Idioms of Dynamic Languages - <AUTHOR> http://willcrichton.net/notes/idioms-of-dynamic-languages/ <comment><USER2> I agree with the general point here (though I think some of the dynamic patterns, e.g. reflection and exceptions, are more often anti-patterns than they are necessary and useful).

In particular, I feel like statically typed languages force you to have a much more concrete and complete picture of the program you want to write in your head before you can make any progress writing it. In dynamic languages, I'll often start with a kind of half-formed picture and get bits and pieces working and then refactoring later isn't a big deal. But in static languages, I have to express a big chunk of the type/trait/etc. hierarchy that I'm going to be working with right off the bat, before I can write any functions that make use of those types. Then the surface area of code that needs to be refactored if my picture of the underlying type hierarchy changes seems to always be much larger. In the end, for complex programs, I tend to find the benefits of static analysis make this worth it - it's just definitely harder to get started in a static language.

Thoughts:

1\. All the examples here tend to have to do with basic language features or very low-level patterns. I'd love to see some higher level examples of larger architectural patterns. As I describe above, a lot of the pain points of working with static languages come when refactoring something complex, so it'd be cool to see a kind of walkthrough of such an instance.

2\. In a lot of ways, once I've finished the prototyping stage for something in a dynamic language, my code is pretty similar to how it would be if written in a static language - tend to refactor a little to tighten things up after getting the core working. I wonder how feasible it would be to create a language with a dual syntax/semantics that allowed you to prototype in a dynamic interpreted setting with fewer constraints/type annotations, then switch to a strict static mode that required you to go back and fill in everything needed to statically compile?</comment>


Panic-inspired: Round up of business dashboards - <AUTHOR> http://www.mindscape.co.nz/staff/johndaniel/index.php/2010/03/business-porn-the-company-dashboard/

<comment><USER3> I got so inspired by Panic's that I coded a status display up Wednesday night, but the hardware won't arrive until Sunday. It is so hacky I'm a mixture of proud and horrified. (I already have a dashboard, but thought it might be helpful to have something around the apartment for when I wasn't on the computer.)

After the hardware arrives I'll take some pictures and put up a how-to on my blog. Don't expect Panic-level design chops or anything, but you'll be able to hack together your own in a few hours for cheap.

<comment><AUTHOR> Look forward to seeing what you come up with Patrick :-) I was tossing up linking to your post about your online business dashboard but decided to go with pretty pictures for now as they're often a bit more inspiring.

The Panic post was very inspiring - I can relate - I may have to build one myself and chronicle the process. If you could blog about your experiences I'm sure it would be helpful to many of us who are about to kick off a similar project ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm toying with designing a hosted dashboard (aka Radiator) system - <USER2> standard plugins for pluggin in your GitHub, Piv Tracker, status etc.

The idea is that you could pick modules you want, choose a theme/apply your own CSS and away you go.

Probably as an open-source/hosted model. If anyone is interested in working on this as a side project with me let me know!

<comment><USER5> Sounds neat, with a simple API for application specific metrics it could be really useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> last.fm has some cool systems as well: <http://blog.last.fm/2008/08/01/quality-control>

i especially like the build status bears :)

</comment><comment><USER7> I would absolutely love a simply Ruby based way to easily get these together (simple dashboard framework) and pull together the data. Might have to work on that unless someone knows of one already.

<comment><USER3> I don't know how much mileage you're going to get out of a framework to do it, since many of the bits of data will be coming from diverse sources. For example, mine draws from Rails database models and a few RSS feeds.

If you want, I'll show you all of my code in the post this weekend about it (still waiting for the darn hardware to show up). It is inside of 200 lines. The RSS code is so trivial it practically writes itself -- Google [SimpleRSS ruby]. As soon as you've got RSS support you get a lot of things like, e.g., unread email counts from Gmail (or Gmail apps) for free.

<comment><USER7> That would be great. I'd love to see what you're doing. I want to build a small dashboard for at home for personal things and I'd really like to get one up for my company as well. It would be really good for everyone to be able to 'see' when we are productive or not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> All of those dashboards are _really_ sexy.

</comment><comment><USER9> I want to make something like this for personal use. This has inspired me to move it up the queue a bit. I've still got back-end work to do in the mean time.

<comment><USER10> Im toying with proposing one here at work...

But I suspect that conversation will end "hey, if you want to make it.." and there is no way I can make it as sexy as some of these :(</comment></comment>


Tell HN: Unicorns aren't ad-supported - <AUTHOR> Looking at the "Complete list of unicorns"[1], something stands out.  Out of the top 50 startups by valuation, only three, Snapchat, Pintrest, and Vice, are ad-supported. The others all sell a product or service paid for by its users. Advertising may have powered the first dot-com boom, but it's not powering this one.<p>[1] https://www.cbinsights.com/research-unicorn-companies/ <comment><USER2> Startups are the penny stocks of the 21ht century. Buy 4% of a company for 40 M$, talk a lot about how this company is valued at 1 B$, wait until enought people belive it, make an IPO, take the money and run (a.k.a. pump and dumping). Would Jordan Belfort still be in business he would high probably be a VC.

<comment><USER3> You might be right, except that very few are going public compared to historical numbers.

<comment><USER4> Right, but most VC's want an exit, acquisition or IPO. They are not in it for the next 20 years or so. They are waiting for the right market conditions. Which happens when the public really buys the hype and will spend their money buying up stocks after IPO. They can't go public preemptively.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anyone else surprised by Blue Apron and Hellofresh making the list?

I can't imagine there are two multibillion dollar food recipe delivery subscription companies.

Is this as crazy as I think it is?

<comment><USER6> HelloFresh has a montly sales of 20 million. Lets assume they get a margin of 40% (which is just my guess). Then they can pay off these investments within 31 years. And I did not even consider their rapid growth.

<comment><USER7> 40% sounds hysterically optimistic. Typical margins in the restaurant business are around 3%, and while HelloFresh's model and costs are obviously pretty different, they're still grappling with restaurants as competitors and dealing with many of the same problems: supply chain management, perishable product, hygiene and quality are a major concern, labor-intensive business, etc.

Also, given the rate at which HelloFresh is throwing around free boxes and discount coupons and special offers here in Australia, I would be astonished if they're profitable at all.

<comment> jon-wood Its a massively profitable business model (at least once you've got the initial momentum building via discounts and freebies out of the way).

Lets look at their "Classic Box" ([https://www.hellofresh.co.uk/food- boxes/classic-box/](https://www.hellofresh.co.uk/food-boxes/classic-box/)), which is £39 a week for three meals. I priced up what I could see of the box contents using Hubbub ([https://beta.hubbub.co.uk](https://beta.hubbub.co.uk)) - largely because I work there, and so know my way around, and it came to a little over £20, and that's without any real effort to match the portion sizes they're shipping, I could probably get it down to more like £15 just by buying just the amount of each ingredient needed for the meals being made, and going direct to the producer rather than via high street shops who are going to be adding their own margin.

That leaves, pessimistically about £20 to cover delivery, and the customer's share of central costs such as recipe development, packing, and the usual business expenses of a web based company. At the sort of volume they're doing, I could see them easily making 40% profit, and potentially more than that.

<comment><USER8> So the question should now be, do they have a sustainable competitive advantage, or are these high profit margins vulnerable to being competed away?

<comment> jon-wood The only real advantage they have at the moment is momentum, and lots of VC money allowing them to survive much higher customer acquisition costs than otherwise. Otherwise, they're a specialised variant of online grocery ordering, which at least in the UK is a huge and very competitive market. They even have the advantage of being able to mail orders, because they're not trying to deliver anything frozen, so logistics is essentially just a case of negotiating a decent rate with a courier.

I'd be really surprised not to see quite a few companies pop up in the same sector, there are already a couple I know of, possibly targeting particular niches such as oriental food.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm surprised by the dearth of companies with manufactured products, especially since this is an international list. All I see are the 6 listed as "hardware" \+ SpaceX.

Edit: plus Trendy and Theranos and probably a few more from the other categories.

<comment><USER10> After working on hardware teams in various capacities for 6 or 7 years, I'm not surprised. Startups need momentum - especially massively successful startups. And hardware, at this point in time, isn't something that you can easily build momentum with.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think this is because of any inherent difference between hardware and software. Sure, the requirement to physically build something adds a bit of a delay, but computer simulation is so good these days that the actual building bit is pretty infrequent. Plus, turnaround time is usually pretty short - two weeks lead was pretty standard for the shops I've worked with and at.

No, the problem IMO is that frankly, our software is shit. The end users of, for example, Solidworks, aren't the people paying for the software, so there's no direct market feedback. Mechanical design software was some of the earliest software ever written, and it's been some of the slowest to change. The hiccups are negotiable if you're working serially and alone, but the second you want to do parallel development on something, or to collaborate with anyone else, you're stuck throwing workaround after workaround on an already slow process. And then there's the catastrophic state of CAM software, BOM integration, inventory management, keeping the books on all that... everything is its own walled system, nothing talks to anything else, and everything sucks. I've spent literally days before duplicating information between Arena and Solidworks drawings -- and they even actually have an integration.

I'm wholly convinced hardware unicorns are so rare because the toolchain we use to build hardware is so bad. It stays bad for historical and short-sighted economic reasons. That is to say, the whole situation is ripe for change. And it's not hard to do, either: I coded up 85% of an MVP for a solid model merge tool that would make solidworks files more or less git compatible in just a month or two. If you want to play with that, it's a hacked-up VBA macro called smgimport/smgexport available here: [https://github.com/Badg/SolidworksUtils](https://github.com/Badg/SolidworksUtils). I have a lot of thoughts on how to do this right. If you're working in this space and want advice, I'm happy to help.

<comment><USER11> I think your point regarding how bad hardware-design software is correct.

But I think that understates the many other problems with hardware.

Just off the top of my head, the following are problems that are incredibly hard to solve for any new hardware company:

Distribution (how do you get your device into the physical and online stores where people buy)

Logistics (how do you bring the parts together, make sure you always have the correct parts, ship them to distributors etc)

Fast followers (If you do have a good device, why can't an existing manufacturer copy what you made and use their better distribution to outsell you and their bigger scale to get better prices on parts?)

Regulation (Many hardware devices need certification of various kinds before you can even try to sell them. I'm not opposed to this, but it is harder than in the software world)

etc, etc

<comment><USER10> So I am definitely making a development-centered critique. Partly that's because most of my experience is in development, and I have very little experience in high volume product or DTC. However, I also think that the software problem is a whole lot wider than design, and that the state of software for hardware companies as a whole (including logistics!) is abysmal.

Distribution of physical product to stores is something unique to consumer goods, and for physical hardware I think that landscape is currently experiencing a great deal of change. Even ignoring marketplaces like Amazon, we're starting to see the emergence of distribution / fulfillment as a service, and the burden of entry into the online retail market is much lower. Many very successful hardware startups have gone in this direction first, only arriving at brick-and-mortar retail stores once the company is large enough and established enough to spare the resources to keep that up.

Logistics and supply chain management are basically managed by software at this point, but because there's no effective integration between software (even packages that have the integration botch it) means that it's actually in some ways made into a harder problem because the data is stored in 10 "convenient" places rather than a single unconvenient place.

The fast followers / competitors problem is, I think, actually a bigger problem for the software industry than the hardware industry, with the exception of offshoring. If you offshore, particularly to China, and don't have a very good relationship with the factor(ies) you're working with, this is a very real risk, if the entirety of the widget is being produced by that one factory. With more complex widgets, this risk is substantially mitigated. In general I'd say this is more a function of the quality and uniqueness of the product coupled with your execution on it than something inherent to hardware. This is not, however, a problem that good hardware software will solve. The ability to rapidly develop things will actually make this worse. I don't have a problem with that! Execution is everything, even in entrenched industries, and Davids have always managed to topple Goliaths.

Regulation is also, in my mind, being held up by software. There's certainly a component that's out of your control - once you fire off the paperwork, you just sit and wait - but there's a lot you can do to smooth the approval process on your own end, and a lot of that has to do with proper design documentation, which is once again suffering from terrible software.

I'm not trying to say that having better software for hardware will fix everything. It certainly won't. But, I do think it is the single greatest limiting factor by far in hardware production. I would estimate it consumed 80% of my productivity or more. It's an astounding timesuck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Clearly VCs are underfunding advertising backed companies.

Based on the past 150 years of so of history, ad-supported companies have consistently delivered excellent returns. First the newspaper empires, then TV, then Internet.

<comment><USER12> Don't you think there's a bit of a selection bias there?

<comment><USER11> Well.. yes? Isn't that sorta, kinda the point?

Additionally, exactly the criticism could be made for this list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The big problems the world/USA are currently working through are

1\. Preventing Global Warming / Dealing with what's already occurred etc

2\. Unaffordable / low quality healthcare etc

3\. Income Inequality / Affordable higher education etc

There's a bunch of big problems, but I bet you could make the case that they go in those 3 categories above. The point is none of these are solved by having a fancy animated website that makes money via ads. Facebook/Google/Reddit etc created a bunch of value by connecting everyone. They were a necessary unicorn for the time, and they can still be replaced.

But if you're looking to create a unicorn, you need to set your sights on solving the big problems.

<comment><USER14> I would ignore #2. That's going to end up single-payer (as it should) in the next 5-10 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> How come Valve isn't on the list?

<comment><USER11> Valve has never taking funding[0] - which is how the Unicorns got their valuation: they were funded at a particular value (eg in AirBNB's April 2014 round they took $475M at $10B valuation[1]).

[0] "Valve is self-funded.We haven't ever brought in outside financing." pg 3, [http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.p...](http://www.valvesoftware.com/company/Valve_Handbook_LowRes.pdf)

[1] [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/airbnb/funding- round...](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/airbnb/funding-rounds)

<comment><USER15> Interesting. So that means Gabe Newell owns essentially all the stock?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> VICE _is_ awesome ... I don't care how they make money, as long as they bring news to the people.

It's my personal unicorn!

<comment><USER17> I thought journalism was supposed to be unbiased.

<comment><USER18> It's supposed to be at least true... VICE frequently fails this test in subjects I am familiar with. For example, I watched thier ISIS documentary on the weekend, it's full of staged battles.

But I admire them, they have figured out post mainstream post adblock monetization of news.

<comment><USER19> This is true for all journalism: as soon as it's about something you know anything about, you will notice there are lots of errors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> VC money powers them.

<comment><USER11> Not for most (or at least many)

Airbnb, Xiaomi and Palantir are probably profitable now. That's 3 out of the first 5, and I suspect that is broardly correct for most if the list.

<comment><USER21> Palantir takes regular enormous infusions of VC money. My guess is that they are in expansion mode still, but aren't profitable (or not profitable enough to bankroll their own expansion).

<comment><USER11> A lot of these companies are taking VC money to pay out the founders and/or early employees.

Atlassian is a good example[1]. Early employees sold their shares directly to the VC fund - none of the money went to the company.

That's pretty common - in the couple of years before Facebook float VCs were buying their way in anyway they could.

[1] [http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/business-it/atlassian-valued- at...](http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/business-it/atlassian-valued- at-35-billion-20140408-zqsjo.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Heh, "Updated in Real Time", like a unicorn flight tracker board.

</comment><comment><USER23> Yeah, Palantir is selling a product. The product consists of information about you. But they have no ads on their page, then this must be ok.

</comment><comment><USER24> Facebook?

<comment><USER11> Facebook is a publicly traded company. "Unicorns" are private companies valued at over $1 billion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Google is ad supported. And the ultimate unicorn.

<comment><USER26> "Unicorns" are private companies valued at over $1 billion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Google is.

</comment><comment><USER28> Interesting point. Apropos of not much, a lot of them use paid advertising in some form to drive awareness of their products or services, though.

<comment><USER29> Though, I haven't heard of approximately 95% of the companies listed...</comment></comment>


Reddit AMA: I'm a Former Amazon Fulfillment Center Employee - <AUTHOR> https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/cfglde/im_a_former_amazon_fulfillment_center_employee_ama/ <comment><USER2> Amazon Warehouse jobs have been well above minimum wage for quite some time. They are difficult, but warehouse jobs are not easy. I feel like there is a generational gap where people are expecting a comfortable office job.

It's hardly slavery. It's a choice. You an always go somewhere else to work. Amazon doesn't have a monopoly on low-skilled labor jobs.

I've known plenty of people that have worked in an Amazon Warehouse (in different states/locations) and they don't have to piss in bottles.

<comment><USER3> >It's hardly slavery. It's a choice.

This mode of thinking makes a dangerous assumption - that any issue can be resolved simply by an individual action. It assumes that because one person is making the complaint, then the issue which the complaint attempts to access must therefore be individual. It's an _anti-political_ stance; politics isn't only about individuals, it's about creating a better society at large.

Let's say that it really is such an easy choice as you're describing. It's implausible that it's the case for every worker who feels mistreated there. Therefore your solution means to them we say "tough shit". This is one consequence of the divorce of economy and politics. In no political situation is it viable in rhetoric or otherwise to say "tough shit" to a group of people. But it's fine to say that in economic circumstances. The examples go on - most of us are in favour of democracy in the political sphere, because we believe we should have a say over our lives, but in the anarchic economic sphere in which pressures arise which are extremely compelling (so compelling that there are even markets for selling one's own organs) we balk at the idea of democracy.

This is why I'm in favour of economic democracy - to stop statements like "It's a choice. You can go somewhere else." from being the end of these discussions, and to take away their logical basis which falsely assumes democracy should be relegated to politics.

<comment><USER4> There are norms that already prevent (non-military) hired workers from e.g. working more than 168 h/no, or prescribe at least 2 weeks of paid leave a year.

I think these norms can be used / extended as needed.

<comment><USER3> Within the capitalist system, of course - that's how it works. The capitalist fights to increase the working day (either in time- or piece-wages) while workers fight to decrease the working day. It's an endless tug of war between capital and labour. Ultimately, though, I don't think it solves much. The whole logical system and ideological analysis goes beyond simple adjustments to various quantities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One of the biggest issues seems the problem with bathroom breaks and time lost doing so.

Why does Amazon not put more bathrooms in the warehouses, so it doesnt take 10 minutes just to walk there and back? That's like a distance of more then half a mile...

Not drinking any water during ones shift doesn't seem a healthy solution.

<comment><USER6> Because it's often about the "piece of paper" cost. What I mean by this is explicit costs and savings are preferred by management: they can point to their bosses, wave a sheet of paper, and say, "See, I saved twenty-six dollars here!" In reality, it may have cost fifty dollars, but that doesn't matter. It's the same reason why we have open offices, "hot desks", and improper tools: the incentive structure is wrong.

<comment><USER7> At this one company, the developers have pretty decent HP desktop machines on Windows with Intel eighth generation processors, 8 GB RAM, ... and a $19 500GB hard disk drive. Why? I am sure someone somewhere got a pat in the back for saving the company money while every single npm operation takes at least an order of magnitude of time more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _Greenspan, in his testimony, then suggests technological change and international competition as possible reasons for worker insecurity, before noting that "suppressed wage cost growth as a consequence of job insecurity can be carried only so far. At some point, the tradeoff of subdued wage growth for job security has to come to an end. In other words, the relatively modest wage gains we have experienced are a temporary rather than a lasting phenomenon because there is a limit to the value of additional job security people are willing to acquire in exchange for lesser increases in living standards._

[https://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/statements/2014/jul...](https://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/statements/2014/jul/21/facebook-posts/social-media-meme-says-alan- greenspan-said-insecur/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Other Amazon employees have commented on the thread saying that their working conditions don't match the picture the OP described - so either practices differ between warehouses, or there's something else going on.

<comment><USER10> Practices differ between warehouses and at different times, depending on volume.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Anyone who says unions are no longer necessary should go and work in an Amazon warehouse for a year. Until the workforce organizes, this is going to keep happening.

<comment><USER12> It seems that the US union law favors so called enterprise bargaining or worksite-level bargaining. Companies and workplaces either unionize or not. That kind of system pits unions against companies. If the workplace unionizes, non-unionized companies get an advantage. Whoever fucks their workers hardest gets competitive advantage.

My experience of unions comes as an entrepreneur in countries with sectoral bargaining. Companies representing the whole sector negotiate against unions representing most or all workers in that sector. There may be company level deals also, but they are just a side show dealing with local issues. When the deal is made, everyone is at the same level of pain and gain. If company in retail business must allow their workers to pee, so does their competitor. You don't get competitive advantage if you fuck with your workers.

It's really just matter of arranging incentives.

<comment><USER13> The whole let's run workers like machines idea because they are poor and they have no bargaining power is very closely akin to slavery and yet is tolerated... and not thought of as completely immoral. I mean how the fuck do you get away with limiting the ability of people to use the restroom.

<comment><USER14> OK first the Restroom issue...Can we Please LET THIS GO!!! There is NO RULE saying that I have a limit or restrictions on Restroom use. I can use the Restroom as much/often as I need. I have Never peed in a bottle or trash can Nor have I seen anyone does that either!! I have never gotten written up or in trouble for using the restroom. Really this rumor needs to be put to rest!! Its tired and old.

The last time I checked Slaves do not have Freedom and I have freedom to come and go as I please, Slaves do not get paid and I Get Paid VERY Well and get pay raises. Slaves do not get benefits and I get FULL Benefits with all the bells and whistles. I am NOT A Slave. There are no shackles over here.

Rachel-Amazon FC Ambassador

<comment><USER13> [https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17243026/amazon- warehouse...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17243026/amazon-warehouse- jobs-worker-conditions-bathroom-breaks)

[https://www.newsweek.com/amazon-employee-allegedly-fired- ove...](https://www.newsweek.com/amazon-employee-allegedly-fired-over- unscheduled-bathroom-breaks-1341665)

[https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5004230/amazon-warehouse- worki...](https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5004230/amazon-warehouse-working- conditions/)

[https://www.huffpost.com/entry/amazon-fired-7-pregnant- wareh...](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/amazon-fired-7-pregnant-warehouse- workers-because-they-took-too-many-bathroom-breaks_n_5cd17e2fe4b04e275d50260c)

[https://amazonemancipatory.com/bathroom- breaks](https://amazonemancipatory.com/bathroom-breaks)

[https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-warehouse-workers- sha...](https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-warehouse-workers-share-their- horror-stories-2018-4)

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/01/amazon- fu...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/01/amazon-fulfillment- center-warehouse-employees-union-new-york-minnesota)

[https://brobible.com/culture/article/amazon-employee- suing-c...](https://brobible.com/culture/article/amazon-employee-suing- company-millions-fired-execssive-bathroom-breaks/)

<comment><USER11> Sure, sure, you have exhaustively-researched articles by professional investigative journalists, but where's the _proof_?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What's the over-under on how much longer Amazon will employ people for warehouse jobs? 10 years?

<comment><USER16> At least. Robots will (and are) reducing the number of employees, but humans are incredibly flexible components to stick in your pipeline. Fully eliminating the use of them will take a long time unless there is a large external motivator (i.e. politics/unionization making it untenable to continue hiring humans for the tasks).

(Personal opinion, I have no special experience in the field)

<comment><USER17> >humans are incredibly flexible components to stick in your pipeline

You can also lay them off during a downturn and substantially cut costs. That is a big deal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Alternative report:

[https://quillette.com/2019/07/19/the-problem-with-tourist- jo...](https://quillette.com/2019/07/19/the-problem-with-tourist-journalism/)

Discussed here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20486348](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20486348)

</comment><comment><USER19> Unionize.

</comment><comment><USER20> I suspect toilet rules are strict because people are prone to abuse the system.

Would be nice to have a warehouse operator for an AMA some time.

</comment><comment><USER21> Every Amazon executive, including Bezos, should be required to work as a picker one week per year.

</comment><comment><USER22> As AMAs go, this was pretty poor.

</comment><comment><USER23> If automation improves productivity by two times, it means that people have to work half as much. Simple math. Why is this not happening with the glorious free market capitalism?

I once brought up the idea of automation tax and UBI here and was downvoted to oblivion by the HN conservatives. But that's obviously the only way to avoid modern day slavery or else we end up in a local equilibrium where the owners of capital automate away every thing that gives the masses their edge and we put the final nail in the coffin of democracy. (Not that we are too far from that with the media, legislation, election laws and enforcement being massively biased towards capital controlled by a small minority)

</comment><comment><USER24> I see "modern day slavery" and I stop reading. There are no whips. No rape. No families torn apart. No slave ships. Grow up people.

<comment><USER25> What would 'modern day slavery' look like? And what would be the most appropriate phrase for the scenario described in the link?

<comment><USER26> One obvious example of modern day slavery in the United States is prison labor. It's not rare, and it's still disproportionately black people because of our racist "justice" system.

<comment><USER27> Is your argument that all demographics commit crime at the same rate? For example the vast majority of those incarcerated are in for violent crime, and a significant number of those involve killing.

<comment><USER28> I think the argument is that the treatment is inhumane because of the demographics involved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I was wondering why the design is so shit. Turns out that the link is from old.reddit. Can someone change the link?

</comment><comment><USER30> Why do hourly employees care how long your lunch break is? At least in the US it's usually not counted as work time. Assuming people clock out for the lunch break, I don't see why they'd care if it's 30m or 2hr, since people could just make up the hours by working later. Although I suppose it depends on the type of work being done.

<comment><USER31> Seems like they're being evaluated on their "items per time" rate, but that time also includes the lunch and bathroom breaks.

<comment><USER10> Many employees are evaluated by "scan to scan," which is a literal count of the rate at which they physically scan ASINs and bin codes in sequence, so any activity other than that (including bathroom breaks) counts as a penalty against their rate.

Of course they also have multiple quotas for items per hour, based on item size and expected daily volume, etc.</comment></comment></comment>


We've seen so many scary movies about robots we can no longer be objective - <AUTHOR> https://www.recode.net/2017/4/25/15423290/robots-robotics-preconceptions-fear-dystopia-jetsons-terminator <comment><USER2> No matter how subjective we may be, we can never not be the ones making the decisions about robots or anything else. We have to take ourselves as we are, and do our best.</comment>


Engineers develop 'smart glasses' that automatically focus on what wearer sees - <AUTHOR> http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/9721.html <comment><USER2> Invented? Hardly, variable focus spectacles have been done many times before. [https://www.google.ca/search?q=variable+focus+spectacles&oq=...](https://www.google.ca/search?q=variable+focus+spectacles&oq=variable+focus+spectacles&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

This can easily be done with an autofocus mechanism, as used in cell phones to adjust a variable fluid filled gap (which has been done many times before) The biggest problem in the past was the weight, lens thickness and leakage of the liquid. They could also use an air gap, but that is even thicker.</comment>


How Not to Promote Your Website - <AUTHOR> http://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/articles/10_ways_not_to_promote_your_web_site.html <comment><USER2> It was very strange to read:

      4 - Don't rush through your Yahoo submission.

but then I see the date of the artice: August 10, 1999</comment>


Re:scam is an e-mail chat bot designed to waste scammers' time - <AUTHOR> https://www.techspot.com/news/71811-rescam-e-mail-chat-bot-designed-waste-scammers.html <comment><USER2> Its a shame there is just so little information on the bot. Their websites for it is completely barren too [https://www.rescam.org/](https://www.rescam.org/)</comment>


AI Is Transforming Google Search - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2016/02/ai-is-changing-the-technology-behind-google-searches/?mbid=nl_2416 <comment><AUTHOR> About 15% of Google's searches are handled by Deep Learning using neural networks.</comment>


As health insurance costs rise, some turn to faith-based plans - <AUTHOR> https://www.nola.com/news/healthcare_hospitals/article_d4373c56-2280-11ea-8f25-675ae911b047.html <comment><USER2> Since blinded tests have proven faith based medicine does not work, this means a general decrease in longevity of the faith based patients. Still, it is a form of insurance by risk spreading and might help bring down the health cartel</comment>


Vfmd: Markdown with a spec - <AUTHOR> http://www.vfmd.org/

<comment><USER2> Less specification, more formal grammar. Foo-to-HTML converter is next to useless, especially compared to a well-formed parse tree. (In fact, there are already some PEG parsers for Markdown.)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not possible to write a formal (non-PEG) grammar for Markdown. Hence, a spec, which is the next best thing (a la HTML5). Of course, vfmd is not a md- to-html converter, it's an md-to-parse-tree converter + a parse-tree-to-html converter.

<comment><USER2> PEG is not a formal grammar? PEG being not a subset of context-free grammars? That's all new things to me.

And you actually have seen PEG parsers for Markdown? Like this one: [https://github.com/jgm/peg-markdown/](https://github.com/jgm/peg-markdown/), with grammar written explicitly and lexer/parser generated?

<comment><AUTHOR> Please see: [http://www.vfmd.org/introduction/#prior- work](http://www.vfmd.org/introduction/#prior-work)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What the Kickstarter Hangover will do to the 3D Printing industry - <AUTHOR> http://jasonevanish.com/2013/10/08/what-the-kickstarter-hangover-will-do-to-the-3d-printing-industry/

<comment><USER2> Like others have noted, most of this can be generally applied to Kickstarter projects in general. Some thoughts from someone working with consumer 3D printers almost daily:

I can't see disappointment (as he's outlined it) as a consequence of these delays. It's something unavoidably bound up in home and hobbyist 3D printing in general. It doesn't matter if you have a Makerbot or Kickstarter-backed printer... there's still a learning curve in terms of mechanical operation and maintenance, 3D modeling, etc. that the average user won't have had previous experience with.

The greater consumer 3D printing market is not on Kickstarter. Makerbot machines, the Afinia, the Cube series... these are the greater consumer market. I can't see the potential pitfalls for Kickstarted 3D printers as being much different than the usual risks/mindset of people who contribute to crowd-funding stuff.

Obsolescence also doesn't seem like as much of an issue. If you get a reliable printer in a medium that will work for your needs, you're good for a while... it's more important that the user decide what they want. Print material, build size, software and hardware niceties... it really depends on what you're doing and what you need. And the person who put together a RepRap is probably much different than the person who saw the Form 1 on Kickstarter and thought it sounded cool enough to try. There are different expectations along the broad spectrum of things the consumer can buy in the 3D printing space.

<comment><AUTHOR> That makes a lot of sense. I think you don't really totally know what you're looking for until you have one in some cases. I know I bought a Solidoodle because it was cheaper and readily available. Now that I've used it a bit, I see the value in paying for a more reliable printer with a larger build size that is at a higher price point. If I had bought a Kickstarter printer first, it would have taken much longer to get to that point simply due to the wait. And while some of the issues plague all printers, I meant to allude to the fact that those issues _compound_ when you add in Kickstarter- specific problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think this article speaks more about the general public coming to terms with how crowd-funding works in general. Kickstarter has already made efforts to help people identify that funding a project != buying a product. [http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/kickstarter-is-not-a- store](http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/kickstarter-is-not-a-store)

<comment><USER4> When I give money on kickstarter, I give it on a "cound and forget" basis. Usually they are not products, but projects, like the human powered helicopter and such, also my amounts are small, 5 or 10 euros. So I don't mind if I don't see results.

<comment><USER4> It´s "Found and forget", I was writting from the Iphone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I, personally, _expect_ Kickstarter projects to be later than their original delivery promises. Especially if the scope expanded due to stretch goals. I've backed about two dozen campaigns at this point, and I'm not sure _any_ of them have delivered "on time".

I'm halfway through running my second kickstarter campaign. I'm hoping to deliver the rewards a lot faster than I did for the first one; I learnt a lot about making and shipping stuff during the first one, and tried to structure the rewards in such a way as to eliminate the biggest time-sink on my end.

<comment><AUTHOR> I totally agree with you to expect delays from estimates, but I also think many people either A) won't do the same or B) It's just hard to comprehend how different things might be in the market when you finally get it 6-12 months after you "ordered" it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _Is_ there a Kickstarter hangover? Genuine question--I've been hearing about "Kickstarter fatigue" for years now, and I'm not sure the data is there to support it. Anyone have any figures on this?

<comment><USER7> In my opinion, it's not kickstarter itself that will experience the fatigue, but the 3D printing category itself. Very similar products are coming out in a very short amount of time. I expect a dozen new printers to come out on kickstarter before these are even shipped. What's that going to do to people's expectations?

We couldn't be higher on the hype cycle right now. I think many people will be disappointed with 1. the a huge difference in quality between printers, 2. you can usually only print one color, 3. it's typically not a simple process to print, 4. printing takes a long time, 5. learning how to use/maintain/calibrate the printer takes a really long time

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm assuming at least a small factor of why delivery gets delayed is the fact that they became significantly overfunded with a lot more perks needed to be fulfilled/produced/shipped over the original amount that was planned to be provided in the timeline that these projects originally laid out.

</comment><comment><USER9> The worst part about being on the bleeding edge is that we are bored by the time something hits the mainstream.

The fact is that 3D printing is still in its incubation stage. The market hasn't seen any concept hit storefronts in which the average middle class consumer can decide whether or not they should buy a printer...it's still 'magic'

One of these companies is going to figure out how to source at a scale that gets them into Best Buy. Then you can expect this segment to truly explode.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm not sure that adding features to an already late project is the best idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> If they can cheaply and quickly add it (by leveraging someone else's hardware or software) it could be worth it, but certainly not suggesting you change the design you sent to a contract manufacturer or anything like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> peachy printer only costs $100, that is the same price for a hot-end for normal printers. What else can go wrong with $100?</comment>


5 Views on What Basic Income Should Be and Why It Matters - <AUTHOR> https://futurism.com/5-views-on-what-basic-income-should-be-and-why-it-matters/ <comment><USER2> With circulation monetary credit flows and the essence of commerce flourishes. As jobs become scarce and the resources of employers no longer support the employment needs of the majority, basic income becomes a necessity for commerce rather than a what if.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you deal with burnout as a programmer? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Burnout is some part of your body and/or mind telling you you need to stop what you're doing and find a healthier path.

So, dealing with burnout requires you to identify what it is about your current work/life situation that is causing some part of you to apply the brakes.

For me, it's been many different things, but it has included: both fear of failure and fear of success; working for too long on projects that seem destined to fail; working with people who have values I don't share; resentments about all kinds of things that are mostly outside my control (and therefore pointless).

My methods for identifying these issues have included various emotional awareness/healing techniques that allow us to learn about our own subconscious beliefs and behavioural patterns, and then to take steps to adopt more healthy behaviours by aligning our internal thoughts with our external activities.

Feel free to email me if you want suggestions of specific techniques that have worked for me (email in profile).

</comment><comment><USER3> Have. Other. Hobbies.

If you do anything over and over, you'll get sick of it. A well-balanced life is important. Start exploring other things in life that you find interesting; there is plenty to keep you occupied.

<comment><USER4> I agree with this; it's very important.

However, it does get tricky when your other hobbies also require you be on the computer as your job does (e.g., cryptocurrency trading, programming side projects, or editing images, making/editing videos, video games, etc.).

So, recently I've taken up gardening (got a nice piece of land) and brewing beer.

Also, going to the gym every other day or go out running. The exercise helps keep your mind and body at bay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Take a month off and out of the house. Leave your computer at home and turn off any notification for anything that causes you anxiety or stress.

If you can't because you are a startup _founder_ and it's not making enough money then you have some hard choices. Either ask for help from people that love you, get day job, or go into debt to get your sanity back.

At the end of your life the $2k that month off in Costa Rica cost you will be a pittance compared to everything else you've earned.

At the end of the month off evaluate your life.

Do you still like programming? If the answer is only "kinda sometimes" figure out what you actually like about it and what you hate about it and shift things around to match those.

Are you out of shape? Start biking to get around or get a running buddy. Try to get 15 minutes of heart pumping exercise every day and work towards at least one day a week with over an hour of heart pumping exercise. Do some strength training too. callisthenics is my jam since its super cheap and effective, but some people need social encouragement and take better to things like water polo.

Do you hate your wife? Fix the relationship. See a therapist. If your wife won't work to fix it leave her. Unfaithfulness isn't just cheating.

How's the diet? Cut the fucking soft drinks to 0 and start eating something flavourful, protein / fiber rich every day. I do savoury omelettes in the morning (fresh thyme, soy sauce, mushrooms, onions and jiggled eggs) but whatever it is make sure you have at least one meal every day that is low in carbs, medium-low in fat and high in fiber and protein.

Get a hobby that doesn't involve a screen or prolonged mental energy. Photography, weaving, carpentry, painting. Start small and set realistic goals.

Quit tabacco. Prolonged use raises latent anxiety.

The key thing though is to not to try to do this all at once. Come up with a plan and implement only one change at a time about 4 to 6 weeks between each change.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER6> Start by identifying the root cause of the burnout. I feel like programming itself shouldn't burn you out. It's usually other parts of coding for work that lead to burnout. I've interviewed thousands of developers over the years for books, research, jobs, and if I had to choose a single culprit I'd say the most common cause of programmer burnout is a really terrible codebase that viscerally painful to maintain.

I did my best to illustrate that here: [https://twitter.com/AndrewStellman/status/896405621494382593](https://twitter.com/AndrewStellman/status/896405621494382593)

Tangled, nasty, poorly maintained code is not an easy problem to fix. The first step is getting everyone on the team -- and especially the boss -- to recognize the real problem, and accept that fixing it will save more time than it costs.

<comment><USER7> I feel that image in your tweet deep down.

I would like to add it's not only working in a horrific code base it's working in a horrific code base and getting a lot of push back on fixing it.

Telling PM's week after week that the backend will eventually keel over if we don't take some time to clean it up and being told there is no time to do refactoring or maintenance only time for features is very aggravating. Additionally watching outage after outage occur because of this and still being told "we need more feature work there is no time for refactoring" drove me up the wall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Dont fall prey to Kanban. Just because you completed a story doesnt mean you should immediately pick the next one. Add estimates in days and if you complete in advance, use the rest of the time to relax or learn something else at your pace. Also, work from home more when you need rest.

<comment><USER9> Continuous, relentless time pressure is a recipe for burnout.

Focusing on weekly or even daily tasks instead of thinking strategically and having time to learn and experiments drive alienation.

Some creative and unstructured work should be always part of our day.

(I'm talking work, not hobbies during spare time.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> For me, not cures, but some things that help:

\- Work on shorter projects with clear goals and a clear end. Finish them and move on.

\- Exercise is a priority more important than work. I can be flexible about when, but I never skip. Ever.

\- If the source of burnout is never-ending support at your day job, take action. Alert your manager. Or start looking for a better job. Realize that no amount of money or security is worth the entirety of your life, attention, happiness & time.

\- Work harder to identify and prioritize what you want. Recognize you can code every waking second and never finish what you want. So make sure you think more carefully about exactly what you want, and start figuring out how to spend your time on only what you want and nothing else.

\- Make sure you're learning something new that you want to learn (and not something someone else wants you to learn.)

\- Reserve time to socialize. Reserve time to get outside.

\- If heading toward management is something that doesn't make you cringe and run, reflect on how you can improve the process that's burning you out. Can parts be delegated? Can you request assistance? Can it be done better? People problems and not software may be the source of your pain. Starting learning how to solve people problems. Read books about it, etc.

</comment><comment><USER11> A bunch of people are suggesting "work from home". Which sounds great but at the same time impossible. I don't think I could convince my employer to let me. I'm sure I'm not alone.

<comment><USER12> It's possible at some companies by default. And even if you think it isn't, it may be possible at your employer too, if you ask.

Replacing existing employees is expensive. You understand the code, the business, the processes, the knowledge network (who knows what), etc.. Hiring someone straight off the street to replace you, even if they on paper have same technical skills, is a huge cost.

Thus, given a rational manager, if you are willing to quit your job over this you have a lot of leverage.

You can make your negotiating position even stronger by:

1\. Living below your means, so you have lots of savings in the bank.

2\. Getting a job offer you're willing to accept that does have this benefit, then going to your employer and asking them to counter it.

3\. Pointing out the ways this will benefit your employer.

There's a couple chapters about this in my book, The Programmer's Guide to a Sane Workweek ([https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/](https://codewithoutrules.com/saneworkweek/)), but it's similar negotiating dynamic to part-time job, except much easier to get, so this blog post may also be relevant: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time- programmer...](https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-programmer/)

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the info and the links :) the blog post sounds like my dream haha. I've only been at my current job for a few months, so I won't ask yet, but I'm going to try this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Eat, sleep and exercise. Most devs I know who have burned out (myself included) hadn't ate well, slept well or exercised at all for months if not years before they burned out.

Also, there are a lot of comments here that basically amount to "stimulate your dopamine receptors with novelty more often." I would argue the opposite is what you want to be doing. Stop doing anything that has a high reward for little effort. Socialize in person instead of on social media. Learn to cook instead of eating out. Take up a sport instead of watching sport on TV. Use a boring language you already know to build a product that solves a real problem instead of learning a new language by building a toy product that accomplishes nothing. Etc.

</comment><comment><USER14> 1st step, listen to a Navy SEAL commander with 20 years experience [1] tell you about his take on day to day (acute) burnout:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67Vp7fTgQ3g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67Vp7fTgQ3g)

... at the minimum - it'll fire you up. His stuff is great for motivation.

2nd step, because long-term burnout (chronic burnout) is real: Exercise + Hobbies + Family

...Make time or you WILL fail everyone in the long run - the literature on this is fairly established if I am not mistaken (sorry no refs).

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

</comment><comment><USER15> \- take a 6-month break

\- if you can't afford, find a part-time low-stress job paying just your bills and try to slow down

\- have interesting hobbies meeting people from outside tech purely for fun; if they become stressful in any way disengage without explanation and move away

\- do saunas

\- eat well, figure out which food makes you feel good long-term

\- drink a lot of water

\- get fit but don't train up to first symptoms of exhaustion, or you'd make your burnout way worse

\- relax as much as you can

I had a friend who was driven to hospital by his bosses and stayed there for >6 months while cutting contact with the outside world completely. You don't want to go that far.

</comment><comment><USER16> Have you ever read the label on those "natural herbal remedies" and thought, "it cures headaches after two to three days... that's about how long it takes for a headache to go away by itself."

I'd apply that same skepticism to pop-psychological advice.

It's also possible you're not actually burned out, but that this is a natural part of the ebb and flow of your emotional state. This isn't to say "just power through," but if you're a bit sick of it, you may find you naturally recover.

</comment><comment><USER17> When the option to ditch the keyboard is not available (Ie. always for me), the way I deal with this, is to change what I am working on.

Ie. I may be weeks and weeks in networking code and get it to a reasonable point but then get fed up, and move to 3D graphics code, then on to the caching system and then back to the networking code and so on. None of these sub-systems are complete in 1 sitting, but taking this iterative approach gives me a few things:

\- the change brings variety to the mind, which prolongs the burnout.

\- every "round" of work, I will learn something, thereby building my knowledge bit by bit. It is good to consume this knowledge bit by bit, giving time for it to be absorbed, which this approach allows for.

\- it means that at any one time, I have a good "overall" view of the state of the entire product.

\- i notice things that I did not when working on that sub-system the first time. Fresh pair of eyes, almost.

Well, the disadvantage I suppose is that it is probably not the _most_ efficient manner to work, but it keeps me relatively sane. Progress feels slow, but then there are moments where multiple sub-systems come together at the same time, and those are very rewarding.

</comment><comment><USER18> You have to vary your routine, workout in the morning but in different ways on different days, play with your kids, visit friends for coffee, talk to your spouse, play a sport or put together a robot. Pick activities that are not in front of a screen so when you do burn the midnight oil or push yourself to finish those deadlines, it doesn't feel like your life is just in front of a command line.

</comment><comment><USER19> Laptop off, phone off when you get home. Read science fiction or fantasy books, watch an engaging mini series, or get a Nintendo switch and run around in Breath of the Wild for 40 hours. Or get out and actually go camping. These are some of my burnout cures.

</comment><comment><USER20> Browse reddit LOL.

Actually, sometimes, when I tired writing code, I will just go hangout with my friends, have some little chat or something.

Other hobbies also helps, like photography, cooking or just staring at sky, watch the cloud floating by. If you have a small astronomical telescope, then you can even see the stars (Well, plants actually and nebula if you do photography).

The key point is: Don't just write program, have some life. Good life will eventually give you better code in return.

</comment><comment><USER21> I check alternative programming languages. D, Nim - there are a joy to use. I push them whenever I can. Sometimes I regret, sometimes people thank me for that. Novelty, novelty. I try to experiment with new things as much as I can. Is there some margin for trying out some new ways? Let's do that! Connecting with unfamiliar hardware, be it microcontrollers, SBCs or huge clusters, also gives your brain a refreshing fix of what it needs.

</comment><comment><USER22> When dealing with burnout, you should identify what specific stressers exist for you in relation to programming, and then work to cut those stressers out from the process. I'm afraid that from person to person, programming burnout can come from different sources, so we'll need more information first. For instance, is it specific aspects of the job / management? Is it the codebase itself, or a specific project you're working on?

</comment><comment><USER23> There's definitely been a lot of great material on HN about this in the past. If you haven't seen it, I invite you to check it out:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=burnout&sort=byPopularity&pref...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=burnout&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

<comment><USER24> Thanks for this.

<comment><USER23> A well timed HN thread on burnout has saved my butt more than once, so I'd never say its a bad idea to have people ask the question again. Also new answers are great to read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Every 6 months to a year I pick a new tooling language. New paradigm, nothing like what I've done before or use on a day to day basis. This gives me something "new" w/o having to change jobs.

Other hobbies, and keeping the screen off when I'm at home helps too.

</comment><comment><USER26> What's burning you out? Too many hours? Bad coworkers? Bad management structure? A general anhedonic feeling towards work? Is it a feeling stemming from work and leaking into your life or is it a feeling stemming from your life and leaking into your work?

</comment><comment><USER27> I build something super stupid. It often makes me feel better.

Also, lots of working out and meditation. It helps to keep life in perspective. Humans have pass many great filters and your life is better almost all who came before you.

</comment><comment><USER28> Have a child. Get home to him / her every night and just look at that smile.

It's working for me better than any other thing I tried in the past. And obviously (?) we didn't even do it for helping me deal with burnout.

<comment><USER24> Having child is a blessing. My little daughter makes me smile everyday. You're right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Have a network, as in family, friends, partner. Also, make them your priority over work. And as other have pointed out, do something else on your free time, and protect your free time.

</comment><comment><USER30> Haven't read "take a vacation, regularly" yet so I'll add that to the list of ideas.

</comment><comment><USER31> Start a business. No better way force personal growth than put yourself in harms way ;)

<comment><USER10> Oh man. Yes, this is a solution to lack of growth. And a great idea for those who want it. But a solution to burnout? Speaking from personal experience and the evidence around me, starting a business seems much more likely to lead to burnout than to cure it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Work less hours, and don't do just one type of thing all day, if possible.

</comment><comment><USER33> Accept it. Then rise from the ashes. :/

</comment><comment><USER34> find something else you're passionate about besides coding and try to free up some time to that on the side...

</comment><comment><USER35> Get older.

</comment><comment><USER36> Working from home, part-time.

</comment><comment><USER37> You should never reach that stage where you feel like you are burned out. Then you are doing it wrong.

Slow down. Let things take time. Learn to say things took longer than planned. People who are not devs will not understand why you need rest sometimes.

<comment><USER17> I am a dev, but I am not uniquely qualified to require rest. All humans do.</comment></comment>


Experts Still Think UBeam's Through-The-Air Charging Tech Is Unlikely - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/portable-devices/experts-still-think-ubeamrsquos-throughtheair-charging-tech-is-unlikely <comment><USER2> Well, either it works or it doesn't. What's there to talk about? It's not that they're doing rocket science.

> _" But even amid a tidal wave of publicity, the company has never publicly > demonstrated a fully functioning prototype of its system."_

This is what I don't get - how the hell did they manage to get investors? I mean, ultrasound charging isn't magic, anyone who knows their stuff around EE should be able to throw together in a month a simple prototype of the tech to show to the investors. That is, a prototype that actually charges a phone, not this[0] which a) doesn't really charge the phone, and b) seems to be geared towards confusing people clueless about electricity. The fact that they didn't, after 4 years, produce anything suggests that they don't even have anyone on board who knows this stuff, so why are they getting money?

Seriously, I think I'm gonna plug my IRC bot to TTS and go raise money for my AGI startup.

[0] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoHxyweJcZI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoHxyweJcZI)

<comment><USER3> Wait, why is she using a volt meter in that video? That's not useful information without knowing how many amps the system can push. I could probably get a volt meter to read 8 volts just from my hair after walking on carpet a bit, but that's certainly not going to charge my phone...

<comment><USER4> More specifically, THIS voltmeter, which is a little bit "under-spec'ed", to say the least: Radio Shack (22-223) [https://www.google.de/search?q=radio- shack+22-223&tbm=isch](https://www.google.de/search?q=radio- shack+22-223&tbm=isch) It's set to the 10V-AC range. I'd expect a VC backed company to invest in a little more elaborate measurement equipment than that.

On the other hand, given a a good RMS meter operated in a frequency range where it's spec'ed to work and a _known_ _circuit_ _impedance_ will give you a very good measurement of the power: P=Vrms²/R. And analog meters make for rather pretty demos, to be honest.

<comment><USER5> Actually, that makes it more believable, not less. Let me explain why: A voltmeter can't just measure volts, it has to make a tiny current flow through a resistor. The value of that resistor will be lower for cheaper volt meters because the cheaper volt meters need more energy extracted from the circuit under test to function. A more expensive one has a very high internal resistance, and so loads the circuit under test far less.

In this case being able to supply 8 volts into a meter with a low internal resistance is actually a plus ;)

That said, the current is still tiny, even a crappy volt meter will pull no more than a few hundred micro-amps from the circuit that it is measuring. So let's be generous and say that it pulls a whopping 10 mA (very likely on the high side (edit: it turned out to be 37 uA)), in that case the power generated would be 0.08 W. Not enough to charge your phone by a long shot, but enough for a pretty demo with a moving needle.

Finally, these cheap meters tend to output complete nonsense values when presented with high frequency AC, one would expect that they would at a minimum measure power transfered using a dummy load and some kind of dedicated power meter.

All in all this does not make things look any better for uBeam. I'd _really_ like to know who did their technical due diligence.

What's really bad to me - but I'm a nitpicker - is that in the video the lady refers to the _volt_ meter as a _power_ meter, which it definitely is not. It measures _potential_ , not power, any power that it takes from the circuit can be chalked up to imperfect design and the laws of physics. Maybe the person doing the demo was not knowledgeable about the physics behind the equipment but that's betraying a complete mis-understanding of the basic concepts involved.

The transducers used appear to be of the piezo-electric type, those have a fairly high internal resistance and the voltages produced by those devices would be relatively high, the currents correspondingly tiny.

What gets me about this whole saga is that uBeam makes it seem as if they invented wireless power transfer using ultra-sonics, but _any_ sound is wireless power transfer and that includes ultra-sound. The whole crux is _how much_ power can be generated and whether or not there is a practical way to overcome all the obstacles.

To transfer some power doesn't prove a thing, when I whisper in your ear I'm transferring power using soundwaves...

<comment><USER4> As I had remarked, a good RMS meter on a known impedance, on a frequency it's spec'ed for. The setup shown is neither.

Also: For low-level AC measurements you invariably need active rectification. So your meter will never be directly connected (or through a series resistor) to the source.

<comment><USER5> Agreed.

The guts of that meter register 37uA for full scale (I found some specs), at 10V that's an internal resistance of 270K so probably it really is driving the meter directly.

For 8 V that translates into 0.25 mW of power produced, which I don't think will be charging any cell-phones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "But even amid a tidal wave of publicity, the company has never publicly demonstrated a fully functioning prototype of its system. Nor has it ever produced an outside expert (who wasn't an investor) who could attest to its ability"

Sounds a lot like Theranos

</comment><comment><USER7> Reminds me of an old April Fools joke from ThinkGeek: [https://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/wec.shtml](https://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/wec.shtml)

<comment><USER5> That's a good one.

I once lit a large fluorescent tube on the field generated by the antenna of a fairly powerful transmitter so that joke has some basis in physics. But you'd be hard pressed to run your vacuum cleaner that way :)

I wonder how many people clicked 'order'.

<comment><USER8> Standing under high tension power lines will also light up a fluorescent tube!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Many weekends ago, I did a bunch of research on UBeam as I had an opportunity to invest.

I hope I'm wrong (because wireless power would be cool), but after ~5-10 hours of research, I think wireless charging is unlikely to happen at any scale that would make UBeam a good investment.

The amount of sound power required to charge even small electronic devices is enormous relative to the volume of the sounds we hear every day. Therefore, charging must occur at a pretty high frequency that we can't hear. Power efficiency begins to drop at these high frequencies, however, and sound at these frequencies might have other unintended consequences beyond human hearing. Power transmission efficiency is low pretty much regardless.

The only way for UBeam to work, I think, is for people to think it's so cool to wirelessly charge things that they'll pay a lot of money to try it out. "Killing the power cord" on any sort of larger scale seems very unlikely.

<comment><USER10> Do they have a working prototype to show investors? It seems like anything would go a long way to silence critics at this point.

<comment><USER9> I've seen, with my own eyes, working prototypes deliver amperage. That's pretty easy, though--just crank resistance down to 0, and you can get as many amps as you want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Related: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10527061](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10527061) (UBeam Declassifies Secrets to Try to Prove Wireless Power Is Possible)

</comment><comment><USER12> Even if it works perfectly, from the other article they had, pointing that they can get ~ 3W at a device (and their transmitter is how much, around 300W as well) should be enough to cast a lot of doubts

</comment><comment><USER13> These are the concerns that I have had since I first heard about this product. It's really simple physics... the falloff here is far too great. Come on, efficiency people!

</comment><comment><USER14> How about tesla coils?

<comment><USER5> How about them? Do you mean: Can an electric field of sufficient strength be used to charge cellphones?

<comment><USER15> Nokia had a project to charge mobile phones from ambient radio waves. But they had real engineers and scientists and even though it actually worked they reported how badly it worked. That is, the charging rate was so low that only the simplest mobile could be charged with it. I think they used a modified Nokia 100 or something similar. See this 'article' on Gizmodo: [http://gizmodo.com/5285565/nokia-developing-wireless- accesso...](http://gizmodo.com/5285565/nokia-developing-wireless-accessory- free-ambient-charging)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> You don't need to be an expert to see that.</comment>


Texas inquires on our approach to competition: Google - <AUTHOR> http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2010/09/texas-inquires-on-our-approach-to.html <comment><USER2> A particularly interesting link in this submission: [http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArtic...](http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=129395)

Seems that one of the companies suing Google made rather different statements of fact to their insurance company when they filed a claim due to damage (I think physical as well as to their service) from servers overheating.

</comment><comment><USER3> lol @ google saying one of them doesn't count because they are a "click arbitrage" site.... as they funnel a mountain of traffic into a million shitty little sites that wouldn't even exist without AdSense.</comment>


I Staked Out My Local Domino's to See Just How Accurate Its Pizza Tracker Is - <AUTHOR> https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/i-staked-out-my-local-dominos-to-see-just-how-accurate-its-pizza-tracker-is <comment><USER2> None of the other comments on this article point out that he said he ran a red light. He risked a _side impact collision_ event to _verify the status of a pizza order_.

"7:25 p.m. — The Chase Continues

With his first order delivered, Salim 3 pulls out of the driveway and heads left, so I pull out just behind him. He once again zips along, and I manage to lose sight of him again — for almost 10 seconds this time. I finally catch up with him at a stop light, and to catch back up, I'm forced to run a red light and cut off oncoming traffic."

The world is a strange place.

<comment><USER3> it was clearly worth it

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I get the part about managing expectations, but to go to the detail that they do for each step of progress but not actually do _any_ of it feels rather fraudulent and pathetic.

Just give a ping when it's en route and call it a day.

<comment><USER5> Yeah? Catch the part about what inspired him? It's one of the reasons I don't use TurboTax anymore. That doesn't make it right, but it does lessen my shock at finding Domino's to be equally dishonest. And there's just no reason to be dishonest. Heard about this internet thing, Domino's? _Someone_ is going to test this and post about it. Let's assume that pizza tracker gives sales a bump (I know, big ask). How much good will is lost if, say, the WSJ gives a column inch or two about that new feature is just window dressing?

<comment><USER6> > How much good will is lost if, say, the WSJ gives a column inch or two about > that new feature is just window dressing?

Nothing, that's free advertising. Domino's would likely receive order spikes or at least see an increase in brand recognition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So the pizza tracker doesn't show actual progress, but moves along according to expected progress. Sounds just like USPS:

[https://immortalephemera.com/8970/usps-delivery- confirmation...](https://immortalephemera.com/8970/usps-delivery-confirmation- and-missing-packages/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Domino's in Australia has recently rolled out an in-store camera based monitoring system for pizza quality.

It doesn't make the images available to customers as of yet, but they claim it will in the near future.

[https://dompizzachecker.dominos.com.au/](https://dompizzachecker.dominos.com.au/)

<comment><USER9> > It doesn't make the images available to customers as of yet

You can see your pizza. Just use the normal web site.

It also uses "AI" to check the toppings are as they should be, with a software update coming to the stores soon I think that also checks the base is correct.

The pizza looked great on the photo, but was shit when it arrived. Nothing was faked or changed, just photos don't represent reality well.

But an updateable system that tracks every single pizza coming out of every store.... Could do some interesting things..... No reason you couldn't pop the camera higher up and watch the store either, humans cant be much different to pizza toppings to 'AI'

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The author forgot one possibility: that the tracker does track, but is triggered by someone at the back of the shop.

Imagine a situation where you have a device telling you that an order has been placed and you have X minutes to complete the next step; you know it will only take a minute to make that pizza, and you'd rather chill for most of the time, no need to rush. So you wait until X minutes are almost over, then click "sure, I'm totally preparing it" - and keep chilling. Next step threshold comes up "yep, it's all good boss", and keep chilling. Then you actually make it, but will keep pushing buttons only when the thresholds are close, as to maximise your downtime without raising red flags (even if Delivery is reached too early, it's the most flexible step so Corporate won't mind it too much in reports).

<comment><USER11> This. The pizza tracker came up a few months ago, and I added some details on the triggers[1][2].

The feature is derived from pre-existing data within the system. And as imperfect as it is, it's the state of the order as the internal POS views it. The system is using the exact same data internally to do stuff like track ideal labor needs and tell you when it's time to cut staff for the night, recommend weekly schedules, etc. Which, depending on the franchisee, managers have to justify every time they deviate from the system recommendations. So the system having a flawed perception of the overall system state of orders is as much a hassle internally as externally.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21251266](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21251266)

[2] The recent "text me when my driver is x minutes away" feature was not part of the initial rollout, and I can't say if that's another passive feature derived from existing data or involves some new form of active tracking.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What softwares that train advanced math skills?  - Matt-Martin

Such as Calculus, Differential Equations, Topology.. etc..<p>The online training software at khanacademy.org is still too rudimentary, at least at this moment, though I like the idea very much. <comment> Matt-Martin OK... I found something interesting.

<http://sagemath.org/></comment>


How heroes can be toxic to a company - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@elviovicosa/how-heroes-can-be-toxic-to-a-company-bbfcdebca0c <comment><USER2> I disagree with the premise of this article. A hero is someone who can get something done that others cannot (and maybe in a short amount of time). But, they arent followed no questions asked.

They also should be praised. If i sacrifice my time and sanity to get a project done (and nobody else has the ability), the least i should get is some recognition.

I was in a situatin where i worked a full week with 2 other co-workers for 12+ hours each day to get an important project done. The boss didnt give the promised extra vacation days because it would "set a bad example to the rest of the employees".

I quit within 2 months and they had a problem keeping anyone good after that. Talented people like to be recognized in some form. If they arent, expect your workers to only do the bare minimum.</comment>


Twitter 'alerted NBC to British journalist's critical tweets' - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/9440137/London-Olympics-2012-Twitter-alerted-NBC-to-British-journalists-critical-tweets.html

<comment><USER2>
        "If what NBC is saying is true, it undermines
        everything that Twitter stands for and is an
        absolute disgrace and will aggravate many
        millions of its users,"

The vast, vast, vast majority of Twitter users won't hear of this, and the vast, vast, vast majority of those that do, won't care. Twitter can do this because they know that the backlash will only come from the tiniest enclave of users, and nothing will change.

Twitter: Too big to fail?

</comment><comment><USER3> Let's say someone posted a negative tweet about you, and included your contact information.

Would you want Twitter to notify you about it and see if you wanted to file a complaint, or would you rather just sit in a deluge of hatemail with no idea of where it's coming from?</comment>


AT&T Is Killing One of the Internet's Last Good Things - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/at-t-is-killing-one-of-the-internets-last-good-things-1830024166 <comment><USER2> I'm probably going to be spending November watching Kurosawa and Ishiro Honda movies.</comment>


Quick Guide To All The MacBook Price & Performance Changes - <AUTHOR> http://refer.ly/quick-guide-to-today-s-macbook-price-performance-changes/c/d4c0c856764111e2bfbf22000a1db8fa

<comment><USER2> why, oh why no more 17"? I hate dinky little screens when developing. :(

</comment><comment><USER3> I wish Apple had improved also the desktop Macs, so I could upgrade my startup iOS dev workstations

<comment><AUTHOR> I hear that. Maybe they're coming soon?</comment></comment>


Cordless Telephones: Bye Bye Privacy (1991) - <AUTHOR> http://readtext.org/hamradio/cordless-telephones-privacy/ <comment><USER2> When I was in high school a friend and I bought a portable scanner from Radio Shack to do exactly this after reading an article about it in 2600.

After getting bored chatting with people on our BBS or hacking around in Turbo C, we'd cruise the suburbs and listen in on phone calls.

We never stopped the car, so it was just a leisurely drift over usually mundane conversations. When you got a handset instead of a base station (or maybe the other way around, I forget), you'd only hear one side of the conversation, and it was fun imagining what the other person was saying.

Magical times.

<comment><USER3> I may have written that article...mine was published in 1994 ( [http://mail.blockyourid.com/~gbpprorg/2600/2600_11-2_Page_18...](http://mail.blockyourid.com/~gbpprorg/2600/2600_11-2_Page_18.jpg) ). Another one had been printed in 1989, and then another in 1988. I mentioned that Radio Shack had the scanners in my article, but suggested people look around for better bargains.

The 800 MHz radio shack scanners at the time had some kind of daughterboard that blocked scanning cellular frequencies, but there were instructions on the Internet of how to get in there with your soldering gun and dike it out, and get access to that bandwidth. I later learned from a Radio Shack manager the undocumented key punch sequence that bypassed the daughterboard, so you could scan cellular without going through all that trouble.

<comment><USER2> Yes, this is indeed the article!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I was in school at Rose-Hulman, the Dean of Students lived in an apartment attached to one of the dorms (my own dorm, as it happened). He had a teenaged daughter, and at the time, Rose was all-male.

They had a cordless phone.

Some brilliant EE thought it would be a good idea not only to eavesdrop on the daughter, but to put that audio on his stereo at extremely high volume.

The Dean very quickly no longer had a cordless phone, and as I recall (it's been a long time) that student no longer had a place at Rose-Hulman.

</comment><comment><USER5> Yes but then a few years later cordless phones went digital which made it much harder than just using a scanner and then a couple years after that they went spread-spectrum which made it exponentially harder.

Today's version of this kind of spying on neighbors would be baby monitors.

<comment><USER6> There are actually lots of DECT phones which don't implement encryption, see e.g: [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/31/dect_hack/](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/31/dect_hack/)

I've tried this with a DECT PCMCIA card, and could snoop maybe half of a stack of handsets I got off trademe. This is a few years ago though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Back when I was growing up (15-ish years ago) we had an asshole neighbor who used to do this exact thing to another neighbor. I'm not sure how they figured it out, but I know that bank account numbers were involved.

</comment><comment><USER8> Also see [https://www.iacr.org/archive/fse2010/61470001/61470001.pdf](https://www.iacr.org/archive/fse2010/61470001/61470001.pdf)</comment>


SourceForge: Third party offers will be opt-in only - <AUTHOR> http://sourceforge.net/blog/third-party-offers-will-be-presented-with-opt-in-projects-only/

<comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9643678](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9643678)

</comment><comment><USER3> The title has been altered and is confusing. It implies the offers themselves are 'opt-in' rather than projects opting in to offers (and the offers themselves remain 'opt-out' in the installer, not 'opt-in').

The original title isn't confusing, it is the alterations which have made it confusing.

</comment><comment><USER4> "While we had recently tested presenting easy-to-decline third party offers..."

...indicating they actually have such as thing as a "hard-to-decline third party offer". Wow, SourceForge, you really suck!

</comment><comment><USER5> Prediction: they'll start again within six months. (Remember that this post is saying they'll keep to the 2013 promise they recently reneged on.)</comment>


Rechner: A gesture based calculator - <AUTHOR> http://www.rechner-app.com/

<comment><USER2> Looks interesting.

Seems to me that the functions are pretty minimal right now. Would be nice to see the complex functions getting mapped on the gestures. Otherwise, it is a great step towards minimalism.

Also, looks like the UI was inspired from Metro somewhere in the thought process of the app. Everything is flat with no gloss anywhere.

Let's see if this can start a trend towards this kind of apps.</comment>


Why (special agent) Johnny (still) Can't Encrypt - <AUTHOR> http://www.crypto.com/blog/p25/

<comment><USER2> Really interesting article. One particular statement caught my eye "many P25 systems … are "rekeyed" at frequent intervals, in the apparent (and basically erroneous) belief that changing encryption keys regularly improves security". My belief was that rekeying was useful in order to limit the "blast radius" if a key was compromised and thus improves security. I'd be interested in finding out why that isn't the case, is it because, as in the article, it introduces more problems that it solves or is there another reason?

<comment><USER3> His guide to secure P25 deployment suggests simply rekeying whenever a radio is lost, stolen, or compromised, since in a law enforcement context, key theft is much less likely than in military operations. (Cops don't often get shot down over enemy territory, for example.)

<comment><USER4> Cops are human, and thus vulnerable to exploitation. Do you seriously think that some gang leader somewhere doesn't have local police radios given to him by cops on his payroll?

Periodic rekeying is like physical inventory or periodic password changes -- it helps you identify compromised assets.

<comment><USER5> If the rekeying protocol is performed over the air, how does rekeying help in your corrupt cop/gang leader scenario? Wouldn't the gang leader's radio get the new keys along with all the other radios?

<comment><USER6> The article doesn't say that rekeying occurs over the air. It could very well be the case that police departments are rekeying their radios at the end of every shift, when, for all practical purposes, they'd be as safe rekeying once a week.

<comment><USER5> I just assumed a protocol called "over the air rekeying" would be performed "over the air". But that's just me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cellphones and other out of band communications make police encryption a joke anyway. Anything really sensitive or controversial will be communicated via phone to avoid being recorded anyway.

The real reason for police agencies wanting encrypted voice traffic is to be less transparent, especially from the press. Modern government wants information to be dribbled out from the PR office.

<comment><USER7> If the police can't keep informants protected, nobody will inform on violent criminals. There are obviously plenty of reasons why law enforcement secure comms need to be actually secure, not just "Motorola says it honored the secure comms standard" secure.

The stuff that police organizations want to be obscurantist about are almost invariably not encrypted; dash cam videos, disciplinary reports, things like that. Yes, once upon a time some geeky reporters were able to get interesting stories out of radio scanners. That's because we were living in the dark ages, not because police tactical radio traffic should be open to anyone.

<comment><USER8> You guys are missing the modifier "once upon a time". It's true: once upon a time, some (at the then once-upon-a-time time) geeky reporters got some interesting stories out of radio scanners. And now, it's not geeky to own a computer. But once-upon-a-time (as in when some of us, yer elders, were kids), it was only geeky people what had them. Anyway, agreed with tptacek, completely.

<comment><USER4> That's just not true!

Remember CB radios? They were hot in the seventies with consumers -- and many of the bigger units had scanner functions as well. Any decent newspaper has had a scanner running in the newsroom since the 1960's, although the older models required you to set 5-10 frequencies using crystals.

Police radios are mostly used to dispatch and provide baseline information about incidents. There's no chatter about confidential informants, etc. Take 10 minutes, go to any of the scanner webcast sites on the internet and listen to the traffic for a few minutes.

<comment><USER5> Duff, I don't think police dispatch radio is what the original article was talking about with regard to encryption. It seemed to be about tactical radios used by the FBI, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Previous thread at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2874301> although not a lot of comments.

</comment><comment><USER10> As usual, Matt Blaze is amazing.

<comment><USER11> Travis Goodspeed is a neat guy too. Here are some pics on the girl's toy that defeats the secure radios. [http://travisgoodspeed.blogspot.com/2010/03/im-me- goodfet-wi...](http://travisgoodspeed.blogspot.com/2010/03/im-me-goodfet- wiring-tutorial.html)

<comment><USER12> Not sure if he still does it, but he used to send out GoodFET's free of charge so long as you'd build them. I've used his programmer to program multiple different chips and it is absolutely fantastic.

<comment><USER13> He still does, according to my experience getting a pair of GoodFET31s some time ago, and according to <http://goodfet.sourceforge.net/>:

> Hardware and software are available under the BSD license, and free-as-in- > beer boards will be given to those who ask politely. Email Travis Goodspeed, > travis at radiantmachines.com, to get involved.

The hardware is very simple and cheap, and the software stack and community is great. Travis is definitely a great guy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A big lesson from this post (at least for me) is how much user interface affects security. He references an older paper "Why Johnny Can't Encrypt" (<http://www.gaudior.net/alma/johnny.pdf>) where the negative impacts of the user interface in PGP 5.0 are analyzed. This is an old lesson which was not taken into account for the secured P25 handsets.

A similar analysis of the certs/SSL protection in browsers would be very interesting too.</comment>


LivingSocial Gets $175 Million Amazon Investment - <AUTHOR> http://kara.allthingsd.com/20101202/livingsocial-gets-175-million-amazon-investment-like-boomtown-said/

<comment><USER2> but...but...but why?

"Sources said the Amazon investment put a very hefty valuation of over one billion dollars on LivingSocial."

That's funny. I just read another article that said that Groupon is getting 79% of that market's traffic and LivingSocial is only pulling like 7%.</comment>


What It's Like When Elon Musk's Twitter Mob Comes After You - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-its-like-when-elon-musks-twitter-mob-comes-after-you <comment><USER2> Let me get this straight. The author casually accuses someone of "attacking science". And acknowledges that this was an accusation. And then goes on to say that whether it's actually true or not "doesn't really matter". The fact that a journalist can so brazenly admit how little the truth of their own words matter, and expect readers to be ok with it - and to take their side, not in spite of it but because of it - really highlights what Musk is talking about lately. I didn't really see where he was coming from until I read that. It's a shame about all the personal attacks she is getting of course but that's hardly his fault.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wish I could understand the mentality of these men. Hostility is one thing, but who taught them that talking like that to _anyone_ is right? Why don't they feel rotten inside? What is it that prompts such bile to emerge from certain members of the male population? Is their masculinity really so fragile? EDIT: I'm male.

<comment><USER4> 1 - Stupidity doesn't care about gender.

2 - I speak for myself, not for my twitter followers.

3 - Spreading fake news is not ok.

4 - Self victimization is also not ok.

I have travelled to dozens of (developed) countries and the US is where free speach is being slaughtered more often than any other place (UK and Germany are following very close).</comment></comment>


The Stakeholder Report - <AUTHOR> https://thestakeholderreport.com <comment><AUTHOR> The weekly Project Management newsletter your mother would think is awesome</comment>


Show HN: the start-up butler, a weekend project - <AUTHOR> http://unbouncepages.com/the-startup-butler/

<comment><USER2> One piece of advice is to say who you are. For all I know I'm giving my email, and the right to email me daily, to some hobo on the street. How do I know who you are? How can I trust you?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Any advice ir question is highly appreciated ;)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Corrected! With an explanation =)</comment>


New International Spy Museum Opens in Washington, D.C. On May 11, 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://www.spymuseum.org/ <comment><USER2> Visited the "old" one two years ago, was pretty cool to see all of the cold war era technology and the various exploits. An example I remember very specifically: the USA built an embassy in the USSR where the contractors themselves embedded thousands of listening devices into the load bearing columns of the structure, making the whole structure useless as an embassy.</comment>