Ping: Why Bother? - <AUTHOR> http://www.osnews.com/story/23761/Ping_Why_Bother_

<comment><USER2> Ping is a kind of Steam, Xbox Live or PSN, I think that people that thinks that it will compete with Facebook are misunderstanding the situation (I did before trying to use it).

<comment><USER3> Completely agree. It's there just to enrich the experience for iTunes store users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "at this point, the Social Networking thing has pretty much played itself out, picked its winners, and we've all moved on."

Statements like these would have been music to MySpace's ears at one point. People are finicky about social networks and another generation is being born. I don't think we are at the end of the evolution.

</comment><comment><USER5> Because when I'm tired of looking at the iTunes Top 10/100 list and I want new music I tweet, "Any new music recommendations? I need something new!" Now I follow quite a few people that I follow on Twitter and can immediately see what they are enjoying. I would love to see this migrate into applications as well.

It's a social network for products. Help me find the good stuff in an oversaturated world.

<comment><USER3> I too will shamelessly plug my site (yet again). Try out <http://like.fm>. Still very, very new and I'm only plugging it because.. well.. lots of press about Ping right now. You can follow blogs as well as people, and you can embed your profile in Facebook. (It's also free, and works across iTunes, Winamp, Pandora, and YouTube).

<comment><USER6> "iTunes, Winamp, Pandora, and YouTube"

Any love for Amarok?

(Also, why the need to ask for gender?)

<comment><USER3> Yea somebody requested Amarok today. I'm going to start that soon. I have to setup a linux desktop first though in order to test it (if any Last.fm client developers are reading this, Like.fm uses an identical scrobbling API. You can email me at firstname.lastname@example.com if you'd like to help).

Do you think the gender is intrusive? At the moment I don't really do anything with gender except personalize pronouns (he/she) in emails. I know it seems a bit out of place... I guess I can make it optional. However I'm planning to do stats and analytics and gender would be useful in the future (like what girls listen to vs what boys listen to, etc).

<comment><USER6> "(if any Last.fm client developers are reading this, Like.fm uses an identical scrobbling API. You can email me at firstname.lastname@example.com if you'd like to help)."

Hmm. Can I just tell (if possible) amarok to use a Like.fm URL in place of last.fm?

Also, the gender thing is not a big deal, but feels like a big sign saying "We're going to use your data for marketing purposes".

If you think it actually adds to the quality of the user's experience (via some analytics and such), then that's a good thing. But my initial reaction is that all a site needs is a unique way to identify me; past a name and password, everything else I'm made to enter isn't done for for my benefit.

Maybe I've been thinking about form usability too much lately for my own sites ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Perhaps if iTunes didn't suck, and if I could use it in my browser of choice, I'd like it more. But as it stands I won't ever use it. Last.fm does everything I need and more, doesn't take up yet another spot in the in iTunes.

<comment><USER8> I've never understood why the iTunes store couldn't just be a website. Browse and preview when and where you want, and the iTunes app invisibly starts downloading purchases as soon as it's able.

<comment><USER9> The bizarre part is that most of the store actually _is_ a website (CSS/HTML), and iTunes renders it with Webkit, but it can only be viewed from within iTunes...

<comment><USER6> It's a weird mix of the worst of both worlds. It feels very much like a Web site (i.e. slow), yet I cannot do useful Web stuff, such as open links in new tabs so as to not lose my place when browsing around.

Very frustrating, so I don't use it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There are still a lot of bands on Myspace for which it is only a matter of time before they make a switch because Myspace doesn't connect them with their fans anymore. Given this it makes a lot of sense for Apple to at least attempt this.

Really though I don't see why Facebook couldn't give better support for bands so they could go where the fans are more easily.

</comment><comment><USER11> What's with all those hideous google ads scattered all over OSNews all the sudden? I don't know about other people, but seeing that many ads will keep me away from a site.</comment>


Phalcon 2.0.10 released - <AUTHOR> https://blog.phalconphp.com/ <comment><USER2> I've never heard of Phalcon. Does it serve any advantage over Larvel or other PHP frameworks?

<comment><AUTHOR> Phalcon 2 released at 2015-04-17

quote:

After more than a year of development, we're extremely excited to announce the release of Phalcon 2.0 (final).

Those that have been following the project closely, know that this has not been a small feat.

We had to create a brand new language Zephir which allows developers to write PHP extensions easily. We had to completely rewrite most of Phalcon 1.3.x, offering the same functionality as before so as to ensure that upgrading will be very easy. Zephir had to be adjusted and enhanced as we moved through the rewrite, offering more functions and options to developers. Additional features were implemented for 2.0, mostly thanks to our contributors! The results are something that we are very proud of:

Phalcon 2.0, offering compatible functionality (and more) as before Zephir, allowing developers to write their own extensions easily without the need to know C.</comment></comment>


Ask HN:  What would happen if public libraries only had ebooks? - <AUTHOR>

Would such a thing be workable?
In particular, copyright issues would require limiting the number of copies of an ebook taken out over the net at any one time.
But the convenience of taking out an ebook over the net would probably mean that it would be very hard to find highly sought after ebooks since they will always be taken out.
In other words, most people who don't aggressively seek out highly sought out ebooks will never get to take one out.
It seems to me that the public library model really does depend on the inconvenience of going to the library and carrying physical books.
Update:
There's also the issue that many people today go to the library without a specific book in mind and just take out books that they find by chance.  In an ebook library, I suspect that everyone would be searching or browsing hot/top lists, thus making it very hard to find a good ebook that is available without a long waiting list.
In other words, not only do public libraries depend on the inconvenience of going to the library and carrying physical books, but also on the inconvenience of finding books that you would like to read. <comment><USER2> There is yet another problem -- not everyone has internet access. Libraries provide books to many low income people, including the homeless. This would take books away from some of the people who need them the most for their own education. There are also people who simply enjoy reading from books, and for whom the library is a place of relaxation.

Finally, books are more permanent than e-books, at least today. I can think of dozens of reasons that pervasive internet access might not be sustainable long-term. If even one of them comes to pass, where would we be without a physical source of books?

But to answer your question -- is it workable? Surely, yes, it is.

But... Is it wise? Would it even be popular?

Not a chance.

</comment><comment><USER3> The other issue is that some people (like ME :D) love real books.

The Library is like a dark, exciting, unexplored jungle of literature that I want to discover. That's not an inconvenience - that is a delight! It is what libraries do best.

E-books are great too obviously - but I can get them online. E-books are easy (as you say) putting them in libraries makes it less easy so there's little point IMO.

Also you talk about limiting E-books by how many "copies" can be taken out. That seems silly IMO because that is the model a library uses due the limitation of physical copies. Why bother with that limitation with E-books. If you cant get it at the library then there are probably 101 other places to download it!

The other major issue you face is what do you "stock" in the library. Only those books with physical copies? and if not what is the criteria for inclusion?

I just dont see how it would work out :P

</comment><comment><USER4> The problem I have - and this sounds silly as I say it but it's how I think - is why would I go to the library to get an ebook? That brings to mind the question, "Is it possible to drastically reduced physical library presences in favor of a National Library online that features ebooks only?" Interesting question rife wife possibilities, legalities, and fun!

So to answer your question, "No - not today. I don't have an ebook reader and don't plan on buying one at current prices."

</comment><comment><USER5> Some libraries have systems where you can put a book (or any other media that the library has, which they allow to be checked out) on reserve, and you get notified once it's available. However, that doesn't fix the fact that the concept of "returning" an ebook is not very well-defined, because of the ease of copying/cracking digital media.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, but you would never find a highly sought out book that is available without a waiting list.

With physical books, this is possible since there is so much inconvenience involved in taking them out.

Moreover, in many cases, people don't actually search for books. They just go to the library and take a book that they find by chance.

When you have a situation in which everyone searches for ebooks all the time, it becomes very unlikely that you will find a good ebook that is available without a waiting list.

<comment><USER5> Physical books are much more expensive to reproduce than an ebook. I don't think that libraries which stock ebooks will find much success in trying to control how many copies of their books are "out there" at any time.

I think that they'd either allow members to simply get a copy of the ebook, or, as mahmud mentioned below, they would only allow access from within the library, and they'd try and regulate the amount of information you accessed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ebooks today are not much cheaper than physical books. A library that allows many concurrent copies to be made of highly sought out books would probably need to pay a very high price to the publisher.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Libraries already have exclusive digital content, and they usually require you to sit at an on-premise workstation to work.</comment>


Open Food Facts turns 4 ! 3776 contributors, 83K products - <AUTHOR> http://en.blog.openfoodfacts.org/news/open-food-facts-turns-4-83k-food-products-in-open-data <comment><USER2> We need more open data on birthday cakes! Food Fact: the more birthday cakes you eat, the longer you live!

</comment><comment><USER3> Homepage: [http://openfoodfacts.org](http://openfoodfacts.org)

A discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8939889](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8939889)

</comment><comment><USER4> funky !

</comment><comment><USER5> Keep going!

</comment><comment><USER6> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGBhQbmPwH8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGBhQbmPwH8)</comment>


Plug Computers: Green, Small, Cheap and Maybe the Future - <AUTHOR> http://www.enduserblog.com/2009/02/plug-computers-green-small-cheap-and-maybe-the-future.html

<comment><USER2> Really cool. Could be a nice little media server with the a HD attached. Or maybe a security cam.</comment>


My job is destroying me and I need some advice - <AUTHOR>

For the last 9 months I have been working with two senior developers and a principal team leader and the overall experience is the worst. The work is a nightmare now. I am not sure how to handle the situation and I need some advice.
Pro tip: These are my biased opinions, but I try to give some concrete examples to give you some idea.
One of the senior guys is the "tech lead". He doesn't know basics of online services and he acts like he knows what he is doing, which is not the case (he picked SOAP over REST because he likes it, he likes to define things static). He gets offended pretty easily if you question his approach. He has this inspirational driven development skills though. Every day he comes up with a new design. Even he changed the design of the system during the design review we had with stakeholders.
The other senior guy is technically strong, but his social skills are out of whack. His mood oscillates often. In case of a bad mood, he treats you like an idiot. I remember him entering my office, taking a chair, sitting and looking at me as if he is going to interrogate. He never accepts failure. If something is wrong, it is definitely someone else.
Team leader doesn't have much idea about what we are doing. He is more of a manager than a developer. He randomizes developers with the ideas he heard from others. Anytime there is an open question, he talks about his previous project. However, he doesn't seem to have full details.
Project/system is not performing well or scaling either (each request payload and response is read/written twice for instance). I have been raising questions about certain decisions (which made the tech lead guy hate me by the way), but team leader doesn't have enough context and knowledge to deduce the actual problems.
I tried finding another job outside the company (I cannot just leave due to visa requirements), I failed. I am looking for an internal transfer now. However, the frustration and stress is killing me. <comment><USER2> Freelance work, or startups is where a lot of fun can be had. Some more settled companies have these people working there that are 'stuck' in their ways and are not open to critique or advise, this can be really really frustrating if you have the best intentions. Just try to cover your own backside by asking these questions and making sure people know you know the problems. Then if they fall on their arse when it fails you can point, laugh and tell them you told them so :). Don't let them get to you! keep being inspired and looking for improvement, even if people around you don't appreiciate it!

</comment><comment><USER3> You think you failed to find a new external position, but I think that's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Where are you located? Is relocation within the country out of the question? It's your life we're talking about, so be persistent.

</comment><comment><USER4> Leave the company now. Go back to your home country. Find a job there. Participate very actively in the local startup ecosystem. Start a company.</comment>


What Every Programmer Should Know About SEO - <AUTHOR> http://katemats.com/2012/03/04/what-every-programmer-should-know-about-seo/ <comment><USER3> Good article, I wanted to write something about it too(web developer with strong interest in SEO here). I'd say in the end it's more an introduction to SEO than it is advice for programmers about SEO. I'll detail 2 things she overlooked in my opinion.

For example, web developers have a fantastic opportunity to build links by getting involved in open source communities. These are extremely link-rich environments and by posting tutorials or creating small packages, you can find yourself with a lot of links pointing to your site. They will maybe not be relevant to your target keywords but will still be links from high-authority sources.

And I'd say the traditional way of garnering links still applies to web developers: get to know fellow developers, get interviewed on their blogs, exchange resources etc. So hang out where your community lives, whether it's on Reddit, StackOverflow, Hacker News etc. Get to know people, the SEO will follow.

<comment><USER4> This only works if your site has something to do with development.

Or are you suggesting posting development related topics to a non development related site purely to get those juicy backlinks (and thus good pagerank)?

<comment><USER3> No, not only. You can host software packages and tutorials on your product website.

For example, patio11 of HN fame has an article about Rails SEO Tips on his product website <http://www.bingocardcreator.com/articles/rails-seo-tips.htm>

Even though I'd say that he could have done a better job at integrating it on his website (it looks too much like an isolated page in my opinion - <USER2> should be a "Tips for developers" section), it does the job at attracting links and boosting SEO for his main site (also with A/Bingo, a software package he developed: <http://www.bingocardcreator.com/abingo>).

Actually he developed a blueprint of what could be done for startups regarding SEO: <http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/01/24/startup-seo/>

And here you go, he got three more links for free :-)

-

<comment><USER4> That's sort of what I mean. For my work I build and run a number of websites which are almost completely unrelated to tech. These are service industry websites so there is no "product" to speak of.

I am looking for ways to improve pagerank, so let's say I was to write a few pages about how I built some of the trickier parts of these websites and hosted these on the websites themselves but perhaps did not link these through from the main pages (but did link back to the main pages from my new pages).

If I got links to my articles on reddit , HN etc then perhaps this would improve pagerank even though the pages are unrelated to the sites main content. So this would improve the search rankings for the websites on their main keywords as well?

<comment><USER3> Yeah, that's the idea. However personnally I would link from the home page ("Inside the business" chronicles). It doesn't have to be a big link, could be in the footer for example. I don't have metrics for that but I think pages that are not linked from anywhere on your website might look a bit shady in Google's eyes.

By getting links to your articles you'd improve overall authority of your site (also important to link back to your homepage and other important pages in order to drive PR back, as you point out).

By improving your website's authority you'll rank better for your main keywords as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ok, you really don't need to know everything about SEO to do a non-terrible job of ranking. Do these things and you can get traffic with SEO.

1\. Title tags that get clicks (not kw stuffing or plain exact match)

2\. Write content that is unique and semi-frequent. (update once a week or so at least)

3\. Acquire links.

#1 and #2 are the basics that you need to do to even have a shot to show up for a given query. #3 is what is going to get you on the first page.

You can do #3 by having great content and doing social promotion, using email newsletters to blast your content out to people so they can share it, or if you're in a boring industry and nobody likes you, you can buy or build links via the numerous link building services out there that can hit any number of link sources.

At the end of the day, natural links are viewed as better, but paid links can get the job done in some cases.

Given a certain bar of content quality, the quantity and volume of links is still the most important ranking factor on Google and Bing as far as I can tell.

</comment><comment><USER6> I despise SEO, but oddly enough I actually agree with what the article says.

Possibly this is more for web-programmers than others, but these days that's quite a lot of people, and what the article says is succinct and to the point.

What you have to realize is that SEO is a logarithmic curve; when you've done none, doing a little bit makes a huge difference. When you've already got a decent site, well... a lot of effort for virtually no gain.

<comment><USER7> Everything except "Building Links" I would call UX/Accessibility if only to avoid any semblance of the shadier parts of SEO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> " _Typical link building [...] can be through deals, partnerships, PR pitches, link exchanges – even paying for links._ "

A few of these techniques - link exchanges and buying links - sound like really bad advice, especially given that she is a former SEOmoz employee. She also omits the most straightforward way for startups to get backlinks => create content on your site worth linking to.

<comment><USER9> I've found that people hate to hear that when asking for advice on how to get traffic. It's even less popular than "eat right and exercise" as weight loss advice.

<comment><USER10> A lot of people take a more directly cynical view of content creation, rather than the more passive ignorance we have with regard to health. Our health is not something someone else can take generally, content is.

It is too easy to look at the rampant copying and dirty tricks used to pull in viewers for ad revenue and think "if you can't beat them, join them" or worse "I might be able to beat them, but joining them seems easier".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> s/programmer/web developer

And even then it's a stretch.

<comment><USER12> Not sure why the author seems to assume that every programmer is even remotely involved in webby stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Site freshness only matters for certain categories/topics. For other topics you could say the older the static content the better. Some of my best ranking/money making pages have not changed in 8 years and rank better every year, without doing anything.

Regarding ranking algos, you did not mention the Trust Rank (there is a patent G filed some years ago). A low Trust Rank is equally bad as a low Page Rank. I don't really know much about it, but afaik it has to do with the trust that G has collected on your _site_ , while Page Rank is based on individual pages. If you link to "bad neigborhoods" (another important term, think casino sites, v*agra, etc.) your TR will go down for example, and its hard to get it back up. If National Geographic links to one of your pages, your site's TR goes way up.

And then there is the number of pages on your site. Google will only crwal a limited amount of pages from your site, depending on your Page Rank and distribution of incoming links. So try to keep the number of crawlable pages focused to the relevant pages (ie the ones you'd like to see in G's index).

After some time and if you have tons of links, you will see a "deep crawl" with a bunch of Gbots hammerings you server and downloading many more pages a day than usual.

</comment><comment><USER14> PLEASE DO NOT READ THAT ARTICLE - it is bad for you and your business.

SEO is a bullshit industry. this means that 80% of everything that is written about SEO actually reduces your knowledge of SEO, that article is in no way different.

just pick a few examples:

        > A web crawler has to crawl your site (and every other site on the web)
       > Indexes all the pages ..
       > Organizes the indexed collection and stores ...

this one misses on of the most important steps of the google site processing pipe: Discovery is the process of discovering URLs to crawl. It is fueled by the sitemap.xml and crawling.

PageRank - is not - "another important part of authority" - pagerank is thoughtcancer. don't ever say that word, don't ever think that word. see my TC article here [http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/07/startups-linking-to-your- co...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/07/07/startups-linking-to-your-competition- will-help-you-no-really/)

        >Ensure pages render without JavaScript enabled

sadly google parses and to some degree renders JS ... badly. this tip is good, but leads to the false conclusion that google does not parse/render/"see" JS.

        > you should also pay attention to how you construct links and anchor text to internal pages on your site.

internal link anchor text is mostly irrelevant.

        >your own internal links use relevant keywords in the anchor text.

it's also some of the worst things, as the impact in minimal to not measurable.

        >So if you load a bunch of text dynamically with Ajax, or JavaScript, create a non-JavaScript version that will show the same information.

outdated, google now even does onload-triggered POST requests if necessary. js is still bad, but the story above is only half the story.

        >Put them in the URL (and even better if your domain name has your keywords)

oh god, not again. these are the SEO URL rules

        #### landingpage url rules

        all URLs on an a webproperty must be according to these rules
        listed in priority!

        1. unique (1 URL == 1 resource, 1 resource == 1 URL)
        2. permanent (they do not change, no dependencies)
        3. manageable (1 logic per site section, no complicated exceptions)
        4. easily scalable logic
        5. short
        6. with a targeted keyword phrase

further down she says something about 404s and it sounds like they are bad. 404 are great. when pages are gone, they are gone - 404 or 410. if the move then 301. but do not redirect gone pages to friendly 200 pages. keep your site simple and your redirects rules as well.

        >Additionally you want as many links to contain appropriate alt text.

links don't have alt text, images have alt text. in an image is linked, that alt text substitutes the anchor text.

        >But SEO isn't just about building a great site that is crawlable and has the right content – it is also about converting users.

no, that is the job of the product, onpage marketing, conversion optimization. SEO is really just about getting - targeted - visitors. (she has clearly read too much SEOmoz)

        >the most defensible SEO strategy is links,

no, it's not. that is just something that SEO agencies tell you to sell you their services and useless tools.

disclaimer: i work as an SEO - i hate SEOs. my biggest success is 62 M visitors a month. i don't read SEO blogs.

<comment><USER15> You just took five minutes of my time telling me how bad something was and not one second offering an alternative. For all the bad things your critique basically just boiled down to "not it's not" without offering proof or links.

Do you see something wrong with this picture? As a reader all I've got from your comment is angry guy doesn't like SEO and thinks all SEO blogging is for shit.

I apologize for being so blunt, but this is not a very useful comment. Perhaps the goal here is to establish how much you know, but even then it really fails to convince the reader. It'd been great if it had been a bit more constructive. Obviously you believe you know what you're talking about.

<comment><USER3> I second that. Pointing out what a good SEO strategy is and how it opposes the points described in the article would have been helpful.

If somebody interested in improving their SEO skills should not read well- known SEO blogs then what does the OP suggest?

I personally follow SEOMOz and a few established SEO and link building blogs, but would be interested in hearing other suggestions.

<comment><USER14> i'm telling you the same thing i told the CEO of an international publishing house: read a book instead!

Search Engine Marketing Incorporated

[http://www.amazon.com/Search-Engine-Marketing-Inc- Companys/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Search-Engine-Marketing-Inc- Companys/dp/0136068685/ref=dp_ob_title_bk) [not an affiliate link]

sadly, nobody ever does.

<comment><USER16> You're telling us to read a 4 year old book on technology that changes on a monthly basis?

Lots of SEO involves guess work. Google changes its algorithm constantly.

That's the reason nobody reads books on SEO. It's the same for web development.

<comment><USER14> >You're telling us to read a 4 year old book

yes

>Lots of SEO involves guess work.

no

everything is measurable, if you can't measure it, don't do it.

>on technology that changes on a monthly basis?

if you don't have a model of how SEO works, you can not improve on this model, even with new information. that books provides a - sustainable, working, applicable, employable - model.

>That's the reason nobody reads books on SEO. It's the same for web development.

... (words fail me)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The article is very good. I actually coded a project where my entire goal was to reach number one on google for the search term "male female translation." It took about a month but I eventually made it to the top following most of what was mentioned in the article. I just had to figure it all out via research, trial and error.

<comment><USER18> Honestly, I would expect any experienced web dev to have this knowledge as part of what they bring to the table, especially for a front end dev.

The article is not really stating anything new and there is already any number of similar articles out there basically documenting the same thing. In fact, given her past job experience as VP Eng for SEOmoz, I'm a little surprised at how little insight there is in the post. (Honest opinion, not trying to be snarky).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Getting links is still the most important part of SEO. She barely mentions this.

<comment><USER20> It's also the part that is least relevant to the developers who are actually building sites, which is who this article is targeted at.</comment></comment>


Howard University opens a new campus at the Googleplex - <AUTHOR> https://blog.google/topics/diversity/howard-university-opens-new-campus-googleplex/ <comment><USER2> I want to comment on the anti Affirmative Action arguments here.

I went to a really prestigious high school in New York City. For the summer of my junior year, our AP Computer Science teacher hooked up a few of us with internships at the finance firms, specifically in tech (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, etc.). Now, sure, I did really well and studied really hard to get into my high school. However, I did practically nothing to earn that internship besides taking AP Computer Science. My Computer Science "expertise" was hardly valuable. I knew just about as much as any other AP CS kid in the country.

In the end, that internship did wonders for me getting into college and getting future jobs. And plus, I made 3k that summer. And yes, I finished a useful project at the firm. But the reason I had that opportunity was totally orthogonal to _earning_ the opportunity. I know we like to boast about being a meritocracy and all that, but this is one of those cases where it was correlation, not causation.

<comment><USER3> Because you're not the person AA hurts. AA doesnt hurt top 1% people, it hurts say top 10% people who are in the wrong ethnic group and lose out to people in the correct ethnic group. Just ask a lower class Asian person with top 10% MCAT scores, and why he lost a med school spot to a middle class URM person with top 20% scores.

<comment><USER4> But isn't that how you achieve systematic equality? For example, say there are two races X and Y. X is the overachiever (doesn't even have to be a majority, there could be a 50/50 population), while Y is the underachiever, for whatever historical reasons these two groups faced. So, to get Y on the same level as X and restore a meritocracy, you must admit more of Y, even if X does better in some cases. Meritocracy only makes sense if everyone starts off with the same advantages. Otherwise, the populations must converge until such a point is reached. It becomes an argument for shortchanging certain populations for the greater good of society, to undo the disparity of the past. Is that not why AA exists?

<comment><USER5> It's absolutely fine to give extra advantages to people with low incomes. That's economic progressivism.

It's wrong to give extra advantages based on genetics, essentially saying that some people "genetically poor" or "genetically rich", which is what Affirmative Action does.

<comment><USER6> That's exactly why affirmative action exists:

It's wrong to give extra advantages based on genetics. Therefore, giving an extra advantage to someone who is not given those other extra advantages, evens the score.

<comment><USER5> Affirmative action will prefer a middle-income black person to a low-income white person. It 'evens the score' for _some_ poor people, but not for others.

<comment><USER6> There are plenty of systems that benefit some areas of society and not others. It sounds from your comment that you're all for an even distribution of rewards across society. Is that a fair characterization? Why is this case particularly egregious to you compared to other inequalities?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm very happy to see this. I grew up in a town that, before I was born, decided to actively integrate (from being an historically all white, wealthy suburb) and I'm certain I'm better off for growing up in a diverse community. I'm in mountain view now and it's all "silicon valley white", and something actively needs to be done. I worry when I realize my kid can go a week or more without seeing a black person, and I'm disappointed in myself when I realize I have no black friends (when as a kid they were my neighbors).

<comment><USER8> So, let's say you were born in China. Would you have a similar level of anxiety about never seeing anyone outside of your ethnic group? I find it very odd how white people are seemingly the only ethnic group so hung up on seeing people of different races one day-to-day basis.

On a related note, if being around so many white people bothers you so much, why aren't you living in, say, East Palo Alto or Richmond?

<comment><USER9> Buuuut this isn't China. It's America. Ethnic diversity is part of the DNA here.

<comment><USER10> Where are the "all" hispanic outreach programs in tech?

<comment><USER11> I think the appropriate dig is "where are the Hispanics in tech" and "where are the Hispanics in tech building explicit bridges to their communities." HBCUs are the result of affluent blacks fighting for land grants at the turn of the 20th century since many states refused to grant land for the formation of integrated colleges and universities. This program, love it or hate it, is 100+ years in the making.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One thing I struggle with is measurement of progress. For example, what Google is allowing here with Howard U is obviously good for the AA community. However, is Google in general doing things that are good or bad for AAs in general? It's difficult to say.

Excessive advertising can be used to poor people's disadvantage by creating more debt by encouraging more unnecessary expenses. AAs consist of a disproportionally large percentage of poor people and have chronically low wealth levels [1]. One could argue Google is _bad_ for AAs by making advertising more mainstream and accurate.

In any case, at least they're trying, PR or not. Some companies do nothing. I do feel strongly about this because the amount of segregation in Boston is ridiculous.

[1] [http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/27/news/economy/racial- wealth-g...](http://money.cnn.com/2016/06/27/news/economy/racial-wealth-gap- blacks-whites/)

<comment><USER13> Wow, seriously? Google is out to get poor people?

Let's not talk about how Google made access to an entire world of information 100x easier and cheaper, so anyone with a cheap tablet or phone can get information you used to need a $1k encyclopedia for.

Let's not talk about how Google drove Android, a platform which gave a huge number of people internet access by giving them $100 phones or tablets.

Let's not talk about how Google has (done its best) to scan every book ever written to make books available online and free.

Google has done vast amounts to level the playing field, making top-tier services like Gmail and Google maps free, where previously people had to pay for Garmin navigation or Outlook or w/e.

The kind of argument the OP makes is shallow, petty, and out to use a hammer for every grudge. Yeah, Google makes money via ads. No, that doesn't mean they are racist, sexist, or whatever the hell you feel like making up just to complain about advertising.

<comment><USER14> Do you find that using words like "shallow" and "petty" to describe arguments that you disagree with fosters good conversation?

<comment><USER13> The top comment was a hit piece, not an attempt at honest conversation.

It's whataboutism, to distract from the actual conversation. "Oh, Google is doing a good thing, but what about all the bad things they do"

If you feed it, you talk about what they want you to talk about, which is inherently negative about Google in this case. It's a standard tactic of state-sponsored propaganda machines (not that I think it is in this case).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Programs like this promote the very discrimination that they are intended to counteract. People of all other races will see this and argue - correctly - that black students at Howard now have an advantage over them at one of the premier employers in the tech industry. This is wonderful for Howard students, and probably for black CS students looking for employment at Google in general, but not so great for everyone else.

You cannot fix racism by implementing racist programs. You do it by removing race from the hiring equation to the maximum extent possible, and making it known that applicants of all races are welcome and that they will be judged based solely on their skills and qualifications. The kind of program announced today will, and should, backfire on Google.

<comment><USER16> The point of affirmative action is that it's impossible to remove race from the hiring equation, because race affects your applicants right up to the point they send in an application. If you say "I'm colorblind", you're also pretending that everyone else in the world is colorblind, and race had no impact on your applicants' resumes.

Race is a society-wide issue, and it's not possible to solve without recognizing and correcting for it. If you close your eyes and ignore it, racism will still exist and continue to affect people. Even if racism disappeared from America overnight, the issue would not be solved because there would still be lingering cyclical effects from past racism. Parents with fewer opportunities raise kids with fewer opportunities because we live in an imperfect world, and these things require active correction.

<comment><USER17> Today companies say that they only hire diverse people. Who is getting discriminated? Pls tell me

<comment><USER16> I'm describing how affirmative action should be used, not how it always is. Certainly there are plenty of companies who just want different colored people in their website photos so they don't look bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is unfair. It is also unfair that blacks receive harsher punishments, _starting in preschool_ , and that this prejudice follows them their entire lives. Can you imagine that? Being told by society that you are bad and predisposed to being a criminal, probably every fucking day? In small and large ways. Learned helplessness is _real_. I may not see the injustice vividly, because I am not black nor do I have any close black friends (I have a college bud that I hardly talk to, that's it). But it's _everywhere_. Google knows the inequity exists and is taking a step to address it.

[http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/03/21/292456211/...](http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/03/21/292456211/black- preschoolers-far-more-likely-to-be-suspended)

[https://newsone.com/1859475/black-people- receive-60-longer-s...](https://newsone.com/1859475/black-people- receive-60-longer-sentences-for-same-crimes/)

</comment><comment><USER19> I think we are in need of an open discussion on redefining "diversity".

Race is not a good metric for diversity. Nationality completely trumps it.

People of the same nationality with the same primary language have much more in common with each other. You can actually see this dynamic play out at work where people hang out with others from the same nationality. Americans hang out with Americans, Mandarin Chinese hang out with Mandarin Chinese, Indians with other Indians (don't know enough about Indian culture to split this group up further), Germans with Germans, etc.

Cultural_Difference(random_nationality1, random_nationality2) > Cultural_Difference(same_nationality_different_race1, same_nationality_different_race2)

With this metric, tech is one of the most diverse fields in the world.

Seen through this new point of view, the racial categories are very shortsighted. The difference between Indian and Chinese (or even Chinese and Korean) cultures is immense, yet they are assigned as part of the same category. African Americans have their own category, yet they are culturally and linguistically(same native language) very similar to white Americans.

Now let's move onto the controversial "disadvantages" discussion.

African Americans generally have family whose native language is English and who understand American culture and can impart these skills and knowledge to their children. They have the language and cultural knowledge to fight for their interests and a powerful organization (NCAAP) to back them up. With these advantages, African Americans are basically seen as honorary Americans similar to white Americans. These advantages even put them in a better position than white immigrants (and sometimes their American born children who have a harder time assimilating).

With these advantages and affirmative action based advantages(educational programs, scholarships, diversity internships and hiring, easy access to colleges/universities from affirmative action[works out to something like +150/2400 SAT and +0.2 GPA which is huge when competing in top percentiles]) middle class and upper middle class African Americans are very privileged.

Edit:

And on disadvantages in the workplace.

Americans are the largest group and the language spoken is English, so Americans (of any race) and native English speakers are privileged.

<comment><USER20> It's kind of wild you think the NAACP is this huge factor tipping the scales. I'd guess that's a product of consuming alt-right news, which tends to massively amplify organizations and figures within the black community that can be smeared as corrupt, but who knows.

Every study I've read relating to economic mobility points to having economic leverage in the first place as the greatest factor. Blacks have a disproportionately low share of wealth ownership in America (can't cite this atm), which combined with systematic biases puts them at a pretty significant disadvantage. Speaking English isn't enough to counteract that.

You make some interesting points re: how to categorize diversity, but it sounds like you're just moving the goalposts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If this succeeds, how will Google and Howard keep whites and Asians from taking too many positions in the class? Outright racial discrimination in university admissions is still illegal, and Howard couldn't seriously argue that they're engaging in affirmative action (their student body is over 90% black)

</comment><comment><USER22> Good. I hope they're looking into a pipeline that reaches these students before they're junior- or senior-aged as well.

<comment><USER23> [http://www.gettingsmart.com/2011/03/jordan-lloyd- bookey-k-12...](http://www.gettingsmart.com/2011/03/jordan-lloyd- bookey-k-12-education-outreach-at-google/)

Examples of Google's programs include:

● Google's Computing and Programming Experience (CAPE): This four-week experience is for 8th graders to gain exposure to CS. This summer we will have around 130 students, and we hope to further expand this content to organizations and schools around the country. We are looking to test this new model with MS2 in Washington, DC this summer.

● LEAD Program for Computer Science: This is a rigorous and exciting summer residential program for underrepresented minority students in grades 9-11, held at four universities in its upcoming inaugural year..

● Trailblazer Award: This is an award (in Europe) that is given internationally for participation in national science fairs. Winners are all treated to a 2-day Trailblazer retreat with fellow winners to learn more about the possibilities of a career in CS.

● Counselors for Computing: This program trains counselors to teach their fellow guidance counselors the benefits of CS degrees. Through our partner members at NCWIT, we are hoping to scale impact through these critical influencers.

● CS4HS is an initiative sponsored by Google to promote CS and Computational Thinking in high school and middle school curriculum by hosting CS teachers at campuses worldwide to learn about leading edge practice in the field.

● Computer Science Teachers Association: We are an ongoing supporter of the CSTA and, in particular, recently hosted their CS&IT symposium for 200 CS teachers at our Mountain View campus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I know this doesn't add to the conversation but I'm really excited by this and had to say so.

</comment><comment><USER25> I want to suggest a naive way to reduce the effect of affirmative action.

1) Join forces to donate to educational institutions specifically to increase the number of students they enroll. If there are X spots being reserved for AA, then ask the school to add X additional spots not usable for AA. Donate specifically for them to build additional dorms, classrooms, etc.

For some schools, their endowment is so large, they don't really need the donation, they just need pressure. I think pressuring them to expand should be more likely than pressuring them to end AA.

2) Invest in poor communities. AA stems from the desire to end a cycle of poverty. If we worked to "upgrade" poor communities then the need for AA would greatly decrease. So invest to improve K-12, housing, and businesses in poor communities.

I use the word "invest" because real estate in poor areas is usually under market. I think you can make a really good return if you build high quality housing. Just make sure you are willing to sell/rent to the current residents at below market prices. You should still be able to make a profit from the housing you build that is sold/rented to the middle class looking for better deals in your "upgraded" community.

There doesn't have to be a zero-sum battle between those who benefit from AA and those who don't.

<comment><USER26> > There doesn't have to be a zero-sum battle between those who benefit from AA > and those who don't.

When resources (jobs, college admissions slots, government funding for programs, etc.) are scarce, there often will be.

When I was in college, one of my classes included a unit on public speaking. We were encouraged to speak on a contentious topic and attempt to be persuasive. On the day I presented, I sat through multiple presentations on the subject of affirmative action. All of them were against it on the basis that it hurt certain ethnic groups. None of the people presenting on that subject were white.

(Me? I was ranting against DRM. Not important.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I have to say just how excited I am about this. I know two black developers. TWO. I've worked with numerous female developers and know plenty more. I've worked with hispanic, asian, white and european developers (no native american that I know of). I think that this is a great move to help bring in more diversity (and certainly a very different perspective)

</comment><comment><USER28> That's an effective bit of action by Google. Three months at Google will do wonders for anyone's early career opportunities.

</comment><comment><USER29> This sounds really cool to me just because of the novelty of having a campus at a megacorporate site. I would've loved to work at the Googleplex as a college student! I think it's really cool that kids these days can have that opportunity, and hope more companies will follow suit.

</comment><comment><USER30> This is exciting for a simple reason: it might actually work.

</comment><comment><USER31> Google is trying to bring good jobs to people in the US who need good jobs by helping to develop their talent and match it to a role within the company. i don't think that's a bad thing. i think Google will be happy to see how well this approach works.

</comment><comment><USER32> Is this legal? Is this really a school that only allows people of a certain race? I don't mean scholarships or other affirmative action type stuff. An actual entire school that excludes based on race?

Where is my misunderstanding?

<comment><USER33> > Is this really a school that only allows people of a certain race?

No.

<comment><USER32> Ask an honest question, get stupid one word non answers and downvotes.

<comment><USER34> Your honest question got an honest answer - NO. Anyone can apply to Howard, anyone can get accepted to Howard.

<comment><USER32> I know that is true of the regular Howard University campus, but what about the new program that's the subject of the article?

<comment><USER33> Did you bother to read the post?

> Rising juniors and seniors in Howard's computer science (CS) program can > attend Howard West, for three months at a time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> It would be cool if some tech company did this with a school like [http://www.haskell.edu/](http://www.haskell.edu/)

<comment><USER30> Let me guess: it is a purely functional university?

<comment><USER21> Yes, instead of the students learning anything, when you send a student to the university you're returned a new student which is almost the same only with more knowledge.

<comment><USER30> Thanks. I thought the (in my opinion, very funny) joke was getting lost based on the down-voting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> [http://n-gate.com/](http://n-gate.com/) is going to have a lot of fun with the comments here

</comment><comment><USER37> If you build a company without thinking too much about diversity and it finds itself unbalanced in race and sex when it has thousands of employees, the math becomes daunting. 10% set-asides would take _decades_ to get you near balance.

This is why extraordinary efforts have to be made, and made at scale.

</comment><comment><USER38> It's nitpicky and maybe trivial, but I'm happy to see them use the word "Black" so prominently. I always got peeved at "African American." If we're going to discuss _race_ , nationality doesn't really figure into the equation.

Then again, if you start talking scientifically, the concept of "race" is shaky at best, but there's no denying the cultural implications of the idea.

<comment><USER39> It is nitpicky but not so trivial. As I understand it, once upon a time you would have German Americans and Italian Americans as distinctive subgroups in the United States with their own unique cultures. But Negroes couldn't really say they were Nigerian-American or Angolan-American, largely because most colored people did not know exactly where in Africa they came from. In a historical context it makes sense that a subgroup defined by both culture and appearance would be intentional in adopting a name. This is especially true when the names given to them: negroes, colored folk, and even _black_ had racist baggage associated with them.

I personally don't mind African American for the same reasons I don't mind Asian American. Both subnational groups are comfortable with their designation I believe.

Speaking of Asian Americans, are you peeved with the term "Asian American"? Would you rather them self-identify as "yellow"? I ask because I like consistency.

<comment><USER38> Hm, good point regarding Asian American. Using "yellow" seems ridiculous but is value-wise the same as saying "black." And I can't just claim "just get rid of it all and call'm people!" because there are very useful reasons to be able to define general race (for example, when reporting a crime, you give gender, race, hair, clothing, approximate height). Even that though will become trickier as the genetic pool equalizes.

Dunno man, good point. I hadn't thought of it because all of my "Asian- American" friends have very distinguishable country-specific characteristics that they can identify because their family migrated more recently than your average Black family's, and they don't have a history of slavery obfuscating their origins.

EDIT: Thinking more on it, I believe I'm used to hearing "Asian" to describe race, as opposed to "Asian-American" to describe _heritage_ or nationality.

EDIT2: And also thinking more, I believe my friends use "FOB" to describe an _actual_ Asian, i.e. someone born in Asia. Which probably will be a horribly offensive slur one day and I'll be the 2060 equivalent of "the grandpa that says 'negro' way too much."

<comment><USER39> I've been told that FOB is offensive and is rarely used in a positive, or even neutral, manner. I mean it hasn't become taboo like nigger has but I've been told its not a polite thing to call someone.

But my larger point is African American "works". Its not offensive, speaks to a unique identity the same way Italian/Jewish/German American does, and for the most post is accepted by the black American community.

Also the genetic pool won't equalize anytime soon. Admixture leading to a near homogenous population of humans outside of small sparsely populated areas is millenia away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Nobody's really worried about competent students not being able to perform.

<comment><USER41> Very inaccurate statement.

[http://www.apa.org/research/action/stereotype.aspx](http://www.apa.org/research/action/stereotype.aspx)

<comment><USER42> You're talking about this phenomenon? [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat#Failures_t...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat#Failures_to_replicate_and_publication_bias)

<comment><USER41> Well, I am surprised to see that pretty much every study I have seen confirming the phenomenon had been conducted before those meta-analyses, and is in fact almost 10 years old or more. Healthy skepticism created. Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Is this a way to use blacks to increase the supply and decrease the salary of software engineers?

Regardless the people that go to Howard are pretty well off anyway. Its a private U so either you have money or enough educations/connections/... to get a scholarship.

Edit: Im not criticizing this. I think it is great.

<comment><USER44> Howard is prestigious for an HBCU, but it's not Harvard. HBCU's deal with a notorious lack of funding, so the connections that you assume are not always there. I can say this specifically applies to Howard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Where are the all Hispanic Schools? How about some Hispanic related "campuses?"

<comment><USER23> Since the USA does not have a long history of legal segregation against Hispanics, there are no Hispanic colleges.

However, there are Hispanic Serving Insitutions: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic- serving_institution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic- serving_institution)

I also wonder how much you cared about Hispanic schools before you heard about someone helping a Black school. Why the sudden interest?</comment></comment>


CodeSprint begins today at noon (PST), with 65 participating startups - <AUTHOR> http://codesprint.interviewstreet.com

<comment><USER2> "We do not consider code elegance or code length for the score. Though your program must fit within language-specific memory and runtime limits in order for us to grade it, we do not consider memory footprint or runtime in the score."

That seems like a mistake. How could there not be a penalty for unreadable, slow, or bloated code?

<comment><AUTHOR> Based on the IRC chat, most of the battle is tackling our biggest test cases and finding an algorithm that fits into our memory and runtime limits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if they'll publish any statistics about the results? I'd be interested in both how many solutions were submitted and the average score per challenge. Additionally, I'd like to see how many interviews are granted and how many positions filled.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, we will have a CodeSprint Post Contest Results post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ha, and I thought I might have to time get ahead in my studying this week. This boom in programming contests for students is wonderful, but it's turning me into a huge nerd who does nothing on weekends but code and shout about algorithms.

</comment><comment><USER5> Is anyone else bothered that all of these contest problems are in no way associated with the real-world requirements of the specific startups that are taking part in this?

</comment><comment><USER6> Why is a competition targeted at students taking place on Monday-Tuesday- Wednesday? Seems like you'd have to miss a good chunk of class to go full throttle on this.

<comment><AUTHOR> The contest was designed for busy students in mind. We targeted this test to be somewhere between 12-20 hours long in total.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Will the problems be available after the contest ends for those of us who are not in school but wouldn't mind a bit of practice?

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe. If so, we will tell you about it in our Post Contest blog post.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A stupidly simple publishing platform - <AUTHOR> https://edition.so/ <comment><USER2> I personally am not interested in watching videos to get an idea of what your product does.

One can argue if my stance is silly or not, but you lost me as a potential customer.

<comment><USER3> I'd argue against this. I find videos to be useful to showcase the product especially if its in the early stages which is what it seems like from their website.

But I agree trying out the product, would make more sense. In that case I would shoot an email to request the trial if it really solve the problem.

<comment><USER2> You missed my point.

 _I_ hate watching videos showcasing anything. I want a page to scroll through that explains what stuff _is_.

There might be others who are like me, or there might not be. I provided a data point, and since I am obviously biased, I am not sure how useful it is.

I'd be happy to argue against video show cases, but I do not think this is the place for it.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Recommend customer-facing forum software / SaaS for startup. - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys. I'd like to host a forum for our users to be able to chat with each other, propose new features, help each other if they're having issues, sticky a few posts here and there as FAQs for them to reference. We're getting a lot of customer support requests these days and they're too many to handle for a team of two, so we're better off addressing them passively through FAQs and self-serve a la Google.
I'm thinking I'd either host this myself or I'd pay a SaaS service to do this for me. The latter is preferable, since setting up configuration management to deploy and backup the forum is a pain in the ass I'd rather delegate to someone else for a few bucks a month.
Some candidates I'm thinking of:
Google Groups - nice, but no way to sticky anything UserVoice - not quite a forum unfortunately, mostly a direct communication channel with the company. A subreddit - I don't know if I'm totally comfortable relying on an external service (that I'm not paying for and thus might be down for random periods of time). Discourse? Disqus?
Anything you guys would recommend that worked very well for you? <comment><USER2> Use Discourse, I'm using it for my own startup and it has basically eliminated email support.

I used UserVoice previously and it didn't work for me. The problem with UserVoice is that it is basically beautiful repository of feature requests - that is everything what is wrong with your software. This is not what you want your users to be exposed to.

</comment><comment><USER3> phpBB is free but self-host obviously. VanillaForums is a decent hosted option.</comment>


The Australian Federal Government Now Spends AUD 10Bn  a Year on IT - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-28/federal-governments-$10bn-bill-rivals-newstart-cost/8849562 <comment><USER2> On a positive note, the online services provided by a government agency are pretty good.

When I received a bill from the tax office I was able to go online and create a payment plan without human intervention.

There is also a portal that links multiple government services (Australian Tax Office, Medicare...) to enable access to multiple services.

A few weeks later, I also got a call from the tax office surveying about my experience.

Overall, my experience was great. (except for forking out money part :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Australia also has a fair bit of open data as well. Data.gov.au has about 30K data sets.

[http://data.gov.au/](http://data.gov.au/)

<comment><USER3> Check out [https://search.data.gov.au](https://search.data.gov.au) for what we're doing next too :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> $500 annually for each person in the country. Just federal. Not state, not local.

In Canberra look at the names lit up on the tops of the buildings. The usual vampires. Imagine what you could do with 10 billion a year. Well they're improving oracle, accenture, computer associates, ibm global services profit.

Pay 100,000 people at $100k each, every year. IT for Canberra. It's enough to make you sick.

Ibm, consultants to the Nazi party. They're better than that now. But you've just got to hate them. No really, bilking if like this is evil.

</comment><comment><USER5> As soon as the Western Australian state transit agency started submitting data to Google Maps, they released it to the public. [http://www.transperth.wa.gov.au/About/Spatial-Data- Access](http://www.transperth.wa.gov.au/About/Spatial-Data-Access)

This has been going on for about 10 years. There are good people in this country doing good things.</comment>


Cloud9 IDE lets you code together in the Cloud. And offline. And in Ruby, PHP… - <AUTHOR> http://c9.io/site/blog/2012/06/cloud9ide-new-features/ Cloud9 IDE, the most beautiful editor, now lets you code together in the Cloud. And offline. And in any other language runtime in your own system. <comment><USER3> I really really want this product to work. I can see the potential/benefit in it. But every time I try it I'm left disappointed. I know it's probably me doing something stupid, but here goes my experience this time.

Oh cloud9 I really like this idea, lets see if it's improved since last time I looked -> click

I can sign in via Bitbucket cool I'll do that.

Okay that was dumb of me, my Bitbucket repositories are all private so I can't use cloud9 for this. I'll import my github projects instead.

Dang, Github is already registered to another account and I can't change it.

No problem, I'll de-active Bitbucket and delete this account, then sign in with the old account I created.

Doh, I can't remember my password, I'll reset it. Weird a new password is sent back to me in plain text? That doesn't fill me with confidence.

I'm in, the dashboard says I've only got one project in my Github repository, that's odd? Never mind, one project will do for testing.

Open project, click index.php, hmmm no syntax highlighting.

Never mind I'll just click on view then syntax and choose PHP. Nope that didn't work, not sure why, okay maybe it's because it's a PHP project and this is a Javascript IDE. I'll have a little play around and see what else is new.

Zend mode that seems interesting I'll click that. Ahh okay, that looks pretty. Right, now where have all my options gone, bugger. How do I exit out of zend mode? I can't remember the keyboard short cut and there's no hint. Okay never mind I'll just exit the IDE and login again.

Right back to the dashboard. Oh sweet, looks like my other Github projects have appeared. I'll try a Javascript based project.

Okay so start editing -> click on Javascript file -> no syntax highlighting -> click syntax button -> choose javascript, no syntax highlighting sigh... Maybe code completion will work, at least that's fun to try. I type "this.". No code completion, right well that's enough play time quit.

I don't doubt that all this stuff works, but for me in the 5 / 10 minutes I played around with this I've not managed to get the IDE to function how I expect it to. And it's the same thing every time. I really hope this post is taken positively as constructive feedback because I can see great potential for the product. I'd love some kind of automatic ajaxy getting started tour once I've logged in.

<comment><USER4> Hi Alan, I'm super excited to tell you that this new version has fixed at least 50% of your issues, and we are tackling those others very very soon. We support PHP now, both in syntax highlighting as well as running. With this release we included one private project for Free accounts! You can always reach us via twitter or firstname.lastname@example.com. Cheers, Ruben

<comment><USER5> I attempted to use it in Chrome and Firefox on Lion. When I go to clone to edit a github repository, it just sits at this <http://i.imgur.com/cLcum.png>

<comment><USER6> I'm also having problems, but in Chrome on Arch. It hangs for a while telling me my git repository is being cloned, eventually telling me that [repository name] workspace already exists. Upon choosing a new name and continuing, it just keeps hanging indefinitely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7>
      bin|⇒ ./c9
      path.existsSync is now called `fs.existsSync`.
      ERROR: Could not determine your mac address! Make sure you are connected to the internet for the first run and login.

I'm pretty sure that I'm connected to the Internets. I do have a non standard setup where br0 is a bridge to eth0 due to having a bunch of KVM instances floating around, but the question is: why does it need my _MAC_ address in the first place?

<comment><USER8> I'm having the same problem with offline mode. I know I'm connected and actively logged into my c9 account through the browser.

However, I'm using VMWare Player to host Ubuntu which could be a limitation regarding the MAC address retrieval process c9 uses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was really excited to give this a try, but I have to say that the sign up process and the upgrade to premium were both a rather trying experience. First, I ended up with a confusing situation where I had two accounts - <USER2> that big a deal, but a minor pain.

The real issue came when signing up for premium. First, requiring me to have a PayPal account is bad form - please provide some alternative to this. But, I decided to go ahead anyway, I got the subscription set up through PayPal, and was redirected to cloud 9 where I was supposed to have access to these awesome paid features, right? Nope. It has now been two hours and I'm still getting a "we're waiting for confirmation from the payment provider". Paying for something and not getting instant access is really poor UX - I hope you guys will see this and take it as constructive criticism.

Looking forward to finally giving it a try.

</comment><comment><USER10> Love it. Love it. Love it. This is like having Sublime in the browser, anywhere, anytime.

Just need autocompletion and key shortcut remapping.

<comment><USER11> We do now have autocompletion. You can flip it on in your Settings panel.

Also, try hitting Command-Shift-E (I think Ctrl-Shift-E for Windows/*nix) to get a code outline of your current file.

<comment><USER12> Why isn't it on by default?

<comment><USER11> It is now. Sorry about that!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Didn't see a quick way to point this out through their site, so I'll point it out here on the off-chance one of the creators sees this thread:

Typo on the /pricing page: "This is were your files are stored, ..."

The product itself looks great though, I'm looking forward to hearing about any HN-ers experiences with it.

<comment><USER4> Thanks! Will fix this shortly.

<comment><USER14> In the bug list, when I try to access my dashboard I have some 404 error and I'm not able to access it. The url in 404 are the following : [http://d6ff1xmuve0sx.cloudfront.net/2.0.2-d9f5bdba/static/da...](http://d6ff1xmuve0sx.cloudfront.net/2.0.2-d9f5bdba/static/dashboard/style/dashboard.css) [http://d6ff1xmuve0sx.cloudfront.net/2.0.2-d9f5bdba/static/re...](http://d6ff1xmuve0sx.cloudfront.net/2.0.2-d9f5bdba/static/require.js) [http://d6ff1xmuve0sx.cloudfront.net/2.0.2-d9f5bdba/static/sh...](http://d6ff1xmuve0sx.cloudfront.net/2.0.2-d9f5bdba/static/shared/js/emile.min.js)

It works now!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Maybe I'm really completely outdated, but I would like my IDE to be able to open a file in 5 seconds. It should not take me less than a minute to figure how to open a file either. I work on a lot of small scripts that don't even get commited (and are very likely forgotten).

I personally had horrible experience with the previous version (nothing worked) and still waiting to finish hg clone of stuff (and migration of a small package). _SIGH_ I think I'll give a go for the next version.

That said the idea is absolutely incredible, but a little leaner first-steps would be awesome. Since this is in the web anyway, can I just go and edit a file on the web to see how it works? I don't particularly care if anyone sees it or if it even gets saved. I want to be able to play with a demo.

<comment><USER15> Still migrating/cloning. I think I give up for now

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Would love to try it, but wondered if it supported the language(s) I want to use first. I gave up trying to find the list of supported languages. Consider making the text "and 23 other languages" on the home page a link.

</comment><comment><USER17> Tried installing this a week or two ago but ended up with an issue with libxml. Took me an age to sort it (not got much experience with how npm works). Finally got it sorted but then couldn't figure out a way to add authentication, so gave up. Would be good if they came up with an easier installation, especially as it looks so promising.

<comment><USER4> This release is a complete rework of the version that was online two weeks ago. Check the download links at the middle of <http://c9.io/site/features/> to download a local verson that can sync with online.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Any reason there's no Windows app?

The real killer for me last time I tried it was not being able to edit local files. I have so many projects downloaded and set up that having to move them to the cloud just to make a quick edit is not worth it. Is this something the local app fixes?

<comment><USER4> Windows is coming soon, few weeks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've been a paying customer for a month or two. Seems like a very nice update, however it broke git for me.

      $ git commit -m "Small fixes."

      error: pathspec 'fixes.' did not match any file(s) known to git.

<comment><USER20> Sounds like you will have to use 'git commit' until they fix this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The signup page says I get 1 free private project, but another popup said I get no free private projects. Which is it?

Also, I clicked 'clone' on a public github repo of mine, and nothing ever seems to happen.

</comment><comment><USER22> How do I go about pair programming with someone using this? I shared the URL but it didn't work.

<comment><USER11> What was your experience ? Your buddy (who I assume has a Cloud9 account) should join your project in read-only mode, and then you can grant RW access.

<comment><USER22> To me, pair programming is one person codes while the other watches. And then vice versa.

Both parties could access the project but it was just collaboration, not pair programming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Please add Haskell syntax support. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER24> Perhaps even more importantly, Cloud9 is based on the ACE code editor (<http://ace.ajax.org/>) which, by itself, is a really phenomenal piece of work. When you look under the hood it's way more complex than you might imagine.

<comment><USER25> I'm trying to extend ACE with syntax highlighting for a DSL we use. Has anyone done this? It seems a bit daunting (each language included with ACE seems to import code from all over the place--unlike say, Textmate, where you can just write an independent file for each language)

(BTW: New cloud9 looks really neat. Very impressive stuff)

<comment><USER26> I wrote a LaTeX syntax highlighter for it. I found the easiest thing was to copy and paste a simple one and build from there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I wonder how easy it is to extend the AutoComplete functionality? I would kill to have this integrated with MarGo and Gocode the way GoSublime does. That would give me all the functionality I need in Sublime today, but in my browser and with collaboration. I would die a happy hacker.

<comment><USER28> Cloud9 uses Treehugger (<https://github.com/ajaxorg/treehugger>) for all language analysis and completion features. It's an AST framework, so it should be fairly easy to plug in other languages.

<comment><USER27> Well the thing is, GoCode and MarGo are standalone daemons that are queried for completion results, or linting, etc. So I would almost need a higher level place to hook it in to Ace.

<comment><USER29> It's definitely possible to have a server-side component for doing that kind of stuff, and that has been something we've been experimenting with ourselves. The interface for these services is already fully asynchronous, which helps communication with a server component, but it still requires some manual work for the network communication and marshalling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I notice a huge growth of the links to .io domains here :P

<comment><USER31> I already have far more than I should, as you can get some really nice names which are normally taken. Now if only I had a use for -any- of them.

<comment><USER30> I'd order one, but paying that much for a domain is too expensive.</comment></comment></comment>


Click on the scissors at the bottom of Kickstarter's homepage - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/jobs?ref=footer

<comment><USER2> I just expected it to keep moving and disappear, much better result.

</comment><comment><USER3> I love these types of easter eggs, made my night :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Cute :)

</comment><comment><USER5> Great find</comment>


Iowa ranks as the best state to live in America, U.S. News says - <AUTHOR> https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2018/02/27/iowa-best-state-rankings-us-news-world-report/376147002/ <comment><USER2> I moved away from Iowa, as have a lot of people over the years.

The growth rate lately has been about .5% per year, and the population actually shrunk in the 1980's. [1]

The weather sucks there. It's cold as fuck in the winter, and hot and humid as fuck in the summer. There's maybe 4 enjoyable weeks the entire year.

The politics suck. Steve King is a US Rep from Iowa. For whatever reason Iowa keeps electing him in, and it's embarrassing.

The jobs there suck. Des Moines is a small town, and other cities are even smaller. There just aren't enough tech jobs to keep ISU and Iowa graduates in the state. The best and brightest leave.

Yes, Google has a data center, but it's in Council Bluffs. Have you ever even heard of Council Bluffs before that?

[1] [http://population.us/ia/](http://population.us/ia/)

<comment><USER3> Data centers don't really lead to many jobs. Prineville, Oregon of all places has a FB one, and it's as automated as can be.

Also, being able to ride my bike here is worth an awful lot: [https://photos.app.goo.gl/8UVHrhwCHybhE2LU2](https://photos.app.goo.gl/8UVHrhwCHybhE2LU2)

Not sure how much of that kind of thing you get in Iowa.

<comment><USER4> As an aside - Iowa has an enormous annual bike ride called [Ragbrai]([https://ragbrai.com](https://ragbrai.com)). I've wanted to go for years. Those that I know that have done it loved it.

<comment><USER5> Absolutely do it at least once but do not expect it to be super easy. Most years we average more climbing than Ride the Rockies and it's always 10 degrees hotter on the pavement than the air temp which will likely be in the 90F's. The great thing though, this is not a race, and there's lots of places to stop and relax along the way. You have all day to make it to the next overnight town. Many of us do a gravel route and end up in the same towns every evening as the main ride. Riding gravel is a really big deal here and this alternate route has caught on. The official ride now even includes an optional gravel loop on one day. Hope you make it some summer soon.

<comment><USER3> Speaking of gravel, I think this is really cool: [https://dirtykanza.com/](https://dirtykanza.com/) \- it really makes the most of the roads and land they have, even if it's not someplace 'spectacular'. And it looks pretty brutal to boot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This isn't too surprising to someone who has a passing familiarity with the state: thriving college towns, friendly business climate, low cost of living, plentiful land, a strong focus on education and healthcare, smart infrastructure spending, and strong tradition of citizen involvement in government. It ranks highly on many metrics, and, perhaps more importantly, avoids low rankings on others.

This year, the rest of the top five are Minnesota, Utah, North Dakota, and New Hampshire, all well-deserved; Iowa climbs to the top, while Minnesota and New Hampshire have been consistent top performers for many years.

It's enlightening to compare a list of states by inequality to this list [1]. It reveals that many high-demand locales are in fact quite unequal, while many of the states ranked highly in the article are more equal in terms of income disparity between the lowest and highest earners.

On income equality alone, a state like Iowa will be less attractive to someone tolerant of risk and confident in their ability to execute than some other states with wider gaps, but it will remain a good choice for someone seeking stability and a high quality of life.

[1] [https://www.statista.com/statistics/227249/greatest-gap- betw...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/227249/greatest-gap-between-rich- and-poor-by-us-state/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Iowa is a great state. The college towns and Des Moines (the capital) are as fun and forward-thinking as any other state's college towns I've been to, and cost of living is hard to beat. Ironically, in the Related links for this article, there's a story titled, "Des Moines was just named the nation's unhappiest city for workers" [0]. When I was in Iowa, DM wasn't much fun despite being the biggest city in Iowa, but I had heard it had in the past years become much more fun for young folks.

[0] [https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/business/2018/...](https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/money/business/2018/02/08/des- moines-just-named-nations-unhappiest-city-workers/319231002/)

<comment><USER8> I got my CS degree from the University of Iowa. Iowa City is a nice town. My parents have lived in Cedar Rapids for the past 20 years, so I've visited Iowa often.

I wouldn't be opposed to moving there, but I also have no desire to make it a target destination.

The tech landscape seems to largely be older, more conservative companies: Rockwell Collins, NCS Pearson, GoDaddy, John Deere, etc.

<comment><USER9> GoDaddy is a "conservative" company among the likes of John Deere and Rockwell Collins?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I would need my European/Asian food.....(especially great sushi and some Michelin caliber restaurants), easy beach access, good weather most of the year, and some tech meetups to go to.

Probably not for me.

<comment><USER11> I just want a decent electronic music scene (anything with regular non-house non-edm events) but that alone means i have to stick to pretty big cities :(

<comment><USER12> I wouldn't be so sure about that. There was a decent sized EDM festival a couple of years ago in bum-fuck Lolo Hot Springs, Montana (Lolo Hot Springs is basically the last stop in MT on US Rte 12 headed towards Idaho - it's about 40-60 minutes from Lolo proper. It's only claims to fame are the hot springs and Lewis & Clark stopped there. I'm not even sure the population is in the triple digits). Hell, if I'd known about it before hand, I'd have used it as an excuse to visit my parents in Lolo. A couple of my favorite US based d'n'b DJs played that event. Alas, I didn't know about it until well after the fact.

Granted, you said decent scene, and I wouldn't necessarily qualify a single "large" event (for the region) a decent scene, but it doesn't mean there has to be nothing.

edit: Also, some of the regional small cities can attract a lot of shows. Boise, ID is particularly good at it, even with a pop < 250k. Boise also has a pretty decent tech drawing, but that's more on the hardware side, I think, Boise is Micron's headquarters. Boise is also a great city to live in. My parents were there for a while when I was in college. Quite a fun city for its size. Ethnic foods are somewhat limited, but you can get very good Mexican and Basque food there (loved the Basque food in particular).

<comment><USER2> To be honest, Boise is a gem of a city for it's size. I wouldn't say it has a great EDM scene, but it's got a decent live music scene. Treefort is coming up next month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here's how Iowa ranked in each category:

\- Infrastructure: 1st

\- Health care: 3rd

\- Opportunity: 4th

\- Education: 5th

\- Quality of life: 9th

\- Crime: 15th

\- Economy: 17th

\- Fiscal stability: 21st

My gut feeling is that this report seriously undervalues Economy and Fiscal Stability categories.

After all "It's the economy stupid".

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure. I'd rather be poor in a trailer in New Hampshire than rich in California.

<comment><USER15> Well I think you're about the only one with that opinion

<comment><USER14> Yeah, my comment was an exaggeration but certainly grounded in truth.

Economics aren't everything.

I know a couple families who chose near poverty in rural Maine and rural Vermont after similiar near poverty in the Boston area but they're likely outliers.

One of the things that really struck me about VT, NH and ME was that the poorer people never complained much about the state. That wasn't what they saw to be the source of their problems. That's a huge flip from MA.

With all I've heard about CA if I had to choose between CA or that I can't say I wouldn't choose that. I'd probably regret either choice. Good thing I don't have to make that choice. I'll put in my years in the Boston area so I can take a pay cut out in the boondocks and still live comfortably.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The current income tax tops at almost 9% but they're currently trying to pass a $1B+ tax cut and would cut the top rate to around 6%. It's currently bracketed so the bottom rate is 0.36%.

Generally the cost of living is cheap as hell for housing and property taxes.

</comment><comment><USER17> Iowa is a pretty white state, at 91.3% state. In America whites are on average better off than blacks and Hispanics. Therefore whiter states will look good. A serious comparison of states meant to guide decisions on where to live will adjust for demographics, since you obviously won't change race when you move. Even better would be to adjust for race and education. Whites in New Hampshire are better off than those in Mississippi, but if you compare only college graduates, differences will be smaller.

</comment><comment><USER18> Is this Heaven? No it's Iowa. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8-B5cyfK6A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8-B5cyfK6A)

<comment><USER19> "Why do all of these angels have ram's horns?" -Dana Gould

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I guess the statistics that would matter more to the HN readers are not there, so I'll ask: what about the tech opportunities specifically?

<comment><USER21> Dwolla Dwolla Dwolla. Involta. And i am guessing a bunch of agi-drone startups.

<comment><USER22> Lots of work at Deere. I work there, and just brought on 2 people, and have 4 more in the pipeline.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> And being an actuary is the "best" job. But also mind-numbingly boring.

Goes to show that choice of metrics matters.

</comment><comment><USER24> Here's the whole list: [https://www.usnews.com/news/best- states/rankings](https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings)

<comment><USER25> WA #6

CA #32

So glad I relocated. My kids and I constantly refer to being thrilled to have moved to civilization. It is nice to see somewhat objective data backing that up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Depends on what one is looking for. Iowa is a small rural state with a few medium size urban locations, some of which are college towns. People are genuine, education is highly valued and the community in general is strong. Good beer is readily available :). Some winters are milder than others, and the worst of the summer typically doesn't last more than a couple of weeks. Ragbrai is a unique experience that should not go unrecognized in my humble opinion.

</comment><comment><USER27> I moved to Iowa During the recession, from California. The people were so nice it was incredible. There's a lot to be said for Iowa. Low cost of living, 4 seasons. Enough snow to make you hate it, but not loathe it. Great tech community. And some of the sharpest people I have ever met.

</comment><comment><USER28> I've lived in Iowa. It was nice, but too cold for me.

Ragbrai is supposed to be awesome (I didn't ride it, and regret this) and there's lots to be said about a clean, rural state with low cost of living.

Hurrah for those who can hack the cold. I can see how it's #1 for some people.

</comment><comment><USER29> Can Iowans confirm Iowa Is Great? Also interesting that the bottom 10 states are ones that voted Trump in the last election. Perhaps they figured he would help bring more prosperity to them.

<comment><USER16> Yes! Come to Iowa if you value your 2nd Admendment Rights. Currently they're in a race to surpass Florida as the most gun friendly state.

Recently passed Stand Your Ground.

[https://www.nraila.org/articles/20170630/iowa-critical- self-...](https://www.nraila.org/articles/20170630/iowa-critical-self-defense- law-takes-effect-july-1)

Adding the 2nd Amendment to the state constitution passed a subcommittee on Jan 26th.

[https://www.nraila.org/articles/20180126/iowa-right-to- keep-...](https://www.nraila.org/articles/20180126/iowa-right-to-keep-and- bear-arms-constitutional-amendment-passes-subcommittee)

Working on Courthouse Carry and School Parking Lot Carry.

Permitless Carry got recently scrapped, but was heavily favored to pass, until someone cast a big shadow by slaughtered a bunch of high school kids. Go figure...

Also, proposed May issue permits, Bump stock bans, semi-auto bans, carry restrictions, and private transfer bans have all been defeated.

[http://iowafc.org/news/](http://iowafc.org/news/)

EDIT: forgot the /s

<comment><USER2> I can't tell if you're serious or not. lol.

<comment><USER30> Who knows - but they issue permits to blind people: [https://www.snopes.com/iowa-guns-blind/](https://www.snopes.com/iowa-guns- blind/)

<comment><USER2> Yeah... I forgot about that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Stop posting links with autoplay videos. Just stop it. You may think it's awesome, but it's not.

When the autoplay videos start people hit the back button immediately and don't bother to read the article.

<comment><USER31> We're doing a UI blacklist? Add "fixed floating headers/footers on mobile that make me feel like I'm looking at your sight through blinds".</comment></comment>


Problems with namecheap.org? - <AUTHOR> I have not been able to access ap.www.namecheap.com for almost a month now, because traceroute cannot find the server. The domain name resolves, but traceroute. It used to be just from my home machine, but now the same thing is true from my digitalocean instance as well. I have had an open ticket with namecheap and they keep thanking me for my patience but don't have a solution. Are other people having trouble accessing namecheap? <comment><USER2> I have also experienced some problems with a vps account there over the past 6 weeks. Initially they suggested that I reboot the server even though it was "online." That worked, but it seemed like every 3 or 4 days I would have to reboot the server again. Then a few days ago, rebooting the server didn't help.

Upon contacting the help personnel, they indicated that my name server wasn't pointing to my hosting server (both are services provided me by namecheap). I asked how they would have lost the connection since I hadn't made any changes to the websites in months. They didn't have an answer but redid my name server entries to get them pointing to my vps again.

So after years of good reliable service, there has been problems lately.</comment>