You are not running out of time - <AUTHOR> http://rahulbijlani.com/essays/you-are-not-running-out-of-time-essay/ <comment><USER2> In a sense, each of us lives our life in _Titanic_ style, setting forth in the confident assumption that we are unsinkable and placing an unduly high value on our capacity to meet any challenge, panicking (or at least feeling a sense of stoic distress) at the mid-point as it first truly hits us that we are about to slam into the iceberg of inevitable aging and decline, sweating it out over a seemingly interminable period as our vessel creaks and groans its way toward destruction, and finally salvaging what we can from the wreckage and setting it off in a few lifeboats intending to keep hope alive for the next generation of humanity. In the process, we hope to do something more meaningful than spend time rearranging deck chairs as we decide upon our life's focus.

This is not intended as a grim metaphor on life. In fact, I am a supreme optimist about the beauty of living and about having hopes of doing great things and doing one's best to achieve them. But what are those things when the reality is that one's individual life is finite? That is the challenge faced by every human being who has ever lived.

This piece attempts to answer it by saying, in effect, be careful to set your goals on things that ultimately matter. Whether the author, at age 30, has enough perspective to answer this question well is something we can all ponder. But we all need to try, and this piece is a thoughtful attempt to do so.

<comment><USER3> > panicking (or at least feeling a sense of stoic distress) at the mid-point > as it first truly hits us that we are about to slam into the iceberg of > inevitable aging and decline,

Maybe a little OT, maybe not:

> Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita

> mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,

> ché la diritta via era smarrita.

> Midway upon the journey of our life

> I found myself within a forest dark,

> For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

The first three lines of Dante's _Paradise Lost_.

<comment><USER4> Dante wrote _The Divine Comedy_. Milton wrote _Paradise Lost_.

<comment><USER5> These are the opening lines of Inferno (first book of The Divine Comedy)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This essay is definitely something to keep in mind, albeit it's probably easier in theory than practice.

I'm probably a little older than most of the Y crowd. I've worked at a few very successful startups - pre and post dot com. For one of them, which changed the travel industry, I was literally one of the first people to put down code and my own stab at defining their architecture - I was there before there were any formal employees.

But now, I have a kid on the way, never really made millions (sorta got close), can't seem to find that 'magic' again, and there is definitely that notion that time is fleeting. Over the past decade I studied a lot of philosophy - mostly buddhist and hindu. I meditated, quieted my mind, enjoyed my moments, and felt very peaceful while the world flew by. I dropped out of working for a year to learn how to write electronic music (played music my whole life, got pretty good at the electronic stuff) - this was probably the happiest I'd been in a long time and I 100% did live day to day, creating, constantly getting better.

Lately over the past few years though, life's changed. The thought that I am getting closer to getting older and starting a family adds additional pressure. It seems much simpler when you're by yourself - which is why monks follow that route. Ultimately, we make the decisions we make and we have to learn from them.

As someone who's been programming most of my life, loves technology, and still appreciates the latest and greatest, I'm still drawn to it. At this point, I can see how things should work and feel like I really appreciate things that are designed well. However, there's only so much time in the day and I don't really crank on code for 10+ hours anymore. I keep thinking that I can compete with a lot of people for tech knowhow, but maybe my real potential is to pass all this on to the next generation.

I'm sure that I've been more fortunate that a lot of people on this rock, but I still don't feel I've felt that success I've wanted and, yah, it does feel like time _is_ running out.

<comment><USER7> I feel exactly the same. Incidentally just today I have to decide between a job that I know at a company I had been at for a while and new job with more responsibilities, slightly lower pay, longer commute, that might boost my carrier from a "programmer" to something more. I am old in software terms and that might be one of my last chances to do that. I have a son, and spending time with him is one of the most important things for me.

I am good and successful at what I am doing, but one always looks for the next thing.

As you I spent a lot of time the past ten developing my spiritual side. I meditate a lot, went to 10 day silent retreat... At this junction my peace fails me, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Beg to differ. I'd say that if you're not feeling pressed, that you have too little time left, then you don't have anywhere near an adequate view of the plausible future. A golden age lies ahead, of glittering marvels to make all that has come so far pale to insignificance. But unless we step up to the plate and master biotechnology a lot faster and better than is presently managed, all of us reading this now will miss both that future and lives of health and transcendence lasting centuries in which to enjoy it.

As I put it here:

[http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/07/13/longevity-science- needs-...](http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/07/13/longevity-science-needs- documentation/)

"We all express the symptoms of a fatal, inherited degenerative condition called aging - or so the joke goes. It's a dark joke, but there's truth to be found in it, as is often the case in black humor. Unfortunately, all too few people think of themselves as patients suffering aging, and fewer still would call themselves patient advocates, agitating for research leading towards therapies and cures for aging. This is a sorry state of affairs: given that our time is limited and ticking away, the tasks upon the table should always include some consideration of aging. What can we do about it? How can we engineer a research community, funding and support to make real progress within our lifetimes? If you don't spend at least some of your time on this issue, then you're fiddling while Rome burns. Time is the most precious thing we have, and we live on the cusp of technologies that will allow us to gain more of it - but those advances in medicine won't happen soon enough unless we work at it."

<comment><USER9> I think you missed the author's point. The article wasn't about gaining more (or infinite) time. It was about maximizing your joy in life by living in such a way that you can be proud of your accomplishments without being overwhelmed by the need to continually out-do yourself or others. How long you live is completely irrelevant to that point. And if you are not enjoying your life because you're feeling so pressed and anxious, then living forever won't change that--that's a mentality problem.

Not to mention the disappointment you might feel if you die before the onset of the much hyped biotech revolution, having placed your hopes for happiness in its arrival.

<comment><USER10> While I can agree with the author's point I think it was poorly expressed (your summary is better) and the way he suggests embodying the point seems contradictory to making an effort against Death. Though I think if people did have a certain expectation to live billions of years we wouldn't have very many hurried people around, though that's just my own speculation.

> Not to mention the disappointment you might feel if you die before the onset > of the much hyped biotech revolution, having placed your hopes for happiness > in its arrival.

At least the disappointment would be brief since by the time you're close enough to death to feel it you won't be alive much longer. Though I would find it pitiable that a person refuses to be happy their entire life and would only be happy being essentially immortal; it seems like many 'immortalists' are actually quite content in their current lives but want that to go on as long as possible.

<comment><USER11> They would also take great effort to find black swans and long shot. Living a really long life can make you ambitious.

If you're an old 75 years old, than you might be predisposed to the short term.

The young don't know they have it, and the old don't care.

If you're going to live on the average lifespan of a 100,000 thousand years and improving, than 50 years is no problem to be wasting your time on big projects.

You can wait for your space probes to report to you, make big colonization effort that span centuries, and solve scientific questions that will take decades to unravel.

<comment><USER12> Ironically, such a world would have to be populated by people born after the epoch, not before, to fully take advantage of the conceptual freedoms it would have to offer.

<comment><USER13> People change. And they would have plenty of time to get used to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The sort of mentality championed here is important to keep in mind, but it can also be dangerous if implemented the wrong way. I keep this in mind, too:

"The ninth virtue is perfectionism. The more errors you correct in yourself, the more you notice. As your mind becomes more silent, you hear more noise. When you notice an error in yourself, this signals your readiness to seek advancement to the next level. If you tolerate the error rather than correcting it, you will not advance to the next level and you will not gain the skill to notice new errors. In every art, if you do not seek perfection you will halt before taking your first steps. If perfection is impossible that is no excuse for not trying. Hold yourself to the highest standard you can imagine, and look for one still higher. Do not be content with the answer that is almost right; seek one that is exactly right." <http://yudkowsky.net/rational/virtues>

<comment><USER14> That link is really cool! Thanks for posting, it will be going on my cube wall at work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > what do I want to see grow? What do I want to build?

The problem is that in the vast majority of cases, unless you managed to build something successful by the time you die, then your work will die with you and nobody will care.

The article makes the tempting assumption that progress is monotonic, and that the work that you do will eventually find its use. I don't think this is right -- the vast majority of stuff ever created gets thrown away or forgotten. In this sense, you are running out of time: you have only so much time left to accomplish something which will really survive you.

(Note that this applies to intellectual achievements, not so much to building a family and the like.)

<comment><USER16> _your work will die with you and nobody will care_

 _You_ should care, while you are alive. Whether your successors care or not is optional, and frankly is their problem, not yours.

There are many recorded instances of work that was generally ignored by the creator's immediate successors - or even by contemporaries - but was eventually appreciated decades, even centuries later. Classic examples: Bach's fugues went terribly out of fashion even during his lifetime; Shakespeare's biography is obscure mainly because his works went through a period of obscurity; Mendel published his work to no acclaim whatsoever, went on to have a completely different non-science career, and died before other scientists (two of them simultaneously!) discovered his work. Johannes Vermeer, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson...

Other artists were hailed as legends during their lifetime and then promptly forgotten. Maybe they will remain forgotten. More likely some will be rediscovered next year or next century. Make what you want to make. Let the future take care of itself. It probably won't listen to you anyway.

<comment><USER17> Good advise. The takeaway from your advise is that you should make sure that your work can be discovered in the future several decades or hundreds of years after your death. Contributing to a reputable science journal is a good way to make your work last for a long time.

<comment><USER11> Or making your content public domain and spreading it as widely as your marketing skill can.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A key mental transition to make is from asking the question "am I winning?" to asking the question "am I doing something worthwhile?"

<comment><USER19> Your point reminds me of Colbert's speech at Northwestern this year. Towards the end (the more serious part) he says something along the lines that, you don't really "win" at life. I'd say more, but Colbert says it better: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6tiaooiIo0>

<comment><USER20> Awesome speech. Thank you for posting it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I generally agree with the sentiment, but it seems like the author never really shed the dependence on having an arbitrary material goal.

I think a more Zen-like direction is to just apply the "friend in a pub" test - if you can describe your motivations and actions to an (intelligent) peer and have them nod in approval, then that's it. And yes, there are _many_ such choices, which is the whole point - it doesn't really matter beyond that threshold!

I remember that moment of epiphany for myself, when I realized that nobody else really gives a shit what _specifically_ I do, as long as it's a reasonably fine decision.

And no, that does not mean slacking/etc. Wasting one's potential is definitely not reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER22> Let's not get mixed up by calling it the "Game", the right term is the "Rat Race". Comparing ourselves to others excessively is the highway to unhappiness. The secret to the rat race is that you can never win... as the author says, the goalposts keep moving. There is always someone richer, someone more recognized, someone happier.

Do your best at the things you enjoy doing, and make time for the things that are really important you.

Who would have thought a key secret to happiness is found in the 10 commandments: "Thou shall not covet"

</comment><comment><USER23> My econ professor in undergrad did some interesting research on utility and happiness: <http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mkimball/pdf/uhap.pdf>

I think the sooner you figure out exactly what your utility curve is (e.g. what really drives you and what you're looking for out of life), the more successful you'll be at maximizing it and living a fulfilling life.

The meaning of life is to make the most meaning out of it.

</comment><comment><USER24> " _What that quickly meant to me was that wasting time and opportunities were criminal, with my own potential achievements as victims that needed to be rescued from the assault of lost hours and non-productivity._ "

Beautiful writing.

</comment><comment><USER25> It never gets easier, you just go faster. - Greg LeMond.

<comment><USER26> That reminds of a similar quote from F1 racer Mario Andretti:

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I recommend reading about Buddhism for anyone who was inspired by this post, as I was. Anything by Pema Chodron is a good place to start. For HN'ers in the Bay, the SF Zen Center cheerfully welcomes walkins.

</comment><comment><USER28> The way I read the essay is different stages in life require different perspectives. All night hacking sessions on Red Bull and ramen work until your mid 20s. In your 40s it'll kill you, quick and you're knowledge or ability will not be any better for it. You need to spend time to sit down and absorb the knowledge.

Games like golf and I don't know skeet shooting show how you can do more with less. However, that doesn't mean the foundation you built in youth with intense practice or an unforgiving drive to achieve is now worthless.

Rahul can say "you are not running out of time" because he stepped on the pedal damn hard. To each their own. I'm pretty sure that if Rahul went bankrupt tomorrow he'd be back to his 17 year old self hustling with everything he's got but if he did that now he'd be putting more at risk than he has possibility to gain.

</comment><comment><USER29> "What I realized was that playing the game the right way isn't good enough – it needs to be played for the right reason: it has to be played to build something, to see something grow. Gordon wasn't building anything at all, not even a family, and his emptiness showed dramatically."

Gordon suffered because of split personality: one was enjoying the game he played, another was generated by social pressing – goals like family, relationships and so on. When you see something grow, you are measuring that. When you measure something, you compare that with similar things. When you compare, you trace your progress balance. When you trace, you predict wanted future. And whole this way leads to "moving goals".

Author began from right point – it's all about feeling and enjoying moment. That's all.

</comment><comment><USER30> I am reminded of what C P Snow wrote about the beautiful piece of writing called "A Mathematician's Apology" by G H Hardy:

 _A mathematicians apology is, if read with the textual attention it deserves, a book of haunting sadness. Yes, it is witty and sharp with intellectual high spirits: yes, the crystalline clarity and candour are still there: yes, it is the testament of a creative artist. But it is also, in an understated stoical fashion, a passionate lament for creative powers that used to be and that will never come again. I know nothing like it in the language: partly because most people with the literary gift to express such a lament don't come to feel it: it is very rare for a writer to realise, with the finality of truth, that he is absolutely finished._

</comment><comment><USER31> My parents made me memorize a poem at a young age:

I have only just a minute, only sixty seconds in it, forced upon me, can't refuse it, didn't seek it, didn't choose it. But, it is up to me to use it. I must suffer if I lose it. Give account if I abuse it, just a tiny little minute - but eternity is in it."

Which I interpreted to mean that life is really about process. It's very distracting to focus on long term goals in many cases, as it can cause you to overlook the steps that need to happen _each minute_ , especially if you think that you can make up that minute later. Long time scales also force you to make impossible predictions about how long you'll even be alive(which can be underestimated as easily as over estimated).

</comment><comment><USER32> Very good post, I like the use of two themes: playing games and building things. I think he places too little emphasis on the importance of games though, and to my ears, he is advancing a false dichotomy between game-playing and thing-building. Playing games to win them can be very satisfying.

There are a couple of games that are somehow larger: the great game of empire and the money game, measured by net worth, but others such as the tour de france and nascar provide the winners with substantial social status. As an aside, not sure where musicians fit into this world-view.

The separation of concepts of game player and thing builder are useful, but it is easy to go too far. Bill Gates is well known to be intensely competitive, and to suggest that he was somehow building something for the good of mankind is deluded. In fact, this paragraph is pure confusion regarding Bill Gates' leadership of Microsoft:

'''Even Bill Gates seems to have an opinion on this. "I'm a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in terms of how people can learn from each other, and how they can achieve the kind of freedoms that they're interested in." And sure enough, he's been building these tools all his life. All the money he made doing it? He's giving it away. And he's enjoying that process too!'''

Philanthropy is somewhat common behavior among highly successful people, at least in the USA, but to suggest that fortunes are made for the sake of giving them away is to confuse life trajectory with motivating beliefs.

The game is to win! Empires are built to crush other empires, and athletes build their bodies to defeat their opponents! This is Drama, and it is stuff of Life.

To win big one must build big, but if the aim is simply to build big, it is easy to drift off into cult territory like this guy: [http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/25/110725fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/25/110725fa_fact_cassidy)

I am suggesting that the competitive context is useful not only for germinating the building of things but also for integrating them into the rest of society once they have been built.

</comment><comment><USER33> Great post- definitely one of the most insightful that I've read on Hacker News.

The other day I was thinking about why humans seem to be conditioned to ignore the failures, both their own and those of the people around them, often to their own detriment, while at the same time often quite accurately seeing the deficiencies of those closest to them. I concluded that there must be something evolutionary in that behavior, given that it is so prevalent in society.

But in any case, what is the alternative? To give up before you start? I know a lot of people who have gone that route, and overall it doesn't seem to be a recipe for success or happiness.

</comment><comment><USER34> While we're all sharing..

The article focuses on macro level time; I often stress about micro level time. I read so many stories about startups getting funded, aquired, launching products and so on. I constantly feel like I just need to code a little longer, work a little harder on my startup; like everyone is on my heels, and I'll be left behind if I don't launch sooner, iterate sooner, expand sooner, etc.

It's irrational, but I constantly have these thoughts. I don't mean to go all self help but I get the feeling other people must feel like this. Am I alone or does this ring bells? :)

</comment><comment><USER35> Interesting - that's close to what I understood of Nietzsche philosophy : define your own goals, try to reach them and that's the process where happiness is found - not in some temporary "status" like money/vacation/home etc.

I could be wrong, but so far it seems to work.

My method : I keep a list of objectives, which are defined after some introspection about what I like and enjoy. They are then redefined as "goals to tend to".

I guess I could say I let my reptilian brain decide on the goals, and the advanced cortical functions design the strategy and plot the right path :-)

</comment><comment><USER36> Essays like this are good, and this one was good too, but I wonder how such essays boil down to the lower strata of the society, for example - janitors. Nobody wants to be a janitor, but the world needs janitors to function. Same for other thankless jobs. How does a janitor adapt this essay to his/her life ?

Otherwise, reading this essay provided me with a temporary sense of calm, like so many other inspiring essays do - i only hope I'm able to inculcate some of the ideas mentioned in this post in my own life :)

</comment><comment><USER37> I doubt Bill Gates agrees. You do not get to be the richest man in the world (without being the monarch of an oil-rich country) without a strong streak of competitiveness.

<comment><USER38> Your comment reminded me of this awesome story about Bill Gates.

<http://www.borrett.id.au/computing/petals-bg.htm>

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> _Existence precedes essence_

I came to similar conclusions of this author after reading Camus' _The Stranger_ (and many other Existential books thereafter) in high school.

There's no meaning to life other than what you make of it. This author finds meaning in building things, seeing things grow. Other people find meaning to their lives by shining shoes and are just as happy. Or at least they find contentment in what they do, which in many ways is better.

</comment><comment><USER40> I think this only applies when your actively pursuing your dreams. Ie you keep challenging yourself and are never in autopilot mode. As soon as you become complacent I think you are again running out of time.

If you've never taken the time to pursue your own goals is another situation in which your definitely running out of time. For example: If you've always wanted to start your own company but you've never tried because of the fear of failure.

</comment><comment><USER41> It's hard not to compare with your peers, colleagues, and classmates. I was a year into my first job as a developer before being laid off and am now planning my next steps. At 23 this sounds fairly ridiculous but the feeling of running out of time weighs heavily on my mind. Here's what I'm struggling through.

1\. Following the steps of alumnus a tried and true path seems to be going back to grad school for a masters degree, studying something that requires advanced mathematics (i.e. graphics programming) and then getting that job at Google. But what if <insert dream company> is not cracked up to what I imagine it to be? When I graduated I was head over heels about working full time as a developer. However the actual experience of working with a very large & complex legacy C++ codebase was more frustrating and painful than I could have possibly imagined. Velocity and skills development was slow (it was not uncommon to spend several days investigating a single bug) and most of my time was spent slogging through very complicated and undocumented code, trying to figure out the intent of the original authors. Not having other jobs to compare it to, <dream job at dream company> could be much the same. In any case if I don't upgrade my arsenal or credentials I feel like I will always doomed to work at second-rate dev shops where employees are ever susceptible to unpleasantries like mediocre salaries/advancement and layoffs. Companies here cannot just cannot compete with tech giants.

2\. Find another job. I have a 2-3 month window to quickly find another job as there seems to be some stigma associated with unemployment. The city I live in is a technological wasteland and opportunities for pure software development are relatively limited, so realistically my next employer is likely to be an Oil and Gas company. While that certainly pay the bills it kind of limits your career to other oil and gas companies.

3\. Forget about societal pressures and do my own thing. I have enough savings to take a year off, develop my skills, fill in gaps in my knowledge and work on toy projects. Unfortunately this means having to explain a gap year where I might have very little to show for it. The skills I develop will probably not be directly applicable to a job.

Like many I aspire to become the best I can be and like to think of myself as somewhat respectable but at the end of the day I'm just an average developer. I guess the point is if you aren't a genius/wizard you have to deal with your inadequacies and "running out of time" is always in the back of your mind.

<comment><USER42> I think you're overestimating the difficulty of getting a job. It's your life and no one else's. You don't have to fit someone else's mold of an ideal employee just to get meaningful work.

Take that year. Meet some people. Talk to business owners and other money creators. There's always opportunity to improve someone's life and improve or build on existing solutions using your skills. You might even find money in that.

Build your projects. Download the source for an open source tool you use. Learn how it works, write some documentation, and add functionality for yourself. Find problems that frustrate you and others and solve them. You might even find money in that.

Get a job as a freelancer, a server, a valet, a bartender, a hotel front desk overnight receptionist. You'll extend your runway, gain a lot of perspective and insight, pick up useful skills, and meet people entirely different from those you've met up to this point. You might even find money in that.

If none of that "works out" at the end of a year or two, start looking for a traditional programming job. The gap year(s) and lack of a Masters won't be detrimental; in the programming world, it's all about what you've done. Any company worth working for will take one look at your projects and start recruiting you to work for them.

As the article said, enjoy the journey. As Randall Monroe said, "...the solution [to seeing what each moment could become] doesn't involve watering down my every little idea and creative impulse for the sake of someday easing my fit into a mold. It doesn't involve tempering my life to better fit someone's expectations. It doesn't involve constantly holding back for fear of shaking things up."

<http://xkcd.com/137/>

Shake things up. Make your own path in the world and enjoy yourself along the way. Good luck!

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Most of you will know it already, but Steve Job's commencement speech at Stanford speaks in essence about finding the 'right' path as well: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc>

(for those who haven't seen it: it's a must...)

</comment><comment><USER44> Ah, the game of life, where nobody ever ends up alive. What a stupid game to play, yet we all play it betting all our hopes on being the only winner this time. Thank god I got my loaded dice somebody sold me in a dark alley for a kidney. My turn to roll...

</comment><comment><USER45> I thought the exact same thing yesterday, 'Am I running out of time?'.

This essay is like a godsend.

</comment><comment><USER46> A friend of mine once told me she was too old to leave her cult-like religious group. She was 22.

That was 25 years ago and it seems she's still with them. I think her estimates were a little off.

</comment><comment><USER47> Funny to see this at the top right before StayFocusd (chrome xt) warns me I have 5 minutes browsing left!

</comment><comment><USER48> Yes and no.

The good news: if you're in your 20s now, you have 60 or 70 years of life left, and scientific advances being what they are, they'll probably be mostly good years. That's a lot of time. Also, the common trope about poets and mathematicians peaking at 20 is the exception, not the rule, and doesn't apply to modern times anyway (mathematics is so specialized that modern mathematicians are just getting started at 25-30). The actual cognitive peak is somewhere around 50, and the drop-off after that is health-related rather than hard-coded, so if you stay healthy, even into your 80s the decline will be slight to nonexistent. Using vocabulary as an example, you probably won't gain many words from 50 to 80, but if you're healthy, you won't lose many either. So yes, if you're 25 or even 50, you have a hell of a lot of time left.

The bad news: society is incredibly ageist, and as you get older, the amount you need to have achieved in order to be taken seriously ratchets up. Do you think Mark Zuckerberg (who is as much a VC invention as most celebrities are Hollywood inventions) would have gotten the support, mentoring, and funding that he did if he were 36 instead of 20? Almost impossible. Being young is a hard-to-tap (if you're not perceived as being exceptional, you'll be typecast as a "young pup" and not taken seriously) but extremely powerful asset in business: the "boy wonder" archetype. Perhaps it's utterly moronic that it works, but it is very powerful when it hits.

This is even worse in the big-box corporate world than in technology, where your age and job title define who you are as a person. In big-box corporate, VP at 35 means you're serious, whereas VP at 50 is a consolation prize. This is why people in that world bump their college degrees up 5 years and pay for plastic surgery, the latter being an investment that pays itself off immensely. It's not just that people want to appear younger; it's that they benefit immensely by the appearance of being in their current position at a younger age.

So, you are running out of time, not because of biology, but because of the general shallowness of most people. At age 40, you have one-fifth as many options as you did at 22. It sucks, but that's the way the world works now.

<comment><USER49> Great comment.

As a 27-year-old who has had several false-starts in my career, I'm already feeling some of that pain.

It strikes me that, since there are some important elements of human personality that can change over time, there are some 'geniuses' that blossom later or who are late to really get going for some reason.

This might be a point worth reflecting on for hiring in competitive fields. You could find some A+ candidates that have slipped through the cracks.

<comment><USER50> 26 years old today. Definitely reflecting on this. I recall once reading that there are two kinds of breakthrough successes - younger "rockstar" successes driven by narrow, intense passion, and older "masters" who have accumulated an unmatched breadth and depth of experience. While I can see elements of both in myself, I can see the door for the first closing rapidly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> good online experience,should save it.

</comment><comment><USER52> I am counting on longevity as my most worthy talent.

</comment><comment><USER53> I think this site could be brought by Cosmopolitan some day. ^_^ Top stories are exactly fit for it.

</comment><comment><USER54> This seems really inappropriate for HN, to be honest with you. Please, with all due respect, leave this stuff for digg or reddit.

<comment><USER55> > This seems really inappropriate for HN, to be honest with you. Please, with > all due respect, leave this stuff for digg or reddit.

I'm always curious upon what basis comments like this are made.

I mean, if the test for HN-worthiness is "nerds think it's interesting" and you have evidence that, say, 87 nerds find it interesting enough to make the top post, what's missing? Is this an odd myopia/literalism thing where _everything must be startups and compilers and funding and nrghlhmm_?

<comment><USER54> That's sort of the theme of this site, no? We have reddit and such for this kind of writing.

<comment><USER56> _"If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)"_ \- <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

There is much more interesting (and useful) to hackers than pure startup and tech news.

<comment><USER54> Too bad you wouldn't know anything about that.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dploy.io - Ship code from GitHub, Bitbucket or SVN/Git repo - <AUTHOR> http://dploy.io

<comment><USER2> $29+/mo for something as trivial as web-configurable {git pull,hg update,svn checkout} && {rsync,git push,s3cmd sync}; {mailx,curl} pipeline that runs on external notification event or from crontab?

Never thought someone would sell this as a service.

<comment><USER3> Then you probably shouldn't look at [https://www.statuspage.io/pricing](https://www.statuspage.io/pricing)

In reality, most of the things that are sold as services these days can be done from scratch by a guy who knows what he's doing. The question is whether you have better things to be working on instead.

<comment><USER4> You know, I wouldn't pay for $29/mo for _one_ of these -- but it'd be pretty obvious to pay (some number larger than $29)/mo for _a combination_ of these. I think it's just that I'd have to sign up and keep track of so many individual little services that bothers me.

Whereas, if someone was selling a service that provided pre-scaled (so not Slashdottable) status pages, blogs, docs, wikis, CDNs, etc., and also maybe private git hosting and a CI server -- that'd basically be "you host the webapp, we do the rest", and I could imagine going for that. (Especially since the "you host the webapp" part is exactly where a PaaS slots in.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a little confused. I was initially excited as I saw this to an alternative to Beanstalk. But instead appears to be from the makers of Beanstalk, but offers less functionality for twice the cost?

</comment><comment><USER6> First off: Nice product that fills a real need, and nice design. Good work re- purposing what you've built with Beanstalk into it's own separate app.

My first impression of the price is that it's at least twice as much as it should be for only handling the deployment aspect of your project. You even state on the page that Beanstalk includes this PLUS hosting starting at $15 - nearly half of the price for starting tier for this deployment-only service. Additionally, services like Heroku and AWS Elastic Beanstalk that handle deployment+hosting are roughly the same price, give or take a few bucks. I guess it depends on your target market here with your pricing, but for the average developer, it's going to be too much.

</comment><comment><USER7> I see this is from Beanstalk, we had to move away from their services about a year ago due to downtime and slow interface and deployment issues. However, I hear they have since made some fairly big changes to server infrastructure etc. so hopefully everything is snappy now.

<comment><USER8> Hi Paul. About a year ago we migrated from Rackspace to Server Central, a colo facility in Chicago. Since then performance and uptime have been incredible. You can read more about the move and hardware here:

[http://blog.beanstalkapp.com/post/30879384331/beanstalk- is-m...](http://blog.beanstalkapp.com/post/30879384331/beanstalk-is-migrating- to-colocation) [http://blog.beanstalkapp.com/post/34706145918/new-servers- th...](http://blog.beanstalkapp.com/post/34706145918/new-servers-the-hardware)

Our new app, dploy.io, runs on the same infrastructure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The price seems very high for something thats fairly simple to create with various other tools.

<comment><USER3> We provide much more than that: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6405531](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6405531)

</comment></comment><comment> martin-adams "Starts at $29 per month"

This makes me want to look at what I get for $29 per month, and how much the higher plans are. But I cannot find any more information.

<comment><USER3> The plans are $29/$79/$199 for 10/30/100 deployment servers in the account. Everything else is unlimited.

<comment> martin-adams Thanks. Don't forget to put that on the web site ;)

<comment><USER3> We will! Just wanted to launch faster! :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm currently developing a continuous delivery pipeline for our company myself so I'm very curious to see, how this service works at a more in-depth level.

It's very disappointing that the only information they provide to "explain" their bold statement are some colorful boxes listing the names of some tools and services. I do not want to sign up just to get even a basic understanding about what I can and cannot do with deploy.io

</comment><comment><USER11> Am really confused. Why is a service like this needed? For example, I can use git-ftp to sync between Git and FTP. I can use Amazon's SDK to sync between Git and their services. I've been actively using both and they work brilliantly. Am sure the same can be done for other services as well. So why would I want something like this for $29/mo?

</comment><comment><USER12> Does it tie in with a CI server? We don't deploy unless tests pass

Nice that you offer it free to open source!

<comment><USER3> Not yet ;)

<comment><USER13> circleci would be wonderful Dima!

<comment><USER14> How does circle compare to Travis?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Can't believe that something likes this goes live without explaining which languages that is supported.

<comment><USER3> Developer here. This tool is uploading files to your FTP/SFTP servers or Heroku/S3/Rackspace Cloud, whatever language they are written in. dploy.io doesn't run your applications, sorry for the confusion.

<comment><USER16> Your most likely going to have to restart some webserver at the very least modify symlinks to ensure a synchronized upgrade. Maybe you do support this but you have to actually explain what your service does.

Also the thing with the pricing is bullshit just put that on the front page don't make people wade through a signup form to get information about your service.

Also don't put a stupid tick next to the password box and then reject it for being too short.

<comment><USER3> Your concerns about landing page are valid and we are working on them.

I'm looking into the password box issue - thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> My guess is that it works like the beanstalk deploy feature: [http://beanstalkapp.com/features/deployments](http://beanstalkapp.com/features/deployments)

Which is pretty neat for simple apps

</comment><comment><USER18> I've been using [http://www.deployhq.com/](http://www.deployhq.com/) and have been very happy with it – it's a steal at £6/month. (Not affiliated, just a happy customer.)

</comment><comment><USER19> An explanation of how this works, even at a super high level, would be good.

<comment><USER8> Agree. We'll make some updates to explain it better. Our hope was that the more simplistic overview would be enough. For now, you can read the blog post about it:

[http://wildbit.com/blog/2013/09/17/dploy-io-our-third- produc...](http://wildbit.com/blog/2013/09/17/dploy-io-our-third-product/)

It's heavily based on Beanstalk deployments, so you can also read about how it works here:

[http://beanstalkapp.com/features/deployments](http://beanstalkapp.com/features/deployments)

<comment><USER19> Awesome. Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The page just says better deployment; but what exactly does this do?

<comment><USER21> "Deploy your apps from GitHub, Bitbucket or your own repositories to one or many servers in one click."

For example, I've got a python script that uses SSH to log into my servers and manually git pull from a master repository. I imagine that this service would replace that script.

<comment><USER22> and charge $29/month for it?

<comment><USER3> It does much more than that. Some of the things:

* Synchronization of changes through FTP/SFTP/S3/Rackspace Cloud Files

* Pushing your stuff to Heroku, even for SVN repos

* Release notes

* Permission management for deployments for teams

* Email notifications, atom feed for recent deployments

* Automatic deployments on pushes/commits/commit commands

* Integrations with 3rd party services, web hooks

* Simultaneous deployments to a ton of servers at once

* Almost no configuration necessary

<comment><USER22> The website says "70000" companies trust your product, with a list of the companies! Is that true? 70k company users already? Or is this something else being counted here?

<comment><USER23> Based on the phrasing, Beanstalk has 70,000 customers not dploy.io

<comment><USER3> And dploy.io is a Beanstalk's deployment engine set free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> >Free for open source.

Great! Where's the source?

I'm not going to complain about the price, because if there's a market that pays that price then they should charge it.

I'm not going to snub their project because I could write it myself.

Instead, I want to look at their source code and compare their techniques to what I would do and what others have done, and congratulate them for their work. So congrats!

Source, please!

<comment><USER3> Free for open source means you can deploy your open source project for free. dploy.io is not open source. We're open sourcing parts of it though (not all up to date yet):

[https://github.com/clj-jgit/clj-jgit](https://github.com/clj-jgit/clj-jgit) [https://github.com/dsabanin/subversion- clj](https://github.com/dsabanin/subversion-clj) [https://github.com/dsabanin/fastbeans](https://github.com/dsabanin/fastbeans)

We're working on the new engine for deployments already, and you will see more pieces of it open sourced.

<comment><USER24> Ah, ok, I misunderstood. There are quite a few projects out there which charge for hosting but make the source open to implement on your own servers.

Great to see you're opening up parts of it though!</comment></comment></comment>


GUI for building a Ruby strftime() format string - <AUTHOR> http://foragoodstrftime.com/

<comment><USER2> Love the name of the site - obviously great for anything that implements strftime()</comment>


Taxi app company Hailo to pull out of North America - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/30476eda-53a6-11e4-8285-00144feab7de.html#axzz3G8h7OPPI <comment><USER2> [http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/30476eda-53a6-11e4-8285-00144feab7...](http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/30476eda-53a6-11e4-8285-00144feab7de.html)</comment>


5G will cost you a bundle - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2015/05/18/technology/5g-cost-wireless-data/index.html?iid=ob_homepage_tech_pool&iid=obnetwork

<comment><USER2> Except the article fails to say that upcoming LTE Advanced service is "true" 4G, not 5G.

4G has multiple requirements and are only satisfied by LTE Advanced and WiMAX 2. Both were ratified in 2011 by ITU-R in the IMT-Advanced specification. The major sticking point is true 4G devices and networks must support up to 100mbit/sec for mobile devices, and up to 1gbit/sec for stationary or low motion devices.

In other words, there have been no real 4G (as in, LTE Advanced) deployments worldwide (very few at the end of 2013, most of them in 2014, all of them with extremely limited scope), and none at all in the US. What they are now calling our existing LTE and WiMAX networks is "3.9G".

A major feature being introduced by LTE Advanced is complex MIMO, where not only can a device MIMO to a single base transceiver station (one or more of these are on a cell phone tower), it can also communicate with multiple ones belonging to the same network in disjunct physical locations (ie, you could be in a middle triangle of them, and connect to all three if they were configured correctly), and also be able to MIMO with a heterogeneous cluster (as in, a nearby tower and a next generation femtocell sitting on your desk). Most phones will only support 2x2 or 3x3, which is enough to support smooth hand off as you pass by towers. Up to 12x12 is supported, I believe.

Other major features are allowing much wider channels, better forward error correction, higher coding complexity (128QAM), and requiring support of cross- band MIMO support

Nexus 6 and HTC One M9 (both 2x2, 300mbps downlink maximum) and Galaxy S6 (3x3, 450mbps downlink maximum) support LTE-A, and upcoming LTE-A capable home access points may support up to 8x8 and/or wider channels.

A test by DoCoMo managed to get 5gbit/sec with a non-stationary 12x12 100mhz channel test rig.

Heterogeneous MIMO seems to be required for Google-Fi, which explains why Nexus 6 can do it but not Nexus 5, although that is just an educated guess.

</comment><comment><USER3> What we need to do is remove all these limits on the amount of data we transfer. If they really want us to use wireless for the home and on the go, they really need to remake the entire pricing plan, as it should have the same service as my landline fiber (unlimited Transfer).</comment>


Show HN: Dark Patterns in Game Design - <AUTHOR> https://www.darkpattern.games/ <comment><AUTHOR> When I found myself becoming addicted to games that I didn't enjoy playing, I started to do some research about dark patterns in game design, particularly free-to-play mobile games that abuse the in-app purchase mechanic. I personally want to create (and play) healthy games that are actually fun and not just exploiting my neurochemistry.

That's why I created DarkPattern.Games, to share this research so other people can learn to avoid these dark patterns in games that they create or play. The site explains all the dark patterns that I have found and allows people to find and rate mobile games based on how aggressively they use these patterns.

I'm not saying that any game that uses a dark pattern is bad. It's clearly subjective and depends on the intent of the developer and other factors; I tried to convey this on the site.

I still have a lot to learn, so I'm looking for feedback on how to make the site a better resource for improving the healthiness of games. What do people here think about dark patterns in games?

<comment><USER2> Thank you for making this site. I think its important that people think more deliberately about the kinds of game mechanics they find fulfilling. I would point out that what may be a dark pattern for one player could be a desirable feature for another. For example customization can be used to exploit the sunk cost fallacy to the detriment of casual players, but others might consider that investment to be a good part of the gameplay as with some rpgs. It might be useful if people could express the magnitude of effect a pattern has on the game with some kind of numerical score. That would open up the possibility of eye catching data visualizations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I can appreciate the effort expended on compiling such a great wealth of information, but the execution needs work. This site would essentially label all RPG games as dark games, and anything board game-like as healthy.

Further, I don't think there's anything dark about games being addictive. They should be, otherwise they're boring. If you obtain no dopamine kick from playing a game, you're doing chores. When addiction becomes something that is taken advantage of, then it's a dark pattern.

Maybe that's actually correct, but frankly I find it plainly wrong. So, I agree with what you have to say. It's clearly subjective-in your words-but this seems egregiously conservative.

<comment><USER4> > I don't think there's anything dark about games being addictive. They should > be, otherwise they're boring.

I don't think that's the case at all, since you'd be playing the game because you're addicted, not because you're having fun.

Why couldn't you enjoy a game without being addicted to it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cool site! Good write ups.

I think I discovered a very subtle dark pattern in one of my favorite games of all time... Rocket League.

I don't care for the loot boxes and aesthetics or anything like that. It's actually a very simple game of car soccer.

But the music seems to have some subliminal messages that must be intentional.

Some of the lyrics I've noticed this with:

"I've been putting in the hours, hours, hours..." because people put lots of time into this game. "Playing with the boys" obviously hits with the target audience of the game to play with their friends. "Don't pause, press play, don't pause, press play, press play, press play, press play."

Maybe it's not subliminal, but sometimes I get in the zone and then I hear these songs and I think to myself that I'm falling victim to their song choices.</comment>


A Mini-Introduction to Information Theory - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1805.11965 <comment><USER2> Witten's talk at the IAS on this subject may also be of interest: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYugyhoohhY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYugyhoohhY)

<comment><USER3> Halfway through the talk he switches to discussing quantum information theory.

Here is an excellent book on this subject "From Classical to Quantum Shannon Theory" [https://arxiv.org/abs/1106.1445](https://arxiv.org/abs/1106.1445)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For a "mimi-introduction" to _information theory_ , it's essentially how many little balls can fit inside a big ball.

Each little ball is from a particular signal as received with its errors in transmission, and the big ball is from the power of the signal.

So, the number of little balls is how many different signals can send, with the assumed added noise level, and still have the signals all distinct at the receiver. So, sure, if send with more power have a larger big ball and more signals. Also if have lower noise, then signals are corrupted less, get smaller little balls, and can send more signals.

Sorry, that's my best summary from the time I did look at information theory some years ago!!!

</comment><comment><USER5> Good find. Also see [https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.05968](https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.05968)

</comment><comment><USER6> I realise I'm only a s/w dev and probably not the target audience, but I stopped reading by the end of the first page. For a mini-introduction, it assumes a lot of mathematical skill.

<comment><USER7> Unfortunately, information theory is not a topic that can be made accessible without several nontrivial prerequisites. This would normally constitute a graduate level topic - something to dig into after you've worked through the better part of a mathematics undergrad (particularly the upper level analysis/probability/algebra courses).

Mathematics has a peculiar habit (to those outside the domain) to call things like this "introductions" \- it's technically true, but unhelpful to those outside the target audience. Unless you dilute the topic to the point of unusability, this is _basically_ what an introduction to the subject looks like.

Still, it's a little hard for me to figure out what the target audience for this is. Grad students would probably want a focused textbook, so I'm guessing this is for undergrads who are only partially through the full prereqs, but who have a lot of interest in it.

<comment><USER6> Yes, I was disappointed because the topic is fascinating in its abstract form, so from the title I was hoping for something a little more accessible.

However it made me hunt around for more appropriate sources and I found a few, so that at least is good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Suppose that one receives a message that consists of a string of symbols a > or b, say aababbaaaab··· And let us suppose that a occurs with probability > p, and b with probability 1−p. How many bits of information can one extract > from a long message of this kind, say with N letters?

They should first define what they mean by probability. For example, what am I supposed to fill in for p when b always occurs after exactly 3 times a?

<comment><USER9> If you can't figure it out from the sentence you quoted, you are not the target audience for that paper.

(p is independent)

<comment><USER8> > (p is independent)

But this does not hold for most real-life data streams.

<comment><USER10> Ph.d. student in information theory and signal processing here.

It is actually a very reasonable assumption for almost all kinds of data -- given that suitable compression is applied. Data, which is well-compressed, is essentially uniformly random.

When p('a') = p and p('b') = 1 - p, it means that the probability of 'a' and 'b' do not depend on anything. The probabilities must sum to 1, since it is the certain event, so p('a') + p('b') = p('a' \+ 'b') = p + 1 - p = 1. That is when we assume that only the symbols 'a' and 'b' are possible.

If there was a relationship between 'a' and 'b', say that 'b' always occurs after every 'aaa', then the when we receive 'aaa', we know that the next symbol is 'b' \-- always.

So in this case the probability of 'b' has a relationship, a condition on the history, which would be written as p('b' | hist = 'aaa') = 1. A much more useful framework for this is a Markov process the a history/memory of 3. A graph for such a process can be seen here: [https://mermaidjs.github.io/mermaid-live- editor/#/view/eyJjb...](https://mermaidjs.github.io/mermaid-live- editor/#/view/eyJjb2RlIjoiZ3JhcGggVERcbkEgLS0gYSAtLT4gQlxuQiAtLSBhIC0tPiBDXG5DIC0tIGEgLS0-IERcbkQgLS0gYiAtLT4gQVxuQiAtLSBiIC0tPiBBXG5DIC0tIGIgLS0-IEFcbkEgLS0gYiAtLT4gQSIsIm1lcm1haWQiOnsidGhlbWUiOiJkZWZhdWx0In19)

Each node is a state and the edges represent the possible outputs. The rul for such a graph is that the probabilities of the "leaving" edges must sum to 1 -- we must of course always leave the current state we are in. Notice that it takes a sequence of 'aaa' to enter node "D", afterwhich we _must_ output a 'b'. Using some matrix formulations it is possible to calculate the probabilities of 'a' and 'b' (the stationary distribution I think it is called).

And to return to the first point, why is independence a reasonable assumption. In the Markov process, in node D, we known that we must always output a 'b'. In terms of information theory, if we receive 'aaa' then the 'b' is given and provides no new information. There we can perfectly predict it and we could also remove it (compress the data), without _losing_ information.

'abaabbaaab'

contains the same information as

'abaabbaaa'

since we _know_ that there must be a 'b'.

I hope that explains why independence is reasonable.

<comment><USER11> Great write-up!

> It is actually a very reasonable assumption for almost all kinds of data -- > given that suitable compression is applied. Data, which is well-compressed, > is essentially uniformly random.

What kinds of data are an exception? Your explanation seems to cover everything

<comment><USER10> First of all, we have protocol data such as headers and framing which we might never properly get rid of. People might also send uncompressed data. All practical concerns, but for analysis independent (and even uniform) is not wrong, just rough.

Second, you might (will) not be able to completely compress the data. A picture might be worth a thousand words, but they still take out a megabyte or so on disk. That makes for about 1000 bytes per word ;) So the entropy/information of a picture might be very small ("A dog jumping into water"), but we have no chance of truly understanding a general source (reality) and expressing its full machinery.

Think about the difference between JPEG and PNG (or GZIP and a JavaScript minifier). They are designed for completely different assumptions about the source and even receiver. JPEG assumes that the most important part of an image is the human-visual understand; PNG is lossless, but assumes high inter- pixel dependence. GZIP assumes general bytes (I think); JS minification assumes that a there is a more fundamental representation of the source without noise (formatting, comments, reasonable names, dead functions).

<comment><USER11> Cheers!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there a market for freelance algorithm design and implementation? - <AUTHOR>

I've been considering freelance work because I want to travel, but I'm not sure whether there's a market for what I'm interested in.
I like solving algorithmic problems. I enjoy it so much that I do it for fun. I know there are plenty of people offering web design/development service, but about algorithm design and development?
To clarify: I'm looking for work where I get to work with a lot of companies that do (hopefully) interesting work. My specialty is taking a problem specification and providing a solution by designing an algorithm and then implementing it for the company. I wouldn't be opposed to helping the company integrate this algorithm into their system and providing follow-up service and maintenance, but I don't want to develop entire products.
I have a hard time staying focused on anything for more than a few weeks, so I'd like to get it, do something new and interesting, and then get out. <comment><USER2> If you do a pretty targeted job search, there's a decent number of these kinds of jobs on oDesk (full disclosure, I work at oDesk).

Machine learning: [https://www.odesk.com/jobs?nbs=1#filter/?qs=machine- learning...](https://www.odesk.com/jobs?nbs=1#filter/?qs=machine- learning&st=0)

Hadoop: [https://www.odesk.com/jobs?nbs=1#filter/?qs=hadoop&st=0](https://www.odesk.com/jobs?nbs=1#filter/?qs=hadoop&st=0)

Data Science (as you'll see, not everyone knows what this term means): [https://www.odesk.com/jobs?nbs=1#filter/?qs=data- science&...](https://www.odesk.com/jobs?nbs=1#filter/?qs=data-science&st=0)

Algorithms [https://www.odesk.com/jobs?nbs=1#filter/?qs=algorithms&s...](https://www.odesk.com/jobs?nbs=1#filter/?qs=algorithms&st=0)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's time for me to get some sleep, so I'll check out oDesk more thoroughly tomorrow. My first thought though is that, like other freelance sites, employers might expect me to work for pennies on the dollar.

<comment><USER2> If you were doing SEO/SEM writing or something like that, then maybe, but for these kinds of jobs, you can charge a premium if you know what you're doing & deliver value. Many employers are cheap, but fewer are stupid---they do want to get their projects done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've got a startup at <http://zombal.com>. Occasionally we have algorithm work coming through but it's not something that you could live off (at the moment). I'm still figuring out the market and determining the best way to connect companies with people like yourself.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a pretty cool site you've got there. I just took the time to read the descriptions for ~20 different jobs and I'm glad to see that there is a place where people with math and science skills can make money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would say network with developers/contractors that don't want to do that work. Let them bring you in mark up your services and everybody wins.</comment>


Does SAP – or Oracle – have product/market fit? - <AUTHOR> Marc Andreessen says: "You can always feel when product/market fit isn't happening. The customers aren't quite getting value out of the product, word of mouth isn't spreading, usage isn't growing that fast, press reviews are kind of "blah", the sales cycle takes too long, and lots of deals never close." Yet, if you survey 100 SAP - or Oracle - customers, 99 will behave exactly like that; they don't even like the product; end-users hate them; there are no killer features; etc etc etc.<p>How can I solve this mental conundrum? <comment><USER3> They sort of do, they sort of don't. And it doesn't matter at all. Product market fit is a concept used to describe startups. Specifically, I take it to mean when a startup has managed to engage/sell to a small, rapidly-expanding group of very passionate users/customers. It doesn't apply to huge enterprise companies at scale. Everybody has heard of Oracle. Nobody has heard of <foo> startup.

Not everything can be analyzed with the same types of analysis. It is a complete mistake to try to analyze startups like you analyze large companies, and vice versa.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think you're confusing users with customers. Most SAP users probably don't like it or hate it, but the people buying or paying for it? (CEO's, shareholders, etc).. they probably love it, and word of mouth does work - <USER2> someone has a SAP-killer that people don't know about, I haven't heard of it.

ju-st said it best - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10617830](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10617830)

Also, long sales cycles are normal in huge multimillion dollar B2B products.

<comment><USER5> well said GFischer, I agree with you

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Stop believing the often BS personal opinions of "experts" like Andreessen or Horowitz. Most customers hate the products that they buy - but they need them to solve a problem and they have few choices. It is only in some markets where there are "commodity" products to choose between and you can evaluate the product in the way suggested by these guys.

Maybe the real point is that there are different types of markets with different characteristics. And whenever you read some billionaires opinion you really need to be skeptical - there is always some personal set of values and experiences behind those opinions.

<comment><USER3> Marc Andreessen isn't suggesting Oracle doesn't have p/m fit, only the OP is.

</comment></comment><comment> ju-st I'm sure big companies love SAP. The killer feature is that it works. There is no other comparable software. You will never run out of guys who can maintain the system. The user interface is complicated by design; it's reusable and you can check/see every value multiple times before it is finally saved (wrong data leads to wasted time & wasted money); and finally it's easier for the consultants to implement. And in my opinion the most important fact is that the customers of SAP are top-level executives and so on and not the end-user.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've seen big global companies spend months without being able to bill and/or collect money because of SAP problems. SAP is basically a cover a%$ for terrible decision makers, i.e., a marketing play. No?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> SAP and Oracle are great at leveraging the network effects of having thousands of businesses built on top of their product offering. Think of how many consultants, books, courses and who knows what else that is based on SAP and Oracle. It's also customizable to anything their customers want. There's a huge amount of after-purchase support that ensures the buyer has some degree of confidence.</comment>


Keeping your Javascript clean - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cloudability.com/four-ways-to-keep-your-javascript-clean/ <comment><USER2> Heads up cloudability. If front end and UI is important may I suggest a different font for the blog. Really hard to read here on windows.

<comment><USER3> Seems pretty readable to me. Plus, color contrast is more in the area of making things look good, which is not what the UI does.

<comment><USER4> Not to be polemic, but I agree that there's something in the current typographic settings that could be improved. I tried to disable the CSS rule from corporate.css::1 on body for font-family (making the font fallback from 'Myriad pro' to the Helvetica family from foundation.css::75) and I think the result is much more readable - although it still has space for improvement in line-height and contrast). HTH

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> can anyone give some detailed examples on "encapsulating/abstracting away state."

<comment><USER3> Yes, some examples for each of the points would be extremely helpful. Interesting points nonetheless.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the suggestion. I'll see about putting some together. Wasn't really sure about including examples as to whether it would be helpful or not...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ironic but your fonts and javascripts are not loading on my chrome

</comment><comment><USER8> I've also had issues getting the Cloudability blog through my feed reader in the past.</comment>


Would you visit SF/Silicon Valley for 1 week to network....? - <AUTHOR> Currently working on a project within the AI space. The idea is to network with some great minds to open doors for us whilst get some proper feedback on the project?
I know this sounds like bringing some form of VC on board but for the time being we want to bootstrap the idea.
Would you recommend visiting SF for a week to achieve the above? If so, what ideas would you recommend?
Thanks, much appreciated! <comment><USER2> No. I would do it for three [1], and stay on different people's floors and be thrilled. A week is barely enough time to get your bearings.

[1] I did this in 2001 and it was amazing

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you</comment></comment>


Ask HN: USENET postings that helped define a generation - <AUTHOR>

Hi There,
I'm putting together an article on USENET posting over the 3 decades.
There are obviously the infamous Linus Torvalds and Jeff Bezos message, however, I'm wanting to look deeper and examine the more personal side of USENET. For
I would be humbled if you could tell me your USENET stories. What did USENET teach you? Did you have a posting go "viral"? What do you most remember about usenet? What posts helped define and inspired you. Did you find love on USENET?
Thank you for sharing :)
Andrew Lynch
http://about.me/andrewlynch firstname.lastname@example.com <comment><USER2> Why? So you can create blogspam to repost? No thanks.</comment>


I'm taking a break from my wife and kids - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/what-i-learned-today/e28173c6a0ea <comment><USER2> When I saw the title "I'm taking a break from my wife and kids" and actually started reading it, I was expecting a story about enthusiastic entrepreneur willing to sacrifice his family for his startup. On the contrary, it's a reminder what is really important, and that you can't fully understand it unless you have it, and then you lose it. We just take too much for granted.

<comment><USER3> I have this saying that I've been telling my 19 year old son since he could talk: "Too much of anything, except love, is a bad thing." I now tell that to my daughter who is 11. I don't know it's so much taking things for granted, more than being able to quickly identify which things in life give you the greatest return on joy and focusing on those. Chances are I couldn't handle talking to her all day and all night for a solid week, but I definitely know I start missing the little PITA when she is gone for more than a few days. I miss her because I love her and she brings me joy, but that doesn't mean she doesn't drive me, my wife and my son nuts when we are around her all the time. Ying and yang, baby.

<comment><USER2> Completely agree. It's hard to explain to some twenty something what having kids really means. Heck, I complain that they wake mu up every day at 6am by just jumping on me in my bed while I sleep, but then again, when they are not there for a few days I miss these annoyances so bad that I can't fall asleep without few beers. But I wasn't able to really realize what they mean to me before I moved to another country for three months.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anytime I read a comment that uses "lifestyle business" as a demeaning term, I tend to think that whoever said it doesn't have a family, or is sadly missing out on them.

</comment><comment><USER5> This comment comes from a lack of start-up experience. That being said, I've always been hesitant to work at a start up because of the potential long hours. I'm not afraid of working hard or intimidated...I just want time with my family and friends. I don't like the idea that if I sacrifice everything now, I'll rise up the career ladder and be at a wonderful spot. Well yeah, maybe that's true...but I probably won't be in my 20s, and maybe my 30s anymore, so I wont be able to run (literally) around as easily, or stay up as late having drinks with friends (those friends may then be married and not want to have late nights anymore).

As I mentioned, I have not worked at a start up, I'm relying on what I've heard through friends. Family and friends for me always come first.

<comment><USER2> > Family and friends for me always come first.

You would be amazed how quickly friends lose their place in your life when you have your own family (significant one), and how they are completely irrelevant when you get kids. You might think now that friendship is forever, but it quickly fades away with every new child.

It's not that friends are not important anymore. They are, the same as before, but that's insignificant compared to the importance of your own children and own family.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This sentence caught me off guard:

> I've cried more than a few times since they've left, I'm sure I will a few > more. The truth is that I don't cry because I miss them, I cry because I > never fully appreciated what they added to my life each day in the first > place.

I've been away from my wife and kids for a 3 week stretch and never once did I feel like crying because I missed them. I did miss them, just not to the point of breaking down into tears:)

I'm not sure what that says about me and the poster. Is crying due to being away from your family a common reaction?

<comment><USER7> I think the important distinction is that he is at home in the regular environment. If you are away from home without the family, everything is different; while at home only the absence is different. This absence feels massive because of the magnitude of habits formed participating in a family unit.

<comment><USER6> Ahh, that's a very good point.

When I was away from my family, I was in a different environment( new job) so to me everything was new and exciting.

For him, he's still at home nothing's changed, so he has a much clearer frame of reference to remind him of his family.

<comment><USER8> Also note that he said "The truth is that I don't cry because I miss them, I cry because I never fully appreciated ....." . He doesn't cry because he misses them. It is true with me as well and probably other folks who are claiming they don't cry. I too don't cry just because I miss them, but there are moments when the mind wanders into deeper thoughts , like what really matters in life, the silly little arguments you may have had with your wife in past, the times you ignored your kids needs (taking them to parks, play with them by putting aside your laptop etc) etc, and realize how silly those mistakes were, and how easily they could have been prevented when you think about the bigger context/meaning for your life is that time you spend happily with family and it is not going to come back. Time lost is lost forever. It is thoughts like these that make me cry, make me modify my future behavior for better.

Btw, I go thru this cycle of "self-realization/self-correction and then when the family returns back from vacation , then slowly getting back to the lazy original attitude of taking some of the things for granted about family and then back to summer and missing the family" :-).

I just hope that each of these cycles keeps making me a little better person than before!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I could not imagine "losing" my kids for weeks at a time.

Bury yourself in work only helps for a while. Fly down more often.

<comment><USER10> Sao Paolo is quite a ways away from Brooklyn. It's a rather long flight that's very expensive. It may not be feasible, either the time it takes or the money it takes.

<comment><USER11> Well at least you can get a direct flight. Most American cities to most Brazilian cities will be a 3-leg journey, often through such horrible delay- ridden airports as Chicago O'hare.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The ending to the article is touching. In light of that what I am about to say is going to sound all the more heartless and I expect to get downvoted for it but I think that it has to be said:

 _If you really want to get things done, consider not having children (yet)._

In my experience this applies to both men and women in demanding technical fields. You may argue that having children is worth it in spite of what it may do to your career but that's a different argument.

</comment><comment><USER13> Good post though there's too much emphasis on the crying (vs. appreciation) IMHO.

<comment><USER14> I don't know, I think I can relate to the crying. I think I gained a whole metric ton of empathy since having kids and get weepy at the silliest things sometimes where nothing ever phased me before I had kids :)

<comment><USER15> I know exactly what you mean. Having kids changes everything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a weird juxtaposition of ideas. I don't see what taking a break from tech has to do with taking a break from family.

<comment><USER16> Lots of people have posted about cutting the clutter from their lives, to make life better. They say that cutting clutter makes you appreciate life more.

This guy is saying that his wife and children are away from him, and he really appreciates them now he knows what it's like without them.

TL:DR _Absence makes the heart grow fonder_

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> From the title I thought it sounded like a divorce was coming.

</comment><comment><USER18> It sounds more like his family took a break from him.

</comment><comment><USER19> Hope this guy doesn't think his wife isn't estatic without him around. She's going wild.</comment>


OneDev 3.2 – Self-Hosted All-in-One DevOps Platform - <AUTHOR> https://www.onedev.io/v3.2.0 <comment><USER2> That looks pretty good. What's amazing (but also a little disconcerting) is the fact that this seems to be pretty much entirely developed by one dude.</comment>


Show HN: CSV to Bootstrap HTML table and create BCG "growth share" matrix - <AUTHOR> http://dangoldin.com/js-tools/

<comment><AUTHOR> Just two quick tools I put together in JS that I'm annoyed no one else has done yet. One just takes some delimited text and creates a Bootstrap HTML table out of it and the other generates a BCG style "growth-share" matrix that can then be screenshotted and used wherever. I need to improve the UI on the second one but it works passably well.

The code's up on GitHub if anyone's interested in providing other ideas or adding additional features: [https://github.com/dangoldin/js- tools](https://github.com/dangoldin/js-tools)</comment>


WikiLeaks releases Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Environment draft - <AUTHOR> http://wikileaks.org/tpp-enviro/ <comment><USER2> I don't really have the time to read through this. What are the key points?

I know the TPP is an agreement negotiated in secret by (probably non-elected) representatives who have corporate best interests at heart, which probably means it's hideously bad, but I don't have the time to read through it all myself.

<comment><USER3> This doesn't seem to be the full TPP, "just" the chapter on environment. There's a press-release which summarizes some points: [http://wikileaks.org/tpp-enviro/pressrelease.html](http://wikileaks.org/tpp- enviro/pressrelease.html)

>When compared against other TPP chapters, the Environment Chapter is noteworthy for its absence of mandated clauses or meaningful enforcement measures. The dispute settlement mechanisms it creates are cooperative instead of binding; there are no required penalties and no proposed criminal sanctions. With the exception of fisheries, trade in 'environmental' goods and the disputed inclusion of other multilateral agreements, the Chapter appears to function as a public relations exercise.

>Julian Assange, WikiLeaks' publisher, stated: "Today's WikiLeaks release shows that the public sweetner in the TPP is just media sugar water. The fabled TPP environmental chapter turns out to be a toothless public relations exercise with no enforcement mechanism."

and

>The documents date from 24 November 2013 ─ the end of the Salt Lake City round. They were requested by the Ministers of the TPP after the August 2013 Brunei round. The Consolidated Text was designed to be a "landing zone" document to further the negotiations quickly and displays what the Chairs say is a good representation of all Parties' positions at the time.

<comment><USER4> I wonder if that treaty has any effect on anything. Signing parties exclude Japan, New-Zealand, Russia, Chile, Ecuador and all central america. Seems like this is one of those treaty done just to say: 'Look we tried, but it's complicated, [yada yada yada]'.

<comment><USER5> > public relations exercise

Without reading through it, it would seem it may have a great deal of effect on public relations in the participating countries. I'd imagine it may be used as PR leverage against countries who did not participate as well. "Just look at how little Russia and NZ care about the environment!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also the Chair's report which covers where each country stands on issues: [http://wikileaks.org/tpp-enviro-chairsreport/](http://wikileaks.org/tpp- enviro-chairsreport/)

Edit: This NY Times article was posted on the Wikileaks twitter as well: [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/us/politics/administration...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/us/politics/administration- is-seen-as-retreating-on-environment-in-talks-on-pacific-trade.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> _Why House Democrats Might Kill Obama 's Big Trade Deal_

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/11/fast-track-trade- de...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/11/fast-track-trade- democrats_n_4580720.html)

Interesing, this was just 3 days ago. The EFF has been looking for these docs to review for a while, and it seems even members of congress in the POTUS's own party are concerned about the process.

<comment><USER7> Very interesting that the fast track bill was introduced with no Democratic cosponsors, only Republicans. That's a sign that there may be real opposition to this deal forming within the President's own party.

I've often wondered why Obama is pushing this TPP deal in the first place. It seems to directly contradict what he said in the 2008 campaign about NAFTA hurting American workers. Of course it shouldn't be a surprise that politicians lie, but rarely do they get away with such a complete reversal.

<comment><USER8> Obama is first of all the _US_ President, and _then_ a Democratic Party member. The TPP follows long-established _US_ foreign policy guidelines that are invariably supported by both major parties: _what is good for US companies abroad, it 's good for the US government_. It's actually a very common foreign policy principle among countries. There is an understanding that what is paramount is that _power is projected abroad as much as possible_ , and internal repercussions can be managed if necessary. This is not completely irrational: it's easier for the President to pass a bill than it is to make umpteen countries sign a treaty. For example, you first sign all the WTO treaties and force other countries to open their markets, then quickly impose tariffs on steel (Bush II), or on electronics (Reagan / Bush I) when strictly necessary. First you make it illegal to use firewalls among peers, then bring yours up at will.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why is this getting flagged?

<comment><AUTHOR> Probably because it's not directly technology related? And political.

<comment><USER10> Technology doesn't live in a bubble - this social event directly affects technology.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> These are great, I'm sure. But the Snowden releases showed dumping data in it's raw form as Wikileaks does kills the important stuff. Data needs analysis and interpretation. I haven't got time to read and interpret all these pages.

<comment><USER12> That's where jurnalists should come into play, too bad most of the media has other interests :)

<comment> k-mcgrady I think that was the point. You need to give it to the journalists to interpret. When it's released raw they have less of an incentive to do so as they aren't getting the 'exclusive'. It can be covered by anyone. It also takes them time to analyse these things. The good journalists don't read it and write a story, they take time and do it right and investigate further. Releasing it raw brings it into the news and once it's gone out again it's unlikely to come back so by the time a good journalist has written a good report nobody will care.</comment></comment></comment>


Workflow.py: A Minimalist Workflow Engine  - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mdipierro/workflow <comment><USER3> This is not a workflow engine but rather a rules engine. A workflow engine is like a navigating a directed graph or a flowchart. Executing one node would take you to the same or different node based on some rules. So a rules engine is typically a part of a workflow engine or invoked by it.

<comment><USER4> There are two types of workflow engines: sequential and finite state machines. The latter is more general and includes the former. In a finite state machine external event let you move through the nodes of a graph. The present node is the state. In workflow.py the creation/update of a file is the external event. The state is also characterized by the files present in the file system. The change of state is associated to the execution of a program. I agree it is a little different than what people are used to and I am not arguing semantics. It was useful to me. Hope it is useful to others. That is all. I will be happy to take patches to improve functionality.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, if I sounded argumentative. I just shared what somebody's perception could be when they read the title 'Workflow Engine'. It took me a while to understand that probably 'Rules Engine' would have been a better nomenclature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So someone remade cron+incrond, in python, using more memory, with a more complicated syntax. Okay. I'll pass.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, but it seems like one of those tools you write because you want it to work your way, not necessarily because it doesn't already exist. I have a few of those: tools that already exist but I wrote my own for fun or because it fit my workflow better.

Also, the Windows version of cron and the like is not as developer-friendly, IMHO. I do not see why this could not work well on both systems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Isn't this what inotify and related programs (incron, etc) are for? I expected it to at least be based on python-pyinotify or python-inotifyx.

<comment><USER4> Eventually it should be rewritten to use pyinotify. For now it was good enough for my needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Speaking as a dev who uses Python on Windows primarily, I like this a lot. Much more lightweight than Windows Workflow Foundation and doesn't feel like sysadmin work compared to doing stuff with Powershell + Scheduled Services + other parts of Windows automation. In other words, this feels like "developer work" rather than "Windows IT Pro" work :p

Kudos!

</comment><comment><USER9> How is this a workflow engine rather than an interpretation of a *nix daemon?

I think this is a good implementation of a Python program, but there's - <USER2> what I've personally seen - a tremendous opportunity for an affordable, flexible workflow engine (that's not based on Microsoft SharePoint).

</comment><comment><USER10> Does Python have a BPEL/BPM-style workflow engine like Ruby's ruote?

This doesn't seem to be it, but I would love to have a workflow engine which is designed for long running tasks, with periodic human interruption, conditional flows, and so on.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure how they compare to Ruby's "ruote", but there are quite a few Python workflow managers and libraries out there.

GC3Pie (<http://gc3pie.googlecode.com/>) is a Python library for running many- task workflows featuring interruptible execution, interfaces to SGE, PBS and LSF clusters, and composition operators to build dynamic task dependencies (so, not just DAGs). _Disclaimer: I'm one of the developers._

Weaver (<http://bitbucket.org/pbui/weaver>) is a Python front-end for building workflows that can run on top of the Makeflow engine, supporting SGE, Condor and WorkQueue as execution back-ends. (See the comment by its author "pbui" on another HN thread: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4047100>)

NiPyPe (<http://nipy.sourceforge.net/nipype/>) is a Python workflow engine especially targeted at Neuro-Imaging processing (but the core framework is generic, as far as I understand).

I'm pretty sure this list is not exhaustive: many people seem to be re-writing the same core functionality, coming from different fields and/or with slightly different requirements.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Indeed the title made the content look shitty.

Workflow engine means an engine to drive workflows - at least for me.

This thing is meh, no reason to use it over existing C tools, I wonder why someone rererererereinvented the (not actually round) wheel.</comment>


We're Launching Our App in Canada First (and Why Other Developers Should Too) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ideatoappster.com/word-hack-launches-in-canada/

<comment><USER2> Interesting approach. I've heard Norway or the GB are other places that devs launch too, both with similar demographics.</comment>


I just used this AI SDK, its pretty accurate in predicting, highly recommend it - <AUTHOR> http://www.inset.co

<comment><USER2> It looks sophisticated</comment>


Initial findings of artificial impact on asteroid Ryugu - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2020-03-artificial-impact-asteroid-ryugu.html <comment><USER2> How did the probe accelerate that 2-kg lump of copper to 7,200 km/h (2 km/s)?

Just asking if someone happens to know, didn't see it mentioned.

<comment><USER3> The impactor device was very similar to a HEAT warhead; a high explosive shaped charge lined with copper. Detonation of the shaped charge turns the copper lining into what's called an explosively-formed penetrator of EFP [1]. Note that the device was separated from the main probe before use and the probe itself was below the horizon when the impactor was fired in order to avoid damage from debris.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 9 million years ago is an intriguing dating for it. What would it be its origin? I guess a collision between two other asteroids. I wonder if it's possible to trace it back.

</comment><comment><USER5> Maybe it's just me but the title confused me... I thought they found artificial impacts on Ryugu, impacts that were artificial but not man made. Spoiler alert: the impact is man made and the article is about analyzing this impact.

<comment><USER6> I would say artificial implies man-made unless they buried the mother of all ledes.</comment></comment>


Ruby values: ruby-the-tribe vs. ruby the language - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@flavorjones/ruby-values-7b5ffe45aea7 <comment><USER2> Ruby the language is great, but I'm going to miss ruby the community the most as I migrate to statically typed languages for my day job.

</comment><comment><USER3> Couldn't agree more! The GORUCO conference is amazing! I've had the wonderful opportunity of speaking there once and volunteering a few time too. It was also where I was first introduced to a dear friend that would go on to become an amazing co-founder of our funded startup (now defunct :) ). Its a great community, great format, you won't regret it!

</comment><comment><USER4> "Ruby-the-tribe" is the right note to strike: so many of us learned programming with Ruby or learned to _love_ programming through Ruby. Some of us are on to new endeavors, but that love remains. I'm proud to be a member of the tribe!

</comment><comment><USER5> It is fun to see how my friends in the "tribe" have changed (evolved?) over time. Ruby is what brings us all together and that always makes me smile.</comment>


The David W. Niven Collection of Early Jazz Legends, 1921-1991 - <AUTHOR> https://archive.org/details/davidwnivenjazz?sort=-downloads <comment><USER2> This is a gold mine. My profession life is half programmer / half jazz musician. Every musician I've forwarded this link to has been blown away.

The commentary accompanying the clips I've sampled is just great. It reminds me of why I _still_ purchase CDs after all these years - namely, the liner notes. I will never be okay with downloading/streaming an album without having even basic information such as who the lineup is. Liner notes for jazz recordings are such a fundamental part of the overall package and really can increase one's appreciation of the work. There's nothing better than hearing a Nat Hentoff or a Stanley Crouch give a sweeping overview of the scene while introducing you to a recording. Better yet are those rare artists like Brad Mehldau who are themselves amazing critics of their own artistic worlds.

<comment><AUTHOR> Those commentaries are indeed excellent! His voice makes me think to HAL 9000 every time it starts which makes for a very singular journey!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a very well laid out and interesting resource. Glad to get a chance to check it out. Off to explore some more, thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER4> ohh wow, thanks for sharing! this is gold!

</comment><comment><USER5> I just sampled a few. These are some legit recordings. Very good quality.</comment>


How to create artificial intelligence enabled trading bot - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Well... the question of one million dollars....

First, you need an model that you can train to try to forecast the best direction....

Then, you need to implement triggers to your trading api and backtest to validate your model.

And finally you need to implement the decision engine to trade based on your forecast.

It's an long journey...

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, of course, it is not an easy task this is the first small step of that journey. I already build something as you mentioned. It took me to 2 and a half years. It was too much hard so I just start this series it will be helpful for someone who likes to walk that journey.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What front end framework/library for Flask MVP - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I would think you could use just straight javascript or maybe vue.js.</comment>


Show HN: Tired of Netflix recommendations? Televisor - <AUTHOR> http://televisor.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Netflix has some of the best recommendation algorithms, but what do you want to watch right now?

We built Televisor to help you discover new shows based on an existing show you like.

E.g. find me something to watch like The Wire!

Tech: using an item-to-item collaborative filtering approach, whereas most sites like netflix use a user-to-user approach.

Two advantages of item-to-item are that it can start making recommendations right away without you having to input a lot of ratings, and it enables us to give focused recommendations. You might well like Downton Abbey, but perhaps you don't care to watch something like that right now?</comment>


On Amazon EC2's Underlying Architecture - <AUTHOR> http://openfoo.org/blog/amazon_ec2_underlying_architecture.html

<comment><USER2> There's a lot of "probablies" in this write up. I applaud the reverse engineering attempt, but this is a little hand wavey.

<comment><AUTHOR> I totally agree. The intention of writing this post was not to provide a precise documentation of Amazon's architecture (only Amazon can do this), but to get feedback if I am on the right track to understand the underlying architecture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for the work on this and for writing it up. Did you try engaging Amazon to get some more direct answers? Are they not forthcoming about the infrastructure?

It would be really cool to be able to get in-depth about the hardware setup, how the disks are clustered and interfaced with the CPU-heavy clusters, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> I contacted someone at AWS through a friend and asked him basic architectural questions, like if he can confirm that they are running Linux in Dom0. However, AWS can not give such details as long as you do not have a valid business need and sign a NDA, which I declined. If they are so closed about basic questions about their architecture, I doubt they will give in-depth details.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It'd be nice to see something like this done for linode and rackspace as well.

<comment><USER5> Agreed, but I think there's not as much need with linode & rackspace. I believe they pretty much work as you would expect, and they're sufficiently open that if you asked questions my guess is that their default position would be to tell you (in contrast to Amazon.)</comment></comment>


A Proof Without Words about Cubes and Squares (1977) - <AUTHOR> https://fermatslibrary.com/s/proof-without-words-cubes-and-squares <comment><USER2> Commenting the wordless proof: Read each n^3 as n times a square with size (edge length) n. This works perfectly for odd numbers, where the squares can be seen by naked eyes. For the even numbers, one (and only one) square has to be split into two rectangles.</comment>