Silicon Valley Fingerprints All over College Scandal - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/silicon-valleys-fingerprints-are-all-over-the-college-b-1833305226 <comment><USER2> First SV used unethical data mining and ad targeting techniques to earn millions of dollars and now they are spending those dollars unethically to get an advantage for their kids. This is definitely a behavioral pattern at this point.

<comment><USER3> These are not all the same people. Is this pattern-matching or just bias?

<comment><USER4> True, but both sorts of activities seem in line with the values that SV seems to hold most dear.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some good examples to demonstrate unix philosophy? - <AUTHOR>

If you were to explain to someone how linux is different, how simple tools are used together to achieve just about anything, what example(s) would you give them? I'm talking about a shell pipeline that's useful and easy to understand but one that would be very difficult to get done in an environment like windows. Examples other than a shell pipeline are also fine as long as an outsider can relate to them.<p>I use gnu parallel a lot and naturally that's my first choice, something like:<p>$ <urllist ssh user@host 'parallel -j 30 curl "{}" | grep -Po "tel:\d+" | sed "s/tel://" | sort -u' <comment><USER2> I've always found the `find` and xargs command pair to be the quickest way to demonstrate the unix philosophy. For example, consider, if we want to do this ...

# inplace (-i), execute (-e), subtitution of the regular expression 'Pattern' (s/Pattern/), # with the word 'Substitution' (Substitution/), on all matches (g) in file 'filename', you'd do ...

$ sed -i -e 's/Pattern/Substitution/g' <filename>

# Now if you want to do this for all text files under a directory tree ...

$ find -name ' _.txt ' | xargs sed -i -e 's/Pattern/Substitution/g'

# ...while limiting it to just 2 levels of 'depth' ...

$ find -name '_.txt' -maxdepth 2 | xargs sed -i -e 's/Pattern/Substitution/g'

# ...and for only those that were modified yesterday ... ... # ...belonging to a certain user .... ...

you get the idea. Other good tools that fall in the similar category are 'sort', 'uniq', 'tr' ...etc. Eg:

$ find /tmp/ -type f -exec stat -c "%s %n" {} \; | sort -n</comment>


HTTP Header XSS - <AUTHOR> http://tools.seobook.com/server-header-checker/?page=single&url=http%3A%2F%2Fxss.usu.li%2Fheader%2F&useragent=1&typeProtocol=11

<comment><AUTHOR> Props to Jamie Hankins for the brilliant TXT record idea that inspired me to try this.</comment>


Show HN: Mr. Potato - Couchpotato slackbot - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/RolfKoenders/potato <comment><AUTHOR> I started with this slackbot to make it easier for my girlfriend to add movies to couchpotato. Then i made it even better to add some more features and evantuelly it become a pretty decent bot :) At the moment the couchpotato bot has the following features: \- Search movie \- Download movie by title \- Download movie by imdb id

I learned allot while developing this and if you check the overall progress from the first commit to the end you really see the project evolving.

If you have any questions or feedback let me know! And if you like it please share/star it!

Thanks!</comment>


Global Twitter: Tweets Translated Into Any Language - <AUTHOR> http://singularityhub.com/2010/02/03/global-twitter-tweets-translated-into-any-language/

<comment><USER2> Robotic translation to/from Japanese is really bad, at least as given by Google Translate. I would actually pay for a human to translate twitter messages if they could do it quickly.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does anyone know someone on the translation team for the Twitter site? Not the tweet translators (which are 3rd party or theoretical) but the main page translations?</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a hacker news for business management or leadership articles? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I think the hacker/coding/programming element of this site makes the rest of the discussion whether on business management or leadership all the more interesting. If you are a hacker and also interested in business it's hard to find a replacement. There are plenty of business sites / magazines without technical people on them of course.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't have a suggestion for an aggregator but ...

I find Harvard Business Review to be my best source of management and leadership article, both the books they publish and the quarterly magazine.

Another source I like is Software Lead Weekly mailing list.

</comment><comment><USER4> Good idea! HN is a valuable source for management.

</comment><comment><USER5> Maybe you can take a search of subreddit.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> any thoughts?</comment>


Everything Starts with a Domain Name - <AUTHOR> https://blog.dofo.com/everything-starts-with-a-domain-name/ <comment><AUTHOR> 34 years ago today, the first domain name symbolics.com was registered by a company called Symbolics Computer Corporation. More than one billion domain names were registered since 1985.

</comment><comment><USER2> best search interface in the domain industry. Sedo/Afternic sucks and this one covers both.

<comment><USER3> Do they do domain name front-running like GoDaddy and others have been alleged to do?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi there. No, dofo.com is a search engine for domain names. We do not do front-running, and I think nobody does this in 2019. :)</comment></comment></comment>


How Bash Completion Works - <AUTHOR> https://tuzz.tech/blog/how-bash-completion-works <comment><USER2> I always disable shell completion after it burned me a few times:

1\. Completion that blocks the shell, by doing a lookup across a network (e.g. to complete a remote path). Can hang for several seconds.

2\. Completion that gives me a misleading/incorrect view of the filesystem, by "intelligently" filtering which files/filetypes it will let me complete. For example, if I have foo.mp3 and foo.txt, and a media-player command tab- completes and only "sees" the mp3, but I actually wanted to know that the .txt was there as well (and in some cases, open it with the media player!)

3\. When the completion has a wrong view of the options provided by a program (e.g. completion is not aware of some useful options). Instead of looking at the man-page, I've been tricked by a bad completion-set.

I would _love_ a better shell with good completion, but I need to avoid these types of problems. Does anyone else run into this?

<comment><USER3> > 1\. Completion that blocks the shell, by doing a lookup across a network > (e.g. to complete a remote path). Can hang for several seconds.

I've had this happen to me. Would be nice if it could be interrupted with Ctrl-C. My workaround has been to wrap the argument that's triggering that in quotes (when redoing the command in another terminal).

> 2\. Completion that gives me a misleading/incorrect view of the filesystem, > by "intelligently" filtering which files/filetypes it will let me complete. > For example, if I have foo.mp3 and foo.txt, and a media-player command tab- > completes and only "sees" the mp3, but I actually wanted to know that the > .txt was there as well (and in some cases, open it with the media player!)

Maybe a keybinding can be added to enable/disable "smart" completion (leaving only simple filepath completion). Seems like it should be a relatively quick configuration fix.

My workaround for this, for when I want simple filepath completion, has been to prefix the command with `echo`. With vi keybindings it's just `<Esc>Iecho <Esc>A` (it's faster if you make your CapsLock an Esc); with emacs keybindings it's `<Ctrl-A>echo <Ctrl-E>`. Afterwards, to delete the `echo`, it's `<Esc>^dwA` with vi keybindings and `<Ctrl-A><Alt-D><Ctrl-D><Ctrl-E>` with emacs keybindings.

> 3\. When the completion has a wrong view of the options provided by a > program (e.g. completion is not aware of some useful options). Instead of > looking at the man-page, I've been tricked by a bad completion-set.

Maybe the list of options could be parsed out of manpages and --help output. Then, it would coincide.

<comment><USER4> At least in zsh, you can interrupt slow autocompletes with ^C.

<comment><USER5> Zsh also lets you configure, via the `remote-access` style whether you want to allow it to make remote connections for completion to begin with.

<comment><USER3> My experience actually is with zsh, it is about remote-access, and I cannot interrupt it with Ctrl-C.

The particular case is normal filepath completion on an NFS mount where the NFS server is a very old Unix OS using a very old version of the NFS protocol. The thing is that while the server hangs under particular circumstances, and zsh is trying to read the directory to autocomplete paths, the kernel cannot return from the normal FS system calls that are invoked, and the process gets stuck in _uninterruptible_ IO. Not even SIGKILL works then.

<comment><USER5> There's a good chance that setting the path-completion style to false will help in this case. That does disable a useful feature - though it is only a useful feature if you know it is there and use it. If not even SIGKILL works, it is stuck in kernel code. That doesn't surprise me much with NFS. That's not easy to workaround in the zsh code - other than by disabling functionality as with my path-completion suggestion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My issue with bash completion is that it requires a completion script (i.e executing `complete`) for each command you want it to complete. The shell cannot automatically deduce appropriate completions when possible.

This problem is not specific to bash. Fish and other shells can't automatically complete commands either. There is simply no standard way to detect what type of auto-completion a command supports.

I know this comment is a not about the OP, but I've wasted so much time dealing with this that I feel compelled to post this here. I wish shell developers would form some sort of consortium (like XDG) where they can agree on standard solutions to issues like this. No one benefits from having developers waste time manually writing and testing completion scripts for each project (times the number of shells they want to support).

Side note: I remember that there was a project that modified bash internals to detect automatic completion support. It did this by scanning for the presence of a magic string in the first N bytes of a file (or in some ELF section of a binary). If that magic string was present, bash would automatically generate a completion set by passing `--_complete` to the command. I think this is a simple and elegant solution to this problem and one I hope shell developers would consider.

<comment><USER7> > The shell cannot automatically deduce appropriate completions when possible.

I don't think this even _can_ be possible for a large number of programs.

For some small number of programs it _might_ be possible, if somehow (ignoring how for now) you were exposed some standard interfaces like getopt or argparse and didn't have to care about argument ordering.

But a ton of other programs, with extremely complicated interfaces, simply wouldn't be possible. And these include commonly used programs.

Auto-completing awk would require a full language parser at the least, for example.

Another, ffmpeg, has a dizzying array of options, and the order of those options can completely change the intent of the command, and what options are allowed to follow without being ignored silently.

Even if we had perfect interface detection, we could only probably generate a subset of auto-completion options because that particular problem might not _always_ be solveable.

<comment><USER6> You raise a good point about solvable completion, and one that I agree with. However, automatic completion support doesn't have to cover every use case. It only needs to be good enough. Complex applications can fall back to providing their own completion scripts.

One point I'm not clear on is why you think such a scheme wouldn't be feasible for a large number of commands. Completion wouldn't be invoked until the fist argument (the command's name) is complete just like how bash doesn't scan the system's completion directory until it knows what command is being invoked.

And as for completion for the command's arguments, the command is only ran once to generate the list of completion candidates.

Note that there are projects that already do exactly this like [1] .

[1]:[https://github.com/kislyuk/argcomplete](https://github.com/kislyuk/argcomplete)

<comment><USER7> > One point I'm not clear on is why you think such a scheme wouldn't be > feasible for a large number of commands. Completion wouldn't be invoked > until the fist argument (the command's name) is complete just like how bash > doesn't scan the system's completion directory until it knows what command > is being invoked.

Simply because some command pipelines are extremely complicated. For example, with ffmpeg, some flags can disable earlier flags, or re-enable them. Completion isn't a simple left-to-right thing. There's other programs that can be similar.

<comment><USER6> > Completion isn't a simple left-to-right thing.

Sorry, I still don't understand why that's relavent. It's probably my fault for not being clear enough. Please be patient with me as I try to further elaborate:

If the command is in charge of both generating completions and also for parsing arguments, wouldn't it be aware of all inner-dependencies between flags? Wouldn't such awareness make it possible to generate candidates based on previous flags?

I'm not familiar with ffmpeg, but let's assume that there was another similar program called ggmpeg. Let's assume that it accepts the flag '\--input-format' and then either the flag '\--repeat-video-range' or '\--repeat-image-frames', depending on whether the format is an video or an image.

That is, only the following flag sequences are valid:

        ggmpeg --input-format=video/webm --repeat-video-range=.. ...

or

        ggmpeg --input-format=image/png --repeat-image-frames=.. ...

Let's also assume that ggmpeg signals to the shell that it is responsible for generating its own completions by passing the flag --_completion to it.

Now, if the user types the following command

        ggmpeg --input-format=image/png --repea[CURSOR]

and then presses tab, thereby invoking the shell's auto completion routine, which in turn ultimately executes

        "ggmpeg" "--_completion" "--input-format=image/png" "--repea"

wouldn't ggmpeg have all the necessary information to only suggest '\--repeat- image-frames' and not '\--repeat-video-range'?

<comment><USER7> Ok, here's a simpler example that might demonstrate why it can't always be solved.

        ffmpeg -i input.avi -metadata author=shakna output.mp4

What metadata keys are allowed, if at all, actually depends on the output file. If I'd chosen to make an ogv instead, then that metadata flag would become disabled, because it doesn't accept most sets of metadata.

I can't complete:

        ffmpeg -i input.avi -metadata a[TAB]

Because the entire set of CLI commands isn't simple left-to-right solveable.

However, if I do:

        ffmpeg -i input.avi -metadata author=shakna output.mp4 output.ogv

That means I'm outputting one file with metadata, output.mp4, and one file without it, output.ogv. So the flag is conditionally enabled or disabled.

<comment><USER6> I can now see what you meant by completion not being left-to-right solvable. Thanks for taking the time to lay out a clear example.

While completion isn't be solvable in general, surly we can agree that its usefulness (when solvable) merits making it more readily available to users.

Having the shell implementation automatically deduce suggestions from the command itself (when available/possible) would go a long way towards increasing availability in my opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice article, it's usually hard to keep a reader's interest when writing about shell.

I will nitpick that COMP_LINE et al are shell variables, not environment variables - you can tell by the fact you don't need to export the "return value". (Scare quotes, as the function's exit code, manually specifiable with "return NN", is also called its return value.)

<comment><USER9> I think they are env vars. complete is a bash built-in. It is executed in the process of the shell. You only need to export for child processes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Love the implementation.

Can't help but think about another "startup" or project that uses Machine Learning to predict your bash commands... which in most if not all cases is probably not necessary XD.

<comment><USER11> Like this? [https://tabnine.com/blog/deep/](https://tabnine.com/blog/deep/)

<comment><USER10> Yikes. Yes.

Not sure if other developers agree with me on this: I probably don't need autocompletion, I'm not writing an essay; I'm writing code where every character is a lot more impactful than forgetting a semicolon here or there. For this reason, having autocompletion could probably be an annoyance than helpful.

<comment><USER12> Personally I'm the exact opposite - weirdly for the same reasons you cited too. When programming I can usually predict what will come next or the compiler will usually slap me if I've done something dumb. Whereas it's easier to miss something in a shell because everything is a little more "golfed" and mistakes can go unnoticed for a while if you're being down-right careless.

I'd love it if there was a way to do a "test run" of a command line where it prints what it would do without actually touching the file system (for example).

<comment><USER10> Pretty sure a simple "dry run" is what you're looking for. Not sure what programs support it, but I know Docker for one does.

<comment><USER12> Sorry yes, "dry run".

There are definitely ways of doing it on a command by command basis but what I was more thinking about was a dry run on an entire pipeline. It's not a use case I tend to run into much these days though because there are usually better tools.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > `function _fizzbuzz () {`

I find that extra keyword distracting, when [POSIX.2 doesn't require it][1] and some folks going so far as to say to [actively avoid it][2]

Is there some good reason for it, or people are just used to a programming language requiring `fun` before a declaration, so it's programmer muscle memory?

_1: [https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V...](https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html#tag_18_09_05)

_2: [http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashPitfalls#function_foo.28.29](http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashPitfalls#function_foo.28.29)

<comment><USER14> Simple keywords for definitions can make grepping for stuff much easier. Given that shell allows other forms, it isn't that helpful in practice. I still use it because my eyes find start-of-definition faster with common patterns that are not just special-chars. YMMV.

Edit: I usually don't care for portability, and just use bash. Shell is so ugly already, I refuse to write my personal stuff in portability hell mode. Rather level up my Civilization skills instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Great tutorial! I've always wondered how this is implemented, and how I could add it to my scripts. The interface seems simple enough.

</comment><comment><USER16> Cool read. I was recently wondering how this worked. I was using zsh but I assume the implementation is similar.

</comment><comment><USER17> Is there anything like completion for ash within Alpine containers, or do you have to install Bash?

<comment><USER18> To be fair. Bash does not have a large footprint.

<comment><USER19> As an alternative, as mentioned already in response to another comment is oksh ([https://github.com/ibara/oksh](https://github.com/ibara/oksh)), a portable version of OpenBSD's pdksh. It's in the same Bourne shell lineage as bash but is lighter and the completion is simpler: you have to customise it if you want it to work for you, but it's very easy and quick to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> TLDR version: duct tape and hundreds of people helping prevent the contraption from falling apart :-)

That's not the scary part, though. The scary part is that those completion scripts run with the user's privileges, unsandboxed. I could find only a single CVE ([https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2018-7738/](https://www.cvedetails.com/cve/CVE-2018-7738/)), but I think it would be wise to sandbox these scripts.

<comment><USER7> If you sandbox, can you actually guarantee completion?

Some more complicated commands might depend on the contents of a file, or the permissions of the file, and an environment variable at the same time to find valid options.

Others may require accessing a list of processes running under the active user, which could only be accessible when running as the user in some circumstances.

Tacking on any kind of permission system will probably break thirty-odd years of programs, and would likely be a hack because of how POSIX is expected to behave.

Duct tape it certainly is, but backwards compatibility isn't something to hate either. We run code all day everyday. That completion runs code shouldn't be a surprise, and you need to judge whether or not you trust it before using it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Thank you!</comment>


Sky Drone FPV + Oculus VR demoed by Sky Drone Team - <AUTHOR>

I just wanted to share the news that the Sky Drone team has demoed their Sky Drone FPV system with the Oculus VR set. Therefore, the FPV video of a drone/UAV flying in mid air can be distorted in real-time and shown inside an Oculus VR headset. Keep in mind that this is only the beginning of our development process for the Oculus VR - many more features to come (e.g. 3D, Headtracking).
Watch the Sky Drone FPV + Oculus VR video here: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sky-drone-fpv/x/3767302?c=activity
P.S.: If we don't reach our funding goal we will still go ahead with Sky Drone FPV. While sticking to our timeline of shipping the Sky Drone FPV sets in December 2013, we will only have a groundstation app for Android at start. Other platforms will be supported later (free of charge). The only way to secure the Early Bird price ($349) of a Sky Drone FPV set, is to purchase the Early Bird perk before this Indiegogo campaign expires. If the funding goal is not reached, Early Bird funders will get discount information to order from our website later. We are 100% committed to our technology and we will prevail.  <comment><AUTHOR> There is a little more than 1 day left in our campaign and we would like point out again that we are 100% committed to our technology.

With only 1 day left in our campaign, there is also only 1 day left to secure the Early Bird price for a Sky Drone FPV set.

Sky Drone FPV campaign: [http://www.skydrone.aero/fpv- indiegogo](http://www.skydrone.aero/fpv-indiegogo)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey all, we want to let you know that our Pre-Order page is now online! Go to [http://www.skydrone.aero/](http://www.skydrone.aero/) to pre-order the Sky Drone FPV today!</comment>


Show HN: Searching for unsearchable songs on Jango Radio - <AUTHOR> https://jango-index.ml/ <comment><AUTHOR> [https://jango-index.ml/src/](https://jango-index.ml/src/)

Sorry I can code.</comment>


Kansas's Self-Destruct Button: A Bill to Outlaw Sustainability - DanI-S http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-09/kansas-s-self-destruct-button-a-bill-to-outlaw-sustainability.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I sense something of a "Dead Sea Effect" at work here. Even the writer of the article migrated out of Kansas.

I guess the only thing that remains is to figure out how to deal with the loss of I-70, and how to compensate for falling wheat production. And maybe a minor refugee crisis.</comment>


"You'll Never Take Me Alive" Released for Mac - <AUTHOR> https://isecpartners.github.io/news/tools/2014/05/09/yontma-mac-release.html

<comment><USER2> For the truly paranoid, this immediately cuts the power on a Linux system when a chosen USB key is yanked out:

[http://git.zx2c4.com/knock-knock-token/tree/knock-knock- toke...](http://git.zx2c4.com/knock-knock-token/tree/knock-knock-token.c)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is awesome, but what about hotplug? I think a DMA/coldboot attack requires enough sophistication, adding hotplug to take the laptop isn't a huge burden on top.

I guess it'd be harder for ethernet, but still feasible (and many people use wireless - so the attacker could just work out of a van or room from wireless range).

</comment><comment><USER4> Shouldn't it be "...for OS X" these days just as "for Windows" is better than "for PC".

<comment><USER5> Apple itself advertises it's software "for Mac" [0] and not "for OS X" so I'd say that's the right way to do it.

\- "GarageBand for Mac"

\- [0] [https://www.apple.com/support/mac- apps/facetime/](https://www.apple.com/support/mac-apps/facetime/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Doesn't OS X already disable DMA access automatically when FileVault is enabled and the screen is locked?

<comment><USER7> Sort of. We think. I dunno:

[https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/18720/how- secur...](https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/18720/how-secure-is- filevault-2-while-the-computer-is-in-sleep-mode)

<comment><USER7> Update:

[https://github.com/iSECPartners/yontma- mac/issues/4](https://github.com/iSECPartners/yontma-mac/issues/4)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This looks pretty awesome. Is there any information as to how it impacts battery life and resources? It seems pretty small so I'm guessing not much.

<comment><USER3> How often do you lock your computer with ethernet plugged in but no power cable?

<comment><USER8> An incredibly valid point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Kudos, iSEC. Love how you guys are always giving back.</comment>


Why a Software Architect should be "hands on" - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-software-architect-should-hands-carlos-franco-capo?trk=hp-feed-article-title-like <comment><USER2> I completely agree with this article. In fact, I believe everyone who is in tech department, no matter the seniority (manager, director, even VP sometimes) should still be able to code. Really depends on the size of the company, obviously in a big company VP wouldn't be able to code just because he or she wouldn't have much time to do it with other day to day tasks.

I am Director of Engineering in a small company and I still code a lot. Our CTO codes as well.

I've seen some engineering managers who not only do not have CS degree but never coded and were hired just to manage engineers which I will never understand.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree with you. Ability to code and moreover an ability to contribute to the _company codebase_ is something that should be present even at senior levels for a tech focused company.

At the same time, IMHO, somebody in a techno-managerial role with responsibilities of one or more tech teams may find it hard to devote more than 20% of their time to coding.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Submitter here. I have been witnessing the recent rising expectations of being able code irrespective of seniority, especially in younger companies. I have been curious to know HN's take on this.

Perhaps this article can provoke some discussion.</comment>


Recommendations for business bank account - <AUTHOR>

researching business banking for a new startup.  Google next to useless due to every single hit including 'reviews' going to commercial sites.<p>Anyone have experience they can share on this topic?  Looking for the obvious -- low fees, no spammy sales pitches, good online, just the basics without a bunch of bs. <comment><USER2> assuming you are in the US...

Wamu used to have free business checking(now that they are chase they probably still do, but not positive), good small amounts <$100k

citi is great for >$100k, super easy set up and have great simplified online system. Good if you have a large wad that you are going to just spend down (a vc round). citi is a real business bank, and they don't bat an eye at 6 or 7 figure wires.

bofa has a really complex online system, that is a gigantic pain in the ass, but can do full treasury, automatic check deposit, more... given this, its really odd that bofa _feels_ like a consumer bank. For example, shut down the credit cards on our business account because of unusually high spending, meaning they were just shocked by $100's k going through a cc to begin with! and when we called to reactivate them, they did that thing with consumers where they are like "did you spend $7.77 and on online retailer recently?" ha!

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks this is exactly the kind of feedback I wanted. I've got wamu/chase personal so I may go that way. No fat wad yet, we'll hire scads of MBA's to figure things out if we get there. For now just need simple basics with none of the bs like you got from Bofa.</comment></comment>


Rap Music Ditches Dollars for the Cash App Mobile Payment System - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/dont-venmo-iggy-azalea-cash-app-rules-rap-11565191206?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> Sweet, hopefully people are realizing that Cash is the better app. Venmo has that weird public feed that no one wants — Cash is almost flawless.

<comment><USER3> Venmo are cunts, they banned me for life and refused to explain and basically treated me like a terrorist. All I did was send money to various people once in awhile to be nice to them. That was it. I hadn't even used Venmo for 3 months when they banned me out of the blue with a menacing email about how my activity set off red flags. Like they really went out of their way to be dicks for no reason, it was astonishing. If anyone from Venmo is reading this, go fuck yourselves.

<comment><USER4> Why would you send money to people just to be nice?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Seems to be a bit of a non-issue. They're marketing their material to a younger audience so it is why Snapchat, Instagram, etc. get mentions because that is what the audience is into. What would probably make it a more interesting case is if the rappers mentioning Cash App are backers of it (or receive some kind of incentive from the company) I guess.

Jay-Z (and I would imagine others) has been doing this kind of thing for years: giving a hat tip to whatever ventures they're somehow involved in so that the rap advertises (advertisements that people actually go for) some other revenue stream for them.

Smart moves, really.

<comment><USER6> Rappers (particularly Jay-Z) are famous for getting involved in Alcohol brands. Make a song/music video featuring the brand heavily and watch sales skyrocket.

[https://theboombox.com/15-rappers-that-dominated-alcohol- ind...](https://theboombox.com/15-rappers-that-dominated-alcohol-industry/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I do a lot of hardware sales online and often exchanging identities is a way to increase trust amongst buyer and seller.

This article holds up to my observation that black people use cash app and white people use venmo.

<comment><USER8> On the one hand I'm not entirely sure why you're getting downvoted. On the other hand I'm not entirely sure what point you're trying to make. If it's just casual racial stereotyping then I guess that accounts for the downvotes. But I thought you may have a broader point about the meaning of trust in ethnic/racial communities in there somewhere, it's unclear.

<comment><USER9> Why is it racial stereotyping that different communities would use different apps? As an external observer, it sometimes seems to me that one can't mention race in the US without inviting the allusion of racism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This article made my morning the other day for these lovely excerpts:

> _"I just wanna know your name and your Cash App / It ain't trick-trick- > trickin', you can have that," Mr. Bentley soliloquizes on his track, > referring to a more efficient way to tip an exotic dancer for her services._

and

> _Rapper Brandon [...] called it out in a recent mixtape. The name of the > song mentioning Cash App, "Shake It Move It," can be printed in The Wall > Street Journal. The lyrics cannot._

</comment><comment><USER11> We used to call these kinds of artists "sell-outs."

<comment><USER12> RUN DMC - one of the forefathers of rap was rapping about "My Adidas" in the early 80s.

Nelly was rapping about his "Air Force Ones" in the 90s and how he "needs two pair".

<comment><USER13> For the record, DMC were not sponsored or incentivized by adidas until well after the song was produced and distributed. Basically adidas jumped on an existing trend.

<comment><USER12> Let's go with another example "freek a leek" a popular southern rap club song that never crossed over. He even admitted it. "Now I got to give a shout out to Seagrams Gin, cause I'm drinkin' it and they payin' me for it."

This has been going on forever in hip hop.

[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/jul/11/mondaymediasec...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/jul/11/mondaymediasection.advertising)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Infinite loops and doomed machines - <AUTHOR> http://rachelbythebay.com/w/2019/02/13/loopy/ <comment><USER2> "The system should not allow a loop to be introduced. Obviously. But, it happened, and it'll happen again given enough time, so what else?"

The algorithm to detect a cycle is pretty simple. Why not prevent them?

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

<comment><USER3> (You'll probably want this link instead: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_(graph_theory)#Cycle_det...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycle_\(graph_theory\)#Cycle_detection))

<comment><USER2> It was Floyd's Algorithm I was thinking of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> On a physical level, unbounded deadlines and unlimited resource constraints don't exist, so I've learned to distrust anything that assumes "it scales forever".

It's just a lot simpler to plan a static capacity target for each system resource, test and enforce around it, then review it when it falls over. Otherwise you get scenarios like this one, where the bug permeates the whole system and you get "dead allocations" that float in the ethereal void of the system's plumbing, where they are hardest to trace. Leaks can happen in all sorts of environments as soon as you start putting in some layers of indirection, whether it's UI listeners, memory allocations, processes, or whole computers in a network. The indirection is usually done with the intent of optimizing a near-term development goal, but it burdens every future goal with a thing to design for or design around.

<comment><USER5> This sounds a lot like the initial rejection of TCP/IP.</comment></comment>


Exec Launches Cleaning-Only App, Expands to Seattle As Housework Is 50% Of Sales - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/12/exec-cleaning-appseattle/

<comment><USER2> In case anyone was wondering, I used the app to check pricing for my 1br/1ba with pets near downtown Seattle:

$107 for a one-time cleaning, $214 for a thorough "move out" cleaning.

The earliest appointment available for either was two days out, on the 14th.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if the "Eat People" idea is going to effectively get distorted by the majority in industrialized nations into a 21st century form of domestic servitude mediated by the Internet?

<http://amzn.com/1591845424>

I used to live in a big apartment building from 1870, with a 2nd set of servant's stairs in back and servant's quarters on the top floor. With the Internet, the granularity and other logistics of service are drastically changed, such that servants don't have to live with you or necessarily establish long term relationships. (Though these will still work better in many situations.)

Is the future going to consist of people in the service-sector taking care of the day to day needs of other people working in tech and automated manufacturing, with a fringe which has managed to "drop out" somehow?

If so, I hope we will have fixed access to health care for people not in successful companies with posh health plans.

<comment><USER4> It's odd to think about what makes someone a "servant" and what is just providing a valuable service. Nobody makes these comments about contract programmers, for example, but what's the fundamental difference?

If you pay me to write you a program, that's just typical. If you pay me to come clean your bathrooms every day, that's more "servant". Paying me to deliver food is typical, paying me to come cook food using your own kitchen is not. Is there a real dividing line in there somewhere, or is it just a matter of societal norms?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Considering that Justin Kan is the pivot master and Exec's cleaning service has been so well-received, I wouldn't be surprised if they become a cleaning- only service.

<comment><USER6> Reminds me of Seamless.com. In the early days, it was trying to position itself as a B2B for all services: Catering, Overtime meals, Black Car Service, Flowers etc.

Turns out that food delivery and catering was the winning idea. Pivot till you profit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It feels like Exec is moving towards becoming a cleaning company.

Now when I log into my Exec account, the first thing I see is the booking page for their cleaning service. Errands are a menu item. I hope that doesn't go away. It's incredibly convenient to have them run errands for me, like grocery shopping.

</comment><comment><USER8> Is this what you might call a "soft pivot"?

The idea is that instead of waiting until it's clear your original idea won't be viable before pivoting, instead you take the most successful part of your business and differentiate it early (giving it its own brand image and so on) so that if the broader vision of your offering doesn't pan out, you've automatically expanded into your most successful niche(s) and, if needed, can shut the bigger business down without throwing out the baby with the proverbial bathwater.

Businesses have done this kind of thing for centuries, but since we're in the startup world, why not give it a name? ;-)</comment>


Ask HN: Non-technical founders to technical? - <AUTHOR>

Is it common for supposedly non-technical founders to become technical during the creation of their product? In other words, do people sometimes start from not knowing code, to learning code and becoming "technical"? Are there any examples you can think of? <comment><USER2> I would think its fairly uncommon, though certainly not impossible, for someone with no knowledge of programming or web development to learn while building their product.

With that said its not necessarily a bad idea in theory. You'll probably find there's more movement the other way; developers building products and then trying to make a business out of them (I fit into this category myself). But I think it would actually be quite refreshing to see a few non-technical founders try to build their own stuff. It would certainly be useful to have more business oriented folks that understand more about the technologies used in their products.</comment>


Does physical pain impair abstract thinking? - <AUTHOR> http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/20445911.2017.1304941?journalCode=pecp21 <comment><USER2> According to the study, no -- _Physical pain was manipulated between subjects (N = 150). The participants either kept their left hand immersed in cold (painful) water or neutral (painless) water while we measured abstract versus concrete behaviour identification, categorisation, and perceptual processing. Bayesian statistical analyses indicate substantial evidence against the hypothesis that pain impairs abstraction. In contrast to many other previously studied cognitive outcomes (e.g. attention), abstraction appears to be largely immune to acute, experimentally induced pain._</comment>


Why Rubinius Matters to Ruby's Future - <AUTHOR> http://weblog.raganwald.com/2007/12/why-rubinius-matters-to-rubys-future.html

<comment><USER2> While I see the value in optimizing a language for these "language- enhancements" such as adding new iterators, I would be concerned about a language architect who sacrificed efficiency in other areas as a result. I'd much rather have blazing-fast each() alone over medium-speed each(), map(), fold(), unfold(), collect(), etc.

(Sidenote: isn't it a little unfair to compare the collect() implementation, which uses a for-loop, with a recursive unfold() method? Though I don't doubt that the iterative unfold() version would still be relatively slow.)

<comment><USER3> So the Right Thing is a language that allows to extend by itself, _and_ makes such extensions run blazingly fast as well.

It's been done in some languages (like the one with lots of ()'s) and I don't think there's an inherent obstacle for Ruby to do so, though it would take time. I don't think they should sacrifice speed for extensibility now, but it'd be nice to aim at both as long-term goals.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This argument seems entirely emotional. Rubinius matters because it "feels more joyful" when you know you can't do better by writing in C? News flash: that's going to be true no matter what VM you host Ruby on.

<comment><USER5> No, that isn't the argument. The argument is that writing things in C is a barrier to entry, therefore fewer people write libraries in C than in Ruby.

therefore, if we have a Ruby implementation written in Ruby, we will see more progress on core libraries and features.

That is a statistical argument based on predicting the emotions of a large group of programmers.

<comment><USER6> Indeed, watch Evan's talk at RubyConf 2007.

<http://rubyconf2007.confreaks.com/d2t1p3_rubinius.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why would you ever use Ruby to write another programming language?

If I had all the time in the world, and speed was really the only issue - I'd go with assembly.</comment>


The Turing-roulette Game - <AUTHOR> http://paraschopra.com/blog/philosophy/the-turing-roulette-game.htm

<comment><USER2> To win the game I think the most interesting deception I could engage in is to engage in fixed patterns that can be readily discerned by the entity while making sure that I don't display world knowledge readily.

For example, we could be having a chat and on purpose I would make sure that I start to loop the same argument in different words again and again for different stimuli. I will make the deception look like I am trying to look smart while being painfully limited. I would also make sure that I always bring up less than 10 topics up for conversation so that it sounds like I am stuck in a loop. On the other hand I'll make sure that I appear to know nothing at all about pop culture while pretending to shift the conversation.

If I were a bot creator though I would make sure that I had as complex interactions as possible. I would use limited code base so I _sound_ like a human pretending to be a bot, but then I would attach emotional weights and allow random, unpredictable behavior to come through. So, that feeling of complexity is felt by the entity.

</comment><comment><USER3> great idea, but this may be a fatal flaw:

> you won't try to be too-dumb (because you will be caught as an obvious > deception)

After all if being too dumb is a guaranteed deception then programming a bot to be too dumb would mean that bot takes the big prize.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know but probably even the "dumbness" between a bot and a human could be detected. I don't really know what will be actual dynamics of the interaction.

If your bot starts making the same "dumb" conversations again and again, it will start being detected (because after the chat, a human gets feedback via points whether he was right or wrong).

<comment><USER3> Ah, but again we can reverse it, as a human I could do that on purpose too, and so on. Or am I misunderstanding you and are all the bots to be provided by the site owners? (I figured from your description that you can sign up with a bot or as a human).

The Turing test is a brilliant device because it is so hard to create something that will be able to pass it without actually being intelligent.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are correct, you can either provide or a bot or take part as a human. My argument is that genuine dumbness of chatbots may not be replicable by by humans. The whole logic of game is that the human who is able to emulate a bot wins, so if you are successfully being too dumb and go undetected as a human, you win!

I think I figure your point, and yes the basic assumption is that all bots should be semi-intelligent. The whole game will become uninteresting if every just says "ABC.ABC.". I think we need a caveat or eligibility criteria to take care of that.

<comment><USER3> You got it :)

Thanks, it sounds really interesting by the way, I hope that you follow through on it, I'll definitely participate (with a bot, that's the fun bit I think).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, will definitely code a prototype and link up some open source chatbots.

On the other hand, I think being a human participant will be the fun bit :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Somehow my brain read this title as "Turing Tourette" which also seems like it might be an interesting mashup.

<comment><USER3> I think that's the default setting for many people, it would make distinguishing them from bots trivial.</comment></comment>


I'm an Entrepreneur, Now Give Me a Job - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/on-startups/48df6408d03e

<comment><USER2> I'm tired of the poverty..." & "Brooks is getting some air in Thailand..."

Not sure what type of poverty he's talking about, but I certainly cant afford to fly off to Thailand at the moment...

<comment><USER3> This is something that I encounter frequently. Friends from high school I have on Facebook who are still in college/grad school, don't work, but spend their vacations in exotic places doing scuba diving. Or acquaintances who are working on their stealth mode startup and complain about how hard it is, but then go spend 1 week snowboarding in Tahoe because they feel like it.

How does that work? Do those people have giant savings accounts, and am I just dumb with my money? Or do they do freelance work on the side?

I have decent savings etc., but having followed the path of college -> grad school (where I worked as a research assistant) -> startup, I have never been to Asia/South America because I either have the time but not the money, or the money but not the time. My getaway has been driving to Santa Cruz for the Sunday once every few weeks.

I feel like I'm missing out on something here- and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm a bit jealous of those people and that I wish I could do the same. Coding on a Thailand beach between a scuba diving session and an afternoon of surfing sounds pretty nice.

<comment><USER4> Don't be jealous. Soon you will be 45 with no debt, able to retire but working because you enjoy it and able to do anything you want any time you want without any real worry. Many of those friends will be 45, in debt to their eyes, or bankrupted at least once, and talking about lucky you are to be able to just up and go on a 10 day fishing trip to Alaska simply because you wanted to.

They won't, however, understand that they could have had exactly the same life if they had chosen to delay the 'fun' just a few years. Guess how I know ;)

<comment><USER5> On the other hand, soon you will be 45 with no debt, but not many interesting life experiences. You realized you spent all your time working and being a responsible drone, but then you look at your poor bankrupt friend who did so many cool things the last 20 years and feel like maybe your course wasn't the best course. Now you are getting old, have a family to worry about, and are not really able to do the back packer thing anymore.

Different strokes for different folks. Time is also a limited resource; be careful not to waste your youth on just work.

<comment><USER6> I cannot agree with you here. Although I do not claim to be smart now, I am definitely farther along than when I was younger. And I hope to be working only because I enjoy it in about 9 more years, happy to be also looking forward to quite a bit of travel, as well as on-going self learning I already do...

I worked hard for the first 20 years, now I work part time, and as I said already, I hope to have it be optional soon. I also feel far more appreciative of life in general now, whereas I took much for granted while younger. Hopefully, that will continue to increase...

But now having typed this, I realize that we are all different, and the path we took is the path we had to take to be who we are...

Hmmm... Never mind?

<comment><USER5> > But now having typed this, I realize that we are all different, and the path > we took is the path we had to take to be who we are...

And that is the real wisdom that age provides :)

I could criticize the family guy for working hard, living in suburbia, and forgoing exciting travel/work opportunities to have a quite acceptable but normal life. But, hey, it works for him, and he has many things that I don't (and vice versa).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This guy wants to have his cake and eat it too.

From my count, he has had 3-4 jobs in 3 years. Why would you want to hire someone who can't even stick with his own company?

So, this isn't a parable to apply to entrepreneurs in general. It only applies to quitters.

<comment><USER8> I wouldn't go as far as calling him names but I do agree with the sentiment. In the corporate world its weird if you leave more than one job in a row before the 18 month mark, managers will start asking if the person is worth training and investing in. With more well defined jobs the day you get hired your essentially a net loss to the company costing in benefits, training , the recruitment process, etc etc. You start chipping away at that and in the end you are usually a huge gain in favor of the company - if you leave early you mess with the break even point.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I totally get where you're coming from. I'd say I'm young and figuring out what I want. After trying lots of things and learning tons, I've got a better idea of what I want. I'd like to believe that gives me advantage over other folks who took jobs as a matter of course. Mine is a choice, not a default.

<comment><USER9> that may be true but now you're acknowledging that you are likely a bad hire because you're still figuring out what you want to do and are therefore a high flight risk.

Figure out what you want to do on your own dime, prove it, and then you'll be marketable.

<comment><AUTHOR> > After trying lots of things and learning tons, I've got a better idea of > what I want. ^ that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> no portfolio, no personal site, just a twitter and instagram and a few links to ex-employers and a history of bailing... hmm...

<comment><USER11> A better title for this post would be,"I'm a Designer™. Where's my silver platter?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a beautiful example of pure nonsense.

Brooks, you sound like you were made for sales. Maybe try catering your resume towards those positions?

Anyway, I'm an unfulfilled critic, so I don't know if your reading this, but here are the things that made my head spin about your post.

1) You editorialize a third party synopsis of your life into a headline without any indication that you're making a parody or something. "One accidental entrepreneur is finding it hard to" (This reminds me of someone during a manic episode)

2) You build your story out of clichés, but they seem incompatible with each other. (described as both "accidental entrepreneur" and "serial entrepreneur")

3) Totally ignore all important or interesting details that might indicate something about you or what your experience is. (leaving company i started for all the 'normal' and uncomfortable reasons? What?)

4) Generally weird stuff. Give me a job? If you're an entrepreneur, you'd know you wouldn't hire anyone with that attitude! Jetsetting in poverty?

Anyway, best of luck. I'm sure you'll find somewhere you fit in. You sound like you're made out of enthusiasm, and that rocks. It'd be interesting to know more of the facts of your story- I think sometimes the more specific detail of a thing you can share, the more powerful it can be. (I bet one uncomfortable thing that happened to you would be cooler for me to read about than a two paragraph synopsis of the last few years of your life even!) Also I want to know how much money your parents give you =D

<comment><USER13> Not intended disrespectfully, but you're too hard on the guy.

I'd describe myself as an "accidental" and "serial" entrepreneur as well. The first bit means that you never expected to work for yourself. As for the "serial" part, if the companies you start aren't complete successes but aren't complete failures, it is easy to spend years trying to bootstrap multiple ideas. After you struggle along for several years regular employment starts looking pretty good (salary! vacation! benefits!), especially as you get older and want to start a family or buy a house or something.

As for the rest, I agree with the parent poster that it is harder to get an institutional job after years of self-employment. Part of the problem is that entrepreneurship is like a black pool -- what people see in it is mostly the reflection of their own prejudices. I suspect this is actually one of unstated reasons there is such an emphasis on getting funding, finding accelerators, etc. and why there is such aversion to the idea of bootstrapping. At the least, people who make their businesses as institutionally respectable as possible and collect salary from investors during the process are rarely berated for taking a vacation before starting a new job! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> You're a designer. Designers solve problems by trade. Find a problem to solve. Someone will hire you to solve it for them. If you're unable to deliver, they'll fire you, but that's another story . . .

<comment><AUTHOR> I suppose that's why I wrote this piece. Solving a problem in a lateral way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've experienced this sort of thing first hand many years ago. After ten years running my own tech startup I decided to go get an engineering job and "depressurize". I could not land one. I did not understand what was going on until an HR person clued me in. The message was that with the Internet you can't escape your past. You can't dumb down a resume for the practical purpose of getting a job. If you've been an entrepreneur with any degree of success (or even failures) you are one search away from someone knowing as much about you as they care to.

You typically run into two scenarios. The first is a manager --your would-be boss-- who, upon seeing what you've done feels threatened. A CTO might not feel good about hiring an ex-CTO as a rank-and-file engineer. The second scenario is that of a business owner who, upon learning about your entrepreneurial experience is concerned about hiring someone who might come in, learn the business and potentially become a competitor.

Yes, there's also the concern about someone pulling anchor early to go off on their own in an unrelated direction. It costs a lot of money to bring someone onboard.

My conclusion at the time was that in this fashion entrepreneurship can be a curse. It can be nearly impossible to land a "regular" job because of it. In my case, after much frustration I decided that my only path was to run my own show again and off I went.

<comment><AUTHOR> Bingo

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> While there are certainly companies that will not give bonus points for having once pursued an entrepreneurial path, I don't think entrepreneurship in and of itself is generally as problematic as it's made out to be here.

Constructive criticism: I think the author's difficulties are probably more about his overall positioning than his history of entrepreneurial pursuits. For better or worse, positioning can mean the difference between getting lots of job offers and getting none.

The first thing I noticed in looking at the author's LinkedIn profile, which is the first result when you Google his name, is that it tells me more about what he's done than what he has actually accomplished. That's not helpful because prospective employers don't just want to know where you've worked, they want to know what you've achieved. If I were the author, I would rewrite my job descriptions to focus on the tangible benefits realized by my contributions. Right now, I can't figure out what value the author has created for his companies/clients/employers because it's simply not described.

Also, certain red flags simply aren't likely to be overlooked. Examples of these red flags include:

1\. _No_ full-time roles.

2\. A history of job hopping (i.e. most/lots of stints under 18-24 months)

3\. Jobs with overlapping dates.

4\. Unexplained gaps in employment history.

5\. No discernible career "path" (i.e. being all over the place in terms of what you've done).

6\. Lots of moving around (geographically).

7\. Bizarre job titles.

8\. Job title progression that is inconsistent with a traditional development path (i.e. a jump from an entry-level job title to a senior-level job title in less than a year is likely going to be questioned).

9\. Public musings in which you paint yourself as financially strained, burnt out, confused, etc.

Obviously, you can not and should not lie about your work history, so when these sorts of red flags exist, there might not be an easy way to deal with them. But I don't get the impression that the author has really looked at his CV and made an effort to argue compellingly that he brings a lot to the table. So blaming his entrepreneurial past for his failure to find a job is, in my opinion, misguided.

Finally, the author can't expect a good outcome if he's not where the jobs he's interested in are. If, say, I was interested in meeting the author for lunch next week to discuss a job opening, I would be unable to do so because he's in Thailand. And I, like most other employers, am not going to wait until "mid-September" for the privilege of interviewing him.

<comment><USER17> While general spirit of your reply (OP can present himself better) is helpful, I have to rant about the "red flags" you've mentioned. The criticism isn't aimed directly at you, but against recruiters who base their decisions on such factors. You see the red flags 2-8 are nothing more than just heuristics, mental shortcuts which have nothing (or very, very little) to do with competences (and that's what the recruiters should look for, right?).Actually from your list only the point no 9 could be considered as a red flag, in terms of a warning sign, not reason to filter the candidate out.

<comment><USER16> You're right to a certain theoretical extent. A candidate with a history of job hopping, unexplained gaps in employment history and bizarre job titles _could_ be the most talented person in the world. But how is an employer supposed to know that if the candidate doesn't do a good job of presenting his capabilities and accomplishments?

Candidates have to be realistic: most employers can't thoroughly evaluate _every_ candidate, so certain red flags are going to be used as filters. Have a bunch of red flags? For better or worse, a recruiter or prospective employer is going to assume that where there's smoke, there's fire, probably without even talking to you.

At the end of the day, if you're looking for a job, it's up to you to sell yourself effectively. Far too many people assume that because they're competent, their competence will be evident to others. But hiring managers or recruiters generally don't see more than what _you_ put in front of them.

If you're not strategic about how you position yourself and/or you're too lazy to put together a convincing "pitch", prospective employers will have no way of seeing the real you. And even if the supply of obviously good technical candidates is often limited today, the risks of a bad hire are generally too high to warrant taking a chance on someone who was incapable of presenting a compelling CV or "story" in the first place.

<comment><USER17> You are absolutely right, in terms of describing the reality. In fact,I used to do exactly the same when I was a rookie recruiter (and there was plenty of candidates on the market btw). However when the job market changed I had to change my approach to hiring. And that's why I'm ranting about this topic. Becuase many recruiters make rookie mistakes and at the same time complain about lack of talent on the market.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Negative externalities: What's the true price of beef and cheese? - <AUTHOR> https://blog.yeticheese.com/negative-externalities-whats-the-true-price-of-beef-and-cheese/ <comment><USER2> I _yet_ haven't done the work to validate this completely to my own satisfaction, but there is another view worth considering here: [https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_fight_desertif...](https://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_fight_desertification_and_reverse_climate_change?language=en)

I do think that scientific reductionism is a blind spot, one that I've been as guilty of as anyone else. Economics has the same issue, because it was fashionable to imitate physics...</comment>


Coronavirus danger not as clear as we think - <AUTHOR> https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/The-evidence-on-Covid-19-is-not-as-clear-as-we-think/ <comment><USER2> > The moral debate is not lives vs money. It is lives vs lives. It will take > months, perhaps years, if ever, before we can assess the wider implications > of what we are doing. The damage to children's education, the excess > suicides, the increase in mental health problems, the taking away of > resources from other health problems that we were dealing with effectively. > Those who need medical help now but won't seek it, or might not be offered > it. And what about the effects on food production and global commerce, that > will have unquantifiable consequences for people of all ages, perhaps > especially in developing economies?</comment>


The Strange Story of How a Chairman at McKinsey Made Millions Off His Maid - <AUTHOR> http://www.thenation.com/article/the-strange-true-story-of-how-a-chairman-at-mckinsey-made-millions-of-dollars-off-his-maid/ <comment><USER2> already posted earlier in the day: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10538662](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10538662)</comment>


The Great Hedge of India - <AUTHOR> http://www.elixirofknowledge.com/2015/03/the-great-hedge-of-india.html <comment><USER2> Related wikipedia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Customs_Line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Customs_Line)</comment>


Bootstrapping overseas as an American - <AUTHOR> http://www.expatsoftware.com/Articles/bootstrapping-abroad.html?try=3 <comment><USER2> That was an odd piece. I'll start with the provably wrong statement: "Even in Europe, where you wouldn't be able to get a self-employment working visa (if such a thing existed) with less than six months effort and a good lawyer"

It took me about 2 months to get a self-employment residency permit for Sweden. While I looked around for lawyers to help, I couldn't find any, and ended up writing it myself. It seems very few people do that option.

YMMV of course. Which is my point.

But as for the other parts, it depends on the type of person you are and what you want. I did the 3-month-at-a-time tourist visa option for a bit over a year. (It's not quite a 'visa run' because it wasn't a cross over the border and back thing.) It got tiresome to start make friends and then leave them, then come back, only to leave again.

On the other hand, there are people who do that for decades, and love it.

While I sell software, my customers are businesses, in a market where most contacts start by meeting people and word-of-mouth. Most of the people who might buy are in the US or Europe, and that's also where most of the conferences are held. It's much more expensive to send my bundle of atoms from South Africa (one of the places I considered living) than from Sweden.

Again, this isn't true of everyone. There's a big difference between "and start bringing in a few hundred bucks a month from paying customers" and my software, which sells for a few tens of thousands.

It also becomes harder if you want to have access to a local user's group (I co-founded the local Python user's group) or makerspace.

So if your interests are surfing, rock climbing, Swedish women, and beaches, and you are selling direct to customers who expect no personal connection, etc. then certainly living overseas can be a great idea.

I do believe that living or even just a multi-month travel overseas is a good thing to do at least once. Just bear in mind that it's not always as rosy as this author paints.

<comment><USER3> The overseas bit of this seems more about hipster posing; having a slightly more exotic story to tell. I don't think the cost arguments for relocating to a developing country make any sense. You can live in third tier cities in America or Europe very cheaply. It's only major cities that are expensive. I think in a lot of folks' heads saying "I live by a beach in Thailand" is for some weird reason more cool than saying "I live by a beach in a cheap town in Florida."

<comment><USER2> That makes a lot of sense! That would explain my confusion about "most remote" comment, since it's hard to find a thatch-roofed bar on a really remote beach. Interpreted as poser one-upping, I now read it as "not where all the _other_ tourists go." Well, except the Swedish women.

FWIW, I spent a couple of weeks living by a beach in Florida in the panhandle. Not much going on there. Would rather live in a city.

If you want to live in a first tier city, the cost arguments do make some sense. I enjoyed Cape Town a lot. It had plenty of night life, activities, stores and other attractions, and even for a tourist month-stay apartment in the Fresnaye neighborhood, between the mountains and the sea, and with cleaning every other day, it was about under 1/2 of what I paid in the US.

I didn't like (when I was first in Sweden) the feeling of being illiterate. I imagine for Thailand, outside of doing tourist things where they cater for foreign money, that it would be similar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I do this. I actually live in a large, ocean view condo in Panama City. I rent half of it on AirBnB which covers all my fixed expenses other than my mortgage. I work remotely for a Swiss company and I legally pay no taxes. I don't have a degree, and I've only been working since I was 26. I'll be worth half a million before I'm 33, partly because my condo has risen in value. I married a beautiful local girl who probably wouldn't have given me the time of day in my native Canada. Here I'm taller, handsomer, and richer without having changed at all, just because the local men lower the bar for competition. The city is full of things to do, and it's more modern and interesting in some ways than many Canadian cities. Good beaches are 1-2 hours by car, so sadly I don't code on the beach (when I go, coding is the furthest thing from my mind.)

<comment><USER5> You make less than the FOIC cutoff, I assume? If not, how are you legally not paying US income taxes on foreign-earned income?

<comment><USER4> I'm Canadian, Canada is less possessive of its citizens than the US, if you don't have residency in Canada (not the same as just not living there anymore.)

<comment><USER6> Also interested in more details. Maybe a Q&A? Could be valuable to others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Am I allowed to work there?_

 _No, not really._

 _But they're not checking. Places like Southeast Asia are chock full of expats living there, doing silly things like "visa runs" to the next country and back every couple months to remain a tourist for years on end._

 _Even in Europe, where you wouldn't be able to get a self-employment working visa (if such a thing existed) with less than six months effort and a good lawyer, you'll find that they're really a lot more interested in keeping the various people coming in from the South from doing so than they are in messing with you. Given the level of effort required to find somebody at the Santander ferry port to even stamp your passport, it's unlikely that anybody is conducting a multi-month surveillance of your AirBnB "office" up in the hills above the Cote de Azur._

Uh, what? No. Don't do this. Just because you might be able to get away with it in certain Southeast Asian countries doesn't mean you can get away with it in Europe. Sure, you might be "fine" for a couple months after your Schengen visa expires, but good luck if you ever need to, say, fly back to the US for a few days, or even hop over to the UK. When you try to get back in, you will almost definitely face consequences.[1]

(EDIT: It's worth noting that you don't even have to attempt to re-enter to risk getting caught. Even a routine traffic stop can get you in trouble. In addition, they check your passport at most airports before boarding a flight that leaves the Schengen zone.)

Yes, self-employment visas do exist (though admittedly only in some EU countries), and no, they do not require "six months effort and a good lawyer". In Germany for instance, a freelance visa is a pretty straightforward process, and the vast majority of people who apply for it do so without hiring a lawyer or even spending much money.

If you're going to work in a foreign country, at least _try_ to do so legitimately. You might find that it's not as difficult as you think, and you won't have to live with the vague fear of serious legal action hanging over your head.

OP, please don't recommend this to people.

[1] [http://travel.stackexchange.com/a/13697](http://travel.stackexchange.com/a/13697)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, yikes. Definitely don't overstay a Schengen Visa. I'm not sure where you got that from the article but you're right that it's not a good plan.

Beyond that, I can only speak from personal experience. 15 years and counting without running into any issue working from the road.

<comment><USER7> Ah, it seems I misinterpreted that paragraph. You mean to say that you're unlikely to get caught working while you're there on an otherwise legal tourist visa, right? I agree that it's less risky, but I'm still not sure I'd recommend it. Either way, sorry to jump on you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, do you have a link handy for that easy German freelance visa? I'd love to update the article if there has indeed been such a major change in the last couple years and it's now easy to get a visa to stay in the EU.

For me back in 2007, several hours on the phone with Spanish immigrations got me no further than that I'd have to travel back to Los Angeles and deal with the embassy there for as long as it took, and that the best hope of an end result would be a visa that was valid for 6 months (instead of the 3 you get for just turning up).

Anything better than that would be a really pleasant thing to know about!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A few notes based on my experiences:

1\. Decide who you want to be in your new country, and be that person from absolute day one. Changes of setting are one of the most effective ways to end bad habits and start new ones. Want to wake up for sunrise and jog on the beach every day? Start the habit from day one.

2\. 'Visa-Runs,' do work many places outside of N. America/Europe, but they must be done religiously. Miss one, and you could face massive penalties.

3\. Go with a business to maintain, not a business idea to build, and be sure to have a strong support team in the U.S., and at least a handful of well- enough connected friends in the country you choose.

4\. It's really tough to choose an International Health Insurance plan, but don't let the vast array of options deter you from doing so. Sure, health costs are low in many places, but a plan with MedEvac benefits included can really provide added peace of mind.

5\. Make friends with motorcycle or taxi drivers, and pay them very well. These guys are the eyes and ears of the city you have made home, and being on their good side is very beneficial, and enjoyable.

6\. Compensate for time differences with prompt and reliable communication. People learn not to expect responses from you right away, but if you can establish a system where clients and partners know there will be a response in their inbox by the time they wake up, the distance is less noticeable.

7\. It's not easy, but can be an incredible lifestyle for those who go 'all in.'

</comment><comment><USER9> I did this with a few differences. It was 2004, so a few services from these days were not as "available" from a quality perspective -- particularly, VoIP. I left to France with a PSTN phone device that answered calls to my business number, and forwarded them to a French PSTN fixed phone number -- all at international rates, which were a bit more expensive back then. I did later move to a VoIP service, when the quality was reasonably acceptable.

Time differences in Asia would be different than France - maybe a few hours too many for me. I particularity loved the time difference between France and the US (~8 hours). Everyday, there was a whole day of work before my clients in the US would wake up. If needed, I could make a few calls before I had dinner and went out.

I had a 3 year established list of clients when I moved there, so that helped. A fairly stressful aspect of living abroad was that all my clients came in "locally" by way of local google advertising. And as it happens, when someone picks up the phone and calls a number that seems local to them, they tend to assume they're talking to someone who is physically present in their city.

Many clients were turned off after realizing that I was working abroad -- and not telling them (which I tried a couple times) was very strange as well -- it's just a balancing act. So my suggestion would be to get into a borderless niche business, if you can -- something like doing "websites for x" \-- where a company would much rather work with someone with niche products and expertise, rather than someone local. Then the subject of where you physically are never really comes up, or makes sense. SAAS would work in that way too, of course.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm an overseas developer myself, currently sitting on a point break in Morocco enjoying perfect wifi, powering it all with solar panels.

I'm pretty sure that the 100,000 IRS deduction is only for income earned from a foreign source. So, if you are like me and have your income coming from Apple app store sales, then you still need to pay your taxes, without a deduction.

Basically, the big problem with working out of the US is that nearly all countries pay way less for software development. Thems the breaks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's the relevant section explaining that yes, income from a US company is just groovy for use with the Foreign Earned Income deduction:

[http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International- Taxpayers/Forei...](http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International- Taxpayers/Foreign-Earned-Income-Exclusion---What-is-Foreign-Earned-Income)

 _Source of Earned Income_

 _The source of your earned income is the place where you perform the services for which you received the income. Foreign earned income is income you receive for performing personal services in a foreign country. Where or how you are paid has no effect on the source of the income. For example, income you receive for work done in France is income from a foreign source even if the income is paid directly to your bank account in the United States and your employer is located in New York City._

<comment><USER11> On that IRS page it says:

"For this purpose, foreign earned income is income you receive for services you perform in a foreign country during a period your tax home is in a foreign country and during which you meet either the bona fide residence test or the physical presence test."

It sounds like one must also be tax resident in the foreign country for this to work?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's right. The other piece of the puzzle is that you have to either show that you're a resident of a foreign country, or that you're physically outside of the USA for 330 days of the year. (as mentioned in the linked article)

<comment><USER11> The IRS page reads as though one must meet both those criteria, not just one of them?

<comment><USER12> You must either be a bona-fide resident for an uninterrupted period covering the whole tax year[0] or have been out of the US for at least 330 full days in the year[1] although in the latter case your presence in a foreign country must also be legal according to US law.

[0] [http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International- Taxpayers/Forei...](http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International- Taxpayers/Foreign-Earned-Income-Exclusion---Bona-Fide-Residence-Test)

[1] [http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International- Taxpayers/Forei...](http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International- Taxpayers/Foreign-Earned-Income-Exclusion---Physical-Presence-Test)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm doing this in Vietnam. Not necessarily by choice at this point (got married, having a kid, need to stay now).

The FEI thing only applies if you are paying taxes in your "host" country. Thankfully, you can minimize the burden in a few different ways. State taxes are another matter though. I was a resident of NYC, but became a resident of Nevada before I left.

The visa situation in Vietnam is fucked right now. I was doing the tourist 3 month multiple entry, which you can reup 3 times in country for a year total, but now you can't do that. Getting the fiancé temporary residency, but you wouldn't believe how Kafka-esque that whole process is here. Though it wasn't as bad, or as expensive, as getting a marriage license. That required a shit ton of coffee money.

It was fun for the first two years, but now I can't wait to get the hell out of this place.

<comment><USER14> The money you make there must go pretty far though. What do you do for work? Are you Vietnamese or a foreigner? Sorry I'm just curious. I've been out there a few times and was considering bootstrapping a startup out there due to the low cost.

<comment><USER13> I do consulting work for clients back in NYC, though not as much as I used to.

The bulk of my time is spent on my video editing app: [https://vimeo.com/110889552](https://vimeo.com/110889552)

Yes, money goes very far here, but you are kind of getting what you pay for. My apartment is nice, but the water if full of arsenic. My internet connection is great, when the underwater AAG cable isn't being attacked by sharks. The food is awesome, until a few hours later when I'm popping pepto like candy.

Sorry, I'm really sour grapes on this place at the moment. The first two years were amazing, but like once you are really _living_ here, the shortcomings of the place become all too apparent.

<comment><USER14> You've got good reason to be sour grapes. Hang in there man. I was on the border of moving there for a short time ~1 year for a large project. The project didn't take off quite as expected so now I'm trying to get things done remotely.

After watching the video on your link, I'm a little worried about your health. You sound very sad. Remember you can always take your wife to the states with you. Good luck buddy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Aren't you risking tax evasion in the countries you are staying in? If you are "earning" money and living in Thailand for instance...but not paying taxes....doesn't the Thai government have a vested interest in you--if they discover you? And might that not be a rough time in some countries?

<comment><USER16> Technically, they would be evading taxes in both the U.S. and Thailand. You have to be tax resident in another country to take the FEI deduction, and countries without taxes don't count.

But you can always try to get away with it. I like to sleep at night however (and of course, china takes my taxes straight out of my paycheck). I'm not sure if a thai prison would scare me more than an IRS audit :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Bit of a bait and switch at the end: "Then save up $10k in case it doesn't. Then book that flight."

As with all things, often it doesn't work out and what you could end up with is (worst case) stuck somewhere in Asia with no funds, job or house.

This sort of thing works if you have no family. A few years ago it would have worked, now with a young daughter and fiancee it's harder. And then when you're living on that beach and you meet a girl? Are you _sure_ you want to live there for a long long time?

One day we'll travel and live around the world, but I suspect much later. So.. sour grapes!

<comment><USER9> hmmm - "As with all things, often it doesn't work out" ...

not really sure where your source is on this -- I lived abroad for five years and met many, many people doing this same thing (especially in Bucharest) -- both in I.T. and in other fields -- it's very do-able, as the author describes -- and as you suggest, it helps if you don't have family

<comment><USER17> Empirical evidence of the number of friends who went to Asia for mid to long term and then came back within 2 years because it didn't work out. And the incident where I had to help a friend pay his airfare because he was literally stuck.

Failure rate seemed higher than success rate.

<comment><USER18> 2 years??? Imo that sounds pretty successful to me. But seriously, the issues you've highlighed are likely to come down to the individual who decided to spend all money without leaving enough for emergencies.

Getting to do this for 6 months would be amazing.

Imo. Rewards for this far, far outweigh everything else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've been doing this in India for the past 10 years. At this point I've basically set up my burningman camp on an organic farm on the edge of Bangalore. I run a code school where people learn web development online and encourage other techies to stop by and work on their projects for awhile. Cost of living including food and internet is about $100. Americans get great visas to India. Check us out [http://jaaga.in](http://jaaga.in)

</comment><comment><USER20> What do people do for health insurance in this situation? Or is it a don't get sick or hurt kind of deal?

<comment><USER21> Single datum: I barely got the words "I quit my job the day before yesterday and am hence..." out before the friendly clerks at city hall put an application for (Japanese) national insurance in my hand. Had a card 20 minutes later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> "Here, you're in luck. The IRS, being awesome, actually encourages you to piss off to parts unknown with its Foreign Earned Income Exclusion."

How is this the IRS being awesome? This is the U.S. being one of only two countries who tax its citizens on foreign income.

</comment><comment><USER23> Anyone doing this in Hong Kong? The GF is considering a move to HK with work and I'm trying to sort out how I'd scrape by if I wanted to tag along...

<comment><USER24> I just got back from a trip to HK. While I'm sure it's do-able, be forewarned that HK is just as expensive as any other major financial center. Don't expect prices to be cheap just because it's Asia.

<comment><USER25> I know people who are living in Shenzhen (a subway ride away) and commuting to HK - the whole "visa-run" being the morning commute</comment></comment></comment>


Inside the Raspberry Pi: The story of the $35 computer that changed the world - <AUTHOR> https://www.techrepublic.com/article/inside-the-raspberry-pi-the-story-of-the-35-computer-that-changed-the-world/ <comment><USER2> I bought one of the first Raspberry Pi model Bs, before Raspbian was even around. The device blew my mind. Sure it was super slow, barely ran a UI (tho it did work!), and didn't have a lot of tutorials and learning resources, but it had an RCA jack and USB, so if you had at least a TV within 20 years old (available for $5 at almost any second hand store) and a mouse/keyboard, you had a computer for next to nothing! It also had HDMI as well for convenience. I do wish they'd bring back the RCA jack, but I'm sure they didn't remove it without good reason.

I think it's easy to get excited about the cool things we cool do with the pi, and I do. But remembering how unbelievably well they nailed their original mission of creating a low cost hackable computer that kids and students could afford. Something to teach the next generation who won't have access to the early Home PCs that we did, which were very accessible. Try tinkering with your laptop these days and you'll see how badly the world needs the Raspberry Pi.

<comment><USER3> If I'm not wrong the composite video out is still there in the newer pi's. It's one of the pins in the headphone jack, even in the latest models.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This was a very nice read. I was hoping it was going to be a book chapter .. I really want more details on the process behind producing the Pis.

I've been an electronic hobbyist for years .. I feel there is no way I could build the first version of the Pi today. I wish there was a detailed book on how each part of the Pi works. It boggles my mind that just 6 volunteers did this ... they had the right stuff indeed.

I've been playing with FPGAs to learn details of hardware. I guess I have yet to make the leap on how to build something where I can boot up a primitive linux distro on (with graphics and a network stack). The biggest annoyance with FPGAs is their use of proprietary blocks .. makes it very hard to see inside. Graphics seems to be the worst black box. Even playing with a bunch of ARM-M boards has yielded limit success for me.

Guess I will continue to dream and fiddle :)

</comment><comment><USER5> So how many RPIs are hiding in your closets?

I think I've got 3x RPI1B, 2x RPI2B, 2x RPI3B, 2x RPI3B+.

Amazing little machines!

I do wish RPI4 gets USB-C ports. Well, USB3 would do.

I'd also love to have another board with very low power requirements, even less than RPI zeros. Something between Arduino/ESP8266/ESP32/etc. and RPI zero, but can still run Linux.

Like ARM Cortex M7 or similar. Mash one or two ultra low power M0/M1 (so that main core can be completely switched off for low power while remaining active), advanced DMA/DSP engine (like IMX SDMA (NXP?) or TI PRU), lots of reconfigurable IO (fast GPIO, I2C, I2S, (wide) SPI@80MHz+, ADCs, USB 2.0 device/host, bluetooth, wifi, 100M ethernet MAC etc.).

Oh and some digital display interface would be nice as well, it's not nice to connect displays to SPI or worse, I2C.

1 MB SRAM and maybe 16 kB low power SRAM, shared with M0. 16-128 MB low power DRAM.

You should be able to fine grain power off any and all of the components, even DRAM and SRAM (except for that 16 kB shared between M0 and M7).

Oh, and can I get it tomorrow? ;)</comment>


Ask HN: User Centric Product Metrics? - <AUTHOR> I'd like to create an automated report that tells me where a new user is in their journey of discovering my product. In particular, I want to easily be able to see which of the core actions a user hasn't taken yet so that I can send them a tip.
So far I've been using Segment, Google Analytics, and Amplitude but I haven't yet found a way to quickly answer this question.
Does anyone have a similar workflow? What kind of tools have you used? Did you build something custom? <comment><USER2> Braze.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! hadn't seen them before.</comment></comment>


What is the one tip you would give to new bloggers out there? - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/strikingloo/what-is-the-one-tip-you-would-give-to-new-bloggers-out-there-33km <comment><USER2> Consistency, good content over quantity. Good writing style and lots of fun too!</comment>