Ask HN: Is this depression? What should I do? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN!
Long story short: I'm a 27 years old guy who graduated from the top schools of my country and who likes development and marketing. I quit my job 2 years ago to work on my own projects, and I succeeded. After 6 months of work I released an information product that made me on average $3k per month until recently.
After the release of my product I decided to take a 2-3 months break from working. However this has transformed into a 1.5 year break now where I've done almost nothing.
And now that sales of my infoproduct are almost non-existent, I really need to get back to work. I see basically 3 main options, but I somehow don't like any of them: a) Go back to work on my project that has 10,000 email subscribers that have not contacted in a while b) Start applying to regular jobs like Product Manager but I don't know how they are going to react to my recent experience c) Start a brand new project.
I feel lost, bored, and unmotivated. Is that what depression is? On the other hand I go out with friends, have great time with my girlfriend, I read a lot of books, I keep learning new skills, and spend way to much time on HN/reddit/youtube.
I've been in this really weird state of mind for more than a year now where I do nothing work-wise. This is obviously not sustainable, and don't know what to do to change that... Any advice?
Thanks for your help!
TL;DR: I stopped working 1.5 year ago after a successful side project, and now can't get back to work. <comment><USER2> 'Lost' is a reasonable diagnosis on its own. Depression takes many forms, but in such a situation is when you cannot bring yourself to face working again (been there).

Sounds like you've fallen out of the rhythm of work. In ways, you should count yourself lucky - very few people could afford to take 18 months off work without becoming homeless, so well done with this product you created!

Have you learned anything on your time off? Something you could use towards developing a v2.0? You could contact those 10,000 people for feedback on your initial product, see if there are any issues. If you can find a problem you can solve, getting back into work will be a snap.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is not depression, at least not as clinically defined. It just seems as though you are lacking motivation.

My best advice to you would be to continue working on your own info product or start a new one or some other software project, something you can be excited about. Your investment in it should be enough to keep you motivated whereas working for another company (at this point, based on things you've said) would mean that your only motivation is in collecting a paycheck--which will lead you to true depression.

</comment><comment><USER4> I would recommend going to see the doc for an official diagnosis. Sounds like there could be some depression or boredom in there since you lost motivation for doing something you really enjoyed doing and seem down about getting back into the game.

</comment><comment><USER5> Help others?

I'm looking for help on my side project, dev/marketing, probably someone like you. Check my about and ping me if interested. Maybe a fresh project that you find interesting would make it easier to get back to work. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why did revenue drop so suddenly? Can't you re-acquire those customers and set the ball rolling again?</comment>


The Purpose of a Development Team - <AUTHOR> https://riskfirst.org/Purpose-Development-Team <comment><USER2> Seems short on examples, but the general idea feels right. I think I spend a lot of time trying to persuade product owners _not_ to build out crazy new functionality for fear that will just confuse the UI for our existing users or casual new potential users coming for a look.

There's a lot of power in google's original concept of a single text box.</comment>


The problem with OO Languages is not the OO - <AUTHOR> http://www.rebol.com/article/0425.html

<comment><USER2> I think a problem Rebol might have is it's name sounds very outdated, like a strange cousin of COBOL.

<comment><USER3> The real problem, IMO, is that it's got some kind of closed-source licensing model. That may work for Microsoft, but not too many other people can get away with it IMO.

<comment><USER4> I used rebol 10 years ago and left it after few years because of it's closeness and artificial limitations set. The general closeness was a huge factor IMHO.

I'm back now. With direct communication between community members and REBOL author the feel of closeness is gone now even in R2 (also free versions of R2 can talk to dll/so -s now also which was the main hurdle back then).

R3 is about to fix the things discovered wrong in R2. It's development is highly interviewed with community. With very active development chat, open buglists, wiki based documentation, weekly releases, autor's blogposts that ask for opinions I can say the closeness factor isn't there any more.

I am not sure but I think in R3 everything except very narrow core of language will be open sourced.

<comment><USER5> "I am not sure but I think in R3 everything except very narrow core of language will be open sourced."

I am not sure if that would be very attractive to hackers. Why would anyone want to use a non open source language these days? Making a language closed source (even in parts) these days is to guarantee that it remains a niche language (unless it has been lucky enough to have a _lot_ of pervasive legacy code, which Rebol certainly doesn't).

I, for one, would never choose a closed source language for one of my projects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Lately I have been finding myself thinking along the same lines. Everything in moderation. There is no universal tool for anything. OO is just a tool that should be used when appropriate.

Lately I have found myself preferring to model data with OO and use procedural/functional code for the rest. This is especially handy for simple sites like feed readers, etc. Python and PHP handle switching back and forth between the two styles very easy (and acceptable).

</comment><comment><USER7> Can anyone give an example of what he means by expressions carrying an implicit environment around with them in REBOL?

<comment><USER8> My impression from this statement is that to resolve dependencies objects can/should be designed to reference the primary environment where they are to be run instead of the having these details passed per object creation and/or functions calls. I could be totally wrong but that was my first thought while reading it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am not much of a programmer, and have never understood OO development, despite a fair bit of reading. I was thinking about it earlier today, and I think part of the reason OO seems so difficult is that it does not fit human languages. Languages have separate nouns and verbs and various modifiers (adjectives/adverbs) and connectives. OO with its "unifying" attributes and methods is like a language with preformed phrases rather than words, and which can be modified in only limited, preset ways. This works much better for visual images (since it seems to be closer to how we manipulate images mentally) which makes it a better fit for GUIs.

</comment><comment><USER10> "I realize that in today's programming world, I am a heretic."

Yeah, right. Nobody ever questioned this "everything should be OO" paradigm. Except that Java was actually the last language influenced by it. Someone should tell this guy about Python, Clojure, Ocaml, Haskell or even Javascript.

<comment><USER11> No, scala was clearly sticking to the everything is an object model.

clojure, ocaml, and haskell combined have maybe 1% of the market share. This supports his point.

Javascript is widely used only because it's the only game in town for non proprietary programming on the client side. Also, most people that do heavy js try to bolt typical OO features on to javascript and are even pushing to add it to the standard.

I think is point holds. Some people have certainly questioned OO, pg is one of them, but they are clearly in the minority.

<comment><USER12> "JavaScript is widely used only because it's the only game in town for non proprietary programming on the client side. Also, most people that do heavy js try to bolt typical OO features on to JavaScript and are even pushing to add it to the standard."

Be that as it may, OO lends itself very well to UI programming. widget, containers et al. lend thenselves very well to becoming encapsulated black boxes that notify the larger system through defined event contracts to publish out changes.

I believe that the problem has historically been between the UI and business logic. UI is a natural fit for OO where as business logic is a good candidate for procedural services based workflow that expose their functionality to the UI.

The problem is alot of developers try to solution the entire problem domain with one tool a.k.a the gold hammer.

This is why I think Ajax and JavaScript coupled with toolkits like Dojo are a huge step forward they allow the UI developers to work with in the best toolthat fits their problem domain while the service developers can do the same with the best tools for that problem domain.

The nice part is that their is a hard contract between the two and you cannot cross the barrier with the other tool. As their are built on messaging JSON or XML contracts to and fro.

<comment><USER13> People have to stop conflating the concept of OOP with that of encapsulation. No one is arguing the value of encapsulated black boxes. Any good paradigm will have that concept! The question is, do you want OO-style black boxes, or functional style black boxes (ML-style modules or Haskell-style type classes)?

Functional style encapsulation is a really good contender for handling UIs, especially given the ease of use of first-class functions, and especially especially reactive programming frameworks.

<comment><USER12> The inheritance mode is natural to OO for the UI. It flows quite well and helps provide reuse of components by slighly mutating that component into new functionality. Lets take select box --> FilteringSelectBox, I reuse the select box and extend it by adding a method that captures user input runs a match on the internal data store and overrides the display to only display results that are within the partial entered text. With the addition of a method and the overriding of a display method I have created novel functionality. This is harder to reproduce in a purely procedural language.

I have been around for a while and used about all of them and I have never seen the efficiency that OO provides for UI in a non OO language.

For instance in OO I can encapsulate all functionality related to a pop up with that pop-up, so it can have a member variable of content, while also providing a show and hide method. The strong point of OO is that is is easy to encapsulate the data with the functionality (In most cases this is a bad thing but in UI, you are at the end of the rode the functionality and the data start to merge to present it to a human) and scope it so to decide the scope of that dialog, I can create and instance of that dialog and call show on that dialog, it will show that instance of the dialog.

Whereas, if I want that dialog to be a singleton and only share the reference among functionality to guarantee that there is only one true dialog, I can also do that.

Representing a black box like that in functional languages can be done, I am not saying that it cannot. I just have never seen that it is as clean as OO. Now in saying that, languages are subjective. What may be clear to me could seem obtuse to someone else.

For me though Object encapsulation and inheritance model (or mix-in / Interface) makes it far easier to slightly adapt code and make it behave well for The UI. The only other place that I have realized the benefit of OO, was in AI development. In my time as an AI developer, I can not see how we could have realized the systems that we did without OO.

Outside of those realms and a few other problem domains I question the value of OO and it's benefits are marginal at best. Structures handle everything that is needed in a great percentage of places. Though it would be nice to be able to apply Interfaces to structures.

"Functional style encapsulation is a really good contender for handling UIs, especially given the ease of use of first-class functions, and especially especially reactive programming frameworks."

I don't think you can convince me that dumping OO entirely from the UI is going to be a step forward. There is a place for procedural work-flow (I call it a page controller for web) in the UI.

That is why in my original post I was arguing for JavaScript it is actually the perfect language for UI development. It was not created by accident it directly strikes at the heart of the problem.The problem is that the browser implementation until recently have been abominable and used incorrectly it can create a mess. But the basic tenants of the language are sound.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is one of the reasons I have become a big fan of Python. It lets you easily use objects and OO concepts when they are the best approach, but it does not force you to use them when the particular problem is more functional (or even more procedural for many short, simple scripts.).

<comment><USER15> Isn't this true of any OO language? I've seen former COBOL programmers write COBOL-like code in Java. As well as C-Like code in Java. Nothing stops you from having a single java class with numerous functions at the same level and static/global variables.

<comment><USER16> But you are forced to use classes and instantiate objects, even if the resulting program you write is procedural. Languages like, say, Python, don't force you to ever declare a class.

<comment><USER15> I wouldn't recommend it, but you are only required to declare one class in a java program that contains the static "main" method. If you strictly use primitives and static methods there would be no instantiation needed.

I think the only real difference is that in python your methods would be scoped at the global level. While in a single class java program your methods would be scoped within the class.

<comment><USER16> Right, but you are required to declare a class. You are required to acknowledge that the object system exists. Python has no such requirement.

Mechanically, what can be accomplished in one language can be accomplished in the other. But that's not what this distinction is about.

<comment><USER15> The distinction I am making is based on this:

"It lets you easily use objects and OO concepts when they are the best approach, but it does not force you to use them when the particular problem is more functional (or even more procedural for many short, simple scripts.)"

I was disagreeing with the point that OO languages "force" you to use OO concepts. OO concept to me means encapsulation/inheritence/polymorphism. Java in particular does not force you to use any of these OO concepts. You do have to declare one class, but "class" in that sense is purely for scoping. You don't have to instantiate it or acknowledge its object-ness.

<comment><USER16> And my point is that while you are not forced to design an OO program, you are forced to use OO mechanics. Considering that other multiparadigm languages don't force this (C++, Python, Ruby, Perl, Objective C, Lisp), I think it's an important distinction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "At Apple ATG, I worked with many from the Xerox Smalltalk team, and we pushed for stronger models of OO within software designs. And, we resisted as much as possible the introduction of C++ , which in fact Larry Tesler jokingly called it C+- (approriate, actually.)"

I already read this (I use REBOL), this paragraph was very funny to me :)

<comment><USER17> What sort of software do you write in Rebol? I've only read about it and I find it fascinating. It'd be great to hear something from an experienced user.

<comment><USER4> my last 4 webapps are made in 100% REBOL and it's cheyenne webserver. They are <http://www.site-assistant.com> , <http://www.cebelca.biz> <http://www.qwikitodo.com> <http://www.qwikitxt.com> (last two, first two I've made are more of miniapps)</comment></comment></comment>


Police want back doors in smartphones, but who else will open them? - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/10/02/police-want-back-doors-in-smartphones-but-you-never-know-who-else-will-open-them/

<comment><USER2> The question I want to know is who has already?</comment>


Learning from the Lyft, Uber and GetAround Referral Programs - <AUTHOR> http://www.referralsaasquatch.com/3-examples-ride-sharing-customer-referral-programs/

<comment><AUTHOR> Ride-Sharing apps are no strangers to world of referral programs. They're leading the way in the sharing economy and injecting life into cities across the world. Harnessing the power of word-of-mouth is crucial for the success of these companies. Check out how they approach building their referral programs after the jump.

<comment><USER2> The incentives are nice but the "True" ride-sharing organizations would take offense to calling Uber and Lyft a ride share. They are currently defined as a TNC- Transportation Network company.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the clarification. I figured since UberX and Lyft are essentially crowd-sourcing rides that they could be called ride-sharing companies.</comment></comment></comment>


Lack of leadership in open source results in source-available licenses - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/30/lack-of-leadership-in-open-source-results-in-source-available-licenses/ <comment><USER2> I still don't understand why some people:

a) Release their work on a license that explicitly allows anyone to do anything with it, then feel betrayed when some company does exactly that.

b) Invent new licenses incompatible with anything, when GPL or AGPL would do the job just fine.

<comment><AUTHOR> +1 for (b). It is also my understanding that copyright holders can re-license their work for specific vendor, if they can reach an agreement.

This re-licensing, if my understanding is correct, will require that all copyright holders to come to an agreement, which again is a challenging task. Any idea how the dev. community tackle this problem ?

<comment><USER2> I think the core team needs to collect copyright waivers from day one, like QT or other companies offering a choice of GPL / commercial.</comment></comment></comment>


A better Google PageRank checker - <AUTHOR> http://nfriedly.com/pagerank/

<comment><USER2> _PageRank, named after Larry Page_

I always assumed it referred to web page!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've used some of these that suck a little and some that suck a lot, but I couldn't find one that I liked. So I built my own. Includes a bookmarklet for on-the-go checking ;)

<comment><USER3> i tried it and got:

A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Notice

Message: Undefined index: recent

Filename: controllers/pagerank.php

Line Number: 44 A PHP Error was encountered

Severity: Warning

Message: array_merge(): Argument #1 is not an array

Filename: controllers/pagerank.php

Line Number: 44

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you perhaps have cookies turned off? Do you mind trying again now?

It stores previous results in your session which is tracked by cookies, but I just added an explicit test to ensure that the array exists before adding the most recent result to it.</comment></comment></comment>


The Deep Sea - <AUTHOR> https://neal.fun/deep-sea/ <comment><USER2> Same variety of site: [https://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem....](https://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html)

What's common is that the vast majority of both the ocean and our solar system is just space</comment>


Is WeWork worth nearly $50bn? - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48127919 <comment><USER2> Is their position that defensible? I understand they have a lot of real estate and that offices aren't going away. But you'd imagine that startups that want to be scrappy don't want to pocket the costs for a semi-fancy space. If their market is companies that have enough funding to do this, you'd think WeWork would hit a cap pretty fast?</comment>


A box office model based just on reading a screenplay?  - <AUTHOR> http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/box-office-science/

<comment><USER2> Oh dear. That would be a fitness function to optimise against, then.

<comment><USER3> I think Hollywood is well past that point. Screenwriters have been writing what the studio execs think they can sell for a while.</comment></comment>


What Sephora Knows About Women in Tech - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-sephora-knows-about-women-in-tech-that-silicon-valley-doesnt-1507539600 <comment><USER3> The article seems to rely on a lot of people who _no longer work at Sephora_ :

Jenna Melendez

Terre Layton

Asheley Linnenbach

Nida Mitchell

At Sephora (not clear from the article, but assume so):

Mary Beth Laughton

Yvette Nichols

Also very weird, not a single _programmer_ (female or otherwise) at Sephora is quoted in the article. The only possible exception is Layton, who had an 'engineering background' but was Product Manager at Sephora.

This article does not show anything concrete about whether Sephora actually has a large percentage of female programmers, devops, or sysadmins. Neither does it say what concrete steps they took to increase the percentage (final count: 62%, but it's not at all clear from the article whether that number is limited to people who actually program or tend to programs).

The article is complete garbage, and not worthy of HN. It does not elevate or even contribute to the discussion over female participation in software development in any way.

<comment><USER4> The state of most journalism these days is sad. When they so often get it so wrong in the categories I know a lot about, it makes me feel like they get it wrong in all the categories all the time.

<comment><USER5> Michael Crichton called this the Gell-Mann amnesia effect[0].

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5203871](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5203871)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> TLDR:

>the retailer has managed to attract technical women by recruiting with an eye toward candidates' potential rather than specific skills

>"Even if a female candidate doesn't have all the requirements for a technical job, we want that person to come in and show what they can do," says Yvette Nichols, the company's vice president of talent.

They hire women without the regular qualifications and are willing to train them on the job, which is refreshing to see. It's a shame they only apply it to female candidates though.

>At Sephora, Nida Mitchell, 29, got her chance to grow into a new role when she was promoted from web developer to IT project manager after two years at the company. The new job put her in charge of 14 male engineers, most of whom were at least 10 years her senior. She encountered roadblocks on one of the team's first big projects, updating Sephora's computing infrastructure ahead of the chain's expansion to Brazil. "My first week, I had a one-on-one with my boss and said, 'No one listens to me,' " Ms. Mitchell says.

She's concerned that within a single week of being promoted above 14 male engineers that they don't take her seriously when she comparatively has very little technical background (5 months with HTML and CSS) and no management experience (per her linkedin)? The issue here isn't that she's a woman.

It's cool that women in tech roles have found a home at Sephora. Something feels a little weird seeing them about bragging about the hiring process being exclusive to women though.

<comment><USER6> >They hire women without the regular qualifications and are willing to train them on the job, which is refreshing to see. It's a shame they only apply it to female candidates though.

I'm trying to imagine what would happen if a company decided to do the opposite of this. Hires men on what they might one day do, while hiring women only on what they do right now.

How is this not outright sex based discrimination?

<comment><USER7> See my comment below for more, but essentially it is like affirmative action. Simply reversing a constraint in a vacuum removes tons of other contexts. It's not X + Y = Z, there and many more variables at play. This action is trying to balance variables outside of the control of Sephora.

<comment><USER8> > _This action is trying to balance variables outside of the control of > Sephora._

But if those variables exist in the applicant pool, they are discriminating against individual people on the basis of sex.

It is not for Sephora's (or anyone else's) recruiters to wax philosophical on what they think the statistics should look like for the population at large, when considering a candidate.

<comment><USER7> This brings into focus a very nuanced question of discrimination versus unjust discrimination. The affirmative action debate is divided by these lines. I don't think we're going to make progress on that here, but the summary is that people who agree with you believe both discriminations are unjust, while those who disagree see this discrimination as a temporary action that will lead overall to more justice long term. Along with that comes the question of consequentialism versus deontology, and if the consequential balance is accurate to the world.

> It is not for Sephora's (or anyone else's) recruiters to wax philosophical > on what they think the statistics should look like for the population at > large, when considering a candidate.

This is not a question of statistics of the population but one of morality. This is what Sephora views as acting ethically. As noted above, not all agree, but that is why they are doing this (assuming they didn't do this for PR, which would be a far stretch, even if this story itself is for PR, which I think is a case of both/and). It is the job of Sephora's recruiters to act within the company's ethics.

<comment><USER8> I am not willing to accept a principle which artificially exempts people from protection. I'm not going to protect the right to keep and bear arms _only for whites_ , or freedom of expression _only for liberal conservatives_ , the right to a fair trial _only for south asians_. Adding arbitrary, unfair stipulations to a principle defeats the purpose of having principles.

It is a broadly respected civil right not to be discriminated against on the basis of sex when being considered for a job in a role which is not reliant on sex-differentiated characteristics.

The equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment to the U.S. constitution is among the proudest arrangements of fourteen words in recent history. That is the way principles work, there's no "unless you're a homosexual" at the end, there's no "unless the allegations are recorded in the wee hours of the morning".

I don't understand how anyone could trade something as eternal and beautiful as body of principles into something as common and detestable as a body of exceptions.

<comment><USER7> There are two falsehoods your argument is presenting:

> Adding arbitrary, unfair stipulations to a principle defeats the purpose of > having principles.

> I don't understand how anyone could trade something as eternal and beautiful > as body of principles into something as common and detestable as a body of > exceptions.

Neither of these things are occurring. The argument you present is a mix of two straw man statements and a bit of slippery slope for both.

The stipulation is far from arbitrary - it's in direct response to negative discrimination at other related levels. If we are talking justice and fairness, this is a positive move to some (not all, hence grey area). Those with more opportunities inherent in a system for arbitrary reasons do not have those opportunities justly. This policy is an attempt at redistribution of arbitrarily gained opportunity.

To the second, there are many flaws. First, the original principle you listed has an exception itself ("for a job in a role which is not reliant on sex- differentiated characteristics")! Adding a stipulation is a change to the principle, not an abandonment of all principles or even the single principle itself. Exceptions are incredibly important in many cases and are not an argument against a specific exception itself. Additionally, even if we accept the arbitrary "eternal beauty" of principles, the "common detestability" of exceptions, and the binary between them, there is no requirement for all of one or the other. It's just not logically sound. We can have many of one and a few of the other, half and half, etc.

Again, I am not even staking any of these claims on the specific exception, which is a very strong moral grey area. But it's a very understandable and logically sound side. The question becomes one of restorative justice, not one of "principles and exceptions". I think your argument is playing towards a wish for the world and morality to be absolute and clear when we know the world is far from that every time we look at situations that break hard principles once held.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> When I read this article my first thought was cool, great to see women in tech. Than my first question was what is their ratio of women to men in their application process and how does it compare to the industry ratio?

I suspect that because of the nature of their business less men apply compared to woman in relation to the industry average. As a person I apply to companies I am interested in and would not see myself applying to work at Sephora currently. I would see myself applying to mlb.tv for example since I like baseball.

edit: s/ration/ratio/

<comment><USER4> I'm a guy but I have a woman's name, I wonder if that would give me an advantage in the hiring process?

<comment><USER9> That is a really interesting thought. My wife, a R.N. has a male name and she wonders if she easily received interviews after graduation due to the same. There are few males in nursing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> the article doesnt mention this but I will ask ... does sephora attract more female candidates because it is a very popular makeup brand?

Or perhaps do they also get less male applicants because it is a female dominant brand?

""Everyone spoke," she says, "and felt comfortable offering opinions on anything from e-commerce to a shade of blush.""

For me as a male I would not feel comfortable offering my opinions on a shade of blush. I am not offended by this -- I just have zero experience with blush.

Am I sexist because I wouldnt want to work there but also can see why women would be more successful there in tech-centric roles?

<comment><USER4> Their "tech team" includes the content producers/writers/managers/web marketing for their website, which I suspect is a sizable (if not majority) chunk. It's not really comparable to a software-heavy company having a 62% female tech team. So yes, it makes sense that having people who are traditionally much more interested in make up would be attracted to these positions.

<comment><USER11> I'd be interested to see how their dev team (split out from frontend/backend/fullstack) compares to the rest of the industry. I've worked at a lot of companies that were at least close to 50/50 if you counted all of marketing as "tech".

<comment><USER4> I worked in a tech team at a company and only 3 out of maybe 15 people did programming above HTML/CSS/jQuery. At least a third were just management.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> They do realize that once you pass 50% females you actually start to become less diverse, right?

With 74% females they are as diverse as a 26% female company. I'm positive that's pretty damn far from setting any diversity records.

</comment><comment><USER13> The comparison to Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon makes no sense. ASAIK Sephora is not a tech company, I found nothing made by them on GitHub. Can you think of any tech developed by Sephora?

<comment><USER14> Open source contribution does not indicate that is a company is or is not a 'tech company'.

<comment><USER13> Sure, but the best tech company do contribute to OSS, and this article specifically compare Sephora to those (software) company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "How Sephora used sexism to achieve a 60% female tech team"

Seriously this screams of sexism but what I'm most troubled about is hiring inexperienced people and putting them in charge of seasoned teams. I've seen* too many attempts at this and it rarely works.

</comment><comment><USER16> "At Sephora, Nida Mitchell, 29, got her chance to grow into a new role when she was promoted from web developer to IT project manager after two years at the company. The new job put her in charge of 14 male engineers"

How are they defining "tech role" exactly, is it that most of the developers are male, but "tech sales", "tech marketing", "tech product management", "tech PM" roles are female?

Is this merely a case of a company run by women, with a bias toward hiring and promoting women?

That's perhaps not unlike other companies run by men, so I guess it balances, but it's hardly a new model that everyone should emulate.

</comment><comment><USER17> What is the definition of winning here?

</comment><comment><USER18> > Managers say the retailer has managed to attract technical women by > recruiting with an eye toward candidates' potential rather than specific > skills

Lmfao. So essentially what they're saying is a woman would be chosen over a more highly qualified man simply because she has a vagina.

How is this not sexism?

<comment><USER19> I'm not sure how you're reading this to get that take away. Hiring for potential is what you want to do – what matters is what someone _will_ do, not what they've done in the past. Obviously past accomplishments are an indicator.

<comment><USER18> Because they say they've managed to attract WOMEN this way, instead of PEOPLE. To me this implies that they judge men differently, in order to fulfill their bullshit gender quota.

<comment><USER19> They're saying that their emphasis on doing it this way has helped avoid the traps everyone else is falling into.

<comment><USER18> Which traps are you referring to? The trap of hiring candidates based on their qualifications?

<comment><USER20> qualifications which can be harder for women to obtain in the first place since they might be passed over as a result of being women.

<comment><USER18> This is computer programming we're talking about. This is probably _the_ easiest field to get into if you're willing to teach yourself. Literally all of the information you could ever want about programming is available for free online.

<comment><USER21> I believe a better barrier to entry to focus on would be the representation of women in tech rather than qualifications. Symlinkk, I agree with you regarding this comment.

I also believe that computer programming is the easiest field to find out if someone who is in charge of hiring is potentially biased. For example, you can have two candidates - candidate A who is a white male and candidate B who is a woman of color. If candidate B does better on the technical interview (all of her answers are more efficient, she answered the questions faster than candidate A), but candidate A gets chosen then it's easy to call out bias. That's an aspect of programming jobs that I love - that all of it is based on your qualifications rather than outside factors (of course that depends on who is hiring you and the company).

The real issue is getting women and people of color to want to get into tech in the first place. For some people, when making a career choice they look towards representation within that field. For some people, this might deter them. When you've been faced with microaggressions most of your life in certain spaces then you might want to avoid those spaces. For example, there was an article on HN a while back about women in technical lead roles. Within that article there was the story of a latina woman who is a head researcher and she has gotten asked often / people have assumed that she is the cleaning lady of the building. In my own experience I'm a mixed person and I've faced a ton of microaggressions that have made me uncomfortable in places I've been - like people asking me "Where are you from" and I tell them I'm from <insert state here> and then they reply with, "Where are you REALLY from?." That question has always made me feel like I'm not supposed to be in America - <USER2> I'm unexpected and I've deviated from the norm.

I'd suggest checking out [https://www.devcolor.org/](https://www.devcolor.org/) and reading some of the personal stories of black software engineers. It's really enlightening to read about some of the microaggressions they've faced in the work place and how that has affected their career.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> How is deliberate over-representation of a particular gender "diversity"? Is this over-representation what we're trying to fix with "diversity"?

</comment><comment><USER8> Step 1: Be a famous cosmetics retail company.

Step 2: Consider more of your employees to be on the "tech team" than other firms do.

Step 3: Lower the recruiting bar for one sex and not the other, potentially in contravention of the law.

Just another corporate circle jerk.

</comment><comment><USER23> They didn't beat anyone, they just flipped men to the minority.

Good for them I guess.

</comment><comment><USER24> From pictures (even on google search) this company seems white only. No people of color, muslim, LGBTQ+, disabled...

<comment><USER4> A common issue in corporate environments: [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_tmHvZRKFMM/maxresdefault.jpg](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/_tmHvZRKFMM/maxresdefault.jpg)

Female-heavy workplaces to me have the connotation of being especially white.</comment></comment>


Review HN: Feedback Army - <AUTHOR>

I thought I'd try out feedback army on my new marketing website. To ensure that what I'd written was in line with what users understood it as.
For $10 you get 10 people to anonymously browse your site.
You give it a URL, and you can ask the users upto six questions, the default questions are pretty great. Along the lines of "what is the site about? how does it work? how do you get it?" etc.
I expected them to give one liners - but holy cow, I got entire paragraphs. They left comments on blog posts, they clicked and interacted with every element.
I guess the "negatives" to this is you can't guarantee quality testers - do I know if they even checked my site?" I used clicktale to track where they clicked, and you can even reject reviews that are nonsense.
I've only got 8/10 "reviews" so far, and they're really excellent. I'll be doing it again before we post it on Hacker News :)
http://feedbackarmy.com
I'm not affiliated in anyway... maybe this was the startup I inspired, thinking about it, I'll have to check Hacker News archives, I just thought you guys would appreciate this service.
too lazy to read: for $10 you get 10 users to beta test your site, and they answer your questions about your site. <comment><USER2> Feedback Army was actually inspired by an HN post a long time ago. I wrote (and submitted) some history on it, here: [http://killall.dashnine.org/2009/06/how-to-find-new- startup-...](http://killall.dashnine.org/2009/06/how-to-find-new-startup- ideas/)

That said, I'm an HN user too. If anyone has any questions you can contact me via the site, call the number, or send a carrier pigeon.

Thanks for the review too. Always appreciated.

P.S. I just found the original thread, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=362459> yes pcclark, you and a few others were the inspiration for this project.

<comment><USER3> I discovered something new today with vhosts.

I clicked your link to feedback army from your dashnine page, and it took me to AtD:

<http://www.feedbackarmy.com./>

(Thought you might like to know - click the link!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think I'd always choose UserTesting ( <http://www.usertesting.com/> ) over this. You get the same kind of feedback, can ask questions/give tasks, and you get to see/hear them go through the site in real time.

I'm not affiliated with UserTesting, except as a customer.

<comment><USER5> I wholly agree with you on the benefits of watching a user interact with your site, but I find Userfly : www.userfly.com 's delivery model to be more cost- effective. HUGE con against userfly is no user narrative, this proves to be a big downfall when it comes to iterative development, because correlation =! causation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yeah, I've used it too. Got great feedback and it only took about 3 hrs to get all 10 responses. Definitely worth $10.

<comment><USER7> Seconded. Cheap, fast and was blown away by the quality of the feedback.

<comment><USER8> only issue is people aren't going to create an account and give you the feedback you really need - inside your site. Homepage/etc feedback is easy to come by, by comparison.

That being said I have used Feedback Army once before months ago and received decent to good feedback quality. I guess I just need to ask better questions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Excellent for initial usability testing.

The only gripe I have with crowd sourcing apps is the inability to distinguish those who write truthfully vs who lie (they might write legibly to get their response accepted, but the response is a lie). It's not a problem with this service, just a nasty side effect of the crowd sourcing and using people.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've read about this a few times, but never really knew what the quality would be like. It's good to hear it's pretty well done.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've only used it once previously, but I was also surprised at the verbosity of the responses. (both a good and bad thing)

</comment><comment><USER11> I saw one example result that said the user came from "Turk". Presumably, the site just generates ten Mechanical Turk tasks that pay, say, 75 cents, and keeps the other 25 cents for itself. I wonder if you could just put the tasks up yourself and get the same reviews cheaper, or if the site does something more than this.

<comment><USER2> I address this on the FBA FAQ, question 10: <http://www.feedbackarmy.com/questions.slp>

In short, here is the value add of Feedback Army:

\- it's easier to get started with and use \- results are available as an RSS feed \- FBA worker form now has built-in grammar and spell check courtesy of <http://www.afterthedeadline.com>

If you don't like a response you get, it's a one click rejection process. Mechanical Turk lets you reject responses too, but it's a few more clicks/pages than one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> You know what else what be a cool service for them to offer? Feedback from _experts_. Obviously it'd be more expensive, but if you could submit the site to be reviewed by a panel of UI experts, software engineers, etc., I think that'd be a pretty worthwhile service as well, especially for startups.

<comment><USER13> For the slightly-more-expert take, you might like a site like this (seems like 99 designs but for usability reviews):

<http://usabilitytest.com/>

Also I saw this service advertised before:

<http://www.usabilityfeedback.com/>

I've never used either of those, but I have used Feedback Army and can recommend it as a way to get sanity checks with multiple people. Sometimes it's hard to tell if a certain stock photo is "creepy" unless you launch or use a service like FA, so it ends up being well worth such a low fee (for us anyway).

<comment><USER14> This may come off as corny but - who is more expert than real internet users?

\- I suggest that by being an "expert" (whatever that means) you would have too much 'domain knowledge' to know what would work best from the average internet user.

\- sounds like the biased sample fallacy <http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/biased-sample.html>

\- I think best idea would be for a/b split testing perhaps using the 'army' to configure your different tests..

<comment><USER12> What I meant by "experts" is people who could look at your site and give it a quick lookover according to their specialty. Web software engineers might look at a site and see code that doesn't validate, or AJAX that could be optimized a bit; UI designers might suggest that you reorder some of the buttons on your page for better ease of use, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It was vexing that the "3. See results!" link does not point to the example results page. I tend to read stenciled-text graphics last.

Feeding back the feedbackers.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll blog my results

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Used it before and got great feedback. Highly recommended, but I think when we did it initially it was slightly cheaper. Still very much a bargain.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> ah, this was the original "introducing feedback army!" thread (not by me, but I guess I'm inadvertently connected..) : <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=785489>

<comment><USER16> infinite loop!</comment></comment>


Sugar Nanny -Tracks your sugar-level and provides insulin recommendations - <AUTHOR> http://devpost.com/software/sugar-nanny <comment><AUTHOR> Sorry guys, last link didn't let you view the submission. Posting again!</comment>


Dead Bodies Captured By Brazil's Google Street View Debut - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/01/google-street-view-brazil/

<comment><USER2> Holly shit, Brazil has a extremely high homicide rate:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homicide_r...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_homicide_rate)

I knew it'd be high, but I didn't think it was going to be 5 times the homicide rate in the USA (with all those gun nuts). Time to move out here (I live in Brazil).

<comment><USER3> Do you have any data that shows the rate of homicides committed by "gun nuts" is higher than for other people? There are a lot of people in the US who like guns, but as far as I can tell gun hobbyists are much less likely to kill people than the general populace.

<comment><USER2> I didn't say that the homicides are committed by "gun nuts". Among the dangers of having a gun is that if you're robbed, you may be killed because you have a gun (you don't even need to react) or have your gun stolen and be used in a homicide. Not to mention accidents involving guns.

"The Victim Survey (NCVS) estimates that there were 341,000 incidents of firearm theft from private citizens annually from 1987-92.":

[http://www.firearmsid.com/Feature%20Articles/0900GUIC/Guns%2...](http://www.firearmsid.com/Feature%20Articles/0900GUIC/Guns%20Used%20in%20Crime.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I just wonder what is the criteria for the pictures: it's obvious that there aren't real people manually selecting the pictures, but couldn't the driver flag a location as "inapropriate" since he was right there when it hapenned?

So yeah, I still expect to see a lot of bizarre pictures around.</comment>


Amazon is building a game streaming service to rival Google and Microsoft - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/gaming/2019/01/11/amazon-is-reportedly-building-a-game-streaming-service-to-rival-google-and-microsoft/ <comment><USER2> Wouldn't this be redundant, as Amazon has already bought out Twitch?

<comment><USER3> I think the article is talking about streaming a game like a movies from netflix. Instead buying and downloading the game you can just play the games while you have a subscription.

Just more rent seeking software as service bullshit if you ask me.</comment></comment>


Randi Zuckerberg Leaves Facebook to Start New Social Media Firm - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20110803/exclusive-randi-zuckerberg-leaves-facebook-to-start-new-social-media-firm-resignation-letter/

<comment><AUTHOR> " _I am thankful for the strong mentorship, guidance, and support, which is empowering me to follow my dreams and show that you don't have to be an engineer to be a hacker._ "

<comment><USER2> My cleaning lady is a hacker now. So is the garbageman.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What would Randi Zuckerberg be doing if her brother didn't "invent" facebook?</comment>


Avoiding divs to make multiple columns using CSS3 property - <AUTHOR> http://www.dzyngiri.com/index.php/css3-multiple-columns/

<comment><USER2> A site giving a whizzy CSS example with no demo?

<comment><USER3> It's a w3schools bait post.</comment></comment>


I'm Ending my GitHub Streak after 844 Days (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://goel.io/github-streak/ <comment><USER2> Curiously, it seems a big chunk of those contributions are now gone, or perhaps the GitHub contribution counting method changed: [https://i.imgur.com/pHQKT1R.png](https://i.imgur.com/pHQKT1R.png)</comment>


Ask HN: R or other non-Python languages for data science work - <AUTHOR> Hi fellow HN-ers,<p>Wondering if anyone knows any companies that use R and other non-Python languages for non-academic data science work? <comment><USER2> Where I work atm (it's a big corporation) we use about 50% R, 50% Python - it's up to the data scientist. It might be 40% R, 60% Python these days.

Honestly, you could use Julia or FORTRAN or whatever you want so long as you get the work done.

I use Python though.</comment>


Thank god I didn't get accepted into "Glass Explorers" - <AUTHOR> http://www.stefankendall.com/2013/04/thank-god-i-didnt-get-accepted-into.html

<comment><USER2> Jesus christ. Calm down. They didn't say forever, and said it would likely change.

They obviously don't want ad-ridden software in the alpha period to give the product a bad name.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was enjoying this viewpoint until all the f bombs. I'm just as guilty in day to day conversation but this opinion would be way stronger if it dropped the arbitrary tone. Just a thought. I hadn't thought of the marketplace effects of no fees. They're kinda stunting the growth.

</comment><comment><USER4> Yeah, you sound like you're still bitter about not getting in.

It's been pretty clear that their early adopter program is not designed for the mass market by definition. Given how few people will have devices, you'd never make enough money to cover development time. It's not about money-making apps. Yet.</comment>


Free-Electron Laser - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-electron_laser <comment><AUTHOR> Excerpt:

"The free-electron laser is _tunable_ and has the widest frequency range of any laser type,[3] currently ranging in wavelength from microwaves, through terahertz radiation and infrared, to the visible spectrum, ultraviolet, and X-ray.[4]"</comment>


The Milky Way Halo - <AUTHOR> https://armchairastronautics.blogspot.com/p/milky-way-halo.html <comment><USER2> I'd love to see also a mouse-rotatable 3D model of this.

</comment><comment><USER3> It would be interesting to see the same post in 20 billion years if cosmic expansion continues.

<comment><USER4> Metric expansion only has an effect on structures larger than galaxies, so there should be no difference in 20by as a result of it. Eventually if it continues distant galaxies will redshift to black, but the Milky Way itself won't be torn apart.</comment></comment>


Watch a Guy Shoot Invasive Lionfish with a Glock 9mm - <AUTHOR> https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a23034/how-to-get-rid-of-invasive-lionfish-shoot-them-with-a/ <comment><USER2> Interesting muzzle device, definitely makes sense that this method of removing lionfish is more efficient and cost-effective (less time to actually kill and remove invasive fish / more kills per hour) than spear-fishing.</comment>


"I have already used the name for my programming language" (2009) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/golang/go/issues/9 <comment><USER2> Note this is from 2009 (before Go was on GitHub, and thus the gopherbot comment imports).

Apple ran into a similar issue with Swift.

 _" Looking for the Swift parallel scripting language? Please visit [http://swift-lang.org](http://swift-lang.org) "_

[https://developer.apple.com/swift/](https://developer.apple.com/swift/)

<comment><USER3> Like Go, Swift is a terrible name for a programming language.

<comment><USER4> Why? Because it's a common word and difficult to google? I refer you to Java, Python, Ruby, Scheme, Forth, and Lisp.

<comment><USER5> I googled a few of those (including go and swift) and the first result was always about the programming language. I would expect that most people googling "go" would actually like to know about the game (and same for ruby- the stone, python-the snake, and so on).

<comment><USER6> Beware that Google is tailoring the results to what it knows about you. If I Google "swift" from a normal window, Apple's main Swift page is the first hit. If I do it from an incognito window, the first hit is the bank transfer provider.

Of course, most people who are looking for the programming language will probably be known to Google to be interested in that, so the result isn't necessarily invalid, but neither is it universal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I mean these things are bound to happen. He does not have a trademark.

This is _not_ free advertising. Imagine someone bought his book thinking its for google's "go" language. That is not a happy customer, that is an upset one who wants a refund.

It would only be right for google to reach out and at least start a discussion. If they don't sounds like they are just in the mindset of "we're google, we do what we want" (which is kinda of not too far from the truth)

<comment><USER8> Sure he has a trademark. Its just not registered. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unregistered_trademark](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unregistered_trademark)

<comment><USER9> Not my area of expertise, but I'd think "Go" would be very difficult to trademark given it's a generic term.

<comment><USER10> It's not very generic for a name. Remember "That's hot" got trademarked successfully.

<comment><USER11> Lets face it, golang has a lot of problems with generics..

<comment><USER9> Wow, I didn't even see it coming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> "Go" is a terrible name, by the way. Google's own programming language is by far the worst language to search on Google.

<comment><USER12> >Google's own programming language is by far the worst language to search on Google.

I always found this somewhat ironic.

It seems that when a language is mistakenly given a unsearchable name (go & rust I'm looking at you) then searching with lang after works better (golang).

They should have just called it golang and been done with it.

<comment><USER13> _They should have just called it golang and been done with it._

Yep. For the life of me, I don't understand why they didn't either do that, or change the name to "Issue 9".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Status changed to Unfortunate.

Wonderful.

<comment><USER15> There are 160 issues labeled "Unfortunate."

<comment><USER16> I think all but two are related to golang. The other two issues are attached to some project named iris.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you value uniqueness, don't name your stuff with the 49th most common English word.

<comment><USER5> Exactly. And I would suggest avoiding 2 letter words as well :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If you don't know who McCabe is, he was most know for his software change control, TrueChange[0] .. which was a huge pain in our development process ;)

0: [http://www.mccabe.com/cm.htm](http://www.mccabe.com/cm.htm)

</comment><comment><USER18> Looks kind of similar to the situation where Apple released their Swift while there already was a language with that name [1]:

1: [http://swift-lang.org/main/](http://swift-lang.org/main/)

<comment><USER19> At least Apple acknowledged that their was another language named Swift.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Ironically Googlers could not google the name before picking it for their new language.

</comment><comment><USER21> Go could consider renaming themselves to GoGo, GoScript, Gopher, Go Jr, or Go Starship.

<comment> rm_-rf_slash GoGoGadgetPrintln?

<comment><USER22> I would totally support a language where all basic statements are methods of an object called GoGoGadget.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> ThoughtWorks also have a continuous delivery platform called Go[1].

[1] [http://www.go.cd/](http://www.go.cd/)

</comment><comment><USER24> Considering this is 6 years old, I think the general rule is you have to actively work to protect your IP or you lose it. Unless this guy got some lawyers, I don't think there's much to be said here...

</comment><comment><USER25> It's also a board game.

[http://senseis.xmp.net/?Go](http://senseis.xmp.net/?Go)

But Google already knows that. The game has been played for more than 4000 years.

<comment><USER26> It's actually two board games. There's also Waddington's Go: [http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/7097/go-international- tra...](http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/7097/go-international-travel-game)

Which proves Francis McCabe's point. Before naming something, it's a good idea to see if someone's already given something in the same category (a board game, a programming language) the name you thought of. And nowadays, we have search engines such as Google that can be used for this ... which Google could have used.

It's now also a good idea to make sure your name is easily searchable. Go is a common stop word ... so maybe that's why Go! failed to show up when searched for?

The decent thing for Google to do is to return McCabe's language in search results if the user types in Go! with the exclamation mark. It has no trouble returning the programming languages when C, lisp, or basic are entered. Better still would be to rename their language to Golang, its alternative name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Not sure what the submitter's intention is in linking a 5 year old bug report.

An issue that's easy to form a drive-by opinion on, so, bikeshedding fodder?

</comment><comment><USER28> From 2009.

</comment><comment><USER29> Change it to golang. They're already using that commonly.

</comment><comment><USER30> go-one go-two

</comment><comment><USER30> go two</comment>


Show HN: Cloujera – fine-grained search for spoken words in Coursera's videos - <AUTHOR> http://cloujera.clojurecup.com/

<comment><USER2> Was hoping this would link to the point in time in the video, but apparently it just matches hits in transcripts with link to the (entire) video? If there are no timing information in the transcripts, I guess that's understandable... but it is a little underwhelming (we've been doing searching of plain text for a while...).

<comment><AUTHOR> we've built it in 48 hours and there was no time for that. But it was in the plans..

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Looks like the repo is here: [https://github.com/clojurecup2014/cloujera](https://github.com/clojurecup2014/cloujera)

Looking forward to checking it out.

</comment><comment><USER4> It can't find any course related to 'Scala' whereas I can find courses on the Coursera's website. FYI.

<comment><AUTHOR> Since this was for clojurecup, we have decided to remove all references to Scala. :P

On a more serious note, we've only indexed ~25 courses and probably the ones you refer to weren't among them; if you have a particular course in mind, tell me, I'll fire up the scraper..

<comment><USER5> Functional Programming Principles in Scala and Principles of Reactive Programming are hits I would expect.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, I'll add them tonight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> spoken words...? so we are searching the audio of the lectures?

how were you able to access the coursera videos without registering?

<comment><USER7> Registering is free and transcripts are provided for each lecture.</comment></comment>


Wag, the Dog-Walking Service, Lands $300M from SoftBank Vision Fund - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/01/30/business/dealbook/softbank-vision-fund-wag.html?%E2%80%AC <comment><USER2> Isn't this service plagued by the same issues that brought down Homejoy? If I find a local dog walker that I like through this service I'd just get their phone number and pay them in cash.</comment>


New iPad is unbeatable - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2012/03/new_ipad_how_apple_s_tablet_strategy_parallels_its_unbeatable_ipod_success_.html <comment><USER2> There is another thread - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3684624></comment>


Nationwide 5G to cover all 24 square miles of San Marino - <AUTHOR> http://www.rcrwireless.com/20170717/5g/nationwide-5g-san-marino-tag17 <comment><USER2> Telecom Italia is well-known to manage noteworthy pilot projects. But the company often fails in making these excellences the norm.

For the mobile network:

\- the coverage of 4G is ... scarce

> In Italy, almost all of the population can benefit from mobile Internet > connectivity services over the 2G network, namely Global System for Mobile > Communications (GSM), GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) and EDGE (Enhanced > Data rates For GSM Evolution). Next to the full coverage is HSPA (High Speed > Packet Access) technology, while the implementation of HSPA + (HSPA > Evolution) and 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) solutions is still to be > completed. [[https://www.sostariffe.it/news/copertura-rete-mobile-in- > ital...](https://www.sostariffe.it/news/copertura-rete-mobile-in- > italia-140743/)]

\- the practice of trying to force users into accepting bundles that include online streaming of music and/or movies, subscriptions to the fixed network, newspapers, movie tickets, various amenities is hated by many. [[https://www.tim.it](https://www.tim.it)]

\- not having a internet-dedicated monthly fee is a lack, especially given the exaggerated costs in exchange for a low data threshold

For the fixed network:

\- having a guaranteed minimum bandwidth is a utopia and the real upload bandwidth is around 20% of the declared

\- the depeering has been dictated by anti-competitive strategies rather than technical reasons [[http://blog.bofh.it/id_432](http://blog.bofh.it/id_432)]

<comment><USER3> > For the fixed network: - having a guaranteed minimum bandwidth is a utopia > and the real upload bandwidth is around 20% of the declared

Source? That's a rather bold claim. Are you talking about guaranteed bandwidth, or rather connection speed? What's usually really bad here is the "last mile".

In my (little) experience the upload bandwidth (connecting at 15M/768k) has always been respected (Source: running an e-commerce business for 12 years). Of course YMMV.

<comment><USER2> "YMMV" Indeed! As far as I know the business traffic is prioritised. That doesn't mean it's the average for home connections (the majority of users/customers).

> The transmission speed is up to 7 Mbps in download and up to 384 Kbps in > upload. Pursuant to Article 7, paragraph 4 of AGCom 244/08 / CSP Resolution, > the value of the minimum download speed for download of the service is 6.4 > Mbps. This value derives from measurements made in the second half of 2012 > on lines (1) which are between 1000 and 1500 meters from the central > station. It should be noted that this value refers to the exclusive use of > the ADSL connection for Internet access without the simultaneous use of VoIP > or IPTV services. In any case, the value of the minimum transmission speed > in download that represents the target value on which Telecom Italia > contractually contracts is set at 2.1 Mbps. For the lines located in the > areas included in the Anti-digital divide project (see www.telecomitalia.it > in the Info Consumers section - Anti-digital project divides the list of > municipalities with a rated transmission speed of 640 Kbps download and 256 > Kbps in upload ) Contract engagement is set at 300 Kbps in download and 100 > kbps in upload. For details, see the contractual terms. > [[https://www.tim.it/offerte/fisso/internet-voce-e- > timvision/a...](https://www.tim.it/offerte/fisso/internet-voce-e- > timvision/adsl/internet-senza-limiti)]

"Are you talking about guaranteed bandwidth, or rather connection speed?" The upload bandwidth I normally have is the guaranteed minimum. Whether it's because of the last mile or the network congestion, I do not know.

Now, we are in the cloud era, suppose you try to upload an hd picture, or a long document somewhere (side note: this is an average use case, not something you should expect from a power user). For a file size of 10MiB [83886.08 Kb] (again, nothing exaggerated) at a transfer rate of 100kbps the transfer will take 838s: just slightly under a quarter of an hour !!! IMHO this is totally unreasonable.

My position is that the company is what remains of a former state monopoly, which still holds a dominant position in the telecommunications market. Unfortunately for the users, this is why there has been no incentive to improve the network over time (for everyone, doing some localised research project is insufficient), and today the situation is not the best.

Telecom Italia is not a company like the others: it's allowed to do many things that others cannot do, including harassing people at every hour of the day for selling their new snake oil with a crazy new discount (taking the money spent on the salaries of the people workin in the call centers and investing them in improving the network is the first thing to do).

The 20% is what I'm experiencing in one of my connections, but you do not have to take my word for it, a quick web search is going to show you relevant results:

[http://forum.telefonino.net/showthread.php?t=402839](http://forum.telefonino.net/showthread.php?t=402839) [https://www.tomshw.it/forum/threads/telecom-upload- basso.247...](https://www.tomshw.it/forum/threads/telecom-upload- basso.247557/) [http://www.evilripper.net/adsl-telecom-italia-1-megabyte- in-...](http://www.evilripper.net/adsl-telecom-italia-1-megabyte-in-upload/) [https://www.tomshw.it/forum/threads/banda-in- upload.69639/](https://www.tomshw.it/forum/threads/banda-in-upload.69639/) [http://forum.telefonino.net/archive/index.php?t-402839.html](http://forum.telefonino.net/archive/index.php?t-402839.html) ... and many others ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is neat and all, but no LTE standard has been tapped for 5G. LTE Advanced Pro (the third generation of the LTE spec) is the closest to having a spec that can work for 5G, but has not yet been chosen for that.

In addition, it is implied that 5G will require usage of 28, 37, and 39 GHz, which LTE Advanced Pro does not currently have profiles for.

What San Marino is doing is building a current gen 4G network (ie, 4.9G or whatever they're calling it), allowing as many feature of LTE Advanced as possible (including complex MIMO), so in a few years most cell phones will have caught up to make effective use of it.

Also, as a side note, LTE Advanced Pro was introduced in 3GPP release 13 (early 2016), and anything that meets the requirements for 5G will not be until release 15 (most likely next year).

</comment><comment><USER5> This looks like a really cool testbed for 5G. No tall buildings for you to put in 5G repeaters / femtocells. No bureaucracy for you to jump hoops. Small enough that deployment wouldn't be that big of a problem. Large enough to actually do real world tests with phones. Is Nokia (Alcatel-Lucent) doing the deployment because I wouldn't be surprised if they did.

<comment><USER6> I agree that this is a good test for 5G, but it's even more important that 5G work well in dense urban areas where there are tall buildings, and hundreds (if not thousands) of users connecting to each cell.

<comment><USER5> Your missing the point . They would do urban settings as a next step.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Summary: _Nationwide 5G coverage in the microstate of San Marino, a 24-square- mile microstate totally surrounded by Italy._

</comment><comment><USER8> That's great. Even 3G/4G in San Marino has been rather flimsy so far.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's not completely new, I live near San Marino and I remember that around 2010 they had set up a full WiMAX coverage.

ISTR it suffered from somewhat high latency though.

</comment><comment><USER10> All 24 of them? How did they pull it off?

</comment><comment><USER11> This is true 5G. Not the fake ATT 5G. I saw neowin.net taking a stance against fakes by labelling ATT 5G as "fake 5G" clearly in their title. I hope we all do the same until ATT & co stop misleading their customers leading to eventual confusion for everyone.

</comment><comment><USER12> Meanwhile in the Tesla/SpaceX corner we have space based broadband just around the corner:

[https://hackernoon.com/will-spacex-become-the-worlds- biggest...](https://hackernoon.com/will-spacex-become-the-worlds-biggest- telecoms-provider-probably-f1cdb22d00cc)

With nearby Tesla cars and SolarCity roofs giving your phone 5g with 25ms latency. It could happen. Soon you will be able to buy a VPS in space to halve that.

One day this space based network is going to come online and it will supercede many terrestrial upgrades, making things like the TelCo 5G roll out not needed after all.

<comment><USER13> > Soon you will be able to buy a VPS in space to halve that.

Maybe if you migrate it every 5 minutes. Otherwise it's spending half its life on the other side of the planet.

<comment><USER14> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geostationary_orbit)

<comment><USER15> Geostationary orbit is more than 25msec away.

<comment><USER16> First hop on my ADSL connection is 43msec away (RTT).

<comment><USER13> Yeah, that sort of thing is annoying, but it could be improved down to 4 if they actually cared much.

The point here is that going to geostationary is at least a quarter second round-trip, and blows the 25ms estimate out of the water. You can put servers in orbit if you really want to, but you can't have a satellite that's both fast to access and also in range for more than a few minutes at a time.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Self-contained Redis server - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/robinmonjo/sc-redis

<comment><USER2> This is an interesting idea, but if you're shipping all the container code and the image inside the binary, I'm not sure how much you gain over just shipping a precompiled binary of redis itself. At best, you're baking in the config you want, but with the work being done here you could just patch in your desired config options into the redis binary.

libcontainer explicitly doesn't claim security as a feature, so you aren't getting real security wins by doing this, especially when you can put a static redis process in cgroups and limit it down with SELinux or similar anyways, and the packaging/distribution workflow is pretty much the same as pushing a static redis around.

I feel like I'm missing something; can the author or some other knowledgable soul point out the upsides of packaging a service like this?

<comment><USER3> agreed - redis is a single binary with minimal dependencies, this seems like so much more work for no gain.

<comment><USER2> I'm comparing "statically compiled redis" with "statically compiled libcontainer + redis container", which appears to be what this is. I can see a lot of benefits for statically compiling something, redis included, I just don't see what the addition of libcontainer provides.

<comment><AUTHOR> It provides just as much addition as running redis in a docker container. As for the "libcontainer explicitly doesn't claim security as a feature" do you have a source for this I'm curious ? Running things in containers provide isolation and should provide an extra layer of security (I no expert so prove me I'm wrong :) ). In the future it can provide resources isolation (CPU, memory ...). Also, at scale, I don't know anyone who is ready to setup namespaces and stuff manually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is Redis not already self contained?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well not really as it doesn't run in a container. Might be a static binary though. Sure sc-redis could make much more sense for something that is really hard to setup (sc-<dependency-heavy-thing-here>).</comment></comment>


How to disinfect (not just "clean") a touchscreen - <AUTHOR> http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/how-do-i-disinfect-my-ipad-iphone-droid-cell-phone-touchscreen-etc/ <comment><USER2> According to Apple, alcohol should not be used on an iPad. iPads have an oleophobic coating for repelling oil. Each application of alcohol will cause significant degradation of the oleophobic coating. For more information, see: <http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3226>

<comment><USER3> likely dangerous for most android phones too, alcohol could stain/cloud plastic screens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> iPhones have the same coating as well. Maybe the "grime" this person noticed on the cleaning pad was the coating!</comment>


Six Ways to Boost Brainpower: Exercise, Diet, Stimulants, Video Games, Music, & Meditation - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=six-ways-to-boost-brainpower&print=true <comment><USER2> > Luckily for babies, breast milk is 50 percent fat.

My memory and Wikipedia (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_milk#Composition>) disagree. It about a magnitude lower than that. (In humans that is, of course. Not that breast milk is therefore bad.)

And that is so easy to check. Wonder what other tidbits of facts are wrong? Not that the gist of the article is therefore bad, but I think it better not to mention facts rather then mentioning wrong ones.

<comment><USER3> Usually when people state that a food is X% fat, they are talking about its nutritional information values, and your link does in fact confirm that about 50% of the calories derived from breast milk come from fat:

 _"Human milk contains 0.8% to 0.9% protein, 3% to 5% fat, 6.9% to 7.2% carbohydrates"_

Excluding alcohol, essentially 100% of the calories of any food come from those three macronutrients-- 4Kcal per gram of protein or carbohydrate and 9Kcal per gram of fat.

9(3 to 5) / (9(3 to 5)+4((.8 to .9) + (6.9 to 7.2))) = 45% to 59%

Assuming the data in the wiki you linked to is correct, 45% to 59% of breast milk is fat, in nutritionist lingo.

<comment><USER4> You are correct. One example that makes it obvious:

Take 100 calories of lettuce (which is quite a lot).

Now take 100 calories of oil (which is not much at all).

Combine the two into a salad, which contains 200 calories and 50% of calories from fat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I made an iPhone application for me cause most exercise apps are for gym rats, overly complicated and I just don't have time for a gym nor interested in looking bulky and lifting weights. I was inspired after using HundredPushups.

I'm blogging the progress of the "Hacker Workout" — speaking of, today I'm suppose to workout!

Week 1 results <http://saltlicklabs.com/pow-3-week-challenge/>

Week 2 <http://saltlicklabs.com/pow-3-week-challenge-2/>

<comment><USER6> XML Parsing Error: syntax error Location: <http://saltlicklabs.com/pow-3-week- challenge/> Line Number 1, Column 1:4ffc ^

<comment><USER5> hmmm that's weird. it's not doing it for me in Safari or FF. Try this:

<http://saltlicklabs.com/pow-3-week-challenge/?flush=1>

<comment><USER6> It works in IE, but not in firefox. That is strange.

<comment><USER5> Indeed, I use SilverStripe CMS which is a relatively new open source CMS that is pretty awesome... but buggy at times. Eagerly awaiting 2.3. <http://silverstripe.org>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> old-gregg Can anyone suggest a good resource to read up on meditation? (besides wikipedia). I'm just having a hard time believing that meditation is any different from just sitting idle bored, so I'm naturally curious and excited to prove myself wrong.

<comment><USER7> Mindfulness in Plain English: <http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma4/mpe.html>

A good place to start.

<comment><USER8> Kusula Bishku's podcast is pretty good, too!

<comment><USER9> Friendly correction: it's Bhikshu

You can find it here: <http://zencast.wordpress.com/category/kusala-bhikshu/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We hear a lot about the benefits of antioxidants, but I get the sense that people think they're only found in special foods.

Here's an overview of antioxidants, and foods high in them: [http://www.ific.org/publications/factsheets/antioxidantfs.cf...](http://www.ific.org/publications/factsheets/antioxidantfs.cfm)

And a well-cited list of the benefits of many common foods: <http://www.whfoods.com/foodstoc.php>

<comment><USER11> _We hear a lot about the benefits of antioxidants, but I get the sense that people think they're only found in special foods._

Antioxidants are found in high levels in hundreds of different culinary herbs and spices. The point, throughout human history, of adding herbs and spices to foods, besides flavoring those foods, was to preserve.

<comment><USER12> Also, one of the biggest sources of antioxidants in the foods Americans commonly eat is _coffee_. (<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9105892/>)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I love the video game section: I just love it when people blame the video games for becoming violent and not the kids. I mean the first sign of a serial killer used to be the abuse of small animals, which is usually why the police take some kid shooting a cat with a BB gun seriously because they want the kids DNA and finger prints before he goes pro.

I prefer to play strategy/god games, RPG's and, where I can find them, a good physics applet. You can do cruel things in them, especially ones like Black & White, but I always associate it more with burning ants because I _know_ there's no one real on the other side. I dislike FPS primarily because there _is_ someone on the other side, so when I play them I nearly always play single player or co-op.

</comment><comment><USER14> Anything that promotes health or provides active or interactive stimulus to the mind fits. Sci Am just picked out six from a giant bucket. Crosswords, reading Hacker News, and (trying to) solve P = NP all have similar effect.

<comment><AUTHOR> But that big bucket is sort of like the old axiom about filling a jar with stones. First you have to put in the biggest ones. And here I think they've ranked them pretty well in the list. Exercise and nutrition come first and are easy to forget especially with classical notions of Reason and what our daily demands are.

They did forget sleep however.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> From the section on coffee: "Try to limit yourself to fewer than 100 cups a day."

Ok, I'll _try_. 8*D

<comment><USER16> The thing with drinking that much coffee, most people like sugar in theirs. That much sugar is not good for anyone.

<comment><USER17> That's 25 quarts (6.25 GALLONS) of coffee in one day (assuming an 8 ounce cup of coffee). I'm not sure if it's even physically possible to drink that much coffee in a day.

<comment><USER18> > I'm not sure if it's even physically possible to drink that much coffee in a > day.

Comedian/Filmmaker Mark Malkoff attempts to visit 171 Starbucks stores in Manhattan in one day...

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwYxuV2dVzw>

It's quite motivating and scary at the same time.

<comment><USER17> He's just drinking part of the coffee, not the whole thing.

<comment><USER18> Yes, it was to point out that it is not possible to drink 100 cups of coffee in a day but it is entertaining nonethless.

However, some drinking world records are beyond the realm of health and sanity:

"As the plane arrived in London, Walters raised his 44th can to his lips and drained it as thought it were his fourth. From all accounts, he wasn't in bad shape. not if you consider he'd had 44 beers at high altitude and a couple of unofficial palate cleansers during the stopovers. He was all right just says O'Keeffe. He was lighting cigarettes filter-first. I guess that's all right. You can do that sober."

<http://www.thefanatics.com/content.php?id=330>

<comment><USER17> Doh, I'm sorry; that's what I get for not watching the whole thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _Video games activate the brain's reward circuits but do so much more in men than in women, according to a new study. Researchers hooked men and women up to functional MRI machines while the participants played a video game designed for the study._

I wonder if a video game could be designed that would have the opposite effect; women would feel more compelled by the rewards system in place versus men.

<comment><USER19> <http://www.pogo.com>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> There is some research out that says that the Dual n Back test can increase fluid intelligence.<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-back_task> So that's another way to increase your brainpower. Cognitive fun has a good free version. <http://cognitivefun.net/test/8>

</comment><comment><USER21> I wish it had more depth and some actual references. Especially the diet section is quite lame and inaccurate.

<comment><USER22> I found the Hacker's Diet a useful reference for both diet and exercise. I found its engineering-minded explanation of how the body uses food resonated with me. (I lost about 50 lbs. in 6 months). Link: <http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/>

There's also a small section on practical daily exercises that can be done quickly, without need for equipment. I'll link directly to that: <http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/exercise.html>

The key to both diet and exercise, however, lies in consistency -- you have to apply yourself every day.

<comment><USER21> Thanks for the links. I appriciate the exercise advice since it's something that I'm still working on.

My diet homever is in a quite good shape, its mostly paleo/low carb. For almost a year I have completely opted-out grains and sugar and moderating carbs, prosessed foods and omega6. Keeping insulin levels low is linked to longevity and greater neural processing [http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16482-eat-a-little- les...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16482-eat-a-little-less- remember-more.html) [http://www.diabeteshealth.com/read/2008/01/13/5617/insulin-l...](http://www.diabeteshealth.com/read/2008/01/13/5617/insulin- leptin-diabetes-and-aging-not-so-strange-bedfellows/)

I have never been overweight so I'm just trying to maximize my current health, cognitive performance and longevity. With my current diet, I seem to have more clearer mind, can eat less often and don't have desire for snacks or sugar. Green tea seems to have relaxing effect(it's also measured that l-theanine increases alphawaves) on me and alcar+ala has a slight energizing effect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > Of course, all this research does nothing to help explain dumb jocks.

Wasn't expecting to see that there :-)

<comment><USER24> I'd account for dumb jocks under my 'understimulated brain' column.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I knew all that killing and blowing things up wasn't for nothing!</comment>


Microsoft set to release Office for iOS and Android tablets in November - <AUTHOR> http://www.bgr.com/2012/05/23/microsoft-office-ipad-android-launch/

<comment><USER2> Microsoft has always been a developer on Apple platforms.

But this seems unlikely, since this is supposed to be a killer feature of Windows 8 tablets :/

<comment><USER3> If they price it very low ($10 to $20), I can imagine this eating into their sales of desktop Office products.

On the other hand, if they price it similarly to existing Office licenses, would many people buy it?

<comment><USER2> Businesses might actually adopt iPads. Which would be terrible for Microsoft, as it would make the iPad into a serious competitor to the Windows business.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Zero credibility.

<comment><USER5> Why? There's always been Office:Mac, I can totally see Office for iOS happening. A user buying all Office apps for iOS might make MS as much money as someone buying a Win8 tablet. (Correct me if I'm totally out of the ballpark.)

But Office for Android _tablets_? That doesn't make any business sense.

<comment><USER4> _There's always been Office:Mac_

Office Mac came about when Mac was no threat whatsoever, and then continued largely to keep the DoJ off Microsoft's back. If Microsoft has any hopes of achieving success with Windows 8 it would be by leveraging Office. Releasing it (which the article claims is the "full version") for iOS would seriously undue that.

 _But Office for Android tablets? That doesn't make any business sense._

How does that make less sense than Office for iOS? It doesn't.</comment></comment></comment>


Tornadoes and storms hit US south - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/12/us-weather-tornado-louisiana-texas-mississippi-storms <comment><AUTHOR> > "Do not let the virus prevent you from seeking shelter in a tornado,"

\- American Meteorological Society.</comment>


Show HN: Chromebrew – the package manager for Chrome OS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/skycocker/chromebrew

<comment><USER2> Cool. So what happens when Chrome updates or I accidentally turn off Dev mode? Does Chromebrew get wiped?

<comment><AUTHOR> Updates won't do any harm. Going off the dev mode however will wipe your partition, so Chromebrew will go away as well.</comment></comment>


2 Pi or Not 2 Pi? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wolfram.com/2015/06/28/2-pi-or-not-2-pi/

<comment><USER2> I don't think there is much to discuss here, tau=2pi is clearly the more sensible constant for almost every use case. The only question is whether we give in to conventions, or pay the one-time technical debt of switching.

We (in the US) may never convert to metric, but the much smaller community who works with pi regularly should know better.

<comment><USER3> Did you read the article? It is clearly not "the more sensible constant for almost every use case."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The single greatest mathematical equation is e^i*pi = -1

No way we mess with that.

<comment><USER5> e^i * tau -1 = 0

To my eye as a mathematician, the tau version I provided looks better.

e^i * tau = 1, has a much nicer geometric interperatation, of e^i * tau representing a full rotation (which is just the identity), whereas e^i * pi = -1 represents half a rotation, and it is not quite as immediately obvious that -1 is a 1/2 rotation (although this is not particularly opaque).

While I am on the subject, surely the equation you want to discuss is e^i * pi * x, = cos(pi * x)+isin(pi * x), which clearly represents a rotation of x/2 of a complete circle. Of course, viewing it this way, it seems even clearer why one would want to use tau.</comment></comment>


R.I.P. Enterprise RSS - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/rip_enterprise_rss.php <comment><USER2> The author doesn't really make the case for this. What the hell is a 'solid RSS strategy' for enterprises? What features make a reader 'business class'? How does not using RSS make you a 'sitting duck', and if so, why is no one using it? Why petulantly insult people who read RSS in their email program?

<comment><USER3> a solid RSS strategy is subscribing to key news sources in your field, your competitors' blogs and search results, keyword searches, thought leaders and in the enterprise, internal company announcements, requests for assistance, financial, inventory or other information.

features that make an reader business class = support for authenticated (pw protected) feeds, a good mobile version, local/offline caching, displaying diffs when items in feed have been changed, administrative control over dynamic OPML files, etc.

sitting duck: not using an RSS reader well leaves means it is going to take you more time to absorb less information regarding your industry. RSS automates immediate delivery of targeted information.

why petulantly insult email RSS readers? because I am a snob.

\- the author.

<comment><USER2> That's some good detail, thanks. Why do you think it hasn't taken off in large organizations? Have you talked with anyone at those companies?

My own suspicion: Is the slow, enterprise sales pitch cycle really compatible with the idea of nimble, pull-based information gathering?

<comment><USER4> I bet is that people simply don't know about it. Even with developers I am still introducing them the usefulness of rss. And it doesn't see any higher with the general population.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't use RSS either, except maybe for the originalsignal tech & world sections. <http://tech.originalsignal.com/>

I just took google reader for a 5 minute spin & it didn't seem nearly as polished. What else is out there?

</comment><comment><USER6> An "Enterprise RSS Strategy"? Is that like an "Enterprise HTML Strategy"?</comment>


Supplement study quoted in The Wall Street Journal is misleading - <AUTHOR> http://www.kurzweilai.net/ask-ray-supplement-study-in-the-wall-street-journal-is-misleading <comment><USER2> Doesn't Ray own a business that sells supplements?</comment>


1Password 6 for the Mac Is Here - <AUTHOR> https://blog.agilebits.com/2016/01/12/1password-6-for-mac-is-here/ <comment><USER2> I've loved using 1Password for Mac, and the Android app is pretty nice too. Unfortunately, 1Password for Windows has always lagged way behind. I wish it got some more attention, because the experience and feature set is so inconsistent between platforms that it really makes me scratch my head sometimes.

Really happy to see that this is a free upgrade, however. I've got plenty of loyalty for them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does anyone know if the wordlist for the new "words" password generation recipe is the standard diceware list?

It would be really cool if there were an option to show the entropy of a generated password.

</comment><comment><USER4> Unfortunately, not in the Mac Store yet...

</comment><comment><USER5> Nothing too groundbreaking in this release. Please just continue to work on crypto and security!</comment>


HP admits to backdoors in storage products - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/07/11/hp_prepping_fix_for_latest_storage_vuln/ <comment><USER2> 1\. SSH to the box

2\. Username: hpsupport

3\. Password (from SHA1 lookup): badg3r5

Yes that shit.

We have some of this kit in and I've tested it and it works absolutely spot on. Fortunately it's all firewalled off but it's not the sort of crap you want on your doorstep.

Nothing to do with the NSA this - just a crappy decision somewhere which is designed to make HP support's life easier. As someone else said: this bug is as old as time.

<comment><USER3> Welcome to the 80s. Seems like software development is moving in circles

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I just don't understand why companies are still pulling this crap. It puts their customers at risk.

<comment><USER5> Because their customers are the pointy-haired-bosses who're asking "Why the hell to we need to wait for them to send a service tech out? Why can't they fix this online?" when shit is actually going down - rather than the network/storage/security guys who point out the risks of things that haven't happened yet.

<comment><USER6> Yea, but techies should at least use PKI with HSM guarding the private key, not 7-char almost-dictionary-based password.

<comment><USER7> But it has numbers replacing the letters! That makes it hard for computers to guess!!!

<comment><USER6> Oh, right. Sounds like the pointy-haired boss decided upon the password himself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Misleading article title. (What better to expect from The Register?) HP admitted there's a vulnerabiity that with customer provided access and permission can allow HP support to access underlying os of the storage device. At most a reboot is possible not data access. So this is just another stupid vulnerability that'll be fixed soon - not a backdoor.

<comment><USER9> I would say otherwise, seeing as that it was a known vulnerability, and left in intentionally. Very much a backdoor.

<comment><USER10> Why "intentionally". May be it was put there intentionally but leaving it that way was a mistake. I don't think that's a backdoor, just from the article.

<comment><USER11> I would say that both malice and stupidity of HP are well balanced in this case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sadly our parent company uses HP to handle all security and computer support/installation. Around here they are known as Helpless People.

</comment><comment><USER13> HP nicely covering their ass to not get associated with the NSA scandal happening at the moment. I don't know if the fact that they are trying so hard is an indication that they actually are but this is suspicious.

</comment><comment><USER14> this keeps getting better and better

</comment><comment><USER15> Looks more like name/brand smearing to me (from the competition?). Especially convenient in the midst of the NSA scandal.

<comment><USER16> It's not smearing when it's true. Just plain old exposing.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Guide to Freelancing in Sweden - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nabati/freelancing-in-sweden <comment><AUTHOR> When I started freelancing, I spent a ton of time figuring out all the rules and regulations, how to do accounting, how taxation works, how to pay a salary, how to find gigs etc etc. I tried distilling this into a single guide, hoping to save others some time.

Please let me know if you have some feedback!

</comment><comment><USER2> Very nice and quite helpful. However, you should consider adding the "hire your employer" services like coolcompany or frilansfinans. I added an issue on your repo as a reminder :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> Great read! Good job summarizing everything!

</comment><comment><USER4> That 60% tax rate though...</comment>


Couler: Unified Interface for Constructing and Managing Workflows - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/couler-proj/couler <comment><AUTHOR> We just open sourced Couler ([https://github.com/couler- proj/couler](https://github.com/couler-proj/couler)), aiming to provide a unified interface for constructing and managing workflows on different workflow engines, with simplicity, extensibility, reusability, and efficiency in mind.

Couler provides the following:

\- Simplicity: Unified interface and imperative programming style for defining workflows with automatic construction of directed acyclic graph (DAG). \- Extensibility: Extensible to support various workflow engines such as Argo Workflows, Tekton Pipeline, and Apache Airflow. \- Reusability: Reusable steps for tasks such as distributed training of machine learning models. \- Efficiency: Automatic workflow and resource optimizations under the hood.

Initial support for Argo Workflows has been added and please stay tuned for more updates on other features we are gradually open sourcing! We will share the design soon and would love to see your feedback!</comment>


A 3D Engine in Racket - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3xdv4UP9-U <comment><USER2> Demo at the 11m 56s mark [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3xdv4UP9-U&t=11m56s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3xdv4UP9-U&t=11m56s)</comment>


CUDA 10.2 (Toolkit and Nvidia driver) is the last release to support macOS - <AUTHOR> https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/cuda-toolkit-release-notes/index.html#title-new-features <comment><AUTHOR> We know it is coming and my old MacBook Pro and Mac Pro is a deadend. Still ... feel sad.</comment>