Employee Retention - <AUTHOR> http://blog.samaltman.com/employee-retention <comment><USER2> I think the author misses one important factor in employee retention - work / life balance. If a start-up hires a bunch of employees, everyone will be tempted to trade work for life in favor of "rocketship growth". In essence, they believe in the mission of the company so much that they are willing to sacrifice their mission for themselves. Companies who are empathetic to employee needs stand a much better chance of retaining employees. If I work for a company that lets me choose the most fulfilling work, compensates me fairly for that good work, and gives me enough time off to re-generate, and actually seems to care for my well being, I'm more more apt to stay.

When I talk to ex-coworkers, the reasons they often cite for leaving are: 1) weren't empowered to achieve their career goals 2) weren't compensated relative to the value they felt they brought 3) worked on too many failed products and 4) burned out.

<comment><USER3> All 3 of your points are achieved if the startup is growing fast and its product is succeeding. It seems like you'll optimize employee retention by making sure the work is worthwhile, even if it's hard, rather than by making sure people don't do too much of it.

(I don't disagree with work/life balance in general, but I'm pointing out that your data supports Sam's point that you should give people generous equity for working on a product that's worthwhile, rather than your point that they shouldn't devote themselves 100% to the work.)

<comment><USER2> You're right, I do need to support my hypothesis with more data. Consider another data point:

My dad works for a government contractor where the profit / margins are fixed, so essentially a "limited" growth company. He's been employed for over 30 years.

Why has he stayed? Because he can work 40 hours a week. His pay is good (EOY bonus is tied to a project success). He holds a position of value (to him not just to the organization). In his career he has seen more product failures than successes, but his successes were large, and he uses the knowledge from each to consult other projects in the organization (eg, he feels valued).

My takeaway is to look at your career in totality - it goes beyond equity and a worthwhile project because in a long career, you'll have many worthwhile projects and many that are not. And for the vast majority of startups, equity is worthless. It also includes interaction with team members and how you want to shape your company's future, and how your company wants to shape yours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The big mistake everybody makes is thinking the issue is about hiring and retaining individual employees.

You don't want to "hire good employees" but you want to "create a great team". If an employee feels like he's part of a team where he can create more value than he could someplace else, it makes sense for him to stay. If he feel s like the team is holding him back, he ought to leave in a heartbeat.

It's said that "employees don't leave a company, they leave managers", and this is definitely true. One bad manager can cause employee retention problems that go on for years.

<comment><USER5> Indeed. I've been the happiest when I've felt a part of an obvious team, and the unhappiest when it was just individuals working on their todo lists. In a really large organization a team can be project-based. I'm not very sociable, but I definitely gain energy from "sharing a foxhole" with team mates, and looking back on something and saying " _we_ did that."

I don't care about my todo list type projects other than to do a good job and keep my job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> In my experience the biggest retention issue is for an employer to deliver what was promised during the hiring process. Employers that are competing for talent are known to paint the picture of how they see their ideal instead of how things really are. This sets the new hire's expectations to an unreasonably high standard, and when those expectations aren't met they walk.

Being honest with potential hires and showing them both the good and the bad about what you have to offer may lose you a few good hires but will surely save you many more bad (short tenure) hires over time. As a recruiter, I hear the bait-and-switch cited by roughly 25-50% of job seekers that are leaving a company after a relatively short 0-3 year stint.

<comment><USER7> One thing I never understand about the bait and switch is how employees don't get everything in writing :(

<comment><USER6> Most of the things baited and switched probably wouldn't be required to be put in writing or not, because they aren't legally binding anyway. Even if the legally binding things are put in writing, usually we're talking about at will employment anyway, so they could just fire you instead of making good on a 'promise'.

The types of things I'm talking about with bait and switch are related to what projects you will work on (say you will be put on Team X's sexy initiative, then on Day 1 told you that Team Y's maintenance isn't going well and your skills are needed there), what the future holds for the company (over- optimistic about funding promises, sales estimates, delivery dates, etc.), or how you will be able to progress.

Does the management team have a history of promoting from within or will they hire a former co-worker for the role you are in line for? Can you look at tangible past results and numbers as evidence.

It's not very likely to get these types of items in writing, and unless it's legally binding you don't have any remedy in most cases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If you don't think your equity stake is going to be worth enough (company isn't growing fast) then it makes sense to jump to another company after your first vesting. You are collecting lottery tickets from a bunch of startups. And I find it ironic that everyone on the board is obsessed with money, but somehow it's bad form for employees!

Honestly, which company has a mission that motivates employees to stay despite lower pay and negligible equity? Khan Academy has a mission, the rest of SV is nonsense hoping to get lucky.

<comment><USER9> I'm pretty sure Tom Preston Warner (in particular) would disagree with you. He gave a great presentation to YC's Startup School a few years ago on the subject[1, 2].

GitHub has had one of the best jobs retaining people. Zach Holman disclosed some numbers recently[3] on his _How GitHub (no longer) Works_ talk.

[1] video: [http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/272031754](http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/272031754)

[2] Writeup [http://tom.preston-werner.com/2010/10/18/optimize-for- happin...](http://tom.preston-werner.com/2010/10/18/optimize-for- happiness.html)

[3] [http://www.infoq.com/presentations/github- evolution](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/github-evolution)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _if something causes the bay area monopoly on startups to weaken in the near term, I expect it to be around retention challenges or costs._

We have a fundamental problem in Silicon Valley: there are not enough places for people to live in. This manifests itself in many ways (higher rent, higher salaries, higher turnover, etc) and is probably going to be a hard limit on how big the local tech industry can get. It's a certainty that other significant startup hubs will arise unless something changes.

<comment><USER11> _We have a fundamental problem in Silicon Valley: there are not enough places for people to live in._

Transportation is your problem, along with NIMBY regulations (fought-for by limousine liberal hypocrites) that prevent proper growth. Silicon Valley is not Manhattan, with its daytime population density of 170k per square mile. It should not be expensive and congested. It's just badly planned, with a lot of regulatory corruption keeping housing scarcer than it should be.

<comment><USER12> The risk is turning Silicon Valley into Los Angeles.

<comment><USER13> Los Angeles is actually a much better place to live now for people in tech than the bay area. All the young people want to live in overpriced SF and the ones with families want to live in the south bay.

In LA the thriving tech community is all in west Los Angeles, where Venice is the hip San Francisco (but waaay cheaper) and Santa Monica / West LA has great homes (also much cheaper than say Palo Alto [if you exclude beach front]). And these 2 neighborhoods are 10-15 minute commute, very different than the hour commute between most of the south bay and SF.

<comment><USER12> I've lived in LA for ten years. Commuting anywhere can be a nightmare at any random hour of the day. Housing prices are amazing in comparison though -- a third as expensive as the Bay Area, I'd say (rental). They are building some new rail lines, but it's going to be a while... Great food too!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The author recommends having a mission so employees feel like they're working for a greater good. So is this why every job on Hacker News goes something like "Help us change the world of [industry]," where [industry] can be something as banal as t-shirt printing or pizza delivery? If you don't believe me, here are some examples from the jobs board:

Mobile Hacker? Come work with the team that's reinventing farming

SimplyInsured (YC W13) Is Hiring Hackers - Change Healthcare Forever

Homejoy is hiring hackers to change the home services industry

I guess the only way to get smart people to work 60 Hrs a week for low pay is to convince them they are changing the world somehow.

<comment><USER15> The prospect of changing something is often what attracted the founders to the idea in the first place. The most successful founders are not usually in it just for the money. If they were they'd have taken that $50 million acquisition offer on the way up.

<comment><USER16> In my (admittedly limited) experience, the main reason founders refuse acquisition offers is because they believe their startup has a great future and will be worth a lot more later. I don't think the thought process is ever, "Well, $50 million is great, but you know what? We're enjoying what we do so much that we'll turn it down even though that's the most we will realistically be able to get."

<comment><USER17> Or even more simply, their investors offer to let them to cash out a few million worth of shares as idiot insurance. This still doesn't really explain why a 22 year old Mark Zuckerberg had the cojones to turn down $1 billion. Very few people in the world would have done that.

<comment><USER18> He didn't turn it down, according to Andreesen Yahoo reduced the offer with the financial crisis to $200m [http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2013/11/21/marc- andreessen...](http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2013/11/21/marc-andreessen/)

<comment><USER15> By, not to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> _The second good retention strategy is rocketship growth._

Wow, the answer was right there under our noses all along! You guys out there losing employees, it's because you're not successful! Fix that!

<comment><USER3> You joke, but it's true. In general you shouldn't hire people until the company is already successful, i.e. people want what you're building faster than you can build it. If you do, you introduce a whole lot of other problems (having to pay them, having to convince them to pivot when you realize you're not succeeding, having to communicate the new company vision to them, having to keep them from getting disenchanted and bringing morale down) that you wouldn't have to deal with if you just didn't hire them in the first place.

I've found the biggest cause of failure of software projects (in general, not just startups) is staffing up too quickly. You _really_ want to know what you're doing and have some idea how you'll get there before you bring other people on board.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> One way to lose great employees is to run out of money to pay them. I've done this.. don't do this. I spend a lot of time thinking about how to get them back now that we are better capitalized but it is much more difficult than recruiting them in the first place, and maybe not realistic until a later stage.

</comment><comment><USER21> The salary vs equity part is is very SV specific. On most of the planet, even in tech, there is no get-rich-quick VC fueled path to success. Most start-ups will only be successful in the long term, and "successful" in terms of being a profitable, sustainable small to mid-size company, not the next Facebook.

I.e., it will be equity that attracts mercenaries looking for a quick exit, and good salaries that will ensure long term loyalty.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think these basics are most important:

* don't constantly push to have your employees stay late

* if you need your employees to travel, while they're away don't pressure them to work more than their usual work day.

* don't disrespect and be a jerk to your employees

* provide reasonable sick and vacation benefits

<comment><USER23> * Automatically raise their pay every year. It doesn't necessarily need to keep up with market, but they need to know that they aren't being suckers by staying at the job.

<comment><USER24> Bingo. Companies should have (at least) two mechanisms for raising pay: a 1 to 3% (tied to some measure of inflation) increase everyone gets, and a variable rate tied to their performance/company success/etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Do people really pay $250k to engineers right out of college, or is that an exaggeration?

<comment><USER26> Facebook's new grad package for 2013: ~100k base (higher for Master's students) + 100k signing + 100k in RSUs (sometimes higher).

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Another important aspect about retaining good employees is to help them through their failures. The longer an employee stays at a company, the more likely it is that they will screw up. No one has a 100% track record. Good management teams recognize this, and should have plans to guide faltering employees back on the right track.

<comment><USER28> Failures should be seen as opportunities for improvement, not as opportunities for blame. A good way to start is by having teams accept responsibility for failures, not a single employee.

For example, if someone accidentally deleted a production database and there's no backup, they didn't screw up, the team screwed up for not having backups and for encouraging working in production.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Regarding the problem of losing in-house skills and experience, how about the notion of continuous hiring, in other words add another tech worker about every 3-4 months?

Then you have a rolling system where there's enough overlap that when employee #6 leaves, employee #9 or #10 can take up the slack pretty quickly.

I suppose it's not easy to "time" your hires because it's so hard to find the right fit, but if you can hire a reasonably good fit within a 2-3 week recruitment window then you can space them out.

The other advantage is that the earlier employees gradually get more staff to train and delegate the work to, so they will feel actively involved in relieving themselves of the 60-80 hour/week pressure and meanwhile their equity is continuing to build up.

I'm not a start-up founder (yet), so this may be fundamentally flawed thinking. Any comments?

<comment><USER3> Good startup founders are _continously_ hiring once their product has some market acceptance. When a really good candidate shows up, they snatch them up, regardless of whether they have an immediate need or plan. This is why many startups that are "not hiring" technically are, they're just waiting for the right candidate to show up.

Only problem is that like any Poisson process, your good hires will not be evenly distributed. Sometimes you'll get bursts and sometimes there will be long dry spells.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This reminds me of the main points of Built to Last, mainly that you need well-defined, consistent cultural values that go beyond profit, growth, or perks. That will create buy-in from all stakeholders, from employees to shareholders to customers. There will always be a company with faster growth or cooler perks or higher pay, but no matter how big your company is, you can have the best sense of mission and strongest values.

</comment><comment><USER31> what startups are offering $250k salaries fresh out of college? In fact, what companies are offering $250k salaries to any engineers?

</comment><comment><USER32> My experience of loyalty is that often the important parts of it are in the differences people have. We all cluster around group norms, some group norms different than others - but they're large targets and any reasonably well run company will hit them. It's something they can get elsewhere, and so provides little incentive to stay.

Consequently people don't seem to quit companies, as long as the company isn't falling apart of course, as much as they quit bosses that don't take care of them. That are negligent - either through incompetence or absence - or abusive with respect to their needs.

If someone's leaving the company, it's often worthwhile to try and find out why - preferably talk to them a long time before they leave the company, so it never gets to that point. Try to find out what's going on in their lives, what their problems are, what they want to do, what they enjoy. Try to make sure you can offer that to them.

Some people want to feel like they're changing the world - that's your story group. Others want to learn to be better programmers. Others want a boss who can be flexible around their lives. Some people want to teach others. Some people just want days off for their kid's plays. Whatever their needs, most people seem to want to feel like they're important; like their opinions and their problems matter to you. Like they're not just another cog in the machine.

Things built on that sort of platform are a form of personal loyalty, that they can't easily get at other companies. They go to another company, they may talk to them about a mission, they'll probably be growing, they'll want to have a good team (whether they do or not's debatable - again, see people don't quit companies as much as managers...). But they won't have that relationship you've built. And their future bosses might be awful, it's a gamble for them - and it's not clear their winnings will be significant, at least provided you're not stiffing them on pay or something like that.

</comment><comment><USER33> I wonder how you get people to believe in a mission if scepticism forms an inherent part of the culture. I'm talking about the UK specifically. I feel like it would be very difficult to get the English guys and girls on my team to take our "mission" even remotely seriously.

<comment><USER34> Brit here.

Scepticism isn't the same as unwilling to believe. Usually just honesty, willingness to engage in dialogue, answer questions etc, will do it.

However, I have had experience working with Americans in the UK that sounds similar to what you might have experienced. In my experience, the "selling" of the mission has usually just been excessive enthusiasm on the American side with a hope that it will be contagious. To us, it all appears just a little fake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Another very important factor in retention not mentioned here is better understanding the aspirations of those people you're considering bringing on to your team.

A person's response to questions like, "What are you most interested in professionally?" and, "How do you see yourself developing career wise?" becomes a blueprint for what to do organizationally to retain them.

Sometimes the simplest approach is the best: Ask, "What do we need to do to retain you?" and then do that thing!

<comment><USER23> The problem is that candidates see "What are you most interested in professionally?" and "How do you see yourself developing career wise?" as questions with right or wrong answers that will get them hired. "Send someone highly trusted over to clean my house every week" could be a great thing that lets me concentrate more on the rest of my life, but saying it during an interview would paint me as weird.

<comment><USER35> You point out the obvious concern. It'd be nice if this information was available about candidates up-front... as an employer it's on the list of things you'd want to know about someone along with what primary skill-sets they have and roles they've been in.

The problem, of course, is that by advertising this information, candidates would basically be saying that they're not getting nurtured in this way by their current employer. It's would be a public notice that they're not that happy at work.

I was trying to avoid any sort of "pitch" in this comment thread, but you've set me up too nicely: My startup, Mighty Spring ([https://www.mightyspring.com](https://www.mightyspring.com)), makes a passive, anonymous job search platform. Candidates post this exact information: what interests them and their career goals, along with their qualifications, which employers browse and use to decide who to interview. The anonymity makes it possible for candidates to safely reveal this info to employers. Also, that this info is available up-front helps to increase employment market efficiency and expose candidate/employer matches that really are great fits for both sides.

We're currently in private beta, but send out invites regularly. Feel free to email me (addy in profile) if you've got any questions!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Typo in the submission: "On the [other] hand, Stripe"

Also: "$250k a year for an engineer right [out] of college"

<comment><USER37> thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> You either have a retention problem or you have a problem with your hiring process. If you're getting great people and enabling them to do awesome things, you'll always have other companies sniffing around.

</comment><comment><USER39> Great article, but I got a really good laugh out of this.

"But very often, the hard technical problems are important to the world (e.g. Google, Palantir, Facebook)."

Let me know when Facebook starts doing something important to the world.

<comment><USER40> Helping people stay in touch socially is important to humans. The engagement figures alone tell me that it's important (to them).

My parents and grandparents see more pics of my kids and feel more connected to their grandkids' random life experiences. That's important (to me and to them).

Jzw's point on narrowing your focus is worth mentioning here: [http://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html](http://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html) Facebook isn't helping me there, but it's helping others, and that's important to them.

<comment><USER41> I guess people don't see Facebook as a "hard technical problem"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This guy might be a VC that I can actually like.

His point on terrible equity allocations is spot-on. If you're giving a dime and a half (0.15%) to your first employee engineer, at a valuation of $5 million, you're not going to get someone good.

If you account for equity at-valuation, bad people become cheaper if you're a startup but good people become more expensive (i.e. you'd have to offer $75k per year of equity to make up for a $40k salary drop).

<comment><USER42> The difference between good and bad is only 40k?

<comment><USER11> That's not what I said (although the salary differences between good and bad engineers _are_ small, in comparison to the differences of output).

A good, senior engineer (10-15 years experience) is typically going to get $150k at a large company and drop to $110k at a startup. But it would take at least $75k/year in equity, for a savvy person, for that drop to be worth it. A stock that is correlated to your employer should be worth less to you than one at zero correlation. Moreover, it's an illiquid stock. Furthermore, VCs are buying preferred stock while you have the common kind, and that can easily be a factor of 2 (or 4, or 8+) of difference in fair value.</comment></comment></comment>


How to Exploit Your Employer - <AUTHOR> http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2010/11/how-to-exploit-your-employer/

<comment><USER2> I really enjoyed this article, and it definitely took a different bent than I expected, which I'm starting to think will be a hallmark of Mr. Altucher's writing.

His excellent advice boils down to the following:

Have personal contact with every client or contact your boss deals with. This puts your name and face out there, and makes it easier if you need to work with them directly in your own business in the future.

Develop and hone skills that will be valuable outside your current job. Spend some time each day learning something new, even if it's not directly important to your current job. You don't want to stagnate, and who knows what skills might be valuable in the future?

Be more productive than you're used to. Most people only work a couple of hours each day, and spend the rest of the time web-surfing, emailing, chit- chatting, etc. Put in a solid 4 hours of work every day and you'll shine above your peers. Then spend the other 4 hours being productive and learning new skills or practicing existing ones.

He has two other bits of advice, but I don't see how they're "exploitive". Always give your boss credit for everything. I'm not sure what this gets you. And send out your resume to gauge your current worth in the market. That's an excellent idea, but I'm not sure how that's exploitive.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can explain: A) give credit where credit is due. Even when its too your employer. Exploitation doesn't have to be negative. It can be positive also. This is a positive exploitation because one you do this it gives you more free rein within your employer's domain to get your own agenda met (in most cases). B) Sending out your resume. You are doing it on your employer's time and dime. So its exploitative, but again, positive (since ultimately better for your employer for you to know your true value so you never turn into a bitter unhappy employee).</comment></comment>


Show HN: I created my own nano PHP blogging platform - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Cristy94/markdown-blog <comment><USER2> Sorry, no. You don't get to redefine what 'static website' means. Just because you put cloudflare caching in front of it doesn't make a website static. It makes it cached.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN! (author here)

I needed a way to add blog posts to my plain PHP site. I ended up creating a very simple way of adding markdown content to my site in the form of blog posts.

I wrote more about how I got here in this post: [https://dev.to/xcs/i-created- my-own-static-php-blogging-plat...](https://dev.to/xcs/i-created-my-own- static-php-blogging-platform-4o6m)

I spent about 2 days thinking about and implementing the solution, so it's still very basic yet very powerful. I am really happy with how it turned out, I prefer this over using a 3rd party blogging service or having to install complex tech stacks with several build steps.

The biggest advantages I see with this way of creating posts:

      - Markdown can be easily versioned in git.
      - You see a preview while editing the markdown in VSCode (by default, no plugins needed).
      - You are not bound to any framework.
      - You can easily stylize the content or add extra features.
      - Can be integrated into your existing (PHP) site.

I don't have any future plans for this yet, but I really like the simplicity of just adding a new file and having that post visibile on my site. I posted this because it works really well in my case and I thought it might help others too (either the code itself or just the ideas behind it).

Thank you!

Cristian

</comment><comment><USER3> I just went through this pain myself. But don't forget the user. If Markdown was understood by all I could think of 10 ways to easily implement a custom CMS. But my content editors don't. So that's why I need more. Not sure for a market fit here therefore. Hackers don't need, hipsters cant use it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your points are correct. I created it for myself and my use case (and I am really, really happy with how it turned out), so the target audience would be devs who have are already building their own websites, but I didn't really think about it as a product.

I also thought maybe others could get some ideas from my methodology, implementation and reasoning.

I am also thinking of ways to make this more useful for more people (more devs), most likely by adding a useable theme for it and maybe also offering my landing page codebase.</comment></comment>


Cyanogen services shutting down - <AUTHOR> https://cyngn.com/blog/cyanogen-services-shutting-down <comment><USER2> To avoid confusion, CynagenMod will still be available, but I don't know how long it can continue without Cyanogen Inc. Cyanogen Inc. is what is shutting down.

But this probably means no more OTA updates for current OnePlus's

<comment><USER3> OnePlus phones haven't used Cyanogen in a while. They run OnePlus' skin, OxygenOS.

<comment><USER4> Some of us still have the earlier models that do. (Although it seems they now ship Oxygen backports for the One)

<comment><USER5> I do.

Is there a way to "upgrade" to oxygenOS? Or even re-install with oxygenOS?

<comment><USER4> Yes see [https://forums.oneplus.net/threads/oxygenos-2-1-4-for-the- on...](https://forums.oneplus.net/threads/oxygenos-2-1-4-for-the-oneplus- one.425544/)

Given this news will probably try this.

<comment><USER6> I used Oxygen OS on my One Plus One since it was released and love it. Feels much lighter than CyanogenMod. Also, I think only old Oxygen OS are available and no newer ones

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As someone running CyanogenMod on a devices that shipped with CyanogenOS, I am wondering what it means for CyanogenMod. The source is available today and will continue to be available in the future, but what about nightly builds and other infrastructure?

Steve Kondik wrote[1]:

        It costs a lot of money to keep the servers running at this scale, and I figure we have about two months to GTFO.

That at least suggests that nightly builds of CyanogenMod will not be available until a new setup is put in place. Steve Kondik also suggest in that post that CM will have to re-brand to avoid IP conflicts with Cyanogen Inc.

There is some speculation that Lineage Android Distribution might be the new name. LineageOS on github[2] also uses that name and mirrors CM repositories.

[1] [http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/12/01/steve-kondik- blames-...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/12/01/steve-kondik-blames-kirt- mcmaster-for-cyanogen-incs-failure-cyanogenmod-to-reorganize-and-regroup/)

[2] [https://github.com/LineageOS](https://github.com/LineageOS)

<comment><USER8> Speculation is confirmed by this:

[https://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/a-fork-in-the- road](https://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/a-fork-in-the-road)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here are some prior details on what is going on with the company: [http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/12/01/steve-kondik- blames-...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2016/12/01/steve-kondik-blames-kirt- mcmaster-for-cyanogen-incs-failure-cyanogenmod-to-reorganize-and-regroup/)

</comment><comment><USER10> The last two times I bought a smartphone, I deliberately chose a slightly older model that was proven to be fully supported by Cyanogenmod. I never even bothered to explore the stock ROM on those phones. I rooted them and installed Cyanogenmod as soon as I confirmed that the hardware was working.

I'm planning to get a new phone sometime in the next 6 months, but I don't plan to check for Cyanogenmod compatibility this time. I have no idea what's going on with that company these days. The future of Cyanogenmod seems to be getting more uncertain and less open every time I hear an announcement like this.

We have no need for the Year of Linux on the Desktop anymore, because Linux on the Phone already commands a very large market share. Unfortunately, every year the Android ecosystem feels less like the Linux I know and love, and more like just another proprietary platform. I hope I'm wrong. I hope Cyanogenmod and other Android forks thrive. But in the meantime, I'll have to use a non- Cyanogenmod phone.

<comment><USER11> Sir, you are unfortunately misinterpreting the article. Cyanogen does not equal Cyanogenmod. CyanogenOS is a Cyanogenmod fork with added binaries and Microsoft apps added by default. It's available and maintained only for a certain amount of devices. This news doesn't have any connection whatsoever to the open-source project named Cyanogenmod

<comment><USER10> The leadership and financial stability of a major sponsor and decision-maker does have an impact on the future of any open-source project. Especially if said sponsor did their best to make it look like they were the official guardian of the project.

<comment><USER12> Of note in this instance is that the VC-backed for-profit sponsor was established _years_ after the project itself was self-sufficient. Also the original project founder is onboard with the fork

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here is CyanogenMod's Post: [https://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/a-fork-in-the- road](https://www.cyanogenmod.org/blog/a-fork-in-the-road)

All of this is so sad. At least for me.

I've used Steve Kondik's CyanogenMod on my ADP1 and have used CM until I got a Nexus 5. It was just so much better than anything the OEMs could produce at that time and had great customization features. Only Android 6.0 has stopped my yearning for CM. I think it had a profound impact on Android or at least it's technically oriented community. Even MIUI started as a CyanogenMod Mod, afaik, before Xiaomi even produced Android smartphones.

I couldn't understand the rage in the community when Steve wanted to create a business around CM and to this day think that their business model has only benefited CM. pfSense and nginx seem to do just fine with a similar approach.

Did Cyngn (Cyanogen Inc.) fuck up? Did Steve make mistakes along the way? Were his business partners toxic to the company and CM? - Probably yes and no to some degree to all of these questions but hey, it was mostly great I think.

Sad to see the company go and sad to see CM probably die slowly. At least in the form it exists in today. Hope dies last so I hope that CM will somehow survive...

</comment><comment><USER14> "As part of the ongoing consolidation of Cyanogen, all services and Cyanogen- supported nightly builds will be discontinued no later than 12/31/16\. The open source project and source code will remain available for anyone who wants to build CyanogenMod personally."

It doesn't say very much, does this mean that CyanogenMod will no longer be available? Or just the nightly build service will stop, therefore actual releases will still be available?

<comment><USER15> The speculation is that the name and logo all belonged to the company, so apparently most/all the devs are upping and leaving with the open source portions of the code and rebranding as Lineage OS.

The domain is registered, github organisation created and currently tracking with CM's repos, and the channels are registered on freenode.

<comment><USER16> I'm mainly hoping that there'll be someone willing to pay for all the build hosts tracking the mainline repositories and churning out 'known-clean' builds for all the 'officially-supported' devices.

Android is a beast to build by hand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The company also confirmed its next open-source initiative Lineage OS with some of the original team on board carrying forward CyanogenMod development, however, in a new avatar: "Embracing that spirit, we the community of developers, designers, device maintainers and translators have taken the steps necessary to produce a fork of the CM source code and pending patches. This is more than just a 'rebrand'. This fork will return to the grassroots community effort that used to define CM while maintaining the professional quality and reliability you have come to expect more recently," added the team in blog post.

</comment><comment><USER18> Perhaps this would be useful these days to find stock AOSP type devices [https://www.stockdroids.com/](https://www.stockdroids.com/)

Was posted in hn [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13000120](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13000120)

</comment><comment><USER19> No big surprise. Their business model was to add a lot of "value added software" back to Cyanogenmod, which absolutely nobody wants. The first thing to do if you bought a phone with their commerical offering was to install the open source version instead.

The question now is how this will affect the open source version. I understand they have become quite reliant on infrastructure from the commercial company. I also think the founder sold all the trademarks and so on, but should they have to change their name it can only be for the better. A poisonous gas might be a cool name for a certain demographic, but it's not likely to mainstream very well.

</comment><comment><USER20> Looks like they were going after a solid market but failed to execute. This happens all the time. Pity though, could have been a great company and product.

</comment><comment><USER21> Whom to contact to help with the open source effort?

<comment><USER12> Probably cyanogen himself [1].

1\. aka Steve Kondik: the original founder of the open source project which preceeded Cyanogen Inc, of which he was a co-founder before he bailed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> So the OnePlus team took away the Paranoid Android team and now CM too. I understand the difference between CynaogenMod and Cynaogen. But cyanogen is the only popular AOSP fork on which a huge number of AOKP projects are based. This would have a massive effect on the xda community.

But I guess this gives more space for the new OSs like Sailfish, nextbit Etc.

Also in IMHO, AOSP was useful majorly because of CM. Even though this decision might not close CM. It's affect on the self hacking Android community would be interesting

<comment><USER23> What?

What does OnePlus have to do with this? I'll admit I'm not down in the trenches on ROMs, etc. but my understanding from what I've read over time is that it runs like this:

CyanogenMod is a popular and widely used ROM

Core developers of CyanogenMod and possibly some business folks decide to turn it into a company and provide said ROM (with customer-desired tweaks) to small hardware vendors who don't want to do their own in-house development

Two of the client companies are OnePlus and someone in India, but contract screwups mean that because of this OnePlus can't sell their phones in India. Displeased with losing a huge market for inexpensive phones, they drop Cyanogen and go their own way for future products.

Further drama and possibly not enough sales ensue

Internal drama at Cyanogen leads to the founder of CyanogenMod leaving

Cyanogen the company shuts down.

I'm sure there's a ton of nuance, hurt feelings, betrayal, etc. involved (aka "drama"), but blaming OnePlus for Cyanogen shutting down makes no more sense than blaming Cyanogen for OnePlus shutting down if they'd gone under due to the whole "can't sell in India" thing.

<comment><USER22> >What does OnePlus have to do with this?

They have nothing to do with this. I was merely stating that out of the 2 biggest AOSP forks, OnePlus bought the entire PA team to make OxygenOS[1]

CyanogenMod was the official ROM of OnePlus One till they signed a side deal which brought about OxygenOS.

They have done nothing here directly. But the AOSP project could sure do with some diversity which this move just might bring in.

[1]:[http://www.androidauthority.com/oneplus-paranoid-android- tea...](http://www.androidauthority.com/oneplus-paranoid-android-team-587101/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Didn't Microsoft want to buy this company in the past?

<comment><USER25> Microsoft gave Cyanogen a partnership that allowed them to bundle some Microsoft IP in their ROM. Don't know how much it really helped in the end.

As for a full buyout, I didn't see anything indicating that.

<comment><USER24> Sorry for not bothering to find a source on it in my orig post. Here it is [1].

[1] [http://news.softpedia.com/news/Microsoft-Wants-to-Buy- Custom...](http://news.softpedia.com/news/Microsoft-Wants-to-Buy-Custom- Android-Build-Maker-Cyanogen-457013.shtml)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> What about yuphoria ??

</comment><comment><USER27> Site is broken.</comment>


4 Keys to a Clean Angular Implementation - <AUTHOR> https://www.simple-talk.com/dotnet/net-development/4-keys-clean-angular-implementation/ <comment><USER2> Or just use a framework written by people with enough web UI experience to see Angular for the wheel-reinventing, best practice and performance-murdering charlatan that it is. Java teams love it. There should be no greater flashing illuminated red flag to a web developer than that.</comment>


SF Supervisor Pushes to Remove Zuckerberg Name from Hospital - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/california/SF-Supervisor-Pushes-to-Remove-Zuckerberg-Name-From-Hospital-501491461.html <comment><USER2> You know what? I dislike Zuck's company and what he does as much as anyone, but this is naked revisionism and opportunism and pandering. Back in the day the Supes were wagging their tongues and smiling broadly at the prospect.

No, sorry, give those $75 million back, if you want to remove the name. Don't be a hypocrite.

My unrequitted wish is that one day SF gets a new city charter made for adults with kids in mind. These supes always, always look for the lamest things to hang their hats on and boast what a wonderful job they are doing. You got needles, you got homeless, you got people who can't afford rent, you have jobless, drug abuse, infrastructure which needs retrofitting, MUNI, etc., etc. let's not worry about that. Let's take a name down!!</comment>


Foreign students have begun to shun the United States - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/international-students-are-staying-away-from-the-united-states-2509719080.html <comment><USER2> awwww</comment>


Unitools – A suite of tools for working with Unicode in the browser - <AUTHOR> https://www.unicod.es/ <comment><USER2> These tools are exactly why ASII is not dead.

Unicode is ideal for storing text exactly as the user wanted it. Which may be crazy.

But when I am writing a program for internal use, or creating a communication protocol, or trying to parse one program's output into another, or trying to make a 7-segment display show some characters, I don't want to have to handle these crazy possibilities. Just text is fine, thank you!

<comment><USER3> > Just text is fine, thank you!

And Unicode has a non-negligible footprint.

I tried few times to handle that in C or C++ and everything becomes complicated (even with a library like ICU).

Each time,I had to ask myself: \- What's the encoding ? \- How to detect it ? \- What's the collation ? \- ...

I read Java strings are switching to ASCII (or 16b) because it's too much inefficient.

<comment><USER4> I think most software (like programming languages) has actually switched to UTF-8 for internal representation, because it has low footprint (for most applications).

You give up efficient O(1) indexing, but I don't think you typically need that. Indexing is far less meaningful for Unicode compared to ASCII.

<comment><USER3> > ... but I don't think you typically need that ...

Yes. String processing often occurs in a loop (like for trim, contains, split ...).

<comment><USER4> trim, contains, split (at whitespace, or at a given _byte_ position) can all be implemented efficiently in UTF-8.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> An article I always recommend on this topic:

"The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!)" by Joel Spolsky

[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Unicode.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Unicode.html)

</comment><comment> david-given Getting Unicode wrong can kill.

[http://gizmodo.com/382026/a-cellphones-missing-dot-kills- two...](http://gizmodo.com/382026/a-cellphones-missing-dot-kills-two-people- puts-three-more-in-jail)

> The use of "i" resulted in an SMS with a completely twisted meaning: instead > of writing the word "sıkısınca" it looked like he wrote "sikisince." Ramazan > wanted to write "You change the topic every time you run out of arguments" > (sounds familiar enough) but what Emine read was, "You change the topic > every time they are fucking you"...

<comment><USER5> From the article, it sounds as if that wasn't the only factor...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Despite the tongue-in-cheek tagline on the site, these _are_ some really neat tools.

<comment><USER7> I agree! It's always disappointing when an invitation to contest a controversial statement outweighs the information they were actually trying to relay. Would love to seem more comments and discussion on clever applications of some of these tools.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Heck even EBCDIC isn't dead. Nothing dies forever as much as you'd like it to.

</comment><comment><USER9> Embedded systems would like to talk with you ...

</comment><comment><USER3> Doesn't translate "é" as "&eactue;" ("é" instead).

<comment><USER10> It generally changes characters to numerical character references, not HTML character entities (which, incidentally, are a rather limited set of characters and pretty much useless these days – they were useful to include a few non-ASCII latin characters from Latin 1 in the mid-90s into HTML pages with browser charset detection messing things up if included directly; by now you just use Unicode and forget that a named set of entities ever existed).

<comment><USER3> >...by now you just use Unicode and forget that a named set of entities ever existed...

OK.

When I was in PHP, I often used "htmlspeciachars()" and it does this kind of transform. That's why I tried that.

[http://php.net/manual/en/function.htmlspecialchars.php](http://php.net/manual/en/function.htmlspecialchars.php)

I had some problems too with " " because it's 160 in ASCII and not a whitespace (32).

Edit: 160

<comment><USER10> The non-breaking space is certainly not 256 in ASCII (ASCII only extends to 127) and not even in Latin 1 (goes up to 255) and also not in Unicode – it's 160. While you can use   in HTML you can also use   or  , both of which work in XML as well. And since numeric and hexadecimal character references are much easier to generate (you don't need a lookup table) I'd say they're a far nicer choice these days.

<comment><USER3> > ... in HTML you can also use   or &#xA0 ...

Yes! You're right.

>... I'd say they're a far nicer choice these days.

It was a long time ago for a scrapping project (garbage HTML).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> ASCII 4 Life!</comment>


Startup fights back against Tesla ban - <AUTHOR> http://beta.fundelevator.com/causes/detail.php?End+Tesla+Ban+in+NJ-149

<comment><USER2> great post! enough is enough. sick of govt taking contributions to stop tech innovation</comment>


Ask HN: How do work in a team that wont appreciate your help - <AUTHOR> I would like to understand how people try to be professional and not get affected when they help the teammates but not get appreciated publicly. Or am i delusional. <comment><USER2> Perhaps, you can take the lead on this by expressing gratitude first. Thank You

>[https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively- articles/gi...](https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively- articles/giving-thanks-will-make-you-a-better-leader/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Communication. Talk with them. Say you want to be helpful and would like feedback on help given, both good and bad. Let them know you thrive on public feedback and strive to do good enough to warrant that and crave feedback on your help given to achieve that. Also, you probably should talk to your manager about this first as they understand the team dynamic better than this random internet stranger. Also, be prepared to find out you are not as helpful as you think you are. It is entirely possible that the help you think you are giving is not well received. This would be a good personal growth opportunity if so. You require data, so solicit feedback.

</comment><comment><USER4> What's your motivation for helping? Is it to gain recognition, specifically public recognition?

You may need to re-examine your expectations. In a healthy workplace, helpfulness is expected; unless you go extraordinarily above and beyond it's not considered something that deserves calling out.

A private "thank you" for an assist, yes, absolutely. A public display of gratitude? I'd be interested to hear what makes you think that's in order.

<comment><AUTHOR> my motivation is just as they are mine teammate so its part of my job to be helpful without expecting things in return but i see them showing gratitude towards other team-mates and it kinda start to make me think.

I guess my help is not that life changing to warrant a public gratitude.</comment></comment>


Microsoft's Bing Refuses Search Term "Sex" In India - <AUTHOR> http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/06/06/2338233/Microsofts-Bing-Refuses-Search-Term-Sex-In-India?from=rss

<comment><USER2> Microsoft has finally understood how to generate buzz and get publicity... even without having to spend 100 million dollars.

<comment><USER3> I doubt it's intentional. Pornography is illegal in India (see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_in_india#Online_por...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography_in_india#Online_pornography)). Microsoft is being conservative when complying with the Information Technology Act of 2000.

"According to the act, anyone publishing or transmitting or causing to be published or transmitted content of a pornographic nature can be punished with imprisonment or a fine." - [http://in.reuters.com/article/paidmediaAtoms/idIN19619307872...](http://in.reuters.com/article/paidmediaAtoms/idIN196193078720090603)

<comment><USER2> What if someone needs information on sex (something which is so natural to human beings)

instead of "To get results, change your search terms." I should at least be given a wikipedia link or pages with information on safe sex, etc..

"To get results, change your search terms." and no option to turn the filter off -- bad user experience

sex isn't pornography right!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It seems like Microsoft has a bad habit of letting lawyers, executives, and accountants sink good products & services with arbitrary and silly restrictions on how you can actually use it.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is slightly tangential, I guess, but could someone explain this facet of Indian culture to me? I have heard that India can be very socially conservative, but, well, the Kama Sutra did come from there. Is there a sort of Victorian dichotomy of public conservatism and private debauchery? Is it a religious thing? Is the Kama Sutra the product of an older culture that no longer really exists? Are there strong generational divisions on this sort of issue?

<comment><USER6> The Kama Sutra is so old there's a whole chapter on what to do with your tail.

<comment><USER7> Did you create that account for the sole purpose of making that joke!?

<comment><USER8> Yes I did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Oh and I thought that I was going to give microsoft a chance and try using bing instead of google... But yes I can confirm it, here (in malaysia) searching for sex returns "THE SEARCH SEX MAY RETURN SEXUALLY EXPLICIT CONTENT." (and all in caps as if they needed to shout it on top of that)

No way I'm going to use a search engine like this.

<comment><USER10> ... and so the trolling begins.

Seriously though, this is news on HN why? MS not allowing a sexual term in India.. ooo, what about Google helping the Indian authorities on the arrest of an Orkut user over making comments about a Political leader in India, even though freedom of speech is one of the six fundamental rights the Indian Constitution grants its citizens.

Which do you think is the worse of the two?

It's not that I'm pro-bing, I'm just anti-anti-bing. How about we give the site a few months to fuckup before we start with the comments like above.

I'd much rather see people judge the site based on its merits rather than get so instantly polarised before it's had a chance to find its footing.

<comment><USER9> Well it's simple I'm currently living in Malaysia if a search engine doesn't allow me to search for things I'm not going to use it...

I'm not much pro-google either for the reason above... It's just that I think such action from MS is short-sighted (and don't tell me it's because of the local regulations since Google and Yahoo here do search for those terms).

Now it's true I guess it doesn't add much to the discussion, it's just that I'm quite irritated when I see a company that self-censors in order to get the local governments to appreciate them.

<comment><USER10> Well, simple question... have you used Bing extensively before today? If so, have you searched for content of a sexual nature and if not, do you honestly care?

For all we know, it could have been an oversight on MS's part (the site is less than a week old) and it will be a simple case of switching on or off a setting eventually, like what you can do with Google.

EDIT - I signed into Bing using my Live account and noticed theres a setting to filter sexually explicit content like with Google, so perhaps this is the same thing, maybe you just need to sign in to do it.

EDIT #2 - I just switched to India & Malaysia's settings (was on Australia) and noticed that you couldn't set location or the sexual settings (seemed like a recurring theme), but then switched to China and noticed you could set Location, so perhaps its just a bug

<comment><USER9> I switched to bing as my main search engine 3 days ago to test it out (I like the idea of having more than one search engine with significant market shares so I had to give it a try). Now it's true I hadn't search any content that triggered the filter in that time (I don't only think about that :-) ) but not long ago I was looking at what was the legality of having pornographic photos uploaded by users in a user generated content site and if it was better to filter them out systematically or wait for members to report such photos and those search wouldn't have worked on bing.

But as said, it's mostly an emotional argument on my part because I don't like companies to self-censor themselves when they could help the countries to become more opened..

I've also signed into Bing with a live account and didn't notice such a setting... maybe it's also disabled in Malaysia? Anyhow, I'm one of those strange people who block the google, bing and yahoo cookie because I don't really want search engines to have a complete history of my searches associated with my profile so this wouldn't be enough...

EDIT: Small fact in passing: while it blocks the english term 'sex', it doesn't block the malay word 'seks'... Strange now this term is also blocked??

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It is blocked in germany and in many other countries. Try searching for sex in bing.de

</comment><comment><USER12> In the US version of the site you can change this setting in the preferences tab, but it doesn't seem to be available for India or many other countries for that matter. I think putting this setting in and making a link to the preferences on the block page would solve the problem for most people would it not?</comment>


How innovative is Facebook? - <AUTHOR>

Just a thought here, but didn't Facebook jump on the 'status updates' well after the success of twitter? Additionally, didn't Facebook Connect evolve from Disqus.<p>This begs the question, what has Facebook created since the abstraction of the 'Wall'? <comment><USER2> I don't really think facebook is all that innovative. Its pretty simple concept.I guess thats why it works.</comment>


RunSwift: Try Swift in Your Browser - <AUTHOR> http://www.runswiftlang.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi! I made RunSwift this past week and thought it was pretty neat so I wanted to share it. Have fun!

<comment><USER2> I've always wondered how these are made. Does it run in some kind of virtualised container?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's one way to do it, sure. In this case I had the problem of having to use a Mac for a build server, though.

I did a few things to get this running:

\- The application server and build server are separate, with access control to the build server controlled by an API key that I can revoke should anyone gain access to it.

\- The process that compiles and runs your code is an unprivileged user.

\- All import statements are disabled in user submitted code

\- Foundation is imported selectively with only a few classes allowed to be used by submitted code (namely, the NSString, NSArray, NSDictionary, etc APIs)

\- Code is checked for a list of blacklisted APIs before hitting the compiler

\- The execution of your code has a timeout of a few seconds, and the process will be killed should it take any longer.

I looked into more advanced techniques for sandboxing but couldn't find anything on OS X that was feasible. Happy to be schooled on security though, if you know better than I do :)

<comment><USER3> You can execute the process under sandbox-exec to take advantage of OS X kernel-level sandboxing. You'll need to write your own profile file that allows/denys what you want. There are plenty of examples of these .sb profile files under /System/Library. More: [https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin...](https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/sandbox- exec.1.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Excellent! Thank you for pointing me to this!

<comment><USER4> Good tip. Another suggestion would be to use chroot :)

That said, the best, most foolproof way of doing this really comes down to using OS X to virtualize OS X.

Or you could try cross-compiling. It seems to work here: [https://github.com/swift-x/tools](https://github.com/swift-x/tools) (which looks interesting...)

It's possible that by the end of this week, maybe next, it will be very easy indeed to compile and/or run Swift on Linux from Linux, at which point you could try LXC or a million other ways to virtualize.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tips! I'd love to move to LXC should an appropriate/feasible compiling solution become available :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice work! I've been looking at using the REPL to make some web stuff too, so I understand the challenges involved here!

BTW we are running a Swift hackathon @ GitHub HQ in a few weeks, it would be cool if you could join us: [http://www.swifthack.splashthat.com](http://www.swifthack.splashthat.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! What kind of web stuff stuff are you trying to do?

And I would love to, but unfortunately I live on the other (better ;)) coast! Will you all be taping the talks?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I dabbled with implementing Swift on JavaScript, but has proven a bit difficult. The grammar is very big and just implementing a parser is huge task on its own.

I would like to see someone tackle this though.

<comment><USER7> It will happen. [http://www.reddit.com/r/atwoodslaw/](http://www.reddit.com/r/atwoodslaw/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If I hit compile I get "gtimeout: failed to run command '/Applications/Xcode6-Beta4.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin/swift': No such file or directory"

<comment><USER8> Error now changed to "233168 sh: /var/folders/mq/sxspn0v179z03ljffqzb7vk00000gn/T/./run-swift.IBiDbHOX: Operation not permitted"

<comment><AUTHOR> Debugging an issue with the runner now, but the output should still show above the error. It'll be fixed soon!

 __Edit: Rolled back my changes; I 'll sort them out when the server is a little busy :) Happy Saturday!</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: SCSS live editing with Sublime Text - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mechio/takana

<comment><USER2> LibSass maintainer here -- it's really great to see another project pick it up, and although we're aware that we still have a fair bit of catching up to do, things like this give us all the more incentive!

<comment><USER3> Thanks for all your work on LibSass!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is this different than say grunt-watch with livereload.js?

Edit: grunt-tekana links to [http://usetakana.com](http://usetakana.com)

<comment><USER5> Yes. It updates per keystroke rather than per save. We've found that makes it perfect for sketching in code and tweaking a design.

<comment><USER4> Awesome.. Id like to try is but it doesn't do compass?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is awesome and I plan on using it. The only issue/feature is that it's using libsass, it definitely has some catching up to do to compete with Ruby's version's features but damn it's fast.

</comment><comment><USER7> Wow, this is really amazing! It makes editing scss in sublime feel like modifying css from the in browser dev tools. Very well done!

</comment><comment><USER8> Is only for OSX or is just tested in it?</comment>


Newsletter of engineering design links and trends - <AUTHOR> http://coolrecognizecool.news <comment><USER2> Please don't mind when I ask how your content is going to be any different from HackerNews or Software Engineering Daily?</comment>


EC finds German automakers illegally colluded on emissions technology - <AUTHOR> https://www.dw.com/en/european-commission-finds-german-automakers-illegally-colluded-on-emissions-technology/a-48218578 <comment><USER2> ...and what are you going to do about it? The whole Central Europe is supply chain for these manufacturers, the whole political, executive, and criminal world drives their cars. Top management and executives of these manufacturers are basically deities. To a certain extend these manufacturers _are the EU_.

but hey - at least the headlights are complicated, technologically advanced, and expensive to maintain like never before!

</comment><comment><USER3> This is nuts.. I can't even..

And they basicly all admitted it..</comment>


Adobe confirms: no Flash for Chrome on Android - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2012/02/adobe-confirms-no-flash-for-chrome-on-android.ars <comment><USER2> I have a Galaxy Nexus, and I know this will be an unpopular opinion, but I find Flash works pretty well on the device.

Granted, I only use it for video content on sites like the BBC, but the underlying functionality is fine.

I don't think Flash has a future on mobile devices, but HTML5-based solutions aren't up to scratch for general use yet, so I don't think Adobe should throw in the towel just yet.

<comment><USER3> Agreed as well. I often make use of Flash on both my tablet and my Nexus One. The times I notice it most is when I'm using the new Firefox Mobile and I have to copy the URL and paste it into the stock browser to get to flash content. That tedious process makes me realize I do it a lot more than I expected I would. I am very very disappointed by this decision.

<comment><USER4> Sure this is a temporary inconvenience, but you're just feeling the growing pains of the web leaving behind flash (yes everywhere, not just mobile) which simplifies the space and long-term is a good thing for developers and consumers of web content.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Flash is the new Internet Explorer. I remember a point in time when it was painful to use browsers other than IE, because so many developers took the easy way out and only supported IE (and their managers didn't know/care). Those days are of course over (well, mostly at least).

Flash is, or at least used to be, the easy way out. People used it because it was easier than HTML5. Hence, when a company asks for a quote on an interactive site they often went for the Flash-version because it was cheaper (and not fully knowing the drawbacks).

Apple forced a change in the market. All of the sudden, these people who ordered the new project in Flash realized that they couldn't view the content on their shiny new toy.

You might argue the ability of using Flash as an option. I see the fact that both Apple (and now Google) have actively taken a stance against Flash as something good for the society as a whole. It's a step towards better, and more open standards.

This isn't to say that Flash is completely useless. Not too long ago, it wasn't even possible to do interactive things with HTML. At that point, Flash was the only option. Luckily, those days are over.

<comment><USER6> > People who used it because it was easier than HTML5.

Having developed both HTML5 and Flash applications, your use of the word _was_ shows a bit of ignorance when it comes to Flash. It is _still_ easier in Flash to do a high-velocity, interactive site that works across multiple browsers. If you think differently, you're not actually doing the work.

Armchair critics of Flash just regurgitate what they perceive is truth – _HTML5's abilities are on par with Flash_. But it isn't true. To be clear, my support is _with HTML5_ , not Flash. But as someone who works with both _daily_ , I'd be pretty biased if I went around telling people that HTML5 is a trouble-free alternative to Flash. That would be a pretty big lie.

> Luckily, those days are over.

They are far from over. People cite YouTube HTML5 player without considering how vlogs are actually recorded, processed and uploaded through Flash. As the viewer, it's a nice luxury to say it can all be done through HTML5, but as a producer of content you'd have a different opinion. We all know about Web Audio API[1] and Capture API[2]. No need to mention how they are X years away. They aren't here today.

[1] <http://www.w3.org/TR/audioproc/> [2] <http://www.w3.org/TR/2010/WD- capture-api-20100401/>

<comment><USER7> I interpreted the _was_ to mean it was an option. Flash used to be the easiest option. Now with the runtime not being present on apple devices and it's total demise imminent, it's still just as easy to use but it's no longer a viable option.

<comment><USER6> If you're an iOS user, HTML5 is a magical place where you can do anything – outside of iOS, it's hit or miss. And if it's hit or miss, it might as well be Flash.

Remember that a client's perspective is often _neat, cool and fun_ rather than _works on all devices the exact same_.

Flash will die when HTML5 signs the cheques that it's collective evangelicals cash.

<comment><USER8> Can you expand about what is neat with HTML(5) on ios? personally the only thing I saw was desolation and poor performance. I rarely saw anything neat cool and fun in html5 for ios..

I surely missed something I guess. I think it's a shame we are not going to have flash on android tablets, it's somewhere it could have perform well.

<comment><USER6> I agree. Problem is, this Flash vs. HTML5 rhetoric has people mixing in "it can do everything Flash does" and "Flash doesn't work on mobile" leading the implication that if you want to do an elaborate, highly interactive experience, it'll work on mobile and it'll be _better than Flash_. You see how self-serving that argument is?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hats off to Apple. They managed to take a technology that was entrenched as a standard and kill it simply by refusing to support it on their mobile platform.

For years people have been complaining about the lack of IOS flash support, but the true impact has been to hasten the move to HTML5 and to kill a proprietary, bloated, bug-filled technology.

<comment><USER10> I honestly don't think Apple set out to kill flash. They just chose to not support Flash, like they also don't support a bunch of other browser plugins. All of them, in fact.

Had others not made such a big fuss about it, Apple's mobile devices would simply _silently_ not support Flash. But everybody made such a big stink about it so they had to vocally _explain_ their motivations for not supporting Flash specifically, making Apple some kind of Flash opponent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Didn't Adobe already say that they will no longer develop Flash for mobile devices – so isn't this kind of self-evident?

<comment><USER12> Google could have implemented it. Firefox Mobile Nightly (which is essentially a completely different browser from the currently-shipping Firefox Mobile), for example, implements the necessary support to run Flash on Ice Cream Sandwich and on Gingerbread and below. It's just a matter of exposing the plugin hooks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This should be old hat at this point. Flash is done on mobile. (Had it ever begun?)

<comment><USER14> Anytime there was a post about firefox mobile on /r/reddit, folk came out of the woodwork saying they would never even consider using it until it supported flash. (Which, interestingly, it now does.)

I have no fucking idea what people find attractive about mobile flash (maybe games?) but it certainly seems to be a thing.

<comment><USER15> _I have no fucking idea what people find attractive about mobile flash_

Being able to watch video?

<comment><USER16> A massive percentage of the internet's video consumption (YouTube and related sites) is already served by HTML5.

<comment><USER17> You are wrong. Html5 for Youtube is still an opt-in trial, unless you are on a platform without flash.

As for related sites, while most I frequent seem to keep their files in .mp4 format rather than .flv the players are all flash based. Probably because it's easier to serve ads.

<comment><USER18> Yes but mobile is a platform without flash, and is a large amount of youtube views. Not sure if you can opt in to flash youtube on Android.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I will be sad to see no flash support. I mostly use it for gaming on my tablet and galaxy s II and have had absolutely no issues. My mom got a transformer for Christmas and has been able to play all of her Facebook games (90% of her internet usage). It is really a bad move that directly affects ppl like my mom and other casual gamers.

</comment><comment><USER20> As someone who works with both Flash and HTML5, this news makes me sad.

Flash just works for much better. There are no cross-browser issues (except those that don't support it at all -- thanks, Apple). And ActionScript is a better language for building complex apps than JavaScript.

<comment><USER16> The main problem with Flash is that it's completely proprietary, and therefore, as 4chan would say, OH EXPLOITABLE.

Worse is the fact that Adobe has been sitting with their thumbs wedged in their arses for months, in some cases, while known vulnerabilities were being exploited in the wild.

It's hard to imagine a better argument for moving away from closed technologies like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I find it disappointing that Adobe has complete control over the Flash/mobile- media market in this regard. Flash is great in all, but leaving up the choice to Adobe seems counter-intuitive, especially when the browser will most likely be widely used.

<comment><USER22> The flash format is open source now. It happened a few years ago.

Anyone can build their own flash player, even for mobile.

What folks are commenting on is Adobes not releasing an official player for the mobile. Desktop isn't going anywhere because it plays AIR/Flex apps which also have been open sourced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Can't wait for Adobe's HTML5 authoring tools to come out with their HTML5 acquisitions.

Until then, HTML5 is still becoming more performant when building immersive environments in it, which Flash already kind of does in mobile. Guess we'll have a few years of toughing it out until then.

</comment><comment><USER23> Thank God.

<comment><USER24> Why? Can you present a coherent argument against enabling flash that isn't just "I don't want to use it so nobody else should be allowed to"?

<comment><USER25> Coherent argument?

Sucks battery

Poor usability on touch interfaces

Memory hog

Buggy, leads to browser crashes

<comment><USER3> The battery argument is just silly. Playing HD movies on a phone will suck battery faster but we don't remove the user's ability to do that.

As for the others, I use Flash frequently on my phone and none of them have occurred for me in the last year or so. I have Flash set to load on demand. It's not about Flash being the future (it's not), or even continued development in it. It's about access to existing content here and now and for some users that is a continued need.

Edit: One quick edit since HN doesn't seem to want to let me reply to the below. I think the crux of it is that it removes the _option_ to access content... key word _option_. If it's not the default, etc, that's fine... but you're placing the disadvantages of Flash over my ability to get to content I feel is important. The "no Flash for you" argument hinges on saying "our opinion that Flash is bad is more important than your opinion that you want to see the content you desire, even if it's not available in other formats". And for the users like myself that like to retain that _option_ , we feel very strongly the other way.

<comment><USER26> I agree, most of the arguments from individuals I've seen against Flash are simply, "I don't like it therefore I want to stop others from using it".

I find it interesting that one of the leading arguments against Flash is that it's a proprietary plugin that is not "open". So clearly the solution to this is to close off the option of using it, doesn't seem like a very "open" attitude. I thought it was about choice but I guess it was wrong.

<comment><USER27> > So clearly the solution to this is to close off the option of using it

Apple did not secretly turn off a global flag "allowFlash = NO;" - they did not _put work_ into supporting it. These are completely different things.

<comment><USER26> If you are referring to them not allowing the plugin to work inside their browser for iOS then I agree, it is different. I have no problem with that choice that they made, it's their system. But, it was possible to build apps for iOS that used Flash development tools and Apple directly put a stop to it. Therefore, they did put some work into that aspect even though all it amounted to was changing the EULA and banning apps from the app store. In my opinion that was an effort to prevent development tools they did not control from entering their market; that's not an "open" attitude.

But, anyway, I wasn't referring to Apple in my comment. I was referring to individuals who present the argument I described; people who are all for "open" as long as it involves software they want you to use.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Linux Mint 9 Review: Solid, Simple, Shiny - <AUTHOR> http://www.linux.com/distrocentral/distronews/311675-linux-mint-9-solid-simple-shiny

<comment><USER2> I think it's important to specify that Linux Mint is fully compatible with Ubuntu: the repository of Ubuntu are used (and specific ones).

See for instance my /etc/apt/sources.list:

 _deb<http://packages.linuxmint.com/> isadora main upstream import

deb <http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/> lucid main restricted universe multiverse

deb <http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/> lucid-updates main restricted universe multiverse

deb <http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/> lucid-security main restricted universe multiverse

deb <http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/> lucid partner

deb <http://packages.medibuntu.org/> lucid free non-free

#deb <http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu> lucid-getdeb apps

#deb <http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu> lucid-getdeb games_

</comment><comment><USER3> As much as I love how you all at linux.com must be covering the state of Linux and all related topics, your "spamming" of HN with articles solely from the site you happen to work for as a PR/social media agent - as it says on your Twitter profile - is not very encouraging, Ms. Cloer.

It doesn't help that you aren't interacting with HN-ers at all either, but merely submitting articles from linux.com

* nb: I put spamming in quotes because that's what it seems you're doing here with all your posts from linux.com, but it doesn't seem too egregious, yet it has all the feathers of a blogspamming account.

</comment><comment><USER4> _One of my favorite features with Linux Mint is the ability to play pretty much all media codecs right out of the box. Flash, QuickTime, MP3s, and so on just work. And work really well.

From a legal perspective, this is a bit dicey. It's not technical considerations that prevent other distros from shipping these codecs, it's legal ones._

<comment><USER5> It depends on where you live. The reason why those codecs are not installed by default in ubuntu is that could not be distributed in countries where software patents are an issue, like US and JP. If you are in Europe it's perfectly fine to use mint with all those codecs already installed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I use Mint since 7 version. It is great operating system: light, secure, it come with all codecs for video, audio and much more. You can configure it as a great environment for developing too. And lasts versions are coming JRE 6.0 ready to use. So, it is a beauty solution for Micro$oft systems and all that need of good operating system

</comment><comment><USER7> I used LinMint for about a year in an emulator. I've since switched to Crunchbang Statler (xfce) but might recommend LinMint instead for folks who are looking for the most polished and immediate experience possible but aren't as interested in staying lightweight or tweaking the UI (or staying linked to Ubuntu).</comment>


Why Everything Is Becoming a Game - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2010/03/19/why-everything-is-becoming-a-game/ <comment><USER3> Everything has always been a game. Life is a game. Reading books about successful market traders, the best ones treat it like a game.

The difference now is that we are able to calculate points for things we normally didn't. Every action can be quantified and rewarded and used to compare us with others.

<comment><USER4> Everything isn't a game, if the word is to have any meaning at all.

<comment><USER5> "Game" has two meanings, and they're both very explicit. One comes from "game theory"—a game is a triple of a set of players, a set of moves, and a function mapping (player, move) tuples to payoffs. The other comes from "fun theory"—a game is a subset of human experience which is optimal in providing choices that are on the edge of being predicted by our instincts, allowing us to get into "the zone" as we follow different paths to try and find rewards.

Life itself conforms to the second definition—our instincts evolved specifically so that life would _be_ the "best" game; games are, thus, microcosms or reimplementations of life (see, for example, The Sims, or WoW, but even an RPG with inventory management will reflect this clearly.)

<comment><USER4> I think at a minimum, a game needs some kind of structure, and that the consequences of the game - the outcome - isn't particularly important. The structure is necessary to prevent people from going too far - "fair play" - and the outcome needs to be relatively irrelevant - "it's only a game" - <USER2> that people don't take it too seriously, precisely so they can have fun.

I don't think either of these things is true about life.

I think games are a human formalization of the animal notion of play, which is about developing reactions and experiences in a safe way, unlike how they will be used for real stakes as an adult. Play fighting isn't real fighting, but uses many of the same reactions and develops techniques.

But real fighting isn't a game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This growing sentiment that everything is a game is annoying and troublesome. Annoying in that this style of unoriginal regurgitant blogging is just plain terrible, and troublesome in that the tech-exit-inspired delusion of grandeur has spilled over into personal manifestos of life.

Games are games. Sports are games. Conveniently enough, we invented sport to be tangible versions of our dreams; a dry run to test hypotheses, so we don't make the same mistakes in life, when it counts.

This is profound? I'll play cranky old man's advocate: If this doesn't irritate you, something's wrong.</comment>


A Scratch-Based Elementary School Computer Club Curriculum - <AUTHOR> http://spin.atomicobject.com/2014/03/08/computer-club-curriculum-elementary-school/

<comment><USER2> This is great, I love scratch! You should share this as much as you can with IT teachers in your area, I bet they'd appreciate it.

Here in the UK we have a nationwide organisation called Code Club [0] which supplied volunteers with curriculums. They're available on the CC website but also in their raw forms on GitHub. Check it out if you want some inspiration for further lessons: [https://github.com/CodeClub/scratch- curriculum](https://github.com/CodeClub/scratch-curriculum)

[0]: [https://www.codeclub.org.uk/](https://www.codeclub.org.uk/)</comment>


Electronic Health Records on the iPad (AMA) - <AUTHOR>

Our studio was commissioned to build an iPad app for the Ottawa Hospital that gives doctors and nurses full access to electronic medical records (EMR).  An iPhone version has been commissioned as well.
We're a pretty small team of only five mobile developers and are all recent university grads.  We were up against giants in the space like IBM and Telus Health.  This was also our first foray into healthcare.
We wanted to share. Feel free to AMA.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Trio+helps+hospital+results/3768201/story.html
http://selectstartstudios.com/work/ottawa-hospital-emr-client/ <comment><USER2> In the US, AMA means American Medical Association.

<comment><AUTHOR> An unfortunate coincidence. Ask me anything

<comment><USER2> I assume Canada has patient privacy laws similar to HIPAA in the states. How have you dealt with privacy issues?

<comment><AUTHOR> All comms are via SSL. The application ties into a backend SSO system for authentication and authorization. The app uses timeouts on top of the ones enforced by the iPad. All requests run through backend data access policies via web services.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Building an App Business, My Self Published Book - <AUTHOR> http://buildanappbusiness.com/

<comment><USER3> A book is something that I usually don't like to buy without knowing what I am going to get. A great way to know that I will get good content is to know: who are you? what makes you think what you wrote is correct?(beware, I am not saying it is not, I just don't know anything about you) have you ever wrote something else? Is it possible to the even just the introduction available? I'd really like to know how you write.

Other than that... Congratulations!!!! and best of luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Amazon offers a sample chapter and a bit more. More about me - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6399538](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6399538)

<comment><USER3> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP Here, let me know if you have any questions, comments etc.

<comment><USER4> I would love to see some of your background, ie. what made you competent to write such book. Some info regarding content would be also a nice to have - <USER2> know, what your book covers, but how is it structured? How many pages it has?

<comment><AUTHOR> The paperback is ~120 pages at 6x9. The ebook is ~43 pages. My background I just linked here - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6399538](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6399538), but basically the gist is I quit my job a bit over 2 years ago with very little income, and I'm making a nice living on it now.

<comment><USER4> To make my point more clear - my intention was not criticizing you, or doubting in your competences - from potential buyers point of view, if would be nice to have this informations somewhere on landing page. I did check your "background" before writing above comment and in my opinion you could add some more info, that would make you more trustworthy for visitors from outside of HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah I see, you weren't asking for the info specifically, just suggesting I need more of it on the landing page. Thanks for the suggestion.

Do you have anything specifically you'd like to see in the "About the author" section that isn't there?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You're living the dream for some of us. So thank you for sharing some of your secrets. Well, I'm hoping I get some secrets... I just paid $9.99. :)</comment>


What's OpenOffice's Niche? - <AUTHOR> http://fourstarters.com/2007/09/20/whats-openoffices-niche/ Last week the newest version of OpenOffice was announced, and the new release revived the discussion whether or not OpenOffice is better than Microsoft Office. Although I don't particularly like Microsoft and normally don't care about office suites, this latest release did get me thinking. <comment><USER2> How about export to PDF, and being able to define new functionality with Python? OpenOffice is even usable from a script, so it can be used to do things like programmatic document conversion. None of the others mentioned do that.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's free. It does most of what most people need from an office suite. It does not require being online. It runs on all the common platforms. I think that pretty much sums it up.

<comment><USER4> "Reference ODF implementation" seems like a fair niche to occupy going forward too, especially when considered in the light of the traits you mention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Uh... it's nearly as powerful as MS Office at 0% of the price?

Sounds like a pretty good niche to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you read the article?

<comment><USER5> Yeah... did I miss something big? He said basically: Google is free/online/good for collaboration/lacks full features. iWorks is for macs. Office is the obvious heavyweight. OpenOffice is close to Office, but not.

Was just pointing out that OpenOffice is free, which for me anyway, is the attraction.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: YC Hopeful Seeking Interview Advice - <AUTHOR> http://blindycform.wufoo.com/forms/help-us-with-our-yc-interview/

<comment><AUTHOR> If this is inappropriate, please flag and remove it. We've extremely excited about our startup and want our interview to reflect it.</comment>


John McCarthy's proposal for the language of the future - <AUTHOR> http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/elephant.pdf

<comment><USER2> My favourite quote from his talk about 'Elephant 2000': "In 'Elephant' the programmer would write nothing about an array or database for storing reservations. Arrays of course would be necessary but the compiler would invent them."</comment>


The goal of Ruby 3x3 is to make Ruby 3 be 3 times faster than Ruby 2 - <AUTHOR> http://engineering.appfolio.com/appfolio-engineering/2015/11/18/ruby-3x3 <comment><USER2> All of you seem to be missing the fact that the point of the post is that there is a shared feeling that, was Ruby backed by some big companies now it would be as fast as the current competitors, so this, or something similar (a different kind of funding path) is what needs to happen. What the post also stresses is that we are seeing something move in this direction (hint: check the comments at the article page).

</comment><comment><USER3> If you do a search for Ruby on HN, you will see not only has there been very little Ruby news posted in recent months, there are also less voted, and less likely to be on Front Page.

I am not sure if Ruby or Rails Ecosystem is dying. But for sure it is not even hyped any more. And if anything no one on HN seems to care or interested in it anymore.

<comment><USER4> RoR just kind of works these days, what more is there to really say?. There is nothing more 'boring' than solid well tested technology that simply lets lots of people do their jobs in a predictable and well understood manner.

<comment><USER5> I love solid well tested technology. Let's try to make it faster :).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you want to make Ruby better, change the IO subsystem. Look towards Go and fork the language. It's the only path I see. Btw, I spent 8 years writing Ruby and would love to see that happen.

</comment><comment><USER7> Cool! Sometimes I wonder how Crystal which is similar to Ruby can be fast. How Crystal can be fast?

<comment><USER8> I uses static types and it compiles natively (via LLVM).</comment></comment>


An Interview with _why the Lucky Stiff - <AUTHOR> http://waferbaby.com/setup/2009/02/13/_why <comment><USER2> The best part about _why: if this guy completely loses his mind one day, no one will notice any difference.

<comment><USER3> I have to say, reading that short interview left me saying "what the hell..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The man never fails to amuse.

And I absolutely agree, I love seeing hand-written copy.

<comment><USER5> Not if you want to quote lines from his interview on HN.

<comment><USER6> Which is why the word needs to adopt Comic Sans so we can easily quote lines, but also read text like it's handwritten copy.

<comment><USER7> I would prefer a high-CPU usage, extremely inefficient embedded Flash text display applet. It's the Web 2.0 way of doing things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It seems _why is a very enigmatic figure and his real identity seems to be not known. However I respect his desire to stay anonymous despite the fame he deserves for being a very creative and respectable hacker.

<comment><USER9> I think his real identity is very well known, isn't it? He's why the lucky stiff. (Admittedly my Argentine friends might complain that since we don't know the number of his Documento Nacional de Identidad, we don't really know his identity. It's really hard to explain to notaries and the like that my _new US passport_ came with a _new passport number_ , and that does not mean that I am _not the same person_.)

<comment><USER10> His real name was on his Wikipedia entry for a brief period. At the time I confirmed with others that it was true, but then it was removed and hasn't been back since. I've not been able to find it with a casual browse (and I've forgotten it). This is all the more amusing since he wrote the foreword for my book :)

<comment><USER11> The page history says that his last name might be Malsky.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A 14" laptop running Windows XP. Is it irrational that I have even more respect for him after learning that?

No multicore, multihead powerhouse, no HN open on another screen, no very tweaked Linux install...

</comment><comment><USER13> _why is an ARTIST! I wish the interviewer asked what he thinks about calling software engineering - and the classic 'building bridges' comparison... :-)

</comment><comment><USER14> For all the interesting things _why does, I've always maintained that it would be completely unsurprising if he was in fact an entire group of hackers. He must never sleep.

</comment><comment><USER15> Yes, when XP came out it was beautiful, wasn't it :D I still used the classic theme though. Im not that much of a windows user any more, so it doesn't bother me that it looks like it came from the 90's, and im a 90's kid, so there :D

<comment><USER7> I preferred the Watercolor skin they dropped.

</comment></comment><comment> ryan-allen Brilliant :) On another note I miss the BBS, and Major Mud.

</comment><comment><USER16> The server is not responding to me. Is there a cached copy elsewhere?

</comment><comment><USER17> Solid gold.

</comment><comment><USER18> I wonder if he expends too much energy on being Quirky.

He goes by a Quirky name, writes Quirky & Poignant guides, and responds to questions in a Quirky way. Overall, he's really quite Quirky.

He's unique and intelligent, we get it.

But for once, it would be nice to see him talk about something like a normal person.

<comment><USER13> Don't we have too many normal people out there already, saying the same stuff in their lookalike blogs...? (or maybe _why IS one of those guys as well, uh?)

<comment><USER19> "Don't we have too many normal people out there already, saying the same stuff in their lookalike blogs...? "

False choice. There _are_ smart, innovative thinkers expressing themselves with a notable lack of quirk, and a better signal-to-noise ratio.

<comment><USER13> so does one thing have to eliminate the other?

<comment><USER19> No, of course not, but they seem to be related in the mids of many people.

There's a great collection of short stories, Mathenauts: Tales of Mathematical Wonder, that has (as I recall) a tale of some institute that was hiring mathematicians. The candidates affected assorted behavioral quirks so as to come off as sufficiently bizarre, and, hence, brilliant.

It seems a common stereotype.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is this Animal Magnetism at work? - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2039520/Stuck-The-magnetic-cousins-attract-lot-attention--odd-knife-fork.html

<comment><USER2> That looks like a total sham. In the pictures, every utensil is positioned so that it could be held there simply by gravity and friction.

</comment><comment><USER3> So has anyone tested this with a compass or some other magnetic field detecting device?</comment>


Nantero comes out of stealth mode: Carbon nanotube based non-volatile RAM - <AUTHOR> http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326794 <comment><USER2> Cool technology... however this:

"He said NRAM offers appealing cost benefits as well. Because of the small size of the carbon nanotubes, it can be easily shrunk, which means NRAM doesn't face the same manufacturing challenges as other forms of memory"

is a pretty ridiculous claim for the next decade or so at least. It should have said: theoretical cost benefits at some point in the distant future. Today NRAM has horrible cost negatives, because you're manufacturing with carbon nanotubes. It doesn't face the same manufacturing challenges as other forms of memory, it faces drastically greater challenges. It's going to take a long time to get this to an economy of scale, such that you can buy a gigabyte of NRAM for a competitive price.

<comment><USER3> Nantero is not the only company making nanotubes. Nanotechnology as a whole, and carbon nanotubes (CNT) as a prime component, have been a hot topic in material science and chemistry for almost two decades now. Not just research for applications, but for production. They are not alone in trying to solve problems centered around nanotech. But the CNT production overall is still very low (only 5k tons in 2014 according to this article [http://globenewswire.com/news- release/2015/04/22/727078/1013...](http://globenewswire.com/news- release/2015/04/22/727078/10130125/en/Carbon-Nanotubes-CNT-Market-By-Product- Single-Walled-Carbon-Nanotubes-SWCNT-Multi-Walled-Carbon-Nanotubes-MWCNT-By- Application-Polymers-Energy-Electrical-Electronics-Is-Expected-To.html))

No one is saying the iPhone 8 will have NRAM. The manufacturing research and implementation cycle is painfully slow. But if the cost/benefits may pay off in 2025, someone needs to be looking at it today.

<comment><USER2> I completely agree that it's a future, potentially viable technology, and it should be explored.

Some people in this thread certainly seem to think it's imminent, because they're claiming it's all ready to be mass manufactured due to compatibilities in the manufacturing process, and just taking Nantero's hype at face value (like we were all supposed to be drowning in memristors by now, just ask HP).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Has the problem with organic contamination been resolved one way or another? I remember reading that it can be hazardous to fish?

<comment><USER5> Carbon nanotubes exist in many forms, including animal cells. I don't think such a technology is straightforwardly hazardous or not.

Personally, I would prefer carbon nanotubes to toxic, rare metals.

<comment><USER6> I have to disagree. Just having nanotubes flying around your blood stream could probably lead to cirrhosis as the nanotubes of a certain length or more would get trapped inside the liver, causing scaring and damage ( [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19801780](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19801780)) similar to how miners can get miner's lung ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumoconiosis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumoconiosis)).

Ultimately it depends on what form the nanotubes are in, but I don't want them just going nilly-willy around an environment.

<comment><USER5> > I don't want them just going nilly-willy around an environment.

To be fair, you can say this about pretty much anything. But unlike microbeads, which are intended to be flushed, nobody is suggesting that it would be a good idea to release them into the environment.

<comment><USER6> > To be fair, you can say this about pretty much anything. But unlike > microbeads, which are intended to be flushed, nobody is suggesting that it > would be a good idea to release them into the environment.

Very true. I'm surrounded by stainless steel but I don't get chromium poisoning. I'm just worried about side effects, about extra CWNT getting out into the open, like how prescription drugs are appearing in the environment.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Uppy 1.0: Your best friend in file uploading - <AUTHOR> https://uppy.io/blog/2019/04/1.0/?ref=producthunt <comment><USER2> [https://github.com/transloadit/uppy](https://github.com/transloadit/uppy)

</comment><comment><USER3> The DigitalOcean Spaces example looks good, can't wait to revisit Uppy.

[https://github.com/transloadit/uppy/tree/master/examples/dig...](https://github.com/transloadit/uppy/tree/master/examples/digitalocean- spaces)

</comment><comment><USER4> Feature request: NoScript support</comment>