AWS IAM Down - <AUTHOR> Details Affected resources Increased Error Rates<p>11:52 AM PDT We are investigating increased error rates accessing the IAM Management Console and IAM service. <comment><USER2> Their APIs for IAM appear to be up and running, at least basic ones i felt like testing.

Main status page is still green as usual during an issue: [https://status.aws.amazon.com/](https://status.aws.amazon.com/)

The only notice we've seen was in the personal health dashboard after about thirty minutes of looking into it on our end.

This will likely be resolved soon, might have been a console update pushed up with an issue.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks like the event was limited to the Virginia region.

<comment><USER4> Yes and no. IAM is a global service homed out of us-east-1.

<comment><USER5> The curiosity in me wonders what happens to IAM if us-east-1 suffers a total outage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> us-east-1/global iam

12:36 PM PDT We continue to investigate increased error rates and latencies when accessing the IAM Management Console and IAM APIs. Creation and listing of new IAM users, groups and roles are experiencing increased error rates, latencies and propagation times. Authentication for existing IAM users, groups and roles is not affected.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm in an AWS dev ops training class as I write this. We're still experiencing a lot of timeouts related to IAM.

<comment><USER2> :: today's lesson will now focus on discovery of AWS service outages and what to do when that happens.

good luck, should almost be back to normal they say.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow. The status page is even up to date... They're often seriously delayed...

<comment><USER4> Credit where due, AWS is getting s lot better at that.</comment></comment>


Any YCNews folks going to TieCon2007 tomorrow?   - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I will be there too, not attending e-bazaar though :-(

My goal is to meet the right people AND get some candid yet valuable feedback for our startup. Hoping for some divine intervention ;-)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> i'll be there both days, checking out the talks and pitching our startup. I would love to meet other young hacker / entrepreneurs as well, should be fun.

check out the event here: <http://www.tiecon.org/TiESVHome/HomeView>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> text me at 707 4 77 3990 or email if you would like to meetup, I'm basically looking to accomplish the same things there.</comment>


Tunisia: President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali forced out - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12195025

<comment><USER2> It appears possible that the Wikileak's cables and social media played a significant role in the revolution.

Hopefully whats next for Tunisia is democracy not chaos...</comment>


Have any VCs told you "No" already? - <AUTHOR> http://www.venturefiles.com/2007/02/20/as-an-entrepreneur-no-from-a-vc-is-a-good-thing/ <comment><USER2> There's a good sales methodology (the Sandler system) which espouses pushing the "closing" stage nearer to the beginning of the process. Essentially, you're looking to end the sales cycle of deals which for whatever reason aren't going to work out. I like this blog post because it's roughly analogous. If you actually hear a "no" from a VC, consider yourself lucky that you aren't chasing a deal which won't ever close.</comment>


Writing The Snowden Files: 'The paragraph began to self-delete' - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/20/edward-snowden-files-nsa-gchq-luke-harding/print <comment><USER2> This is a pretty embarrassing piece; it reads like something you'd find on a conspiracy forum.

1\. Keyboards don't beep.

2\. There are _lots_ of more reasonable explanations for text getting deleted than "state agency wanted to play a juvenile prank on me and be glaringly obvious about it". A stuck key, an intermittent short across some of the leads caused by the coffee he spilled all over his keyboard (conjecture on my part), a glitchy keyboard controller -- we've seen all of these in our shop.

3\. In Rio, "a tall American" immediately meets a fellow Westerner and "accosts" him -- by suggesting they go out and see the city? He's a spook because he dressed neatly and was in good shape? Hell, that makes me a spook too.

4\. Choose one of the two following explanations for the iPhone behavior: one, a well-funded and resourceful state agency is hiring people to track a journalist writing a book about the biggest intelligence leak in recent history, and the people they're hiring are juvenile enough to use methods straight out of Hollywood to play a prank on their target's iPhone when he sends a text with possibly the most milquetoast insult about their methods in the history of ever; or, two, the iPhone crashed. (Your answer might be used to gauge your sanity.)

5\. The hotel safe -- if it weren't for everything else he'd written, I might be willing to buy that this was a botched job. But in the context of the rest of the article, I think the more reasonable explanation is that it was a crappy safe, it never did work correctly, and he only noticed that part way through his stay in the room.

<comment><USER3> Windows beeps when you're pressing keys at the same time or just holding them down. I don't know the exact situations but I remember a "hot keys" notification popping up.

Let's consider the article is true and words were being deleted as he wrote them. How ridiculous is that? A. disconnect from the internet. B. The whole manuscript could be deleted with a few keystrokes if wanted. Why would someone sit there and delete out the "bad" parts while they know the writer is actually working and typing in the document? This makes absolutely no sense. PR stunt imo.

<comment><USER4> The Windows beep is usually from a speaker connected to your motherboard. There is no speaker located on the majority of keyboards, meaning no beeps.

It's not ridiculous to think words would begin to get deleted, but it is ridiculous to say some government organization would sit there and watch him type to remove some content. Why would any organization spying on him make it so obvious, and pointless. If he wanted to hide it from them he would just go to another computer.

I run into this self'deleting in words once a month. I have no idea how I activate it, but when i type it deletes what's in front of it. It's a frustrating feature that I haven't defeated, but I don't think the government is watching my computer, seeing what I type on Hacker News.

<comment><USER5> I'm pretty sure the government is watching your computer (internet traffic, and maybe your webcam). They probably don't have you targeted for surveillance by an agent, which is what I think you meant.

<comment><USER6> We haven't yet been marketed a reason to constantly steam our webcams to the cloud. For this reason remote activation would be required in many cases, and that would be expensive on a mass scale.

Steps toward cloud services like this might include the Kinect, or face recognition login services. We'll see how it plays out. :^)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is it now a sign of times that where previously most ppl (including me) would have dismissed this piece as

1) Does not understand technology so is committing some basic error leading to this

2) Making this sh$t up

3) Has a prankster who is close by.

Instead now I am almost betting that it was the NSA/GCHQ/Five Eyes/CIA who is behind these shenanigans?

Thank you Edward Snowden (for the hundredth time) for giving us hard evidence of the illegal and ineffective behavior on the Govt's part. You have also (unfortunately) fundamentally raised the bar on tin-foil hat debunking.

</comment><comment><USER8> _The cursor moved rapidly from the left, gobbling text. I watched my words vanish. When I tried to close my OpenOffice file the keyboard began flashing and bleeping._

To me and Occams razor that sounds more like a stuck key than the NSA openly deleting stuff in a manuscript while you're writing it.

<comment><USER9> More to the point, "keyboards flashing and beeping" is pretty much the polar opposite of what a professional organization like NSA would do. They would shred/unlink the file _after_ its closed so that you'd never be the wiser.

But on the other hand, they wouldn't be in _this_ guy's computer anyways because even if NSA were out to oppress him, he's pretty far back at the end of the ol' pri. queue. "Oh, no, not a _manuscript_ , OMG, get Gen. Alexander on the STE-III!"

<comment><USER10> It actually sounds a lot more like a CIA intimidation tactic.

<comment><USER6> If this _were_ an operation, it'd be more likely to be GCHQ. Keep in mind, GCHQ sent the NSA the Yahoo webcam photos, for use in XKEYSCORE. The two are close allies.

The CIA on the other hand, competes with the NSA for resources and jurisdiction.

Right now the NSA's budget dwarfs that of the CIA, since data collection and SIGINT have been prioritized over HUMINT. Technology advances and cost reductions might have encouraged this.

What types of intelligence and which agencies will be more relevant in the 21st century? The Snowden revelations and ongoing saga will play a large part in affecting future views, and answers to that question.

It might be more beneficial for the CIA to actually step back.

Plus, a lot of people want to see mass surveillance fail. It's pretty obviously a threat to democracy waiting to happen, and most people in service are dedicating their life to protecting democracy.

<comment><USER10> Except that the CIA does have an office in Rio, whose station chief is known for these kinds of tactics, as is written in the article.

I think also you're overstating how much the CIA might be competing with the NSA. Sure, at the highest levels, this might be true, but in the trenches, operatives share everything. I doubt anyone in the CIA truly resents the NSA and they'd happily help each other out like this.

<comment><USER6> He experienced the deletions after returning to his home, in the UK.

I certainly might be. It's interesting to consider though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I smell NSA involvement. They've clearly hacked the site and posted this piece to make Luke Harding and The Guardian look ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER12> Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean 'they' are not out to get you!!

If the events happened as described 'they' were trying to spook him or 'psych' him out.

</comment><comment><USER13> I completely understand all the criticism toward this piece, and I don't think I would ever publish anything like this without at least some hard evidence, but I also wouldn't be surprised if he were completely right about his assumptions. Thinking skeptically about everything is a good habit, but sometimes the consequence of thinking like an intelligent reasonable person is that you forget how bafflingly stupid the world can really be.

Are all of the author's suspicions totally unfounded? Yeah, probably, because he has no good evidence to back them up. Do they lead to a narrative that is completely unreasonable and absurd? Absolutely. But it's also possible that the people who are spying on him are behaving in a way that is completely unreasonable and absurd, and are just competent enough to cover their tracks so a layperson won't have any evidence on them.

I don't have a ton of confidence in what I'm saying right now, but uh... I just don't blame him too much, is all. I definitely wouldn't dismiss him as a bad journalist or anything.

</comment><comment><USER14> Let's play "spot the spook" in this thread..

<comment><USER15> That's my favourite game to play on Hacker News. I wish there was a Hacker News Enhancement Suite so I could keep track of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The article is 99% full of BS. I believe that too, however it made an impact: didn't knew there was a book[1]. I will read it and post a review. The amazon reviews look promising...

[http://www.amazon.com/Snowden-Files-Inside-Worlds-Wanted- ebo...](http://www.amazon.com/Snowden-Files-Inside-Worlds-Wanted- ebook/dp/B00HU8Z3Z2/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital- text&ie=UTF8&qid=1393803014&sr=1-1&keywords=the+snowden+files)

</comment><comment><USER17> The paragraph began to self-delete..

BOFH excuse #114:

electro-magnetic pulses from French above ground nuke testing.

at least it makes as much sense as the 'Russian hacker' assertion they made.

</comment><comment><USER18> So a 'professional journalist' with an iPhone didn't think to make a video of the self deleting, or take a photo of the tall American?

I call BS.

</comment><comment><USER19> Why on earth would a malicious party manually delete characters while the author is watching? If you don't care about being observed - as the author suggests - then in order to destroy his work, you'd just delete the truecrypt partition.

<comment><USER20> We used to do this for giggles. PC-Anywhere era.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Wow. Yeah, generally that's the US people's image of the US government in a nutshell. Conspiracy theories are getting old, old, old. Being overly suspicious is not productive in any way. Wake up and help your country be successful.

</comment><comment><USER22> What he doesn't say is that the keyboard stopped flashing and beeping after he threw a biscuit at his cat.

I saw this a couple days ago. I thought it was rather silly.

</comment><comment><USER23> This is exactly the time when you'd want to write about such a topic in pen and paper.</comment>


Should Kids Be Paid to Do Well in School? - <AUTHOR> http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1978589-4,00.html

<comment><USER2> I think rather than trying to bribe children to go to school because they hate it they should instead concentrate on making school actually interesting.

Personally i feel that most school systems are factories that teach kids to be test takers, not question authority, not think for themselves and do it the way they're told because thats the way its always been done.

How about we provide some intrinsic motivation instead, make school interesting. Basic reading, writing and arithmetic should be compulsory but let kids choose whatever they want to learn after that.

I also dont think we really need teachers in specific subjects, generalist teachers that work with kids to support them could help a child create his own curriculum, the internet makes this a very real possibility these days.

<comment><USER3> I thought that's how it works everywhere? I'm from NZ, you must take English and Maths up until a certain age, otherwise just pick your other four subjects and enjoy.

<comment><USER4> What's the variety for your other four subjects? If you can take a year of nothing but physics (or computer science) in high school/junior high, then NZ rocks, but I'd guess they're just giving you an illusion of choice while still forcing you through the general education classes since that's all there is. Not to mention prerequisite hell plagues all hierarchical forms of education and if you don't have understanding administrators it's really hard to move ahead when "you're not supposed to."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This idea goes in the opposite direction of what Daniel Pink talks about in his book "Drive" ( or TED talk here: <http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html> )

What Daniel Pink says is that extrinsic motivators (such as money,) have actually been found to be _harmful_ to performance when used to reward cognitive or intellectual activities. I would imagine "getting an education" to fall under this category, but maybe not so much.

Conversely, extrinsic motivators are still known to work fine for repetitive, "mechanical" tasks (think: assembly line).

<comment><USER6> And yet, the results in this article show extrinsic motivators to be beneficial to performance on some cognitive activities. Seems like it's an area that merits more research.

On a slightly more meta level, it seems like TED and Gladwell are making more topics bikesheddable.

<comment><USER5> Re: Meta - Perhaps, although the talk on Daniel Pink was something that was first shown to me in a class. After seeing it, I decided to read his book on my own time.

Also, for anyone who is interested in the book, I recommend just watching the video as it sums EVERYTHING up. The book just provides slightly more evidence and explanation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Most young children don't fully understand WHY they need a good education. Many students that do well in school in the early years, did so because their parents forced them to study.

If a child doesn't have that parental pressure and support to excel, maybe money can be a decent albeit imperfect substitute.

</comment><comment><USER8> After basic education (up until highschool) why not let kids pick what they want to learn. Forcing people to do anything after puberty is fruitless. You dont see high school football coaches having to force the kids to stay on the team. Why is education any different?

</comment><comment><USER9> Back in elementary school, my math teacher gave out virtual money (in the form of xeroxed monopoly money stamped with a special seal) to students who completed homework assignments and those that did well on tests. One day out of every week, he would bring a bunch of goodies (e.g. mechanical pencils) to class and auction them off to the highest bidders with these monopoly money. The auctions were very enjoyable since it was interesting to see people outbidding each others in the process. Being much of a saver myself, I accumulated a huge sum of these monopoly money and kept all of them in one of my 3-ring binders. One day, I discovered someone stole all of them while I left my backpack unattended. After telling my teacher about it, he told everyone to open their backpacks and inspected them. However, we never found out who stole them and it sucked because after that incident, I started to distrust some of my friends. I think this system could be improved if the rewards were non-tranferrable. Perhaps someone can build a web application that lets teachers employ such technique and allows students to accumulate money in the digital form?

</comment><comment><USER10> No, kids should have jobs. If kids have jobs that suck, then they will want to work harder at school so they won't have a sucky job when they graduate.

</comment><comment><USER11> The hell no. As DevX101 said, children don't understand why they need to get an education in the first place. This creates the impression that going to school is a job when it most certainly is not. There is a difference between offering an occasional prize (a toy, lunch, or event) because a kid did well, and making them believe they are entitled to get paid because of their performance in school. There's also the fact that I believe it can hinder the natural curiosity a kid may have by introducing a mitigating factor in the process of choosing his/her interests. Lastly there's the fact that some kids are - sadly - complete imbeciles. Are this kid's not going to get payed because they did badly, even though they might have even tried a whole lot harder than the other kids?

I say, let the smart kids be smart, let the dumb kids be dumb, let the in between's be regular children. Hell imagine every kid becomes a "smart" kid because of payment; can you imagine the surplus of people in comparison to employment opportunities in the "brainy" work sectors?

</comment><comment><USER4> tldr: More experiments, please!

I'm all for more experiments in this area, since we need them to combat our bad intuitions and simple conjectures, and as others have noted we especially need to find out what happens to these kids when you take away the rewards. Considering that atheists don't fall into extreme immorality after rejecting their religion, I'm willing to bet that most of the kids wouldn't just fall back into old patterns or become worse off than before, even though this doesn't make me intuitively comfortable... Again, we need experiments.

There's also some slight bitterness I feel that others around here might share. We're smart and we made it through the system without these nice monetary rewards. $95 a week? For not dressing like crap and not talking back and doing some trivial homework? $95 is _a lot of money_ , I never got that, and when I worked 20 hour weeks at a grocery store one year my weekly paychecks were roughly $120. People should just be motivated to learn on their own without these rewards, and the whole grading system in general helps to undermine this...

As TamDenholm noted, the fact that we need to use such motivations for something as important as _learning_ is more a symptom than solution of an underlying problem with the education system. The point in the article about how they desire to foster intrinsic motivation with extrinsic rewards made me do a double take. Yet the solution still isn't "let the students do what they want", because most will do the minimum, and then schools will cut budgets and staff, and with only "generalist" teachers you get generally shallow teachers across all subjects. I'll agree that some teachers can teach more subjects than one and many classes can benefit from a mixture that only a special generalist could adequately teach (it always bugs me when math teachers admit their ignorance on the uses of complex numbers), but we really need specialists. The college model is correct here.

</comment><comment><USER12> I don't know about the paycheck type scheme, but perhaps a growing grant for college based on your grades throughout your school career.

Could be done using game dynamics and you earn points based on your work then at the end of high school you can convert those points into paid credit hours.

</comment><comment><USER13> Here's one nasty detail that should be taken into account: some fraction of parents will just confiscate the payments from their children.

</comment><comment><USER14> If you provide a source of external motivation, they will never find the motivation within themselves to learn, and thus will be screwed as soon as you remove that external motivation.

In other words, as soon as you stop paying them to learn, they will stop learning. You set them up for failure by removing the chance to learn to be self-motivated.

<comment><USER15> This is exactly the kind of conventional wisdom that needs to be actually tested, rather than assumed.

<comment><USER14> Yes, you're probably right. I'm just always stumped by the part where you can't try a dry-run in educational theory- you actually have to try it out, and you run the risk of screwing up a kid's education.

<comment><USER15> Seems easier than the situation in medicine. I have fewer moral qualms about testing experimental educational techniques on students than I do about testing experimental medicine on patients, especially if the students (or the students' parents) are compensated by an amount that make them willing subjects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Link is to the fourth page of the article, rather than the first. I'd gently suggest fixing that, or avoiding it in the future.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> There have been a lot of studies about this lately... if you think yes, why? Is it because kids today do not necessarily need teachers for answers like kids in generations past (due to the internet?)

If you think 'no' is it because you think it is a bad example? It doesn't 'seem right'? How would you fix education?</comment>


Tablets aren't the end of netbooks. - <AUTHOR> http://redgirlsays.com/blog/2010/11/tablets-arent-the-end-of-netbooks/

<comment><USER2> Laptops are starting to look more like netbooks everyday.</comment>


Despite Y Combinator Growth, Paul Graham Still Coding - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2011/08/25/despite-y-combinator-growth-paul-graham-still-coding/ <comment><USER2> I really don't like the bias in the headline. It seems to imply that coding isn't something you'd do _after_ you got growth.

Why not "How Coding Helps Y Combinator Manage Growth" or "Paul Graham Keeps Coding to Help Y Combinator Keep Growing"?

<comment><USER3> I think the implication is that pg would be too busy running YC to code. Even if it doesn't happen to him, it happens to a lot of founders.

<comment><USER4> I think there are a lot of founders who don't code on their company's product anymore (though it's apparently not a pure factor of size – Gates and Zuckerberg are known for actually writing code many years in), but it'd be weird if they didn't write code _at all_. It would imply that writing code is never the most efficient way to accomplish a task that they want solved. Even with infinite resources at your beck and call, it's often faster to write a quick script than to explain to someone else what that script should do (and to continue to do so through whatever iterations seem appropriate).

I'm tempted to say that those who don't continue to hack were never really hackers in the first place. For a hacker, writing code is just one of the normal ways to interact with a computer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sorry to sound blunt but why is it a given that if a person is successful, it is surprising that he/she is doing "lesser" things? I never understood that notion.

If I was successful/rich/etc, I will still be coding on my free time. Heck, I will be washing my own dishes, buying my own groceries, driving myself and so on. And I know many other "rich/successful/etc" people who are exactly like that.

<comment><USER6> > Sorry to sound blunt but why is it a given that if a person is successful, > it is surprising that he/she is doing "lesser" things?

If a top scientist/inventor/entrepreneur is doing routine tasks that he doesn't enjoy, he's losing time that could either be spent creating new amazing things _or_ relaxing/recharging and enjoying his life.

If you enjoy any particular activity - driving or cooking - by all means keep doing it. But if you're capable of improving the lives of thousands or even millions of people, then hire a car and driver and work in the backseat of your Rolls Royce or whatever. The world will be net better for it.

(Though, coding doesn't fall into that routine task category - it being a creative action that sharpens the mind. Doing laundry does though, except on the off chance it's really relaxing and enjoyable for you.)

<comment><USER7> I'll take the bait. It seems possible to me that there could also be value in doing some routine tasks that you don't enjoy. Even for the top scientist/inventor/entrepreneur. I've tried to come up with a list of some reasons why, but I think they all eventually come down grounding. If you always have someone else performing a certain class of tasks for you, like unenjoyable routine tasks, you'll be disconnecting certain feedback loops and avoiding learning certain lessons.

I'll take for example cleaning up your house/apartment/room on your own. I've noticed that when my apartment gets messy it is usually an indicator of my internal mind state. It is a helpful indicator that there is something bothering me or something that needs to be dealt with. If I always had someone cleaning up for me, I might miss these types of indicators, and the whole of my performance might degrade (to the new loss of the world as you put it).

I also understand that people in the past have probably said this about all kinds of things that we now have machines or human specialization doing for us. So maybe what is more important is to make sure that while you are in your prime, or getting to your prime, you learn about which of these routine tasks are actually helping you, which you depend on for your mental well being, and better understanding the trade-offs if the decision to never have to do them again comes up. Maybe you don't need your entire house to be the canary in the coal mine - maybe a few house plants that you make sure to water yourself would do the job well enough ...

<comment><USER6> Good comment. I agree, especially in the case of people who have never had to do routine tasks.

Eventually though, you come face to face with the fact that you've only got 24 hours per day, every day, and it is possible to get maxed out. So for someone who has internalized the lessons of hard work, cleanliness, order, structure, whatever - then moving to more broadly expansive planes of action (or just relaxing/recharging/enjoying) seems a good tradeoff. I reckon there's other "canary" indicators - how much you've written lately if you're a writer, how much you've coded lately if you're a programmer, how the financial statements look if you're an investor, and so on.

But yeah, I agree. Good perspective, good discussing here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In the terminology of Paul Erdos, people who had stopped doing math had died. People whose blood had stopped flowing had simply left.

</comment><comment><USER9> Despite Forbes Article, PG Still Reading, Commenting On Hacker News

</comment><comment><USER10> It's true that one of the most productive things to do during a large meeting is program.

<comment><USER11> Often, the most productive thing to do is leave.

The day in my management career that I learned to walk in to a large meeting, say, "<Direct report R> will be making this decision for my team" and then walk out was the day I reclaimed my work life. It may sound sad to IC types, but particularly in large companies managers end up invited to meetings just because some random person wants to ensure official buy-in/approval.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Essay Request PG: How to Present Your Startup. I'd _love_ to know what advice you give to all the YC companies about presenting in front of press and investors.

<comment><USER13> <http://paulgraham.com/investors.html>

<comment><USER12> That wast fast! I thought it usually took you longer to write these :-)

(Kidding of course, thanks for pointing it out. I'm sure I read it at the time but forgot about it.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is there a list of common problems Y founders make?

<comment><USER13> There's a general list of common mistakes here:

<http://paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html>

<comment><USER15> From Mistake 10: "People interested in local events (that one is a perennial tarpit)". Would you please give an example or elaborate a little bit more on that?

I fear I may heading for the tarpit...

<comment><USER13> This is one of those ideas that people think of, notice that no one is already doing it, and decide that there is therefore an opportunity. But the reason no one is already doing it is not that no one has thought of it. It's one of the most common startup ideas. The reason no one is doing it is (I believe) that users don't want it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This article makes me wonder:

status-of-arc-p?

<comment><USER13> I hack a fair amount in it, less on it. I'd hoped to release a new version of News soon, and thus also a new version of Arc. But I am pretty busy with YC.

<comment><USER17> Feature request: readable URLs. /title-of-story, /title-of- story/comment/username, etc.

<comment><USER18> You should just get better at memorizing item id's.

<comment><USER19> Not sure if serious or just mildly autistic...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This should come as no surprise. Writing code is a medium of expression like writing english or drawing or using a piece of software via a GUI.

Like most of us I imagine Paul would do all of these on a daily basis.

<comment><USER21> That's a really interesting thought. Is there any correlation between programming and writing abilities? (not that you were saying that) They're superficially dissimilar, but each is a creative endeavor that deals with formulating ideas and organizing them into a particular flow... It does seem that a number of great programmers are gifted writers, as well, but this could be blogger selection bias.

<comment><USER22> In my experience, a good coder is also a good writer and, if they get over the visceral fear of public speaking, a good speaker.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Love this quote: "That's how we deal with scale," Graham says. "We write more software and hire people."

Also true for startups.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think it is good and very telling that PG still codes. I wonder if he uses arc?

</comment><comment> johnx123-up Long live hacker spirit, long live PG

<comment> johnx123-up Why downvoting? (Will help newbies like me)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I find funny the related post in forbes.com

Repelling Mosquitos After The Hurricane: DEET vs. Dengue Fever</comment>


Ask HN: What Programming Languages/Tools I use to teach a 6 year old  - <AUTHOR>

I am Planning to spend a few days with my six year old niece. What can be the Right Programming Language/ Tools I can use to initiate her into programming..<p>Any nice small project ideas for her would be an added bonus <comment><USER3> I suspect there are people on HN who were introduced to computers at that age. I know there are people with children who have an interest. I've read about them. Invariably, their children become interested when that's what a parent is doing at home. Their interest lets them share their parent's time and passion.

If you want to make a difference in a child's life, take her seriously as a person. Bring the Estes model rocket kit. Go kick a soccer ball. As my son put it to me recently when I was taking one on one basketball too seriously, kid up.

The odds of a six year old getting anything out of programming class - <USER2> that's what is being considered - are orders of magnitude lower than the odds of an adult thinking that a programming class will make a difference in a six year old's life.

<comment><AUTHOR> She is Already interested in what i do... I am not gonna force her do anything..

The odds of her getting some value out of it, I am not sure... That Will be an interesting follow up post may be 10 years later..

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Scratch. <http://scratch.mit.edu/>

It's perfect for teaching the very basics of computing while working towards a fun goal - creating a simple game.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fantastic! Exactly what i was looking for..

<comment><USER5> I believe MIT's Scratch also ships on the Raspberry PI. So if you wanted you could give him his own little computer with the software on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> BASH and using the command line creating files and folders on the command line then launching the desktop to give them something tangible, what ever you you do in the text world can have an effect in the graphics world, my son is six and we use scratch, normally he just wants to draw pictures when he's working with it, but in order to get to scratch he has a few small tasks before he can access the gui like create a work folder etc... to access the desktop "startx". I recall starting with a full court press for him to program, but had to ease up he's 6, 10min explanation allow him to implement the task explained and continue with your fun, at this rate he won't hate it, but will have working knowledge and concepts before we put him in a camp age 8 hopefully.

Funny thing is that he's constantly asking when can we get on the RaspberryPi again.

So the no pressure method is working for him.

1.My apologies for the rant on HN 2.I'm on mobile 3.And this topic hits home

</comment><comment><USER7> <http://hackety.com/>

An all-in-one package to fiddle with the very basics, get a visual result (children LOVE visual stuff way more than CLI), and has some kind of IDE for kids built-in.

</comment><comment><USER8> Take a look at <http://www.alice.org/>

<comment><AUTHOR> A quick look gives an impression that its a bit advanced than what i am looking for... any how will take a thorough look when i have some time.. Thanks</comment></comment>


The Google Anti-Diversity Memo Author Did a Twitter Poll on "Cool" KKK Titles - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/blakemontgomery/damore-kkk-poll-tweets <comment><USER2> Well he's clearly just trying to make a point. But I'd say it's a legitimate one. I should be able to study and admire Nazi or Mongol military tactics without automatically being branded a Nazi or Mongol sympathizer.

<comment><USER3> Sure, but if you study and admire Nazi military tactics while also penning manifestoes defending racial hygiene laws people are going to wonder.

<comment><USER2> Sure, but what he wrote wasn't the equivalent of a manifesto defending a racial hygiene law

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This sounds like a bit from a 90s shock comic, but coming from a guy who has a lot of scrutiny for his views, and pack of people looking to dislike him more, it's no surprise this bombed on twitter. Probably best to keep such thoughts off off social media but I don't think reservation is one of Mr Damore's strong points.

<comment><USER5> Because what we really need is a situation where people self-censor when their views don't overlap with what's acceptable in the mainstream. That would be great, and nothing bad can come of it!</comment></comment>


Publicly available data under the GDPR - <AUTHOR> https://iapp.org/news/a/publicly-available-data-under-gdpr-main-considerations/ <comment><USER2> The GDPR however is about the information being stored being specific for the requirements, but more the consent for information to be stored and the option to not have information stored.

Also the time for which that information can be stored. If it comes from public sources, there needs to be a proven reason why its stored there, and if it is not required, it must be removed.

I wasn't sure of any good example of 'Public Information' from the article..

<comment><AUTHOR> > I wasn't sure of any good example of 'Public Information' from the article..

A decent example would be online reviews. When someone leaves a review on Yelp or Tripadvisor, they're making their name, avatar, city location, interest, opinion on a subject matter—all public.

Now there are websites that scrape these reviews and display them on their own property with their source attributed to the original review (Google and Agoda are examples). And there are web applications like Podium, Yext, etc. which help companies manage their online reviews by scraping them from all the business' listings.

While a user can delete their information from the original data source assuming that the original data source obliges with GDPR, they may not be aware of what other parties have scraped and stored this information in their databases without explicit consent.

Another relevant example could be publishing info on LinkedIn and having it scraped by companies like HiQ.

<comment><USER2> Okay, but that scraped information is not in line with GDPR. The user has not given consent for that information to be stored.

Yelp may be in line, storing identifiable information for particular reasons in order to utilize their services.

But scraping is never in line with GDPR, if you are scraping, which is allowed for example, the information on users and people cannot be stored.

<comment><USER3> Could someone downvoting bilekas comment please eli15 why his comment is wrong?

I'm under the impression that this is exactly the GDPR position: You are not allowed to store and process PII if you don't have the consent of the person identified. I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

<comment><USER4> You'll be happy to hear that _consent_ is but one of six possible legal bases for storing data.

The others are legal requirement, required to perform a contract (with the subject), legitimate interest, vital interest, and public interest.

For scraped data, public interest and legitimate interest are likely to be most salient.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the explanation. I understand that there are other legal reasons allowing storage and processing of (some) PII in (some) cases without given user consent. But does that fit for "scraped PII"?

I'd be very sceptic giving "public interest" or "legitimate interest" as a reason for storing and processing of PII in scraped data: "Public interest" (if not about some VIP or other public figure) mostly seems to be based on summarized data, so you would at least need to anonymize the data immediatly. The (identifiable) name or picture of a random scraped comment is hardly of "legitimate" or "public" interest. And vital interest or legal requirement for scraped data is hard to argue as well in most cases (I'd be even skeptical if used for law enforcement). Moreover, I have a hard time seeing a lot of cases where scraping PII by a company, organization or single person is required to perform a contract with the subject of the PII.

Let's take a concrete example: Why would someone have the right to scrape all my Amazon reviews from the Amazon website under public or legitimate interest and store/process them with my name and my identifiable PII? I can see a public interest in scraping reviews and processing them without the PII, but I don't see a reason to do so without anonymization.

So, I still see the comment holding: Scraped data falls under the GDPR and doesn't allow to store and process PII in most cases.

<comment><USER5> GDPR doesn't work like that, the means of obtaining the data does not relate to the legal basis you have for processing it.

If you process personal data you need at least one legal basis, you decide what that is and you take on certain obligations.

If you rely on "legitimate interest" GDPR requires you to consider the balance of your interest versus the subject's right to privacy. As long as you do so, record your determination and take reasonable steps to mitigate the privacy impact - such as allowing opt out, aging the data out over time etc - and you make good on your obligations it is unlikely an enforcement agency will find against you. It is a subjective decision however and there haven't been many GDPR cases handled by member states yet, so interpretations might change over time and all you can go on is guidance from regulators presently.

I think a good example of where scraping and legitimate interest would be ok is if you are trying to sell a product appropriate to people with <job title>. You go to LinkedIn, pay for a facility that allows you to search for that job title, scrape that data and attempt to contact those people. There is some privacy impact but it is likely that people who make themselves available on a business networking site might reasonably expect to be contacted about things relevant to their job title. As long as they can opt out from your processing of their data and you don't keep it for longer than necessary and meet the other obligations you'll likely be fine (notwithstanding the ePrivacy directive which is a separate thing).

An example where your grounds might be a lot more tenuous would be a recruitment agent scraping your name from a question on StackOverflow and guessing your email address to contact you about a job.

In your Amazon review example, the processor would need to justify capturing your name. For most processing purposes (eg grouping the reviews by author) a hash would suffice.

<comment><USER6> Could you add references to the sections of the GDPR which explain this? The various times I read the GDPR (as well as the local law) I didn't see your explanation in it. References would allow me to determine what I missed.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Only eat oysters in months with an 'r'? - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2019-11-oysters-months-thumb-years.html <comment><USER2> In the US you can ask to see a restaurant's oyster tags. All restaurants are required to keep these tags and to show them on request. If they don't have them or won't produce them, don't eat the oysters. The tags identify when they were harvested, when they expire and where they were harvested down to a specific zone of a designated harvesting region. If there is a harmful bacterial outbreak and a recall is issued then they can only comply if they have their tags and can identify affected product. Every type of mollusk comes with such a tag. If the restaurant is buying them cooked (i.e. canned) then they will have to tell you as much.

EDIT: I now recall one place I've worked that carried canned oysters and each can came with a tag attached as well.

There is no such thing as a guarantee of safety of any kind. With no reliable way of detecting this bacteria until people start getting sick, the smart thing to do is to take advantage of regulation. Also oysters are too amazing to only eat for a third of the year. They taste best chilled on a hot summer day.

<comment><USER3> I've never heard of this - do people actually do this - or is this like requesting to see an elevators maintenance log the is on file in the managers office (e.g. something you can theoretically do, but no one ever does)

<comment><USER2> In restaurants the tags usually go straight to the office. In a butcher shop I handled all of the seafood and we kept a little plastic filing box with the tags in a folder by month. I think there is some rule about keeping them 30 days or so after the stop of sale. We were always able to provide the tags easily because health inspectors check them. I told customers about the tags when they asked about the safety of eating oysters. I don't remember ever being asked for them by a customer but once I turned away a box of either oysters or mussels from a supplier whose tag had fallen off.

Personally I would respect a customer who asks to see the tags once to see if the place is compliant. It's like when a customer corrects someone who asks if the sushi-grade fish is "fresh" or "never frozen" (being frozen at extreme temperature is what makes it legally sushi-grade and the equipped ships are often at sea for months, so "fresh" is just a buzzword). It's encouraging when consumers know the product.

<comment><USER4> Is this a federal thing? Restaurant regulations tend to be local, so I'd be very surprised.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A bacteria dangerous to people with weakened immune systems is more prevalent in warm summer months.

[https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/12/10/669624957/as...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/12/10/669624957/as- climate-changes-is-eating-raw-oysters-getting-riskier)

</comment><comment><USER6> This is regex golf[1]: /r/ matches the eight fall and winter months but not the four summer months (at least by some definition of the seasons based on academic sessions or oysters or whatever).

[1] [https://www.xkcd.com/1313/](https://www.xkcd.com/1313/)

</comment><comment><USER7> In Portugal we have the inverse rule about eating snails(1), even though the snails we eat are not captured "in the wild".

(1) If you're curious, they're boiled and of the small variety, loved by the south half of the country, disgusting to the north half. Here's an illustration: [https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d7/59/35/d7593505490d79f4942c...](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d7/59/35/d7593505490d79f4942c2197a40aeecc.jpg)

<comment><USER8> Looks very much like the ones we also eat where I live. Like baked with herbs and butter, although that variation is probably of French origin. We call them vineyard snails, and we've got a lot of vineyards here! ;-) Now I feel like eating!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Tip: if you're in Colorado and you see "Rocky Mountain Oysters" on the menu, be forewarned that its not really oyster. There are no oysters in the Rocky Mountains, oysters are seafood.

<comment><USER10> Are these synonymous with prairie oysters?

<comment><USER9> Yes, they are the same as prairie oysters. They are rich in zinc, so if you feel a cold coming then it may be a good idea to eat a few of these "oysters".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Oysters spawn as the water warms. In the northern hemisphere this would be the months (in English) without an "r" in it. Spawning requires a lot of energy and the oysters lose weight, texture and flavor. Warm water oysters such as those in the Gulf of Mexico may spawn continuously, albeit at a more leisurely rate. Their flavor tends to be fairly constant year-round although never reaches the peak of a cold water species in the "r" months...

</comment><comment><USER12> The article is light on information about shell rings, so I immediately went to read more about them:

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

</comment><comment><USER13> I had ordered Oysters in Ireland in November. I realized that I might be prone to illness by eating them (every foreign trip has led to some illness for me) but the month 'r' strategy softened me up a bit but was worried that it was a grey zone time period from the warm summer dangers. I learned a lot about Irish oyster farming.

I was sick the next week back in the states lol - a stomach bug.

</comment><comment><USER14> In the Southern Hemisphere we need a completely different rule about oysters.

<comment><USER15> Not sure about where you're from, but aren't most oysters flown in from the northern hemisphere?

<comment><USER16> There's plenty of home-grown oysters in Australia.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, but they're all trying to kill you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Germany has this rule with carp.

</comment><comment><USER19> If I wanted oysters, I could just walk down to the beach and get them. I tried it a while back. Steamed them. Not bad. But I don't really care for the taste of oysters anyway.

I suppose it's nice to know they are there as a potential SHTF food supply.

</comment><comment><USER20> This reminds me of a 'rule' in Poland that you shouldn't get married in a month with an 'r' in it.

<comment><USER21> In Italy you shouldn't get married (or leave for a trip) on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Possibly because those are the days associated with Mars and Venus in romance languages.

<comment><USER22> I thought Mars is the god of marriage, and Venus is the god of venturing. It's right there in the name.

<comment><USER23> According to the OED, the Latin root of "marriage" is of uncertain origin. As far as I'm aware, there's no known connection to Mars.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


10 PHP developer tools to install in Ubuntu 14.04  - <AUTHOR> http://www.leaseweblabs.com/2014/04/10-developer-tools-install-ubuntu-14-04/

<comment><USER2> Sounds like the toolkit of a hack. Not because he's using PHP, but because it's not current for 2014.

The mysqlnd driver has been available since 5.3.0, nearly 5 years ago, and is more efficient than the legacy "mysql" driver. PDO has been around since 5.1.0, 8 1/2 years ago.

So why exactly is this guy installing just the php5-mysql package?

Also, there are limited situations where a remote server needs something like phpmyadmin/adminer for people to access. There is 0 reason to use it locally.

</comment><comment><USER3> tossing out MySQL for Maria just because Oracle bought it is a little shortsighted...

<comment><USER4> Considering #1 is basically: "Eclipse because JetBeans isn't open source" I guess it fits with the theme.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Js2glsl ShaderToy – Source to Source Compiler from JavaScript to GLSL - <AUTHOR> http://jdavidberger.github.io/js2glsl-shadertoy/#8ec0f81132238b7c4128

<comment><USER2> It is neat and a nice implementation. Not sure I'd prefer it in place of real glsl, but I guess it can make shader writer more accessible for some that prefer JavaScript and have reduced use cases (because of the lack of flexibility that comes with using a translator like this.)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some more examples from here: [https://github.com/jdavidberger/js2glsl/blob/master/readme.m...](https://github.com/jdavidberger/js2glsl/blob/master/readme.md)

Saving creates an anonymous gist for the shadertoy, if you run into any issues please do report them with the url! It is all in early stages, so I'm sure bugs abound.

</comment><comment><USER3> Related: [https://github.com/xml3d/shade.js](https://github.com/xml3d/shade.js) & [http://typedarray.org/shaderdsl-js-javascript-based-dsls- for...](http://typedarray.org/shaderdsl-js-javascript-based-dsls-for-gpu- shaders/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Also: [https://github.com/stackgl/glslify](https://github.com/stackgl/glslify)

It doesn't do any js -> glsl stuff, but it is another packaging and reuse approach for GLSL

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's a pretty neat hack, but I can't think of a worse language for shader programming than javascript :-) Dynamic typing and closures are useful in some domains... but I wouldn't want to run that sort of logic per-pixel on a display with 14 million pixels. Plus declaring the types ahead of time is really important. (highp vs. lowp, type sizes, etc.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Since this drops directly into GLSL, it can't/doesn't support dynamic types or closures -- types are inferred into their GLSL equivalents.

I do agree that being able to control precision is important, and as of yet I'm not sure the best way to implement that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is very cool. I'd have very serious concerns about using it in place of GLSL for a real project, but as a toy it's very cool. Seems to generate reasonable code as well.</comment>


Introducing Internationalized Domain Name (IDN) Support - <AUTHOR> https://letsencrypt.org//2016/10/21/introducing-idn-support.html <comment><USER2> I assume this is Unicode in domain names?

I can't wait until I start getting phishing mails from domains that use unicode glyph collision attacks to make them look absolutely legitimate.

Oh, that's not a g in gmail.com, it's some East Asian character on the ass end of the Unicode character map that just happens to look exactly like a g.

<comment><USER3> It doesn't exactly work that way. Registrars only allow codepoints in specific ranges (the allowed ranges being different depending on the TLD)¹, so it ends up not being an issue (full FAQ here²).

Also, more information on internationalized domain names here³.

――――――

¹ — [https://www.dynadot.com/community/help/question/IDN-not- regi...](https://www.dynadot.com/community/help/question/IDN-not-registered)

² — [https://www.dynadot.com/community/help/section.html?category...](https://www.dynadot.com/community/help/section.html?category_id=11)

³ — [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalized_domain_name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalized_domain_name)

<comment><USER4> These rules are designed to prevent you mixing codepoints from different languages, so you couldn't register something that looked like gmail but with the English 'a' replaced with a Cyrillic 'a'. However, if the name you're trying to emulate can be reproduced entirely within another language's character set, you can still impersonate an existing domain.

For example, it may surprise you to know that [http://www.еа.com](http://www.еа.com) and [http://www.ea.com](http://www.ea.com) are two different websites, despite the URLs appearing identical. Edge at least renders the IDN version in its punycode form, but in Firefox and Chrome the URLs are indistinguishable. It's quite possible that's a result of my messing with the IDN settings in the past, though - I'm curious what others see for those links.

<comment><USER3> Ah, that's pretty interesting… wasn't aware of that loophole!

Interestingly, Firefox 46 does show them both in non-Punycode form in the address bar (so they both look the same) while Safari 9 _doesn't_ ¹; it shows the first URI as its Punycode representation.

――――――

¹ — [http://i.imgur.com/rrNVlIj.png](http://i.imgur.com/rrNVlIj.png)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't understand: why is this a feature that had to be added? IDNs are just xn--*, right?

<comment><USER6> Their initial certification as a CA was contingent on disallowing IDNs, probably because they weren't yet fully prepared to recognize potential misuse of IDNs (like homoglyph attacks).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Yes! I've been waiting for this for quite a while now. Can finally get a certificate for my .みんな domain.</comment>


Being Bold - <AUTHOR> http://bubs.co/being-bold

<comment><USER2> Marketplace as a Service? If that's what this is, and it sounds like it, that would be fantastic. For the last year or two we've thought that a marketplace would be a great potential fit for our app, but simply don't have the resources to build and maintain the infrastructure ourselves.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome. Apply for a key here: <https://creativemarket.com/platform/api>

<comment><USER2> Done, thanks Bubs. Can't wait to get ahold of this. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The Second Life Marketplace (for the virtual world Second Life) is something like this Photoshop Extension, enabling any SL user to sell their creations to other SL users.

<https://marketplace.secondlife.com>

Unity (the game engine and game editor) also has a marketplace, called the Unity Asset Store. It's integrated right into their editor / IDE.

<http://unity3d.com/asset-store/>

</comment><comment><USER4> Sounds like a cool idea. Best of luck with it!

</comment><comment><USER5> Wonder if you can tie in with Adobe to verify authenticity of CS* product before allowing purchase.

</comment><comment><USER6> Love it! Love it!</comment>


Alpine.js: A minimal framework for composing JavaScript behavior in your markup - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/alpinejs/alpine <comment><USER2> Hi, creator of Alpine here.

Alpine comes out of the server-rendered-app (Laravel/Rails/Django) and static site context. It's important to recognize that.

To me, Alpine fills a hole in between vanilla JS (or jQuery) and large v-dom frameworks like Vue/React.

I personally think the complexity/overhead of Vue/React/Etc. doesn't justify its value in a lot of cases for me. Often, I'm adding simple interactions to server-rendered pages. Things like dropdowns, modals, dynamic inputs, other reactive doo-dads...

By using something like Alpine, I get to keep the data-driven reactivity and declarative template expressions of VueJs, but without all the overhead. (and without a virtual-dom)

I thought Stimulus would be the framework for me, but I personally felt I was doing too many manual DOM-manipulations and my code felt more imperative than I like.

In my opinion, Alpine is unique in these ways:

\- You can use it without maintaining a separate JS file or <script> tag (although you can easily break code out into separate files and such if you need to)

\- It doesn't use a virtual-dom at all and uses MutationObserver to react to DOM manipulations from outside JS (something like Turbolinks, third-party libs, or your own hand-written JS). This makes it very resilient. It won't crumble if you touch the real DOM.

\- It's lightweight. It's under 5kb g-zipped.

\- It has a really nice API for listening for and dispatching native browser Event/CustomEvents rather than using its own event system. This makes it a really powerful tool for interacting with third-party libs.

It's not a tool for everyone. It's not a Vue or React killer. (although it might be a Stimulus killer lol)

If it speaks to you, great. You and I are similar.

If not, understandable too. Different tools for different contexts.

Thanks everyone for chiming in!

<comment><USER3> Hey! Cool project, thanks for sharing it with the world!

If I may offer a suggestion, you should perhaps expand on the rationale in the readme to include some of what you say in this comment. I personally find this to be a very interesting library for rapid prototyping, so if you're looking for use cases that's another one for you.

</comment></comment><comment> lf-non Pretty much all mainstream frontend libraries have moved away from dom based templating (or augmenting dynamic behavior through attributes) for good reason. It simply becomes unmaintainable for anything more complex than basic interactivity.

This approach can't leverage type systems for javascript (like TS, BS, flow etc.)

It is easy to end up with mistakes that don't surface as javascript errors and are swallowed completely.

You hit weird quirks when browser injects additional nodes (eg. tbody in tables) or restructures invalid markup (eg. div inside p).

Ostensibly this approach would help with progressive enhancement, but too often careless usage results in flashes of broken UI which would then fix themselves when javascript kicks in. Then you need hacks to circumvent those with hacks like ng-cloak.

Also, in an ideal world this would help with handoff when working with web- designers who are familiar with only html/css but that rarely happens in practice. Every time a web-designer rearranges things in the dom hierarchy the parent-child associations break and that again needs comprehensive testing.

Having worked with applications written using knockoutjs as well angular 1 (both of which used similar approaches) which organically grew over multiple years and (to put gently) didn't age gracefully, I wouldn't recommend this approach to anyone.

If you can't (or don't want to) go down the road of a full SPA but do want to build interactive applications with non-trivial amounts of javascript, lit- element [1], Vue [2], Strudel [3] and SPF [4] are much better solutions.

[1] [https://lit-element.polymer-project.org/](https://lit-element.polymer- project.org/)

[2] [https://vuejs.org/](https://vuejs.org/)

[3] [https://strudeljs.org/](https://strudeljs.org/)

[4] [https://github.com/youtube/spfjs](https://github.com/youtube/spfjs)

<comment><USER4> Alpine.js really was created for javascript sprinkles, where even vue.js might be overkill. For example, if you have an app, but you need to have dropdowns and modals. Then something like alpine.js can be nice.

So it is actually not intended for things more complex than basic interactivity. And what you build with it, should be simple enough you don't need any type system.

For people interested, there is a good episode on FullStackRadio on the topic [http://www.fullstackradio.com/132](http://www.fullstackradio.com/132)

<comment><USER5> What about Svelte as a light-weight framework -- it compiles itself out (there is no library included in the final app).

<comment><USER6> Svelte is great but requires a compilation step, which is probably the kind of complexity that potential users of Alpine.js are trying to avoid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> To anyone feeling a desire to reflexively dismiss Alpine.js, I'd _strongly_ suggest taking an hour or two rewriting a toy project that uses Stimulus JS into Alpine and give it a fair comparison.

If you haven't ever used Stimulus, then I'd be doubly cautious about making a snap judgement. If you're the type who writes every single site as a SPA, then this library isn't for you.

Alpine is gaining traction quickly in the Laravel world and isn't going to be disappearing in the near future. On the contrary it's likely to expand and gain adoption in other MVC framework ecosystems. I, for one, am seriously considering for my next Phoenix project.

<comment><USER8> We're currently using a combination of Intercooler, Stimulus, and React components in our MPA depending on the interactivity and complexity needs of each component in question - so we're certainly not in the SPA camp.

However having listened to the Full Stack Radio episode and trying Alpine out, I'm not convinced on writing interdependent JS fragments in HTML attributes.

For our team Stimulus feels more robust - store state in the DOM, which then calls full JS/TS classes to do the computation - keeping the separation of concerns intact. We can also make use of Typescript typing, linting, and bundling of our Stimulus controllers, and test the behaviour more easily.

Exciting to see more options in the non-SPA world tho!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Looks similar to Basecamp's Stimulus[0], with a pinch of original AngularJS 1.x[1]. Care to explain the differences?

[0][https://stimulusjs.org/](https://stimulusjs.org/)

[1][https://angularjs.org/](https://angularjs.org/)

<comment><USER4> While the spirit of using a simple library for javascript sprinkles to enahnce your app is similar, stimulus.js and alpine.js are quite different:

Alpine.js has the x-data property, to keep state that you can manipulate, in stimulus all state is directly in the DOM. So for example to make a modal with stimulus, you would add a class to show a hidden overlay. In Alpine you would use a x-show property, that reacts to a change in the data of the component.

So the big difference is that alpine has a reactive data context as a first class citizen. In a way it is actually much more similar to AngularJS 1.x than to stimulus, with the idea that it is really intended only to be used to enhance existing html, not to build whole apps with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting, I like the _HTML-first_ attitude and the quote "Think of it like Tailwind for JavaScript.".

It's also amazing how fast the [1] demo is, I forget how fast webpages can be without Javascript rendering the HTML...

<comment><USER11> I don't think it's even the fault of the JS frameworks rendering time, it's all the network latency between asynchronous requests and assets loading in that makes modern websites feel janky.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> How does this compare to Intercooler.js?

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

<comment><USER13> Having used Intercooler a few times now, it feels like the worst of all worlds since you now have to write and return HTML at AJAX endpoints and keep that HTML synced with the rest of your HTML (e.g. consider CSS) instead of just returning data from an API endpoint.

You end up with a bunch of made-for-Intercooler endpoints instead of thoughtful, general, data API endpoints.

<comment><USER8> We're using intercooler on our current site and find it easier to keep the API side of the application separate from the HTML-generating MPA side.

Internally they both call out to common code, but we like to keep the API-side RESTful and aren't so concerned about REST for the HTML side, both the full page views and intercooler-specific partials.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> On the other hand, if you are not opposed to converting to React in the long run[0], but it looks too complex for merely adding some interactivity to a page: it can be simple to incorporate just a few widgets with it, a fact somewhat obscured by extensive documentation.

For a minimal start there's no need to adopt JSX, wrap your head around hooks and functional components, or deal with Webpack configuration. Just add ReactDOM and React scripts, alias React.createElement() to something short like el() for use in render() methods, compose your components and render them at the desired root if user agent has JavaScript enabled[1].

You have the freedom to move the whole page to React later, implement server- side rendering and so on, but you don't have to.

That said, yes, you will be pulling React, which will consume extra bandwidth, and to stay crawler-friendly your React components ideally should replace and improve functionality already provided by the static page in a more basic way.

[0] Perhaps you can see your application growing complex enough and you suspect React would be easy to hire for if you need additional help, etc.

[1] To preserve compatibility with older browsers but write components as modern classes, you could add a simple frontend build step that runs Babel on JS files with a single preset "@babel/env" specifying your target browsers.

<comment><USER15> > For a minimal start there's no need to adopt JSX, wrap your head around > hooks and functional components, or deal with Webpack configuration.

Unless you've already learned React with class components and lifecycle methods, I suspect it simpler to just not learn them and learn functional components and hooks. It's extra stuff to wrap your head around if you learned the old way first, sure, but it's not fundamentally more complex on its own.

<comment><USER16> _I suspect it simpler to just not learn them and learn functional components and hooks._

The official react docs and tutorial don't help here since it introduces class components first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Looks like client side scriplets - html(structure) mixed up with code(behavior). Can lead to spaghetti code just like it did in the old days (pre JSP) on server side java.

<comment><USER7> That's remarkably similar to what I heard people saying about React in 2014.

<comment><USER18> The criticism isn't really accurate for react though. React only mixes markup and code in the sense that markup is produced through function calls rather than as the result of processing arbitrary strings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Seems useful for interactivity on sites using static site generators like Jekyll.

<comment><USER20> That plus server-side web app frameworks like rails, Django etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't see too many situations when using this and saving few KBs is worth it over using full featured Vue.js.

</comment><comment><USER22> If your page logic is small and trivial, anything goes. This thing, svelte, knockout, even jQuery, even bare JavaScript event handlers.

As your logic grows, you need a one-way binding to preserve the app's maintainability and your sanity. Hence React (normally with Redux), Mithril, cycle.js, Elm, etc.

</comment><comment><USER23> What an awful idea:

\- first, it is not obvious whether an attribute affects something or not. How are you supposed to know what this or that attribute does?

\- second, if you made a typo, there is no error messages

\- third, no there is no namespaces and attributes can conflict with attributes from other libraries

What's wrong with good old inline event handlers like onclick? With them you can just click a called function name and see its source.

<comment><USER24> > What's wrong with good old inline event handlers like onclick? With them you > can just click a called function name and see its source.

I haven't read the source of Alpine but I'm assuming the inline declarations are abstractions that are moved out of the DOM execution context and therefore can be cached. Real inline event handlers will actually be evaluated and executed in every page load, which will affect performance, especially with inside loops.</comment></comment>


Mac App Store UI is so hideous that it makes me want to kick a swan - <AUTHOR> http://reverttosaved.com/2011/01/06/mac-app-store-ui-is-so-hideous-that-it-makes-me-want-to-kick-a-swan/ <comment><USER3> If it makes you sad because Apple is no longer devoting thousands of pixels at the top of each window to a big "drag this window" control, you'd better brace yourself, because the next step for many consumer applications is to have windows that _cannot be dragged at all._

This design looks like an iPad screen to me. Did the implications of Apple's stated mission to "make the Mac more like the iPad" not sink in? The iPad doesn't have draggable windows. And putting big title bars on a nondraggable window is a waste of pixels.

As for the critique of various shades of gray and nonscalable text and laggy performance: It is _launch day_ , people. We are lucky the app works at all. (It apparently doesn't quite work for everyone; those bugs are going to need to be fixed first.) It is hell on earth to meet a Steve Jobs launch date, I'm grateful to all those who made it happen, and I'd like to encourage the rest of the peanut gallery to be patient and see if revision 1.0.1 brings some improvements.

<comment><USER4> I highly doubt that that Apple will remove dragable windows. Their iPad- ification of applications _is_ the full-screen mode that can be toggled.

More likely: a bar-wide drag handler that takes precedence over widget clicking.

<comment><USER3> Sure, that is what I meant. My guess is that this app is giving us an early vision of what apps will look like in the upcoming full-screen mode. When that mode comes out, not long from now, the App Store will continue to look exactly as it does now.

Why design the window twice inside of a year when designing it once will do?

Of course Apple won't take away OS support for draggable windows. That would be silly. What will happen, though, if the new full-screen mode takes off, is that _app developers_ will redesign their windows to be more suitable for full-screen. And that may well involve smaller or nonexistent title bars.

<comment><USER4> That's already happened to some extent. Xcode and Final Cut both run in multi- window yet effectively fullscreen mode, but act as IDEs for their respective workflows. In fact, this IDE mentality could be the new big divisive topic in the Mac world: Coda _vs_ Textmate and Safari and CSSEdit and Versions and... Really, it's the same war as Vim vs Emacs ( _somewhat_ ), just with GUIs. Does the application need to be full-screen and kitchen sink, or multi-window and able to integrate with others?

I do agree, this could be a nuclear, apocalyptic scenario. But while photo, video and code workflows can be condensed nicely into one app, traditional mac workflows have been multi-window, multi-app in that most common tasks aren't IDE-oriented, and constructed from many different apps running on the Mac _platform._

But, to counter your point about app laziness: most mac developers came to the platform to make _really good apps._ If it was about just throwing something easy out there, they'd have run to Windows or enterprise apps already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No offense, but this blog is so hideous it makes me want to kick a panda.

<comment><USER6> Serious, looks like the top of a hot dog.

<comment><USER7> Reminds me of Windows 3.x's Hot Dog Stand theme.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So what. The actual problem the whole idea is solving is a revolutionary improvement. And this is just v1.

The "interface" problem is not custom controls or back buttons. The interface problem is installing software. That's the interface most average people stumble on. That's where computers suck.

So yeah, some of the UI in the Mac App Store app feels a bit off, but the stuff that matters - one click install of great apps onto your Mac - <USER2> beautifully. That's the interface triumph.

<comment><USER9>
      >The actual problem the whole idea is solving is a revolutionary improvement.

Last I checked, this was a solved problem in Ubuntu. What makes it revolutionary now that Apple's done it?

<comment><USER10> Most people don't use Ubuntu.

Come on, man, it's a _Linux Distro_ – how many of our moms are installing those?

Plus there's the whole easy monetization thing for developers.

This is like saying Dropbox's functionality was a solved problem thanks to rsync.

<comment><USER11> Sure it's gaming-specific, but more prior art: <http://steampowered.com>

<comment><USER12> It's one click and a password to buy from the Mac App Store whereas Steam takes five clicks and no password (if you have it set to remember).

Apple's store is no revolution in my book, far from it, but at least they put that Amazon One-click patent to good use and made the process easy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A off-topic question:

This guys website looks like a nacho-colored version of Daring Fireball, complete with a star in the logo and for the favicon. Is there some star motif in the Mac world I'm not aware of?

<comment><USER14> Its like a modification of classic communist propaganda graphic design. Orange, yellow, and black, the star, strong font styling. Kind of weird way to design a blog.

<comment><USER13> Yes, I think you're right. As a colorblind dude, the colors work well for me, but I wonder how they look to the color-ungimped.

<comment><USER15> > _"but I wonder how they look to the color-ungimped."_

awful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> However, the store feels very snappy, which is a welcome change from the iTunes Store being very slow even on a Core i7 machine.

<comment><USER17> Definitely. At first, I thought 'wow, that's fast, but of course this is not an iOS device', but then I remembered that iOS Store through iTunes was not this fast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Instead, you must aim for and click specific blank areas between the various navigation items. This reduces usability and also obliterates accessibility for users who have less dexterity."

I highly doubt that, given that the standard size for the dragging bar on in OS X is only 22 pixels tall, while the bar on the Mac App Store appears to be about 54 pixels tall. The increased vertical size would seem to make up for the smaller horizontal draggable area, from an accessibility standpoint.

</comment><comment><USER19> Apple's clearly trying to conserve vertical pixels given that they are moving to wider screens. That's what they did with the new iTunes.

Secondly the navigation can be handled with swipe gestures, which is where Lion is headed.

</comment><comment><USER20> I generally agree with your points, however, if I recall correctly, iTunes's window controls/style changed slightly before Leopard, and when Leopard was released, everything lost its white/pinstripe style and looked like iTunes. I think what we're looking at it is what every window in Lion will look like.

On the issue of dragging windows, I think that Apple is a bad boy that doesn't care about convention and wants to re-invent this. Right now, users have to know that only a specific narrow upper border is draggable. With any blank space replacing that tradition, users don't have to think about where they grab a window as long as they hit something gray that isn't a button.

<comment><USER21> Maybe it's just me, but I automatically dragged the window by the empty space between the icons - and it works as expected. Hopefully they have done some testing on this to feel safe enough about the change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Really? That bad? I'm not so sure the swans deserve such treatment. While there are some questionable design decisions in the UI, I'm more concerned with the UI performance (sluggish scrolling, interactions, etc).

<comment><USER21> I have a 4 year old machine and no sluggish scrolling, unlike with iTunes. Is this a common problem?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Just tried it. What I don't understand is this:

To manage apps on my iphone/ipad/ipod I use iTunes. In iTunes I go to an app store if I want to install a new app on those devices.

To access what I perceive to be essentially a form of the same store but for Mac software, I use a dedicated application that now forms part of the Operating System's update management. This makes no sense to me.

Does this mean that we'll start to see iphone/pod/pad management moving towards the mac app store and a (hopefully) slimmer itunes?

<comment><USER24> Certainly. Every time I see a major iTunes update I'm surprised they haven't fixed it. The pimple's ready to pop.

<comment><USER23> I hope so. I don't mind iTunes as a music player on a Mac. It's as a central point of navel lint I have the problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I hope it's just something temporary released to meet the deadline or that the app was designed for new Lion UI and that's just Leopardized downgraded version.

In Mac apps adherence of HIG and use of standard Cocoa widgets is very important, and poorly thought out/unnecessary deviations are frowned upon — at least for 3rd party developers.

Many parts of OS X/Cocoa are very polished, so it's disheartening that Apple releases something that's debatable between hideous or barely good enough.

</comment><comment><USER26> Other things that the App Store lacks (again):

\- A wishlist or a very simple way to mark apps that you are willing to buy in the near future.

\- Price tags on every product. Not just the one's you haven't purchased. As I already have the iWork suite installed, I can't read the prices of those articles.

\- Good autocomplete. The app store universe is a finite one, not a chaotic infinite one such as the entire web. Therefore, the autocomplete should respond accordingly. Terms that are _actually_ app names should have some visual cue.

\- A prominent search box. To be fair, they have the search box in the conventional place. However, being discovery on the the priorities of the store, search should be more visible.

\- And let's not talk about recommendations. If Amazon is a tiger in terms of targeted recomendations, Apple's App Store is not more than a snail.

<comment><USER27> Minimum viable product.

<comment><USER28> Apple is a startup now?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > People complaining about the Mac app store interface are missing the point. > Think about the current install interface - DMG, dragging, etc.

@jasonfried [<https://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/23111721640009728>]

</comment><comment><USER30> Another change: the red X control quits, not just closes window.

iTunes did the horizontal window controls first. If you don't like these, wait till you try Tweetie 2 aka Twitter for Mac. It makes them smaller and black.

There's more than enough blank area to drag, enough there could have been a bit more space between the window controls and the nav back/fwd buttons. However, it feels like this is a move towards more standard window shapes and icon locations between the desktop and the iDevices. Everything's right where you'd expect it to be on an iPad.

<comment><USER31> To be fair, most single-window apps on OS X already quit when the window is closed. This is typically the desired behavior, especially for those less computer-savvy.

<comment><USER32> OTOH, how can you tell if it is single-window or not?

iTunes is not, closing it leaves it running. iPhoto is, closing it shuts it down. Both look pretty much the same.

<comment><USER15> I get the feeling everything not aimed at professionals is going to begin moving toward the single-window and full-screen experiences. Likely in a slow march as opposed to all-at-once, but it seems inevitable to me.

Regular people never really took advantage of the MDI anyway. (Not that I blame them, overlapping windows made a mess of everything.)

<comment><USER33> >(Not that I blame them, overlapping windows made a mess of everything.)

Yet this move is happening exactly as extremely high resolution displays that can easily handle multiple side-by-side windows are becoming commonplace.

<comment><USER15> And after multitasking research has shown how poorly most humans handle it. And after computer use research has shown how poorly most humans handle MDI. And after several products from several manufacturers have proven the change to focused-single-task to be not only palatable, but even _preferable_ and _popular_.

MDI is a great thing for a certain class of people. And I'm talking about a trend in software for _everyone else_. Those people weren't a high-res monitor away from becoming power-users. It was never going to happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> A note on the upper left hand 'control' buttons. Using the graphite theme there are no colours or controls obviously visible, so i didnt even notice the difference.

It took a comment on this blog post for me to notice that iTunes has vertical buttons. I hope that is a fair indication how often I even look at those buttons.

<comment><USER35> You never minimize or close a window?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> The title bar is swan-kick-worthy, but the price thing is pretty easy to read on my system.

</comment><comment><USER37> That will not hinder its success, heh. Vanity blogpost. Look at HN, Reddit, ebay etc. to see how much design really matters. OSX is pretty but I'd argue it's not the neat icons that make it a success. Tsts.. Designers and their worldview.

<comment><USER38> Arguably, HN and Reddit's minimal design are part of their success/charm. They have a minimalist style that doesn't get in the way of posting, and doesn't needlessly change.

<comment><USER39> 100% agreed. I'm sick of self-professed design experts slamming Reddit's design. Reddit has one of the best designs of the sites I use regularly. It's one of my favorites to navigate around and read. That's a lot more than can be said about Craig Grannell's eye melting blog.

Designers need to pull their heads out of their collective arses and realize that design is not just coordinated colors and the latest gradient button trends.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Has anyone tried the link system? A quick try gives a link that can only be opened in another instance of the mac store, call be naive, but I was hoping something similar to pages on apples site considering iOS links.

</comment><comment><USER40> One of the more poorly thought out and articulated articles I've read in a long time on Hacker News. Sad, really.

</comment><comment><USER41> The icon is horrible too.

<comment><USER42> Looks too much like the iTunes icon in the dock. Should've gone with a different color. In iOS, iTunes is purple and the App Store is blue.

<comment><USER12> They both remind me of the Start menu icon in Windows 7.

<comment><USER41> I haven't thought about that yet, but you are correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones... his blog looks terrible.</comment>


I want to get into the startup industry, where do I start? - <AUTHOR> About me: I'm a 3rd year in law school. I'm majoring in tax and intellectual property and I'm very much interested in Entrepreneurship. I am 2 credits short of the required amount to practice before the US Patent Office.
I am tech-savvy, but to an extent. I've dabbled in C++ and Java (beginner skill) and web design (beginner as well). I subscribed to teamtreehouse and I've been learning quite a bit! I enjoy the videos and have worked my way through all the HTML and CSS videos. I've watched videos on iOS development as well.
What I want to do: I want to build upon some ideas but I'm sick and tired of reading books. I like the field of law but I find myself reading tech news and reading about the newest technologies more than law.
I'm finishing up school but I want to work in the tech field. I want to gain experience in startups both in the legal and technical aspect. There are very few opportunities for entrepreneurship in my school thus I'm reaching here for hands on experience. I cannot offer legal advice until I'm a full-fledged attorney but I do want to volunteer and help out regardless of whether its paid or unpaid.
If I don't take some sort of initiative I won't be able to get into the field. <comment><USER2> I'm going to be the asshole that points out that startups aren't an industry. They're businesses that operate in many industries. If you want to work with/for/building a startup, do that—but pick an industry you know something about or want to learn about. If you want to work in IP law with startups as your customers, that's a viable business as well—but your industry is IP law, not startups. Why make a big deal out of the distinction? Because if you're only focused on the startup, you're already going to fail.

<comment><USER3> A startup is not a industry. It's a way of doing things (mostly business) and looking at things differently and trying to improve/optimize them... a 'Culture' if you will. At a startup you can create a company that will belong in a specific industry. Let's say gaming, security, banking, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Take the plunge, how about signing up for a hackathon? TechCrunch Disrupt is a good one.

You can start off on the tech side by doing small projects for people in your neighbourhood. Maybe a new store has opened? One of my early contracts was "a cake a month for a year" in exchange for a site. There's probably also local meetups in your area of tech people. If not, maybe move to a city where there's a more substantial community.

On the tech + law side, there are in-house departments at the big tech companies. That was my 2L summer job.

I'm also a third year law student ("2L" above...) and do substantial amounts of web programming on the side. Send me an email if you want to talk further about how to get started on programming.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am interested in what you've done so far, I don't see a way to e-mail you though, or I'm just retarded.

If you don't mind me asking where did you intern for you 2L summer? I spent most of my time doing clinical work and finishing up MPRE stuff.

<comment><USER4> Apparently I'm the retard, email doesn't show up in profile.

email@example.com.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Since you plan on becoming an attorney, you could work with a law firm that specializes in helping the startup industry. You should reach out to Scott Edward Walker, @ScottEdWalker, at <http://walkercorporatelaw.com/> and introduce yourself.

I follow him on twitter and he has a number informative videos on the net regarding startups and more. He also maintains a blog on his website.

If you started your law career helping startups then an opportunity to transition to the startup side might present itself. It is a simple matter of creating opportunities for yourself by positioning yourself strategically.

</comment><comment><USER6> Hi bonesinger, I am a web developer from Vietnam, and I've always wanted to be part of some startup in the US, seriously. I read lots of news on what's happening in the SV. Yet it's difficult for me to get started since I don't have connections in the US.

What I have to offer is my technical expertise, a very cool social web app framework that I've been building for the last 3 years. How cool is it? OK, let's say, I can build a quora clone within 1 month, fast and scalable. It's using Mongodb, redis, nodejs in case you're curious and has been applied to some websites that I probably shouldn't mention here yet.

You need more technical expertise and are lazy to learn it, and that's definitely what I'm good at. Also, from what you mentioned, my guts is telling me you've got enough passion and business skills to promote/run a product. That's exactly what I need for some of my ideas that I'm about to do.

So, to sum up, here's my take to your question: You can leave the development to me (or you can develop with me) and start thinking about other business- related stuff to make it success. That way it might work out for both of us. I've been thinking about this kind of collaboration a long long time before I read your thread but this is my first time I write about it.

If you're interested in this collaboration, please contact me at : { my HN nick name } @ gmail . Thanks for reading & bye for now

</comment><comment><USER7> Go work for a startup founded by the absolute best people you can find. Even if it tanks, you will learn a ton.

<comment><AUTHOR> Aye, that's the plan. I've been reading a few books about startups. I've read Venture Deals and I have worked with multiple agreements like stock purchase, asset purchase, note purchase, term loan credit agreements.

I have worked with fictitious clients in helping them incorporate, plan a business, initiate a stock purchase, asset purchase, and lastly, how to handle taxation.

I'm midway through The Lean Startup and unfortunately, I realize the startup field is dominated by engineers with inventions. I understand the purpose of funds like Ycombinator and techstars is to provide guidance for engineers and to help them understand the non-engineer aspects that go with running a company. I want some of that experience! They just don't offer it in my law school.

I've worked in a clinical program with real inventors, but it was directed towards helping them with trademarks and patents and not so much as helping them plan a business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If I were you, I would try something like a Startup Weekend. They are a great opportunity to meet other entrepreneurs and potentially see interesting concepts. They are also a great way to experiment some of the ups and downs of entrepreneurship on a very short period of time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahhhh, I just checked, missed one for my location! Thanks for the info, I will be on the lookout!

<comment><USER9> I second the suggestion for StartupWeekend. You can come and go as you please, so if you're not digging the vibe, you can split. Plus, even if you stay for the entire time, you've only invested one single weekend.

If you don't want to wait for the event to hit your hometown again, attend one in a nearby city.

Also, I'd go become a member of a co-working office space and hang out there and mix and mingle. Startup folks and the nicest and most-helpful I've ever met.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Be sure to check out: <http://railsforzombies.org/> and <http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ruby-on-rails-tutorial-book>. (both are free)

</comment><comment><USER11> just did a startup weekend in Vancouver.. brilliant experience.. you should definitely do it. Will open up your eyes to a lot of possibilities.. you don't necessarily have to be an engineer/developer/designer.

<comment><USER12> Where in Vancouver? What's the name of it? I've been wanting to check one out.

<comment><USER13> <http://startupweekend.org/events/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Hi bonsinger - I practiced IP law for 18 months before leaving practice to do a startup. If you'd like to chat about my experience, email me, it's in my profile.

</comment><comment><USER15> i actually have a legal startup idea you might be interested in, but i am not a programmer.. i simply come up with ideas design web and phone mockups and find domain name and create logo right now.. i am looking for a kick ass programmer.. LegalSnap.com is the name of the idea. Another idea is called LegalAsk.com...

</comment><comment><USER16> In a relatively similar position and would love to hear any thoughts on this as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Heh, I'm torn between tech and law! I like both and I've got ideas but not enough skill or time right now to complete them.

<comment><USER17> Why not apply technology to the legal field?

It's likely a field that could use a good dose of technological innovation. Do your apprenticeship or whatever they call it in the legal field learn what problems the legal profession has and then create some technology to solve it.

As for myself I've built a iOS apps to address certain calculations that are built into the law. I was thinking of building some iPad apps to help manage cases. eDiscovery is a pretty huge field already. Did you know that it's not uncommon for emails to be converted to TIFFs to be submitted to court? What about apps that could help lawyers find better case law (crowd sourced case law?)? Or perhaps apps for boutique firms.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea eDiscovery is a big deal and in demand. I've been looking around to get a job as a legal counsel to a tech company, but in-house counsel positions usually require an attorney who is experienced and has worked in the field.

<comment><USER18> HP has a program where they hire new law school grads. See [http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/hp_opts_for_training_...](http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/hp_opts_for_training_its_own_in- house_lawyers_hires_four_law_grads) .

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Hey, e-mail me at email@example.com. Thanks -Zeeshan

</comment><comment><USER20> "I'm very interested in love, here are my credentials ... "

Are you VIRGIN??

<comment><USER20> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSlwuafyUUo>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! That was a pretty good video. Bookmarked.</comment></comment></comment>


New Study Links GMOs to Cancer, Liver/Kidney Damage and Severe Hormonal Disruption - <AUTHOR> http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/07/15/new-study-links-gmos-to-cancer-liverkidney-damage-severe-hormonal-disruption/

<comment><USER2> Interesting, but it comes from CE, which tends to publish articles with titles like _10 Jaw Dropping (Literally) Pictures That Will Make You Question Your Entire Existence_ , along with uncritical / distorted interpretations of research findings claiming to verifiably demonstrate precognition, etc. Got any other sources?</comment>