Geo.js, Building location-aware mobile websites with Javascript - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/geo-location-javascript/

<comment><USER3> For those of you interested in a similar wrapper for offline storage (via Google Gears or HTML5 databases), here is the wrapper Google suggests you use: <http://code.google.com/p/webstorageportabilitylayer/>

</comment><comment><USER4> This snippet uses the new navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition() feature in Firefox 3.5

You will be redirected to Google Maps if you click the folowing link:

(You must click "share location" when prompted by the browser, you know, privacy concerns)

      javascript:navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function(position){window.location.href="http://maps.google.com/?ll="+position.coords.latitude+","+position.coords.longitude;});

Drop it in your bookmarks toolbar and presto!

Or get it from here <http://mylittlehacks.appspot.com/geolocation>

<comment><USER5> <http://pastie.org/541651> (added quotes, and doesn't get link cutoff)

edit: looks like you fixed it :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Google Maps v3 (in beta) already utilizes the sensor variable - so I dont see how this is advantageous for a mobile website. As for desktop apps - <USER2> also has an API function to determine your location based on your IP. But I dont think it utilizes Firefox's geo-location ability.

What is the benefit of this API compared to whats already available?

<comment><AUTHOR> To me, in the context of mobile websites, it provides an answer/option to providing localized content. Given you have/want localized content/filtering of course.

Where up until now, the first answer to 'You want GPS location?' would have been 'You'll need a native app.', it's now possible to just built a webapp instead.

At least for requests that came our way for building native apps for the iPhone, the most requested feature was 'ZOMG, make it localizable!', where the rest would be just pulling data from a server.

Now, my option is to just built a mobile webapp that can use the lat/lng without much fuss (still needs to degrade gracefully in case of older phones/browsers of course).

<comment><USER5> Out of curiosity, is there a reason why 'enableHighAccuracy' property isn't set to true for android?

<comment><USER7> you can set them in your code pass them in as options, only that won't have any effect yet on blackberry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Very cool-looks like this is the same code that is used in Google Maps for location awareness in Firefox. It doesn't seem to like Opera (or it could be my connection not being found) but it seems to be cross browser compatible.

<comment><USER9> It looks like it's really only designed to work with devices that provide Geolocation functionality. They have a list on their site: [http://code.google.com/p/geo-location- javascript/wiki/Suppor...](http://code.google.com/p/geo-location- javascript/wiki/SupportedPlatforms)

I _think_ this also includes support for the Geolocation API found in Firefox 3.5, so they can probably add that to the list, as well.

<comment><USER10> How does FF 3.5 get the location? The example asked me to share location, but then showed me in the middle of New York City when in fact I am in Burlington Vermont

<comment><USER7> FF 3.5 uses your IP address or wifi basestation id to retrieve the location and there is no guarantee that is accurate. In order to be accurate you need to use GPS or Cell Tower Locating from you cell phone.

<comment><USER10> The service they use is particularly bad then. Most places I have tried get within a few towns for my office. (Obviously none can get my home satellite connection correct)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Turn markdown files into a beautiful documentation hub - <AUTHOR> http://appbaseio.github.io/Docbase/ <comment><USER2> If you rely on the keyword "beautiful" maybe you should work on the presentation. Because I am presented with some horribly "terminaly" blue picture (actually, I mean the video) with some ASCII art.

At the bottom I see 3 screenshot. The first one is ok. The second one (Redis) looks broken and the last one is the same (AirBnB).

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting project, but any reason you went for a nodejs build of jekyll? Jekyll doesn't require sudo for npm, doesn't require dependences, like nodejs in the first place, and would require very little setup. Even something like octopress could have been used better here.

<comment><USER4> > Jekyll [...] doesn't require dependences

What? Doesn't it need Ruby and a bunch of gems? (I have been unable to install it on Windows/msys2 properly because a dependency's native extensions won't compile, so if there's an easier way I would like to know.)

Edit: or are you talking about serving the static, generated site? If so, nevermind.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Automatic Bitcoin portfolio tracking app? - <AUTHOR> Unless my google-fu is severely out of whack, I can't find any apps/web app that can:
1) Connect to my Coinbase account 2) Track my holdings and purchases (which are scheduled weekly) 3) Tell me how much overall I've made or lost
Does this app exist? I don't want to record transactions manually. I'm playing with Bitcoin, but because I buy weekly and the price is still changing constantly, it's difficult to actually track how much overall my net profit/loss is. <comment><USER2> Don't know if one exists, but I'm planning to launch one next week.

<comment><AUTHOR> Killer, anywhere I can keep an eye out for it?

<comment><USER2> @WealtheeApp</comment></comment></comment>


I Have an Idea - <AUTHOR> http://whazzing.com/blog/2012/08/19/i-have-an-idea/

<comment><USER2> Loved your post! _"I've never had an idea before. Today, I present to you the Ice Cream Glove."_ <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkuOuxRD1Bc></comment>


Interactive: You (Probably) Think You're a Better-Than-Average Driver - <AUTHOR> https://shaungallagher.pressbin.com/blog/good-driver.html <comment><USER2> IMO "weaving through traffic" is not a skill that makes you a good driver. It might take skill, but it's irresponsible and reckless. A good driver understands that weaving is more likely to result in injury, property damage, or no result (think of the lane-switchers in rush hour traffic that you end up right next to after 30 mins) than an actual benefit. I'm not sure that it should be included in a confidence measure for driving ability.

<comment><USER3> I'd disagree - lane switching is not weaving though traffic. In advanced motorcycle training it's called "making progress". It's a skill to read the traffic flows, to understand what other drivers are going to do, the ability to anticipate what manoeuvres they will perform. You have to read and understand that flow, plan a route that gets you through the traffic safely and project far enough ahead to adjust to variations as they occur. So yes it is a skill indicative of a good driver, those "lane-switchers" that end up right next to you after 30 minutes are the ones who lack the skill to read the road far enough ahead. IMHO of course :)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I have an idea - <AUTHOR>

Hackers,
I have an idea about this app. What should be my first step? I have 0 experience in coding.
1. Do I need to learn to code first until I learned enough to build MVP. 2. Or, build my POF and seek a help from somebody who can code.
Be gentle :-) <comment><USER2> I'll be honest: I have never really learned how to code through books or lessons and then started a project. I've always had an idea and then decided which language was best to create it in. If I didn't know how to code it, I'd learn as I went. Plan out your app on paper and then look up how to create the app. For me, this was the best way to learn a new language. It helps me keep my interest. If you get stuck just seek help through a friend who knows the language, on google, or in stackoverflow.

</comment><comment><USER3> The whole "validate your idea" thing has merit, but in the end it's really what you the entrepreneur think that matters. I think the most common saw here that people use is, "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." - Henry Ford [1]

My take on your first thought is to start wireframing and creating mockups of the screens. That stuff is way more valuable to you right now anyway. Work on coming up with the user experience, the "things the app does", the logo, the elevator pitches, etc. The more you spend on that up front, the less time the various other parts will take you. And you just might find that, when you show a mockup to someone, they say, "My friend Dave has been looking for something to do ever since he sold his company. You should talk to him - let's meet him next week for lunch." The next thing you know, you and Dave have co-founded an amazing company and he's doing the coding while you do the business side of things.

[1] Ahem... [http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/08/henry_ford_never_said_the_fa...](http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/08/henry_ford_never_said_the_fast.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> If you're seriously interested in learning to code, then steps 1 and 2 can be done in parallel. Having a clear idea of every stage of interaction -- pencil and paper are a great tool -- is essential either way. If you end up hiring a coder, there will be less surprises if you have a solid spec ahead of time. Of course, ideas will surface as you begin seeing working prototypes, so you'll want to plan your time / money accordingly.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for all the replies. I appreciate that. The first step that I'd take if I am serious in pursuing this is to validate the idea, as some of you suggested. If the idea does not seem viable, I'd build it anyway if only to learn how to code. Again, thanks!

</comment><comment><USER5> No point in learning how to code unless you think you can keep your interest level up. If not, take the second path, especially if you can pay someone to code it. If not paying, the idea should be very compelling to a potential partner who can code.

</comment><comment><USER6> Be for you do ANY coding. VALIDATE your idea to see if people actually want it.

Throw up a craigslist ad launchrock connect with your target audience via facebook Find other services that are similar and talk to their customers.

<comment><USER7> I upvote this. Validating the idea should come before anything else. By validating isn't talking to friends and waiting to hear "nice idea": you need to research more than that, users, markets, competition, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Neither. Go validate the idea first.</comment>


Ask HN: Are there any automated penetration testing tools? - <AUTHOR>

Are there some automated penetration testing tools to test against my server? I would like to know basic stuff like the following.
1) Only SSH and HTTP ports should be open
2) Root login is disabled via SSH,
3) SSH uses only public key authentication and does not use password based auth
The idea is to have a quick tool that checks and reports if we miss setting up a firewall and such. I have root access on all my machines so any tool that runs on the machine is also fine. <comment><USER2> Nessus? I never tried it but i think it's what you are looking for.

<http://www.tenable.com/products/nessus></comment>


Expect – automates programs that expose a text terminal interface - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expect

<comment><USER3> Interesting that nobody has mentioned yet how useful Expect can be as an automated testing tool- my first gig out of college was at Ericsson where we were developing at an edge router (the AXI-540) that was going to be competitive with Cisco (this was during the first dot-com). One of my first projects was using Expect to develop a series of smoketests - basically we'd connect two routers (pc1-rtr1-rtr2-pc2) and then use Expect to automatically configure RIP/OSPF/ISIS/etc. and then verify that the routes showed up, that you could ping from pc1 to pc2 using the new route, etc. Simple stuff like that but it gradually grew more comprehensive..

Expect made it really easy to automate this sort of testing - where the only way you can configure something is via the CLI and you want to be able to do this even when the only connection is via a serial console (for router reboots). We used to run it daily and as an engineer just out of school it was an eye-opening experience: because of the daily runs you got to see just how often people's commits could break simple functionality in other parts of the system.

<comment><USER4> Ex ericsson also, were u in plano? San jose?

<comment><USER3> Rockville, MD - but they axed the office here after the AXI-540 was discontinued.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I use expect all the time. It saves soo much typing.

A while back I wrote a short blog post on it with a more advanced example on a debugging workflow with Rails: [http://www.chocobrain.com/Terminal-Automation- expect-Advance...](http://www.chocobrain.com/Terminal-Automation-expect- Advanced-automation/4NRKAvM2NWZqai6a3CoDQe)

(ssh into production -> open rails-console -> type out initial commands -> let user enter commands)

</comment><comment><USER6> Expect can easily save your day, but only consider it as a last resort - <USER2> all better ways of interacting are not available : like web scraping, it is quite fragile because the stability of the 'API' is usually far from guaranteed.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I've always considered Expect to be sort of a canary. As soon as you realize that you want to use it for something, you realize that there is something rather wrong going on.

Even so, if you've got to get the job done and can worry about architectural issues at a later time, expect is great.

<comment><USER8> I couldn't agree more.

I'm sufficiently involved with Expect that I've collected enough material for an entire book on the subject (serious--I do a lot of writing, and am well aware of what's involved in such a publication); at the same time, I know that jlgreco is EXACTLY right that Expect use is a symptom of a larger problem. Much of what I've already published through the years about Expect is how a particular task that used to be done with Expect now can better be handled with automation-interface-X.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The Python project pexpect is nice to work with. In addition there is some overlap with Fabric, but anyway, fun stuff all around.

<comment><USER10> I think wexpect (a fork, used in Sage) is faster, and fixes some bugs.

[<http://sage.math.washington.edu/home/goreckc/sage/wexpect/>]

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I remember using Expect some 12 years ago and liking it a lot.

Back then I even released an open-source utility written in Expect, that connects and controls multiple hosts. It is essentially a shell that sends each command to all connected hosts and collects the responses. It even supports automatic translation of commands to supports different shells on different hosts. It's taken me a while to find it (I even forgot what I named it), but now I remember: <http://sourceforge.net/projects/sysman/>. It even had some pretty nifty features, apparantly: <http://sysman.sourceforge.net/>

Thanks for the reminder!

</comment><comment><USER12> Back when I worked at KBC Financial Products, we used to use Expect -all- the time. There were a ton of archaic systems we had to interface with, and while many of the developers/engineers were intelligent there were a couple that were, er, less so...so Expect came in massively useful and saved everyone a ton of time.

Also, Tcl turned out to be pretty sweet.

</comment><comment><USER13> Ruby also has support for this type of behaviour: <http://www.ruby- doc.org/stdlib-2.0/libdoc/pty/rdoc/IO.html>

<comment><USER14> Shameless plug: I built a small library to provide more Expect-like features in Ruby, since I didn't care for the interfaces exposed, for application development. Presently works on Linux and OS X for 1.9.3, and Linux for 2.0.0 (OS X untested, but assumed good)

<https://github.com/cwuest/expectr>

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Official website: <http://www.nist.gov/el/msid/expect.cfm>

<comment><USER15> Did anyone else notice the .gov? I love to see this open collaboration from this tld!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I used expect a while back to write a small bash script that logs into my server via ssh and pulls the latest commit from Github. I have this set to run on an Alfred command 'deploy site name'.

This is much more secure, in my opinion, than using a webhook to deploy new commits.

You may have to tweak it a bit to get it working with your specific ssh agent forwarding and ssh keys by only by deleting a few lines, but it works out of the box without those features.

<https://gist.github.com/srcoley/3299526>

</comment><comment><USER17> There is also a nice expect script called "kibitz" that allows you to share one terminal between two users. It's great for support and training.

There's also a nice script called autoexpect that writes simple expect scripts based on your input: Just execute autoexpect, it will spawn a shell and write a file "script.exp" based on what your type and the responses your get.

</comment><comment><USER18> A while back I released an ancient Java-based, simplified version of JExpect:

<https://bitbucket.org/djarvis/jexpect>

</comment><comment><USER19> Expect is the precursor of web scraping.

<comment><USER20> Pretty much, yeah. All the same advantages, and all the same drawbacks, but over a terminal interface instead of the Web.

That said, just like with Web scraping, when you need it, nothing else will do. It's an invaluable tool for that reason, especially when you have to work with code you don't control.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is there anything like this for Java, or .NET ?

<comment><USER22> There's <http://expectj.sourceforge.net>, <https://code.google.com/p/expect4j>, and <https://code.google.com/p/enchanter>.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> GUI-based programs could have an underlying command-line interface that the GUI is a mediator for. In that way, common tasks can be recorded by simply walking through the steps in the GUI, and a script is generated without even having to know any scripting language (at least for the simpler tasks). I know that there are programs that have a GUI which just translates user-input into scripts/commands; has this idea been realized in some applications? I know that some GUI-frontend for R outputs the resulting script of your actions, so I guess you could at least copy-paste the relevant code there.

</comment><comment><USER24> What about it?

<comment><USER14> It's a really useful tool that has a surprisingly small amount of awareness.

<comment><USER8> All true.

One of the difficulties with Expect is that it's hard to explain its usefulness to newcomers. Expect itself is easy enough to understand; but a common initial reaction is, "So?"

Part of the difficulty is that Expect particularly shines in occasional circumstances that no one wants to repeat. It's a _tool_ , more than a product --like a funny little jig that looks peculiar, but saves HOURS when you are doing particular operations with a drill press.

Network devops, for instance, might need to monitor and update hundreds of devices spread across multiple datacenters for a particular task accessed through a command-line interface (CLI). The CLI is "easy", in that it only takes thirty seconds to do one instance of the chore--but a royal nuisance to repeat for hour after hour. A "correct" answer probably involves setting up authentication key pairs and ... well, you can see where this is going. How "correct" is that kind of configuration, though, when it might have to be done only once in the lifetime of the datacenters? This is a typical case where twenty minutes of Expect scripting can save HOURS, and sometimes days, of error-prone typing. It would easily be worth hundreds of dollars to have Expect on hand for this one use. No one will ever pay for Expect, though, because it helps most for these pesky side-tasks that no one really budgets.

I can give lots of examples of good uses for Expect--but each single example will only apply to a handful of people around the world. Nearly everyone needs Expect in _some_ way, but each instance is highly idiosyncratic.

Expect is a little like duct tape or WD-40.

<comment><USER24> My response was not directed at Expect, but at this submission.

<comment><USER8> I'm lost, absconditus. If you're waiting for a follow-up, please detail what you need. I think you _might_ be saying something like, "Expect is cool, indeed, but why would someone post a link to its Wikipedia article in HN?" That one, I can't answer.

<comment><USER14> I think it's probably marginally better than linking the Expect site proper, since it provides decent context.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


US Team Claims Solar Cell Efficiency Breakthrough - <AUTHOR> https://www.theengineer.co.uk/us-team-claims-solar-cell-efficiency-breakthrough/ <comment><USER2> Slightly better discussion links:

[http://news.columbia.edu/content/Columbia-Chemists-Find- Key-...](http://news.columbia.edu/content/Columbia-Chemists-Find-Key-to- Manufacturing-More-Efficient-Solar-Cells)

[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6306/1365.full](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6306/1365.full)

</comment><comment><USER3> TLDR;

 _HOIPs could lead to a doubling in solar cell efficiency_ [to 50%]

(Yes, you find the most tangible quote is actually in an image)

Apart from that they speak of lower costs without any numbers attached.

</comment><comment><USER4> How can an article talk about more efficient solar cells and not even mention in passing technology already available such as triple junction gallium arsenide?

I mean the mars rovers are using 30+% efficient cells NOW. The cost are much higher than silicon, but this is working producible technology that we just need to figure out how to lower costs of.</comment>


Jq: sed for JSON data - <AUTHOR> http://stedolan.github.io/jq/tutorial/

<comment><USER2> Nice, but there's more comprehensive toolset already: [https://metacpan.org/release/App- RecordStream](https://metacpan.org/release/App-RecordStream)</comment>


Show HN: Yet Another Image Compression Service (alpha) - <AUTHOR> http://slimntrim.tk/ <comment><AUTHOR> As I mentioned in another thread about a week ago, I have recently been commissioned to create a (simple, stupid) CMS.

One of the features I wanted to incorporate into the CMS is image compression. After a good bit of code hacking and testing, I believe I have got something good going there. That inspired me to create an independent web app/service offering this (image compression) to users at large. My employers have given me the go ahead to do this.

Long story short, here is the alpha (link in title).

(Hopefully, I'll have a much more polished design/UI ready over the weekend.)

For now, please test it at will and give me your feedback/suggestions.

(The thread title can be made into an acronym YAICS; not intended :-))

<comment><USER2> I don't understand why anybody would seriously use such a service. IMO, the risk of accidentally leaking confidential information and/or breaking privacy laws is just too high relative to the benefit of not having to host something like it yourself.

Also: where's your privacy statement?

<comment><AUTHOR> > Also: where's your privacy statement?

Looks like you failed to notice above - this, Sir, is in alpha as of now.

<comment><USER2> I saw that, but IMO, a service like this that is advertised online, as you do, needs a privacy statement from the moment it goes live.

It doesn't have to be one that is vetted by a dozen attorneys; that's for if the site really takes of, but how hard is it to write down whether/how often humans looks at the images uploaded, and whether/for how long they are kept around?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. It is a free service that no one is forcing anybody to use.

2\. I still haven't got around to writing/finishing up anything other than the core functionality of the service.

3\. The reason I posted here is primarily to get feedback on the core functionality.

4\. When I do get around to creating the TOS and Privacy Policy etc., what it will essentially state is that a) no human will look at the images and b) all images will be (automatically) deleted within 24 hours from the time they were uploaded/processed. While it is not hard to write this down, it is not high up on my list of priorities at this point in time.

Thanks for your feedback all the same.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Live ISRO: Launch of PSLV C37 Carrying 104 Satellites - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPPV46KaR5o <comment><USER2> Fantastic achievement and a testament to the great work done by an army of engineers and scientists. 37 successful launches and counting; worth standing still for a moment and appreciating that level of success in an inherently risky business. Well done to ISRO and the PSLV team!

</comment><comment><USER3> You can follow [https://twitter.com/dovesinspace](https://twitter.com/dovesinspace) as Planet attempts to contact the 88 Dove satellites on this launch. So far 71 have been contacted.

</comment><comment><USER4> Congrats ISRO, They have been doing great work. ISRO's big challenge will be reusable launch systems(SpaceX). Hope MkIII works out well.

</comment><comment><USER5> PSLV-C37 / Cartosat -2 Series Mission Successfully Launched all 104 Satellites

Source: [https://www.facebook.com/ISRO/posts/1837886669768020](https://www.facebook.com/ISRO/posts/1837886669768020)

</comment><comment><USER6> It'd be nice if we could upvote one livestream next time.

</comment><comment><USER7> WOW, are ISRO part of the ISS?

<comment><USER8> Nope. Current participating countries are Canada, Japan, Russia, USA. European countries participate through the ESA(European Space Agency).

<comment><USER9> They should really get India in the league. It's high time

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> PSLV-C37 / Cartosat -2 Series Satellite - Curtain Raiser Video - [http://www.isro.gov.in/pslv-c37-cartosat-2-series- satellite/...](http://www.isro.gov.in/pslv-c37-cartosat-2-series- satellite/pslv-c37-cartosat-2-series-satellite-curtain-raiser-video)

</comment><comment><USER11> ISRO has done it again. Kudos

</comment><comment><USER12> Its off air now it seems.</comment>


Launching a Y Combinator-backed product - <AUTHOR> http://michaelmcneil.com/post/113893151032/launching-a-y-combinator-backed-product

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure why the title emphasizes the Y Combinator part as it seems irrelevant to the narrative given. The article otherwise is just _another_ thought piece about Product Hunt.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry if it's boring :( But I think it may be because the experience was such a surprise due to both the stats involved and the quality of the early adopters that came from Product Hunt. I hadn't even heard of the site before I came out here

(btw the reason I mentioned Y Combinator is because that's the main reason our launch was mainstream news on TechCrunch)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Congrats on your launch. Too bad about the tweet button.

Are there any video courses for getting started with sails.js?</comment>


Lambdas in C - <AUTHOR> http://walfield.org/blog/2010/08/25/lambdas-in-c.html <comment><USER2> In other words - he discovered gcc's ({ }) construct and decided to write a macros named _lambda_ around it.

<http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-2.95.3/gcc_4.html#SEC62>

<comment><AUTHOR> To me it's a bit more surprising: it's a statement expression, containing a nested function, then we take the address of that nested function.

Having that series of operations produce something useful is unexpected, to say the least.

It's nothing I'd want to see in code that I maintain, but I think you have to give it a bit more credit. Besides that, it's cute :)

<comment><USER3> Any idea if this is now officially supported in GCC? The blog post is from nearly a year ago.

<comment><USER4> It's been officially supported in GCC since about a decade ago, I believe. It's not part of the C language, so if you're writing this code, it's no longer C. It also requires executable stacks.

<comment><USER5> The article indicates its not officially supported, although it could be.

         Ian Lance Taylor replied that the behavior is
         undefined, but so far stable. His suggestion was
         to open a bug and request that this desirable (!!!)
         behavior be explicitly permitted.

<comment><USER4> Oh. Right, because of the new scope that the anonymous block creates. My mistake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Blocks, <http://clang.llvm.org/docs/BlockLanguageSpec.txt>

Much better solution to the problem, hopefully coming to standard GCC soon(tm).

<comment><USER7> They should try to make something syntactically compatible with C++ lambdas. It's annoying that the two languages are more and more incompatible for cosmetic reasons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Am I really out of my mind or is this not a lambda at all but just an anonymous function?

<comment><USER9> If an anonymous function can capture state from the enclosing code block, and outlive that code block, then it's a lambda.

So this probably isn't really a lambda.

<comment><USER10> That's the definition of a closure. I'm not sure if "lambda" is necessarily synonymous with "closure" or just synonymous with "anonymous function", but lambdas are closures in many languages.

<comment><USER9> You're right, my terms are sloppy. Are there rigorous definitions, or does it vary between languages?.

I think of "lambda" as a language construct that creates closures. "anonymous functions" are of course just a simpler subset of closures.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _Note: unlike lambdas in functional languages, this lambda does not capture the containing environment._

<comment><USER4> That's slightly sloppy phrasing. It captures it, but it does not duplicate it, so it's lifetime is tied to the stack frame of the function you declared it in.

In short, you can only do downwards funargs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> My favorite part: _l_anonymous_functions_name_

Sorry, I just like the irony.

</comment><comment><USER13> Cute, but functions pointers suit me just fine.

<comment><USER14> Anonymous functions are very handy, and I think they should really be taken a step further. There's really no reason why it shouldn't be possible to pass an actual function body where a function pointer is required:

      int v[...];

      qsort( v, ..., (a, b) { return *(int*)a - *(int*)b } );

Such usage would also have an added benefit of letting the compiler do the type inference for _a_ , _b_ and the return value and not needing to explicitly specify them in qsort() call.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have not been able to work out two things here:

1) If I define a lambda inside a function, I cannot return the lambda from the function and use it right?

2) Recursive lambdas are not possible on account of the lack of recursion in C macros (not sure if that even makes sense without 1).

</comment><comment><USER16> Isn't this a step closer to Greenspuns Tenth Rule?

"Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of CommonLisp"

(bar the environment/scope issue it avoids that is)

</comment><comment><USER17> More accurate title would be "Something like, but not as useful or generic as, lambdas in gcc's dialect of C".

<comment><USER18> One might say, to paraphrase Douglas Adams, that it's almost, but not quite, entirely unlike lambdas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If I worked on static code analysis tools for a living, this would make me cry.

</comment><comment><USER20>
      printf("I am bad and evil %p\n", ({int bad_and_evil(void){return 0;};&bad_and_evil;}));
      printf("I am bad and evil2 %d\n", ({0x4FFFFFF;}));

      void* result = ({void* bad_and_evil(int dummy){return 0;};&bad_and_evil;});
      printf("bad and evil 3 = %p\n", result);

* shudder * Getting a return value from a block, by inserting it in parantheses.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is just too clumsy, and this is exactly why I think go will take off.

      package main

      import "fmt"

      func main() {
          add := func(x int, y int) int{
            return x+y
          }
          max := func(x int, y int) int{
            if x>y {return x}
            return y
          }
        fmt.Printf("lambda: add:%d\n",add(2,3))
        fmt.Printf("lambda: max:%d\n",max(2,3))
      }

Although it'd be nice if you could have a ternary or something like

      return {x} if x>y else {y}

<comment><USER22> Is that really that much better than C blocks?

        #include <stdio.h>
        int main (int argc, char const *argv[]) {
            int (^add)(int, int) = ^(int x, int y) {
                return x + y;
            };
            int (^max)(int, int) = ^(int x, int y) {
                return (x > y) ? x : y;
            };
            printf("block: add:%d\n", add(2,3));
            printf("block: max:%d\n", max(2,3));
            return 0;
        }

<comment><USER21> I personally think so, as I think blocks in C are a clumsy way around the issue (probably because C doesn't natively have garbage collection) and it feels natural in go, but I know others will disagree.

Also, I don't think you can make it anonymous, can you?

      func(x int, y int){fmt.Printf("%d\n",x+y)}(2,4)

<comment><USER22> You sure can.

       ^(int x, int y){printf("%d\n",x+y);}(2,4);

Automatic memory management is interesting, but orthogonal.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Sam Ruby: Keeping Up With Rails - <AUTHOR> http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/2009/05/15/Keeping-Up-With-Rails <comment><USER2> I also agree with this - I find it particularly difficult to maintain apps that I wrote for an earlier version of Rails, and which I had to lock to that version to avoid the app breaking in hard to diagnose ways; I sometimes don't touch these apps for a year or two, and working on them again means remembering the idiosyncrasies of that particular version of Rails, which are different from the idiosyncrasies of the version of Rails I'm using for another more recent app I'll be working on.

In fact, it's bad enough that I've been looking for alternatives to Rails for each new project I've started in the past year or so, but always give up because I think it'll be quicker to use what I know (and then usually end up regretting it later.)

<comment><USER3> Well, thankfully one of the top priorities of the upcoming release is a stable API.

<comment><USER4> A little late for that, but here's hoping.

Stability in a number of Ruby projects is a real problem: Rails, rspec, numerous plugins and gems. I wouldn't care so much if everyone used a versioning system that clearly communicated when things would break, but that's not happening.

Maybe having stable APIs and proper versioning is too "professional" for Rails.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "It is this type of change that has lead me to automate my regression testing"

Maybe I am wrong, but I think this post from Sam is about making sure you automate your test environment, so you can keep up with changes. Not complaining about how fast Rails changes.

<comment><USER2> The quote at the top of the page says: "the greatest difficultly of Rails development is that 'best practices' have a shelf life of < 12 months"

Sam is quoting this (as opposed to making the statement himself), but putting it at the top of the page seems to indicate that he agrees with it.

My understanding of the post is that Sam also deplores the rapid pace of change, and has automated his test environments as a workaround.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yeah.. keeping up with rails is kinda hard. The hardest part is APIs which disappear for one revision and then come back later.

In this respect django seems to be much better.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I love Rails, but this is a valid point.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's good to have tests, but shouldn't framework level libraries follow some kind of Design by Contract methodologies so that you never break compatibility?

</comment><comment><USER8> Do other frameworks have this problem, and to the same degree as rails?</comment>


Ask HN: Do you use machine learning in your day job? - <AUTHOR> I'm curious how many dev teams are starting to implement machine/deep learning in their projects, and if so what types of problems are you solving? <comment><USER2> I am a machine.</comment>


Flat Earth rising: meet the people casting aside 2,500 years of science [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/video/2019/feb/05/flat-earth-rising-meet-the-people-casting-aside-2500-years-of-science-video <comment><USER2> It's fascinating to meet people like this with the intention of learning about confirmation bias. It's amazing the delusions people will grip on to maintain social status and some semblance of personal integrity and stability of belief systems. The great lengths of logical delusions some people make up to support their claims is noticeable in extreme cases like this. Of course, we are all subject to this bias and when you are in it, you don't know you are. [https://samharris.org/the-fireplace-delusion/](https://samharris.org/the- fireplace-delusion/) (Disclaimer, I'm triggered by both viewpoints in this reference, but at least I recognize where some of my own biases are. What a funny brain we have.)</comment>


Electric cars can go only half as far in freezing weather, AAA finds - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-aaa-electric-vehicle-range-20140320,0,3522803.story

<comment><USER2> I wonder if the tested models had systems that warm up the batteries.

<comment><USER3> I'm curious also how much climate control factors in.

Do the heaters use waste heat or draw from the battery?

I am sure that AC and battery warmers would have to burn some significant juice.</comment></comment>


Being wealthy adds nine more healthy years of life, says study - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jan/15/being-wealthy-adds-nine-years-to-life-expectancy-says-study <comment><USER2> Because you cannot do a controlled experiment, it is probably impossible to control for all the variables that are all confounding each other... education level, IQ, talent for delayed gratification, etc. Wealth impacts all of those, but is also caused by them.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'll wager a wealthy amount of money that the gap is going to increase at a faster clip

</comment><comment><USER4> Depends, on how you drive.</comment>


Airbnb crowding out is a symptom, not a cause of housing shortages - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jpagels/airbnb-crowding-out-is-a-symptom-not-a-cause-of-housing-shortages-33f7e333a825 <comment><USER2> Apparently the author is unfamiliar with the verb, "to exacerbate":

[https://www.wordnik.com/words/exacerbate](https://www.wordnik.com/words/exacerbate)

Meaning, in this context: no one is saying that Airbnb is the _cause_ of housing shortages -- what they're saying is that they're taking already bad situation, and making it significantly worse. At least, that's what they're saying. Whether the data, currently only scarcely available, bear this claim out is an entirely different point. But the basic point is, to start of by saying "Airbnb is not a cause of housing shortages" is to make a straw man argument.</comment>


What no one talks about when running and selling a business - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@kenanhopkins/in-2016-i-sold-my-startup-for-seven-figures-a3c60db80947#.q5cmisbmo <comment><USER5> I also sold my startup. same story as far as revenue, exit etc. I'm not sure that selling your company was the reason for your social issues.

I've had the best year of my life post acquisition - spending more time with family, friends and thinking what's next. constantly thinking about what's next, it's actually annoying that I can't turn it off.

The "how much did you make" question is super annoying and it happens but generally those around me are respctful and understand that I still plan to work and in many ways will need to. Not enough to do nothing, enough to choose something meaningful and not waste our precious time.

My only advice to you is don't be afraid to reconnect with some old friends and embrace new ones, especially friends of friend who don't know much about your exit and ask to hang out with you because of who you are when they interact with you sans knowing your financial history.

<comment><USER6> I think this was a pretty shallow article. The author comes off as somewhat abrasive personality-wise. He's a natural born leader - we are reassured multiple times - but he seems to repeatedly annoy people in his life and can't figure out how to get 3 or 4 band-mates to follow him. OK.

A lot of the money troubles are more about wealth inequality than anything specific to the startup world. When you're wealthy, you need to learn to be sensitive to the everyday financial concerns of those who aren't. You could be subjected to this as an entrepreneur, a physician, a lawyer, or countless other professions, not to mention heirs, lottery winners, or folks who marry into money. Planetary coexistence 101.

Friendship is a two-way street. As I became wealthier through successive exits there were some people from my childhood who I stayed friends with, thanks to conscious effort from both sides. These are very valuable friendships.

He says 'material things don't matter' but doesn't expound much, leaving us with the implication that money doesn't matter at all. Money is the freedom to spend your time however you want to, and that's pretty damn valuable. The author's real problem may be that work became his sole identity - and that now having earned some freedom, he has no idea what to do with it. I wish him well.

<comment><USER7> "Learning to be sensitive" is a bit of a cure all. Your best bet is to move somewhere else and pretend to be poor.

I know we like to put poor people up on a pedestal, and if we just act the right way, they'll accept you as one of there own, but a millionaire will _never_ be accepted as intimately into a group as a person with similar financial status as them.

<comment><USER8> Unless someone grew up poor and then made their money very quickly, they'll probably have a very different cultural background, which makes "pretending to be poor" extremely difficult. Poor people will notice that they're different even if they don't know it's because they're rich.

<comment><USER7> The poor may know they are different but they'll be more likely accepted than a rich person. There are a whole lot of poor people that are odd in some way, it's not hard to blend in.

People seek understanding, not necessarily similarity. Also, like it or not, jealousy plays a big part as to whether someone is accepted or not.

Besides which, the story is about an entrepreneur, who was trying to connect with the type of people he was around when he was not rich.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not sure I love the article, but I agree with the author's sentiment. I'm 4 years in to a successful bootstrapped startup, and I've lost many close acquaintances. I simply don't have time to keep the social connections alive and I have not prioritized them. I'm somewhat introverted by nature so this is not really a major concern of mine at this time, but I suspect it may be a regret later.

What is challenging for me is the fact that most people cannot relate to my life. They can't understand why you'd work 60+ hours a week on a fledgling business. They can't understand the obsession and inability to "turn it off." They don't understand what it takes to get a customer to actually pay you, let alone build something people enjoy using and solves problems. I do find that many folks assume you just "lucked" your way in to success.

And I think bootstrapped business owners have it the worst of all. It's comparably easy to spend VC cash once you get funding, rather than money from "your own pocket." It's not hard to justify hiring 5 people when the VCs explicitly tell you that's what the money is for. Bootstrapping a successful business is indeed a rare feat, and only the people who've been there can understand exactly how all consuming and difficult it is. (At least, that's been my experience so far)

<comment><USER10> The "lucked into" thing resonates with me. I've done pretty well and have had a zillion people tell me I got lucky.

I used to really resent that. I bootstrapped my company, I took no salary for the first 2-3 years, instead I was out consulting to bring in money so I could pay the people who worked for me. That didn't seem like luck to me.

I built technology that most of you use daily, before I came along people thought the answer to their SCM problems was Subversion. I had to fight like crazy to get smart people like Linus to understand that I had a better answer. It was tons and tons of work. Getting people to see the value of what I had built didn't seem like luck to me.

I built a viable business and did all the sales. I used a portable phone with a base station that had an extra battery and it was routine that I would have to flip over to speaker phone, swap batteries, and continue the sales calls. 16 hour days were the norm on the phone.

My view was that it wasn't luck, it was hard work. A lot of hard work.

My view evolved. Yep, I did a ton of work, many many 80 hour weeks. Any founder knows what that is like. But there was an element of luck involved - <USER2> was at the right place, at the right time, with the right answers. Multiple times in my career that has happened. Is all the credit due to me? Not really, the luck part is being in a place where your work will go somewhere. You have to do all that hard work _and_ you have to get lucky, hard work is not enough.

And that is why I log in as luckydude.

<comment><USER11> Bless you. Seriously.

It's truly refreshing to hear such genuine humility and perspective. Too many people (on HN, in politics, and in everyday life) work hard, hit it big, then draw a 100% correlation between the two. The reality is that lots of people are working hard, and only a tiny percentage get rich from it. Luck -- birth, education, time, place -- is too often underestimated in the rush to claim personal credit.

Like you, I have been profoundly lucky. I've worked hard for my piece, but I'd never be able to honestly look my lower-middle-class extended family in the eyes and tell them my wealth came because I worked harder than them. Because that would be a lie.

<comment><USER12> humility ? What is this 'humility' you speak of?

There is a war on humility for like 20 years now. Things that people unashamedly say today would label them total lunatics 2 decades ago.

<comment><USER13> I think that's because perceptions about what makes success have slowly shifted from the long path of toil to the superawesome promotion game.

It's like the political cartoon I saw from a few months ago. The Jeopardy- style host said, "I'm sorry, Jeannie, your answer was correct, but Kevin shouted his incorrect answer over yours, so he gets the points." [http://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/a20602](http://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/a20602)

Given the state of funding and never-profitable unicorns, it teaches new entrepreneurs that the way to success is through promotion and emotion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _Unfortunately, I no longer have very many friends. I worked so hard in my 20s and early 30s that I let my closest relationships lapse in the name of making money. It's tough to keep friends around when you're either working, or work is on your mind 24 /7._

One of the unfortunate side effects of hustle/grit/what have you, that I myself experienced and can relate to the author.

<comment><USER15> ammmm, if your friendship requires constant hand holding then I would say it would better to lose them faster (early on) because they're not going to be around when you hit the hard times.

My definition of a friend is someone you can rely on when things goes to shit eg... Being half way across the country and you've just been robbed and they drive 20 hours to pick you up.

Now if they cannot even meet you half way across town because you have a deadline then I will say you don't have a friend.

<comment><USER16> > My definition of a friend is someone you can rely on when things goes to > shit eg... Being half way across the country and you've just been robbed and > they drive 20 hours to pick you up.

Yes, that's one possible quality in a friend. Another is making time for _their_ shit as well and it doesn't sound like the author did very much of that. It's also nice to make time for friends without having to deal with either yours or their dilemmas and just enjoy each other's company.

<comment><USER17> Agree with the dilemma free part. I've found "adult" friendship works like this. Just hang out catch up have fun. Don't call me when your car breaks down, call a tow truck. I won't ask you to help me move, I'll hire movers.

The story of your car breaking down is good stuff. Let's talk about it over beers.

However, I say that with a realization that poorer people don't operate this way. They are still very much "it takes a village" and help each other with life's problems. Where I can relate with OP is when talking to these friends I'll say something like "move?! Eff that it's July/hot you just need to hire someone" without realizing they would not consider doing so as it's way too expensive for them. Then I look like a jerk because I would never consider doing manual labor in the heat

<comment><USER18> I offer them money. That may _sound_ as jerk, but actually if you're serious and open, they will not blame you even if rejected. There is no real difference between "help me" and "give me money". Once everyone gets it, things become much easier.

On TFA's money part: I wonder if he offered any help to his relatives after he got money. Buy them a present like ps4 for their kids or new tv. Help solving bureaucrative issue. Take them to their comfortable bar for free. No, he goes to poor house and makes jokes about tesla issues. Real jerk.

<comment><USER19> _There is no real difference between "help me" and "give me money"._

There's a huge difference. Actively putting in work alongside someone is a great bonding experience. Being "in it" with someone is completely different from putting up some money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> You don't have to have a multi-million dollar exit to go through this. You just have to find yourself in a position where you had some amazing responsibility and direction and now you don't in a way that mere mortals cannot relate. There are numerous different ways to get there.

My story:

For just about ever I have been a developer in the civilian world and an Army reservist. Normally the Army reserves thing is just a part time weekend gig doing some really boring administrative work, but sometimes its more.

The first time I was in management I was 24 years old. I hadn't finished my bachelor's degree yet. I was working as the tech lead of network operations in a group called TNOSC. This network, though, covered all of US and coalition forces in Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan except for airport control systems.

This was in 2004 during the post-invasion surge into Iraq. I am not sure how many dedicated users I had (maybe 100,000) but there around 300,000 people who were impacted by my network between coalition military forces and supporting civilians. For perspective 300,000 is bigger than Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple combined. In that management position I published the organization's taskorg (a diagram of who owns who plus the structure of our clients). We had two dedicated brigades to manage and my higher authority was CENTCOM with a dotted line to DISA. My clients were two 3-stars and a 4-star.

Running that organization was somewhat like running a start-up in reverse. We already had business and dedicate clients to support, but just jumping you are actually figure out the necessary relationships and how to do the technical aspects of your job. Life doesn't wait for you to catch up. You just have to figure everything out immediately.

In the real world I am software developer. I am not in management. I don't even bring up the prior military story. People simply cannot relate. They know the corporate world they are isolated into. In the civilian world you don't get magically dropped into that kind of position out of the blue.

Furthermore, people outside the military are more fragile. In the civilian world one of the most important interpersonal qualities is kindness while in the military kindness isn't valued. In the military kindness is like hard work. In most jobs nobody is rewarded for hard work. They are reward for what they accomplish. Hard work is silently implied. In the military what's important is honesty, respect (above and below), and bluntness.

I find in the corporate world I am constantly tempering my words and using my "inside voice" so that I don't come off as offensive. It is so easy to come off as an arrogant dick. People who have known me for a while or been through similar environments get it, but for everybody else its too easy to look like an asshole.

This is even more true in that I work as a web (JavaScript) developer. The most frequent kind of developer in the web are people who don't want to be there, have absolutely no regard for the technologies, and wish they were doing something else. The other extreme are immature childish developers who work in the web because it has a lower barrier to entry in the contributor roles require a large dose of abstractions and dependencies for every aspect of their job. Both of these groups are different shades of imposters who constantly live in fear that they will be discovered. _Pro tip_ \- Everybody knows who the imposters are. I sure as hell cannot relate my military experiences to these groups who hanging to their one and only career by their nails.

<comment><USER21> I get your frustration, this might sound banal, but that's why we're called 'veterans'. There's a lot of absurd, stupid stuff in the (US) military. But when it's firing on all cylinders it can truly be site to behold. It can be simple things, like imagine any civilian organization lining up at 6:30am, 1,000+ people stepping off to run at the same moment; in winter, in the cold, in the dark. That's a brigade run in the army. Happens all the time. To me the big thing is leadership. Top down and bottom up. Professionalism and personal accountability. You just don't see that in the civilian world.

I was talking to an older guy at work last week. He was talking about something military related using "that" tone of voice and some authority. Turned out he was a vet, first gulf war, air borne freaking ranger, now enterprise architect. I was amazed. Civilians just don't understand. Nor should they.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't see the correlation between 'being an asshole' and 'sold my start-up'.

There are plenty of successful entrepreneurs that are perfectly capable of relating to others and treating their fellow men, friends and family with dignity and respect.

Some people succeed because they're playing nice with others, some succeed in spite of not being able to do so, some even succeed _because_ they are are assholes.

There is no correlation here and you probably won't be able to extract many lessons from this piece, no one talks about it because it isn't a particularly common experience.

Wealth does not typically turn assholes in to non-assholes.

<comment><USER23> Exactly... I had the opportunity to meet an almost Billion dollar company founder. I went in feeling awkward but he was very nice, treated me with dignity and respect and never once did I feel uncomfortable. Within minutes, I felt like I was conversing with any one of my other colleagues or friends.

<comment><USER24> This is a learned skill anyone can refine, even before picking up their FU money, at virtually any income level. Even if you are a uni student; perhaps _especially_ if you are a uni student. Nearly anywhere you go in the world, there will be people living in destitution on the streets. While a good proportion in the US have mental and substance abuse issues, an astounding number are starved for simple, decent, human companionship. Just someone, anyone, who treats them as another decent human being. Instead of a "drive- by", "dialing-it-in" donation where you hand them some goods and/or money, receive a "thank you", and that is the extent of the interaction (though they do appreciate that as well).

Sit down with them. Offer to buy them a meal at a nearby diner and say you want someone to chat with. Ask them how their day has been. Be a conversationalist to listen to their stories; and boy, do some of them ever have stories. Imagine you two are sitting next to each other on the same bus, and have an hour until you reach your destination.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Sounds like the author has personal problems they're mistakenly ascribing to their work. Many of their assertions are simply not true (It's possible to be confident without "being an asshole"; I know several such people), and it just comes across as written by an unreliable narrator (if I cared about this person's issues, I'd likely be asking the people who shunned him about what happened and see if the stories matched).

<comment><USER26> > Sounds like the author has personal problems they're mistakenly ascribing to > their work.

I struggled socially in my early 20s and avoided dealing with it by drowning myself in work. Intentionally or not, it sounds like working nonstop meant he didn't have much time for personal development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I am in my 40s and I work with a young married guy in his mid 20s who i would consider a level 1 software engineer on a scale of 1 to 5. He is a dreamer thinking he can strike it rich with his great startup idea working on it part time because he hears stories of all the people who sold their startups and thinks that's such a glamorous life.

First I told him about survivorship bias and laid out basically the same statistics as in the article. Then I showed him that he could double his income in 3-5 years just by learning the craft of software engineering - <USER3> free -- and still have plenty of time to enjoy his new marriage and enjoy his hobbies.

If his own company was struggling, he would be up late worrying about it. If the company he is working for is struggling and he keeps his skills up, he could easily get another job in our metro area. It's been that way for me for over 20 years.

I enjoy being a corporate drone, I go to work every day and leave the job at work -- and I'm a technical lead -- imagine how easy it is if you are "just" a senior developer? If you are a two income family in a good job market with one income as the average senior software engineer, you are guaranteed to be well within the top 10% of earners and be able to live a pretty good life.

<comment><USER28> Founders don't start companies to live a "pretty good life in the top 10%".

We do it because we are ambitious, want to solve huge technical and business problems, make our mark, and change the world.

We usually have more energy and sleep less than others. We love work. We love our business. Most of us would not want to be corporate "drones". It would be like a living death.

<comment><USER29> I fear most entrepreneurs really do care about leaving a mark. Any mark. Ad tech companies? Big data (selling) companies? Marketing (convince the consumer to buy something excessive) companies? LinkedIn and other companies that intentionally force dark patterns on their users? Security companies selling spyware and hacking tools to anyone who'll pay?

The world could do with fewer of those marks IMO.

<comment><USER30> I'm confident most entrepreneurs care about leaving a good mark. It's just that people that are intent on leaving a bad mark, any mark, generally have an easier time of it.

<comment><USER29> Put someone with the best of intentions in a desperate, stressful, situation and you'll see a wide variety of outcomes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > Material things do not make people happy, at all.

Everybody says this, all the time. I would like to propose the controversial theory that actually material things _do_ make people happy, at least within certain constraints.

When I was younger I had shitty cheap material things which made me unhappy. Now I have better stuff which makes me happier.

I used to have a shitty unairconditioned apartment. That made me unhappy. Now I have an apartment whose temperature isn't a problem.

I used to have cheap furniture, which was uncomfortable, and that made me unhappy. Now I have better furniture which is comfortable, I am happier.

I used to have a cheap unreliable car, which broke down and made me unhappy. Now I have a reliable, comfortable car I have no reason to be unhappy.

If you're a baseline-unhappy person (as I suspect the author is) then material goods are unlikely to improve your unhappiness. But I'm a baseline fairly happy person, I don't get unhappy unless there's a specific reason, like discomfort or inconvenience. Sensible acquisition of material goods can remove discomfort and inconvenience, thus making you happy.

<comment><USER32> Most of your examples above point to money == comfort, which I would agree with. I would argue, though, that the line from comfort to happiness is not as direct as most people assume

<comment><USER33> Evidently the line between comfort and happiness is $75,000/yr in the US -- below that and it's a struggle, beyond that and it's a burden:

[http://wws.princeton.edu/news-and- events/news/item/75000-sti...](http://wws.princeton.edu/news-and- events/news/item/75000-still-valid-mainstream-happiness-benchmark)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Ignoring a bit all that I'm-a-successful-Ceo, when most of the "people that mean the most to you" are saying that you are an asshole, take the advise: probably you're. Money doesn't necessary play a hole here. My bet is that you were an asshole before being a milionare. Check with those 'old friends that understand you'.

</comment><comment><USER35> > Listening is an art. Talking over someone because you're an expert in an > area and they are not is not okay.

That's a nice observation. Trying to prove you're the smartest person in the room during a casual social setting has to be one of the most irritating traits I can think of.

Anecdotal story: I was at a party and commented on a plane flying over us saying 'isn't it so cool something that big can fly?'. Someone drunkenly chimed in giving a 5 minute lecture on the physics of plane flight - <USER4> intentionally jargon-filled explanation at that. Everybody in the circle just walked away and 8 years later I still remember that as one of the most obnoxious things I've ever witnessed.

<comment><USER36> You would probably enjoy this skit from the brilliant Mitchell and Webb: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> > And I continually hurt those around me — just by being myself-and it's > beyond heartbreaking.

If you're an asshole without money, you're going to be an asshole when you have money, too. Money doesn't change you; it reveals you.

This is an interesting read, but the author spends way too much time defending his POV. He expects the people around him to just intuitively know what his skills are, but that isn't realistic. People can't know what you consider yourself to be good at unless you tell them.

</comment><comment> d--b And now he can write another one, about how much crap he got from people when he took his story to medium.

</comment><comment><USER38> I find the author's notion of being a leader to be a bit disturbing. A leader is someone whose authority is granted to them by those they are leading. A great leader is someone who may not even be thought of as a leader, but nevertheless directs and coordinates the actions and willing to take the flak for the team.

The idea of a leader taking control of a 4 member band without consent is laughable. That is a dictator, not a leader.

It strikes me as interesting that I do not see this called out more in the comments.

</comment><comment><USER39> Is it possible that his experience is not representative?

Edit: Digging a bit further, it looks like the startup that he sold was Valet Gourmet which was a food delivery business in North Carolina and he worked on it for ~12 years. That's probably a bit longer than the tech startup timelines we tend to think of here.

<comment><USER40> >That's probably a bit longer than the tech startup timelines we tend to think of here.

That is something I learnt from my startups, running and selling them; things will take far longer and people quit way too soon. If you start a business, any business, thinking you will make fuck you money in 15 years is much more relaxed and better chances of success in my experience. Plenty of side projects I made over 10 years ago are still popular running on crappy tech and companies I co founded 20 years ago still exist and make profits. People think a lot changes but it doesn't; it changes on HN and Reddit but not the rest of the world even though the big changes like mobile happened; with a sprinkle of responsive over ancient html/css suddenly people use it again like it just launched.

Edit; in no way I want to imply to live on ramen for 15 years; live a good life all that time, but, at least in your mind, think the riches/exit will happen in a long time from now. It makes it all less bank or bust stress.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This is what happens when a string player makes it.

You want to see some folks having fun or making music after an exit, talk to the horns or rhythm section.

<comment><USER42> I don't understand this metaphor but I like it anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I run a small record label, which i consider my startup despite not earning any money. Some notes:

Truth #3 — the skills that make you a good leader DO NOT transfer to social settings

For me it's the opposite. Learning how to network and interact _honestly_ and with genuine care has completely reshaped my personality. I have such an easy time making friends these days and can, in a given, uncomfortable social interaction, easily distinguish between people being obnoxious and me being the one at fault (stepping over boundaries, being unreasonable, being superficial in my interaction). Ascribing "blame" properly saves you so much self-loathing and miscommunication. I have much greater control of my social life.

Truth #4 — the same charismatic attitude that makes you a good leader also makes you an asshole

Yes, and such is life. People will inevitably misunderstand you if they spend enough time focusing on you. There is an inherent imbalance in your relationship. My solution is to apologise when it comes up, and just _always always_ greet people with respect (i hug) and leave them with respect (it was nice seeing you). Continual courtesy will override occasional mishaps, even the bad, drunken ones. Be honest about not being perfect, and show that you're trying.

Truth #5 — life post-exit is not all happy times

Very true. You really do need external confirmation in your life.

</comment><comment><USER44> Ok. All good. So what do we do now? Allow me to humbly suggest these:

1\. Help folks struggling to pay rent for a short while. Give them breathing room to get their lives on even keel. You have superhuman powers now. Use it. They'll be thankful. But don't expect anything back in return.

2\. Start a soup kitchen in your local neighbourhood and get to know the folks. Each one of us is a Dostoyevski protagonist, swashbuckling hero waging war against our own crazy demons and wild fancy windmills. Ambition and its bitter outcomes are in all of us - not just "entrepreneurs".

3\. "Soft adopt" a nephew/niece who is on the verge of falling into the deadly post teenage trap of feeling helpless, hopeless and depressed about their future. Some ideas: sponsor coding camps/programming classes, fund their college education or their sports interests. Encourage, encourage encourage. (Start with the worst off in the family. I am planning to adopt our 23-yo soon-to-be-full-drug-addict nephew unless someone intervenes. He's grown more despondent and depressed after dropping out of college. His troubled childhood and misery of coping with a broken family - parents are now effectively divorced has turned him into a lone outcast. I still remember holding him as a rugrat. I still believe we can cultivate a future he can be proud of.)

4\. Lastly, simple thing: when folks invite you over for dinner or barbecues always insist on making the salad or dessert. Make it, don't buy it.

I think in the end you have to decide how you feel about compassion. There are some folks who have an absolute and resolute belief that compassion is a weakness of character. I personally believe compassion makes every one of us Superman.

</comment><comment><USER45> Gee, he doesn't come off as a hard heart, talking over people, 100% too confident, know-it-all, or do-as-I-say-- until you actually start reading the article. Expert on what not to do I guess, but I can't follow.

</comment><comment><USER46> This kind of thing is why anyone who says the answer to all unemployment is "make a startup" shouldn't be taken seriously. Hell, the first thing they say is that they basically cut everyone but a couple people out of their life. Most people are not prepared to do that, and quite frankly, they shouldn't in order to put food on the table.

</comment><comment><USER47> Sounded like those humor shows where the Rich Cousin said to the poor cousin he had soooooo many problems in his life, like having to buy all Christmas dinner ingredients from France ...

</comment><comment><USER48> It may be off topic, but this article remembers me of something I read in the The Art of Being Right by Arthur Schopenhauer. He sais that being rigth (in German: Recht haben) and being proven right (in German: Recht behalten) are two different things. Even if you are rigth you can be proven wrong in a debate if you don't know how to be proven right and you can't represent your standpoint. On the other side if you know how to be proven right you don't have to be right all the time.

The OP seems to learned how to be proven right. This may even be a driver of his success. Unfortunately the most of us do not like to be proven wrong all the time and feel offended by people like the OP. Looking at the comments this seems to be true also for the HN folks.

</comment><comment><USER49> I think if I got rich then I'd think very carefully about whether or not I wanted anyone else to know.

<comment><USER50> Yeah, well, here's the thing about that: If you don't explain your lifestyle to some people most just assume you're a broke bum, which is very annoying after awhile. I'm actually going to find some job to do because I can't stand sitting at home and I don't have quite enough money to be fully retired at 43 but it's like --->.<\--- that close.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Brutal truth -- sounds like arrogance.

</comment><comment><USER51> "... but I'm not cut out to be a stay at home parent"

As with leadership skills, I think that enjoying to be a stay at home parent also must be learnt. It might seem hard, or boring, or tedious to some. But I am convinced basically anyone can make an enjoyable experience of it if they actually make an effort. It will not come automatically, it will take some time and effort.

</comment><comment><USER52> Yep, narcissism is a bitch. Especially when it perpetuates denial that the common factor in one's issues is oneself.

</comment><comment><USER53> The whole article comes across as very defensive... here's all these examples of people seeing me as an asshole, but really I'm a nice guy. I try to relate, but it's not my fault I don't understand all of these people that are beneath me while I'm kicking it in my crib with my stone counter tops and $300 jeans. Oh I really love my wife and kid, but... I'm just so unfulfilled.

Brutal truth to the author after having read the article is that he probably does qualify as being an asshole.

As a slight counterpoint to that though, despite what everyone says it is okay to be an asshole up to a certain point. It is better to just own up to it though than to deny it. This is advice from a self admitted asshole.

<comment><USER54> Yes, he probably is an asshole. But at least he's self reflecting and attempting to modify his behaviour. That's a good first step.

 _And I continually hurt those around me — just by being myself-and it's beyond heartbreaking. Somewhere along the way, money truly changed me for the worst._

Most assholes don't have that level of reflection so I'm not going to be too harsh

<comment><USER53> "Most assholes don't have that level of reflection"

Don't be so sure about that. I'm most certainly an asshole and I am extremely self aware. These two things are not mutually exclusive. Many of my closest friends are also assholes and they damn sure know it. Quite frankly that is in part why we are friends.

I agree the author is reflecting however most of his reflection is denial. If he wants to get anywhere then he needs to accept that he is an asshole. Only then can he either decide he wants to change or decide that he is ok with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> He does point out his 'problem' multiple times: too much aggressiveness in channels that are not made for that. This is not limited to millionaires though, you will find many driven people struggling to understand how people with lower drive can 'live like that'. I think some people are cut out to be in a specific role, entrepreneurship, position of power etc, and they feel miserable elsewhere.

As for the money problem, you can avoid most of the problems by not mentioning your wealth to everyone and certainly by not showing it. Keep that for the closest of your bros, no further.

</comment><comment><USER55> The brutally honest truth about this guy is that he's an insecure prick who loves boasting

> Only 0.4% of all businesses make it to $10M in annual revenue. We made it > almost halfway through...When I sold my startup, we had 100 people working > with us.

> Unfortunately, I no longer have very many friends...

> ...Tesla...$300 pairs of jeans, $450 pairs of boots, concrete > countertops...trips to New Zealand no longer bother me. That's great and > all, however ...you come across as a tone deaf asshole.

<comment><USER56> Just want to point out that you could be a bit more sensitive. You've recognized the author's insecurities. Pointing them out in this thread in this manner is something that one should consider whether it would do more harm than good. On the other side of the screen might be the author who is reading your comment and a bunch of other comments calling him out on his insecurities and then piling on.

You do not want to be the one comment that was responsible for a man suddenly folding in on himself and thinking "oh god I really am worthless. Why even be around?".

I grew up in an environment that made me feel insecure and then piled up on my insecurities. I know what it's like to run into a seemingly unrelated event that just makes you wander up to the rooftop of a building and consider throwing yourself off because you feel like a piece of trash that's always been as bad as you thought you were.

Please please please. I implore you and everyone else on this thread to consider words like this really really carefully. On the other side of that screen is a human. Flawed. Maybe deeply damaged. But human nonetheless. Let's take care of each other :).

Peace!

<comment><USER55> The original title of the submission was "the brutally honest truth about selling your company", and I went with the brutally honest theme.

To be honest I'm surprised it got 46 upvotes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I have the same problems as the author but I also have to worry about money because none of the risks I took have paid off.

The only thing I look forward to is the next economic crisis; then maybe I'll be able to build something out of the rubble of other people's failures.

Economic stability is painful for me.

</comment><comment><USER58> This just feels like another click-bait article, from title to purely opinion based article.

</comment><comment><USER59> I can't tell if this guy is a jerk or just pretending to be a jerk. But the tone is pitch perfect. Even the title is pure jerky clickbait. Here's a dude who talks about _visioning_ as his main skill, is surprised when small groups of people don't want him to micromanage them, and falls deeper into solitude when he cannot discuss the problems of $400 boots with normal people. My heart bleeds. He should be transmuted into a parody for the HBO show. The really weird, deeper issue is that even when a totally un-self-aware human being like the author, or like the author is pretending to be, realizes they are totally un-self-aware, they still talk about it in an un-self-aware way where the reader is like STFU who cares... Lord protect us from what we want, and from who we are.

<comment><USER33> It's called "covert narcissism". Whereas overt narcissists openly admit it and are proud of it -- to the point where the most effective method of determining if someone is an overt narcissist is to ask them directly, "are you a narcissist?" [1] -- a covert narcissist is in outward denial -- it's the humble brag, deflecting, blaming, playing the victim. Both are a form of mental blindness that prevent you seeing things as they truly are -- as are fear and __envy__ [2]. The first paragraph is telling (it's all there):

 _The low-confidence cynic in me wants to tell you that a seven figure exit isn't really that much. I have friends who have had eight figure exits, and I'm met multiple people who have had 10 figure exits. This is my experience as a guy who started a business with $10k in personal credit card debt and $200 in the bank, and accidentally ended up a millionaire._

Envy is a sneaky devil, buried deep inside -- hard to see in yourself, hard to identify (maybe even moreso when you have money) -- but it's often at the root of anxiety and low self-esteem. And when envy and pride play tug-of-war, they wreak havoc. Snapping out of it requires humility -- true self-reflection, deep introspection -- and the courage to acknowledge and take responsibility for your actions. Perspective is key, but it's the thing they lack.

[1] [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140805150645.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/08/140805150645.htm)

[2] [https://outre-monde.com/2014/08/21/the-psychology-and- philos...](https://outre-monde.com/2014/08/21/the-psychology-and-philosophy- of-envy/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> The part about leadership skills creating problems socially is spot on. Apparently I am a natural leader when in groups. (There is a natural "alpha" component to this skill; it's not all learned, but rather built upon at least some innate personality traits.) I acquired additional skills during years spent in management. This sometimes causes friction with others outside of work, and can be especially acute with family and close friends.

Occasional friction at work is expected, but when you are the leader by title, persuasion, expertise, and (best) because of "referent power," there are lots of ways to resolve conflicts over direction while preserving relationships. These methods often fail in relationships where the power structures are entirely different and have different bases. When you spend most of your time in one environment, it can be difficult to recognize that your skills don't translate to the other (social) environment.

In other words, if people sometimes think you're an asshole at work, the benefits of continuing the relationship often more easily outweigh the costs. The reverse is true in close personal relationships, where you're just an asshole. Then you either learn the different rules and accept that leadership is often much more subtle and soft, or you end up without friends and family.

And yes, money can change you for the worse, especially if you did not grow up with it. I have friends whom I discovered years later are third generation wealthy (9 figures) but basically live an upper middle class existence, minus the financial stress. I have other friends who were raised middle class and made a ton of money. They tend to be those complaining about people asking how much they've made.

It's the difference between living like Hyman Roth in the Godfather Part II, or living like Tony Montana in Scarface. If people are asking that, you're flashing too much. Either stop pimping your lifestyle, or stop worrying that people treat you like a pimp. Better yet, find a different class of people who also have money and won't ask. But the old money will still call you "noveau riche" for the remainder of your life.

</comment><comment><USER61> Sorry this guy is an a-hole, I guess?

</comment><comment><USER62> with great power/money comes great responsibility [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Ben](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Ben)

</comment><comment><USER63> > When you roll up to someone's house in a Tesla, how can they help but assume > that you're just a judgmental asshole?

Am I the only one who feels that those guys were judgmental assholes rather than the author?

<comment><USER64> Based solely on that sentence, no, you're not the the only one. But based on the entire piece, I don't think he paints a very good picture of himself.

<comment><USER63> He didn't write about doing something really bad, did he?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> So, you're such a good leader and all and you hire to your weaknesses, but you could not figure out you needed to have someone proofread your post. Got it.

</comment><comment><USER66> All these things he listed (losing touch with friends, ruining business opportunities, treating people poorly, appearing 'higher class') happen to almost everyone at some point in life but without being rich.

<comment><USER67> Ya, it seems his real issue is he spent his 20s and 30s with the goal of getting money and now that he has it winners what's next. I believe the term is midlife crisis.

I do find it sad that he,like so many other people just write off how hard and important it is to raise kids. "I'm not a stay at home parent". I've heard it from doctors, CEOs, and others. As a society we really need to stop outsourcing the raising of our children.

<comment><USER33> _I believe the term is midlife crisis._

Yes, identity crisis. If your identity for the last 10 years has been too tied to your role at work, it can leave you in a state of crisis (identity diffusion) when it's gone [1]. In a founder's mind, your identity/self-image can become almost indistinguishable from your company, unless it was solid to begin with. And when your identity has been bound too tightly to an external thing -- and the external thing is gone -- it uncorks a big gaping void of unresolved issues that's been masked all those years. You've likely been acting in accordance with your projected identity -- your persona, your artificial/false-self, your source of pride -- and now that it's gone, your underdeveloped ego (your true self) is left in a state of crisis, caught in a whirlwind between your base impulses (your id) and who you think you should be (your super-ego) [2]. When you recognize what's going on inside and reconcile the two, the turmoil will subside and your reasoned, authentic self will emerge.

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego_and_super- ego](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego_and_super-ego)

<comment><USER33> Moreover, PG touched on this idea in his essay, "Keep Your Identity Small" (2009):

[http://paulgraham.com/identity.html](http://paulgraham.com/identity.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> "when you roll at someone's house in a Tesla"

HAHAHAHAHA! I laughed at this

</comment><comment><USER49> It seems to me that money isn't the issue here.

The issue is that this guy is a jerk, that's all.

Sounds like he has taken becoming rich as a license to set his inner jerk free.

<comment><USER69> Yup. I've seen really nice people become incredibly wealthy and stay incredibly (maybe a little too) kind and I've seen petty people get a little more cash than their neighbors and become intolerable condescending assholes.

It's about the person, not the money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> >The friends that I've maintained all along (and many of them are former employees) understand me.

The equation of "employees" with "friends" here is a red flag for narcissism. It's possible to have friendly relationships with employees but that relationship is still primarily about exchanging services for compensation. As a result, the employees will put up with a lot more nonsense than any person whose livelihood is not directly dependent on keeping their boss happy.

</comment><comment><USER71> His problems have nothing to do with the money... not sure why he correlates that. Sounds like he simply sucks at interpersonal skills ...

E.g. "I feel like my opinion doesn't matter around him because I haven't made $1 mil" we'll if that's how you make people feel it's your fault... if they're simply insecure whiners it's your fault for keeping them in your life...

Same thing with friends...

Another area to improve would be a sense of style (no person with style buys $300 jeans, they're basically a product targeted at insecure nouveau riche... just shop at H&M)

... I guess the only reason this article is popular is that it comforts people who haven't made a million dollars that his life sucks too regardless...

<comment><USER72> > no person with style buys $300 jeans, they're basically a product targeted > at insecure nouveau riche... just shop at H&M)

Hi, I understand what you are trying to say here, but please consider investigating the world of apparel a little more deeply before making comments like this. H&M and similar fast-fashion companies are deeply involved in practices like blatant, continued design piracy from both famous and small, independent designers; as well as unsafe and exploitative labour practices, including in third-world countries. In addition, the clothes these stores produce are not very high quality and tend to degrade quickly, making them only useful for staying up-to-date with trends pioneered by the designers fast fashion brands mimic.

Ethically designed and manufactured clothing that is of good value (ie lasts long) costs money to produce. $300 for a pair of jeans is very high, yes, but H&M is not the alternative I would recommend. I would also say that many people "with style" can easily and in fact viscerally tell the difference between a pair of H&M jeans and a higher-quality pair, and would not balk at paying that price for a piece of clothing, especially for a wardrobe staple like jeans. It is not a "nouveau riche" affectation as much as an appreciation for artistic vision, design, and craftsmanship. Of course personal income is a factor here and I'm not suggesting everyone should be paying that much for all the clothing they own.

If you're interested in learning more about these topics, I recommend reading publications like WWD, The Business of Fashion, or The Fashion Law (though I am not vouching for their reporting and editorial stances in all cases). Consumer awareness of the nature of fast fashion is the only way I see for the fashion industry to move forward from these issues.

<comment><USER71> >the clothes these stores produce are not very high quality and tend to degrade quickly...

when it comes to fashion, you're not meant to keep it for years...

A person with style wouldn't bother buying expensive jeans... you just need high-quality shoes and accessories the rest can be a plain t-shirt and H&M jeans... not sure where you're from and where you get your impressions... I'd say one thing about the fashion magazines, they basically do the work for their advertisers...

the consumer awareness... yeah good point but not really relevant in the context of the above story...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Buckminster Fuller, considering ego-suicide: "I see the hydrogen atom doesn't have to earn a living before behaving like a hydrogen atom. In fact, as best I can see, only human beings operate on the basis of 'having to earn a living'. The concept is one introduced into social conventions, only by the temporal power structure's dictum of the ages. If I am doing what God's evolutionary strategy needs to have accomplished, I need spend no further time worrying about such matters."

<comment><USER74> isnt our evolutionary destiny just to reproduce as much as possible?

<comment><USER75> Or maybe it's to produce as much CO2 as possible.

<comment><USER70> The correct answer is maximize the entropy of the universe, so both of those options work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Oh please. Enough with the changing the world BS.

<comment><USER77> You can't be uncivil like this on Hacker News regardless of how much you disagree with someone. Please don't do it again.

We detached this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13665623](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13665623) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> Let's be brutally honest - most of the successful businesses are about selling harmful (mostly in the long run - people should be myopic, not entirely dumb) bullshit.

And you have to possess certain qualities to succeed in that, which BTW work the best when you are not seeing part 1 as something bad at all.

This WILL make your social life a kind of hell - and you deserve it. People are not dumb customers, though not always able to articulate that (ie from shame, halo effect etc)

</comment><comment><USER79> Buying a Tesla is embarrassing. My net worth is definitely higher than this dude's, and I don't have a Tesla.

<comment> nommm-nommm Embarrassing how? Embarrassing to who?

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Geeze...as I finished reading this essay I thought to myself "wow that was great, I'm glad he could share that...I wonder what the comments have to add" and the answer is...absolutely nothing. You're all a bitter bunch.

<comment><USER77> Maybe look again? The comments in this thread are mixed. Some are dismissive or defensive in their own right but others (quite a few actually) have thoughtful responses and several people have posted their own similar/contrasting experiences.

<comment><USER50> Well the whole article came off as a humble brag, so there's that.

He should just start collecting Porsches or flying airplanes or something. Jeez.

<comment><USER77> Can't say I agree. I think the commenters taking that tack are maybe adding a filter or two of their own to what the author is saying and being reactive to the less interesting parts of the article. That leads to a somewhat boring, if also exciting, round-of-denunciation sort of thread. (Boring-plus-exciting is the alcohol-plus-amphetamines of internet forums.)

They're also ignoring the ways the author is already piling on himself. I think that's a shallow reading and a bit harsh. The common trope in our culture is for the rest of us to become hostile when someone with money goes on about their problems ('what's he got to complain about?'). I get why, but it's an oversimplifying reflex that doesn't breed good discussion. Human lives are complex things.

IMO the more interesting parts of the article have to do with tradeoffs and unintended consequences. Doing what it takes to achieve a goal, including a socially laudable/enviable goal, can leave you stuck and/or damaged in other ways. These dynamics are more interesting than just seeing someone as 'an asshole'.

<comment><USER80> This is in no way related to this comment but I just wanted to say keep up the good work. I read Paul Graham's summary of you and my comment came across as mean and stupid. Anyway to say the least, moderating comments can't be easy and you take every one of them seriously. Thank you.

<comment><USER77> Thanks! Your comment didn't seem mean or stupid because you were defending something positive. But it's great for the community, and one of my favorite things on HN, when someone takes a second look and a more nuanced response arises. So your responses here (both of them) are a gift.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> > But the rest of the world doesn't give a fuck about you or your experience.

That's true whether or not your are successful.

In any case, the only people who are genuinely happy about your success are your parents.

</comment><comment><USER82> "I looked at her "like a little girl" when we were having a conversation."

Almost all of the examples of 'having a hard time around other people' amount to _their self perceptions_ not necessarily the authors actions.

It's impossible to 'look at someone like a little girl'. It's mostly likely that these people either feel insecure, or, they project certain qualities upon the author.

I have a very 'straight face' and because of lack of emotional response, people have asked 'why am I angry at them?' when I had not even a whiff of such emotion. I was literally deeply contemplating what they were saying!

Now - it there may be other tons of behavioural signals - and it's possible the author was _treating someone as a little girl_ , i.e. not paying attention, being dismissive, condescending without knowing it - which would then give a different characteristic to that persons opinion.

And it's easy for someone to create feelings when a successful person 'pulls up in a Tesla'. Any hint at bragging/humble-bragging in any way might be taken the wrong way.

But it's a good article, at least it's good to have some self-reflection/self- awareness.

<comment><USER83> >I have a very 'straight face' and because of lack of emotional response, people have asked 'why am I angry at them?' when I had not even a whiff of such emotion. I was literally deeply contemplating what they were saying!

Well I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one with this problem.

<comment><USER84> Friend, many of us carry this burden. Here's the technical term: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resting_bitch_face](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resting_bitch_face)</comment></comment></comment>


Halite 2020: An AI Programming Challenge - <AUTHOR> https://www.kaggle.com/c/halite/overview <comment><AUTHOR> I've never participated an Halite, but it's the 4th version of this contest. Usually people use Machine Learning to create the winning AIs.</comment>