Ask HN: What are some more authentic online forums? - <AUTHOR> I grew up in the late 90s on obscure message boards and in many ways it was my real introduction to the Internet. I really miss the community and authenticity of that world, which seems to have been replaced entirely by monocultural mass social media like Reddit. <comment><USER3> There's quite a few I can think of, but most of them I'd rather not mention so the eye of Sauron passes them over.

Larger ones I don't mind mentioning:

I think bodybuilding.com is still what it was back in the day.

Sherdog is probably also still decent though I don't follow it.

The surviving /chans capture a lot of the spirit of old timey Usenet as well for better and worse.

If you're into nice wristwatches watchuseek is same as ever; amazing the energy that goes into such a niche thing.

Men's clothing/accessory forums are also quite active and good; askandyonclothes, styleforum and ... tho I haven't checked lately fedoralounge used to be good. These are kind of remarkable in that they, like the watch forums, could be monetized in various scumb bag ways, but somehow remain good communities oriented around consumer goods.

I think lot of energy still goes into old school email lists for special interests as well. Though I don't follow it as I should, the J lists are extremely high bandwidth/quality. IMO these are vastly better than platform things on discord, reddit, discord, as they're always backed up and uncensorable. You can get kicked out, but you'll still be able to read most of them.

<comment><USER4> Sherdog has suffered a lot from losing traffic to Reddit. The main forum still has enough users that it superficially seems similar to how it was 10+ years ago, but the subforums are dying.

F12, the grappling forum, used to be one of my favorite places on the internet. It barely has new content anymore. There has, for reasons I don't fully understand, been a mass exodus to r/BJJ.

I can't overstate the loss of community that occurred as a result. On reddit, the fact that usernames aren't prominent and there are no avatars makes it impossible to build "characters" in your mind. People are friendly, but they are perpetual strangers.

Previously, I thought the upvoting and downvoting structure of Reddit was great. But, when applied to a hobby I love, the results were soulless and depressing. Opinions seem to be tailored to the crowd in a way they never were on the F12 forum.

A lot of that may be that Reddit attracts younger people who are newer to the sport. Whatever the reason, it's sad to see a great forum whither away.

Don't take online communities for granted. They seem immortal until they die.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the update; I no longer roll and don't follow the sport very much, but it makes me sad to hear that all-devouring reddit is eating Sherdog.

I suspect the future of forums is going to be stuff which is kicked off of platforms. For example: right wing people kicked out of reddit, or nude enthusiast types formerly of Tumblr or whatever. There's probably a r/bodybuilding reddit, but I bet it's tame and lame compared to the forum.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for giving me an excuse to discuss Sherdog on HN!

They're the two places I hang out most.

Somehow, I suspect the intersection of their user bases is pretty tiny...

<comment><USER3> There've been a few guys discussing judo and jiu jitsu on here ... I dunno maybe you were one of them. My own BJJ dojo contained very few people over 30 who weren't Ph.D. in math/science types. Someone's probably giggling at this but they were all 220+lbs and lean; overachievers, goldman trader types - <USER2> all went to the best local dojo. We did have one Brazilian waiter guy (one of the best in the dojo), but I really felt like an underachiever in general when I'd enter their doors.

Come to think of it, many of the high ranking dudes in my Karate dojo also had Ph.D. type education (LBNL Arnis club didn't count). Martial arts seems to loan itself to personalities who can grind out difficult things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5>
      Mechanical Keyboards - https://geekhack.org
      Watches - https://forums.watchuseek.com/
      Role Playing (Video) Games - https://rpgcodex.net/forums
      Minecraft - https://www.minecraftforum.net/forums
      Linux - https://www.linuxquestions.org/
      Apple/Mac - https://forums.macrumors.com/
      Biking - https://www.bikeforums.net  &
               https://forum.bikeradar.com/

Honestly, just pick one of your hobbies and go down the google rabbit hole. Many forums still survive today for archival purposes and most hobbies have very active independent forums.

\--

I'll admit I fell into the Reddit hole in the early 2010s and while I think it has some value and I have discovered some cool communities I don't think I ever would have known about otherwise, I do miss the "pre-reddit" internet with more independent communities.

Lots of small groups seem to be migrating to Facebook as well - which really sucks because the facebook groups interface sucks as a traditional discussion forum.

<comment><USER6> cyclingnews forum is good too - i even like reading the posts in the clinic

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm particularly perplexed by [location] sub-reddits. No one uses the FAQs, search, or Yelp. Everyone wants to post a daily request for a good place for a drink, and a good hike, for just about every city on the planet.

The annoyances in those threads seem to keep other participants away. It'd be nice to have a forum, message board, etc for people who are willing to try one tick more than the masses.

<comment><USER8> It's not just the constant "anyone have good ____ recommendations?" posts. For whatever reason, there is a tendency for local subreddits seem to be _much_ more vitriolic than most places on reddit (and that's saying something). Threads about local happenings or even something as simple as posting a picture of the skyline seems to bring immediate, intense ire from some always- lurking posters. And God help you if you post an article about local politics.

r/Austin is particularly bad about this, but I've frequented several other city subreddits and noticed the same.

<comment><USER9> That's probably because most people don't care one way or the other and skip the whole thing.

Anyone who cares enough to frequent a sub about their home town probably has fairly intense feelings for better or worse. That will naturally lead to strong emotions and clashes.

Pretty much Web 2.0 in a nutshell.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> 1\. find a weird and absurd hobby, nerd out into it hardcore, and then go to the off-topic board for that hobby's shitty old phpBB forum run out of some dude's basement.

2\. Freenode is still alive and well.

3\. Fark, SomethingAwful, etc. are still more or less in good health.

<comment><USER11> I came here to recommend somethingawful. Lowtax is a gift to the internet with his commitment to keep the board going and not sell out... even while he is in poor health.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I got into Atari 2600 homebrew a few years ago. I haven't made anything playable yet, but the community is my favorite of all time. Even though the community is pretty small, the AtariAge forums[1] are very active. Also, there's a twice-weekly, hours-long live show[2] dedicated to playing 2600 homebrew games, and the developers of the featured games are often in the chat. It's on twitch, which obviously isn't obscure, but the channel itself is.

[1] [https://atariage.com/forums/forum/50-atari-2600-programming/](https://atariage.com/forums/forum/50-atari-2600-programming/)

[2] [https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew](https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew) (will be live an hour from now)

</comment><comment><USER13> There are some very nice Discord communities. It's obviously more active than a message board, and some of the better ones are invite-only or you have to submit an application to join.

</comment><comment><USER14> I really like Professional Pilot rumor network for discussion of aviation issues or funny stories from pilots and stewardesses. It has its own slang for example SLF is us passengers (self-loading freight)

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

</comment><comment><USER15> Longecity.org/forum is one I've been visiting for many years. It has some pretty knowledgeable regulars and has never gotten popular enough to attract a ton of corporate interest

</comment><comment><USER16> I still think [https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/](https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/) is the premier forum for homebrewing (as in alcohol) information. All the various homebrew subreddits and other forums seem lacking in either content, organization, or expertise.

</comment><comment><USER17> Australian tech forum that seems to still be going strong. [https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/](https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/)

<comment><USER18> I occasionally stumble on their internet/networking threads (my house got skipped by the NBN) - I'm surprised how popular the site still is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> There aren't too many active newsgroups, but Usenet can be pretty authentic if you do find ones.

I tell people that I visit there to chat with senior citizens bitching at each other. It's great!

For the unmoderated groups, it's left up to you to filter out trolls. No shadowbanning/downvoting.

</comment><comment><USER20> A few of my favorites not yet listed:

Knives & such, [https://www.bladeforums.com/](https://www.bladeforums.com/) [https://forum.spyderco.com/](https://forum.spyderco.com/)

Tennis String, [https://stringforum.net/](https://stringforum.net/)

Perfumery, [http://www.basenotes.net/](http://www.basenotes.net/)

Road bicycle hardware, [https://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/](https://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/)

</comment><comment><USER21> [https://what.thedailywtf.com](https://what.thedailywtf.com) is a place for IT / software people to rant. If you're into rants. I find it fun.

[https://forums.musicplayer.com](https://forums.musicplayer.com) is a place for musicians, songwriters, mixing, mastering etc. I only visit the keyboardist section, Keyboard Corner. It is an exceptionally civil place, the people are cool, helpful and professional. Some outstanding experts frequent the forum.

</comment><comment><USER22> I love this question. The information density and longevity of old forums is hard to replicate on Reddit, Discord, or Facebook groups.

I've been spending a lot of time over at [https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/index.php](https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/index.php) recently. It's THE forum for modular synthesis in all forms and for me it really scratches the hacker/musician/tinkerer itch.

</comment><comment><USER23> For urban planning and skyscraper enthusiasts, there are the forums on skyscraperpage.com and city-data.com.

</comment><comment><USER24> Vintage Computing: [http://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum.php](http://www.vcfed.org/forum/forum.php)

Very pure community around all things vintage computing; has stayed mostly the same for 12 years (and still very helpful).

</comment><comment><USER25> I could be wrong, but I'd posit that if there were a good place for high quality, genuine, and useful online forums out there, HN is one of the last places they would advertise their presence. There very likely are such forums out there, but I'm sure they don't want the internet showing up at their door tomorrow morning. They probably created their little slice of heaven just so that they do not have to deal with the great unwashed masses and a lot of the inanity and incivility that comes with them.

A corollary to that, of course, is that most of the answers we'd get to this question on HN, are likely not the sort of sites for which we are searching. :(

</comment><comment><USER26> If you're a developer interested in Elixir, check out [https://elixirforum.com](https://elixirforum.com). It is such an inclusive community and I find most people on there to be quite genuine!

</comment><comment><USER27> I hate saying this because it's the migration from open to closed and corporate controlled, but there's a fair number of good Slack groups. I'm in some for Irish cycle infrastructure campaigning, the local tech community, etc.

<comment><USER28> For infra/ops people there's also hangops.slack.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> [https://www.phantasytour.com](https://www.phantasytour.com) is one of my favorites. Phish in particular has a very vibrant community, if you enjoy their music you can find lots of other people who are passionate about them on just about any social network. For people who are easily offended there is also a forum on phish.net that prefers to avoid hostile conversations. Phantasy Tour has a lot of obscene discussions that most people would find offensive but is tolerated on this forum.

</comment><comment><USER30> If you like building TARDISes or have ever thought of building one, there is [http://tardisbuilders.com/](http://tardisbuilders.com/)

</comment><comment><USER31> • [https://www.indiehackers.com](https://www.indiehackers.com): community for tech bootstrappers with a bit of overlap with the HN community (full disclosure: I help run this community)

• [https://www.designernews.co](https://www.designernews.co): community for designers

• [https://www.wattpadwriters.com](https://www.wattpadwriters.com): community for aspiring storytellers

</comment><comment><USER32> You should have seen netnews when we had it

<comment><USER33> Today is Wednesday, the 9507th of September, 1993.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Ugh same. I went out asking if anyone had pointers to a decent comics forum the other month (I make them and miss having somewhere to hang out with other people who do) and all I got were offers to people's Discords, which feel like the exact opposite of what I want.

<comment> grey-area What do you hate about discord, too chatty and ephemeral?

<comment><USER34> That's a good start. I like to work offline so I am always following up on conversations, never having one. BBSs are a ton more friendly to people who log on occasionally.

Being corporate owned, with lots of obnoxious GAMERZZZ branding doesn't help either. Oh and it being a web app that ships with it's own memory-hungry and cpu-chewing browser is a nice touch too. Using Ripcord helps all but the "real-time chats suck" and "corporate owned fora suck" but those are still some pretty big sources of suck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> A lot of people still communicate on messageboards - especially in specific niche communities. A fantasy football website I frequent has a messageboard and so does my favorite football team.

</comment><comment><USER36> Does anybody spend a lot of time on a Discourse forum? Our team is working on building one out, and trying to figure out the magic formula for engagement.

</comment><comment><USER37> Something Awful is great, at least partly because the paywall (if you aren't logged in you see a very restricted view of the site, with a profanity filter on top) and $10 USD joining fee combined with the active moderation team is very effective at stopping rule breakers - you can rejoin (for another $10) if you get banned, but if you continue to be odious you will eventually get permabanned (which I think extends to preventing any credit cards associated with you from purchasing new accounts). There are a few serial pests who keep trying regardless, but they number in the single or low tens of people.

</comment><comment><USER38> If you're into fantasy football, footballguys is still very active, and tends to be a mature forum.

</comment><comment><USER39> www.RCGroups.com has been around for ~20 years and is stronger than ever with sub-forums for everything radio-controlled from airplanes, helis and boats to drones, subs and FPV (first-person view). Interestingly, the Reddit RC forums get very little traction in comparison.

</comment><comment><USER40> I think it depends on what community you are looking for. For example, if you are a fishing person, then just google: fisher forum then you'd find some helpful community. But remember, sometimes people on the internet like to make joke about almost everything, don't take it personally & I'm sure you'll have some fun on this vast internet world :)

</comment><comment><USER41> The Shacktac forum for that Arma 3 community, though you have to be a member to use it.

Ultimate Metal.

</comment><comment><USER42> Talkbass is still the best place on the web to to discuss bass guitar.

</comment><comment><USER43> shroomery.org is a great forum.

([https://www.shroomery.org/forums/](https://www.shroomery.org/forums/))

</comment><comment><USER44> Love it. With the beepers texting on early phones

</comment><comment><USER45> Resetera for gaming and off topic discussion.

<comment><USER46> GAF has gotten pretty good now that all the groupthink has moved over to resetera.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Forums? naaah IRC is the place to be

</comment><comment><USER48> The chans? Something Awful? MeFi?

</comment><comment><USER49> Anyone knows a good yoga forum?

</comment><comment><USER50> [https://slatestarcodex.com/](https://slatestarcodex.com/)

If you're into long intellectual essays on deeply investigated obscure topics you won't find a better place. I opened it once or twice. The community is surprisingly active.

</comment><comment><USER51> SellerCrowd.

</comment><comment><USER52> ilxor</comment>


Some Heroes - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulgraham.com/heroes.html <comment><USER4> My favorite Jack Lambert story:

1977 Pro Bowl. AFC defense - 8 Pittsburgh Steelers and 3 players from other teams on the field at the same time. Jack Lambert, the middle linebacker and captain, was calling out defensive signals using the Steelers' proprietary lingo. One of the other players asked, "What should we do?" Lambert replied, "Stay out of our way."

Second favorite Jack Lambert story:

When accused by a referee of biting another player in the finger, Lambert said, "I didn't bite his finger and I can prove it." "How?" the referee asked. "He's still got it, doesn't he?"

One of the best teams ever with one of the best players ever. And no one "danced" after making a great play. They just did a great job and acted as if they had done that job before and intended to do it again. Man, how I miss that. Thanks for the memories, pg.

<comment><USER5> yeah, I thought it was a cool to find a football player on that list, and a Steeler as well

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Fun to read.

I recently found this quote from a contemporary author:

      "Jane Austen writes about people with desperately restricted
       lives codified by iron rules.  The first thing she does is to
       choose a genre, the romantic novel, which is exactly the kind
       of book those women would read if they were reading books."

That illustrates to me a unique approach, where even _the genre of the work itself_ serves the overall message and theme of the work.

And let me put in a word for Walt Disney, who I totally dismissed until I read about him. The parallels between his personality and that of Steve Jobs are fascinating.

</comment><comment><USER7> "I used to read a lot of novels when I was younger. I can't read most anymore, because they don't have enough information in them."

This is a good one to add to the list of things not to say on a first date. And if it does somehow come up, at least have enough sense not to follow it with "I also don't read biographies/memoirs because I consider them fiction."

/Don't ask

<comment><USER8> Here's a tip: Read one novel by Tom Robbins, and then if a female asks, always say that you just read it last week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > To do really great things, you have to seek out questions people didn't even > realize were questions. ... You only get one life. Why not do something > huge?

This one really got me thinking. While tackling big questions is certainly admirable, it implies that greatness ought to be a goal one has in life. As I get older (I'm now married with 2 kids), I've become more and more convinced that it's more important in life to strive to be a _good_ person than to strive to be a _great_ person.

That's why my list would include people like Lao Tze, who would probably be happy that people found his writings useful, but would likely find the fact that he's still revered thousands of years after his death of far less importance than how he spent some particular day of his life.

<comment><USER7> From what I hear, most modern asian religions scholars believe the Tao was a satire.

<comment><USER10> Where do you hear that? Got a link?

<comment><USER7> My asian religions prof. spent a bunch of years of her life studying the text and she was telling us this. Apparently some people still think it's an esoteric text, but they are in the minority.

Unfortunately I don't have any references to back it up, and none of the translations I have sitting in front of me mention it in the forward. And of course it's impossible to find anything via Google only because there are so many parodies of the Tao Te Ching itself.

There must be academic journals on the study of taoism, but I am having trouble finding any just searching online. I can try emailing her and asking for a cite if you'd like though.

<comment><USER10> If it isn't too much trouble, I'd be very interested to hear more about that. I'm no scholar, but I find Taoism and the Tao Te Ching fascinating. I would understand it being partly satirical of prevailing thought, whilst being esoteric, but it being a simple satire would be quite amazing to me. Perhaps the esoterism is an artifact of translation/interpolation ;)

<comment><USER11> [http://18.104.22.168/search?q=cache:Hgq_0fuBJMkJ:https://sch...](http://22.214.171.124/search?q=cache:Hgq_0fuBJMkJ:https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/dspace/bitstream/1794/3777/1/taoist_vision.pdf+tao+satire+site:.edu&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a) mentions that "others claim" that it was a political satire

<comment><USER10> Thanks for that, but my understanding of the passage you refer to is that it is discussing T'ao Yuan-ming's poem "Peach Blossom Spring", not the Tao Te Ching.

I've recently been reading Ellen Chen's new translation and commentaries [[http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Te-Ching-Translation- Commentary/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Te-Ching-Translation- Commentary/dp/1557782385/)]. It includes an interesting discussion of academic attitudes to the history and origins of the Tao Te Ching, and as I recall the notion of it being satire is not mentioned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > _Reading The Nude is like a ride in a Ferrari. Just as you're getting > settled, you're slammed back in your seat by the acceleration. Before you > can adjust, you're thrown sideways as the car screeches into the first turn. > His brain throws off ideas almost too fast to grasp them._

Apparently it reads just like _Snow Crash._ ;-)

<comment><USER13> That's just what I was thinking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> One of the greatest that often get overlooked is Doug Engelbart. Everyone connects him with inventing the mouse.

What he did in the 60 aka punchcard times in one demo revolutionizing the computer: <http://sloan.stanford.edu/mousesite/1968Demo.html>

For the first time real time connection to a computer using a monitor. Introducing the concept of files, documents, ... Primitive graphical UI. Video conferencing between Menlo Park and Fort Mason in San Francisco. That was done wirelessly by parking transmitter trucks on skyline ...

When he was young he set the principle for his life:

        Let me design a professional goal which will maximize the contribution my career can have to mankind!

Weeks later his lifetime goal emerged:

        As much as possible, to boost mankind's collective capability for coping with complex, urgent problems.

He is in his 90s and still at it: <http://www.futuresalon.org/2004/11/future_salon_do.html>

Truly amazing, Mark.

</comment><comment><USER15> One of my heroes: O Sensei, Morihei Ueshiba. He definitely cared excessively about his "work", and was absolutely honest. He invented aikido, the "art of peace", whose broad purpose is to "make human beings one family."

Here's a decent video of him: [http://youtube.com/watch?v=0XTlWDOQBno&feature=related](http://youtube.com/watch?v=0XTlWDOQBno&feature=related)

<comment><USER16> Watch the attack at 3:53. It is pretty easy being a martial legend if your students attack like that.

<comment><USER15> What was the point of this comment? I was saying that he's one of my heroes and pointed out that, incidentally, he fit some of pg's criteria as well. I also pointed out one of his major accomplishments. I didn't mention anything about him being a "martial legend." If you could explain how your comment relates to anything I mentioned or to the subject of "personal heroes" I'd greatly appreciate it.

To address the actual content of your comment, though - no, it takes more than "the attack at 3:53" to be a martial legend. As it happens, he spent virtually his entire life practicing martial arts, and a number of other prominent Japanese martial artists attested to his ability during his lifetime. I encourage you to learn more about him and about aikido. You might still come away thinking "Yeah whatever, the only reason anyone thought anything of him was because he had cowering tools for students", but at least you'll have more evidence for it then a short portion of some youtube video.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I never comment on Paul Graham essays, but I'll make an exception and say that I really liked this one. It felt like it came from the heart.

<comment><USER18> I also usually don't comment because the other comments are often so biting. I really enjoy reading about what influences people and their histories. Opinions about subjects without clear answers can be interesting to read, but always leave one feeling slightly at odds with the writer. Its almost that if written correctly, opinion pieces should have at least something that you don't agree with. In good situations, this initiates a discourse around that point, but often online this just leads to trolling by commenters - <USER2> never leads to good things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Hey PG, You talk about Isaac Newton, here's something that might interest you:

Newton was a "glandeur"; In Dijksterhuis 2004:

George Spencer Brown has famously said about Sir Isaac Newton that "to arrive at the simplest truth, as Newton knew and practiced, requires years of contemplation. Not activity. Not reasoning. Not calculating. Not busy behavior of any kind. Not reading. Not talking. Not making an effort. Not thinking. Simply bearing in mind what it is that one needs to know."

Written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb: "Glander best describes the notion of lifting all inhibitions to "tinker intellectually in an undirected stochastic process aiming at capturing some idea that will enrich your corpus". "Researching" or "thinking" smack of a top-down activity."

More on Glander by Taleb: "It is an irony that the academy does not have a word for the process by which discovery works best –but slang does. I was trying to describe in a letter what I am currently doing: French would not let me. But argot lends itself very well... I am involved in an activity called "Glander", more precisely "glandouiller". It means "to idle", though not "to be in a state of idleness" (it is an active verb). Gandouiller denotes enjoyment. The formal French word is "ne rien faire" (to do nothing), which misses on the active part –so do words that have a languishing connotation. Glander is what children without soccer moms do when they are out of school. It resembles flâner which has this perambulation part; though Glander does not have any strings attached. The Italians have farniente but it is really doing nothing. Even the Arabs do not have a verb for Glander: the construction takaslana from the Semitic root ksl denotes laziness (other words imply some inertia)."

[Taken from <http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/notebook.htm>]

</comment><comment><USER20> Kevin Garnett plays exactly the same way that you describe Jack Lambert. He goes only one speed: full blast. Whenever I need motiviation, I find myself asking myself, wwkgd?

</comment><comment><USER21> "Robert Morris has a very unusual quality: he's never wrong."

I was only ever wrong once. I thought that I had been mistaken about something 5 years earlier, but it turned out I hadn't. I was wrong about having been wrong.

<comment><USER22> I'm never wrong too, but that's just because I either make trivial, all encompassing, or unfalsifiable claims. It sounds good though:)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Really a personal list like this is impacted by a number of factors especically your childhood experiences.

So from my perspective, Jane Austen brings me nothing but disgust. Her novels were piss poor from my perspective. However, this was me at 15 working at a library and skimming books as I put them away. Austen books were a slap in the face to me at that age dealing with my parents divorcing during the same time.

I really enjoy this article though, but my list would be substantially different. I should write it up.

</comment><comment><USER24> Another list: Gary Gordon, Randy Shughart, the Finnish anti-armor teams in the mostly-forgotten Winter War against the Soviets (> 80% casualties), and the 300 Spartans who held off the Persians at Thermopylae.

</comment><comment><USER25> I was hoping to see Feynman on this list (especially after reading the two qualities that these people had in common). Good read, though.

<comment><USER26> I almost included him. But I don't understand his work in physics, and it seemed lame to like him for peripheral stuff like his autobiography.

<comment><USER27> Why lame? Physics aside, he seemed to be an extraordinary individual based on accounts of him by other people, not just his auto-biographies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Uh, Paul, I assume that you mean Robert Morris the younger? Or his dad?

If the younger, I'd think you're well equipped with at least one example where he was less that perfectly right about something.

<comment><USER26> I mean the younger. And of course his sw has bugs, like anyone's might (though fewer, actually). I'm talking about statements, not choices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> From my limited understanding of art interpretation, in earlier times art was seen somewhat as an attempt to understand or mimic the world around them in order to understand it better. Now we tend to value creativity as a more important quality, but in doing so we sacrifice a degree of sincerity or even nobility that curiosity and mimicry have. All of these heroes share a creative quality, but in a more classical sense. They are true to themselves and their art, but they probably intuited that their art is as much or more about discovery than anything else. Maybe that's the key to making the leap from artistic commoner to greatness...

I've totally been looking for a good intro to art history recently (my friend's textbook just doesn't look that appealing...), so thanks for the recommendation! Anyone recommend a good starting point for diving into Wodehouse too? :)

<comment><USER30> I've read about a dozen Wodehouse novels, and have yet to be disappointed by any of them. Some characters and some jokes are better than others, but I think you can pick one off the shelf at random and you'll be happy you did.

The one that comes to mind is "Leave it to Psmith," but not because it was necessarily such a standout book, but because of one line (concerning the name Psmith) that I still laugh about every time I think of it, years later.

<comment><USER29> Sweet, thanks! I ended up with "The Most of PG Wodehouse" just 'cause it seemed a good place to start. Sounds like I'll be happy with it either way!

From the sound of it, this'll be quite the welcome contrast to the last book I read: Journey to the End of the Night by Celine. Great book, but not a happy read at all...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Also worth noting that a Calder sculpture is on the cover of a common Algorithms book: [http://ecx.images- amazon.com/images/I/41WDWECWVCL._SS500_.jp...](http://ecx.images- amazon.com/images/I/41WDWECWVCL._SS500_.jpg)

<comment><USER26> Most of the mobiles are literally recursive. I spent a couple days trying to reproduce them once, and one thing you learn when you do that is that each subelement is a complete mobile in itself. In fact I suspect he must often have incorporated "finished" mobiles into larger ones later.

<comment><USER31> Yes! I remember learning infinite series in college and thinking about Calder. His work is similar to measuring the area under an infinite curve that approaches zero. Infinite line, finite area area. Calder has the recursive mobile(s) and a counter weight. Literally Counter Weight == recursive mobile(s). Something seemingly infinite equated with something finite.

His big one in the East Wing of the National Gallery is outstanding. They blow the HVAC on it to make it move. IM Pei requested that it be the centerpiece of his great building. IM Pei, another possible hero. Fun essay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I like P.G. Wodehouse's stories; I'm quite a bit less impressed with his activities during World War 2.

Wodehouse was in France when the Germans invaded in 1940. He was interned as an enemy alien by the Nazis for a year. The Germans were able to persuade him to make some light-hearted radio broadcasts intended for American (but not British) consumption, in exchange for his release from internment. Many Britons (including A.A. Milne) never forgave him for this, though Evelyn Waugh and George Orwell defended him.

After the War, Wodehouse found that he could not live in England and moved to the U.S., where he became a citizen in 1955.

<comment><USER22> Do you mean he made Nazi propaganda?

<comment><USER32> No, that would have been Lord Haw Haw and Ezra Pound who made propaganda broadcasts for the fascists.

It wasn't as though Wodehouse had shaken hands with Hitler. He merely talked about what his internment was like, and he only made about five broadcasts. Even so, I think he was incredibly naïve of him to do this, given that by 1940, the Germans hadn't simply crossed the line into uncivilized conduct, they had gleefully flown over it with flags raised and fireworks shooting.

<comment><USER22> Ah, you're saying he's a Hanoi Jane.

I did not realize that about Ezra Pound. Now I see why people like GK Chesterton and CS Lewis disliked TS Elliot (protege of Pound) so much.

<comment><USER32> No, I didn't say that at all.

<comment><USER22> I thought you meant he was hated by the Brits because he misrepresented the Nazis and how they treated their POWs, like Jane Fonda did with the American POWs.

However, I just read pg's link and now understand what you were saying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> No question that PGW was the greatest prose stylist of the 20th century.

Makes sense, from his biography: every morning, 6 days a week, year after year for decades, he would sit down and churn out some 10-20-30 pages of new or edited prose, without fail. Much of it ineffable lightness, some of it a bit clunky, but on the whole an incredible body of work.

Here, in a somewhat explaining-the-joke kind of criticism, is still some pretty rummy stuff about Plum:

<http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/uni/nec/leimberg1312.htm>

He had a rather sad life, but he was a great artist.

</comment><comment><USER34> No Alan Turing? I am surprised. I always thought the cover of ANSI Common Lisp was a nod towards his life (and death).

For those of you who do not know much about the Alan Turing man, I suggest that you check out one of the excellent biographies that have been written about him. He was a really amazing and interesting guy. And the persecution that lead to his suicide provides a valuable (and tragic) lesson on the evils of homophobia.

</comment><comment><USER35> Hamming ?

"Richard Hamming's three questions for new hires at Bell Labs: 1- What are you working on? 2- What's the most important open problem in your area? 3- Why aren't they the same? "

<http://www.chris-lott.org/misc/kaiser.html>

Igor. <http://nuit-blanche.blogspot.com>

</comment><comment><USER36> Thanks for mentioning so many English heroes: Newton, Austen, the Spitfire, Wodehouse. I love em all too. As an Englishman, I'd like to nominate some American heroes: Paul Feynmann, Jimi Hendrix, Willard Van Orman Quine, Jackson Pollack & Hunter S Thompson. Where would the English speaking world be without them ?

</comment><comment><USER37> Thanks, Paul. It was a heartfelt essay and fun to read.

</comment><comment><USER31> Winston Churchill would top my list. Definitely passes the PG criteria.

Post WWII: Churchill's Grandson (after running into his office without knocking): "Grand papa, is it true that you're the greatest man in the world?"

Churchill: "Yes, now bugger off."

</comment><comment><USER38> Have you read The Nature of Order by Christopher Alexander? I'd very much like to hear your opinions and comments on the book series. And also see, whether he would appear on your next list of heroes.

He is definitely on mine.

<comment><USER26> I read (parts of) _A Pattern Language._ That seemed like it had a lot of good ideas in it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Paul, call me weird, but I searched Larry Mihalko after you had written about him, and I came across this:

[http://www.post- gazette.com/regionstate/19991031newabuse1.as...](http://www.post- gazette.com/regionstate/19991031newabuse1.asp)

Was he a teacher at Gateway? If so, then it says that he was being charged with sexual assault or something strange like that. I wanted to let you have the last word on it, because charges don't necessarily mean that much. Anyways, I would rather take your word that he was a genuinely good teacher (which your post indicates)

<comment><USER40> You'r not weird. I did a search on Mr.Mihaldo as well. Please check out: www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/489065/detail.html

<comment><USER40> Apologies. Mr. Mihalko

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Where in Pittsburgh did you grow up, PG?

<comment><USER26> [http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q...](http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=109+kelvington+dr+monroeville+pa+15146&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=53.035373,60.46875&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=40.401075,-79.75739&spn=0.402632,0.472412&z=11)

<comment><USER42> Only a Steeler fan would include a Steeler player in their list of heroes. My dad is from Upper St. Clair... Steeler fans are nuts... Go Cowboys :)

<comment><USER41> Yes. Yes we are. :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I enjoy reading your essays. I think the concept of heroes is a worthwhile one and I might compile my own list. Einstein would be there for me but probably as much because my mom put a poster of him in my room when I was six (which remains there today) as anything. I'm also from the 'burgh :) and as I grew up in the next generation of Steelers football, Hines Ward would be my Jack Lambert. His love for his work is truly inspirational and infectious.

</comment><comment><USER44> if what you want in novels is more info, you might give Stephenson's Baroque Cycle a try.

Regarding the Spitfire, have you ever watched the 1942 movie 'The First of thew Few'?

</comment><comment><USER22> In regards to the Newton comment, I need to find a solution to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, otherwise there is no such thing as a significant answer!

</comment><comment><USER45> "I've never cried like I cried at his funeral."

My favourite sentence in the essay. Made me aware of a dimension I didn't associate pg with.

<comment><USER46> The brevity does make him seem a bit stoic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> "Everyone on the list had two qualities: they cared almost excessively about their work, and they were absolutely honest."

Honesty is a quality I really admire in you myself, PG. Be careful not to work too hard though! Thanks for another good read!

</comment><comment><USER48> In "The Scientists" by John Gribbin, Newton is painted as a 1st-class a-hole: taking credit for another's work; sitting on results until an opponent passed away; and others. (It's a good read; I recommend it.)

</comment><comment><USER21> "There have probably been other people who did this as well as Newton, for their time"

Einstein.

<comment><USER12> Maxwell!

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> "For example, it returned false for Montaigne, who was arguably the inventor of the essay." The essay was invented by the Stoic philosopher Seneca.

</comment><comment><USER50> i don't know what to say but one thing i know i dont know most them...honestly, you, as an essayist is one of my favorite..please don't stop write

thank you!

</comment><comment><USER46> This is what I was looking for.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=152805>

</comment><comment><USER51> I would put Paul Graham on my list. :)

</comment><comment><USER52> I am with all those, who would put you, Paul, on the list of heroes. You do great things.

</comment><comment><USER53> Implemented "Some Heroes" as a facebook app. Consider adding your heroes..

</comment><comment><USER54> "roger verbal kint" my hero number 3.

</comment><comment><USER55> Great read! For the same reason as Paul (i.e. it's fun) I'll put my own list here. Apart from the interesting fact that Paul is actually on - my - <USER3> (since long before I read this essay, really), so are some of his heroes so I guess that makes 'heroic devotion' transitive or heritable or whatever. In descending order of admiration:

Isaac Newton - apart from more or less inventing modern physics (he's up there with Maxwell and Einstein in my physics heroes top 3), he found he couldn't solve the fundamental equations he discovered, so he kinda invented modern maths to help with that. Sweet. As for my maths heroes top 3, that's completed with Gauss and Laplace because they did similar things but in a less earth- shattering way. After all it can happen only once to discover mechanics, gravity, the most powerful series around or differential calculus (but who'd have thought it'd be the same guy!).

Noel Gallagher, Paul McCartney - they are realllly smart and creative guys, and instead of caring too much about politics and the likes they just wrote a big pile of Shockingly Good Songs. They had a direct influence in me getting into music (songwriting), and not a month goes by without me fantasizing about becoming famous enough to meet Noel somewhere backstage and chat with him over a beer. In fact, more chance of meeting Noel - together with "playing at nicer venues" - is a big part of why fame in music attracts me. The top 3 is completed by Steve Jobs (really) for similar reasons. Another big reason of why fame attracts me stems from my next hero...

Bill Gates - he did not only cofound, ran and drove the software company that makes/made the best products in the world or that understands 'software' orders of magnitude better than anybody else ("it's usability, stupid"), he also now spends his days using his fortune, fame and brains to really try to make this world a better place. I cannot express in words how much I admire both facets of his life and if there's one answer to "if you could choose, where would you want to be in 20 years?" for me the answer is to be like Bill Gates, having made it big and using that to try and make the world a better place. I admire Bono, Warren Buffet and John Lennon for the same reason and very often find myself passionately defending all of these guys to others who slack them for sheer fame (at least that's why I think it is).

Joel & Paul - not only did they do A Really Good Job in software business themselves, they also are an ongoing source of inspiration for me and others because they write so well about it. Hacking by itself is not my passion, but somehow every other facet about software development/business is, and that's in large part because of the writings of these guys. Again, there's really a top 3 and it's completed by "all the others" (Stevey, Guy Kawasaki, the Rands, etc...).

By the way: I am a music-playing phycisist/mathematician working on software most of the time, as one might have guessed :-)

W.

</comment><comment><USER56> excellent</comment>


A Practical Guide to Tree-Based Learning Algorithms - <AUTHOR> https://sadanand-singh.github.io/posts/treebasedmodels/#.WXT8Kli2pUw.hackernews <comment><USER2> I've found Adele Cutler's presentation on random forests to be an outstanding resource for getting intuition of tree-based algorithms.

[http://www.math.usu.edu/adele/RandomForests/UofU2013.pdf](http://www.math.usu.edu/adele/RandomForests/UofU2013.pdf)

Thinking about trees as a supervised recursive partitioning algorithm or a clustering algorithm is useful for problems that may not appear to be simple classification or regression problems.

<comment><USER3> I like this one better:

[https://web.csulb.edu/~tebert/teaching/lectures/551/random_f...](https://web.csulb.edu/~tebert/teaching/lectures/551/random_forest.pdf)

I made it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As interesting as I find the current state of deep learning to be, there is something about random forests that I can't help but find much more cool. Probably the amazing out-of-box performance.

<comment><USER5> also the model is analyzable so as to determine the variables which are contributing the most.

<comment><USER6> For some very nice Random Forest visualizations, check out the R package "forestFloor" [0].

I also once started implementing a R package for "partial dependence plots" [1][2], which are popularly associated with Random Forests but aren't specific to them.

[0]: [https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=forestFloor](https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=forestFloor)

[1]: [http://scikit- learn.org/stable/auto_examples/ensemble/plot_p...](http://scikit- learn.org/stable/auto_examples/ensemble/plot_partial_dependence.html)

[2]: [https://github.com/gwerbin/statsplots/blob/master/R/partialp...](https://github.com/gwerbin/statsplots/blob/master/R/partialplot.R)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone know why most machine learning libraries (notably scikit-learn) implement trees and ensembles of trees based on the CART algorithm? It seems like using other types of trees (See5, MARS) particularly in ensembles could possibly have advantages as these types of trees were specifically developed as _improvements_ to CART/C4.5.

<comment><USER3> > Does anyone know why most machine learning libraries (notably scikit-learn) > implement trees and ensembles of trees based on the CART algorithm?

This is just my theory.

Because it was the first tree based algorithm and Leo Brieman really did market it out. He even trademark Random Forest.

Kinda like how XGboost is doing right now.

My professor is also trying to market his version out too. If I get around finishing my thesis. His algorithm problem is that it isn't ported to any language at all. It's written years ago in a C and he's not a programmer.

I'd imagine it is the same with the other algorithms. Leo on the other hand is a CS major on top of a Stat major.

Also there are tons of regression algorithms out there that can be made into trees (their fully nonparametric counter part).

But in the end linear regression is the most popular next to logistic iirc. There's survival trees and BART bayesian trees which is in it's infancy.

<comment><USER8> A professor who invents his own version of tree but can not program. Seriously. Is this common in academic circles where a computer professor who can not program ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice write-up, thanks for sharing. One possible typo I noticed:

> Maximum depth of tree (vertical depth) The maximum depth of trees. It is > used to control over-fitting, higher values prevent a model from learning > relations which might be highly specific to the particular sample.

Shouldn't it be _lower values_ , i.e., shallower trees, that control over- fitting?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing. Yes it should be lower value to prevent over-fitting.

<comment><USER10> df_train_set.Income.value_counts() should be df_test_set probably in the part where it's comparing both.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is OP here?

Can you please remove the text justification? Makes it really hard to read on mobile.

<comment><USER12> Looks fine to me. I wouldn't want him to remove it.

<comment><USER13> Looks fine in portrait mode, width-wise truncated in landscape mode.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Credit Freeze Recommendations - <AUTHOR> What mechanism do you recommend to freeze (and monitor) your credit? <comment><USER2> You can send requests directly to each bureau if I remember correctly. Some cost a bit more to do it electronically, but it's all pretty low, 5-15 bucks I believe.

Then they each have a similar but slightly different way of unfreezing it. And some allow it to be unfrozen for a short amount of time, or for 1 request, or for a specific merchant.

Seems there's a lack of standards there and I wondered if it works. I verified it did when I tried to sign up for a new cell plan in a mall once and they said it was frozen. Said I would need to unfreeze 2 of the bureaus if I wanted a chance at passing their credit check.</comment>


Ask HN: We've launched successfully. Now what? - <AUTHOR> Hey everybody,
So we've launched our startup on TechCrunch and a whole bunch of smaller publications and are currently live on Product Hunt. Overall it's been a rather successful "soft" launch (we've been trickling more articles, etc. for about a month), with more than 500 businesses and companies picking up our product.
However, I'm wondering what the next step is. We have decent word-of-mouth growth, and obviously product-market fit is the most important goal to strive towards right now, but what can I continue to do actively to grow our startup?
Would love to hear your thoughts and experiences. :-) <comment><USER2> Explain how your bot helps me make money with actual data from real customers. Do this well and your problems are solved.

</comment><comment><USER3> It might help if you mention what you're doing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure. Yala is a social media scheduling bot that knows the best time to post your content.

[https://www.yalabot.com](https://www.yalabot.com)

Shared it here on HN today as well:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12760549](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12760549)

<comment><USER3> There are a few of those, but that's cool. One that comes to mind is MeerEdgar. Here's a podcast featuring the founder, Laura Roeder. [https://empireflippers.com/laura/](https://empireflippers.com/laura/)

If I remember correctly she started out as a social media consultant so Edgar was obviously a good fit. How much do you want to make Yala a winner? I think doing so would mean drinking the social media marketing kool aid. If you don't already, you should start by following Gary Vaynerchuk.

You're asking how to market your company in the digital age..considering the company you founded my guess would be you already know the answer. Your blog is active but I couldn't find a link for it on your home page. Maybe you should consider directing traffic there and hosting it on Medium.

The first thing I noticed while comparing your blog to MeetEdgar's is that theirs seems a lot more targeted. [https://blog.yalabot.com/](https://blog.yalabot.com/) [http://blog.meetedgar.com/](http://blog.meetedgar.com/) While it's awesome that you're appealing to the tech crowd, maybe you should center your content around giving social media marketing advice (Gary Vaynerchuk will make this easier). Vaynermedia also has an office at the Transbay WeWork in Sf. I've met the copywriter that works there. I don't think it would hurt to reach out to people like that and ask for advice.

Personally I found out about MeetEdgar from the The TropicalMBA and EmpireFlippers podcasts. I could see you being featured on CodeNewbie. "The Hackathon Startup" \- or something - in the theme of how she typically names her episodes.

I'd say you should also try to be featured on Startups For the Rest of Us but after googling I see Laura's already been there. I'd try anyway.

Some random tips on this:

1\. When I was listening to Gary Vee's last audiobook I remember him talking about a time a Sony exec or something gave him advice. He said, basically 'don't take a tv interview unless your record is about to come out' (I'm butchering it). Basically, if you decide to content market in the form of being featured on podcasts then wait until you've made some more progress with Kala, when you're excited and rife with ideas.

2\. I was watching a Sophia Amoruso interview last night ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4w_v4PCvMg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4w_v4PCvMg)) and she was giving her tips on dealing with media and she basically said to have an assistant send the intro and hinted at using a fake email if you don't really have an assistant. She's built a successful company and her first book sold 200,000 copies, so take it from her.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Congrats! Now comes the hard part. Launch is a huge event, but it's typically difficult to get that level of press in the following months. You'll mostly have to grow on your own.

The holy grail is massive, sustained, free word-of-mouth growth. You mentioned achieving product-market fit? That's usually what it looks like: You've identified a group of people who have a valuable problem, your product does a badass job solving it for them, your marketing appeals to these people specifically, and they are talking to each other about your product with enthusiasm.

There are lots of examples on my website ([https://IndieHackers.com](https://IndieHackers.com)) that showcase how various businesses have reached this point, so you might want to take a look there. Here are a few suggestions that I've distilled from these interviews:

\- Hang out on relevant message boards and forums, and offer your product to people who sound like they might need it. (It's important to do this in a non- spammy way, e.g. talk about other options in addition to yours, and also give them general advice.)

\- Offer some sort of referral/affiliate program so your customers (or even random people) can advertise for you, and you don't have to pay unless you make sales.

\- Look for a good distribution channel. I've talked to lots of people in the past who make almost all their sales due to exposure via the Shopify marketplace, the Google Apps marketplace, the App Store, etc. Maybe building integrations can help with this.

\- Direct sales is underrated. Find potential customers and email them. Go to conferences and events where you know potential customers will be, and talk to as many as possible.

\- Make your branding even more niche. One example is how ConvertKit went from "email marketing" to "email marketing for authors" to "email marketing for professional bloggers". It seems limiting, but it makes it way easier to find target customers' communities, and it helps you spread by word of mouth since these specific people tend to hang out together. It also gives you lots of ideas for building the features your specific customers need, so your product ends up being way better for them than alternatives.

\- Start producing content that your potential customers would benefit from. This is a long-term strategy that takes some serious commitment, but it can really pay off. For a good example, check out Hubstaff's blog, which I believe is crucial in helping their business generate leads: [http://blog.hubstaff.com](http://blog.hubstaff.com)

Also, your TechCrunch article says you're a bootstrapped team of 3, and I don't see any pricing. Are you giving it away for free? If there is one piece of advice you take away from this comment to the exclusion of everything else, it's this: _Charge money for your product as soon as possible._ It's extremely difficult to tell if you're on the right path with a business-targeted product if people can't pay for it, and it it's extremely difficult to build a company if you can't tell if you're on the right path.</comment>


The Meanings of Life - <AUTHOR> http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/do-you-want-a-meaningful-life-or-a-happy-one/

<comment><USER2> Really awesome to see more research like this. I actually took the same approach in my master's thesis several years ago, and collected 1000+ responses from across the country on sources of meaning in life. I then used natural language processing and machine learning methods like topic modeling to compute a map on the meaning of life, and presented a poster at the World Congress on Positive Psychology: [https://i.imgur.com/AFDCYuJ.jpg?1](https://i.imgur.com/AFDCYuJ.jpg?1) If anyone is interested, the website is still online here, but a little neglected (I'm building a new one right now): [https://www.whatkeepsusgoing.com](https://www.whatkeepsusgoing.com) The SSL certification is outdated, but it's secure, I promise. :) Answering the questions unlocks a bunch of interactive tools to explore the data yourself.

</comment><comment><USER3> "But what is happiness? It's a moment before you need more happiness." \- Don Draper

<comment><USER4> Careful! You might use up all the spare happiness. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you want to be happy[1] you might want to eliminate the idea of meaning from your life.

Any kind of _meaning_ , as in the idea that there is some goal to work towards -- not just a _sense_ or _feeling_ of such -- will eventually and probably often get in the way of a conflicting want[2], namely to be happy. Say you like to play some game. You do it for intrinsic reasons, because you like doing it while you are doing it. Then you ask the person who taught you this game "What is the meaning of this game? What am I supposed to accomplish?" If the person says "There is no purpose to this game", then you are free. You are free to enjoy the game for itself, because there is no place to go, be or become. But if that person says "Oh, it's very important! You are supposed to learn about things which will be vital for you at some later point!", then that game has _meaning_ _Meaning_ which will conflict from enjoying the game and the moment for itself, instead introducing competing concerns like "am I playing this game well enough? How can I get better? Am I progressing at a fast enough pace?" Do note though that _wanting_ to become better and play well is not in conflict with happiness, or delicious nihilism. It just gets in the way when you start to compromise your happiness in favour of becoming _better_ at the game, or something else.

True freedom is when nothing you can do or make has any meaning. The only impact it has is the joy it brings you in the given moment, which is immediately _there_ and doesn't require any justification for its existence or relevance. It's just there.

I hope to be able to eliminate the idea of _meaning_ from my life.

[1] Experience a lot of good feelings on a regular basis. And it doesn't have to be the overjoyous, jovial kind.

[2] "Meaning" is just a sense of purpose which is tied to doing something which you predict will bring you happiness in the future. But since it is about happiness in the future, it is not _happiness_ per se.

<comment><USER5> I do the same thing, but focus on the intrinsic. The other part of that is internal validation.</comment></comment>


Dyalog '18: Sub-Nanosecond Searches Using Vector Instructions [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paxIkKBzqBU <comment><AUTHOR> It's about how Dyalog APL uses SSE/AVX instructions to speed up searching, in cases like:

\- given a short vector of digits, test each character in a long string to see if it's a member of digits. \- given a short vector of bucket-boundaries (0, 25, 50, 75, 100), test each number in a long vector to see which interval it would fall into.

They pack multiple small integers into one vector register, use it do 16 simultaneous binary searches, code to avoid branching and branch mis- prediction, use the crc32 CPU instruction for hashing, and other tricks, to average under 1ns "item in vector" membership testing.</comment>


Show HN: Treasuring my family memories - <AUTHOR> http://pioul.fr/treasuring-my-family-memories/

<comment><USER2> I like your idea.

My thoughts.

Since I keep in contact with most of my family via facebook, have you thought about making this work as an app? I know facebook has photo sharing already, but it is pretty unorganized and you can't have shared albums without creating a group (let's face it, most families aren't going to do that). Also I think having the functionality to embed the slideshow in a facebook post would be nice as well.</comment>


Cable Freedom Is a Click Away  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/technology/personaltech/10basics.html?_r=1&hpw

<comment><USER2> I've heard lots of people say they hook Mac Mini's up to their TV. How are they doing it? I've got a DVI -> HDMI cable but that only handles the Video are people using junky PC speakers for the audio or is there some kind of in expensive multiplexer you can buy to get the audio into the HDMI cable.

<comment><USER3> I don't use a Mac, but for my PC I have a video card with two DVI ports. The DVI ports on this card will also send the audio through it. If you have a DVI to HDMI adapter, you'll get the audio on your TV/receiver.

Given that, I'm only using the video portion of the HDMI cable and using the S/PDIF (a single RCA cable, digital signal though) output on my mother board to send a digital audio signal over to my receiver.

I use XBMC (Windows, Mac, Linux) for watching movies. It's beautiful software, free and open source: <http://xbmc.org/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been doing this for two years, no regrets on ditching cable box. The only time I miss it is the rare occasion when friends aren't doing anything for a UT football game.

It bothers me when companies dismiss streaming/on-demand due to it's "bandwidth" costs because companies like GigaNews seem to be quite profitable and offer unlimited download + SLL for $30 a month or less.

<comment><USER5> >for a UT football game

This seems to be the rub. I can't imagine the networks/cable-cos letting these assets go in a "pay $X to stream this game" way anytime soon. It seems likely that live sports (more than anything else I can think of) will likely be the cudgel for much broader content delivery service agreements for some time to come.

<comment><USER6> NHL, NBA, and MLB have online streaming options. I subscribe to NHL Gamecenter. $160 a season, and streams at 2200 kbps, which is good enough for me.

Sports are slowly caving to the online demand.

<comment><USER7> Surprising how reluctant the NFL has been to giving their fanbase a live online option. MLB is, by far, the best online streaming option.

<comment><USER8> MLB is the only sport that keeps full rights to their internet streaming.

The rest of the sports have traditionally tied internet streaming to their broadcast deals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The last month I have been doing this with XBMC. The base stuff works amazing and using xmbclive was quick and easy. The trouble I have been having is setting up Live TV. Our provider uses IPTV so getting content is as simple as faking a mac address and joining udp groups. But getting that setup nicely with anything "set top box"-like has been hard.

In my opinion though, this type of episodes on demand, no schedule required, watch when you want thing is the future of TV. It is funny that most people now have PVRs (and swear by them) but really those things are just caching content already saved and available in cable company head-ends. I am surprised there hasn't been more movement by cable companies to allow end users to watch their content libraries whenever and however they want. Especially with the way TV Shows are getting more serial and epic - miss one episode and you don't want to watch any until you are caught up.

Is it a matter of bandwidth or maybe just no interest in doing something new?

<comment><USER10> There is, but I've only seen it with premium channels. HBO on-demand is excellent. You just look through the catalog of shows/movies and pick the one you want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> (Give a reason if you are going to downvote me. I've tried this and know first hand that it sucks.)

OK. In my experience, this is a poor solution and generally a dumb thing to do.

It's hard to use, often breaks, and has pretty horrible program selection. Even with the Netflix membership.

The feeling of not paying "the man" for cable is cool but this simply isn't a good solution. There isn't an alternative to cable and you will regret going through the trouble. The only people with no regrets, are the people who don't watch much TV, or are in denial.

Seriously, what happens when it keeps breaking? It sucks to have your wife call you at work when it's broken. The remote isn't responding, won't full- screen, stuttering etc.

Some of you need to be honest and stop giving everyone the no regrets since leaving cable stuff.

This setup sucks. It's just not as bad as regular TV.

<comment><USER4> I didn't downvote you. I watch "TV" at most 2-4 hours a week (including weekends), but I do watch a fair amount of movies. Contrary to your experience, it doesn't break for me but I do agree it's not really quite ready for prime time.

A majority of cable TV is garbage which is why I refuse to pay for their bloat. I don't know why anyone in their right mind would want to spend more than 12 hours watching the idiot box anyway. I'm not pointing a finger at you but it humors me that I have friends who give me crap for sitting on the computer (learning I might add), while they sit in front of the TV with their microwave dinner watching poorly-written, dumbed-down sitcoms.

<comment><USER7> I watch about 1-4hrs per day depending on what's showing. Mostly sports but I like NatGeo, History, Travel, Discovery etc. I don't watch any sitcoms but there are a few well written shows like Mad Men, Wire etc. I also enjoy stuff like Top Gear and Ultimate Factories. But it's mostly sports for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've been watching TV/movies either on DVD/netflix via the x-box, or Hulu by attaching my laptop to the TV instead of cable for the last few months. I'm pretty happy with it overall, and everything which I was really interested in is available.

Despite the massive amount of content available to me, I've found that I just watch the shows I'm interested in or a random movie and then go do something else. I think the main reasons for that are that there's no show that just starts after the current one (I completely stopped watching Colbert) and there aren't re-runs of old shows that I liked. In the case of the latter sometimes episodes of those shows are available, but I seem less inclined to watch them if I need to find and pick them then if I happen to see it's on some channel I'm passing by.

</comment><comment><USER12> "If you're an ESPN fan you have two options."

I've been pretty please with the offerings on ESPN360. I can get it through my DSL connection. (I think cable internet providers block it, but of course the point here is to break with the cable companies anyway.) They have a lot of NBA, college basketball, baseball, even European soccer.

<comment><USER8> ESPN, as a network, is tied pretty inextricably to the Cable nets.

They get somewhere between $3-$4 per subscriber a month regardless of whether you watch them. Thats about ~4 Billion a year they make from just subscriber fees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> canceled my time warner cable a few months ago. just use them to get my internet now at about 40$ a month. they were desperate to keep me from canceling offering me like 99$ a month for tv and internet and all kinds of dtv stuff IF i agreed to a two year commitment. uh, ya right. forget that.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm just curious why Cable Companies have not been investing more energy and time into the homer server market... it seems that is the future... though actually didn't I hear something about Comcast breaking into the Alarm industry?

</comment><comment><USER15> Looks like they've never heard of the Roku: <http://www.roku.com/>

It can't do Hulu, but I've used it at a friend's house to access his Netflix account. It's quite nice.

<comment><USER16> Looks to me like they have:

 _There's also the $80 Roku box, a device that allows you to stream video from Netflix, Amazon.com and other sites directly to your television._</comment></comment>


Warned of an Attack on the Internet, and Getting Ready - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/31/technology/with-advance-warning-bracing-for-attack-on-internet-by-anonymous.html

<comment><USER2> When will we stop giving "Anonymous" attention?

<comment><USER3> The amount of things they declared war on..

It feels like bi-weekly they're threatening to "take down" something, and yet, mysteriously, miraculously, these 'targets' remain in tact.

Seriously, how does temporarily DDoSing something actually _do_ anything? Whoa! You temporarily brought down the Westboro's website? All of their visitor must have been slightly inconvenienced for a bit.</comment></comment>


Google Cloud Storage Nearline - <AUTHOR> https://cloud.google.com/storage-nearline/

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting that their cost calculation tool[0] compares against S3 instead of Glacier. Glacier seems like the more appropriate choice here, but obviously doesn't make Nearline look as good.

[https://cloud.google.com/pricing/tco/storage- nearline](https://cloud.google.com/pricing/tco/storage-nearline)</comment>


Silicon Valley sucks at training software engineers – and that's a problem - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2016/08/20/silicon-valley-sucks-at-training-software-engineers-and-why-it-matters/?hacker-news <comment><USER2> This article doesn't even try to explain why -- it barely even makes the assertion. It simply says the US doesn't have enough engineers and that that is a problem. Basically clickbait.</comment>


Google Latitude: See where your friends are in real time! - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/latitude/intro.html#1

<comment><USER2> Already posted:

Here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=465458>

Here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=465359>

Here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=465494>

</comment><comment><USER3> Wait.. let me get this straight. The dodgeballers leave, and _then_ Google gets interested in that sector again?</comment>


The worlds first global ISP - <AUTHOR> http://www.fyx.co.nz/

<comment><USER2> I was just about to flag this story because it seemed like the home page of some regular New Zealand ISP. But in their FAQ they list a "global mode" that "offers greater access to the internet by circumventing geographical restrictions placed on the certain internet services". I guess they have implemented some kind of web proxy running from IPs that aren't tagged as NZ in the standard geoIP databases.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you stay motivated when creating content in a vacuum? - <AUTHOR>

I've started tinkering on a few web apps of my own in my free time. Currently I'm working on a bookmarking site a la Delicious or Pinboard. At first, working on features for myself was fun, but now I'm finding myself unmotivated with no active users. I have no delusions of grandeur; I never expected to get tons of users to sign up, but I hoped for few to impress and keep me going.<p>Whether it's about having no users for your app, no followers on twitter, or no readers of your blog, it's hard to stay motivated when you're creating content in a vacuum. How do you get past this? <comment><USER2> I ran into the same issues when I was creating a site, noodleshare.com. It was tough staying motivated, and in fact, i left it alone for about 3-4 months because of that. What ended up helping was getting positive feedback from the community, whether that was going to meetups or chatting online about the progress. What's funny is I ended up redesigning part of the site to help others keep up that drive. If you believe in it though, then find a partner that's a loud mouth and does nothing but chat about what you're doing. It's working for me!

I also disagree with fjw. "Keep creating content" is not the answer. You either need to refine what you have based on feedback and trends, or get out there and network more to let people know what's out there.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's no fun creating in a vacuum. Don't make something and sit quietly hoping people will notice. No one owes you any attention.

Make a noise, shout out from the rooftops that you've built something, fake confidence if you have to.

The number of channels available to promote your stuff is unlimited now. Make some noise.

</comment><comment><USER4> You've already put in enough time to make the site and if you really think that it can take off with more users, then keep creating content. If it's something you truly believe in and don't want to just let die out, then this should be motivation enough.</comment>


Awesomely bizarre light show freaks out Norway - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/12/09/awesomely-bizarre-light-show-freaks-out-norway/

<comment><USER2> I'm in Norway, not freaked out.

Altho I enjoyed Adam Curry's crackpot theory on it being related to the large hadron collider and the Obama visit.

<comment><USER3> I'm in Norway and not freaked out either, but I'm mildly entertained by the news coverage:

\- The TV2 news' only comment from the locals, paraphrased as "What the fuck was that?" ("Ka i hælvete va det?")

\- UFOologists claiming that "this defies physics as we know it".

\- Russian Military Official A claiming that this was definitely a missile, while Russian Political Official B claiming that this was definitely not a missile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The rocket/missile explanation was the first thing I thought of. It looks pretty much the same as some U.S. military missile tests I saw in southern California. (Those ones didn't malfunction and spiral, but they left the same sort of glowing trails in the evening sky.)

</comment><comment><USER5> Much discusson: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=986967>

Also lunk to: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=986075>

</comment><comment><USER6> didn't russia already cop to this being a failed test?

[http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/12/10/world/internationa...](http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/12/10/world/international- us-russia-missile-failure.html)</comment>


How can I A/B test my salon's website to increase real world traffic? - <AUTHOR>

My wife and I own a salon in NYC and we just relaunched our websites. We also, coincidentally, won a year of free service from Visual Website Optimizer (paraschopra's Wingify).
I'm a product manager by day at a local start and we A/B test everything but I can't seem to figure out a good way to test our site against real world traffic!
For example, if we were to change the headline on our site, we could verify using their analytics that more people were visiting the site, or clicking through to a sub-page, but most people just see our phone number and call!
Are there any examples or ideas of successful A/B tests for small brick and mortar businesses? <comment><USER2> Are you just looking for a way to measure? A couple ideas:

Printable coupons redeemable only in-store

Promo code that people say at the register

Reply cards that ask how did you hear about us

<comment><AUTHOR> We measure based on source right now with a simple 'how did you hear about us' but I'm wondering if there's a better way to get people who call in to identify which version of the website they saw.

I don't really want to go the 'Mention coupon code AXJM3 when you call to get 10% off' route because it requires us to modify our salon software to match up with the A/B testing software :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> simple ways : 1\. use different phone numbers , and measure calls.

2\. show the phone number/numbers only on a specific page , and measure conversions to that page. this is a reasonable approximation for calls,

more complex: google "call tracking" , many providers offer tools.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been thinking about this for a ridiculous amount of time and didn't think to show two different phone numbers. Brilliant!!

Will look into call tracking, thanks!

<comment><USER4> Here is a link to a pitch from NYC startup at TC Disrupt last year: [http://www.livestream.com/disrupt/video?clipId=pla_b6fa3cc6-...](http://www.livestream.com/disrupt/video?clipId=pla_b6fa3cc6-b254-4084-832a-6ef9e780fbb8)

The company is called Yext, and from what I remember at that time, there was concern about Yext placing phone numbers that they control across the web for the local businesses that they service; the implication being that there is some lock-in, and possibly some web juice being lost.

EDIT: I decided to actually check out the site and they assign only one number, so no a/b testing. I searched, but found no pricing, so it looks like they are discriminating based on the specific type of business.

It was interesting they made note that people tend to call local numbers more regularly than 800 or out of state, so I guess that is a feature to look for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We have numerous case studies online: <http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/case- studies.php>

I am sure some of them will be relevant to you.

</comment><comment><USER6> Use different phone numbers / email accounts to track conversions. I'd be shocked if you had enough traffic to do meaningful AB testing, however.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, our traffic is very low :( We're doing 1200 uniques per month right now so it will be a long road :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> did you tried foursquare specials, hotpot and all of the online to offline tools?</comment>


Problem Solving with MiniZinc - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jpalardy.com/posts/problem-solving-with-minizinc/ <comment><USER2> Very nice presentation. Another extensive list of examples: [http://www.hakank.org/minizinc/](http://www.hakank.org/minizinc/)</comment>


HTTP Status Rappers - <AUTHOR> http://httpstatusrappers.com/

<comment><USER2> No http 418 "I'm a teapot"? (RFC 2324) <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2324>

</comment><comment><USER3> wat

Someone explain this to those of us cut off from pop culture.

<comment><USER4> I'm not very well versed in the rap lyrics, but can recognize a few:

301 - Moved permanently: Will Smith'c character from the Fresh Prince TV show moved to Bel Air.

401 - Unauthorized: MC Hammer had a song "Can't Touch This"

I'm not sure about the others so I'll let someone else fill in. :-)

<comment><USER5> 300 - Multiple choices: Eminem, "would the real slim shady please stand up"

It's a hiphop quiz, nice!

 _HINT_ \- click on the image to see it bigger AND the track it is refering to is embedded below!

Edit: Not all have to refer to a special line in a track. 2Pac is just "Gone" i guess.

<comment><USER6> 204 - No Content - P Diddy - A rapper who has somehow gained fame yet has no real creative output

202 - Accepted - Jay Z - Guessing a reference to him always talking about graduating from the School of Hard Knocks?

200 - OK - L'il Jon - His most popular guttural exclamation from his song of the same name

304 - Not modified - Dre - You may have forgotten about him, but he's still Dre

402 - Payment Required - 50 Cent - He is one looking to Get Rich or Die Tryin'

404 - Not Found - Sisqo - He introduced us to the Thong Song, but then has been nowhere to be found in over a decade

413 - Request Entity too large - Rick Ross - The man is just so damn big

(not sure if the songs are directly connected to the reference as in the case of Sisqo or Rick Ross, but more to the rapper?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Brilliant!

</comment><comment><USER8> #strong</comment>


Kaminsky, Cricket, Rose on DNSSEC - <AUTHOR> http://gregness.wordpress.com/2009/06/10/dnssec-dan-kaminsky-cricket-liu-scott-rose-webinar-slides-now-available/

<comment><USER2> Appears to be a sales presentation for a commercial DNSSEC management product. "You will need to build or buy tools. Here's our tool!"</comment>


The Design of a High-Performance File Server (1989) [pdf] - vezzy-fnord http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.38.5481&rep=rep1&type=pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Reads like a spiritual predecessor to Facebook's Haystack: [https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/osdi10/tech/full_papers/...](https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/osdi10/tech/full_papers/Beaver.pdf)

<comment><USER2> I would say Haystack looks a bit more complex. To me, Bullet looks more like a modern caching server.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I'm on my last dime in a country far way from home - <AUTHOR>

I find myself unemployed and on my last dime in a foreign country (not US) - with no college degree, going back will make it harder to leave again or even find a job there. All I have now is 2 weeks stock of noodles and a computer. No cash, no credit card, no place to sleep next month. Selling everything I own.
Rewind a couple of months ago: I quit my soul-crushing but well paying job confident I'll find a new gig in a matter of days. Job offers poured in and I was on top of the world, then something totally unexpected happened (totally out of my control) and I can't start a new job until that's fully sorted out, which might take a couple of months.
I've been trying to freelance online but have had no success so far. I can't freelance in-land, that's too dangerous and might break employment law. What can I do to make some quick cash online? I'm a generalist web applications developer and I've done desktop applications in the past. <comment><USER2> Can you be more specific about "generalist web applications developer"

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that was a bit vague. I have lots of backend and frontend experience with the LAMP stack and I work a lot with Django, Javascript, AppEngine, EC2, Python ML packages (scikit-learn, nltk) and many Apache projects (Hadoop, HBase, Mahout, Solr)

<comment><USER2> How do I get in touch with? I might have a freelance Django gig. (Django on Heroku)

<comment><AUTHOR> firstname.lastname@example.com - that will be highly appreciated</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: At what point is it appropriate to leave startup? - <AUTHOR> So I'm an engineer working at my third start up.
First startup went through three pivots before I chose to leave.
Second startup never pivoted.
Third startup is on the third pivot and I'm thinking it's time to leave.
After how many pivots do you chose to leave? <comment><USER2> Why is the number of pivots the question? It seems like the questions should be:

\- Do I still have confidence in the executive's team's ability to decide on a sound strategy and align people in that direction?

\- Is the organization healthy and are good patterns of communication, coordination, and execution being laid down?

\- Does the product direction we are currently taking have a sensical business model it can possibly support?

The decision-making processes around the pivots and the way they were communicated can provide a lot of information to answer these questions.

<comment><USER3> It also sounds like these are the questions you need to have answered before you start your next startup job as well. ;) Looks like you have been joining and hoping the founders knew what they were doing, only to be disappointed.

Did any of your previous companies, that pivoted so many times end in success? Or were your exits worthwhile?

<comment><AUTHOR> No exits. Yeah, I definitely need to do a better job in selecting who I end up working for

<comment><USER2> You might try working for a company that is a bit farther along—someone that has found product-market fit and is focusing on scaling up. I work for one and its really great: lots of challenges but a focus on long-term sustainability and a thoughtfulness to how projects are decided on and run.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What do the pivots have to do with it?

A startup job should be like any other job: you leave when what you're getting out of it (in terms of money, learning, satisfaction; likelihood of future reward; and whatever else matters to you) is no longer worth what you're putting into it (in terms of time; aggravation; opportunity cost; etc.)

</comment><comment><USER5> I had to pivot a startup far more than 3 times to get to success. The key is really how fast it gets to product market fit.

Before that, startups need to build very cheaply and crudely. E.g. I wouldn't even build a database unless I'm certain I need one - in many prototypes, hardcoded data or dummy data works too. Once you get the first $1000, you can start scaling.

I've seen multimillion dollar companies start with an annual revenue of $10k. Startups always start slow.

To answer the question, you should have a good gutfeel for it. If you think the leadership is strong and the product is something people want, stay. If you're just in it because you think the market could be big, but your heart isn't into it, then leave.

Startups thrive on the outliers. There's not much process to it.

</comment><comment><USER6> You are presuming # of pivots correlates strongly with success.

The idea being tried, and the team executing on it are probably much stronger predictors.

If you are already in doubt enough to ask, it's probably time to move on.

<comment><USER2> > If you are already in doubt enough to ask, it's probably time to move on.

Why is it the case that doubts imply you should move on rather than doubts imply you should honestly investigate those doubts?</comment></comment>


14 year in same company - <AUTHOR> I am with the same company for 14 years. Feel bored and my technical skills not sharpen.<p>Any idea who to change the path. <comment><USER2> 1) is it the company or is it the job? Have you spoken to management about your needs?

2) if it is a large company, speak to HR, do they offer on the job training?

3) in this day and age, it's easy to find and learn technical skills online, take some time to decide what you want to learn and go for it.

What's stopping you?

</comment><comment><USER3> Sharpen them yourself, and change your outlook. If you are tenacious enough and have a few attainable goals, you will succeed in more and more complex scenarios.</comment>


Social Networks in Movies - <AUTHOR> http://moviegalaxies.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Dear HN community,

we´ve been working on this project for a while now and happy to get your feedback and questions for this very first version.

Thanks, Michael & Jermain</comment>


Scientists who risked death testing vaccines on themselves - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/03/07/vaccines-self-testing-polio-salk-coronavirus/ <comment><USER2> Reminds me of:

Dr. Barry James Marshall who showed that the bacterium Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) plays a major role in causing many peptic ulcers, challenging decades of medical doctrine holding that ulcers were caused primarily by stress, spicy foods, and too much acid. This discovery has allowed for a breakthrough in understanding a causative link between Helicobacter pylori infection and stomach cancer.

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

</comment><comment><USER3> According to the first example in the article, they not only "risked" death...

<comment><USER4> The headline doesn't apply to the first example. That scientist was intentionally infecting himself with the disease and the desired outcome was dying to prove his hypothesis. Death wasn't just a risk. Death was the only goal of the experiment.

People who inject vaccines do it with the expectation of surviving it. The goal is to avoid death.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://archive.md/YnPdf](https://archive.md/YnPdf)

</comment><comment><USER6> I assume this is being posted in response to this report of a Chinese scientist injecting herself with an untested Coronavirus vaccine:

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/v74p5y/a-chinese- doctor-i...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/v74p5y/a-chinese-doctor- injected-herself-with-an-untested-coronavirus-vaccine)

<comment><USER7> Animal tox studies don't even take that long... this is, as the article states, a publicity stunt.

<comment><USER8> Even a day's delay could cost many lives, moreso if the distribution process is slow.

<comment><USER9> Losing a talented scientist to a rash decision could cost many more lives.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is Freelancer.com for real? - <AUTHOR>

I am visiting the site and it is all gamified and shiny and whatnot...
But how much I can score hourly as mobile developer there? Any clue?
Also how much of the projects there are real? And how hard is to get projects? <comment><USER2> Personally I would recommend Guru.com instead of Freelancer; I've worked with a few of those sites and Guru seemed to be the most professional. Also, if you're worried about being paid, use the site's escrow system (Guru has one, I believe Freelancer does as well). Your employer pays into the escrow, you complete the project, you request that they release the escrow to you, you get paid. If they don't release the escrow, you can get (usually free) dispute resolution services through the site. This has saved me from a shady employer at least once.

Your hourly rate very much depends upon your skills. Start bidding high, and see if you get any catches. There are people on these sites making $100 / hr., but these people have a lot of history and are well-known. Don't expect to make the higher rates when you're just starting out, and remember you're often bidding against people in third-world countries. At the same time, remember that you'll be taxed as self-employed, so make sure your rate includes the amount you're likely to pay in taxes in your country, and make sure you save that percentage back since you're likely going to owe big time when you file your income tax.

Getting projects is a challenge; mostly it's about projecting a professional appearance through your proposals. Make sure your English and grammar are top notch. Justify why you are the best person for the job. Tell the employer what you'll do to build their project. Split the project into milestones (each with payment attached). Essentially you should be writing a highly customized cover letter in every proposal.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not too sure about anyone else, but I had rather limited success with this site. The only jobs I were offered were not those I applied for, but shady third-party offers from companies who the site must've sold my information.

Also, not sure what country you are in, but for many Web design and simple programming jobs it is hard to compete with those willing to do the work for a much lower price (I even saw some people bidding for jobs at $2 per hour in some cases).

Just my take.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am from Brazil...

Also, I don't do web. For mobile I use cross platforms SDK or native.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've had experienced with sites like Freelancer. 99% of the time it becomes a bidding war. I was not happy with any leads and I ended up with $0 profit and a wasted day.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you want to earn on a hourly basis rather then project basis you might want to look at <http://peopleperhour.com> and other similar site which specifically focus on hourly work.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's real. however, they became famous lately and they increased their fees.

It was my source of money when i was a student (it used to be getafreelancer.com)

</comment><comment><USER7> As an employer, the only two places I've ever looked are odesk and elance. I've never heard of Freelancer.com. Just one data point though.

<comment><USER8> also guru.com is very good place for dev works

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you want to get paid by the hour try oDesk, better prices (just my experience).</comment>


We Are Only Just Realising That Facebook Has Lost All Meaning - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/3k5eny/we-are-only-just-realising-that-facebook-has-lost-all-meaning?utm_campaign=global&utm_source=vicefbuk <comment><USER2> Not being sarcastic but who needs Facebook when we can just scroll through the HN firehose? The HN firehose has a much better S/N ratio and every so often you find really good gems: which is something that rarely, if ever, happens on Facebook.</comment>


Best polynomial approximation equal ripple error - <AUTHOR> https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2020/03/10/remez-algorithm/ <comment><USER2> Mathematica does have an implementation of the Parks-McClellan algorithm (Remez exchange applied to digital filter design) so somewhere in there is a Remez implementation.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been studying Chebfun lately, a Matlab library implementing these approximation techniques. It's written by some of the leading researchers in the field, and their documentation is so well done that it reads like a graduate textbook on the subject:

[http://www.chebfun.org/docs/guide/](http://www.chebfun.org/docs/guide/)

In particular chapter 4 is relevant.

<comment><USER4> Worth looking at also is Approximation Theory and Approximation Practice, which is centered around Chebfun. Almost everything by Trefethen is unusually well written, Spectra and Psuedospectra is one of my favorites.</comment></comment>


In 1947 Only 3% of Congressmen Became Lobbyists - <AUTHOR> http://priceonomics.com/the-rate-of-return-to-lobbying/

<comment><USER2> Whenever I hear about corporate influence in Washington I think of Lawrence Lessig's Ted Talk on the need for campaign finance reform:

[http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_t...](http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim.html)

"Change the incentives and you change the behavior."

And the key point: SOLVABLE.

I hope people pick up on his point that regardless of what a person's top priority might be, fixing this problem should be our first priority.</comment>