"Do you listen to music while coding?" An analysis. - <AUTHOR> http://themoah.posterous.com/music-work <comment><USER2> "During the 1960s, researchers at Cornell University conducted a series of tests on the effects of working with music. They polled a group of computer science students and divided the students into two groups, those who liked to have music in the background while they worked (studied) and those who did not.

Then they put half of each group together in a silent room, and the other half of each group in a different room equipped with earphones and a musical selection. Participants in both rooms were given a Fortran programming problem to work out from specification. To no one's surprise, participants in the two rooms performed about the same in speed and accuracy of programming. As any kid who does his arithmetic homework with the music on knows, the part of the brain required for arithmetic and related logic is unbothered by music—there's another brain center that listens to the music.

The Cornell experiment, however, contained a hidden wildcard. The specification required that an output data stream be formed through a series of manipulations on numbers in the input data stream. For example, participants had to shift each number two digits to the left and then divide by one hundred and so on, perhaps completing a dozen operations in total. Although the specification never said it, the net effect of all the operations was that each output number was necessarily equal to its input number. Some people realized this and others did not. Of those who figured it out, the overwhelming majority came from the quiet room.

Many of the everyday tasks performed by professional workers are done in the serial processing center of the left brain. Music will not interfere particularly with this work, since it's the brain's holistic right side that digests music. But not all of the work is centered in the left brain. There is that occasional breakthrough that makes you say "Ahah!" and steers you toward an ingenious bypass that may save months or years of work. The creative leap involves right-brain function. If the right brain, is busy listening to 1001 Strings on Muzak, the opportunity for a creative leap is lost.

The creativity penalty exacted by the environment is insidious. Since creativity is a sometime thing anyway, we often don't notice when there is less of it. People don't have a quota for creative thoughts. The effect of reduced creativity is cumulative over a long period. The organization is less effective, people grind out the work without a spark of excitement, and the best people leave."-Peopleware[[http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive- Projects-Teams-S...](http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects- Teams-Second/dp/0932633439)]

<comment><USER3> I agree that silence is probably better than any sort of music for programming. Unfortunately, that's not the choice programmers often have to deal with. Usually, its a choice between music and the usual office distractions (other people's conversations, the noise of people moving around, etc.) In those cases any sort of music to block out background noise is a godsend. Having headphones on also signals to visitors that one is busy and that interruptions should be only for important things.

<comment><USER4> Headphones and white noise can serve the same purpose as silence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't listen to music with words. My brain's language processing unit goes into action, and disrupts my ability to code.

Instrumentals, electronic music, or classical music are fine.

<comment><USER6> This. 100% this. Although, there are times, particularly when deep-diving into someone else's trainwreck, where you know that futility and defeat are the order of the day, when I'll put on Godspeed! You Black Emperor's "Dead Flag Blues":

      The car's on fire, there's no driver at the wheel
      and the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides.

Sorta sets the mood.

<comment><USER7> I've found when doing network pentesting there's a very different set of music that works well for me compared to web app pentesting. For network testing I tend to start with movie soundtracks before moving up to rock instrumentals like east Hastings then on to harder and harder rock/metal before hitting cradle of filth.

On web app tests I normally find plaid or other ambient electronica works better for me.

For coding I find that swing, jazz and blues works best. I've been listening to a lot of cab Calloway of late which is mostly instrumental or scat focused. If theres too much by way of lyrics or if it's too catchy it tends to disrupt my concentration though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> When coding I usually only listen to music if it's an album that I have listened to at least 5+ times. This works for me in that my brain seems to know exactly what parts/songs are coming next and they are no surprises/distractions.

Mixes and things like last.fm are no good because I always have to stop to see what is playing.

<comment><USER9> I listen to one particular song that I've found very mellow and repetitive (the album cut of DJ Shadow - What Does Your Soul Look Like [Part 4]). It helps remove outside noise and get me in the zone quicker.

I just stick it on repeat. It segues in and out to itself nicely too.

I was thinking about getting some other ambient music, but it can be hard to set up a good playlist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I find it very hard to concentrate while listening to music, but even harder while overhearing other people's conversations, so occasionally the headphones must go on.

Of course, headphones also mildly discourage others from interrupting, but that's no way to live your life.

<comment><USER11> For the life of me I don't understand why cubicles are the norm for developer offices. There have been numerous studies showing the productivity effects of open offices vs individual offices. And many more studies on the importance of concentration and the destructive power of interruptions.

Do people value programmer productivity so little that they're willing to throw so much of it away to save a few dollars in real estate costs?

<comment><USER12> I've tried having this conversation so many times at my current place! We don't just have an open plan office, we have a _huge_ open plan office with a mix of developers, client facing staff, managers, secretaries, phones going off, people wandering through to the kitchen or toilets, small meetings going on around tables.... It's a terrible work environment for actually getting to focus on what you're doing, yet any suggestion that we might do better with more secluded, private space is met with ridicule.

A new head honcho is not long in post, and has decided to make his mark by moving the entire department into newly refurbished offices at a cost I understand that's about equal to 3 months salary per head. The plan is for long rows of desks so we'll have even higher density and less private space. I'm not optimistic for its effects on the department.

<comment><USER13> I work in an open plan office as well... And it is a mix of client facing staff and developers. For them it works really well. Not so much for us devs. Sennheiser CX300-B's are a real life saver. I tend to listen to Daft Punk or other music that I know really well (with the general exception of classical). I have found that brown noise also works very well.

<comment><USER12> I've got the music and some reasonable headphones, but I still find it pretty poor. Partly because an iPod on shuffle really isn't very good for filtration unless you set up a lot of enormously long and specific playlists and that takes forever!

For someone else who asked about HH's desk location - yes, he actually moved from his precessor's private office into the bearpit. However he spends so long in meetings that he's very rarely at his desk. Which also helps to explain the new 'clear desk' policy that will leave the office looking immaculately tidy overnight for the cleaners, security and any burglars ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm surprised hip hop isn't on the chart at all. Am I the only one who listens to it while coding? I switch between that and hard rock.

I've never really had any problems with words in music being a distraction. I read somewhere that singing and talking/writing are two completely separate parts of the brain, which is why some stroke or brain damage are able to sing before they can talk.

Also, I prefer speakers to headphones, which is one of the reasons I opted for an actual office instead of working out of a coworking space.

<comment><USER15> I echo your tastes, probably. I bounce around from The Prodigy to Nine Inch Nails to A Tribe Called Quest, to Tool or Rage Against the Machine.

And I find listening to music of any kind helps me fall into zone-coding a lot faster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I actually listen to television while coding, almost always Futurama or It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I've gone through all of the seasons of Futurama 3-4 times in the last couple of months (at least it seems that way), and gone through the latest season of "Sunny" about the same.

Something about Futurama especially is just the right (I don't have a property to describe this...) color to keep my brain right in the sweet spot.

I actually feel a bit bad for netflix because of this. I'm almost constantly streaming futurama in my house, it wouldn't surprise me if they were losing money on me as a customer.

</comment><comment><USER17> I now listen to white noise while coding. I have an mp3 called 'Lost In Space' from a CD called 'White Noise Therapy,' which I play on repeat. It's the sort of sound effect they use in sci fi films when a big space freighter drifts onto screen. It helps because I can turn it up to shut out other sounds, but there's nothing there to follow or analyse whatsoever. I get a nice clear head with that.

Sometimes though if my concentration is more robust for whatever reason then I can afford to listen to some music - usually instrumental jazz or classical.

<comment><USER18> Do you know <http://www.simplynoise.com/> ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was never able to listen to music while coding until someone here on HN suggested creating an Abakus channel on Pandora. Now it's Pavlovian, and I find I'm able to get into flow sooner. Even if it's psychological, I'll take it.

<comment><USER20> You're welcome! :D

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1525865>

(may have been me)

<comment><USER19> Yep- that's the one. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm a huge metal head, but unfortunately most of that music easily distracts, whether it's the vocals, some killer riff, a favorite solo, etc. I think a big reason I've been adding some post-rock (Sigur Ros), trip-hop (Massive Attack) and dubstep (Burial) to my playlist is because they're moody yet rarely depressing. The vocals are minimal, the beats slow paced, and the samples interesting but not distracting. A new favorite of mine these days is the Lush channel on Soma FM.

</comment><comment><USER22> I love music, but I've never been able to work while listening to music. If it's music I enjoy, it consumes my attention (see quote below), especially if I'm familiar with the specific songs. I don't like listening to music on "broadcast," so I'll almost never enjoy a Pandora station even of a genre I generally enjoy.

 _"Music is the pleasure the human soul experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting."_ -Gottfried Leibniz

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Personally, my friends and I have started listing to Dubstep. Just few enough vocals to be distracting, but still interesting.

<comment><USER23> Personal collections or something like glitch.fm?

<comment><AUTHOR> Either by typing "dubstep" into Pandora, or <http://dubstep.fm/>

I'll check out glitch, though, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Music or not I'm guessing the problem that most people (programmers, in this case) have is the inability to focus/concentrate for a certain period of time and what they do is to find something to cling on.

What if maybe the way we work as a developer can be improved? What if we should think outside the box and be a problem solver not just in coding, but also in real-life?

How about breaking a big task into smaller chunks of 5 minutes tasks? I've seen plenty software developers who just put their head down and start coding immediately without some planning. I've seen developers to take on complex problems with no plan or strategy.

What if the problem can be solved within 5 minutes, the developer should grab a few other developers and start brainstorming? Make a decision tree. List options.

I mean... it's not that all of us need to solve Google type of problems. Even a Math exam question can be done (and should be done) within 5-15 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER25> regular listener to the following online radio stations, falling in that 22% who listen to electronic

Sense.fm (trance), chilltrax, Trance clubber

I think the main reason is when in the office environment other peoples conversations is more distracting than music, so a good pair of headphones really helps

</comment><comment><USER26> When i studied traditional animation (drawing), I was always reminded not to listen to music while working... I picked up the habit even while coding and doing anything basically. I also had a problem of concentrating or being in the zone while listening to music while working... however, as of recently, I've tried experimenting with listening to music while working, again. I found that I have no problems with concentration anymore, and I find it quite enjoyable working along with music - BUT, I found out that I do less work while listening to music as opposed to sans music. Not by a large margin, but I think I'll listen to music from now on, since it's more enjoyable experience.

</comment><comment><USER27> I usually end up listening to bands like Sunn or Om. Super slow, heavy, and they don't take over what I'm doing.

When I put on faster paced metal of any variety I find myself tapping my feet with the bass drums and then tapping with my fingers, then I'm hooked.

</comment><comment><USER28> I think oomwriter (<http://www.ommwriter.com/en/>) is a good demonstration of ambient music and typing sounds. Sadly the editor sucks for coding and I deal with three platforms, not just Mac.

I freaking love this little music track from oomwriter:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbwNmPK9kGA>

I've been trying to assemble a collection of similar ambient music and haven't yet figured out the magic words to feed Google.

Edit: Oh hey, the youtube vid mentions the composer put together an album. Must buy.

<comment><USER29> I've been trying to find out music like this on shoutcast! If you know of any streams that play this type of music, do share.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I guess I'm in the 22% that listens to either rock or hard rock...but it has to be my own music collection. If a song I've never heard before comes on, I'm liable to get distracted.

</comment><comment><USER31> It may seem cliche fancy but I can go for hours with smooth jazz sax in the background. no lyrics help me focus on the task at hand while my mind can be in a relaxing/stimulating environment.

By this I mean most jazz music is slow-tempered and chill-out while also offering impressive musical talent for lead instruments (sax solos, piano, strings...). This is just what works for me - a buddy of mine swears on the Kingdom Hearts soundtrack.

</comment><comment><USER32> I wonder if being able to code while listening to music has anything to do with gender; I am a female developer, and can't listen to any kind of music at all while programming -- I find it as distracting as if a cat were jumping on the keyboard. Perhaps because female brains tend to have more connections across the halves? (...or perhaps because I'm a musician myself, and process music differently?)

<comment><USER33> I'm a dude who's also a musician and can't think while while listening to music. However, some coding tasks don't really need music, so I'll listen to it from time to time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I use to work in a noisy office environment where silence wasn't really an option. The best solution was noise canceling headphones and a white noise generator. I now prefer this over silence any day.

Here's a great native Mac OS app for that (source available):

<http://code.google.com/p/noisier/>

I has White, Pink, and Brown noise with an adjustable filter.

</comment><comment><USER34> Give me some Synth Pop anytime when I am working. I don't mind the words for two reasons: 1) usually they are distorted enough for me not to really understand them or 2) I know the song so much singing along is a nice break.

Try out some Hot Chip next time you are in the coding zone and tell me you are not in love ;-)

</comment><comment><USER35> I was hoping this was going to be an analysis of how listening habits correlate with productivity. I'm sure it comes down to personal preference and a host of other factors, but it'd still be interesting to see if there's a statistical difference between different genres or no music at all.

</comment><comment><USER36> I have an office with a door that closes, but I usually leave it open and play Soma FM's Drone Zone quietly in the background. No vocals, little to no rhythm, and helps to put my mind in a slightly far-away place where it's just me and the problem I'm working on.

</comment><comment><USER37> I listen to music about half the time I'm coding, but I almost always have my Bose QC 15's on. Wearing them with no music playing blocks a ton of distracting noise out. While expensive, they're one of the best investments I've ever made.

</comment><comment><USER38> A problem I have is repetition, a song can be really good but it quickly loses appeal if I listen to it multiple times without other songs in between.

Like others here lyrics don't really bother me because I'm listening to stuff I have heard before.

</comment><comment><USER39> Interesting. I find the only kind of music I can listen to that doesn't seem (as far as I can tell, at least) to interfere with my ability to do hard creative work is deep ambient: Steve Roach, Robert Rich, that kind of thing.

</comment><comment><USER40> I can't stand total silence. There must be some music, people or I'll go crazy.

</comment><comment><USER41> I can confirm the experience of others in that I have no particular problem listening to music while coding, but music with distinguishable lyrics is more disruptive to concentration.

</comment><comment><USER42> It really depends on the situation. If I have a clear direction to go in music can help keep me in the zone, especially jazz. If I'm unsure, it can just be distracting.

</comment><comment><USER43> Pandora > Create New Station > "Ratatat".

</comment><comment><USER44> I watch movies and TV comedies while I code often. If not, I usually have music TV on. Working from home rocks.

</comment><comment><USER45> I listen to any or all of those depending on my mood (including silence, excluding white noise).

</comment><comment><USER46> I've been using nature sounds recently. No words, no song changes, and relaxing.

</comment><comment><USER47> AOL Radio 00's and 90's Alternative channel, sucka!!!!

</comment><comment><USER48> Ugh. E-Branding.

On topic, music without lyrics is the way to go.

</comment><comment><USER49> Every time you code and listen to music, should you be paying the musician for the performance? I say yes.

<comment><USER50> Only if I get paid every time someone runs the code.</comment></comment>


Interview with Dennis Ritchie (2003) - <AUTHOR> https://anders.unix.se/2015/10/26/interview-with-dennis-ritchie-2003/ <comment><USER2> I just saw that Dennis Ritchie has a short cut to Sam on his Windows NT desktop in 2002, while Brian Kernighan was using Sam from plan9port on Mac OS in 2015, from this screenshot [https://anders.unix.se/2015/12/10/screenshots- from-developer...](https://anders.unix.se/2015/12/10/screenshots-from- developers--2002-vs.-2015/)

I thought it was interesting to point this out.

<comment><USER3> The icon being pjw's face naturally :) [http://spinroot.com/pico/pjw.html](http://spinroot.com/pico/pjw.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting — the screenshot of Ritchie's desktop towards the bottom of the article shows output of the "dict" command with a listing of available dictionaries. The only one visible is OED 2nd edition. I had no idea OED was ever available for dictd...

<comment><USER2> Dennis Ritchie explained that it is Plan 9 CPU server in drawterm.

You can find a list of dictionaries available on Plan 9 inside Bell Lab at [https://github.com/0intro/plan9/blob/7524062cfa4689019a4ed6f...](https://github.com/0intro/plan9/blob/7524062cfa4689019a4ed6fc22500ec209522ef0/sys/src/cmd/dict/utils.c#L6)

Unfortunately only "pgw" and "roget" are publicly available. The rest are likely died under the onslaught of copyright.

<comment><USER5> But I have never heard of OED2 being any time available as a dictionary under any Unix, that is for the general public.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Pretty interesting, that mail utility didn't bother to wrap the words correctly. Notice

        .. BSD and o\nther ..
        .. persons i\nn ..
        .. give a\nn ..

and so on.

<comment><USER2> That's not `\n`. That's how acme displays long lines.

Dennis Ritchie is on this page too, [http://acme.cat-v.org](http://acme.cat-v.org)

<comment><USER6> > That's not `\n`. That's how acme displays long lines.

Oh, yes, sure. I just didn't know how to show the line break, so just "embedded" \n-s. I realize that there are no \n-s there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Thank you so very much, zaiste, for sharing this marvelous piece of history! I enjoyed every bit of it.

I'm curious, if you had a do-over - what particular questions would you have asked the great Dennis Ritchie?

</comment><comment><USER8> Interesting he'susing NT back then. Wonder if he uses WSL under Win10 nowadays. Cool stuff.

<comment><USER9> Dennis Ritchie passed away in 2011.

<comment><USER10> Rejuvenation technology can't come soon enough.</comment></comment></comment>


Einstein, Symmetry and the Future of Physics - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/einstein-symmetry-and-the-future-of-physics-20190626/ <comment><USER2> "Noether showed that the symmetries of general relativity — its invariance under transformations between different reference frames — ensure that energy is always conserved."

This isn't quite right. Energy isn't conserved in General Relativity. There is a conservation law involving the stress-energy tensor, but as the name implies, it's not energy alone that's being conserved.

But more generally, Noether's theorem, which leads to this conservation law, is probably the most beautiful theorem in physics: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noether%27s_theorem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noether%27s_theorem). Given that, what's amazing is that Emmy Noether only worked on physics for a relatively short time. She was asked by David Hilbert to work on the problem of invariants in General Relativity, came up with one of the most important theorems in physics, and then moved on to other (extremely important) mathematical work.

<comment><USER3> > She was asked by David Hilbert to work on the problem of invariants in > General Relativity, came up with one of the most important theorems in > physics, and then moved on to other (extremely important) mathematical work.

Interestingly I just read about this in a Lawrence M. Krauss book [0] where it was described that David Hilbert insisted on hiring Noether by the university but was overruled by the male majority that didn't like the idea that a female would teach male students. Hilbert commented that "this is university, not a bath-house!" [1].

[0]: I think it was "The Greatest Story Ever Told—So Far"

[1]: I'm writing that from memory so excuse some inaccuracies.

<comment><USER4> It was University of Göttingen, 1915.

[https://www.famousscientists.org/emmy- noether/](https://www.famousscientists.org/emmy-noether/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Specifically, Einstein was puzzled by a difference that didn't make a > difference, a symmetry that didn't make sense. It's still astonishing to > drop a wad of crumped paper and a set of heavy keys side by side to see that > somehow, almost magically, they hit the ground simultaneously — as Galileo > demonstrated (at least apocryphally) by dropping light and heavy balls off > the tower in Pisa. If the force of gravity depends on mass, then the more > massive an object is, the faster it should sensibly fall. Inexplicably, it > does not.

Is this right? I haven't studied physics formally since I was 16, but I thought that the extra gravitational force due to greater mass was effectively cancelled out by the extra inertia also due to the same greater mass: i.e., more massive bodies are indeed more strongly attracted by the Earth, but because they are more massive they are also harder to accelerate to the same degree, with the result that everything falls at the same rate, regardless of mass. And I also thought this was known long before Einstein: if I had to guess, I'd credit Newton.

Or am I fundamentally misunderstanding something?

<comment><USER6> No you are not misunderstanding. The author of the article doesn't understand elementary physics as well as you do, which means he or she should NOT be trying to write an article about relativity or the future of physics. Welcome to modern journalism.

In the paragraph after your quote is another point the author almost certainly gets wrong:

>When Einstein realized that a person falling freely would feel weightless, he described the discovery as the happiest thought of his life.

I have read elsewhere that this "happiest thought" was that there is _no experiment_ that someone falling freely could do that would reliably distinguish between being stationary and falling freely, with an emphasis on measurements of the speed of light. I am pretty sure that it was common knowledge among physics PhDs back then that people falling freely feel weightless. It is not like physics PhD are incapable of jumping while noticing the sensations in their bodies when the sensations are a straightforward consequence of Newtonian mechanics.

<comment><USER7> >The author of the article doesn't understand elementary physics as well as you do

Don't be so quick to make such judgments:

There is ample scientific interest in the differences between inertial and gravitational mass [1]. That they seem the same is a profound question known to Einstein. He explicitly assumed they were the same in his equivalence principle [2].

So their equivalence is a postulate, not derived from deeper theories. But one day we may find it is not consistent over time. It most certainly is a deep question in physics.

There are other theories of gravity, taken seriously, as possible future modifications to relativity, such as Brans-Dicke theory [3], that remove this equivalence principle, yet still agree with all observational evidence to date.

Current experimental evidence puts them equivalent to under 1 part in 10^-15 [2], with more experiments still being done.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass#Inertial_vs._gravitationa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass#Inertial_vs._gravitational_mass)

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

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brans%E2%80%93Dicke_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brans%E2%80%93Dicke_theory)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> vincent-toups I'm reading Weyl's book "Symmetry" now and I have to say, physics looks like it was a lot more fun and loosey goosey back in the day. I think only the Quantum Gravity and Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics people still have approximately this much fun.

</comment><comment><USER8> As others have commented, lots of physics errors and misunderstandings in this article. The author, K.C. Cole, has no business explicating physics she doesn't understand to the public. Expected more from Quanta Magazine...

<comment><USER9> > Expected more from Quanta Magazine...

You won't if you keep reading them.</comment></comment>


Regrets of the dying - <AUTHOR> http://www.inspirationandchai.com/Regrets-of-the-Dying.html

<comment><USER2> In case you don't get many comments, it might be because this has been submitted a few times before:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1570865>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1643239> <\- This has the most coments

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2603369>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2604180>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2615886>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2617705>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2624341>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2743768>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3290059>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3306688>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3331535>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3398988>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3542280>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3629787>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3646379>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3816422></comment>


O'Reilly $9.99 Exclusive Best of "Ebook Deal of the Day" - <AUTHOR> http://oreilly.com/store/ddbst.html

<comment><USER2> All O'Reilly's books are available cheaper if you have an iPhone (or maybe just iTunes?). Follow the guide here to extract the embedded ePub from one of their iPhone apps, which retail at $1.99 - $4.99. Scroll down to "Extracting an EPUB Pearl".

<http://oreilly.com/ebooks/oreilly_iphone_tips.csp>

btw, TapWorthy is well worth the $4.99.

<comment><USER3> Are they exactly the same ePubs that you'd buy from the web site? If so, I'm just stingy enough to do this. ;)

<comment><USER2> I don't know if they're exactly the same but I converted the Tapworthy one and it looked great as an ePub in iBooks on the iPad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Most public or university libraries have full, free access to Safari Online, the O'Reilly ebook subscription service that normally costs $40. You usually have to go through a slightly annoying web proxy, but you get all the books you could ever want.

<comment><USER5> I use it all the time but the one my university provides doesn't let you download or even chapters making on the go reading a pain. That's why I still buy ebooks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Also note the code "4cast" gets you 50% off any ebook

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Can anyone recommend anything from this list?

I'm almost through _Learning Python_ after having worked with Python for about 2 years and I really appreciate it. It goes into great depth on all of the commonly used features of the language. I think I got to appreciate it more precisely because I already knew a good deal of Python. This book also shows the whys in Python and gives you an idea of what will be new in Python 3 (and why).

<comment><USER7> Well, I'd say Cooking for Geeks, but I'm a little biased. ;)

-Jeff Potter

<comment><USER8> Is this directed at Americans with an Imperial system and Fahrenheit scale, or will we Europeans also be able to understand it? :)

<comment><AUTHOR> You can easily check that on Google Preview. From what I've seen, both temperatures and weights are given in both American and European systems.

<comment><USER7> Yes, the book is in both metric and imperial measurements. Seems like an easy thing for an author to do to reach a broader audience... No idea why more don't!

<comment><USER8> It's really widespread which is why I am on the fence so much. It's ridiculous, and you can only speculate what their reason is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Apress does a similar daily deal: <http://apress.com/info/dailydeal>

<comment><AUTHOR> This is great, but is there any RSS feed? I couldn't find one.

<comment><USER10> I didn't find one either. I just assumed that they want you to come back each day to the site:)

<comment><USER9> I had a look and: <http://twitter.com/ApressDaily> (all Twitter accounts have an RSS feed too :-)) Or, you can just add the original page to Google Reader as-is. No need for RSS feeds nowadays since they track page updates too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> GoodReader finally just earned its keep.

It was the only way I could get my newly purchased Cooking for Geeks PDF into iBooks. Safari has no Open in iBooks option for PDFs (lame).

<comment><USER12> > Safari has no Open in iBooks option for PDFs (lame).

If you're talking about Mobile Safari, it very well does (at least in iOS4, once you have iBooks installed.)

If you mean plain-old-Safari—well, Safari itself doesn't offer any help, but you _can_ just drag-and-drop the PDF into your iTunes library once it's downloaded, and it'll appear in the "Books" section.

<comment><USER11> How?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Any thoughts on R in a Nutshell?

<comment><USER14> My background is in SAS and SPSS, but my new job required me to learn R. If you require an absolute beginners guide for R, this book might not be for you. It assumes you have a background in programming and basic statistics.

I am about halfway done the book, and found the chapters on graphics and lattices to be very helpful.

The one thing that is lacking, at least so far, is a section on formatting output. Most data is shown in raw tables, but for my job I need to feed these into excel.

My R toolbox has this book and the built-in R help system. So far, those two things are all I have needed two write my scripts.

<comment><USER15> Look into the RExcel plugin for Excel. There are other ways to get data between the two programs, but they usually involve importing and exporting CSV files. With RExcel, it's only slightly more complicated than copying and pasting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm wondering how long it will be until the "e" in ebook seems anachronistic.

<comment><USER17> How long did it take with email?

<comment><USER16> You need to differentiate between email and physical mail, because physical mail is still in common use.

That will not be the case for physical books at some point in the not-too- distant future.

So ebook will not last as a term, there will be no need for it.

<comment><USER17> Email didn't kill off physical mail completely, but ebooks will completely eliminate physical books?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Any thoughts on TapWorthy?

<comment><USER19> I've been reading it for a while, definitely "worthy", I'm a UI designer and I've been designing iPhone applications for more than one year and I still find it extremely interesting. There are a lot of things that you take for granted without thinking about the why you are doing it, this book explained to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Anyone have any experience with Cooking for Geeks?

<comment><USER21> I've read the food illness chapter online and I liked it. I think I'll read the whole book on safari.

<comment><USER7> Thanks! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> A real bargain, thanks.</comment>


SubmitHub founder talks building a 7-figure company with no CS degree - Pete-Codes https://www.nocsdegree.com/submithub-founder-talks-making-with-no-cs-degree/ <comment><AUTHOR> Also find myself really _learning_ something new mostly when peeking into other people's code and trying to understand how it works and hacking together working stuff. Even though FCC-like platforms are great and provide practice, it seems that only when you're not doing separate tasks teaching you a particular theme in programming, but rather working through a set of subsequent actions that you need to do in order to make a working prototype do you really start to understand how this or that tool or method works

<comment> Pete-Codes Yep, tutorials like FCC have their role but you have to make projects to get better. As you say, hacking about with someone's else's code will do the trick.

</comment></comment><comment> Pete-Codes I discovered SubmitHub from Indiehackers.

Jason has done an awesome job from reverse-engineering a Meteor todo list tutorial into a music submission website without any formal training in programming.

</comment><comment><USER2> Thanks for the shout, Pete!</comment>


Is Barack Obama correct that mass killings don't happen in other countries? - <AUTHOR> http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jun/22/barack-obama/barack-obama-correct-mass-killings-dont-happen-oth/ <comment><USER2> I wish they would stop comparing gun violence deaths and just use deaths from violence.

I'm pretty sure I'd rather be shot to death than hacked to death by a machete anyway. The implement (if there is any) doesn't matter as much as the result.

<comment><USER3> yeah right but you could at least try to escape from being hacked by a machete...

<comment><USER4> The stark recent example of this was the Rwanda genocide, and there was little or no escape from the crowds wielding machetes.

Review videos about the Tueller Drill ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tueller_Drill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tueller_Drill)) and you may become less confident about your ability to try to escape an edged weapon.

All this mostly depends on how timely your reaction is to whatever's happening. Once you're a fair distance away, say the 21 foot metric of the Tueller Drill, against a bad marksman you probably have a pretty good chance; the average distance of gun fights as of some years ago was _7_ feet.

<comment><USER3> for fair comparison you need to analyze most common scenario, which is multiple victims/targets vs single killer. it's going be day/night difference between dealing with a guy with a machete in his hand and a gunman...

<comment><USER4> I'm pretty sure the most common scenario is 1 on 1, or 1 on a few you're not willing to abandon, like SO or family, or multiple assailants, a small criminal "gang", on 1 or a few. The lone nutcase assault is very rare in comparison to normal crime.

If it's a few on your side you're not willing to abandon, it's entirely another matter and beyond the scope of our discussion.

If there's only one target, yourself, then if the one or more assailants are already within "critical distance" I personally don't think the difference between edged weapons and guns is "night and day", but I agree it's still quite big.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Who's Hiring? (March 2011 Edition) - <AUTHOR>

As many have been posting about new beginnings and starting afresh, it's time for another Hiring thread. <comment><USER3> Boston (US) as well as London (UK) - youDevise, Ltd.

We're a 65-person financial-software firm committed to learning and improvement as well as great web software and agile development. Some of you may know us from our sponsorship of Hacker News meetups in London. We're hiring developers and other smart folks of many kinds. See <https://dev.youdevise.com> and <http://www.youdevise.com/careers>.

While we don't have remote workers, we do help successful candidates relocate to London or Boston including arranging visas where needed. For example, last year we hired HN readers from Denmark and the US, and we moved a Polish employee to Boston.

<comment><USER4> Sounds interesting! Would it be possible to contact you with some questions via email?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> BuzzGenie - Los Gatos - Remote is OK, but must be able to attend on site brainstorming and status meetings near Hwys 17 & 85.

BuzzGenie is a social network/news/blog/action Internet portal. We address an individual's need to not only voice their opinions, but to make a difference, enabling them to discuss and blog interests and act on causes, issues, events, topics, and persons of interest while keeping their identity private to the Internet at large. BuzzGenie combines the best features of Facebook, Huffington Post, WordPress, Yelp, and Twitter by integrating the friends feature; recent activity feeds; interest-based news feeds, blogs, and Tweets; and connecting people using an _interest-based_ social graph. We have a solid revenue model which gets us to profitability in about two years.

Looking for LAMP and mobile developers, as well as Unix/Plesk admin.

Also looking for activists-bloggers.

You will play a key role on a very small team. Since we are at very early stage, you can become a major player in a company that wants to change and improve the way people interact on the things they care about. This is a very hot, competitive space with a potentially huge payout for the team first to get traction in the market. Great achievers will be rewarded accordingly.

Benefits of working on site has the additional benefit of three free gourmet meals a day (including Indian/vegetarian), an outdoor patio work area, hot tub, home gym, and unlimited gourmet espresso/cappuccino/coffee (it's a private residence). Imagine upscale 'garage' start-up. Walking distance to park with basketball, tennis courts, running track, and par course. Across Bascom Ave. from Los Gatos Creek trail for walking, running, roller blading, and biking.

Have a look at the site and see if it interests you. Helps to have some activist in your blood.

Compensation is accomplishment based until funding is closed. Founder's stock available.

astockel at buzzgenie com

</comment><comment><USER6> Here is a RSS feed for this thread's parent comments (which are mainly job postings):

<http://whoishiring.heroku.com/rss/2270790>

Thanks to Ronnie Roller (<http://ronnieroller.com/>) for Hacker News API.

</comment><comment><USER7> San Diego, CA. Remote ok. Klatu Networks: A wireless sensor networking startup that focuses in biotech monitoring. We are a small, bootstrapped, profitable start up. We are very selective on our hiring so you will only be working with other great engineers.

The most important requirements is to be passionate about creating software and be able to quickly grasp new technologies. Other requirements include strong knowledge of Javacript, experience with Ruby, Java, SQL, Git.

Contact me directly if you are interested, email is in my profile.

</comment><comment><USER8> Cambridge, MA (AO Games)

We're an online retail/games startup based in Cambridge, MA looking for someone to fill a full-time position as a Lead Developer of web applications.

We compensate very well, paying market rates or above for real talent. You may choose to substitute some equity for salary, but that is not mandatory. A remote working option is available at the start, though in the long term the job is at Cambridge, MA.

We are looking for someone who:

\- Has experience building complex web apps (think Facebook).

\- Has experience / enjoys the challenge of optimizing complex, time sensitive, applications.

\- Has some familiarity with PHP in LAMP (though PHP doesn't need to be your favorite language; I'm looking at you Python/RoR evangelists!)

\- System / Database administration familiarity is a plus, since this will be helpful for optimization.

A little about us: we are a small startup that is highly profitable. We bootstrapped our way to profitability by using minimum money and time (8 months). We are expanding to take on larger challenges and need a great programmer to work with us.

Contact me at firstname.lastname@example.com for more info, or check out our posting here: [http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/9293/profitable- startu...](http://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/9293/profitable-startup- looking-full-stack-ao-games-online-retail-games)

</comment><comment><USER9> Kontagent (San Francisco, CA)

We are looking for sales and engineers! <http://jobvite.com/m?3zGZ1fwZ>

Kontagent measures people, not pages, and is a leading analytics platform for social application developers. The platform has been built to provide deep social behavior analysis and visualization that provides actionable insights via a hosted, on-demand service. It works with many of the world's largest developers and brands, tracking thousands of social applications and games with over 100 million monthly active users and over 15 billion messages per month.

[http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/10/facebook-analytics- platform...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/10/facebook-analytics-platform- kontagent-now-tracking-100m-users-15b-messages-per-month/)

[http://venturebeat.com/2011/02/28/kontagent-launches-real- ti...](http://venturebeat.com/2011/02/28/kontagent-launches-real-time-social- app-monitoring-system/)

Email me waiyip.tung at kontagent.com if you need more information.

Wai Yip Tung

</comment><comment><USER10> Looking for a junior Software Engineer - Java in Singapore. (Sorry, must be located in Singapore)

The team at Plunify is seeking a talented and enthusiastic Java developer to help build a cloud computing platform. Work with the latest Web technologies to bridge the gap between the desktop and the cloud. Most importantly, be passionate about creating great software, be able to learn quickly and be a team player.

Your role is to develop, maintain and support Java applications that work with our proprietary platform. Refine and enhance security of existing Java applications. You will also be required to learn and understand how to integrate your applications with various hardware and software systems.

Required: \- BS/MS CS or related majors. (New graduates welcome) \- Strong programming skills in Java \- Willingness to learn \- Fluency in written and spoken English. Any other languages are a bonus! \- Deep interest in cloud computing \- Any experience in database/SQL and web scripting technologies, e.g. PHP, Javascript is a plus

Get in touch via recruit at plunify dot com!

</comment><comment><USER11> Bangalore, India (Sorry, no remote).

We are looking for Java and PHP programmers.

We are a well funded ecommerce Startup. We already have an experienced team working on the technology side. Here are some interesting problems in this space: - Scaling - Data Mining/Retrieval - Analytics.

Please get in touch and I will convince you to join us :)

(Freshers and interns are welcome too).

</comment><comment><USER12> Nomad Editions - New York city area (sorry remote not an option for this role) <http://readnomad.com>

Web Developer for Digital Magazine Startup

Nomad Editions, a startup creating digital weeklies for mobile devices, is looking for an awesome web-standards focused HTML/CSS/JS developer to help build our content on top of Treesaver (treesaver.net), one of the most exciting new open source frameworks for digital news and magazine publishing. The developer will be responsible for taking wireframes and translating them into standards-compliant web pages in Treesaver.

We're seeking: \- Expertise in standards-based web development with HTML/CSS/JS \- Ideal candidate would also have design skills \- Interest in working with a very exciting company doing something no one else in the digital publishing industry is doing: making digital content look amazing everywhere

If you're interested or have questions, please e-mail Martha Rotter at firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER13> Phunware - Santa Ana, CA and Austin, TX (sorry, no remote)

Phunware is an enterprise branded mobile application infrastructure company that delivers high value, high utility and engaging mobile applications. These applications enable our customers to become a core part of their consumers' mobile lifestyles.

Checkout our high profile apps at <http://www.phunware.com>

Job Opportunities in Austin, TX and Santa Ana, CA locations:

* Full-time position – iPhone Mobile Applications Software Engineer

* Full-time position – PHP Web Application Engineer

* Internships - iPhone Software Developer

On-site hires only, no remote or outsourcing. Full-time qualifications include 3+ years of software engineering in related technologies. Internships must have proven iPhone development experience.

Send resumes to email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER14> CellDivision - New York City - Local only, no remote

We are an established company - not a startup and not your traditional type of agency you would normally see on here - basically we work in the pharmaceutical/medinfo sector. Just because our standard business is old school - the technologies we use aren't.

We are a PHP shop, but make heavy use of MongoDB, Node.js, RabbitMQ, Solr, Haxe and any other technologies that are the new cool thing - but that also are indeed the right tool for the job. Other cool things we are playing with include the Kinect and RFID technology.

We are looking for a full time senior PHP developer. You need to be comfortable using our in-house framework and be quick on your toes in coming up with ideas. Ideas are welcome - but be ready to execute on them as well.

Send your resume, or any questions you might have to carlson at celldivision com

</comment><comment><USER15> RentMineOnline (San Francisco, based in the Presidio).

We would consider interns, remote, and part-time or full-time.

Rails dev: you would be our #2 full-time developer, coding, refining our tech stack as we grow, and helping to coordinate our remote developers. Our current stack is {slicehost,nginx,passenger,rails,delayed_job,MySQL}. We recently upgraded to Rails3, and are adding fun stuff like varnish/redis/memcached next. We also use some amazon services {s3,rds,sdb} and have a fairly deep integration with facebook platform.

UX: prototype or jquery with a dash of design sensibility & a knack for user flows. This could be remote or part-time, but we prefer SF-based and are ultimately looking to fill a lead design role.

contact me - kevin@, and include #job somewhere in the subject so I don't miss it.

</comment><comment><USER16> I run CoderStack, a developer job board (currently UK focused) we have lots of startups advertising at the moment:

<http://www.coderstack.co.uk/startup-jobs>

</comment><comment><USER17> Stipple is looking for an engineer. San Francisco, local only. <http://stippleit.com>

We do Rails, jQuery, and TDD. Lots of Javascript. We write our own CSS (with SASS/Compass). We move quickly by exploiting the best tools we can find.

You would be the #2 engineering hire, and would work with myself and our other engineer.

Our awesome office is in South Beach, close to AT&T Park. I'll tell you the story about it when you get here.

Please send resumes or questions to mpd at stippleit.com, and include HNJOB in the subject.

</comment><comment><USER18> Boston, MA (not remote)

MDT Advisers - We're a small quant investing shop working with machine learning, financial analysis, and the hardest dataset in the world. We're mainly hiring for a general analyst position that's about 60% programming and 40% financial and statistical analysis -- <http://www.mdtadvisers.com/careers/qea.jsp> . The people, problems, and pay are good, and we aim for good work-life balance(e.g. no 60 hour weeks).

You can email me at email@example.com with any questions you have.

</comment><comment><USER19> London, UK

Commercial Security International provide internet monitoring services focused around intelligence gathering, asset and brand protection.

We're looking for a developer to join our team working on our MS stack using ASP.NET MVC, jQuery and TDD in an Agile environment.

Checkout our website at <http://comsechq.com> or email: jobs at comsechq.com if your interested.

</comment><comment><USER20> Seattle WA: Distilled - Sales Role (Non remote)

We're a Search Marketing consultancy; HQed in London UK, we opened a Seattle office in 2010. We work for plenty of large brands - though we have a bunch of startups amongst our client list as well.

Looking for a Sales Exec with some experience to join the team and keep us growing fast.

<http://dis.tl/sales-exec>

</comment><comment><USER21> UK, Cambridge or Brighton (no remote) - <USER2>

We are an established not-for-profit IT consultancy working in the International Development sector. We're looking for multi-skilled web developers willing to participate in all aspects of the organisation.

For details <http://www.aptivate.org/job-web-developer>

</comment><comment><USER22> New York City

We're looking for an Assistant Project Manager to help build online games for a major publishing company (we're not dead yet!). Game design, wireframes, puzzle creation, customer service, documentation, QA--this position is a little of everything and we'll find a way to use any skill you have.

Shoot me an e-mail for further info: gbrown at scholastic.com

</comment><comment><USER23> We're a small startup local to the SF Bay Area looking primarily for developers right now and designers in the near term.

Ideal candidate would be a PHP dev with JS, jQuery, HTML, CSS, etc. C++, Python, Objective-C, etc are bonuses.

We're currently focused on solving an consumer ecommerce experience problem.

<comment><USER24> Have a link or email address?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> New Jersey early stage startup is looking for locals. Show your NJ love.

Hiring software engineers and mobile app developers.

Java, JavaScript, AJAX (JQuery, Prototype, ExtJS) with a working knowledge of Spring MVC Framework and a sprinkling of C# wouldnt hurt.

firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER26> Austin, TX (not remote)

Quickly growing startup making test and measurement equipment in solar industry. <http://www.atonometrics.com/careers/software-engineer>

</comment><comment><USER27> Cheezburger is looking for an Experienced ASP.NET/C# Developer - [http://jobs.cheezburger.com/job/detail/4324-experienced- asp-...](http://jobs.cheezburger.com/job/detail/4324-experienced-asp-net-c- developer)

</comment><comment><USER28> Intelligent app search and discovery startup is looking for a business development person and a UI designer. <http://iApps.in/jobs>

<comment><USER29> Where are you located? Is remote a possibility?

<comment><USER28> New Delhi, India. Remote a possibility.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Austin TX

Ruby Developer for AcademicWorks

More details here: <http://www.academicworks.com/careers>

</comment><comment><USER31> i'm looking to hire people with php, jquery, and postgresql skill.

<comment><USER32> Location?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Palo Alto, California

www.GoPollGo.com is a social polling platform and we're looking for rock-solid talent. Our stack is Ruby on Rails / JQuery / HAML / SASS / MySQL / Nginx / Passenger / Git. Competitive pay + options.

Check out our opportunities: <http://gopollgo.com/about/jobs></comment>


In .NET, open source does not beget open source - <AUTHOR> http://bvanderveen.com/a/dot-net-open-source-does-not-beget-open-source/

<comment><USER2> I disagree with the point of the article. I think This is more of a platform gripe ("I hate it that this stuff is unfamiliar to me!") than an actually valid argument.

The same could be said for someone learning Linux for the first time, writing about how difficult it is to get X project compiling, or starting a project from scratch. Vi, Emacs, no IDE, dependencies, make, cross platform incompatibilities, etc are all gripes that could be said of any OSS project of decent size. All with an equally good sob story about just how hard things are to do.

It boils down to the fact that learning new stuff is hard and inconvenient because in the environment you have just spent X years developing on it's so easy.

Which is a fair enough point, just don't mislabel or misattribute it.

EDIT: Also the headline makes no sense. Platforms don't beget open source. People and open source licenses do. If it does not exist, create it and share it. Is that not the whole point of OSS?

<comment><USER3> > I think This is more of a platform gripe ("I hate it that this stuff is > unfamiliar to me!") than an actually valid argument

It actually went to great lengths to demonstrate how hard it is to do cross- platform development with .NET. The article describes the problems of having IDEs that rewrite makefiles in incompatible ways.

> The same could be said for someone learning Linux for the first time

Makefiles usually work. You may need to install some library through your package manager or build it yourself, but, then, you are a programmer, not an icon-dragger.

> It boils down to the fact that learning new stuff is hard and inconvenient

While learning new stuff can be hard or inconvenient, it has nothing to do with the problem the article describe. The article describe the problem of not having a clean cross-platform workflow programmers running Visual Studio and Mono Develop can use to seamlessly collaborate on the same codebase, something that's really easy for just about anything else.

<comment><USER4> >It actually went to great lengths to demonstrate how hard it is to do cross- platform development with .NET.

Being cross-platform has nothing to do with being open source. They are totally orthogonal. The article conflates both of them.

<comment><USER5> Open source stuff is often ported to other architectures because it's open source. The point here is using microsoft tools makes that difficult... though I'm not sure why anyone would find that surprising.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Ignore for a second that MonoDevelop and Visual Studio will fight over the formatting of those files, stomp on each other changes, and add garbage that's meaningless to the other. A VS- or MD-generated .csproj will be default import some target definitions called"

Manual or unrecognized changes in project XML files will be preserved by (at least) Visual Studio - this is "by design" behavior. If MonoDevelop discard unrecognized constructions, this must be a bug.

"Microsoft.CSharp.targets. Uh oh, what's that? Where does that live on my system? What does it do? What package do I have to install to get that?"

MSBuild.

"Well, I don't want to include that DLL in source control because checking binaries into source control is a no-no."

Wrong. Test framework is either a dependency library or a tool and MUST be included under \lib or \tools folder, under the name that contains version information (say, "nunit-1.2.3"). Another way is to add library code as an external dependency and build it every time, but I think this is overkill in this particular situation. Bottom line: by keeping 3rd-party dependencies (libs or tools) local you will be getting people up to speed in no time as opposed to having to maintain detailed instruction on where to get software and how to install it.

"Pretty nice! I have separate commands for msbuild and xbuild to build the .csproj files that my IDE understands, but hey, just an implementation detail, right?"

Or maybe you could create an environment variable / macro that would perform all required substitution and make your build code easier to maintain.

"Doing it in Ruby is a heck of a lot easier than using the ZIP task in MSBuild and I don't have to worry about cross-platform issues."

I think this pretty much summarizes the article: new set of tools + unfamiliar environment = lots of grief.

About me: I maintain pretty large Windows-only project with tons of dependencies on 3rd-party .NET and COM binaries; support one-command builds into multiple release configuration, automatic versioning and hourly builds on Hudson. It took a couple of weeks in total to setup everything, but in Quick Start document I have only instructions on how to install Visual Studio and checkout latest code.

Another project is an ASP.NET MVC project, where my build script in addition to building the thing, uploads binaries and content onto separate servers and does some admin stuff over SSH.

I mean, know your tools, as usual.

<comment><USER7> Regarding dependencies:

Ruby has Gems

Node has npm

Java has Maven

.NET has ____

I don't argue too much about checking binaries into source control but other development environments have probably smoother situation compare to .NET when it comes to 3rd-party libraries.

NuGet is close but not quite there yet.

Regarding Build: MSBuild is akin to that of Ant in Java. Considering that many of Java developers either have moved or are moving to use Maven, it's quite clear that .NET is lagging behind.

Correct me if I'm wrong, even Clojure leiningen is very similar to Maven.

There's some truth to his grief. Even if you're familiar with .NET tools, other platforms provide better experience.

<comment><USER8> .NET has NuGet. You yourself mention it, then throw it out as "It's not there yet." If you're going to play that game, you have to at least explain what about NuGet is lacking.

Currently, NuGet:

      * Is trivial to use
      * Can be set up on your own box for private packages
      * Has a pretty huge collection of packages
      * Avoids jamming libraries in your SCM
      * And pertinent to this article: works fine in Mono

I know that Gems/pip/whatever have various trade-offs, but you can't summarily ditch NuGet without at least explaining why.

<comment><USER7> Does it work in Linux?

<comment><USER8> Yes: since at least around October or so, NuGet.exe (the command line) works just fine under Mono in Linux. This is all you need to create and install NuGet packages. MonoDevelop does not yet have integration equivalent to VisualStudio's, but that's not a big deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> OSS authors that write apps in C++ have complained about nearly the exact same problems and often ignore Windows completely for many of the same reasons.

I think the only viable approach for cross platform OSS on .NET is to take a Mono-first approach and then package for Windows developers in a subsequent step using NuGet.

It's kind of a backwards approach by targeting 10% of the market first then later targeting the 90%, but it's likely the only way to ensure cross platform OSS when you choose to use .NET.

That being said, I don't miss .NET at all. Dip your toe in other frameworks, you'll find it's much more conducive to OSS work.

<comment><USER10> It's not really backwards to tackle the hard problems first to prove they can be solved, but it is counter-intuitive. Thanks for this tip.

<comment><USER11> you are wrong, imbecil la puta que te pario

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> You make some great points about the difficulties in running a cross-platform .NET project as open source. However, I think the cross-platform difficulties are only a small part. Open-source is very new to many Microsoft developers. Just getting participation in .NET projects that are Windows only is difficult (but not impossible). Many Microsoft developers have had years of "training" that open-source == buggy and has support issues just like many non-MS developers have been "taught" that .NET is a legal trap so don't touch it.

I think the perception has been changing in recent years and open-source .NET is now well accepted in some circles. As the trend grows I think you'll start to see better cross-platform tools and support for your package management and testing problems.

Who knows, JavaScript might just become so dominant that open-source .NET never reaches its full potential.

<comment><USER13> The problem is that some people still remember some of the stories about how Microsoft blackmailed some hardware vendors to stop shipping devices with Linux and how they sued companies which sell Android based devices. Because of that reason, it's not that hard to imagine a scenario where Microsoft got "stabby" and wanted a piece of someone's cake.

node.js / python / php / ruby (with all of their frameworks) are far better choices than .net. At least they're backed by a lot of people and they all seem to be doing fine. They're pretty much the same across distributions / OSes / architectures from the point of view of development and of the delpoyment (to some extent).

I played with the nancy framework when I was considering an alternative to python for a small web service which required high rps / server resources. Needless to say, I decided to stick to python due to the lack of instructions for compiling on Linux and deploying on mono.

<comment><USER3> > remember some of the stories about how Microsoft blackmailed some hardware > vendors to stop shipping devices with Linux and how they sued companies > which sell Android based devices.

Sadly, this is not limited to the past. Microsoft _is_ using patent extortion to get a couple bucks for every Android device sold.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Read the article carefully. This guy has a point.

Zipfs law applies to software stacks. There is always a leader , the second and third place drops off exponentially. So, in .NET, the leader is obviously MS with its tooling. However, these tools aren't as lightweight for someone who came from Ruby and command line tools. While scripting is possible, one has to patch together the information from various sources.

@jimbobimbo has said that it is possible to script. But it took him weeks. There is no obvious .NET stack (by stack I mean Build, Test, Deploy) that champions lightweight systems.

VS writes tools for software stacks. Not quick dirty scripts. This is the only thing they get paid big $$$ for. However, it is not actually what the customer wants. The customer wants a solid runtime, easy to debug stacks and fast turnaround.

I believe NuGet is a step in the right direction, usable from both Powershell and VS Shell. However, it is going to take another generation before MS starts to understand how to make the rest of their infrastructure scriptable.

</comment><comment><USER15> While the title of the article is true, the content doesn't really support the idiom. Lack of familiarity with tools and utilities seems to be the theme here. It would help if MonoDevelop and Visual Studio played well together, but they don't. Portability across platforms with .Net isn't easy, that's for sure.

For OSS .net projects I've been involved with, we've made conscious decisions about code distribution. Those included unit tests (we chose nUnit) and builds (VS sln files). Did we forego all those mono developers? Well, yes and no. Yes, in theory; no, in terms of anyone who was using our code in a Mono environment. To bridge the gap, we rolled a MonoDevelop project file, and put up some info about it on our wiki. To date, we never had anyone ask for build assistance in Mono.

While I get the sentiment, it's not nearly as big a problem as getting .Net developers engaged in more OSS projects.

</comment><comment><USER16> The only major project that comes to mind using Mono on multiple platforms for a biggish open source project is OpenSimulator (<http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Build_Instructions>). I wonder how they overcome those issues.

</comment><comment> iso8859-1 Isn't this pretty much what the GPL was designed to solve? Stallman had to make sure the derivatives were open-source to make GNU going. If he used the MIT license, people wouldn't have felt the need to try and build something that could compete. But because they knew their rights were protected they had a chance against the reigning.

</comment><comment><USER17> No comparison against Java? That would be the obvious point to compare, given that it's the most comparible to .Net. Yet he has only listed dynamic (and mainly interpreted/"scripting") languages.

A few points:

1) GAC Deployment of 3rd Party Libraries

For many libraries it isn't required. Many libraries are fine with simply shipping the DLL.

Sure, a lot of the Microsoft libraries/frameworks do require a GAC deploy, but that's to be expected. They've pretty much been designed for clicky-clicky "developers". Coders tend to avoid these like the plague : as should you too.

2) Testing

nUnit works fine on both Mono and Visual Studio. What's the problem with using it? That you want to integrate with TFS? If so then your problem's clear.

<comment><USER2> FWIW, the MS world has a lot of hard-core scary-smart coders.

And GAC deployment does not have much to do with clicky stuff. GAC has to with with DLL hell, and you need to jump through some extra hoops to deploy there (ie, <http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324168>). Or maybe you intended something else in your comment, but I missed it. Is the GAC inferior (since you put the word developers in quotes) because it allows the programmer to find references without searching through folders? Sorry, I just miss the point of the comment.

<comment><USER17> The original article was complaining about the requirement to GAC deploy libraries and being hard to test: my reply was that it's often not required. Microsoft's own products being a prominent exception (think Entity Framework, Workflow and System.Globalization).

The Microsoft World is split into two camps:

a) The kind who like using the drag-and-drop tools and having all of their code generated for them. these are generally the less technical crowd.

b) The engineer type, the type who know what SOLID means know when to use (and not to use) a range of patterns. They're often proficient in several languages. This crowd tends to be more technical, and more critical of the products Microsoft build on top of the CLR.

I'm in the second camp (and I guess that the vast majority of MS HNers are too).

The first camp are common referred to (and refer to themselves) as "Microsoft developers".. and they're by far the largest (but least vocal) group.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What has this got to do with open source? Imagine a open source project hosted on Team Foundation Server and the contributors all using Visual Studio. Is that project any less "open source" than other open source projects? Why will that .NET project beget something that is not open source? Doesn't make any sense.

The article should be titled something like "Cross-platform development of .NET is hard". And then go on to talk about how that can be a hurdle for open source development.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair.

<comment><USER18> Completely agree. To use a different analogy, this is like writing ObjC code using XCode and talking about how hard it is to compile outside the Apple world of tools (perhaps using GNUStep). It is no less open source.

<comment><USER11> Completely agree.....idiot....pelele...la puta que te re pario

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Enema enema.Enema enema

</comment><comment><USER19> Who posted this NOOB .net blog post?

If you don't know how to do this, find someone who does.</comment>


FM Raises Another $4.5M; Are They Having Difficulty Filling Inventory? - <AUTHOR> http://www.centernetworks.com/fm-raises-another-4-5m <comment><USER2> If they're having difficulty filling inventory, raising more cash to hire more salespeople seems like a reasonable course of action...

I'm surprised we don't see more inter-network wholesale deals-- when one company's sales volume is low, resell the excess inventory at a discount to another network!</comment>


How Algorithmic Experiments Harm People Living in Poverty - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/how-algorithmic-experiments-harm-people-living-in-pover-1822311248 <comment><USER2> In regards to governmental programs like Unemployement Insurance "The programs more than paid for themselves. The reduction in UI benefits paid plus the increase in tax receipts from faster reemployment were more than enough to pay for the cost of providing the search assistance." "The statisitcal targeting of these search-assistance programs was crucial to their cost savings. The costs of government support programs can balloon if they are opened to too large a class of individuals" There have been provisions as far back as 1989 in the US federal government that mandate the use of control groups and randomized trials. Over the past nearly 30 years these tests have lead to better service to more people than would be available without the algorithms. [1] SuperCrunchers by Ian Ayers [https://books.google.com/books?id=dJXZ- EzX6gEC&pg=PA67&lpg=P...](https://books.google.com/books?id=dJXZ- EzX6gEC&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=ian+ayers+government+programs+using+statistics&source=bl&ots=hDoA- CFmFX&sig=SBOKi_boMN4TZRPii18ukIYWLi8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwin2L2N2_PYAhUFv1MKHX2xB4sQ6AEISTAF#v=onepage&q=ian%20ayers%20government%20programs%20using%20statistics&f=false)

</comment><comment><USER3> Ahem.

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a statistical model rejecting an online application, for ever".</comment>


The House That Spied on Me - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/the-house-that-spied-on-me-1822429852 <comment><USER3> This was brilliant and disturbing. The legal implications are crazy---even if the owner of the house has agreed to the EULAs of all the devices, their visitors have not. Is their a legal obligation to notify visitors that data about them is being generated, collected, snooped through, and potentially sold?

If people could be made more informed of what their devices are saying (and to whom) perhaps they'd be more reluctant to "smartify" their homes. Transparency would enable more informed decisions.

<comment><USER4> > If people could be made more informed

I'd really really really like to see some AR glasses that would somehow visualize all sorts of invisible things: radio traffic (incl. special indication of weak encryption and non-encrypted communications), ultrasound and infrared tags, location of detectable microphones and cameras - all sorts of things like this, whatever can be detected.

Like, look at the smart TV and be aware that it sends out data (if you're on the same network and can observe the packet headers, maybe also somehow see some details where it talks to). Or see that this store front screams something on an inaudible frequency and worse - that your phone had just replied something as you walked by.

Which is probably not going to happen, not only because it's extremely complicated from the technical side, but because people would freak out over such tech even more than over Google Glass ;)

<comment><USER5> Hmm, triangulation is what happened to give Strava user's home location away with privacy zones. I also read the other day how multiple mics ("smart speakers" etc) can help locate someone's movement throughout a house. There's also smartphones who have infrared cameras on them like the CAT S60. And there's research where Bluetooth and WiFi can be used to assess if someone's home, and where their WiFi devices are located. Finally, I saw this picture with regards to 5G [1]. None of this is about AR glasses but I still thought it was interesting. Because the AR glasses part -even though AR isn't widespread- builds upon all of the above examples as input data.

[1] [http://ictvietnam.vn/files/tccntt/source_files/2017/01/27/06...](http://ictvietnam.vn/files/tccntt/source_files/2017/01/27/06272517_IoT_17-01-27.jpg)

<comment><USER6> We are FUBAR'd, why deal with mics and smart speakers when you can sell privacy-invading Wi-Fi routers?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LTr02cJkiA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LTr02cJkiA)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's all extraordinarily creepy because you expect your home to be the safe haven of privacy, but considering how ubiquitous smartphones are and how much of our lives already happens digitally, you could somewhat cynically argue that the privacy loss is comparatively small (because you have very little to begin with nowadays).

But if smart utilities take off, maybe some privacy label for consumers would be nice. Maybe in the future it's a selling point if when device is dumb as opposed to smart and connected. I also somewhat dislike the conclusion of the article that smart homes for everybody are inevitable or necessary. The utility, at least right now, of smart devices seems to be limited, so you don't have even to be a crazy hermit to boycott a smart home.

<comment><USER8> Off-topic, but not much, I always loved the results of the Biarritz experiments with video-phones (actually visio - phones).

How the device looked: [http://www.rxcontrol.org/Visiophone/index.html](http://www.rxcontrol.org/Visiophone/index.html)

A good summing up of the results of the paper by Francis Jaur (1990) is here:

[http://archive.li/Qe1Kl](http://archive.li/Qe1Kl)

Basically people soon understood that the thing has its use, but limited it to "public" areas of their home and to selected communications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Somewhat off topic, but anyone else think it's kinda weird that an article about data privacy has so many third party tracking scripts?

I know it's sitewide on every article from the mothership, Gizmodo, but still...

<comment><USER10> Not really. Online publishers think that surveillance is free money, so they're always happy to add more. Savvy users block it all. Some day there will be a reckoning.

<comment><USER9> I think we need to force the reckoning to the forefront, for the sake of the unsavvy. This affects us all, and we need to get out in front of it, before it bulldozes everything.

If it hasn't already.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Almost every TV on the market now is connected—because otherwise how do you > Netflix and chill?

If you buy a "smart" TV, refuse to connect it to the internet and just get an Apple TV/Chromecast/whatever.

<comment><USER12> I tried to do this and just use my PS4 for apps, but my wife thoughtlessly accepted the TOS on the tv within 2 days.

We still don't use the apps on the tv though.

<comment><USER13> Disconnect it from your WiFi and change password. If you're not using the apps, there's no reason for it to be on your network, right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Once again, one of the biggest underlying problems is "why" \- or more technically, what is the use case behind <technology>? This was always a problem back when it was merely "home automation" but as we started this "IoT" craze things only got worse.

I laugh at the ancedote in the article about voice control just behind frustrating and resorting to using the physical buttons.

No one has ever explained why I'd want to remotely control my lights. Or why I would remotely turn on my coffee maker, after I have to physically touch it to prepare it before-hand anyway.

Some amount of this tech is useful when it goes unnoticed and solves real problems. For example, my outside lights turn on dimly at sunset and turn off at midnight, unless there's motion or my garage door is open, then they go to 100%. If no inside lights are already on, the front hall and a couple other lights turn on as it gets dark. This means we never come home to a dark house, but also if we're already home, we aren't having lights automatically changing on us.

I can control many things from my phone, but it's pointless. There's a button in the entrance to the kitchen that turns on several lights (that otherwise require using switches in four separate locations), another that makes them all dim, and another for off. If we leave them on, they turn off automatically by 3am.

So much of these IoT products do not solve useful problems, do not blend seamlessly into your life, and do not even work well in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER15> these smart homes bring up ethical dilemas. I worked for a company and someone got a home automation kit. It monitored comings and goings. They looked at the logs and realized the dog walker one day did a really short walk. How do you broach this? Do you bother for an otherwise responsible walker.

I worked for a power monitoring company that put a box in your house, monitored power use for each circuit breaker. The CEO noticed that his house cleaners turned on lights in all the rooms and turned them off as they finished cleaning them.

You can learn a lot from watching a homes power, especialy if its split up circuit by circuit.

<comment><USER16> When obama said we need a more 21st century efficient power grid, i thought that sounds great. i thought that meant better equipment and lines that doesnt waste as much electricity, nope. it meant 'smart meters' that can tell all sorts of things about us. they didnt want to save electricity, they wanted our data.

The city wanted to install one of those smart meters in my home, i refused. but I was told that unless i have them installed, they would shut off my electricity. Being that they were in a position of power over me, I complied.

<comment><USER17> Question: what does the smart meter tell them that monitoring your usage otherwise wouldn't?

<comment><USER18> I seem to recall a paper about using the noise in the electrical system of a home to determine what appliances were plugged in and turned on at any point in time.

Sidhant Gupta, Matthew S. Reynolds, and Shwetak N. Patel. 2010. ElectriSense: single-point sensing using EMI for electrical event detection and classification in the home. In Proceedings of the 12th ACM international conference on Ubiquitous computing (UbiComp '10). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 139-148. DOI: [https://doi.org/10.1145/1864349.1864375](https://doi.org/10.1145/1864349.1864375)

[https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1864375](https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1864375)

That said: I used to work for a smart meter manufacturer and (AFAIK) we didn't do anything like that. Granular readings were the most important part. Our meters could report in 15 minute buckets, which was useful for tiered billing. Most of the push back against these meters were because they use radios to report readings back and there was concern about radiation. There were people who were building faraday cages around the meters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Where is the code/setup configuration for "iotea"?

Ever since "IoT" started gaining momentum as a marketing buzzword I have been thinking this type of router could be an interesting product for non-nerd users.

Idea: The one device that _only_ the user controls. User veto over all traffic to and from "smart" devices. In theory.

I recall seeing a comment from a Googler on HN once that basically admitted the users only hope for privacy is to control a router.

Not a laptop, phone, browser, smart thermostat, smart speaker, etc.

A router.

Boring.

But not insignificant.

Something as inexpensive and accessible as an RPi was good enough for this user.

</comment><comment><USER20> This simple horrifies me. Why would you do this to yourself and your family?

I don't see myself ever getting anything smart, and if I can't avoid it there is no way it touches my internet connection!

<comment><USER21> Do you have a modern phone in your pocket?

<comment><USER20> Fairly modern. Galaxy S2 lineageOS, fdroid.

I know where you're going with this, some things are unfortunately unavoidable. Still I do what I can.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'd rather live with the Amish or with John Plant than potentially be arrested by my own house or car. The house would merely lock me in but the car would no doubt drive me to the police station also.

I'd also rather get up to switch the lights on. Moving about periodically is healthy, right?

</comment><comment><USER10> > Roomba requires your attention: Your Roomba is stuck.

Why?! When I bought a Roomba a decade ago, it was a decent vacuum that picked up dirt, could not connect to the internet, and never nagged me. Why would I want it to be worse?

</comment><comment><USER23> Wow, a lot of this (especially when she gets to dropping many brand names at once) reads almost uncannily like a George Saunders story

</comment><comment><USER24> As annoying as the "smart homes are annoying" posts are becoming, I really enjoyed the format and the depth of this article. And I didn't know one could buy internet-connected vibrators. That's... odd. I also don't know why these folks were surprised their devices were constantly communicating to their home servers.

My stance on the smart home and privacy phenomenon is optimistic. I think apple will eventually have a fully integrated smart home ecosystem similar to their standard ecosystem now, which will make the process easier in general. Perhaps we can one day have a single device to control every other device, or a few devices which perform multiple functions (such as a bundled music player, television, light controller, air monitor etc) and that such a device or devices will be bundled such that the meta data will contain only information that the device is being used but not which function is employed. Surveillance is unstoppable at this point, and this means that everyone has the ability to watch everyone else, and I think this is a good thing. We already have a good sense when those in our social group are lying, or hiding things, or even when they need help. If governments and citizens alike understand what each party is up to, we can have a fully accountable society, and of course eventually we must negotiate the relevant social rules that keeps this accountability relevant and practical. This is something I believe we have to work with. We have to take responsibility and understand what is going on, and to also take the power into our own hands and create balance. We can figure this out, and I don't believe that necessarily involves destroying the structure of how our governments and corporations do business. It's simply more efficient to restructure, not to totally resist but also not to be completely complacent. and that's all I have to say.

<comment><USER25> "everyone has the ability to watch everyone else"

is it entirely symmetrical ?

<comment><USER26> It's also explicitly untrue. Very few people have regular access to my house; even fewer have access to the "private" domestic areas of my house. Losing this perception of privacyand safety can/does/will have real psychological impacts. It's also the cornerstone of psychological attacks - zersetzung - <USER2> lose control over your private life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I was wondering about visitors to the home too, will they all have to sign some sort of Release form before entering?</comment>


Police filmed beating man after bike stop in Mission, San Francisco - <AUTHOR> http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2015/04/04/controversial-police-incident-in-the-mission-caught-on-video

<comment><USER2> Yes, the officers used force to subdue a suspect but that force was only necessary because:

\- Suspect failed to obey orders and FLED from the police and this is corroborated by the eyewitness accounts.

\- Suspect resisted arrest and even after the officers tackled him, he is trying to get out of being handcuffed which of course prompts more officers to pile up. Perhaps the better option would have been to tase him which may be safer than having 5-6 people dogpile on you (suffocation risk).

Let's review what you should do when dealing with police ([https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/what-do-if-youre- stopp...](https://www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/what-do-if-youre-stopped- police-immigration-agents-or-fbi))

\- Stay calm and DO NOT RESIST ARREST regardless of whether it was justified or not. \- Ask if you are and why you are being arrested. If you are not being arrested, ask if you can leave. \- You can stay silent and refuse to consent to a search and wait until you have representation.

If you do these things, you will be less likely to be beat up and if you think excessive force was used while you were fully compliant, you will be in a much better position with a lawsuit if you didn't run and resist.

<comment><USER3> Or just don't live in a police state where cops randomly pull you over, bystanders do nothing and random people come up with excuses.</comment></comment>


Invoice yourself – What are you (really) worth? - <AUTHOR> http://dontgetburnedblog.com/invoice-yourself/

<comment><USER2> This article makes the mistake of equating the "cash value of time" with the real value of time.

If you're Warren Buffett, a dollar when you were 20 years old could have been worth $10m now. If you're building a startup, saving every penny you can on ramen noodles might give you an extra month you can survive with no funds. Thinking "I'm worth so much more than this" because you could be charging $100 an hour for Java development to some enterprise while you're coding The Next Big Thing is a disconnect.

Time has no cash value. Productive output has cash value.

<comment><USER3> I think I agree with the gist of what you're saying, but saying "Time has no cash value" is overly broad and a bit silly. Do you think interest rates only exist to hedge against inflation?? What is the value of angel investors??

<comment><USER2> I think you're confusing the time value of money with the cash value of time :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting premise, I don't think people put enough stock in their self- worth. I was having this discussion with someone this morning. We talked about how mothers, after 20 years of raising children, have very low self worth because they have not "done" anything. This is a cause of media and society in general, with the importance of Ivy's and pretigious careers.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's also very interesting when you begin thinking of how it affects other people's value or money.

In his example of bargain hunting and collecting coupons, he spent 8+ hours to save $20, which he realized was a poor return on his money. (That must have been some serious bargain hunting). Not only that, if he purchased some goods for $20 less than he would have without the coupons, then the vendor ended up $20 poorer than he would have. So he spent 8+ hours to effectively transfer $20 of value from the vendor to himself, which is even worse than spending 8 hours to create $20 of new value.

It certainly depends on how you view other people's money and value compared to your own.

<comment><USER6> Don't forget that a penny saved is not truly equivalent to a penny earned, because saving a penny actually requires earning enough to cover taxes and the extra costs (travel time, gas, etc) you incur to earn it. Saving $20 on a purchase is equivalent to earning $30-40.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find pieces like this often leave out a very important piece of the equation: what you do with the time you gain. The value of your time isn't constant.

You haven't gained much if you pay someone $20 to mow your lawn because you think the hour you would spend is worth $100, but then spend that time watching soaps on TV. Is an hour of soaps worth $80 for you? Is that relaxation you need in order to $80 more productive later? I've seen people justifying purchases and luxuries by saying, "My time is worth it." but then they waste the time on other busy-work and still don't think they have enough time in their day.

</comment><comment><USER8> Offtopic, but am I the only one who finds it incredibly annoying when blogs like this disable the back button by overwriting the last item in your history?

</comment><comment><USER9> Never looked at it this way... Great new way of thinking!

</comment><comment><USER10> This is exactly why I will NEVER work for an hourly wage! Im worth way more than anyone could pay me... I create my own value!

<comment><USER11> Funny -- I have been working for an hourly rate the past year or so, having been salaried for all my jobs previously. Being paid by the hour really opened my eyes to the "cost" of almost everything else I do. Why, just responding to this post "cost" me a couple of dollars....

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Yes yes yes! finally we are getting somewhere. I LOVE THIS

</comment><comment><USER13> People waste so much time everyday. Maybe if we looked at time differently we'd all be better off</comment>


Ask HN: Any good collection of postmortems or guide how to write one? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I started gathering links for you, but it's easier just to provide the source of all the links: [https://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=github+postmortem&ie=...](https://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=github+postmortem&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8)

</comment><comment><USER3> Check out this talk: [https://help.statuspage.io/knowledge_base/topics/postmortems](https://help.statuspage.io/knowledge_base/topics/postmortems)</comment>


Ask HN: How can I move from domain email address from my host to DO? - <AUTHOR>

I have a firstname.lastname@example.com email address with my current hosting provider.
I want to move my hosting for site www.mydomainname.com to Digital Ocean but don't want to lose my email address.
Can I use DO to service that email address or is there another solution? I would prefer to not stay with my current hosting provider.
Thanks <comment><USER2> Most services will serve custom domains. Using DigitalOcean you'd of course have to run your own mail server. For the domain part you'd likely just have to update your domain's name servers to DigitalOcean's and then add at least one MX record pointing to your current provider until you switch. When you switch just update the MX record to point to your new mail server.</comment>


Why Jakob's Wrong About Always Setting a "Visited Link" Color - <AUTHOR> http://returncontrol.com/do-you-always-need-to-change-the-color-of-visited-links-32

<comment><USER2> So, in other words: when links aren't links--when they're really tabs, or buttons, or menus that happen to _look_ like links--don't make them behave like links. It's a start, but there's obviously a deeper issue here: why are you confusing your users by making these other page elements look like links? Just because they're techniically implemented with <a> tags is no excuse.</comment>


Splitting water for fuel while removing CO₂ from the air - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/06/splitting-water-for-fuel-while-removing-co%E2%82%82-from-the-air/ <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17419993](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17419993)</comment>


Ask HN: How to develop an entrepreneurial insight? - <AUTHOR> An entrepreneur comes across a problem and develops a solution to the problem, but how does one initially find the problem? Are there certain skills one can develop that enhances problem-finding abilities?<p>Any books recommended? <comment><USER2> Although I don't have specific books in my mind, but such problem finding skills come from asking questions, always starting "what if ?", questions about making our life easier, people's life easier, company's work easier, just look and ask questions, also the best kind of ideas you come with, are the ideas that come from your own problems when you are the main user of that product, as you will keep always developing it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Think in systems. Observe and measure everything you find interest in. Journal daily. Then find inconsistencies between the various elements and think how can you optimize them.

</comment><comment><USER4> Be observant, think critically.

<comment><USER5> Yes. Keep challenging common knowledge. You can get pretty far with two basic thoughts:

1) It's always been done this way, what if it didn't have to?

2) This new thing I'm looking at is cool, could a similar change be applied to another space?

And of course, the ultimate definition (in my book) of the entrepreneur mindset is being a doer vs. a talker.

Presumably thousands of people had the idea that school, education, math could be explained better, maybe online. Only one person grabbed a camcorder and started recording hundreds of math lessons, creating Khan Academy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Where to look for - Problems from your own life that you couldn't solve or suffered solving with existing solutions.

Books - Would suggest reading biographies.

</comment><comment><USER7> A potential vector is work experience in a specific industry. With enough exposure you build a flair for "undiscovered" pain points.

</comment><comment><USER8> The one big thing that was told to me: "Do something that scratches your own itch."</comment>


LinkedIn home page not working - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/ <comment><USER2> I agree ! They tried to rebuild, they rebuilt with bugs !</comment>


Every Time You Make a PowerPoint, Edward Tufte Kills a Kitten - <AUTHOR> http://chartporn.org/2010/03/14/tufte-kills-kittens/

<comment><USER2> Nice... have to be a data visualization nerd to appreciate fully.</comment>


Comatose for 23 years Belgian feels reborn - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_belgium_coma_recovery

<comment><USER2> The middle of the article is skepticism that his caretaker is actually creating the messages rather than just helping guide his finger.

In the time it took the reporter to interview an expert in "facilitated communication" I would think they could have asked a question without the caretaker present and then brought the caretaker in to help type the answer.</comment>


Study:Empirical treatment:Hydroxychloroquine+AZM for 636 suspected COVID19 cases - <AUTHOR> https://www.dropbox.com/s/5qm58cd4fneeci2/2020.04.15%20journal%20manuscript%20final.pdf?dl=0 <comment><AUTHOR> TLDR: Not yet published, Non-Randomized with control group. 636 Symptomatic Outpatients in Brazil, 412 treated with AZM+HCQ, 224 control group. 1.9% needed hospitalization with HCQ+AZM group. 5.4% needed hospitalization with control group. Trial registry NCT04348474.</comment>


Four Bitcoin Miners Arrested in Venezuela - <AUTHOR> http://reason.com/blog/2017/01/25/venezuelan-authorities-bitcoin-crypto <comment><USER2> "Since bitcoin mining is a process, in effect, of converting the value of electricity into currency, Venezuelan miners are engaging in a form of arbitrage: They're buying an underpriced commodity and turning it into bitcoin to make a profit. The miners have turned socialism against itself."

love it :D</comment>