution to the mix, and yet it's still not done - for many reasons I'm sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _It's very loud but technically harmless, Barrow said._

A 12ga shotgun round, when fired, emits a sound of about 165 dB SPL, re 20 uPa.

That is more than enough to cause immediate and permanent damage to anyone close by who is not wearing hearing protection, so I'm calling BS on this claim.

This is not so much a prank or deterrent device as it is a very justified lawsuit waiting to happen. I've watched the assembly video and there's no evidence of any baffles or other noise intensity reduction devices, so this sure looks like someone's getting the full noise level whenever it goes off.

<comment><USER9> Blanks are significantly quieter than regular rounds (not sure if the dB level you posted took that into consideration or not). In fact, you don't really need hearing protection with blanks at all. In the military we trained with blanks all the time without hearing protection, and they are anal about OSHA standards.

But I agree, it's a lawsuit waiting to happen. I would not recommend anybody do this.

<comment><USER8> hmm. A starter pistol is ~145 dB, and that's a .22 blank.

i'm guessing you're still well into "OSHA says there's no safe exposure duration" territory... but i have not found a source for a shotgun blank sound intensity.

<comment><USER10> He's using a 209 shotshell primer, not a "blank".

A .22 blank and a 209 Shotshell primer are not significantly different in volume.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the data.

Sounds like something you don't want to be 18" from when it goes POW, then.

<comment><USER10> Eh. It's not that bad. Firecracker like.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What's the reason behind rewriting the URL to "[https://www.washingtonpost.com"](https://www.washingtonpost.com")? Something to do with the paywall?

</comment><comment><USER12> Article from 2017

</comment><comment><USER13> The publicity for all this nonsense is getting a little bit silly. Especially considering all the fanfare of the drone delivery vaporware announced prior to Holiday/Christmas 2016 season, which still has only extremely select, limited, niche pilot zones, mostly taking advantage of weather and isolation in desertified areas.

So we're arriving at a place where usage saturates norms beyond their capacity for civilized utility, much like in 1999 when file sharing suffered, all because the unprepared entertainment industry unleashed a violent backlash and counter campaign against Napster. From which, arguably, file sharing in general has never recovered (due to willful poisoning with malware, and fear/doubt spreading with highly publicized, yet rare child pornography pursuit and prosecution, which was then subsequently incentivized with paid informant programs leading to evidence fabrication, and perpetrator/suspect framing, no less), was destroyed, and now, we have a handful of centralized, moderated, controlled streaming services instead, all watching our every move.

So, what will this drop-off delivery arms race bring? Glitter bombs? Shotgun shells? Partially automated remote control (and over-hyped) quad-copter delivery? What else?

</comment><comment><USER14> This thread is trippy man.

Happy holidays everyone.</comment>


Facebook, Google Drop Out of Top 'Best Places to Work' List - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-11/big-tech-companies-slide-in-annual-best-places-to-work-survey <comment><USER2> I really can't convince myself to put any stock in this. How can one compare In-N-Out Burger to Google? Aside from a small fraction, most of the positions don't overlap.

Also when really big, recognizable companies have their rating change so drastically, it's obviously reflects more about the PR of the company than it's work environment. If you don't consider ideology, Google didn't actually become a terrible place to work rather it's its employees, by the nature of their demographic, be more informed and apt to oppose certain policy and also feel they have the leverage to cause internal change.

<comment><USER3> Google hasn't become a terrible place to work, it's just not as great as it was 5 years ago. I think most people would agree with that.

Also, why can a burger company not be as good or better then an ad company to work for?

<comment><USER4> Well, there's the small matter of a couple hundred thousand dollars difference in comp.

<comment><USER5> In-N-Out managers make more than the median salary of Californian software engineers ($160k vs $120k)

<comment><USER6> According to glassdoor the avg salary for In N Out managers is ~84k [0].

>The typical In-N-Out Burger Store Manager salary is $84,315. Store Manager salaries at In-N-Out Burger can range from $55,134 - $130,157. This estimate is based upon 11 In-N-Out Burger Store Manager salary report(s) provided by employees or estimated based upon statistical methods. When factoring in bonuses and additional compensation, a Store Manager at In-N-Out Burger can expect to make an average total pay of $114,271 .

Not sure what the "total pay" means exactly but that averages 114k. Still way below the 160k you quoted which I think was from this article: [https://medium.californiasun.co/in-n-out-store-managers- earn...](https://medium.californiasun.co/in-n-out-store-managers- earn-160000-wages-b08fe6f1706f)

The California Sun article gives no sources for the claims of an average salary for in-n-out managers of 160k. Which is amusing as the article does reference Indeed.com for the "architect" salary it compares to in-n-out. According to Indeed.com the average salary is 42.8k [1]. I also saw that the story was picked up by USA Today, so I'm sure most people will forever more think In-N-Out store managers are making 160k on average, truth be damned.

[0] [https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/In-N-Out-Burger-Store- Manag...](https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/In-N-Out-Burger-Store-Manager- Salaries-E14276_D_KO16,29.htm) [1] [https://www.indeed.com/cmp/In--n--out- Burger/salaries/Manage...](https://www.indeed.com/cmp/In--n--out- Burger/salaries/Manager)

<comment><USER5> According to that Glassdoor link, the average base salary is $84k and the average extra pay (bonuses?) just about doubles that. I'm not sure if I'm reading it right since like you said they describe the average total pay as $114k

<comment><USER7> Glassdoor says the salary average is based on 11 reports. 5 reports included a bonus averaging $82,701 (and 2 reports included profit sharing averaging $10,345). The question is why only 5 of the 11 reported a bonus; or more specifically, did the others receive bonuses that they didn't report? If Glassdoor assumes that the other six didn't receive bonuses, then the average total pay of $114K makes sense.

        84,315 + 82,701*5/11 + 10,345*2/11 = 123,787

The simple way I see to count these doesn't match the $114K, but it's close enough that I can buy that that's a big part of it. But the question is still whether the assumption (that nobody else received bonuses) is correct. It's plausible that many people fill out only the base salary figure, even if they have other compensation. If everybody gets a bonus, then the $160K figure reported in the other articles could be justified.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Both a burger chain and an airline are among the top ten companies. And VIPKid, which I had to look up, which is apparently a "teach kids in China English via the web on your own schedule" service.

This list sounds ridiculous.

<comment><USER9> Klout for Workgroups®

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Another day, another "best place to work" list that has no real quality controls on the reviews or methodology to ensure reviews are not fake or coerced.

They all do not control for systemic bias of reviews.

At what point is it just a marketing piece?

<comment><USER11> Reminds me of a company years ago that had particularly low morale for various reasons. They then entered one of these good place to work competitions and told us that "yeah it's ironic, but help us by giving us a good review because it's good for marketing". And dutifully everyone agreed.

Glassdoor is fun. Worked a different company with lots of honest raw reviews giving you a real feel for it. Couple of years later, issues not addressed, but now great reviews! Well done to the repu managers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> full list: [https://www.glassdoor.com/Award/Best-Places-to-Work- LST_KQ0,...](https://www.glassdoor.com/Award/Best-Places-to-Work- LST_KQ0,19.htm)

Methodology: [https://media.glassdoor.com/staticList/pdf/2019/Glassdoor- Be...](https://media.glassdoor.com/staticList/pdf/2019/Glassdoor- BestPlacestoWork-Methodology-US.pdf)

Not sure how accurate glassdoor is since its plagued by the same issues as most review sites.

<comment><USER9> The data on Glassdoor is abysmal. I was looking up several engineering job titles in the local area (NYC) to compare them to the sorts of salaries we had needed to offer to land good candidates. The quoted numbers were consistently 60-70% of the actual salaries we had to offer four years ago.

<comment><USER13> And the companies that recruit through Glassdoor absolutely love that.

<comment><USER14> My secret theory is that glassdoor purposefully doesn't improve their website because they don't want everyone to know how poorly they pay compared to GAFAM.

levels.fyi is so much more accurate and informative whereas glassdoor never seems to update their numbers nor add new features like career levels that it really makes me wonder what everyone does there especially as I think www.levels.fyi was written by 1 guy.

<comment><USER13> They set low salary expectations for job hunters while selling their recruitment services to companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Not a surprise since both companies require in-person work and don't place remote work as one of their cultural values. Both have become extremely corporate places to work.

Many of the Googlers I know dread the Gbus rides from SF, and many that have left have found remote work or city jobs.

</comment><comment><USER16> > HubSpot Inc., a cloud-computing software company, grabbed the No. 1 ranking

Haha, is this the same HubSpot? [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/books/review-disrupted- da...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/books/review-disrupted-dan-lyons- fake-steve-jobs.html?_r=1)

<comment><USER17> I can't believe this comment isn't at the top. This list is complete bullshit lol.

...I mean I guess it kind of makes sense, most people on this site probably don't read books D:

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ask yourself this, if you have a 5 year old kid then in which company would you want him/her to work when he/she grows up ? Google or In and Out Burger ?

<comment><USER19> Depends on the position. Would you prefer them to be an accountant at In-N- Out, or a Google contractor paid to scroll through and flag thousands of images of child pornography?

<comment><USER20> This is highly inaccurate for a number of reasons:

The scores are _averaged_ which any statistician will know means that in a place like In And Out where most jobs are making $10-$20/hr. Maybe there are accountants at In-N-Out, but I doubt their opinion even moves the needle here.

You could say the same about the content flaggers or whatever. The majority opinion from FAANG companies is going to be engineers.

And side note: I think anyone who spends their time helping catch child predators is someone to be respected...

<comment><USER19> You're doing a bit of sleight of hand by treating averages.

The comment I was responding to was proposing a hypothetical dilemma, between guaranteeing your kid would work at Google or would work at In-N-Out. My point was twofold: one, that the idea that all jobs at FAANG companies are great is wrong (and, no, the majority of workers at FAANG companies are not engineers, who comprise a minority of employees); and two, the worst jobs at FAANG companies are worse than the worst jobs at In-N-Out. Yes, catching child predators is critical, but reviewing user-supplied content for child pornography, extreme graphic violence, etc. as part of your day job is incredibly psychologically traumatic. It's also likely that the contractors who do so receive worse compensation and benefits than the average In-N-Out worker, who does get paid relatively well and also gets health benefits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> These lists barely make sense. They compare apples to oranges. On top of that, they're heavily gamed.

I know of at least one company near the top of that list that has to be astroturfing their reviews. Most folks there hated their job and the turnover was insane. Like we're talking onboarding classes where 50% or more of the employees quit within a month or so.

</comment><comment><USER22> the "best" in 'best places to work' is pretty vague. it's based on employee reviews and a lot goes in there. what is best for those who have left reviews? social atmosphere, pay, career path, etc.? it most likely differs from company to company, sector to sector. with this in mind, comparing In'n'Out to fb is comparing apples to oranges. however, the fact that fb and google have experienced such a noticeable drop in favourability over time _is_ news.

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't think constructive discussions by any mean can be done with comparing tech companies to fast food franchises, but it's still interesting to see 3~4 tech companies in the top 10 list. Is there anyone who can provide anecdotes for those companies in terms of working environment, career growth compensation, perks, etc...?

</comment><comment><USER24> These rankings are as absurd as college rankings, "30 under 30"s, country rankings etc. They are PR driven, not meaningful.

And in fact, say, google may be great if you're in some roles and miserable in others. How can you normalize that?

But it worked: I clicked on the link.

</comment><comment><USER25> [http://archive.is/qngfX](http://archive.is/qngfX)

</comment><comment><USER26> If you work at those companies you are just supporting tracking and advertising (generally ineffective ads). It's nothing to be proud of. If I see those companies on a resume that's an automatic no. You spied on people and still didn't make better marketing than the 70s. Nothing to phone home about. There is no prestige in that

<comment><USER27> Which companies are you talking about? Google & Facebook? Or HubSpot? I only see 1 marketing company in the top 10.

<comment><USER26> All three you mentioned are marketing and ad companies. Their business models can be distilled to the same thing.

Google atleast makes hardware now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> surprised to see Netflix missing from this list

<comment><USER29> Ditto -- I'm curious what's people's opinion of working at Netflix. You don't hear it very often.

I've heard from friends that they pay very well, that it's very challenging, but that "they treat people like adults". Which can mean a lot of things. But to me it sounds positive overall. (But again, small data set).

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> A burger place is in the top-10? This list is suspicious.

<comment><USER31> Why, because you look down on that type of work?

<comment><USER32> Because it pays ~$30k/year and Google/Facebook pay ~$200k/year.

<comment> lame-robot-hoax Because if they factored salary into their metrics that highly the only thing would matter is pay.

This list is about the best places to work in the world in 2020. Not best tech place to work. Or best place to work if you have a degree.

In N Out pays very well for a fast food position. Compared to comparable jobs at other fast food companies, it's easily the best one to work at.

<comment><USER33> You said we shouldn't factor in pay, then the only thing you say is good about In and Out is that they pay well.

<comment><USER34> He/she said they pay well for a fast food place, which isn't the same statement.

For a company C, define S(C) to be the set of companies where the "average" employee at C could conceivably get a job without significant extra training. Under this survey, a company C is ranked highly if it is considered great within the group S(C) of companies. Said differently, a company C is ranked highly if employees working at other companies within S(C) tend to want to work at C specifically.

While we may not be telling our kids to strive to work at a burger place when they're adults, the reality is there are millions of people out there who aren't going to be working at Google for various reasons but they still deserve good jobs that pay well and treat them with respect. It could very well be the case that In-N-Out stands out as a great place within S(In-N-Out) more than Google does within S(Google).

Perhaps the point of contention then is whether lists like this should be _aspirational_ or _empirical_. You could easily make an aspirational list by reducing it down to raw absolute pay. I'm not sure how useful that really is. This list is interesting (to me, at least) because these are places where people are actually really happy, given what their realistic options are.

<comment><USER30> > While we may not be telling our kids to strive to work at a burger place > when they're adults, the reality is there are millions of people out there > who aren't going to be working at Google for various reasons but they still > deserve good jobs that pay well and treat them with respect. It could very > well be the case that In-N-Out stands out as a great place within S(In-N- > Out) more than Google does within S(Google).

so the reason they are on the list is because they employ more people?

<comment><USER34> I don't think so. In-N-Out, for example, is one of the smaller burger chains. Google has more employees than In-N-Out but didn't make the list.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


It's time to forcibly reform big tech - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.co.uk/article/tech-reform-regulation <comment><USER2> And yet again we see that propaganda pattern - insisting that there is a techlash instead of a bunch of whiney vested interests. Then there is the mindless "Do something" crackdown idea with no fucking clue how to fix anything but their power certainly won't be abused pinky swear!

The reason for the pure sarcasm and vitriol is I am sick of this bullshit being pushed and sickened that people are actually believing this lurch to totalitarianism.

<comment><USER3> thank god im not the only one

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The issue is that the concept of propaganda (please, research this term thoroughly) has been co-opted by people pushing the concept of 'fake-news' which is just like propaganda except that only the 'bad guys' use it. And also, they never mention propaganda when they are talking about it. Because if you understand propaganda then you know that having propaganda police (ie censors) is even worse than fake news.

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

<comment><USER5> Manufacturing Consent

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Silicon Valley companies' only goal is maximizing profit. Why do we keep forgetting it?"

I am not sure I understand how this is different from any other company. Most corporations have bylaws that force them to optimize for profit.

In fact many corporations, if they don't optimize for profit, they can be sued by shareholders for securities fraud.

To be clear, I am not saying this is right, or there is not a human toll to this mentality. I am just not able to see "Big Tech" as acting any differently than other large companies with similar size, reach, and economic power.

I realize she is making a similar point, but why single out one group?</comment>


Node.js 14 release: New diagnostic tools, features, and performance enhancements - <AUTHOR> https://developer.ibm.com/blogs/nodejs-14-ibm-release-blog/ <comment><USER2> Why is this on an IBM site? Are they one of the major contributors?

<comment><USER3> Someone has to make it ready for the "enterprise". I expect they will be ready to post the LeftPadStrategyFactory module on NPM any day now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really don't understand what's the problem with async local storage. This is a very awful context, for example it is very easy to spawn a new routine and "leak" transaction for example to a worker.

We tried different ways to do so and easiest method is just have some specific "Context" object and pass it as first/last argument to every function. This is really very easy once you will start using contexts. You already passing something like transactions and other specific data, nothing new, just opaque .

We have built really tiny library for this: [https://github.com/openland/context](https://github.com/openland/context) and it is working great. We had zero issues with developers not passing context and very short learning time.</comment>


Facebook Gaming Grabs Market Share from Amazon's Twitch in 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-09/facebook-gaming-grabs-market-share-from-amazon-s-twitch-in-2019 <comment><USER2> I'm wondering how much of this is rightfully gained vs paid for - I know a handful of medium-profile streamers (2-3xxx viewers avg) that received (read: endlessly spammed for) "Paid - Stream on FB Gaming" type offers from "influencer" firms.</comment>


I Hope Product Hunt Is Building an "IMDB for Products" - <AUTHOR> http://hunterwalk.com/2015/02/09/i-hope-product-hunt-is-building-imdb-for-products/

<comment><USER2> Crunchbase would be better position IMO</comment>


Perhaps Entrepreneurs Can Stay East After All - <AUTHOR> http://onstartups.com/home/tabid/3339/bid/1249/Massachusetts-Ranked-1-Perhaps-Entrepreneurs-Can-Stay-East-After-All.aspx <comment><USER2> I think you're right- MA is great- but it seems no one was very impressed with the way they did rankings: http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=1551</comment>


Siri is experiencing first major outage in the US - <AUTHOR> http://9to5mac.com/2011/11/03/siri-is-experiencing-its-first-outage-across-the-u-s/

<comment><USER2> Maybe Siri is the first A.I. to take part in a general strike?

</comment><comment><USER3> Siri probably was having sex with HAL. Can't a robot get any alone time these days?! Sheeesh!

</comment><comment><USER4> _There's something wrong, and I can't answer your questions right now. Please try again in a little while._

This is my new away auto-response.</comment>


Take Light, Not Drugs: On Light Therapy - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/11/Light/take-light-not-drugs <comment><USER2> Light therapy has been huge for my mental and physical health. Research lead me to purchase a light alarm clock [1] years ago. Light early in the morning has made a noticeable effect on my ability to go to sleep at night by simulating serotonin [2] In the evening we have our Lifx bulbs set to mimic sunset color and the morning mimic sunrise transition to bright white wake up hue.

1\. [http://www.biobrite.com/category/light- therapy/](http://www.biobrite.com/category/light-therapy/) 2\. [https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolutionary- psychiatry...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolutionary- psychiatry/201105/sunlight-sugar-and-serotonin)

<comment><USER3> I purchased my Philipps Hue system kinda impulsively (and somewhat drunkenly) because I was interested in the colors and the automation.

I thought it was 'nice to have'. But I underestimated the overall effect it has in my mood and my schedule. Previously I didn't know what to think about scientific claims in regards to the influence of light on mood, but now that I'm experiencing it first hand I can say it _does_ have a significant effect on me.

It helps me structure my day, fall asleep, wake up, setting ambiances to read, relax or to be creative. Yes, I could have saved up money by trying to go the DIY route with Arduino, but I'm not very good at hardware. It's not a gadget that is collecting dust, it's something that _bathes_ -for lack of a better word- my whole indoor environment every day. It's cool.

<comment><USER4> What types of Hue light schemes do you find most helpful?

<comment><USER3> I confirmed that the official app does not give the optimum experience. I experimented with Disco Hue and Hue Pro.

Hue Pro is good, and straight forward. I like the 'energize' and 'concentrate' settings, basically bright yellows. At night, I like to set 'deep blue', I find it relaxing. The warm colors are really cool, the oranges, reds and purples. It can really set the ambiance for making out with your partner, if that's your thing, LOL.

I schedule the 'energize' setting at 7 a.m., and this kinda forces me to wake up :p. I like scheduling on/off times to help me structure my day, because honestly I tend to be late.

One thing I like about Hue Pro is that there is an option with 'X' 'Y' sliders that allows you to select different colors than the RGB approach.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've actually been looking at light alarm clocks recently, anybody have one they would recommend? The Philips wake up light looks nice, but there isn't an option to dim the clock display so it's actually always on.

<comment><USER6> I use an earlier model of essentially this: [http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BYG3OWK](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BYG3OWK)

The flexible head makes a world of difference compared to the flourescent- panel-on-a-stand designs, and it has better UX as an alarm clock than most dedicated alarm clocks. The clock display can be turned on and off, and the main light can be dimmed.

They might have added features but mine's still working after 8 years so I have no reason to try a newer model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As us Alaskan's can attest, light can have a huge impact on general mood. Many of us suffer from "Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)", and purchase lights to combat it's effects.

This is the first I've heard of light being used as a more widespread treatment option. Very interesting.

</comment><comment><USER8> Light influences the body via the Suprachiasmatic nucleus [0] a tiny center that sits between your eyes.

This center basically regulates the circadian circle and plays a big role in the transformation of serotonine to melatonine, which makes you go from stress to sleepy.

Artificial light interferes with that.

I think it would be a kind of holy grail for psychopharmacology if you could somehow control this center via light impulses (or implanted LEDS :) ). You could calm anxious patients for example.

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

</comment><comment><USER9> Some take this a step further and gaze at the sun. It's called "sun-gazing" and the proponents are thoroughly convinced of its effects. One man, Hira Manek, says he lives off sun-gazing. Some say it has cured their vision.

The basic idea is that you gaze at the sun for ~10 seconds the first day, then up another 10 seconds next day, and so on... you eventually grow upwards to 40m.

Having tried it a few times, I would attest to its beneficence, but don't expect any serious scientific study backing it. It's very, very new-age. Also, don't go blaming me if you hurt your eyes. Do your research on it.

<comment><USER10> Stare at the sun to cure your vision. Uh huh...

<comment><USER9> I share your skepticism, but this is what people are saying.

<comment><USER10> Which people. Science has known that starting at the sun is bad for your eyes for a long time, in case for some reason it wasn't obvious. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1842517

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting.

Anecdotal evidence to the contrary - i have a sunshine-bright light fixture at home (600W worth of metal halide arc lamps), and while it does make the dull winter days less dark and gray, it also tend to make me tire quicker.

It's the same sort of feeling you get when you haven't slept in a while after having slept too much - your brain still feel fine, but your eyes are already tired (and yes, i checked the lamps for a lack of UV).

Perhaps it is a question of a dose...

<comment> david-given What sort of lamps do you have? Metal halide colour temperatures vary enormously --- from sunlight at about 6000K way down to about 3000K. That'll be way redder than real daylight, and may not have the right effect.

<comment><USER11> 4200K - nice sunset/sunrise kind of light.

And yeah, from what i heard it's the blue light that have the most effect in light therapy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> With optogenetics you could do both!</comment>


How to avoid being a Groupon horror story - <AUTHOR> http://blog.launchcopilot.com/2012/07/23/groupon-pitfalls/

<comment><USER2> I'm tired of merchants complaining about Groupon promotions that fail. It's your responsibility to do what's right for your business.

<comment><USER3> Groupon is a fairly complex promotion, and the best way to use it isn't really that obvious. Also, groupon has limited itself to the specific promotion that is most profitable for themselves. (You could imagine that in an alternate world they might want to expand to a broader set of offerings.)

Although, I have no intuition for what percent of Groupon's revenue comes from customers in which groupon is taking the entire surplus, half the surplus, etc</comment></comment>


Achieving Personal Goals (The Crazy Story of How We Built PlentyOfTweeps.com) - <AUTHOR> http://30sleeps.com/blog/2010/09/06/achieving-personal-goals/

<comment><USER2> That's a great story and a decent service. I especially liked the part about going on a date with someone you met on the dating site you yourself built. You're living my dream, man. That's what they call taking your life in your own hands.

I have a feature request however. It's actually a difficult one and I guess you won't consider it, but wouldn't it be wonderful if the website analyzed tweets and built recommendations and matches, like okcupid does?

<comment><AUTHOR> You're not the first person to mention that point, and I think it is a good idea. But indeed, like you say, it's a pretty difficult one, and not something I intend on putting time into for the moment.</comment></comment>


An example of a great job posting - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ibd.com/scalable-deployment/want-to-work-at-a-startup-with-cool-tech-hbase-clojure-chef-swarms-javascript-ruby-rails/

<comment><AUTHOR> A couple of weeks back there were a few discussions on how to write a proper job offer. I ran across this randomly today and thought that that's just about perfect.

No silliness about rockstars or ninjas but no unrealistic bulleted lists either. Just a good description of the job, the tools, the environment and a clear call to action at the end.</comment>


Ask HN: Hacker Resume - <AUTHOR>

How should a programmers resume look like? <comment><USER2> Personalized for each job position you are looking for, nicely formatted and well organized, all the main data on the first page (often the big part of recruiters do not even read the other pages), at least one link to something (your github/sourceforge/personal_blog/etc) in which they can see some exemples of your code/coding_style and if you have a list of other jobs you have done in your life please put first a list of those strongly related to the job position you are looking for now, then a second list with all the others.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've had much success with [http://resume.amccloud.com](http://resume.amccloud.com)

</comment><comment><USER4> You may also try one of the creative hire-me campaign :)

[http://phildub.com/](http://phildub.com/)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FRwCs99DWg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FRwCs99DWg)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Do modern resumes have a picture of one self?

<comment><USER5> No. It'll either help you more or hinder you more.

Make it a nonfactor by not putting one on there. They'll validate your merits without doing that. It's okay to put one on a portfolio - HR and future bosses don't look at the portfolio first. They'll do that if your resume is up to snuff.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Great tips. Thank you.</comment>


EA – "We don't deliver offline experiences anymore." - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-08-26-free-to-play-coming-to-every-major-ea-franchise-moore

<comment><USER2> This seems like such a weird statement by them. I mean, so many people live for the offline experience. And I guess, you can make a case that connectedness offers awesome ways to improve your experience, but that certainly should not be required of ALL games, right?</comment>


Show HN: WebGL Games - <AUTHOR> http://webgl.nu <comment><USER2> Some of these appear to trigger downloads of *.unity3D packages. Is that for the non-WebGL Unity3D Player? Confused.

</comment><comment><USER3> I saw some of these last time around, and the source was available too:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10039456](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10039456)

</comment><comment><USER4> The GTA clone looked interesting. Tried it on my phone. It ran but the sound didn't work (and of course I couldn't play since it required a keyboard).

I find the problem with WebGL seems to be that in many cases it won't run on the desktop and while in my experience it works consistently on a phones and tablets the sites/web apps aren't usually designed for them.

<comment><USER5> Hopefully as WebGL gets more and more uses there will be more effort in supporting it properly driver wise. I suspect the reason support is so inconsistent right now is because there hasn't been enough demand to bring focus on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sweet, submitted my game, Pizza Snake.

You may want to change the locale of the like/share FB buttons to english and update the copyright date at the bottom.</comment>


What Would an iPod Cost to Produce in the USA? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/haque/2009/07/a_fair_labor_ipod_what_would_i.html

<comment><USER2> Just reading the comments over there fills me with despair.

The global economy is broken by design. It cares nothing for individuals or nations.

Take a big long look at it and tell me a nation that stocks shelves is healthy.

</comment><comment> onreact-com This is not a big price difference. I buy fair trade and organic where I can and prices are sometimes even below those of the exploitative and contaminated products.

In other cases the clean ones cost twice as much or more as the evil ones. So this case is not bad at all.

It's like buying your car where you know it's stolen for 20% less, would you do it?</comment>


Hard Problems – The Road to the World's Toughest Math Contest (2006) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvroykxedDw <comment><USER2> Here is the website of the movie for background information [http://www.hardproblemsmovie.com/](http://www.hardproblemsmovie.com/).

</comment><comment><USER3> Funny how most guys in that video are in the bay area currently (stanford phd, or bay area tech company)

<comment><USER2> What I find most interesting is to see where math PhDs from top universities and IMO medalists end up 10 years later.

The blog post [http://andrewgelman.com/2015/03/17/1980-math-olympiad- progra...](http://andrewgelman.com/2015/03/17/1980-math-olympiad-program-now/) does that for the 1980 american IMO team (among which Noam Elkies): academia, finance, software engineering...</comment></comment>


Inside the Eye: Nature's Most Exquisite Creation - <AUTHOR> http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/evolution-of-eyes-text <comment><USER2> Peter Böhm's looking very cyborg there:

[http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/evolution- eyes/img...](http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/evolution- eyes/img/pixels-chip-implant-lost-photoreceptors-1536.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER3> If the eye is so amazing, how come nearly everyone needs glasses?

<comment><USER4> Eyes are basically video cameras made of jello. They're amazing in the sense that, given their constraints, they work at all.

As a side note, I suspect brains are about as good at thinking as eyes are at seeing.</comment></comment>


Show HN: real-time event social feedback platform - <AUTHOR> https://www.feedvenue.com Just built an MVP for a real-time event social feedback platform, would love to get some feedback from the community. Does this seem useful to people? <comment><USER2> Really cool idea - definitely like the idea of using it during a talk / presentation as a way to answer the most popular questions, rather than randomly picking people who are raising their hands.</comment>


YC Summer 2015 complete startup list - <AUTHOR> https://triplebyte.com/ycombinator-startups

<comment><USER2> the whole list at [http://yclist.com/](http://yclist.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> That list hasn't been updated since Dec 08, 2014 :)

<comment><USER3> can it be open source so someone can update it? I understand the pain of going back to old websites..</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Ek – one app all cabs - <AUTHOR> http://ekapp.co <comment><USER2> This is a very cool swiss-army knife for the abundance of cab aggregators in India. Am gonna give it a whirl the next time I need transportation.

Because I've not used it yet, I'm curious as to whether you're using deep- linking to get to the other cabs? If the taxi companies offer APIs, I think another powerful use-case would be to link up to those APIs. Without them, this is a pretty good tool!

<comment><USER2> really disappointing that the app developer doesn't even condescend to replying to posts on his ShowHN posting

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How does it differentiate itself from say scoot or other such apps ?</comment>


How to Convert HSV to RGB Color? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your suggestions. It was very useful for me ? Also this is useful: [https://www.easycalculation.com/colorconverter/hsv-to-rgb- co...](https://www.easycalculation.com/colorconverter/hsv-to-rgb- converter.php)

There were also some more conversions which was very useful for me.

Thank you guys.

</comment><comment><USER2> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSL_and_HSV#From_H](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSL_and_HSV#From_H)

</comment><comment> bob-situmorang [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17242144/javascript- conve...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17242144/javascript-convert-hsb- hsv-color-to-rgb-accurately)</comment>


Ask HN: What types of software have to be perfect? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Probably things like life support device firmwares, or like Boeing's recent software issue that may have been related to the deaths of those on the 737 max. Any software that has to do with life and death needs a certain high level of perfection to avoid calamity. That's just what I was thinking off the top of my head..

</comment><comment><USER3> Firmware for embedded devices that don't have a patch mechanism. Has to be right the first time or it's game over.

Device drivers, since the consequences are a kernel panic/BSOD.

</comment><comment><USER4> AI which is used for making decisions about other peoples life, cant be perfect. For example: A raceist is coding a software for the court or for a prison. Life is more complex like a living beeing under different conditions. Sorry i am german, but not a real german. So i am not sure if you guys understand the way of my thoughts. And different types of software makes no difference in my view. Software can never be perfect, when ethical rules were broken with it. Theres a german philosopher Thomas Metzinger,i think he is right when he is saying: We need a new culture of conciousness, specialy in our technical behaveiour and AI. If i would be a data-scientist who could handle or program an AI, i would maybe ask this guy how to build up a good setup of human mind. Or how to give the AI her own, and on ethical rules based counciousness. For me total noob, an AI would be nice, which could handle my whole OS/Pc. When i say, make a new random profile, Ai is fixing it. Or when is say, send all traffic only trouh one port, hide me, or hide urself. Maybe it is acting like an avatar in the internet. Or he-she-it can act as someone other unknown and not real existing person, and so on. A lot of weird ideas and crazy thoughts. Only because of my little understanding of technical limits. I dont know if this is really possible, i am not a coder. But since i started reading some different articles here, i get a whole new view at some points of our world. People need an AI whos acting like our friend, and not like a spy whos stealing all our data and records all our activities. I know, thats the way our world keeps going on, these days. But it feels a little bit sick. Every word i am writing here, maybe is beeing used to feed an algorithm. Or to try some new AI systems for making predictions, or manipualting my/our behaviour, or whatever. I hope i trust in the good guys here :) If not, anyway. Life goes on till program end.

Seems like there are a lot of different kinds of programmer here. And that the most of them, over the last years, maybe 15-20yrs. Became a own, wider spread culture of conciousness, directly based on ethical rules. And this community- shared-conciousness, is growing more and more togheter. It is only my personell view from outside! I think, maybe because u guys are often directly involved in nearly everything and everywhere. Without you programmers, coders or hackers, scientists and freaks, this world could not, and would not work properly. And you guys here, are already looking forward to make the world a better place, without dollarnotes in the eyes. Wished i could give you back something, but i only have my thoughts, my weird mind and a crazy view at this world. This is i can share with you guys. You see the world in codes, while i see what codes actually can and could do to our world. You know the echnical limits, while i think without limits, because i only see options and possibilities. A weirdo and a programmer/hacker could see different things as the same, or same things totaly different. Theres only a compiler needed, what i think is communication. While u know the code, i only know human language words to share my technical expirience. Sry for long text. But had to say that, to find inner peace. P.s. Boeing will get more trouble i think. It will be based on experimental fuels and their effects to our atmospheric watervapour and transportation, also the reflection and microphysikal effekts in our atmosphere also of uv-radiation. Thats what I read out of different things that happend. By boeing, climate-science, atmospheric-chemical-physic- reactions. Weatherforecast, different things worldwide happens, are often conneted to each other, without knowong of mainstream. I say there is a big lack of data, in the field of experimental-fuels, weatherexperiments and sharing this data to others. Im not a scientist, i am more like an autistic with some special interessts. NASA and DLR are doing Experimental-fuel- reserach. Boeing and rolls royce also. Then they mixed their science. Climatcontrol with aviation exhaust. Cooling or warming with diffrent kind of contrails. Maybe im going to die, for what i am saying now. But people are totaly naive if they really think only the carindustry can manipulate their exhaust. I maybe dont know coding, but i know how single humans can act, and which trouble can come up for whole world, only from one human. And when i take a look back now, what happend the last years, and think about some corelations, there will be some heavy news about our climate in nearest future. I hope i am not right.</comment>