Things I wish they told you about Emacs - <AUTHOR> hit 'q' to dismiss intro page and go directly to scratch buffer<p>M-x customize gives a menu to change those lisp variables people are always mentioning. <comment><USER2> If you'd like a whole book on this topic, I can't recommend Mickey Petersen's "Mastering Emacs" enough: [https://www.masteringemacs.org/](https://www.masteringemacs.org/)

<comment><USER3> Seconded. This is a great book that lays the foundation of emacs knowledge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wish they told me about [http://www.reddit.com/r/emacs](http://www.reddit.com/r/emacs)!

Also, the extended MELPA package universe. This and (use-package) allowing me not to worry about installing hundreds of packages really transformed Emacs into a productivity behemoth.

[http://melpa.org/#/getting-started](http://melpa.org/#/getting-started)

</comment><comment><USER5> My favorite thing I wish they'd told me about emacs:

M-x shell

Run a shell (or shells) inside emacs. Great for long running apps like servers. You can search back through the output using normal Emacs search commands. For me, one of the killer features of Emacs.

Rename the shell buffer to something else to start another shell.

<comment><USER6> Just curious, why do you prefer shell instead of term or ansi-term?

Both of those other modes have better support for curses applications and act closer to an actual terminal emulator than M-x shell does.

Also, if you like term, you can use the "multi-term" script ([http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/multi- term.el](http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/multi-term.el)), which will automatically open a new terminal window with M-x multi-term, and you can cycle through your open terminals with M-x multi-term-next and multi-term-prev

<comment><USER7> Not the parent, but I also prefer shell to ansi-term for my daily usage.

My 99% use-case is running programs that don't need terminal emulator support, but I do commonly use Emacs keybindings for navigating around the buffer -- which requires switching between char and line modes when using ansi-term.

<comment><USER8> It does not need to be either/or. I have configured the terminal mode of ansi- term to allow the cursor keys to move around in the buffer as usual exactly because I often like to back up a bit to look at some output and keeping remembering that the normal buffer movement keys was not available became annoying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You NEED to learn about keyboard macros. And C-/ (which is undo).

Actually, it helps to be around other emacs users. I've seen people do something magic and I stop them so I can learn the trick. Usually they have to do it again before they can explain it because most emacs users have everything "in their fingers". Musicians are the same.

I would credit emacs with 50% of my productivity. Learn it well. It pays huge rewards.

</comment><comment><USER10> That I could switch from Vim and still have access to nearly all the vim keybindings and motions that I use in real Vim.

I've been using vim + evil (and prior iterations of evil) for probably ~5 years now, and it really is the best of both worlds for me.

</comment><comment><USER11> Parens turn out to be an asset, not a drawback to the language. Allowing macros. Tooling like lispy/paredit takes advantage of the parens too.

</comment><comment><USER12> As far as I know, Emacs users are disabling Intro page at all.

Also I can't suggest to use M-x customize because it writes some code into your init.el file. For me, it's important to keep this file as simple as possible with my code only.

But, in case if you're using Emacs for some simple stuff then M-x customize is ok.

<comment><USER13> I don't use customize either, but there are very few things^1 that will be put in it without you _explicitly_ customizing the variable and choosing to save it. So rather than typing elisp code out by hand, you can use the more user- friendly interface to set a variable. If you're -- for example -- version controlling your init file and you use customize, you want to have your customize block version controlled.

[1] The _only_ one I know about is `package-selected-variables`, which are "packages installed explicitly by user". It's used to make sure those packages are not considered unneeded if they aren't a dependency of anything.

<comment><USER4> Customize.el is not only about saving on keystrokes from elisp code, but it is highly discoverable, and importantly, type safe. If you need to put some wacky cons shenanigans to define your font locking rules or whatever, all that is taken care of you in customize.

I don't put the output customize.el under version control since I vary my settings somewhat from machine to machine, and I use version control to sync my emacs configuration. However the output is easy to mechanically transform into (setq-default) for things that I do want to synchronize.

<comment><USER14> Customize is also _fast_. A few years ago I converted 15 years of elisp cruft over to customize and sped my emacs start up by roughly 10x (used to take about 10 seconds).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15>
      (setq inhibit-startup-screen t)

will disable the startup screen entirely so it always goes to the scratch buffer.

 _C-h b_ shows all the key bindings, and _C-h f_ will describe any command (and give access to the source where it was defined).

</comment><comment><USER16> Emacs is nice. But it's also a fractal of bad usability design. :/

<comment><USER17> I honestly think the defaults were made bad on purpose to force people to learn how to configure it.

<comment><USER8> I disagree. People often tend to forget that Emacs has a very long history and what may appear to a newcomer today to be bad design more often than not, has a logical (even if historical) reason.

It is of course a classic design dilemma when porting something across dozens of different systems and supporting something across many decades, whether to try to adapt to the whims of a new target or to stick with a common core. Emacs will never be the Microsoft Notepad of the common computer user and we, the long time Emacs users, tend to see the stability of the interface as an advantage.

<comment><USER16> It is possible to use something for a long time and still be aware of its shortcomings.

(I have been using emacs since 1996.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


EA Shuts Down 'SimCity' and 'The Sims' Developer Maxis - <AUTHOR> http://gamerant.com/sims-city-developer-maxis-shut-down/ <comment><USER3> These laments are a bit overblown.

I worked for Maxis during the big closure in 2004, when the company was in Walnut Creek. A small group moved to Emeryville, many people (including the Sims teams) moved to Redwood Shores, and some some people didn't make the transition. Think of it like layoffs, following on the colossal failure that was The Sims Online (although, ironically, what's left of that team had already moved to EARS).

This is pretty much the same thing. Spore was a disappointment, SimCity was never a massive moneymaker, and whatever games they've been working on since got cancelled. The Emeryville shop has had a decade to produce a hit and it hasn't worked out. Some folks have already been laid off. Some folks will get moved to EARS. Some folks will be looking for a new job. The cycle continues.

It's unlikely that any of the individuals responsible for the specific versions of whatever old game you fondly remember playing are still around. At the end of the day, what you're lamenting is the loss of an office building and a logo.

<comment><USER4> > Spore was a disappointment

Spore was a textbook example of bad management. They spent 80% of time, money and effort on creature designer - a feature that did not make up even 20% of game, closer to 5%. Game had complex and massive functionality for libraries, various downloadable creatures, even tunes for cities, outfits for citizens - all things that were not just unnecessary, but one might say even made game less attractive (because usually you end up not being such great designer and all cities look equally generically bad). Essential features, such as autosave, were lacking. It is hard to fathom how detached from reality the managers were.

<comment><USER5> I don't know anything about the game or how it failed, but what you describe reads like a classic caricature of an engineer's wet dream: lots of fancy tech that's fun to build but not very useful to the end user, while comparatively boring but useful features (autosave) gets passed over.

Sure, management also failed (any failure is by definition a failure of management since they're supposed to be responsible for the project) - <USER2> textbook? You hardly made the case for that.

<comment><USER6> Management letting engineers build whatever cool toys they want instead of features customers want and _need_ sounds like it ought to be a textbook example of what not to do.

Maybe you can't herd cats, but you can at least train them to use the litter box and not scratch your television.

<comment><USER3> Maxis (and EA in general) doesn't really work like that. The producers and game designers are in charge; engineers may have some input but there are professionals running the show. And those professionals screw up a lot. It's a hard business.

Maxis in particular suffered from the problem of having a bright, famous designer who produced two major hits. This gave him license to make dozens of failures. Unfortunately, Maxis started "betting the farm" on his last couple creations, with budgets into the high tens of millions. You don't get to roll the dice many times at that price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Westwood, Origin, Bullfrog, Maxis....

EA's strategy seems to be "Buy studio, make them shovel a couple incomplete games out of the door, close studio, repeat."

Okay, they're asshats. What I don't get is, how does this make them any money? They're basically strip-mining the games industry, is this really more profitable than actually making good games?

<comment><USER8> EA has at least one other strategy, with EA Sports: every year they come out with a new and improved Football, Basketball, Hockey, Golf, etc. and people get it. Madden NFL has been going since 1988.

To be fair, EA Sports did discontinue some of their less popular games, such as Rugby and Cricket.

<comment><USER9> And despite all of their shiny improvements, Madden 2005 and 2008 are considered the best from a gameplay and mechanics standpoint.

<comment><USER10> i can't speak for Madden because i'm not a fan/player. But for FIFA (a franchise that i've been playing since Road To World Cup 98), 2014 is easily the best one. They improved a shitton of stuff.

Also, they have FIFA Ultimate Team which has a whole meta game of players and cards (which i love).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is just my opinion, though semi-backed by conversations I've had with people who work at EA.

EA Gameplan in a nutshell.

1) Force studio to make changes to a game that benefit the EA but have no tangible (or very little) benefit to the customers (Forcing use of Origin, Sims being online only, etc..)

2) Act surprised when the proverbial shit hits the fan with angry customers.

3) Let said customers know that "you're sorry" and they "have been heard" "loud and clear".

4) Close studio that you forced to make the game breaking changes (or at a minimum lay off most of the staff)

5) Repeat 1-4 yearly.

<comment><USER12> What about DICE? And BioWare?

I wonder if DICE came to the negotiation table more prepared and/or with something up their sleeve. It could be that EA is hands off so long as a studio produces highly profitable titles. As soon as there's a dip, snip snip.

<comment><USER13> It's widely agreed that Battlefield has been on the decline since 3 (3 being the first game released under EA). Bioware has been putting out exceedingly mediocre games since their purchase, not to mention are the laughing stock of many gamers.

<comment><USER14> Calling Mass Effect 2 and 3 "exceedingly mediocre" puts you in a camp that is, by pretty much any metric, very fair from the mainstream. And I wonder who these "many gamers" are who think BioWare is a laughingstock. Do elaborate, please.

<comment><USER15> I, for one, was extremely disappointed in Mass Effect 2 as compared to the original. As a result, I didn't buy the third.

Mass Effect, was, in my opinion, truly inimitable. While the sequels may have kept the setting and had very high production values, at their core they were little more than a sequence of cover-based setpieces and cutscenes.

Dragon Age 2 was even more of regression from Dragon Age: Origins. Origins may not have had quite the same depth as truly old-school CRPGs such as Baldur's Gate or Planescape: Torment, but it took many ideas from that heritage and translated it into something indubitably modern.

I wouldn't call BioWare a laughingstock, but they certainly haven't fared well creatively under EA.

<comment><USER16> Mass effect 2 was perhaps the best game in the series, but it was a very different game than mass effect 1. While the core mechanics were the same, it was extremely episodic and the plot was flimsy. I recall ME3 reeled it back a bit, doing away with some of the annoying exploration stuff, but suffered from third installment syndrome.

<comment><USER17> I, like others, was disappointed in the ending for Mass Effect 3. This guy took the time to explain it very well:

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

Even with their "improvements" to the ending, it was still just choosing what color explosion you got.

<comment><USER18> I'm sorry, but last I recall ME3 was a 20-30hour long game that is way more than just a 10-minute ending sequence. Maybe criticism of it should take that into consideration?

<comment><USER17> I don't expect to convince you otherwise (honestly, I don't expect that of anybody on the Internet, though I still try sometimes), but did you watch the linked video?

The critic (and a whole bunch of other people) did enjoy the game, and the series. Overall, I don't regret the time spent playing it. If people didn't enjoy the ME series, no one would have cared about the ending.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As far as I'm concerned, the time to mourn is upon the acquisition by EA. On that day, the studio is already dead to me. By the inevitable day the name has finally had all "value" squeezed out of it by the corporate behemoth that is now EA, I have long since done my mourning.

signed _still bitter about Ultima 8 & 9_

<comment><USER20> >As far as I'm concerned, the time to mourn is upon the acquisition by EA.

 _Warning: Possible Spoilers Ahead_

Origin did mourn the EA acquisition; Ultima 7 Black Gate is littered with forebodings over EA. The serial killers Elizabeth and Abraham carry the initials of the company and leave a trail of butchery throughout Britannia. The shapes of the EA logo--a triangle, cube, and sphere--are re-purposed as "generators" which undermine magic everywhere. Even the horror lurking beyond the eponymous black gate--the Guardian--is possessed of a personality based on EA's hostile business practices. The EA buyout loomed over the whole production of Ultima 7, ultimately producing one of the series most conscienceless, unreasonable, single-minded villains. More info can be found here:

[https://casualaggro.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/ultima-vii- is-o...](https://casualaggro.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/ultima-vii-is-one-giant- reference-to-how-terrible-electronic-arts-is/)

>signed still bitter about Ultima 8 & 9

One can only dream what would have followed Serpent's Isle had Origin retained control of their creative processes. All the magic in Garriott's dreamworld stood for nothing against the dead-hearted accountants of EA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Wow, an icon of my childhood gone.

If you're an affected developer, shoot me an email & I'll be happy to put you in our pipeline.

<comment><USER22> Icon is the correct term.

SimCity had one of the earliest form of DRM I remember. The almost-impossible to Xerox manual (highly reflective paper so photocopies would come black) was used to answer a question the game asked you, about the population of a specific city on a certain page of the manual.

Loosing the manual was not an option.

Farewell Maxis.

<comment><USER23> This is not DRM, it's copy protection. DRM is about stopping you from using a product you paid money for - as Wikipedia puts it "[controling] the use of digital content and devices after sale." No matter how many years in the future you travel, no matter what happens to Maxis, the original Sim City will still work (assuming you still have the manual, and hardware capable of playing it.)

<comment><USER24> I'm glad there has sometime, somewhere, been a literal, physical-realm use for the term "Copy Protection"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I was just thinking today about how cool a modern open world version of SimAnt would be. Oh well.

Edit: Someone posted a link to this but then it got deleted: [http://www.formicarium.org/](http://www.formicarium.org/)

<comment><USER26> Wow, haven't thought about SimAnt in a long time. Loved that game, thanks. And SimTower too.

<comment><USER27> SimTower, aka Yoot Tower, is available on the iPad. [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yoot- tower/id379197311?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yoot- tower/id379197311?mt=8)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The title (and of the article) is inaccurate. The title talks about Maxis as a whole closing, but the article and third party sources list just one (admittedly BIG) location closure.

The Maxis brand may very well continue and appears to be operating at other physical locations.

<comment><USER29> Maxis Emeryville _is_ Maxis. The _Will Wright_ Maxis, the _Sims_ , _SimCity_ and _Spore_ Maxis. The real Maxis, if you will.

There are some other things EA does under the Maxis brand, but that's just rebranded EA Play stuff. The Maxis people cared about is dead. (Though _The Sims_ isn't, that was spun off into its own studio before Spore was made.)

<comment><USER3> Maxis split up when they closed the Walnut Creek office in 2004, with SimCity and Spore (and Will Wright) going to Emeryville, everyone else going to Redwood Shores. Will Wright left in 2009. There is no "real Maxis", and if there was, some Maxis expat older than me would tell you it died back in the 90s or whatnot.

Maxis had a few big hits and a lot of colossal failures. Including some that never made it to the public. I guess the balance sheet just finally shifted too far in the wrong direction. This isn't necessarily EA's fault; studios that fail go out of business one way or another.

<comment><USER30> The modern version of what Maxis used to be is Minecraft. Developing those games is risky though. For every minecraft there are ten failures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> "EA have a nasty habit of closing studios associated with poorly received projects."

ie. Any studio they take over and force to change gameplay to pay-to-win

</comment><comment><USER32> YOU CAN'T REDUCE FUNDING TO MAXIS

YOU'LL REGRET THIS

<comment><USER14> Yeah, yeah, yeah, HN has no sense of humor and all, but angersock owes me a new keyboard. Thanks for that.

<comment><USER33> It just made me sad :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> There seems to be a lot of misinformation going around.

They're chopping off the people of Maxis but the name will remain (ahem!). Same for the IP, it will live on and be farmed to (an)other studio(s).

(I don't side with EA. Sad day for SimCity lovers. Maxis is a mammoth of history and should not be chopped up. My thoughts for the devs that lost jobs...)

<comment><USER35> People are what make game companies great, not names or logos. There's something to say for maintaining the direct line of employee descendants to the original Sim City.

<comment><USER36> Absolutely true. I've purchased a few sequels over the years only to find somebody made the game in a different place with different people and turned my beloved franchise to crap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Is not the original SimCity, now called Micropolis, open source and part of the OLPC project distro?

Still, really sad to see Maxis axed.

</comment><comment><USER38> Pretty much typical behaviour for a massive corporation who buys out an innovative company. EMC has done this to more companies that I care to list.

<comment><USER39> HP as well, but without the innovation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Kind of sad when I think back of some really awesome Maxis games like SimLife and SimAnt. But Maxis hasn't really been in a position to make the kinds of games they used to have they? Seems really odd to shut it down during GDC though, could make for some awkward badges over at the convention center.

</comment><comment><USER41> Bummer. I'm not necessarily a fan of their titles today, but I grew up with them and they have a very special place in gaming history. Maxis, you will be missed.

<comment><USER42> > I'm not necessarily a fan of their titles today, but I grew up with them

I suspect that is part of what led to their demise. I'm in the same boat. I'd much rather run classic SimCity than any of the new stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Just going to leave this here. Better than SimCity by miles. [http://store.steampowered.com/app/255710/](http://store.steampowered.com/app/255710/)

<comment><USER44> It's not even released yet but it's better? When will this early access bubble burst? There's cities xl as well (with the benefit of having actually been released), how would you rate it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Right in the childhood :(

</comment><comment><USER44> People always make EA out as some comic book villains but they're not doing this to spite gamers or against the wishes of the previous company owners. The creators go into these deals willingly and sometimes it's either that or bankruptcy. What I'm saying is EA are less like lions hunting studios in their prime and more like hyena's going for the weak and wounded, or ones who just want out. My analogies are worse than EA.

</comment><comment><USER46> I seem to be sensing a recuring theme here with EA buying well-loved studios and then slowly killing them off before eventually shutting them down for good.

</comment><comment><USER47> SimCity probably changed my life. I grew up with SimCity on DOS and then Super Nintendo, and then SimCity 2000. Then The Sims came out when I was a teenager and blew my mind all over again.

As an adult, I consider myself to be very strategic and analytical. I believe I can attribute some of my refinement in this sense to games like SimCity and Civilization. It's sad to see such a storied label gutted.

</comment><comment><USER48> Fuck you EA. Mid 90's Maxis was my childhood.

</comment><comment><USER49> C&C - Red Alert 2 is the best RTS game I have played so far. The thing about EA is, its probably right. If a game does not perform well, its better to cut losses as the game industry is very unforgiving. But somehow all these studios closing down, does feel like the original theme or charisma of the game that they are associated with is lost.

<comment><USER50> Company of Heroes - 1500+ hours played. I miss it so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I was talking to a friend who works at EA and said most of them were just being moved to EA Redwood Shores. The Maxis studio was a satellite studio out of Emeryville and teams were being migrated to Redwood Shores. "Nothing has changed, Sims 4 and such are still being made" -EA Employee

The internet has made this seem blown way out of proportion.

</comment><comment><USER52> I hate EA with all my energy. Maxis, Bullfrog...all amazing companies that created some classic games in the 90s turned into DRM corporate BS.

What I don't get it is why are people still buying EA games...

</comment><comment><USER29> A real shame. I loved Spore (and Galactic Adventurea).

</comment><comment><USER53> I played so much SimCity, SimTower, SimAnt and SimGolf. They always had quality games in the beginning.

</comment><comment><USER54> I wonder if sales were down since they started making the games exclusive on 'Origin'.

</comment><comment><USER55> I'm thinking the SimCity Online debacle probably had something to do with this.

</comment><comment><USER56> EA are basically the comedy supervillain of gaming.

</comment><comment><USER57> Please leave Bioware alone...Shame you EA!

</comment><comment><USER58> Reticulation of splines complete.</comment>


Ask HN: What's the most efficient way to reach out to VC/angels? - <AUTHOR> What's the best way (highest response rate) when reaching out to VC/angels? I've tried sending cold emails, cold calling, or just going to their offices, but the response rate is quite low. <comment><USER2> get customers and show profit. They will find you.

<comment><AUTHOR> What if you need a bit of funding initially to get started?

<comment><USER3> I think investors will want to see that you have a proven track record before they trust you with money upfront. For example if you want to boil the ocean and you need money to build a prototype burner, you won't get very far, but Elon Musk would.</comment></comment></comment>


How do I raise a seed/A round on the most founder friendly terms in 2016? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Have traction. Accelerators, mentors, and good connections help too but traction is the #1 thing.

Traction is press/attention, user growth, and revenue growth in that order and with exponentially increasing importance in that order. Lots of good traction trumps college degrees, credentials, work history, connections, you name it, at least with knowledgeable and rational investors. You don't want stupid or irrational investors.

Also don't be afraid to say no if the terms are bad. When you're talking to investors you are interviewing them too. They're going to be partners. (I don't care what anyone says-- all non-trivial investors become partners though they vary in how hands-on they are. This is even more true at seed than later.) If the terms are bad or you can't work with these people walk away.

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't need the money.

The way to get the best terms is to be in a position of strength in the negotiation process. If you are profitable already and will just use the money to expand and generate more profits then you will find it much easier to raise a round on great terms.

</comment><comment><USER4> Angel list is a good place to start. Look for angels that you have connections to (or connections of connections).

Don't ask for money - ask for advice. You'll learn a lot and if you are ready, you might start to get offers.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think getting into one of the big three accelerators is the best way to get founder friendly terms.</comment>


Personal Notes on Corman Lisp 3.1 Release - <AUTHOR> https://chaoticlab.io/lisp/update/2018/12/30/corman-3-1-release.html <comment><USER2> Can anyone speak to whether the CCL source is more or less "educational" (approachable, well-documented, etc.) than that of SBCL?

<comment><USER3> usually, CCL = Clozure Common Lisp, and not Corman CL.

[1]: [https://www.clozure.com/ccl/](https://www.clozure.com/ccl/)</comment></comment>


The Little-Known Open Source OS That Rules the Internet of Things - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/06/contiki/

<comment><USER2> I am glad to see Contiki getting some "air time" I have been working with this for the past year and I think it has great potential. One of the great things that Contiki has going for itself is the community. It's very active and growing quite rapidly and it's very welcoming to newcomers.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there an equivalent of a terminal in Contiki?

<comment><USER4> there's a serial console but no shell for it as far as I'm aware - it's mostly just a kernel. there is a nice GUI though if you run it on hardware with video support.</comment></comment>


Honda system confused by Alonso taking Pouhon flat - DC-3 https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/alonso-qualifying-spa-honda-mclaren-945396/ <comment><AUTHOR> For the uninformed, Formula 1 has been running on supercharged 1600 cc V6 engines since 2014, with 100 kg of gasoline for the whole GP (300 km), 105 kg this year if I remember correctly (because of larger and heavier tires.) That wouldn't give enough power so there are energy recovery systems from the exhaust and brakes. They get close to 1000 HP when all those power system deploy all the power they can generate.

The driver has still only the accelerator and the brakes pedals to control power so it's critical that the car knows when to recover energy (either when braking or when coasting) and when to go full throttle or deploy partial power, and which percentage. That's where Honda has failed.

<comment><USER2> Correction: they're turbocharged not supercharged. For those that don't know the difference, a turbocharger is two turbines connected to eachother. One, powered by exhaust gases, spins the other, which forces air into the combustion chamber (the pressure applied is typically called "boost"). More air means more fuel can be injected while maintaining stoichiometric equilibrium. More fuel combusted means more power is produced, given equal waste due to friction etc.

A supercharger is very similar, but conceptually more simple. The turbine creating boost is instead connected mechanically to the engine's crankshaft, being driven directly by the engine.

<comment><USER3> To be fair, the turbochargers in contemporary F1 cars are not powered only by exhaust gases. To get rid of the infamous turbo lag, they are electrically assisted. Still not a super charger of course, but the "assisted" part makes them a bit more similar.

<comment><USER4> The poor mans equivalent of this is hooking up a decent computer fan to the battery on a scooter. Force feeding the intake on the poor little thing certainly felt like it doubled the power, but double almost nothing still isn't much. Turboing the lawn mower works great too, but I'm less sure you would want that done.

<comment><USER5> That is not supercharging. A computer fan is not designed for compressing air, and it's nowhere near powerful enough to do so. There may be a small increase in performance, but that is just because you overcome the restrictions (increasing airflow) in the inlet manifold

The so called 'electric superchargers' which you can buy on ebay have been mythbusted many times [0]

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbGWgvJN1_8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbGWgvJN1_8)

<comment><USER6> I think I rememeber seeing someone hooking up a highly modified leaf blower to the intake of a car and getting like a dozen more HP. This was a part of a bunch of experiments with the electrics turbos, and the the leaf blower was the only thing that worked?

<comment><USER7> Yup, it takes not only high pressure, but a high volume of air. Add to that the need to squeeze more air through existing small ducting, and you need quite a bit to make a difference. Turbos work by their intake being powered in close relation to their exhaust volume. The rest is just effeciency curves and fueling issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> OT Some years back I was given a tour around the McLaren workshop. The work that goes into those machines is impressive to say the least.

I knew a guy on the electrical testing team and he said that they had just spent the better part of 2 weeks tracking down a single misfire from a race. Turned out two tracks on a PCB were slightly too close together.

<comment><USER9> How on earth did they manage to locate that fault? That would be an awesome story to be told in detail.

<comment><USER10> The amount of sensors they have on the cars is insane. Each race they basically set up a data center in the paddock. Then that is remote linked to the teams HQ DC over MPLS links.

Here is a quick bit about it.

[http://en.f1i.com/magazine/73067-f1-telemetry-data- race.html](http://en.f1i.com/magazine/73067-f1-telemetry-data-race.html)

<comment><USER11> I've tried suggesting to smaller teams on social media that they make their data public. What do they have to lose? No responses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Both my wife and I are F1 fans and make a point to watch the races together (which is cool!). While McLaren has no hope of winning watching them fail over and over this and last year due to Honda is heartbreaking.

The quality and design of each teams car matters a ton for winning. The drives of course are a huge part of it, however I strongly believe that you put Max Verstappen ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Verstappen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Verstappen)) in the same Mercedes that Lewis Hamilton is driving he would be likely to win.

For those that do not know there are 2 titles here - the drivers title and the team title. The team title is the "Constructors Championship" i.e., they built the car.

<comment><USER12> And yet, in the Drivers Championship standings, Max is well behind his teammate Daniel Ricciardo (who is of course, driving the same car).

<comment><USER10> I believe if you look at the races and why this is you will find Max had more then one race where the car failed or was crashed out this year.

<comment><USER13> If you count today's race, his car stopped working 6 out of 12 races this year [1] -- through no (obvious) fault of his own. They were mostly engine-related failures.

This is the prime reason for his bad point total.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Formula_One_season#33](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Formula_One_season#33)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The reliance on "major throttle" to determine track position seems strange, especially when you consider unknown variables are possible.

For example, if a marshall flags a yellow, you might pull off the throttle at an unexpected location.

Same as when racing - if another car breaks (for whatever reason, including crashing) - your "inputs" are going to be very different, so this could easily trick the computer into thinking it is not in the right position?

<comment><USER15> Yeah, are inertial navigation sensors and GPS units disallowed?

<comment><USER16> It seems like they must be, as that'd be the obvious solution. I wonder what the motivation for that rule is, and how soon it'll change.

<comment><USER11> What are they using to show the track location graphics? I just assumed they must be using GPS.

<comment><USER16> Could be equipment that the teams don't have access to the data from.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Seems almost comical when you analyse it like this. But in all seriousness, this should have been a major consideration when designing the software systems for the 2017 regulation cars.

The new design with wider tyres and improved downforce means that drivers can now take previously 'brass ball' Spa corners like Eau Rouge and Pouhon with the pedal to the floor, compared to the old days. That very fact should have been allowed for in the AI algorithms.

You'll have to excuse me, I just woke up here on the other side of the world and watched HAM's pole setting lap last night at Spa, and _man_ , these cars take all those tricky corners at Spa _very_ fast! [0] (For reference, Eau Rouge is at 0:22, and Pouhon is at 1:01)

[0] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIRYrgVhJYQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIRYrgVhJYQ)

</comment><comment><USER18> Even algorithms are impressed with Alonso's performance.

Alonso's balls 1 - Honda algorithms 0

</comment><comment><USER19> "Top paid human driver unaware of car limitations."

I don't follow motorsport but it seems like the car in the article is highly calibrated for each race in order to provide optimal performance through-out every section of the track. The driver then deviated from the agreed upon, and successfully tested, driving pattern and the engineering team got the blame.

I mean sure... The car could behave differently - but these are the risks when you test in production.

<comment><USER20> I would imagine they tuned the map from simulator runs, McLaren are well known for having one of the best simulators in F1 for human in the loop, and computer in the loop, testing.

It could be that the parameters were slightly off for downforce and grip with their low-downforce Spa and Monza package and Alonso (and the computer) couldn't take Pouhon flat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Honda's deployment algorithm is calculated through major throttle input, > with it basing its calculations of which corner it is at by major throttle > inputs.

What does "major throttle" mean?

<comment> DC-3 Presumably large changes in throttle input (such as lifting off considerably as the mapping expected Alonso to do through the Pouhon corner) - as opposed to small variations in input which the driver would use to keep the car stable and under traction.

<comment><USER22> Any ideas if there's some regulation stopping more accurate methods of figuring out where they are on the track than through such a strange system? It would not be my go-to method of navigating a track.

<comment><USER23> What would be better? GPS is inaccurate and probably has issues with the speed they are going, they'd have to some estimate of actual position based on average velocity. I think they want to know the instant they are out of turn.

Sensor in the vehicle is way more responsive and reliable than anything remote (EM emission based).

<comment><USER22> I get that, but even mid-2000s consumer cars have position sensors on the steering wheel and very accurate rotation sensors on each individual wheel (mainly for stability control), I'm sure some combination of this would allow them to build a fairly accurate dead reckoning system... Definitely better than stomp based navigation I'd hope

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Perhaps I'm way off (I haven't had a lot of experience with machine learning), but mapping this sort of thing seems like something a neural network could learn to do extremely well. There may be hardware limitations or reasons to why this can't be done, but in general optimising an engine's performance looks like a problem with very measureable inputs and outputs, which would seem to lend well to a machine learning problem.

From a naive perspective, if engine manufacturers aren't already investigating machine learning to optimise performance, it seems like something worth doing.

<comment><USER25> The old machine learning for everything answer!

ML people need to learn to look into a problem before spouting this sort of stuff.

<comment><USER26> With enough training data I reckon I could write an AI for forums that filters out this sort of suggestion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This seems like a terrible way to do odometry. Does FIA disallow teams from using the odometry information from the wheels ?

<comment><USER28> Yes. The ECU is extremely limited

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I was wondering why Alonso was shouting "NO POWER NO POWER" over the team radio at the end of Q2 qualifying.</comment>


Instantly see what other websites are on the same server as you - <AUTHOR> http://viewdns.info/reverseip/?

<comment><USER2> Well done. And fast. I've always wondered how this works, you cannot just query the host, can you?

As these reverse IP services disappear frequently, here are some alternatives:

<http://sharingmyip.com/>

<http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/web-sites-on-web-server/>

<http://www.myipneighbors.com/>

<http://www.linkvendor.com/seo-tools/domains-from-ip.html>

<http://domainbyip.com/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow my Bluehost server has 2,649 sites on it! If each site had only one domain name, then Bluehost is grossing around $15,000/month from this server. Many Bluehost users have multiple domain names. But even if they had 3 per user on average, than Bluehost grosses $5,000/month for this server.

The few I looked at with domainvalues.com all had insignificant traffic. Occasionally the Bluehost server slows way down with a high server load. My guess is that a small handful of sites cause this and I'd be curious to know these sites' names.

Is there a way to just look at a list of sites that have more than a certain number of daily pageviews?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> @moozeek - none of those sites you linked seem to be anywhere near as accurate.</comment>


The Complete Spectrum ROM Disassembly - <AUTHOR> https://speccy.xyz/rom/ <comment><USER2> This is awesome. I still have a copy of the original book from 1983 on my bookshelf! This looks like a faithful reproduction with some added features to make easier to use.

Looking forward to browsing some of the other code linked to from the site - e.g. Manic Miner which was a particular favourite.

A couple of points about the Spectrum ROM.

\- Spectrum BASIC was very slow especially compared to BBC Basic. I think that this was partly due to the constraints of having to fit everything into 16k vs 32k for the BBC - so code was optimised for size rather than speed.

\- It included a stack based VM for floating point operations which I think was again mainly to reduce the code size (one byte for each operation rather than three bytes for a subroutine call).

Would seem appropriate to give credit to the main author of the code, Steve Vickers [1], who went on to found Jupiter Computing, makers of the Jupiter Ace.

[1] [https://web.archive.org/web/20110516082258/http://www.sincus...](https://web.archive.org/web/20110516082258/http://www.sincuser.f9.co.uk/004/newbiz.htm)

edit: added Steve Vickers credit.

<comment><USER3> The Spectrum used the CPU and the ULA for everything. This resulted in a cheaper price for the machine. Meanwhile the BBC had actual hardware. As an example a simple beep would tie up CPU cycles on the Spectrum whereas the BBC micro could define a sound envelope for something more than a beep and hand that off to the AY-8192 sound chip.

The Z80 had plenty of features that the BBC micro's 6502 did not have, so the code should have been quicker with fewer CPU cycles used and fewer lines of code. But the lack of supporting hardware negated this gain.

BBC BASIC was also a more complete implementation of the language. So any code written in BASIC was more efficient just because you didn't have to use your own BASIC workarounds. Being able to drop into assembly language also helped, the Spectrum lacked this option to truly turbo charge your code. The BBC used 16k for BASIC in ROM and had 16k for the OS. This enabled ROMs to be swapped out so you could run BCPL or another ROM, e.g. Fortran.

The Spectrum had BASIC and the OS in 16k with 48k available for RAM. The BBC could use more than 32k of RAM if installed, as per the later Master system that used bank switching.

I am not familiar with the code but I would be surprised if the BBC Basic ROM was anything less than a work of genius concise code. Every byte counted in those days regardless of what home computer you were programming for.

<comment><USER4> I recently was curious about the relative performance of the classic CPUs, so I made this table to compare their memcpy performance:

[https://github.com/jhallen/joes- sandbox/tree/master/classic-...](https://github.com/jhallen/joes- sandbox/tree/master/classic-cpu)

<comment><USER5> I think you can speed up the 6502 version by moving it into the zero page and not using indexed mode. Of course, zero page memory is even more restricted than the 64kB you have in total, but that might be worth it in some cases.

Even if this isn't in the zero page, it surprises me that those expensive x indirect loads and stores are cheaper than worth having to increase the source and destination addresses often, but that probably is because my 6502 is very rusty.

Also: I stared at that code for a while, but couldn't figure out why that _jmp immer_ is there. If you move the 3 instructions starting at _lastpage_ to the end, it can be removed, can't it? (I didn't check, but there may be further code shuffles that do not decrease the number of instructions, but do decrease the number of branches and with it, the number of cycles spent)

<comment><USER4> I knew 6502 people would improve it :-)

>moving it into the zero page and not using indexed mode

I'm not sure I follow.. you mean restrict the memcpy to only within the zero- page?

>jmp inner..

Yeah, it doesn't matter to much, not in the inner loop. You could move the start of the code to right after the rts also..

<comment><USER5> No, moving the code into the zero page. See [https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/a/92](https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/a/92) for what the Basic in the Commodore 64 does.

Increasing an address is faster in the zero page, and self-modifying code is faster. That combines the two.

<comment><USER4> Oh I see:

                 inc $c9        5 cycles
        00c8:    lda $xxxx      4 cycles

vs.

             lda $xxxx,x    4
             inx            2

Mine is still faster...

<comment><USER5> Luckily, I said my 6502 is rusty :-). You can win a cycle increasing the high byte of pointers, but that probably isn't worth the zero page memory in most cases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The original book presenting the disassembly was:

[https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780861611164/Complete- Spectrum-R...](https://www.abebooks.co.uk/9780861611164/Complete-Spectrum-ROM- Disassembly-Logan-0861611160/plp)

by Dr Ian Logan and Dr Frank O'Hara, 1983

published by Melbourne House, here is the scan of their catalog from these times:

[http://www.ourdigitalheritage.org/archive/playitagain/wp- con...](http://www.ourdigitalheritage.org/archive/playitagain/wp- content/uploads/melbourne-catalog.pdf)

I see in the changelog of this project:

[https://speccy.xyz/rom/reference/changelog.html](https://speccy.xyz/rom/reference/changelog.html)

"20160709 The disassembly is now 'complete'.

\- Added annotations from The Complete Spectrum ROM Disassembly by Dr Ian Logan and Dr Frank O'Hara"

The interesting aspect of this online version is its relation to

[https://skoolkit.ca/](https://skoolkit.ca/)

[https://skoolkit.ca/docs/skoolkit/whatis.html](https://skoolkit.ca/docs/skoolkit/whatis.html)

<comment><USER7> I know that Melbourne house was a (book) publisher, but mostly I think of them as the publisher of software:

[https://www.filfre.net/2012/11/the- hobbit/](https://www.filfre.net/2012/11/the-hobbit/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ha! I couldn't get this one in the local store in 1984, I had to do with [0], which was inferior although still very helpful. When I sort through my boxes in storage I suspect I'll find it.

[0] [https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/41998/The- Spectrum-M...](https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/41998/The-Spectrum- Machine-Code-Reference-Guide-Microdrive-Interface-1-Complete-ROM-Disassembly/)

edit: I originally wrote that the author was Rodney Zacks but was mistaken -- googling found that it's by Richard Ross-Langley

<comment><USER9> Rodney Zaks wrote the definitive guide to the Z80: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_the_Z80](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_the_Z80)

<comment><USER7> I have that book, even 30 years later. I've been referring to it a recently, while using an Arduino to drive a Z80 chip (pretending to be I/O ports, and RAM).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've just picked up a copy of "The ZX Spectrum ULA: How to design a microcomputer" by Chris Smith with makes a good companion read to this, though with the focus (obviously) being on the ULA.

[http://www.zxdesign.info/book/](http://www.zxdesign.info/book/)

</comment><comment><USER11> I did something like this with a friend for the TRS80 Color Computer / Dragon 32, we found some really neat stuff in there, for instance how to enable the upper 32 K RAM. Those were interesting times in the sense that it was possible to know the function of _every_ instruction present in the memory of your computer.

</comment><comment><USER12> My favourite part of Spectrum basic was that everything was an expression.

Go to 23*N

</comment><comment><USER13> There is no copyright problems with this?

<comment><USER14> Who is going to try and enforce the copyright in 2020? BSkyB?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Good times indeed !

Off topic. Little quiz:

      RANDOMIZE USR 0

What for ?

<comment><USER9> OK, here's one (for the ZX81). Why did I choose ports 16509 and 16514 for the libvirt daemon ([https://libvirt.org/remote.html](https://libvirt.org/remote.html))?

<comment><USER2> 10 REM TAN

20 PRINT USR 16514

16514

<comment><USER9> Good one. TAN (the keyword, not the 3 letters) is hex C9 which is also RET in Z80 machine code. The address of the first byte after the keyword in the first statement in a ZX81 program is 16514. USR 16514 calls this address, which immediately returns. The PRINT statement then prints the result of the USR expression, which is the contents of the BC register on return, which I guess happens to contain the start address (since not otherwise set) as a side effect of the implementation.

16509 is the address of the start of the program in memory. Bytes 16509-16510 are the line number (2 byte LSB int). Bytes 16511-16512 are the length of the line. Byte 16513 is the command keyword (REM).

<comment><USER2> After thirty odd years I still have these numbers encoded into and handful of neurons somewhere.

Thank you for getting me to dig them out and great that they live on in libvirt!

ps The memory mapping reminded me that ZX81 managed to squeeze a 32 x 24 screen into a 1k total RAM. I think someone managed to write a chess program with those restrictions - but only using 8 x 8 or so of the screen.

<comment><USER9> Indeed, 1K chess by David Horne: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1K_ZX_Chess](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1K_ZX_Chess)

I had this chess game on tape, and I've often wondered if the two are related, but this one needed 16K: [http://www.zx81stuff.org.uk/zx81/tape/ZXChessII(Black)](http://www.zx81stuff.org.uk/zx81/tape/ZXChessII\(Black\))</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The psychedelic state in light of integrated information theory - mh-cx http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4464176/

<comment><AUTHOR> For anyone interested in Integrated Information Theory (IIT), Scholarpedia's current summary is much, much better thank Wikipedia's.

[http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Integrated_information_t...](http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Integrated_information_theory)

IIT is one of the most horribly abused and misunderstood theories out there, right alongside poor old Godel's Incompleteness Theorem. I'd be wary of anything that you read about IIT and what it implies, unless that information is coming directly from the theory's creators.

<comment><USER2> It's also worth reading Scott Aaronson's (fairly meaty, it seems to me) objection to IIT:

[http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1799](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1799)

<comment><USER3> Aaronson's criticism boils down to:

 _" I understand the math and what it predicts doesn't match my uneducated, intuitive idea of what should and shouldn't be conscious. also ur dumb haha[0]."_

A bad case of the Dunning Kruger effect, quite surprising for someone who deals regularly with the totally unintuitive aspects of quantum physics.

[0] [http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1823](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1823), where he drops his troll mask.</comment></comment></comment>


The journalistic casualties of the Guardian's erroneous Whisper story - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/03/casualties-of-the-guardians-whisper-story.html

<comment><USER2> The Guardian are not entirely at fault here. They reported what execs said, whether those execs were embellishing the abilities of the app or trying to seem cool is irrelevant. What they said about tracking users was never denied by whisper, they simply added some clarification after the fact but the execs who made the claims were not saying it was done to prevent illegal activity.

I feel for the guys who were sacked but they were media relations people. I work in an office and if anyone external comes in we are advised to be aware of what we are discussing and the confidential nature of the work we do. The media team shoukd have been the ones giving quotes and everyone else shoukd have been warned that there were journalists there and everything is fair game to them in those situations.</comment>


Ask HN: Advice to your younger self - <AUTHOR> If you could send a single sentence of advice to your younger self, what would it be?
Let's assume it could not be a lottery number or investing advice.
For me it I would tell myself to find a successful mentor <comment><USER2> Don't believe your thoughts. The voice in your head sounds like your voice but that doesn't make it yours.

Trust your inquisitive nature and question things., people and choices, especially if they feel off.

Most people fake it, most of the time.

Remember what your inner compass feels like. Use that feeling.

Remember that you exist.

Anyone who tries to sell you your own divinity is a scammer.

Anyone who tries to define you sees themselves your master.

Anyone who tries to punish or reward you sees themselves your master and wants you to accept that role.

Your parents (and guardians) are often piloted by the blind forces of trauma patterns. What they do at these times is not parenting but seizures of madness, of which you are the audience and often the victim. This is not your fault, not your doing, and is not right. You are good to the core, but happen to be on the receiving end of these seizures.

This is true for every occurrence of unkindness, humiliation, or abusive interaction by a person who has power over you.

Sometimes it's helpful to see beliefs, stereotypes, even language and habitual ways of thinking as forces that have colonized humanity. There's space and life beyond these. Follow your curiosity about that dimension. It exists and is vast — infinitely more expansive than the mind's ability to think.

Humanity/society is multilayered. The shittiest layers get most of the publicity. There are many, many awesome people living in integrity, creating with open hearts and rich imagination. You can be one of them; the easiest way is to join their communities and friendships.

Friendships are sacred, and deserve your utmost integrity, attention and honesty.

You're good and you are able to recognize the people who have not broken/fallen to the dark side. Trust that.

<comment><USER3> I don't usually find anything I haven't heard before in this genre of thread, but these are some profound ideas. Thank you!

> _There are many, many awesome people living in integrity, creating with open > hearts and rich imagination. You can be one of them; the easiest way is to > join their communities and friendships._

This is what I struggle with the most. (As do many others in my generation, I think.) How does one discover such communities?

<comment><USER2> Dwell in this question while noticing the people around you. Approach the ones you truly admire (not the ones you envy).

One in n will be open to a conversation. Feed the relationships that give you the space to be yourself and seem to want from you the contributions you love giving. Being yourself means being vulnerably honest with the aspects of yourself which you don't yet love. I think that's most obvious with artists.

And please give it time. Took a decade to have some of my acquaintances get distilled in into friendships.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think at a much younger age I had more flexibility and time to do this. I still think it is a worthy pursuit.

<comment><USER2> Look at it this way: it doesn't take more time to notice the presence of a certain color in your surroundings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are diminishing returns to preparation: focus less on preparation (to include going to prestigious institutions and working for prestigious companies) and more on launching, learning, and iterating. This is true in business and a variety of other fields. As an add on: learn one programming language really well, and resist the urge to spend time learning new ones!

<comment><USER5> Why the add on?

<comment><USER6> Second this, learning multiple languages is generally seen as a good thing, opening your mind to different ways of solving problems, no?

<comment><USER7> Any language in the area of discourse is a Turing-complete language. Therefore you can do anything you'd like to in any language.

Besides, I would be highly critical of anyone who claims to know a variety of languages since it probably means they are only familiar with a strict subset of their standard libraries and quirks. Or that knowledge is incredibly outdated.

Learning the syntax is one thing, the more time-consuming for development part is always knowing the quirks and patterns used today.

<comment><USER6> >Any language in the area of discourse is a Turing-complete language. Therefore you can do anything you'd like to in any language.

Well with that argument, learning brainf*ck in depth should give you all the programming experience you need to solve problems efficiently :P

Learning even the basics of a functional programming language for example (Haskell in my case) lead me to understand why things are the way they are in a few other languages. Sure you can write some solution in a few nested for loops, but why not use a list comprehension if it's more clear and less error prone for the situation? Specializing in one or two languages isn't a bad thing, but I would argue that learning even just the basics of other languages is beneficial. Understanding what tools are out there and what they're best suited to is a good thing if you ask me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You aren't busy. You just feel busy. Find time to do interesting things, because once you have kids you'll find out what being busy actually means.

<comment><USER9> Parents don't own being busy or stretched for time. Regardless of what commitments you have you can be busy or not and you are in control of that - yes even parents are in control of how busy they are.

<comment><USER10> There is a qualitative change in _when_ you are busy for the vast majority, though. Most people don't have a job where at any minute you have to drop everything and perform some task. This being HN, a very above-average number of the people who _do_ have a job of that nature are around here, of course, but I'd expect it's still a majority of people of baby-having age around here who are not routinely getting paged at 2am by their job.

<comment><USER11> As someone who was an infrastructure engineer/sysadmin/it manager for over 16 years (ie various roles that required an on call component), my move to security at the same time as having kids couldn't have come at a better time.

Being on call 24/7 is not conducive to being available for parenting responsibilities of young children.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Drinking and chasing women won't seem as fun when you look back on it. I'm not saying don't do it, in fact, I'm saying the opposite. Drink, chase women and do it hard, but quit much earlier.

Also don't listen to anyone else's idea of what you should do who who you should be. Following your own instincts and succeeding is sweet, following your own instincts and failing, well that just builds better instincts.

</comment><comment><USER13> You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with - choose them wisely.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have sort of followed this idea in a different way. I think TF might have said this, but I think he got it from someone else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Start running, and keep running. Oh, and mine some of that newfangled bitcoin stuff!

On the serious side though - It's a lot harder to get yourself in heathy shape in your 40s than in your 20s, and it's a LOT easier to keep a good habit than it is to make one.

</comment><comment><USER15> Most companies don't give a shit about you, so don't kill yourself trying to make them happy.

</comment><comment><USER16> _A single phrase?:_

Health above all things.

 _How about 11 good ideas?:_

1\. Dance More

2\. Women are attracted to confidence, nothing else (I'm heterosexual, hence women. Probably works for any romantic partner to be)

3\. Stay with your dog when they put her down, she deserves that at least that

4\. Wear good clothes that fit well

5\. Life is harder if you are dumb

6\. So get smart, define 'smart' as you go

7\. Take care of your health

8\. Take care of your friends and family

9\. The world is only getting crazier, so learn to surf

10\. Really, I'm serious, dance more

11\. Go Giants!

I made a whole book with 1001 other little pithy bits as a gift for a friend's newborn. Let me know if you want a copy and I can send it to you.

</comment><comment><USER17> Big life changes (like marriage, having kids) will change your life, and it's OK that your priorities won't be the same as they were before.

<comment><USER18> You know, I think about this and it's kinda sad that my priorities will have to change and have changed. My younger self won't be happy with my current priorities.

<comment><USER10> Would you be happy with your younger self's priorities now?

<comment><USER18> I am not "old" yet but I am seeing change of priorities. So yes, I would be happy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Don't eat so much, jesus fucking christ!

</comment><comment><USER20> Get a therapist and deal with your childhood issues as soon as possible, they will only grow with time.

</comment><comment><USER21> You can play the 'work towards the next prestigious thing' game as long as you want but you will be happier the earlier you quit it.

</comment><comment><USER22> Work much harder in high school and college, and spend 10 more years being single.

<comment><USER23> Why spend more years being single? I'm in my twenties and hate being single.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> \- Stop worrying. \- You will live many lives, and will follow your own path leading to many places, rarely to the destination you intended to when you started. \- You will never be completely content, but will start to enjoy the journey more as you age. \- The path to being materially rich is long and may not necessarily bring you happiness you thought it would. Also that rich is a relative word, its meaning changes as you get more. \- Your real earning would be people you meet and stories you have to tell of your journey. \- Empathy will be your best gift to the world. \- You will die living, with still a passion left to live 100 more lives in your heart :)

[https://www.quora.com/I%E2%80%99m-a-25-year-old-who-has-a- lo...](https://www.quora.com/I%E2%80%99m-a-25-year-old-who-has-a-lot-of- interests-and-a-lack-of-direction-in-life-How-does-one-pick-a-happy-and- fulfilling-career/answer/Punjab- Singh?__filter__&__nsrc__=2&__snid3__=2349086492)

</comment><comment><USER25> Remote work will be a thing someday. Choose a specialty that's better suited for it (not embedded or instrument control).

</comment><comment><USER26> People matter. Learn to deal with them better. Treat them kindly even when you have to tell them that they're wrong. (Even how you dress matters. Really! You think it shouldn't, _but it still does_.)

</comment><comment><USER27> Working 70 hours a week does not have the positive return you think it does.

</comment><comment><USER28> Your body needs maintenance just like any other machine; eat fewer carbs.

</comment><comment><USER29> Stop measuring yourself against your father's and his father's accomplishments. Those shoes are too big to fill - concentrate on being happy and don't beat yourself up too much.

</comment><comment> FLUX-YOU Stick with programming; you're better at that than anything else you'll choose to do.

</comment><comment><USER30> Do not fixate on particular goals, but practice broadly scanning for brief opportunities.

</comment><comment><USER31> Do your own thing. Don't try to please others. Be kind. Put money in the bank every paycheck. Exercise. Tell those that you love that you do.

</comment><comment><USER32> Really torn between "sleep more" and "just start writing, but take a deep breath before hitting send/submit/post."

</comment><comment><USER33> You will feel pressure to go to get married, have kids, buy a house, etc. _Think long and hard about what you actually WANT_ before doing any of those things. Decide if the opportunity cost is worth it for you.

You're locking into that decision effectively permanently. Don't just jump in blindly and hope your good luck will give you a good outcome.

</comment><comment><USER34> Don't be afraid to be more bold with some of life's decisions; often the risk is well worth the potential outcome.

</comment><comment><USER35> Live your own life, not someone else's life.

</comment><comment><USER36> Enjoy the time when you get to pick your children's clothes.

</comment><comment><USER37> You will have a bunch of expectations placed on you by your family, your friends, and society at large. Telling you explicitly or implicitly what you should do, what's acceptable, and how you should live your life. It's not their life to live, it's your life, do what you want.

</comment><comment><USER38> Actually: nothing.

I would want my younger self to struggle, experience, learn and grow just the way I did. With my current knowledge I would create a rich MoFo who would be clueless but "respected" for no other reason then being rich.

So to the younger me: go fuck yourself thinking this is going to be easy.

</comment><comment><USER39> Think, plan and execute long term goals with more sense of urgency because 5 years can go by like it's nothing. Love more, don't shut yourself off into your own arrogance. Listen more, there's wisdom all around you and you definitely do not know it all.

</comment><comment><USER40> Work harder. I relied too much on pedigree and not enough on hard work. Also take an algorithms and compilers class. I'd be a much better developer sooner if I just grinded on some hard classes, and I probably would have landed that job at Facebook back in 2008.

</comment><comment><USER41> To grow and advance, involve yourself in an essential role on a project's critical path. That way you make yourself important without having to self- promote, encouraging others to depend on you, so in later projects they'll come back to you for more.

</comment><comment><USER42> Do everything in college that you continuously said you were going to do but never did.

</comment><comment><USER43> You are going to produce _more_ as you get older and more efficient, not less!

</comment><comment><USER44> Make fewer posts on social media about how you're feeling at that moment in time

</comment><comment><USER45> Don't be afraid to quit.

</comment><comment><USER46> Remember where your loyalty lies. Difficult to revisit the hidden work you did for the man, easy to revisit work done in the open. Favor authoring for transparency and posterity over opacity and money.

</comment><comment><USER47> You are going to die. You have nothing to lose. Follow your heart.

</comment><comment><USER48> Message 1: Write shit down! My memory is starting to suck..

Message 2: Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER49> Involve other people in your major life decisions. Ask them for advice even if you don't feel you need it. At the very least it will bring you closer.

</comment><comment><USER50> Everything ends eventually, so get as much as you can out of it and stop focusing so much on whats next. And don't get hung up on things that do end!

</comment><comment><USER51> Pursue employment as young as possible and establish a work life balance.

Say 'Yes' to anything you would have said 'maybe' to, and follow through.

</comment><comment><USER52> Having more or bigger 'things' will not make you happier. Focus more on relationships and family, and less on the means to consume more.

</comment><comment><USER53> Do it here and now! Take all the risks in the world and don't listen to the system. Don't get a 9-5 job right away. Location doesn't matter, failure is a good thing.

In other words, I should have taken the entrepreneurial route right away. My environment wasn't promoting that at all back in the days so it's easy to say today...

</comment><comment><USER54> Should have done anything, by any means, and relocated to San Francisco in my early 20s.

P.S: I'm an Indian, working in Bangalore.

</comment><comment><USER55> There's plenty of time because what you do is far more important than how (or how quickly) you do something.

</comment><comment><USER56> Dear me, 1986: Learn C, it will solve your money problems!

(That's the youngest self I think would have taken any advice.)

</comment><comment><USER57> I love you very much.

</comment><comment><USER58> The time window to have children is pretty small (life is short), and while men don't have a 'bio-clock' like women, if the man waits too long he might have to find a woman a decade or more younger (which is not how you dream about it growing up)

<comment><USER14> > The time window to have children is pretty small (life is short)

You've got roughly from your mid 20s to your late 40s to have kids 'responsibly', is that really a small window? Or are you perhaps (incorrectly imho) simply feeling that you've missed out on parenthood even though you're still fully capable of being a great parent?

Our youngest of 3 is 19 months old, and we're in our early to late 40s (i'm not saying which of us is which), and yes - certain things were harder this time vs 10 years ago (100% sleep related things).

On the other hand, there are a ton of things that were way easier this time around - we're both more patient, have more realistic expectations of each other, and we've found a much greater capacity to enjoy her 'baby-ness'.

And finally, don't _under any circumstances_ rule out adoption. I cried more at the final adoption hearing than I did at the births of either of the first two. It's a slightly different bond, but by God it's no less strong...

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Some self-promo: I run a weekly newsletter with lessons from HN: [https://lessonsofhn.com](https://lessonsofhn.com)

It's a collection of mostly life lessons I find interesting similar to comments from here.

</comment><comment><USER60> 1 - Don't be afraid to follow your passion

2 - Never too early or late to start a fitness regime

3 - Don't Over-plan

</comment><comment><USER61> Adults are mostly grown children, and you are at least as capable.

</comment><comment><USER62> Work is important, but it's not more important than relationships: you can always find another job, but you may never find a comparable partner.

</comment><comment><USER63> Do some daily mobility work to compensate for desk job with limited movement.

Also, get a height adjustable desk.

Maybe invent a practical way to code whilst walking/jogging.

</comment><comment><USER64> Everything should be excellent—start making small changes once a month so they normalize and wake up a decade later formidable and attractive.

</comment><comment><USER65> be happy. it beats all the other alternatives.

<comment><USER66> Ah yes, just pick some happiness off of the happy tree!

<comment><USER65> I've tried both, country and western.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> You don't need to wait for permission.

</comment><comment><USER68> Fucking uninstall SETI/BOINC and install Bitcoin miners and delegate all computational power to just mining.

</comment><comment><USER69> Go deeper, opt for just in time rather than just in case, & treat your body with more respect.

</comment><comment><USER70> It's okay to change your mind.

</comment><comment><USER71> relax and release

be patient and go with the flow of life

you are on a speck of dirt spinning in a vast space of nothingness

</comment><comment><USER72> Don't give up trying to learn skateboarding, you might regret it 20 years later :)

</comment><comment><USER73> Kissing ass at work is more important that anything else regarding advancement.

<comment><USER74> That's only true for some companies (to be fair, most of them).

If you're on companies that are actually creating value, in a position where you're creating value, this is not that stark.

You can be more charitable and use stuff outlined on How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie rather than actual ass-kissing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Study math for real and get rid of H.Pylori. Would've been sweet.

</comment><comment><USER65> choose your parents genes, like your advice, wisely.

</comment><comment><USER76> Better ask for forgiveness than for permission

</comment><comment><USER77> Do not start a company on your own in germany.

</comment><comment><USER78> Chill bro. There's no need to hurry

</comment><comment><USER79> The map is not the territory.

</comment><comment><USER80> Don't stop writing.

</comment><comment><USER76> bashar.org

</comment><comment><USER81> _"The sentence sending time machine works."_</comment>


The secret of Minecraft - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/message/the-secret-of-minecraft-97dfacb05a3c

<comment><USER2> Sony are on the Copy Trail. Their new MMO "Landmark" is pitched as an extension to the Everquest lineage. I'm on the Closed Beta - it's minecraft inspired, but at the moment there are no MOBs. It's Everquest / Minecraft crafting - the grind - without the danger.

As a previous Everquest thousand hour guy it was an utter disappointment. A Minecraft rip-off, itself a Dwarf Fortress inspired project.

Back to DF for me.</comment>


Uphound: Monitoring Uptime. Communicating Downtime - <AUTHOR> https://www.uphound.com/

<comment><USER2> The information density on the homepage is way too high for me. Its almost overwhelming. It might be fine for service providers, but service consumers are likely not going to look for what they seek. They probably just want a "Yes/No" answer to the question whether the service is up or down.

<comment><USER3> As a counterpoint anecdote, I really like how this looks. It looks dense, but not pointlessly so. (At least, for needs that I have had in the recent past, it would have been useful or at least interesting.)

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I really like the different percentages for 'past 24 hours' 'past week' and 'past month' \- it gives you a lot more information than just one number.

But then I'm a service provider.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Since you have "Past 24 Hours", I would also use "Last 7 Days" and "Last 30 Days" instead of the ambiguous "Last Week" and "Last Month". You may also want to consider using more meaningful absolute time values like "2 hours" instead of "99.97%"

</comment><comment><USER6> As a service provider I'd like to see more of the UI for "Monitor Multiple Apps/Services". We monitor several hundred devices each with between 2 to 8 sets of service metrics, I'd like to see how that works with "UpHound" and how your UI scale's for large numbers of devices and uptime checks.

Also can you capture data from our privately hosted nagios instances?

We currently use Centreon as a front end to Nagios and can, through quite a fine-grained ACL mechanism, allow our end users to logon and see uptime metrics for their hosts and service checks. Yes the Centreon UI isn't quite as stylish but I don't see a compelling reason to consider Uphound for now.

Sorry folks, but I'd rather have seen a more fully fledged demo or mockup before parting with my email address. At the moment this just looks like vapour-ware and if you pivot to go do something else I don't want you spamming me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey! The reason I released it before fully fledging it out was to get in contact with folks like you and get a better idea on the direction to take the product. UpHound is intended only for uptime checks of various kinds (http/callbacks/etc) not metrics like nagios. If you would, send me an email at pnegahdar (Google mail) and I'd like to talk to you more about your uptime monitoring which will ultimately help me build out the product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Cool but it's very heavy on the numbers and light on the labels as to what the numbers actually mean. I'd rather see BIG or very clear explanatory labels and little numbers. One way to do this would be a big label with fine print explanation under it. Or (worse) tooltips visible on hover, but show the label, not just a big decontextualized number.

Edit: OK, I'm an idiot. Every number on there essentially just means "uptime" so.. forget what I said. I misinterpreted the site as being something beyond just server uptime.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's really hard to tell what the circle thing means at a glance. So much guesswork is required from the user.

</comment><comment><USER9> Why is this not called Updog???

<comment><USER10> What's updog? Haha

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> love the concept.

</comment><comment><USER12> Circular charts are overrated. They are very hard to read.</comment>


Kubernetes Failure Stories and How to Crash Your Clusters - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sDTB4eV4F8 <comment><USER2> He also maintains the [https://k8s.af](https://k8s.af) site which is well worth a read/follow if you run k8s in production.

<comment><USER3> "He" is "me" in this case, thanks for the link (and contribute some postmortems!) :-)</comment></comment>


Arduino: The Documentary - <AUTHOR> http://arduinothedocumentary.org/

<comment><USER2> Is there a non-HD version available?

(self muttering defamatory statements about Verizon download caps)

<comment><USER3> _(self muttering defamatory statements about Verizon download caps)_

Verizon has caps? You're tethering for your main internet connection? FiOS and DSL don't have any caps.

Also, Keepvid.com has an SD download option -- although the HD video is only 338MB.</comment></comment>


Amazon's Size Is Becoming a Problem–For Amazon - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazons-size-is-becoming-a-problemfor-amazon-11557547211 <comment><USER2> why link to an article behind a pay wall? imo this is like making a low key ad for WSJ on HN.</comment>


OpenBSD 6.1 is not a CD release - <AUTHOR> http://marc.info/?l=openbsd-misc&m=149232307018311&w=2 <comment><USER2> I guess CDs are outdated now, but perhaps they could go retro and do a vinyl release?

<comment> david-given Hm.

At an optimistic 5kB per second (via something like the protocol used on 56kb modems), and given a single side of vinyl can be pushed to about 30 minutes, that gives you ~10MB per side.

Have you thought about VHS instead? You can fit about 2GB on an E180 tape using the right piece of cutting edge technology: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArVid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArVid)

OTOH, I have just put together a Minix 1.7 distribution which would fit on that vinyl disk, so if downgrading's an option...

<comment><USER3> "Embedded OpenBSD"

<comment><USER4> On that note, what's the smallest possible OpenBSD installation?

<comment><USER5> [https://mirrors.evowise.com/pub/OpenBSD/6.1/amd64/](https://mirrors.evowise.com/pub/OpenBSD/6.1/amd64/) [https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html#FilesNeeded](https://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq4.html#FilesNeeded)

You can probably get a working system with bsd (~10m) and baseXX.tgz (~50m compressed, ~100m inflated).

Biggest offenders:

        89M     usr
        25M     usr/libdata/perl5
        22M     usr/share
        12M     usr/share/terminfo
        5.1M    usr/share/zoneinfo
        20M     usr/lib
        13M     usr/sbin
        9.5M    usr/bin

You could try removing perl, but that would probably result in a very broken system; the pkg_* tools use it, but also:

        $ find . -type f -exec head -1 '{}' \; | grep -E '^#.*perl' | wc -l
        90

<comment> david-given Hmm. From Minix 1.7:

        $ du -sh *
        144K	bin
        64K	etc
        0	fd0
        0	fd1
        108K	minix
        0	mnt
        0	root
        0	tmp
        22M	usr

        $ du -sh usr/*
        24K	usr/ast
        3.9M	usr/bin
        124K	usr/doc
        0	usr/etc
        436K	usr/include
        1.4M	usr/lib
        0	usr/local
        2.0M	usr/man
        36K	usr/mdec
        0	usr/preserve
        0	usr/run
        0	usr/spool
        14M	usr/src
        0	usr/tmp

So if you're willing to lose the source code, you could fit the entire system into about 8MB.

Of course, you don't get Perl. Or, uh, TCP/IP networking. You need Minix 2.0 for that, which is much bigger; 26MB with source, or 10MB without.

<comment><USER3> A proper comparison would be Minix 3 since it's a real OS. Include just the bare essentials that OpenBSD would include except for reincarnation server it doesn't have. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Sorry guys.

> Anyone want to buy some well-used CD burners?

CD burners that were used to burn OpenBSD CDs over the years? Well, _that_ would be a nice collectors item :)

</comment><comment><USER7> I guess CDs were not a revenue source after all:

"> If no OpenBSD CDs are going to be released, then probably it is better > to just send a donation to the OpenBSD foundation and/or to Theo de > Raadt.

Vijay, that is the correct way to sustain the software.

The CDs haven't pulled in sustaining revenue for many years.

Based upon income from contributors the Foundation performs a fantastic function -- making worries and problems disappear."

<comment><USER8> Donation-based software is a recipe for constantly having not enough money.

OpenBSD should provide an enterprise license for kilobucks. Not even call it a "support" program, just a license for enterprise use. It could even be the same terms as the BSD license, just name it and give it a price that can easily go on a corporate budget as a line item. It sounds stupid, but enterprise users would rather spend money than not spend money.

<comment><USER9> SQLite does this

[http://www.hwaci.com/cgi-bin/license-step1](http://www.hwaci.com/cgi- bin/license-step1)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Based on that mailing list post and other things I've seen, I'm a little concerned that OpenBSD lacks sufficient funding or that Theo De Raadt is burnt out enough not to care (which would be completely understandable; I'm certainly wouldn't blame him after his long, insufficiently remunerated, Herculean efforts). That would be a much bigger issue than the availability of CDs.

OTOH, he also suggests that the OpenBSD Foundation could be generating enough revenue. Does anyone know? Relevant excerpts from Theo's mailing list post:

 _I made 40 CD releases in 20 years, investing personal effort and risk to build and sustain the costs of this project and sub-projects._

 _I do not want to keep making CDs to sustain myself and the project anymore. Other ways need to work now._

and

 _The CDs haven 't pulled in sustaining revenue for many years._

 _Based upon income from contributors the Foundation performs a fantastic function -- making worries and problems disappear._

</comment><comment><USER11> _" I think the audio CDs are undervalued. They contain no dorky software -- they are lyrics + music + drawing, just art. Dorky art sure, but no software..."_

Perhaps an occasional audio CD might be fun? No pressure. No need to worry about freeze date impact on the development process. I just bought the 'Sargent Pepper' (5.8) poster as it has the developers on it.

</comment><comment><USER12> They still offer ISO and other options like USB-stick image.

ISO image is important to install on virtual machine, and you csn burn it on DVD.

<comment><USER4> An ISO image is also important for older machines that don't support USB boot. This is often the case for PowerPC Macs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> ah, an OpenBSD submission on the front page! time to remind everyone that uses OpenSSH to donate to the OpenBSD Foundation.

Hey everybody who uses OpenSSH (I cannot fathom a single person reading this who does not regularly use OpenSSH), donate to the OpenBSD Foundation: [http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/](http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/)

Yes, it's Canadian. No, you can't write it off your taxes. Why? Because there aren't enough donations to make the accounting and legal costs to do so viable. Want your donations to be tax deductible? Get (more of) your OpenSSH using friends (and companies!) to donate (more) and it just might happen!

<comment><USER14> Heh. I wonder if someone could code up a PAM module that would make a tiny BitCoin donation every time a remote ssh login was performed. Like, a voluntary thing that people could install to support the project.

<comment><USER13> logistically that's unworkable for a number of reasons (bitcoin fees make micro payments...less useful; PAM is...not ideal; etc.) but a fine thought nonetheless.

<comment><USER15> You could have it accumulate a wallet and send over when it reaches sufficient magnitude. Or have it tally the number of times it would have done it, and then ping you when you've used it a sufficient amount, for whatever definition that is for you. Think Sublime Text save dialogs for the non-paid version.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Everyone knows that physical media is a thing of the past.

<comment><USER17> And yet there's still no sane way to move data from my laptop to my desktop without physical media.

As long as it is easier to send the data round trip to a datacentre in Kansas and back than it is to send it within my own lan, physical media will always be "a thing of the present"

<comment><USER18> Sorry to tease, but it's amusing to me that you are technically competent enough to upload files to a data center, but don't know how to do the easier task of networking two computers (presumably) in the same room.

Seriously, though, if the computers are (or can be) on the same network, then there are dozens of ways to achieve this. The easiest is probably shared network directories, but there's also NFS, rsync, scp, FTP, etc. IF the machines are on different networks it can be a little more work, but still not hard.

<comment><USER19> Worst case scenario: use Syncthing to sync one folder across two computers.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you identify a "dead-end" job during an interview? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Very carefully...;)

Personally, I find interviewing a candidate more stressful than being interviewed. Stress doesn't do anything good for me and when I'm under stress, I don't always show off who I truly am. Rather, I tend to show off a much more uptight version of myself.

That said, here are some of the strategies that I use to evaluate potential employers.

\- When they describe the job, is it full of wishy-washy corporate speak or can they give me an actual sense of what the average Wednesday morning will look like?

\- When I email them after the interview, do they reply? How long does it take? How is their written grammar?

\- Is it a new position? If yes, how did the position come about? If no, what happened to the last person?

\- What happens when I ask questions like, "let's say that I need a $25/month software product to do my job. What will the process of getting that approved look like?" Are they evasive? Does the answer involve getting 74 signatures and an animal sacrifice? What happens if I change the value to $150 a month?

I hope that this helps!

<comment><USER3> I think that last question is really good, sniffing out bureaucracy is something I would focus highly on. As a developer it would be important to me to know what their environment provisioning is like. Maybe something like:

\- I'm running a proof of concept for something that will exceed the limitations of my local machine. How would I get/walk me through the process of getting virtual space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Figure out what the job entails, and the tech required to do that. Then recall the job description - is every need listed as a requirement? If so, this is "dead end" by any reasonable definition, as they expect you to learn absolutely nothing on the job, but just regurgitate what you did for somebody else.

That is not entirely sure fire, as of course maybe your next task will give you the opportunity to learn new things, but to me it is always a red flag that cannot be ignored. If you expect me to know every last thing you need, I don't want to work for you because I will be stagnating in my career. I'm not going to gamble that I'll be allowed to move into a different group (I'm way past the beginning of my career, where some dues paying is usually in order).

If you are on the other end of hiring - consider letting us know what our chances of growth are in the job. So many job reqs just list requirements. It's hard to get excited about repeating the past.

</comment><comment><USER5> Not a definitive list but indicative:

1\. they are using older versions of software with no plan to upgrade (not the same as using older software but planning to upgrade)

2\. they are using the waterfall model

3\. the companies growth plans are limited ( thus the need to develop new features are limited. )

4\. maintenance takes a lot of time and as the new hire - you get that job

5\. automated tests are a foreign concept.

</comment><comment><USER6> The potential that lies within a job is correlated to how much value you can contribute to the company.

When I look for a job, I screen it like an investor. I look at the team, the market size, the product. Team is especially important.

1\. What are the bosses' background? Someone who worked at Facebook will have an entirely different approach than a management consultant. Sniff out culture and make sure it suits you. People's work and personal habits are very different - this is where you tell the two.

2\. Look at the org chart. Organization charts are like software architecture. There is no "best" org chart; just what it's optimized for. If it insists on being a flat heirarchy, assume that it's an anarchy. You just want to make sure that they respect your role.

For example, one company has sales, marketing (separate from sales), finance, operations. Operations is then split into logistics, IT. Product development is squished under IT. This is likely a bad company for engineers. Likewise, I've seen companies where at least 50% of the budget is engineering.

3\. What is the value of your role? If you make $100k, how are you contributing $200k to your company annually? If you find that you can only contribute $30k or that the position is worthless in a year, that's a red flag.

4\. Growth rate. If a company's profit is doubling every year, there will be much less bureaucracy and politics.

5\. Sniff out bullshit. I ready the most uncomfortable questions I can find. Why aren't they hitting a good growth rate? Why are they hiring so many people on $1M of funding? If they give you an honest "Uhh.. well.. I don't know," that's fine. It's difficult to lie. You want to detect the ones who lie as a reflex.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think the answer lies in where the project is in its customer-adoption lifecycle.

\- Is it a new idea with tons of growth potential, but unproven?

\- Do you have early adopters, but still trying to find the bigger markets?

\- Is it something that is currently growing very fast?

\- Is it something that once grew fast, but now is more stable? Still makes a significant amount of money through new accounts?

\- Is it something that makes most of it's money through maintenance and not new accounts?

\- Is it something that has a large, but shrinking code-base?

All projects go through life-cycles like this. At the beginning it makes sense to invest in more growth -- at the end it makes sense to lower costs (and outsource).

Each part of the lifecycle needs a different skillset and has different kinds of goals.

If there's one part of the cycle you prefer, the trick is to move projects once the one you are on moves out of that part. Also, don't join teams that are past the part you want to do.

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't think you really can. In my experience, it's in the employer's best interest to hire good people, and it's not in their best interest to be candid with you. Furthermore, even if I as an interviewer worked for a shitty company, it's still in my best interest to hire good people so that the company becomes less shitty over time. Therefore, there are very few questions you can ask that will give you a good insight as to whether a position is a dead-end job (whatever that means to you) or not. I'm not going to lie to you, but I'm also going to spin it in the most positive light I can to entice you to join my team.

At my last interview, I had a lot of success pretending that I was the one interviewing 5 people rather than being interviewed by those people. I asked a lot of questions, tried to get a sense of their day to day. It turned the interview into a bit more of a dialogue and less of an interrogation, and I think I got to see a bit more about how those people worked and what they thought during their time with me. I asked them a lot of the same questions I ask candidates when I'm interviewing them.

It worked pretty well. Got an offer. Wound up declining, because I sensed it wasn't a role I wanted, but I don't think any particular question gave me that impression.

Anyway, I don't think you can really find out in an interview. I think you'd have more luck talking to people outside of the interview or reading Glassdoor reviews, and so on.

<comment><USER9> > I had a lot of success pretending that I was the one interviewing 5 people > rather than being interviewed by those people.

THIS is a smart play for every job-seeker. Develop your own scorecard and questions for individuals on the interview team. Relative to "Dead-End" status-- explore if this particular role & its work are recognized and valued by colleagues and corporate higher-ups.

\- What are the team/company mission & goals?

\- How will they evaluate your work?

\- How might you leverage the experienced gained here?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> >> "Read ad. ad. Send in resume. Go to job interview. Receive offer." is the exception, not the typical case, for getting employment: Most jobs are never available publicly, just like most worthwhile candidates are not available publicly. Information about the position travels at approximately the speed of beer, sometimes lubricated by email. [1]

In my experience taking a job the formal way is like getting married after 5 dates. Pure gambling. And this is true for both parties. That is why you as an employer hire former co-workers you get on well with, your friends or friends' friends for the good positions and strangers for the shitty ones.

I hope this answers your question.

[1] [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a- pro...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-programmer/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Aren't all jobs meant to be dead end, and our role is to somehow escape the fate? Escaping is complex process, mostly political. First they have to like you, then the company has to be successful / grow fast enough in your division.

Roles with built in career progression are called "fast track leadership".

</comment><comment><USER12> 1\. The company is not growing and has no plans to grow. This is huge and probably swamps all the others.

2\. The job is to maintain something old, and you get a sense there are no new plans for this product.

3\. Is the software "enterprisey" in the pejorative sense: bloated, slow, over-engineered, etc. This might be a sign of a _stable_ dead end job, and some people might want that. Leave these jobs to them.

4\. Does the company either (a) promote from within, or (b) look good on a resume. If the answer is no to both, it's not going to advance you. Note that a startup with growth potential may satisfy one or both of these-- if you join early you are likely to hit a high position if it succeeds, and a successful startup looks good on a resume.

</comment><comment><USER13> You can ask some questions.

"Where do you see me in two years?"

"What are the opportunities for career progression?"

"How do you support professional development?"

That's not going to work if they're deliberately deceiving you, but it should catch most companies if they see this as a dead end job.

<comment><USER14> I had a summer job at a help desk once. Pretty much the only career progression for those guys on the phone were moving up to being the manager of them and still taking some phone calls when the lines were swamped. After that, there wasn't much else the company would do with you unless you had a bachelors and some certs.

Just asking about the manager position would have been a pretty clear sign that its a dead end job. It wasn't a hard job and they all got paid pretty well for help desk but it wasn't that enjoyable for anyone there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think you can began evaluating whether it's a 'dead-end' job long before the interview, potentially saving both you and the interviewer time.

1\. Search LinkedIn for current/former employees of the company who held the title you are evaluating.

How long did they stay with the company? What were they up to previously; what are they doing now? Were they able to grow their responsibilities/title at the company? From what you can tell, do they sound like someone you would learn from or want to work with?

2\. Glassdoor. Sort reviews by date, then filter by those specific to your department.

3\. Speak with a few recruiters. Ask them about the company you're considering.

</comment><comment><USER16> You can't. You won't know until you're in the role.

Source: ~15 years in the tech sector

</comment><comment><USER17> If you notice that position is open for a long time and never gets filled, its most likely a job nobody wants to do.

<comment><USER18> Yes!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> In addition to the great responses already...

Do your research ahead of time on the company and people. Check out their social media, etc. Ask if this is a new position or are you replacing someone. If you're replacing someone, ask how long they were in the job. Ask about turnover.</comment>