Ask HN: What software do you pay for personally? - <AUTHOR> - Spotify<p>- NordVPN<p>- 1Password<p>- iCloud Storage<p>- Netflix <comment><USER4> In order of happiness/perceived value for the money:

Bvckup2 ([https://bvckup2.com/](https://bvckup2.com/))

Houdini Indie

Redshift3D <USER2>
Windows 10

Jetbrains Complete Pack

Steam games (almost universally when discounted during sales)

Netflix

Adobe Creative Cloud

I suppose it isn't Jetbrains' fault I've switched to native vim, otherwise their suite is fantastic value.

<comment><USER5> Mind pontificating on what is so amazing about the backup software? Doesn't seem to come with any cloud storage and seems to do basically what rsync does.

<comment><USER4> With pleasure: It's basically rsync or robocopy for Windows, but wrapped up in a nice GUI with additional features.

I've used both and still use rsync on a daily basis, and one thing I don't miss is meticulously sifting through command line syntax in order to ensure all my data isn't accidentally destroyed.

More to the point, the amazing part is the ethos and quality to which Bvckup2 is built. It's one of those rare gems that's essentially software excellence. It's fast, it's lean, it's very narrow in scope, and it has a mirror-shine polish. Software like that is a thing of beauty these days.

It's made my backup situation on Windows an absolute pleasure to deal with, so that's why I recommend it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> safeplanet-fesa NordVPN is a data mining fraud, that is inadequately aggressively advertised from every corner, that owns many websites with VPN rankings, that lies about being in Panama, that decreases your privacy much by retaining logs. The only valid reason to use it would be to avoid geo-blocking. If you use NordVPN for any other reason (such as, for privacy), you have been fooled, unfortunately. If you find this comment helpful, help others by informing them.

Besides that, try to read some writes about why you should not to use any VPN services. It's easy to find promotional articles of various VPN providers about how they enhance your privacy, but instead try to look for arguments against. Only if you live in an very oppressive country and trust someone without name your exit point more, than your ISP (not sarcasm), or if you want to bypass geo-blocking, it makes sense to use VPN providers. Otherwise, you are harming your privacy and paying for an overpriced service to someone who does nothing but resells bandwidth and studies your traffic.

<comment><USER6> A little confused about what you're trying to say: Is NordVPN not a trust worthy VPN provider, or is VPN technology itself not trust worthy at all?

<comment><USER7> I'm confused about this too. I don't use a VPN, have been wanting to purchase a subscription to one for sometime but I haven't been sure which to get since I don't trust any of those rating sites.

<comment> safeplanet-fesa It's wise of you not to trust the ratings. Practically all VPN provider rating websites give those score based purely of their affiliate fees [0]. I would recommend not to purchase any subscriptions. This whole "VPN for privacy" thing more and more looks like a meme created by the industry of useless entities that resell bandwidth. It's a very profitable industry because they do nothing but receive money, they don't protect you legally either; those who lie about their no-logs policy, without hesitation give your data away to the law enforcement agencies.

[0] [http://vpnscam.com/is-purevpn-legit-proof-that-purevpn- bough...](http://vpnscam.com/is-purevpn-legit-proof-that-purevpn-bought-every- vpn-review/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very, very little. If I do pay for anything, it's because I may choose to help a particular developer rather than actually having to.

Everything necessary is free. I write some software and that allows me to donate back to the community in return.

</comment><comment><USER9> In order of importance to me:

      - <USER2>
      - Cloud VMs for hobby projects
      - <USER3>
      - KGS Go Client for Android
      - JetBrains IDEs
      - Windows 10 (bundled with Surface Go)
      - Desktop productivity utilities from time to time
      - Games that I support but hardly ever play
      - Netflix (I think about cancelling all the time)

Edit: I forgot about how I get one (Gran Turismo) or two (usually DLC) games for each PlayStation but then don't buy any more games.

</comment><comment><USER10> Useful:

\- Crashplan for Small Business (unlimited backups)

\- Kerish Doctor (affordable Windows maintenance that works)

\- a German email provider that I use since the 90s

\- Netflix

Not really needed, but they were on sale and almost free anyway:

\- several cheap & insecure VPNs for watching geographically locked content

\- a not very well-known anti-virus

For fun / entertainment:

\- lots and lots of games - I barely ever play them

\- lots and lots of VST audio plugins I don't really need

<comment><USER11> > _Kerish Doctor_

Ouch... This looks like a classic snake oil optimizer, straight out of the late 90s.

<comment><USER12> Works perfectly fine. It's one of the few I would recommend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> 1Password is my only software subscription, and over the years I've bought the paid versions of a couple of Android apps that I get a kick out of.

I have online subscriptions to a couple of newspapers too, which I suppose I should count if other people are counting Netflix.

</comment><comment><USER14> * as donation to KDE (100€/year) * occasional steam game (native Linux only)

</comment><comment><USER15> Spotify (music)

Sync (cloud storage)

Adobe Creative Cloud

I'm currently looking for privacy focused personal email suggestions if anyone has one. Protonmail looks promising

<comment><USER16> Main downside of Protonmail is you can search email contents or use normal email clients without adapter software. I know its not encrypted but I like Fastmail.

<comment><USER16> typo fix: *can't search email contents

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What is so great about 1Password? Why do you not use open source alternatives like e.g. keepassXC?

<comment><USER17> Furthermore: [https://support.1password.com/pbkdf2/](https://support.1password.com/pbkdf2/)

Isn't PBKDF2 outdated in 2019? I thought today you should use scrypt or Argon2?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> SublimeText 3. pCloud.

In the past I paid for Spotify and Netflix.

And as an Steam user, more games than I remember.

</comment><comment><USER19> Domains (no choice)

Google One (free 6 months from Local Guide, after that yearly)

Nova Launcher app

Texpander Pro app

</comment><comment><USER20> \- 1Password

\- Ulysses

\- iCloud storage

\- BetterTouchTool (Single purchase but best software purchase of my life)

</comment><comment><USER21> \- Office365 \- Sublime Text \- Designer tools \- Video editors

</comment><comment><USER22> I have never in my life paid for software

<comment><USER23> I find that hard to believe.

<comment><USER22> there is a lot of free open source ware and shareware was a big thing, never paid for windows its always been on a system prior to my gleaning it from the crappile. It is very easy to not pay for software and remain non criminal if you eschew the chronic redirections and upgrades that are not functionally neccesary but make money for someone. Hardware is another thing. Ive rarely paid for hardware, and definately not full retail price.

The thing is a lot of commercial wares are full of features that are not needed, or are composites of "more primative" features

<comment><USER24> You must be fun at parties

<comment><USER22> thanx

BTW always check any cd drives that come into your possesion, there are often disks left in them. undeleting files from a hardrive or thumbdrive is another source of free-for-you stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Photoshop SmugMug

</comment><comment><USER26> \- Windows

\- Netflix

\- Spotify

</comment><comment> yamrzou<USER3>
1Password

Dropbox

Mullvad VPN

</comment><comment><USER16> FastMail

1Password

iCloud Storage

Netflix, Spotify

NYTimes, Apple News +, local newspaper

Backup software

Linode, AWS

</comment><comment><USER28> Onivim 2 (Patron)

V language (Patron because curious)

Paste 2 <USER2>
iCloud

PS+

PS games

Steam games

good songs on Bandcamp

</comment><comment><USER29> \- LinqPad

\- Paint dot net

</comment><comment><USER30> -Spotify

-Amazon Prime

-Smithsonian Channel

-Plex

-Pandora

-Bitwarden

-iCloud Storage

-Nest

-Digital Ocean

-GSuite

-ForeFlight

-A few flight training MOOCs.

-Notion

-Mailbutler

-Termius

-NYT & WSJ

-Audible</comment>


The Effects of Computer Programming on the Brain (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://virtuecenter.com/blog/the_effects_of_computer_programming_on_the_brain.html <comment><USER2> This article isn't really about the " _effects of programming on the brain._ "

Instead, the author has a pre-determined value judgement of what is a "good" or "bad" allocation of priorities. From that premise, he works backwards to a observation that coding can be addictive. This addictiveness is then judged as "bad":

 _> someone who may be suffering from what I can only really describe as coding addiction, the solution may be to find healthier rewards._

For some people, the healthiest reward _is the coding_. For others, it's working on solving a 300-year old math problem, or struggling for hours and days to find the perfect word for a line in a poem, or a sentence in a novel. There are no "healthier" rewards than those intellectual gymnastics.

Sometimes it's true that these "addictions" don't perfectly align with business priorities and client demands. Saying that the addiction is "unhealthy" is favoring the perspective of the business. The other perspective is that the individual is in the "wrong" day job.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't qualify this as an addiction either[0], but it's still good to know what motivates programmer behavior and the dopamine cycle is definitely a factor. The real question is how do we use this information in a productive way (better code quality) rather than a destructive way (needless code complexity).

[0]: My personal definition of addiction is, if you were to stop doing X activity for a week cold turkey, would you experience withdrawal symptoms?

<comment><USER4> People barred from flow often experience intense anxiety; I'd imagine that the "addicted" programmer not experiencing code flow would just replace that need with something like a high-complexity videogame.

The author's scope is maybe too narrow by focusing only on programmers. Perhaps this problem can be generalized to a type of individual that requires the flow state to the extent that their other behavior is perturbed or dysfunctional. Compare Richard Feynman's explosive rage when distracted from calculus or drums...

<comment><USER5> Yeah, when I had to stop dancing--an activity that gives me a flow experience every day--for weeks because of a twisted foot tendon, I became a mess of anxiety, and even resorting to singing sessions wouldn't quite give me my "fix", or fix me so to speak. Likewise, it's not about having to stop programming, it's about, for example, having to stop working on a project in which you have lots of daily momentum and flow. I think it's a proper addiction. Now if it's just half-hearted programming, nobody misses it much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A quote from someone who commented on the page: "When the programming addicts on Hacker News write about programming addiction, they almost never call it programming addiction. Usually they call it being passionate about programming. And in their opinion, programmers who are not passionate about programming are bad programmers."

Not saying I agree, but it could be the start of an interesting discussion.

<comment><USER7> I don't like seeing the language of addiction and recovery expanded to new areas like this. It's a way of putting moral frame on behavior that can be healthy and enriching.

I first felt this way when I saw "addiction" applied as a label to kids who prefered playing video games to going outside. My response was "did they call it addiction before video games when kids played with blocks and action figures indoors?" They didn't. It's easy for people to reach for the term "addiction" when they want to pathologize behavior they don't like.

Fact is, the dopamine cycle is a natural part of life. The problem isn't whether something is addictive or not, it's whether the side effects of that pleasure cycle are harmful. I've had periods in my life where I've spent weeks and months at a time "heads down" in programming. It was always as controllable as it was pleasurable.

<comment><USER8> Except there are legitimate health-risks to playing video games for extended periods, which I believe is what you mean when you say "preferring video games to the outside world". Both are odds with healthy development if allowed without restrictions, but they are hardly equivalent in their effects on the body.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is some interesting research made into this:

      Dietrich, A (2004) The cognitive neuroscience of creativity [1]
      Dietrich, A (2004) Neurocognitive mechanisms underlying the experience of flow [2]

Both of these papers are easy to read.

      [1] http://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03196731#page-1
      [2] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053810004000583

</comment><comment><USER10> One of the things I've noticed by being in front of the computer all the time is that my brain never gets a chance to reminisce my past. My past is just a blurry memory indistinguishable from a hallucination.

Internet Screens have fundamentally changed human brain.

<comment><USER11> This sounds like it could be quite bad for learning. I've found my learning of an abstract subject, such as mathematics, greatly increases when I can take a step back at each successive milestone of progress.

In contrast, when everything simply blurs together, there are no clearly delineated chunks of memory to latch linguistic markers onto, and I fail to build abstractions out of those thoughts.

Of course, this concern may be moot in the case of computer programming, since the abstractions involved are often concretely represented by the computer itself! In a way, when we program, we are outsourcing a part of our brain, relying on a smaller subset of mental capacity, and relying on the computer to amplify it back again, by handling the abstractions for us.

OTOH, this may simply be proof that going to the whiteboard before coding up a solution is a healthy alternative to hacking away at the keyboard all day without thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> What is the neurological explanation for the excessive desire to find the 'optimal' algorithm, language, database ... to solve a problem rather than just solve the problem. Do we just answer 'dopamine' to any question involving behaviour motivation or could seratonin be at play? Anxiety about work product solution not being as good as it could is perhaps different than 'yay it works without an error!'

</comment><comment><USER13> So the burnout I've experienced has actually been withdrawal and after 18 months off kilter I've suddenly been reminded how to remedy my malaise.

</comment><comment><USER14> Could be an interesting road for those trying to design an efficient hiring test for software developers. AFAIK there is no such test yet.

</comment><comment><USER15> A rather good discussion at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5790508](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5790508).</comment>


Coroner, family link Michael Hastings to drug use at time of death - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-michael-hastings-meth-coroner-20130820,0,5038230.story

<comment><USER2> Apparently "his family was attempting to get [Hastings] to go to detox."

Hmm, where shall the conspiracy theorists go from here?

<comment><USER3> > Hmm, where shall the conspiracy theorists go from here?

As always, ever further up their own arseholes.</comment></comment>


How automakers invented the crime of "jaywalking" - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2015/1/15/7551873/jaywalking-history <comment><USER2> "It's strange to imagine now, but prior to the 1920s, city streets looked dramatically different than they do today. They were considered to be a public space: a place for pedestrians, pushcart vendors, horse-drawn vehicles, streetcars, and children at play."

I think this point is very important. After the automobiles took over, the street slowly ceased to be the #1 public space where people hangout, shop, play or shoot the bull. Fast forward to today's US, spending an extended time on the street is associated with being poor, homeless or conducting criminal activity. Streets' sole purpose is for travel and commute.

Countries with less developed economy still enjoys a vibrant street life much like the pre 1920 US (i.e. Mexico, Brazil, Turkey, China, Thailand etc). As they get richer and purchase more automobile though, the same street transformation is happening again. One can notice a big difference if one visited China in 2000 vs today. They are in some dire need for parking lots.

Of course, there are definitely developed wealthy countries in Europe that also enjoy vibrant street life. However car ownership there is not as widespread as in the US due to a number of economic constraints (space cost, gas price, taxes).

<comment><USER3> The interesting thing about this is that it's very nearly a First Amendment infringement on the right to assemble. In order to assemble on a street–a fairly obvious place to do so, for a protest, since it has good exposure and visibility–you have to ask the police to explicitly redirect traffic on your behalf. That's not a small hurdle.

<comment><USER4> I assume the US has parks and squares too.

<comment><USER5> Parks are considered private property owned by the city/state/federal government and police can charge you with trespassing.

<comment><USER6> Private property owned by the government? What sort of odd concept is that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 99 percent invisible did a great episode about the invention of jaywalking in 2013: [http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-76-the- modern-...](http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/episode-76-the-modern- moloch/)

It's linked at the bottom of the article as further reading, but it's such a good podcast, I thought I'd mention it (emphatically).

</comment><comment><USER8> It may be interesting to note that here in Sweden, "jaywalking" is not a crime, and we have what may be the lowest rate of driving-related deaths in the civilized world. People here do indeed jaywalk more than in many other countries, but we look both ways first.

<comment><USER9> In the UK either [0].

The entire country would be completely unworkable if you could only cross at a "cross-walk." Some villages literally don't have any. The only jaywalking-type laws in the UK are for motorways (70 MpH).

The whole jaywalking thing seems very authoritarian are arbitrary in the US. But the US has a lot of that type of thing in general. Just look at the recent articles about New York's ticketing strike, some of the things they were ticketing for on mass were a little odd and petty.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking#United_Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking#United_Kingdom)

<comment><USER10> Remember that the US has a thousand different sets of laws. Jaywalking is not enforced in small towns.

<comment><USER11> It varies by city in the US:

* Seattle: Pedestrians don't even jaywalk on empty streets at 1AM

* Manhattan: Jaywalk at your own risk

* Boston: Everyone jaywalks all of the time, everywhere. Pedestrians cross streets anywhere at free random and do not acknowledge the existence of motor vehicles.

<comment><USER3> > * Seattle: Pedestrians don't even jaywalk on empty streets at 1AM

What? Yes I do.

<comment><USER12> Let him be provincial. I work downtown Seattle and see people jaywalking all the time

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The article seems to paint the automakers as a cabal of villains for convincing people to not walk in front of a moving vehicle. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to make of it.

<comment><USER14> I think the point is that perhaps we've swung too far to the extreme in favor of cars. We've lost a social gathering place. Not to mention, when other modes of transportation (i.e. bikes) share the road with cars, in cases of bike-car collisions, it is almost always assumed that the bicyclist is at fault.

Also, I think the tide is shifting. Many cities are moving towards more pedestrian friendly corridors, replacing some streets with parks etc.

<comment><USER15> I can certainly agree that the car culture in the US is a bad thing. But I don't quite understand why streets make sense at all as a social gathering place. Why not parks or people's yards/driveways/patios?

<comment><USER16> Because in urban areas, people live next to the street, and their neighbors live next to the street, and the closest park is a few blocks away, and almost nobody has a yard/driveway/patio.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Jaywalking is not a crime here, but I'm always amazed when a TV segment indignantly shows people jaywalking and talks about its risks.

I actually find it safer to cross the street somewhat away from the crosswalk. Crosswalks are usually close to road intersections and other places with increased traffic, where the traffic seems to be less predictable.

</comment><comment><USER18> I didn't realise quite how mental the US is over something as simple as crossing the road till I read this:

 _" A distinguished British historian claims he was knocked to the ground by an American policeman before being arrested and spending eight hours in jail — because he crossed the road in the wrong place._

 _Felipe Fernandez-Armesto said he had been the victim of "terrible, terrible violence" after he inadvertently committed the offence of "jaywalking" in Atlanta, Georgia, last week and failed to realise the man telling him to stop was an officer._

 _The slight, bespectacled professor claimed that five burly officers pinned him to the ground after Kevin Leonpacher kicked his legs from under him as he hesitated to show his ID._

 _He was left "traumatised and disorientated" and with a gashed forehead as he was taken to the local jail and charged with pedestrian failure to obey a police officer and physical obstruction of police."_

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1539148/Historian- pin...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1539148/Historian-pinned-to- ground-by-US-police-and-beaten-for-jaywalking.html)

In the UK, we were just taught this thing called the _" Green Cross Code"_ as children in a series of slightly surreal public information films, though the message in it is basically no more complex than to just to stop and pay attention to what the traffic is doing, before deciding to cross the road. Pedestrians aren't allowed on motorways (freeways), but that is about it. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Cross_Code](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Cross_Code)

<comment><USER19> Oh, they weren't getting him for crossing the road, but for subsequent contempt of cop. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_cop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_cop))

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's increasingly obvious to me that in the future we won't have flying cars. Transportation will be below ground and the people will take back the streets.

Examples of this trend include: boston big dig, atlanta beltway.

<comment><USER21> This trend is quite old if you think about other means of transportation like the train:

\- London Underground: 1863

\- Paris Métro : 1900

But you're right about cars tunnels, the infamous Seattle project can also be mentioned [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaskan_Way_Viaduct_replacement...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaskan_Way_Viaduct_replacement_tunnel)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The unfortunate thing is that the police won't even bother to ticket drivers who fail to yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk. Most US drivers have no concept of how right-of-way works and their obligations to yield. I've taken to using an airhorn for busy crossings and have been chewed out by cops for expecting my traffic rights to be observed.

<comment><USER23> In my town, they take pedestrian rights very seriously. They even have undercover officers use cross walks and ticket driver who do not yield.

<comment><USER24> Bay Area? Many of the mid-west bay towns run crosswalk sting operations along El Camino often.

<comment><USER23> Mountain View ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Interestingly, when pedestrian crossings were being introduced in the UK it was decided that a statement like 'DON'T CROSS' was problematic. There was no legal basis on which pedestrians could be prevented from crossing a road and the instruction was therefore being given without due authority! The town council had no right to tell a law-abiding Englishman _not_ to cross the street! So, we got the 'Green Man' signs intead, and of course there is still nothing preventing you from crossing the street wherever you wish here in the UK. Another interesting snippet was the fact that in East London it was thought that signs on crossings would not work due to the large number of Russian immigrants, since "[...] these people are excitable and ill- disciplined." See this article for more information [http://www.cbrd.co.uk/articles/pedestrian- crossings/](http://www.cbrd.co.uk/articles/pedestrian-crossings/)

</comment><comment><USER26> > _In the early days of the automobile, it was drivers ' job to avoid you, not > your job to avoid them. But under the new model, streets became a place for > cars — and as a pedestrian, it's your fault if you get hit._

I drove Alaska->Argentina [1] and I was extremely lucky that someone told me that the minute you cross into Mexico (and further south) you should expect the old way of doing things. Roads in Developing countries are not a right of way for cars. They are places to play volleyball, dry coffee beans, change your rear axle, get a tan or herd your cattle. I saw all of these and many more, even on the Pan-American highway in 60mph zones.

Expect the unexpected!

[1] theroadchoseme.com

<comment><USER24> In China, if you hit a pedestrian with a car, it is your fault no matter what. So a lot of poor people will camp out in a road waiting for a car to hit them to make some money.

On the other hand, a dog (or child) running out into the road in China is less likely to be struck by a car because this happens so often that the drivers are hyper aware. Still, I've seen a girl on a bicycle struck and killed at a Beijing intersection (the light was green for the car). You never forget that. Also, yielding on a right turn is a western myth.

It is really not that great; I mean, the cars have to go slower overall, the traffic gets congested, everyone is out for themselves, there are no courtesies, and people die. There has to be a middle ground between pedestrian friendly streets and sanity.

<comment><USER19> The Netherlands, perhaps?

<comment><USER24> Ya, the Netherlands is nice. Population densities are much lower, however.

<comment><USER19> You mean in the Netherlands or in China?

As a whole, the Netherlands have one of the highest population densities in the world. Per city, I am sure China has some of the denser cities in the world.

<comment><USER24> Ya, that's what I meant. Also, the Netherlands has more roads and infrastructure per capita.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> I didn't understand the Chinese wall reference in the pro automobile cartoon. Thought it was interesting. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_wall](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_wall)

<comment><USER27> A historic American term related to China this is not racist... that is a surprise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Damn it, pedestrians should be able to go anywhere at any time they please.

Airport tarmacs, power stations, water treatment plants, you name it! If I want to step off the train station platform and onto the tracks, it's my god- given right.

"Authorized Personnel" or "Staff Only" be damned, along with "No Tresspassing".

"Sign sign, everywhere a sign / Blocking out the scenery, breakin' my mind ..." goes the song.

It's all just a scheme to repress the people. Or rather, to repress them in a small way so their attention is thwarted from the big ways. Yeah, that's it!

<comment><AUTHOR> I never realized there were people who had to walk across an airport tarmac or a water treatment plant to get from home to the corner store.

<comment><USER29> I think we hit Poe's Law.

<comment><USER28> You think so? Did I neglect to make a clear indication of sarcasm that would distinguish the posting from a frank expression of extremism?

I'm reminded that when Jonathan Swift published _A Modest Proposal_, it was taken seriously by some. Or at least legend has it.

<comment><USER29> I caught it. But it looks like smacktoward did not.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Big Internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.roughtype.com/?p=5010

<comment><USER2> I agree with the sentiment of this post. More generally, I think that any social web infrastructure that's run by a company (Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc.) will end up being pure crap because companies will always favor short term profits over thoughtful long term decisions.

I have a dream that one day we'll have an open source system that functions in a distributed/federated way and overlaps in functionality with:

\- Twitter, for the "stream of consciousness", instant aspect and/or

\- Facebook, for the photo sharing/keeping up with old friends, etc. and/or

\- Blogs, for the ability to quickly publish any prose and/or

\- IRC, for the ability to instantly chat about any topic with complete strangers and/or

\- Geocities, for the ability to easily publish static websites and/or

\- Forums, for the ability to have long, deep, asynchronous conversations with a small or large group of other interesting parties.

Theses are the services that I've enjoyed using on the web, but most of them are dying/dead now because the companies that own them add cruft and bullshit to keep their investors happy and their users clicking on ads (HN has been surprisingly resilient to that, for very straightforward reasons).

Ideally such a system would be fairly straightforward for any nerd to setup on their server (just like phpBB and friends who just require copying/pasting a folder on a server with mod_php, that is pretty much any server), and then their friends/family could sign up and join there. There have been attempts at this (eg. Diaspora), but nothing really ever made anything compelling.

I think there's something nice about relative stability. For example, some phpBB forums out there have had active members for more than a decade, with very little functionality added. Similarly, I like that IRC is the same now than it was 20 years ago.

There's something to be done here, and it probably won't come out of silicon valley.</comment>


We Have Become a Police State, and None of Us Should Be Okay with That - <AUTHOR> https://www.dailywire.com/news/walsh-we-have-become-a-police-state-and-none-of-us-should-be-okay-with-that <comment><USER2> So cops shut down a well-intentioned but ultimately needless parade during days of chaos and confusion about what are allowed and what aren't, and we're living in a police state because of that. Sheesh. Has the author seen an actual police state?

As long as Americans see the police force as an evil to be starved, instead of a social necessity to be filled with capable people with proper training, the police will never get the funding or oversight needed for improvement. The cycle continues.

<comment><USER3> What if the police were wrong here though?

What if it violated our right to assembly?

Even if it was a needless it's a massive abuse of power and a constitutional violation.

Virus or not civil liberties still exist as provided by the Constitution.

<comment><USER2> > What if the police were wrong here though?

If the police is to do their job, they will be wrong sometimes. The only way to make sure that they're never wrong is to keep them from doing anything. Americans should stop acting like a pointy-haired boss running over sysadmins. It's getting ridiculous.

Also, if you want to protest police brutality there are legitimate cases all around the country. You don't need to sell made-up outrage.

<comment><USER3> Sure they can be wrong but they need to be held accountable and their failures highlighted when they are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> No, no we haven't.

A police state is a one-party state whose domination is maintained through the application of despotic force against the civilian population.

We, on the other hand, are experiencing a once-in-a-century, world-wide, corona virus pandemic with a mortality rate at least 10x the normal rate of corona viruses and which no one has immunity to because it just recently jumped species.

Since the vast majority of ultimate victims of this disease are the old and the infirm, we are undetaking a collective, other-sparing, selfless plan of action.

No one is alarmed by this action. It says absolutely nothing about our form of government and.what it says about our national character is inspirational and affirming.

See the difference?

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't expect it's the activities themselves being likely to spread covid or not that is the issue here. By driving people are taking the risk of a fender bender or other situation like running out of gas where you may require help in the form of contact with others. It's risk aversion. Not sure I agree with the shutdown but I get it.

</comment><comment><USER6> So anyone who wants the federal government to take over direct action on the coronavirus situation should think twice about having a federal police force running things.

<comment> xkcd-sucks It's like nothing at all was learned from the War on Terror

<comment><USER7> Are there more than a few policians that did learn from it?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is TechCrunch Disrupt worth its $3,000 admission fee? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> The primary value of high-ticket conferences is the networking which can convert into direct value for your company (sales, investment, etc.)

So whether a particular conference is worth your time is very much dependant on your circumstances, if it's likely to add more than $3000 of value to your company and you've got the cash to spend then it's probably worth it.

Otherwise probably not.

</comment><comment><USER3> Conferences are a way for BigCo employees to get a few days off work on the company dime. You can have a lot more fun (even productive/educational fun) with $3k if you get to choose how to spend it.

BigCo employees are restricted to wasting money on conferences because it seems like a legit use of funds.

<comment><USER4> Yeah I agree with this. In fact a lot of managers get in trouble if they don't use all of their training budget (or they lose it for the next year).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> NO.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think I get your drift. Thanks.</comment></comment>


RIP Michael S. Hart: founder of Project Gutenberg - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/09/rip-michael-s-hart.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+oreilly%2Fradar%2Fatom+%28O%27Reilly+Radar%29 <comment><USER2> What was the cause of death? It isn't mentioned in his obituary or any of the news items I've seen so far.

<comment><USER3> I must admit to being curious myself, but neither of us need to know. Now is the time to celebrate his life, not to gossip about his death.

<comment><USER2> Wait, what? Merely inquiring as to how he died is "gossip" and the implication is that I'm engaging in negativity? I think you should check the dictionary:

gossip [ˈgɒsɪp] n 1\. casual and idle chat to have a gossip with a friend 2\. a conversation involving malicious chatter or rumours about other people a gossip about the neighbours 3\. Also called gossipmonger a person who habitually talks about others, esp maliciously 4\. light easy communication to write a letter full of gossip 5\. Archaic a close woman friend

<comment><USER3> If the death was something mundane for somebody born in 1947 (a heart attack for example), then you're engaging in #1 which doesn't belong on Hacker News.

If the death is something juicy like drugs or suicide, then you're engaging in #2. You don't have to be malicious to spread malicious chatter.

<comment><USER4> A heart attack at 64 is mundane to be sure, but I think it would be worth knowing. The article's anecdote about eating sugar on pizza might present an object lesson for the people left to carry on his legacy if his death related to a heart condition.

In any case, I don't think blindly ignoring his faults, whatever they may be, is the best way to celebrate his life. People are usually great in spite of and even because of their faults. Ignoring them doesn't really give a good picture of the person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The previous discussion of Michael's death is at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2971971></comment>


Internet Hall of Fame Paul Vixie Says Chromecast DNS "Bogus as hell" - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/paul-vixie-blasts-google-chromecast-2019-2 <comment><USER2> When something happens to Google, the CEO will be the fall guy. With the owners getting away hiding behind the parent company.</comment>


Mistakes Google made in scaling its organization - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/What-are-the-main-mistakes-Google-has-made-in-scaling-its-organization?srid=n7

<comment><USER2> As an ex-Googler, I disagree with this second-hand account. Yeah, political infighting sometimes happens and things get shook up, but this person paints the picture of no project ever launching. Addressing some points:

1\. See item 3.

2\. VP changes rarely happen compared to a PM change. And a PM who comes may change some of the goals, but the focus area of your product doesn't change, e.g. your optimization tool for display advertising will continue to be an optimization tool for display advertising. It would be hard to find your project suddenly disagreeing with some "existing strategy."

3\. New products that launch should have a UX designer contributing or at least advising. There should be mocks for the frontend engineers to follow, and the backend engineers are just told to make it work.

4\. Yeah, there's a checklist, and it is long. SREs want to minimize the number of pages there, but pages happen because something's going bad, and they want you to have proper monitoring in place to address the pages quickly. The launch checklist also focuses a lot on addressing potential security vulnerabilities. Google is tough on security.

5\. Google's all about the software compensating for commodity hardware. I don't think too many teams have specialized hardware. You can ask for what resources you need, but would have to fight for what form you get them in.

7\. Can't speak for this. Why reorganize marketing?

8\. While I agree that Google likes to fail fast, in my opinion some Google products probably didn't get the love or time they needed to take off. I wasn't really privy to how those decisions are made.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think calling Google processes "mistakes" is a little strong. For example, I recall at one point at Google where they were trying to improve latency on the products, so you weren't allowed to launch a new feature if it hurt latency.

I could imagine somebody who just made an awesome feature that made an application 5% slower complain about how stupid that policy is. However, they don't realize that however awesome their feature is, speed of applications is a hidden cost that everybody bears, and sometimes the priority for a company may differ with a specific developers vision. Google wants their products to be fast, wants them to be available, and wants them to be secure. I'm not saying that everything they do is great and their processes and checklists are optimal, but when they have processes designed to do a certain thing, it isn't fair to say their processes are a mistake because they don't do something else.

<comment><USER4> Very much agreed. When an organization becomes large it needs to make tough choices. In an organization built around product-centric teams, it may be easier to release products more quickly and the average employee may perceive a smoother course from concept to execution, but the organization will quickly discover that horizontal changes become extremely difficult. The frustrated product developer who can't get products out is replaced by the frustrated operations guy who can't patch unsecure systems fast enough. Which one is worse? For Google, I would say the latter. While it always seems like a tragedy to hear about "great" products getting killed, pre-birth, in the corporate mill, I much prefer my stable, high uptime, browser-performant Google to a Google that releases way more product than it already does.

Not to mention that most products (like most startups) fail. As a product- centric company, do you break teams apart after a product fails? If a product succeeds, do you take that successful team and move it to the other product? That may work if you're lucky enough to have a team with the proper skills balance (not to mention passion) to move across different products. What about career goals? People in a particular field tend to want to work with the best people in that field--a huge draw of working at Google is working with the best people in Field X. In a functional organization, the functions (almost) never go away--so the teams are stable.

Of course, being on the outside I can't speak for the problems that are mentioned, such as in-fighting, lack of executive discipline ("You will not launch your product because I don't like your hair style, FUUUUUUUUU!"), etc., but those problems are bad regardless of organization type.

<comment><USER5> to me presence of in-fighting is a manifestation that whatever executive is responsible for both parties and the issue at hands is just not able or avoiding doing his/her job - taking decisions. Usually it is a combination of the inability and being afraid to take the decision and responsibility for it. "Fish starts to rot from the head" as they say in my old country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Honestly that sounds typical of a large organization, everyone wants to put their fingerprint on a project when it's way up. Once everyone gets their hands on it, every vp packs the team with their buddies, burdens you with no- show contractors from a firm they have a "relationship" with. Then everyone starts scuttling away to the next big thing. Of course someone gets bored one day, and decides to redefine the entire scope of the project, pushes it as the next big thing, then everyone come scuttling back.

<comment><USER7> Exactly. It's a scramble for symbolic ownership that obscures the fact that everybody is increasingly reluctant to take real ownership. Accountability doesn't scale well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's always good to have an open discussion, but I don't find it convincing when an anonymous guy on Quora based on second-hand unverified information claims that he knows better what is good of bad for Google.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've never seen success when an organization organizes around business function. Invariably, the function takes precedence over the product.

<comment><USER10> I'd enter Oracle as a counter example.

Personally, however, this is not something I would want to achieve, but to each his own I guess.

<comment><USER11> Maybe a corollary for businesses whose product is based on lock-in. Poor software design is sort of the point as long as you keep getting your hooks into people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not sure if this is off-topic, but have any company ever grown as fast to be as big as Google have? Successfully?

</comment><comment><USER13> In the light of this article, Google should have a play area with only limited network and processing power for publishing betas of new products.

For example, anything that's Google Search or GMail or similar must meet some performance, stability, and realiability criteria but those applications would also get to run on the big clusters. Conversely, it wouldn't matter if a beta- toy is a bit buggy or hogs down the servers on the playground since it's just playground.

Some users would bear with the unfinished tone and start using the apps there, and at times it would happen that one application would gain lots of momentum, and Google could consider fixing and lifting that one to the full service level.

</comment><comment><USER14> That is not a mistake. It's a corporation.

<comment><USER15> That is not a mistake. It's a large corporation. But I repeat myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> So this basically reads as someone who's taken a couple of Org Design courses in college arguing that it's actually significant whether the top level of an organization is "product" or "function" ("geography" is another alternative), and as a result he basically comes across as someone who could use a little "experience" so that he understands that scaling an organization isn't just about some analytical framework that he learned in school, but about people, dynamics, history, politics, egos, a lot of stuff that is really "hard."

And that almost every fast growing company gets it, in some form or another.. "wrong." But they also find success despite their failure.

Whereas the guy who took the couple of Org Design courses probably ends up working for a VC running innumerable other companies straight into the ground.

<comment><USER17> I would encourage you to talk to some people who you trust who have worked on a few different projects at google (especially anything not related to search or ads) and see if they think this answer is theoretical.

If you don't have people there you can ask, take a close look at what has happened to the products and teams that google has acquired.

<comment><USER18> The problem is that people who say it's a "functional organization" problem are both correct and incorrect at the same time.

The kind of problems described certainly seem to have been exacerbated by the way they are structured. But all organization structures have their own problems, and the issues caused by (say) a project based organization* might have been even more detrimental to success.

The most professionally managed organizations I have worked for have generally been matrix orgs (sort of functional, with projects 'borrowing' resource for a year or two at a time) and that worked pretty well, but only because they burned a lot of time and money managing the process. In many cases it may be cheaper just to live with doing it imperfectly.

*Lack of product integration, break up of technical pool of talent, even bigger resource fights, duplication of effort, lack of communication, and zombie projects amongst other things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> What can Google do to fix those underlying issues?

<comment><USER20> Allow autonomy to product groups. They should be run like little startups: choose whatever tech stack they want, hire their own PM's, do their own hiring (Google recruiting is a complete wasteland), and live or die by their scucess/failure.

It'll never happen, because it's diametrically opposed to the founding ideology, which is that every problem has a rational solution. Without getting too Ayn Rand on this, it's the classic mistake of central planning vs personal initiative.

<comment><USER6> Are you saying they should be able to go off into the wilderness, decide to run on Heroku or something and come back with an app? Companies invest huge sums of money on infrastructure and the expertise to manage it. Google has too big an infrastructure to let each project roll it's own.

Let's say google reengineered to provide something like ec2,each team can run it's own images. does each group hire security experts? Does each group have to solve scaling problems google already faced?

I think maybe it could work like this.Google proper hires domain experts, security, engineering etc. Provides each mini startup with a budget, mini startups can spend the cash on the Google proper experts, or go outside for areas where Google is lacking. Mini startup pays hosting fees to run on Google's EC2 like infrastructure, or use whatever Google has in place now.

<comment><USER21> What if you let teams select from internal security teams, internal scaling teams, etc?

You can run a wide range of things on EC2, but I'd be willing to bet certain sets of things dominate.

If the solution google has internally really is the best solution available, let it compete. It'll win until it's no longer the best.

<comment><USER22> You'll get an internal 'Microsoft' who focuses on things like lock-in instead of quality, and other zero or negative-sum games like that. You'll need an internal patent and copyright system to keep one team from freeriding on another, etc. etc.

<comment><USER6> Right, I don't have to implement a queuing system because a guy down the hall did it. But he sunk his budget into developing it and I get to swoop in and benefit. That is not a bad thing, that is how corporations are supposed to work, it would be worse if we burned two budgets implementing a queuing system, but it is a bit unfair that he burns his budget for my benefit. Maybe if I paid him "licensing" fees it would be more equitable, but then we have another porcupine to hug, managing all the internal licensing.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Toyota Way at Codeweavers - <AUTHOR> https://www.infoq.com/news/2017/10/toyota-way-codeweavers <comment><USER3> I've been around long enough to see software development methodologies come and go. I worked for GE for a decade, and they tried to force Six Sigma on everyone. Devs put through training. Lean. KanBan. Single piece flow.

The thing that businesses don't want to hear is that software development is a skill game. You win by having better players. You cannot put blind process around every facet of it. I know you'd like to, so that you can then pay very little for unskilled labor. But the fact remains that you cannot, even today.

Wysiwig html editors and drag and drop UI builders for rapid application development were trending for a while in the 90's. Then everyone realized that giving these tools to monkeys resulted in a big pile of poo. So the trend reversed back to hand coding UI layouts using markup, separating business logic from display concerns, etc

I guess what I am trying to say is that if there is any hope in putting a lot of process rigor around software development, it will be enabled by tooling. Until then, skill and experience matter. And they aren't cheap.

Put another way, if the Cleveland Browns stole the New England Patriots playbook, they would still suck.

<comment><USER4> One interesting thing about software methodology that most people seem to like, such as testing and version control is that it prevents bad coders from screwing up a project too badly.

I also think that languages like Java have become popular in big enterprises filled with lots of coders because the language makes it hard to write difficult to maintain code by doing away with any features that would make it easy to obfuscate the intentions of code. This concern also had a big influence on the design of Go and all the features it left out.

The upshot of these coding methodologies that stood the test of time is that they protect the project from bad coders and they prevent really smart people from writing code that is too clever such that noone else can maintain it.

<comment><USER5> Instead the really smart people write abstraction upon abstraction until they can achieve the level of cleverness they wanted in the first place. I'm not sure all that extra code is really that much better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have to laugh at this. I know this is in reference to their manufacturing process, but I have worked with Toyota's IT department and they don't follow anything like this. They are a typical stodgy, waterfall, design by committee, ivory tower architect kind of IT department. We pushed agile on them, but they still insisted on signing off on 100-page BRDs before work started. Maybe I just had a bad experience, but I recall constantly wondering why we had to work so hard to sell agile on the organization that practically invented it.

<comment><USER7> The Toyota Way is, as I understand it, much more closely related to Plan-Do- Check-Act, empirical, metrics-based approaches in Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, and other optimize-a-figure-of-merit methods (a lot of which are anchored in approaches championed by W. Edwards Deming and other contemporary advocates of empirical/statistical process control.)

Agile philosophy is _loosely_ similar in that it has a "do what works without dogma" core, but has much weaker focus on actual concrete measurements and empirical validation, which is one reason why despite its fundamental (in the Manifesto) _opposition_ to canned, one-size-fits-all process that isn't adapted to the particular context, it devolves into a lot of that—without a cultural value of empirical measurement of outcomes, social proof and "this is the way to do it because this is what other people who succeeded were using", or "this is the way to do it because it comes from <authority figure> who makes <abstract argument> and/or gave <subjectively appealing presentation>" become the bases available to make decisions on how to implement the vague ideals of the Manifesto. And also why it can be particularly hard to sell to an organization that does believe in changing process based on a specific, testable hypothesis about improvement in a key measure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Whilst on the surface it is all about manufacturing cars if you dig a little > deeper, particularly into Taiichi Ohno's work, you soon start to see how > these rules can be applied to all kinds of manufacturing and we saw many > parallels in what we were reading about the Toyota Production System and the > way we delivered our software.

I found this really interesting. I completely agree that the principles behind the Toyota Production System can be applied to many other disciplines than just car manufacturing. I wonder if Toyota itself actually applies its own principles when it comes to software development. When their software got audited as part of the unintended acceleration case [1] it was described as spaghetti code and having generally poor engineering practices.

I'd be interested to know why this seeming discrepancy exists between Toyota's quality in hardware vs software.

[1] [http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota- unintende...](http://www.safetyresearch.net/blog/articles/toyota-unintended- acceleration-and-big-bowl-%E2%80%9Cspaghetti%E2%80%9D-code)

<comment><USER9> Hardware can usually be spec'ed reasonably accurately from the start. "The Toyota Way" can incrementally optimize building against a specification, from the bottom up, starting with smaller details.

Software however is all but impossible to spec from the beginning, or perhaps ever at all... so with only working with the smaller details, the larger picture is lost. At any time, any team, is instructed to stop a problem and immediately fix it, it's band-aids on top of band-aids.

Having multiple teams working on overlapping projects, with little communication leads to the spaghetti code that was mentioned.

<comment><USER10> You can spec hardware, but when the company goes behind the engineering teams back and lies and saves a few pennies per car by not putting error-correcting RAM on the things they say they will... you're kind of left hanging on that. And that's how Toyota works or at least worked when building the Corolla (just one of the best selling cars ever).

Much of the code being dealt with by Toyota (at least that subject to the lawsuit and so made available for analysis) was embedded code which is a bit more amenable to very deliberate design, testing, and verification. NASA, for instance, has a long history of producing extremely reliable software, even proving the software correct at times. Would any private corporation in the world ever resort to following such a practice? Never. It would quadruple their software spending and, maybe worse, they would have to listen to their engineers. When the business wants to ship a project, if the engineer says 'its not ready yet', if its a bridge and they go ahead someone in a suit goes to prison. If it involves software, everyone goes home happy except the dead customers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The cornerstone of Lean Manufacturing is removing waste.

One of the largest historical sources was inspection and repair: you built something and then inspected it and fixed any problems. The inspectors and repair people didn't really talk to the production people much.

In Lean Manufacturing, the main purpose of inspection is to drive process improvements back into production. (This is the simplistic explanation, but I'm only using this as an analogy)

Thinking about data management - there's a lot of dirty data out there, and a lot of data munging to fix it up. Lean Data Management would drive process improvements into data acquisition.

Of course on the other hand, it's extremely cheap to fix data, on a per-unit of data basis. It's rule management that's expensive.

<comment><USER12> the cornerstone of lean is "flow" removing of waste is to the end of achieving flow (time it takes to get sales to delivery).

Toyotas system is predicated on the idea that for manufacturing THEIR product the touch time is way less the than the buffer/quueue times ( ie, the time spent adding value is small compared to the the overall time to get an order and get it delivered. Eliminating waste is a means to an end to cut into unecessary buffers and queues and increase flow based on the constraints of the system.

In software there's a lot of applicable ideas, but it's not exactly the same and requires careful thinking around what your revenue model is and how you deliver software based on that. But the focusing idea is not the practices of lean but how to increase flow and build (reuse) practices around that.

<comment><USER11> Right, as I said, that's the simplistic view, and just some of my thoughts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have read the books on the Toyota Production System and it does not apply to software, except in a very loose general sense. Manufacturing is not at all similar to software because with manufacturing you are making the same physical thing again and again, while with software you are only making a thing once, and it is intangible.

There are benefits for examining the flow of deliverables and information, and trying to eliminate waste, but much of the TPS is geared around the manufacture of physical objects and it is a stretch to apply it elsewhere.

<comment><USER14> Exactly as A senior Guy at the BSI said where do you hang the defect ticket :-) I was working of a Project with the BSI that fed into BS 7570 or ISO 9000

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think the core flaw here is thinking of software development as "manufacturing". It isn't at all. It's a design process.

This Toyota methodology is about taking things that have already been designed and then incrementally improving them or figuring out better ways to put them together.

Building software is more akin to the process of taking a blank sheet of paper, a knowledge of what kinds of parts already exist, then designing a new car to fit a new market segment.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, true. Though there are definitely parts of the development process that are recurring. E.g. processes for code review, testing, etc. These are the areas the article focuses on as well. Since ultimately the software is developed by this design process, improving this design process _should_ lead to better software as well (whatever way you define better).

For the actual design of individual pieces of software, I wonder if something like Toyota Product Development System is a better fit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I worked at a software company that went through a "lean transformation" where management effectively idolized Toyota's production philosophy and wanted it used in each and every department.

While it helped our customer service department quite a bit as-is. The Toyota Way is definitely not something you can directly copy/paste and use in software development. Building a Camry 5000 times is not the same as shipping 5000 different software projects, so a lot of the analogies and examples you find in text don't always apply. I always found it amusing that you never see or hear examples used from the R&D and engineering of the actual automobiles -- just once all that hard stuff has been figured out and the manufacturing starts, all the principles are magically, easily applied.

To be honest, a lot of it is just "common sense" or things that just naturally transpire if you have a good team (especially if Agile dev and ideas like continuous delivery are used anyway.)

With the negatives aside, the problem-solving culture part of it is something that can really change things for the better and is worth researching. If nothing else, I found just being able to have a framework for solving problems as they come up is huge -- surely regardless of what a company does. For instance, integrating a standard to collectively write out the "Five Why's" and clearly define the problem statement when a team is gathered to discuss solutions to a problem can save so much time. How many times have you been dragged into a meeting, go through a huge discussion, design a solution, only to realize later that it wasn't really solving what needed to be solved?

Outside the culture aspects, it mostly just felt forced, frustrating devs, and really made things feel almost like a cargo cult waiting for the goodies to drop from the sky.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is this the Toyota that put together cars that killed multiple people? The ones that were shown in court to be ASTOUNDINGLY incompetent? The ones whose developers didn't even have access to a bug tracker? The ones who followed only 4 of 90+ automotive industry standard 'required' or 'suggested' practices? The ones who didn't use even basic static analysis tools?

I'll pass, thanks. I know it's all fine for Toyota because the courts ruled essentially "Its computers and nobody knows how they work! We can't convict them of criminal negligence!" and it saves them billions by not hiring experienced people or giving engineers the tools they need or training them or anything like that... but I actually have a conscience and don't mind if I make a little bit less money if it means there won't be the dead bodies that are my responsibility like Toyotas got.

</comment><comment><USER17> If anyone would like to read more about the real lean techniques in software (not just kanban), I recommend Lean Software Strategies book.

[https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Software-Strategies- Techniques-D...](https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Software-Strategies-Techniques- Developers/dp/1563273055)

The West has a tendency to cherry pick techniques from holistic approaches (for example quick path to mindfulness vs meditation and Buddhism). I suppose it's a cultural difference. In my opinion, it is really worth it to try to understand Lean as a whole instead of looking at kanban only.

<comment><USER11> > The West has a tendency to cherry pick techniques from holistic approaches

I agree that it's worth it to spend some time to understand the holistic approach... but there's also a lot of bullshit and over-reliance on form over function.

<comment><USER18> An excellent example of the difference in approach!

The "bullshit" emphasis on form before function is a pretty standard part of a 3 stage learning method - naive and unquestioning memorization of rules/form, unique combinations of the memorized forms, and finally throwing it all out the window and inventing new forms with the newly acquired knowledge and skills.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you want to try Lean/Toyota Way in your sofware business, in addition to reading the suggested texts at the end, check out Mary & Tom Poppendieck's books. They offer a lot in terms of already translating lean production concepts into lean software design/development concepts. They also offer exercises that can help you move towards being lean. Because being lean isn't a state, it's a goal and a process.

</comment><comment><USER20> I've been in software since the 80's. I've watched all the fads and cults rise and fall .. From General Electric to Kanban and back again.

Honestly, over the decades, there are very specific patterns in all the ism's, and its the _recognition_ of these patterns which each new generation of ignoramus decides to make their own and turn into the Hot New Cool Shit.

So I feel its really necessary to point out that while, with the Toyota Method, there is very definitely a refinement of techniques that have been well-worn, and proven, indeed in many markets around the world - there are still parts of the human psyche of productivity which remain _unexplored_.

One of those aspects, I feel, is the obfuscation and neglect which occurs with every wave of computer culture.

We kind of don't really work on the reasons for obfuscation - <USER2> obviously this is not productive. Productivity means, getting the shit done, in a way that increases value - for the individual producers as well as the owners of the means of production.

Toyota _works_. The proof is in the fact that it is one of the biggest and best brands in the world.

But what doesn't work is the occlusion of methodology that occurs, which makes the revelation here in the 21st Century of time-worn, centuries-old methodologies, relevant.

We get this way because we decide to occlude, forget, neglect, and ultimately .. reject .. the ways of the masters. How many of us read this article, gave it a cursory glance, and decided to close the tab, for whatever reason: "its too preachy", "its a culture thing", etc. And what number of us actually decided to incorporate the Ohnno way into our thinking, for the simple fact that HN gave us the clue?

Really, what I would like people to understand is that there is a desultory, occluding factor, to these different 'ways'. The moment the marketing people take over a working technology, they decide to brand-differentiate, and this means forgetting the roots of it all. "Nobody thinks of the sugar; all we see is the cola" can only happen if we actually act on the basis of ignorance.

The point being, the Toyota way seems - like so many other ways - to have the principle purpose of fighting ignorance. Ignorance of oneself, ignorance of others, of the customer/user, of the managers, and so on. Ultimately, the Zen approach is, remember that you will always be forgetting, and express your current reality in such a way to defeat that. No successful brand is ever forgotten; no successful methodology can happen in a vacuum. Yet: it requires such a vacuum before you can find your own handle on it, and ultimately _apply it with success_.

"Applying it with failure", on the other hand, is a sure-fire to re-invent something else, 'brand new', again and again.

Don't you feel there is something inherently intrinsic to Toyota Method? Well, there should be a list of these feelings, by now, for those of us who have been paying attention for decades ...

<comment><USER18> Fascinating commentary.

The paradox is that the more you attempt to tie practical/tactical things like Lean, Kanban, meditation, diet, excercise, etc to a broader perspective, the more likely the average person will actively resist/ignore both.

<comment><USER21> it is a delight.

though I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that team jack hollis is on a path to do that yearly. if they follow through on the user-based stuff, they'll end up doing exactly what you were hoping for, @mmjaa.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULdBWNOskoY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULdBWNOskoY)</comment></comment></comment>


A Short History of the Russian Digital Shadow Libraries (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2616631 <comment><USER2> The emerging phenomenon of Moshkow's lib.ru is one of the most oldest and popular free self-publishing websites in the world, samlib.ru, where many authors are actually getting published by publishing houses. This is how "samizdat" works today.

What author misses is that Russian pirate libraries are based outside Russia for quite some time. The infamous [http://lib.rus.ec](http://lib.rus.ec) was once the effort of a couple running cafe in Quito, Ecuador. Its freely accessible fork maintained as [http://flibusta.is](http://flibusta.is) has sort of Icelandic scent. Both run Drupal.

What is even more interesting - [http://alib.ru](http://alib.ru) provides free access to acquiring cheep rare and vintage physical Russian editions from enormous amount of small second-hand booksellers. I can name nothing like that in the UK.</comment>


Interfaces vs Inheritance (or, watch out Go) - <AUTHOR> http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=274019 <comment><USER2> Not sure why the parenthetical is "watch out Go". Isn't the article supporting Go's take on interfaces and no inheritance?

<comment><USER3> Maybe what he means is "Watch out for Go".</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What to do?  Fed up with Apple, but dislike the existing alternatives? - <AUTHOR>

Not trying to troll, but I love the iPhone, the iPad and OSX.  I'm starting to seriously dislike the business entity behind them.  I can't stand Android/Windows/Linux on the desktop.  How do I have my cake and eat it too? <comment><USER2> Illume, Chromium, and the editor of your choice

</comment><comment><USER3> Become a baker?

</comment><comment><USER4> Jailbreak?

</comment><comment><USER5> OS/2?</comment>


Lane bias: Why some Olympic swimmers may have gotten an unfair advantage - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/01/these-charts-clearly-show-how-some-olympic-swimmers-may-have-gotten-an-unfair-advantage/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_swimadvantage-wb-850am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory <comment><USER2> Olympic pool may have a design flaw giving higher lanes an advantage, look at this video : [http://adf.ly/1ddj03](http://adf.ly/1ddj03)</comment>


Ask HN: Have any sideproject ideas? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> 1- write side project properly (2 words)

2- put side project ideas in the search bar of HN (rinse and repeat with reddit)</comment>


Pentoo Linux for Penetration Testing - Review and Commentary - Linux Critic - <AUTHOR> http://linuxcritic.com/stories/55-Pentoo-Linux-for-Penetration-Testing-Review-and-Commentary.html <comment><USER2> Most people in my industry just use Backtrack for this, which is why it's the top hit on Google for "Backtrack".

We don't do much network pentesting, but Backtrack is still really handy to have around, especially for anything involving wireless, since the driver stack is all set up on it.

<comment><USER3> Really? You trust backtrack on client networks? I'm not suggesting that bad stuff won't be built into mainstream distros, but given the target audience, community and contributors is it really safe? I appreciate it's not a strong argument compared to other distros, but other distros tend not to be set up specifically for hacking.

I tend to find Backtrack provides a decent starting point, but most of the testers (and all of the full time day-in-day-out testers) I know tend to use their own Linux systems on live network tests. We use VMWare images for both Windows and Linux, which lets us work in situations where clients don't want our laptops plugged in, or where the data can't leave site.

<comment><USER2> I'm not particularly worried about the most popular Linux pentesting distro secretely phoning home or trying to infect networks, but, if it makes you feel better, we don't have to take it on client networks, since we don't do much net pentesting. Like I said, great for playing with wireless.

<comment><USER3> Fair point.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tips for applying to YC - <AUTHOR> http://entreposeur.com/yc-feedback-sharing <comment><USER2> I'd swap 2 and 3. We'd rather fund good people in a small market (since they can change what they're doing) than bad people in a big market (since they can't change themselves).

And since 1 is not usually something applicants can dictate, it comes down to 3.

To me the most important thing is whether the founders seem impressive. If I find myself thinking "these guys know what they're talking about, and they get stuff done" I give the application a good grade. So the most valuable thing you can do in the application is to convey that.

If there's something you can tell about yourself that demonstrates you're an effective person, tell us about it, whether it has anything to do with this idea or not. And if you have some insight about the problem you plan to solve that shows you understand it deeply, be sure to include it. We ask leading questions designed to elicit both; you can probably pick them out pretty easily.

<comment><USER3> so if we don't have phenomenal growth (ie "$100k in revenue in your first month or 10k users in 24 hours") we still have a chance?

Does anyone know examples of YC companies who are in small markets? I was under the impression they only liked larger markets (since they are more fundable by vc's and the like).

<comment><USER2> Of course you don't need phenomenal growth. Most of the best companies we've funded didn't have it when they applied.

Looking for YC cos in small markets could be misleading. By the time you know they're YC cos, they've been exposed to YC and so would have been encouraged to reconsider their market if they were in a bad one. There may be some that are still in what seem to be small markets, but if so that's probably because they're in the Altair Basic phase.

<comment><USER4> A few like Wakemate and Octopart come to mind where they seem to serve small markets now, but it's easy to see how they could branch out into huge adjacent market space - not necessarily as obliquely as Microsoft starting from Altair Basic, more like Amazon starting out as just an online bookstore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> (Usual caveats: I'm not a YC partner and I'm just generalizing based on my limited observation.)

The "things the partners generally look for" seems very big VC and doesn't actually match up with what I've seen.

When YC says they prefer to back smart founders they mean it. You should either be demonstrably smart (winning-the-putnam, twice, smart), or have amazing traction, or both.

Since you've probably had a lot of time to prove you're smart the best advice you can follow now is this: start hustling to build your business.

(Incidentally "gets shit done" is probably the most common trait I've noticed across YC founders.)

If you're thinking of quitting your job to do a startup, you should probably quit. If you don't have a cofounder, finding one should become your fulltime job. Etc. Generally find what's going wrong and work around it.

YC alum are amazingly responsive and willing to help (keep in mind they're really busy). You should definitely seek them out during the process.

</comment><comment><USER6> See also: <http://ycombinator.com/howtoapply.html>

I'd recommend every applicant read it twice, parse out the 'rules', then iterate over each question in their application ensuring that each 'rule' is applied. And remember:

PG: _I suspect for every group we invite to interviews, there are one or two more that are just as good but that we pass over because they don't manage to convey how good they are._

<comment><USER7> Thanks for pointing that out; I meant to include it at the end and completely forgot. In there now!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was (lord knows why) asked to do a series of brief how-to business videos for SoCal startup DocStoc and one topic I did was Writing an Effective YC Application. Pretty much reiterates everything from this article and PG's comments in video format: [http://www.docstoc.com/video/96634238/writing-an- effective-y...](http://www.docstoc.com/video/96634238/writing-an-effective-y- combinator-application)

</comment><comment><USER9> I guess I'm going to have to add "entreposeur.com" to the list of domains I wish I'd thought of first.

</comment><comment><USER10> The least emphasized, and I think most important, point here is that the application will help you better define your business and why you're doing it with your current cofounder(s). Much like an AngelList profile, I'd say it's worth a few hours of your time, if only for the exercise of thinking hard about your business rather than just executing on it.

<comment><USER7> Absolutely, I should have emphasized that more (maybe an edit). Being forced to confront each of the questions in the app is an amazing exercise for any startup and will do wonders for you direction and understanding of the business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Actually YC partner Harj said at the HN London meetup last Thursday that traction is less important than the team. I was surprised by that, as it seems to be against "make something people want". As a single unknown founder, traction was my only bet. If my personality matters more, then it's down to whether they like what I say about myself.

</comment><comment><USER12> Cool article...very specific to YC which is nice. Not to sound negative, I feel like I've heard a lot of this stuff before (like when I used to follow Guy Kawasaki on twitter), but its relevance to YC apps is especially useful.

<comment><USER13> Thank you.

Most people who are in the Bay or follow YC happenings should be familiar with most of this, but I thought it might be helpful to new applicants or those teams who don't know YC alumni and could benefit from a bit of inside access.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Any demand for adding a panel session "tips for applying to YC" to the startup conference (next one is in Los Angeles)?

<comment><USER13> I think that is a great idea; as jconley pointed out, the YC app is first and foremost a great way to deep-think about your startup and how you'll be successful. Any time spent understanding the reasoning behind the questions and how to concisely what you're building can only improve your company.</comment></comment>