You Won't Believe How Much Money We Wasted On Bad Hires In 2013 - <AUTHOR> http://hub.uberflip.com/h/i/5420719-you-won-t-believe-how-much-money-we-wasted-on-bad-hires-in-2013 <comment><USER4> So if your new employee doesn't give you warm fuzzies- let them go fast? There are lots of great talent that is neither an anti-social asshole, nor a social butterfly; there has to be a some minimal time to "get to know" the new guy. It sounds like this guys is hiring for a frat-house.

Also, Warning signs- Randy mentions "9-5" and "as they say goodbye at what you may not deem not a legitimate end of the day."

I don't think I would want to work for Randy- Maybe this is just my impression and not the case here, but if you think being a startup is an excuse for _regularly_ _expecting_ employees to work more than 8 working hours a day then you are deluded, taking advantage of your employees and hurting them. I would not let my employees work more than 50 hrs/week even if they begged.

Side thought: Everyone in the valley mentions 9-5 as "standard working hours", but a standard work day is 8 hours. So assuming a 1 hr lunch that is 7-4/8-5/9-6... Where I grew up in the upper midwest, there everyone used the term 8-5...

<comment><USER5> re: side thought - we do 8:30-5 where I'm at, as we generally set aside half an hour for lunch. That said - in the service industries I worked in for many years, you would work an 8 hour shift with one short break, one half hour break and get paid for 35 hours at the end of the week. I know that isn't universal, but it was a very common experience in my work life.

<comment><USER6> Just one of the reasons service industries suck. (Especially with respect to software industry, but also manufacturing.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 25 rockstars, eh? And $70K (fully loaded) on six bad hires who lasted a median 53 days. Let's assume that the salary distribution for those new hires is similar to that for those rockstars. In the absence of other information, we'll also have to assume that the median period of employment for those six is also the average. So we're talking about rockstar salaries (fully loaded) in the range of $84K. Where can I get rockstars that cheap?

Also, he never really says what was wrong with these employees. Vague doubts about "fit"? "Get under your skin"? "Don't mesh"? All sounds like a discrimination or wrongful-termination suit waiting to happen. Anybody who is in any way dealing with HR should know that firing someone requires _extensive_ documentation of actual wrongdoing, not just this weak "feels wrong" crap. I'd be very surprised if that's _less_ the case in Canada than in the US.

This author really needs to worry less about cover letters, and more about why his company is having these cultural-fit problems. Maybe putting "Like to work late?" and "Test your ping pong and foosball skills" on the Careers page doesn't attract the right kind of employees. I'd love to hear what some of those ex-employees found once they got there, especially regarding the little Pocket Napoleon of a COO.

<comment><USER8> > firing someone requires extensive documentation of actual wrongdoing

In the US? Maybe to help avoid frivolous lawsuits, but barring having signed a contract stating otherwise, you don't need any wrongdoing to terminate someone's employment.

<comment><USER4> My understanding in most locales:

Terminating an employee without cause is acceptable for at will employment, but it means you will be paying them unemployment.

Firing is terminating an employee with just cause and means you don't have to pay unemployment.

If this guys is letting people go because they don't fit into his super- culture, that is the former and not the latter.

<comment><USER8> That's my understanding as well. I would assume if the termination reasons are as vague as this post, that those people he let go are eligible for unemployment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can only imagine how grating this post must be to those people still in his employ who had developed any sort of relationship with those let go. Or those still employed who worry, every day, if he isn't looking at them with disdain as they walk in the door. In my experience, the "culture" upper management experience is rarely the culture on the floor.

<comment><USER9> There are so many things that make me think working there must be so many things about abusive startup culture that I hate.

>You get this uncomfortable feeling when you see that hire [...] say goodbye at what you may not deem not a legitimate end of the day.

Come on Randy. I can smell bullshit management speak for "didn't work an unpaid extra four hours every day" a mile off here. Did you actually feel they weren't getting enough done or not putting in the work you paid them for? Why not say that if so?

>our 25 rockstar team members

I think the work rockstar has been hashed over here enough, but seriously. I'm sick of it being used a code word for overworked 20-somethings that don't know any better.

>And it's definitely not to make it seem like we're a tough or crummy place to work – pretty sure our Instagram feed would show otherwise.

Ooh, I can almost see the fun jumping off the page. Ski trips for the exec team, office pumpkin carving, #startuplife? There's hashtags so it must be a good work environment.

<comment><USER10> I thought this was a little snarky, but I checked out the Instagram feed... like you say... executive ski trips versus office ping-pong. Employees working two to a desk that is little wider than their display while the CxOs do photo shoots and get filmed in the office ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You won't believe how we just fucked employee morale in 2014...

Having hired and fired employees as an employer, and having been fired myself, I have two pieces of advice for readers here.

#1: this person is an asshat, and at worst is setting himself up to get sued, and at best, just fucked morale among his not yet fired rockstars who'll rightly wonder "Am I next?".

#2: suck it up. hiring is hard. it's inevitable that you are going to make mistakes. you can either hire people and see how they work out, or you can burn your technical team out doing endless interviews. pop quiz. what's even more annoying to your developers than unnecessary meetings? doing two hour long interviews with yet another not properly vetted by HR candidate, that's what.

I've found its easier to hire people on contract, see how they work out, see how they like the company, and go from there. One of two things happen. Either they really like the work and company and you like them (yay), or they mentally check out, and you both amicably part ways or figure something else out.

Hiring someone at below market pay, and then publicly slagging them like this, that's just low class.

What does Uberflip do anyway? (Never heard of them).

</comment><comment><USER12> I'd caution against anyone from applying anything from this article as a universal truth.

For Example:

Changing Jobs every 6 months - The economy has been shit for 5 years - <USER2> unless you have spent your whole career in the Bay Area - you're likely to have been job hopping from contract to contract.

Commute - again, this is highly tied to which market you're in. An hour away in Seattle is a doable commute - its either 30 miles (if going to Seattle) or up to 60 miles (if heading away).

Followup to Interview - I used to do this - but after getting no reply 90% of the time, I stopped. I now only do this if I'm really, really interested. Typically something that makes me really interested is a great resume builder, salary or benefits - I try not to apply for jobs that I don't find interesting from a technology level.

On a personal note: Lack of personalized cover letter - I've been in the position where applying for work was more like an assembly line - <USER3> personalized should it be? I have a form letter I modify light for each job I apply for - I'd be leery of any employer that expects me to write an essay of ball gargling - The cover letter IMO should exclaim my strengths to the job - not why I want to work for you - I want to work for you, because the work sounds interesting, and for one reason or another, I'm in a the market for a job.

The Good - Listen to your intuition - I think this is great advice - but only listen when its screaming - not just when you meet someone different then you. A warning, intuition is how you judge that 'fit to culture' \- If your intuition says too many people are off - the problem isn't the candidates, its your culture.

<comment><USER13> >>Changing Jobs every 6 months

Regarding this. I am afraid there are some people who just don't stay at any place for a meaningful period of time. And its not like they are getting fired all the time. These people just in their full consciousness and responsibility just keep hopping jobs in hopes of a mythical super career.

In my country(India) its standard to get a ~15% hike on a job change on your current pay. The net result is you have a market full of job hoppers with hardly meaningful experience. It takes some time to come to speed in your new job and you hardly do any work in your notice period. So you essentially do some small time work in the minute period of time you serve at any company.

What's worse is these people are expensive compared to actual genuine contributors, they hardly stay and contribute anything. Since they won't be around in your company in the next 6-8 months why bother hiring them at the first place. And given that, you can't trust them with any long term responsibilities. Or any work of strategic importance.

<comment><USER12> That kinda wage raise is impressive - at one company I was at we had the "<company name> raise" \- which is to say, take a job at another firm, get a 50% pay bump, then come back to <company name> and get another job. The short timer thing though sucks, I've only left one job for a raise - the rest were for layoff, work conditions, and one honest to god firing (I was the wrong person for the role).

I'd personally love to come and work in India for a year, just for the cultural experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> You'd think there would be a description of what was actually "bad" about these hires, beyond "you get this uncomfortable feeling" and they "simply don't mesh".

A interpretation is that the criteria they're using to hire, includes a large amount of personality-matching based on their description, could be drawing from a pool stocked more with winning personalities than with competent developers.

<comment><USER15> He did:

>one of our Bad Hires failed on three of the following items which are usually a make or break for me:

Sounds pretty serious. Let's find out what it is.

>They did not include a personalized cover letter with their resume when applying.

Oh my. No personalized cover letter? The bastard should be shot, or at least unemployed for the rest of his life. Or maybe instead the author should think for a moment why his number one priority (its the first thing he listed) when it comes to evaluating candidates has fuck all to do with anything that an actual adult might care about.

<comment><USER14> ...and to top it all off, he then hired them anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Let's start with the lost money – $70k. Whether you're a big business or startup like us, that's a lot of cash burned on people who added little to no value to your goals."

70k / 6 employees < 12k / employee.

That's a lot of money? That really doesn't seem like that much money, especially if the vetting paradigm allowed the other 13 employees to bring vastly more than that lost 12k / employee to the table.

<comment><USER17> Exactly what I came here to type. I'd like to know what the OP thinks a legitimate end of the day is too.

<comment><USER18> Agreed. When I read that bit, I wondered if part of his "bad hire" profile is somebody who has too much self-respect to kill themselves working >50 hrs/wk for his company at what looks like below-market rates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm going with my gut here: every sentence I read from this guy makes me hate him more. If I read this article before applying for a job with his company, I would only have myself to blame if he made an offer and I accepted it.

</comment><comment><USER20> >as they say goodbye at what you may not deem not a legitimate end of the day.

Thanks god I don't work for you. I'd be a bad hire too. 5pm is the legitimate end of the day in US.

<comment><USER21> I sure hope that's not what he meant by "not a legimate end of the day".

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Yeah feel the vibes and listen to your gut. Bad Hires aren't about performance or what they do wrong, it's about meshing and fitting in. Because if the boss doesn't get good warm and fuzzy feelings when you walk by, clearly 100% of your salary is being wasted.

<comment><USER23> With apologies to John Lennon, "management is what happens while you're busy crushing it."

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Don't be someone this person doesn't like! With such stringent criteria as "uncomfortable feelings" and avoiding provoking random feelings of "buyer's remorse", I can't wait to submit an application to UberFlop's house of wildly swinging emotions. Every new hire gets a crystal ball to divine this persons emotions and a mood ring to make sure to only think happy thoughts. Are these adults we're talking about here? Holy fuck.

</comment><comment><USER25> _They did not create a trial account of our product before the first interview._

Minor quibble, but given that their two products are ostensibly not consumer- oriented --a content management tool for marketers and a tool for creating branded, flippable PDF viewers--, is it really too unreasonable that some candidates did not sign for their product? Or maybe it's just seen as a sign of lack of curiosity/interest about the company, dunno.

<comment><USER12> Yes, this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> What the article completely misses is that cost of bad hire is just as high for the employee as it is for the company.

Particularly fire "fast" option, for the employees next job it raises uncomfortable questions of why. So the goal is to not hire bad people. If you did hire a person, own it up and provide them with close performance feedback. Fire people if you have to, but not before they had at least few chances to improve their behavior and were clearly communicated as to what is going to happen if they do not.

<comment><USER27> Right. Therefore it is better for both the employee and the employer that you fire people in the first few days if you do not feel comfortable with the worker. The employee can just continue their job hunt, and you will not spend so much on getting clear on the fact that this person does not fit.

And if a few days strikes you as being too short, then try a week or two. Personally the only time I fired someone that was just not suited, was after two weeks. But in thinking back on it, I already knew this aftera few days, just needed some time, and some conversations with the employee to convince myself. Of course, part of that decision was that the conversations did not lead to improvements, but the important take away is to act fast on your hunches.

If you don't trust yourself to fire someone after 3 days then at least set up some tests that will provide you with the data to know whether or not the employee will work out.

It is better for everybody that way.

<comment><USER26> If after few days you can tell employee is not a good fit, maybe the problem is your hiring process?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> There's not a lot of self-reflection in this analysis.

</comment><comment><USER28> > You get this uncomfortable feeling when you see that hire stroll in first > thing in the morning… They get under your skin even though they haven't done > anything 'bad' quite yet.

I'm no lawyer, but I wonder whether saying things like this creates legal liabilities related to employment discrimination by implying that the company makes hiring decisions on non-job related criteria.

</comment><comment><USER29> I guess as an entrepreneur you have to believe that your shitty little lacklustre company is the next big thing, but man. The arrogance!

If they're not building space-ships, robots, or general AI, I'm now officially at the stage of my career where I expect employers to get down on their knees and seduce me.

</comment><comment><USER30> You won't believe which company I'll never apply to work for in 2014.

</comment><comment><USER31> This post gives off a really bad brogrammer vibe.

And I hope these aren't developers they were hiring and firing. The average salary of these bad hires was about $57,000 per year. (The total was $70,000, divided by 6 people who stayed an average of 75 days.)

<comment><USER32> This was actually closer to my calculations as well. I was getting about 60k-70k a hire assuming they worked a 9-6 job for 5 days a week. Feels like these are college grads or junior devs.

Edit: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soxnNYT5res](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soxnNYT5res) Found a video, yep, they look young.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> That's quite fluffy, ethereal "bad hire" criteria. Nothing about ability to get the job done, communication with the team, quality of deliverables, reliability, or really anything a reasonable person would use as objective criteria to identify a bad hire. I wish I could read between the lines and understand what the author is really saying here, because we occasionally see articles written like this. What is your magic criteria to be in cool club? Please just speak plainly!

</comment><comment><USER27> Sounds more like a bad company problem than a bad hire problem. If management is always nervously looking at the clock, then the company is fundamentally rotten. You get what you measure. If you measure hours at work, then you will get people who pad their time while they produce a pile of crap.

Nevertheless, this Canadian employer should know better. In the first three months they can let people go instantly. If they aren't confident in the person after a few days, show them the door.

</comment><comment><USER34> Its high time this guy should realize that the problem is with him and his company.

</comment><comment><USER35> Here are 10 crazy reasons I regret reading your link-bait titled post...

Next time spare me the article and just tell me the one weird trick.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm not usually one to focus on the meta, but I wonder what the rationale was for killing this story from HN's front page. A friendly favor, or removing a weak post that is so easily ridiculed on obvious points?

<comment><USER5> I was actually wondering the same thing! It was posted by one of his employees, and he mentions HN in one of the comments of the post. It's likely entirely cynical of me, but I can't help but wonder if the marketing folks are made to submit his blog posts to HN and when this one got traction and negative attention they collectively flagged it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Isn't the bad hire/good hire feeling that is described here much to personal? If the so called bad hire somehow senses the hostility, no wonder why he leaves the company.

If you inadvertently cross a few red lines as a new hire you can ring a few alarms in your hirer's mind. If those red lines are in the company culture that's fine, you might be a bad hire (or the company culture might suck, which should have the same consequences). But sometimes those red lines are totally hirer specific.

</comment><comment><USER37> > One of the things I've started to do is make one of the interviews over > lunch to see the true side of the candidate.

How does lunch help with hiring technical staff?

</comment><comment><USER38> This guy sounds like a douche.</comment>


Human Progress is a Lie - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qbwqem/john-gray-interview-atheism <comment><USER2> Paul Graham himself seems to be coming along to this idea recently[1][2]:

[1]:[https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1134755140802633730](https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1134755140802633730)

[2]:[https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1119912012983803905](https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1119912012983803905)

I really want to see a discussion of this here, to gauge if HN has doubts on this "myth of progress."

<comment><USER3> it depends on how you define progress. someone can see progress where others see things moving in the wrong direction or even backwards. it's an opinion what progress is.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting, a paradox of progress. In one observers view it's moving forward, in another, backward.</comment></comment></comment>


Elon Musk's Deepfake Soviet Song Takes over the Russian Internet - sahin-boydas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWXC5pQNxJI&feature=youtu.be <comment><AUTHOR> Taking "Как тебе такое изобретение, Илон Маск?" meming to the next level?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrveYIwPArM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrveYIwPArM) has english subs (an "illuminator" is a porthole)

Weebs might enjoy the japanese cover: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvrIyefBDwA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvrIyefBDwA)

</comment><comment><USER2> That's absolutely hysterical! :-)</comment>


How far away are we from building our own smartphones and tablets? - <AUTHOR>

I started thinking about this today and I curious to see if there will ever be a market for building our own phone/tablets.  Imagine being able to select from different cases, motherboards, CPUs and slap on an OS (android, ios, etc) and be ready to go.  Will we ever have this freedom like we do with our PCs? <comment><USER2> iOS won't fly, at least not legally, but a hackintosh type version might be feasible.

Android will be doable, and has been done, but it means google still owns your ass.

At present, a lot of hardware documentation is proprietary and only available through large contracts and NDA's, so a truly open source operating system is not possible. Read up on the PowerVR graphics and the Qualcomm chipsets for more info. Some will undoubtedly argue that android is "open source" but without the hardware docs, all you really have is unmaintainable rotting mystery meat.

One of the larger problems is the FCC and similar rules for spectrum use various countries. Many cell chipsets can do a lot more than what is legally allowed in particular places, and hence, not doing it "correctly" results in a lot of headaches. Similar legal issues are also true for some "WiFi" (802.*) spectrum usage.

Of course, the carriers will fight it. The last thing that they want is to become a "dumb pipe" and have their profits diminished.

The last major problem is integration. If you haven't disassembled any modern mobile phones, I'd encourage you to do so. The complexity and compactness required by a handset results in very tight spacing and integration of components. Doing this sort of thing al-a-carte would be difficult, and the vast majority of the population would never know how to put it together (i.e. very limited market). On the flip side, I do remember a company that was doing something like this, but they gave you a list of possible features (hardware) and you ordered it from them assembled. Sadly, I can't remember their name.

</comment><comment><USER3> We could do it now but they will be substandard (larger and require more power) than fully designed packages. Integrated systems like a phone require a lot of optimization and part matching to optimize the size and power usage. To allow multiple part they would be larger and much more inefficient. The opposite of the selling point of most consumer electronic products. I actually looked into this a few years ago, phones no, but think game console might go this route if Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo and smart. Anywhere where power consumption and size don't matter this can and should happen.</comment>


Explorers find disease-cursed City of the Monkey God - <AUTHOR> http://www.vancouversun.com/news/world/explorers+find+disease+cursed+city+monkey+nearly+lose+their+faces/12690846/story.html <comment><USER2> Now this is how you write a headline. A bit more on the disease here: [http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/10/151019-leishmania...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/10/151019-leishmaniasis- lost-city-Honduras-Mosquitia-parasitic-disease/) I'm actually a bit surprised that they did not suspect leishmaniasis earlier; it's not an unusual affliction for Mesosamerican deep jungle regions.

<comment><USER3> I read:

"Preston told CBS News that months after leaving the jungle, he noticed a bug bite that simply wouldn't go away. And so did half his team members. Eventually, the National Institutes of Health diagnosed them with Leishmaniasis — a rare parasitic disease — and the team was forced to undergo treatment"

So I looked at wikipedia, and the article [1] there says:

"About 12 million people are currently infected in some 98 countries. About 2 million new cases and between 20 and 50 thousand deaths occur each year. About 200 million people in Asia, Africa, South and Central America, and southern Europe live in areas where the disease is common."

Not unusual indeed.

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

<comment><USER4> To quote your link

> Leishmaniasis is mostly a disease of the developing world, and is _rarely > known_ in the developed world outside a small number of cases

So, not rare for where they visited, but rare for where they live (and where the diagnosis happened).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An aside, but reading the accounts of the medical treatment the explorers had to endure after is a reminder of how ineffective modern medicine is, or at least how much further we have yet to go:

They literally were taking poison and hoping that they would outlive the parasite under those conditions. In the case where a parasite might be hiding anywhere in your body this is probably still the only thing you can really hope to do, but it feels like trying to burn down your house to get rid of a rat infestation.

<comment><USER6> The more something is like ourselves, the harder it is to attack it with chemicals. Our cells are very similar in nature to a lot of protozoan parasites, so the drugs that may treat them are pretty toxic to ourselves. Bacteria and fungi are much less like our cells, and they have a lot of unique features such as peptidoglycan or ergosterol in the cell wall, therefore they can be attacked with chemicals that are less toxic. Animals, such as insects and nematodes, that have diverged significantly away from our common origin, have evolved new features that we do not share, and we can attack those. Some organisms of interest to (veterinary) medicine, such as _Leishmania_ and _Pythium_ , are very difficult to treat.

<comment><USER7> This is also why Cancer is very difficult to treat. Because it is your cells.

Chemo is poison that effects cancer cells slightly more severely then healthy cells.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In case anyone wondered (because the article only mentions it obliquely) the city is in Honduras.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's worth noting that the full headline reads: "Explorers find disease-cursed City of the Monkey God and nearly lose their faces to flesh-eating parasite"

</comment><comment><USER10> As a layman, I'm not clear on why we don't treat such sites like alien worlds and come prepared with environmental suits for the jungle, special habitats and vehicles, etc.

The article says the explorers don't believe it's practical to make the journey - but aren't they operating from a paradigm which is on a continuum from weekend camping trips? It seems past time to treat Earth's inhospitable zones with an eye towards the difficulties and solutions of space exploration.

<comment><USER11> > As a layman, I'm not clear on why we don't treat such sites like alien > worlds and come prepared with environmental suits for the jungle, special > habitats and vehicles, etc.

"Budget."

(or, at least, this is what I imagine the answer is.)

> It seems past time to treat Earth's inhospitable zones with an eye towards > the difficulties and solutions of space exploration.

Apollo had some major issues with moon dust and such - maintaining a sterile environment is a different, if overlapping skillset with maintaining an environment within a vacuum.

That said, there's all the NBC preparedness of the military, and e.g. the medical response to outbreaks and quarantines - even if "don't enter the quarantined area" is rule 1.

But hey, maybe Robots could be an option at some point. Still - do you fund the expedition that requires expensive, custom, bespoke explorer-bots (because there hasn't been much of a market for those for mass production to drive down costs or standardize things) or do you fund the expedition where you can send a few students for school credit?</comment></comment>


Crazy Wireless Range in San Francisco. (LoRa Radio Tests) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.beepnetworks.com/2016/09/loras-wireless-range-is-bananas-a-first-look-at-cellular-for-iot-in-san-francisco/ <comment><USER2> One of the more in-depth looks at a very promising technology. There are very few companies rolling out networks like this in the United States (there is better coverage/adoption in the EU). It would be great to use this as an alternative to costly cellular networks (both in dollars and in battery life).</comment>


How Chrome's buggy content security policy implementation cost me money - <AUTHOR> https://www.troyhunt.com/how-chromes-buggy-content-security-policy-implementation-cost-me-money/ <comment><USER2> You're using the word cost. It doesn't mean what you think it means.</comment>


Support IPv6 with your app and protect with HaProxy rate limiting - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@keperry/supporting-ipv6-for-your-app-using-gcp-tcp-load-balancer-and-haproxy-rate-limiting-5ee8e8a6f42d <comment><USER2> Doesn't more people moving to IPv6 mean the v4 pool gets rehydrated? What are the security implications of moving beyond HAProxy? Surely this is going to take a while.</comment>


Windows 10 Debloat Script - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/W4RH4WK/Debloat-Windows-10 <comment><USER2> I tried running this and then I remembered why I stopped tweaking Windows, I wind up running into odd issues. Windows stopped being unstable for me years ago when I stopped fidgeting with features. I'm better off disabling as much as I can through the normal settings they provide. I don't know if it's just I'm doing something wrong but it's been my experience.

I would love to see Windows not take up 4 gigs of RAM out of the box. I don't need Cortana running period. Let me uninstall Cortana please Microsoft. I'm sure there's other crap I don't want but I fear if I can't just hit 'Uninstall' it wont go well, or an update will bring it back.

<comment><USER3> > I would love to see Windows not take up 4 gigs of RAM out of the box.

It... doesn't? I feel like last time I tried it was less than 2? Did you only install Windows or a ton of other things too?

This is what it looks like "out of the box" after disabling memory compression and the pagefile: [https://imgur.com/a/D5b8bk5](https://imgur.com/a/D5b8bk5)

<comment><USER2> On Windows 10? I closed everything except Firefox (and this HN tab), which is taking up 600MB of RAM, and now it's at 4.6GB of RAM. Before with two instances of GoLand, Slack and Discord open it was over at 8GB of RAM.

<comment><USER4> On a Windows 10 VM set to 2 GB of RAM, Windows idles at about 1.1 GB.

On a 16 GB Windows it uses about 7.5 GB. All of that seems to swap out or go away somewhere if I get busy with Visual Studio.

On a 64 GB Windows it seems to idle at about 9.6 GB used. Of course, this one isn't a purely work machine and has Steam, Origin, Ubisoft's thing, etc, etc.

So Windows 10 is pretty variable. I imagine it has something to do with running various services in parallel.

<comment><USER3> What quantity are you measuring that's 7.5 GB... and what else do you have on that machine? I quit Chrome on my current machine which has a bunch of other stuff and has no less RAM than yours, and even then I was left with <4GB of anything I could regard as usage. It can't possibly be just Windows itself idling at 7.5 GB?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was surprised to find on a recent reinstall of Windows 10 that it no longer included the start menu full of sponsored apps and games. It was a pretty minimal install, all things considered. This was with the Education edition which is a derivative of the Pro edition I believe.

I'd also highly recommend the BoxStarter setup scripts [0]. They remove all of the unnecessary default applications, perform windows updates, apply sane developer defaults and install development tooling depending on your needs. It's a one click run, so it's a pretty easy way to bootstrap a new install. No negative side effects and have been using them for several years.

0\. [https://github.com/microsoft/windows-dev-box-setup- scripts](https://github.com/microsoft/windows-dev-box-setup-scripts)

<comment><USER6> I installed pro just the other day, which came with the game shortcuts. I think I just have been installing enterprise previously

<comment><USER7> It is very annoying to have to explain to your boss why you have that game installed on your machine.

Specially when his only IT experience is playing Candy Crush with his kids.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This will disable a number of different apps/services/features that are either useless or slow down the OS considerably.

The following script is even nicer as it comes with an UI:

[https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater](https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater)

Both are written in powershell.

<comment><USER8> This is marginally less terrible, but it's still terrible — for example, it considers Skype "bloat" so hopefully you didn't need that! — and the list goes on as you read through the (thankfully, fewer) scripts.

<comment><USER9> its not hard to reinstall if you actually want it, it most certainly is bloaty.

<comment><USER10> It's iMessage bloat on iOS or macOS?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> what-the-grump Just needs to stamp registry with, ran this script on X date, so I can tell the user exactly when and what time they broke windows before reinstalling the OS.

Do not run these scripts they are always making it worse.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is interesting. I was using the ShutUp10 tool (I am not affiliated).

[https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10](https://www.oo- software.com/en/shutup10)

That lists what it considers "Safe" things to turn off and I generally keep to that.

I would however want to try this in a VM before running it.

<comment> 0-_-0 W10Privacy is another great alternative

<comment><USER12> Windows Privacy Dashboard (WPD)

Unlike the aforesaid two tools it supports not only Windows 10, but 7,8,8.1 as well.

[1] [https://wpd.app/](https://wpd.app/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Do your friends a favor and _never_ run this or any like it on their systems "for their benefit".

This is a prime example of "expert user footgun problem".

The phrase "debloat" is a marketing-hype word that's being used to bait you all into someone's personal view of how computers should be. Expect to be forced to reinstall Windows 10 a few days or weeks after running any such script.

Whenever I tech support any of my friends, the first question I ask is "did you do expert-user things to your system?" and they say "well, I mean, I edited some Registry settings" and I just stop and tell them to reinstall Windows because it's time to amputate. I'll have to add "Have you ever opened Windows PowerShell?" to my list, because that'll catch all of these right out of the gate.

In case that's not reason enough to be afraid — check out this random sampling of changes this makes!

* "This script disables Windows Defender" — Because anti-malware protection is "bloat"

* "Disable 'Updates are available' message" — Because you shouldn't have to be notified when security updates are available for your system, for example to address zero-day RCEs

* "Windows Biometric Service" — And suddenly you can't face-login to your Windows 10 computer any longer, but hey, it's "bloat"

* "Disable easy access keyboard stuff" — Because no one would ever use keyboard accessibility, that's just "bloat"

* "Restoring old volume slider" — I would get that this was "debloat" if it _removed_ the volume slider, but simply restoring an older one?

* "PandoraMediaInc.29680B314EFC2", "SpotifyAB.SpotifyMusic" — Hope you don't like streaming music, that's just "bloat" anyways

And, consider how easily this repo could be compromised to result in you self- infecting your computer with malware by running all of these scripts without a close review of the steps they take. First step in any persistent Windows infection is to disable Windows Defender and Windows Update notifications so the user doesn't take steps that might uninstall the persistent infection. Repo does that _already_ , so it's not like it'd be difficult.

<comment><USER13> I question why Windows continues to need increasingly demanding and intrusive anti-malware when Mac and Linux get along just fine without it. The architecture of Windows must be aging terribly if the only way one can keep it safe is by humongous and intrusive real time scanning. My experiences with Windows Defender's realtime protection has not been pleasant. Almost one core being used exclusively to check every network and filesystem operation. I recommend if users have _any_ security common sense whatsoever they can safely disable Defender and manually run it once a month.

<comment><USER8> Mac has intrusive anti-malware that is almost a carbon copy of Windows Defender, or used to be anyways (perhaps one or the other have changed in the past few years!). See also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20407233](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20407233)

Linux is a wasteland of terrible security practices that sysadmins excuse as "acceptable" for their own workstations and servers because they think that locking down SSH is sufficient defense against e.g. malicious infections or "curl | bash".

I'm sorry that Defender has harmed you, but that's no excuse to recommend others disable automated Defender scans on some sort of schedule.

<comment><USER14> The link you link to is "Apple has pushed a silent Mac update to remove hidden Zoom web server."

It has little to do with the functions of Windows Defender. It was a special purpose function removing one very particular file from a specific location. It was not scanning your whole system, or downloads, for malware signatures.

When you say MacOS includes software that is "almost a carbon copy of Windows Defender," are you talking about something else? I am not aware of anything that comes with MacOS that has similar features to Windows Defender.

<comment><USER15> macOS has had malware detection since Snow Leopard:

[https://www.osnews.com/story/22059/snow-leopard-to- include-a...](https://www.osnews.com/story/22059/snow-leopard-to-include-anti- virusmalware/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Windows 10 started out snappy (boot and usage) and responsive and has remained so for me w/o changing any defaults and taking all updates -- IMHO the best Win yet. I'm sure there is bloat there, but if I don't see it, disk/ssd is cheap. (Resharper is the only beast that seems to cause issues.)

</comment><comment><USER17> I have to ask, for anyone that cares this much, why bother with Windows at this point? Wouldn't it be easier to just use Linux?

I know the usual argument is that you need Windows to game, but why make your gaming instance your main work instance too? Why not dual boot and use Linux for work and Windows for gaming?

<comment><USER18> I do dual boot.

I have windows for gaming/VR but zero development.

I have Fedora for literally everything else including C#/WPF development (I run my dev environment for windows inside a VM as it makes it very simple to backup and I know that the somewhat irritating setup is perfectly replicated).

Essentially at this point Win10 is relegated to been a massive console OS.

I could likely run a lot of my games on Linux but I'm not enough of a purist that the hassle makes it worth it, down time is precious and I'd rather not fight it debugging why a particular game is been weird.

I'm likely to upgrade my 2700X soon so I might slap an ATI card in alongside my RTX2080 so I can use the 2080 with an iommu pass through and then I could game on a separate windows VM inside Fedora.

<comment><USER19> I doubted Proton for so long. It's not problem-free, but I get 144 Hz in Elite Dangerous, and all it takes is the "force this game to run in Proton" checkbox in Steam. Wow.

I was encouraged to try it after I saw its platinum rating on ProtonDB: [https://www.protondb.com/](https://www.protondb.com/)

I don't think I'll ever do GPU passthru though; that's 3hard5me.

<comment><USER18> It's gotten better but yeah there still issues, that's why I like dual booting, windows gives me no issues for gaming if that's all you do and Fedora has been rocksteady back to 25 when I switched, my work machine has gone from 26 to 30 via in place upgrades which I always expect to fail but so far never have.

I may play with Proton at some point though if the games I play are properly supported, mostly though my gaming time is spent on the Rift S playing Project Cars 2, combined with a nice force feedback wheel and pedals (Logitech G920) its a really good experience, I didn't expect VR to be so compelling actually, it's not perfect but damn is it impressive when you are going the Nurburgring in the dark as snow blows past your car and you look left and see a car coming up in your mirrors.

I think I'm a convert and I'm eagerly waiting for what the next generation can bring.

Elite Dangerous is incredible in VR as well btw.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I would also like to plug O&O Shutup10 here, allows you to disable (seemingly safely, in my experience) most annoying Windowz 'features:' [https://www.oo- software.com/en/shutup10](https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10)

<comment><USER21> This is what I use. It works really well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> There is an easier way (for those with access to the version of Windows involved):

        Windows 10 N LTSB / LTSC

N = No media things built-in, so you'll need to install VLC if that's a concern.

LTSB / LTSC = Long-Term Servicing Branch / Long-Term Servicing Channel. This is really the killer thing but it comes with catches. You'll get an absolutely stable Windows and to achieve that a load of things are removed by Microsoft.

[https://www.computerworld.com/article/3250464/faq- windows-10...](https://www.computerworld.com/article/3250464/faq- windows-10-ltsb-explained.html)

> LTSB does not include Edge nor any Microsoft Store (Universal Windows > Platform, or UWP) apps, whether Redmond-made or third-part, because the > browser and those apps constantly change and need updating. Also AWOL: the > Cortana voice-activated digital assistant and access to the Microsoft Store.

And for the HN community... lack of Microsoft Store means that you are not running Ubuntu on Windows.

<comment><USER23> > N = No media things built-in, so you'll need to install VLC if that's a > concern.

Is an understatement, if you play games expect to install the media pack or have many break. Some apps in the office suite also rely on them so if you use that you've created trouble for yourself. Also RDP client/server can't run hardware accelerated since that uses the video playback API.

> And for the HN community... lack of Microsoft Store means that you are not > running Ubuntu on Windows.

Not true, the store is a front end and LTSB still supports appx: [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install- manual](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-manual)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Been using this [https://github.com/Disassembler0/Win10-Initial-Setup- Script](https://github.com/Disassembler0/Win10-Initial-Setup-Script) script for over a year and it's been my goto to fix Windows 10 after a fresh install.

It's purely Powershell based unlike some other binary based tools out there, clean, in a single file. I'd say it doesn't use any hacks either to stop telemetry.

Keep in mind Windows will revert some settings occasionally after a Windows update.

</comment><comment> lame-robot-hoax If you're going go to all this trouble to "debloat" Windows, why not just install Fedora/Ubuntu/PopOS/Debian/Manjaro or something?

I just don't see the point with fiddling around with little hacks trying to disable telemetry and stuff when you can just install a Linux distro and be done with it.

I mean sure depending on your use case that may not be possible, but if you don't have a certain software or hardware limitation holding you to Windows, I really don't see why you wouldn't just use a Linux distro.

<comment><USER25> WTF, its not like you don't customize your linux system, is it ? Default Ubuntu is just as bad as default anything. I customize the shit out of it and lots of people do - just serach for dot files on github...

<comment><USER26> The point is that Linux distros are customizable by default, whereas you need to work against Windows to customize it, and all your changes will probably be reverted in the next update.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> LTSB. A huge chunk of bloat is disabled/missing by default.

</comment><comment><USER25> Great debloater, I use it for years, along with bunch of other developers I know. It may produce a problem here and there but its well worth it and produces lighting fast system. Highly recommended and kudos to W4RHRWK for maintaining it so long.

</comment><comment><USER28> Hmm, I wonder what happens when I combine this with other popular scripts like _Make Windows 10 Great Again_ [https://gist.github.com/IntergalacticApps/675339c2b805b4c9c6...](https://gist.github.com/IntergalacticApps/675339c2b805b4c9c6e9a442e0121b1d) and _Reclaim-Windows10_ [https://github.com/alirobe/Reclaim- Windows10](https://github.com/alirobe/Reclaim-Windows10) is there much overlap between all three scripts or do they all work great in tandem?

<comment><USER8> There is a ton of overlap and they all cargo-cult copy-paste from each other's tools, complete with "fixes" for bugs that one or the other introduces (for example, "whitelist Windows Calculator" is quite hilarious to see in the errata).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Another mention would be TronScript which is described here:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/TronScript/wiki/index](https://www.reddit.com/r/TronScript/wiki/index)

It can be downloaded from one of these mirrors:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/TronScript/wiki/downloads](https://www.reddit.com/r/TronScript/wiki/downloads)

<comment><USER29> That looks like it runs lots of anti virus software which is usually a huge offender in slowing a computer down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> > Please replace it with something better, either use Classic Shell or Start > is Back, but stop using that shit.

Classic Shell is dead, long live its successor Open Shell [1]

[1] [https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu](https://github.com/Open- Shell/Open-Shell-Menu)

</comment><comment><USER31> I found this one a little more upto date for the latest 1809 update. The blacklist option lets you easily choose what to Uninstall [https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater](https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater)

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm considering my first Windows workstation in more than a decade and was planning on Windows for Workstations precisely because I don't want to remove all the packaged crap.

£300 is quite the premium though.

</comment><comment><USER33> I have Windows 10 LTSC running in a VM and it seems pretty bloat-free to me. Anyone else using this, any experiences?

It's a free trial for 90 days too.

The only thing I noticed so far was forced-auto updates and reboots...

</comment><comment><USER34> Zillion thanks for whoever post this. My 7 years old laptop just got massively faster than ever.

</comment><comment><USER35> Okay, this stuff is great.

The question is: Why can't Microsoft just release Windows 10 Core?

</comment><comment><USER36> Are there any Win10 themes - to make it look more like Win7?

</comment><comment><USER37> i'm just gonna leave this here

[https://github.com/Disassembler0/Win10-Initial-Setup- Script](https://github.com/Disassembler0/Win10-Initial-Setup-Script)

</comment><comment><USER38> Nice

</comment><comment><USER39> Like most "Debloat" scripts and apps, it also disables some services that result in overall less secure installation.

</comment><comment><USER40> It's astonishing how many de-bloat scripts, tools or functions of other tools this OS spawned. That should make the developers think...if it wasn't intended and they didn't give a damn because monopoly...

<comment><USER15> People have been installing pointless and bad tune-up apps for PCs for decades. People were installing RAM doublers for Windows 95 that just changed the size of the hard disk cache. All of those registry cleaners were awful. And I'm continually shocked at how many people will just run some random Powershell script off the Internet with elevated access rights. You don't trust Microsoft, but you trust some random Github repo? 'Kay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Funny coincidence, I recently debloated my W10 with a script as well. I saw the one in the OP during my search, but ultimately didn't go with it as it didn't look legit to me compared to another one that I found mentioned in a article guide.

Used this one:

[https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater](https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater)

This one does not affect anything to do with Windows Update and any important system stuff from my experience.

<comment><USER42> I like this one:

[https://www.debian.org/distrib/netinst](https://www.debian.org/distrib/netinst)

:-)

<comment><USER41> What's the Linux hack/solution to changing the battery charging thresholds? I really enjoy that feature with this W10/Laptop right now. Battery has been at 75% for the last two days, so it's not charging and just being sustained while my laptop is running entirely from the plugged in charger unless I'm mistaken. I really enjoy that. Windows also seems to have gotten much better at power efficiency overall.

<comment><USER42> There's a utility called TLP that can get you most of the way there. It's not perfect, but I've found it useful on the newer thinkpads with dual batteries (one embedded + one removable).

[https://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power- ma...](https://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power- management.html)

[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/TLP](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/TLP)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> This still leaves a lot of undesirable stuff on your system.

Here, I prefer something like this.

[https://sourceforge.net/projects/dban/files/dban/dban-2.3.0/...](https://sourceforge.net/projects/dban/files/dban/dban-2.3.0/dban-2.3.0_i586.iso/download)

Darik's Boot and Nuke — A hard drive disk wipe and data clearing utility

And then download and install KDE Neon User Edition from [https://neon.kde.org/download](https://neon.kde.org/download)

KDE Neon is a Linux distro based on Ubuntu.

Yes I am being a bit facetious, sorry.

But I am actually curious, how many people on HN run Windows on their computers vs the number of people that run macOS, Linux or one of the BSDs?

<comment><USER44> I run Windows on my personal laptop - not because I love it, but because it certainly _used to_ have a huge strong-hold on media and games apps, which I wanted a way of consuming.

I no longer game, but as I understand it, support for Linux has greatly improved. Also I used to watch Sky (UK), which is only available for Windows users (first because they were literally using Silverlight up until about a year ago, and now because its only available as an Electron app...).

For my next machine I think I'll just move to Ubuntu. Having said that, looking at some of the apps I _do_ still use (such as VPNs, Google Drive, Spotify), many of them would either work less well, or simply not work at all. It's a shame, but what can you do?

<comment><USER43> Spotify works fine on Linux in my experience though I mostly use Spotify on my iPhone, not on my Linux desktop but I sometimes use it there and don't have any complaints.

Linux has excellent support for VPN. VPN providers on the other hand may be bad at providing proper guidance for Linux users. In that case I suggest either switching to a VPN provider that has the guides you need, or searching for good guides made by others about how to do it with your provider of choice.

Google Drive you are right about. If acceptable to you you might consider switching to Dropbox instead. Dropbox worked great on Linux last time I used Dropbox.

Keep in mind that it is a good idea to pick hardware that has good Linux support. The problem for a lot of people is that they buy some random laptop without taking this into consideration, and then try to run Linux on it and might be unlucky.

Personally I run Linux on my desktop with hardware that I chose specifically based on finding out that it would work.

And my laptop now is a MacBook Air running macOS.

Linux desktop. macOS laptop. Great combo IMO.

<comment><USER44> Yep, Spotify I use every day on Linux and it _does_ work fine, but it's not quite as easy to install (though this is the _best_ it gets on my list).

VPN support would be fine wrt OpenVPN, but I'm using NordVPN. To be fair I just checked and they also have a .deb so that's fine too.

Drive is a pain, Dropbox suggestion is good. IIRC I've used "Grive" before, and it worked, but wasn't a delight to use.

Definitely agree on hardware. Even the XPS range from Dell which offers Linux pre-installed has been pretty choppy in the past. I'm using a Thinkpad now and imo it's the best option.

I can't do macs, that's the one thing!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Slashdotters defend IPv6 from UK blogger who still thinks its no big deal - <AUTHOR> http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/08/18/1610230/Why-You-Shouldnt-Worry-About-IPv6-Just-Yet

<comment><USER2> What data can you bring to show that we won't run out of addresses any time soon? It would seem that we have around 15-20 months left [1]. Given the scale of the change, isn't that "soon" enough for you?

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/07/internet- wil...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/07/internet-will-be- running-on-ipv4-address-fumes-within-a-year.ars)

<comment><USER3> It's not necessarily a binary thing, which I think is one of the problems people have when discussing this. We'll never actually _run out_ of IPv4 addresses. There's 4 billion-ish of them and they aren't disappearing into the ether or anything. It's just another limited resource the market can deal with, and for the right price you'll always be able to buy a block of IPv4 addresses.

Mind you, that "right price" will start going up pretty quickly. Supply is fixed, but demand is growing pretty quickly. To some extent you can't see how fast the demand is actually rising because it's already hidden behind large NAT installations and such. The usual microeconomic equations for computing this sort of thing usually have a built-in assumption that for the right price production can be increased; when production absolutely can't be increased the price tends to rise faster than you'd expect. I don't know that there are very many blocks that are allocated but not actually used anymore, you'll be paying people to drop their block and pay the price of transitioning to a NAT setup or something, which can be quite painful.

So people watching the free-IP-block count aren't really watching the right number. The number to watch is the _price_ of an IP block. Since I think the price of an IP block right has discounted into it the fact that we're moving to IPv6 and the crisis will be averted, it probably isn't as high as it would be if we weren't expecting to move to IPv6.

And so the real problem isn't really the "running out". The real problem is that IPv4 address as a limited, and therefore expensive, resource is just stupid. Yes, the market could allocate it efficiently, but it's better for everybody if it simply isn't effectively limited in the first place.

And then the consequence of that is that you end up with a lot of people talking past each other; "well, if it isn't running out what's the problem then?" The _problem_ is that in 2016 a startup's largest expense shouldn't be their public IP block.

<comment><USER4> If I want an IP block (and have a legit reason), I can get a previously unallocated block. Soon, there are going to be no unallocated blocks. We will have _run out_ of unallocated blocks.

(That we are able to re-allocate, and thus, resell previously allocated blocks/addresses only means that there is a market, after all blocks have been allocated.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is the bloggers location in any way relevant to the article?

<comment><USER6> It's relevant because Europe is the standard example of "we need ipv6". Americans largely don't care. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> While I don't see any point any point in turning ipv6 of, I also don't think we are going to run out of addresses anytime soon - it would be nice if we could end natting (It would certainly solve a few of my problems), but just like with the oil situation, the doom sayers are, as usual, way out there.

For a reference, we have been running out of oil since the early 1910.

<comment><USER8> The amount of oil in the world is speculated on. The number of IPv4 addresses is numerically fixed and known.

As other commenters have noted, it's not that one day your computer will just inexplicably fail to pull an IP address. But they are suddenly going to be come a more precious (read:expensive) resource.</comment></comment>


Patterns for Writing Simple Code - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/gitconnected/my-top-4-patterns-for-writing-simple-code-466705ac0b97 <comment><USER2> I clicked into the link, thought that I would read Return Early[0] or something similar. The patterns listed there is neither new nor interesting, and isn't Enricher just another name for Decorator?

[0] [https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/q/18454/222357](https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/q/18454/222357)

</comment><comment><USER3> The irony! A post on writing simple code having as its first suggestion the use of abstract factories. Am I on /r/nottheonion?</comment>


Ask HN: Have you paid to have a resume/CV created? - <AUTHOR>

I have been on the hunt for a new career path and have considered having a qualified professional edit my resume.  I know there are a lot of resources to the "perfect" resume that I could refer to and attempt however, I am looking to see if those who have had their resumes edited by a qualified professional saw better results than the resume they had generated.<p>Thanks in advance! <comment><USER2> I have been at it since 1999 and I have never paid anyone to write a resume for me.</comment>


BlueChip – An ORM-like syntax for retrieving data from GraphQL or JsonAPI - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mfpiccolo/blue-chip <comment><USER2> I've been using PostgREST as an ORM for about two years now. I know it may sound unconventional, but it's definitely worth a try, especially if you're building HTTP APIs. Here's an example query:

        /investors?select=name,investments(id,founders(name,address(city,country)))&investment.exit=gt.1000000.00

[https://postgrest.org](https://postgrest.org)

<comment><USER3> wow thanks! I will be using this instead.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just and FYI BlueChip and PostgREST serve different purposes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hey this looks great. So this would work out of the box for something like daptin[1] on server side ? It exposes [http://jsonapi.org/](http://jsonapi.org/) compliant CRUD APIs. If so, I would suggest getting it listed at [http://jsonapi.org/implementations/](http://jsonapi.org/implementations/) by sending them a PR

[1] [https://github.com/daptin/daptin](https://github.com/daptin/daptin)

<comment><AUTHOR> I will check that out today and add it to the list of integrations if it does (it should if it complies with JsonAPI)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Check out OrbitJS - [https://github.com/orbitjs/orbit](https://github.com/orbitjs/orbit) . They've built something similar.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'll just throw these out there as an alternative, or in addition to:

[https://www.apollographql.com/docs/link/links/rest.html](https://www.apollographql.com/docs/link/links/rest.html)

[https://www.apollographql.com/docs/link/links/state.html](https://www.apollographql.com/docs/link/links/state.html)

The "apollo-link-rest" API makes it very easy to map, then query, your JSON APIs as a GraphQL service. So, no more mangling different query approaches for a client.

Then, simply add "apollo-link-state" to query/mutate local data using GraphQL as well.

This allows you to have 1 query/mutation language for both remote and local client state. This is much easier to deal with than adding yet another API to access your data.

Another positive is that you just might find yourself with the ability remove some redux boilerplate too as your local state can now be managed via Apollo's HOCs.

So, after writing this... What would be nice is to perhaps have the BlueChip API have an adapter layer that would allow it to read from something like the Apollo cache. This would allow for the implementation of resolvers on the client side to allow more fine grained control of the data being returned in a query (query parameter for filtering, cursoring and the like).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I will check those out.

Abstracting the adapter layer is in the roadmap both for the specs (GraphQL, JsonAPI, nested or custom) and for the state managment (Redux, Mobx, Unstated, React setState, Pain JS Object, etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looks good! I've been using json-api-normalizer[1] and redux-object[2] to do something similar. The ORM functionality is a nice difference though, I'll have to try it out.

      [1] https://github.com/yury-dymov/json-api-normalizer
      [2] https://github.com/yury-dymov/redux-object

</comment><comment><USER8> this just makes me wonder why we don't just pass in SQL on the API calls, ala graphql.

<comment><USER9> Because then you're building your database schema into your public API, making it difficult to vary either.

<comment><USER10> Conversely, if your API isn't public, tightly coupling your stack together may be worth the tradeoff of brittleness vs. development speed.</comment></comment></comment>


Joxa: A concurrent, distributed Lisp for the Erlang VM - <AUTHOR> http://joxa.org <comment><USER2> Isn't this quite old? This first thing I'd expect to see is how it compares to LFE (Lisp flavored Erlang) and Clojerl. Hopefully one gets picked and then tooling can get worked on -- although I know the language itself is always the fun part.</comment>


Show HN: Simple forum-esque website I built myself using React, Node, and MySQL - <AUTHOR> http://www.thinkfloat.net <comment><AUTHOR> I built this as something I needed for my portfolio, and to challenge myself as a developer with only 3 and a half years of experience. I know the code is kinda bad, but I also know I'm not a horrible dev, so I really wanted to learn as much as I could during this project.

I'm using auth0 for oauth, SSL, and express in my node middleware. I'm using Material UI and react-router for my frontend.

If anyone noticed I left client secrets, or finds a bunch of bugs, or just has general suggestions, I'd really appreciate getting sent them to email@example.com.

<comment><USER2> Can you show a demo without requiring login first? It's hard to know what I'm signing up for :)

<comment><AUTHOR> So I removed auth for the main page you login at and the links to tags. Everything else will require login. I think this was a great idea, I've been in my own bubble and yes, not everyone is just gonna login.</comment></comment></comment>


World's Only Sample of Metallic Hydrogen Disappears in Lab - <AUTHOR> http://www.techtimes.com/articles/199274/20170226/worlds-only-sample-of-metallic-hydrogen-disappears-in-lab.htm <comment><USER2> Someone, somewhere, somehow, took it. They were trying to do too much too soon. Most likly it was the Intergalactic Police. But it's a good thing it disappeared because the power companies would have had to increase rates three fold. Why, you ask? Because, even though it would be cheaper to produce and transmit power for the power companies, the consumer would have to shoulder the cost of this new material. Big Biz 101

<comment><USER3> Given that intergalactic trade is at an all time low, I think it's safe to say that the sample was stolen by someone keen on selling it for a tidy sum.

Pretty doubtful that there is anything driving crime beyond scarcity, paucity, and the greed that comes from having to have control over everything to assuage feelings of inadequacy.

If there is a galactic police then surely the intergalactic police and the cosmoslogical police have the matter well in hand. I know because no one told me....lol.</comment></comment>


As California Drought Enters 4th Year, Conservation Efforts and Worries Increase - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/us/as-california-drought-enters-4th-year-conservation-efforts-and-worries-increase.html <comment><USER2> > and orders to restaurants not to serve water to customers unless asked.

And in one small sentence all the problems are laid bare. This? This is their solution to drought? Not serving a cup of water in a restaurant?

Can politicians really be that stupid? Or is this "we have to do something, anything, never mind if it's actually useful"?

If they feel the need to actually do something, then fund a massive leak detection and fixing program.

Or install mater meters and bill on an exponential scale based on number of people in the house and expected usage.

Or shut down any industry that uses a lot of water (and rehire the people for the water leak program).

Or fix all the well documented water waste for farming.

Or copy some techniques from middle eastern nations on how to farm with less water.

But no, they instead chose to not serve water in a restaurant.

<comment><USER3> Yes, the actual savings of water from restaurants only serving on request is negligible. But it _reminds people we 're in a fucking drought_. Maybe — _just maybe_ — that awareness goes home with them, and they don't run the tap while brushing their teeth before bed that night. Or they take a 3 minute shower instead of a 10 minute one the next morning.

Yes, these things are all token by themselves, and yes, residential use is utterly dwarfed by agricultural use, but _every damn bit helps_.

<comment><USER4> Or more likely people get pissed at the restaurant for trying to cheat them.

<comment><USER3> How exactly am I being cheated by having to ask for water?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [http://boingboing.net/2009/11/16/is-there-really-a- wa.html](http://boingboing.net/2009/11/16/is-there-really-a-wa.html)

"Neither in developed or developing countries is there a physical scarcity of water. The problem is lack of infrastructure, and more importantly, the lack of management. And those are things that are bad in both the developing and developed world."

Furthermore, treating droughts with water rationing actually makes the problem worse:

[http://mises.org/library/clean-water-scarcity-and-market- pri...](http://mises.org/library/clean-water-scarcity-and-market-prices)

"In the case of droughts government monopolies set prices arbitrarily and this sends consumers distorted prices. Just as bad crops increase the price of oranges so should droughts increase the price of water. Individuals then internalize their decisions to make best use of the scare resources — their own finances and the water commodity. Government distorting prices prevents individuals from acting most efficiently to conserve scarce resources."

<comment><USER6> The problem is liberals and conservatives. Liberals tend to block infrastructure for "green" or NIMBY reasons, while conservatives de-fund it because infrastructure is socialism.

It's time to smash the whole political continuum and start implementing policies that work based on reason and evidence instead of vapid ideology and back room corruption.

<comment><USER5> I'd put it slightly differently: it's time to start implementing policies based on ideology that is itself grounded in reality.

Taxpayer funded infrastructure _is_ socialism, and is a species of the problem discussed in the second article I linked.

 _Edited_ : perhaps I should clarify the above since I'm getting downvoted into oblivion (without argumentation, but that's another issue).

Essentially, the issue with existing policies is that they _aren 't_ based on ideology, or that they are but the ideology itself is wrong.

That is, coercing taxpayers to pay for infrastructure is not only morally wrong, it causes price distortions, moral hazards and malinvestment that all contribute to the 'water shortage' that people are worried about.

The correct solution is to entirely deregulate the production and provision of water, and let the free market determine the real price.

<comment><USER6> Things like water distribution are natural monopolies. Or are you suggesting that we have several independent water vendors built completely separate water pipeline infrastructures?

<comment><USER5> From [http://mises.org/library/myth-natural- monopoly](http://mises.org/library/myth-natural-monopoly) (with emphasis added):

"Furthermore, competition is said to cause consumer inconvenience because of the construction of duplicative facilities, e.g., digging up the streets to put in dual gas or water lines. Avoiding such inconveniences is another reason offered for government franchise monopolies for industries with declining long-run average total costs.

It is a myth that natural-monopoly theory was developed first by economists, and then used by legislators to "justify" franchise monopolies. _The truth is that the monopolies were created decades before the theory was formalized by intervention-minded economists, who then used the theory as an ex post rationale for government intervention._ At the time when the first government franchise monopolies were being granted, the large majority of economists understood that large-scale, capital-intensive production did not lead to monopoly, but was an absolutely desirable aspect of the competitive process."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 80% of California water is used by agriculture and antiquated water allocation laws lead to massive inefficiencies in the agriculture sphere.

Stopping serving water in restaurants, putting bricks in your toilets, and turning off the fountain outside your company are all effectively irrelevant in helping conserve water. Everything of importance in solving our water issues can be found in the farm fields of the central valley.

</comment><comment><USER8> You guys sit next to an ocean full of water.

And you have a critical mass of the smartest people on the planet.

Get crackin'.

<comment><USER9> Personally I'm waiting for someone to stick a nuclear reactor far off shore, use it for both power generation and desalination at the same time and ship fresh water back to the mainland on barges.

<comment><USER10> I wonder if a nuclear reactor would qualify as falling under the "Economic Exclusive Zone" (between 12-200 miles out from shore)?

Maintenance would be expensive on the floor. Why not put the reactor at the end of a string of barges?

<comment><USER9> I would expect something like one of the advanced oil rigs that uses cables, ballast and computer systems to establish a stable platform at sea.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A black hole engine that could power spaceships - <AUTHOR> http://www.antalik.com/a-black-hole-engine-that-could-power-spaceships/

<comment><USER2> I demand someone write a great sci-fi movie or novel from the premises set in this awesome article.

"With a set of four machines: black hole generator, black hole drive, power plant, and a self perpetuating black hole powered black hole generator, the potential is enormous. As Crane and Westmoreland say:

A civilization equipped with our four machine tool set would be almost unimaginably energy rich. It could settle the galaxy at will."

Awe-inspiring.</comment>


What Cafés Did for Liberalism - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/24/what-cafes-did-for-liberalism <comment><USER2> Hint: not the kind of "liberalism" U.S. and Canadian "liberals" are referring to when they use the word.

<comment><USER3> Actually I think it is. What is described are basically socialists, left- leaning types, which 'North American Liberal' generally describes.

These cafe folks are not so much 'classical liberals' (or maybe they are in some sense), which is what 'Liberal' is in the rest of the world.

Though there is overlap.

<comment><USER4> The article is weird. Cafés did great things for classic liberalism. Just consider Café Pilvax in Pest (now part of Budapest) in Hungary, which was basically the epicentre of the Hungarian revolution in 1848 and where the people who wrote the 12 Points regularly met.

But those were classic liberals and nationalists. Their 12 Points dealt with political questions, not social questions.

The revolutions from the 1770s to around 1850 were political revolutions, and dealt with the political question, usually lead by classic liberal thinkers. The social question lingered in the shadows, like 1796's Conspiracy of Equals, but it wasn't until the Paris Commune that this problem really sprung out into the open as a question the needed to be answered.

The Russian Revolution is a social revolution moreso than a political one. And definitely conducted by socialists, not liberals. So the choice of 'liberalism' in the article is weird.

<comment><USER5> The Russian Revolution is certainly not a social revolution but an economic one. They went from have a dictator to having a dictator just under a slightly different economic system. They continue to have a Tsar to this day.

<comment><USER4> All revolutions are economical. The American one is about taxes, and the French is about well... taxes. But the answer to the question is what defines them from being political or social. The Americans and French revolutionaries of the 1700s thought the answer to this was more political freedom.

The Russian revolutionaries of the 1910s thought the answer was a social regime. The fact that it did not end up as they hoped it would be, does not change the fact that it was a social revolution. I considering the motivations here for the revolutions, not so much the outcome.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


'The Effective Engineer' has launched - <AUTHOR> https://www.theeffectiveengineer.com/book

<comment><USER2> It would be helpful if you released a short 5 minute video snippet with one of the tech leaders you interviewed. That would make it easier to evaluate how useful the pro package is.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just read a short blurb on Amazon, seems like great stuff and looking forward to checking out more.

</comment><comment><USER4> Edmond, congrats on the launch! If I wanted to introduce this in my startup, what would you suggest? Book club? buying everyone the book? Have it sitting on our company shelf? Thanks so much for giving back.</comment>


Y10K and Beyond - <AUTHOR> https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2550 <comment><AUTHOR> Abstract:

       As we approach the end of the millennium, much attention has been
       paid to the so-called "Y2K" problem.  Nearly everyone now regrets the
       short-sightedness of the programmers of yore who wrote programs
       designed to fail in the year 2000.  Unfortunately, the current fixes
       for Y2K lead inevitably to a crisis in the year 10,000 when the
       programs are again designed to fail.

       This specification provides a solution to the "Y10K" problem which
       has also been called the "YAK" problem (hex) and the "YXK" problem
       (Roman numerals).</comment>


Show HN: 100% CSS Mario Kart - <AUTHOR> https://vimeo.com/364369506 <comment><USER2> Is there a link to a live demo?

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure if it's the final version but you can get a first impression: [https://codesandbox.io/embed/zk15o120xl?referrer=https%3A%2F...](https://codesandbox.io/embed/zk15o120xl?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fcodeburst.io%2Fmario- kart-css-7572bd2ce608)</comment></comment>


Scratch - A programming language for kids - <AUTHOR> http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/scratch-0721.html

<comment><USER2> When I was a kid, with the one exception of LOGO, there wasn't even the idea of "programming languages for kids". There was BASIC of course, but if you wanted to get into Turbo Pascal or C, no-one would say "but that's for grown- ups".

It's like Father Christmas says in LWW - these are tools, not toys.</comment>


Can DuckDuckGo replace Google search while offering better privacy? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2019/dec/12/duckduckgo-google-search-engine-privacy <comment> Pete-Codes I've tried telling all my friends to "duck duck go it" when they are stuck.

IMO, it needs a far better name if it is going to spread.

</comment><comment><USER2> SearX is still the better option imho. MetaGer is my second choise.</comment>


React scaffolder - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/99xt/react-scaffolder <comment><AUTHOR> react-scaffolder is a command line interface which brings smooth developer experience (DX) for React devs. react-scaffolder provides a better way to generate react projects with react-boilerplate. With this tool it's possible to continue generating boilerplate code with heavy customizations once a project is initiated.</comment>


The World Tomorrow : Cypherpunks Part 1 - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRkDUmT_I_w&list=PL76E330B6833CB1A1&index=1&feature=plcp

<comment><USER2> Does anyone know who Jeremie Zimmerman is? The video credits say he is a leading cypberpunk/activist but I was not able to find much info about him...</comment>


Test Desiderata 8/12: Tests should be isolated from each other [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HApI2cspQus <comment><USER2> Seems to me like your test bed would be more reliable if each test is responsible for resetting its own global state before it is run. If you rely on everybody else cleaning up after themselves, you're gonna get burned by another developer.

To use the drier example, if my test always cleans lint _before_ running, I know my test will always run with a clean lint filter.

If I instead rely on _all other tests_ cleaning the lint filter _after_ their tests, it only takes one developer to make a mistake and break my tests' assumptions.

As for tests "cleaning up after themselves", that's generally a good idea if you are, for example, altering a database, generating a file, etc. However, that is also error prone (just takes one developer to mess it up and forget to delete a generated file). The way I've made that more reliable is running tests in a docker container so that any new files, etc. created are destroyed when the container is destroyed at the end of testing. I've also toyed with the idea of using the VCS to clean test fingerprints (i.e. git clean) but the main problem I've run into with that is some developers' tests will write stuff to /tmp.

<comment><USER3> In my experience a mixed approach can be valuable, but I think whatever approach is taken the real key is to build it in such a way that it's not an individual test's responsibility to clean up either before or after - it's extracted to the test runner/framework so every test gets the appropriate behavior automatically.

As an example of what I mean by a mixed approach: if the thing being tested is software that primarily interacts with, say, a SQL database, then the "clean up before" approach (which might mean running `TRUNCATE foo` on every table) works, but as the schema gets bigger it gets slower, and while it might not be _very_ slow it gets very noticeable if every test runs it (particularly as the test suite is presumably also growing). An effective way to implement the "clean up after" approach might be to setup the test runner so every test runs within a transaction and after the test the transaction is rolled back: but in order for that to be reliable the database must be in a clean state when the test suite is started. So the mixed approach I've used (and is close to the default for Rails & Phoenix apps nowadays, I think) is to do the "clean" op at the start of the entire suite and configure it so every test runs in a transaction.

The transaction/snapshotting features of modern SQL databases make that approach really easy, of course, so if a project's main external interaction is instead filesystem interaction or something it may not be so simple and more of the infrastructure would have to be hand-rolled, but if it has to be done at scale (many tests, many developers), I do think it's worth abstracting into the test runner so that individual tests don't need to remember those details: I've done that for some CLI tools where the test runner sets up a sandbox dir for each test and so the tests just need to use the appropriate patterns for FS interaction (which is easy since all the existing tests do it and people imitate those, and in my case it helped stop the "just write to /tmp" approach that some had taken before that).

The container isolation approach certainly has the advantage that it's difficult to mess up no matter what any particular test does, but if you run each _test_ within a container, in the long term I'd be worried about the overhead causing the same headaches as the "truncate DB tables before every test" approach. And if you're running the entire test suite in a container it seems like you'd still have the potential challenges of each test needing to be responsible for stuff unless some of the other approaches are also taken? Sorry if I didn't understand the container approach you described.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In my experience, it's even a bad idea to share _immutable_ data between tests. At least, certain types.

Basically what happens is you write a bunch of tests, and they all operate on a Person let's say. So you get into the habit of making a 20 year old Tom with bla bla bla each time. Very repetitive. So you decide to move Tom into a common file that every test can import. Typical DRY stuff.

Then, over time, Tom grows tentacles. Every test that uses Tom needs just one more little detail to be added. Tom needs to have a height for the height test. For the shopping test Tom needs a walking speed and a preference for ladders. These properties keep accumulating, and Tom grows huge. His growing complexities, and his presence in so many tests, make it impossible to remove or edit anything about him. You resort to making Tom variants. In each test you clone Tom then tweak his weight and shoe type or whatever. Of course nobody is making sure that all these properties and property edits are inter- consistent, and you find that because of this even adding properties to Tom has somehow become difficult. Eventually, understanding all facets of Tom becomes a black art. New tests fail sometimes, and no one knows why. You poke and prod Tom for a couple hours, and the problem goes away. Eventually even basic usage of Tom also becomes a black art.

You should have just repeated yourself.

</comment><comment><USER5> @kentbeck, you might want to fix the medium link in that YouTube video description. It 404s for me.

Kudos for pushing best practices!</comment>


Neural networks with monolithically integrated memristors - alok-g http://news.boisestate.edu/blog/boise-state-research-team-building-a-computer-chip-based-on-the-human-brain/

<comment> alok-g A recent publication from the same team talks about successfully simulating logic gates with memristors:

[http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...](http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1224&context=electrical_facpubs)</comment>


Show HN: I built an iOS app for tracking fitness training - <AUTHOR> https://endurancegoals.app/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN -

Just shipped my training log side project on iOS and wanted to get feedback from anyone out there that are looking for better ways to track their running/cycling/swimming training. I built it with the following goals in mind:

\- Create a calendar interface that makes it super easy to see where my training mileage/time is at for a given week and where the gaps are in my cross-training

\- Makes it possible to set weekly goals across activity types for both distance and duration

\- Makes it super simple to create a training plan ahead of a race right on my phone

Thanks everybody!</comment>


These guys do great job on understanding my problems on home monitoring cameras - <AUTHOR> http://get3rdeye.com

<comment><USER2> Thank you for comments. Appreciate your signing up for early access. We are also listening to your feedback / requirements. Please let us know if you would like to connect with us for finding out more on your requirements. Get3rdEye Team

<comment><AUTHOR> Great guys I saw you've changed your website and it looks fantastic but I am still willing to see more about your solution, I mean you guys are posing yourself well and I will say this is going to be popular among home owners! I already got your emails and I am looking forward to your updates!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hope they can come up with something really cool! I've signed up, looks like it's gonna be some monitoring camera with built-in storage, that's the best part, I will never ever pay a penny to get clips go to cloud....</comment>


Folding polyhedron sampler enables easy capture of delicate underwater organisms - <AUTHOR> https://wyss.harvard.edu/studying-aliens-of-the-deep/ <comment><USER2> _"We approach these animals as if they are works of art: would we cut pieces out of the Mona Lisa to study it? No – we'd use the most innovative tools available. These deep-sea organisms, some being thousands of years old, deserve to be treated with a similar gentleness when we're interacting with them," said collaborating author David Gruber, Ph.D._

Lovely.

<comment><USER3> May I say there's something _poetic_ in the whole thing?

The way the petals open to release the animal is touching, and resembles how you'd free a butterfly that has come to rest on your hand.

Deeply fascinated.</comment></comment>


HyperNav, a CSS Only Navigation Menu Framework, Released - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Acmion/HyperNav <comment><AUTHOR> Just finished, documented and published my personal side project, HyperNav. HyperNav is an advanced, interactive and unopinoinated built with CSS only. Please, check it out!

GitHub repository: [https://github.com/Acmion/HyperNav](https://github.com/Acmion/HyperNav)

Website: [https://hyper-nav.acmion.com/](https://hyper-nav.acmion.com/)</comment>


Elon Musk will go to trial over "pedo guy" tweets, judge rules - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/28/20937354/elon-musk-stand-trial-vernon-unsworth-defamation-suit-ruling-tweets <comment><USER2> Elon Musk is a horrible person. People who don't see this are blinded by money.</comment>


Hello World, 1978 - <AUTHOR> https://www.artsy.net/artwork/brian-kernighan-hello-world <comment><USER2> I'm glad Brian Kernighan has as much trouble writing braces by hand as us mere mortals do.

<comment><USER3> The trick to writing braces is this - for a { write a 5 than a 2 below and for a } write a 2 then a 5 below. Practice it a little and you will be writing perfect braces in no time.

Also it is quite amusing how many people love this trick when I tell them after they have spent a decade or more struggling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For posterity, he could have also made a print of his "Hello, World" program written in B from 1972:

[https://code.google.com/p/go/source/browse/src/pkg/debug/mac...](https://code.google.com/p/go/source/browse/src/pkg/debug/macho/testdata/hello.b?spec=svnf6182e5abf5eb0c762dddbb18f8854b7e350eaeb&name=f6182e5abf5e&r=f6182e5abf5eb0c762dddbb18f8854b7e350eaeb)

</comment><comment><USER5> Just curious - does anyone know how much it went for?

<comment><USER6> Tweet here saying >$7,000: [https://twitter.com/zarkadakis/status/582594530135924736](https://twitter.com/zarkadakis/status/582594530135924736)

Random reddit comment saying $8,500: [https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2zluh1/brian_k...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2zluh1/brian_kernighan_hello_world_1978/cptnd8d)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Please note: this lot includes a code license"

For a fragment shorter than a tweet. It's a stretch IMO.

<comment><USER8> Also: "This lot also includes a commemorative 3D-printed Babylonian styled tablet containing the password to a private Github repository where the buyer may access the full source of the Hello World algorithm and an image of the lot."

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It seems that he forgot to include stdio.h.

<comment><USER10> There were no function prototypes in K&R C, these were added in the ANSI C89 standard.

Even now, prototypes are optional in C (as opposed to C++), so this program is still valid, although it's likely to trigger some compiler warnings.

<comment><USER11> _Even now, prototypes are optional in C_

It's been illegal in standard C since 1999.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Excellent alignment of braces. Also, he appears to be using a 3-space indent, but that's not so obvious due to proportional font.

</comment><comment><USER13> One thing that has bothered me is that open brace { for functions starts at new line but for all other statements it starts on same line in K&R style. Why not just be consistent?

<comment><USER14> Because for some people it looks better that way. For simple statements, I often find placing braces on their own lines introduces too much of free space. With a few things nested it often looks as if there were more braces than the code itself. And also, I like to group some statements together (by not having free space between them) and suddenly having to separate them by a free-standing brace breaks it. Of course all of this is just a matter of taste.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > This lot also includes a commemorative 3D-printed Babylonian styled tablet > containing the password to a private Github repository where the buyer may > access the full source of the Hello World algorithm and an image of the lot.

Too bad it's private. It would suck to have to rethink that algorithm from scratch...

<comment><USER16> Perhaps the person who won the auction will make it public? That would be a great contribution to society!!! /s

<comment><USER17> They'll probably file a patent for it, to best advance the arts and sciences. /s</comment></comment></comment>


Consider the Hedgehog - <AUTHOR> https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n20/katherine-rundell/consider-the-hedgehog <comment><USER2> Some things I've observed about hedgehogs firsthand:

\- they're practically blind, and led by their nose (smelling food)

\- they will happily eat two entire bowls of wet cat food, or one bowl of dry cat food

\- they will park next to a large cat and eat, side by side... or if there's only own bowl, they will walk up and push the cat out of their way (cat responses to this are really funny)

</comment><comment><USER3> Hedgehogs from 2015: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10768913](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10768913)

I feel like there have been other major hedgehog threads, but they seem to be hiding.

</comment><comment><USER4> Shout out for tiggywinkles animal hospital which I visited the same day as a drive to Bletchley from Heathrow: great visitor centre, doing sterling work rescuing injured hedgehogs. My partner who lived in the uk for two years never saw one, was delightfully entertained by this visit.

[https://www.sttiggywinkles.org.uk/](https://www.sttiggywinkles.org.uk/)

</comment><comment><USER5> I've had two African hedgehogs as pets. One extremely social (for a hedgehog, anyway) and one very much not. The latter was mostly neglected by her previous owner.

Fascinating animals, wish I could read the full piece.

<comment><USER6> Reader mode worked for me (FF/iOS)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I didn't see images in the article, but there's some really nice illuminated manuscripts, of hedgehogs collecting fruit on their spines:

[https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2014/10/how-to- be-a...](https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2014/10/how-to-be-a- hedgehog.html)

There's also a couple of really nice animated stories featuring hedgehogs:

Hedgehog in the Fog - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW0jvJC2rvM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW0jvJC2rvM)

Hedgehog's Home - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXCeZEwmZEk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXCeZEwmZEk)</comment>


My Mother and I Became Chinese Propaganda - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/14/how-my-mother-and-i-became-chinese-propaganda <comment><AUTHOR> [https://archive.vn/KWOOL](https://archive.vn/KWOOL)</comment>