The Linux Talent Draft is On - <AUTHOR> https://www.linux.com/news/featured-blogs/185-jennifer-cloer/609615-the-linux-talent-draft-is-on <comment><USER2> Furthermore, As someone who has been hiring every skilled developer I can come across for three years, I have found that good linux skills are one of the best markers of good development skills. There is something about people who aren't afraid to , and even enjoy , using linux that corresponds with an aptitude with programming, this is especially true of back end developers.

<comment><USER3> Also, though I have no sources on this other than personal experience, linux skills are frequently indicator of heavy prorastinator.

<comment><USER4> That's a curious association I've never made. Can you say a bit more about that?

<comment><USER5> What draws people to Linux is the possibility of tinkering. It's not like tinkerers are always procrastinators but they prefer tasks that engage their "tinkerer sense": trying out a new API or maybe doing something unusual with an old one.

Doing something mundane with a known API is something they will avoid. Such tasks are probably in the majority of those found even in the most exciting jobs. This is what I believe to be the cause of the association.

Source: generalizing my own experience to the whole population of Earth. Btw, I gotta get back to work too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > But 85 percent said finding Linux talent is difficult.

I couldn't agree more with this statement. I work in Chicago--which you think would have a rather large pool of Linux talent--but it's incredibly hard to find really top-notch Linux people at any price.

Like any technical job, there's no shortage of candidates that have "Linux System Administrator" on their CVs, but five minutes into a phone screen you can tell that nearly all of them are what I like to call "application drivers". They've been paid well to sit in front of an application GUI (vmware, backups, storage, etc.) for 10 years and push buttons. It's astounding to me that it's so hard to find people who can do the most basic things: build packages in the OS native format from source; write complicated shell scripts; write complicated applications in (python|perl|ruby); debug and port C/C++ programs; etc.

In my last job (Dept. of Energy lab), I used to think it was hard to find people because the pay wasn't good enough, but in my current gig in the financial industry, we're willing to pay basically whatever it takes to get the best talent, but the pool of great candidates is very, very small.

I think part of it is that in a shaky economy, the best people don't get laid off and they're hunkering down, unwilling to risk taking a new job, but I don't really know.

<comment><USER6> If they have all of that money for hiring qualified Linux talent, but they are unable to find it readily... why don't they start an apprenticeship style program? I know in the highly regulated nuclear operator field, companies setup schools, where students are paid to attend classes and if they can get their license, they have a paid position waiting. Why not something similar for Linux professionals?

I have been in IT for nearly 20 years and it is downright shameful how companies these days are willing to claim they will pay whatever it takes to get IT talent that doesn't actually exist, but would rather shoot themselves in the face before investing in training.

<comment><USER4> That's very true. We do actually do that with our production team. It's split into "ops", which is the day-to-day work and "engineering", which is the more complicated, more interesting work.

We hire junior people we think are smart into the ops roles and train them to eventually shift over into engineering. Some people can do it in a year or less, some a lot longer, and some just don't work out at all (or actually like doing the more routine work). Those people are definitely easier to find. We just talk to a lot of people and pick the ones we think are the smartest and will mesh the best and train them up on the rest.

In some cases, though, you just really need to get experienced people and can't wait the amount of time it would take to train.

<comment><USER7> What kind of experience are you looking for? Is it possible you are being too selective or misjudging the ability of experienced applicants?

<comment><USER4> That was definitely part of it, but we've changed our strategy a bit in an attempt to compensate. At first we were looking for people who had a lot of HPC-specific Linux experience. This, however, is a relatively small field because the cost-to-entry barriers are enormous if you're looking to do it at any great scale. That definitely restricts the set of potential candidates to a small subset of the set of "Linux people" (people from gov't labs, research universities, very large corporations, etc.)

Since we're willing to pay relocation expenses and buy people out of non- competes, we were doing a nation-wide search, but as a generalization, university and gov't employees are usually there because they like the relaxed environment and are willing to sacrifice some pay for it. (I have worked at both, so that generalization is drawn from only my experiences and those of my friends.)

So after getting few bites there, we rewrote the job description to just be very good with Linux in general, hoping to get a really smart person with skills that complement ours and then being able to train them in the HPC- specific stuff. That increased the number of applicants, but also dramatically decreased the quality-applicant to applicant ratio.

You're definitely right that I could be misjudging the ability of some of the applicants, but a great majority can't pass the Linux equivalent of FizzBuzz, even though they list 10+ years of experience.

<comment><USER8> What would be the Linux equivalent of FizzBuzz?

<comment><USER4> I'm thinking of it as a test for the simplest possible thing I can ask someone that will tell me immediately if they're worth talking to or not. I mentioned this in another post, the one I use that people bomb most often is: "I want to run this command on 100 files. Write me a for-loop in the shell of your choice to do it."

<comment><USER9> That's kind of terrifying that someone can't do that can say they are an SA. Did anyone you interviewed mention xargs as a BTW solution after presenting the for-do loop? I'm currently trying to figure out if one of the SA's at a current client actually does not know how to use tar, gzip, and scp, so I know where you are coming from, but still.

When you previously said "complicated applications in (python|perl|ruby)", did you mean someone who knew both front- and back-end? That implies someone who also knows Javascript, CSS, HTML, and a few databases, not to speak of one or more web frameworks, proxies, load balancers, _etc._

When you say "debug and port C/C++ programs", did you mean someone who knows enough about Windows to port a program written there to run on Linux? Or someone who knows enough about BSD to port to Linux? Or someone who knows enough about [AIX|HP-UX|Solaris] to port to Linux? Port what, pure userland programs or stuff that messes around with ioctl calls? Debug from a hand-built in-memory circular log, core with no symbol table, using Dtrace, or just some judicious printfs or logging?

Depending upon how you specify what you want, you don't have to go far these days to stray a long distance from a "Linux SA" role, where even a "Senior Linux SA" job title won't cut it; you are moving closer to a Free Electron, and those people don't come cheap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Eighty-one percent of the hiring managers surveyed for the report said that > hiring Linux talent this year is a priority.

What is "Linux" in this context? Are they talking about doing actual kernel development or clicking around Gnome and using the GCC stack?

<comment><USER11> I assume they mean the typical Linux userland stack.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This article is very ambiguous on what kind of linux talent they see as being needed. Are they looking for sysadmins or developers? By linux do they mean using tools like gcc, make, etc? Or do they mean writing tools against a POSIX interface? Also, considering that basically every college uses a linux environment, I find it odd that they can't find devs who can work in linux.

<comment><USER13> I believe it's both.

Linux continues to grow so organizations need more admins to support more servers as well as more developers to write applications, scripts, and programs that run on those servers.

I don't see a glut of talent in either case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This seems like a consequence of the rise of cloud computing.

My experience is probably biased by the fact that I've been working in the Seattle area for most of the last decade. I've worked with and hired excellent engineers with Linux backgrounds and also Windows backgrounds. Elsewhere it may be harder to find top Windows devs.

In the '90s, developers built their own Linux desktops and servers because there wasn't any IT infrastructure capable of supporting us. After the dot com crash and the nearly simultaneous death of big-iron Unix, Linux IT support started to become a thing. Medium and large companies staffed up on Linux sysadmins and support staff, so it was possible for devs to just code and remain fairly ignorant of the underlying OS - or at least confine their knowledge to the theoretical domain.

Now that you can just spin up server resources in the cloud, I can see devs with Linux experience having an edge over those without.

<comment><USER15> > This seems like a consequence of the rise of cloud computing

Could also be due to the rise of 'devops'. I see a fair number of places simply choosing to not hire (some I imagine may be having trouble hiring too) enough sysadmin staff, and instead just having developers do double duty and calling it 'devops'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wonder if it would make sense for companies looking for Linux talent to somehow target users of less 'user-friendly' distributions such as Gentoo or Arch. I don't know how well it would work, but I imagine that advertising on a project web page or, if allowed, making an announcement to a user's mailing list could be a way to find developers.</comment>


Why your company should do an internal hackathon - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mumm.me/?p=174

<comment><USER2> A common outcome of a hackathon is a demonstration to the engineers how much faster they can work when the don't have to deal with: other engineers, product managers, mandated company tools and company release processes. Not sure that is something most companies want to teach.

<comment><USER3> Agreed on having to have a good enough culture around people, processes, and tools.

On the other hand, if your problem is more about animosity between groups or individuals than broken processes and an unwillingness to have them change, then there's merit. Having engineers partner on non-critical projects with other engineers, product managers and other non-engineering staff can build up an understanding of their value and purpose, as well as just letting each to know the other as a person.

<comment><USER2> I like the partner idea. My only real gripe with hackathons is the transience. I don't like the "here work effectively for just one day, and then back to your silo" feeling of a transient event.

<comment><USER3> If you have them often enough, I think the transience factor isn't a problem. The tempo of Facebook hackathons seems pretty good to me - somewhere around 8-10 weeks or so between the last three.

Doing it once or twice a year in isolation is probably too infrequent to get lasting value - the positive value might have a total lifetime of about 4 months, so I'd suggest three or four times a year is a minimum - unless you have some other mechanisms that try to solve the same issues that hackathons do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think it would be better to try taking google's 20% philosophy and making it a "Hey, do you have an idea? No? Well, join this team for the hackathon!" Run it on four days a month in a row but during normal hours. This allows people to talk about it and not burn out.

I'm assuming that most teams do not program in their spare time for fun.

/IANAM

</comment><comment><USER5> My company should hire a few more good folks so we can get our jobs done without burning out. :(

Most of my "hacks" are tools that make our processes more effective. I have to "steal" chunks of time to create them but they pay off in time saved.

</comment><comment><USER6> At Atlassian (where Bitbucket now lives), we do something called FedEx (who can ship a product the fastest.) It's a 2-day sprint, where you write up a Shipment Order detailing your crazy idea, giving other people a chance to help you out if they find it interesting. At the end of it, you present what you've done, and everyone votes for a winner.

We just held one a few weeks ago, and several awesome things came out of it. One even shipped the following week: [http://blog.bitbucket.org/2011/07/07/redesigned-commits- scre...](http://blog.bitbucket.org/2011/07/07/redesigned-commits-screen/)

It's always a lot of fun, and this, in addition to the 20% time we get, means we get to work on really cool things which sometimes even make it to the public.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've experienced both short code sprints and hackathons, and I can recommend both.

At Yola we had a series of short code sprints to focus as much attention as possible on a particular project - no interruptions, specific outcomes, everyone fully present. Authoritative decisions came faster due to high- bandwidth communication between everyone with a stake (and that spilled over a bit after the sprints).

Meanwhile, hackathons at Facebook seem to continue the aims of bootcamp - promoting discovering more about people, code, and technologies that you won't usually interact with on your usual team/job. After the day (or two) recovering from hacking all night, everyone seems a little more energised.

</comment><comment><USER7> At Q42, the company I work for, we have a yearly hackathon. We start Friday morning and then depending on individual circumstances work until anywhere from Friday night to Sunday night.

We've covered last November's hackathon on tumblr: <http://w00tcamp.tumblr.com/>

One of the resulting projects is <http://www.soundmatch.me/> \-- enter your Last.fm username and it will generate a Spotify playlist based on your music recommendations.

</comment><comment><USER8> At Spotify, we have hackdays every sprint where we can do what we want as long as it is in some way related to Spotify, e.g. new client features, exploring new server thingamajigs or writing libspotify bindings for other languages. Finished hackday projects are demoed at the sprint demo. It happens that the product development team sees something they like, so hackday projects can turn in to real sprint stories.

btw, we're hiring!

</comment><comment><USER9> My company has a week long hackathon every 8 weeks. I'm new to the company and so have not participate in one yet. But in asking about them they are seen as very positive. Many hackathon ideas make it into the product (some have been absolute game changers) or improve company processes/tools, they make the developers happy, and give an outlet for where more interesting and/or controversial ideas can get a chance to air.

</comment><comment><USER10> At Twilio we've held internal hackathons with great results. We usually do them when we have a new product that we want to test internally before releasing to a slightly wider audience. This has helped the whole company get familiar with new products which leads to good feedback and better support once the product is live.

</comment><comment><USER11> We at Skyscanner did a 24 hour hackathon a few months ago for our FlyScan product. It was quite hectic but did a great job highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of our release process from conception to release to marketing. It's definitely an enlightening experience.

</comment><comment><USER12> Not quite a hackathon, but the company I work at started a regular coding Dojo in Zürich.

</comment><comment><USER13> I wish my company knew what a hack-a-thon is. That is what I get for working for a fortune whatever to big to fail blah blah...But I agree, side projects spawn innovation, it is an fantastic idea. It is a great way to build techie networking with each other, people who ordinarily struggle with that. big benefit for the corp on that I think.</comment>


Reaching Out to Developers? Build for the End User - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2011/02/reaching-out-to-developers-bui.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+readwriteweb+%28ReadWriteWeb%29&utm_content=Netvibes <comment><USER2> "The idea being that developers want smooth experiences. And the end user absolutely requires it.... It's almost as if developers are saying treat us like everyone else. Just allow us to show our individuality and ways to extend tools and service the ways we want."

Do folks here agree or disagree?</comment>


World's Biggest Aircraft Will Ferry Passengers To Space In Stratolaunch Vision - <AUTHOR> http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/12/13/microsoft-founder-announces-spaceflight-company-promises-airport-like/ <comment><USER2> What people aren't saying is that getting to the edge of space is only about 10% of the work of getting to orbit.

Simplistically, potential energy is _mgh._ _g_ is about 10, we want to get to about 300 km, which is 3x10^5 meters. So potential energy per kg is about 3x10^6.

Orbital velocity is about 8000 m/s, & KE is mv^2/2, so orbital energy per kg is 8000^2/2 which is 32x10^6 which is around 3x10^7.

Orbital energy is about 10 times just getting high enough.

Sub-orbital flights are a good start, but getting into orbit is much, much harder.

</comment><comment><USER3> I hadn't realized that there already is an air-launch-to-orbit system called "Pegasus" (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(rocket)> ).

It comments that air launches reduce the costs to orbit not (as ColinWright rightly points out) through energy savings but because it 1) doesn't have as many weather-related launch delays, 2) it can insert into almost arbitrary orbits, 3) there's no need for a blast-proof pad and related ground equipment, 4) launches over an ocean save on insurance costs, and reduce collateral damage should an explosion occur, and 5) the higher altitude means the first stage engine bell doesn't need to optimized for higher pressures, and the lack of high cross-winds means there's no need for gimbals; lighter fins suffice.

On the other hand, it also says that Pegasus is "one of the most expensive "launch-to-orbit" vehicles" (I assume per-kilogram to orbit), but that the flexibility in choosing the orbit makes up for it for small payloads which otherwise must piggyback.</comment>


Optimizing for Developer Happiness - <AUTHOR> http://codeascraft.etsy.com/2011/06/06/optimizing-for-developer-happiness/

<comment><USER2> Hm, more and more video links on HN. Perhaps it is time for a [video] marker for stories?

<comment><USER3> I think that would be a good idea. When I see that it's a video, I skip it -- can't skim video and see if it merits more attention, and I'm not willing to invest the time to watch the full thing.

<comment><USER4> You can skim over the slides: [http://www.slideshare.net/chaddickerson/optimizing-for- devel...](http://www.slideshare.net/chaddickerson/optimizing-for-developer- happiness) [linked in the article]</comment></comment></comment>


Google and NSA may team up over cyberattacks - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6130M120100204

<comment><USER2> _Under the arrangement, the NSA would not be viewing user searches or e-mail accounts, the sources said. Google also would not be sharing proprietary data with the NSA, they said._

Riiight. So the NSA is helping Google for the good of the world?

<comment><USER3> >Riiight. So the NSA is helping Google for the good of the world?

Lets think of a hypothetical scenario.

Google and NSA decides to collaborate, but they keep this collaboration under the wraps and go through great lengths to make sure that no one finds out about this collaboration. Their reason for keeping it secret is to avoid reaction like yours. Yet the information of their collaboration becomes public.

Would your views about this collaboration be any different from what it is now?

My point being, its a no win situation. Any NSA collaboration in to _anything_ or with _anyone_ will be looked in to with extreme cynicism and perhaps, to a certain extend, rightly so.

It is under NSA's jurisdiction to investigate this matter since national cyber security is at stake and it is also in Google's interest to collaborate since they were one of the several victims.

NSA is not helping for the good of the world. NSA is helping for the benefit of USA cyber security (which is also a national security matter). Google is under no legal obligation to share proprietary code or information regarding user searches and e-mail accounts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hmmmff. even if I did wan't to do something the best I could manage would be to use and have my friends use encryption for all further gmail contact. Google already has a record of my mail for the last 6 years, even if I deleted it all.

<comment><USER5> Even if you deleted your gmail, and it was eventually actually deleted by Google (or even, if you never had a gmail account), the other half of a good many of your messages would still exist in other peoples' gmail accounts.

Depending on how diligent or lax your correspondents were in trimming responses (I'm going with lax), a high 90-ish percentage of everything you wrote could still exist in those correspondents' accounts.

It's _out_ there, man!</comment></comment>


Debian mourns the passing of Ian Murdock - <AUTHOR> https://bits.debian.org/2015/12/mourning-ian-murdock.html <comment><USER2> Ongoing discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10813524](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10813524)

</comment><comment><USER3> Some archived tweets here, last link for some context:

[https://archive.is/9HF4c](https://archive.is/9HF4c)

[https://archive.is/DcVrY](https://archive.is/DcVrY)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20151230193102/https://twitter.c...](https://web.archive.org/web/20151230193102/https://twitter.com/jackstormwriter)

<comment><USER4> Prior to his death, Ian was briefly harassed by this character here: [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CXguqJGWMAEYM0B.jpg:large](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CXguqJGWMAEYM0B.jpg:large)

@jackstormwriter has since deleted those tweets and disabled his account. He also deleted jackstormwriter.wordpress.com.

I saved a copy of his about page for those interested here: [http://www.filedropper.com/archive_77](http://www.filedropper.com/archive_77)

<comment><USER5> Twitter is so awful. b^(

[there may be something wrong with your filedropper link]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sad to hear this.

I wish that someone who felt so desperate would not be in a manic state, and use their considerable funds (if he made 1.4 million last year alone) in a campaign against police brutality. A life like a Christian monk from the medieval era or a Buddhist of freedom. As far as his "career being over" as he said, someone of his stature would have been gladly supported by generous benefactors as he spent a life crusading against injustices even if he spent every dime he had.

He likely had other demons going on, but this is reaction is something that someone very justice minded, someone who would demand libre software like Debian would do. That said, Debian is the most respected distro in the world. Hearing Ubuntu mentioned so much next to Debian is like nails on a chalkboard to me, but as an extension Mint has an Ubuntu base and straight Debian base available, and even SteamOS is based off Debian. So almost everything noteworthy, quite a legacy.

An injustice in the software that governs our lives is bad enough, but injustices outside are hard to swallow. RIP Ian.

</comment><comment><USER6> There are definitely some people who need to be looked into judging from his last tweets. [http://pastebin.com/PLxw4buc](http://pastebin.com/PLxw4buc)

</comment><comment><USER7> Speculation in reddit thread yesterday [https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3ytbmi/in_memoriam_i...](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3ytbmi/in_memoriam_ian_murdock/)

</comment><comment><USER8> He tweeted a couple days ago or so that he was going to kill himself. Very sad. :(

</comment><comment><USER9> Its really sad to see someone who contributed so much to world, life ended so sudden like this.

Looking at twitter conversion. Most people speculating this tweet on suicide. He also said "The rest of my life will be devoted to fighting against police abuse".

</comment><comment><USER10> This is incredibly sad--RIP Ian. Some may consider his actions extreme, but if you haven't been harassed, arrested, and deprived of your rights + freedom you won't understand how shitty it feels.

</comment><comment><USER11> I can't fucking believe it. How does something like that happen?

</comment><comment><USER12> I think a few notes to the Policy makers are in order right now.

</comment><comment><USER9> Some more tweets:

jackstormwriter - wonder who owns this @ianmurdock account, 2007 no post.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20151230193102/https:/twitter.co...](https://web.archive.org/web/20151230193102/https:/twitter.com/jackstormwriter)

</comment><comment><USER13> the pastebin is self-explaining and it seems true too, I'm sad, upset and speechless.

</comment><comment><USER14> Jesus, I thought his account was hacked. But apparently it was for real... poor guy

</comment><comment><USER15> Very few people know the cause of death right now, but the speculation is pretty convincing to me that it was suicide after allegedly being a victim of police brutality and rape by police officer.

Of course, this isn't confirmed. But if it is, oh the anger.

Even if it isn't, this is a damned shame.

<comment><USER16> Here's a pastebin of his last tweets: [http://pastebin.com/yk8bgru5](http://pastebin.com/yk8bgru5)

<comment><USER17> Is this really true? This is almost stranger than fiction. I mean, anyone can post something on pastebin. Can anyone else vouch for the truth of this (Having seen it on twitter).

<comment><USER18> Yes, it was on twitter yesterday.

* [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:le7oSCj...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:le7oSCjuRxgJ:https://twitter.com/imurdock+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=nl)

* [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:umvcoAj...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:umvcoAjl8SIJ:https://twitter.com/imurdock/status/681598929205526528+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=nl)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> From the Pastebin doc of his tweets:

>5:27pm: Maybe my suicide at this, you now, a successful business man, not a NIGGER, will finally bring some attention to this very serious issue.

[http://pastebin.com/yk8bgru5](http://pastebin.com/yk8bgru5)

Nice intersectionalism there. /s

<comment><USER20> I believe the statement was meant to sound more like, "since Americans seem to overlook police violence against black people, now that it has occurred to a rich white male maybe someone will care."

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> > 5:27pm: Maybe my suicide at this, you now, a successful business man, not a > [edit], will finally bring some attention to this very serious issue.

Huh??

Ian was obviously fighting with some very serious demons.

My heart goes out to his loved ones who survive him, and I pray he finds peace where he took himself.

From personal experience, this can be a very lonely and painful time of year.

<comment><USER22> Sounds pretty straightforward (if profoundly sad) to me. Police violence--in the political sense as well as the physical, though I should caveat that without further information I don't know what violence, if any, occurred here --is not new, but predominantly happens to the underprivileged. Which is to say, the use of the slur sounds like it's projecting upon the people who tend to exert this violence very disproportionately upon people of African descent (who, historically as well as today, have much less political power to wield and to have wielded on their behalf).

<comment><USER21> I've quite unfortunately been arrested more time then I care to admit...its _always_ a brutal, scary, and shocking event.

I've seen things that I shouldn't even describe as I feel like people would just think I'm making the shit up.

Nothing in civil society even come close to what happens to you during the first 6 hours in most US county jails.

From reading his tweets, it _sounds_ like he was simply going thru the typical steps that all people who get arrested go thru. The process is as brutal as it is uncaring.

I am heartbroken that they guy chose to end his life, but I can hardly believe that this was the only issue he was battling when he chose that path.

I am not speculating BTW...I'm relating his actions to my own life and my own feelings and thoughts related to being alone during this time of year.

[edits]</comment></comment></comment>


Celebrating LEO, the world's first business computer - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/celebrating-leo-worlds-first-business.html

<comment><USER2> Watched this during a coding break, so only half of my mind was actually paying attention. At some point, a friendly looking grandma appear and say something like "we had only 2k to work with". My attention shifted imediately, and I said out loud: "Wait...what?", and moved the seek slider back to actually read her name and position.

What a beautiful moment. It is indeed easy to forget the work of the pioneers, and we need indeed to document and spread their stories to the new generations.

<comment><USER3> It puts a new spin on the phrase, "technology a grandmother could use", doesn't it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's an interesting book about this that came out a few years ago, "A Computer Called Leo". Not available as an ebook, unfortunately, but it's on Amazon.com[1] (for crazy money), or Amazon.co.uk[2] (for a more sensible price). I think Americans can still order from Amazon.co.uk, it just takes longer to arrive.

There's also a not-too-trolly (it's from 2003) Slashdot discussion at [http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/03/05/02/1621204/a-comput...](http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/03/05/02/1621204/a-computer- called-leo) .

[1] <http://www.amazon.com/Computer-Called-Leo-P-S/dp/1841151866> [2] [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Computer-Called-LEO-worlds- computer/...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Computer-Called-LEO-worlds- computer/dp/1841151866)

</comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for that, I'd never head of LEO before. Those brits sure liked their mechanical computers, didn't they? With Babbage, Bletchley Park and LEO in their shared history, I'd half expect to open a Acorn micro and find pistons.

We need more of this kind of thing, capturing the remembrances of the industry trailblazers, before it's too late.

<comment><USER6> LEO wasn't mechanical it was electronic (Lyons Electronic Office), as was Colossus(Bletchley park)

Babbage's computer was mechanical, but it was in 1832 - before even the 8008 was popular. Remember at this time, silicon Valley was still Mexican!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some good resources for learning about each stage of a startup? - <AUTHOR> I figured I'd ask here while I look on my own:
I began looking for media/articles/books that are about or have proven useful to people in different stages of a business: from idea conception, to seed, early venture, growth stage, etc. Even something like a parable or fiction book that helped to gain a different perspective.
I found this list: Books for founders at each stage of a startup
1. Article: https://medium.com/@georgelovegrove/books-for-founders-at-each-stage-of-a-startup-424d5cb75473
2. Older HN Post with similar article title: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12898136
All suggestions would be greatly appreciated. If they could be tagged with what subject matter they refer to that would be very cool.
Thanks! <comment><AUTHOR> [Posted from above to be clickable]

I found this list: Books for founders at each stage of a startup

1\. Article: [https://medium.com/@georgelovegrove/books-for-founders-at- ea...](https://medium.com/@georgelovegrove/books-for-founders-at-each-stage- of-a-startup-424d5cb75473)

2\. Older HN Post with similar article title: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12898136](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12898136)</comment>


Steve Jobs Announces iCloud in 1997 - <AUTHOR> http://designdare.com/video-steve-jobs-announces-icloud-in-1997

<comment><USER2> Jobs is a brilliant, creative thinker (as usual). I've come to expect nothing less from this guy</comment>


Ask HN - Do we really need recruiters? - <AUTHOR>

Say one gets paid $75 an hour, out of which the recruiter keeps 10-15, which works out to 20-30k a year.  They use questionable tactics (many of them), treat the very programmers/designers that bring them money badly.  Other than pushing resumes and making a few phonecalls to arrange interviews, in most cases they don't do anything else.
In other industries like housing for example, brokers do quite a bit of work (at least, much more than recruiters).  Even they don't take 20% of the billing rate, hour after hour (My broker charges one month rent, sometimes even less, when he helps someone find an apt).
Why do we still need them?  Isn't there any way we can at least reduce our dependency on them? <comment><USER2> Because they use questionable tactics.

While you can't be seen to buy your competitors internal phone book from a disgruntled ex-employee and cold-call of their developers, you can use a recruiter who does that and thus get the same benefit without the reputational and legal risk the first approach would involve.

</comment><comment><USER3> We don't "really need" recruiters specifically. But finding a job is ridiculously more complex and old-school (dependent on who you know, etc.) than finding a restaurant or a vendor for a replacement part. If that friction weren't so high, the market for recruiters would dry up as everyone did it themselves.

Now the question to ask is why that friction is so high. It's not a law of nature. It's not because of the perfidy of the government. It sure isn't because job seekers want it increased. But it might just have to do with the interest employers have in maintaining leverage over employees; the same reason job interviews are usually demeaning.

</comment><comment><USER4> Who says we still need them? I can't say I've ever even thought of using one. This seems like a mountain out of a molehill, they are only taking advantage of people who make the mistake of using them.</comment>


CI/CD server good to try - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/flowci <comment><AUTHOR> Very easy to getting started compare with Jenkins or other ci/cd server, nice job statistic view which can see the building trend at a project level.</comment>


The Boring Company's first tunnel is all dug up - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/11/the-boring-companys-first-tunnel-is-all-dug-up/ <comment><USER2> What impresses me most about TBC is how fast they were able to dig a tunnel.

I'm in Seattle, and Bertha was digging for about five years. And it's been an incredibly expensive effort, with lots of setbacks and budget overages.

Granted, it's digging a much larger tunnel, and the ground it's digging though is probably different than a stretch of land in LA.

But TBC was whipped up what... a bit more than one year ago? And from scratch, they've already completed a 2 mile tunnel, and I'd be surprised if it was at a cost-per-mile _anywhere_ near what Bertha ran.

<comment><USER3> Bertha dug a much wider, deeper tunnel through a major downtown area next to the ocean, underneath an active highway.

The Boring Company bought an off the shelf machine used for sewer lines and dug through a desert at less than a fourth of the maximum depth Bertha did.

<comment><USER4> > The Boring Company bought an off the shelf machine used for sewer lines

That's what perplexes me: what is the innovation behind Boring Company? Nothing? It seems like their main claim to fame is navigating bureaucracy very quickly, but what they are trying to accomplish could have been done years ago.

<comment><USER5> As of now: Nothing.

However digging that tunnel was probably a good idea, as it gives them some operational experience, and also allows them to start work on their underground transportation concept already.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Investor Alert: Public Companies Making ICO-Related Claims - <AUTHOR> https://www.investor.gov/additional-resources/news-alerts/alerts-bulletins/investor-alert-public-companies-making-ico-related <comment><USER2> Matt Levine has a great (humorous) overview of the First Bitcoin Corp shenanigans (scroll to the second section):

[https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-25/insider-t...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-25/insider- trading-bitcoin-and-libor)

<comment><USER3> A very entertaining read.

> "We have been very busy generating more than 100 unique cryptocurrencies > ranging from disrupting the air-miles-loyalty industry to providing > solutions to the cannabis industry."

100?! So they're just copy/pasting the Bitcoin source under different altcoin names, and calling it innovation?

> "In order to purchase and support WEED anyone that sends 1 President Johnson > coin ($GARY) to the Company's Omni Layer Bitcoin Wallet will receive 1 WEED > coin into their Omni Wallet."

Wow.

<comment><USER4> No need to copy/paste: [http://build-a-co.in/](http://build-a-co.in/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is just penny stocks finding new ways to scam investors. ICO is the big buzzword.

</comment><comment><USER6> I feel like a lot of ICO are a way to bypass regulation that protects investors. Smells like we've hit peak tulip mania.

<comment><USER7> Peak? We haven't seen anything yet. Wait till the big financial group behind ethereum figure out how to legally interface their security/options/bond pools to a coin token for sale to the general public.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Stuff like this combined with the general credit bubble is giving me the feeling the Next Big One is going to be 10x worse than '08.

<comment><USER9> I think it will be 10x worse than the 90's tech bubble. I was there, it was painful.

<comment><USER10> My bigger question would be how much housing prices and rent would go down. They tend not to go down as much due to subsidies and stickiness. Absurd housing costs are _the_ key thing keeping me away from the bay area, but it is so bad I'd need a 50% drop to make it close to reasonable.

<comment><USER11> They won't go down while Chinese and Indians are moving in.

<comment><USER12> so what about the greedy white people that sell to newcomers at inflated prices in turn pricing out their "own"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> ICO's of some form are unquestionably the future of raising capital for most tech companies up to a certain size (at least until ICO investors can consistently put in $1bil+). I'm saying this as someone who is living the ICO experience ([https://airtoken.com](https://airtoken.com)). Compared to traditional angel / VC raising, this is hands down the best use case for blockchain so far. VC's and angel groups will become pre-sale stakers and stamps of approval for companies to boost the ICO, but the days of entrepreneurs spending months traveling around wining and dining the richest people in tech are over.

<comment><USER14> Paraphrasing somewhat snarkily, you seem to be saying that selling securities of limited intrinsic value to as many clueless investors a as you can find is the future of fundraising. Screw Reg D, the SEC, any concept of selling only to informed investors, having some legal force behind your securities, etc.

Why bother pitching to people who are actually qualified to review your claims and business model?

IANAL, but I think the penalties for improperly selling securities are pretty severe, for good reason.

<comment><USER15> Before bashing the ICO model, consider that an ICO really is just (1) crowdfunding (with a blockchain to keep track of the tokens) combined with (2) markets to trade said tokens.

So are you against (1) crowdfunding, Kickstarter, etc?

Or are you against (2) token trading markets?

<comment><USER16> I'm against crowdfunding that masquerades as investment. People should know there's a high chance of 0 return and complete loss of principle with something like Kickstarter; it's better to think of it as patronage of artists you like with a _small chance_ of something back.

<comment><USER17> i think you mean to say that you're against token trading that masquerades as crowdunding.

i agree, its a problem. but its solveable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> One would say that if you have the money you earned it and you would research the company you're going to give your money. But most of this "Alerts" are just common sense. What am I missing or why are they releasing these alerts?

<comment><USER19> Did you read the alert?

Tiny bulletin board companies are using buzzwords to get stock traders to buy their shares for no reason.

The alert is that one of the buzzwords is "ICO" and "token sale".

Just like when the buzzword was "internet" or "business chat" or "self driving car".

It is just an alert about the buzzword being used in the stock market, before people FOMO.

This alert isn't about or geared towards ICOs or token sales.

<comment><USER20> Not only investors, but I think we all should consider these buzzwords while doing startup job search ;)</comment></comment></comment>


Move to Pull Consumer Protection Rule Heightens Debate over Payday Lending - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2019/03/07/700740998/move-to-pull-consumer-protection-rule-heightens-debate-over-payday-lending <comment><USER2> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19100050](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19100050).

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm generally not a fan of regulation. But lately, I've been changing my opinion on that. I don't see how we can all play in the economy game without having a set of unambiguous rules and referees to enforce them.

Regulations do add overhead, sure, but how else can we prevent companies from acting in ways that are detrimental to society? Capital finds the shortest path to profits, and without rules, it becomes a quick race to the bottom. For example, payday loans. I would love to make 20+% return on capital. Who wouldn't? And, acting purely as a business-owner, I'm would be required to use every trick, no matter how shady, in order to win. Why? Because I know my competitors will.

Unfortunately, as history repeatedly shows, tricking people is usually the quickest way to make profit. Regulations are necessary, but there should also be continuous effort to decrease the overhead costs without sacrificing the intent.

<comment><USER4> What do you think about the idea that if someone is charging 20% on a loan and making easy money, you can offer the same service for 15% and take their business?* That is a race to the bottom, but it seems like it would be good for the customer.

* This is essentially what credit unions do with signature loans.

<comment><USER5> Can you really? Do payday loan customers typically comparison shop?

<comment><USER6> To further reinforce this point, find me a payday lender that up-front lists their Annual Percentage Rate.

They really don't which makes comparisons impossible or very hard work.

<comment><USER5> Sure, but everyone who needs their car repaired today so they don't get fired tomorrow definitely takes the time to survey all of their local payday lenders, then sits down with a calculator and carefully works out how much each one will ultimately cost them before choosing the cheapest one.

(Hopefully obvious sarcasm is obvious, but one can never tell.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's demand for these sorts of loans, so if you outlaw them the demand doesn't go away - it moves to the blackmarket. The classic "loan shark", or local guy with cash that will have his goon break your legs if you don't pay it back.

That's fine, we can outlaw and drive it underground, just as we tried with alcohol, and just as we do now with various drugs. Sometimes society would rather pretend demand for some products doesn't exist.

<comment><USER8> There are far less exploitative options out there for providing this service though. See emerging fintech offerings like: [https://www.earnin.com/](https://www.earnin.com/), [https://www.dave.com/](https://www.dave.com/). There is also a concept called earned wage access that helps solve this issue and there are a few emerging players in that space as well.

"The invisible hand" isn't perfect and sometimes regulation helps push people towards better options. We don't let anyone provide medical services and assume the market will sort it out, so there is at least a _potential_ argument that the same should be true for financial services.

<comment><USER9> > earned wage access

Sounds like debt bondage.

<comment><USER8> The way it actually works is that people get payed before their paycheck if they need it at zero interest. When executed correctly there is no debt the money they took is just deducted from their paycheck.

This is how payday advances worked for most people before the age of complex payroll systems. You used to be able to ask your boss to get payed early for the time you had already worked. Now that is really hard because "the system isn't set up like that"

You can find out more by googling it.

Payday loans are much more akin to debt bondage, in that they are _often_ the start of a debt cycle that is extremely difficult to break.

<comment><USER10> > Now that is really hard because "the system isn't set up like that"

No, it's really hard because systems (technology secondarily, primarily policy and administrative controls) are set up to prevent the discretion that practice relied on because it was a giant and frequently exploited opportunity for embezzlement, favoritism, and unlawful discrimination (including _quid pro quo_ sexual harassment) by line and middle managers.

It's not just an incidentally unsupported function.

<comment><USER8> Yep, absolutely. However there are ways to bring that into "the system" and regulate and monitor it just like other payroll functions. There is no reason that payday advances couldn't be done without those negative externalities if they we setup and structured correctly, rather than just your boss slipping you cash.

<comment><USER10> > However there are ways to bring that into "the system" and regulate and > monitor it just like other payroll functions.

Sure, but it's not free to the employer (aside from making cash flow timing less predictable, regulating and monitoring are not free) and the contribution to the bottom line is dubious (it may even be negative: the employees for whom such a benefit would be most attractive may not be the employees a business most wants), so the business case for doing it rather than leaving employees to existing credit mechanisms is weak.

OTOH, there seems an obvious social benefit to having either this or same-day pay (which is also not free compared to _status quo_ alternatives) as a norm, so that's maybe a role for government rules (either mandates or incentives.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Adding regulation without forbidding payday loans sounds to me like the worst thing you can do. In emergency situations, it can be perfectly rational to take out such a loan, despite high interests and fees. On the other hand, if you take a payday loan for an unneeded expenditure, you will have even less money in the long term. So either you get rid of the regulation, in order to lower the fees. Or you forbid payday loans outright, to prevent people from hurting themselves (while ignoring the needs of those who are in an emergency situation). I don't think there is any real middle ground. Everybody loses when you do something that increases fees without actually helping those who are affected by this.

<comment><USER5> Why would removing regulation reduce fees, and why would adding regulation increase them?

<comment><USER12> complying with regulations costs money. obviously if you are exploiting people in a way that becomes illegal, you have to stop doing that profitable thing. this is probably not bad. however, even if your business is already compliant with the new regulations, you still still have to pay someone to understand the new rules and confirm that you are not breaking them. as regulations grow in number and complexity, you have to spend more money just to know whether you are complying with them.

removing regulations may not reduce fees, but adding new ones will almost certainly increase them, since they necessarily increase the overhead for the business.

<comment><USER5> I understand how regulations increase costs. But increased costs can be recovered from in increased prices, decreased profits, or increased volume. I don't see why it necessarily must be the first one, especially when these regulations often put a cap on fees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> To those arguing against regulation and pointing out there's a demand for these loans, you're missing the point.

These products are designed to be deliberately deceptive. They exist to prey on the desperate and uninformed.

I honestly don't know the point of the Obama-era rule referenced in this article. To me this is simpler:

\- "Fees" that scale with the loan size aren't fees. They're interest and should be legally treated as such. This would subject the loans to state usury laws.

\- Providers should disclose what the annual interest rate is for the loan the borrower is intending to take out.

\- Payday loans should be prohibited from being mortgage loans. This is an esoteric point but in some states to get around state laws on payday loans, they're treated as mortgage loans. This also adds the problem that someone could lose their house from payday loans.

\- Come to think of it, primary residences should be excluded from being taken to repay payday loans.

</comment><comment><USER14> The profit margin on payday loans is not nearly as good as one would think. I know that there are concerns about allowing people to fall into traps, but the statistics on profit margin make me think that these companies are not predatory. The high interest rate on these loans doesn't go into heaps of profit so much as it reflects the true costs to offer this type of loan.

In some ideal libertarian-ish world, these payday loan shops would still be allowed to exist, but nobody would use them, because they would recognize them as a bad deal. This is not the world we live in.

I'll just link to the google results regarding profit margin, because my first result was from adamsmith.org, and I'm at least trying to present my evidence neutrally.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=profit+margin+on+payday+loan...](https://www.google.com/search?q=profit+margin+on+payday+loans&rlz=1C1NHXL_enUS715US715&oq=profit+margin+on+payday+loans&aqs=chrome..69i57j0.6796j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

</comment><comment><USER15> In civilised countries, usury is strictly forbidden. Period. [eyes rolling].</comment>


Art & Code from the Glitch Game Released into Public Domain - <AUTHOR> http://www.glitchthegame.com/public-domain-game-art/

<comment><USER2> there should be torrent!</comment>


Oculus Rift co-founder killed by a car speeding form police. - <AUTHOR> http://3dgeeks.com/news_story/oculus_rift_co_founder_killed_by_a_speeding_car_ina_police_chase.html

<comment><USER2> <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5802474></comment>


Byteonic.com » Financial market collapse impacts Java job market the most - <AUTHOR> http://www.byteonic.com/2008/financial-market-collapse-impacts-java-job-market-the-most/ <comment><USER2> yes, but it has also opened up a number of opportunities in other markets, so it can't be ALL bad, right? <http://www.simplyhired.com/a/jobtrends/trend/q-prostitute> \--the times correlate.</comment>


Safe at Any Speed: Building a Performant, Safe, Maintainable Packet Processor - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BysBMdx9w6k <comment><AUTHOR> Video description:

At Jane Street, we've been building systems to trade electronically for over a decade. As technology advances and the scale of the markets grows, we need our systems to be able to process ever growing amounts of data in ever shorter time windows.

In this talk, we explore how to build a highly optimized single-core packet processing system that is capable of processing millions of messages per second. We see how to bridge the gap between the high-level abstractions we've come to love when structuring code, and efficient machine-level execution necessary to process messages at line-rate.</comment>


NOA lets you listen to quality journalism while you're busy or on-the-go - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/indyventure/news-over-audio-listen-newspapers-not-time-read-see-financial-times-alexa-amazon-a8111866.html <comment><USER2> This is sort of like Umano right? Which is no bad thing. I loved Umano. I could definitely see it as being big if the publishers themselves were interested in integrating the audio within their platforms - presumably this could easily be done via API access. The publisher line up at the moment isn't bad.

I recognize that it's different to radio and podcasts, but making the wider market aware of the differences may be a challenge over the first 2-3 years. That's why having the publishers work with you to build the market for voiced journalism stories would be important in my view.

I've tried the iOS app and it looks good considering it only launched in May. More publishers/content is definitely needed, but the stories on offer (opinion, big reads, and features) are an excellent start. This will be a good Umano replacement for me anyways.</comment>


AGIGARAM DDR3: Upto 8GB Nonvolatile DDR3 RAM. - <AUTHOR> http://www.agigatech.com/ddr3.php

<comment><USER2> Interesting, but I find the form factor problematic. The biggest market would be laptops, not servers, for the 'instant resume' it could offer.

<comment><USER3> the market for servers would be very-fast persistent disk cache and/or just really fast disk. "enterprise" types are willing to pay rather a lot for that sort of thing. Rather more, I think, than most people will be willing to pay for an instant-on laptop.

Combine a few of those things with appropriate marketing and something like bcache[1] and you have a product you can mark up 10x over parts cost. Look at FusionIO for a current-gen competitive (though slower) product.

[1]<http://bcache.evilpiepirate.org/>

<comment><USER2> I totally agree with you on the "10x" price increase for "enterprise" gear, along with much higher profit margins per sale. For notes, I've bought and tested the hellishly expensive FusionIO PCIe devices along with a ton of related flash based memory/storage hardware, including some stuff that is not commercially available (i.e. without contracts/NDA's/...). A good example of the latter --well at least a publicly known example-- would be the CurtisWright battery backed NVRAM cards [1].

The trouble with this particular flash backed RAM device is manufacturing costs, particularly your BOM (Bill of Materials - components). It's not a terribly difficult or expensive device to make, so there will be competition if it proves useful, and now the important thing is to quickly achieve volume sales to reduce mfg/parts costs as well as competition. Initially targeting "enterprise" for its high profit margin is most likely just a business strategy to get started, with cheaper products planned for the future.

For example, FusionIO started off with extremely expensive "enterprise" products, and now that OCZ and others are entering the market with roughly similar "PCIE SSD" products for the high-end but "mass" market, the company with the ability to ramp up production and reduce costs will be the eventual winner.

And lastly, no, spending $15,000 for a single "hard disk" from FusionIO is certainly not bragging rights. It was mostly just stupidity, albeit forced by a need to test the most recent hardware. When I was a kid in the 70's, all hard disks cost that much. ;-)

[1] <http://www.curtisswrightcommercial.com/Umem%20NVRAM/>

<comment><USER3> >And lastly, no, spending $15,000 for a single "hard disk" from FusionIO is certainly not bragging rights.

I'm pretty sure that middle management feels differently. I also evaluated a FusionIO, and told my client he'd be /much/ better off with a few intel X25-E devices instead. Much cheaper, and it's standard, so it's much easier to upgrade once newer/better stuff is out, or to get a replacement if it breaks after the support contract runs out.

The FusionIO was faster, but both of them were so much faster than the spinning disk we were moving away from that I don't think it would have been noticeable in production.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Konami cancels realistic Six Days in Fallujah video game - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2009/04/27/konami-cancels-realistic-six-days-in-fallujah-video-game/ <comment><AUTHOR> It's worth comparing this to "Black Hawk Down". I didn't have a problem with the film, video game, or book.

To me, this Fallujah video game seems to be in really poor taste. It's probably because the US is still in Iraq.</comment>


Egyptian Blue: The Color of Technology - <AUTHOR> http://www.artinsociety.com/egyptian-blue-the-colour-of-technology.html

<comment><USER2> Forget about Egyptian Blue and its techno-wonders, did you see the link to Mummy Brown?

[http://www.artinsociety.com/the-life-and-death-of-mummy- brow...](http://www.artinsociety.com/the-life-and-death-of-mummy-brown.html)

Far more fascinating. tl;dr: for several hundred years, Europeans traded in Aegyptian mummies (real ones and various imitations thereof) first for apothecary medicine (ergo consumption), then as paint pigment. Horatio must be spinning in his grave ("there are more things,... etc.").

</comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me of the color of the SGI Indy.[1]

1: [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_Indy](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_Indy)

</comment><comment><USER4> Now imagine how many techniques get lost on a daily basis because only a few people knew them and they left that workplace.

</comment><comment><USER5> I thought this was going to be about how it seems like half of all consumer tech companies use a hue near Egyptian Blue for their logos or other primary colors.

<comment><USER6> As a "fan" of the color blue, I enjoyed the history lesson.

<comment><USER7> Do you know the book "Blue: The History of a Color" by Michel Pastoureau? As far as I know it's the more complete on the topic.

<comment><USER6> Cool -- thanks for the tip!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Day Google Left China People Left Flowers at the Beijing Office - <AUTHOR> https://www.seroundtable.com/photos/flowers-at-the-beijing-office-26736.html <comment><USER2> Today seems different: [https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/11/google- must-n...](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/11/google-must-not- capitulate-to-chinas-censorship-demands/)</comment>


Ask HN: How much Ruby do I need to learn before moving into Rails? - <AUTHOR> Is there a learning track with topics that are needed to be learned as preparation for starting with Rails? <comment><USER2> If you know other programming languages, especially object oriented ones, I'd recommend spending a couple days on Ruby. Line between Rails and Ruby is kinda blurry

* Have a look at the syntax: [https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/ruby/](https://learnxinyminutes.com/docs/ruby/)

* Work through the Ruby koans: [https://github.com/edgecase/ruby_koans](https://github.com/edgecase/ruby_koans)

* If you have time or desire, look through the Poignant's Guide to Ruby: [https://poignant.guide](https://poignant.guide)

It is a wonderful language. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the references. I'll check them out.

> It is a wonderful language.

That was my first impression. Now I want to learn more to be productive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Not much, I actually learnt RoR before I got into Ruby. The basic syntax is simple and you don't need much Ruby magic to get a typical CRUD app up and running in RoR.

<comment><AUTHOR> Got it, thanks. And that's good to know. I was learning Python to transition into Django so I could develop a CRUD web app. I realized it would take me longer than I expected to get to the basics. A friend of mine suggested that I tried the same project in RoR, but starting with Ruby as its "foundations". I bought this pretentious book "Ruby, from novice to professional", and so far I think the language is beautiful. Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I learned both Ruby and RoR simultaneously on the job and somehow managed to avoid the pitfall of confusing the two. Maybe it's my interest in languages that makes me look at the note on the doc page that indicates it part of ActiveSomethingOrOther vs Ruby since version x.

I don't know if it will matter for you, but I've found it useful to know what it is that I know. If this seems like you then pay attention to those notes whenever you see them mentioned. I don't specifically look for it but if mentioned on a doc page or StackOverflow comment will pick up on it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Try ruby kickstart, CS puzzles introducing you to the language. Fun and addictive, will bring you up to speed in less than a week.

[https://github.com/JoshCheek/ruby- kickstart](https://github.com/JoshCheek/ruby-kickstart)

</comment><comment><USER6> I dove into Rails before really learning Ruby. Agree with other commenters - if you have exp with other languages, take a little time to recognize the nomenclature:

[http://hyperpolyglot.org/scripting](http://hyperpolyglot.org/scripting)

</comment><comment><USER7> This guide is enough, and it's an excellent primer: [https://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/](https://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/)

</comment><comment><USER8> You don't really need to know any Ruby to do Rails. It's so much it's own ecosystem that you'll end up learning Rails-flavored Ruby no matter what you do.

That being said, vanilla Ruby is a real joy and you'll be a better developer if you do take the time to learn it deeply. One fun source of lessons is Ruby Tapas, which is a subscription video "channel" that presents tons of best practices and neat tricks in short ~5' videos. I highly recommend subscribing for a month and plowing through the back catalog :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Generally speaking, tapas are always good. I will check them out. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'd recommend to get some confidence with Ruby before moving to Rails. It's better to spend 2-3 months learning Ruby and then focus on learning Rails, than struggle with both right from the start.

When people say that you can learn only basics of Ruby in few days and then move to Rails, they are right, you can, but this way you will learn two things in parallel, and it's pretty exhausting. So this doubtfully will save you any time.

</comment><comment><USER10> I learned them together as my first web development lang/framework, coming from C for microprocessors.

I used the excellent Rails Tutorial [0] by Hartl.

Just look up things you don't know/understand as you go - he also introduces Ruby in chapter 4 though, so you should be fine.

[0] [https://www.railstutorial.org/](https://www.railstutorial.org/)

</comment><comment><USER11> I think you can just dive in personally. If you want some prep work, read through Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby to grasp the basics.

<comment><AUTHOR> I tried to read it but since English is not my first language I found it particularly hard to understand because of its allegories, which I had to decode at the same time I'm organizing Ruby inside my head. I will leave it to a further stage of my learning. Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> [http://haidrali.com/newbies-introduction-to-ruby-on- rails/](http://haidrali.com/newbies-introduction-to-ruby-on-rails/)</comment>


Doctor Diagnosed His Own Cancer with an iPhone Ultrasound - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/609195/this-doctor-diagnosed-his-own-cancer-with-an-iphone-ultrasound/ <comment><USER2> Please upvote this! Refreshingly & truly innovative, like the Edison, Tesla, Bell, etc inventions. Not the usual tripe about a website/app wanting to "make the world a better place" by making you the product</comment>


Epic's Stunning RTX-Powered Ray-Tracing Demo Wows GDC - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2019/03/20/epic-rtx-ray-tracing-gdc/ <comment><USER2> I am actually underwhelmed by this demo... Not because it doesn't look great—it does—but because this is about par for the course for a next-gen GPU demo. They always look fantastic for definite reasons, not strictly hardware improvement.

Remember nvidia's 'Dawn' demo from 2003? [https://youtu.be/4D2meIv08rQ?t=48](https://youtu.be/4D2meIv08rQ?t=48)

They put together super high quality demos like that for every new generation of card they released. The games that followed never looked quite as good since there are far more demands put on one's computational resources to generate a playable game world vs. a single scene that needs to look great.

What would be potentially very interesting is to see the difference in work put into producing this with raytracing vs. traditional techniques. Being able to displace the unholy nightmare hodgepodge that comprises contemporary real- time rendering algorithms is the most exciting thing about raytracing. At least that's potentially the case; not clear to me how much improvement has been made possible by the RTX.

EDIT: and, making me think this new one is part of a lineage of sorts, here's a later Dawn demo from 2012 (I think): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI1_quVr_3w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI1_quVr_3w)

EDIT2: rewatching, other aspects of this demo (i.e. not rendering specifically) _are_ beyond 'par for the course', imo. But it's just generally higher production values, indicating more time/money/attention was put into producing the short itself, independent of the hardware backing it.

<comment><USER3> There's truth to this, although I find the demo easier to appreciate when I focus specifically on the things that benefit from RTX. That said... I think they could've picked a better scene to that end. The original stormtrooper one was great, but an outdoor scene (fewer surfaces reflecting indirect light) with a body of water (a flat reflection which can be easily achieved using non-RT techniques) doesn't really play to the technology's strengths.

Side note: Geez, that linked video says _so much_ about how much gaming culture has evolved in a decade and a half.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So much for _uncanny valley_ , to me that just looked fabulous.

I don't quite comprehend the development process to build a short line this. Everything from the surroundings and environment, to the humanoid model and making natural movement, obviously the facial modeling and expressions, the water effects.

The sound track is probably the only thing I feel like I have a decent mental model of how it comes together.

I took one 3D graphics class in undergrad and it was all so absurdly low level basics, most just mathematics, it never remotely showed how something like this could actually be put together.

<comment><USER5> > So much for uncanny valley

To me, the mouth always seems to give it away. Fabulous nonetheless though.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, that's always been my issue too. There seems to be something about the elasticity of the human face, and the interactions of all the small muscles, that seems to be especially difficult to model.

This demo does at least seem to deal better with the darkness in the mouth. That has also always been problematic and made a lot of characters look positively demonic :)

<comment><USER7> Micro expressions are a pain to animate and yet every human we interact with has them pretty much, our brains are very effective in reading them as well since for our ancestors they where literally life and death.

Without them I think our brain rings all the alarm bells, a human face without them is odd and possibly threatening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of the things I hate about modern games is that while the environment gets closer to realism, humans (face, skin) still look like corpses. I prefer cartoonish characters instead of being in uncanny valley.

The woman in the demo looked somewhat real; if this is real time and reproducible in games then it's a huge step forward.

<comment><USER9> This is real time. It's a bit annoying that the article doesn't lift that point since that is the most impressive point. Then again, I guess unless you don't include interactive aspects there's no telling what is actually real time and what is "baked".

<comment><USER10>
        there's no telling what is actually real time and what is "baked".

Yea, that distinction is... fuzzy, and a little frustrating.

Artistically, this demo is wonderful!

Technically, it's somewhere between "yawn" and game-changing, depending on how much of the lighting and animation is pre-baked. Are the deformations of her skin, clothing, the water, etc. being calculated in real time, or was all the hard stuff precalculated and baked in?

Reason why this matters is because the more dynamic this is, the closer we are to creating actual emergent/interactive experiences with this kind of technology, rather than just a way to render static cutscenes better.

<comment><USER9> Well put.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can someone explain why the motion capture for this animation looked so much more realistic than it usually does? Character animation always looks over- smoothed or something to me but this is probably the first time I've seen where it doesn't have a stilted appearance.

<comment><USER12> It could just be that they spent an inordinate amount of time and money cleaning up the motion capture data for this demo. It's my understanding that the mo-cap in big-budget films is heavily modified by professional animators. Most hours-long video games probably don't have the budget for that.

<comment><USER11> What about the source data makes it so difficult to clean up? It feels like nothing has progressed since the days of the first ping pong ball suit even though cameras and image processing have become infinitely more capable.

<comment><USER13> The fact that there's so much of it and the sources are indirect and imprecise. All motion capture with actors is from the surface of their body and then you have to reverse-engineering all that data into skeletal and facial muscle positions.[1] The techniques are very cool but not perfect and there is error at every step of the process.[2] So then you still need tools and people go back through the data to clean it up / smooth it out... and even then, it's still not going to be perfect.

[1] For some strange reason surgical procedures to implant hundreds of hyper- accurate mo-cap sensors in the actors or otherwise hack into their nervous system hasn't become a thing. ;-)

[2] Camera lenses aren't perfect, dot placement (for marker based systems) isn't exact, tracking software slips since the markers aren't infinitely small and can move around a bit etc.

<comment><USER14> This looks like an area where machine learning could really help... Have you got any idea if there is progress here?

<comment><USER13> I agree that it's a likely application which would reduce the manual effort involved. Someone is probably doing something with it (is there anything someone isn't trying to apply machine learning to these days?), but I'm not familiar with anything specific.

<comment><USER15> [https://schedule.gdconf.com/session/a-new-era-of- performance...](https://schedule.gdconf.com/session/a-new-era-of-performance- capture-with-machine-learning/860568)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Tell us how you really feel," asked no one, ever, but it's a free country so--

Yet another way to draw us away from actual connection with a painfully and joyously real world outside.

Better to long to just once, enumerate and follow the subsurface scatter of light on the face of your beloved than to coo and preen over mere mechanism.

A dying culture turns away from whats out there. Rolls over and wishes to slumber in dreams where everything is controlled and safe. Hence, the computer.

I finally figured out what I hate about CGI the most: the animated figures convey no dismay at the weight of their bodies. It's how that dismay is coped with that injects grace into movement. The princess here looks nice enough until she moves. Then it becomes clear there is no soul within the frame that first suffers the pain of an ungainly body coping with gravity, then masters itself, and resolves to move as best it/she can anyway.

That is beauty: the acceptance of limits. The carrying on despite them. You can see this in real people when they walk.

Until the entire inner world is modeled, these constructions have less life that a good puppet. A puppet at least telegraphs the spark of life from the hand and soul that control it's strings. That spark is constant, microsecond communication and feedback.

Stop trying to create simulacrums. Live the life you've been given.

[Returns to computer job. Resolves nonetheless to walk under the moon tonight].

</comment><comment><USER17> Alicia Vikander credited at the end, presumably for the mocap and vocal performance? It's cool the amount of cross-over there this these days between high performers in different disciplines of media. How many Hollywood triple A stars would have been down to do mocap for a 90 second gaming tech demo video even ten years ago?

<comment><USER18> Also has music by Ludwig Göransson, who won an Oscar for the music in Black Panther.

The video is made by a Swedish production company (Goodbye Kansas), and it's inspired by the art of John Bauer, one of the most recognized artists in Sweden, so maybe that helped getting the A-lists interested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Another awesome RTX demo from Crytech:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nqhkDm2_Tw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nqhkDm2_Tw)

<comment><USER18> That's rendered on an AMD Vega card, RTX is Nvidia's Raytracing tech.

[https://www.cryengine.com/news/crytek-releases-neon-noir- a-r...](https://www.cryengine.com/news/crytek-releases-neon-noir-a-real-time- ray-tracing-demonstration-for-cryengine)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> And then we're going to use these awesome visuals to run around burning the forest, murdering the creatures, tea-bagging the photo-real corpses of our fallen foes, all while unable to have a good in-character conversation with an NPC, and being forced to listen to teenage voices hurling racial and sexist slurs.

Plus ca change.

</comment><comment><USER21> The first time I read about rtx and raytracing I thought "holy shit so that's how it will happen and I will see it happening".

The Transition started and now it's just a question of a little bit of time.

Really looking forward to everything happening now on that level :).

</comment><comment><USER22> This looks great.

In a few short years I'll be able to get a VR headset and install a computer inside of one of these games so I can work remote from basically any virtual world. Then i'll only need to unplug and face reality to get the Postmates.

</comment><comment><USER23> Somehow the mouth of the model still looks "weird". Maybe because humans are hardwired to pay more attention to it?

</comment><comment><USER24> DXR and Nvidia sounds way too locked-in. There should be more collaborative effort to do that through Vulkan and on all GPUs.

<comment><USER25> DXR works with AMD cards as well - [https://www.dsogaming.com/news/amd-states- that-all-of-its-dx...](https://www.dsogaming.com/news/amd-states-that-all-of- its-dx12-gpus-support-real-time-ray-tracing-via-microsofts-dxr-fallback- layer/)

<comment><USER24> It's still MS only, so a bad option.

<comment><USER26> Gaming on non-MS PC platforms is a pretty small niche anyway though. I can see the appeal, but my guess is that the work to newly available marketbase ratio here isn't all that great.

<comment><USER24> So, good effort would be to help it grow, instead of perpetuating MS lock-in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Do they release these as executables ?

<comment><USER17> Historically, similar demos have been released as downloads, so you can run them locally and compare your FPS with everyone else on your favourite overclocker forum:

[https://www.geforce.com/games-applications/pc- applications/a...](https://www.geforce.com/games-applications/pc- applications/a-new-dawn)

I'd expect this one to be released eventually as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> How is this article praising nvidia products on nvidia's website _not_ spam?

</comment><comment><USER29> the smoke that comes from the fairies is a bit deterministic for my tastes -- looks like it is being driven by a trigonometric function and doesn't have much turbulence or interaction with local environment/surfaces.

<comment><USER30> No wireless. Less space than Nomad. Lame.

:)

<comment><USER31> cmdrtaco is wrongly maligned, the ipod would not become massively successful until further revisions were released.

<comment> 0-_-0 Did they have wireless and more space than a Nomad?

<comment><USER31> Connectivity (USB, rather than firewire) and more storage were certainly among the facets improved in subsequent versions. USB isn't wireless, but with USB rather than just firewire, the lack of wireless is less of a problem for mass market adoption, isn't it? I never had a nomad, I couldn't tell you how much storage they had, but I do know that my first ipod had a lot more than a measly 5GB; it was a 5th generation with 30GB.

ipod sales were basically fuck-all until Gen 4/5, meaning cmdrtaco was basically right for three or so years: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_sales_per_quarter.sv...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_sales_per_quarter.svg)

I don't think it a coincidence that Gen 4 and 5 were the first to fully support USB (gen 4 also supported firewire, gen 5 did not.)

The iphone took 6 quarters to breach 5 million sales per quarter _(remember that as it was originally released, the iphone was an impressive touch screen web browser with subpar data and no appstore!)_ The ipod took _14_ quarters to breach 5 million sales per quarter. After that, both took off. My point here, is the ipod was much slower off the line than the iphone. Simply put, it was lame (until it wasn't.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Maybe I'm crazy, but I don't feel the need for such realism in video games. Ray tracing is an awesome technology for things like pre-rendered video, but real time raytracing that takes up a huge portion of the graphics card computational power seems like a waste. I'd rather see more frames per second at higher resolutions.

<comment><USER33> From discussions I've seen elsewhere and my own limited knowledge, I think a lot of the potential benefit in the near future is likely for the artists/designers more than the end users.

Being able to quickly place lights and design materials for a scene with realistic ray-traced rendering gets believable results in simpler fashion than by having to painstakingly recreate all the details of natural lighting with existing conventional methods.

It requires a lot more of the end-user hardware, but overall gives the artists more room to focus on things other than making sure the lighting and reflections aren't distractingly wrong.

<comment><USER32> That sounds like a good application of this technology. If Nvidia had some kind of split product line for professionals and gamers. Kind of like this exact thing they already did with the Quadro cards..

<comment><USER34> You're missing the point, for realtime rendering it's not enough for the content creators to have this technology to get the benefits, it has to be used on the target end user hardware too. Getting things to look good with traditional rasterization based pipelines involves a lot of special case hacks and tricks and work arounds for situations where they break down or don't compose. That is a lot of work for the artists to accommodate the limitations of the target platform.

The promise of raytracing is that you can get great results without a lot of tricks and special casing which frees up the content creators to focus on the visuals they want to create without worrying so much about technical implementation details. That only really works if the target platform supports performant ray tracing as well as the content creation tools.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Am I missing something? This doesn't really seem all that great compared to what we have been shown with Ray Tracing. The fact that it's not even real time but pre-rendered makes it even less wow-ing for me

<comment><USER36> Yeah I could use some clarification on whether this is real-time or not. If its real-time, then its among the most impressive tech demos ever showcased. If its pre-rendered then how is it different from the films Pixar and Dreamworks put out every year? Its visually stunning but ultimately you can make computers do anything if you're willing to sit around for a 2 week render process.

<comment><USER37> The text suggests it is realtime; Beyond that though, it's hard to see what novelty would lead you to showcase this as a demo if it were offline.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Andy Ihnatko reviews Etude (my iPad app) - <AUTHOR> http://gallery.me.com/dangrover#100111

<comment><USER2> Wow! I just got a response from Dan Glover (at 1205am his time) answering my question!!!

He said look at the previews. I did, and, as he said, the chords are shown. Looks like I'm going to be spending money on music:)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's great to get such a glowing review from Andy on one of the TWiT Network's most popular shows.

Longer term, I'd watch out for Tonara: they say their app can listen to what's actually being played and follow along, even if there are dozens of simultaneous notes. Scoble interviewed them recently: [http://scobleizer.com/2011/09/15/tonara-an-ipad-app-for- musi...](http://scobleizer.com/2011/09/15/tonara-an-ipad-app-for-musicians/)

<comment><USER4> Yep, Tonara is much farther advanced. The app turning the pages automatically is a fantastic helper when playing the piano, where your hands are constantly on the keys. It really works, and works well - I'm using it constantly.

Unfortunately, Tonara has a very limited store: Etude has Lady Gaga, Nora Jones, the Beatles etc. while Tonara only has classical composers. Also, Tonara doesn't allow users to add their own compositions, and they have publicly said that they will oppose against this public wish ([http://getsatisfaction.com/tonara/topics/when_can_i_add_my_o...](http://getsatisfaction.com/tonara/topics/when_can_i_add_my_own_sheet_music)). Not a good strategy if you ask me.

This is still very early in the game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> I just sent them an email asking if they support fake book format. I prefer this when playing popular songs - I can play something almost immediately instead of having to figure out someone's arrangement.

<comment><AUTHOR> I just replied to that email. Why am I still up?

I need to just repeat "9 to 5" to myself in these situations :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice one Dan, is it the company you work for or is this the name of your company?

<comment><AUTHOR> Previously, I built the app under my own startup. It was recently acquired by Steinway, where I now work.

<comment><USER6> What made you decide to be acquired? The compensation? More resources to achieve the vision? (I remember your app has the chance to get even bigger with more negotiation and licensing power). Something else?

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, it was because of a legal snag that, unresolved, limited my ability to be acquired, take investment, or continue bootstrapping.

If I had gotten the right counsel at an earlier stage (before I signed any contracts), I would have been able to go much further with it and, had I decided to sell, do so at a better valuation. I guess I shouldn't say much more than that since the matter is still ongoing.

Steinway was really excited about the app and was willing to work with me despite my predicament. It's been immensely satisfying to see the vision behind the app through with commercial music, etc. They've been great to work with.

But sort of a pyrrhic victory from a startup perspective! I wish I had gone with an incubator like YC or Techstars so that I had the advice/connections needed to avoid what happened. I think if I wasn't a single founder, I might have been able to. Lesson learned. Maybe next time!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great job, Dan!

</comment><comment><USER8> Congrats! How is it working for Steinway? Not a company one typically associates with having a software division. :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's been good. A software division is what we're trying to start!

If you know any music hackers who might want to be a part of it, tell them we're hiring! <http://etudeapp.com/jobs></comment></comment>


Get notified of asteroids from outer space - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ie.ucd.asteroid&feature=also_installed_confirmation#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDIwMCwiaWUudWNkLmFzdGVyb2lkIl0.

<comment><USER2> Related XKCD: <https://xkcd.com/937/></comment>


The Real Soylent Sickness - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-real-soylent-sickness <comment><USER2> _> I have never tasted Soylent [...] but_

God, it took all my energy not to close the tab after reading this opening sentence.

 _> But it [freeze-dried ice cream] wasn't ice cream, it was a simulation of ice cream, and no one in their right mind would chose it over the cold, creamy stuff on a hot day. Not even an astronaut._

The "people aren't eating it because it's inferior" line is easily defeated by the fact that _people are eating Soylent_. I and a good number of other people choose Soylent over real food sometimes, so that line of reasoning is pretty much bunk. What is inferior, anyway? "Real food" is definitely inferior in terms of how much time it takes to prepare, say – and you can't assume that everyone has the same value system (e.g. taste over everything). Cost and convenience are absolutely essential factors to consider with food.

 _> Most humans are happy to eat real food, and crave it in its most natural form. A strawberry picked at the height of summer. Fish pulled from a river and grilled over wood coals. Sourdough bread made from a twenty-year-old starter, and kneaded by hand. Wine grown on knobby vines, and aged in a dark cellar. Why would you disrupt that?_

Some humans, like myself, are also happy to eat "not-real" food like Soylent. Why would you disrupt that? Why is having more choice not just a problem, but a "sickness" as the title suggests?

I frequently see (and dislike) HN comments like "what was the point of this article?" but, in this case, I really have to ask. There are some really good reasons for not liking Soylent, like that it's not entirely proven yet that 100% of nutrients are absorbed when in the form that Soylent takes, so eating it daily may not be giving you all the nutrients you need—along with a bunch of other reasons. Yet this article settles for "it's not real food and people shouldn't be eating it."

N.B. Maybe the real Soylent sickness is that people like me who drink Soylent go on online forums to write walls of text defending it.

<comment><USER3> A nontrivial number of people eating the new Soylent bar are reporting sickness. That you can't admit that at the same time you want to feel superior about your own choice of food speaks more to your quality as a person than their quality as a company.

That said, it was only a few years ago that Soylent had a problem with rat and mold. It's not news to anybody that they've played a bit fast and loose with their product dev--they've just suckered a lot of tech folks into defending them.

<comment><USER4> > That you can't admit that at the same time you want to feel superior about > your own choice of food speaks more to your quality as a person than their > quality as a company

How on earth did you get this from reading that comment? OP's whole point is that different people have different priorities when it comes to food - nothing about superiority.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If the author's argument is true, then Soylent will not succeed in the market. Inasmuch as it has, the author's argument is false.

It must be hard for the cultural elite to realize that their opinions on what people want and where culture is heading are empirically testable and often false when tested.

</comment><comment><USER6> Tech trolling at its finest. Blaming SV is a fun game of late it seems, but this poor example of it ignores the fact that the processed food industry has been doing this for quite a few decades. No techie VC money at play here (Soylent is based in LA, not SV, but facts are not a concern in this article it seems), just the big food processing companies.

</comment><comment><USER7> >Though it may be possible to create technically feasible products for any aspect of our lives, those only succeed if they improve—rather than seek to replace—the human, highly tactile, and pleasurable world we want to live in. Most humans are happy to eat real food, and crave it in its most natural form. A strawberry picked at the height of summer. Fish pulled from a river and grilled over wood coals. Sourdough bread made from a twenty-year-old starter, and kneaded by hand. Wine grown on knobby vines, and aged in a dark cellar.

From TroyAtWork in the Soylent subreddit:

>Frozen waffles that have a little freezer burn but you scrape it off and pretend it never happened. A box of pasta that you dress up with assorted spices because you are too lazy to make a fully balanced meal. A can of soup that is loaded with sodium but it's late at night and you just want to get something in your stomach so you can sleep.

Not many people, even those who write posts criticizing Soylent, are affluent foodies who adhere to the "modern food movement". Rosa Lab's awful marketing takes plenty of blame, but I suspect that at some level David Sax just sees the potential for better nutrition that could be more feasible than the "back to nature" route. By his own admission, it's difficult and expensive. The presence of somewhat reasonable organic foods at wal-mart doesn't really change either of those facts, it just means that middle class moms don't have to make an extra trip to buy their organic produce.

</comment><comment><USER8> The crux of the article seems to be:

        > Soylent was developed ... to compress all the nutrition the human body needs to live into one single, easily digestible formula. But that is fundamentally the opposite of the way we increasingly want to eat in America and in much of the developed world.

Not that I agree or disagree with the author, but who is "we" in this sentence? It seems like that's a veil for the authors opinion. Given the popularity of these food items, doesn't that indicate that the consumers of the developed world have at least some serious desire for these food 2.0 products?

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>----

        David Sax is the author of "Save the Deli" and "The Tastemakers."

Well, that explains that.

</comment><comment><USER9> Good golly will you get to the point? Oh, you think that food should look, taste, and feel like it did in the 1600s? Well, you could've just said that.

What a pile of inedible flowery word salad. David tries to tell us all what "we" want out of food, while contradicting himself by recognizing that Soylent has a market; all the while he has not even tried the product.

<comment><USER10> There are shades in between, you know. It's not that food is either Soylent or medieval black pudding.

<comment><USER11> (also, black pudding is amazing, especially if you have a hangover and some toast)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Sometimes you want simplicity and convenience. Other times you want a great experience. Soylent is the extreme case of the former. A Michelin three-star restaurant is the extreme case of the latter. And there's room for both. I'm not sure why the author has trouble understanding that.

I would hate hate hate living on Soylent three meals a day. That would suck. But on the other hand, three awesome meals a day isn't really feasible either. It would take a lot of time to build the skills to cook like that, and it takes a lot of time even when you know how. There's no way I could fit that into the rest of the life I want to live, so some compromises on the food front are necessary.

</comment><comment><USER13> What the fuck is the thesis of this article?

Is he asking The Valley to produce and market mass-produced food as if it was less mass-produced than the entirety of the current processed foods industry is able to?

The entire shtick of Soylent is to kill all the romance around food. Is he asking them to just not serve a market segment that's not tuned into current trends?

For tech companies leave the tech behind when producing food? (in which case they'll tautologically no longer be the people he's calling on)

For tech companies to bring high tech to farming low-tech produce? (they do, but they sell to the farm who's name is on the label)

Or is it a metaphor, and he wants tech in general marketed more romantically?

Or are we just supposed to sit back and listen to David Sax brag about his refined tastes and demonstrate how insightful he is about what Americans want from food? That's just public masturbation. I'm sex positive and all, but why does The New Yorker think we would want to watch?

</comment><comment><USER14> That ice cream was real, it was just freeze-dried. Most astronaut foods were freeze-dried because of its shelf-life and light weight.

My brother-in-law's dad had a small company that freeze-dried foods for NASA. I got to sample freeze-dried everything. At the time it was the food of the future.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think what a lot of people don't agree with is the marketing of Soylent, but they don't understand that and so they harp on other issues with it. This article, while wordy, is better than some because it does discuss the marketing and idea of companies, esp. in SV, "disrupting food", even if the argument is very roundabout.

I will never drink Soylent, not because I think the idea of Soylent is bad (it's verifiably not, look at the number of people who do like it) but because I have no interest in it, because I know that real food is absolutely better in every way I care about (nutrition, taste). But I also understand that Soylent, even if it is marketed as a meal replacement, will never replace meals, so I don't really care. In my eyes, it's my generation's version of my mom's Slimfast.

<comment><USER16> If you where starving and you had three choices:

       - Get "real food" from a humanitarian aid organization that's enough to feed yourself
       - Get soylent from an aid organization but since it would cost less you also get enough to feed a second person
       - Die of hunger.

I'll take the soylent option and that's where I think it's true colors will eventually shine. I hope Rob takes it there some day. If you agree with this message you should not just say yes, you should buy some soylent. Your purchase is an investment in the future you want to see.

If you don't support that idea, then that's ok too.

<comment><USER15> I do support it, but just because I agree with something doesn't mean I should or have to support it directly. I also don't like this argument because I'm not the one who makes those decisions, humanitarian organizations/NGOs are, and they are the ones that decide on issues like this (for example, I naively thought that a donated vaccine would be good, but it turns out it is not good for NGOs[1]). I'm talking strictly for me and I have no plans to purchase Soylent for the reasons I mentioned in my original comment.

1: [http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/10/doctors- wi...](http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/10/doctors-with- borders/503786/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> [http://www.foodrenegade.com/dangers-of- soy/](http://www.foodrenegade.com/dangers-of-soy/)

<comment><USER18> What does this have to do with the submission?</comment></comment>