A book to learn R and Python in parallel for Data Science - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rnorm/book_sample <comment><USER2> R has a nice web development framework called Shiny. While it is not comparable to say Django or Flask, Shiny does make it incredibly easy to share data analysis. If one wants to share statistical analysis or create a data oriented dashboard, then there is definitely a reason to consider R and Shiny. Note that Python has Dash, which is comparable to Shiny, but it is less mature as far as I know.

While previously Shiny was primarily deployed through RStudio's solutions, there are now open source initiatives such as ShinyProxy, introducing Kubernetes as an option for deploying Shiny applications. The latest iterations of Shiny related libraries are facilitating automated testing and deployment. These developments allow companies to use Shiny in production, but it has to be said that the R ecosystem is not as developed as Python's from a traditional software development perspective.

<comment><USER3> Dash by plotly is also amazing its like shiny but for python! - we were able to whip together an app that would let you drag and drop xyyy data and get a scatter plot instantly - you can try it here (first load takes 1-2s):

[https://dash-app-dx9g2r0la6-8000.cloud.kyso.io](https://dash-app- dx9g2r0la6-8000.cloud.kyso.io)

It was also really easy to make it, maybe 250 lines of python in total

(guide to making this app is here: [https://kyso.io/KyleOS/creating-an- interactive-application-u...](https://kyso.io/KyleOS/creating-an-interactive- application-using-plotlys-dash))

<comment><USER4> I thought the Python equivalent to Shiny is Bokeh, see [https://bokeh.pydata.org/en/latest/docs/gallery.html#gallery](https://bokeh.pydata.org/en/latest/docs/gallery.html#gallery)) ?

<comment><USER3> Yeah Bokeh is also excellent

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I sometimes wonder is there any reason to learn R at all, since python eco system has absorbed most of its advanced statistical functionality, coupled with the factor that python environment is much more general, with capabilities to fetch, decode/encoded data,work with binary data databases, web frameworks for presenting etc.

<comment><USER6> I use both Python and R. tidyverse/ggplot2 alone are enough reason to use R, and are _substantially_ faster for tasks that utilize those packages than the equivalent in Python (in my opinion).

Although I haven't had as much reason to use _base_ R. For more ML-related tasks I do go back to Python.

<comment><USER7> This. I've contributed code to popular libraries in both languages, and while I (overall) have a preference for python (mostly due to it being general purpose), I find R code unparalleled when it comes to raw data manipulation/analysis.

The overall api of tidyverse packages is such a joy, and recent improvements in purrr/tidyr allow me to construct nested data analysis workflows I couldn't even dream of in python.

<comment><USER8> One random example I found recently is a tidyverse package called forcats that has lots of nice functions for categorical data. For example, it has a single function that merges all categories with a frequency of less than a certain threshold in the table into a new category like "other" or whatever. This is a task I often need to do, but as far as I can see it's a bit of a hack in python or pandas. It's just lots of little things like this, especially wrangling data tables.

[https://forcats.tidyverse.org/reference/fct_lump.html](https://forcats.tidyverse.org/reference/fct_lump.html)

There's also the data.table package for this kind of data work, which is maybe less used but seems to have better performance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Apart from the odd library I have rarely found much benefit to using both languages for DS as you end up expressing the same paradigms just in different syntax. And I think for good reason too - the basis of the tools used to do data science arent in the languages themselves but the packages built for the task which is why there's often an R equivalent of a Python package and vice versa. So in effect almost no one 'uses' R/Python for DS as much as Rube- Goldberg highly-optimised compiled libraries together using different syntax.ie dplyr/pandas/scipy/ggplot etc are the real stars of the show.

Rather than R vs Python I hope one of two things happen. Either both languages get replaced by a 'better' ML language eg Swift / Julia giving us users a 'turtles all the way down' experience and removing the reliance on complied packages. Or, second option, they get relegated even further into being nothing but glue between some common data formats specific to the type of work found in DS allowing you the user basically a choice between syntactic-sugar of one glue-language versus the other. Something like Apache Arrow springs to mind but I'm not sure where they are at the moment

</comment><comment><USER10> Nobody would write R code the way this book is teaching. For that matter, nobody looking to do linear regression for data science in Python is doing their own matrix math, either.

<comment><USER11> Linear regression should be regarded as the statistical equivalent of stripping down a rifle, reassembling it and checking its function. If you _develop_ any statistical software, you're going to end up doing it at some point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is an interesting concept. It makes perfect sense to learn both simultaneously. On the other hand, it must be confusing at times. Imagine learning two languages at the same time, from the same book. It's an experiment I haven't tried, but i'm curious about the outcome.

<comment><USER13> Also interesting to learn two languages, in parallel, where neither is particularly good at parallelism :)

<comment><USER14> What makes you think R or Python are bad at parallelism? My experience is that both are very decent.

<comment><USER13> Both have packages that can manage subprocesses. Both have inherently single threaded interpreters.

<comment><USER15> What technology in what language are you comparing them against?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Nice work!!!

If anyone is interested, I also made a 'Learn R by Example' project which attempts to teach R through code comments: [https://github.com/photonlines/Learn-R-by- Example](https://github.com/photonlines/Learn-R-by-Example)

</comment><comment><USER17> Shouldn't '<-' be used instead of '=' for variable assignments, as they aren't the same thing in R.

<comment><USER18> It's a large source of bike-shedding in the R community but out of the 5 assignment operators in R, those two are largely the same.

There's a good explanation here: [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1741820/what-are-the- dif...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1741820/what-are-the-differences- between-and-in-r#51564252)

</comment></comment><comment> purple-again I read a good portion of the first chapter and skimmed the rest. I am very much enjoying this book and hope that you continue to write more chapters.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! I'm planning to add a few more chapters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I learnt Matlab/R/Python/Javascript altogether. It was a mess for me to grok all the similar-but-different syntax, but it make me realized more about the real essence of what is really important for the domain rather than language details.

</comment><comment><USER20> Python and Julia might make more sense today.

<comment><USER21> Is Julia actually used that much? I've been hearing people herald it as the next big thing for the last five years or so, but it doesn't seem like it has taken off. I personally don't know anybody who uses it professionally (I know plenty of people who use R professionally). The most recent SO survey also indicates that it is rather unpopular.

<comment><USER22> Julia just got to 1.0 last year, and it does have areas where it's already between the best options in scientific computing such as differential equations solving and mathematical optimization. Regardless of not being the most popular (against the behemoths that have many times it's age and support), you shouldn't have trouble doing most stuff with it from machine learning to statistics. And it's a pretty fun and fairly unique language to learn and use.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I feel like ever book ive ever read, on any programming language, makes me immediately want to pound my head into my desk. Nothing against the author, its just so clear that as it pertains to programming, being good at programming, and the teaching of it never come hand in hand. Same goes for real life, some of the best data scientists I work with, cant for the life of them explain concepts, and then the ones who are great at explaining it, can rarely execute with the same eloquence.

<comment><USER24> This is true for a lot of things! For example, the famous artists that perform the music on stage (nowadays, at least) likely didn't write the song they are singing.

Teaching and executing are two separate skills. Fun little anecdote, in high school I had this AWFUL science teacher. He would literally just have us watch Crash Course videos to get the concepts. Turns out he was a relatively distinguished scientist himself..

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> How come there's no source in the git repo? You shouldn't just throw up the PDF and call it a day, github isn't just a trendy file host.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. Just added the code. Thanks!

<comment><USER25> Thanks for adding the source for all the code snippets. I'd also be interested in the LaTeX (if that's what you used) source for the book itself if you feel like adding that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> But why? If you would never join NASA then why train to be an astronaut. Do something useful in life.

</comment><comment><USER27> I picture the author as an early-to-mid 20-year old that is great on the data sci side but weak as a developer. Considers "having to learn" python or R as a hurdle to their accessing their innate mathematical prowess.

<comment> purple-again Literally the second sentence in the book he states he was an undergrad in 2006.</comment></comment>


Tech Start-ups Aren't Just for Wunderkinds - <AUTHOR> http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/05/01/1729251

<comment><USER3> you know, the more and more i get into this business with my own start up I am realizing this. But because I am not even 20, (1 week, may 8) I equal make this stereotype true atleast on some level.

It boils down to experience. 'kids' as ill even refer to myself as, create these applications, websites, whatever, and they think they can make the millions. Sometimes this is true, but what usually happens if they begin to talk to VC's is they tell them they are not capable to run their own company.

"Get a degree, get your ass kicked at a company, then start your own" - <USER2> Kawasaki

I think people think this because, yes it does happen, but more times than not its people with M.B.A's or a lot of experience that team up with a vet technie to start these.

-William Kasel JumpFox - Monetizing Social Media www.jumpfox.com</comment>


Joining Pro-WikiLeaks Attacks Is as Easy as Clicking a Button - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/web20-attack-anonymous/

<comment><USER2> Using javascript to 'donate' your computer to some cause was demonstrated a while ago to attempt to win the engineyard contest: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=715020>

Of course, given that javascript is not exactly as fast as compiled C on a CPU with a few hundred threads they didn't make it, but the same technique applied to DDoS is what javascript excels at.

The upshot of all this is that pissing off anybody with more than 100 followers on twitter now has the potential to take down all but the largest sites on the web.

Basically anybody with an axe to grind and a way of rustling up some buddies can set up a DDoS, no technical knowledge whatsoever required.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Reference: <http://anonsp.hostoi.com/>

Using JS LOIC against a server not owned by you could be illegal!</comment>


Apple joins Google, Facebook, and Twitter in data-sharing project - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/30/20746868/apple-data-transfer-project-google-microsoft-twitter <comment><USER2> > Right now, those tools let you download data directly to your hard drive, > but the hope is that the project's code could allow the data to be ported > directly to another service.

Anyone think that we may eventually not find a big "allow me to download/export my data" button?</comment>


Are forest fires as bad as they seem? - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/world-49515462 <comment><USER2> _Although it is the highest number of fires (for the year to 27 August) for almost a decade, it is actually lower than for most years in the period 2002 to 2010.

There is a similar pattern for other areas of Brazilian forestry that are not part of the Amazon basin.

Source: The National Institute for Space Research (Inpe)

If we look at satellite images for the overall area of burnt forest in Brazil's Amazon region each year, again we see very high levels in the early 2000s.

For 2019, we have data up to the end of August, and the overall area burnt for those eight months is 45,000 sq km. This has already surpassed all the area burnt in 2018, but appears unlikely to reach the peaks seen in the previous decade._

<comment><USER3> Just because the bleeding is less worse than it was in the early 2000s doesn't mean the bleeding is good.

<comment><USER4> woops. fires are also essential for the renewal of the ecosystem. Of course, not the ones started purposefully

<comment><USER5> It depends on the type of ecosystem

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yes, if people are causing them so they can clear land. The problem with forest fires is not the fires themselves but the fact that if you go out and cause a fire without knowing how to set up a controlled burn you are almost certainly doing something bad. Not sure why this article even tries to argue otherwise.

<comment><USER7> To play the devil's advocate, look at some species of trees such as eucalyptus [1]. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that these (and probably other) trees have evolved to include forest fires as a key part of their lifecycle. When there is a huge buildup of fuel in a forest, talking about who started a fire or what their motivation was is not seeing the forest for the trees.

The spark that starts a forest fire is only a proximate [2] cause. The ultimate cause is that these trees evolved to be highly flammable.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus#Adaptation_to_fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucalyptus#Adaptation_to_fire)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximate_and_ultimate_causation)

<comment><USER8> I know forest fires are essential to California forests. Redwoods, for example, have seeds that wait to be burned before they will sprout. The large redwoods are big enough to survive most fires.

However, the issue has been that we suppress forest fires for years, leading to a buildup of fuel, leading to fires that are so big that they destroy the trees that normally survive them.

California has changed the way it deals with forest fires to try to prevent this... they don't try to stop ALL fires now.

<comment><USER9> And, California plans controlled burns.

<comment><USER10> better than planned uncontrolled burns

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting article, also from BBC, that explains how suppressing wildfires can actually make them worse [http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160722-why-we- should-let-ra...](http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160722-why-we-should-let- raging-wildfires-burn)

</comment><comment><USER12> Since Europe and the US have committed to total reforestation, it's only natural to expect Brazil to.... Oh wait a minute

Seriously, everyone up in arms, let's put together funds and lease those lands to protect them. I'd contribute money myself. Since avoiding the damage is more valuable that their commercial activities we should be able to outbid them... right?

Or are we saying Brazil should bear the costs themselves?

<comment><USER13> I have some issue with the idea of buying/leasing land to protect the environment. It's a noble idea, but I don't think it will work in the long term. Most likely, you won't be able to outbid private companies- at least not for any useful portion of the land. Their usage _makes_ money, while your idea _takes_ money. For your idea to win you would need a lot more rich environmentalists than currently exist. I think a better idea would be to enact reasonable laws that protect the environment- the money that you would have spent buying land could be used to elect non-corrupt politicians.

There is a similar effort in Colorado to buy up land and pay off farmers to prevent them from using too much of the Colorado River so that way downstream states like California can have some. It's created with good intentions, but I think that it can't work in the long term- all it takes is a publicly accessible portion of the river to get overdrawn, or a stubborn farmer to refuse to sell and instead start piping his access of the river to other farmers, and then the idea fails. It's more sustainable to have legally binding usage agreements created by the states that can be enforced with the police and jail time- you just need to motivate the politicians to get off their butts and create the agreements.

<comment><USER12> Yes. My actual point is that people like to complain but want the costs borne by others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's written in a way to make you feel there's no problem.

The total land burned over the years accumulate. We may have a constant speed to burn all the forests left, but it's a deadly speed.

<comment><USER15> Usually it doesn't accumulate as new trees grow in the place of burned trees.

<comment><USER3> No. The areas burned in the Amazon are replaced by grazing and farming fields, which are vastly less effective at locking in carbon. They're also not a replacement for lost ecosystems.

<comment><USER16> 45000 sq.km is about 10% of the size of France, there is no way _all_ that land become grazing & fields overnight.

<comment><USER17> I read a long-form article recently that explained that when Brazilians slash & burn the forest they'll typically put some cattle on the land simply as a way to lay claim to the land, whether or not they're cattle ranchers, and whether or not they even intend to make use of the land immediately.

This happens even if the person might have had a legitimate claim to the property. That is, they may slash & burn land and put cattle on it because it's simpler as a practical matter than dealing with the bureaucratic formalities of land title in Brazil. If there are cattle both officials and others will normally recognize the claim and leave you alone.

The burden of land title transfer formalities are a problem all across Latin America. When it comes to property law, Continental European Civil Law doesn't work well for developing countries generally, and in particular for securing property rights of the poor. Many scholars have argued that Latin American countries would do better with Common Law-style property law. Doing so in Brazil might help reduce the pressure on the rain forest, at least a little bit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Maybe it depends on the context of the seemer in question. I can't pretend to unravel the matter of their ecological impact; it seems to me that question has too much nuance for a casual observer of the literature to unravel.

However from the perspective of actually being near these things, I can say for sure that they're worse than I anticipated. The smoke is far more unpleasant than I anticipated. The fires also burn hotter and faster than I expected. Before having some personal experience with forest fires I thought that paved roads (certainly at least highways) would be effective fire breaks and that motorists would be largely unimpacted by a fire on the side of the road, but I now know these fires to be disturbingly powerful. They can stall out your car and roast you so hard you turn into a charred skeleton.

</comment><comment><USER19> Massive forest fires dump large quantities of CO2 and particulates into the atmosphere. That is bad in the context of global warming where we (that is, we humans) have a crisis. Many ecosystems may require forest fires to be healthy, but the available "carbon credits" seem to have been stolen by those who use fossil fuels to generate energy. Is there anyone out there who can the numbers to reason about the positive and negative impacts of forest fires in today's context.

</comment><comment><USER20> In many (most?) cases, when they set fire, the forest is already gone. First they sell the trees, and once they're removed, they use fire to clear up the area.

Although some times it is used when trees are to massive for machines.

[https://beta.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/why- brazi...](https://beta.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/why-brazilian- farmers-are-burning-the-rainforest--and-why-its-difficult-for-bolsonaro-to- stop- them/2019/09/05/3be5fb92-ca72-11e9-9615-8f1a32962e04_story.html?outputType=amp)

</comment><comment><USER21> So... things have been bad for at least a decade or two but we have only just started to notice.

</comment><comment><USER22> If forest fires and volcanoes were the primary sources of carbon emissions our planet had to deal with then no, they would not be any concern but rather part of the natural weather cycles. Combined with human generated emissions they are bad.

</comment><comment><USER23> _data from the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research (Inpe)_

Should I be suspicious? (Serious question, I'd _hope_ that this was a body allowed to produce independent science- backed information).

<comment><USER20> The director was recently and famously fired for publishing accurate data (as it is his mandate).

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/08/03/amer...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/08/03/americas/brazil- space-institute-director-fired-amazon-deforestation-intl/index.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I bought some beef from Trader Joe's a few years ago, not thinking much of it - probably the first time I bought raw meet from them. Cooked some burgers... With my usual onion mix, absolutely horrid flavor threw them away. Turned the package over, sourced in Brazil. Holy hell Trader Joe's.

<comment><USER25> If you you're used to all American beef, nothing else will satisfy.

<comment><USER24> My post was about Brazilian beef specifically because it is raised on ex- Amazon forest land. Probably should have said that, but I figured people would get it.</comment></comment></comment>


Notre Dame: a blow-by-blow account of the restoration process - <AUTHOR> https://www.theartnewspaper.com/analysis/inside-notre-dame-a-blow-by-blow-account-of-work-on-the-fire-ravaged-cathedral <comment><USER2> I hadn't seen recent photos until this article, and I didn't realize how different Notre Dame looks now with all the wooden frames supporting the buttresses.

[https://images.graph.cool/v1/cj6c28vh912680101ozc2paxj/ck167...](https://images.graph.cool/v1/cj6c28vh912680101ozc2paxj/ck167lker2lm90190z0orsdta/0x0:462x617/960x960/figure_7_the_platform_positioned_above_the_vaults.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER3> That is really beautiful work, I didn't know people could do things like this anymore. Much admiration for people that can pull together and put up such high levels of craftsmanship.

<comment><USER4> What, the flying buttress falsework? That looks designed in a CAD program. Probably, all the pieces were cut to match the design, then bolted together. Better to do all that in advance and then carefully move it into place than to try to build it in place by hand.

One of the sections of falsework is being hoisted in the picture. Note the custom metal lifting attachment designed to fit it.

The supports are a nice piece of work, but routine. Now, restoring the damaged decorative stonework, that will require craftmanship and hand labor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Recent panel about the restoration: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEsH2ao7PCU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEsH2ao7PCU)

</comment><comment><USER6> Any official news on the exact cause yet? Was it definitely faulty wiring?

<comment><USER7> I was in Paris two weeks ago and a local told me it was a worker who was smoking and dropped their butt in the wrong place.

(Not sure if that's true)

<comment><USER8> Related: > [https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/26/europe/notre-dame- negligence-...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/26/europe/notre-dame-negligence- investigation-intl-scli/index.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > will it be the object of a contemporary "architectural gesture", as > suggested by the master-mind of Notre Dame's restoration, President Emmanuel > Macron?

Please, no. Restore it to before the spire, or with the spire, either is fine.

But please please no modern monstrosity that will age about as well as La Cité Radieuse...

<comment><USER10> It's somewhat ignorant to categorically consider everything contemporary to be a "modern monstrosity", and not just because "modern" in the context of architecture actually means a specific period that ended about 40 years ago.

The Berlin Reichstag is one often-cited example of successful combination of old and new: [https://www.google.com/search?q=reichstag&client=safari&rls=...](https://www.google.com/search?q=reichstag&client=safari&rls=en&sxsrf=ACYBGNS1GdZmXr4uAr0UlvqDVhvBgldigQ:1570111046428&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi3n7i5n4DlAhXF0qQKHRgPDQEQ_AUIESgB&biw=1288&bih=969)</comment></comment>


Security - Unlike Fingerprints, Brain Patterns Can't Be Faked - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/security_unlike_fingerprints_brain_patterns_cant_be_faked <comment><USER2> is this _really_ easier than face recognition? Or that retinal identification thing? I guess it's pretty hard to fake your eyes too. Perhaps brain pattern recognition would help keep out robert downey jr. in tropic thunder..</comment>


New release of Watson Developer Cloud services - <AUTHOR> https://developer.ibm.com/watson/blog/2015/09/24/announcing-our-largest-release-of-watson-developer-cloud-services/ <comment><USER2> The breadth of the service has definitely broadened so that the more of the essential parts for a system are there, however, there are so many "intelligent" services like AlchemyAPI, OpenCalias that are embarassingly bad, they have some convincing to do that they can get quality to be good enough.

(Note that tunablity to the domain is a key part of making something useful; you might be able to build an architecture that can read medical notes, celebrity gossip, and business plans, but it will take a lot of elbow grease to make any of those systems good enough to let off the leash.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Not open source. Yawn.

<comment><AUTHOR> Some of it is closed source, but there's actually a good amount of open source material at [https://github.com/watson-developer- cloud](https://github.com/watson-developer-cloud) and IBM contributes huge amounts of code upstream to the open source projects that we build on top of.</comment></comment>


Marissa Mayer Is Firing ~500 Under-Performing Yahoo Employees - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-is-firing-500-under-performing-yahoo-employees-2013-10

<comment><USER2> She's a mini-Hitler. That's the company I'll avoid seeking employment at.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure that is fair to say. I think all companies will go through a "fat trimming" period. Yahoo grew big and didn't/doesn't have the business model to sustain that growth.

Side Note: I am actually confused about what Yahoo's market is now-a-days.

<comment><USER2> >fat trimming

and if that's the case - that's exactly what you say instead of - "these are bad devs and we don't need them". Hey person with family and kids - screw you - good luck finding a job after Yahoo CEO declared you an unworthy asset.

<comment><USER4> > Hey person with family and kids - screw you - good luck finding a job after > Yahoo CEO declared you an unworthy asset.

What would you rather have happen: (a) a company fires their under-performing employees and maybe becomes successful or (b) a company keeps these employees around forever and ends up failing, putting everyone who works there out of a job (instead of just the under-performers)?

Obviously the people being fired should be treated with respect, and I'd hope they will get a fair severance package, etc. But business is business, and keeping around employees who are dragging the company down isn't good for anyone in the long term.

(I have no stake in Yahoo, and know little about their layoffs. I just don't understand your argument.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How many applications do YC startups hiring usually get via HN post? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Maybe amend the question to include "quality" or "worthwile?"

<comment><USER3> Not if the data he's looking for is raw application numbers?

<comment><USER4> I'd like to know both.</comment></comment></comment>


Tips for file host security? - <AUTHOR>

I'm making a unique file host, and I want to allow ALL types of files. How would you do security for something like this? For example: What's the best way to prevent someone from uploading a malicious PHP file and executing it? <comment><USER2> Put the data inside each file in a database. You can then create a temporary file for download.</comment>


Bitbucket kills off evolve/Mercurial support with no notice - <AUTHOR> https://bitbucket.org/site/master/issues/17123/mercurial-obsolescence-markers-seem-to-be <comment><USER2> Sad. Evolve is great.</comment>


ICO lost $1.4M because of missing quotes and JavaScript numerics - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/a_ferron/status/892350579162439681 <comment><USER2> Ok, let's blame it on Solidity ...but "this address was incorrectly verified before deployment due to its similarities", WTH?</comment>


Validate your ideas fast and free - <AUTHOR> http://pitch.munichtrading.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone, Some years ago, we created a tool to be able to evaluate our multiple business-ideas amongst our friends and internally in our company. It is an easy tool, where we could express our ideas within 400 characters and upload it. Afterwards friends and family members were able to rate those ideas ('thumb up' or 'thumb down') and we instantly got a feedback on the ideas. As we know the common problem, that most people with an idea are unsure, whether it is worth following it or not, we hereby invite you to use our tool on your own. You can find it here: [http://pitch.munichtrading.com/](http://pitch.munichtrading.com/)

It has a very basic functionality, is very easy-to-use and totally free. You'll never waste time thinking about your ideas and wondering, whether they solve a real problem again! So go forward and ask the community!

</comment><comment><USER2> What a shitty idea!</comment>


The Science Behind Your Cheap Wine - <AUTHOR> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/science-behind-your-cheap-wine-180962783/?no-ist <comment><USER2> Pretty lightweight article which is a shame as it is a very interesting topic.

I can at least add that after extensive testing cheap wine does on average give worse hangovers than more expensive wine, although there are plenty of outliers.</comment>


Show HN: Hacker News clone for Russian startup community - <AUTHOR> http://www.itimes.ru

<comment><USER2> This website [http://habrahabr.ru/](http://habrahabr.ru/) makes you more visits than HN #1 in front page, and for me this is the russian HackerNews

<comment><AUTHOR> They banned my post as an advertisement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This looks interesting, even if it doesn't look like HN at all. What would interest me is some background, how is this connected to know incubators/investors? A link to an informative English article would have been nice.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is not direcly connected to any incubator (yet). I'm a student of Moscow Founders Institute Summer program ([http://fi.co](http://fi.co)). Was making this site as a side project to practice Python/Flask/Redis. At Founders Institute I met Eugene Gordeev from Russian Ventures ([http://rusve.com](http://rusve.com)) and we decided to carry on this experimental project.

<comment><USER3> Nice, I hope you can build something good with this.

Personally, I like the HN frontpage because so many news items fit on it. So a little too much whitespace for my taste.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree on that, will try to make it more compact.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google dealt setback in age bias case by judge interested in 'Googleyness' - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/article/3128725/it-careers/google-dealt-setback-in-age-bias-case-by-judge-interested-in-googleyness.html <comment><USER4> > The judge limited the class to people who had an in-person interview, which > means that job applicants who only had phone interviews can't join the > class.

I feel (anecdotal only) that it's pretty easy to approximate age due e.g. to lexicon and potentially dialect, and that it's even easier to pick up on certain vocal changes in older candidates, so I can see the argument in favor of including phone interviews in the class.

That said, the argument for restricting it to only people who passed the phone screens appears to be that the phone screen establishes an initial impression of qualification (skimmed from page 13 of the ruling; I could be _entirely_ wrong and could've quoted an irrelevant passage, but I'd like to think this is accurate):

> The proposed class would include an unknown number of "applicants" who > demonstrate no plausible qualifications for the job. To establish a prima > facie case of an ADEA violation, the plaintiff must show, among other > things, that he was qualified for the position.

[https://www.scribd.com/document/326637833/Google-Age- Discrim...](https://www.scribd.com/document/326637833/Google-Age- Discrimination)

<comment><USER5> You can usually tell from a roughly how old a person is just from reading their resume. If they list themselves as a team lead in 1990, then you can be pretty sure that they are at least 50. I would guess that the judge wants to limit to people who had in-person interview because that shows that they were at least close to getting the job. If you have gotten past the phone interview stage then you have already demonstrated basic competence.

If you're trying to fill a junior position, then you don't want to hire someone who has been working as a chief architect for the last 10 years. It's not about their age. It's about the fact that they are way overqualified and will probably quit as soon as they can find something that they are qualified for.

<comment><USER6> > You don't want to hire someone who has been working as a chief architect for > the last 10 years. It's not about their age. It's about the fact that they > are way overqualified

That's not necessarily true. Maybe they burned out and want a less stressful role. Or maybe they've cashed out and are looking for a job they would enjoy and can afford to not worry about the paycheck. Frankly, job titles can also be pretty meaningless.

If I saw a resume on my desk for a junior role with somebody with senior experience I'd probably ask them "why are you looking to move into this role?". I wouldn't rule them off outright, because I understand that people's circumstances often change, and not everybody is driven by a career trajectory that's constantly moving upwards.

<comment><USER5> You're right. I probably oversimplified to save on typing. I actually work with a person who is 60ish and has held considerably more senior roles in the past. He seems pretty happy in his less senior role. I think he wanted something a little less demanding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Surprised there was no mention of the lawsuit by Brian Reid against Google: [http://abusergoestowork.com/tag/reid-v- google/](http://abusergoestowork.com/tag/reid-v-google/)

He was, by far, the best prof I've ever had. The Google experience was so distasteful to him he doesn't even list that employment on his resume.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm all for getting case law in the record for calling a spade a spade in situations like this. The US has laws against age and other discrimination.

The 'More Perfect' podcast had a great episode about Batson, jury selection, and racially motivated peremptory challenge that speaks to the same points (though sadly, still unresolved in our justice system). See [http://www.wnyc.org/story/object-anyway/](http://www.wnyc.org/story/object- anyway/) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batson_v._Kentucky](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batson_v._Kentucky) [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/us/supreme-court-black- jur...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/us/supreme-court-black-jurors-death- penalty-georgia.html?_r=0)

If the laws need changing then that's a discussion we should have. But you shouldn't be able to weasel around them by inventing a term and then equating it to things that are illegal.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'd really like to see problems like this addressed in another way. I'd like to see that people have other alternatives - so that being turned down for a job isn't a life destroying experience.

I think of "corporativism" \- where multiple interest groups are involved in creating policies. In Scandinavia they decided to allow companies to "fire at will" in exchange for free education and a good social safety net. But I think that system can be much improved, with much better alternatives.

<comment><USER10> thats a great trade. trying to address these issues after the fact by establishing protected classes, affirmative action, hiring diversity programs and punitive law suits is a losing game for so many reasons.

since the value of people's hands and backs is rapidly decreasing, we need a much better framework for harvesting the important things like creativity from the working population.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> In addition to people who made it through a phone screen and got an in-person interview, there are those of us who simply never applied after hearing so many stories about Google's style of interviewing and their reputation of favoring young CS grads.

I worked as a contractor for Google from 2008 through 2013 (along with other clients), building election results and voter information maps for their Maps and News teams. My maps ran on google.com and were syndicated out to a number of news sites.

How I got in was an odd fluke: I'd been active on the Maps API mailing list answering people's questions, and a couple of weeks before the 2008 Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, Google realized that the company they'd hired to build those maps wasn't going to deliver, so they asked if I could jump in and build something in a hurry that worked.

The first year I did the whole thing myself: GIS processing to turn geographic boundary files into usable form, back-end processing to gather vote data from AP and other sources, and the front-end UI design and map development. Among other things, I developed a way to display polygons on a map many times faster than the Maps API itself.

A couple of the maps blew up in a spectacular way (I managed to DDOS Google Code on Super Tuesday 2008!), but mostly they were pretty successful with millions of viewers.

After that a couple of Google developers handled the back-end vote processing and I took care of the GIS and front-end work, both for the US and a number of international election maps. For some of the international maps, local teams worked with my front-end code to enhance it for their needs.

It was a pretty good run and Google seemed very pleased with my work. Eventually a great team in their DC office took over the map development, and I started to think about what to do next.

One obvious idea, of course, was to apply for a job at Google! After all, I'd already worked for them rather successfully for five years.

But I didn't even apply. Perhaps this was a mistake on my part. I just had a feeling that my history of developing successful products for Google wouldn't count for much - that instead I'd get logic puzzles, quizzes about algorithmic minutiae and have to code a red-black tree on the spot on a whiteboard - <USER2> things that favor recent CS grads. Plus, I'd just turned 61!

I wonder how many other people there are like me, experienced developers with demonstrated ability, who never applied because of Google's interview practices (or the rumors about them)?

FWIW, I'm still actively programming, getting into something new every year or two - right now it's an odd mix of VR and Microsoft Office development - <USER3> definitely looking for the next great opportunity. Anyone who wants a multitalented developer and doesn't care how old I am, email is in my profile. :-)

<comment><USER12> > _But I didn 't even apply. Perhaps this was a mistake on my part. I just had > a feeling that my history of developing successful products for Google > wouldn't count for much - that instead I'd get logic puzzles, quizzes about > algorithmic minutiae and have to code a red-black tree on the spot on a > whiteboard - all things that favor recent CS grads._

Yes that seems to be how it works. [https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768](https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768)

 _" Google: 90% of our engineers use the software you wrote (Homebrew), but you can't invert a binary tree on a whiteboard so fuck off."_

My interview process with Google only made it to the technical phone screening because I didn't know the Big O complexity of read/write/sort for Trie structures. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trie)) The interviewer was pretty cool and we had an interesting technical discussion, so I wouldn't consider it a complete waste of time.

<comment><USER13> i wouldn't expect someone to know how to derive big-o bounds, I'm 45, an engineer at google and I couldn't do it if asked on the spot. I would however expect you to know of the basic asymptotic performance of typical data structures and algorithms. As a practical matter I've seen a number of critical bugs in software because of mistakes in choosing data structures.

As a side note, I joined Google at age 39.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Fallout from this: Companies will go to great lengths to avoid contact with people who submit resumes that imply they are old. No phone screens, no responses. It's going to be wintertime for folks in their late 30s now.

<comment><USER15> That would be great! Insta-lawsuit. Age is a protected class in the US, and if it is discovered that your company did something like this you are going to be paying out bigtime.

<comment><USER16> But, how would you ever know you were discriminated against? They never called you because your resume was filtered out before the initial contact.

<comment><USER17> Submit equal resumes that only differ in age. If a significant difference in responses exists, you sue.

There are several organizations that are doing this in my country, but for immigrants.

<comment><USER18> That's very difficult to do for age. If one applicant is 20 years older, he is expected to have longer work experience; if his work experience is too short, it's a red flag.

Of course they still might not hire the more experienced person because she is "overqualified".

<comment><USER15> If the two applicants have equal qualifications and you only hire the younger applicant then you are going to be open for an age-discrimination lawsuit. Being older and having a shorter relevant work experience is the sort of 'red flag' that puts you on the losing side of these lawsuits, as the two candidates are manifestly equal by definition here other than differences in age. You can't say "person X is older and should therefore have more work experience, so we will pick person Y" and expect to not end up spending the next few years in court.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Isn't it pretty easy to tell the age of someone by their resume? I mean, if they put the year they graduated college, that means they were 22 or close to that, right?

I know that's a generalization, but given Google's data on people, I think it would insanely simple for them to discriminate based on age even if you tried to hide it from them.

I don't know, clearly, but I would guess Google and other tech companies do this because it's cheaper to hire young people, right?

<comment><USER20> Why would it be cheaper to hire young people? Google doesn't give a pension.

<comment><USER21> \- It's easier to convince young people to accept lower salaries and work long hours (e.g., if they have no family to support or spend time with).

\- It's more expensive to buy health insurance for an older pool of employees.

\- Young people are probably less likely to be dissatisfied with cheap work accommodations like open-plan offices.

On the other hand, there are increased efficiencies associated with older employees:

\- People earlier in their career might have significantly higher job-turnover rates.

\- Older employees have more work experience, and can prevent lots of problems before they happen.

\- Older employees have had the time to become better at what they do. I don't think the best developers reach their peak skills after only working for 5 years.[1] Learning from your mistakes takes time.

(I'm a developer in my 50s, and I work with lots of older developers who are good at what they do.)

[1] See, for example, Peter Norvig's "Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years": [https://norvig.com/21-days.html](https://norvig.com/21-days.html)

<comment><USER22> > It's more expensive to buy health insurance for an older pool of employees.

Until we disconnect health insurance from employment like everywhere else in the world, ageism will be a problem in every industry. We don't get auto, life, home or any other insurance from employment, why the most important and one that contributes to ageism?

<comment><USER23> Why: WWII wage controls & Risk pools.

I agree that US health care should catch up with 20th century advanced nations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> As a result of this, could companies be expected to have a workforce age profile reflective of the local area or national pool, as might be the case in other recruitment efforts? How would they do by seniors or those approaching retirement age and reflecting those proportions in their workforce.

As the demographics change does a company's workforce have to change along with it, if so to what degree and with what allowable lag?

<comment><USER25> One would hope that the age/gender/race/etc profile of a company would at least reflect the profile of the applicants.

<comment><USER26> I also take issue with that. Certain age/gender/race profiles tend to fair worse than others in the interview process. Think h1b visa abuse.

For example males tend to have resume's which over qualify oneself vs females. Asians and Westerners also have these kind of differences.

This causes the rate of resume to hire to be different for different demographics.

Generally though interview feedback will state the facts and can be pulled up to back a companies actions. This is what needs to be judged.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I really don't know how I feel about the government legislating stuff like this.

Sure, I understand all the -isms of the world make it so that we can't have nice things.

But what if a business figures out that a certain demographic, young or old, fits their business better? That over the course of 10+ years it leads to drastic differences in value creation? Are we really saying, ignore that, and hire for diversity anyway?

It just always feels like we're running against the wind. I don't know what the solution is but there has got to be a better way, to sound cliche at 9:55AM.

<comment><USER28> I share your sentiment. *ism is undoubtedly a bad thing, but legislating against these things feels like a particularly slippery slope. What next: sue modeling agencies for hiring young, attractive people?

<comment><USER27> Yeah - don't understand the downvotes, is what it is I guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Perhaps explains why Sergey has been dumping stock lately.

<comment><USER30> I'd expect it's because ad growth is disappointing and paid search manipulation isn't the money earner they hoped for.

<comment><USER30> Ok down-voters. I left the search industry over my refusal to participate in search manipulation. So which part are you down-voting. The idea that it exists? or do you think I'm some alt-right conspiracy nut? I'd actually like to know. I don't care about points but I'm getting the message that I belong on HN and I'm perfectly happy to quit on the assumption that HN punishes dissent.

<comment><USER29> I believe we are getting downvoted because Google does a lot of perception management, esp in places like this. See also the Asch Effect.

<comment><USER30> Thanks for letting me know. That makes sense. I'd actually love work with HN to flush out perception management behaviours.

<comment><USER29> Not hard to flush out. Reasonable comment pounded into oblivion because it mentions X Co. Net effect: people afraid to speak ill of X Co.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Google accepts such a terribly small slice of applicants that it's easy for any engineer in the top 0.75% of overall engineers to think they're talented and deserving but come to find out they're just not in the top 0.5%. That distinction can be really hard to see and easy to attribute to ageism. That said, I suppose there could be some actual ageism going on too.

> The lawsuit claimed the median age at Google was 29, based on data collected > by Payscale, which the judge cited in the ruling.

Article also said that Google's going to guesstimate ages based on graduation dates in order to provide evidence of applicant ages. But knowing the median age of applicants is critical. It's a shame they included the median age of employees without including the median age of applicants in the article. "29" might match perfectly with the applicant pool.

<comment><USER32> The natural way to test this would be to see if the age distribution or applicants matches the age distribution of hires. If so, probably not ageism. If not, how could one argue that it's still not ageism?

This is an honest question, I think I can imagine some scenarios where unequal age distribution != age discrimination, but I'd like to hear others thoughts.

<comment><USER33> > The natural way to test this would be to see if the age distribution or > applicants matches the age distribution of hires. If so, probably not > ageism. If not, how could one argue that it's still not ageism?

It could quite easily not be ageism if the distribution of the skills actually sought and relevant to the job were not equally distributed by age within the applicant pool. Providing direct evidence of this in court may be difficult (or not, depending on how Google documents its interviews.)

(And, really, the scenario where the age distribution matches _because_ of age discrimination is _also_ possible, for the same reason.)</comment></comment></comment>


Classy way to shut down money-losing web site - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtualfunds.com

<comment><USER2> Looks like it was a site that would crowdsource mutual funds.

It's now been folded into the parent company collective2. Which is like a shopping site for automated trading systems - and very cool I should add.

</comment><comment><USER3> What was youtualfunds.com?</comment>


Ask HN: Starting a porn startup - <AUTHOR> I want to start a porn startup.
I want to shoot an adult film, and hopefully more. I'll act and write, and I'll hire&pay the actress. I have 65k loyal followers on FB -- I'm a blogger and author among other things -- that I can market the film to, so there's already a natural distribution channel. Besides, I could sell the clip on dozens of clip sites. The niche will be Asian male porn.
Basically I want to be the Asian James Deen.
I have several friends who expressed interest in being my co-star, whom I can hire, and I've found several filmographers from Craigslist, whom I can hire or just let them shoot for equity. I'm planning to shoot this in one day somewhere in Orange Country (measure B sidestepping).
I'll keep records as per 18 USC 2257, ensure all talent are 18 or above, and find a suitable payment processor (any ideas?).
Am I overlooking anything? <comment><USER2> Well, I'm not sure if you're going to make any money doing it, but it sounds like more fun than slinging JavaScript, so good luck, I guess.

I'd be very wary about wading into such a legally fraught area without talking to a lawyer who has dealt with this kind of thing before. I wouldn't count on the Internet for legal advice, that's my legal advice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I recently launched my paperback book, and I sold 500 copies in two weeks from my page alone, and I'm going on the second print run already. That's not a lot, but it covers my cost, and then more. I have a special situation (small loyal following) that might just tilt profitability in my favor.

I have female friends who've expressed interest in shooting with me ($500), and I've already had several offers at $250 for the filmographers. Add some miscellaneous here and there, and let's call the expenditure $1,000.

I can sell it for $10 pay-per-view/downloadable, maybe $12 for Full HD version. I don't think it's impossible to cover my cost given the strength of my following.

As for legality, I've acted before twice for studios, and I had the opportunity to see how they do things. It's not the best guarantee, but I'll definitely seek a lawyer's advice when the time comes. Thanks for that heads- up.</comment></comment>


How Much Should Startup Employees Earn? Wealthfront Tells Us With A Clever Tool - <AUTHOR> http://pandodaily.com/2012/09/18/how-much-should-startup-employees-earn-wealthfront-tells-us-with-a-clever-tool/ <comment><USER2> Am I reading this wrong - out of 8,000 employees surveyed, no-one had more than 1/10th of 1% of equity.

That's a nice pension contribution not an equity share.

If you were in facebook at that level, you might get a house. But really why is that level of equity share of any influence in anyone's hiring equation?

Or am I missing something?

<comment><USER3> Welcome to the ugly, ugly truth about startups. Employees have so little equity compensation it's almost hilarious - and yet founders will hand out 0.1% offers and expect you to take huge haircuts for the privilege of owning a tiny sliver of a 7-8 figure exit ( _potential_ exit, actually).

Having seen the stock and bonus structure at Amazon and Google, I can confidently say that your expected outcomes are _considerably higher_ at a top-tier tech company than at your average startup.

Sometimes I wonder where all of this "take a haircut for equity" advice is coming from for employees. It's patently terrible given the amount of equity that most deals involve.

<comment><USER4> I'm sorry, do you mean "paycut" or is this some sort of idiom I'm not familiar with? What does hair have to do with it?

<comment><USER2> Haircut is usually a term for taking a reduced return on an existing investment that is otherwise unlikely to pay off - for example many European banks have taken a haircut of upto 50% on Greek government bonds, otherwise the greek government would leave the Euro, default anyway and take its chances.

Said haircut of course then stuffs their balance sheets, so they need bailing out, from for example Spainish government, which then cannot payout its loans and threatens a haircut to its investors. Who are the same damn banks it just bailed out.

This leads to two situations - one ECB chief saying it will pay anything to anyone to stop this idiocy, just ask. And two, the philosophical approach to wealth "hair today, gone tomorrow"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The submission is mostly-useless blog spam around a cool tool: [https://blog.wealthfront.com/startup-employee-equity- compens...](https://blog.wealthfront.com/startup-employee-equity- compensation/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Normally, I like to dig down to the first source, but I've noticed those articles don't get the same attention as submitting from "the big sites". I submitted the original source for a lot of today's A6 articles, but it got no upvotes and only one comment.

Looking over my submission history, the original source rarely gets the attention, and the rewrites articles get a lot of upvotes and comments. I'll keep alternating to see if there is some secondary pattern.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> From the actual Wealthfront page:

"I illustrate the importance of growing the size of the pie to one's share of pie to my entrepreneurship students at the Stanford Graduate School of Business by reminding them of the formula for a circle's circumference versus its area. The formula for circumference (a proxy for share of pie) is linear (2 πr) vs. the formula for area, which is exponential (πr²)."

It seems to me that the value of growing the size of the pie as well as one's share of the pie is pretty easily understood and not in need of an analogy. But yet, this guy has decided to use one, and it is terrible.

Not only is it quadratic, not exponential (a relatively minor detail), but what on earth, exactly, is the radius meant to represent in this analogy?

<comment><USER7> The bullshit you buy when you became a startup employee. Big companies grow their bullshit in linear time - whereas startups are exponential (whoops - I'm a wealth manager to stupid to do basic maths - of course I mean quadratic).

Seeing these math flaws make me wonder if most wealth managers are, in fact, morons. I'm guessing they are - otherwise wouldn't they be making their own wealth to manage?

Oh wait - this is how they are going to do it - ride the tech bubble and impressionable young millionaires to make their fortune.

Clever girl (Jurassic park reference).

/sarcasm

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _We know Mark Zuckerberg did not build Facebook to get rich. His vision of > "making the world more open and connected," is Facebook's real raison > d'être._

Sounds like ex post facto rewriting history bullshit to me.

You start companies to make money (otherwise you'd start a non-profit). You may or may not have other reasons for starting the company. However saying that you didn't want the money after you become rich is false modesty and a form of social signalling.

Founders may or may not want to change the world - but they unequivocally want to make a lot of money regardless of their other reasons.

Indeed, most of these other reasons should be classified under the "reality distortion field" umbrella.

These are used so that founders can say "Come with me and help me change the world!" - when what they really mean to say is "Come make me filthy rich and get paid less for pleasure of doing so you ingracious B player!".

Psychological arbitrage is a real factor in start-ups and a lot of social negotiation. Be careful when dealing with others and remember - everyone is trying to screw you in some form or another (see Facebook founder fight over rights to stock).

Trust no one (this is a PR piece and I'm 100% biased).

<comment><USER8> There are exceptions; Elon Musk clearly started SpaceX because he couldn't afford to develop the technology at a non-profit. Similarly it is common for well-off people who are retirement age to start a business that has no possibility of making any significant money just to have something to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why would I use this instead of the BLS data: <http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ocs/sp/ncbl1627.txt>

Search for "Software Engineers, Applications"

</comment><comment><USER10> Could someone help me understand what is meant by job levels 1 - 5 ?

<comment><USER11> It's a fairly common way to do advancement in large companies, and is usually based on experience. "Software Engineer I" is entry level, "Software Engineer II" has 3 – 5 years of experience, etc.

<comment><USER12> Can you fill in "etc."? I'd be interested to know what definitions they used for the levels (and whether it was consistent across different sources of data).

<comment><USER13> Beyond II (intermediate dev, not a college hire, the majority of working engineers) there is no meaning beyond "suitably impressive resume or reputation at the employer".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So, am I right in assuming that this does not clearly reflect that early stage in development when there are less than 20 people in your company and there are individuals with multiple roles? I understand that there's a 6-20 group in there, but what happens when your software engineer is also your administrator, QA and tech support and your CFO is also your sales developer and sales engineer.

Cool graphs though.

</comment><comment><USER15> I guess I'm doing something wrong according to this tool! I recently moved to the bay area and as a software engineer (I'd say level 4-5 on this tool) I'm earning nowhere near the numbers this tool is showing. No equity either...

Are these numbers a true reflection of the compensation levels?

<comment><USER16> Id say from being involved with hiring in a few different spots that they are definitely on the higher side but not insanely so. There are a lot of jobs in startups that are quite low on salary but higher on the equity side (or atleast thats what the pitch is) and those may not be as represented here. The shock to me was how little of difference there seems to be in salary based upon location - with cost of living put into the mix it makes me question being in California

</comment></comment><comment> SG- I was hoping to read some real details instead of a simple paragraph and this tool. My opinion is that if you're a startup and you hire some people that don't get a share in the company, you're going to have to likely pay them a decent salary and not make promises of wealth one day. You'll also have to pay them more than you plan on paying yourself even if you're more qualified since you are getting more out of it if it succeeds.

I worked for someone that started a small company (we were 2), I was simply a contractor/employee. The problem was and why I left was that he treated me as an equal in terms of responsibility even tho I had no stake in the company.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm from Germany, and 100k$ sounds enormous to me. This are saleries only top tier manegement is getting paid. But I'm curious about your additional costs like health insurance, unemployment insurance and so on. Also I'm curious about how much taxes you have to pay and whats a common net-salery (right word? opposite to gross^^)

<comment><USER18> After taxes, insurance, etc figure $65-70,000 net or "take home". Then you can invest up to $16,000 with deferred/sheltered taxes for 401k (private pension).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> So if I moved to SF and work in the same start up that I'm working right now I would be rich by my country standards.

<comment><USER20> Your rent would go up a lot. But if you are careful about other spending, you can probably save up some money.

</comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands This is actually a pretty interesting tool. Not sure how accurate it is, since its telling me I should be making the same salary I've made at large corporations the last two years.

Based on the interviewing I've been doing, most of the start-ups around here (Midwest) were offering close to 30-40K less than my corporate gigs.

<comment><USER21> In SF Bay area, my experience in the last year or so has been that salary comp is pretty much the same between start-ups and big companies, the only exception being super-early-stage startups (i.e. pre-series A) where they really don't have the money yet. The difference is that at bigco, they add bonus and equity grant that have real value, while at startup, they add some % of equity with unknown value. Companies like Amazon and Netflix are also different because they adjust the base salary up to compensate for their different equity award policies.

<comment><USER13> Amazon pretty famously does not adjust base salaries upward compared to other big companies.

<comment><USER21> Yeah, I think I misspoke somewhat, but not entirely. The Amazon comp structure, at least for the first four years after you join, as far as I know is something like this (and take this with a grain of salt, I haven't worked there):

Y1: Base + large annual cash (non-perf) bonus + 5% stock vest + optional perf stock bonus

Y2: Base + large annual cash (non-perf) bonus + 15% stock vest + optional perf stock bonus

Y3: Base + 40% stock vest + optional perf stock bonus

Y4: Base + 40% stock vest + optional perf stock bonus

So yeah, they don't adjust the base upward, but they do give you extra cash in the first two years to compensate for their back-loaded stock vesting schedule. That's what I meant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I would really appreciate a link to the page with the tool itself instead of to the blog post describing the page with the tool ;-)

</comment><comment><USER23> What a load of crap.

If companies paid that much then unemployment would be next to nil.

<comment><USER24> I've noticed you make comments like this every time salaries are mentioned around here, with usually the same reception. You seem to honestly believe what you're saying, and you seem to be genuine when you say that you've observed lots of low salaries in your portion of the industry.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=dsolomon>

But you'd benefit from knowing that it's not like that, pretty much anywhere else in the developed world. Real developers really are making six figure salaries writing code for a living, working 40 hour weeks, no tricks. More important to you, specifically: _You_ could be making six figures as a software developer. You just need to step out of your niche and go find a job for a public sector company.

Given your comment history, I doubt you'll believe me, or any of the others here replying to you, or the dozens of people who have replied to you over the years. But it's true. We look forward to seeing you out here some day.

<comment><USER25> I think you meant "for a private sector company".

What dsolomon is saying sounds completely incredulous to me: I've yet to hear of a single company that requires employees to purchase their own hardware or software. This is true not just of the top tier SV companies, but of _all_ companies who are aware that building software is their core competency. That's simply the difference between software being a cost center vs. a profit center.

<comment><USER23> Citation needed.

<comment><USER25> 1) Re: equipment

Typing this on a work supplied Macbook Pro, 16gb of ram, 256 gb SSD. Cost to me: $0.

I am ssh'd into my development server which has 78gb of ram. Cost to me: $0

I have IntelliJ Idea Professional (price comparable to -- if not greater than Visual Studio) open in another window. Cost to me: $0. I didn't even need to submit an expense report, just asked IT to provide me with a license.

I have Windows 7 installed in a VMWare Fusion VM. In this case, I didn't even need to request it from it, there was a self-service application that I used to install it. Cost to me: $0.

I have an Android Nexus Galaxy 4G LTE phone on Verizon for work purposes. Could have an iPhone if I chose to. Cost to me: $0.

Google is my employer's primary talent competitor, so I can't imagine they (per game theory) can be any different when it comes to this. I have not worked at Google, but I do know anecdotally (many of my friends work at Google) they're very generous when it comes to equipment.

2) Re: hours/flexibility. I am currently at home typing this and it's ~11:30 am here. I can chose to work from home where are no meetings scheduled and can come in/leave whenever I'd like. Earliest recurring meetings I've ever had scheduled had been at 11 am.

3) Re: salary. Look up my employment history (titles and employers), then see Glassdoor figures (same title at same employer). They're actually lower (on average) than what my own base salary had been at those companies.

You can choose not to believe me, but in this case, you're simply being paranoid.

tl;dr Get out of defense contracting/working for the government or traditional (non-technical) corporations. You'll fare far better working for private sector technology companies.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How has Rwandan minority been able to control govt. for 20 years? - <AUTHOR>

I'm watching Hotel Rwanda. So I looked up Wikipedia on Rwanda.
The TL;DR seems to be:
  1) Hutus are 84% of population, Tutsis are 15%
  2) Tutsis are the historical elite and ruled the nation (not unusual) 3) Democracy was ushered in at some point and Hutus started ruling 4) Tutsis didn't like it so they formed a militia 5) Cue the genocide when Hutus killed a million Tutsis (1994) 6) Since then, all democratically elected governments have been controlled by Tutsis (a tiny minority). The current president is a Tutsi.
How the heck did (6) happen? Anyone know? <comment><USER2> \- Interesting topic. I think you should ask this question on www.afritech.com. That is like Hacker News for Africa.</comment>


Siri switches from Bing to Google search results - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/25/apple-switches-from-bing-to-google-for-siri-web-search-results-on-ios-and-spotlight-on-mac/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29 <comment><USER2> Just in time a reminder for everyone to switch to Duck Duck Go</comment>


How America's obsession with TV cop shows enables police brutality in real life - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/783384/law-order-svu-season-18-premiere-americas-love-of-cop-shows-enables-police-brutality/ <comment><USER2> This has been obvious to me since COPS came on the air. It glorifies brutality in every scene. I got to think that recruits are influenced by growing up with this awful example.

<comment><AUTHOR> I remember as a young (not black) teen I _loved_ that show; there was no moral or social dimension to me. In my early twenties I broke my ankle and ended up diving into daytime TV for a couple of weeks, and it was unwatchable. The same episodes were not harmless fun, it was somewhere between grotesque and absurd.

I think the time has come for a "COPS" show with footage only from bystanders, and which focuses on average citizen-LEO interactions. We need that perspective to be popularized.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> QZ probably overstates the case, but makes a point worth considering -- cop, fire, and doc dramas rarely hold their professions to something other than reverence. Though I guess we have to at least acknowledge the existence of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and Cop Rock.

If time travel becomes possible in my lifetime, I would kill to be in the meeting room where Cop Rock was given the green light. OK, maybe I would bump it to second after the JFK assassination.

Oops, forgot Car 54 Where Are You?

</comment><comment><USER4> Not strictly a cop show, but I've said before that I considered "24" to be one of the greatest examples of propaganda ever made.

I remember my _liberal_ friends unwilling to miss an episode, and talking more and more about the need to "protect ourselves from the terorists".

It was somewhat surreal. And frightening.

P.S. Seriously, I'm not sure Bush, Cheney, et al. could have gotten so far down the slippery slope (with many of that bunch sliding _willingly_ ) or brought the country with them, without "24". Whether or not the producers of "24" directly intended this.

</comment><comment><USER5> The Shield and The Wire may be two of the finest television shows ever, and both portrayed corrupt cops without glorifying them. Well, mostly.

</comment><comment><USER6> One can also make the argument that rap music and games like "Grand Theft Auto" encourages violent behavior in black youths.

<comment><USER7> They reduce the time young people spend outside which reduces violence overall. They also allow people to vent in a non-confrontational manor which further curbs violence.

PS: Another thing I wonder about is the fact you will get caught by the police in game changes how people think. In real life or fantasy you are very likely to get away with things, but in games failure is much more common.</comment></comment>


The Value of Ideas - <AUTHOR> http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/05/the-value-of-ideas/ <comment><USER2> Reading this message reminds me to be humble because I was an "idea guy" up until a few years ago. I even had a Great Big Idea that I wouldn't tell anybody about. My hacker friend wouldn't go in on a business with me and he wasn't tempted to build my site for $500, so I decided to learn how to build websites myself. Boy was I shocked and frustrated by just how much there is to learn. I started the process 2005 by learning where websites lived (I discovered servers) and have progressed from there.

Unfortunately the pressures of making a living slowed me down for a few years, but today I feel like I have a good perspective on what I know and what I need to know to build what I want to. People have started to "steal" my Big Idea in the intervening years, but that's okay because I've come up with new ones. I'm actually pleased that the process was so hard because I have learned so much and it has led me to attend graduate school in Computer Science this fall.

Anyways, this message is very personal to me. I have learned to admire those who are good implementers and to strive to be one myself.

</comment><comment><USER3> Pavlina's site feels like one big informercial. Is there a term yet for blogs like that?

<comment><USER4> You guys are being kind of tough on his blog. I really only see one ad (though the motion is distracting).

I just spent some time reading through some of his other articles. The guy has some great ideas: freeing mental RAM, read a book a week, putting ideas into action, action days, making goals visible, etc. I just subscribed and am hopeful that his future posts will be as insightful as what I've just been reading.

<comment><USER5> he had some good stuff a long time ago but then it became hard to read when he started talking about psychic journeys into the unknown.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If good ideas are so worthless and easy to come up with, why are so many startups running around with really bad ideas?

<comment><USER7> I've been surprised to note that a large number of people I've met with bad ideas are following them because they lack the ambition or the ability to execute on their better ideas. So they go after a market that's too small to be worth addressing, because they can see how to get there, without realizing that _no one_ knows exactly how to approach the huge markets. The only difference is that they're willing to try.

Of course, I've also met people who actually are going after big ideas that are bad because they are too big for a startup. Things that change the shape of the world...it takes a whole market to do that. So, maybe I'm just making up generalizations just like everybody else.

But the point about "Which would you rather build, your own ideas or someone elses?" is the most important. Every time a "business" or "ideas" or "product" guy starts talking about his awesome idea, and he just needs someone to implement it, he's showing himself to be so self-involved as to be intolerable to work with for most hackers--every hacker he talks to has his own "good" ideas, but the "idea" guy thinks he's got a monopoly.

That's all the article is saying, and I've been around startups long enough to know that it's generally true.</comment></comment>


What I learned from my first Product Hunt Launch - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@guilhermerizzo/i-launched-my-first-product-on-product-hunt-d61d91040656 <comment><AUTHOR> Hey! I wrote the app and this medium post, so I'm happy to answer any follow- up questions you might have :)</comment>


Sleep's memory role discovered - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27695144 <comment><USER2> The paper can be found at [1]. This is not a completely new finding. We have know that motor learning induces spine formation for quite awhile. What is novel is comparing to the sleep deprived condition and seeing effects on structural plasticity. However, there is still a long way to go to causally link increased spine formation to improvements on memory and motor tasks. We like to think that spines represent a structural correlate of memory (and they probably are), but there are a whole bunch of open questions that need to be answered before we can actually prove that claim.

1\. [http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6188/1173.full](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6188/1173.full)

<comment><USER3> Does this have to do with LTP? I feel like meditation and NMDA antagonists can sometimes mimic the function of a good nap for me.

<comment><USER2> So LTP is generally thought to be mediated by an increase in the number of AMPA receptors at a synapse. There have also been studies showing that the size of spines is correlated with the number of AMPArs present at the synapse. Whether LTP actually induces the formation of more spines is not entirely clear. The general answer is 'we think the processes are probably related' but it is difficult to do the experiments needed to show that the in vivo correlates of LTP actually cause increased spine formation as part of their downstream signaling pathways. It is worth noting that most of our knowledge about LTP comes from studies in the hippocampus and that the relation between spine formation and LTP may vary from brain region to brain region and even from cell type to cell type.

tl;dr It is hypothesized that increased numbers of spines is a later stage of the process of memory consolidation that may initially appear as LTP however we need a whole lot more evidence to support those hypotheses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This seems a little sensationalist. No, the memory role of sleep was not "discovered": a paper proposing a credible theory was published, based on experiments performed on mice. Moreover, the proposition that is being advanced by the paper --- that specific sleep phases strengthen particular neural connections --- has already been made previously, and is generally suspected to be true in academic circles anyway. So the publication of this paper constitutes nothing more than a few (perhaps important) results supplying a bit of further evidence in favour of an already well-supported hypothesis; that is all.

<comment><USER5> Do you have some good reference about this hypothesis? I'm not really into neuroscience but this really interests me. I'm more on the machine learning side with artificial neural networks, but I often wondered whether some sleep- like phases could get me some improvements. Of course, the question is, what exactly should happen in that phase. What particular neural connections should I strengthen?

<comment><USER6> Perhaps it has no analogous to software neural networks?

Looks like this "strengthening" is needed because there's actual "matter", "tissue" etc involved.

<comment><USER7> from what i recall (no documentation link, but it's been posted here before) strengthening is more about making associations/connections for the things that are important. so if you have CPU bound batch jobs that run each night for identifying new connections between clusters of data... it seems like it'd be pretty analogous. it's not like things we 'forgot' weren't stored, or somehow dropped from memory; we just couldn't access it when we needed to later, and once reminded we're fully aware.

there's also been studies on people who suffer a traumatic experience; if they're deprived sleep following the event then the memories are less severe/traumatic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> When I studied for university exams, I used two-phase sleep cycle. I studied from 10 AM to about 3 PM, then I had a 3-hour nap to about 6 PM, and then I continued to study from about 7 PM to 11 PM.

I can wholeheartedly recommend it; it's quite efficient and you can easily adapt to it from your normal single-phase cycle.

<comment><USER9> I'm sorry but you didn't provide enough data on your sleep. Basically you're telling us you took a long nap in the afternoon. How much sleep did you get at night?

<comment><USER8> Well, this was like a decade and half back, so I don't have "enough data". :-) You're right, that's what I am saying. I think I just got the amount of sleep I needed at night (which means I woke up at around 7). This is not a technique to reduce sleep, but to learn better.

<comment><USER10> So, you slept 11 hours a day?! Wow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So if memories are being replayed, where are the memories coming from and to where are they being persisted?

Is it like a backup is being formed from more short-term memory to more long- term memory? Are long-term memories being replayed to ganglia responsible for "muscle memory" to improve response times?

<comment> a-priori Recent memories (so-called 'hippocampus-dependent memories') are stored in the hippocampus for up to about two weeks, during which time they are gradually transferred into permanent storage in the neocortex, cerebellum, and other parts of the brain. So, to answer your question, that is where they are replayed from.

The hypothesis is that the hippocampus is unique in being able to store memories quickly and after a single exposure. Most of the rest of the brain needs time and repeated exposures to store a memory via long-term potentiation. The role of the hippocampus is to act as a buffer where memories are kept temporarily.

While you're sleeping, your hippocampus repeatedly activates the memory, stimulating the brain in a similar way that the original event did. Slowly, the neocortex begins to rewire itself through synaptic plasticity to store the memory. After many repetitions, the memory is no longer dependent on the hippocampus and it fades away.

I think this is the paper I'm recalling this from, but I'm not entirely sure (this memory is several years old):

Bontempi, Bruno, et al. "Time-dependent reorganization of brain circuitry underlying long-term memory storage." Nature 400.6745 (1999): 671-675.

<comment><USER11> A couple of days late, but thanks for the explanation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I can tell you, as a person who suffered (and I mean Suffered) insomnia for 8 years, and saw countless docs.. (the cause was stress, and docs don't treat that) .. the role for me is that it makes it work like I am a teen again. I can memorize youtube urls now, with some practiced chunking.

<comment><USER13> I had a similar discovery with sleep myself like that. I had been suffering from un-diagnosed severe complex sleep apnea for as best as we can figure 5-10 years. once starting sleep with a BiPAP machine to help with the breathing I went from having no REM sleep and no dreams to having them all the time. After about the first month I could finally remember what happened the day before clearly and without issue. The dramatic change did actually swing me a little more towards depression for a while simply because I could finally understand what I had been missing for so long and that there was nothing I could do to get it back. It was definitely an interesting experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I know that depression increases the need for sleep and napping. I also remember reading of evidence that long term depression shrinks the hippocampus. Could the increase in need for sleep indicate a poorly functioning hippocampus under conditions of depression? And could such a connection, if it exists, be an avenue for finding better chemical (or electrical) treatment for depression?

</comment><comment><USER15> I was going to comment but decided that a nap was more important

<comment> Digit-Al And yet you still commented. The nap can't have been that important after all ;-)

<comment><USER16> Unless it was a sleep-induced comment. Their memory was just an empty text box waiting to be filled.

<comment><USER17> Or perhaps the post came during the nap!

[http://xkcd.com/269/](http://xkcd.com/269/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> great excuse to bring sleep bag to work.</comment>


Top Java Developers Offer Advice to Students - <AUTHOR> http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Interviews/studentdevs/index.html

<comment><USER2> Corporate marketing (11 NetBeans mentions and none of Eclipse? Riiight), not that interesting, not new, not especially hacker-ish.

<comment><USER3> I didn't think it was that bad; most of it could have come from The Pragmatic Programmer. Certainly, nearly everyone mentioned netbeans, but it was usually in the context of a generic point such "learn to use your tools really well; for example in netbeans...".

<comment><USER2> Sun marketing materials always seem to go to painful lengths to avoid mentioning Eclipse so perhaps I'm overly sensitive to it.

Anecdata: I use Eclipse. Most professional Java devs I know use that or IntelliJ IDEA. NetBeans is nowhere.

I did think that a cut-n-paste of the earlier articles was insufficiently interesting for HN though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Don't use line numbers"

Excuse me? Line numbers?

"Don't put your entire application in one method."

Bu..but I can't call GOSUB anymore because you took away my LINE NUMBERS dude!

"Write lots of code"

This is solid advice, but when you're talking about Java the punchline writes itself :)

</comment><comment><USER5> I think the best advice from that article came from Rick Cattell: Good Technology Is Only 10% of Success</comment>


Why Are Entrepreneurs So Happy? - <AUTHOR> http://www.contactme.com/blog/trends/why-are-entrepreneurs-happy?display=wide

<comment><USER2> Entrepreneurs are happy because they not only do what they love, but they have a prerequisite of passion that keeps them going. Owning a company is the combination of creating something out of nothing, changing lives around you, and being able to say "I did that" after hours of contemplating if it was ready or not.</comment>


Ask HN: What should be my salary? - <AUTHOR> I'm a full stack developer, working with Node, React, D3, Html5, css3, Php, JavaScript, Socket.IO and other full stack technologies. I've around 3 years of experience. I'm currently staying in India. I was wondering what should be an ideal salary for any developer like me. <comment><USER2> 10 to 12 lakhs should be minimum i guess</comment>


Ask HN: What are the most educational,interesting or insightful vids on YouTube? - <AUTHOR> Inspirated by the James Clear recent tweet -  https://twitter.com/JamesClear/status/1118564314099736578?s=09 <comment><AUTHOR> Selected Twitter responses:

\- Why Planes Don't Fly Faster, [https://youtu.be/n1QEj09Pe6k](https://youtu.be/n1QEj09Pe6k)

\- Akira Kurosawa - Composing Movement, [https://youtu.be/doaQC-S8de8](https://youtu.be/doaQC-S8de8)

\- Richard Hamming: "Learning to Learn", [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2FF649D0C4407B30](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2FF649D0C4407B30)

\- Rise and fall of Third Reich, [https://t.co/dSiTukyeAD](https://t.co/dSiTukyeAD)

\- The men who built America, [https://t.co/GagcgO6TwT](https://t.co/GagcgO6TwT)

-History of the World, [https://t.co/GpOC9f906P](https://t.co/GpOC9f906P)

</comment><comment><USER2> pbs space time</comment>


Why No Saudi Arabians Made the Forbes Billionaires List This Year - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2018/03/06/no-saudi-arabian-billionaires-forbes-list-2018-alwaleed-alamoudi/ <comment><USER2> This article really hits the nail on the head about what is happening in Saudi Arabia. There's been some really excellent journalism about the so called anti-corruption campaign led by the new political powers in Saudi Arabia.

A multi-billion dollar transfer of wealth from the elite class in Saudi Arabia to the king/prince himself seems like something Gaddafi would do. And yet, we don't hear anything about the Saudi situation on TV currently, compared to the nearly daily coverage of Gaddafi's antics.

I'm not saying anyone is guilty or innocent, or good or bad. But I am saying that one country was covered in depth on TV, and the other is not.</comment>


US military strategy: we'll halt hackers with "cyber hygiene" - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/07/us-military-strategy-halt-hackers-through-better-cyber-hygiene.ars?

<comment><USER2> Reading this is like not reading it. Nothing gained, a minute lost. Where is the research, perhaps an opinion, what does this all mean. That is not journalism imho.</comment>


Ask HN: Are there any sites where businesses can collaborate with suppliers? - <AUTHOR>

Good Morning HN,
I have been tossing a few business ideas around in my head for the past few days, and one that I am thinking about is a kind of social network for businesses and suppliers.
Without going into too much detail, the site would let businesses create a profile and then connect with other businesses on the site. It could be used to find suppliers and maybe incorporate a rating system so that businesses know which suppliers are good and which ones aren't.
The site could be used to manage the supply-chain as well. Say a company has 4 suppliers. Instead of contacting each one through email and working in a disorganized manner, the suppliers would communicate directly with the company through this website. If there is an issue with a shipment, the suppliers can let the company know promptly and the website would help them find alternative suppliers.
I don't really know the first thing about business to be honest. Does anyone know of a site like this that already exists, or any reasons as to why this would not be a good idea?
Thanks. <comment><USER2> It's pretty similar to b2b marketplaces . [http://webbiquity.com/random/b2b-marketplaces-a-new-breed- ta...](http://webbiquity.com/random/b2b-marketplaces-a-new-breed-takes-on-an- old-problem/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the link, there's some very useful information here.</comment></comment>


Hacker News Should be open sourced - <AUTHOR> I am the only one who thinks that as much as possible Hacker News website source code should be published as an open source? <comment><USER2> Previously: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22news.arc%22&sort=byPopulari...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22news.arc%22&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

</comment><comment><USER3> Open sourcing the ranking algorithm to the readers of "Hacker" news obviously won't end well.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the latest version of the algorithm should be kept secret. But the older versions should be open sourced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think it is. Googling got me this:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1390685](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1390685)

[https://github.com/wting/hackernews](https://github.com/wting/hackernews)

</comment><comment><USER5> In principal absolutely, but Reddit is portable and python which is probably significantly more useful in practice:

[https://github.com/reddit/reddit](https://github.com/reddit/reddit)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think all options should be available to the public so they can choose which platform suits best their end goals. And I believe Hacker news is simple and yet functional.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I thought it was. Isn't it called Arc?

<comment><USER2> Arc is a language. news.arc is an example program that ships with it. HN is a deployment of that app, with non-open source changes.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the clarification.</comment></comment></comment>


Schneier on Security: Post-Underwear-Bomber Airport Security - <AUTHOR> http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/airport_securit_12.html <comment><USER2> _"It's magical thinking: If we defend against what the terrorists did last time, we'll somehow defend against what they do one time. Of course this doesn't work. We take away guns and bombs, so the terrorists use box cutters. We take away box cutters and corkscrews, and the terrorists hide explosives in their shoes. We screen shoes, they use liquids. We limit liquids, they sew PETN into their underwear. We implement full-body scanners, and they're going to do something else. This is a stupid game; we should stop playing it."_

And do away with the restrictions? As much as I dislike dealing with the TSA, some of these rules have made it far more difficult for terrorists to bring down or hijack an airplane. I'm sure I am not the only one who remembers the bad old days when criminals, mentally ill people, non-suicidal terrorists, and political extremists would regularly hijack flights here and abroad. I can't remember the last time it's happened, because now it's nearly impossible for anyone to bring on weapons or get into the cockpit.

I also disagree with his conclusion that people reacted with "fear" to the Christmas day attempt. Most of the reaction I saw was relief and anger.

<comment><USER3> We certainly have to be safe from past attacks, but Schneier's point is that with the government's strategy, that's _all_ we're safe from. It would be a lot better to use a strategy that defends against all attacks we know to be possible, and not just the ones that have already been tried.

<comment><USER4> _It would be a lot better to use a strategy that defends against all attacks we know to be possible, and not just the ones that have already been tried._

I dont think that's what he's saying either.

 _Effective_ security comes way before the departure gate. If that is our main line of defence no amount of security will foil the inevitable.

I think what he is saying is we should look on these as successes; ok a guy got onto a plane with explosives. But it was a desperate move, with little chance of working - and it failed.

Yet actually it succeeded because now the TSA (and others) are running scared again.

It would take a brave politician to turn round and say that this time the system worked. The heightened security meant a desperate mechanism was employed and the "last line of defence" (passengers) were utterly effective.

<comment><USER3> I phrased my point a little clumsily. What I was trying to say (and what I think we agree Schneier is saying) is that if you know about a type of attack and think that it's a type worth defending against, you shouldn't wait for it to actually happen before you take action.

Abdul Mutallab could have used his butt (or other things, like a prosthesis or a wheelchair) to stash the parts necessary to assemble a relatively reliable bomb. That's a known attack type, but we're not defending against it at the security checkpoints. Now that could be a wise decision based on the fact that checking for it is hard and, as you said, "effective security comes way before the departure gate".

But if some future terrorist carries out this quite-plausible attack and the government _then_ decides that the TSA should start screening for it, it'll mean they learned nothing from the underwear bomber.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Slackmail – An email to Slack proxy - <AUTHOR> http://rjp.io/index.php/2015/08/20/slackmail/

<comment><USER2> Well that's very nice of Python to have an SMTP server module.

I did a very similar thing in the past that was an email-sms proxy with the email end being a Postfix email server. It was incredibly painful configuring postfix to pipe emails directly into a Go program I had written. All the docs were close but none got me all the way there. Neat to see how much easier it could have been.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is indeed!

I decided to try it out the idea after seeing that the Python standard library had the SMTP support builtin. Without that I probably would have punted and just written a webhook. (Or _gasp_, used regular email -- but even that requires configuring some sort of server on the build machine).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Slack does this natively now for paid accounts: [http://slackhq.com/post/126629257535/email](http://slackhq.com/post/126629257535/email)

</comment><comment><USER4> Now to get a Slack account. How much do they cost a month?

<comment><USER5> For most small use cases $0/month [https://slack.com/pricing](https://slack.com/pricing)</comment></comment>