Psychological Constellations Assessed at Age 13 Predict Success 35 Years Later - <AUTHOR> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30694728 <comment><USER2> A couple of funny tidbits from the paper:

> Of the 677, we were unable to find 27 males and 15 females in our Internet > searches (we could not confirm their identities in our contact-information > database). Given our method and criteria (Table 1), however, we believe it > is unlikely that we missed an individual with a truly illustrious career. > ... Our reasoning was that, if someone were truly eminent, then that person > should be publicly conspicuous and therefore discoverable through online > searches.

And a finalist for the irony in naming things award:

> We used Publish or Perish software (Harzing, 2007) to collect information on > each participant's number of publications, number of patents, and h-index.

<comment><USER3> >> if someone were truly eminent, then that person should be publicly conspicuous

rather doubtful, for a variety of reasons, but probably unlikely to affect their numbers

<comment><USER4> I try to keep a low profile, stay off of social media, and leave a minimal fingerprint. I was a "gifted child" of the 80's. I took the SAT when I was in 7th grade, and did better than above average high school seniors.

I have "stealth wealth", most of it from savings and stock market investments. I don't like to draw attention to myself.

<comment><USER5> "Impactful" individuals are those that impact society "e.g., full professors at research-intensive universities, Fortune 500 executives, distinguished judges and lawyers, leaders in biomedicine, award-winning journalists and writers".

"stealth wealth" is not impact.

<comment><USER4> Ignore the stealth wealth part. I think many "eminent" individuals would also not want to draw unnecessary attention to themselves.

<comment><USER6> Eminent means famous.

<comment><USER4> It has a different connotation. For example, almost no CS researchers or professors are "famous" in the traditional sense. Yeah, definitely a few here on HN, but not outside their profession, and certainly not to the general public. Even if you look at "Fortune 500 executives", outside of a small subset of CEOs, they're not "famous."

<comment><USER7> Do you think there are Fortune 500 executives that have managed to remain so obscure that somebody who knows their name and life until age 23 would be unable to find out that they held the position?

<comment><USER8> What's an executive? C-level? Some places everyone is a vice president, right?

It occurs to me that the Fortune 500 is not the _S &P_ 500, so I would question whether information about them is necessarily even as accessible as with a public company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is not the astrology paper I was looking for.

</comment><comment><USER10> pdf: [https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/smpy/2019-bernstein.pdf](https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/smpy/2019-bernstein.pdf)

<comment><USER11> The rest of the SMPY papers can be found at [https://www.gwern.net/SMPY](https://www.gwern.net/SMPY) btw.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Summary: If you did well on the SAT or attended graduate school, you were more likely to become a professor or receive NSF grants.

<comment><USER13> >Summary: If you did well on the SAT or attended graduate school, you were more likely to become a professor or receive NSF grants.

This seems to measure people who have bought into "the system" in a particular way, rather than measuring exceptional people.

Paul Graham's essay today ([http://paulgraham.com/lesson.html](http://paulgraham.com/lesson.html)) seems especially apt. These people have learned to hack certain standardized tests.

<comment><USER14> You can't just hack your way into being a STEM professor at a top institution. You actually have to _do_ stuff, discover new things. It's analogous to actually building a good product if you're a startup founder.

<comment><USER13> >You can't just hack your way into being a STEM professor at a top institution. You actually have to do stuff, discover new things. It's analogous to actually building a good product if you're a startup founder.

From my friends with PhDs, it seems like it's about 30% doing real stuff, 10% fucking around with grant funding paperwork and 60% trying to turn a single result into as many papers as possible in order to maximize impact scores and other metrics.

<comment><USER14> I'm getting a PhD and it's been 90% real stuff, with no regard towards impact metrics. It probably depends a lot on the subfield. My subfield is less "hot" than most, which some would take as a sign of unhealth, but it means we're spared all these other problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The next question is how do we build as many people with traits like this as possible, and I assume it to be high quality education with a low stress home life. This is something that the US economy is not currently achieving, based on happiness and education metrics.

What should not be learned from this is that there are high caliber people, but instead that these traits call be learned, and I'm certain that there are schools teaching them, but I assume that those are quite foolishly only offered to specific subsets of people here, and that we will see further advancement in other societies as they find solutions to that exact problem by advancing educational practice through scientific experimentation on a national scale.

<comment><USER16> There absolutely are high caliber people. We know that IQ is the most powerful predictor of success and that you can't train it into people by any known means so it would be a waste to treat everyone like these geniuses.

<comment><USER13> >We know that IQ is the most powerful predictor of success and that you can't train it into people by any known means

One very simple way of increasing IQ is to repeatedly take IQ tests. There is a noticeable uptick in recorded score for people who take the same type of test the second time within a twelve month period.

<comment><USER17> That suggests a method for finding the "true" IQ; keep taking the same kind of tests until your score plateaus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wouldn't the larger the study, the less statistically-possible success is? There's a set number of fortune 500 executives, for example.

</comment><comment><USER19> Hah! I was a subject in that first study.

<comment><USER20> Are you "successful"?

<comment><USER21> He reads hackernews how much more success does one achieves?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Looking at the comments, there needs to be a distinction between the "eminent" career vs what people define as "success" in the title.

The success in this paper is the equivalent of the Forbes 30 under 30 rankings except it's when you're 48. There will be genuinely eminent people who run a fortune 500 company, illustrious careers in academia, but the methodology of simply searching for someone years later has clear problems.

What if you were to win a Nobel prize at age 55 or 60 (very common). You may have contributions earlier but didn't meet the criteria.

On the reverse, like with Forbes 30 under 30, there are always people who master personal branding and PR over substance. Lot's of news articles about you doesn't equate to being eminent in the usual definition of the world- just well known.

FYI, I'm not disputing their thesis or suggesting their results are wrong, I just find it odd that evaluating people at age 48, they couldn't find an algorithm much better than Forbes 30 under 30 which we all know has a lot of BS.

I'd be curious to the results at age 75.

<comment><USER14> The methodology is much much better than Forbes 30 under 30. In Forbes you pay to nominate yourself. The list is accordingly mostly people in obscure startups seeking to use it to attract publicity. The "eminence" in this study is based on what people actually did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's interesting how "success" means "selective, high-workload, white-collar career" in this study. In other cultures, it just means having friends/relationships and not being stressed all the time. I suspect many of these successful types are failures in this regard.

<comment><USER24> What's more interesting is that the word "success" doesn't appear in the title or abstract at all, the functional word is "eminent", and their definition is definitely more complex than your summary:

"Eminent individuals were defined as those who, by age 50, had accomplished something rare: creative and highly impactful careers (e.g., full professors at research-intensive universities, Fortune 500 executives, distinguished judges and lawyers, leaders in biomedicine, award-winning journalists and writers)."

<comment><USER25> Yep, I really don't think that makes it better (can anyone explain why it is always psychologists who invent these kind of measures? Is there some test we can perform at age 13 so we can identify people who will go on to do this kind of research? A follow up paper perhaps, this will surely add to the "eminence" of the authors).

I have met my fair share of Fortune 500 executives, the majority are borderline braindead. Equally, I am unclear what "award-winning" journalist/writer might mean...it clearly doesn't mean success in any general way..."eminent" is just a very weird definition. Equating "eminent" with "highly impactful" and "creative"...dear God, are the authors actually human?

What is especially bizarre is this is a paper from psychologists who, presumably, should understand that equating success with other people thinking you are successful (which "eminence" clearly measures) is a fairly dysfunctional habit...the irony never ends.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I would guess that giving the establishment the finger would not bestow eminence.

<comment><USER27> It did fine for George Carlin

<comment><USER28> There are always multiple establishments. If one establishment doesn't suit you, you can always go right next door to the other establishment labelled "the anti-establishment" and enjoy the company of like-minded individuals as you sneer at the other establishment and congratulate yourself on your independent-mindedness.

Nowadays the anti-establishment is bigger and richer than the actual establishment, which is why we all wear t-shirts to work and sneer at those who have to wear suits.

Are there groups that exist outside both the establishment and anti- establishment? Sure, but they're weird and scary and if you join them you'll definitely be banned from polite society.

<comment><USER27> I'm waiting to join the anti-anti-establishment group once they get stronger.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Paywalled. It's on sci-hub.

[https://sci-hub.tw/10.1177/0956797618822524](https://sci- hub.tw/10.1177/0956797618822524)

</comment><comment><USER30> Ok so I see no controls for income/family wealth, etc

If anything I see selection for wealth: the samples in one of the bigger studies selected from "the 15 best STEM graduate training programmed", which is broadly a proxy for wealth.

More over they don't have negative samples: afaict their "study" was to take the top X% of students from some already wealth biased institutes and compare their performance to the overall average for everyone. What they should have done is compare the performance of the X% of the class they sampled from with the performance of the remainder of that class.

Then we could compare more similar starting points.

Obviously we would generally expect _some_ correlation between skill when younger to 35 years later, but I would expect the entire group to do significantly better than the general average. Eg a person who got into Harvard because of their family history, and gets a C, is likely to do better than a person with a 4.0 from a state university. (General averages, obviously there can be outliers in every direction)

<comment><USER31> This is junk science that can best be used to reinforce existing stratification or create/justify a self-fulfilling prophecy of success. Best to ignore it and move on.

<comment><USER32> Their method would miss the likes of Blake, Van Gogh, Galileo, ...</comment></comment></comment>


Early days in a startup - <AUTHOR> http://blog.getgush.com/post/3585112825/early-days

<comment><USER2> Great idea blogging about the experience from very early on, and a fine job of capturing the "so many possible features" feeling.

Not sure I'd pick Facebook as the model for execution, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> I posted another one :) [http://blog.getgush.com/post/3585929252/we-threw- away-the-wi...](http://blog.getgush.com/post/3585929252/we-threw-away-the- wireframes)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: would you buy a hello world t-shirt? - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I've always been somehow fascinated by the hello world programs, so I've decided to create a t-shirt with one in Java for myself. Then it came to my mind that maybe some of you would buy one, so I'm thinking about launching a t-shirt store with the hello world implementation in many languages (maybe all?). I want to know if it would be a waste of time or not. Thanks<p>http://helloworldtshirts.spreadshirt.com/ <comment><USER2> no.

I don't like text on clothing, labels, logos or otherwise.

In fact, if I buy something and it has a logo on it, other than if it has resale value such as a vehicle, I take the logos off.

</comment><comment><USER3> I possibly would buy one (if the design is appealing even for a non programmer) but I'd be surprised if it hasn't already be done out there.</comment>


Notie – Push notification service made for developers - <AUTHOR> http://notie.io

<comment><USER2> Can this be self hosted? A single digitalocean instance that is super high latency for my endusers doesn't seem very well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry it can't, for now.

<comment><USER2> Are there any plans on making some kind of paid SaaS hosted across highly available multiple AWS regions, using ELB, etc?

<comment><AUTHOR> NO, there's no plan...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


New Twitter Button Gem from Intridea - <AUTHOR> http://intridea.com/2010/8/12/new-twitter-button-rails-gem-from-intridea

<comment><USER2> Why is Intridea so awesome? Seriously, they make the most useful Ruby gems.

</comment><comment><USER3> Awesome stuff. Just used it for my website's startup. Took me 5 minutes :)</comment>


Siri plays dumb about documentary "Hillary's America" - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/bakedalaska/status/760270309702246400 <comment><USER2> This thread reminded me why I spend zero time on the cesspool of misinformed hot takes that is Twitter</comment>


Meet MonsterMind, the NSA Bot That Could Wage Cyberwar Autonomously - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/08/nsa-monstermind-cyberwarfare/

<comment><USER2> Sounds like an intrusion prevention system with a good PR campaign. The concept isn't all that new.

</comment><comment><USER3> War shouldn't be waged autonomously. Period. These guys are really out of control.</comment>


Ask HN: Is a Heroku like SaaS that works on your VPS a product you will use - <AUTHOR> I am considering creating a product that allows you to git push your projects to your VPS (Be that the server can be bare metal as well from any cloud). I personally find having to pay for each app on Heroku a bit on the expensive end especially for devs who crank out multiple projects per year and want the Heroku like experience to deploy. My thoughts are a product that allows git push, uses the open source Heroku buildpacks to build the project and then starts the project in a docker container. A proxy infront that routes traffic to the individual projects and also creates and renews SSL certificates. Sort of like forge in the laravel world but this time it works with buildpacks and dockerfiles allowing you to deploy just about anything. Fellow hackers, thoughts on this idea and also how much will you personally be willing to pay for such a product? <comment><USER2> Sounds interesting. I'd checkout Dokku[0] and Flynn[1] if I were you and see what you could offer differently. I use a single Dokku instance on 5 dollar droplet that hosts all my side projects ect under my domain. I then would extract one out if it ever got meaningful traffic. Another thing to consider is that it seems like the industry as a whole is moving passed the application level abstraction and onto the function level, eg "serverless". Maybe you could jump on that angle somehow.

[0] [http://dokku.viewdocs.io/dokku/](http://dokku.viewdocs.io/dokku/)

[1] [https://flynn.io/](https://flynn.io/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree, I am actually aware of both services. Personally, I am not sold on functions yet mainly due to the high startup time. I cannot see myself building a project that leverages a functions framework specific to cloud provider X. I however could be wrong on functions and its adoption in the general Dev community.

<comment><USER2> Alright, but why would I pay for your service over a VPS with one of those tools or Heroku? What part of the process do you take over or automate?

<comment><AUTHOR> The plan is to automate from server provisioning to deployment but of course I cannot build integrations with all the cloud providers out there. In that case, you could buy the server, provide the IP address and credentials to log in and then the service does everything. Once the server is provisioned or added, you create an application from the dashboard and then git push to it. Will come with monitoring tools and alerts if you choose to set any. For those who can work Dokku and Flynn by themselves perhaps, it could be enough. But as compared to Heroku, you could save lots of money when you not paying for each app. Of course I need to mention the service itself could even be free and find other ways to make money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have a bunch of side-projects that I've been working on for a while.

To be honest, I prefer sticking with major cloud vendors (currently on GCP) because:

1\. They already have reasonably straightforward ways to publish apps, e.g. I use GCP App Engine + managed Postgres DB + storage buckets.

2\. If my project grows or pivots, I like having an option to use other cloud provider services like queues, BigQuery, VPC networking, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, makes sense, wanted to point out the service will also be usable on GCP as well as you can leverage any cloud host. You could buy a VPS from GCP compute, connect it and deploy apps like you are using Heroku.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I personally will forget it. There really isn't a market out there. Most developers do not have any Apps or if they do are just simple static websites for which they can easily host in so many places at no cost. Maybe 6 years ago this would have been a good idea.

</comment><comment><USER5> an open source heroku would be appealing, open shift I believe is along these lines</comment>


Google Unable to Stop Malicious Ads from Hijacking Websites - <AUTHOR> https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/adsense/szfNNkPrkLI%5B1-25-false%5D

<comment><AUTHOR> I can confirm that this has been ongoing with a website that I operate. Basically, a malicious Adsense ad will redirect a page when it loads. I've blocked numerous malicious advertisers from the site, but a new ones have sprung up. It was so bad that at one point I had to disable all rich media ads.

Obviously, Google has not officially commented on this. I wonder how widespread it is?

</comment><comment><USER2> I've noticed this on several sites I frequently visit (and have whitelisted in adblock). Try to do the right thing and support my favorite sites but of course a handful of bad actors make things miserable for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a much better link: [http://blog.sucuri.net/2015/01/adsense-abused- with-malvertis...](http://blog.sucuri.net/2015/01/adsense-abused-with- malvertising-campaign.html)

But it is pretty amazing to read that thread. One should note that it has lots of participation over the last couple of weeks but clearly Google has a big issue here.

</comment><comment><USER4> As a __user __I have experienced this same issue. Also from Google Adverts. Seems the bad guys have been making a lot of headway recently.</comment>


Why Karachi Floods - <AUTHOR> https://www.dawn.com/news/1578061 <comment><USER2> It's clear to everyone in Karachi that it has been neglected by the provincial government lead by the People's Party of Pakistan (PPP). PPP is the most corrupt entity in the country. At least other governments do 'some' development while filling their coffers. PPP undoes even the development of previous governments to fill their coffers. Karachi's institutions have been filled with political appointees with little or no merit. Everyone appointed to run the country is only interested in filling up their pockets. Even slight rains that would be unnoticeable in any other part of the country fills up sewerage lines leaking them out. This is not new. What's new is that this years rains have been unprecedentent and even upscale areas such as DHA are affected, which is why all the commotion in the media.

<comment><USER3> Since early 1980s, Karachi city is not under PPP govt. So it really doesn't matter how corrupt Pakistan Peoples Party is, Karachi has not been voting for them for nearly 40 years now. It is always MQM with some coalition who runs Karachi. Right now PPP has only 3 NA seats from Karachi.

<comment><USER2> MQM and the Mayor is still waiting to receive a mandate from the provincial government. All power lies with the PPP in Karachi.

<comment><USER3> MQM and coalition was brought in power in 1983. Since then PPP has no mandate, they have no power to run the city. There are no funds available to any PPP representative in Karachi. All development or non-development projects run by the City administration. It is always the winning parties who decide about city development. How come a party which doesn't have any significant representation in city administration for 40 years is responsible for its development??? Karachi's city administration has been receiving one of the largest funds than any other city in Pakistan.

<comment><USER4> I find no merit in discussing on whom, PPP, or MQM, to throw the blame on for Karachi situation. The result will largely be the same if you swap them. Both Karachi (MQM's turf,) and rural Sindh (PPP's turf) are ran terribly bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As an Indian watching these events, it refreshes my memories of flooding in Indian cities(Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore etc). Which are almost of the same scale if not more or less.

I wonder if the entirety of the Indian subcontinent suffers from the same long standing issues of governance, disdain for law, corruption and in general total apathy towards one's surroundings.

As a native Bangalorean. I've seen the city shredded to literal garbage, there are tall housing complexes in places where there were lakes, and there are real estate developments in natural valleys. Existing lakes have been long encroached upon, and turned into cesspools receiving sewage from nearby apartments. These flats sell for premium rates as they are ironically called 'lakeview'.

Every few months a famous lake called Bellandur lake catches fire, due to methane emissions. Also there is just unimaginable amount of dust and pollution, to a point you can feel the dust in your mouth. Dengue outbreaks are common here. What's shocking in all of this people continue to buy these 'lakeview' flats. Continue to buy properties in lands which are encroaching lakes.

I remember during the Chennai floods, some one had posted how the velachery lake had been transformed into a rectangle after years of encroachment, the whole area was flooded.

This is above and beyond the fact that plastic littering, and garbage disposal in general is so bad that it clogs the whatever little drains exist.

Didn't know that Pakistan hasn't changed all that much since partition. May be some one from Pakistan can talk about how it is there.

<comment><USER6> Oh man don't get me started on Bengaluru. My tier 2 hometown sees more infrastructure activities than this silicon valley of India. People are just apathetic docile don't cares here. How come with an enormous budget and a rich state it's sooo bad? Doesn't matter who is in power here, same story all around.

<comment><USER7> From what I understand the GDP of Bangalore enriches the federal body more than the state. The state gets money from center based on the population of state as a whole. So the state politicians do not have much skin in the game to try to keep Bangalore sustainable.

Would be happy to be corrected.

<comment><USER8> I'd say the situation is even more twisted. This policy effectively motivates the state politicians to keep things unsustainable in order for them to make money (indirectly) off scarce resources in the city.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I understand this is a fairly technical article but I really wish there were photos of the drainage and sewage systems being talked about, particularly with respect to the clogging and illegal infill/building, instead of just pictures of Karachi's of flooded roads. It would really help to visualize just how much of the planned/built flood control flows have been compromised by corrupt development.

</comment><comment><USER10> > Meanwhile, a solid waste recycling industry, mostly in the informal sector, > developed in Karachi over the years. [...] The contractors organising this > activity pay the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) staff to not pick up > the garbage so that the picking can be made easier.

> solid waste has been used for reclaiming land from the sea for both low > income and elite residential purposes. Such reclamation is, strictly > speaking, illegal in both cases. Informal developers informally arrange for > KMC trucks to deposit their solid waste on the mangrove marshes and hire KMC > tractors to spread and compact it.

Whoa. That's some next level corruption. Where it actually starts to supply infrastructure that should exist legally but apparently doesn't.

</comment><comment><USER4> Cantonments need to be abolished, and stricken out from the law. It's a colonial anachronism used int the past to shield British military from the local jurisdiction.

Now they just add to complete jurisdictional—topological clusterf__k.

The same is for governments of other city's subdivisions.

The lion share of Karachi's troubles is from super unclear jurisdiction over much of its function, with each player in local government throwing hot potato problems to the next one in the chain.

<comment><USER11> Some Indian cities have Cantonments, I used to live in one such city. The roads in the cantonment were in better condition compared to the city roads and cantonments areas are much cleaner and well maintained compared to the city parts.

<comment><USER4> In context of Pakistan, a cantonment is still is what is defined by the 1924 Cantonment Act, and not just a geographical connotation. As I understand, in India, a place may well be called a cantonment for historical reasons only, while being a regular town/city/district for administrative purposes.

And that law is defining it very, very poorly, and it is where the trouble with them comes from. Per the Act, a cantonment is "any place … in which any part of the regular forces or the regular air force of Pakistan is quartered … or is required for the service of such forces…"

Now decide on the boundary of the "any place," which has never been historically defined, and delineations of jurisdictions with non cantoned off area.

Some cantonments never had defined boundaries, and grew to size of cities. Some, on other hand, began to envelop more and more of its host cities' area as definitions of their boundaries were reinterpreted.

Another matter is whether garbage removal, or provision of other utilities in a cantonment a duty of its own cantonal authority, or a region/county/city hosting it?

People who wrote that law wrote it before even electricity was a thing, and never though of such things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The problem, as with all things in Karachi, is systemic.

It results from lack of ownership which makes accountability hard (politicized institutions with diverging agendas). During these rains, an entire township (Naya Nazimabad) sank underwater and many areas are still waterlogged. This township was built on top of a low-lying lake that was reclaimed. The approval of such projects involves dozens of authorities, each of whom charges an "expediency fees" and corruption is deep rooted within them. An officer who comes in for a 2-4 year tenure on low government salaries is incentivized to maximize his earnings during his short tenure.

The second is the lack of engineering involvement. The government sector doesn't exactly attract the top talent at good salaries. The tenders on the other hand are awarded based on nepotism and personal gain. There is a long list of botched projects in the civil sector. None of the desalination and water treatments plants are operational, in the entire city, for example. They have not been for years now.

The sewerage infrastructure in many parts of the city, as exists right now, is worse than the French sewers built in the 14th century[1]. These sewers are open-top and become dumping grounds for garbage due to lack of a garbage collection infrastructure. The encroachments around and above these sewers fall victim to Tragedy of Commons[2]. The whole thing is a mess with no easy solution and if this years' heavy rainfalls become a future trend, the situation will be unsustainable. Many homes were waterlogged for days and weeks with no power or connectivity (cell towers have around 24-48 hours of standby power after which they went down).

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_sewers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_sewers) [2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons)

<comment><USER4> What made it different this time is that chick housing in DHA, and Clifton got flooded, and people living there can shout loud enough for the establishment to care

Unless this, common people wouldn't be so happy seeing DHA residents swimming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Remember - PK also has nuclear weapons, and they are not very careful with them.[0]

As a Pakistani myself, I can't be more disappointed with my country of origin.

For the Pakistanis here - it's worth criticizing our home nation and elders, otherwise it won't get any better. And I want it to get better.

[0] [https://www.wired.com/2011/11/pakistan-nukes-delivery- vans/](https://www.wired.com/2011/11/pakistan-nukes-delivery-vans/)

</comment><comment><USER14> The systematic encroachment, lack of infrastructure development/ maintenance and criminal negligence by the concerned authorities have turned Karachi into an urban disaster. Every time it rains, Karachi sinks.

Here's a blog post from 2009, things have became worse now.

[http://www.chowrangi.pk/why-karachi-suffer-when-it- rains.htm...](http://www.chowrangi.pk/why-karachi-suffer-when-it-rains.html)</comment>


I'm building 12 startups this year and just launched my first one It made $2 - <AUTHOR> https://kangabru.xyz/2020/05/01/icing-addict-launch <comment><USER2> Be less of an advertiser, if you want the attention of folks. Show them what you can do for them, not the latest trinket that you want to trade for cash.

I find it very revealing that you didn't post links to your first few interactions on Reddit. What happened in those doomed threads and under that deleted user? On your current thread, somebody tells you bluntly that you're advertising [1], and you indicate that advertising, to you, can be balanced by novelty and popular appeal. However, please keep in mind that popular appeal is manufactured by advertising, and that all new things are novel; advertising is not a damage to society that can be so easily cancelled out.

If you want to understand your audience, you might start by examining SCP-1471 [2], the object of your Reddit critic's affections.

Edit: From a game design perspective, if you don't make something that's fun for you, then I don't know why you're so surprised that a third of your users are already tired of it. I don't see, in your post about how you designed your game, much of a consideration for fun or ludic immersion. Have _you_ played your game for hours upon hours? TBH it sounds mind-numbing.

[1] [https://old.reddit.com/r/SatisfIcing/comments/ge6x0g/i_made_...](https://old.reddit.com/r/SatisfIcing/comments/ge6x0g/i_made_a_game_icing_addict_which_lets_you/fpmainw/)

[2] Warning: SCP. [http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1471](http://www.scp- wiki.net/scp-1471)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey thanks for the reply! You make some valid points.

Regarding my previous Reddit account the user is 'kangabru'. I now notice that it's not visible despite the fact I can still log in - I guess it's definitely banned. What happened was that I posted a link [1] which is a splash page for one of my open source tools. It didn't receive replies, I checked if it was shadow banned, and the bot said yes. So I wasn't trying to hide anything, it just there's nothing there. I'm not sure why it was banned but I guess it was flagged as spam since my username matched the domain.

Regarding the game aspect there's a sister post which goes into the design of the game [2]. You make a great point though, I _should_ make it fun for me too. I'm exicted for the 'zen' mode feature since that's something I'll definitely use. I'll keep that in mind as I work on it this month.

[1] [https://color-identifier.kangabru.xyz/](https://color- identifier.kangabru.xyz/) [2] [https://kangabru.xyz/2020/05/01/icing-addict- app](https://kangabru.xyz/2020/05/01/icing-addict-app)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, author here. If you have an questions or feedback I'd love to chat. I'm also going to try post a new blog every week. Some upcoming topics will be about the technology behind the app. It's got some cool stuff in it which I'm keen to share.

<comment><USER3> How are they different start-ups? Did you make separate legal entities? Etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> They'll be under one legal structure for the time being but will be different products/services with varying business models.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What are the 11 other startups ideas?

And are you defining startup as 12 legal entities or 12 products under one legal structure?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well the virus situation has changed things a bit. For instance I have some travel centric ideas which wouldn't be worth trying at the moment. I didn't plan on making the game but figured the situation would make my game a more viable option.

Anyway I've got a bunch, some include: \- a UI mocking tool using your website rather than an app. It something I've partially built that's great for dev specs, rapid prototyping, even marketing. \- A graphic design tool which takes a bunch of icons and generates certain types of collage beautifully and easily. They're a pain to make manually but I see the style used often. \- An idea generation and collaboration tool. \- A tinder-like job searching app with a fun twist. \- Even a funny bong design.

I'll come up with more and re-evaluate as I go. And they'll be under one legal structure for the time being.</comment></comment>


Show HN: My new app, Cloak for OSX - <AUTHOR> http://blog.getcloak.com/2011/05/12/cloak-stay-safe-on-the-internet-with-cloak-vpn/

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, all. I just got the MVP of my new app out the door and I'd love to get your feedback on it!

If you'd like to give it a go, drop me an email [davepeck at getcloak.com] and I'll send you a special Hacker News invite code. (Or you can just sign up on the Cloak home page.)

Cloak is a personal VPN, only (1) it's super easy to set up and get going, and (2) we terminate in the cloud [AWS], which means we can scale dynamically to meet load and can pick a data center near you to decrease the latency. Under the hood, Cloak is built on top of the OpenVPN stack.

Cheers, and thanks for checking it out!

<comment><USER2> You've got a good marketing page/site for it so far, good work keeping the Mac-like look and feel. Having never paid for such a service your prices seem perfectly reasonable to me for what it provides. Great luck, guys!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks very much. We put the pages together pretty quickly (MVP!), but I'm constantly in awe of how fast Nick (our designer) makes things look... solid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like your site, but I'm unsure how this would be better than simply using the built-in VPN stuff. I have paid VPN account configured and I use it when on public wifi.

Also, I can share my VPN account with my mobile devices -- can I do this with Cloak? I don't think OpenVPN is iOS compatible.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Rob,

What built-in stuff do you use (and who is your VPN provider)? While OSX is far better than most at making configuration of secure connections easy, we think there is still a long way to go. Cloak requires nothing but your username and password -- no alphabet soup anywhere.

(We also think our price/performance is substantially better than the average provider.)

As for iOS: stay tuned!

<comment><USER4> Snow Leopard has included built-in VPN support (IPsec and L2TP, no OpenVPN). And it is very easy to configure, admins can export VPN configuration to a file and distribute it to end users. Install the VPN profile is just a double click away. After configured there is a icon in the menubar to connect/disconnect, very much like your app.

I used it to connect to my university's VPN server (a Cisco Concentrator 3000). Works even better than the proprietary Cisco client.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I've used this stuff before. It's great. It's also not specifically tied to a scalable service, or directly integrated with billing and quota management, etc. We think there's room for both things depending on circumstance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a compelling idea, but how do users know whether or not they can trust your service? You would have access to all unencrypted internet traffic from your users while the app is active.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi kylec,

There are a few components to trust.

One component is trusting that the software does what it says it does. We're engaged with some reputable security consultants to ensure that we're delivering what we promise. We'll have (lots) more to say about that in the coming weeks and months.

The second component of trust is being a trustworthy, transparent company. Building that kind of trust takes time and presence in the industry and the community. We've tried to strike the right balance with our initial MVP website (see the features page at <https://www.getcloak.com/about/features/>) but we know we have a long road ahead of us. Let us know how we did.

In some sense, our problem of trust is no different than any other VPN, security, or service provider that deals with sensitive data. Trust is difficult and we'll work hard to earn it.

Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Living in Japan, I am familiar with a number of people who might try to use your software to make it appear as though they are coming from the United States, so that they could access Hulu or similar websites which are blocked abroad.

I know that, with AWS, you can choose a data center in Asia, so I suppose this type of action will not necessary work with Cloak. I am just interested if you have a policy for dealing with such behavior? It might represent a drain on bandwidth, for example.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi gillygize,

Our full terms of service and policies are listed here: <https://www.getcloak.com/policies/>

There are a lot of shady looking (to me, at least) VPN providers that make a big deal about how you can pretend you're in another country, etc. To me, that's code word for "you can do bad stuff with us." We're not interested in that -- we think that security should be easy for everyone -- and so, yes, we get to decide where your back-end is located. There are other abuse issues unrelated to location that we've taken pains to prevent, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It seems to me that the largest problem with this type of service, however it's dressed up, is on the VPN endpoint. We could argue forever about which transport is easier/has more security/etc - but if the VPN endpoint is not extremely secure, resistant to subpoena, etc - then it's not all that useful over a regular homebrew vpn.

<comment><AUTHOR> It depends on your needs. If you have the tools and skillset to set up and maintain your own endpoint, and you're willing to spend the time to do so (or you believe you can only trust it if you do so) then no VPN provider like us makes sense. We think there are a lot of people who don't fit into this category.

(Also: it's on our roadmap to let users create arbitrary secure networks with Cloak [aka connect multiple clients together rather than run through our endpoint.] It's not exactly the first thing on our roadmap, but we'll get there ;-)

<comment> X-Istence That second item mentioned in the parens, reminds me of Hamachi...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've seen so many of these VPN-for-rent services that this is becoming an obligatory reply. But I don't see anyone saying "ssh" on the comments yet, so:

Here's how to tunnel on OSX via ssh:

        ssh -fnNMD 8080 -S ~/.tmp-ssh-socket email@example.com && sudo networksetup -setsocksfirewallproxy Airport localhost 8080

Then when you're done:

      ssh -S ~/.tmp-ssh-socket -O exit localhost && sudo networksetup -setsocksfirewallproxystate Airport off

That will set your ssh server as the system-wide socks proxy.

Granted I don't have the time to wrap a pretty UI around it, but those commands work, and I trust my own servers more than any service.

If anyone _does_ have time to wrap a pretty UI around it... OpenCloak could exist mere hours after the commercial project went into beta :)

<comment><USER9> Except it wouldn't be OpenCloak... it'd be OpenCloakForPeopleWhoHaveShellAccountsOnServersSomewhere, which is much less useful to your average -- but security-conscious -- user.

<comment><USER10> You could feed it your Amazon authentication details and let it bring up an EC2 instance automatically.

That would make it functionally equivalent to Cloak.

<comment><USER9> Don't you need to specifically sign up for AWS as well for that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Have you considered some sort of pay-by-usage (by time, by bandwidth, whatever) plan for people who don't know how often they'll need a VPN?

It's not every month that I'm in a hotel or a coffee shop, so it's hard to justify a monthly subscription.

<comment><AUTHOR> We've heard this from several people and are investigating what a reasonable model would be. (Bandwidth is the key driver of our costs.)

I would say that our current (beta) pricing is stake-in-the-ground, so anything you can tell us about how often and how much you'd use this would be very helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Quick question about your implementation. Do you generate a key for each user using PKI, or is there a shared key for all users? I had a previous VPN provider that used a shared key for each user, which was a security issue.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, that's not a very good way to use keys. ;-)

We have our own authentication mechanism that ties into our billing and quota machinery. So no such problems with Cloak.

<comment><USER13> Using euphoria[1]?

[1] <http://www.eurephia.net>

<comment><AUTHOR> We rolled our own actually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very cool stuff, something I would most like use myself :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome! Drop me an email [davepeck at getcloak.com] if you'd like the special Hacker News invite code. ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This isn't entirely constructive, but I like your design. It's close to some of the stuff I've been building lately, and gives me a few ideas for my next design project.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll pass that on to our designer, @thecropsie.</comment></comment>


Vinod Khosla asks for $30M for access to public beach - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc10.com/news/local/california/billionaire-asks-for-30m-for-access-to-public-beach/50023553 <comment><USER2> Tone deaf as usual. Roughly 90 acres purchased in 2008 for $32.5mil, easement according to [http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Vinod-Khosla- wants-30-...](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Vinod-Khosla- wants-30-million-for-Martins-Beach-6847689.php) is about an acre. That's quite a bit of appreciation.

Khosla is wrong in this one and continues to be an example of tone deafness on access rights and how the Bay Area sees beach access as compared to Malibu, etc. (They have similar fights down there, but, well, the gentrification and blockage is more established).

<comment><USER3> Khosla has always been tone deaf. Back in the 90s, when California was having one of its droughts, Khosla was the biggest violater of the water use restrictions in the Bay Area.

In an ideal world, the tech world would boycotts Khosla and startups refuse to take a dime from him. That would knock some sense into him. But this is not an ideal world, and people will continue lining up outside his door, hat in hand. He knows money is king, and he has lots of it.

<comment><USER4> How about boycotting his startups? Don't take a job with them and don't buy from them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Man, Vinod is burning up every shred of street cred he had with this fight over the beach in front of his property. For someone who has often taken liberal or progressive positions on other things, this seems remarkably tone deaf.

The law on public beaches in California is clear. You can't privatize a beach by trying to obstruct people from getting to it.

<comment><USER6> > The law on public beaches in California is clear.

Apparently not[0]:

> In a recent battle between tourists, fishermen, surfers, other members of > the public, and venture capitalist billionaire Vinod Khosla, San Mateo > County Superior Court Judge Gerald J. Buchwald invoked the 1848 Treaty of > Guadalupe Hidalgo to deny public access to a portion of the California > coastline. See, Friends of Martin's Beach v. Martin's Beach 1, LLC, San > Mateo County Civil Case #CIV517634. Despite the California State > Constitution's specific provision enabling members of the public to access > the beach, Judge Buchwald ruled that the Treaty trumped the California > Coastal Act because it predated it, and officially ended a century of access > to Martins Beach in Half Moon Bay, CA.

0: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Guadalupe_Hidalgo#Ad...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Guadalupe_Hidalgo#Additional_issues)

<comment><USER2> Yes, he is hoping to loop in the old Spanish Land Grant treaties and cases. In the end he will lose. He has enough money and $30mil for 1/89th of the property? I really do miss people like Gordon Moore, etc. where they did have their enclaves, but did so much public good with their holdings.

<comment><USER6> Whether or not he will lose (if he doesn't settle) is up to the courts - neither of us can claim to know the outcome. The fact that there is direct precedent for this specific property[0] means that it's definitely possible that he could win.

0: [https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/64/318](https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/64/318)

<comment><USER5> Even if he wins, he will lose, in the sense that he is vilifying himself by trying to abuse the legal system against the "spirit" of the CA law. No one's going to love him for doing this.

<comment><USER7> > trying to abuse the legal system against the "spirit" of the CA law

How is using the legal system "abusing" the legal system? He makes his arguments for his position, and the court rules, one hopes, according to the law.

The law should be a stable foundation on which society can rest. If the treaty in question does actually govern property rights, and the people who bought property relied on the fact that it does so, and has done so in previous cases (thus establishing precedent), then it is unfair and abusive to change the status quo out from under them arbitrarily by popular opinion. That's not justice, that's tyranny by the majority.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Not familiar with the area. Is it feasible for a group to fund/arrange free boat transport to constantly bring people to the beach to enjoy it regardless of the easement?

<comment><USER9> The surf there is treacherous. It's not the sort of place you'd want to ferry people to. Besides, there is other beach access in the area that is accessible from land. Perhaps such an action would have value as a form of protest. I'd take the trip, but I wouldn't want grandma and the kids coming along.

<comment><USER10> Assuming you can traverse the waterline (don't know what California's access laws are, but I assume you are free to walk along it) how far of a walk is it from the nearest accessible beach?

<comment><USER9> Per the California Coastal Act, you're free to walk along the waterline (below the high tide line). However this particular beach is surrounded by rocky cliffs so it's unlikely you'd get very far. Closest access would probably be via kayak from San Gregorio State Beach 3-5 miles south. Though there are lots of pullouts along that stretch of Highway 1.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What's the eminent domain situation in California? Could the government just decide that allowing the public to access the public beach is in the public interest and take his whole property?

<comment><USER12> With eminent domain they still have to compensate the owner for the land. In my own country they call it "compulsory purchase" instead, which seems to describe it a bit better.

<comment><USER4> Which country calls it "compulsory purchase?" It is indeed much clearer.

<comment><USER13> UK

<comment><USER12> NZ does as well, where I am.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If we invoke the ancient European idea of the "public trust doctrine" to bolster the justness of the argument that Vinod Khosla should create a path on his private land for the public use -- then why can't California invoke that same reasoning to overturn the antequated water ownership laws that give private, transferrable ownership of ground resources (including water) for large landowners who control a large portion of the state's water sources?

The attitude about California's ground water is, "Hey, they own the water based on the laws on the books, what can you do?" Much of the public would rather they not use all that water on almonds and alfalfa and whatnot, just to export elsewhere. Why can't the rest of the country grow that stuff? How can someone exclusively own the groundwater like that??

Whatever law that applies to Vinod Khosla should apply to those large water- wasting water-owners.

(And it follows that however dastardly Vinod Khosla may seem, the large water- owners in California are irrevocably screwing over California's future generations' water resources, and are thus in my book, much more worthy of scorn and "public trust doctrine" action.)

<comment><USER15> > Why can't the rest of the country grow that stuff?

Yea... That's not how plants work. Plants have zones that they grow in, and some are even more restrictive. Where I live, even if I grew cherry and apple trees, I would never get fruit off of them because it's too hot here.

I like the way you're thinking though. As an avid gardener, I just had to dig against this one a little.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, just wanted to drop in and affirm that I already knew that not everything can grow everywhere.

(Ex: apples can grow in Appalachia, but they're famous in Washington state; potatoes may not grow well in Florida, and oranges wouldn't grow well at all in Idaho...) But almonds must grow in at least one other place where there is more water than in California's Central Valley.

So I think we're on the same wavelength.

And I remember hearing 10 years ago that water will be the new resource that people fight over, if oil was the resource that people fought over for the last half-century. And that agriculture trade would be a form of trading water. That's sort of already happening. Call me naive, but we should cut down on California's production of some crops, and use good Midwest farmland more efficiently by growing more non-meat agriculture instead of meat.

<comment><USER15> Sure; I tried to couch the response and it seems like that was effective. It's probably just redirected anger at not being able to have beautiful cherry and Hass avocado trees where I live. :-\

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Did this guy actually buy the beach itself? If so, people should get off his lawn - it's his property and this America.

If not, then I imagine there's just a road going through his property. I tend to think of the streets as being publicly owned: The city should consider paving an alternate access route to the beach and paying for its maintenance out of the local property taxes.

That said, it's common for cities to have codes governing parking and such, and it's plausible to me that guaranteeing access to a beach is along the same lines. It seems weird to force him to maintain the road though.

</comment><comment><USER17> Lawyers _always_ ask for way more money than they expect to get. In almost every situation like this in the past they settle for 10% of the amount and everyone walks away happy.

This is like the endless use of maximum sentences in headlines: "hacker faces 100 years in prison!"... when they almost always end up getting <10yrs at the end of the trial. Sad to see HN fall into this trap once again.

Whether he's wrong in demanding compensation is a fair debate, don't get me wrong, but I don't think he expects to get anywhere near that price.

</comment><comment><USER18> My my is this still going on? The beach exclusion principles employed by Mr Khosla make him sound like a dick. Gareth Morgan tried something similar recently and it backfired, although he was only trying to raise awareness for the public effort to purchase the Abel Tasman, New Zealand beach for the public, which may have succeeded. His response was "I will donate 600k if I can keep a private residence". 30M sounds like a lot of money for the right of access here. Not the California I remember. I am on the fence on this one, but think a solution should exist which respects both parties concerns and doesn't cost either more than a million. It is not uncommon to restrict access to beaches via private land in New Zealand, but the neighbourly thing to do is come to some arrangement that is mutually beneficial, and I don't know what the laws are with respect to trespass in California. If the property was to be developed by Mr Khosla and it was in New Zealand, the council would likely require a public access way to be gifted. As a pilot, devils advocate, not a lawyer, the first thing that springs to mind is can you legally land a helicopter or a drone on the beach to see what all the fuss is about? ;)

</comment><comment><USER19> Americans are very easy to govern people. There is so much elitist stuff that happens there and people have no voice at all. I saw so many things there that should be protested.

For instance, my friend(native there) had this phone from AT&T, a stock android phone (or so I assumed) but you cannot share internet on it! Or that the govt rarely builds any usable public transport is just crazy...(car companies have strong lobby may be ?) Store do not keep smaller sizes of anything (soaps, shampoos, food items) and force everybody to buy large.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is an old story, going back at least a year: [http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Martins-Beach-owner- ch...](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Martins-Beach-owner-challenges- judge-s-order-to-5963587.php)

</comment><comment><USER21> Just to play devil's advocate here... I believe last time this came up he raised a fuss about him having to maintain the road, or he had spent $x on it already, or something like that.

Was their substance to that, or just an attempt to drag out the process?

</comment><comment><USER22> I don't know what's wrong with this guy, but I do know that the state should just go to war with him. Why should there be a road leading to this guy's house?

</comment><comment><USER23> It's Vinod, not Vinad. Someone please correct the title.

</comment><comment><USER24> I am sure it's not legal. Is it?

<comment><USER25> It's not, but it's not uncommon. Malibu has all sorts of difficult to reach beaches, with threatening signage about "no trespassing" and other such nonsense. All beaches are public property in California, so it's rich people being bastards when they prevent access and pretend like it's their private property.

I make it a point when I'm in Malibu to stomp across several of those "private" beaches, on foot. It takes a while to get to some of them, since access routes are rare. I suspect city planners are sympathetic to the goals of the privateers...there's a few places where it is a few miles between public access.

Hopefully, Half Moon Bay is less amenable to rich people skirting the law.

Also, I never knew Khosla was such a dick.

<comment><USER26> Maybe you should put a blog with Google maps which shows the hidden routes you can take to reach those private beaches.

<comment><USER27> There's an app called "Our Malibu Beaches" with all the relevant info

<comment><USER26> Nice.

You know you are getting old when you say there should be blog/site for that instead of saying there should be an app for that.

<comment><USER27> I mean, a site would have been fine also, but in this case the mix of information and location mapping while on the go is a perfect use case for a phone app</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Leveraging bigdata requires different DA skills than traditional environments - <AUTHOR> http://blog.panoply.io/big-data-architect-role <comment><USER2> I have been a data engineer for over a decade, and when I read articles like this I always wonder how do you differentiate between a big data environment and a traditional one? I mean aside from cloud adoption in the past decade I dont see my self needing any different "skill sets" than I did 10 years ago!

<comment><USER3> I disagree. The main changes I feel are the ones caused by the business requirements. Where I see the most changes in the past couple of years are the requirements from our marketing team, their data is a freaking mess!

<comment><USER4> I would say that change in general is always triggered by the 'business' so this is a common is knowledge. If a business decides to change how they do business, then the requirements change as well as what is needed. This would include what skills are needed to do the work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good article on Hadoop:

[http://www.dataversity.net/hadoop-advantageous-choice- enterp...](http://www.dataversity.net/hadoop-advantageous-choice-enterprise- information-management/)</comment>


Ask HN: How to succeed without working full time - <AUTHOR> Hi HN community,
I've been suffering from chronic pain for a few years now and have stopped working for ~ 2 years because I could not bear it anymore (kind of a pain-related burnout).
After having started again recently, in the same company, but part-time. I don't think I will be able to work full-time in the short-medium term, and I feel like I can't really evolve in my career because of this.
I'm sure there are a lot of people with a lot of different reasons to work part-time, and I would like to know how you handled your career choices.
My original plan (before the pain was incapacitating) was to work 2-3 years at this company, eventually work for another company with a higher pay for 1-2 years and finally start my own company.
But now I feel there are two main problems:
- Is it even possible to build a startup when fulltime ? The people I talk to try to dissuade me because as a company, you need to be fast and it can't be possible if you don't work half the time.
- As I'm working part-time, I'm not learning as much, I don't really have opportunities to take more responsabilities on the project I'm working on.
So here is the question: how do you succeed (either in your career or as a startup) when you can only work part-time ?
Should I resign myself I'll never be more than an average developer ? <comment><USER2> Define "success"?

What about being an average developer is insufficient for you?

<comment><AUTHOR> By using success, I meant that I would like to be given more responsibilities, work on projects with bigger impact, to be more included in decisions. It usally comes with being promoted and having experience : things I find way more difficult while working part-time.

And by using average, I meant the fact of stagnating and not learning, etc...

I think I should not have used both of those terms. I does not really reflect what I mean (and I might sound full of myself).</comment></comment>


Create your own world - <AUTHOR>

Every startup dreams of being the next google, the next microsoft, or kill google, kill microsoft. Well, I have two words for you: be yourself. That's why you start a statup; to solve a personal problem, not google's problems, nor microsoft's. Stop following what google or microsoft are doing. In fact, if you want to be the next goog, or msft, you will get your wish. You will be goog#2, or msft#2. In this competitive world, #2 is an ugly place to be. It's either you're first or last; there's no #2; #2 means last. You're either be google(first), or yahoo(last); facebook(first), or myspace(last). Don't get me wrong, yahoo and myspace are valuable; according to alexa.com, they are #1 and #2 most visited sites in the world. But who cares; yahoo is a confuse conpany; today they decide to be a media company; next month they want to be a search engine company; a few days later, they're angry, and want to fire 10% of their workforce. For myspace, what can I say? Last time I went there, I thought it was a daycare center; a whole bunch of 4 year old. <comment><USER2> I would love to solve one of Google's problems, particularly if they would pay me to do it. Your point seems to be more about understanding the problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> To solve google's problems, you would have to solve your problem first; if you're not solving your problem, you wouldn't be motivated enough to do it</comment></comment>


Unmanned Aircraft System Operations Industry "Code of Conduct" - <AUTHOR> http://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/AUVSI/958c920a-7f9b-4ad2-9807-f9a4e95d1ef1/UploadedFiles/AUVSI%20UAS%20Operations%20Code%20of%20Conduct%20-%20Final.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> Very good replacement for Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics in the unmanned aircraft domain ...

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics></comment>


Ask HN:  How to get my website running/loading faster - <AUTHOR>

In regards to my start-up (www.ommageo.com) I have received a lot of great advice on HN.
One thing no one mentioned was how slow my website loads, but it is a clear problem.  Currently the website is hosted on a GoDaddy shared server, naturally I have considered upgrading to VPN or Dedicated, but I am not sure that will get me to the performance I am seeking.  Bootstrapping the startup the hosting upgrade is an expensive and time consuming experiment (webpages/db) just to find out if this is going to solve the speed issues.
Any insight, advice,or suggestions? <comment><USER2> [http://www.ommageo.com/](http://www.ommageo.com/) \- Takes 4 seconds [http://www.ommageo.com/js/function1.php?lati=&longi=&page=&k...](http://www.ommageo.com/js/function1.php?lati=&longi=&page=&keywords=&start=&end=&pid=&data=&vid=&day=&month=&year=&vip=) \- takes 10+ seconds

First request shouldn't take more than 300-400 ms.

and 2nd request shouldn't take more than 1-2 seconds.

Figure out why it takes that long. Use server side caching.

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate framing the speed goal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What's your stack (including primary datastore)? What level of caching, if any, are you doing?

<comment><AUTHOR> MySQL, No caching.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Godaddy has a static cache option?

<comment><AUTHOR> On shared hosting no, I am not sure if it is available on their VPN/Dedicated hosting plans.

<comment><USER4> Well, if you choose to go on a vps or dedicated hosting plan, will be easy to add a static cache on nginx and in your database, take a look qt these sites:

[http://www.6tech.org/2013/02/nginx-tuning-with-php-fpm- and-m...](http://www.6tech.org/2013/02/nginx-tuning-with-php-fpm-and- memcached/)

[http://pureform.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/using-memcache- with...](http://pureform.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/using-memcache-with-mysql- and-php/)

And, if you can fit redis at this setup even a very small vps would handle more traffic than a shared hosting</comment></comment></comment>


Apple fan admits drying up galaxy phone in micro owen - <AUTHOR> http://global.samsungtomorrow.com/?p=16161

<comment><USER2> What part of the article does "Apple fan" in the title summarize?</comment>


Android: Worst. Bug. Ever. - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=680 <comment><USER2> Wow... that's pretty bad. I just tried it and it works.

I hope they roll out a fix soon -- it's a little scary to think that each keystroke is going to both the current application and an invisible, root- level command prompt.

<comment><USER3> Luckily I don't type "sudo rm -rf /" or similar things in normal conversation very often...

<comment><USER4> Good thing you didn't post this comment from an Android phone... ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Type in "cat" on its own and hit enter. It'll hang the underlying shell until this gets fixed.

You'll need to do this after each reboot of the phone.

</comment><comment><USER6> That is nowhere near the worst bug ever. But nice headline attention whoring. Did Michael Arrington guest write?

<comment><USER7> Yeah definitely not. It's not like the girl's ims from the other end executed on the shell.

Seems like it was an easy bug to find and temporarily patch. An official fix will probably come soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I thought it was going to call 911.

<comment><USER9> That would be the second worst. _The_ worst would be if it called 411 when you dialled 911.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> So the worst bug ever is being logged in a as root on my own device? I can see why this may not be a good idea, particularly on a phone, but it's certainly not the worst bug ever as far as I'm concerned. This is blown out of proportion.

</comment><comment><USER11> I guess even Google can't get the whole OS thing right on the first try.

<comment><USER12> This probably isn't Google's fault, it's probably the fault of someone on the T-Mobile team or at HTC who accidently left this running on the OS image put on the phones.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If I were a malicious person, I'd head to my local T-Mobile store to `rm -rf /`

But I'm not a malicious person, so I'll only reboot it just to check it out.

<comment><USER14> Most of what you could hurt is mounted read-only so... probably wouldn't do much harm, but it's a nice thought anyway :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I just tried it as well and... it works. It's pretty scary but has some good prank-potential until they fix it :)

</comment><comment><USER15> The worst bug ever is the arithmetic mistake made by a programmer of a FORTRAN program which crashed a probe to Venus. Millions of dollars down the drain just like that, and just a simple programming error.

<comment><USER16> That may be the most costly bug ever in terms of money, but there have also been a (small) number of human fatalities resulting from software bugs. Those are arguably much worse than the Venus probe.

<comment><USER17> Also see <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25>, that caused more damage then erasing a phone.</comment></comment></comment>


Venture Capital and Its Discontents - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/venture-capital-and-its-discontents-1464667261 <comment><USER3> *Just type the title into google and click on it to read the article.

Anyway, the article talks about how this company didn't take VC money, but took money from Indie.vc (backed by traditional VC money).

And then describes the economics which is almost identical to the economics of taking money from a VC firm.

The big difference is the apparent lack of pressure, but that pressure is internal. Its not like the VC forces you to spend money a certain way.

To put it another way, if the advantage of indie.vc is that they don't pressure you, its a difference in management style, not a difference in deal structure.

<comment><USER4> But there is a difference in deal structure. If you want to, you can pay back the investment via profit sharing, which is unheard of in traditional seed/early stage VC deals.

(Disclosure: My current company, Tapster Robotics, is one of the first Indie.vc investments. I would have happily remained self-funded/bootstrapped if it wasn't for Indie's alternative deal structure.)

<comment><USER3> Wouldn't that be a version of venture debt?

<comment><USER5> There are two pretty big differences. The first is that venture debt is usually only available to very established companies, as far as startups go, and have restrictive covenants (regarding cash balance, profitability, other indebtedness, etc). The second is that most venture debt comes with warrant coverage, so the lender ends up taking equity as well.

<comment><USER3> But in this case, it sounds like indie.vc gets the equity kicker as well at a liquidity event.

The covenants could be a big difference. Surprised that Indie.vc doesn't have any.

<comment><USER6> The instruments is essentially a modified SAFE with a clause for distributions (which keys off a multiple of the founder's salary) and no expiration date. The intent was to keep it simple, clear and relatively toothless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > A recent report from the Kauffman Foundation found that less than 5% of all > startup funding comes from venture capitalists, and only 6.5% of high-growth > startups take venture funding. However, 37% of companies that had IPOs > between 1980 and 2005 had VC funding.

Wow, if that's true I'm very shocked by those numbers! To be fair I haven't ever considered the macros of the industry, but perhaps this points out just how much of a bubble (perhaps echo chamber?) I live within!

</comment><comment><USER8> "Venture capital can be like a mortgage you can't afford," says Atlassian co- founder Scott Farquhar. "It sounds great at the time, but you regret it when your mortgage payments overwhelm you and you realize you didn't really need a big house in the first place."

No, venture capital is not at all like a mortgage. There are no payments due, unlike a small business loan, which is very much like a mortgage.

<comment><USER9> I guess Scott Farquhar perhaps meant that 'payments due' are the growth numbers that one has to meet periodically (monthly, quarterly, annually) - <USER2> which one had agreed on during the VC funding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is similar to revenue sharing agreements that many investors enter into with startups. Many angels at least bake this option into their Seed Stage investment if they fear that the company could turn into a "lifestyle" business.

<comment><USER4> "many angels" Can you name a few? The difference with Indie is that paying back via cash distributions is not something to fear and is not considered a failure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Whenever I see an article about a single company that only quotes its leadership and customers, I'm always reminded of [http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html) ... Not that this pattern is bad per say, but caveat emptor.

<comment><USER6> Candidly, I thought the piece was going to be a broader look at VC alternatives. I was as surprised as anyone to see that Indie.vc WAS the story.

<comment><USER11> Me too. I figured I was about to see problems with and alternatives to current VC models. Instead, the site is an advertisement for an unusual VC. Title should probably reflect that.

<comment><AUTHOR> You have a good point. I was following the submission guidelines on the title.

Anyway, it's sometimes hard to figure out an a propos title until after reading all the insightful HN commentary. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Blocked by a paywall when I try to read the article. :-(

<comment><USER13> Access it via Google and there is no paywall. (It's stupid) [https://www.google.com/#safe=off&q=Venture+Capital+and+Its+D...](https://www.google.com/#safe=off&q=Venture+Capital+and+Its+Discontents)

<comment><USER9> The reason:

 _First click free: We 've worked with subscription-based news services to arrange that the very first article seen by a Google News user (identifiable by referrer) doesn't require a subscription. Although this first article can be seen without subscribing, any further clicks on the article page will prompt the user to log-in or subscribe to the news site._ [https://support.google.com/news/publisher/answer/40543](https://support.google.com/news/publisher/answer/40543)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Small Business Financing, Black People and Venture Capital [https://youtu.be/gXGBEUoxHHs](https://youtu.be/gXGBEUoxHHs)</comment>


Young adults have less to spend on non-essentials, study says - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2019/jun/20/young-adults-have-less-to-spend-on-non-essentials-study-says <comment><USER4> My advice to "millenials" (well I think technically I'm one, so let's say younger ones) is to stay the hell away from London. I read these articles on the housing crisis and staggering rent amounts and wonder am I even living in the same country as these people.

<comment><USER5> This basically amounts to advising them not to live in a city (which is fine). But some people do like living in cities, and London is really the only option in the UK if you want to do that. No other city in the UK is anywhere close to London in terms of culture and economic opportunity.

Yes, rents in Manchester and Birmingham are lower. But you're going to get paid less, you have to live in a second tier city, and in the long run you have fewer career opportunities.

<comment><USER4> > This basically amounts to advising them not to live in a city (which is > fine). But some people do like living in cities, and London is really the > only option in the UK if you want to do that.

I'm gonna call bollocks on that :)

I agree with the rest to an extent. You're going to be paid higher (well not everybody, but most HN readers would be) and have all the other advantages of London. Fine. But you need to take the downsides with that and stop moaning.

When I was emigrating to the UK I considered everywhere. London was one of the first places I crossed off my list.

<comment><USER5> >But you need to take the downsides with that and stop moaning.

This is the whole problem with the UK. Many of the current problems with London are fixable. People need to keep moaning about them in order to get them fixed.

<comment><USER4> Tbh I think the "easiest" single thing which would improve the UK immensely would be to ditch FPTP and bring in some type of PR voting.

<comment><USER6> If we had a PR voting system and the PM resigned. What would happen?

Would a general election be called?

It's a bit farcical that the country will have a PM that was not the leader of the governing party at the last election.

Granted with the Brexit mess they could arguably have some legitimate reasons for not calling it straight away but it seems that they've all ruled out calling it at all, AFAIK.

<comment><USER4> > If we had a PR voting system and the PM resigned. What would happen?

Ireland has a form of PR (single transferable vote), they've had plenty of instances of the Taoiseach (PM) being replaced and not going to a general election straight away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> older generation is not wise at all. they should be saving for when the current pension and old age benefit system collapses. i guess they are the same people that gave us climate change so i am not surprised at their shortsightedness

<comment><USER8> A sizeable portion of the older generation having fun right now also owns property, and will massively oppose any political move that could depreciate their property values.

Sadly I don't think they are out of their mind spending so much, a lot of them have passed the FU point (enough assets to live decently whatever time is left for them)

<comment><USER7> the point is that it won't be a voluntary thing like a political move that will wipe them out economically

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I wonder at what point the Tories will deem food and accommodation as non- essential?

<comment><USER10> The American right wing already believes food is a luxury: [https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/10681363932375572...](https://twitter.com/RepThomasMassie/status/1068136393237557254)

<comment><USER11> But that tweet is nothing of the sort. Food is not a luxury, but you can never have a right for someone else's labour.

<comment><USER12> > you can never have a right for someone else's labour.

The reason a human's productivity is orders of magnitude higher than that of a stone age person is the work of uncountable legions of dead people. Almost everything we have and know is due to network effects of humans working together in time and space. The current generation's productivity is almost all due to inherited tools and knowledge. You _do_ live off of "other people's work", we all do. The amount that you yourself contribute, and that you are concerned about, is negligible in comparison to the inheritance. We _can_ afford to be much, much more relaxed. You are not living a stone age life where your concern would have had merit, because most of what you achieve was indeed attributable mostly to yourself (although even then tools and techniques inherited from previous generations probably was a major factor).

If somebody is able to "make millions", or even billions, how much is only their own effort? Put a baby in a swamp and see what they can achieve. That billionaire is sitting in the center of a vast network of humans in time and space - most of it consisting of the dead who cannot be paid even if you wanted to. It's certainly good and necessary to have such people in central network locations, I just dislike when people think those guys are "self- made". I let you live alone in a remote forest, and even with all modern knowledge, where is your "self-made" empire? Same for a 50k/year job, who still is vastly more productive than a $100/year stone age guy not at all because of superior skills or effort. Your position in the space-time human network determines most of your impact.

So to what I quoted of your comment, that is exactly what we do, every one of us. Some just like to pretend that their own contribution is much more significant than it really is, because almost all of the productivity and possibilities are from the network and not from a particular person. So - relax! It isn't you who pays, it's the dead >99.9%.

<comment><USER11> This is true, and that's why you should advocate for charity - which is based on free will decision on controlling your own property and resources, just as all the interactions that make up modern world that you so thoroughly describe.

The "human right" concept, however, is entirely different: it is referring to use of the mechanism that has monopoly on violence, the state, to redistribute these resources, by the use of or threat of use of said violence, without any free will involved. This mechanism completely removes individual capability of making a moral decision, and uses morality as a pretext to obtain monopolistic, bureaucratic power.

In my view, this monstrous mechanism, which is capable of despotism thousands as bad as any other, should be only used for things that cannot be achieved without it, such as rule of law. Charity and helping others is a noble thing, but since it can be achieved without it, just through free individuals decisions, it should.

<comment><USER13> Using violence to collect taxes is monstrous but using violence to protect the property of rich people is right and just? In nature, a person cannot have infinite wealth. The idea that someone can have as much wealth as they want is a creation of the state and is enforced by violence.

<comment><USER11> > In nature, a person cannot have infinite wealth.

In nature, most of children die in infancy, might makes right, murder rates are sky-high and starvation is a constant threat.

So, if anything, using "in nature" is working against your case, not for it.

> The idea that someone can have as much wealth as they want

Nobody can have as much as they "want" \- but everybody should be able as much wealth as they have acquired through any kind of lawful exchange.

<comment><USER13> > In nature, most of children die in infancy, might makes right, murder rates > are sky-high and starvation is a constant threat.

> So, if anything, using "in nature" is working against your case, not for it.

Total non-sequitur. The point is that the idea of unlimited wealth is an artificial construction.

> everybody should be able as much wealth as they have acquired through any > kind of lawful exchange.

Any state that protects the property of wealthy people through violence can surely also put obligations on those people. In exchange for the state's violence, they must support a social safety net which gives the people who wealthy people are being protected from basic human necessities and dignity.

The state who gives an artificially constructed right to wealthy people (the institution of private property) can also give an artificially constructed right to poor people (basic needs and dignity).

<comment><USER11> > Total non-sequitur. The point is that the idea of unlimited wealth is an > artificial construction.

But you're trying to reach some kind of value judgement from this point - <USER3> if "artifical construction" means it's bad in some way. It is not. On the opposite, these completely virtual notions of money and finance helped achieve modern-day prosperity that humanity enjoys.

So, yes, it is artificial, which makes it good.

> which gives the people who wealthy people are being protected from basic > human necessities and dignity

So, pay off the potential looters and thieves to sooth them? You do understand that this is basically "might makes right" moral imperative and nothing more?

> The state who gives an artificially constructed right to wealthy people (the > institution of private property) can also give an artificially constructed > right to poor people (basic needs and dignity).

First of all, the artificially constructed right of private property is given to all, equally. And second of all, while both of these rights are artificially constructed, one is moral, while the other is not.

<comment><USER13> > But you're trying to reach some kind of value judgement from this point - <USER3> > if "artifical construction" means it's bad in some way.

I'm not saying property is bad nor am I making a value judgement about it. I'm saying is that it's a concept created by the state.

> So, pay off the potential looters and thieves to sooth them? You do > understand that this is basically "might makes right" moral imperative and > nothing more?

You're begging the question. There's no such thing as "looters" prior to the concept of property.

> First of all, the artificially constructed right of private property is > given to all, equally.

Sure, just as basic necessities like education, food and housing should be.

> And second of all, while both of these rights are artificially constructed, > one is moral, while the other is not.

Again, not at all clear how you're making a moral judgement about this issue prior to the creation of the concept of property. Yes, stealing is wrong, but in order to steal something it has to belong to someone first. If we're trying to figure out what should belong to who, it's silly to come into the discussion by simply insisting that stealing is wrong.

I could just as easily say that the wealth of a society _belongs_ to everyone prior to it's distribution. Why then should rich people be entitled to steal it from poor people? Stealing is wrong, remember.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Totally intuitive. Kids have _always_ been broke.

It's a trope seen in movies and tv shows that go back several decades, because it mirrors real life. In the early working years, people have never had much money. (Fortunately, this later corrects.)

<comment><USER15> The article was comparing the same age ranges through time though. Young people are less well off compared to previous young people and old folk are more well off compared to previous old folk.</comment></comment>


California Wildfires: What Will It Take to Prevent the Next Disaster? - <AUTHOR> http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/california-wildfire/ <comment><USER2> ALl those with fire damages should think about suing the Sierra Club. For decades the forestry service wanted to trim low growth and have periodic controlled burns (usually in zero wind and medium damp conditions) to clean out the understory growth left by clear and other tree harvesting. The Sierra Club fought this trimming - they wanted a 'natural forest' \- get wise, goofs, a natural system uses fire from lightning to do just what happened. More smaller fires are needed to head off these monster fires.

<comment><USER3> Even if your description was fully accurate, there's no cause of action against someone for lobbying for bad government policy, so other than a particularly expensive publicity stunt, I'm not sure what the point of such a suit would be.

<comment><USER2> I agree,they probably are not suable, protected speech, but we need to educate people to allow the forest renewal cycle to occur quite often, or you get huge build ups of fuel, and a very long dry spell like this one allow small burns to combine and grow, especially in high winds as we have seen</comment></comment></comment>


Clearing up some misconceptions around the "ImageTragick" bug - <AUTHOR> https://lcamtuf.blogspot.com/2016/05/clearing-up-some-misconceptions-around.html <comment><USER2> (deleted because I used the wrong thread)

<comment><USER3> You probably wanted to leave this comment somewhere else?

<comment><USER2> oooops! Thanks!</comment></comment></comment>


We have closed a $1M Round - <AUTHOR> http://www.dwolla.org/blog/we-have-closed-a-1m-round/

<comment><USER2> Congrats indeed. However this struck me:

 _Dwolla's unique technology allows us to process money through your bank account as fast as anyone else in the world._

As long as by "world", you mean the USA... (the signup page has a textbox for City and a dropdown of the US states, so assuming it is US-only).

Edit: Yep, <http://www.dwolla.org/help/where-is-dwolla-available/> says: _We are currently opening accounts for residents in Iowa and California. [...] We are currently planning our roll out to additional states._

<comment><USER3> I think you'll see a nationwide rollout in the coming weeks

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> More and more stories like this have been popping up in the Silicon Prairie. It's awesome to show another example of a great startup, working with local companies, taking the next step.

Congrats guys!

<comment><USER3> You beat me to the submit Levi!

Congrats indeed!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hadn't heard of these guys, hit their front page. There's no information about what they do. Looking at the document categories, something to do with making payments?

<comment><USER5> I was having the same problem, go to dwolla.com

.org being the help/info part of the site is very confusing

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> {darn it.. never see "We just opened a round"} posts on HN... what gives?

</comment><comment><USER7> Congrats! I love the simple model and simple pricing for fund transfers.

<comment><USER8> Thanks Tim! We appreciate the support!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are you favorite HN threads of 2013? - <AUTHOR>

I had taken a break from HN for most of 2013 and I'm sure I've missed some gems. What are your favorite threads that you have seen here in the last year? <comment><USER2> This one:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6455391](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6455391)</comment>


The Cat-And-Mouse Story of Implementing Anti-Spam for Mail.ru - <AUTHOR> http://highscalability.com/blog/2016/8/30/the-cat-and-mouse-story-of-implementing-anti-spam-for-mailru.html <comment><AUTHOR> Tarantool, mentioned in here, is an in-memory database and application server with 100% compatible drop-in replacement for Lua 5.1

Github page: [https://github.com/tarantool/tarantool/](https://github.com/tarantool/tarantool/)

</comment><comment><USER2> One powerful rule that I use in my Exim setup is to drop any SMTP connection that doesn't have forward and backward DNS that match. This catches a big majority of all spam, with hardly any false positive downside. No credible in SMTP forwarding host has broken DNS (by definition, practically). Lots of spamming machines do. Of course, not all, but this is a game of percentages and multiple stages.

<comment><USER3> You'll definitely lose email from Amazon SES then. What about checking SPF records instead?

<comment><USER2> My darned residential cable line has forward and reverse DNS that match.

If the Amazon SES can't figure this out, they have no business sending SMTP e-mail.

I do apply the SPF check and reject the SMTP if it comes up as a confirmed negative: the sending domain has an SPF record, with strict semantics, and the IP doesn't match.

SPF speaks to a different problem (not the problem of "is this host a spammy host?"), and generally has no teeth. Passing SPF only informs me that the IP address sending to me is allowed to use the given _envelope_ sender domain. A spammer can register a bunch of domains and set up SPF records for them, and then use the domains as envelope addresses. (Of course, these envelope sender addresses don't necessarily have anything to do with what is in the From: header).

You can't expect some sort of free pass just because you made a SPF record. What the SPF record does is protect your domain from being used by other people the bases of a sender envelope address. This is of low value, because most recipients don't even see the envelope address.

SPF can be applied against From: too but that's fraught with problems, because of forwarding via mailing lists, or people using alternative sending identities which are legitimate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> I use a home-grown web app called Tamarind for managing throwaway mail aliases, in conjunction with Exim:

[http://www.kylheku.com/cgit/tamarind/tree/README](http://www.kylheku.com/cgit/tamarind/tree/README)

</comment><comment><USER4> The spam bit sounds cool but the nosql db sounds odd. E.G. That tree implementation with batched rebalancing sounds downright scary, and I thought avl was considered the worst kind of balanced tree due to excessive overhead (an int per node to red-black's bit) .

<comment><USER5> > Our investigation revealed that in case of frequent insertions and deletions > Tarantool initiated a complex process of tree rebalancing (all our indexes > were of TREE type).

It's all about 1.5. New version (1.6) uses brand new bps-tree, not sg/avl- tree. It behaves better on all workloads.

AVLTree was "temporary" hack. Our implementation works better, for their needs. BTW - AVL is not bad, but it's hard to implement a good one (believe me :) ).

<comment><USER4> Nice. Yeah, AVL is definitely okay but it makes me happy to hear something better is in there :)

What sort of tree is this new bps-tree?

<comment><USER5> bps-tree means B+ _-tree: unique combination of B+ and B_ tree. You can read wiki or "The Ubiquitous B-Tree" whitepaper [https://wwwold.cs.umd.edu/class/fall2002/cmsc818s/Readings/b...](https://wwwold.cs.umd.edu/class/fall2002/cmsc818s/Readings/b-tree.pdf) .

You may read code of it here: [https://github.com/tarantool/tarantool/blob/1.6/src/lib/sala...](https://github.com/tarantool/tarantool/blob/1.6/src/lib/salad/bps_tree.h) . It's very thoroughly commented.</comment></comment></comment></comment>