Tesla Accounting Chief, HR Head Resign on the Same Day; Stock Plunges - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-07/tesla-chief-accounting-officer-dave-morton-resigns-jlrzkn5k <comment><USER2> And their Chief People Officer, is not coming back from her leave.

From the outside it looks like Telsa is about going to go into a tough winter like moment.

They are almost losing by winning. They are at capacity in their Fremont factory but still not making a profit.

They need to start designing and building out manufacturing facilities for their next car and the help bolster Model X manufacturing.

Stop and think for a second that Tesla is one earthquake away from no longer being a company.

\- They are cash flow negative,

\- they have about a year of cash runway left( optimistically)

You can't just collect insurance money and build a new factory like you can with a house, this is a many year project.

Tesla can't afford to not build cars for multiple years.

Forget the SEC investigation hanging over their head. From what I read, they are likely to get a large fine and a strong talking to.

And the most worrying thing for them is that their next car will compete head on with Mercedes, BMW, Audi, and GM. That will be the first time they've had to compete head on with a competitor.

<comment><USER3> > they have about a year of cash runway left( optimistically)

Much less than that actually. At their current burn rate they won't even be making it to the end of this year without either selling enough M3 to generate some real cash, or by raising some new money from the market. Also, they have a lot of debt come due next year (and even more over the following years) while yields are up to over 8%.

However, M3 production numbers are actually looking good now, and they are hitting their targets for the first time. And their cash burn for Q2 came in lower than expected after some cost cutting. So they might be able to turn the corner just in time. Musk has repeatedly stated that the company will not need to raise new money, but had also done that before some previous financing rounds, so the market does not put that much faith in his words at this point.

It all hinges on the M3 now. Can they get production (and sales) numbers to where they need to be in order to become cash flow positive?

<comment><USER4> Hey, honestly though...the name 'M3' de facto belongs to BMW. You know that. Everyone else who's commenting on a thread about luxury cars knows that. The fact that you're using that name to describe some upstart car company's new model, it's...it's weird. Like, just call it the model fucking 3.

God I can't wait for the Tesla fanboydom to just be put in its place. Cool concept, not cool people attached to it. M3, lol.

<comment><USER5> Who refers to a Tesla Model 3 as a "M3"?

"M3" has and will always refer to a BMW.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As someone who's not obsessively following Tesla, I'm a bit jaded by these. I'm sure there are problems, but what feels like massive PR efforts by the "shorts" has effectively poisoned the well for negative news.

As a casual observer I can't tell what's actual bad news and what's well- orchestrated market-manipulation "OMG WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE" by people trying to drop the price, and I don't actually care enough about the company to put in the effort to find out.

Kind of depressing, really.

<comment><USER7> > I'm sure there are problems, but what feels like massive PR efforts by the > "shorts" has effectively poisoned the well for negative news.

What kind of PR effort do you need when every CFO you hire keeps leaving? Think about it. The person in the company who completely knows the financials stays for a month and bounces? Why? Could it be that the financials are so bad they are unfixable? Could it be that that person is being pushed to stretch things a bit here and there to make them look better?

<comment><USER8> > What kind of PR effort do you need when every CFO you hire keeps leaving?

It's really gotten to a point where all the Musk-haters now believe their own bullshit. This post (and many others in HN's bi-weekly anti-Musk thread) is a classic example. Tesla had had a grand total of two CFOs since Musk took over.

> Could it be that that person is being pushed to stretch things a bit here > and there to make them look better?

Could it be that that person is an alien sent from Venus to stop Musk from returning to Mars?

See, it's easy to ask stupidly leading questions and spout completely baseless speculation. What's more difficult is actually examining the facts and drawing a rational conclusion.

<comment><USER7> >See, it's easy to ask stupidly leading questions and spout completely baseless speculation. What's more difficult is actually examining the facts and drawing a rational conclusion.

 _In the first quarter of this year, the company lost Morton's predecessor, Eric Branderiz, and Susan Repo, who was treasurer and vice president of finance. CFO Deepak Ahuja retired in 2015, only to return in 2017 after his successor, Jason Wheeler, quit after just 15 months._

A rotating door of financial executives screams financial problems. Please tell me what rational conclusion I'm supposed to draw?

<comment><USER8> Yeah that's not a rotating door of anything. Both those executives were with the company for 2-5 _years_ before they decided to leave. Wheeler was almost certainly fired because Musk wanted Ahuja back. Consider that the announcement of Ahuja's return occured one day after Wheeler's announcement. Sorry, this entire narrative you have invested in of executives running for the hills just has no relation to reality.

<comment><USER7> And the head HR person.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/07/another-tesla-executive- leav...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/07/another-tesla-executive-leaves-this- time-its-hr-boss-gaby-toledano-report.html)

> Sorry, this entire narrative you have invested in of executives running for > the hills just has no relation to reality.

TSLA supporters thinking everything is fine are the ones that have no relation to reality.

<comment><USER9> yah but that's not what you said.

damn, I think Tesla is an incredibly dysfunctional company and has a lot of problems, but you're literally making things up. admit you were wrong and you're initial statement was completely inaccurate and move on.

<comment><USER7> From the original article:

 _Tesla has long struggled with high turnover involving its senior executives, and its finance team in particular has gone through a period of significant tumult. In the first quarter of this year, the company lost Morton's predecessor, Eric Branderiz, and Susan Repo, who was treasurer and vice president of finance. CFO Deepak Ahuja retired in 2015, only to return last year when his successor, Jason Wheeler, quit after just 15 months._

And I said:

> A rotating door of _financial executives_ screams financial problems.

3 (4 if you count the return of Ahuja to fill in) CFO/CAOs in the last 3 years.

\- Ahuja \- Wheeler \- Ajuha \- Branderiz \- Morton

This doesn't count the VPs that have come and gone or other executives.

 _More than 50 vice presidents or higher have left the company in the past two years. Mr. Musk has said he sees executive turnover as being in line with that of other large companies and has announced plans for a reorganization aimed at flattening the layers of managers._ [1]

Please tell me where I'm making things up.

[1] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-appears-to-smoke- mari...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-appears-to-smoke-marijuana-on- camera-in-lengthy-interview-1536318688)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If Tesla needs more money, investors will use that as a leverage to get the Elon Musk problem addressed.

It would be good for everyone if there is intervention that corrects the problem and Musk could continue. Investors can demand to have someone who can veto his craziest decisions and publicity or they can force him out. Musk has structured the board so that nobody has power over him. He must know that if asks more money that changes.

Musk seems to be highly functioning bipolar (he thinks so himself). It's probably mild form of bipolar disorder called cyclothymic disorder or something similar. People with cyclothymia are at increased risk of developing full-blown bipolar disorder over time.

The problem is that that his mental issues may get out of hand during stressful situations. Musk has been showing signs of slipping from hypomania to full mania for the last year: little sleep, endless energy, lowered inhibitions, erratic quick decisions and unnecessary confrontations. If he publicly calls people he has never met pedophiles, I just can't imagine how bad the situation is with the people who have to deal with him every day.

Musk has already achieved so much. It would be shame if it all ends in tragedy.

<comment><USER11> >If Tesla needs more money, investors will use that as a leverage to get the Elon Musk problem addressed.

Sounds you are lost into your own bubble. Every vote for removing Musk has failed completely in the past.

<comment><USER12> Those votes have failed due to how the company's voting structure is set up. It takes about 90% of the vote outside of Musk and insiders to oust him.

<comment><USER11> They barely hit single-digits though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here's the none-AMP Bloomberg article:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-07/tesla- chi...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-07/tesla-chief- accounting-officer-leaves-citing-level-of-scrutiny)

</comment><comment><USER14> I just watched a part of the Joe Rogan podcast with Musk and I have to say he looks very unhealthy. Maybe I am wrong but to me he looks like he is drinking a lot or on some other drugs.

I can imagine working with a CEO who is pushing himself way other the limit is a pretty unpleasant experience.

<comment><USER15> Didn't he actually smoke weed live as part of that broadcast?

<comment><USER16> He had a single puff and did not appear to inhale (his body language made it look like he was a very inexperienced smoker). He said he'd tried it before but wasn't a big fan (a pretty common experience).

edit: people are going to need to get used to the fact that weed is going to become as normalized as alcohol (which is a harder drug than weed).

<comment><USER17> Sigh. I suspect you're right about the normalization, I just absolutely hate the smell of it. I grew up on the East Coast, where cigarette smoking was commonplace, and I always found it revolting. Here in the Bay Area, I've had a few years to enjoy the relative scarcity of tobacco smoke, and now suddenly cannabis is out in the open. Seems like there's no escape from second-hand smoke.

<comment><USER16> Smoking it in public is obnoxious I agree. Hopefully people choose to eat or vapourize it rather than burn it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm not losing optimism because of this. Musk fits right into the current political & cultural trajectory and the Tesla brand is sleek & timeless. The media is framing Musk's flaws (Twitter insults, weed & booze) as a bad thing, but outside of the media, people do not care about such things nearly as much. It just requires a few years of optimization and the cars are going to be en par with established brands.

<comment><USER19> Talk about gaslighting yourself. If you are not recoginizing that something fishy is going on at tesla you are not reading the same articles as the rest of us.

<comment><USER20> What's fishy? I've been following Tesla since 2010 and the main changes since then isn't what appears to be fishy but what the media are making of it.

Do you realize that Tesla sold more cars in the US that Mercedes and BMW this summer? How many media reported that?

Do you know that the most trusted car analysts who tear-down the car said it's expected to be the most profitable car produced in high volume?

Do you know that all data analyses about turnover in top positions at Tesla indicated that they are average? How many reports about such moves (at legacy automakers) make headlines?

They've only increased their coverage of the company and try their best to make every thing more clickbait. It's worked great so far, for sure.

<comment><USER10> >Tesla sold more cars in the US that Mercedes and BMW this summer? How many media reported that?

Please, that was one month of backlog deliveries (July, 16,000 deliveries) and only in the US. 16, Nobody expects that Tesla manufactures 16,000 Model 3's per month.

Meanwhile Mercedes sells 30,000 C-Class Saloon and Estate models per month globally. In the US Mercedes and BMW each keep delivering 12,000 or so vehicles per month in the same category as Tesla models are.

<comment><USER20> You're right, because August is the month during which Tesla surpassed both BMW and Mercedes. We're in September so how can there be more than a month? Both BMW and Mercedes US car sales are falling hard: [https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180904005710/en/Mer...](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180904005710/en/Mercedes- Benz-USA-Reports-August-Sales-20339-Units), [https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180904005748/en/BMW...](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180904005748/en/BMW- Group-U.S.-Reports-August-2018-Sales)

<comment><USER21> Is there something going on with tariffs?

It was well publicized that the President doesn't want people buying Mercedes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Non-amp URL: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-07/tesla- chi...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-07/tesla-chief- accounting-officer-leaves-citing-level-of-scrutiny)

Better formatting, no hideously pixelated photos.

<comment><USER23> And the next article, when I kept scrolling, showed Musk smoking a joint and then holding a flamethrower!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> It is worrying, but I don't know if I'd really call that a stock plunge.

</comment><comment><USER25> A while ago I considered reserving a model 3, but I eventually decided against it. Feel like I dodged a bullet, there.

There was a time where Tesla had a genuine advantage over the incumbents, but it never was enough of an advantage to overcome their lack of experience. That's only obvious in retrospect, I suppose.

<comment><USER20> Can you cite one source that indicates that Model 3 owners are somehow dissatisfied? All reviews (by the general public and by journalists) say the car performance, quality and experience is excellent and above Mercedes / BMW's.

Have you driven one?

<comment> timellis-smith [https://www.businessinsider.com/survey-uk-drivers-say- tesla-...](https://www.businessinsider.com/survey-uk-drivers-say-tesla-model- s-most-unreliable-car-2018-9?r=UK&IR=T)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I think Elon Musk is a genius and I don't use that word lightly. I think he's also one of the boldest men that ever came down the pike. Put me down as saying I've always been afraid of the guy whose IQ is 190 and he thinks it's 250. I like to think there's a little of that risk with Elon - Charlie Munger (in 2014)

</comment><comment><USER27> I think it's time for Elon to step away from Tesla. He is an incredible visionary and that's what made Tesla possible and revolutionized the car industry. That work is done now. Everyone is making electric cars now. There is no need for Elon to innovate at Tesla anymore. I might even go so far and say that Tesla had moved the entire industry so much that there isn't even much need for Tesla itself.

I think it's best for everyone if Elon focused on SpaceX, the Boring Company and his AI endeavors. Tesla sticks out from this list because mission is accomplished.

<comment><USER28> I tend to agree. He's been fantastic at getting the impossible to happen, but he's not as good at just running things.

There was a bit in time when he offered to help Flint, MI with their water. It turns out they don't need the help.

However, if he were to turn his fantastic energy towards helping under-served communities, I think he'd find that there's plenty to do, and very satisfying.

<comment><USER27> I have the suspicion as well that he isn't great at running a steady business. My point is really about his amazing visionary qualities being more useful elsewhere. Even if he was great at running things too, it's radical innovation where he is a once in a century person.

Edit: it would be a shame to waste that amazing innovation talent at what's now a close to regular car company (relative to his other ventures)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Tesla may be going bankrupt the Altman-z score of guru focus indicates that. Hopefully the source code will be open source. [https://www.gurufocus.com/stock/TSLA](https://www.gurufocus.com/stock/TSLA)

</comment><comment><USER30> So the headline is that the CFO is resigning, yet there's a huge picture of the photogenic HR chief(?), who, as a side-story, is 'not returning'.

I feel manipulated. Also that this publication should be doing a bit more investigation and a bit less pontificating.

<comment><USER31> It's much less huge on the non-amp site: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-07/tesla- chi...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-07/tesla-chief- accounting-officer-leaves-citing-level-of-scrutiny) — I got a hunch that's what I'm seeing b/c that image was incredibly blurry. I have no idea why people link to the googlified versions of websites, they're often barely readable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I love how someone from Jeffries is concerned with Tesla's use of marijuana. I know three analysts that work at Jeffries and they all microdose and/or use cocaine. It's par for the course.

</comment><comment><USER33> IMO, they should fire musk, slow down their blue-sky research projects, rip autopilot out of the cars, and just build "boring" luxury electric cars with huge profit margins and rake in cash.

<comment><USER34> I don't think they should fire him, but he should most definately do the un- american thing: work a sane amount of hours and go on vacation every now and then.

<comment><USER35> I don't care how much he works, but he's gotta do something about his thin skin and incompetence with the media.

<comment><USER36> He just needs to stop doing PR.

<comment><USER37> On the contrary, the overwhelming majority of his media appearances have been widely popular. But something seems to have snapped in him recently, perhaps culminating with calling that cave rescuer a pedophile. The dude has serious problems that are probably exacerbated by stress and lack of sleep. He needs to take a break before something bad happens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The revolution devours it's own. What Tesla started is amazing, years ahead of competition initially, but there will be a very tough future ahead as electric cars become more and more the norm.

</comment><comment><USER39> "Stock Plunges"?

If anything, TSLA seems to continue to ride high with only small relative deviations with news that would gut any other stock.

Not to say I am bullish on TSLA...quite the opposite. TSLA will inevitably crater but it is going to take most of the NASDAQ with it and probably wipe out the mobility 2.0 market segment and the EV and nascent AV markets.

Silicon Valley is way overdue for a serious garbage collection cycle....TSLA is going to trigger it eventually. Its not all bad: a big reset in SV would benefit the big players like Apple and Google who will suddenly have a much deeper and cheaper talent pool to access.

</comment><comment><USER40> If you visit Tesla's management's page you can see only 3 names; Elon Musk, CFO Deepak Ahuja and CTO JB Straubel. No exec stays for a long period in Tesla. Who is going to resign next? CFO or CTO [https://news.alphastreet.com/tesla-motors-cao-chief- accounti...](https://news.alphastreet.com/tesla-motors-cao-chief-accounting- officer-dave-david-morton-resigns/)

</comment><comment><USER41> Seems like much of this is closely related to the 'going private' statements. I'm curious if Elon had it out for one of the many short selling firms exploiting TSLA stock, Citron Research, etc... There's more at work here than just Elon being overzealous with corporate ambitions. There are groups of people, venture capitalists, and banks hell bent on weaponizing margin trading to manipulate markets.</comment>


Now watch the movie Matrix - on twitter - <AUTHOR> http://twitter.com/matrixthemovie Created using a simple twitter status scheduler (http://time2tweet.appspot.com) . Uploaded the script of the movie, and now, we can all watch Matrix at the "twitter" near you. <comment><AUTHOR> Done with my weekend project, <http://time2tweet.appspot.com> Uploaded the script file to the application. Twitter account is updated every 1/2 with the movie script. Now watch Matrix, at the "twitter" near you.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> And the best part is ... now you can QUOTE ("retweet") from movies :)</comment>


Npm "isntall" - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/2933 <comment><USER2> I'm happy for Do What I Mean when it's a nullipotent action -- the `git lgo` example there -- less so when there are side effects.

Then again isntall => install is going to be correct 99.999...% of the time so there's no harm done here; it's the suggestion for a general autocorrect that worries me.</comment>


Roboto available on Google Fonts - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Roboto <comment><USER2> It's been available for more than a month I think.</comment>


Coding Sucks: Why a Job in Programming Is Absolute Hell - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/programming-sucks-why-a-job-in-coding-is-absolute-hell-1570227192

<comment><USER2> Extensive discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7667825](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7667825)

Here's the actual article: [http://stilldrinking.org/programming- sucks](http://stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks)

And here are some previous submissions of this story:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7725886](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7725886)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7687354](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7687354)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7684773](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7684773)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7681621](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7681621)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7679814](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7679814)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7679132](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7679132)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7679055](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7679055)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7673054](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7673054)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7673047](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7673047)

</comment><comment><USER3> I was chuckling a bit, but when I got to the part about the file of Good Code, I almost began weeping. At work. In front of my team, who probably haven't seen the madness yet.

EDIT:

"You now have one extra little fact to tuck away in the millions of little facts you have to memorize because so many of the programs you depend on are written by dicks and idiots."

Once upon a time I used to joke about something similar, e.g., "Oh, you need to make sure that you've declared thus-and-such volatile or else the JVM will do $badThing" could've instead been a memory of a pleasant walk on the beach or something.

After a while, it stopped being funny.</comment>


Simulating a Xerox Alto with the ContrAlto Simulator: Games and Smalltalk - <AUTHOR> http://www.righto.com/2016/10/simulating-xerox-alto-with-contralto.html <comment><USER2> The font used by Smalltalk is worse than Comic Sans.</comment>


Introducing Nexus S 4G for Sprint - <AUTHOR> http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2011/03/introducing-nexus-s-4g-for-sprint.html

<comment><USER2> I actually think this related announcement is cooler: [http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/sprint- integrate...](http://googlevoiceblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/sprint-integrates- google-voice.html)

"So now, calls to your Sprint mobile number can easily be answered from your office or your home phone, or even your computer through Gmail."

Sprint has, in the past, had its own services that would compete with this. That they're opening their network to an outside solution is great for customers. It is probably a sign of Sprint's weakness in the market that they're willing to do it, but I hope they will be rewarded with some customer share for doing this.

<comment><USER3> Yeah I found that one interesting too. May be a sign of more Google/Sprint integration to come.

I just recently had to cancel my Sprint service as I was no longer going to need it and it was a pleasant experience - the ETF came to only 63$ after Sprint paid $107 for returning the Epic 4G! (I wasn't aware you could return the phone - the rep went out of her way to inform me of that.) I wish them well.

<comment><USER4> That was silly. You could have probably gotten a couple hundred for that phone easy.

<comment><USER3> I know - Gazelle quotes $175 for the phone. But the battery was draining quite a bit faster than usual, it was rooted and I didn't wanted to sell it to someone only to get it back or have them ask it for less.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's too bad they still don't offer a keyboard model. Does Google seriously think that virtual keyboards are acceptable for writing long messages? And the screen resolution is a disappointment. Isn't it about time to move beyond WVGA?

<comment><USER6> I've got to say, I used to think this too, but I've found that Swype is _really_ good for entering data. Try it out sometime, you will be surprised.

I bought an Epic 4G thinking that I absolutely needed the keyboard, and now I barely use it.

<comment><USER5> I've used Swype a fair amount. It works well enough for one-handled input, but it's still much slower than using the Epic keyboard with two thumbs. The real problem with Swype and other virtual keyboards is that they occupy ~40% of what's already a tiny screen. So then I can't see the context of what I'm replying to, or more than a few lines of my own text.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not that excited about this phone. Has the guts of the Galaxy S line that was announced over a year ago. The difference is that it has WiMax (nice) and NFC (with very few uses currently). Not worth a 2 year deal for a phone that will be 3 years outdated when the contract expires.

</comment><comment><USER8> Great timing given the att acquisition of t-mobile, was just wondering if a nexus like phone would still have a carrier to call home.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, I predict the market for used T-Mobile Nexus Ones is about to get swamped, but this may cushion the blow a bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wonder if voice integration will change while keeping an existing sprint cell number. I know at times I am not impressed with how the google voice service integrates with my sprint number, to the point where I am considering not using it anymore for business stuff.

<comment><USER11> Hi from Sprint - it works great for me, I've been testing for a couple of weeks. This is actual back-end call routing as opposed to VOIPing the call through the app on the phone.

<http://bit.ly/sprintgooglevoice>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> As usual, not available in Canada.

<comment><USER13> Is there even a network compatible with Sprint's "4G" up here?

<comment><USER6> I just checked Sensorly, and looks like no (unless you count some spots on the border).

<comment><USER13> I'm not sure I'd trust the site on that - it doesn't even know that Bell and Telus operate CDMA networks here in addition to their new GSM.

<comment><USER6> Yeah the Sensorly data isn't perfect, but it's crowdsourced from actual people's phones, so I trust it slightly more than the official carriers' coverage maps. Their Sprint 4G data is pretty good.

Sensorly is always updating their app and maps, so they might add the Bell and Telus networks at some point..

<comment><USER13> Yeah, but it's not going to collect data about a network it doesn't know about, is it?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


HTTP responses as a service - <AUTHOR> http://mock.isssues.com

<comment><USER2> I have a confession to make. I just spent three minutes trying to work out why [http://mock.isssues.com/400](http://mock.isssues.com/400) was returning bad request behind ApiAxle...

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm been using [http://httpbin.org/](http://httpbin.org/) for this.

<comment><USER4> Yep. Also:

[http://www.mocky.io/](http://www.mocky.io/), [http://ivanzuzak.info/urlecho/](http://ivanzuzak.info/urlecho/), and in some cases: [http://hang.nodester.com/](http://hang.nodester.com/)

<comment><USER5> Oh my goodness, I've been looking for this (mocky) for weeks! Thank you. There really isn't much by way of this particular service, and I found it immensely valuable when I used it last.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> No 451 response?

[https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-tbray-http-legally- restric...](https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-tbray-http-legally-restricted- status-00)

<comment><USER7> Yup, sent the author a note on that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The last time I used something like this it was [http://httpstat.us/](http://httpstat.us/)

</comment><comment><USER9> this looks like a useful service... with one caveat in the form of a rant:

I wish people would stop trying to make response codes into more than they are. Rest does not entail webdav, and without webdav there are not enough semantics to try to do the kinds of things people typically try to make response codes do.

If you are implementing webdav, call it that and stick to the spec, don't just hack a middle ground and pretend you are designing the API properly.

<comment><USER10> Sadly the http codes were never designed for API calls in the first place, but are the recommended, and accepted way of expressing errors in APIs. The choice is to use woefully vague codes, or move out into other standards such as Webdav. Or of course custom codes.

<comment><USER11> Obviously you can add a more detailed payload in the response body for precision, HTTP status codes are the error class (similar to SQL error code classes, or even the error codes themselves for such things as the class 23 codes)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Last year I was the maintainer for jQuery-Mockjax ([https://github.com/appendto/jquery- mockjax](https://github.com/appendto/jquery-mockjax)) which essentially mocks jQuery's ajax calls. Makes it really easy to test these kinds of conditions on the client without needing to set up a server.

IIRC it also supports simulated response delays. You'll never know the difference!

<comment><USER13> You should almost always, for almost every test suite, do this with a mocking library.

That being said, I can think of some cases where this service would be really useful, such as one of tests on live systems for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Are you the creator? FYI, [http://mock.isssues.com/timeout](http://mock.isssues.com/timeout) gives me an application error instead of returning successfully after 30s.

Result of

        curl -i http://mock.isssues.com/timeout

here: [http://pastebin.com/nM1VTYwg](http://pastebin.com/nM1VTYwg)

<comment><USER14> OK works now (with a 28s delay apparently). Can't delete parent.

Did your webserver timeout on your CGI? :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Heroku was killing the request at 30 seconds, so it worked locally, but failed after deploy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Request: [http://mock.isssues.com/{RESPONSE}/{MESSAGE}](http://mock.isssues.com/{RESPONSE}/{MESSAGE})

</comment><comment><USER16> Must have been fun to implement 418 =)

It could help to link to some explanation/section in the RFC from the front page error code. Apart from that, this is very nice and potentially useful, thank you very much.

</comment><comment><USER17> Nice!

For completeness' sake, also 3xx redirects could be implemented, redirecting to [http://mock.isssues.com/200](http://mock.isssues.com/200) for example.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'd rather mock stuff like this with a mocking library that doesn't involve making requests to remote servers. The interwebs are (relatively) slow and I want my tests to run fast.

<comment><USER19> Sometimes you just want to do a quick test and not deal with the complexity of a proper mocking library. But I agree this is not something you'd probably want to bake into a continuous integration build.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> What happens when you request a non-existent URL at that site?

<comment><USER21> $ curl -i [http://mock.isssues.com/888](http://mock.isssues.com/888) HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found Content-Type: text/html;charset=utf-8 Date: Sun, 21 Jul 2013 22:29:14 GMT Status: 404 Not Found X-Frame-Options: sameorigin X-Xss- Protection: 1; mode=block Content-Length: 9 Connection: keep-alive

<comment><USER21> $ curl -i [http://mock.isssues.com/fake/url](http://mock.isssues.com/fake/url) curl: (6) Could not resolve host: mohttp; nodename nor servname provided, or not known

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> How do you know that you've implemented 402 correctly?

</comment><comment><USER23> anmo does all that, and more: [https://github.com/sthulbourn/anmo](https://github.com/sthulbourn/anmo)

</comment><comment><USER24> What about the redirect responses in the 3xx series?</comment>


Apple will reportedly reveal its news subscription service next month - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2019/02/12/apple-news-service-publisher-objections/ <comment><USER2> I hope this is true, it would be awesome. I currently have no idea how to easily pay for quality news from multiple sources.</comment>


A Free Speech Battle at the Birthplace of a Movement at Berkeley - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/us/university-california-berkeley-free-speech-milo-yiannopoulos.html <comment><USER2> Free Speech is a concept dead to the left wing of political ideology.

Hate Speech, "Evil People" prevented from speaking, their fans attacked.

Mark my words, the other, more silent side of America will respond to violence if the left WONT discuss, debate, and be rational and peaceful.

</comment><comment><USER3> A few idiots attack people and then Milo and company get to play the victim.

Was very frustrated last week when way too many people were cheering the sucker punching of Richard Spencer. Was attack on free speech and just made another otherwise obscure figure famous.

<comment><USER2> > A few idiots attack people

Google how many celebrities and reporters have condoned that sucker punch against the "nazi". It's A LOT of people.

The problem is that the regressive left is labelling everyone that disagrees with their notions "nazis".

So my question is, if we normalize the punching of nazis, but we're not sure who they are, does that give 50% of the US population the right to harass the other 50%?

This is honestly tantamount to starting a civil war... When you prevent speech, prevent discussion. Only violence remains... SAD!</comment></comment>


Fire Engulfs a Brazilian Museum, Threatening Hundreds of Years of History - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/02/world/americas/national-museum-brazil-fire.html <comment><USER2> In case this version gets more traction than the one I submitted earlier today, I'll leave a link to my comment below. It's a really sad day.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17902140](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17902140)</comment>


Summon the NSA - <AUTHOR> http://summonthensa.com

<comment><USER2> Good thing I clicked it before reading the disclaimer..

<comment><USER3> I read the disclaimer and then clicked it anyways...</comment></comment>


Mysterious groups of archaea stir debate about the origin of complex creatures - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01496-w <comment><USER2> Why can't it be that new organisms are bubbling up from the thermal vents or bubbling hot springs all the time?

Why do they say every thing came from a _single_ origin cell?

Seems like I'd it happened once, it can happen again!

<comment><USER3> "It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present. But if (and oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond with all sorts of ammonia & phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc present, that a protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured, or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed"

~Charles Darwin, in a letter to Joseph Hooker (1871)

I heard researcher Bruce Damer explain how Darwin was likely correct in this letter. As we understand it today, enzymes and oxygen would prevent a second biological genesis. Also, there is less "feed stock" of star dust falling on our present warm little ponds. [https://www.mindpodnetwork.com/future- fossils-109/](https://www.mindpodnetwork.com/future-fossils-109/)

<comment><USER4> A truly very impressive quote, given what was available to Darwin in 1871. At that time many scientists didn't want to accept that atoms exist:

Adolf Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe "(1818-1884), a German organic chemist described as one of the greatest of that time" denied that molecules as we know them today existed. "The French chemist Pierre-Eugéne Marcellin Berthelot (1827-1907)" "exerted his considerable power as a government official to prohibit the teaching of atomic theory." "Austrian physicist Ernst Mach (1838-1916), and German physical chemist Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932)" "preferred the consideration of perceived data to that of hypothetical atoms."

Only much later "in 1908 Ostwald became convinced that experiments had finally given proofs of the discrete or particulate nature of matter. In 1912 Poincaré declared that "[A]toms are no longer a useful fiction … The atom of the chemist is now a reality.""

Sources: [https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/science- magazines/histo...](https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/science- magazines/historic-dispute-are-atoms-real)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's science, not a "debate club." It's simply about trying to reconstruct something based on the samples which are still incomplete (and will remain very hard to improve):

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

"Specific sediment horizons, previously shown to contain high abundances of novel archaeal lineages[2][3] were subjected to metagenomic analysis. Due to the low density of cells in the sediment, the resulting genetic sequence does not come from an isolated cell, as would be the case in conventional analysis, but is rather a combination of genetic fragments.[4] The result was a 92% complete, 1.4 fold-redundant composite genome named Lokiarchaeum.[1]

The metagenomic analysis determined the presence of an organism's genome in the sample. However, the organism itself has not been cultured.[1]"

Now knowing that, the end of the article is what is the point:

"But analyses of the Asgard archaea, including the Lokis, remain limited. "What people are really waiting for is the isolation of a member of these lineages," says evolutionary microbiologist Simonetta Gribaldo at the Pasteur Institute."

The other point is:

"Other scientists are reserving judgement: "Trees change," is a common refrain."

Exactly.

It seems some editors or the article writers think that when they cover something as a "debate" there's a "win" somewhere for them (1). "Mysterious" too. But it's confusing the causal readers who then miss to understand how amazing is what we already know and how fine these details are that still aren't known.

\----

1) It's also worth noting that there are some rich entities which pay a lot of money to "promote doubt" in the successes of natural sciences. Maybe even the non-biased editors "pick the signal" generated by the public addressed by such groups and then think that they just "reached more readers" with such titles or approaches in the articles. I would have expected from "Nature" not to, however.

<comment><USER5> > It seems some editors or the article writers think that when they cover > something as a "debate" there's a "win" somewhere for them

Except that, in this particular area of uncertainity there _has_ been debate, heated opinion and entrenched positions. Nature is reflecting the messy, human business of the process of advancing science.

<comment><USER4> It is messy but as I've quoted, the majority of scientist had the following view:

"Other scientists are reserving judgement: "Trees change," is a common refrain."

Which is a correct approach to the topic: it's easy to blow something up out of proportions when the scale is ignored.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seems odd that the article doesn't mention Horizontal Gene Transfer at all. This phenomenon could explain why some archaea encode genes that are common in eukaryotes.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28189637](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28189637)</comment>


Switching Apache from Prefork to Worker MPM in RHEL / CentOS 5.x / Fedora 13 - <AUTHOR> http://www.jqueryin.com/2010/08/07/switching-apache-prefork-to-worker-mpm-in-rhel-centos-5x-fedora-13/

<comment><USER2> Prefork requires a process per request whereas Worker only requires a thread per request. So say you've got 20 processes in prefork taking 100mb each. You can server 20 concurrent requests and its using 2gb of memory. Where as with worker mpm there will be say 4 processes each with 20-30 threads. Thats going to be 400mb and an ability to serve 80-120 requests concurrently.

If you do go the worker route, my advice is to use mod_fastcgi rather than mod_fcgid for performance and stability reasons. Also look around for the patch which fixes the timeout errors that sporadically occur.

Worker MPM is definitely the way to go when running apache, something that is overlooked because not many people are aware of it or how to configure it. Beyond that there is also event mpm which was experimental but is now stable I believe.

</comment><comment><USER3> We looked at worker but decided that for us, prefork met our needs better. Nice article though, good job, I enjoyed reading it.</comment>


Exa – A Modern Replacement for Ls - <AUTHOR> https://the.exa.website/ <comment><USER2> I like the tree+stats view</comment>


Very early demo of Husk CRM - <AUTHOR> http://blog.huskcrm.com/very-early-demo-of-husk-crm/

<comment><USER2> I can create this in 2 hours, tops.

It's really a very early demo isn't it? :-)</comment>


Xamarin's store-page just changed its pricing - <AUTHOR> https://store.xamarin.com/ <comment><USER2> RoboVM also owned by Xamarin, not sure they are making it free

</comment><comment><USER3> Will Xamarin Studio be open sourced?</comment>


The Top Cloud Providers For 2012 - <AUTHOR> http://readwrite.com/2013/05/01/who-are-the-top-cloud-providers-for-2012

<comment><USER2> This probably won't shock anyone familiar with the industry, but its neat to see the stats put together.</comment>


The A-Z of Programming Languages: Haskell - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1974033854;fp;;fpid;;pf;1 <comment><USER2> Dupe: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=309347>

</comment><comment><USER3> haskell is one to learn. budget at least a year of spare time to relearn. i am dumber than most so i have been going at it two years now, and i still learn new things every time i visit the haskell wiki.

why haskell? because functional languages are the future. why? because the von neumann architecture is giving way to parallelism, be it hadoop/mapreduce, or a thirty-two way multicore processor under your desk. read herb sutter's "end of the free lunch". any way you slice it, tools that address slicing up problems better across arrays of resources are the future. who knows, maybe (likely) java etc will incorporate this stuff. its no coincidence that haskell shows up in the google mapreduce tutorial.

learning haskell isn't easy, you basically have to relearn everything, and it is often confusing. but once you do, you will be five years ahead of your peers

<comment><USER4> I'm trying to lean Haskell. Again. First time I thought it would be easy. "I can learn any language in a week" I thought - as long as it is Python or Java or something closely resembling, it turned out. Gave up fairly quickly.

Second time I was serious, invested a significant amount of time, but still gave up when I reached monads.

Then I taught myself scheme and worked my way through SICP, just to be better prepared. Now I'm trying again, and it makes a little more sense, but I'm still stuck at monad transformers.

If someone can learn Haskell in a week I hate them. And I hate all monad tutorials. "Monads are easy, they are just like a conveyor belt" "No, they are just like a spacesuit!" "Monads are like a box of apples, that magically transforms into a box of oranges!" "No, its easy: Monads are just like green monsters whits eats values, but when you kill the monsters they puke the values out again - you could have invented them yourselves! Perhaps you already have!"</comment></comment>


Do you have any resources for phone/mail based user onboarding? - <AUTHOR>

I'm working on a product for users who often don't have a smartphone or daily internet access. Are there any good strategies/services to help automate placement of phone calls/letters for enrollment? <comment><USER2> I think SMS is an awesome way to engage people. You could use a tool like [http://www.sendsonar.com](http://www.sendsonar.com) to manage that messages to your users</comment>


For Some, Rude End to IPO Dreams - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424053111904140604576498134225722342-lMyQjAxMTAxMDAwOTEwNDkyWj.html?mod=wsj_share_email <comment><USER2> "there's a belief that we had a potentially significant change that might be part of a new world order for a little while."

Another bubble popping?</comment>


Car Autonomously Powerslides Into Parking Space - <AUTHOR> http://www.autoblog.com/2010/05/11/volkswagen-and-stanfords-junior-autonomously-power-slides-int

<comment><USER2> After what seems like 10 clicks I finally found the source:

[http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/green-tech/advanced- cars/...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/green-tech/advanced- cars/autonomous-car-learns-to-powerlslide-into-parking-spot)

</comment><comment><USER3> Before giving these students an A, I'm going to have to ask that they replace the cones with their own cars. That's where you draw the line between "I think this will work" and "I have complete confidence that this will work".

It's analogous to if I were a welder working inside a giant propane tank. The guy with the gas meter can swear up and down that it's safe to fire up the torch, but I'm still going to insist he stand in there beside me when I spark up.

Besides, it just makes better video. It's not anywhere near as impressive if there's nothing on the line.

<comment><USER4> Especially they confidently tell us, that the system is accurate to two feet. Sadly two feet is the difference between parking ok and damaging both cars significantly (i.e. you'll have to at least fix your bumpers.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Okay so my car Autonomously Powerslides Into a very tight Parking Space. Good luck getting out of that same parking space.

</comment><comment><USER6> The application (parking a car by powersliding) is a nice sizzle for a really interesting (to me at least) steak.

The idea of combining closed loop model-based control for the easy-to-model portion of a process with open-loop control for the difficult-to-model portion of a process would have a lot of application in lots of places, but not many people would pay attention to using the technique for, say, controlling a distillation column.

I appreciate the nice link to a PDF I found on Mr. Kolter's website from the link at the end of the second video: [http://ai.stanford.edu/~kolter/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=pubs:...](http://ai.stanford.edu/~kolter/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=pubs:kolter- icra10.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER7> It won't be long before traditional grease-monkey mechanics are replaced by code-monkeys.

The advances in automotive technology within the last three to five years have been staggering. I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing what cars my kids will be driving, or not, as is the case here!

<comment><USER8> If you'd like to learn more about how autonomous cars will change the world, I strongly recommend the robocar essays of Brad Templeton: <http://www.templetons.com/brad/robocars/>

Highlights:

-Cars that don't crash due to human error would save 40,000 lives and a million injuries (NIH). Mostly young people, for whom car accidents are the leading cause of death among major categories.

-Not crashing would save 230 billion dollars of accident cost (NTSB). About 2-3% of GDP.

-Not driving would free up 50 billion hours (or 1 trillion dollars) of people's time. Around 8% of GDP.

-Electric cars (more feasible when the car can go to a service station when it's not being used, because one of the major problems with electric cars is that storing lots of energy in a battery is difficult) would save 50 billion gallons of imported gasoline, replaced with the equivalent of 5 billion "gallons" of domestic-source power plant fuel. Thus eliminating about 12-15% of the USA's CO2 emissions and nastier pollution.

-There would be a serious reduction in the urban land devoted to the ~600 million parking spaces, estimated to be up to 10% of urban land in many cities.

<comment><USER9> I thought about this though and there is a serious problem.

Let's say I've created a robo car system that is 100x less likely to be involved in an at-fault accident. If everyone installed the system nationwide, I would be assuming about 2.3 billion dollars (1% of the accident cost figure quoted above) in liability.

However, that's not likely to happen since the first time such a system fails and crashes it would be horrible publicity that would put me out of business.

<comment><USER8> Yes, I think that will slow the adoption of robocars significantly, especially in the USA. See Templeton's section on liability in the essay on problems with robocars: <http://www.templetons.com/brad/robocars/roadblocks.html>

"[Robocars may first be adopted in] other countries, such as China, Singapore, India or Japan. These high-tech countries have very different liability systems, and indeed very different forms of lawmaking that can simply wipe away the liability problem with the wave of a pen."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In the future you have to write the better algorithm than your contender, to get the parking space.

<comment><USER11> In that future _my car just dropped me off at the door and is going to park itself_. Who cares if it finds a close spot? Whenever it _does_ find one, it can tell me how much notice it needs to pick me back up.

The difference in wait between today's "good" and "bad" spots will be a couple minutes at most. Non-issue. More interesting will be regulations regarding drop-off/pickup-points and how much enforcement the legislation requires code to do.

e.g. can not allow double-park. can not idle for automated pickup for longer than X-minutes. must download list of acceptable parking zones by date. must report every automated parking location/duration. etc

<comment><USER12> Ahh someone who has thought past the surface, "can do what we currently do better" of this to some of the more disruptive changes that autonomous car technology might bring.

The use of the car's logs to meter all parking in a city is nice. Some new gaming of systems will begin. The price of parking gets weighed against the cost of just driving the car in circles for the duration of the stay, and the defector strategies, like shifting the car between locations which have a "cars can wait X minutes for free to do a pickup" rule, need to be watched for.

A business model that might well feel the mixed bite of autonomous vehicles is roadside hotel/motels. If you invest in an autonomous car with "sleeper options" (or rent a sleeper car, bed(s) on smart wheels), any town within about 8 hours drive becomes psychologically much closer to home, just a night's sleep away. It becomes closer to absurd to ever stop at any hotel between you and your destination or to take such trips so that they use your waking time. But then hotels at the destination can cater to the "just want a safe parking area and a shower/bathroom in the morning" crowd. Opportunities here too for the car rental companies to provide end-to-end "sleeper car solutions"; competition and/or cross-promotion between car rental companies and hotels/parking-and-bathrooms chains.

Towns geographically central between large farther-flung working cities could become hubs for meetings, think Voronoi diagram. Or they can choose, instead, to cater to the weekend tourism crowds from those large cities. Somewhere around Eureka California will become the easy weekend meet-up mecca for practically the whole west coast.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds a lot like a comfortable bus. And where are those?

<comment><USER12> Fair point, but it has a couple of differences which line up with the reasons people give for not using buses, trains, and planes. Those are: no need to fit the travel plan into the bus schedule and having a vehicle in the destination city for no extra charge. People aren't always right when asked about their own reasons for choosing one option over another, but I think in this case these are important motivators as they add to the cost in terms of both money and also the psychological "hassle" factor.

Further there are social signals sent by how one travels, and buses have let themselves become, or targeted being, the option for low class travel (unless it is one's personal bus, but even then it is still below the personal plane). Autonomous cars would have the opportunity to aim their marketing toward them being seen as a desirable, upper middle class travel option (or the un- extravagant option for the more wealthy). The cars themselves will likely be more expensive than cars with no autonomous capabilities, so they easily send a signal of "well-to-do".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Does it autonomously change the tires when they go bald?</comment>


ASK: Tips For Launching To Tech Community? - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys, here is the project i'm working on: www.contentforest.com<p>We're going public on the 15th of this month and  would be great if you guys had advice for the launch of the platform - we're focusing on technology publishers and content creators at the moment <comment><USER3> I am not sure if this pertains to you or not but what about using someone's social media presence as a tool to promote the articles. For instance lets say Mike posts some content on your site and Mike has an okay Facebook following of about 800 friends and about 200 followers on twitter. Then lets say Sam does the same thing but he has 4000 friends on Facebook with a few hundred subscribers and 3,000 followers on Twitter. I am not sure if this would work with your business model but if Sam gets picked for his submission I think the publishers would like to not only know his social media presence but also see him send a tweet saying "I just wrote and article for XYZ Mag check it out here somedomain.com " and then doing the same on Facebook. I also think that makes him far more valuable as a content creator. This is just a random thought do what you will with it.

As far as actually answering your question… I agree with everyone below me. It was hard to understand what I was looking at immediately which means I would probably not stick around to find out.

<comment><USER3> Check out Klout.com you could work with their API and include that into each content creator's profile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well, first of all, just glancing at that website you linked. I am sure you will have an all-new decked out one once it is actually launched, but for people like me, who you are linking to it right now, it isn't the best at first glance. Not because of any design aspect, just because I have absolutely no idea what your product is when I open the page at first glance. I should not have to click a "How does it work" to understand what your product is, and am much more likely to just leave the page after failing in my quest to discover what this new website is. A huge part of launching is about the hype you create beforehand, so I strongly recommend that you add a line or two, perhaps a working screenshot right under that first bold text, just to tell me what exactly it is that I should be looking forward to. I don't mean advertising jargon like, 'get more quality content, save time and engage their audience.' That is good, but I need to first know what it is that will do that. So give a short description of what your product actually is.

</comment><comment><USER5> So this is a platform for freelance authors and Web publications to find each other?

If you're targeting technology topics exclusively, then IMHO you're going for the wrong audience. Any witty and insightful writer _with a technology background_ will have a tendency to write posts for their own blog and put ads on it. You'll have a hard time pricing attractively for them, because you and the publisher are middlemen that they've figured out how to cut out.

On the other hand, _non-computer-experts_ who have the skills and knowledge to produce content, but have no idea how to install Wordpress, could be a talent pool for whom you could have a genuine value-add by giving them a platform and a way to find clients.

</comment><comment><USER6> 1\. By posting it to HN you have already launched.

2\. The landing page needs to explain what you do in a clear manner. Its empty on the top and has some very hard to read explanations once you scroll down.

</comment><comment><USER7> Agreed. When you launch, make sure your landing page has a short, easily digestible summary of what your product is, and a clear call to action for whatever it is you want users to do upon visiting your site. These articles have some good tips for landing pages:

<http://unbounce.com/landing-pages/checklist/>

[http://blog.kissmetrics.com/landing-page-design- infographic/...](http://blog.kissmetrics.com/landing-page-design- infographic/?wide=1)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> awesome points guys; I'll create two videos so both the publishers and producers can see how it works et

csense: great point regarding the technical/non-technical aspect - <USER2> thought of it this way

more recommendations would be awesome :-)</comment>


TED: Tour the AlloSphere, a stunning new way to see scientific data - <AUTHOR> http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/joann_kuchera_morin_tours_the_allosphere.html

<comment><USER2> I kind of dislike people who, while presenting their projects, scream "This is important! Look at how impressive this is!"

I kinda felt she was doing that through the whole presentation. Let your work speak for itself.

</comment><comment><USER3> You wonder whether you get out any more than the creators put into it.</comment>


WW2 "Simple Sabotage Field Manual" declassified [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cgi-bin/showfile.exe?CISOROOT=/p4013coll9&CISOPTR=307&filename=308.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> Some highlights:

"Anyone can break up a showing of an enemy propaganda film by putting two or three dozen large moths in a paper bag. Take the bag to the movies with you, put it on the floor in an empty section of the theater as you go in and leave it open. The mothts will fly out and climb into the projector beam, so that the film will be obscured by fluttering shadows"

"When possible, refer all matters to committees, for further study and consideration. Attempt to make the committees as large as large as possible - never less than five"

"Cry and sob hysterically at every occasion, especially when confronted by government clerks"

</comment><comment><USER2> Dupe of: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=833443>

</comment><comment><USER3> This link isn't working for me. Here is an alternative:

[http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26184/page- images/26184-image...](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26184/page- images/26184-images.pdf)

<comment><USER4> The link not only isn't working it looks very strange it's a link to an .exe file (!) on cdmhost.com . Is it some sort of malware/phishing attempt using a passthrough feature?? That's just what it looks like, don't use scribd, so could be standard for all I know.

<comment><USER5> No, it's just using an .exe as a CGI, instead of (say) PHP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Excellently cool. Nice find. When was this declassified?</comment>


Attackers Buying Own Data Centers for Botnets, Spam - <AUTHOR> http://threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/attackers-buying-own-data-centers-botnets-spam-122109

<comment><USER2> Unless things have changed in the US in the last few years, the process is very simple here too. I simply asked UUNet for a /24, filled out a form, and that was it.</comment>


BBC News on the day the Snooper's Charter passed: not a single word about it - <AUTHOR> https://archive.fo/dtaGB <comment><AUTHOR> Here's the UK section: [https://archive.is/aMowv](https://archive.is/aMowv)

and the Technology section: [https://archive.fo/MbI7Q](https://archive.fo/MbI7Q)

Not a single word.

\----

Datapoint for the massive conversation about news reliability that the world is having right now?</comment>


Adobe Source Code Pro monospaced font updated with italics - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/adobe-fonts/source-code-pro/releases/tag/2.010R-ro%2F1.030R-it

<comment><USER2> Also adds Powerline symbols, which is great. Some of the patched ones don't work well. I'll try this new one alongside Input Mono which is my current monospace font of choice.</comment>


IPhone 4S Vs iPhone 4: Comparison & Difference - <AUTHOR> http://thetechjournal.com/electronics/iphone/iphone-4s-vs-iphone-4-comparison-difference.xhtml

<comment><USER2> I don't think that's completely right. I believe if they do release a new design, it will, in fact, be called the iPhone 5. We already know the number behind "iPhone" does not stand for the generation (second generation being 3G and now we have 4S). Apple will likely adopt a naming convention that correlates to aesthetic upgrades.</comment>


Living to 100 and Beyond - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904875404576528841080315246.html?mod=WSJ_hps_RIGHTTopCarousel_1

<comment><USER2> Peter Thiel says this in the foreword:

\---

"Unlike the other animals, we have knowledge of death. The origins of language, of culture, and of religion can perhaps all be traced to that point in the distant past when our ancestors first acquird this terrible knowlege and needed to tell themselves stories to make sense of life and death. Every myth on this planet is an untrue story that tells people that the purpose of life is death. Nationalistic myths tell us that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country, ideological myths tell us that progress requires violence and that one must break some eggs to make an omelet, and religious myths tell us to worship the old, the ancient, and the spirits of the dead. The crisis of the modern world is the crisis of mythology. We no longer believe in the old stories about life and death, but we also cannot go back to a time when we were not yet human and did not know about death. We cannot go back in time [to the innocent ignorance of youth] and we would prefer not to be turned [into animals]. As the same time we cannot simply deal with death as a 'fact of life.' What we desperately need is a new story - a true story - to help make sense of the world in which we find ourselves."

\---

The book should be read in the light of this thought: we build our myths, recapitulating them in technology just as soon as we are able. Though nowadays people are more likely to talk of "vision" and "cultural aspirations" than to tie present directions to the legacy of stories and desires that emerged from the deep past. Unlike Thiel, I don't think that all of the old tales are bad for being lies. In some tales, humanity lives in a world in which objects think and speak, aging can be banished, wounds healed with a touch, and spirits and gods watch over all - and with progress in artificial intelligence and biotechnology most of that will come to pass. There are good reasons why certain forms of story survive the millennia: they attract us and steer us just as much as we steer them. So long as there are at least a few people who prefer to build a tower rather than talk of building a tower, then we will build our mythology. Thiel is, however, right in the prevalence of tales that celebrate death and aging over life and longevity, and there is a scale crying out for a rebalancing.

[http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/02/our-beauteous- but...](http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/02/our-beauteous-but- destructive-heritage-of-myth-legend-and-stories.php)

\---

"This is an age of progress and biotechnology. Yet we folk who might be the first ageless humans stand atop a bone mountain. Its slopes are the stories of the dead, created, told, and appreciated by people who knew their own mortality. It is an enormous, pervasive heritage, forged by an army of billions, and no part of our culture or our endeavors is left untouched by it. This is one part of the hurdle we must overcome as we strive to convince people that a near future of rejuvenation biotechnology is plausible, possible, and desirable."

\---

Burying the bone mountain is a big job, but that's why books like this have to be written. The better visions and better myths must win out if we are to see the broad support and desire needed to accomplish any great advance in technology, and then make it widespread.

</comment><comment><USER3> Link to an academically hosted .PDF of the paper "The Value of Health and Longevity," mentioned in the submitted article.

[http://www.econ.yale.edu/seminars/labor/lap05/topel-050325.p...](http://www.econ.yale.edu/seminars/labor/lap05/topel-050325.pdf)

I'm going to have to check the methodology of this working paper, as I am dubious about its conclusion.

And here's a link to Amazon's description of the newly published book on which the submitted article is based:

[http://www.amazon.com/100-Plus-Longevity-Everything- Relation...](http://www.amazon.com/100-Plus-Longevity-Everything- Relationships/dp/0465019668)

</comment><comment><USER4> I think that some points in this article are a bit misleading. Much of the focus is on an increase in the average life span of the population, of which a large portion can be attributed to a reduction in infant mortality and an increase in sanitation, or treatments of common disorders. However, for 100+ year lifespans and (optimistically) 1000 year life spans, we would need to drastically increase the maximum life span, which proves to be a much more difficult task in healthy individuals.

<comment><USER5> I was thinking the same thing. If we still had to feed ourselves by hunting mammoth with nothing but pointy sticks and sharp rocks we probably wouldn't live much longer than 18 even today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> To solve difficult problems like this, we really need to game problems to get more people involved. To get a man on the moon, for example, it took almost a decade, billions of dollars, and 300,000 Americans working on it. The problem he wants to solve is even more difficult.

<comment><USER7> Apollo was a difficult but reasonably straightforward engineering problem, which made it extremely susceptible to having money and manpower thrown at it. Life extension, and even most more modest medical problems, still lack large areas of basic understanding which makes them much less vulnerable to such mass attacks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very thought provoking. My first thought de Grey's claim that the first people to live a 1000 years have already been born is that will certainly require changes to social security. It seems likely even modest advances are enough to start getting societal conundrums. It looks like an interesting book.

<comment><USER9> There's a lot of big questions that come out of this. I'm thinking about how available such technological gains would be to the general public. As our current economic system stands now (U.S.) this would probably only apply to the wealthy. Think Dick Cheney, who seemingly will outlive all of us.

<comment><USER10> People would work longer than they do now because they would live healthier longer, possibly mitigating our current SS problems. It would also be in the best interest of the government to subsidize _proven_ rejuvenation technologies because caring for the old is much more expensive than caring for the young.</comment></comment></comment>


The Deep Insights of Alan Kay (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://mythz.servicestack.net/blog/2013/02/27/the-deep-insights-of-alan-kay/ <comment><USER2> Big takeaways from this is that unnecessary complexity is stalling software engineering as a discipline which is bounded by human fragility and the limited "complexity budget" that the human mind can withhold.

The Big Idea of Object Oriented Programming is "Messaging" and encapsulation, i.e. how objects encapsulate their internal complexity and expose their capabilities for maximum re-use and minimal knowledge and coupling of internals.

TCP/IP is Real Computers All The Way Down (RCATWD) and is possibly the only real object-oriented system in working order where its level of complication is balanced by its level of complexity, which retain the semantics of real objects in which the basic unit of computation is a whole computer. "The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs."

RPC distorts developer mindsets by focusing on thinking of making a "remote call" instead of thinking of remote endpoints as (RCATWD) objects and focusing on instead of communication of messages and what optimal messaging API designs Services should expose for maximum encapsulation and re-use of their capabilities.

<comment><USER3> > The Big Idea of Object Oriented Programming is "Messaging" and > encapsulation, i.e. how objects encapsulate their internal complexity and > expose their capabilities for maximum re-use and minimal knowledge and > coupling of internals.

Encapsulation is what people have done since the dawn of time. Mathematics is essentially a system for "encapsulating internal complexity". In programming, the core abstraction mechanism is the function, which is essentially a device for "encapsulating internal complexity". OOP is a step in the wrong direction, silently exposing internal complexity via mutable state. Remove mutable state and OOP reduces to "partially applied functions" in the mathematical sense, i.e. zero original content.

<comment><USER4> > Mathematics is essentially a system for "encapsulating internal complexity"

Not really; here's why:

An index is something that maps a small space into a big one so that you can move through the big one by traversing the small one. Example: The old card catalog is a tiny space through which you can move relatively quickly so that you don't have to explore parts of the library through which you can only move relatively slowly.

Mathematics is an indexing system for ideals (it maps ideals onto ideals). It's unreasonably effective for a couple of reasons:

* Some ideals correspond close enough to reality to be useful. So, mathematics indexes reality.

* Since mathematics indexes ideals, it can index itself. In other words, no matter how big mathematics gets, you can always shrink it again by using more math.

The purpose of encapsulation is to hide, but the purpose of indexing is to reveal. Mathematics does the opposite of encapsulation.

> In programming, the core abstraction mechanism is the function, which is > essentially a device for "encapsulating internal complexity"

Abstraction is not about hiding complexity, abstraction is just naming things. I think what you really mean to say is that the core abstraction in programming is substitution: We give names to substitutions. (As a side note, it's an unfortunate misconception that software must have complexity which must then be hidden)

> Remove mutable state and OOP reduces to "partially applied functions" in the > mathematical sense, i.e. zero original content.

Remove mutable state and _de facto_ OOP reduces _de jure_ OOP, which reduces to "networks of general purpose computers that get things done by sending and interpreting messages". We have at least one big existence proof that this works at scale.

But, even in the mathematical sense, OOP with immutability offers more than just partial function application; it yields families of algebras, and we're always inventing/discovering new varieties of those. On the other hand, if you use just a little bit of mutable state judiciously, you get a set of propositions that are falsifiable by experiment: In other words, you get science, which was one of the motives for inventing OOP.

<comment><USER3> Great points all around, thanks for the reply.

Mathematics encapsulates at proof level. I don't have to care how Pythagoras's theorem may be proven, I know it holds for every right triangle and I can build from there. It's a device for encapsulating the proof state space search, saving time when building more complex theories.

Re: abstraction, with any name [function] comes a set of properties we know they are true, either explicitly specified or implicitly derived from common sense logic. I don't have to care how the sort function is implemented, I only have to know that given an input, it produces an output in a certain relation with the input. From there, I can build more complex programs faster than if I had to write the sort function myself.

Once there are functions with a specification, logically speaking one can freely substitute one for another, as long as the specs are in the correct logical implication relation.

Excuse me if I'm a bit baffled of what exactly the intellectual content of OOP is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "And that they did, which saw through the creation of the impressive array of technologies invented at PARC which were the foundations for much of personal computing and programming as we know it today, including: •Laser Printers •Object Oriented Programming / Smalltalk •Personal Computers •Ethernet / Distributed Computing •GUI / Mouse / WYSIWYG"

The work done at PARC was clearly influential, but mostly as a refinement of what came before. They were clearly building on the work of Engelbart and his team at Stanford. In fact, if I remember correctly, some members of that team ended up working at Xerox PARC.

In case this is new information to anyone, search on Google for 'The Mother Of All Demos'.

</comment><comment><USER6> Discussed in 2013: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5293152](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5293152).</comment>


Origins of Cannabis Smoking - <AUTHOR> https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/6/eaaw1391 <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20167586](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20167586)

</comment><comment><USER3> Something I didn't see mentioned in either of the older threads: some people speculate that the mention of "sweet cane" in Exodus 30:23 is actually a misinterpretation and that it should actually be "cannabis". The literal Hebrew [1] is בֹ֖שֶׂם וּקְנֵה־ "ḇō·śem ū·qə·nêh-" or, rearranging that a bit, "qeneh-bosem", which looks a lot like "cannabis". If this speculation is true, it would indicate cannabis was used for religious ceremonies by the early Israelites.

[1] [https://biblehub.com/interlinear/exodus/30-23.htm](https://biblehub.com/interlinear/exodus/30-23.htm)

<comment><USER4> The Hebrew word, בשם (fragrant, sweet), is used to describe cinnamon earlier in the same verse...

<comment><USER3> Yeah, and it's interesting how in English "cinnamon" and "cannabis" both start with "c*nna". Almost as if they're both using a common root.

<comment><USER5> [http://www.balashon.com/2008/03/cinnamon.html](http://www.balashon.com/2008/03/cinnamon.html)

[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BA%CE%AC%CE%BD%CE%BD%CE%B...](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%BA%CE%AC%CE%BD%CE%BD%CE%B1%CE%B2%CE%B9%CF%82#Ancient_Greek)

They don't seem related from a non-scholar's perspective.

<comment><USER3> That first link looks like a long-winded way of saying "LOL who knows". I did find its conclusion pretty interesting, where it was suggested that cinnamon ultimately comes from an ancient Chinese word for "spice". Now what other meaning does the word "spice" carry these days? Synthetic cannabinoids!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What's amazing to me is that smoking with pipes or with leaves was unknown in the old world before Columbus.

Though, archaeology in India is massively underfunded. It wouldn't surprise me to find that smoking was much older than the 1500s...

<comment><USER7> Amusing to imagine a European encountering Tobacco from the New World for the first time. "What is this?" "It's tobacco, sir! Comes from the Redmen over the sea." "What do they do with it?" "Oh, they roll it up, stick it in their faces, and light it on fire."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20183942](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20183942)</comment>


ASk HN: Open Ended Playing Card "Game"? - <AUTHOR>

Just a deck of cards and some users in a session who want to play some kind of game of cards with rules defined only for the specific session (ex. one group of users get together to play hearts, another group of users get together to play a game of spades, and yet another group create some new card game with their own rules). Already Exists? Possible? Good Idea? <comment><AUTHOR> I never heard of roll20 before, but it looks really cool. I'll have to give it a spin.

As for designing components and actions, maybe open ended to too far of a stretch and instead maybe have a "subset" of open ended. As in not cumbersome enough to prevent people from using it, but still open enough to make some creative card games possible.

</comment><comment><USER2> Tricky, because you need to define the components (hands, face down piles, face up piles, etc.) and the actions that can be done with each of them, and then design ways to handle them all in a UI that isn't overly cumbersome for the specific subset needed to play any given game.

Its a good idea and it is certainly possible, though.

</comment><comment><USER3> I guess this could be done with <http://roll20.net/> but I haven't actually tried playing cards with that software.</comment>


Ask HN: Learning to Code (where to start) - <AUTHOR>

Me:  30 year old lawyer with minimal to no coding experience ("developed" css/html template style websites)<p>Goal:  Originally, to enable myself to build my own start-up ideas.  However, I am now contemplating a professional transition from practicing law to developing/coding.<p>-Is it practical/realistic for someone to begin coding at 30 and jump ship from one profession into coding/developing?  How would you/have you done this? -What steps might would you suggest to provide the greatest likelihood of securing employment with an existing tech company (or start-up) in the least amount of time?  Am I thinking about this all wrong, by putting the cart before the horse?<p>(A combination on PG's articles, 180 websites in 180 days and the story behind one of Sourcebits' Founders have inspired me to start this down this inevitable journey. More recently stumbling onto YC backed One Month Rails, which appeared to be very encouraging and practical from an economic and time-wise sense has suggested this is a realistic endeavor, even without prior experience.) <comment><USER3> Me: 30 year old ex-Physics/Astronomy student who worked a variety of 'jobs', e.g. a content developer, technical writer, and a radio show host.

Previous programming/development experience: a couple of self-hosted WordPress blogs - one of them, a short-story magazine called d.ustb.in.

Currently: Learning Python, Django and applying every bit of new knowledge into executing the million ideas that keep bouncing around in my head.

I started seriously learning programming with Python last November because I wanted to scratch an itch. There was this idea for an Android app that I had - a food-related Android app - that did not exist in the market. There had been a few attempts but nobody had done anything concrete in the direction that I was thinking of taking. I pitched the idea to a few developer friends and found that the idea seemed to excite almost ALL of them. Unfortunately, none of them could spare me the bandwidth. Frustrated, I finally decided to take the plunge myself and created a prototype using Google AppInventor to knock up a very shoddy-looking app that was served with a Django-Python -TastyPie backend running on a free Heroku instance.

Since then, I have gone on to indulge myself with a few other projects:

1\. Hashpix - [http://hashpix.herokuapp.com](http://hashpix.herokuapp.com)

2\. @updt_me - [http://update-me.herokuapp.com](http://update- me.herokuapp.com)

...and a few more in the pipeline.

Now, we come to the most important question: Do I have offers related to my programming 'expertise'? Well, no. Seeing as how my experience in the field is next to none, I find that my skill set has few or no takers. Does it make me happy? Hell, yes! Does it scratch my entrepreneurial itch? Well, somewhat. None of these ideas are making me any money, you see. Does it put food on the table for my family? Abso-fucking-lutely not. I'm pretty sure it won't put any food on the table until I reach a good enough level of expertise - <USER2> that I am sure is (at least) another few hundred thousand lines of code away.

Long story short? If you have the bandwidth, the energy, the ideas, the time, the inclination, the burning desire and MOST IMPORTANTLY, the savings in your bank account to scratch your entrepreneurial itch, go ahead and take the plunge. Otherwise, wait for a while, build up those zeros that follow the $ sign and THEN take the plunge.

Of course, the standard universal disclaimer applies: YMMV.

</comment><comment><USER4> You have two different problems here. First, learning to write software. Second, building your own startup ideas.

Observation of a techie turned solo founder: Building and running a business is a full time job, entirely separate from writing the code. As a lawyer, you're probably better prepared for that now than the average programmer. You might well be better off finding a problem and a solution, and outsourcing or hiring talent to solve it.

If you want to code for the sake of coding, go for it! But if it's just a means to another end, it's probably not your best approach.

</comment><comment><USER5> From a pure learning the mechanics point of view, yes what you have read might be encouraging. However, think of it in the longer term. Do you feel like you have the patience and aptitude to grow yourself and become better at it over time. Also, technology changes faster than law does. So how comfortable are you with change? You will be starting at the ground floor and working your way up and while it might be faster rise than say in law, it can be frustrating and tedious. Finally, there are long hours in front of the computer which behaves the way you tell it too. There will be days when you will spend hours on end trying to figure out why the code is not working as you want it to. Those days will make you think dealing with unreasonable clients, difficult witness and opposing counsel was easier. If you think you can handle those days, then yes , by all means, jump in with two feet.

By no means, I am trying to paint a negative picture here. I used to be a developer that still codes and works in technical field. But, I think it is important that you go in with a good idea of what to expect.

Maybe a better way would be to start learning coding and developing one or two applications for yourself while still doing your day job to see how you like it. Then once you have a portfolio, you can migrate to doing freelance projects or look for full time opportunities.

All the best.

</comment><comment><USER6> First of all, how much time do you have to devote to this? Will you be quitting your full time job? Will you be doing this over all your free time? The amount you want to accelerate is entirely dependent on how much time you have to devote to it. This is also a question of how much patience you have and how you get started. Programming really is all about peeling the onion. It's easy to write an Hello World app but there are so many layers below that it can become very overwhelming. I will make the assumption that this is a side thing you want to get going.

Programming by itself is not hard. What is hard is the amount of implicit (or explicit) knowledge that exists in the profession that isn't directly related to writing a web application or another piece of software. Now, its not hard to pick up this knowledge but its a barrier. To be a good programming you need to understand computer architecture, TCP/IP networking, HTTP protocol, how a piece of text written in a programming language ultimately gets turned into assembly language and then run on the CPU. There is a lot more along those lines. Now, I am not saying you need to understand it at a PhD level any of this but you need a more than basic understanding to be effective.

What most of us that have been doing this for a long time don't realize is that our passion for technology and computers in general at a young age had given has a head start since we've picked up most of this knowledge (either self-though or going through CS or engineering programs).

My recommendation would be to sign up for the online Stanford Introduction to Computer Science courses:

[http://see.stanford.edu/see/courses.aspx](http://see.stanford.edu/see/courses.aspx)

And start to do the first one on your own.

Alongside that you can also start the Coursera courses: [https://www.coursera.org/courses?orderby=upcoming&cats=cs- th...](https://www.coursera.org/courses?orderby=upcoming&cats=cs-theory,cs- programming,cs-systems)

The Learn to Program and the Algorithm courses are good.

If you are keen you should be able to go through these courses fast. The Stanford ones are not easy but will give you a taste of what a real computer science curriculum is all about. The lectures themselves are extremely worthwhile (Mehran Sahami is a great teacher).

The point of these are not to make you a Ruby on Rails developer, or Python whiz, etc. It's to help you understand the fundamentals.This will also help you determine if it really is the career path you want to take. It takes a certain type of person to sit patiently in front of a glowing screen for hours and studiously write code and actually enjoy the process.

If you want to build your own start-up ideas, don't bother learning to develop. Save enough money and hire it. There's very competent developers around the world that will make whatever you want (I am not saying its easy to find quality developers, but they are out there).

Personally, if I was in your shoes, I would give myself six months to really delve into the fundamentals. If by the end of six months, you feel its a chore and the thought of sitting in front of the screen for another couple of hours learning something else just turns you off, then please have the honesty to stop. But, if its the opposite and you are able to keep going then please don't stop. I would say if you still have the drive to learn and practice after six months, you will be on your way to picking up whatever knowledge gaps you have.

</comment><comment><USER7> Most definitely I think it's possible. A close friend of mine used to be a rugby player until he was 28, then went to get a degree in IT and became software engineer at 32. I find him one of the most humble people I know. Though I may have had more "academic experience", his "life" experiences enriched his career far better than most of the cohorts.

A plenty of ways to get into programming

* A number of "learn how to code" (free, paid) paid sites available - a simple Google will do.

* Browse through an easy GitHub project to get into?

* Take a look at some of the side projects being sold at "[http://sideprojectors.com"](http://sideprojectors.com") (disclaimer, this is my website) - many of the developers are selling their side projects with existing user base + product, which you can inherit and change it the way you want. I think it would be a great way to get your hands dirty and work with existing customer base.

Hope that helps.

<comment><USER8> sideproject, nine out of your last ten comments link to sideprojectors.com.

Please stop spamming HN. You're just pissing all over everything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was programming calculators in high school. So, I naturally enjoyed the activity. For you, since you don't know yet, you need to have an idea, a goal to _code_ for. This way you can narrow down the domain experience, languages, and test environments you'll need to learn. Once you have that in a list you should source books on each subject.

</comment><comment><USER10> Serious question: how practical / realistic is it for a programmer at 30 to switch to a career in law?

<comment><AUTHOR> Law is certainly not for everyone, and I believe the difficult journey to becoming a practicing attorney would only be compounded by accepting that challenge later in life rather than sooner.

However, my experience in law school was that the best students (the majority of top 20% of our class) were all transitioning their careers later in life. This seemed counter-intuitive, because law school is difficult and time consuming enough to balance that with spouses, children and related expenses while simultaneously giving up your career (and income) to become a full-time student seemed insurmountable, but my experience is those individuals who took it upon themselves did it with grace.

In terms of getting a law job, I believe a programmer turned lawyer would be in a better position because of their prior work experience than say a straight from college to law school graduate with no prior "real world" experience.</comment></comment>