High-Memory Instances and $5 Linodes - <AUTHOR> https://blog.linode.com/2017/02/14/high-memory-instances-and-5-linodes/ <comment><USER2> Linode is my top choice for hosting, but lately I've been tinkering on a project that needs a lot of disk, and it's hard to find good options there. On AWS every dimension scales independently, but with Linode I can't buy disk without buying CPU and RAM too. When I had a similar need a few years ago, I wound up renting a dedicated server, where even the cheapest came with 2TB or so. I'd love to just stick with Linode, but I need an option to add disk!

<comment><USER3> Delimiter has a clever solution for $10 a month. They call it Slot Hosting. You ship them a disk and they'll host it and attach it as additional storage on a VPS. [https://www.delimiter.com/slot- hosting/](https://www.delimiter.com/slot-hosting/)

I use it to host an 8tb drive that I then attach to a dedicated server I rent for $20 a month.

$30 a month and I have a server that I use for Plex (16 cores, 3.2ghz, 32 gigs of memory, and 10tb of total storage).

<comment><USER4> [Disclosure - I work at Delimiter]

Thanks for the recommendation, slot hosting is a good solution if you need to get a disk online with a VPS attached to it.

We've had a lot of people asking how you did this so just to explain:

Slot hosting $120/year ($10/month) - that gives you one 3.5" or 2.5" slot to send your disk in. You can aggregate up multiple slots and aggregate the VPS resources into one large VM. This is great for things like ZFS and software RAID. The VM is KVM based. [https://www.delimiter.com/slot- hosting/](https://www.delimiter.com/slot-hosting/)

The server is this: Dual E5420, 16GB RAM, 1TB or 2x500GB HDD $200/year ($16.66/month). [https://cc.delimiter.com/?cmd=cart&action=add&id=1718](https://cc.delimiter.com/?cmd=cart&action=add&id=1718)

Slot hosting uses dedicated (non-contended) CPU/RAM/Disk resources so you can run Plex directly on it if you have enough slots aggregated to give you the RAM.

<comment><USER5> Why annual pricing? I'd do it if you had monthly pricing.....Since the payment is annual what happens if 2 or 3 months in I decide to change and need something else?

<comment><USER4> Slot hosting moved to annual only as administering a customer-owned equipment adds an additional layer of headache.

Its not cost effective to have customers who want to load up on 'warez' cancelling their service, shipping back their disk to get it back the next week empty for another round.

We're positioning this as a long-term storage product where customers don't want to be paying the hosting company each month for disks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I used to use Linode for some projects, and really appreciated their speed and server quality, which seemed better than Digital Ocean at the time.

But after using them for 12-18 months, and losing several days of data due to the 2015 DDoS, and reading about more and more security issues, I switched back to DO and haven't looked back. The performance differences aren't noticeable to me, and I'd rather have my hosting through a company with a better security record than Linode.

<comment><USER7> DO isn't any better, just hasn't been targeted by any serious attackers yet.

until very recently, they didn't allow using a custom kernel (except via kexec hackaround) and were quite slow updating their kernel for security patches. they repeatedly gave random dates for implementation, then repeatedly pushed them back, then eventually just ignored users on this issue for _years_.

their images were also poorly sanitized, leading to the well-known problem of SSH host key duplication, which was the case for years.

<comment><USER8> > just hasn't been targeted by any serious attackers yet.

Source? Just because they haven't announced any successful security breaches, doesn't mean they haven't been seriously targeted.

In fact, considering the amount of times my random dedicated server instance (not hosted at DO) gets hit with random attacks, I'm sure a large provider like DO has had numerous serious, targeted attacks against their network/servers/control panel/etc.

<comment><USER7> > Source? Just because they haven't announced any successful security > breaches, doesn't mean they haven't been seriously targeted.

True, and in fact the only basis for my statement is that they have historically taken security so not-seriously that it would be surprising if they were in fact able to withstand advanced attacks, given that even the most secure organizations are often unable to do so. (see: every talk at Black Hat)

> In fact, considering the amount of times my random dedicated server instance > (not hosted at DO) gets hit with random attacks, I'm sure a large provider > like DO has had numerous serious, targeted attacks against their > network/servers/control panel/etc.

this statement is just as baseless as mine. perhaps even moreso, since the two numbers seem to have nothing to do with each other. one could just as well say "my server gets lots of bogus SSH attempts, so banks get robbed a lot".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> PSA: If you're using the Linode API, the 2048 plan is now PlanID 2 and the new 1024 plan is now PlanID 1. The other PlanIDs were incremented by one as well. I wish they hadn't done that, but there it is.

<comment><USER10> That sucks. Those PlanIDs should never change.

<comment><USER9> Well, they've changed in the past... it's fine as long as the plans corresponding to the PlanIDs never get smaller or more expensive. This particular change violates that assumption and so is definitely not fine.

<comment><USER10> The hardcoded plan (PlanID 2) that I had in my program was pointing to a 4 GB 2 CPU plan (4 GB), now it's pointing to a 2 GB 1 CPU plan (2 GB).

<comment><USER11> There is an API method to query plans: [https://www.linode.com/api/utility/avail.linodeplans](https://www.linode.com/api/utility/avail.linodeplans)

Presumably you can select the relevant ID based on plan properties (cores, RAM, etc.) rather than hardcoding IDs. Though I completely agree that once a plan has a specific ID, as long as that plan is available the ID should be constant.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, that's... not practical.

What if they upgrade the 1024 plan to 1536? (That has actually happened, by the way.) Now you're extracting the number and comparing it to a range?

> Give me the plan where the RAM is >= 1024 and < 2048.

What if they upgrade the 1536 plan to 2048?

> Nevermind, just give me the plan with two cores.

Okay, do you want the $20/mo plan or the $120/mo plan?

> Fine, sort the plans by cores and memory and give me the smallest plan.

Oops, they introduced a new plan with one core and less (i.e. not enough) storage.

I'm not saying it's impossible. Just impractical.

<comment><USER12> It's not as difficult as you're suggesting. Figure out your minimum specs and get the cheapest plan that meets them.

<comment><USER13> Or, the API's plan IDs could correspond to specific plans, and never change. New plans mean new IDs. Like how IDs are supposed to work.

<comment><USER12> The plans themselves have changed many times before. They become obsolete over time. What if your plan ID becomes unavailble, or the specs change in a way your application can't handle? Don't shrug off your bad design decisions on someone else.

<comment><USER13> > What if your plan ID becomes unavailble

The API should throw an error, so I can adjust my scripts, instead of silently provisioning a server I never intended to provision.

There should be a deprecation process when a plan is discontinued, so this doesn't happen unexpectedly.

If AWS can't provision me a t1.micro, they don't just go and give me a m3.small instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I would love to add a couple of gigs of RAM to an existing linode for a small monthly fee. But there's this dropdown on the "extras" page, "90 MB additional ram - $5.00 / mo", down to "360 MB additional ram - $20.00 / mo". Yes, those are MEGAbytes. As in, you can get a 4.36G/ram node for _twice the price_ as a 4G/ram node. Very strange.

<comment><USER9> Those are legacy options and to the best of my understanding are not available on new accounts or after switching legacy accounts to hourly billing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I recently switched from DigitalOcean to Linode and could easily shave off 20% bill. The migration of VM was much easier than I expected (use rsync - [https://lowendbox.com/blog/how-to-migrate-a-hosted-server- in...](https://lowendbox.com/blog/how-to-migrate-a-hosted-server-in-5-easy- steps-with-rsync/)). My only complain is, I would like to take multiple manual backups even if it costed little extra.

<comment><USER16> VM migration between the cloud hosting services is a big pain. I hope someone comes up with an app to do that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Nice to see Linode stepping up again and competing hard with DO.

Other than the Christmas 2015 DDOS, I have never had any significant issues with Linode. Especially in the Dallas DC.

<comment><USER18> I've been with Linode for a little over five years and a satisfied customer.

That being said - their policy for handling DMCA notices is abysmal. They will network filter out your Linode until you respond to the notice.

<comment><USER17> I can't speak to that really. Never had it happen and my work's customers are in Commercial Real Estate so our services don't dabble with DMCA notices.

Hopefully they at least give you some warning before a filter is placed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Digital Ocean _really_ needs to cut their prices at this point. There's no compelling reason to pay them 50% more for the same thing.

<comment><USER20> I don't get the whole VPS thing anyway. 5$ for playing around is great but anything that costs more is just not worth it.

60$/month for 16GB, 1CPU, 20GB disk for VPS... in comparison a root server with real remote console access, 16GB, 4 core AMD, 4TB disks, unlimited traffic costs me 30EUR/month (30$/month).

Or for 60EUR/month (60$) I could get a root server with 64GB Ram, 2x500GB SSD, i7-6700, 30TB traffic.

<comment><USER9> What is your definition of a "root server" and where do you rent them? Do you mean a dedicated server? I've checked a few providers and none of them come close the costs/benefits you're listing. OVH's EG-16 (4c/8t, 16G, 2x4T) is $79/mo. 1-and-1's L4i (4c/4t, 12G, 2x1T) is $80/mo.

<comment><USER19> SoYouStart (OVH's lower tier brand) has 4c/4t 32 GB 3x120 GB SSD) for $49/mo. Or same price, same ram, 2x2TB and 8t with a slightly slower clock.

<comment><USER9> That's interesting. Thank you.

I realize that I am doing that thing where you try to rationalize your preconceived notions, but here are some high-level observations:

* Looks like there are normally setup fees associated with provisioning new servers, although they are suspended at the moment.

* Support seems next to non-existant, which I suppose is not surprising considering they're a low-cost provider.

* SSD-based servers appear to be frequently out-of-stock.

* If you need a KVM attached to your server, it is $30 for 24 hours or $200+ for a week.

* 250Mbps bandwidth (presumably in and out) cf. Linode which is 40G in and 1-10G out.

All that being said, my interest is piqued. I could see this being a good fit if 1. you have a more-or-less dedicated sysadmin, 2. need a lot of storage and/or memory and have solid sizing requirements ahead of time, and 3. cloud (VPS or otherwise) isn't an option due to cost or other facts. It could be great for running your own VM or container cluster. Thanks again for sharing!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I love seeing cloud providers offering better deals, the more the merrier! However, I still have yet to find a better deal than the one Scaleway offers. ~$3/mo for a dual-core, 2GB RAM, 50GB SSD host. They also support terraform, rancher, swarm, etc. Been using them for a few months and haven't had a single complaint.

<comment><USER22> I probably wouldn't host a blog there. Their ToS[1] has, among other things:

\- A prohibition against _the propagation of data, images or sounds that may constitute defamation, an insult, denigration, or an infringement of privacy, image rights, good morals, or public order_

\- _Users are required to use decent and respectful language_

\- _Users are reminded that they must update software without excessive delay when a security failing is noted by the user or the software publisher or Scaleway_

This reads like: If you might offend anyone by the standards of the French, or might use strong language, or don't run the latest version of everything, this isn't the service for you.

On the positive side, they lack the litany of restricted services that most hosting companies I've seen provide, and I don't see any prohibitions against using your paid for resources to their maximum, so that's good.

US customers should note that all of their prices are in Euro, so -- for exchange rate shenanigans and currency exchange fees on most credit cards. There's no selector to show prices in USD.

[1]: [https://www.scaleway.com/terms/](https://www.scaleway.com/terms/)

<comment><USER23> I was concerned about this as well. I use Scaleway but I don't host any websites with notable content there.

I haven't heard much about these terms being held against users, so I'm not sure how much action there would really be behind this type of stuff. With that said, it is definitely more comfortable to be on a host that doesn't have terms that are this strict.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It would be really fascinating if you added GPU instances with GTX 1080 cards. These cards could allow you to make the prices much lower than those of AWS GPU instances that use K-80 and make it a perfect fit for Deep Learning applications that don't require double precision.

</comment><comment><USER25> OVH.com is selling 2GB VMs for 2.99 Euros per month. No idea about over- provisioning or any comparison with Linode though.

<comment> mike-cardwell I use OVH. Their support is horrendous though. For example, I put in a support request at mid-day this Saturday to ask if their geo-ip feature where you can select which country you want an additional IP to appear to be from, meant that the IP address actually terminated in that country. They didn't get back to me until this morning (3 days later), and the response was a bit vague.

I bought some new IPs 4 hours ago for my VPS. I've had an automated response to say they've taken payment. Do I have the IPs? Not according to the control panel. I imagine I'll get them at some point in the next 24 hours. _shrug_ If not, I'll put in a support request to ask where they are and maybe wait another 2 or 3 days for a response.

When I signed up a few months back, I purchased my first VPS on a Saturday. At no point did they tell me that my order needed to be manually checked. I eventually got my VPS on Monday morning.

Does anyone even work there on the weekend?

Amateurs

<comment><USER26> Meh, doesn't sound too bad to me. Its not like your machine has failed and they are not responding. You use OVH/Hetzner with the understanding that the great prices come from minimal support and the hardware will be used or desktop class. Hetzner support is strictly standard office hours. If you want instant responses, you can pay 10x at another provider but you chose not to.

<comment> mike-cardwell The thing is, it wouldn't have cost them anything for them to have sent me an automated email to tell me that my order needed to be manually checked, and I would get it within X hours/days. In fact, because they _didn 't_ give me this information up front, I ended up logging a support ticket to find out what was going on.

It wouldn't have cost them anything to tell me up front that IPs aren't automatically provisioned and required manual intervention and it would take ~24 hours before I get them either. Luckily for them, this time I didn't log a support ticket, because I just assumed that they would have crap processes and that's why it was taking so long. I mean, why did it take so long? Where they manually checking my order again, even though I used the same payment details? Does somebody need to manually pick some IP addresses from a spreadsheet? Why is this process not entirely automatic?

This is the sort of thing that _should_ be automated for low cost hosting systems, precisely to prevent having to provide unnecessary support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is this a bold move by Linode, or am I the only Linode customer (7 years going) who chose them in part because they steered clear of the bottom of the market?

<comment><USER28> I'm sorry, but this pricing doesn't put them _anywhere_ near the bottom of the market. As someone that has been buying from the VPS market for almost twenty years now, Linode cannot in any reasonable verbiage be lumped in with the riffraff crap vendors at the bottom. I could rattle off a dozen or more companies run by thugs and thieves that truly define "bottom of the market" for VPS, and Linode, DO, Ramnode aren't even on the same planet.

<comment><USER29> I know that I switched to Ramnode when I had problems with another VPS provider back in 2013 or so when one of the Admin panels was hacked across a large number of VPS providers. Ramnode was down for a few hours, the other VPS was down for a few days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Some feedback: I've been using DO droplets since mid 2013, reliability is excellent, no unexpected reboots at all.

With the help of Ksplice the Ubuntu Server droplet has achieved 555 and 401 days uptime without downtime (could hang on a bit longer but later decided to reboot once every 3 months to address security concerns).

DO support has been responsive and friendly, DO keeps (slowly) delivering new features such as private network, Load Balacer etc. For existing $5/m DO users, I don't think it's worth the hassle to migrate to Linode (or Amazon Lightsail), the performance difference will be unnoticeable for most people's use cases (personal web hosting, strongSwan based IPsec VPN, etc.).

A good reference: [https://joshtronic.com/2016/12/01/ten-dollar-showdown- linode...](https://joshtronic.com/2016/12/01/ten-dollar-showdown-linode-vs- digitalocean-vs-lightsail/)

Will provide the feedback to DO and see if they can match the Linode offer (I am sure they will do something).

<comment><AUTHOR> Appreciate the link, I have a $5 review up as well now :)

Since my posts are straight benchmarks, I don't touch on the support side of things typically (mostly because I only have had support interaction with the companies I use).

That said, I've had exceptional support from both Linode and DigitalOcean over the years. Always responsive and friendly.

Interestingly enough though, yesterday my Linode went down due to a power outage in the Atlanta data center. I'm a huge fan of Linode, but something like a power outage at this stage in the game seems a bit like amateur hour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Scaleway recently added new cloud servers. Example: 10 cores, 60GB RAM, 700GB SSD, 1Gbit/s Unmetered = 90€

</comment><comment><USER32> Maybe one day that ColdFusion atrocity of a control panel will be hurled into the sun and something better will take its place. Until then, yay, cheaper high-memory instances.

Redis appreciates it.

<comment><USER18> ColdFusion or not - Linode's hosting panel is one of the simplest and flexible management interface I've experienced. Digital Ocean's is too simple, and some other providers are too infuriating. Linode is that porridge that's just right.

<comment><USER32> > ...one of the simplest and flexible management interface I've experienced...

Well, I'm really questioning what you've used then. It's atrocious. It's right up there with GoDaddy in terms of dashboards that are needlessly obnoxious.

Digital Ocean's may be simple, but there's nothing wrong with that. It works. It's clear what it can and can't do. It's not cluttered up with confusion.

For example, on Linode you cannot delete a Linode instance anywhere but the main view. You must go back to the main listing, carefully look for the one you want to remove, then click the remove link and double-check you clicked the right link. If you have a lot of instances and you cycle them over frequently enough this is a real hassle.

Likewise, there's many occasions where you get kicked back to the index page for no reason. There's just so many unresolved little things that, over time, grate on you considerably. It _works_ but it could be considerably better. It has not evolved much since launch, that's very concerning.

Digital Ocean's interface, to use one example, has evolved considerably. Amazon's AWS dashboard may be a monstrosity but it's also becoming better and better organized over time. Linode needs to remember that their dashboard is important and invest in it.

Maybe all you ever eat is porridge and you're okay with that. Fine. Other people demand some real food now and then.

<comment><USER33> We do think our dashboard is important, and we are investing in it. As a matter of fact, you can even watch the development take place yourself because the new manager is an open-source app. :)

[https://github.com/linode/manager](https://github.com/linode/manager)

<comment><USER32> That's really good to hear. Please give us an option to use it as soon as it's available for production accounts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Wow, $5 finally. Must have gotten tired of DO and Vultr taking those customers

</comment><comment><USER35> Might finally get me to give up my ChunkHost account for throw-away servers.

</comment><comment><USER36> Why not 2GB Ram and 2 cores, easier for CPU demanding on a $10 plan?

</comment><comment> dyu- Thanks to amazon lightsail we now have $5 linodes :-)

<comment><USER37> Yup $5 shoot out between Linode vs DigitalOcean vs Vultr [https://community.centminmod.com/threads/10437/](https://community.centminmod.com/threads/10437/) :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> 75 Mbps?? Are we in 2005? :-(

<comment><USER33> I think that was a misprint. The floor on all plans are now 1000Mbits. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Can we stop ignoring the fact that Linode has been hacked several times and responded terribly in every case?

<comment><USER40> In the current environment, I personally believe that it's safe to say that _everybody_ has been hacked to some degree. Linode being open about it, even if not having the perfect response, strangely makes me feel better. Being a customer while this occurred and not feeling any impact makes me feel even better still.

Having to go in and change my password is hardly an exceptional event on today's internet.

<comment><USER39> They were not open about it. When their ColdFusion system got hacked they didn't tell anyone until weeks after the fact.

When you search for "linode hack," Google suggests "linode hacked again." They were hacked in 2012. They were hacked in 2013. They were hacked in 2014. They were hacked in 2016. They will be hacked in 2017.

<comment><USER40> > they didn't tell anyone until weeks after the fact.

Unfortunately, this is fairly standard practice in the industry. Companies want to make sure the vulnerability is closed, positively identify what was compromised, who was affected, what legal liability exists, and so forth.

Weeks is, frankly, pretty quick to go through that process.

> There's not much more to say -- they are dead.

Huh. Funny, I'm still hosting things there; their prices are competitive, there are no rumors of acquisition or shutdown... Seems quite alive to me.

> They will be hacked in 2017.

And, as I stated originally, I have no reason to think they will be unique in this.

<comment><USER41> I don't think there's any reasonable arguments left to defend Linode with.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10845278](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10845278)

There's a clear, undeniable pattern of incompetence here.

I also suggest reading this glassdoor review: [https://imgur.com/sJd56AT](https://imgur.com/sJd56AT)

And this thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11136743](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11136743)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I'm really curious to what people plan on doing with such insane amounts of ram.

Maybe it's possible to scale with just RAM! Fire up a uWSGI + Flask and up the RAM as traffic increases.

<comment><USER43> database servers, redis and memcached I'm guessing. All of which are basically designed to take a memory-time tradeoff.

<comment><USER44> Yes, this is what I use my high-memory servers for. Giant memcached and redis slabs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> AH! Linode! You used to have a $5/mo plan and you got rid of it. I found and switched to DO. I would have stuck with you but I only use it to mess about and 10$ was too steep. If you make it $5 Canadian I'll switch back.

<comment><USER32> It's $5 USD, just like Digital Ocean. If Digital Ocean works for you there's no reason to switch back. They're equal cost now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> In the past they kept changing their pricing. I was paying for the smallest one (static site and a few prototypes) around $150/yr. Then they advertised that per-use would be mandatory and cheaper for everyone. I kept the site there barelly receiving any hit, using 0% of cpu and network. Endedup paying well over $250 after 12 monthly charges.

<comment><USER47> Unless I'm mistaken, per-use means you aren't billed for the server when it's _powered down_.

If the server is up, even if you use 0% CPU, you're getting charged.

Per-use is a lot cheaper for people that spin up servers to meet demand and kill them once things slow down.

<comment><USER48> From Linode's FAQ:

"If My Linode is Powered Off, Will I Be Billed? If your Linode is powered off, but is still added as a service on your account, you will still be billed for it. This is because Linode maintains your saved data and reserves your ability to use other resources like RAM, transfer, etc. even when your Linode is powered off. You will be billed for any other active Linode service, such as Longview Pro or an extra IP, as well."

[0] [https://www.linode.com/docs/platform/billing-and- payments](https://www.linode.com/docs/platform/billing-and-payments)

<comment><USER32> "If I'm not in my hotel room will I still be charged? I was at a ball game for three hours! Also I wasn't in my apartment all weekend, can I get a partial refund?"

Seriously, people do not understand leasing and renting.

<comment><USER46> Question here is about they using the new model as a smoke curtain for the price hike.

All their marketing during the change was how it was cheaper. When it clearly was over double the price. And your argument is "it is cheaper if you are not using". So good luck going to a hotel and not booking any room so it can be cheaper.

<comment><USER47> It would never be cheaper for you because you want a single low-utilization server that's available 24/7.

It's only cheaper for companies that have lots and lots of servers, but most of them aren't provisioned most of the time.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What's the perfect length for online content? - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsvend.com/blog/169/whats-the-perfect-length-for-online-content

<comment><USER2> It depends..where and when I am accessing it. If thats on my handheld..it better be to the point, concise and small up to 100 words.

But When I am browsing and in the mode to read on desktop. It goes more than 900 words.</comment>


New Technology That Could Cut Public Restroom Wait Times - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewbender/2014/06/30/the-new-technology-that-could-cut-public-restroom-wait-times-by-50/

<comment><USER3> So... that thing they've always done on airplanes?

<comment><USER4> The planes don't show which restrooms are free, just that one or more are. I've been on a few flights where there are several people waiting, and no one is sure which are occupied since you can't see around corners or into other aisles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wasn't aware this was even something people worried about until I saw someone else doing a low-tech version of it a while back... [http://www.rgj.com/story/money/business/2014/02/19/-reno- inv...](http://www.rgj.com/story/money/business/2014/02/19/-reno-inventor- peep-no-more/5600733/)

</comment><comment><USER6> "New technology". You mean a light? Or a door slider?

<comment><USER7> To be fair, this falls very well into the "Internet of Things" category. Imagine this scenario: You're at a convention and looking for a bathroom - <USER2> the convention hall floor just closed and there's big lines everywhere. You have to choose: A. Wait in line B. Look for a less occupied bathroom

With this, you could look at a map with simple %'s and see not only average usage - but the exact occupation rate right now. You could then see that the Hall A's restroom is only at 50% capacity and head over there.

A similar technology could be employed for seating and room occupancy as well, telling you better break rooms or where all the crowds are. Wouldn't it be awesome if you knew your coworker was in her cubicle, even if she wasn't on the computer? Or if you're a building manager, you could note the number of people who use certain restrooms, hallways and meeting rooms and adjust accordingly to redirect traffic elsewhere.

Essentially, these sorts of things are what traffic engineers have been doing for a long time - but applied to people instead of cars.

<comment><USER8> I can't wait for the cluster analysis generated quest to find the 3 archetypal bathroom-user types.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _" Tooshlights can also collect data on restrooms' usage rates: for example, a consistently green light in a sea of red may tip off the maintenance crew that a loo is out of order or needs to be cleaned."_

This doesn't really clarify what happens with a stall that's out of order or in an, ahem, "unusable" state. In fact it sounds more confusing because now the person that was first wants to become first again and wait for another usable stall to open...

</comment><comment><USER10> Is that a troll post by Forbes? I am confused.

</comment><comment><USER11> Or just install cell-phone jammers in the restrooms...

</comment><comment><USER12> Fixing lights on doors is new technology?</comment>


Feynman's first paper (1939) - <AUTHOR> http://fermatslibrary.com/s/the-scattering-of-cosmic-rays-by-the-stars-of-a-galaxy <comment><USER2> Einstein's [http://myweb.rz.uni- augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein...](http://myweb.rz.uni- augsburg.de/~eckern/adp/history/einstein-papers/1901_4_513-523.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Translated English version can be found here[0].

[0]: [http://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/vol2-trans/15?ajax](http://einsteinpapers.press.princeton.edu/vol2-trans/15?ajax)

<comment><USER4> I'm not familiar with capillarity but if you are, and you have the time, I'm sure that fermat's library would love to add it with some historical remarks and annotations

<comment><USER5> Here's the wikipedia entry which also mentions Einstein's paper: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capillary_action](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capillary_action)

<comment><USER4> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Apart from the historical value of this submission, imagine nowadays a scientific paper starting with "Imagine...". Thanks for sharing!

<comment><USER7> To me it read more like a math text than a physics text, in which "let there be X...", "imagine Y...", and similar phrases, are usually found. Yet I agree, it seems the physics community has grown a slight alergy to that kind of writing, and it probably would be received with a bit of skpeticism/disdain nowadays.

<comment><USER6> And the same can be said about other communities, inc. computing and biology.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How were formulae typeset back then?

<comment><USER9> I might be wrong, but I believe they were handwritten in the submitted manuscripts then manually typeset by the publisher.

In Feynman's PhD thesis, all of the formulae are written in:

[http://cds.cern.ch/record/101498/files/Thesis-1942-Feynman.p...](http://cds.cern.ch/record/101498/files/Thesis-1942-Feynman.pdf)</comment></comment>


US federal appeals court reverses Galaxy Nexus sales ban - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/us-federal-appeals-court-reverses-galaxy-nexus-sales-ban/

<comment><USER2> Since there appears to be some confusion about what this means, I'll try and shed some light on it.

The first thing to understand is this is not an appeal involving the whole case. It's an appeal of the district court's decision to grant Apple a preliminary injunction ("the sales ban"). A preliminary injunction is a legal remedy where the defendant is enjoined (prevented) from engaging in some allegedly harmful conduct before the case is decided on the merits. A judge has the power to grant preliminary injunctions because in some cases, by the time a decision is reached the harm might have already been done. E.g. if you're complaining that some company is illegally dumping nuclear waste onto your property every week, you don't want the dumping to continue while the court decides whether it's legal. In that case, the judge has the discretion to grant you a preliminary injunction, which basically "freezes the status quo" pending the resolution of the case. Note a preliminary injunction will often involve some sort of bond requirement, requiring the plaintiff to post bond to compensate the defendant for any losses arising from the injunction in case the defendant wins.

The judge has discretion to grant a preliminary injunction, but is supposed to only do it when there would otherwise be "irreparable harm." This is what the appeal is about. The court said that the trial judge abused her discretion in granting the preliminary injunction because Apple had not proven irreparable harm. Apple claimed that they would lose market share if shipments were allowed to continue, and that was irreparable harm. What the court said was that unless Apple could prove that there was a "causal nexus" between Samsung infringing the patent and people buying Galaxy Nexus phones, there was no irreparable harm because of lost market share. In other words, Apple had to prove that people were buying Galaxy Nexus phones only because of the infringing patent. It wasn't sufficient to prove, for the purposes of evaluating irreparable harm, whether Samsung's infringement simply made the product more attractive than it would otherwise be.

Incidentally, the "abuse of discretion" language has a very specific meaning. It doesn't mean the judge didn't have the power to grant the injunction. Rather, it means the judge didn't grant the injunction on proper grounds. Generally, appeals courts do not review decisions wholesale ("de novo"). Instead, they give the trial judge a lot of latitude. The amount of latitude depends on the specific type of decision. Decisions that involve "judgment calls" about the sufficiency of evidence are given much more latitude than decisions that involve say an interpretation of statutory language. "Abuse of discretion" is a standard of reviewing a lower court decision that basically means the lower court decision will stand unless the appeals court decides that it was totally in left field. In this case, the appeals court said that granting the injunction was an abuse of discretion because the judge granted the injunction despite Apple's evidence being wholly insufficient to meet the legal requirements for granting the preliminary injunction. It wasn't just a difference in judgment where the appeals court thought the evidence was insufficient to establish irreparable harm but could see how the trial court thought it was sufficient. If that had been the case, the appeals court would have let the decision stand. Instead, the appeals court could see no way to justify the finding of irreparable harm.

<comment><USER3> > a preliminary injunction will often involve some sort of bond requirement

So depending on how large that is, it can say a bit about how serious Apple is about this stuff (or how deep their pockets are, maybe)? For anybody who's curious, like I was, the bond amount was $95,637,141.60 (~$95.6 million) [1]. Is Samsung now entitled to get some of that because of the unjustified preliminary junction? Or only if they win?

[1] <http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1221082/show_temp.pdf>

<comment><USER4> I would guess that because the appeals court decided that granting the injunction was decided by the judge on improper grounds, Apple doesn't have to lose the bond amount. Apple's claims were not proven wrong, but the judge made the wrong decision based on Apple's claims.

I am not a lawyer.

<comment><USER5> This is wrong.

I can't talk about this case specifically for various legal reasons, but:

In general these bonds are exactly to pay for lost sales due to a preliminary injunction that wasn't deserved. The injunction does not even become effective until the bond is posted. The only case you wouldn't recover is if the injunction wasn't upheld but you lost the lawsuit anyway, and even then, it depends on what "lost" means. This should be rare, since injunctions take into account "likelihood of success on the merits".

Additionally, if you win, it doesn't even matter whether the injunction was deserved at the time, you can still recover on the bond because you were enjoined from doing something you had the right to be doing.

As for whether it matters if it was the judges fault or Apple's fault: For patent cases like this, there are no grounds for reversing a preliminary injunction _except_ deciding it was an abuse of discretion (since that is the standard of review for this kind of injunction). So _all_ reversals are because it was granted improperly by the judge.

I am a patent attorney.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That is an interesting remand. This part stuck out for me:

 _"Having held that the district court's irreparable harm determination was an abuse of discretion, we would ordinarily refrain from addressing other issues. Here, however, it is in the interest of judicial economy that we address a limited aspect of the district court's likelihood of success analysis that may become important on remand — claim construction."_

(note this straddles page 12 and 13 of the PDF [1]) I am not a lawyer, I have dealt with many though, and I've dealt with them on patent cases. Reading this from the Appeals court is like Steve Jobs saying "Oh and one more thing." They say "we could have stopped here _but in the interest of judicial economy_ we'll add a bit more." I read that to mean the Federal Circuit disagrees with the _possible infringement_ of this patent in the first place. They go into a long discussion about what Apple is claiming, point out that Apple's legal construction is convoluted and then say,

 _"We hold that the district court's determination that 'each' modifies 'plurality of heuristic modules' is erroneous because it contravenes the plain terms of the claim. The word 'each' appears not before 'plurality of modules,' but inside the 'wherein' clause and before the phrase 'heuristic modules.'"_

This feels like the Federal Circuit telling Judge Koh she needs to go back and re-examine her whole line of reasoning on this patent.

[1] [http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/images/stories/opinions- orders/...](http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/images/stories/opinions- orders/12-1507.pdf)

<comment><USER5> Just to point out: You shouldn't read into the federal circuit from this opinion. This was a 3 judge panel out of 12 judges (well, 11, there is one vacant seat). They are likely trying to keep their docket sane by not having another appeal on this part of it.

I mainly say this because this is the same court that has brought you patentable DNA, etc.

If you wait a month, y'all will hate them again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Has anyone read the unified search patent enough to understand what's unique about it? For example, Windows NT4 shipped with unified search. It even had a plugin architecture so you could help it index new file formats. It was not enabled by default. You had to go turn it on.

<comment><USER8> Yes, they have. There is nothing unique about it.

But that's the case with most patent grants these days and usually is no bar to prosecution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Apple must show that consumers buy the Galaxy Nexus because it is equipped with the apparatus claimed in the '604 patent—not because it can search in general, and not even because it has unified search."

Wow, is this as big as I think it is?

Or is it just some technicality relating to the sales injunction that's not applicable to determination of infringement in general?

<comment><USER10> I found that a bit confusing as well. I wonder if the court was saying that a ban was inappropriate, and instead the remedy should have been something like a fine for every device sold that infringed (until such infringement was removed)?

<comment><USER11> A big point seems to be that people buy neither an iPhone nor a Galaxy Nexus specifically for their search abilities, regardless of how much Apple wanted to advertise Siri in court.

<comment><USER10>
      > A big point seems to be that people buy neither an iPhone nor a Galaxy Nexus specifically for their search abilities

I agree.

 _Assume_ infringement of something, lets say a patented chemical in particular competitors dog food. If the court claims it is not a 'causal nexus' (people don't buy the dog food for the chemical), and that if preventing the competitor from selling the dogfood was not appropriate (no causal nexus) then I guess the remaining "relief" would be entirely monetary?

If the infringement continued after a finding, maybe it would become willful at some point meaning higher fines?

      > , regardless of how much Apple wanted to advertise Siri in court.

I don't see how this portion of your comment is relevant.

<comment><USER12> Because Siri is Apple's answer to search on an iPhone, or at least thats's how I interpreted it.

<comment><USER13> iOS has had unified search prior to Siri. (iOS 3)

<comment><USER12> Yes but search is Google (and android's) defining feature. You could make the argument that Siri is the same for iOS.

<comment><USER13> Not really. Siri wasn't introduced until iOS 5, and even then, would only run on one version of the 3 (3GS/4/4S) iPhones that could run iOS 5.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So this is the second humiliating reversal of a ban for Judge Lucy Koh in a matter of months. I wonder how much impact it has on your professional career as a judge when you keep making high profile decisions that have to be overturned / rescinded a few months later?

<comment><USER15> Actually, companies that want a product banned might want to go to her because she will likely hand out an injunction than other judges.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> So a little good news: It seems there must still be a pocket of objectivity somewhere between the provincial foolishness of a jury and the largely political decisions made by the Supreme Court.

</comment><comment><USER17> Funny that it came down to a question of "causal nexus."

<comment><USER18> I hear the HTC Causal Nexus is going to be announced at the end of the month.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> You can't stop the Android steam roller. It's Windows vs Mac circa 1987 all over again

<comment><USER11> Based on this prognostication, what do you expect to happen next?

Have you shorted appropriately?

<comment><USER20> This comes up all the time, and it's still extremely risky advice. Even if you're right, a margin call on your short position could bankrupt you before you win. You're gambling you know just how irrational the market is being.

<comment><USER21> As Keynes said "Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm glad they called out judge Koh's abuses. She should be called out for the ones in the Apple vs Samsung trial as well (the other one).

</comment><comment><USER23> Regardless of position on this subject, it seems like I am constantly reading about how verdict X was overturned in some appeals court or such. The effect on me is to feel less like US law is remotely sane and more whoever can come up with the latest psuedo-philosophical circle jerk angle and still stay financially solvent.</comment>


Alexis Ohanian: hustle porn is one of the most toxic dangerous things in tech - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/reddit-alexis-ohanian-hustle-porn-toxic-dangerous-thing-in-tech-2018-11 <comment><USER2> Don't listen to successful people.

They don't have the problems that you have.</comment>


Welcome Alexis - <AUTHOR> http://ycombinator.posterous.com/welcome-alexis <comment><USER2> Alexis is one of the most positive and helpful people in the startup community I know. He drew the original logo for Justin.tv, helped us on numerous occasions, and has even tried to launch my voice acting career (a long time dream of mine). Why is he so helpful? Because at heart, Alexis is a great guy who is genuinely interested in helping others.

This is a huge win for YC!

<comment><USER3> Thanks, Jkan. I've always felt your open-source reddit announcement is one day going to launch that voiceacting career.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo4O4T-7BiE>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Anyone on the East Coast thinking of applying to YC should feel free to ask him any questions they have about YC or the application process."

How? Is there an email address?

Hopefully the answer isn't obvious and I've missed it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oops, yes, just added that to the post.

firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER4> Sweet, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is YC planning on hiring similar "evangelists" for other places in the world? I'm wondering about Israel, specifically.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hadn't thought about it. The main reason we did this now was that we wanted to hire Alexis, and he wanted to live in NYC.

<comment><USER6> I know there's several of us here in Boston that are excited about this!

<comment><USER7> Agreed. Alexis should come speak at Hackers and Founders Boston in October re: applying to YC :).

<comment><USER8> Yes! Maybe the startup bootcamp organizers can snatch him as a speaker as well, or at least at the H&F meetup that evening. I'm officially offering a ride in exchange for some roadtrip company/advice giving

<comment><USER6> He actually spoke there last year, you can watch it online here: <http://alexisohanian.com/my-recent-talk-mit-startup-bootcamp>

<comment><USER3> How can I say no to this? I'm getting in touch with the organizers for this year's Startup Bootcamp. I'll have to fly back that night, though, but it can work...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Alexis as our Ambassador to the East and Steve (with Hipmunk) in the summer batch-- needless to say I am bursting with joy.

</comment><comment><USER5> More discussion on the other thread:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1653134>

</comment><comment><USER10> "Ambassador to the East" sounded a little like East as in Beijing :: at first, and perhaps only to English ears.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is deliberately medievally grandiose. It goes with his name.

<comment><USER3> Though, I do love travelling...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Will Alexis' ambassadorship include Canadian hubs like Toronto, Montreal, Waterloo, etc at some point?

<comment><AUTHOR> Come to think of it, that would be a good idea. So probably yes.

<comment><USER11> That is excellent to hear. Startup culture is flourishing here and hopefully holds a lot of promise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Ah, so HN _is_ becoming like Reddit after all. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER13> Welcome! You will make this place better.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! I'm aiming to just make it suck a little less ;)

<comment><USER14> Aiming for better would be better ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Lots of good news for us NY folks today.

</comment><comment><USER16> Congrats kn0thing!

</comment><comment><USER17> Yay!

</comment><comment><USER18> Welcome.</comment>


Things I Didn't Know When I Started Dating An Entrepreneur - <AUTHOR> http://www.everywhereist.com/15-things-i-didnt-know-when-i-started-dating-an-entrepreneur/

<comment><USER2> This is a wonderful story. And these are two very luck people, and one hopes for them that they continue to appreciate their relationship.

While it seems a bit tangential, I am reminded of a saying about the best person to marry a rancher is the daughter of a rancher. (This is a corollary to the best person to be a rancher is the son of a rancher.) Children of ranchers know what to expect in that harsh life. The author here apparently has figured it out realtime.

(For a first person description of being a rancher's daughter and a strong take on the feminist aspects there of, check out _Breaking Clean_ by Judy Blunt.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Rand sounds very lucky.</comment>


Ask HN: Not yet published – should it be at all, HN? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@neroux/417c7fdab282 <comment><USER2> I read it on HN. It is already published. My thoughts.

1\. Shorter.

2\. Outline like a technical document. It's about Apache more than robots.

3\. The robots.com sockpuppet laying on a keyboard is the wrong direction for an article. Maybe it's fine for a conference talk, to add visual interest, here it's just in the way in a readers way. Conference talks are one form of exhibitionism and narcissism. Writing is a different form.

4\. Put yourself in the article by telling your story. That's the other arc -- the non-technical literary one. It's more interesting than sarcasm. Even a reader with dial-up can get that anywhere.

5\. Don't use numbered lists.

5\. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Temporarily published, unless someone made a copy ;)

Thanks a lot for your input. Actually already pretty short for an average Medium article. As for 2) its about recognising patters in HTTP, not so much about Apache. You can apply such rules with most other servers as well.

As for one of the fives, wasnt there something about sarcasm, bullet points and vandalism ....

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Does it matter if it's published?

BTW, checking for the referer header content will cause some browsers to fail, depending on the mode. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer#Referer_hiding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_referer#Referer_hiding) , which lists some of the reasons for why a browser might send a blank value.

The check that the User Agent contains "Mozilla 5.0" will cause text-mode users (eg, links) to fail. While not popular, I use links to download some tar.gz files from sourceforge and a few other places because it's easier to start the download that way than get the actual download URL through a graphical browser.</comment>


Why Non-engineers Think Engineers Are Better Off Joining Startups - <AUTHOR> http://dbasch.posterous.com/why-non-engineers-think-engineers-are-better

<comment><USER3> We've done polls here on HN before of where people work. A significant percentage of the HN community work for companies that are not startups.

Sometimes even just reading on HN about people who are succeeding (or persisting) with their side projects or about successful startup founders or failed startup founders is enough to release the tension (momentarily) - <USER2> jump from a certain 9 to 5 reality to very real world of a real start-up.

The ability to leave your job at 5pm is very much a benefit, one that 99% of startups will never offer.

That being said, you will never become wealthy[1] without ownership of something that produces income. That will almost never happen at a BigCo. My mom had multiple patents - for which she got a nice lucite paperweight [2]

[1] My definition of wealthy == How long you can maintain your current, preferred lifestyle without working. This means building a semi-passive/semi- active income from your own products. Binging on consulting income isn't the same. Yes, you can adjust your preferred lifestyle to meet median cash flows.

[2] Example from the "Corporate & IP Recognition Company" (LOL)

<http://aztecawards.com/clear-lucite-silver-plate-sq12.html>

<comment><USER4> I think you can certainly reach certain levels of wealth only be selling a company you own. But, I am not sure joining a startup you don't own doesn't give you a hugely better chance of wealth. Especially if you are not one of the first 5 employees or some very high position. Let's say you have the skills to be a VP Engineering of a startup or a engineering manager at Google.

Let's be generous and say you get there after a series A and make 100k/year startup and get ~.5% ownership subject to dilution. Compared to that Google job making 175k a year plus bonus and stock options. Let's be conservative and say total compensation of 200k. In 5 years you are forgoing $500,000 + any return on asset you made. That startup has to sell for $10 million without taking any more investment for it to be worth it.

Obviously this is possible, but it's not clear which one is better off most of the time. Like the article says- do a startup if you want to do one. Not if you want to get rich. If you want to get rich go be a quant at a hedge fund.

<comment><USER5> Eric Schmidt has never started a company. He's the 129th richest person in the world:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Schmidt>

<comment><USER6> He doesn't say its impossible, so one example doesn't refute, or even respond to his statement. Not only is the plural of anecdote not data, neither is the singular.

<comment><USER5> "I think you can certainly reach certain levels of wealth only be selling a company you own"

Only - "Alone in kind or class"

Sure sounds like he said it was impossible to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Good times are better for working at startups for one reason - switching costs are lower. When you know that if $employer runs out of cash but you can find another job in a week, there's very little risk involved as a startup engineer.

That said, as an engineer being a startup "employee" is a sucker's game. You'll never get enough equity or intangibles to compensate for the risk/effort/opportunity cost.

<comment><USER8> "That said, as an engineer being a startup "employee" is a sucker's game. You'll never get enough equity or intangibles to compensate for the risk/effort/opportunity cost."

As someone that just left a startup I couldn't agree more...

<comment><USER7> So what's your plan now? :)

<comment><USER9> I would sell the equity and invest it in a six pack of socks. Honestly, I think anyone working for a startup should continually re-evaluate their commitment to the vision every 3-4 months. If it pains you to see where things are going you're better off cutting lose. I've seen people waste 4 years at a startup only to leave empty handed.

It can be very much like a gambler's dilemma. The more time/money you invest the harder it becomes to walk away. Eventually they realize they've stayed not because they agree with the vision, but because they don't want to cut their losses.

One such startup I know of is going 10 years strong. I think the VCs are in the same situation as the former coworker I mentioned; throwing good money after bad.

<comment><USER10> wow. I want to upvote this 100 times - you basically describe my exact situation.

I'm leaving a startup next month. I'm in a senior position so it was a very difficult decision to make in addition to what you said about the time invested / gambler's dilemma.

But in the end, like you said, I just don't agree with the direction the company is going - whilst at the same time I have no doubt that the company will continue to successfully raise VC, for the exact reasons you describe.

In a nutshell, get out of my mind, sir!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "and then build a crappy, I-hope-nobody-sees-this-code prototype."

And it'll end up being 'production' code because "we already have it and they already paid for it!". And the crappier it is, the longer it will remain in production and the harder everyone will fight against rebuilding it to be not crappy.

<comment><USER12> That's why I quit my job at a big corporation (not a classic IT behemoth, though) and will start working at a startup in two weeks.

The code there sucked - and most coders did, too.

<comment><USER13> I hope you aren't expecting startup code to be a lot better. Not only will startup code tend to be crappy, but you run into a _ton_ of people (managers and coders alike) who will all but insist that your code be a certain level of crappy. In other words, if you write good code, then you've spent too much time on it and should have moved on to the next project.

I don't mean to give you the impression that your new job is going to suck. If you chose the right startup, you're going to have an awesome time. But I also think it's important to be realistic.

<comment><USER14> Is this such a bad thing? Engineers often have a tendency to to focus too much on writing 'good code', and forget the bigger picture of what they're working on. Technical debt is a real issue, but it's something to manage, not eliminate. I'd much rather be in a place where most engineers have at least half a pragmatic eye on products, features, and ux rather than only caring about code quality and the elegance of their algorithms. Yeah, it can also be good to have a few of those code quality sticklers around to keep everyone honest, but they shouldn't be running things or setting the tone.

I think a big part of the reason a management tier is needed at all in a lot of smaller companies is the general unwillingness of engineers to sacrifice code purity for expediency.

<comment><USER13> And I think the need for engineers in smaller companies is the unwillingness of management to sacrifice expediency for purity. :-)

Regardless, that's beside my point. It sounded like the person I responded to wanted to work on better code, so I was just pointing out that startups aren't necessarily any better in that respect. I'll leave it to him to determine how good or bad that is as I'd really rather not get involved in this old debate again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "You will have stability. If you are hired by Oracle or Google [...] chances are you'll be able to work on this specific problem for long enough to accomplish something."

Large companies change all the time. Departments are merged, strategies are changed and projects are stopped constantly. I think this point isn't valid.

<comment><USER16> Engineers aren't fired just because a project is cancelled. Generally speaking jobs are safer than startups.

I agree the point isn't valid, though, but I think yours isn't, either.

<comment><USER17> I work at one of the national labs. Almost everyone on my floor is an ME (I'm an EE, but I'm writing code). The majority party in this Congress hates what we do (renewable energy) and thus it is extremely likely that a large part of our budget will get cut next fiscal year. So in our case, lots of engineers will get fired when our projects get canceled. Partisan bickering might not get a budget passed before the fiscal year starts (October 1), but I'm saving money and paying off debts, just in case.

<comment><USER18> Sounds like NASA, constantly in limbo because of political disagreement. What's the public line though on wanting to cut money from renewable energy, one of the targeted for being "more efficient" in funding?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The argument seems to be BigCorp vs. startup. You can also work in a relatively sane, small-to medium sized stable business.

<comment><USER20> In terms of the points cited in the article, there's not that much difference between BigCorp and a SME. Both would pay similar salaries and have stable long-term roles for engineers, which I think were the author's points.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have to say I'm a bit surprised by the sentiment favoring working at big companies among the majority of comments here.

One possible explanation: 1) Statistically, most engineers work for big companies. 2) By human nature, people tend to stick to their current jobs, most likely a big company job.

Here is a related thread at Quora: [http://www.quora.com/If-I-want-to-be-an- entrepreneur-later-s...](http://www.quora.com/If-I-want-to-be-an-entrepreneur- later-should-I-now-work-for-a-large-company-or-a-startup)

</comment><comment><USER16> The sad thing is, most engineers are constantly in information-gathering mode, putting them in the front of the hype.

Any logical being would play with the idea of financial freedom. And it is unlikely in a "regular job."

<comment><USER22> _Any logical being would play with the idea of financial freedom. And it is unlikely in a "regular job."_

Not like it's likely in a startup.

<comment><USER16> Anything greater than zero is more likely in my book. Most startups can't be automated, though, so are all the jobs. An automated startup equals freedom though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I have no idea if there is a specific non-engineer that this post is talking about. The author of the referenced techcrunch article Bindu Reddy is certainly not a non-engineer : <http://www.crunchbase.com/person/bindu-reddy>

It also seems to me that this post is criticizing two sentences out of the entire article (<http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/13/engineers-startups/>) without properly understanding them with rest of the context. All this article is saying is that due to the market warming up, now is a good time for engineers to work at a start up.

That said, I agree with the point that dbasch is trying to make even though I don't think that they needed to be presented as a 'rebuttal'.

<comment><USER24> All this article is saying is that due to the market warming up, now is a good time for engineers to work at a large company.

Both of these are true, so the real fact is that now is a good time to be an engineeer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> "it would _never_ cross my mind to make a blanket statement that all engineers should work at startups" --> I completely agree. In fact, such blanket statements about almost any kind of advice is often naive.

<comment><USER26> I think it is more to make a point: <http://www.paulgraham.com/discover.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Totally agree with a lot of the points you brought up. There are pluses to working at large companies, and many people are happy there. I left Google to work for myself and then joined a startup, and couldn't be happier. Wrote a response as well and included your post: <http://www.jeanhsu.com/?p=247>

<comment><USER28> I think Jean's post helpfully encapsulates the value of this discussion: that engineers (and non-engineers!) should certainly consider startups in general as an employment, educational, and financial experience that at a base level (say, in the context of a well-funded startup) will probably at least rival work in a larger corporate setting.

But, as lylanm also points out below, perhaps the larger point is that there's not much merit in comparing the prospect of work at an abstract startup versus the prospect of work at an abstract large corporation --- especially if you don't have an offer from either.

Whether you're looking for a first job or just a new job, it's certainly worth exploring whether a particular startup might be a better fun+financial+whatever fit for you than another opportunity that's been extended to you at a particular established company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The "why" question wasn't answered in the actual article.

It was a reasonable debunking of a deplorable TC article, but I was really interested in the difference in mindset.</comment>


Those annoying "Rate this app" dialogs - <AUTHOR> http://www.marco.org/2011/05/05/apps-prompting-for-reviews

<comment><USER2> For information here is one of these dialogs: <http://arashpayan.com/blog/2009/09/07/presenting-appirater/>

This is quite configurable and you can decide to show the dialog only after a given amount of time and a number of uses. This makes sure that the user has used the app quite a bit.

Interestingly, users reacts quite well to this. If it annoys them they can discard this dialog and they would waste less time than by putting a 1-star review as a "punition".

This is especially helpful because updates reset the number of reviews displayed on the App Store. So you can drop for hundreds of 4-5* reviews to a few reviews just because you fixed a bug in an update.

</comment><comment><USER3> Marco (or rather Instapaper) is not the garden variety app. I have noticed that many apps, especially games, launch as free in order to garner reviews, and then switch to paid later. Some sites (eg. AppAdvice) will not promote free apps unless they have at least three stars, so I can see why the developers feel the need to beg for a rating.

That said, the chances that I will stop in the middle of doing something to exit the app in order to rate it are pretty low.

Conversely, there have been occasions when, having finished with a game, I have looked for a "rate this app" button and couldn't find it. Unless the app/game is exceptional, I may not take the time to go to the App store, search for the App, yada yada, in order to rate it. I suggest every app should have a "Rate this App" on its main menu.

Even better, I wish there was an API that would allow developers to ask me to rate an app in-app, without having to start up the App-Store.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't agree with Marco's logic here, but I'm glad that he acknowledges that most people won't remember to go review an app. I think the best solution is to prompt users who consistently use the app for some long time period (30 days, maybe?). I agree that apps that ask for a review as soon as or soon after you load them the first or second time are extremely annoying ("I haven't even gotten to use this, how am I supposed to know what to say about it?!"), but I don't think there's anything intrinsic about a dialog box that makes it annoying if it's timed well. I often enjoy when an app asks me to review it after using it consistently a couple of times, and it _improves_ my conception of the app. Anyway, here are the two main points I disagree with:

I think he's greatly exaggerating the hassle of a single dialog box appearing when someone loads Instapaper. The quote he opens with describes leaving a review prompted by one of these dialog boxes as interrupting your flow; it really doesn't. If you don't want to review the app, then you hit "no thanks," and that's it; if you want to review the app, but need to use the app right now, then you hit "remind me later"; if you want to review the app, and this happens to be a convenient time for you, then you hit "review." Sure, this is annoying if you're perpetually hitting the "remind me later," but that means that user _really wants to review the app_ but doesn't have time; if they want to review the app that much, then they probably find it a feature to be reminded! At the very least, perpetually seeing the dialog could make them no longer want to review the app, but I don't think it would hurt their image of the app as a whole at all. And if you don't want to review the app, which is probably a large portion of users, then you hit "no thanks," and that's the end of it; is that really that inconvenient? A one-time dialog box that's easily dismissed? This reminds me of when I worked on a team last summer rewriting <https://weather.torproject.org/>, and we spent hours discussing/arguing amongst ourselves and with members of the Tor project whether it was okay to send _one_ email to Tor router operators describing Tor Weather or if router operators would be annoyed by the spam. It was my personal opinion that this was a very silly waste of time, since very few people would see _one useful email targeted at a specific group of people_ as spam. Things start to look like spam when they reappear or show up in your inbox when you have no interest in it. If you're a Tor router operator, you'd probably like to know about a service that tracks the status of your router. I digress, because Tor users (especially users interested enough to run their own routers) seemed to be particularly sensitive to receiving spam, so our decision to not email the list of operators describing the service for the most part made sense given the audience. The point is: are owners of an iPhone or iPad on average going to be _that_ annoyed by a single dialog if they don't want to see it? If they do want to see it, they find it useful; if they don't, they close it. Is closing a single dialog box that painful? Really? Also, when you start to describe your app as a great product, you have to start comparing it to other apps that your audience uses. Say all their other apps use dialog boxes to prompt for reviews. Are they really going to think of Instapaper as that much better and solid of an app because it's the one app that didn't ask for a review? I agree that it does seem classier, in theory, to not beg your users for a review, but does any end user who doesn't read Marco's blog ever get that impression? I certainly didn't until I read this post. I use Instapaper a ton, and I love it. But I never realized it didn't ask for a review. I only notice when I'm asked for a review, not when I'm not. So many apps ask for reviews now that expecting your users to remember which apps _haven't_ asked for reviews is basically idiotic to expect of anyone.

Not everyone who buys his app searches for the app by name because they heard the app was so great and is going to buy it without question. Whether Marco wants to admit it or not, he _does_ have competition in the form of ReadItLater (I don't know about in the iPad space, but at least in the iPhone space). It is completely reasonable that a user would, having heard about the two products, compare the reviews/ratings on the App Store before committing and buying one or the other. Personally, I tried both apps before deciding which one I was going to use, but I don't think most people care that much. Also, this is especially important since ReadItLater has a free version. Users who can't decide can try RIL for free, but they have to pay $5 ($2 more than RIL Pro) to even get a glimpse at Instapaper; if Instapaper's reviews aren't better than RIL's, then why would they ever do that?

</comment><comment><USER5> From what I've heard these Rate My App dialogs help drive a lot of ratings (which, in turn, helps sales). Most of the people who like an app won't go to the trouble of rating it otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER6> Those dialog boxes are a double edged sword. If I really like the app then I will go and leave a positive rating in the App Store (Tiny Wings is one example). On the other hand, there was one app that explicitly requested that I rate it 5 stars (and there were a few other annoyances), so I gave it one star. Normally I'd just ignore or delete the app if it's bad, but if you pop up something and ask me to rate it, you better be prepared for the consequences.

<comment><USER7> "Normally I'd just ignore or delete the app if it's bad"

I think the popups are counting on this. People who have used an app "n" times probably have a favourable view of it, which is why they are being prompted to rate it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This piece is devoid of actual reasoning and data (some will say content). It does however state Marco's philosophy towards how he treats users.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yes. I really dislike those dialogs. I wouldn't mind something within the app that had a link to rate it, maybe on a menu, in the settings, possibly even a _much_ more subtle reminder that showed up somewhere else while I was using the app, but interrupting me with a modal is like a waiter asking for a tip in the middle of a meal at a nice restaurant.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've handled it that after 10 openings of an app the dialog is shown. The assumption I use is that after 10th time user kinda finds it useful. Anyway, 92 4 and 5 star reviews, of total 98 seems to confirm my assumption.

</comment><comment><USER11> I automatically deduct a star from the rating of any app that asks me to rate it in an annoying way. It has made 5-star apps get a 4-star rating from me a few times now.

</comment><comment><USER12> You don't have to worry about exiting an app in webOS in order to leave a review.

</comment><comment><USER13> So when you are just starting out with app development, like me, you have almost 0 network. Maybe I can get a friend to install an app, that's it. So you've got to bootstrap yourself up (I'm learning this as I go).

So far I've found that at $0.99 I am lucky to get 1-2 sales a day. However, on my first app that was kind of experimental, I made it free and immediately got 255 downloads that day, and it leveled off to about 25 a day after a week. Still not great, but at least 25x install base.

So the next step is figuring out how to make an app start to build a network. One big part of this is ratings. I can't make a free app purchase-only until it has word of mouth. This needs ratings.

For the 2nd app I just released, I have baked in a "Please review me" that only fires after 3 days, Facebook and Twitter sharing. I launched it free. I'm working on a Twitter campaign to get people to know about it.

I agree with Marco that with an expensive app, it might be annoying. But its really not that annoying (as long as you only ask once), and its a critical tool for developers trying to bootstrap.

(Shameless self-plug, here's a link to the app. Its iOS only. [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wolfpack-hangover-part- ii/id4...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wolfpack-hangover-part- ii/id434305090?mt=8))</comment>


Writing letters with Emoji - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tolgahanuzun/EmojiType <comment><AUTHOR> The writing helps to express as emoji. It was created to create short, funny scripts.</comment>


Develop native apps using Go, HTML and CSS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/murlokswarm/app <comment><USER2> If the author is here, for context can you describe a little bit about how this matches up with similar tech?

<comment><USER3> I too am curious & wonder how this compares with Electron.</comment></comment>


Spotify ads infect users with malware - <AUTHOR> https://community.spotify.com/t5/Ongoing-Issues/Spotify-Free-ads-causes-browser-to-launch-on-malware-virus/idi-p/1461222 <comment><USER2> I'm not sure how much I believe this unless I see video proof (or have it happen on my machine).

I see how this might be possible as the ads are loaded via javascript, but the javascript running the ads should be owned by Spotify, not the advertising company, that should just be an image file. Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong.

On another note, this statement "Some of them do not even require user action to be able to cause harm." makes me trust this even less. If the ad is opening a new browser window, that browser window is sandboxed. Sure it can ask the user to take an action, but it can't take an action on behalf of the user.

Anybody else have insights on this?

<comment><USER3> >"Some of them do not even require user action to be able to cause harm." makes me trust this even less. If the ad is opening a new browser window, that browser window is sandboxed. Sure it can ask the user to take an action, but it can't take an action on behalf of the user.

Google "drive-by download" and see how that is precisely what can happen. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive- by_download](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive-by_download)

" Any download that happens without a person's knowledge, often a computer virus, spyware, malware, or crimeware.[1]

Drive-by downloads may happen when visiting a website, viewing an e-mail message or by clicking on a deceptive pop-up window:"

Personally I would never trust that anything browser related is truly sandboxed. If that were the case, why would I need anti malware scanners and tools?

This is, by the way, another reason why I use adblock and noscript. So that when I visit a site for the first time, nothing active element related will automatically run. So, in this case, even if the ads from spotify open my webbrowser and a tap to a malicious site, I would just close it and be done with it. It is still weird why an ad should have the ability to call an open url command at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >it will launch - and keep on launching - the default internet browser on the computer

>it's still puzzling something like this can actually happen.

I think the interesting thing is that its the default browser. If the ads were in an embedded trident or gecko frame, would something like window.open open the default browser?</comment>


Ask HN: Do CSS expert write most of the things on their own? - <AUTHOR>

I am trying to learn CSS and am thinking whether everyone writes most of the css own their own.
If not, what frameworks do they use?
I know of one: bootstrap.
In other words, how would an expert go about building a responsive beautiful website like, https://www.lily.camera/ <comment><USER2> If you're just learning I think you're better off without using a full framework like Bootstrap or Foundation. This is the time where you should be doing more of the leg work to understand how the different properties work, how the cascade works, the different methods to aligning elements (what a grid system would typically take care of for you), etc. Looks at sites like CSS Zen Garden or CSS Tricks to help you along your journey.

Now, as for whether those with more experience write their own or not, it's usually a compromise between what that expert thinks is ideal, what the team he's working with believes is ideal and what's actually necessary for the project.

To me the ideal is doing almost everything from scratch, minus resets like Normalize or grids like Foundation's – and just the grid – because they are done very well already. However past that I know I'll run into roadblocks immediately trying to fit the look & feel into those frameworks and still be leftover with a bunch of cruft I don't need. I can also write my selectors in a more maintainable fashion which will lead to less debugging headaches and scalabilities issues down the road.

</comment><comment><USER3> Thats not a great website IMHO. Anyway you use frameworks for base styles, to assist you in setting up the ground work.

For example, reset and grid styles. Bootstrap is quite bloated but you can mix and match and use whatever you like.

If you are learning then just use reset style sheet [http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/](http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/)

and work out rest yourself.

</comment><comment><USER4> I get paid to do css. If you write your own CSS for a while, get used to the syntax and solving certain problems that popup. display:block and position:relative for example are always things I try when something doesn't behave. Then make sure you are able to code around bootstraps constraints and defaults. bootstrap is very popular. I tend to do smaller sites where performance / downloads isn't an issue even on mobile. For a site with a lot more users, people can optimize all day and it will all be worth it. If you can get very familiar with bootstrap out of the box you can start to rip out the things you won't / never use.

one way I deviate from a lot of the popular frontend trends is I don't really like using preprocessors (LESS SASS) for projects. I totally get the benefits but the drawbacks of confusion within a collaborative environment offset the benefits. My experience, teams of coders have various skills and build processes and have to pick up slack across many projects, I don't want to enforce another level of abstraction unless I'm certain it will pay off for everybody and be easy to get going. So far, I see enough drawbacks that regular CSS is better when you're out for the week sick, or bringing on some outside help for overflow work.

But if you've got a small team and every one agrees on it and can and will back each other up with that same process, have at it. I've never met those people though.

</comment><comment><USER5> Bootstrap/Foundation can be great when you don't know a lot and need something that is acceptable now. However, from a gaining experience point of view, those frameworks can get kind of complicated and trying to figure out how some effect is being achieved can be very difficult. I've found there's a certain level of skill you have to get to before you can actually use those frameworks to learn new techniques. When you get to that point, they can be great vehicles for learning how to do certain things.

I'm currently using foundation with SASS[0], Compass[1], and Susy[2]. I only take certain parts from Foundation as I need them. Foundation is built on top of SASS so it's easy to pull out parts of the framework. I can say that using a css preprocessor (SASS/LESS[3]) has really made a big difference in the speed I develop and the maintainability of my css. To directly answer your question:

>>In other words, how would an expert go about building a responsive beautiful website like, [https://www.lily.camera/](https://www.lily.camera/)

They probably use a preprocessor like SASS or LESS and either build it from scratch or take parts from different frameworks that they need and mix and match. Looking at their html source, they're not using a framework directly, but they could still be using one with their css preprocessor which is compiling down to their production css. Also, there's a good bit of javascript going on in that site as well. Hope this helps.

[0] [http://sass-lang.com/](http://sass-lang.com/) [1] [http://compass- style.org/](http://compass-style.org/) [2] [http://susy.oddbird.net/](http://susy.oddbird.net/) [3] [http://lesscss.org/](http://lesscss.org/)

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't know if I'd consider myself an "expert," but I'm certainly advanced.

Using frameworks is the way to start, as it's one of the quickest ways to understand how things can be set up. What I found, however, is that very quickly you will outgrow frameworks. They tend to become more of a constraint than they help when you're working on more advanced things. When you reach that point, you'll probably start to piece together your own favorite snippets into something that works for you - grids, resets, etc.

So pretty much what eswat mentioned above. Just go into it with the impression that everything in a framework is a suggestion, and learn as much as you can, with the idea that you'll be doing it your own way soon enough. Later, you can get into things like BEM, or OOCSS, or SMACSS.

</comment><comment><USER7> I am not expert front-end coder, but I like to meddle with front-end.

Bootstrap and Foundation are huge and terrible for load times. Moreover, most websites built with Foundation and Bootstrap look the same.

I usually choose grid systems like simplegrid or skeleton and build up from there.

</comment><comment><USER8> Not sure if I'm an expert, but I've been employed as a web designer. I don't mess with bootstrap. It's a great tool for prototyping aplications, which is what it was made for. But few websites are going to use everything in bootstrap, and most will need additional styles. It's easier to just start from scratch.

</comment><comment><USER9> I handcode all my CSS, but freely admit it is a bit of a mess and needs some TLC or a rewrite.

I'd start off with the Skeleton [http://getskeleton.com/](http://getskeleton.com/) and build up from there.

</comment><comment><USER10> > In other words, how would an expert go about building a responsive [...] > website

I'd really like to know what I need to take a regular WWW 1.0 website (html 4.01 strict) and make it at least vaguely responsive to mobile screens.

<comment><USER11> I think it depends on the site. I would say that usually, you just need to put percentage width on your elements so they fit the screen size all the time.

Add some media queries to change the % depending of the screen/window size, and maybe hide/add some elements so it is more readable.</comment></comment>


Google Displaying Ad Click Count [Image] - <AUTHOR> http://www.investorinme.com/images/google_clicks.png

<comment><USER2> A/B testing the effect of social proof!

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a pretty interesting idea, I haven't seen this before.</comment></comment>


CEOs Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos,Sundar Pichai Testify Before House - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1s1uWo1_bzg <comment><USER2> I don't understand why everyone gets so excited of this dog and pony show. The executives show up before congress, they get grilled with a bunch of questions, but what is the real change that comes out of this process?

I could certainly be very wrong, but this just seems like a circus act. Everyone is going to express their outrage but will there be an real change?

Will Apple have its 30% cut of app-store sales changed?

Will google stop showing google results at the top?

Will google be forced to actually not show ads on trademarked brands for their competitors?

<comment><USER3> > I don't understand why everyone gets so excited of this dog and pony show.

Because it is very entertaining.

<comment><USER2> Ahh !! ok.

I just wanted to make sure that it was purely for entertainment and I wasn't missing something about the bigger picture here. =]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This act seems like it's 1% about holding big tech _accountable_ or whatever, and 99% about stoking anti-big-tech rhetoric that the authoritarians in congress will try to harness into support for EARN IT and other surveillance bills.

Tech giants aren't angels, and ideally should reduce some of their anti- competition practices, but I don't think that's what this is really about.

</comment><comment><USER5> Was Mark Zuckerberg already on? I'm most excited what he has to say.

Edit: This is hilarious, clueless congressman don't know what platform he is talking about. Trump Jr. was banned on Twitter and he asks Zuckerberg why he banned him.

<comment><USER6> > Was Mark Zuckerberg already on?

All of them are on at once, and the congresspeople can choose who to target with questions. It's wild.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "We do not want to become the arbiters of truth. That would be a bad position to be in." -Zuck

<comment><USER8> Wikipedia too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is there an edited version with the best bits? I really don't want to have to wade through five hours and twenty minutes of it. What video conferncing solution did they use. Not Zoom, cause the Chinese could be bugging it. Lastly, who is this dude?

[https://i.ibb.co/BZN1qZr/white-black.png](https://i.ibb.co/BZN1qZr/white- black.png)

</comment><comment><USER10> The delays in the video feeds and bad quality is bit ironic...

<comment><USER11> It's over WebEx I believe. So a bit less ironic.</comment></comment>


Climate change policy can be overwhelming. Here's a guide to policies that work - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/11/16/18096352/climate-change-clean-energy-policies-guide <comment><USER2> Don't do what Australia is doing: force the poor to subsidise rich people's solar and wind power, tripling the price of power which is driving industry the poor rely on for jobs, offshore. Wealthy people should step up and pay for the full cost of their expensive, unreliable power and absorb the cost, reducing their profits.</comment>


EMT Automation Smart Pump controller A better alternative to floating switch - <AUTHOR> https://everymantechnologies.com <comment><AUTHOR> Every Man technologies is a solutions company that build hardware solutions. We noticed the stress associated with pumping water to your home water tank especially in areas where power is very unstable like in most parts of Nigeria, where also access to clean reliable water is unavailable as most homes depend on bore holes or reservoirs. We built a smart pump controller that automatically detects when the water in the tank is low and start pumping water automatically, then stops the pumping machine when the tank is full. The device also protects the pumping machine from power surges that are capable of destroying the pumping machine.</comment>


Show HN: HNReader+ Free and Open Source Hacker News iPhone App - <AUTHOR> http://hnplus.bixbyapps.com/ <comment><USER2> Just a suggestion, comment formatting needs to be fixed before I can use it over any of the other HN readers.

<comment><AUTHOR> What would you like to see changed in the comments section?</comment></comment>


Show HN: The problem with the epsilon greedy method - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/crobertsbmw/EpsilonGreedy I decided I wanted to roll my own AB testing app for Django (https://github.com/crobertsbmw/RobertsAB) when I was finished, I came across this:
http://stevehanov.ca/blog/index.php?id=132
Which is a very convincing article on why AB testing sucks and with a few extra lines, you can improve your algorithm to select the best test so you never go back and update your code (yeah right.)
I then thought, how many tests does this thing have to run to truly figure out which is best?
I made 4 tests with probability of success equalling 1/2, 1/4, 1/5, 1/6  and found that for this algorithm to settle on the best success rate (1/2), it took 91 hits on average with a max of 876 tests.
I ran the same test using a standard AB algorithm. Picking whichever test has been tested the least and run that test. It took on average 32 tests to figure out which performed the best with a maximum of 363. On average 3 times better than the greedy epsilon method.
I then tried tweaking my success ratios to something a little less dramatic. 1/10, 1/11, 1/12, 1/13. Which just made everything take a LOT longer.
The only problem is that in reality you don't know what the best solution is, so you can never know if you have gotten to the "actual" solution. The epsilon greedy method will eventually get there (although you will never know when). And if you are using the standard AB method you will never know if you have arrived at the best option either, especially when we are talking about the difference between 1/20 clicks versus 1/21 clicks.
Moral of the story -- AB testing is probably a waste of time.
Here is a link to all the tests I ran (python3): https://github.com/crobertsbmw/EpsilonGreedy <comment><USER2> Interesting comparison but, by my understanding, epsilon greedy and A/B testing do not solve the same problem.

Epsilon greedy is a method for minimizing regret, that is the expected loss you occur from choosing options that are sub-optimal.

A/B testing's goal (or one of many goals) is to maximize the chance that, after the test is over, you select the best option going forth.

So e-greedy makes a conscience choice to not maximize its statistical confidence in certain options because it is trying to exploit the things it knows to be good. Meanwhile A/B testing is trying to balance the exploration so it can have that statistical confidence.

Hopefully someone with more expertise can chime in but I think this is the gist of it.

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://engineering.richrelevance.com/bandits- recommendation-...](http://engineering.richrelevance.com/bandits- recommendation-systems/)

<comment><AUTHOR> awesome read. This would have satisfied my curiosity and probably saved me an entire day of messing around. Thanks.</comment></comment>


Linux Set to Shed Nearly 500k Lines of Code by Dropping Old CPUs - <AUTHOR> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-4.17-Gutting-Old-CPUs <comment><USER2> See also: [https://lwn.net/Articles/748074/](https://lwn.net/Articles/748074/)

<comment><USER3> Thanks. The link should be updated to point to this LWN article, IMO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The linked pull request ( [http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1804.0/00306.html](http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1804.0/00306.html) ) is informative, in particular:

 _In the end, it seems that while the eight architectures are extremely different, they all suffered the same fate: There was one company in charge of an SoC line, a CPU microarchitecture and a software ecosystem, which was more costly than licensing newer off-the-shelf CPU cores from a third party (typically ARM, MIPS, or RISC-V). It seems that all the SoC product lines are still around, but have not used the custom CPU architectures for several years at this point. In contrast, CPU instruction sets that remain popular and have actively maintained kernel ports tend to all be used across multiple licensees._

</comment><comment><USER5> Good. It's not as if they can't use Linux anymore. They can still use the older version of kernels.

<comment><USER6> Using older kernels opens you to security vulnerabilities. I think this was mainly justified because nobody was using the current kernel on those architectures anyway.

<comment><USER7> Some older kernels still have support via LTS

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm surprised that M68K isn't included in the list. I doubt there are many M68K machines that could run a current Linux kernel.

<comment><USER2> The number of users doesn't matter that much as long as the port is actively maintained.

Judging by the activity on the M68K mailing list, the port is alive and kicking:

[https://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-m68k/](https://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-m68k/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> so onto NetBSD then?

<comment><USER2> Does NetBSD support any of the CPUs in question? I don't see them here: [https://www.netbsd.org/ports/](https://www.netbsd.org/ports/)</comment></comment>


Google Chrome HTTPS Address Bar Spoofing - <AUTHOR> http://blog.acrossecurity.com/2012/01/google-chrome-https-address-bar.html

<comment><USER2> did you know that Google pays the developers who submit security bugs on Chrome?

<comment><USER3> Both Chrome and Firefox do. These "bug bounties" have more than paid for themselves. (Disclaimer: I'm a Mozilla developer)

[http://ostatic.com/blog/for-mozilla-google-and-bug- hunters-b...](http://ostatic.com/blog/for-mozilla-google-and-bug-hunters-bug- bounties-are-big-business)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Holy cow. Google hosts an open redirection? Amazon shut down its open redirectors 5 years ago.</comment>


How to Recreate a Sloppy Ancient Greek Drinking Game - <AUTHOR> http://www.livescience.com/49441-greek-drinking-game-kottabos-recreated.html

<comment><USER2> > "It would be fun to actually experiment with wine drinking," Sharpe said. > "Of course, this was a university event, so we couldn't exactly do it on > campus."

Having been a student in the UK, this sounds really strange.

<comment><USER3> The drinking age in the states is 21, which excludes a lot of students, and the US as a whole has an oddly neurotic relationship with alcohol. Partying at a kegger is awesome, but having a beer at lunch is unprofessional, and driving after a few drinks, while not encouraged, is far more accepted.

<comment><USER2> > having a beer at lunch is unprofessional, and driving after a few drinks, > while not encouraged, is far more accepted.

I once got told by a former employer (At a pub) that if I didn't have a few drinks whilst on shift with him that I was being rude. His only exception to this was if you drove to work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anyone else feel the irony of an experiment's realism deliberately turned down _because it was a university event_?

Is this anecdotal evidence that education in the U.S. is pretty much useless? You're not even allowed to do real experiments for fear of being indecent?

<comment><USER5> Why are you lumping all US universities together and why are you assuming there is a fear of being indecent? WCU is pretty unique that it has policies against having alcohol on campus _even for students over the legal drinking age of 21_.

<comment><USER4> Why do you assume that my questions are assertions?

With what you say about WCU it seems especially ironic that this (curtailed) experiment was done there, of all places.

Maybe it's just me, but I feel that a place that wants to call itself a university should maybe have a little more confidence in its students than to leash them with such a strict all-imbibing-prohibited-under-all-circumstances policy. It feels like wanting to force an a-priori truth upon people instead of having them discover it.

<comment><USER6> Or, perhaps students choose to attend WCU because it's a dry college.

<comment><USER7> I don't think that it is a dry college, I have family and friends who go there and I have been there to drink before. They have a lot of bars around the campus.

I think a lot of students attend because the tuition is low for in-state students.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>