Ask HN: What skills $100/hour - $200k/year - <AUTHOR>

To give some context - I'm a computer engineer with 10 years of total experience, but not all in coding. Have done coding(5 years - java) config. management +  sys. admin(3 year), mid management (2 years).
I think I've become a nomad, with not one skill very sharp. I love to code and want to get back to it full time.
I just chalked up a plan, but I will have to stay at my present position for 2 more years. After that I calculated I'll need a 200k/year job in the south east (think that makes 400k/year in the west).
What skills should I learn and sharpen in these 2 years which will get me that pay scale ?
1st love python, second love Javascript. But I can pick up anything and run with it mad.
If coding can't get me that, what type of consulting can I do which gets paid that much.
I have the startup route, but I specifically want to know about the job skills.
Thanks. <comment><USER2> In order to make 200K as a $100/hr contractor, you need to be continually employed at that rate. The consistent employment is the hard part.

In my experience one can make $100/hr+ as an iPhone contractor, but only in small chunks. It's getting harder, too, because there are now plenty of good- enough people who will charge less. Python + Javascript is hard, because there are loads of good people who will work full time for far less.

One rule of thumb I've found for maximizing contract rates, is that the best paying jobs are usually with huge rich non-technical companies that are kind of internally screwed up and are trying to solve their software problems by throwing money at them.

Thus, the best bet for making $200K as a contractor is to do something kind of horrible, like being a consultant at a bank or oil company fixing up a botched Oracle Financials install, or something like that. The other option, if you have a clearance, is doing defense contracting. (However, typically if you have the right clearance, you'd know about that option already.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Quotes from your post...

"After that I calculated I'll need a 200k/year job in the south east (think that makes 400k/year in the west)."

"If coding can't get me that, what type of consulting can I do which gets paid that much."

So, which is it that you are looking for? A job? Or consulting / contracting? The two are very different. Because you mentioned Python and Javascript together, I'm assuming you are looking to be a web developer. You would be unlikely to find a job paying 200K in web development. You will need to look into something that has demand but scarcity as well.

You can hit those rates as a contract web developer, but translating that gig into a 200K year depends on your management / marketing abilities. Personally, I wouldn't even want to attempt it if my lifestyle requirements were 200K per year. You will need to time to build up a client base and you may not be able to charge $100 / hour right away. More likely you would have to start somewhere around $50 - $80 / hour and work your way up from there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct. I understand python/JS won't get me that pay. But I have 2 years I can learn and build experience in. I need to know what in.

I see MS-CRM, WebMethods, Tivoli etc. That's what I was looking for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unfortunately, it's not so easy as to say "I want $x per year with this wide skill set, what should I do?"

If you love Python and Javascript, that leads me to believe that you're into nice looking scripts and web development. Have you looked into Django?

I'm not really sure what to tell you other than do what you love, and hone your skills. If you can become specialized in a specific area of coding, even better.

It's not a piece of cake to go out and earn $200k/year, but with determination and a sharp mind it is definitely possible. Unfortunately, nothing HN can tell you will really move that a long.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER5> 200/hr is standard for a few business oriented developer technologies. The technologies are typically boring and unpleasant to work with and you have to actually talk to business users (something devs usually hate). It may not be the technology so much as the ability to understand what business people mean when they are talking. If you like Python (which I do too) you may want to try doing some Django IT projects on contract to get some references and build a business from there. Boring, but a pretty common business model.

<comment><USER6> I was going to say something similar. The only developers I know making $110+ per hour in the South-East are very deep into back office stuff like MS-CRM, SAP, etc. I did enough of it to know I don't really like it, but I had a fellow team member who loves it and is now making money hand over fist working on MS-CRM full time.

Different strokes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> hmmm... I have two perspectives to contribute to this question.

1) Do not think in terms of dollars per hour. Instead, think in terms of a full time job that pays 200k per year. Then go to places such as glassdoor.com and look up who's getting paid that yearly salary and move forward from there.

2) Take the skills you've accumulated, the 1st & 2nd loves you desire to incorporate, and start your own business. The way I see it, if you're quick, you will have two iterations to get a successful product out the door & profitable - one year per business idea.

If it were me, I would attack the latter as you have far more control, and a far bigger upside than your $200k/year goal.

</comment><comment><USER8> iPhone consulting can get into the range (as does embedded work in general). But it's not a sure thing by any means.

Objective C feels much more pythonic in execution than C or C++ does. (I too prefer python)

<comment><USER9> Thanks gte910h - What entails "embedded work in general" ? Can you be a bit specific ?

<comment><USER8> Designing embedded devices, code + hardware, or supervising a team doing so. Like displays, cable set top boxes, etc. Usually in C, doing stuff like embedded Linux or QNX, etc.

Not _all_ work doing that mind you is in that range, only ones where you do a lot of work very well, often in very large companies. I've seen comparable rates coming out of consulting firms doing that stuff in the area as well. I bet Scientific Atlanta (a Cisco company), Flextronics, Lockheed and other larger electronics firms have similar positions. I'm in Atlanta, but I'm betting RTP has a similar sort of thing.

You're not going to start anywhere doing general embedded work at that rate. Honestly, iPhone dev is probably the fastest to get there, but then you're still going to have to push hard. I see 90k as a super frequent base for salaried iOS dev, and lots of agencies (which are pretty small) charging $150 or so.

Additionally, I know Bank of America's quantitative division in Atlanta is constantly unable to find enough rockstar C++ programmers. Their pay range starts below that, but gets there in a couple years (and I do mean like 2, not 10). But this is for people who already are very very very good at C++ (the coding test is pretty hard). That position isn't embedded, but requires lots of C++ and finance knowledge to excel in.

<comment><USER8> About that bank thing: Friend of mine works there, they really are looking hard, let me know via a message to my email and I'll look up a posting/email address for you.

I believe they do the massive simulations/calculations which generate the daily interest rates there, but am not sure so much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Consistently? Take a quant job in Chicago or NYC (or London). I'm sure there's groups outside those cities as well, but I don't know the southeast well enough to say WHERE.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm personally sharpening my tools for "big data" and "augmented reality" but it's a gamble, which is inevitable if you want to make the big bucks in this industry.

<comment><USER9> Big data = Cloud computing etc. ?

<comment><USER11> I was more referring to this definition from Wikipedia[1]:

> Big data are datasets that grow so large that they become awkward to work > with using on-hand database management tools. Difficulties include capture, > storage, search, sharing, analytics, and visualizing.

Some other interesting resources:

What is data science?: <http://radar.oreilly.com/2010/06/what-is-data- science.html>

How to turn data into money: [http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2010/10/how- to-t...](http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2010/10/how-to-turn-data- into-money.html).

O'Reilly Radar: <http://radar.oreilly.com/data/>

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_data>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> contractors for highly expensive business software can go above that (example: SAP, Oracle Retail etc)

<comment><USER13> Same for the SOA/EAI scene, it has some jobs that require expertise, but the consulting pay is usually 500€/hr and more. Think TIBCO/webMethods products. Just to have an idea, these products are usually sold in the order of million(s) of €, normally used by banking, telcos or any other big company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> tried trolling?

</comment><comment><USER15> Negotiation.</comment>


Free ice cream, delivered by Uber - <AUTHOR> https://www.uber.com/icecream?v=1

<comment><USER2> This is not free, is it? There's a price list at [http://blog.uber.com/2013/07/17/ubericecream/](http://blog.uber.com/2013/07/17/ubericecream/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Is Uber going to turn into the next Kozmo?</comment>


Hours After FOSTA Passes, Reddit Bans 'Escorts' and 'SugarDaddy' Communities - <AUTHOR> https://reason.com/blog/2018/03/22/reddit-bans-escort-subreddits <comment><USER2> I don't have a solution, I'm just ranting here. Sorry.

This is just an extension of conservatism being scared of sex and women going their own way.

Like it or not, prostitution has helped many people rise out of poverty and even make societies (the "west" back in the early US days) around their business.

Laws like this are very hard to vote against because of TV ads opponents of politicians could run demonizing them.

<comment><USER3> The bill passed the senate 97-2. This is about censorship and liberals want censorship just as much as conservatives do.

Voting against it:

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon)

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky)

<comment><USER4> Why does "liberal" mean something essentially unrelated to "liberal" in American politics? How did that come about?

<comment><USER5> Liberal compared to the other party, which is far-right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a pretty good legal analysis of the first amendment issues this raises.

[https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2018/03/why-fostas- res...](https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2018/03/why-fostas-restriction- on-prostitution-promotion-violates-the-first-amendment-guest-blog-post.htm)

I'd point out that merely operating an interactive service provider with the intent to promote or facilitate prostitution is criminalized... if you work at a company that might get sued, you probably want to start looking for a new job.

Conspiring or attempting as well... if you talk about with intent or try to figure out a way to facilitate prostitution, that's ostensibly illegal too.

That said, the chilling effect of removing immunity under 230 is the greater concern, as it's more likely to withstand the first amendment challenge, from what I can tell. Of course that assumes that there would be such a challenge, from someone.

</comment><comment><USER7> r/SexWorkers seems to have survived, thanks to its long-standing policies against advertising/transactions, so sex workers can still talk about sex work, in theory and practice, for now.

<comment><USER8> And the truth is that if this was hosted in almost any country other than the US, that would not be true. The US is extremely flexible in that regard.

If websites follow local laws these communities, whatever value they have, will disappear. In fact anything that reminds society of the existence of anything that they feel is shameful (e.g. sex workers in Saudi Arabia [1]). Right along with any discussion anything else that either the state itself or society considers shames them.

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

The net result: "Saudi Arabia is one of the largest consumers of domestic workers. Around 30% of Saudi's population of 27.3 million are immigrants from other countries. The Law requires that all of the expatriates in Saudi Arabia should have a employment contract while they are in the country. [6] But with some unfair work practices such as sexual harassment, extreme working conditions, and other human rights violations, many try to escape their employers. Runaways are often kidnapped and forced into prostitution [7] Prostitutes tend to be mostly from Nigeria, Ethiopia,[8] Yemen, Morocco, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Tajikistan .[9] As of right now, there are no strict laws in force pertaining to human trafficking. In 2013, the government did not report any prosecutions or convictions of alleged human traffickers.[7] Foreign prostitutes who are arrested by the Saudi vice police face deportation.[8]"

<comment><USER9> >And the truth is that if this was hosted in almost any country other than the US, that would not be true. The US is extremely flexible in that regard.

What? In a large part of Europe prostitution is fully legal[1]. For example, in Poland we have very popular websites solely dedicated for sexual services advertisements[2], with photos and price lists.

[1] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_law#/media/File:P...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_law#/media/File:Prostitution_laws_of_the_world.PNG)

[2] - like roksa.pl or odloty.pl

<comment><USER4> What's PiS stance on this?

<comment><USER9> I don't think they have ever said anything about it. Currently this topic doesn't exist in Poland's political debate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Craigslist has also shutdown their "casual encounters".

As it was a jumping spot for hookers since they shuttered the sex services section years ago (and most went to backpages and other sites)

Wonder what backpages will do, that's their whole business (google city + backpages = first hit is escort listing on backpages)

<comment><USER11> It's much larger than just "casual encounters". Craigslist has shut down every single one of their personal categories. w4w, m4m, w4m, m4w are all gone. Even "strictly platonic" is gone.

<comment><USER12> Missed Connections remains. All the solicitation will move there in a thinly veiled manner, most likely.

<comment><USER13> One could see a scenario where Craigslist has to shut down in its entirety.

<comment><USER11> Yes, creating liability traps might undermine Craigslist entirely.

Imagine if a similar liability were created around regulating job postings or apartment rentals, where Craigslist derives its revenue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm not hip to the qualities of IPFS, but isn't there a decentralized and anonymous way to enable this? Or is that not yet a solved problem?

<comment><USER15> IPFS is decentralized, but not anonymous.

Retroshare, Freenet, and I2P are all decentralized and anonymous, but they're all somewhat difficult to use, and often very slow.

[http://retroshare.net/](http://retroshare.net/)

[https://freenetproject.org/](https://freenetproject.org/)

[https://geti2p.net/en/](https://geti2p.net/en/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Like most other banned communities on reddit, they just moved to other places, it seems:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/SugarBaby/](https://www.reddit.com/r/SugarBaby/)

In a way, I'm not really surprised.

<comment> purple-again This strategy doesn't work in the long run. The ban hammer came down swift on purpose. Only a fraction of Sugar Daddy's users will find their way to Sugar Baby and when the hammer comes down there as well, only a fraction of the community will move to the next one.

Someone on HN has a link to a real nice data guy that is hosting JSON of every Reddit (and HN!) comment ever made (or retrievable at least). If it was important enough to you, you could verify this with the recent fatpeoplehate fiasco.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What was that about freedom of speech again?

</comment><comment><USER18> And we can't do shit about Trump and his encounters with sex workers.

Anyways, does anyone know if blockchaim based forums like steemit are affected by FOSTA?</comment>


It's time to take alternatives to dark matter seriously - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/why-its-time-to-take-alternatives-to-dark-matter-seriously <comment><USER2> These articles always miss the mark because they get the history backwards. Modified gravity theories were taken much more seriously in the 1970s and earlier, where the evidence for dark matter was shakier. Cosmological and astrophysical observations from the 1980s to 2000s have vastly strengthened the case for dark matter, which is why it's the leading hypothesis now.

Popular articles won't tell you this, because _without exception_ they laser focus on galaxy rotation curves, a piece of evidence that's nearly a century old and by far the weakest one. But by neglecting to mention the actual evidence we base our conclusions on, they (purposely or not) make us look like fools.

Furthermore, dark matter hasn't been ruled out. One particular candidate of what it could be (a WIMP) has been studied and mostly ruled out over the past 20 years, but by the nature of the business there are many possible candidates. And of course we've shifted attention towards those other options, which is exactly how science is supposed to work!

<comment><USER3> Question: as a layman, knowing nothing about the quantitative nature of the evidence, neutrinos seem like the perfect candidates for dark matter, since we've already detected them and we _know_ interact so poorly with anything. Why are they not the obvious candidate for dark matter? Is there any evidence against them?

<comment><USER2> That's a perfectly good question, and that's exactly why for a time in the 90s they were one of the leading candidates for dark matter. Unfortunately it fell apart when we got a better understanding of structure formation, which determines the large-scale distribution of matter in the universe today. If the 3 neutrinos have masses around where we think, then they'd be too light and move too fast in the early universe, smoothing the distribution out and thus suppressing small-scale clumping, contrary to observations. On the other hand, if the 3 neutrinos were a lot heavier (possible we can only detect their mass differences, not the absolute masses) they would screw up the CMB. The qualitative case was great, but quantitatively it just didn't work out.

<comment><USER4> I'm not an astrophysicist and well outside my depth here, but couldn't observed clumping with low-mass neutrinos suppressing clumping be explained by an older universe as well? Put another way: if clumping is suppressed, that doesn't mean it doesn't happen, it just means it happens _slower_ than initially thought, no?

<comment><USER2> Also a good idea, but the details don't work out. Specifically, early on the Fourier components of the matter density distribution grow independently. Light neutrino DM would suppress the small scale clumping too much. Making the whole process last longer would fix this, but it would also enhance large scale clumping, contrary to observation.

It might be possible to make it all work out by adding a third effect (and maybe somebody has already done that!), but there's also a danger of constructing a Rube Goldberg machine -- if there are too many gadgets needed to get the structure right it starts looking like epicycles. The great thing about traditional dark matter is that it doesn't require any cosmological complications, it just works.

<comment><USER4> So lemme check my understanding here: are you saying that clumping has an observed size distribution, and if dark matter were just neutrinos, there isn't a timescale which would produce the clumping size distribution we see: if the timescale were short then we would see less small clumping than we see, if the timescale were longer then we would see more large clumping than we see?

Neat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I used to work on dark matter experiments. (This was a few years ago now, and wasn't for very long -- I was helping out colleagues -- but I don't think the situation has changed much.)

I don't think anyone worth listening to considers dark matter to be a Universal Truth or anything. It's a crappy theory that needs better experimental evidence on the micro scale. It's just that all attempts to find that evidence have turned up nothing. (Except DAMA/LIBRA, the bane of the previously mentioned colleague's days and motivating factor for the experiment in question... but nobody actually believes them, so let's value their reports at "nothing".)

The biggest problem is that all alternatives to date are worse. They _all_ _have_ _problems_ , problems of equal or greater severity than dark matter. That, more than any other reason, is the reason dark matter is still the leading theory.

I do strongly believe we should work on the advancement of non-dark matter theories. That's how you lap the current leader, after all. And neglecting alternative theories was what got us into a couple decades of string theory stagnation, a mistake we'd be wise not to repeat. If a new theory or new evidence for an existing theory emerges, dark matter will lose mindshare amazingly quickly.

There is, of course, a "nightmare scenario". The WIMP carries a weak charge, by definition. It was dreamed up that way to make it detectable and have a presence in the universe. (And there may have been a theoretical preference; I wouldn't know, I've always been an experimentalist.) But there's no reason it _must_ carry a charge, weak, strong, or electromagnetic. That would make it really quite invisible to experiments. This may be the universe we live in.

<comment><USER6> But doesn't it have to have some charge to interact with matter in some way so as to achieve the observed effects that show that gravity from normal matter is inadequate to explain how things move on a macro scale?

<comment><USER7> > have to have some charge

it can also be a new interaction driven by a completely different fundamental force. it's extremely unlikely, but "have to" is quite a strong statement for something we only know exists because observations deviate from our expectations.

<comment><USER8> How do you even judge the likelihood of something like that?

<comment><USER7> same as everything else, the more changes it requires from the current model the less likely it's the solution

<comment><USER8> That's not how I judge likelihood at all. If you were to say that there is more mathematical wiggle room for other explanations, I would be more likely to agree, but simply having to change models has no impact on likelihood. That thinking would make Quantum Mechanics, Special Relativity, Natural Selection, or Genetics unlikely. Your argument could even be used to explain why it's more likely that the earth is flat because that's the intuitive model.

<comment><USER7> unlikely doesn't mean it's less good of a theory. it means the bar for verification/falsification is so much higher.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I just find this odd... we've seen Dark Matter fill in the gaps of standard astronomy (general rel) models of galactic evolution, but it's been predicted and seen in multiple places over the last 50 years and the measurements keep getting stronger (cosmic background spatial distribution, galactic rotation, bullet cluster). Each measurement rules out some model explanation, and we search for different particles (WIMPs, MACHOs, neutrinos) that fit the models that work.

We still have interesting testable explanations... but let's give up now, it's boring? MOND again?

Sorry, axions are interesting and may explain other things (antimatter ratio etc) and if that fails I think others will pop up, that don't require reexplaining astronomy.

[https://phys.org/news/2020-06-case-axion-dark-gains- traction...](https://phys.org/news/2020-06-case-axion-dark-gains- traction.html)

<comment><USER10> The very nature of the study of physics has created a long history of untestable theories to fill in the gaps. Because candidate theories that can be tested either solve the problem or remove themselves from contention, so until the problem is solved, the untestable ones are the only ones that last any significant amount of time.

The theory of luminiferous ether had a large amount of circumstantial experimental evidence for quite a long time, but all it really was, was a placeholder waiting for an actual explanation. Theories like that will always exist on the frontiers of science. It's not really unique to physics either. Miasma theory played a similar role in the history of biology for instance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > But now it's time to consider...

Almost invariably when an article title says "it is now time to..." there has been no actual threshold that has been crossed making "now" special at all.

The growing types of evidence for a "dark matter" effect on large scales, vs. the absence of any small scale evidence for it, has consistently begged for new particle, gravitational, and other types of theory to be explored.

It is a strange situation to have something appear so consistent with one of our pillars (general relativity), while completely absent from the other (quantum mechanics).

I am crossing my fingers that any successful understanding of dark matter on the small scale might shed light on how those two pillars could be combined into a single theory. But any explanation will be most interesting!

<comment><USER12> It's pretty easy to get a dark matter candidate out of quantum mechanical theories of elementary particles. The current leading candidate, axions, was proposed all the way back in 1977 for reasons completely unrelated to dark matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you enjoy science fiction, one of the better recent SCPs was about dark matter:

[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-4170](http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-4170)

SCP is a world-building collaborative creating-writing project, focused on sci-fi cosmic horror. Each entry is standalone, though there is also some canon which contributors are encouraged to follow.

SCP-4170 was generally received as a positive entry, though I read it as being far more sinister.

 _Miriam: [Request to still be taken seriously]_

<comment><USER14> That really was a good one. Thanks for linking it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> MOND was a healthy idea to pursue, not because it was the correct alternative (I really have my doubts that it was) but because it was _AN_ alternative.

Maybe some postgrad might have had less of the mainstream science groupthink indoctrination because of it.

That being said, dark matter is a real phenomenon: it is a measurable quantity of how wrong we are. Dark matter isn't the problem, WIMP is.

<comment><USER16> We have a theory and observations. Observations don't match theory. So, at least one of them is incomplete.

Dark matter puts the emphasis on observations(that is: assume the overall theory is roughly correct): there are things out there that, if we would have observed them, would make the theory fit.

Alternatives for gravity focus on the theory (accepting observations as roughly complete): if we change the theory, it should fit the observations.

TL;DR we ought to have A=B, but there's a mismatch. The problem could be due to either A or B. Or both.

Both should be worked on - at least until one can be fully ruled out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Doesn't the bullet cluster provide strong evidence for the existence of dark matter? Shouldn't all alternatives need to explain the phenomenon seen there?

<comment><USER18> It provides strong evidence of matter that we cannot detect. Milgrom's reply is worth a read: [https://web.archive.org/web/20160721044735/http://www.astro....](https://web.archive.org/web/20160721044735/http://www.astro.umd.edu/~ssm/mond/moti_bullet.html)

<comment><USER19> Thus... dark matter?

<comment><USER20> No. Because dark matter is understood mostly to be less interacting matter. Don't think it's a ball of dark stuff, think something you couldn't even see

Whereas he's proposing regular (dark as in color) matter

<comment><USER21> > Whereas he's proposing regular (dark as in color) matter

Wouldn't that kind of matter be easily detectable because it would block EM radiation, including visible light?

<comment><USER22> Yes. "Dark" is misleading, it should be "sparsely-interacting" or something. Well, MACHOs would have been dark in the traditional sense as well. Generally, "we would have seen it" excludes a lot of dark matter candidates, thats what actually makes it "dark"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > [Milgrom's alternative theory:] _But far in the outlying areas of the Milky > Way, stars would feel a smaller gravitational force than previously thought_

Isn't it the opposite?

Dark matter is extra matter which implies extra gravitational force to hold the galaxies together. If you want an alternative to dark matter, shouldn't the alternative theory predict a _bigger_ gravitational force than previously thought?

<comment><USER24> As far as I can understand, you are correct. The problem is that predicted gravitational force at the edge of the galaxies is smaller than observed, so any theory should find a solution for that problem. MOND in my opinion always looked like trying to fit a solution to the observations which will lead to overfit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I would enjoy an explanation as to why the distribution of normal and dark matter in galaxies is roughly the same. My ignorant intuition tells me that since normal matter is subject to many more and different forces than dark matter, one of them should be much more densely-orbiting the galactic core than the other. But they aren't.

</comment><comment><USER26> Maybe dark matter is just a symptom of the universe's connection to the multiverse. Externalities in action.

<comment><USER27> Gravitational effect from nearby parallel universes maybe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm wondering always about the name "dark matter". It makes a good topic for all kinds of pseudo-science and scifi. The name implies something mystical and invites everyone to discuss a topic that no-one understands.

If the name was something else like "Rubin's matter" or "Unknown matter", maybe it wouldn't invite so much unscientific discussion and speculation.

I don't feel that everyone has an opinion about higgs boson, but you can start a discussion about dark matter with anyone. I'm not any kind of expert about the topic either, but could certainly start speculating about it with other laymen.

<comment><USER29> It's literally dark.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> > But far in the outlying areas of the Milky Way, stars would feel a smaller > gravitational force than previously thought from the bulk of matter in the > galaxy;

Shouldn't it be: "a stronger gravitational force than previously thought"?

</comment><comment><USER31> A simple back-of-the-envelope estimate shows that it takes an -extremely- small amount of very low-density 'invisible' matter - assuming that it's spread out over the huge 3D 'spherical' volume of a galaxy - to make up the missing mass. On the order of a few -atoms- per cc.

Given all of the unknowns about interstellar/ intergalactic matter, including the density of EMF, it's not too hard to understand why the account sheet won't balance. It's a hard and wonderful problem.

</comment><comment><USER32> What if dark matter is really just regular matter that is not visible through our instruments?

Like large swaths of ice or dust in the voids, similar to our kuiper belt that is difficult to analyze.

<comment><USER33> There are some clever ways of detecting such things. The density of gas and dust can be determined by measuring the effect on starlight passing through it. Statistically, larger objects should occasionally pass in front of background stars making them "blink off" briefly or in the case of black holes, lens the light from the background star, making it briefly brighter. Surveys have been done looking for such things. We can put upper limits on the amount of "traditional" matter, and there simply isn't enough of it out there to explain our observations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> What, exactly, is the prediction of dark matter, compared to MOND (or related theories)?

As a layman it seems like:

1\. Dark matter is not universal (i.e. it is a "random" property of space) 2\. Dark matter interacts with itself (and other matter) via gravity.

Is that all there is? I mean in such a case it seems to be no wonder that it fits the observations better, as DM theory is by far less constrained then MOND.

</comment><comment><USER35> While the stationary background universe model proposed by Peter Ostermann doesn't rule out "dark matter", it at least doesn't require "dark energy" in order to match with observational data.

[http://peter-ostermann.org/assets/sum_os14.pdf](http://peter- ostermann.org/assets/sum_os14.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER36> MOND is appealing from a purely philosophical point of view: we have a separate ("modified") theory for when thing are very small, another one for when things move very fast, so, the need for another modification for when things are very large should not be seen as entirely unexpected, should it?

<comment><USER37> We have none of these things. We have theories which say interesting things about small and fast things. But the theories don't change when things are small or fast.

MOND is excluded experimentally (violates observation of galaxies with and without dark matter). It is unsound theoretically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Does anyone know if there are any effects from inflation [1] at galactic boundaries?

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

</comment><comment><USER39> I've often wondered if there is an equivalent of the magnetic field for gravity. The magnetic field seems to be a consequence of resolving charge interactions for relativistic observers, and the same could be true for gravity.

</comment><comment><USER40> Can anyone Please point to the model used for the "expected" galactic rotation curve? This whole dark matter thing started with observation not matching prediction. I'd like to scrutinize the prediction.

<comment> ellis-bell newton's theory of gravitation was the model used for predicting expected galactic rotation curves

<comment><USER22> Plus mass distribution of bright matter inferred from brightness curves.

It is a simple enough integral to do, grab any beginner's astronomy book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Hope this isn't a stupid question, but does dark matter have different states like solid, liquid, gas and plasma?

<comment><USER36> "Dark matter" is the name of an observable effect. We do not know if it's matter, even.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Is it possible that the effects of dark energy are in reality a previous universe (like an outer sphere) that is pulling our universe matter?

<comment><USER43> You are reading too much Ian M. Banks. (Note: that's fiction, not science.)

<comment><USER42> Never read Ian M. Banks. This is just a question. If not possible why?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Yes! I've been saying for years that dark matter is just a mathematical convenience and that we don't have any real evidence for its existence. Our model w repsect to it needs rethinking

</comment><comment><USER45> Maybe physics needs a more holistic light theory based on stillness and the two-way motion of each phenomena in the cosmos: [https://wikischool.org/divided_light](https://wikischool.org/divided_light)

<comment><USER46> Haha what on earth is this. Every article starts with a bunch of quotes from some crank with no scientific training. Reminds me of [https://vixra.org/](https://vixra.org/).</comment></comment>


"Like" at Your Own Risk - <AUTHOR> https://in.bgu.ac.il/en/pages/news/Chameleon-Attack.aspx <comment><USER2> I seem to remember doing some prank-ish thing like this in the early days of Facebook.

Create an activity or whatever that you "liked" (ex: camping) and friends would see that "soylentcola liked _camping_ ". They would also like _camping_ and then eventually you would change the name of that tag/activity/whatever to something like _getting kicked in the nuts_ so that now it tells people that "John Smith likes _getting kicked in the nuts_ ".

I honestly don't remember the specifics as it's been years since we got our laughs out of this for a few minutes (hell, for all I know this was on MySpace and not Facebook. Really don't remember).

<comment><USER3> Right! This can be done by changing the name of a page people like. Not just a post.

Seems like you can get really good amount of likes for a popular thing (like calls for impeaching Trump in 2017) before changing it to some thing you want to promote (like Tom Steyer for President) ... and you can even qualify for the Debate stage!

<comment><USER2> I haven't been on Facebook in a couple of years now, but I recall similar issues. People/groups would create pages for popular things (again, like "camping" or "sleeping in on the weekends") so that thousands and thousands of people would "like" that thing.

Then once those pages had enough followers, they could be sold off to whatever marketing group wanted access to lots of user data and an outlet to post sponsored content to a lot of viewers.

It wasn't just this bait-and-switch, though. Loads of "meme" pages and similar stuff built up a large enough following and then were either sold or just directly used for marketing.

I think it was bigger when companies/individuals could use Facebook to drive clicks to their sites but I have no idea if that's still a thing these days. Last I saw, most users/posts tended to stay within the Facebook "umbrella" rather than being linked to outside sites.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's a lot of major challenges to creating decentralized, trustless systems, but this is very easy to solve in a trustless system. All you do is indicate "Like"s by signing an object like:

        {post:"<cryptographic hash of post>",action:"like"}

That way if the post changes, your signed "like" no longer applies.

This trustless-ness can be introduced in centralized systems too, but the tendency in a centralized system is to trust the central authority, which is the whole problem with such systems.

<comment><USER5> This doesn't work if you're just linking to some dynamic content. People will like the link and the link itself is static but the content provided by clicking it can change without notice.

<comment><USER4> Responding to this post, since it looks like you edited it (to clarify) and I responded to my misunderstanding based on what your post previously said:

That comes down to making sure you like what you actually intend to like: you probably don't intend to like the literal bytes of the URL, you probably intend to like the content at the URL. UIs can aid in this[1] but ultimately I don't think people think that specifically, and there's not a perfect technical solution to that problem.

[1] WARNING: You're about to "Like" a URL. The content at the URL may change. Do you wish to continue? Y/N

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I had to go read the actual paper to figure out how it worked. It's "updating link previews without visible notifications while retaining social capital". So you do a redirect and then that changes what was originally liked.

</comment><comment><USER7> I have thought about this before, even without the clever hack indicated here:

Likes ought to drop off after an edit, or be clearly pointing to the previous version after any edit. IE they need to reflect staleness, and posts must better reflect that there's version history. In this day and age we ought to be able to differentiate between grammar/spell checks and complete rewrites, and update ux accordingly.

Another one is the ability for someone to change privacy level of a post from private to public. So that risky like that you thought was a safe one among friends could then be opened for everyone to see.

<comment> Brave-Steak > Another one is the ability for someone to change privacy level of a post > from private to public. So that risky like that you thought was a safe one > among friends could then be opened for everyone to see.

This seems like a difficult problem in general and reminds me of this episode of Hidden Brain ([https://www.npr.org/2019/09/06/758281834/you-cant-hit- unsend...](https://www.npr.org/2019/09/06/758281834/you-cant-hit-unsend-how-a- social-media-scandal-unfolded-at-harvard)). Where sharing shocking/"inappropriate" memes in a private WhatsApp led to everybody involved losing their spots in university.

<comment><USER8> Why difficult? Just put the same permissions on the "like" as the parent object being liked, and leave those permissions alone if the parent object updates.

<comment><USER9> Likes could be counted on "what" they were given to. Liking a private post would only count when the post stays private while liking a public post would be counted/displayed either way.

<comment><USER7> Yep. But the more responsible option (for FB engineers) would be to never allow opening up the privacy level - users should only be allowed to restrict it!

If they really want to share same content with the whole world, then that should be a completely new post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.05668](https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.05668)

</comment><comment><USER11> You seed this kind of thing used by spammers on reddit from time to time. They'll get an upvoted comment which is very visible to other users and then edit it to include a link to some shady website.

</comment><comment><USER12> Ironically, sharing this link alone could constitute a risk in some situations

</comment><comment><USER13> Scary o.O

But is it the author editing the post who change it or what?

<comment><USER14> Simple example:

\- You upload an image of a cute cat to your webserver

\- You post the link to the image on some social network (using a throwaway account)

\- You send the link to the post to a friend, who likes the post

\- You switch out the image on the server for a photo of hitler (url stays the same)

\- You wait a day for all the caches involved to update

\- You act disgusted and ask your friend wtf they were thinking when they liked that image

<comment><USER15> \- Your friend says it was a cat video that they liked and they've no idea how that happened

\- Everyone shrugs, says "computers eh?" and moves on with their lives

This attack would only work for gaslighting or repeated targeting I think, and even then, I don't think it would be that convincing.

<comment><USER16> Heh, what niece planet are you from

You forgot the step of

-take an image of the transgression and post it to Twitter

-50000 other people see you liked hitler.

-your next job sees this image on the internet, so actually no, you dont get that job.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask YC: negative comments disappear..? - <AUTHOR>

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=228298
I've noticed zapanig's comment is not shown. I'm not sure what the cause. Is the negative vote count hiding it or a flag?
I'd prefer negative posts still be shown because the negative vote shows it's unpopular, not useless...
Can someone clarify? <comment><USER2> The more negative the vote on a comment, the more it fades into the page background. The reverse is also true. Posts with 1 point are not quite black. 2 and higher points are in fact in black print.

This is the first time I've seen a post entirely disappear though.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you look at the source, that comment has no text, just about a zillion
 tags. There are more comments below it.

</comment><comment><USER4> He could have deleted it on his own because it was unpopular maybe?</comment>


Held captive by ISIS for 10 months, man says West is fuelling misery and disaster - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/former-isis-hostage-says-how-we-can-defeat-isis-2015-12 <comment><USER2> "We've always been at war with Eastasia"</comment>


Turtles all the way down - <AUTHOR> http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs/avi/blogView?showComments=true&entry=3284695382

<comment><USER2> You can see the beginnings of Avi's work on MagLev with this post. This sticks out in particular:

"... clearly you could implement the Ruby language with a Smalltalk-style VM (hopefully one with a Smalltalk-style JIT as well, which would bring a 20x or so speed increase to the current Ruby interpreter)."</comment>


Show HN: Faster Fibers using Threads - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/basic-gongfu/cixl/blob/master/devlog/faster_fibers.md <comment><USER2> It's a shame this experimental Google proposal for userspace thread scheduling never got picked up: [https://blog.linuxplumbersconf.org/2013/ocw/system/presentat...](https://blog.linuxplumbersconf.org/2013/ocw/system/presentations/1653/original/LPC%20-%20User%20Threading.pdf)

The basic API (see page 17) consisted of:

      pid_t switchto_wait(timespec *timeout)
      - Enter an 'unscheduled state', until our control is
      reinitiated by another thread or external event (signal).

      void switchto_resume(pid_t tid)
      - Resume regular execution of tid

      pid_t switchto_switch(pid_t tid)
      - Synchronously transfer control to target sibling
      thread, leaving the current thread unscheduled.

The key abstraction is switchto_switch, which explicitly transfers control to another thread, leaving the current thread quiescent. It's analogous to setcontext(3) or longjmp(3).

<comment><AUTHOR> While I'm all for more options, and against deprecating commonly used functionality; the results I'm getting say that first class context switching support isn't really as important as we like to pretend.

<comment><USER2> For performance, no. But for simplifying the software stack and making it easier to express common control flow abstractions in a consistent, unified, and compatible manner it's hugely important. Not that this API would solve everything, or even much at all, as a practical matter, but it's a very neglected aspect of modern OS and language design.

I can write C code that calls Perl code that calls Java code that calls Python code quite readily, _except_ if I want to use any of their concurrency abstractions like coroutines, async/await, futures, etc. But all of those abstractions merely box function invocation state--otherwise known as a call stack--for a single logically synchronous flow of execution. And we know that all those languages can easily share call stacks.

The issue is that operating systems don't provide a consistent contract for creating and transferring control to different call stacks. They provide OS threads but those are scheduled by the kernel and their implementation and behavior are unnecessarily intermingled with tangential aspects of the runtime environment. It would be like if every time you wanted to call a function you had to use some special kernel facility; not the kind of thing that promotes easy and performant interoperability among different languages or even different libraries.</comment></comment></comment>


Electric Planes Usher in the Second Great Age of Aviation - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/07/electric-planes-usher-second-great-age-aviation/ <comment><USER2> I drive an electric car and fly piston airplanes. I don't see electrics replacing internal combustion in aviation in my flying lifetime.

Why? Weight.

The specific energy (energy per kg, edited per masklinn) of batteries sadly lags the specific energy of gasoline or kerosene, and the airplane carries that weight for the whole flight for an electric airplane. (My gas airplane gets lighter and lands as much as 1000 pounds lighter than it took off, meaning the landing gear, wing spar attachments, and brakes can all be lighter.)

Many airplanes are certified for a ramp, taxi, and takeoff weight higher than their approved landing weight. Electrics will be unable to take advantage of this and must confine their takeoff weight to their landing weight.

I love that such rapid progress is being made in automotive, and I'd love to see that adoption increase so we can reserve petro-based fuels for cases where their energy density provides a compelling operational benefit, such as in aviation.

<comment><USER3> Surely the landing gear, wing spar attachments, and brakes all have to be able to cope with an unexpected turnback and landing with most of the original weight? (not to mention heavy landings in adverse weather conditions)

<comment><USER4> No see [http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid=60&pagetype=90&pagei...](http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid=60&pagetype=90&pageid=822) or [http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/qtr_3...](http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/articles/qtr_3_07/article_03_1.html)

They are only certified to the maximum landing weight which typically is lower than the maximum takeoff weight. When an overweight landing (ie. the weight is higher then maximum landing weight) occurs engineers have to perform a thorough inspection of the plane structure - landing gear, spars, wings, wingbox

EDIT: thanks ForHackernews

<comment><USER5> > the maximum landing weight which typically is larger than the maximum > takeoff weight.

I assume this was a typo and you mean that the max landing weight is typically _less_ than the max takeoff weight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I read a piece by Elon Musk, who was saying that electric planes - whilst very far away - are the future of air travel. Why? Because they will allow planes to fly higher - increasing efficiency and speed. Apparently the normal 30,000 feet cruising altitude is not higher because the reduced oxygen levels at higher altitudes impact the gasoline combustion too much. Even at 30,000 feet the air is thick as soup at cruising speed, and that's why planes have not got faster for the last 50 years. Go higher, as electrics could do, and you reduce the air pressure further and could fly faster and more efficiently. Who knows when battery technology will be advanced enough, but it sounds like a goal worth shooting for (as well as the other benefits of noise reduction and environment concerns)

<comment> srb- Like most, I originally assumed that because batteries have poor specific energy compared to fossil fuels, there was no point in considering them for aircraft.

But Musk's assertion has made me reconsider. Has anyone here done the math? What I think he's talking about is NOT a conventional plane with a battery simply replacing the gas tank, but instead essentially a flying battery, where 90% of the plane's mass is battery.

This sounds ridiculous at first, but when you consider how cheap electricity is compared to jet fuel, as well as the other benefits the OP mentioned, there might be something to it (for short-haul flights.)

<comment><USER2> Electricity is not especially cheap compared to jet fuel.

Jet Fuel has about 128kBTU/gal and is available around $2/gal, so 64kBTU/$.

Electricity is about 3400BTU/kWhr and a kWhr is about $0.05, or about 68kBTU/$.

<comment><USER7> Except, electricity will be about 85-90% efficient and a turbofan is about 30% efficient [1], roughly tripling the cost advantage.

Fuel costs are about 35%[1] of operating costs, so only a ~20% cost reduction is possible for fuel change, so your point is still mostly valid.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_engine#Energy_efficiency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_engine#Energy_efficiency)

[2] [http://www.ajc.com/news/business/airlines-keep-adapting- to-h...](http://www.ajc.com/news/business/airlines-keep-adapting-to-high-fuel- costs/nQRrf/)

<comment><USER8> > Except, electricity will be about 85-90% efficient and a turbofan is about > 30% efficient [1], roughly tripling the cost advantage.

But then batteries store 1% the energy per mass fuel does so even assuming triple the efficiency, the energy storage is 30 times easier (assuming everything else stays constant which it can't because now your craft is an order of magnitude heavier and your short-haul plane is as heavy as a 747)

<comment> srb- Ah, thanks for putting some numbers out there everyone. Very interesting. That's why I love HN.

Musk has said several times that if he wasn't working on space and EVs, he'd be working on hyperloop or electric planes. Wonder what potential he sees in the latter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> At NASA, we're very interested in hybrid electric propulsion. As an applied math guy, it's a very interesting and surprisingly non-trivial design problem to tackle. Even addressing the "does this really make sense?" question is tricky.

</comment><comment><USER10> They could at least mention Hyrdogen fuel cell powered aircraft

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen- powered_aircraft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen-powered_aircraft)

</comment><comment><USER11> Reminds me of a german startup that designs a vertical takeoff and landing, two seated electric plane with an interesting form factor: [http://lilium- aviation.com/](http://lilium-aviation.com/) [Edit: no affiliation]

</comment><comment><USER12> "In a statement, Pipistrel said Siemens prohibited the use of its motor for a flight over water."

I am not sure how that could happen? Surely if they bought the engines they could have done whatever they wanted with them? Unless they were leased from Siemens or something.

<comment><USER13> Maybe to get permission for your flight plan when using an experimental vehicle you have to be able to show that the manufacturers of the major components have confidence it will be able to complete the proposed route safely?

<comment><USER14> Afaik both UK & French authorities gave permission for the flight to take place. It were Siemens that wanted to prevent it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Electric powered flight...probably best for blimps.

</comment><comment><USER16> "Electric flight isn't new—it can be traced to 1973 West Germany—but it's not about to dominate the skies either."

I think this says it all.</comment>


China Housing Market: It's 2005 All Over Again - <AUTHOR> http://seekingalpha.com/article/173063-china-housing-market-it-s-2005-all-over-again?source=feed

<comment><AUTHOR> Must be nice.</comment>


How did you find your cofounder? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a grad student at Stanford looking for a cofounder but haven't had any luck yet. All my friends are extremely busy working in lab.  Should we organize some kind of a meetup? <comment><USER2> I strongly recommend finding a friend you've known for a while who's willing to start a startup with you. You want to have more holding you together than just the company. Isn't there someone you know from college?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, maybe I should give this a shot. The problem is that almost all of my college friends are also in grad school, so it would take some serious convincing....if only we didn't love science so much...

<comment><USER3> You could wait a couple years, when it's a good bet that 90% of your college friends will want to _leave_ grad school. They'll take much less convincing then.

<comment><USER4> In a couple of years that business idea will surely be done by someone else. I think that the best time for doing something is now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I found my cofounder (or more accurately, he found me) via weekly video game sessions in college. Since our startup deals with games, it seemed like a natural fit.

More broadly speaking, I suggest starting with "what kind of person do I need?" and go from there. For example, if your idea is to build a social networking site for environmentalists, I would see if I had any friends studying Environmental Science. Or if you're a business guy in need of a coder, I would hang around the Computer Science department.

</comment><comment><USER6> Have you got a product idea? If so then start building something right-away and talking to people about it -- promote it, attend barcamps, democamps, etc.. Eventually you will find someone who believes in it and will want to work with you on it and refine it, i.e. a co-founder.

My present founding team consists of people I knew, trusted and was friends with prior to starting work on my product. But they did not start working with me at the same time I started out.

</comment><comment><USER7> I assume you've googled around a bit and found there is no simple answer to this question. I'd say posting site like this is your best bet. Do you know what you're looking for? I ran a successful startup/small company and this is my advise - YMMV.

1) you're looking for someone who has similar values yet contrasting /knowledge/skills/abilities (KSA) The similar values makes them a 'potential friend' and that's the best you can aim for. In the past I made the mistake like so many co-founder do, of connecting with ppl because of our common KSA. At first it's very easy to get along with someone who is equally passionate about, say, linux. Over time your conflicting philosophies will lead to a poopy_work_environment(tm)... at which point you'll mostly like start the "why I hate this person" list to help validate breaking apart the company. I assume it's very similar to a marriage/divorce.

2) Understand that _nothing_ is more important than the 'who' The person/ppl you choose to build a company with will make you who you're going to become. If your values are similar you'll agree quickly on possible problems and get up into a high level of creativity when brainstorming solutions. The process will be rapid and you'll alter your ideas with nothing more than an "um" from the other person/co-founder... You'll know exactly what they're thinking. You're a product of your environment so nothing is more important to you than the 'who'.

3) filtering Let's say you get 100 ppl interested in working with you, how do you choose? I recommend tracking down someone who's studied Industrial and Organizational Psychology. I was lucky to find two post-grads from a local university (UW) here in Waterloo and they suggested I read the textbook "Human Resource Selection, 5th ed., by R.D. Gatewood and H.S. Field). They also assisted with a few filters. The best I'd say is to create a 'structured interview'. This will help you interpret a persons values.

4) pick a small 'what' Once you've gathered your 'potential friends', choose a small problem/project to work on -- even if it's for free. Make sure the project is meaty enough (6months?). The purpose is to alpha-test your startup. Especially watch how/if you all resolve conflict. I suggest agreeing before hand on the most pragmatic approach possible... something like, if we reach an impass than we'll flip a coin... watch how the person who didn't get his/her way responds (especially if that's you).

5) try find someone who has already run the race -- successfully! Imagine this 'potential friend' was someone like pg. Their insight will handicap your odds of success.

6) Do not rush it. At worst get a job at Burger King and wait.

I hope that's coherent. I apologize for the length of this post, it wasn't intended. If you have further questions, you can email me at firstname.lastname@example.com -steve

</comment><comment><USER8> I would just focus on finding good friends who are hackers.

The co-founder relationship will form naturally when/if both of you are ready to start a company. You are in a great place to meet good hackers. Who knows, maybe some of the friends you are meeting now will become future business partners.

One of my co-founders was just a friend in school who I worked together with on projects. After school, we began working at the same company before starting to talk about leaving to do a startup. But if I would have asked him in school I'm sure he would have said "are you crazy".. Some people just need some convincing :)

Another co-founder is a cousin but we've been talking about this stuff for over 10 years so that choice was obvious.

</comment><comment><USER9> In a chat room, eight years ago. Full story here: <http://www.dnjournal.com/cover/2007/may.htm> Cheers Sahar <http://www.conceptualist.com>

<comment><USER10> All I can say is Wow!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I worked with Dinesh, my co-founder in RailsFactory, on two occassions and I used to be his boss.

I knew his technical skills, but he was more than that, a great guy and a family friend.

Though there were over 20 developers whom I managed, but he was the chosen one :)

only after a 2 year period, we went on to start our company.

my suggestion, get someone whom you dont mind meeting at anytime of the day, any place in the world, with whom you share many things in common.

startups are stressful, dont get someone who has financial and personal problems( more than you).someone who can commit minimum one year of his/her life for the Idea and you

</comment><comment><USER12> On Craigslist. I put an ad up about my current company and that I was looking for a cofounder. I was contacted by two people. I contacted the first, but he never messaged me back. I corresponded with the second for a bit, and after a few emails we realized we had met before at a hacker party called Super Happy Dev House. We met for lunch, and the rest is history.

You should come to the next Devhouse <http://superhappydevhouse.org/SuperHappyDevHouse21>. It's on Nov 10th in SF.

</comment><comment><USER13> I went to a small liberal arts college, so I knew my co-founders through class and other social circles. I had an idea, one co-founder said "I think it could be done." The other guy, we asked to join when we saw him walking back from class because we were talking about getting someone who was a good hacker.

</comment><comment><USER14> I also think you need to find someone that is as dedicated as you are, and if not they make it clear and you will be compensated appropriately... the worst thing is to find yourself working with someone that is not as enthusiastic or committed about the project as you are ... for instance, if you work full-time on the project and your partner decides that he needs to have a job and work part time with you, there would eventually be problems ...

Also try to find someone that can complement you, i.e. if you know your weaknesses then find someone that is strong at those (of course things that matter to your business)

</comment><comment><USER15> Ever since that night we've been together.

Cofounders at first sight, incorporated forever.

It turned out so right,

For strangers in the night.

</comment><comment><USER16> One of my co-founders and I have been friends since high school and later ended up working at Atari together. He ended up leaving Atari for another game development company where he met our third co-founder.

</comment><comment><USER14> @limeade -- I don't live in SF ... but if everything makes sense I would move down there to work on something good ... I also have some ideas myself :) you can find my email address on my profile ...

</comment><comment><USER17> limeade -- I'm a grad student at Stanford too. Drop me an email, I'd love to chat about this and other topics. My email address is on my user page.

</comment><comment><USER18> I recommend homeless shelters. They're surprisingly good hackers and are willing to work for very little equity.

<comment><USER18> Is -8 a record?

<comment><USER2> Not even close: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=71155>

Seems like we have a fairly prim audience here...

<comment><USER19> I wonder if it's not so much primness as a desire to steer threads away from the sort of boring/crude one-liners that reddit can often devolve into.

<comment><USER2> Probably partly. But readers here also seem to pounce on some comments that are politically incorrect.

<comment><USER20> Yes, I think poor juwo would agree with that statement.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Day in New York in 1932 (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://thatsideofthefamily.wordpress.com/2016/04/17/the-spectacle-and-the-mystery-new-york-1932/ <comment><USER2> Nice job of detective work.</comment>


Null Island - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_Island <comment><USER2> We use a map representation of Null Island on our 404 page ([https://opencagedata.com/404](https://opencagedata.com/404))</comment>


Approaching a Minimum Viable Product for  a Startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.threeriversinstitute.org/blog/?p=333

<comment><USER4> I agree that this is hard and necessary. Whoa. When we were developing the first version of the product, we were always torn between releasing it and letting people see our steaming pile of half-finished code and tearing it apart and waiting until it was "perfect" and "wowing" everyone that came to our site. The reality was exactly what Kent is talking about. We released a terrible looking and difficult-to-use alpha version that people actually used, and it took months to disavow ourselves of features that we thought were awesome that users simply didn't want.

I also agree strongly with bmelton, geez, it's so tough to fight the desire to release something "perfect" when it's way more valuable to answer the burning questions and leave perfect for the birds.

<comment><USER5> I worry over introducing incompatible changes (which is more of an issue in middleware and libraries). OTOH, it's common to see "deprecated features", and ActionScript (in flash) has been utterly redesigned a few times. They're still ahead.

Another issue applies to patentable inventions. You need to get this right, because you need to file a prov before you can launch. What if you find out your invention doesn't work in some cases, and you need to change it? What if you have improvements? These encourage a perfectionistic approach - but the truth is, you can just file another prov (depending on jurisdiction, they cost $80, so filing several is no real problem). The only danger is that time started ticking on the first one (you have a year), so you're using up your time until you have to expend real money and effort to patent it for real - <USER2> let it go.

<comment><USER6> From what I understand, you can retroactively file an [American] patent application from within a year of your first public/open demo. Then you have another year to file a real claim.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> related: <http://discoverydrivengrowth.com/site/results/>

There's a story of a guy who wanted to sell cars over the internet, but he wasn't sure it would work. So he setup the minimal website, where _he_ was the backend. It looked like it was automated, but under the hood, he just got emails from forms on the website, and fulfilled them manually. Extremely inefficient, and therefore defeated the purpose of putting it online... except it was an experiment to validate the concept. Which apparently it did (though I've not heard of the actual business, so it may be one of those business parables/lies).

However, this approach prevents you from succeeding in businesses that can only become viable once you've solved problems with them that you are _yet to come across_. You need to go quite a few steps into it before you come across the crucial problem that makes it a viable business. These types of businesses can only be successful if run by visionaries (i.e. people who _see_ with their _eyes closed_ ). That is, they require "faith", "confidence", "trust" _that is not justified by the available facts_. My business is one of these, and I think the secret of it is to be motivated by something other than "success", "fame" or "money", but something intrinsic to the project, that is its own reward.

I've not done a survey, but I expect that all revolutionary businesses have some of this in them.

<comment><USER7> 10ren,

I don't understand the exception you are proposing. If the "crucial problem" is several steps in, then your first several MVPs succeed easily (indeed, that is the case for Tattlebird). Any successful startup overcomes several PFAs (potentially fatal assumptions). You absolutely need faith to proceed on this path, but you need facts to stay on the path and not waste your time.

I would need to know a lot more about your product before I agreed it was an exception. Your product's success relies on a long list of assumptions. Validating those assumptions as quickly and cheaply as possible increases your chances of success.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for requesting clarification. Maybe it's a narrow exception, so I'll just give some examples:

E.g. 1: My product was a good idea for a tool, but a kind of obvious one, and one that any library-developer could implement. Although useful, there was no barrier to entry to protect it (in fact, dozens of people had had the same idea, and implemented it - which I didn't know). That's fatal. There was also a technical problem that I didn't worry about much at first because it was secondary, but it turned out to be a show-stopper: it made the tool just too awkward to use in practice. That's another fatal. I was positive that it was impossible to solve; but, with online suggestions (involving an odd route, and new features in the language), I did solve it. This solution addressed both fatal problems; but at the start, it seemed unimportant, and then impossible to solve.

E.g. 2: The idea of the telephone was an obvious one: talking at a distance. Many people (including Edison) thought it would be really cool, but couldn't see any commercial use for on for it (they had the telegraph already). It would just be a "scientific curiosity". Edison had a go at it before Bell, but it was hard, and he gave up because it seemed a bit pointless to a practical guy like him. In one of the blog links, a way to test demand is suggested: create some google adwords, and see if anyone clicks. If this was done with the telephone, no demand would have been found. For revolutionary ideas, people often don't know they need them until they exist.

Eg 3. There's a story in the _Innovator's Dilemma_ , where a big HDD manufacturer makes a tiny diskdrive (2.5 inch I think) at great expense - <USER3> could not find a customer for it anywhere. It turns out that there were uses for it, but unexpected and tiny markets (I think one was a medical app). This was well before the iPod used them, and before notebooks and netbooks used them (I think they're a standard now).

As I said, maybe this is a narrow exception, only applicable to those rare inventions that are revolutionary (and perhaps only some of them), and the PFA approach works great for 99% of business ideas.

I am pro-fact, but unfortunately there is more to the truth than is dreamed of in a philosophy based only on known facts.

<comment><USER5> There's also Xerox, a classic example of this. Alan Kay tells the story of how the inventor of xerography tried to sell it to IBM, who commissioned consultants to assess its viability. They found that it was much more expensive than conventional copying, and there just wasn't that much demand for it.

This was all true, yet Xerox become a multi-billion dollar enterprise from the technology.

<http://www.ecotopia.com/webpress/futures.htm> (he's quoting from John Dessauer's "My Years at Xerox, the Billions Nobody Wanted", but he also worked at Xerox PARC himself.)

MVP: I like the Minimal Viable Product idea, but mainly in terms of building the product. It's a great discipline to work out what's important and what is not _as_ important ("core" vs. "non-core"), and also to get feedback from the market. I like esr's formulation of it: (1) something that _runs_ (2) has the promise to become something really cool. Of course, the MVP depends on the target audience (his target is open source developers).

[http://catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral- baz...](http://catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral- bazaar/ar01s10.html) (paragraph 3 )

PFA: But I don't like PFA. It sounds very sensible, but I'd rather be focussed on why something might succeed, rather than why it might not. My experience is that insurmountable problems often turn out to be surmountable, once you understand them, and had some time for your unconscious to work on them. It might require a very different perspective, or stepping back to look at the bigger picture to understand the situation you're in, what's important and what's not and so on. As a coder, I'm easily trapped in the details, and not actually be able to see what's important in the bigger picture.

However, I totally agree with your conclusion about shipping sooner, iterating faster ("release early, release often", esr again), and also the perfectionistic wish to not release til it's "perfect".

I deliberately fought against perfection for my first product. It was driven utterly pragmatically, and I didn't care whether it was pretty or not. I made enough money to live on the interest (barely live on it: _ramen independently wealthy_ ), and today, 9 years later, it's still useful to people, and still making money.

<comment><USER7> 10ren,

It's good to hear cottage industries still exist on the Internet, as that's what I hope to build. I agree that PFA is too negative. I tried to find a positive formulation but couldn't find one that was as inspiring to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "By far the dominant reason for not releasing sooner was a reluctance to trade the dream of success for the reality of feedback." The above statement holds true for me. It's only after investing way too much energy on stuff that does not help me in being closer to a MVP do I realize it.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've heard it before, and I'm sure I'll hear it again, but this, to me, is absolutely the sort of thing I need drilled in my head over and over and over again.

The current project I'm working on is simple. The idea is simple in general, the layout is simple, and while some of the technical glitches and implementation details may not be (they never are anyway) -- I keep overcomplicating things in my head.

I've gotten about 3 weeks worth of spare time thrown at it, which isn't much, but in that time, I've already wasted a ton of effort. I redesigned the layout yesterday. True, I made it simpler, and I think easier to use, and ultimately, it's a MUCH better layout for the product, but it was completely wasted effort to determine whether or not my product is even worth building, because I honestly don't know the answer.

I guess the main difference for me is that after a number of false starts (that later ended up as actual products, and profitable ones at that,) I have committed myself to finishing this thing, if only to say that I can build a project to completion without external motivators. That almost gives me an excuse to waste time because if it's rejected early, I'll assume it's due to a poor layout, or lack of features, etc.

So yeah, I needed to read that, and get back to square 1, and friggin stay there for a bit.

</comment><comment><USER10> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_enhancement>

</comment><comment><USER11> Because of my ADD, I usually only barely manage to create an MVP and nothing else! hehe.</comment>


Content is Queen: Our Evolving Internet Brain and the Death of Deep Thought - <AUTHOR> http://fasthorseinc.com/blog/2012/12/11/our-evolving-internet-brain-and-the-death-of-deep-thought/

<comment><USER2> tl;dr: tl;dr</comment>


Why Aren't There More Hybrid Apps? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.metrink.com/why-arent-there-more-hybrid-apps/

<comment><USER2> Because it's hard to make a hybrid app that feels like a native app. It depends on what exactly you are doing, and the state of the art has improved (see the ionic project), but it can be really tough.

Source: I participated in building 3 apps (not all successful, but two made it to the app store/google play) using Cordova 3, and wrote an ebook on the Cordova CLI.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a good point... most people working on mobile have an affinity for design and feel they cannot get the same look-and-feel. I think a lot of these frameworks have caught-up to the look-and-feel needed for mobile, and folks should re-consider.

<comment><USER2> That is very possible. If I was still interested in front end development, I'd take a look.

Moore's Law FTW.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> (Ionic creator here). One thing people don't always realize is that many apps are already hybrid. They have a web view and display dynamic content in that web view. I think that meets most definitions of "hybrid."

When it comes to the question of what hybrid apps can or cannot do, Image processing is definitely something they _can_ do. If the JS layer isn't fast or featureful enough for image processing, you can always drop down to native through Cordova plugins or something like ngCordova ([http://ngcordova.com/](http://ngcordova.com/)). We always advocate full utilization of the platform, just like we would if you were building a node- webkit app.

I do agree that Hybrid is growing, and more people are finding it a good solution for what they need. That will only continue, and we hope to be helping them for years to come.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've gotten a few comments[1][2] from people saying Appcelerator compiles to native apps. I understand this, so do Cordova. The point is that you can write your app once, and compile it for many mobile platforms.

Maybe these aren't call Hybrid App Frameworks then? Is there a better term for frameworks like Cordova & Appcelrator?

[1] [https://twitter.com/core_13/status/560487546271326209](https://twitter.com/core_13/status/560487546271326209)

[2] [https://twitter.com/MalcTheOracle/status/560488671124914177](https://twitter.com/MalcTheOracle/status/560488671124914177)

</comment><comment><USER4> One great example of a successful business that uses a Hybrid app is Basecamp (formally 37 Signals). DHH wrote a great post on how they mix both native components with web views: [https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3743-hybrid-sweet- spot-native...](https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3743-hybrid-sweet-spot-native- navigation-web-content)

The result is a highly rated app that's both fast and performant for the end user, while also cost/speed efficient for the business to run and maintain.</comment>


Alert issued for stolen car with nuclear substance in Chile - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chile-crime/alert-issued-for-stolen-car-with-nuclear-substance-in-chile-idUSKCN1UE25E <comment><USER2> For reference, small portable devices containing Iridium-192 are frequently used for on-site NDT weld inspections. NDT inspectors often have a truck full of valuable equipment, they are frequently alone on the job site, and the welds being inspected are usually in remote locations. This is not a rare occurrence and odds are the thief has no idea how thoroughly unlucky they are.

[https://www.ndt.com.au/product/qsa-sentinel-iridium- ir-192-s...](https://www.ndt.com.au/product/qsa-sentinel-iridium- ir-192-sources-for-gamma-radiography/)

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

<comment><USER3> NDT = Non Destructive Test

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So, it appears this type of incident is somewhat comment. Wikipedia [1] states:

"Iridium-192 has accounted for the majority of cases tracked by the U.S Nuclear Regulatory Commission in which radioactive materials have gone missing in quantities large enough to make a dirty bomb."

If you chase the wikipedia references, you get to this 2007 New Yorker article [2]. Since the New Yorker articles are notoriously long winded, here's the relevant paragraph:

"In the United States, between 1994 and 2005, the N.R.C. recorded sixty-one domestic cases of stolen or lost isotopes in amounts that would clearly be useful to someone making a dirty bomb, although the majority of these involved iridium-192, which loses its potency fairly quickly."

For reference, the half-life of Iridium-192 is 73 days.

In other words, the concise summary of this situation is "Move along, nothing to see here"

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_iridium#Iridium-19...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_iridium#Iridium-192)

[2] [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/12/the- unthinkabl...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/12/the- unthinkable-2)

</comment><comment><USER5> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident)

again?! Different isotope, different country -- let's hope for different outcome.

<comment><USER6> Much more likely to unfold like [https://www- pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/PUB1776_web.p...](https://www- pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/PUB1776_web.pdf)

<comment><USER7> Wikipedia has a whole article on radioactive scrap metal: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_scrap_metal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_scrap_metal)

THe Atomic Energy Authority even publishes a booklet for scrap metal dealers so that they can recognize radioaction sources: [https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/sealedradsource1013...](https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/sealedradsource1013.pdf)

<comment><USER8> I found the frequency of contamination of scrap metal with radioisotopes to be disturbingly high (this article lists several more cases in addition to those in the wikipedia article: [https://slate.com/technology/2013/05/asos- investigation-into...](https://slate.com/technology/2013/05/asos- investigation-into-radioactive-belts-demonstrates-scrap-metal-problem.html)), and we don't seem to be able to reliably detect contaminated goods at the border.

Reading these articles inspired me to build a geiger counter to confirm that none of the metal items I own are contaminated. I used a kit (from [https://sites.google.com/site/diygeigercounter/](https://sites.google.com/site/diygeigercounter/) , but other sites sell them as well) to build a detector that can reliably measure gamma for about $60. Tubes that can detect alpha (e.g. from contamination with Americium-241) as well as test sources (with comparable activity to an ionization smoke detector, i.e. safe and legal for anyone in the US to own) for both alpha and gamma are slightly more expensive but readily available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The same thing it also did happen in my country a couple of months ago. By the way it is in south america too.

[https://www.elpais.com.uy/informacion/policiales/policia- adv...](https://www.elpais.com.uy/informacion/policiales/policia-advierte- poblacion-robo-peligroso-material-radioactivo.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> It's got big radioactive warnings on it, so it should be pretty obvious to the thief, if he wasn't already familiar with the construction industry:

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=SENTINEL+880&iax=images&ia=images](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=SENTINEL+880&iax=images&ia=images)

Costs about $15-20k: [https://irss.ca/product-category/shop-by-brand/qsa- global/88...](https://irss.ca/product-category/shop-by-brand/qsa- global/880-series/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Notices by CCHEN, with images:

[http://www.cchen.cl/?p=4546](http://www.cchen.cl/?p=4546)

[https://twitter.com/cchen_gob/status/1152191271387222016](https://twitter.com/cchen_gob/status/1152191271387222016)

</comment><comment><USER12> Article says the vehicle was a truck I was expecting a DeLorean.

</comment><comment><USER13> Repo man?</comment>


Quantum Radio May Aid Communications and Mapping Indoors, Underground and Underwater - <AUTHOR> https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2018/01/quantum-radio-may-aid-communications-and-mapping-indoors-underground-and <comment><USER2> Again the title of the press release is horrible misleading (or completely wrong). The title of the research article is

"Prospects for magnetic field communications and location using quantum sensors."

As the research article title says, it's not a "Quantum Radio" (What is a "quantum radio"?!?!). It's a quantum sensor to measure old classical electromagnetic waves of low frequency.

(Also there are many quantum devices, a LED is a quantum lamp and a led in reverse is a quantum light detector. There are many many applications of QM to sensors. Anyway, this new sensor looks interesting.)</comment>


Show HN: Aeon – a lightweight date picker built with web components - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/lamplightdev/aeon <comment><AUTHOR> I needed a progressively enhanced, lightweight date and time picker that functioned and looked consistent across all browsers, and that worked with or without a framework. The difference in support (no native picker on desktop Safari) style and behaviour of native pickers rule them out, so web components seemed an obvious choice. The existing web component solutions tended to be too heavyweight, so Aeon was born:

\- No dependencies - a standalone vanilla JS web component

\- Lightweight - 5kb gzipped

\- Use anywhere - use standalone or directly in your framework of choice with no wrappers

\- Progressive enhancement - if the code fails to load, fallbacks to a native picker or a simple text box

\- Accessible - works with mouse/touch/keyboard/screen readers and behaves as a native form element

\- Locale aware - uses the browser locale language and date format by default

\- Themeable - pass in custom colour schemes

\- Browser support - works in all modern browsers on all devices (and IE11 - with polyfills)

<comment><USER2> Good job so far, it feels very lightweight and simple. It works well with different input devices, but the accessibility for screen readers could be improved:

* The first day immediately gets focused when opening the datepicker. It might be a bit confusing to just hear a number.

* There's enough space to spell the months in full.

* Use semantic abbrevations for weekdays, e.g. `<abbr title="Monday">Mo</abbr>`.

* Use `label`s which refer to the corresponding `select`.

* Use `table` instead of `div`s for the calendar view.

* Use (hidden) text instead of the `title` attribute in buttons.

Furthermore:

* Try using more unique classes for your elements, e.g. '.aeon-datepicker__select' instead of '.select'.

* `cursor: pointer` for buttons would be helpful to see how large the click area is.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for these pointers, very useful indeed - I'll look to address them in the next update.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looks really pretty. In the storybook example, it looks like it doesn't like being put in a small viewport, but that's more the page's fault.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! The Storybook doesn't work too well on smaller viewports, but the picker does work well on small screens in regular pages, e.g. [https://lamplightdev.github.io/aeon/](https://lamplightdev.github.io/aeon/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks cool, nice work. Couple pieces of feedback:

\- typically the check mark/ok button is on the right side and the cancel is on the left, in the date picker it's swapped

\- not clear to me what the 2 different cancel buttons do, one a solid x, the other just an x

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I agree the meaning of the icons is unclear - one is cancel, the other is clear. I would prefer to have text on these buttons, but then localising the language becomes an issue. I will think over these issues!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> How about selecting a date by double-clicking on it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice idea, although I think the difficult thing is how to make that obvious to the user as it's not a standard way to select something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The UX on mobile is really good!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! That was a key requirement for my use case, so I appreciate the feedback.</comment></comment>