No, you are not 'running late'; you are rude and selfish - <AUTHOR> http://blog.firebrandtalent.com/2011/07/no-you-are-not-running-late-you-are-rude-and-selfish/

<comment><USER3> > Why do people, invited for a dinner party at 7.30, think its cool to arrive > at 8.30? It's rude. It's inconsiderate. And it's selfish...

Some people here are saying that dinners are different than parties: that you really do need to be on time. I also tended to believe that. Especially, one would imagine, for "particularly special dinner occasions" such as organized holiday events. Hence, when I was invited to Thankgiving dinner this year, and was tasked with bringing the stuffing, I considered it horrible of me that I was arriving ten minutes late--due to my oven's starter stopping working halfway through my preparations I had to find a candle-lighter, delaying some of my cooking preparations--and sending notices to the other people by SMS.

However, when I got there, no one was there but the host, and he was nowhere near done cooking anything. No one else arrived for a half hour, and that was just one person. Most people didn't arrive until a couple hours later, and some people didn't arrive until a few hours later. If anything, the host was concerned that he had confused me into taking the time of the event too literally.

It isn't like there was a bunch of time wasted: we were having a get- together... the goal is to spend time with a bunch of people and have fun, and everyone's schedules are going to be somewhat different from each others. It isn't actually critical that everyone eats at the exact same moment, and it certainly isn't important that everyone hears every moment of every single conversation.

I thereby want to say that this is more of a culture thing than anything else. Here's one way to tell: when that person who was late tries to make a plan with _you_ , come late next time and see if they get angry. Frankly, I bet they don't, and that they don't even seem at all phased: they ended up doing something else to keep the time passing, and weren't even closely paying attention to when you would arrive. Yet, I bet you will still be angry; in fact, I further bet you will even be angry that the other person _isn't_ angry ;P.

Yes: to you this is really important. Maybe for the kind of event you want to have it actually _is_ important (carefully prepared food will be ruined if people didn't eat it at the right moment, you are putting on a play and you actually need the actors to be there, etc.). However, that doesn't mean it is important in all circumstances or that even in the same circumstance it is considered important to all people.

It doesn't even mean that that kind of event is optimal, or that everyone else wants to have that kind of event. If it is actually important to you, be prepared to defend why it is important, be prepared to only be able to make that case occasionally, and keep an open mind to compromising with others who do not share your opinion that every event is better if everyone arrives at exactly the same moment.

A term that is sometimes used for this phenomenon is "cultural cross-talk", and a classic example is how long you wait before someone else is done talking before it is no longer considered you "butting in" when you start to speak. Different people from different backgrounds and different cultures have different expectations of how this should work, and if you aren't aware of this you end up getting really angry.

As a concrete example, the way this would apparently work in American Indian societies would involve very long silences: just because no one is now talking it is not to be assumed that the person who was speaking before isn't just collecting their thoughts to continue to speak again. To presume otherwise would be very rude, and it isn't like you need to be in a rush: you thereby should continue to wait until it is clear that the other person has ceded the floor.

On the other hand, in some places (I believe New York is the typical example; I'm from Chicago, however, and also have this tendency) you see a _negative_ amount of time before the other person is supposed to start talking: yes, people seriously are predicting in their minds what the other person is saying so when it seems like they are coming to the end of a thought they can start speaking _while_ that other person is still talking.

Both of these are normal and neither are "rude": they are just cultural expectation. However, one can _easily_ imagine people from a culture expecting patience and clear turn order to write a massive rant claiming that "no, you are not 'anticipating my sentence final intonation'; you are rude and selfish", making the argument that the other person "isn't listening to me and just wants to hear themselves speak... they even talk over what I'm saying, and I can't get a word in edgewise".

But no, it really is just a difference in expectation. You see these same differences in situations like whether it is rude to ask for things, whether it is rude to deny people asking for things, whether it is rude to presume you can share something, whether it is rude to look at someone, whether it is rude to talk to someone, and whether it is rude to make any form of physical contact at all with someone (or even to stand close enough to someone that physical contact could be possible). People are simply different: that doesn't make them "rude".

</comment><comment><USER4> Hi there. I'm the one you're talking about. I'm always late. You're right. It's a character flaw. But I swear to you, it's the toughest character flaw I've ever dealt with. For some reason, when I'm deeply immersed doing something, I'm incapable of wrapping up whatever it is that I'm tied up doing and fucking leave. It's stronger than willpower. It truly bewilders me. I feel that dealing with my lateness is 100 times worse than dealing with that other time management disorder, procrastination. At least with procrastination I can realize what's going on and help myself out of it. But let me assure you: I don't mean to be rude, and I'm not at all selfish as I consider myself pretty empathetic with your frustration. And I'm not only late for appointments: I delay eating my meals, falling asleep, going to the bathroom... I guess it's some sort of time-autism: if I'm supposed to be somewhere at 8, only when the clock is about to turn 8 an alarm triggers a switch in my brain (all other alarms are useless) and I get going, with zero chance of making it on time. Like you said, 8 and 8ish become the same on a daily basis. At 8, when I snap out of it I'm really angry at myself for losing track of time. How did it happen, I ask myself one time after another. It's sickening how often it happens. It feels like waking up in pajamas in a bus stop and realize you just sleptwalk your way there. Consider it some sort of Tourette's. It's not pleasant to be around me, but I just can't help it, I swear.

From what I've been able to observe so far, procrastination precedes my lateness, in a way that one becomes a symptom for the other. Ie. It's morning and I have to do some really important task at work ASAP. Later, at 8pm, I have to meet you for dinner downtown. But I don't start getting work done until way after lunch, having procrastinated all morning surfing HN. So, around 3pm, when my mind finally comes to terms with responsibility, an overwhelming sense of duty takes over me, striking upon the task at hand with great vengeance and furious anger. Concentration is tops and speed is maximum. Code is thorough. Design is sharp. Text is brilliant. Suddenly it's 8 o'clock and, yup, I'm late. Time is not standing still anymore. I feel awful.

My theory is that the strength I have to build up on a daily basis so that I can overcome procrastination, sleepiness, attention deficit and mild depression is also responsible for my recurring tardiness. To be able to reach such concentration nirvana, my mind has to shut down everything else on the planet earth. On the other hand, whenever I wake up focused and in a good mood, chances are I'm going to be the one ordering that bottle of Pinot.

<comment><USER5> I'm ADD as well, and the only thing that works reliably for me is alarms. It seems stupid to have to set an alarm for _everything_ and it totally goes against my nature, but it's slowly becoming habit.

It helps if you can get into a routine. I'm married, and so we always have dinner at the same time, which means I always leave work at the same time, which means I can have a daily alarm. If I don't get everything done (due to procrastination &ct) I work after dinner.

If you're like me you will hate the structure (to the point of possibly even feeling a bit physically ill) but if you keep up with it, the feeling goes away and it will help enormously (particularly with your relationships with those close to you)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The acceptance of this seems to vary towards the reliability and availability of transport (both personal and public) amongst other factors. Here in London where train frequency can be as little as 90 seconds but compensation payable to punters only if the service is greater than 15 minutes late - "stuck on the tube (with no phone reception)" is almost always an acceptable excuse.

In Tokyo, given as your employer usually pays for your train fare and the train service is notorious for being punctual and reliable, you're expected on time and if you're not, the rail company usually issues on paper an apology like this [http://traininfo.jreast.co.jp/delay_certificate/pop.aspx?D=2...](http://traininfo.jreast.co.jp/delay_certificate/pop.aspx?D=20130109&R=05) .

<comment> cupcake-unicorn That's very true. I tend to hate people's BS excuses for most things (I'm glad "the holidays" is now over, since that was a perfect excuse for pretty much anything), but I rely on public transit (bus system, not subway) to get around. Often to get places that I could drive in about 15 minutes (if I had a car), I have to leave an hour early. I'm used to it, and this works a good deal of the time, but if something is really off, I could end up being late. I feel awful about it, but with bus schedules to account for every random circumstance I'd have to allot an extra hour or half hour and always get to places horrendously early. Sometimes a scheduled bus just doesn't show up, or sometimes odder things - a car clipped the bus and we all had to fill out witness sheets, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Let your frustration out in a polite manner. They haven't hit you in the face or anything. Ideally you can use some appropriate humor, too. Make them feel a little bad, so they avoid doing it next time.

> they smile warmly at the waiting group, as they unwrap their bacon sandwich

"Wow, John, you should recommend this sandwich place to the rest of us... we were missing out on it while waiting on you"

> At 8.20, I was into my second glass of Pinot and at half-past I got a text > saying 'on the way'. We finally were all seated at 8.45.

"Guys, you'd better have a few shots. I've been working on this bottle since 8, when we were supposed to meet, and you have a lot of catching up to do."

<comment><USER8> Is a passive-aggressive comment really the solution? It could backfire and make them feel defensive as easily as it could make them feel guilt. They're late all the time will become because your pedantry pisses them off and they don't want to spend time around you.

Habitual lateness could be engaged with positive reinforcement too couldn't it? This could be achieved by calling the latecomers before meetings or escorting them there early a few times until the habit changes.

<comment><USER7> Passive-aggressive? Hardly. I was suggesting to make an (appropriate) joke out of it.

<comment><USER8> But your aim is to make them feel bad isn't it?

<comment><USER7> A little bit, yes, but in a friendly manner. The key is to do it early, when you can still laugh to yourself a bit about it. If you let the frustration accumulate too much, then it might come across as snide and I understand what you're saying about passive-aggressive. Still, even an occasional snide remark that vents some steam is better than boiling hotter and hotter on the inside.

<comment><USER8> > An occasional snide remark that vents some steam is better than boiling > hotter and hotter on the inside.

We may have very different values, but if the alternative to venting steam is your prolonged unhappiness, it's for the best.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't know much about Dentist offices, but Doctor's offices are notorious for being late.

\- There's always a certain number of no-shows, so just like airlines, they overbook by scheduling slightly less time per patient than required.

\- It's a battle between management who want to get through patients faster, and the good doctors who want to spend more time with the patients. Management sets the schedule, the doctors actually decide how much time to spend with each patient. So everything goes late.

\- Patients tell the receptionist one thing but the doctor another. If you say you need a prescription renewal, you'll be put in a ten minute slot. But if you come in needing suicide counselling, you've just made everybody else wait an hour extra for their appointments.

\- Patients assume the doctor is going to be late, so show up late themselves.

\- There's very little slack in the system, so if just one thing goes wrong suddenly the doctor is late for everybody.

<comment><USER10> > Doctor's offices are notorious for being late.

I've called ahead and said "I have an appointment at 3:30 today. I just wanted to see if everything is still on schedule or if I should come in later."

It doesn't always work (sometimes they flat-out lie) but when it does you feel like a super genius.

<comment><USER9> They might not be lying. It's certainly possible they were on time until the appointment before yours, but that appointment took an hour longer than scheduled.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I used to work with a guy who used to lock the door, anyone who showed up late had to knock on the window and get begged to be let in, it disturbed the meeting enough to chastised the late person with a disappointed frown or jibes from the rest of the team. Very few people arrived late to his meetings, and when you where going to be late you'd let him know.

</comment><comment><USER12> While I agree with the basic premise of this blog post what I find just as rude and selfish is when people over-generalize late-comers to include anyone that is late at all ever and don't care about the "why?" even if it is quite a valid reason.

I've had this happen to me multiple times, and I'm the most reliable person I know when it comes to this stuff.

Reasoning aside, sometimes people are just rude and selfish and it doesn't have to have anything to do with being late at all it's just one of many symptoms of the underlying problems.

</comment><comment><USER13> For what it's worth, when it comes to scheduling social events, if everyone understands that "my party starts at 7:30" means "drift in sometime after 8:00", there's no harm - no more than there is no harm in answering "fine" to the question "how are you?"

<comment><USER14> For parties, yes. For Dinner? For Meeting for Sports? Nope. Not going to work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm another who hates people who do this. I make the effort, you're wasting my time.

I do understand sometimes there are circumstances beyond your control - <USER2> example at my last dentist visit they were 15 minutes late due to a medical situation, but they told me as I arrived - but people who habitually do this really get on my nerves.

</comment><comment><USER10> You know when Peoplesoft said "people become less productive when they work overtime for long stretches of time"? I think this is one of those ways--the people being late get their coffee, and the people waiting get a breather to talk about sports or whatever.

Once this culture starts it's really tough to turn around.

When a meeting is supposed to start, and not everyone is present, I'll maybe wait a minute or two, but then the meeting is rescheduled. This of course depends mitigating factors-- it isn't always possible or reasonable. Mr. VP of engineering is late? We wait. :(

Note that _anyone_ missing is a reason to delay, since you don't send out "non-essential" invites. If you really have moxie, you make the person who was late co-ordinate the rescheduling.

</comment><comment><USER16> Guy's example is a 9am meeting. That's just too effing early. No wonder people are late. Better yet, why even have that meeting?

<comment><USER17> Sure, that's a valid opinion of meetings or what time is appropriate to start working in the morning.

The point is that the late person he's talking about agreed to meet at 9:00 but failed to be on time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > 'Oh 7.30, but we won't get there till 9 because by then it will

> have warmed up and all the interesting people will have arrived'.

> Nice. Imagine if everyone took that view.

> Cocktail parties would start at 3 am eventually.

Apparently this is exactly what happened to 'dinner' in British parlance, as described by Bill Bryson in his book 'At Home'. 'Dinner' was the midday meal and 'supper' was in the evening, but in the 18th century, people invited to dinner started turning up later and later in the afternoon (for various reasons, including entertaining strangers who had dropped in at their house for an obligatory tour). So dinner eventually became the evening meal, and a new word had to be coined for the midday meal, hence 'luncheon' which eventually became truncated to just 'lunch'. All this was happening in upper- class society, mainly in London, so other regions and usages have retained 'dinner' to mean the midday meal. For example, school meals are often called 'school dinners'; and in many northern counties, calling the midday meal 'lunch' is still considered an effete southern neologism.

</comment><comment><USER19> I also fully agree with the author. I met an old "friend" whom I didn't see for over a year a few weeks ago and he was around one hour late. The only reason I actually waited that long for him was because I thought it would be nice to meet him since I didn't see him for a long time. However, he didn't even bother to explain why he was late and was acting like he was on time.

When I directly asked him if he realized that he is an hour late, he said that his girlfriend didn't let him go.. I'm definitely not expecting to be more important to him than his gf but that's a pretty shitty excuse.

I guess some people never change, and that guy is definitely not even remotely a friend of mine any longer. This might be a little off topic but I personally don't understand why so many people I meet take everything for granted. If I'm extremely polite and nice to someone, most of the time they think that I'm an idiot and that they can treat me any way they want because "I won't mind anyway". I used to believe in the good nature of human beeings but I'm starting to heavily doubt that.

</comment><comment> cupcake-unicorn I don't know about this, depending on the excuse (I made a comment on travel reliability), the time frame, and the type of event, it isn't on the top of my list.

Perhaps I'm so forgiving because my actual problem is that people are so incredibly flaky and unreliable at this point that I often don't get to the part where they're "running late" - they'll cancel an hour before via text message or something like that, and I'll be lucky if I even get it. I think there was another post on here about how technology enables people to do this, back in the day when you made plans you couldn't necessarily get in touch with someone last minute.

It's not just in the social realm too, which I find baffling - I made a last minute appointment online with a massage therapist I'd been working with for a while due to back pain flaring up, and she called literally an hour before the appointment to say that since she didn't have anyone else scheduled for that day, she basically didn't want to come in. I've had doctors pull similar (yet not as extreme) stuff on me.

</comment><comment><USER20> I live in Germany. It considered extremely rude to turn up late, and equally rude to turn up early. When you have an appointment, you are expected to turn up "on time". I.e. either side of a few minutes of the agreed time, even if that means waiting outside if you are early.

</comment><comment><USER14> I say "promptly at X" when something is going to start at X, and I start it at X and finish it at X + appropriate time, prioritizing stuff I want more than them.

I don't say this for everything, but for many things.

</comment><comment><USER21> OTOH, maybe it's just a useless meeting about which nobody cares enough to be on time...

<comment><USER15> Then politely decline the meeting invite, instead of wasting people's time when they could be doing real work.. or checking hacker news.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I can't remember the last time I was late, my family has a history of being the first arrivers, but I also get agitated with people who are late, especially if no heads up

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think this is dead on. In meetings at work, 10 minutes is the norm. A quick "sorry, running late" seems to make people feel immune to keeping a room waiting.

<comment><USER23> When I was at Intel early on, Andy Grove would famously lock the door at the start of the meeting. The only meeting I was in with him where I saw this in person was an all hands meeting. His argument was that every minute you are late you're incurring many times that many minutes in cost because folks are waiting on you.

I found it remarkably effective. It had the unexpected effect of making meetings end on time as well since folks would not be late for their next meeting. So while I found it somewhat 'quirky' from a culture perspective I had to admit it had a positive effect on time utilization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I agree that being late is rude. But how is it _selfish_? Rather than advancing your interests, constantly being late ultimately cuts _you_ short.

</comment><comment><USER25> A friend of mine would habitually run late for meal get-togethers. Since we went to "late guy pays" it hasn't been as bad.</comment>


Startup School NY Live Stream - <AUTHOR> http://new.livestream.com/mbp/events/3083143 <comment><USER2> The lack of comment moderation on the LiveStream is atrocious. "It's just a livestream!" It's supposed to be a learning experience. Get moderators, please.

<comment><USER3> The very first comment when you click on the link is incredibly offensive and not welcoming to women.

It's unacceptable that the comment is still visible on there. We need to fix this for women to want to come back and speak!

<comment><USER4> The comment is garbage, but I don't think an anonymous, unmoderated comment is going to stop the type of women who speak at these sorts of events from wanting to come back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Startup School New York Speakers

Chase Adam Founder, Watsi

Shana Fisher High Line Venture Partners and Board Partner, Andreessen Horowitz

David Lee Founder, SV Angel

Apoorva Mehta Founder, Instacart

Kathryn Minshew Founder, The Muse

Zach Sims Founder, Codecademy

Fred Wilson Partner, Union Square Ventures

</comment><comment><USER5> Thank you to everyone involved in organizing the event. It was very inspirational and informative.

</comment><comment><USER6> I hope I'll be able to watch videos of it afterwards. Thanks YC for organising!

</comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone know if it will be available to download?

<comment><USER8> I'll upload the videos to our YouTube channel in the next few days.

<comment><USER8> They're up!

[http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ- uHSnFig5NCQkhJfkn8o...](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ- uHSnFig5NCQkhJfkn8ogXFwzrP4SIf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Anyone could share the list of speakers in order?

<comment><USER10> Parent is in order.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Lifestream is now off.

<comment><USER12> They're on a snack break, should be back in 5-10 minutes with office hours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Who is the MC?

<comment><USER12> I think Alexis Ohanian and Kat Manalac are co-MCing.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: how should I build my invite beta landing page? - rush-tea

I come from a technical background and have little experience in marketing and internet space.  I am currently working on my startup that is ready to launch within few weeks.
I am having difficulties to think about how I am going to launch it. I am thinking of doing a closed beta first and then after few weeks of beta, then open it up.
my question is how do I build my landing page? Should I use a free landing page like launchrock.co, prefinery.com, or build my own?
I think what I want on my landing page are a space for people to ask for an invite by entering their email address (hence I am mining email) and a login link for people who have credentials to login.  I would then do manual work by sorting email address and manually send invite to the email addresses that are legit (not spam).
Would that be enough? Should I use free landing page tools like launchrock? Paid like prefinery? or build my own landing page as it's simple enough?
Thank you for your input <comment><AUTHOR> Landing pages are mostly just a loose proxy for interest in your product. I wouldn't worry too much about how you get one up, just that you do so. Focus on messaging more than anything else while making sure the call to action is readily apparent and easy to act upon.

Good luck. I'd be interested to see what you put up.</comment>


HTTP Status 418 - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/teapot <comment><USER2> That's cute. In case anyone didn't try clicking the teapot, click the teapot...</comment>


Dash Dash – beautifully designed Linux man pages - <AUTHOR> https://dashdash.io/ <comment><USER2> This seems interesting. But it is discouraging when my first page click returned 404: [https://dashdash.io/5/wpa_supplicant.conf](https://dashdash.io/5/wpa_supplicant.conf)

Having said that, I like that each of the 8 man page volumes are titled, and having a TOC for each one makes for some interesting perusal time. The layout of the man pages themselves look great.</comment>


Show HN: measure curiosity of your website users - <AUTHOR> http://popify.me <comment><AUTHOR> Here's some background:

When developing new advertisement format, our team did a lot of data-mining and A/B testing to reveal unknown patterns in human behaviour. One of the patterns was that, if you put random badges on the edge of the screen, people will tend to click on them out of curiosity. If you put more coupons, they'll click even more. And if you show them coupons only once in a while, the time pressure will make users click even more.

The resulting CTRs were dwarfing any other means of advertising. But beware, this behaviour only lasted as long as there were good deals hidden under coupon badges. Changing good deals to no deals would decrease coupon CTR for a whole site for weeks.

With promising CTR results, we wanted even more milk from a coupon, so we implemented a form for collecting emails for newsletter. The number of collected emails has again exceeded all expectations of our client. And, as if this is not enough good news from our tingling little coupon, niche and local websites are also reporting good physical conversion, meaning: people showing up in the stores with printed coupons.

So what is happening here?

A lot of curiosity and a big pull. Coupon badges basically generate a pull relationship with a customer, who is then more likely to engage with a coupon content.

Since all this sounds like a mouth-full and we can't tell you exact statistics and our case studies, we give you popify.me

popify.me is the simplest version of coupons that you can test on your site and see it for yourself. You'll prepare a coupon and put it on your site in a minute. There's also a viral loop included for social media spread and some sweet statistics.

<comment><USER2> Honest question: do you think that if this catches on, and will be seen on more and more websites, users will eventually get tired and stop bothering to click the coupons?

<comment><USER3> They won't. As long there are good deals on coupons, ppl will want to uncover them.

I even beleive that a site with a good marketing team could get rid of banners and use only coupons, which would kindly benefit the site visual complexity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Given you're trying to sell a product, the NSFW in the sample coupon (i.e. the green one) seems like a _really_ bad idea.

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting concept. I like how minimal you've kept it.

If your site is targeted towards business owners/webmasters in the U.S, I suggest having a native English speaker record the video.

 _I realize that comment may earn me some downvotes, but I really do think that would result in more users, and I'm willing to sacrifice karma score in order to help the OP._

<comment><AUTHOR> We're completely aware of that, and really wish that we'd have a native speaker on hand :)

Just now we're pinging our old friend in NYC if she can lend a syllable or two.

<comment><USER6> www.voices.com

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sounds intriguing, wish your site video wasn't Flash based - can't watch it on my current device.

<comment><USER8> vimeo. sorry. here is the MOV link. I just put it on Dropbox. [http://dl.dropbox.com/u/315950/popify%20short%20explainer.mo...](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/315950/popify%20short%20explainer.mov)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> LOVE IT!

Maybe I'm just sleep deprived but this is awesome. The coupons just blow me away. Will you really let me drive your tractor if I become a power user?

PS: your default tweet sharing texts need to be funnier and more in line with the coupon's tone.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, nice tip. The tractor is waiting, just start popifying. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Each pop up click results in another 'page', meaning I had to click back around 8 times to get back here. Just FYI :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure I'm getting what you mean? Do you mean that the coupons take you on a new page?

<comment><USER10> Sorry, I explained that badly. I'm running Chrome (10.0.648.204) and each coupon click is resulting in another entry in the browser back history.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, I can reproduce the problem but I'm not aware what triggers it. Maybe the JS changing the iframe's src makes a new history record in Chrome.

I'll have to investigate this further.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What was the CTR ? for badges and for coupons.

<comment><USER3> CTR for badges was like 8% with all the timing and randomness tweaks. Since coupons are not used to drive traffic to other sites we also measured newsletter signup and the engagement was mindboggling 3.5%

<comment><USER11> This is pretty AWESOME CTR and engagement. I mean, where is the catch ?

<comment><USER3> Banners and such are PUSH for a customer, he didn't do any action to call the stuff in his eyesight. Coupons are just tingling at the side and if a curiosity makes a user to click on it, this generates PULL effect and he is more likely to engage with a coupon. Or in the other words, this means coupons are a holy grail of advertising :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> nicely done! can I put more then one coupon on my site?

<comment><USER8> sure. check the embed additional parameters. view source of the index page for ex.</comment></comment>


Authless-First Movement - <AUTHOR> Make ideas that can survive without logging in.
Only offer the user to sign up if they want to keep it saved in the cloud.
Stop asking the user to login at the splash screen.
- Authless-First Movement <comment><USER2> This is a good example: [https://maebert.github.io/themostdangerouswritingapp/#/](https://maebert.github.io/themostdangerouswritingapp/#/)

I have been using it to break my writing blocks.</comment>


Prebacked partners with Blue Cross to facilitate med-tech innovation - <AUTHOR> http://pandodaily.com/2013/04/03/prebacked-partners-with-wellmark-blue-cross-blue-shield-to-facilitate-real-innovation-in-med-tech/

<comment><AUTHOR> Tl;Dr: Prebacked and Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield are teaming up to throw a hackathon to build revenue generating startups on May 4th.

<comment><USER2> This tl;dr totally misses the point of the article about a new innovative incubator model. Read the article , it's interesting.

<comment><AUTHOR> _edit_ you made my day, thank you _/edit_

Thanks. In trying to boil down the article, may have over boiled. Hard when all I'm thinking about is executing ignition next month. They did a nice job, and I'm quite thankful for it.</comment></comment></comment>


Continuous Deployment at Instagram - <AUTHOR> http://engineering.instagram.com/posts/1125308487520335/continuous-deployment-at-instagram/ <comment><USER2> Shameless Plug: I've recently been involved in writing a book on Continuous Deployment, which covers many of the points Instagram are writing about here (but in greater detail).

I've got ~1,000 printed copies to give away. So if anyone wants one, go here: [http://madete.ch/1S3OGvl](http://madete.ch/1S3OGvl) and follow the link on the left hand side and we'll mail a copy to you.

<comment><USER3> Do you ship outside the United States?

<comment><USER2> We're based in the UK and have shipped plenty overseas so far. I'm sure we'll be able to get something to you, if you're not in _too_ remote a location.

<comment><USER4> Strange, I'm not from the US, (I'm from Serbia) and it says I can't even buy the book on Amazon (I was hoping for the kindle edition). I did apply for the hard copy though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What are the best practices for database migrations when trying to setup continuous deployment? Are there any existing tools/solutions that solve/simplify the problem? This is the issue that is almost always missing in articles/tutorial about CD

<comment><AUTHOR> Beyond a certain size (basically, once the time the migration will take because of the size of the data it applies to is too large), migrations are a heavy investment - in elapsed time, I/O, and so forth. As such, they are planned to a degree that CD probably isn't the solution for it (for example, you probably can only have one migration in flight at a time).

They aren't done live as a single big process that have the potential to lock all queries/updates over their execution, but rather as a set of smaller steps that don't lock.

Facebook has spoken about its online schema change process before - [https://www.facebook.com/notes/mysql-at-facebook/online- sche...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/mysql-at-facebook/online-schema- change-for-mysql/430801045932/) and its follow-up at [https://www.facebook.com/notes/mysql-at-facebook/online- sche...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/mysql-at-facebook/online-schema- change-for-mysql-part-2/431123910932) for example, and I'm sure elsewhere.

Most people using MySQL would potentially first use something like [https://www.percona.com/doc/percona-toolkit/2.1/pt-online- sc...](https://www.percona.com/doc/percona-toolkit/2.1/pt-online-schema- change.html) instead of trying to create their own.

The same principles apply to other data stores that have more rigid schemas.

<comment><USER6> MySQL has online, non-blocking schema changes since version 5.6. But the underlying data file has to be upgraded to the latest format version for it to work first, and to do that in a non-blocking way on a master server you are probably best off running percona toolkit one first. ALTER TABLE --- FORCE does a data file rewrite.

<comment><USER7> That's a big "yeah but".

You can't rate limit the io. That's huge and the percona tool and LHM offer ways to keep io under control. Along with that you have to pay attention to the live schema update matrix in the docs; many things will upgrade with out locking but require copying the table and this will blast your IO.

In addition even with the tools some changes require exclusive table locks. It needs it for a short period of time but if it can't get it because of a long running transaction , queue of transactions, and etc it can block everything up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Also seconding the confusion that other commenters have regarding the "three commits max" rule for automated deploys. Maybe engineers at Facebook are just big fans of rebasing, but I often make commits on feature branches that don't "stand on their own" \- i.e., would break some functionality without subsequent commits. I'm not sure why you'd want to deploy one-commit-at-a-time unless you kept a very strict "one commit == one standalone feature/bugfix" rule, which isn't mentioned in this post.

(I suppose it's also possible that that's referring specifically to _merge commits_ into master, which would make a lot more sense to me)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure about Instagram, but Facebook is a fan of rebasing in general. Nothing should ever appear as a commit in master that isn't something that should be used in production - ie, should never intentionally be broken in isolation.

In general, feature branches are relatively very short-lived, and will be code reviewed, rebased and landed as a single commit onto master.

Features are often feature flagged off anyway, so it is acceptable to commit partially-functional features to master while that feature is flagged away.

There is a concept of stacked commits, but each commit in the stack needs to be a working step towards the end goal, and as such can (and will) be landed in isolation as they are code reviewed.

<comment><USER9> > Nothing should ever appear as a commit in master that isn't something that > should be used in production - ie, should never intentionally be broken in > isolation.

I don't understand why people do it any other way.

<comment><USER10> Some people Ctrl+S and commit every few files, to keep from pushing changes to 10+ files in a single commit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If they're doing up to 50 commits a day and deploy all commits to master automatically how does that line up with "It makes it much easier to identify bad commits. Instead of having to dig through tens or hundreds of commits to find the cause of a new error, the pool is narrowed down to one, or at most two or three"?

If you do a commit and find out in the middle of the day the latest deploy is having problems and people are still committing in new code wouldn't this make things much harder to narrow down?

<comment><AUTHOR> Assuming they're spread out over ~10-12 hours (some crazy morning people, some crazy nocturnal people), that's only ~4-6 commits per hour.

Most problems will be discovered by someone and reported in an hour, and most of those will also be discoverable in a dataset on a system like Scuba - [https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/under- th...](https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/under-the-hood- data-diving-with-scuba/10150599692628920) \- and you can identify the first time that particular issue happened.

If you're lucky, it lines up exactly to a commit landing, and you only need to look at that. Otherwise, due to sampling, maybe you need to look at two or three commits before your first report/dataset hit. You can also use some intuition to look at which of the last n commits are the likely cause. A URL generation issue? Probably the commit in the URL generation code. You'd do the same thing with a larger bundled rollout, but over a larger number of commits (50, in the case of a daily push).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've always found that the biggest hurdle with CD is never the tech. It's overcoming fear and tweaking culture.

Nevertheless it's always great to read how others accomplish their goals and even better that they're willing to share the journey.

Personally I find it incredibly frustrating to see code that I write not ship for sometimes weeks or even months at some clients. It's a slow process but we'll get there..

</comment><comment><USER13> Looks like a lot of schema migration talk here. Out of curiosity does anyone have production experience with lazy migrations for serialized data? Where your model migrations exist as code: an array of functions that convert one version of the model schema to the next. The schema version is encoded into the data. The migrations are lazy because the model is fast forwarded its latest version at the last possible moment, when the code reads the serialized model. I know Braintree does this with Riak. Anyone else?

<comment><USER14> I work for Basho. Would love to hear more about that use case. Regardless, unstructured data with encoded schema/explicit versioning ftw!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Regarding canary releases and detecting errors, one aspect that is sometimes overlooked is the possibility for bugs on the client side. At work, we have a fairly large js centric app with a non-negligible amount of bugs pure client side. While tracking http status codes on the backend is fairly straightforward, we find it much harder to get the same type of information from the frontend. Would love to hear if anyone has experience in that area.

<comment><USER16> Look into client-side error tracking. We're using Sentry where I work.

It will catch any uncaught exceptions, group them together and normalize the stack traces (because of course they look different across browsers). If you tag the errors by their release, you can see if your release introduced any regressions.

We're not using it in any automated way, though, because there's so much noise. Any time a phone happens to run out of memory or some extension crashes, you'll get an error report.

Of course, it also doesn't cover non-crashing regressions, where you may have incorrect behavior rather than crashes. Those are much harder to catch, unless your integration tests are incredibly granular.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> We do something very similar at JotForm. The hardest part has always been the"keeping it fast" part. The deployment should take less than minute otherwise developers spend too much time waiting to see if the commit went live without problems.

The solution is usually to run things in parallel. Examples: Run tests in parallel. Keep things in separate repos and push them into separate folders in the app servers.

</comment><comment><USER18> Almost all CD cases I've seen talk about canary or black/white(red) releases - a case where there is a fleet of servers.

How to do that on a much smaller scale e.g. when I have only 3 servers available? If I deploy to one of them potentially 1/3 of customers might get broken version.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is actually a problem whether you're using continuous deployment or not. You need to put a release out, which you have done some testing for, but you know that only real production traffic can shake out certain types of problems.

You don't have to have all three servers getting the same amount of traffic, and you don't have to have a single copy of your service on each server. So, you could reduce the weight of a single server that does canary traffic to reduce the pain, or you could run two copies of your service on a server, and have the canary copy get a trickle of traffic.

Another approach is to use shadow traffic - instead of handling the requests on the canary host, you handle it on the production host _and_ the canary host. You'd need to ensure the canary can't adjust the production database, for example - or maybe you only shadow read requests. If you don't get any errors, or you're able to prove to yourself that they function the same, you can then move to a more traditional canary.

You definitely need to adjust your continuous deployment implementation to your environment, whatever it is.

</comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 What is the purpose of the backlog of deploys?

For example, let's say 50 commits all land on master within the same second. Why break those into many deployments stretched across hours instead of deploying them all in the next event?

If you landed a bad commit in the middle of that 50, it seems like it might not be immediately obvious once it was deployed that it was bad - and then 5 or 30 minutes later another commit is deployed on top of it.

You might not notice a problem until hours after all of the commits have been deployed, which leaves you in the same situation as if you had deployed all 50 changes in one event, but in this model those 50 commits have been stretched over a much longer period of time between commit and liveness to users.

<comment><USER19> By splitting them into multiple deploys it makes it easier to identify bad commits when an error starts. We can usually correlate the start of an error with a specific deploy, and instead of digging through 50 commits to find the cause we only have to look at a few.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> "Expect bad deploys: Bad changes will get out, but that's okay. You just need to detect this quickly, and be able to roll back quickly."

That's an amazing statement to me. I've always worked in smaller environments where we roll up many changes and try to deploy them perfectly. The penalty for bad changes has been high. This is a really new way of thinking.

It's an exciting way of thinking, but I'm not sure I love it. I wonder how well "sometimes we break things" scales with users of smaller services. I guess the flip side is that "we often roll out cool new things" definitely is desirable to users of small services.

<comment><AUTHOR> As long as you're not in the spacefaring, automotive, banking/insurance, and medical industries, it's probably the case that it's acceptable to have some downtime and bugs - nobody will die or have their livelihood destroyed by it.

Given this, your confidence threshold for a release is not approaching 100%, it's hitting some "good enough" value, where the work you're doing to test for the next 1% is 2x of the testing you're doing now and is "not worth it". As you burn through some sort of error/downtime budget, you'll adjust that level of confidence - as you have more problems, and take more time with responding to problems.

Continuous deployment's upside is a confidence in the release process (since you do it so often), and some assurance that you'll be able to find the problem reasonably fast (since you only have to look through a smaller number of changes). You'll have fewer bigger problems, and more smaller problems. There definitely are cases where 10 smaller downtimes of 5 minutes is worse than 1 larger downtime of one hour, but usually it's better to have the former.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> What are the best CD practice for infrastructure? Especially when you have to deal with commits which only need to be in one environment, or commits which need to be in all environments?

<comment><USER22> Not sure if I understand the question, but for infra, I could say: version it.

Switches have config files or firmware dumps, the same goes for bios and raid bios, for documentation in the infra and connections, etc...

Infra will evolve, and so will do the "version".

While in "test" stage, it's "next version" infra, while in production, the architecture, firmware, connections and configuration, run a tested "version".

Is not easy to integrate/automate infra from different vendors, but it can be done. Been there, done that.

<comment><USER21> Hi npm answered first so I responded to his. Please see below. Versioning is not so simple I thought about it :( it kind of work well IF we are talking about versioning containers or versioning images.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The post refers to a system called "Landcastle". Is that an internal project or an internal name for an existing open source project?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's an internal project. It basically takes a "diff" from Phabricator, and goes through the process of applying it to master and ensuring that all unit and integration tests pass before committing it.

This removes the need for every developer to do a rebase, run test, attempt land, discover conflict, rebase, run test, ... loop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Kind of confused, is this setup for their production deployments only? Does instagram involve any staging environments that would catch a lot of their issues ahead of time, such as failed test builds, bad commits etc? Are their developers allowed to commit directly to master or do they go through a formal pull-request process that gets signed off by someone?

<comment><AUTHOR> As mentioned in the article itself, Instagram uses code review (using Phabricator), and also uses automated continuous integration for running tests on each "diff", before it allows the change to be landed to master.

<comment> UK-AL Depends what automated tests you run. You could catch things that are technically wrong, but what about things like the button being in the wrong place.

That's nots going to spew errors.

<comment><AUTHOR> This class of errors is sometimes fairly easy to catch with canaries.

If a button is obscured or inactive/non-functional for some reason, then chances are some metric is going to be statistically varied enough to call out while in the canary phase.

For more manual canaries, this same approach can be used for metrics like memory usage, latency, number of upstream/database connections, and so forth. Of course, that could be the _purpose_ of the change, which is why it likely will be checked with manual canaries (ie, not the canaries used for the continuous deployment process).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Is their test suite just unit tests, or does it include user-acceptance testing?

</comment><comment><USER26> Great writeup! Would love to have seen more details on actually getting the newly shipped code recognized by the app servers gracefully, i.e., without terminating any pending requests.

</comment><comment><USER27> "The test suite needs to be fast. It needs to have decent coverage, but doesn't necessarily have to be perfect."

Holy hell, what a telling statement that is. I get not unit testing for 1 == 1, but come on, unit and integration tests for, say, user login should be _difficult_ , not _fast_. There are some test suites that actually do need to be perfect, unless Instagram thinks that eg OWASP isn't "decent coverage".

<comment><USER28> The probably use an existing, well tested tool for user authentication (why reinvent the wheel?), or have comprehensive coverage for it already. There's no reason for tests for logging in to be slow either way. And after all, it's a social media app, it doesn't have to run perfectly all the time.</comment></comment>


The money myth - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/7fb15f8a-d007-11e3-a2b7-00144feabdc0.html

<comment><USER2> A somewhat interesting anecdotal snippet, but the ending was far too abrupt. Almost zero analysis as to the author's feelings about money being a myth makes the article feel like a "I used to be poor, but even when I got a 400k bonus, I still didn't want to buy good gloves"... Okay then, I guess I'll stop thinking there's security in money...

<comment><USER3> It's an "infomercial" for a book.

<comment><USER2> You are, of course, right — perhaps I didn't make it clear enough in calling it a 'snippet' (i.e. extract) — but I feel this is far too paltry even if it is trying to sell a book!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd say there's an upper bound where more money doesn't correlate with any positive emotions, but poverty is most definitely misery.

</comment><comment><USER5> Only the rich say that money doesn't matter.

<comment><USER6> Just like people who go to Stanford and Ivies say college doesn't matter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I fail to follow the point of this article, especially given the author's stated insincerity regarding compassion.</comment>


Ask HN: What advice do you have for people going to in their 30s? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Can you expand on the context? Career wise? Financially? Spiritually? What advice are you looking for?

<comment><AUTHOR> Wanted to keep it open ended to not restrict in any vertical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I am not yet thirty, but the most important thing I keep in mind is that optimism is a conscious activity, and friendships have to be cared for, and that our loved ones' time is limited.</comment>


Copyright Notices on Websites. Needed? - <AUTHOR> http://feint.me/articles/copyright-notices-on-websites-needed <comment><USER2> This article got it almost right. Copyright notices aren't required but are generally recommended because they prevent an "innocent infringer" defense. Basically, courts will be unwilling to reduce damages if infringer argues that he/she didn't know the work was copyrighted.

Also, in the U.S. under federal law, copyright isn't granted upon _creation_ of a work but rather upon its _fixation_. So thinking up a poem and speaking it isn't enough; you actually need to write it down or record it.

<comment><USER3> I wonder what happens in this case:

1\. You think up a new poem, and speak it at open mic night at a club. No one is recording, so there is no fixation.

2\. Someone else hears your poem, goes home, and writes it down from memory. That's not fixation, since 17 USC 101 defines one of the elements of fixation as being by or under the authority of the author. So, the work is still not fixed, so copyright has not yet attached.

3\. That person starts making and selling copies of your poem.

4\. You finally write down your poem. It's now fixed, and copyright attaches.

I would presume that you can now stop that other person, via copyright law, from making any more copies. Is there any case, though, for damages from the copies that were made and sold before #4? Can you prevent the distribution of the copies #3 has already made by not sold? Can you prevent the people who have bought copies already from reselling them, or does first sale apply? (First sale only applies to copies that were lawfully made and so usually does not apply to works that were not authorized, but in this case the work was not under copyright when the copies were made so I would think they would count as being lawfully made).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "One twitterer mentioned that a copyright notice helps deter people from stealing content and another stated that it helps make a case for willful misuse. Both are valid points, but thanks to the current international copyright laws both are false."

Wrong. The first IS true. Having a copyright notice DOES deter people from stealing your work. Especially if they don't already know that everything is automatically copyright.</comment>


Companies and Billionaires - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ajA2_Bzz7HO5B_9knCsbNriLrdoor36B4TO9gjFV1Os/ <comment><USER2> I think most people don't realize just how much money the richest people have. People generally think of normal(ish) distributions like height, where if you're 10% taller or shorter than average, you're a tall or short person, and 40% taller makes you the tallest person in the world. In comparison, wealth has a very, very long tail, making it hard to visualize.

Here's what I've come up with to visualize wealth. Suppose you start counting, going up by 1 million dollars every second, and people sit down when you reach their net worth. Most people in the US will sit down immediately. After about 9 seconds, people in the "1%" will start sitting down. Mitt Romney would sit down after 4 minutes. Near the 17 minute mark, billionaires would start sitting down. Eric Schmidt would sit down around 2.8 hours. Finally, after nearly a day, Bill Gates would sit down.

The point of this is there's a huge range of billionaires (analogous to comparing 17 minutes to a day), and the 1% hardly even registers on this scale (like a few seconds).

<comment><USER3> One way I think about it is I ask myself how long would it take to spend in an average adult life?

To spend $1m in 60 years you have to spend $45 a day every day for the rest of your life.

To spend $1bn in 60 years you have to spend more than $45,000 a day, every day.

Those are figures I can kind of work with.

<comment><USER4> That's almost like Brewster's Millions, [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088850/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088850/).

<comment><USER3> That's a blast from the past :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Naïve question. The richest people in the world, who are billionaires from pretty much just stock. How do they convert that to real money to buy things?

Do they just simply wait until the stock is at a high point, and sell a lot? Maybe move that money to other investments?

<comment><USER6> These individuals can easily call up banks and get a loan on their worth.

"Hey, Morgan Stanley I need 2 mil deposited in my account" \- "ok"

This is also how they avoid income tax. ;) They can take in millions and it's just a loan. Then they pay it back off with stock or other asset deals.

<comment><USER7> You might be able to move around when you incur income tax a little bit that way, but you can't avoid it.

<comment><USER8> This is exactly right, you can shift it into another tax year but you can't legally avoid it. But everyone's tax situation is different.

<comment><USER9> There are ways, e.g. by donating to your own accredited charitable foundation.

<comment><USER10> But then you can only use the money for certain purposes.

<comment><USER9> Of course, you can't get rid of your entire tax bill (well, maybe you can, in one tax year). But you can probably do more with charities than you'd assume.

For example: let's say you buy a mansion. This mansion has a forest or large amounts of land surrounding it. A charity focusing on land or nature preservation could acquire that land.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> #2, who owns Zara among other clothing brands, never completed high school, but Zara has brilliant ideas. No connections, I think he started as a messenger for the firm that he was to head. He's sounds like someone Malcolm Gladwell would write about.

<comment><USER12> Lets also not forget he pays Spanish/EU taxes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't understand why the source of the Koch brothers' wealth is listed as "Diversified". They owe their fortune to petroleum.

<comment><USER14> Well if you are asking where did their initial wealth come from, you are correct, it came from oil.

But keep in mind that they have more than doubled their net worth in the past 8 years. And in those 8 years it was a diversified portfolio that more than doubled their wealth, so given that more than half their net worth was accumulated with a diversified company I can see where Forbes is coming from.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/koch-brothers-net- worth_...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/koch-brothers-net- worth_us_56a3ac86e4b076aadcc6d1f4)

For what its worth Bloomberg also lists their industry as diversified.

TL/DR you and Forbes both have a point and the only reasonable thing is to is to take Obi Wan Kenobi's advice and agree that you're both right "from a certain point of view"

<comment><USER15> For those who are wondering (I was), doubling your money in 8 years is about an average return of 9%. So pretty solid, but not absurd.

Although I imagine such returns, with acceptable risk levels, become harder to find when you are dealing with 11-figures.

<comment><USER16> The Rule of 72 will save you from having to wonder from now on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Forbes missed Kimbal Musk. Looks like they need to add a wikisearch to their methods: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimbal_Musk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimbal_Musk)

<comment><USER18> I was also surprised to not see any familiar names from the superrich industrialists in 19th and early 20th century America. Where are the Vanderbilts and Carnagies? I know the industrialists donated hugely to charity and public works, but I'd expect wealth to remain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Nice work!

Quick q: How did you set Google Docs to display like that where no one can edit the widths of the columns?

<comment><USER20> Share the read only sheet and append htmlview?sle=true# at the last

If you remove this part, you can see the read only version of the spreadsheet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> How to download this as an open-office document? Or at least a csv file?

<comment><USER20> Remove htmlview?sle=true# in the url and you can see all the spreadsheet options. In the File Menu, you can see save as option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> In 20-30 years, Zuckerberg is going to be in a league of his own.

<comment><USER23> My money is on Bezos to take the #1 spot and stay there for decades.

<comment><USER22> My comment was more related to the ages of everyone else on that list rather than the reasons behind their fortunes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Are you sure about that line?

Elizabeth Holmes Holmes elizabeth-holmes elizabeth-holmes 32 blood testing Healthcare F United States 1.47E+12 1000 1867

</comment><comment><USER25> How accurate is this? Asking because Trump not releasing tax returns made some news.

</comment><comment><USER26> +1 for the OP's username

</comment><comment><USER27> Pyramid scheme</comment>


Inspiration UI – Find design inspiration from real live projects - <AUTHOR> http://inspirationui.com <comment><USER2> This is awesome! I had been wanting EXACTLY this for a long time now. I'm not a UX / design person, but I appreciate the impact that it has. Normally I'll just look at what others are doing and implement my own variations on it, but it's difficult to find small examples, and exploring stuff in websites such as dribbble is tedious.

<comment><USER3> [http://patterntap.com](http://patterntap.com) used to be great for this sort of thing, but then the guy behind it decided, ironically enough, to redesign the interface and that killed the site. Also Dribbble came out around the same time, so it didn't help either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Most of those designs look the same to me. It's the "clean", minimalist, flat, vibrant colors, boring fad. It's sad that creative artists are not allowed in professional design.

<comment><USER5> There are plenty of creative people doing professional UI design work. However, usually they aren't the ones posting yet another flat or Material Design dashboard to Dribbble.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The 404 error pages are rather amusing:

[http://inspirationui.com/tags/254](http://inspirationui.com/tags/254)

^ Tags should really be you know, actual tags, not tag ID's though, how are search engines supposed to know what each tag is outside of the URL (which is the easiest indicator I would assume). Only just noticed this about tags.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, you are right. Those URLs should be prettier. Thx for your feedback

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Love it. I would love to have this for mobile apps too.

<comment><USER8> [http://pttrns.com/](http://pttrns.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Also check out [http://Crayon.co](http://Crayon.co) to find designs sorted by industry.

<comment><USER10> Was curious about that site, but why do they lock me out until I sign up! Hate that new trend :(

<comment><USER11> Weird that they would do that with this sort of site. Weirder still, there's a tiny link in the footer which takes you to the actual content ([https://www.crayon.co/f/](https://www.crayon.co/f/)), which you can look at a for a second or two, or until you scroll or something, until an annoying signup modal appears. Said modal can of course be trivially banished by editing the DOM (or with a single line of JavaScript).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> very nice! how is the content sourced and picked?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have a private chrome extension wich help me to grab the image & URL quickly for a particular pattern (I have plans to publish this extension). I curate the content from various design inspiration sites I visit daily.

I started this project as a solution to capture and organize web patterns that I like.

<comment><USER3> What you do is you _collect_ , not _curate_.

PS. The hamburger menu and the "all patterns" droplist don't work in Mobile Safari. They don't respond to taps at all. FYI.

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe I have a combination from both.

P.S. thx for the ios issue. now it's fixed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Now... take some advice from your own UI inspiration and don't do something as insane as adding a white 90% opacity overlay as you're scrolling and mousing over things. Extremely jarring.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess it's a matter of taste here, but I'll take the feedback.</comment></comment>


Cannot upvote/save story - <AUTHOR>

I just realised that all the stories that i have upvoted the last 3 months do not appear in the saved stories categories. Does anyone know why does this happen? <comment><USER2> I see my saved stories. You should email email@example.com

<http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html></comment>


Unified EU electronic identity card - <AUTHOR> http://electronic-id.eu/ <comment><USER2> We had these electronic identity cards in Finland for quite a while, but I think they've been considered a failure:

 _It was initially planned as a general network authentication device for both public and private sector strong authentication needs. In 2009, however, the card was viewed by a government committee as a failure. There has been less than 300000 cards around by 2011 out of population of 5.3 million. The rationale to apply for a card has mostly been traveling abroad. Only few dozen government services have adopted it, and only one bank adopted it as login card to their netbank. All banks in Finland use a national standard called TUPAS, which uses one-time passwords. Banks also provide TUPAS authentication to other Internet-enabled businesses. Since TUPAS requires no dedicated hardware, cost of a card reader and card itself have been main causes in the failure of the eID card._

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

The problem is simply that smart card readers never got integrated into computers, and people didn't want to buy a USB dongle for that just to be able to authenticate with some government websites.

Instead, what happened was that the two-factor authentication system provided by banks became the dominant "secure authentication" method. By now it is supported by most sites that need such a thing, like banks, insurance companies, postal services, and several government sites.

I can for example authenticate with my bank user credentials to file my taxes (or could, when I was still living in Finland).

An additional benefit of the ID card is that you can use it for travel inside the European Economic Area. But I'll rather carry my passport with me, as that way I don't have to wonder whether the ID card is enough for my itinerary or not.

edit: ID cards are valid travel documents inside EEA (which is a larger area than Schengen)

<comment><USER3> > Since TUPAS requires no dedicated hardware ...

Can you explain this bit? My bank here in the UK has an OTP mechanism for internet access, but it uses a small key generator card provided to each customer, controlled by a PIN on each use.

Does the TUPAS card itself generate the key?

<comment><USER2> Think of TUPAS like _OAuth /FB Connect as envisioned by banks_. Typically TUPAS uses a printed card of single-use passwords.

Here in Germany you instead get an SMS with a single-use password every time you have to authenticate (for example, to pay a bill).

As an alternative German banks also provide smart card reading OTP generators that interface with your bank card:

[https://www.sparkassen-shop.de/sfp/shop/tan- generatoren,375/](https://www.sparkassen-shop.de/sfp/shop/tan- generatoren,375/)

In Finland universities also have the need for federated authentication, as students can take courses in different schools. Instead of TUPAS they standardized on Shibboleth and SAML.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "A proposition for a standard digital signature in every EU citizen's identity card. .... No extra cards - it will just replace your existing ID card when it expires"

Well unlike most of the continent, Britain and Ireland have no mandatory I.D. card (thankfully) so this doesn't cover the whole EU...

<comment><USER5> I thought UK wasn't part of EU in the first place.... (Hence it DOES cover all of EU, no?)

<comment><USER4> Ahem, Ireland is also a member of the EU!

<comment><USER5> I thought i covered Ireland under UK when I asked if it wasn't part of EU

EDIT: oh not all of Ireland is in UK. I honestly didn't know about "Republic of Ireland" being a standalone country

<comment><USER6> oooooh boy. Might want to do some research before your holiday to Belfast (or Derry).

Edit - I realize that came off snarky - it was meant lightheartedly. In all seriousness, though -

Republic of Ireland - a soverign nation of 26 counties. Split from the UK nearly a century ago. There's some interesting (but very painful) history behind that.

Northern Ireland - 6 counties at the northeast of the island

Ireland - a geographical entity (the island itself)

Ireland (or Eire) - the official name of the Republic

Great Britain - the island with England, Scotland, and Wales. Often used to refer to the UK (but this isn't completely accurate, if we're being pedantic it's a geographical, not political, term, and there's still Northern Ireland).

United Kingdom - England, Scotland (for now), Wales, and Northern Ireland

It would make sense for me to make an error in there, but I think I've got that right. Hope it's helpful!

<comment><USER5> Finally someone who chose to explain things instead of just bombing down votes. Thank you for taking the time to explain that.

And I'll just take solace in this (apparently) Scottish Proverb:

"He who asks is a fool for a moment. He who doesn't is a fool forever"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Portugal already has these. Our ID card is a smartcard, and contains a personal X.509 certificate, issued by a national certificate authority (and a bunch more stuff, like my address or photo). You can use a card reader and standard software to sign legally valid documents. You can login into government websites with it.

I'd wager about 80% of ID cards already use the new model.

It looks like this:[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4kQttk9aLQI/TT7-nale3lI/AAAAAAAAAC...](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_4kQttk9aLQI/TT7-nale3lI/AAAAAAAAACE/ebQLh6RFrNI/s320/CartaoCidadao_f%255B1%255D.jpg)

Its site is: [http://www.cartaodecidadao.pt](http://www.cartaodecidadao.pt)

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately, there are too few countries. Portugal, Spain, Estonia, Finland, Belgium, India and a few more. Everyone solves the problem in their own way, sometimes incompatible with the others, and not taking into account all privacy concerns. Hence my suggestion for a standard, interoperable solution

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The FAQ is really helpful:

"Will it hurt our privacy?

No"

Oh, OK then.

<comment><USER9> It's a QAA (quickly answered answer).

<comment><USER10> Please .. it's a DATQA (don't ask that question answer).

<comment><USER9> Well at least the FAQ wasn't a NAQ (never asked question).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The description of this card's features are a little too basic to my taste. Based on the "anonymous credentials" they mention it seems to imply that they're using attribute-based cryptography* to preserve privacy, which would be awesome. Can anybody shed some extra light on this?

* = See [https://www.irmacard.org/](https://www.irmacard.org/). It allows your card to reliably answer questions like "Am I allowed to enter this country?" and "Am I old enough to buy liquor?" without you having to communicate all your personal data (like full name, exact age, exact country of origin) to the party who needs to check it. In fact, that party would not even be able to gain more information. It just communicates parts of your identity on a need-to-know basis.

</comment><comment><USER12> In germany we have the EPA or nPA or how this is called. Thank god we can opt out the functionality of these features.

Good luck proving you didn't electrically sign that contract. Forget decrypting pay-TV this is the new shit.

<comment><USER5> I thought it was easier to replicate handwritten signatures than digital ones, no?

<comment><USER12> Probably, but I'd be pretty easy to convince a court you did not actually transferrer your life time savings to Belarus because it is known that handwritten signatures are weak.

But courts have idiotic trust in technology. They accept the output of anti privacy program as a proof.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Note: This is just a page created by a random guy on the internet, with no connection to any official EU entity or authority.

</comment><comment><USER14> Its the first step to the EU mandatory-sex-offender-registry-for-everyone that most continental Europeans call the "resident register" or "population register". For all you uninformed, that's where you must register with the police whenever you stay someplace. (Which is why I'm so derisive.) And they are starting to use national ID cards for this purpose now.

So in that respect this makes perfect sense. An electronic EU ID makes (for example) mandatory registration with the police so much easier.

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

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

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

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

(Note the latter systems _are your ID_.)

</comment><comment> Pirate-of-SV It's still a card. Why not go for a full software solution as the one used by banks and government agencies in Sweden?[1]

[1]([http://www.bankid.com/en/what-is-bankid/](http://www.bankid.com/en/what- is-bankid/))

</comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me of Estonia

[http://www.bhorowitz.com/estonia_the_little_country_that_clo...](http://www.bhorowitz.com/estonia_the_little_country_that_cloud)

</comment><comment><USER15> I can't wait to be added to yet another database ...

I wonder what countries are left where you can mind your own business without being tagged like some vulgar cattle.

</comment><comment><USER16> Do you have any more information? At the moment it looks like a design project showcase with a few links to wikipedia.

<comment><USER13> > At the moment it looks like a design project showcase with a few links to > wikipedia.

Because that is exactly what this is. This is just an unofficial proposal by some random guy: "Page created by Bozhidar Bozhanov".

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I fully support something like this, but it should be optional.

</comment><comment><USER18> > It will preserve privacy - no one can trace when and how citizens use their > identity cards.

Haha. I like such statements, and I'm waiting for the first massive leak years down the road.

<comment><AUTHOR> Read about "anonymous credentials"

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Some EU countries don't have an ID card, e.g. the UK.

Edit: Just saw it's some eurocrat's proposal, thankfully not an actual new imposed law. Not that it really matters once the referendum comes up as the UK will likely be out of the EU after that.

<comment><USER2> What is the problem with the idea of an ID card? There are situations where you need to prove your identity, and a government-supplied card can be useful in those cases.

The alternative is using a driver's license or a passport, both of which are also cards (or booklets), and government-supplied.

It is not like you'd be forced to get one, or carry it around. Finland has had ID cards as long as I can remember, and I never had to get one.

I had my passport stolen once, and identifying myself to the government to be able to get a new one was a bit of a pain in the ass, since I didn't have any other valid national ID (driver's license isn't considered one). The alternative way of authenticating involved maybe fifteen minutes of questions like _What was your street address in 1987?_

<comment><USER20> "What is the problem with the idea of an ID card?"

In my view, the problem is that it increases the government's power over citizens. Much government is useful and good, but it's an ineluctable law that powers are abused. ID cards extend the territory on which the abuse of power can play out.

<comment><USER2> In this case the power is "we can prove that you're a citizen of country X". Unless ID cards come coupled with mandatory carrying of them, I don't see an issue here. As long as countries provide services (like, say healthcare), there are valid reasons for needing to prove your nationality every now and then.

<comment><USER19> >there are valid reasons for needing to prove your nationality every now and then

Such as passport, driving license, residential address, visa if a foreign citizen, etc?

<comment><USER2> Driving license isn't a valid ID at least in most European countries. And residential address would probably need some proof, like those stupid utility bill scans some services require you to send.

Passport obviously works, but doesn't fit in your wallet. But that is the ID I use when I need one.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Best programming language to learn starting from scratch? - <AUTHOR>

No programming experience but want to learn to help myself with prototyping. Is there a clear winner or any pros/cons would be appreciated. Thanks.<p>Will <comment><USER2> Python! MIT are now using it as the language in their introductory CS course. There are a lot of resources out there, books, videos. You might come across the question of v2.x vs. v3.x. I've ported my code base over to v3 and I haven't regretted the move. A year ago, v2 might have been the safer choice. Have a look at the advocacy page on python.org to see the many noteworthy organizations and people have made that choice. I especially like the way CPython works equally well (at least for me, YMMV) on Linux, Mac OS/X and Windows. With virtually every other language I've had to work around platform specific gotchas.

<comment><USER3> I second that. I have learnt quite a lot of programing languages this past two years (C++, Java, Haskell, Lisp, and Python), and Python has been the easiest to learn, by far. It is fast and easy to have your Python system up and running, and you'll soon get things done in Python. So for an absolute beginner, I sure recommend Python.

Now the downside for Python, is that imho, it starts to be boring after a while. Don't get me wrong, it is a "powerful language" (meaning that being high level, you can do a lot of things easily) and there are many libraries, so it is still my "production" language. But I have found a lot more fun in Lisp and Haskell as they tend to stimulate my brain much harder. But I will not suggest it as a first experience (especially not Haskell)..

Hope it helps,

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ruby! Because it balances freedom with not-messiness.

Seriously, either Ruby or Python is a good choice. Reflect on yourself and ask: Are you the type of person who chafes under strict regimentation and would appreciate a language that has the philosophy of "there should be more than one way to do things?" (keeping in mind that it may be tough to figure out how something was done)?

Or are you the type of person who works best when "there should be one obvious way to do anything"?

If you are the former, pick Ruby. If you are latter, pick Python.

</comment><comment><USER5> There is no such language. "Best" is pretty badly defined. But there are a few "Good enougth" languages. People already suggested Python and Ruby, im a python fan myself, at least for begginers. My suggestion is to find someone who already knows how to code, to help you out with whatever language he knows, if you have no such friend, python would be my choice.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much. From the consensus it definitely seems like python might be best to get my feet wet, although I've heard ruby is a bit cleaner. I'll dive into python and see how it goes. Thanks for all the help!

</comment><comment><USER6> Assembly.</comment>


Innovation Always Trumps Invention - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jan2011/id20110114_286049.htm

<comment><USER2> I'm happy to define invention as the making, and innovation as the making+people wanting. But he's defining it in terms of intention: an inventor creates something for its own sake; whereas when an innovator creates for a market need. It means the same act of creation could be called invention or innovation, depending on the intention.

A deeper objection is that being market-lead only leads where the market already knows it wants to go. It is a problem in search of a solution. But there's the other, more interesting engineering-lead innovation, which is a solution in search of a problem. The Innovator's Dilemma has examples of the latter, such as tiny disk-drives and offroad minibikes.

And I think Steve Jobs is famous for not being market-lead (which is how the article presents him). The iPod wasn't market-led. People didn't say "we need an iPad", in fact many had doubts about it. It is true, however, that he intended and planned it to be a market success - he wasn't just "inventing" without regard to widespread adoption.

I think better definitions are that _invention_ is creating new products, and _innovation_ is creating new businesses. Invention can be a component of innovation. An innovation can target an existing or imagined market need. However, these terms already have meanings, so perhaps we're better off just saying what we mean.

 _PS_ : I looked at one inventions he mentions, and it seems cool: Liftaem, a bed-to-gurney hovercraft. When I've seen patients transferred manually in hospitals, I've thought it looks shockingly primitive. [http://tincmag.com/2010/12/09/smart-medical-technologys- lift...](http://tincmag.com/2010/12/09/smart-medical-technologys-liftaem- provides-easier-patient-transfer/)

<comment><USER3> In my definitions, innovation is simply the step _after_ invention and before imitation.

* invention: have an idea and build a prototype to verify

* innovation: make it a product and sell it

* imitation: make it scale

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't see anything other than a personal preference in how the words should be used. Innovation trumps invention: yeah, because you just _defined_ the words to mean that. Why innovation should necessarily imply market success is beyond me. I guess if SpaceX ultimately fails, they haven't been innovative...

<comment><USER5> It's a marketing thing, if you make your customers think that you're selling a completely different category of product they'll eat it up. People will see through anything you try to say about your brand of soap, but when it comes to "cleansing body wash" they can't immediately claim knowledge, and they will be at least temporarily open to whatever you tell them. Here the product is his mediocre restatement of things mostly everybody already knew already.

Full disclosure: I am not a marketing major, so this may be mostly made-up.</comment></comment>


I Just Paid For a Promotional Video And Twitter Effectively Killed My Service - <AUTHOR> http://web.bozho.net/?p=223

<comment><USER2> When Google Maps announced they were going to start charging it was exactly like getting AIDS.

...Maybe don't compare losing API access to being a Cancer patient. This isn't going to kill you, or financially bankrupt you, or destroy your family...

<comment><USER3> Agreed. I think a better analogy would be comparing this situation to being a squatter and seeing a real estate agent sign in the yard of the house you've been squatting in. You realize that you only have a short amount of time to leech off the work of others before it is cut off.

<comment><USER4> >leech off the work of others

That's an unfair assessment. In same cases perhaps, but the core issues is that Twitter et al offer certain types of access and then revoke it. If this developer had reverse-engineered their API and they closed the loophole, leeching would be a more relevant term.

<comment><USER5> Twitter is a private service. You use it at their pleasure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I personally can't fathom how I could live with a business model that depends on the TOS of other companies. I mean, sure there are markets for these kinds of things, but the risk associated with it scare me shitless.

</comment><comment><USER7> I stopped reading at the cancer reference. What a joke.

<comment><AUTHOR> What a bigoted statement. So, metaphors should no longer be used? If I can afford to write this metaphor, having lost my brother 3 months ago, I don't really get it how people are so sensitive about metaphors, even if they are a bit too strong.

<comment><USER7> I welcome metaphors but your use was...well, shit. You basically dropped the word cancer in there then moved on without fleshing out the thought. And just because you've lost someone doesn't make it less offensive. You're comparing your first world problems to a crippling illness. I might be bigoted but you're a petty child in my eyes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Although I don't agree with this way of thinking, I acknowledge that some people may find a metaphor offensive. For that, I removed mine, but I hope people will start understanding when words are meant to be offensive and when it's just humour or metaphors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is the downside of building a product which is at the mercy of another companies service.

</comment><comment><USER9> The video is good. Tried to find a site of who did it, but could only get a Vemeo page. Maybe you can get some supplemental income on creating them a site to sell their videos.

<comment><USER10> Their site is linked from their Vimeo page:

<http://www.2dream-animation.com/></comment></comment>


Computing power: A deeper law than Moore's? - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/10/computing-power <comment><USER2> This Koomey guy better have a conversation with Ray Kurzwiel before he go's around naming this "Discovery" after himself. Considering Kuyrzwiel's book "The Singularity is Near" already covered this phenomenon 7 years ago. I didn't see anything in this article that I hadn't heard before. That chart is nearly identical to ones in Kurzwiel's book.

</comment><comment><USER3> Moore's law was simply an observation or a prediction about the computing market at that time: That the number of transistors on a chip would need to double every 18 months if the chip manufacturers hoped to get people to buy the next gen. He argued that people/companies wouldn't upgrade their existing equipment for a measly 10-50% increase in performance. They'd need to double performance if they wanted to get rapid turn over to the next generation of products.

</comment><comment><USER4> tl;dr: Some researcher does the math and finds that computer chips are becoming more efficient over time, i.e., electrical efficiency doubles every 1.6 years. He wants to call it Koomey's Law.

Neither Moore's or Koomey's "Law" are very deep and don't really rise to the level of a true physical law. Its been known for a long time that Moore's "Law" was going to eventually run into the real laws of physics and that seems to be happening now.

<comment><USER5> >Its been known for a long time that Moore's "Law" was going to eventually run into the real laws of physics and that seems to be happening now.

I have been hearing people say this for a very long time, but I've never seen good evidence that it was true. I mean, at any point in time, the state of the art has "run into the laws of physics" - that's why it's the state of the art. At any given moment, the best we can do is limited by some physical property. Processors don't get faster because Intel just decides to turn the clock speed up. They get faster because researchers find ways around the old physical limitations.

And I think that's the fundamental misunderstanding people have about Moore's law and similar consistent growth trends. People see a consistent curve and they think "Oh, this is just the natural course of progress, and so it shall always be." But that's not how it works. The reality is that each point on that curve is the result of team of very smart people making a breakthrough.

<comment><USER4> > The reality is that each point on that curve is the result of team of very > smart people making a breakthrough.

My view is not meant to disparage the work of the people who keep the progress going. My point is that at some point Moore's "Law" has to breakdown since nothing real can double forever but perhaps you don't find philosophical/metaphysical arguments compelling.

As way of analogy, look at electric power generation based on a heat engine cycle. Ultimately you run into theoretical limits based on the Second Law of thermodynamics. On top of these physical constraints are Economic Law such as marginal utility which determine if it is really economically efficient to spend x dollars to gain y increase in efficiency or to stop short of the theoretical limit due to diminishing returns on investment in efficiency gains. These are real laws that computer chips will eventually run into.

My understanding of computer chips is that they are running into thermal limits and also bumping into quantum tunneling effects that are interfering with the deterministic nature of logic gates. I am sure people are working on ways around these limits and they may very well may find new and brilliant ways to continue the increase in processing power. It may even be true that theoretical limits to computation are far far away from where we are now and Moore's "Law" will continue to apply for decades but it still would not make it a actual physical law in the proper sense of the term.

<comment><USER5> Yes, there is a point where the doubling has to stop, but what I'm taking issue with is that people tend to point to current physical limitations as evidence that Moore's law is already over, or nearly dead. And at any given time in the history of computers, you could look at the fastest processors and say "they're bumping up against limit X". But until X is Bremmermann's limit[1], that is not an indication that progress will slow.

Incidentally, if Moore's law were to continue and it were as simple as "speed per mass doubles every 18 months", it would still take somewhere on the order of 300 years for us to approach Bremmermann's limit.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremermann%27s_limit>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This seems like a straightforward corollary of Dennard's power scaling law which says that the power of a transistor should be proportional to its area. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOSFET#MOSFET_scaling>

</comment><comment><USER7> "Some researchers are already building devices that run on "ambient" energy harvested from light, heat, vibration or TV transmitters."

Very cool.</comment>


Ask HN: Name One Interview Experience - <AUTHOR> It may be rare, but doesn't anyone has some to share on what make a good interview experience? <comment><USER2> One of the better ones I had was a take-home problem where the hiring manager actually scheduled a meeting with me to go over my solution in detail. It allowed me to cover things I thought I did well as well as explain where I would have improved things given more time. I didn't get the job but it was a far better experience than just submitting code and being rejected with no explanation as was the case with every other company.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've had a lot of good interviews. Most have gone something like this: phone conversation just to make sure I understand the job and they understand a little of my history, phone screen with basic technical questions, in person interview with one or more people, phone call or email with a decision later.

I've never been asked to whiteboard in twenty years of applying for and getting hired for development (coding ) positions. I've only had to do a take home project twice.

It's a good process for me. A week or so from beginning to end. Sometimes there's a recruiter at the start which is inefficient for me, but not enough to make me pass.

Is it a good process for the company, though? Do they get good hires who perform well?

<comment><AUTHOR> Luckily I have never been asked for a whiteboard coding either. For me, the most amazing interview is one with the full team in a casual format. It's kind of a luxury for a busy team but at the same time I felt like I'm being valued. At the end, it's also proven that it's the best decision I made in my life as the team is truly amazing.

But I'm not sure is there any other form taking less valuable resource and yet achieving the same.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: If you are a job seeker, whats your ideal software to manage the search? - why-el

Hello HN,<p>Just contemplating an idea: Say you are looking for a job. Since there are thousands of companies out there, each potentially with its own response pace, requirements, steps, and so on, an app to manage this could fill a really nice niche. How would you envision such an app to be? What would be a killer feature, and would you pay for it? <comment><AUTHOR> I usually only use a spreadsheet. I maintain one to keep track of interesting companies for the future (e.g. when I receive a cold email that seems interesting but am not ready for a move yet), I also use it to list companies I don't want to do business with - either they were difficult to deal with in the past or their recruiters were not behaving professionally.

When actively looking I list companies, contacts there, pros/cons, recruiting process.

I would definitely not pay for an app I would use every other year at the most.</comment>


#DeleteFacebook: Perspective from a platform that doesn't put democracy in peril - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/tootsuite/deletefacebook-fafdc4090307? <comment><USER2> ...hosted on a platform that is increasingly becoming a walled garden (yes, I mean Medium). #ironic</comment>


High-scoring grant applications yield more highly cited papers - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/high-scoring-grant-applications-yield-more-highly-cited-papers-1.17380#/b1

<comment> Al-Khwarizmi Did they control for the fact that low score means no (or less) funding, and that makes it more difficult to produce results? This sounds obvious, but it's not mentioned as a factor in the linked page...

</comment><comment><USER2> It would have been a lot more useful to also know how a percentile increase on the review score translated into a percentile increase on the citation distribution. We already the citations are highly skewed from a winner-take- all dynamic, so even if you just barely increase your chance of funding the top paper as opposed to the second-to-top paper, your expected number of citations might jump a lot.

Of course, if you think citations are roughly proportional to scientific value, then this doesn't matter. The absolute number of citations is the important thing, and it really _is_ worth it to eek out a slightly higher chance of funding the top paper. But if you believed that, you'd think from the exponential explosion in citations that science today is vastly more valuable than even a few years ago, and that physics hadn't stopped making much progress back around 1970....

</comment><comment><USER3> Sometimes good science turns up null results or even worse, not interesting results. These works tend to not get cited but are still important when they're exploring new science or attempting to solve challenging problems. I don't see what the problem is.</comment>


How not to make a signup form - <AUTHOR> https://www.onekingslane.com/join-b

<comment><AUTHOR> I found this URL from an advertisement. I clicked, and started to look at the page... Then the signup form appeared and I couldn't browse any more.

Of course, I immediately closed the page, because I won't sign up for something I haven't looked at yet.

Absolutely the wrong way to do this.

</comment><comment><USER2> If you are running NoScript in its default javacript off setting, this pop up login page does not appear.</comment>