Client-Side MVC's Major Bug - deepak-kumar http://timkadlec.com/2015/02/client-side-templatings-major-bug/

<comment> deepak-kumar I somehow agree with this "if your client-side MVC framework does not support server-side rendering, that is a bug. It cripples performance." and it always felt right.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> nice read</comment>


Amazon Alexa gets Samuel L Jackson and other celebrity voices - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49829391 <comment><USER2> It's like were back in 2000 with in car GPS systems</comment>


Launch HN: PostEra (YC W20) Medicinal Chemistry-as-a-Service and Covid Moonshot - <AUTHOR> Hey everyone! We're Alpha, Matt and Aaron, co-founders of PostEra (https://postera.ai/). The title above is quite a mouthful (we used all 80 characters) so we'll begin by breaking down what it means.
What is medicinal chemistry? It's part of discovering new drugs. A drug hunter decides what disease to focus on and then selects 'targets': usually proteins whose activity is key to the disease. Then they look for a molecule that can 'hit' that target and stimulate a response which will hopefully have beneficial effects. Developing such a molecule that is potent and safe is medicinal chemistry.
Despite it being a crucial part of drug development, this field has relied on trial-and-error approaches—a very expensive way to muddle toward a drug. Where computational tools have been used, they have emphasized the 'best' designs without any awareness of what it would take to physically make the drug in a lab and test it. Our approach is to apply computational methods that know how to make these designs.
We've been working on developing machine learning tools to advance the field for the last 3 years. Alpha formed a lab at Cambridge in 2017 to apply machine learning to drug discovery. Matt joined the group and soon some exciting results began to emerge, particularly in the area of how to make molecules. We published the first model to outperform trained human chemists in predicting the outcomes of chemical reactions. Alpha then got Aaron, his former mathematics classmate and debate partner at Oxford to leave his job for the world of drug discovery.
We decided to focus on the one challenge that exists at almost every step: molecules need to be made. No matter how clever it looks on paper, a molecule is worthless unless it can be tested in a lab. The task of actually making molecules, known as chemical synthesis, is often a challenging problem, involving the combinatorial explosion of games like Go with moves that can't be defined in a simple rulebook.
You start with a set of simple molecules which can be combined through chemical reactions (a 'move') to form more and more complex molecules, known as the 'route', until you arrive at your desired drug candidate. But how to combine these molecules? Trial and error is not an option, given the enormous cost of doing chemistry, and just enumerating all options to a client is unhelpful given that your average molecule can have hundreds of theoretically-possible routes. Searching this tree of routes and scoring the viability of such routes is where ML becomes very powerful.
We developed a machine-translation approach which takes in reactants and outputs the product of a reaction; an approach very similar to how Google Translate operates. This allows us to score the viability of each move. We combine this with fast tree search algorithms, used in models like AlphaGo to efficiently search the large combinatorial space of possible reactions.
To get this technology in front of users, we're building a cloud-based platform. Clients input the molecule they want to be made, our system designs a route for how to make it, and then the client can order this molecule through our platform. We don't own a lab, but we partner with chemical manufacturers around the world who execute the routes we design. Combining automated chemical synthesis with compound ordering creates a better experience for the drug hunter who wants to focus on their science and just wants a vial with their compound without the cumbersome process of figuring out how to make it and where to get it from.
All that is what we were working on until the pandemic hit... and now we can answer the second part of the title: COVID Moonshot.
We had just finished YC W20 when a tweet from a team of scientists quickly changed our travel (and company) trajectory. A team of scientists at Diamond Light Source in the UK had shown that a selection of chemical fragments were effective at binding to a key part of the COVID virus. We realised there were hundreds of chemists sitting at home, with their projects on hold, who could help take these fragments and turn them into genuine drug candidates—an open-science approach to crowdsourcing a new drug. We created a platform where designs could be submitted and hoped for maybe 50 to 100 submissions. In the first few weeks, we've received over 4000 submissions from 200 scientists around the world.
This was the start of a COVID Moonshot initiative that we are now helping lead. It is an international consortium of scientists drawn from academia, biotechs, and pharma, all working pro bono or at cost with no IP claims on any resulting drug candidates. The aim is to find an antiviral candidate for COVID-19 by the end of the year—a 'moonshot' of a time frame compared with the standard drug discovery paradigm.
That standard paradigm is unfortunately broken when it comes to pandemic-related diseases. Biology and chemistry are hard enough, but things become even intractable when there are little or no commercial incentives to develop new therapies. Sadly, this explains why promising antibiotic companies like Achaogen go bankrupt and why, even after SARS-CoV brought the Far East to a halt in 2003, we still didn't invest in coronavirus therapies during the last 17 years. For therapies that only become critical once every few decades, we need a new approach to developing drugs.
We think that drug hunters can learn something from the CS community and its embrace of open source. Similarly to open-source software development, someone has to manage the roadmap and triage suggestions. For Moonshot, the candidate drug submissions are great but we obviously can't make and test all of them, so how do you pick the most promising ones? Here is where our technology comes in: it can identify which candidates can be synthesized easily. Since in a pandemic you need to move quickly, prioritizing compounds that can be synthesized easily is a natural triaging mechanism. Where a human chemist would take 3-4 weeks, we were able to design synthetic routes for all submissions within 48 hours. The top route designs were then passed on to our chemical manufacturing partner for synthesis. We've now experimentally tested over 500 compounds and found several promising candidates which we are now testing further. All data is publicly available on the site: https://postera.ai/covid
Inspired by open-source software, we're seeing advantages of open-science collaboration in areas where market incentives are lacking. We started with the opportunity to connect drug hunters with the latest ML, but have expanded this into a platform that helps connect scientists with each other. This is particularly needed when it comes to drug discovery logistics—the fragment screens are conducted in Oxford and The Weizmann Institute in Israel, computational methods are done by PostEra in California and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and chemical synthesis is carried out across several countries. Many of the features we are rolling out, such as automated alerts on suggested drug designs, open forum discussions, and live data uploads, feel very akin to a 'GitHub for drug development'.
Identifying biological mechanisms of diseases and forecasting clinical outcomes are huge problems, but we believe that the chemistry stage of drug discovery can become a reliable industry rather than an artisanal craft. Machine learning tech is a key part and we're still working on it, but our clients have been constantly reminding us that just the logistical aspects of drug discovery are a great source of pain. Science software is also notoriously hard to use so we've learned that combining good UI with good ML should be our ambition. Our current mantra is: ordering a molecule through PostEra should be as easy as ordering a pizza!
We need more researchers, coders and chemists to help us on this journey and we'd love to hear from you if our vision sounds like something you could get on board with! Here are the open positions within the company we are now actively hiring for: https://www.workatastartup.com/companies/13332
Over to you, HN! We're eager to hear your feedback, questions, ideas and experiences in this area. <comment><USER2> Great idea! If I have a list of drug candidates and your software can apply a confidence level on the best route to synthesize a product that is better than chemists you're company is very valuable.

Inital thoughts - defining easy of synthetic pathway seems hard. If I'm an organic chemist and the recommended molecule involves a cost, technique or equipment that's inaccessible then I'd be stuck. However, if your network of manufactures can make it then labs may consider outsourcing it. I commonly see 10 to 1000x pricing differences in custom synthesis so there's also a risk of one vendor quoting too high and development prematurely stopping. For context and those that maybe outside this field, you can get a quote for over a million dollars for scaling up a product such as 100mg to 10g (not even a new route). You may need large amounts of the molecule for assay, animal testing, humans trials and going to market. Technique and equipment may not be an issue if your network is large enough, It will be interesting to see if you charge the drug companies as like a SaaS play and/or percent of sale from manufacturers like the YC company Science Exchange. Another idea is offering the software for free and make a percentage on the patent (IP) related the pathway.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes absolutely, the variance of pricing across different custom synthesis providers can be surprising. This we think though is actually an opportunity to serve our end users (drug hunters) better. Generally the cost of synthesis is a function of raw material costs and the labor time (translates to number of synthetic steps and risk of each step). All these parameters are datapoints we have access to or can model through ML. As such we've found that the ability to search large chemical databases is a huge saving when many clients may often just default to use a single CRO provider who may not be the best provider for their synthesis request. We are aiming to build a good network of reliable CRO providers to address the shortcoming and work with them to improve algorithms to optimize for reaction conditions etc.

Regarding pricing model this is something we are still working on. And yes you've hit the nail on the head -- We could charge the drug hunter (SaaS or IP) or we could charge the CROs that we send the custom synthesis to. Love to hear your thoughts here.

<comment><USER2> In my experience, cost is not related to materials and labor. For example, CROs know if they're likely the only company that can make a product and will charge accordingly. Often and to me sadly, a bidding processes is needed to determine market value of production. I've seen CROs instantly cut pricing in half if you present another option.

I would be cautious with chemical database (unsure which you are using) as there are companies that post chemicals as lead generation and cannot make them.

If you solve the selection of the best route, helping with sourcing the product may not be worth your resources. In other words, just that piece alone, if done well, is very valuable and hope the market sees it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes I guess I was referring to more robust, standard chemistry for which we would expect the pricing to be a little more formulaic.

And you make a great point. We've been constantly reminded that virtual spaces created by CROs are not always executable. As such we can actually constrain our algorithms to require very high probability of reaction success to remove false positives. We then tell the CRO what building blocks they need and the route design. We're still figuring how much of the lifecycle of making molecules is worth going after or, if indeed as you say, the route itself is the key solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> A few random thoughts I'm curious about (full disclosure: I worked in anti- infectives R&D as a bioinformatician early in my career for a major pharma)

1) One big challenge in synthesis is ensuring compound purity. Even when I was working in pharma, it was often the case that some of the compounds in the screening library could be contaminated with intermediates. This is murder for any kind of anti-infectives research because you end up with false-positives for toxic intermediates. Since your assay is often, "does the compound kill the bug?" the answer for most chemicals is, "yes!". How do you ensure the purity of what you deliver to your customers? If I'm a medicinal chemist wanting to try this, I want to know that I'm not getting a vial of brick dust back.

2) Just because you have a mechanism to synthesize, doesn't mean the yield is going to be great. Does your algorithm factor in yield when selecting the route?

3) When I started reading your post I thought, "Hats off to these folks, this is a super hard problem that no shortage of extremely smart people have spent years trying to solve." Then I got to the moonshot section! The number of small molecule antiviral drugs with efficacy is vanishingly small. I understand why you would try to tackle this, but it truly is a moonshot.

4) I can't help but wonder what Derek Lowe ([https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/](https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/)) thinks of all this, have you guys tried to reach out to him?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. We ensure that the compound is pure using analytical methods like NMR and LC/MS. In our Moonshot project, the assay cascade comprises biochemical assays against the main protease (2 different assay methodologies, run in Oxford and Weizmann Institute) and live virus assays, thus we should be able to infer whether the activity is caused by impurities killing the virus. In addition, we also perform high-throughput x-ray crystallography to determine the structures of all the protein-ligand complexes, which serves an an orthogonal assay.

2\. Yes, our algorithm does factor in the yield when it decides which reaction to use.

3\. You're absolutely right. It is very ambitious but we've realized that even if we don't get our compounds into human trials (currently aiming for in-vivo testing in next few weeks) that we will still have generated a lot of useful data that is there in the open for when the next pandemic comes around. This has been a real weakness from prior pandemic where research wasn't continued and certainly wasn't stored in clean accessible ways. As I'm sure you know SARS has super high genetic similarity to current COV-2 so having prior data accessible and cleaned would have given researchers a real head start.

4\. Yes Derek is aware of COVID Moonshot and is also of the opinion that is it both ambitious but sadly necessary. We continue to follow his posts as healthy skepticism particularly in the area of AI for drug discovery is always helpful.

<comment><USER3> It didn't come across in my post in retrospect, but just want to say clearly I love this idea and the ambitious nature of it. I think when someone works in drug discovery, it's hard to escape this feeling that there has to be a better, faster, cheaper way. But at the same time, the reality of seeing how little we actually understand about biological systems on display each and every day tends to be quite a downer! The world sorely needs more of this kind of thinking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is an EXCELLENT write-up. Thank you for both doing what you're doing and for explaining it so well. I'm a software guy and have always found biosciences to be a mysterious black box, and you've cracked it open it in a wonderfully enlightening way.

Best of luck to your team and the project!

<comment><USER5> Definitely an excellent write up if not one of the best Launch HN write ups I have seen.

<comment><USER6> Agreed. I don't think I can really help with this but I know exactly what they're doing and wish them luck. The copy was very clear and immediately lends confidence to the team.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow, this seems very interesting. As someone who did his CS Master thesis with vaccines, medicinal chemistry is something that I always enjoy, so I chcked your open positions. Sadly, I saw that even for Remote positions you are asking for a VISA. Can I ask why? Thank you!

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah thanks for pointing this out; it is slightly misleading. Visa is only required if applicants want to work with us in our in-person office in the Bay Area, CA. If they are a non-US citizen we sadly can't sponsor a visa. Though certainly for remote work we wouldn't require it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love the idea: in particular, the arbitrary molecule generation. I've been thinking about is using the mechanical structures already provided by DNA to generate antibodies by reading the DNA tape in the same way that human cells assemble proteins. But it would be great to find a more general solution based on chemical computation that doesn't rely on and isn't limited by organic chemistry.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, certainly an interesting idea. For now our models are trained on large corpora of organic chemistry reactions so our tech has some way to go before extrapolating outside this space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Kudos on the launch!

If I read this correctly, your team isn't discovering new drugs, but addressing the logistical need of building new compounds to make drugs, using ML to circumnavigate the most efficacious route to generate said compounds. Once complete, you actually outsource to manufacturers to build the compound molecules using your ML generated map.

Is that close?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a great description. For now we are focused on helping others discover novel drugs (rather than developing our own) and we think using ML to design 'recipes', while solving logistical challenges of shipping molecules around the globe, is a really key part of that process. And yes the manufacturers do use our ML generated recipes to make the compounds.

Outside of this we also engage clients on more in-depth partnerships where we help design, make and test new drug candidates but again our real value- add/USP here is the 'make' stage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is incredibly cool. As someone looking to try out some ideas around applied ML, can I ask what your stack looks like?

<comment><USER11> Employee here.

React/Django/Postgres on AWS for APIs and websites. Terraform to manage the infrastructure. cortex.dev for serving some ML models, AWS Lambda for serving others. ML models are all PyTorch at the moment, with RDKit doing the chemistry heavy lifting. Data obtained through various means, including some tools from nextmovesoftware.com

There's a bunch more tech involved in supporting the scientists in the COVID moonshot, but that's basically everything ML-related.

Any particular part of the stack you were curious about?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Alpha, you had a nice arxiv preprint on spin glasses and ML. The Wales lab strikes again!

<comment><USER13> Thanks! That was a fun project to work on! We're also doing some work now to map out how the energy landscape changes as a function of network depth, and it appears that the landscapes of DNNs look dissimilar to typical structural glasses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sounds interesting and I'll be following you with interest. That said in my experience deciding how to make a compound is not really the challenge, the real challenge is deciding what to make.

<comment><AUTHOR> Certainly we can appreciate that better designs are important though we chose to focus on synthesis as there is an oversupply of algorithms in literature/industry that can suggest designs ideas (we published a few of our own) while the synthesis space was less explored and we think provides the biggest leverage point to speed up cycle times.

Ultimately when partnering with drug hunters, outside of our cloud-based platform, we offer the integration of molecular design with chemical synthesis as we believe computational approaches are at their most useful when these two aspects are coupled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> When/how will this be exploited by the "designer drugs"/"research chemicals" community to start a drop-shipping psychoactives business?

<comment><AUTHOR> As a company we certainly work hard to ensure our technology is used for approved drug development. We have internal alerts as a company as to the risk of compounds being entered into our system and certainly suppliers and chemical manufacturers have high regulatory oversight. But yes there is always such an unfortunate risk but something we do spend time thinking about.

<comment><USER15> Maybe I should have phrased my question differently - your startup being exploited by a large group of people with disposable cash and unmet demands is one of the best possible outcomes.

What is an "approved" drug development? Who gets to decide, when the substances are not restricted or scheduled? This means making them is not illegal. So I fail to see how it is an "unfortunate risk", except a risk of making money- which would be fortunate :)

You are missing opportunities just due to your specific moral stance. Drop- shipping is an excellent way to have new customer acquisition pipelines without having to pay for them.

<comment><AUTHOR> This could be my misunderstanding of the definition of "designer drugs" but I interpreted this as substances which mimic controlled substances but don't trigger drug classification or testing. Assuming this definition then this is something we wouldn't feel comfortable supporting regardless of the cash or demand. My understanding is that these substances are not tested in animal and human trials or approved by governing bodies like the FDA which are critical for the safety and efficacy of use.

Though please do correct me if I'm missing the use case you are referring to.

<comment><USER15> No correction needed, it is mostly correct - however, a lot of these substances have been tested and do not even mimic controlled substances: MK667 is a good example.

I think you may be throwing the baby with the bathwater, as designing and improving designer drugs is an untapped market with far more potential upsides than downsides.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Would PostEra be interested in using their platform to cure a neglected disease? [https://deeplearningindaba.com/grand- challenges/leishmaniasi...](https://deeplearningindaba.com/grand- challenges/leishmaniasis/)

<comment><AUTHOR> This looks very similar to our Moonshot open-science initiative and we love the idea of using crowdsourcing when such diseases lack commercial funding. If you know the folks who are organising this we'd be very happy to discuss with them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> this is an awesome idea and a very lucid explanation. good luck!

apologies if this is wildly inaccurate, but is it fair to characterize your startup as helping people create custom drugs the same way ARM helped people create custom chips? from the outside, it seems like there could be intriguing parallels.

<comment> mc-robinson Thanks, really interesting parallel -- though I can't say I'm intimately familiar with how ARM's model works. I'll definitely do some reading.

But yes, we are very interested in helping people get made what they want to get made. It often falls into two situations:

(1) If the customer knows exactly the custom design they want to get made, we can help them find the best way to purchase or synthesize it. In many cases, customers may have trouble coordinating with CROs themselves, finding the best building blocks and route to the molecule, and dealing with logistics. We try to help ease that pain.

(2) The customer has a specific target they want to hit and they need just the right small molecule to "fit" in it. We also help with this, mainly through partnerships. And our thinking is that good design of small molecule inhibitors (such as one targeting the COVID main protease) involves expert knowledge of what can be quickly made and tested to help guide further design.

Lastly, we also work on suggesting molecules that may be slightly different from what the customer thinks they want, but may show similar activity -- and will be much easier to make.

<comment><USER17> if the comparison is accurate, the world you're enabling is one where custom drugs are as prevalent as custom chips and chem labs act as "foundries" to produce drugs. the role you play is to help customers with the design layer of the drug stack. if the parallels between the drug and semiconductor industries hold true, this framing would make it easier for investors to grasp the (massive) potential.

in the end, if your value tilts more toward logistics than IP, you may want to mine chemistry.com (?) for lessons, a startup from the dot-com boom funded by john doerr and kleiner perkins. the grand vision was to disrupt and streamline the logistics of the chemical industry.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for this. Always keen to learn from older startups but I was unable to find the company you're referring to -- any idea as to the name?

<comment><USER17> Sorry, the startup was named Chemdex (later Ventro). One article summarizing its downfall: [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la- xpm-2001-jun-24-fi-14133...](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la- xpm-2001-jun-24-fi-14133-story.html). There were others like ChemConnect, but Chemdex was the most high-profile.

If the article is correct, high costs for building and maintaining the "Amazon for chemicals" were the primary cause of failure.

Many great ideas are a matter of when, not if. Knowing when to launch is as critical for entrepreneurs as is knowing when to buy for investors.

A modern Chemdex might thrive like the modern Webvan (ie Instacart) because if costs were the cause of death, a cloud infrastructure would address this issue.

Obviously, this is a very different model from the ARM model.

Hopefully one of these comparisons can offer helpful insights.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nice!</comment>


React Virtualized: Components for large data sets - <AUTHOR> https://bvaughn.github.io/react-virtualized/ <comment><USER2> Quite impressive. Thanks for sharing.</comment>


Photo Story: The Days Before the Xobni Launch - <AUTHOR> http://www.gaborcselle.com/blog/2007/09/photo-story-days-before-xobni-launch.html

<comment><USER2> Very nice of you to share this. It really conveyed the kind of pre-release urgency, uncertainty, and excitement that most people don't talk about, let alone document. Thanks.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is a good idea. It's fun to see what went on behind the curtain. I'll have to remember to take more pictures next time around.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thank you! A picture is worth 2^9 words.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is awesome -- thanks, Gabor.</comment>


Ask HN: What mental models you found useful in delivering impact as an engineer? - <AUTHOR> I hear people talking that it takes more than great programming skills for an engineer to be successful (particularly at fast moving tech companies). As an engineer, I have learned certain mindsets that have helped me do better in my work. For example: 1) an average to a problem well understood can potentially deliver bigger impact than a great solution to a problem poorly understood, 2) not all problems are worth solving and ability to prioritize them in terms of impact is a core skill, etc.<p>What mental models have you found useful in your career as an engineer? Or if you're not an engineer, what mental models you think engineers need to have to deliver bigger impact? <comment><USER2> _(sorry for the formatting, I haven 't gotten the hang of HN's formatting syntax yet and wrote this freeform without much proofreading)_

These things come with experience over time, but the fact that you've made it far enough to ask the right questions in the right place to ask them is 90% of the journey.

I realize this sounds cliche, but I can't stress enough that health comes first. I would make the following a priority if you feel you're not taking as good care of yourself as you should:

Eat reasonably healthy (just avoiding junk food is enough, no need to go overboard)

Get enough sleep (and eliminate whatever habits get in the way of that) - Without enough sleep, your mind will in subtle ways try to put the least amount of effort toward doing things. This is especially dangerous if you are trying to counteract those effects with things like caffeine or stronger stimulants.

Don't do anything stupid to harm your body. Contrary to popular belief, you are not a Zerg mutant with infinite bodily regeneration capabilities. It will catch up to you sooner than you think it will.

It's quite hard to improve one's mental habits when not in the best shape (but if you fucked up early on like I did, it's never too late to make things better).

Assuming you're already doing all that, I'll speak specifically to your post:

1\. __Don 't burn yourself out, especially for a job you don't enjoy. __

Not a mental model per se, but more of a disclaimer that I highly advise against pursuing such efforts unless you feel the company is a good fit for you. I 've personally found that being successful at a company depends as much on the company as it does you. All the talk about culture fit applies here (though I personally hate the terminology). Sometimes you can adapt to environments that are challenging, but sometimes that can be a case of learning bad and toxic habits. And sometimes, no matter how much better you think you perform, it won't improve your job security. So you have to first understand whether you're really happy in that environment. Don't burn yourself out to try to get ahead of the technical debt curve just to try to earn some job security in an environment that you don't feel at home with in the first place.

2\. __Document what you 're going to do, and why, before you start doing it. __

This doesn 't mean you can't amend the plan when you see a reason to, but your technical changes should be driven by your written plan, and nothing else. If you don't do this, the complexities of the technical systems you're touching will bleed into the mental model you've set for yourself with what you're trying to build. You'll exert subconscious effort to try to maintain some grounding, but inevitably you'll slip at some point and end up doing too much or too little changes. Then you may exert significantly more effort trying to explain to your peers or boss why you spent extra time building something that has no apparent need, especially these days with the plague that is Scrum (fragile, not agile).

You don't necessarily have to do this for all of your work, but deviating from this procedure should be the exception and not the rule.

3\. __Avoid band-aid workarounds __

Always fix the root cause! Always! Okay, there are times when this is not possible. Sometimes, the root cause is part of a piece of legacy software that can 't be modified easily or at all. Sometimes the problem is with a closed- source library, an API, or data feed from external partners. It's okay to do workarounds in those cases, but you should be extra vigilant for the pros and cons of doing it. Make sure the business, not just your Scrum Lord, is getting a real benefit from seeing it done. In any case, when doing a workaround, it's wise to include detailed documentation in the appropriate places as to why that workaround exists, or it will contribute to the pain, suffering, and burnout of future members of your team. While this can happen to companies of any stage or size, the real danger zone here IMO lies with companies in the Series B range, as hacky throwaway code could be done with no consequence before then, and is even somehow encouraged by some as a best practice for early stage companies.

The other major exception to this is emergencies, involving downtime, prevention of downtime, or other significant operational incidents. However, meeting the deadline for your Scrum sprint is not an emergency. If your boss can't be convinced to understand this, your choices are to do a better job of convincing, invite them to convince you otherwise (they may succeed!), or to find another place to work. If something is time-critical for business reasons, it's your product manager's job to inform you of that.

If your job feels threatened even slightly by the concept of missing sprints, then you must make it a priority to resolve that, because even the presence of that feeling is itself a good reason for the job to be at stake, as it's indicative of critical communication problems with your immediate team. And it most likely isn't your fault but rather just a failure of the team as a whole (though you have the most power to do something about it regardless of the root cause). It is a growing pain that can be solved, as long as you're not working with assholes.

There is one time where this no-bandaid rule must be broken when you are short on time, but you should work to avoid having ever happen in the first place. If the business you work for (via CEO, PM, whoever) is mandating a hard deadline for a given feature, then you probably should err on the side of getting it done ASAP. If you are in this situation, don't panic. See if you can work it out with your team to spend time after the release to ensure that technical debt is manageable and things are working reasonably smoothly after some code polish. You can prevent some of these scenarios in the future by having a maintainable codebase, and you get a maintainable codebase by reducing technical debt, and you minimize technical debt by not implementing band-aid solutions to appease Scrum Lords. To put it simply: Business deadlines are real, but Scrum deadlines can amount to a hoax. Refer to this article to see Scrum actually addressing this problem: [https://www.scrum.org/resources/commitment-vs- forecast](https://www.scrum.org/resources/commitment-vs-forecast)

Another thread/post regarding technical debt: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19850629](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19850629)

4\. __Maintain Good Relations and Build Influence __

Building influence will make it easier to succeed in virtually all tasks, big or small. I can 't recommend quick wisdom on this one, but could point you to a few good books (or audiobooks if you prefer). Takes years to learn this. I personally prefer to allow time to digest and sleep on the knowledge gained from books, though others (notably Bill Gates) swear by the method of binge reading.

[https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion- Rober...](https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Robert- Cialdini/dp/006124189X)

[https://www.amazon.com/48-Laws-Power-Robert- Greene/dp/014028...](https://www.amazon.com/48-Laws-Power-Robert- Greene/dp/0140280197)

[https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Life-Work-Ray-Dalio- ebook/...](https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Life-Work-Ray-Dalio- ebook/dp/B071CTK28D)

[https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs- eboo...](https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs- ebook/dp/B0739PYQSS)

I decided to spend a good chunk of time writing this as I start a new job which I really hope to be successful at, and I want to reinforce and review what I think will lead toward that goal. But I hope this is found to be useful to others too.</comment>


Ex-Goldman Programmer Is Arrested Again - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/09/ex-goldman-programmer-is-arrested-again/ <comment><USER2> At first I was thinkign "double jeopardy" but the article explains why that isn't the case. Basically the federal law was misapplied so the state of New York can bring their own charges (actually, they could probably do this anyway).

This does seem wrong to me because he's essentially being charged for much the same crime on the same set of facts. It seems like when the dual-sovereignty Federal-State system was created the idea was that that the Federal and State governments would be responsible for different things such that you would be violating either Federal or State law (or possibly both but for different offences).

This seems like prosecutorial abuse.

That all being said, if you consider the facts int his case: the code in question was highly sensitive and as much as the article calls the action of sending it to a server in Germany (IIRC) a "mistake", it seems fairly clear to me that it was or was intended to be theft.

Just don't take code from a former employer. Ever. This is a good rule of thumb for every engineer to follow,. Even if what you're doing isn't (likely to be) criminal conduct, you can then run afoul of copyright claims and so forth if you ever implement something similar.

<comment><USER3> >This seems like prosecutorial abuse.

Goldman gives a lot of money to political campaigns (#1 donor to Obama[1], #2 to Romney[2] in last election). NY mayor Michael Bloomberg seems to fawn over Goldman[3], offering $1.65B in tax breaks for them to set up an office at Ground Zero[4]. My guess is Goldman's gold, regardless of the means in which they've acquired it, is a significant factor to Manhattnan DA's sudden interest in prosecuting white collar crime.

[1] <http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cid=N00009638>

[2] <http://www.opensecrets.org/pres12/contrib.php?id=N00000286>

[3] [http://www.salon.com/2012/03/16/mayor_bloomberg_personally_c...](http://www.salon.com/2012/03/16/mayor_bloomberg_personally_cheers_up_goldman_sachs/)

[4] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bloomberg#Economic_issu...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bloomberg#Economic_issues)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you ever wondered, this is what it looks like when a corporation has politicians in their pocket. Goldman Sachs is the extreme example of capitalism gone wrong. So powerful they can't lose money and so powerful they can treat legislators and law enforcement like the employees they are.

<comment><USER5> _Goldman Sachs is the extreme example of capitalism gone wrong._

I find it interesting this sort of thing is rarely, if ever, presented as government gone wrong. Not everything based on self-interest falls within capitalism. When someone steals, commits extortion, etc., no one considers it an "example of capitalism". And yet when the government engages in such at the behest of self-interested parties, "capitalism" gets the rap. Quite odd.

<comment><USER6> Interesting point in semantics. Crony Capitalism and Political Prostitution are basically different facets of the same thing. Perhaps it depends on who you blame more: the politicians for taking the money, or business people for offering it.

Either way, the main question is how do you counter it or at least balance it out so the little people don't get trampled?

<comment><USER7> "Crony Capitalism"

Which is an oxymoron; government favoritism is the antithesis of capitalism. The fact that money is involved doesn't make it capitalism.

<comment><USER8> What does non-government have to do with capitalism? Libertarianism is a different word.

<comment><USER7> Capitalism is about transferable private property rights. In order to be transferable, they need to be enforced somewhat evenly.

Libertarianism is a different concept that includes economic policies and non- economic policies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What is the prosecution's justification for this not being double-jeopardy?

<comment><USER10> Different jurisdictions, Federal and state.

It still seems pretty vindictive.

<comment><USER11> I really hate that this is allowed.

<comment><USER12> A person allegedly breaks several different laws in different jurisdictions; is prosecuted for each alleged violation in each jurisdiction. What's wrong with that?

A more extreme counterexample would be that a case where a person broke into an office and stole a USB stick, kidnapping an employee and shooting a guard on the way out. There's IP theft (federal), kidnapping (federal), and homicide (local). Which should that person _not_ be prosecuted for? How do you choose?

<comment><USER10> To me the biggest problem for an individual is that they incur the cost of defending themselves twice.

For state and federal governments the cost of 2 trials is inconsequential.

For an individual the cost of two trials can easily push them into bankruptcy. Now if the individual is guilty you might not have that much sympathy for them, but consider that innocent people have to defend them selves in court as well.

<comment><USER12> I agree with the general issue of the cost of defending oneself. But today, in New York alone, hundreds of poor people will be arrested and charged with crimes they may not be guilty of. Many will have been singled out because of their appearance. They will not have access to attorneys (except the public defender flunkies), and most will serve jail time. I have a lot more concern and sympathy for the breakage of the system for these guys than for the multimillionaire banker who was charged essentially only because he got caught.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sergey made their "secret sauce." If he had been more aware of who the laws were made for, and how they've had them written, he'd have never made such a stupid mistake in taking the actual code. It's not like he couldn't have completely recreated that sauce, from scratch with improvements, within a month or two.

Sergey _was_ the secret sauce. Erlang + OCaml might be a match made in heaven. It's just too bad that he works in a profession where the exact way you've gone about something is owned by your employer. If some fund manager brought his trading strategies to another firm, even if he came up with them at the previous firm, he wouldn't be spending a year in prison.

Of course, this is just what I think - I'm not allowed to see the code in question, so all I can do is guess.

<comment><USER14> Just going off memory here, but I believe he was found to have been ftp'ing code or snipplets of code to a server he had in Germany.

<comment><USER13> His code, to a pastebin-type site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Can't help but think they won't stop until they get their man, by hook or by crook.

</comment><comment><USER16> All pledge allegiance to The United States of Goldman Sachs. The power this company has to do whatever it wants is absolutely atrocious. This is nothing more than a company trying to hide the fact a low-level employee gained access to highly valuable source code that is regarded as the secret-sauce of Goldman Sachs which should never have happened in the first place. I've worked for small companies that have better security than that.

</comment><comment><USER17> If this guy hadn't successfully appealed the federal charges, could the state have waited until he'd finished that sentence before prosecuting? If yes, it's like you can get punished twice for the same crime in America.

<comment><USER12> Except that they are different laws and therefore different crimes. Let's use something more obvious: a bank robber who fatally shoots a guard on the way out. That's one event but several crimes. This person can absolutely be tried and sentenced for any/all of the crimes committed in that event, separately, in separate courts (federal and state). While I think the prosecutions are typically sequential, they wouldn't be combined (different jurisdictions).

Similar logic applies to a criminal who commits crimes across several states.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Goldman Sachs is above the law.

</comment><comment><USER19> Doesn't anyone believe in the concept of grace any more? Aleynikov made a mistake. Can't we move on? Goldman is subverting true justice. And if the code is so powerful, why should Goldman be able to continue using it in the first place?

<comment><USER20> Crime and punishment discussions aside, are you serious about forbidding them to use their code? How would that work out? Who would get to decide? What if someone deploys a too powerful team of humans to do the same thing?

<comment><USER21> Xmen?</comment></comment></comment>


Written for HN: The Robe of Entrepreneurship, a Short Story - <AUTHOR> http://primevector.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/the-robe-of-entrepreneurship-a-short-story/

<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote this short story because I enjoy the culture on Hacker News and because I was reading Maslow on Management. In the Maslow book, he was talking about the psychological importance of entrepreneurs to a society, and even recommended something like a monk's robe for entrepreneurs in order to endow them with a respect similar to doctors or other respected professions.

I find my best short stories are ones where I restrict myself to a theme or idea. In this case, the restricting theme was entrepreneurship.

</comment><comment><USER2> This is slightly offtopic, but the first time I saw Kobe Bryant play (in the McDonalds High School All-American Game) he wore a shirt under his jersey with one long sleeve, one no sleeve. Despite how you feel about him personally he is definitely his own person. This story seems to validate the concept that individuals can and should do things that make them...individuals...including wearing shirts with one short and one long sleeve.

:)</comment>


The Situation - <AUTHOR> http://randsinrepose.com/archives/the-situation/ <comment><USER2> Author's writing has always struck me as quite vague and difficult to glean anything from.</comment>


Mono 3.2 - <AUTHOR> http://www.mono-project.com/Release_Notes_Mono_3.2 <comment><USER2> Mono is HUGE thanks to Unity3D.[1]

I suspect that C#/Mono has become the de-facto second development language/environment for iOS thanks to Unity3D (an irony that doesn't escape me). It's certainly what all the iOS games programmers I know personally use (and I know a lot).

Wikipedia have Unity down as having over 1 million developers developing for iOS, Android, Windows, Blackberry 10, OS X, Linux, web browsers, Flash, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows Phone 8, and Wii U.[2]

Unity themselves claim[3]:

* 2M REGISTERED DEVELOPERS

* 400K MONTHLY ACTIVE DEVELOPERS

* 225M TOTAL WEB PLAYER INSTALLS

* 6.6M EDITOR SESSIONS JUN

[1][http://unity3d.com](http://unity3d.com)

[2][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(game_engine)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_\(game_engine\))

[3] [http://unity3d.com/company/public- relations/](http://unity3d.com/company/public-relations/)

<comment><USER3> And Unity3D is huge thanks to XNA (which was highly popular among amateur game developers) and the demise thereof, I think. Quite ironic indeed, makes me wonder how things would have turned out if .NET hadn't been standarised.

<comment><USER4> Unity and XNA are very different.

XNA is a very basic library to roll your own game engine.

Unity is a game engine that handles scenes, game objects, physics, animations, complex 3d animations and very sophisticated graphics effects all blended together in a powerful IDE.

XNA is a hammer and nails, Unity is a house.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like C# and I'm impressed with Mono but there is just something not right. It might be irrational but knowing that Microsoft's DNA is everywhere makes me feel uncomfortable.

I'm also not happy that Linux is a second class citizen - there is no Xamarin Studio for Linux, the latest version of MonoDevelop is not packaged for Linux, and the latest version of Mono 3.2 is only packaged for Mac as an easy download.

The idea of writing most of my application logic in C# and reusing it on desktop and mobile platforms is appealing, but I don't want to use proprietary libraries like Xamarin.iOS and Xamarin.Android, while on the desktop I don't know how well supported GTK# and Qyoto are.

<comment><USER6> > _I like C# and I 'm impressed with Mono but there is just something not > right. It might be irrational but knowing that Microsoft's DNA is everywhere > makes me feel uncomfortable. (...) I'm also not happy that Linux is a second > class citizen_

The first kind of thinking is what got us into the second kind of situation.

Enjoy ...Vala.

<comment><USER7> Vala is an incredible project. With a relatively small number of contributors, it's turned into an easy language to work with, that can compile into shared libraries with automatic bindings for Python, Ruby, Lua, etc., and get near C performance. GTK bindings are pretty complete. With some effort (I hear -- never tried it), it can even run on Windows and OSX. Vala may be one of the most underrated Linux projects around.

What's wrong with Vala?

<comment><USER5> Vala looks interesting.

It would appear that with GTK libraries available on Windows and OSX, a port of a Vala app should be trivial. Valac compiles to C and then GCC takes over for the rest of it.

It seems like the most well-known Vala apps are managed in San Francisco by Yorba, however they're only for Linux. [http://www.yorba.org/projects/](http://www.yorba.org/projects/)

Any examples of cross-platform apps written in Vala?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is Xamarin moving away from the base mono-project? I mean it as an honest question, not a troll. The 3.2 release seems mostly aimed at mobile development and cutting off support for previous major versions (2.10 and 3.0). Further, there was never an official stable release of 3.0.

It's their choice if they want to and they've done great service for the community with what they've already done. But if they've changed directions I think they should come out and say it so current and potential future users of the platform know.

<comment><USER9> Mono 3.0 stable has been out for a while. There just wasn't many binaries for it so you have to compile it yourself mostly.

<comment><USER8> Their download page indicates that 2.10 is the last stable version.

[http://www.go-mono.com/mono-downloads/download.html](http://www.go- mono.com/mono-downloads/download.html)

<comment><USER5> This is one of the reasons why I have a bad feeling about Mono (see my other comment).

In another HN discussion, a person from Xamarin said they didn't have the resources to keep Linux package management up-to-date.

However, they scored $16 million in funding this month, so going forward they certainly do have the resources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder when all the builds will appear on the download page, if ever: [http://www.go-mono.com/mono-downloads/download.html](http://www.go- mono.com/mono-downloads/download.html)

The newest stuff is still 2.10, expect for mac

</comment><comment><USER9> Please someone release an Ubuntu 12.x package for this. I was using Meebey's PPA for 3.0 but it hasn't been updated in a while.

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't see any mention of moonlight? Has support for it been completely dropped? Is anyone else maintaining it ?

<comment><USER12> As goes Silverlight, so does Moonlight...

<comment><USER11> Silverlight though did not have a new version released in 2 years but there updates even few weeks ago. I see video platforms only on silverlight.

<comment><USER13> For better or worse, the DRM part won't make it's way to Mono, so Moonlight is sort of useless for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > _" Google contributed ports of NaCl for ARM and Amd64."_

So, Mono/C# in Chrome? If NaCl/PNaCl becomes available outside the Chrome App Store, that could be pretty exciting -- Mono does an excellent job with AOT performance and mobile-scale memory utilization.

<comment><USER15> Mono has been running in Chrome for a while. Bastion's NaCl version is Mono based.

<comment><USER16> I think they had to use a Mono fork when they released Bastion, though. This might be just Google integrating that fork.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Build a Translator Bot Without Coding from Google Sheet - <AUTHOR> https://botcomtor.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN Community!

I'm so excited to share my first launch with you.

Currently, I am working for a Japanese IT company, daily communication by Japanese is the biggest problem for us. Therefore, every project must have a comtor (translator) to support the project. This problem unintentionally create pressure for comtors, especially during deadline of the project or their resignation.

Currently, we are using Translation tool of Google to solve this problem. However it takes much time (especially for mobile version), it requires a lot boring actions such as copying and waiting for translation.

Because of these reasons, we decide to develop this translation tool based on Bot in order to: \- Having fun talk with Bot \- Requiring Bot to translate messages \- Requiring Bot to search information on Wiki or Google

Why do we choose Bot instead of command: 1\. Bot can be integrated with all platform such as Slack, Chatwork, Rocket chat, etc. 2\. Bot can be extended later (add functions such as reminder, information save, deploy source code) 3\. Bot will be fun (it could be set up script like human)

We not only create a Translation Bot totally free, easily usage and highly security for everyone, but you also no need to pay for server or API translate services. You can create your own bot with some easy actions. And the most important thing that only you can manage your Bot information.

Finally, we decide to choose the following technique for our bot development: 1\. Backend: Google App Script 2\. DB: Google Sheet

Yaaahh, all above things created a BotComtor. We hope it will be a useful tool for everyone.</comment>


ASK HN – LinkedIn 4th Degree Connection Checker - <AUTHOR> Yo HN, I have a list of 100 contacts w/their linkedin URLs that I need to send to my Angellist syndicate to see if they know anyone who can facilitate an introduction.
I'm aware LinkedIn is pretty stingy with 3rd party developers, but surely I'm not the first person in our online history whose had this problem.  Someone must have written a script that my advisors can open that will run through all 100 names and spit out the 5-10 where they have a mutual connection.
If not, anybody know why that doesn't exist?  Cause i'm smelling a fun side-project, and I just don't need that kind of distraction in my life right now.... :) <comment><USER2> Yo homie don't play that!

<comment><AUTHOR> But.... Homie wants to play.... :_(</comment></comment>


The Cheapest Way to Save the Planet Grows Like a Weed - <AUTHOR> https://truthout.org/articles/the-cheapest-way-to-save-the-planet-grows-like-a-weed/ <comment><USER2> The widespread cultivation of an invasive non-native species of plant to solve an environmental crisis is just another environmental crisis.

Hemp, and cannabis, should be legal.

But this fetishization has to stop.

Billions of people all over the world have never faced a prohibition on the cultivation of hemp. Millions of tons of it are grown every year in China and across the world and there are no restrictions on its importation. Right now you can go on alibaba.com and get an entire shipping container of hemp delivered to your loading dock practically anywhere in the world.

Growing hemp has been legal for decades in much of Europe, forever in China, France, and Russia.

Articles like this only really lead to two possible conclusions:

1\. Hemp isn't a wonder substance, or

2\. All seven billion four hundred million people on Earth who aren't Americans are so stupid that they can't figure out how to turn hemp into miracle products and only the brave and skilled American men of science are capable enough to tease out its reclusive secrets where Europeans, Indians, Chinese, and others have failed after centuries of trying.

Yeah... I'm going to go with option 1. I've done a lot of traveling and there are smart people all over the world.

Articles like this are just the worst:

"It can be grown on a wide scale on nutrient poor soils with very small amounts of water and no fertilizers."

30 seconds talking to a Canadian or French hemp grower, or 15 seconds on your search engine of choice proves this, with decades of research by university and government agricultural department scientists to back it up (or hell just perusing one back issue of High Times) to be false.

Hemp is a plant like any other, it takes energy from the sun, carbon from the air, and material from the earth and turns them into plant matter.

In soils with poor nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and sulfur levels-- nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and sulfur must be added.

<comment><USER3> Agreed!

"Reforest rural areas with fast-growing plants native to that region" seems like a MUCH safer idea than "YOLO, HEMP ALL THE THINGS!"

We have no idea how regions in the world that don't have hemp would react to suddenly having an abundance it.

<comment><USER4> Agreed. It's short sighted. In Ireland apparently they PINE ALL THINGS!

( [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20380793](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20380793) )

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As much as I like hemp, this seems implausible. Trees sequester carbon for longer (as wood). If I was looking for a quicker alternative I'd plant bamboo (which also 'grows like a weed').

<comment><USER6> I suspect the best way is algae, but we'd likely destroy the oceans overusing it given humanity's inability to do things in a metered and sensible way.

<comment><USER7> Why set it lose in the ocean when you could contain it and measure it in a more controlled environment?

<comment><USER8> It's not immediately clear to me that the energy involved in creating a "more controlled environment" would make the investment a net positive.

<comment><USER7> In a contained setting it still will sequester carbon. It is more easily monitored for expected behavior. It minimizes risk to other ecosystems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Then having grown it, the government may well force you to destroy the plants:

[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jul/30/oxfordshire-...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jul/30/oxfordshire- hemp-farmers-devastated-after-being-forced-to-destroy-crop)

There are some very silly, and inconsistent prejudices around hemp. I'd be amazed to see consistent policy and use even if it can help the climate crisis more than everything else.

</comment><comment><USER10> Just today, a UK farm has had to destroy its entire hemp crop :

[https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jul/30/oxfordshire-...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jul/30/oxfordshire- hemp-farmers-devastated-after-being-forced-to-destroy-crop)

</comment><comment><USER11> I'd map this to a different expression of the same goal.

If we plant trees for long-term remediation, what other thing can we plant, which achieves short-term remediation in local microclimate, has financial or other upsides, displaces things like woodchip or other plant fibres for commerce, can bootstrap an economy, and is easy to grow in marginal land?

Palm Oil is when it goes wrong: try and displace underground oil with biofuels and you encourage people to cut down rainforest to plant oil palm. But at reduced yield, re-foresting and re-planting lands with trees and hemp feels like a mutually beneficial idea. The trees are the 20+ year work. the Hemp is for smaller but immediate benefits.

</comment><comment><USER12> Sounds great, but I wouldn't exactly trust this particular source.

Also, keep in mind that something that grows like a weed needs to be controlled carefully, or it _will_ crowd out other (necessary) species of plant.

</comment><comment><USER13> Based on the title, I was expecting this to be able Kudzu.

<comment><USER14> Same, but secretly I was hoping someone found a way to exploit Azolla.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I found their call for donations at the bottom troubling:

 _Hate racists? You'll want to read this.

Over the last few days Donald Trump and the GOP have doubled down on their campaign of hate and destruction.

It's not difficult to see that we all have to do more to stop it before it's too late.

That's why we're announcing our Make a Racist Cry campaign — where every dollar you give to Truthout will go directly to our ongoing efforts to make racists cry (because if there's anything a racist hates it's fearless journalism).

1.3 million people read Truthout last month. If every one of you chipped in a few bucks we'd all be swimming in racist tears. Imagine that!

Please, click the donate button and make a racist cry today._

Nothing ironic at all about hating people for hating people for their race :-|

EDIT: formatting</comment>


Calculating the "real value" to society of different professions - <AUTHOR> http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/bit-rich

<comment><USER2> If you equate hard work to manual labor and assign altruism an imaginary monetary value then of course you're going to think that janitors are the pillars holding our society up. The wealthy don't exist because its 'in our interest' they exist because its in their interest. What kind of evil sacrificer of men wants to drag every man of success down into the gutter of egalitarian ruin? Moochers don't retain inherited wealth for generations and its the men who've chosen to rise above manual labor and move our society that become rich.

If someone makes money, it means someone values the things they produce. Government regulation/help and fraud aside - wealth and income represent contribution to society. If you buy an Ipod its because its worth more to you than the money you spend on it. If you buy a loaf of bread its because you value the loaf of bread. The fact that the farmer and Apple provide you with the things you need doesn't give you the right to enslave them.

You don't have a right to healthcare, to healthy food, to haircuts, to welfare, or even to happiness at my expense. You have the right to PURSUE happiness, not the right to be happy.

This paper is nonsense.

<comment><USER3> This is a fallacy. The wealth provided by something you buy isn't what you deem it worth. There can be negative externalities. For example, positional goods can mean the good seems worth it to you because it increases your status, but by doing so it just lowers someone else's.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positional_good>

<comment><USER4> I'd like to call your attention to the section of this article that argues against what you're saying.

". . . one era's luxuries are another's commonplace goods. In short, the negative positional externality is often compensated by the public goods of infant industry effects and research and development."

The negative externality view of positional goods seems to be a minority opinion among economists. The examples of positional goods in the article were further quite marginal and it would be difficult to assess what part of the good is positional (and thus deserving of a tax to mitigate the externality) and what part is just valuable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This paper does nothing to calculate any "real value" and is just a collection of biased and discredited arguments.

Example of one of the arguments: "They have supported the propagation of the misguided view that tax cuts are good for stimulating growth and even increasing government tax revenues. The Nobel Prize- winning economist Paul Krugman claims that this is not true in the context of the United States."

That's the best they can do? Because Krugman says so? This paper is a joke.

</comment><comment><USER6> I didn't see one chart or table in that entire paper; the myths & "wanted ads' show a clear bias; this merely propaganda.

</comment><comment><USER7> This paper is backed by no scientific data, is totally biased and is so wrong on so many arguments that I don`t even know where to start. Full disclosure: My salary sucks.

</comment><comment><USER8> [http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/12/14/111101/how- much-a...](http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/12/14/111101/how-much-are-you- worth/)

FT: And before you start nitpicking the numbers, a word of warning from the study:

"Our Social Return on Investment analysis is not just an intellectual exercise – it has big implications for the way in which our society and economy are structured. Financial incentives are very powerful, and we tend to shower them on some of the professions that are the most socially and environmentally costly. This promotes undesirable behaviour, while positive activities are discouraged. .... We have not aimed for precision in our calculations – there may be aspects of value that were left out. The point was to draw attention to the issue. We have not included detailed recommendations because it is clear to us that there are deep structural issues that need to be addressed, and change will not come overnight."

On that wider `issue' note, prepare to forget almost every economic theory you've ever heard.

According to the study, the City of London is not essential for the UK economy (manufacturing, apparently, is much more important). Low-paid jobs don't create a ladder for people to work their way up — social mobility is flat. The UK doesn't need high salaries to attract and retain talent, since higher salaries don't necessarily reflect the best people available. Etc.

</comment><comment><USER9> While I'd love to see the working out of a rigorous methodology for studying this, that particular article and study is shot through with politics.

I would really like to be able to better answer the question: how much am I contributing? But it seems like too difficult a question to gain much traction on, especially if politics leaves you blind.</comment>


Socialcam Now Available - <AUTHOR> http://socialcam.com/

<comment><USER2> I would be more excited about this if I didn't have to log in via Facebook.

      Socialcam is requesting permission to do the following:
      * Access my basic information
      * Access my data any time ("Socialcam may access my data
        when I'm not using the application")
      * Access my friends' information ("Current Cities, Photos,
        Videos and Photos and Videos of Them")

Granted I'm already having a tough time keeping up with all the permissions' changes when apps get updated on my phone, seeing the above (especially #2 & 3) gives me the heebie-jeebies. Maybe explain why you need these permissions on socialcam.com? Also, I would rather just create a socialcam user account and share a video on Facebook when I want to; I realize that would take the social out of socialcam.

<comment><USER3> You are never forced to share a video on Facebook through SocialCam. We ask for the permissions so that it's one-click to share, not so that it will autoshare every time.

Trust me, we use the app all the time and none of us would want it to autoshare.

As for the particular permissions, they all support the basic functionality of the app.

We need your basic info so we can set up your name/picture in your profile

We ask for permanent permission so that we can keep that up to date.

We need to be able to access your friends information so that we can help you find people to follow in the SocialCam.

The reason we ask for each is pretty straightforward. Facebook doesn't have a particularly granular permissions system, so even though we don't use "current cities of your friends" we get it anyway.

<comment><USER4> I don't think you need the permanent permission just to keep user details up to date. You can use the real-time updates API for that (<http://developers.facebook.com/docs/api/realtime/>)

Am I missing a crucial detail?

<comment><USER5> By going into the facebook privacy settings for that application, you're allowed to remove some of the individual permissions they ask for. Example: Access to data at all times can be removed individually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've tried it out with my Nexus One and while it works great (<http://socialcam.com/v/XANxOwfD>) I don't think I'll switch to it (I'm part of their audience I guess, I often record short videos with my N1 of stuff I see to share with my friends) as I can't see what advantages it offers over Youtube?

<comment><USER3> Biggest advantage: you can tag your friends from the SocialCam app and you can't from the YouTube app.

<comment><USER7> If I was interested in tagging people, why wouldn't I just post it to Facebook?

<comment><USER3> You _would_ post it to Facebook...which is why we offer one-click post to facebook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> They've done a remarkable job making the UI on the iPhone version not be sluggish as crap like other camera-centric apps. Kudos to them.

Also, I like the unlimited file size and length; it somehow makes sharing less stressful in a way?

</comment><comment><USER9> I just got the email about it this morning. I have been playing with it during my snow day. I have not been able to tag my friends in the videos I have made though.

Great job on the android app, I really enjoy it so far.

<comment><USER10> Haven't been able to because you tried and it was broken, or because there wasn't anyone to tag?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sweet! Works great on iPhone 4. Background uploading is such a major pain killer that no one here seems to be appreciative of. That's a huuuge technical feat and a major head start and of course am not surprised that JTV guys nailed it. Congrats!

</comment><comment><USER12> So I've seen a couple of these types of websites out now. I have never understood why anyone would want to launch such a service, other than an exercise for creating a website that uses video? How is it so much better than the available alternatives that people would want to switch?

Can you explain why people would go through the process of registering to use your service, over just sharing using youtube links on facebook or facebook directly?

Do you have a business model? How would you plan to monetize assuming your service became really successful?

Is the success of twitpic limiting your imagination?

</comment><comment><USER13> You might mention prominently on the landing page that Socialcam is free of charge. That's a lesson that Instagram seems to have taken, anyway: <http://instagr.am>

</comment><comment><USER14> Will the videos allways be public, public by default or only public if I make them public?

<comment><USER15> Videos are public but there are no central directories or search. The only way to get a link to a video is from a share (Facebook, Twitter, email, sms) or by viewing a friend or friend of friend. We might add some form of strict privacy in the future.

Hope that answers your question!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Really cool.. congrats to the SocialCam team on the launch!

</comment><comment><USER17> Interesting UI decision to feature an HTC branded Android phone on the landing page when so many other top dual-platform apps (Eg - redlaser) stick to standard iphone body for landing page mock-ups.

Would be an interesting element to A/B test.

<comment><USER18> I thought it was two iPhone's sitting next to each other for a minute, until I really looked at the one on the right. That HTC looks _way_ too similar to an iPhone (maybe that's the point?), but I would have used a different looking phone (even a Nexus One w/ the gray body) to visually differentiate the models and make it clear that it is a dual-platform app. The screenshots are very similar and rotate too quickly to really see that they are different apps as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Has there been any thought to making use of facial recognition software for instant tagging. I had a similar idea to Socialcam but for pictures that auto tag and upload your pictures with location, people, along with some other features.

</comment><comment><USER20> I love the idea, I would use the idea... I'm not ready to adopt the current version. The UX has way to much going on. I was expecting/hoping for more of an instagram like experience for video. That would be more interesting to me.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm really waiting for some great parody videos based on their demo video. It wasn't like shooting video and uploading it was "hard" before. Its interesting to see alot of these "DUH" concepts re-emerge with buzz lately.

</comment><comment><USER22> So I tried to view the "Welcome to Socialcam" introduction video on my Nexus One with 2.3.3, and the app ended up hanging every time I tried.

Is this a known issue?

<comment><USER23> It works for me on our Nexus One with 2.3.3 - can you email us with more details? email@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This seems like a semi-resurrection of the original Justin.tv idea of broadcasting Justin's life via video. (Except now anyone can do it)

</comment><comment><USER25> Is there a story as to why Justin.TV launched this project? seems like an interesting product for them to go for. (eg: from live to this)

<comment><USER3> It applies a bunch of lessons we learned making a live video broadcasting app for Justin.tv. The distance is not so large as you'd think (minus the whole "not live" part).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> where do we report bugs ? I created a short test video and went to my Videos Made screen and on playback don't see anything.

<comment><USER15> Please email us at firstname.lastname@example.com; thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is it just me or is there no way to preview a video before uploading it? -- nor does it record audio?

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure why you'd think it doesn't record audio, it definitely does.

You can't preview a video before upload yet, but it's in the pipeline.

<comment><USER25> a usability bug perhaps: it is a little over zealous if the iPhone is muted - hides all signs of volume :)

<comment><USER15> Yeah, it's not ideal. I think that was the default behavior in the player; will be worked on later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Would you say socialcam is a direct competitor to Qik? Does it do live streaming? video chat?

</comment><comment><USER27> Congrats guys.

You may want to double check the demo video, seems to be down.

</comment><comment><USER28> Why would you show two almost but not quiet identical slideshows of the app?

<comment><USER29> Android vs iPhone?

<comment><USER28> It's a really inefficient way to present the fact you support both platforms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> How does it make money?</comment>


"I Don't Hate Arrow Functions" Blog Post - <AUTHOR> https://davidwalsh.name/i-dont-hate-arrow-functions <comment><USER2> with async/await you can write very terse arrow functions. If you don't care about error handling, readability, or comprehension. I only use arrow functions when running stuff in the repl, debug console, or in chat messages. In all production code I use named functions. Actually I don't use any ES6+ in production code, because I'm targeting more then just the mainstream browsers. Although I'm looking forward to use some of it if JS engines are able to catch up to the ECMA, and people stop using old browsers. I don't think adding a compilation step is worth it, besides optimizing script size and loading time. Not all engines support source maps, some doesn't even give a stack trace. Then good luck debugging.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> (self post)</comment>


A property search engine in the UK - <AUTHOR> http://cravify.com/rent/

<comment><USER2> Sorry, it's terrible.

You cannot search by postcode -- worse, any time it won't recognise whatever search term you input, it will just reload the same page without any sort of warning/sorry message.

When you happen to enter a recognised name, you get sent to a "town centre" which is anything but -- it looks like it's just being calculated, and over a very wide area. For example, Stockport town centre is close to the M60, but the borough is technically quite wide, so the "central" pin is dropped somewhere out in the sticks.

Zoom out to see the entire country, and it looks like only London, Edinburgh and Glasgow have properties; but if you click at random, you'll see that it's not the case.

It's incredibly slow and non-intuitive, and looks like a side-project. Rightmove and friends are still on a different level.

<comment><AUTHOR> hmnn, may I know which search terms did you use?

<comment><AUTHOR> there was indeed a bug in search where you can't search by post code, but it should work now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm currently looking for a house in the UK so I gave this a go. I found the interface incredible buggy.

The search tools didn't work correctly, adjusting the price either made no difference to the properties shown or just came up with an error, "Ad detail is not available at this zoom level."

The photo only thing doesn't seem to do anything.

When navigating around my city every I would have to wait for the search results to repopulate which only took a second but was very annoying.

<https://aboutmybrowser.com/1VABv1jf>

<comment><AUTHOR> "Ad detail is not available at this zoom level" is not an error, it means you have to zoom in to see all the properties because there are too many properties at that zoom level.

When you click on a photo, shouldn't it be zoomed in ? I am surprised that the price filter doesn't work. Could you tell me which city you were looking at ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The first thing I noticed about this is that it feels slow. If you want people to use it, navigating around the map needs to feel smooth. This could be something as simple as putting in a little delay between the user moving the map and you starting to load your pricing data.

The second thing I noticed is that it was, by default, zoomed in somewhere in Germany. I am not in Germany. Why not centre it based on the user's IP? Or, just have it zoomed out to start with?

I like the idea though.

<comment><AUTHOR> nah it is initially centered in London because it has only data from the UK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The "Price" slider seems to set a _minimum_ price. Is it possible to set a maximum price (which I would imagine more people would want)?

<comment><AUTHOR> there are two knots where you can drag to set both minimum and maximum prices, no ?

<comment><USER5> Ah! That was not obvious to me.</comment></comment></comment>


Backing ChatOps at Kickstarter with Cog - <AUTHOR> https://blog.operable.io/quick-interview-4-cog-chatops-at-kickstarter-3b2450f7a054#.547e2qu5h <comment><AUTHOR> Hi everybody, I'm the founder and CEO of Operable, developers of the Cog ChatOps platform. I'm happy to answer any questions folks might have about Cog or how we think about ops and ChatOps.</comment>


Split your Bitcoin seed into readable shares using Shamir's secret sharing - <AUTHOR> https://ronreiter.github.io/multicrypt/ <comment><USER2> If it meets the guidelines, this might make a good 'Show HN'. Show HN guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)</comment>


50 years from now, What kind of programming language we will be using? - <AUTHOR> Especially with the rise of AI and machine learning, what could be the future state of modern programming languages? <comment><USER2> not java for sure, all the kotlin shilling everywhere</comment>


The 21 Secret Parks of San Francisco - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/sf-popos/the-21-secret-parks-of-san-francisco-192e6d88ea0a <comment><USER2> The non-street level ones are the more interesting ones.</comment>


The Humble Music Bundle - <AUTHOR> http://www.humblebundle.com/# Get it here: http://www.humblebundle.com/ <comment><USER2> So this is interesting. I wonder how well this model will match up with the Kickstarter model. This is great for letting artists distribute their music, but will it be able to sustain creation of new music?

Also They Might Be Giants !!</comment>


Making SSL Fast, Overclocking mod_ssl - <AUTHOR> http://journal.paul.querna.org/articles/2010/07/10/overclocking-mod_ssl/

<comment><USER2> The RC4 choice seems fishy, especially considering how easy it is to get hardware-accelerated AES these days. If you want to use weak encryption, why use encryption at all?

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone use ssl acceleration cards these days?

<comment><USER2> New Intel processors have hardware-accelerated AES built in. Apparently an i5 with this does about 2G/s AES encryption, while my i7 without this does about 80M/s AES encryption. Yeah.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why do we keep hearing about mod_ssl overclocking? Have any of you overclocked your Cassandra lately? what about your Apache? Does MySQL have a multiplier that can be tweaked with? Or voltage settings on the BIOS?

"Yeah dude, I water cool my SSL. Look at those dark blue LEDs glow."

<comment><USER2> Your comment would be funny if the author didn't explain this right in the first sentence:

 _At Velocity, I saw Adam Langley give a great presentation entitled Overclocking SSL._

As you can see, he named his article "Overclocking mod_ssl" because the other guy named his talk "Overclocking SSL". Reading comprehension. A good thing to get before writing.</comment></comment>


How to Show Employees That You Care - <AUTHOR> http://www.aaron-gray.com/how-to-show-employees-that-you-care/

<comment><USER2> _A company culture that allows people to watch YouTube, listen to music on their headphones, or joke around without a supervisor telling them to get back to work is not just cool and hip. At its core, treating employees like this shows that you trust them._

I find it hard to fully agree with this statement. Listening to music? No problem. Joking around with a supervisor? No problem. Watching Youtube while at work? Problem.

Listening is an activity that people can _often_ do while multitasking, watching videos is not. It's just not a multitasking-friendly activity. Besides, with Youtube, there is a constant pull to watch the next thing ("People who watched this video also watched...").

If your manager and his/her manager happened to walk by your desk at the same time and see you (a) not working, and instead (b) watching a Youtube video, how's that going to play out? It's likely that your manager will get an earful from his/her manager and, as the saying goes, *#&$% flows downhill.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you at work right now? Then I think you proved my point. :D

Seriously though, you make a good point making a distinction between things you can do while working, and things that completely stop the flow of work. I guess that my argument is that, in appropriate quantities, stopping working can actually keep your mind engaged for the entirety of the day, which can actually enable more work to get done overall.

Thanks for chiming in.</comment></comment>


Selling .coms for BTC - <AUTHOR>

I'm offering the following .coms:

  name - <USER2>
  <comment></comment><comment>
  achievelet.com - task managment, gamification
  arhif.com - portfolio, bookmarking
  setpush.com - <USER3>
  kianea.com - abstract, feminine
  tabzip.com - <USER4>
 I will accept only Bitcoins. </comment><comment><AUTHOR> <http://achievelet.com>

<http://arhif.com>

<http://setpush.com>

<http://kianea.com>

<http://tabzip.com>

</comment><comment><USER5> I've also got a domain that I might sell: ThenHe.com

I originally bought it for a blog / status updates about my work and side projects, but I never got around to using it properly.

I'll accept offers in Bitcoins too.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you point the A record of your domain to 126.96.36.199, you will automatically get the kind of landing page that show sup on my domains. There's no signup page, but I can make access for alex@h\ _\_ ton.me manually and mail you the initial login details.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'll jump in. I once had a plan to take over the penny auction world, but now don't have the time or desire. BTC Preferred.

\--

bidafk.com

\--

pennysafe.com

\--

pennyfight.com

pennyfight.info

pennyfight.net

pennyfight.org

\--

pennyfan.com

pennyauctionfanatic.com

\--

thepennyauctionhosting.com

thepennyauctionscript.com

thepennyblog.com

thepennykingdom.com</comment>


Identify.js: generate id attributes for HTML block elements - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tlvince/identify.js

<comment><USER2> Excuse my ignorance, but what's this for?

<comment><USER3> take a part of the block content and use it to generate a valid id attribute</comment></comment>


We are apes and dirty our ipads - <AUTHOR> http://oliao.tumblr.com/post/41005173039/we-are-apes-and-dirty-our-ipads

<comment><USER2> Some of us wash our hands before using the keyboard.

</comment><comment><USER3> goddamn! how about raising your standards in terms of hygiene?</comment>