Vim 7.3.1000 - <AUTHOR> http://ftp.vim.org/pub/vim/patches/7.3/7.3.1000 <comment><USER2> I guess I should be thankful 98% of my programming life is in higher-level languages than C, but...am I the only one whose terrified of the magic numbers? In _hex_? Can anyone provide context about what's so special about 0xfb20 and 0xfb4f?

<comment><USER3> All my programming life has been in higher-level languages, yet with Rust I'm being inexplicably drawn to down and dirty systems programming. It's cool to finally be able to use :make and all the C-oriented things like [i and ]i, ctags and the like. It's interesting seeing how much 'dogfooding' vim has in that tons of stuff are undoubtedly geared towards his own needs developing vim (and C applications in general.) Pretty much how I work with coding products, I work my best when I'm the use case, and great open source products like vi/vim and emacs excel in that legions of people share the creator's use case (and well, configurability right down to the bone.) I've found that a non- trivial amount of people do share the use case for the first project I've launched[1], I only hope for it to hold true for my most ambitious ones in the working.

I don't know Bram, but I can't help but wonder why such a distinguished open source figure has ultimately ended up working for Google. Maybe he enjoys the access to resources. I wish donations could still support him directly rather than his idea of aid (well it does seem to have a bend towards education at least). I wish he wouldn't need a day job and could yet breed other new and great contributions to the world. I don't feel particularly endeared towards Google, despite all the collateral good it has done while doing a lot of evil (i.e. something to do with the looming ad empire strengthening big corporations.)

[1]: <https://github.com/goldfeld/vim-seek>

<comment><USER4> I use ctags with Python, PHP and I'm sure it will works with most other languages invented.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's to another 1000 commits for the world's best text editor. Cheers!

<comment><USER6> Sublime Text is on its 1000th commit?

<comment><USER7> You spelled Vim wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> NOTE: If you experience troubles with more complicated regular expressions in the next time, it might be because of the new engine.

:h two-engines

:h 're'

<comment><USER9> Doc link for those of us that don't have a recent enough version of Vim: [http://code.google.com/p/vim/source/browse/runtime/doc/patte...](http://code.google.com/p/vim/source/browse/runtime/doc/pattern.txt#353)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Pretty ugly bug. Where did it happen? Anyway, congrats & long life!

<comment><USER11> Apparently this is in the code that decomposes strings so that they can be compared (necessary with Hebrew and Arabic seemingly?).

This is an interesting snippet from that code...:

            /* decompose the character if necessary, into 'base' characters
            * because I don't care about Arabic, I will hard-code the Hebrew
            * which I *do* care about! So sue me... */
            if (c1 != c2 && (!ireg_ic || utf_fold(c1) != utf_fold(c2)))
            {
                /* decomposition necessary? */
                mb_decompose(c1, &c11, &junk, &junk);
                mb_decompose(c2, &c12, &junk, &junk);
                c1 = c11;
                c2 = c12;
                if (c11 != c12 && (!ireg_ic || utf_fold(c11) != utf_fold(c12)))
                    break;
            }

Apparently string comparison is harder than I previously thought.

<comment><USER12> String comparison with Unicode is pretty astonishingly complex, partially because equality is not as well defined as it seems to be on the surface. Should e and é be equal? If you're dealing with user input from people who are unlikely to know how to type é, then they probably should, but in many cases they shouldn't. A more complex case is é and é (precomposed vs decomposed forms), which nearly always should be equal, but a simple byte comparison will say they're different.

Fortunately, there are ICU bindings for every non-toy language which solves these sorts of problems for you (although ICU has the drawback of being absolutely huge).

<comment><USER11> There are a lot of things I have seen in Unicode that seem like they should not exist in the first place. _MATHEMATICAL [BOLD|SANS-SERIF|DOUBLE- STRUCK|MONOSPACE] DIGIT_ for example... I guess those things potentially carry significant meaning in some mathematics texts though.

I guess the ICU stuff probably gives you an strtol equivalent that can handle that sort of stuff.

<comment><USER13> The LibreOffice guys have told me hat ICU has security concerns and is, for all intents and purposes, no longer being developed. They are switching to another engine (hard buzz? Name escapes me).

Anyone know if this is true?

<comment><USER14> Harfbuzz [1] is for text shaping/layout, not unicode support.

1\. <http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/HarfBuzz/>

<comment><USER13> Drat it. iPad "corrected" my spelling and I didn't notice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The raw power that you feel in your hand when using VIM is amazing, I never get that feeling with Emacs, but each to their own. Not needing to reach for the arrow keys, backspace etc. is neat too.

<comment><USER16> I think the raw _editing_ power of Vim is, as you say, probably unmatched in Emacs. Vim, however, cannot hold a candle to all the rest of Emacs and its elisp-y goodness. I'm a long-time Emacs user, and having recognized that Vim's modal editing and "language" are a better way of editing, opted for using Evil-mode, which gives you the best of both worlds. The transition was not without pain, but it was overall quick and worthy.

<comment><USER17> elisp is not such a great language, so the value of editing using a pile of it is mixed. It boils down to a matter of taste. If you like elisp, it's a big win and if you don't, it's a deal-breaker.

<comment><USER18> It is a great language when run inside Emacs for doing Emacs stuff. Elisp is orders of magnitude more powerful than Vimscript on Vim. Its easy to see by the best things each community has produced on their editors.

Disclaimer: I love all 3 editors for they all have great ideas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Best editor

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm not sure I understand the point here. Why is this on Hackernews?

<comment><USER20> Seriously, do I have to get downvoted 5x (by >750 karma users) for not understanding something that is apparently obvious to everyone else? I'm genuinely not getting it.

<comment><USER21> This is the first time Vim's patch level has gone over 999; matter of fact, Bram expressed some concern about it. The patch level has hitherto been expressed as three digits (e.g. 7.3.052).

Some information is available in the "Plans for Vim 7.4" thread in the vim_dev group: [https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/vim_dev/Z...](https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/vim_dev/ZWWgK9aXQ2Y)

<comment><USER20> Ah okay, thanks for explaining :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: 3D Visualizations of Deep Learning Model Outputs - <AUTHOR> http://ec2-54-193-90-172.us-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com/#/ <comment><AUTHOR> A fairly small side project to display a bunch of outputs from deep models in 3D space, for easy exploration. Admittedly less slick than a previous such thing ([http://scs.ryerson.ca/~aharley/vis/](http://scs.ryerson.ca/~aharley/vis/)) and not really useful, but I think it's pretty fun.</comment>


Show HN: Tern – Subtitle File Translator (Google Translator Toolkit Replacement) - <AUTHOR> http://tern.1c7.me/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, Hacker News community. My name is Zheng Cheng, a 24 years old developer live in Guangzhou, China.

I built this Desktop app, it can translate subtitle files like .srt .ass .vtt. it supports 9 different service providers like Google, Amazon, Azure, Yandex, etc.

Please check it out, any advice or suggestion is welcome! Thank you!

<comment><USER2> For the English landing page, I'd suggest translating from another language into English, rather than from English to Chinese. I assume you built this app for yourself so you can watch technical videos in English with Chinese subtitles to help your understanding. But when you market this to others, you need to show how the product fits the customer's situation, not yours.

I'm not sure about the API key setting. Does it mean that whoever uses your program needs to get their own key for a translation service, which will bill them for their API usage? In that case, you really need to explain this and how to get one. Not everyone knows what an API even is!

However, I think it would be better design to handle the API keys on your end and simply give them a drop-down menu for choosing a provider. You get billed by the provider and then you bill them with a markup.

1 million characters is kind of a lot for a free plan. Who translates so many subtitled videos per month that they'd hit that limit? Only professional subtitlers come to mind, and they might be able to pay a lot more than just $9. If you want to make a profit, you should probably rethink your pricing strategy.

I think you might be able to offer your service to subtitling groups in China, but I'm not sure how much those would be able to pay. (I guess many are hobbyists who don't make any money.) You could try contacting some of them to get a feeling whether they'd find machine translation useful to speed up their work, and how much that'd be worth to them.

EDIT: Found [https://1c7.me/subtitle-translation- helper/](https://1c7.me/subtitle-translation-helper/) Since you're already targeting subtitling groups, I guess you know what you're doing.

<comment><AUTHOR> * Yes, I do need to explain what API is. Or maybe make it easier to remove this thing altogether, just charged a markup.

* hmm. Maybe I should lower the free plan 1 million characters. maybe 50k is about right.

* $9 is probably too low, you are right.

* Yes, many of these subtitling group are doing it completely for free, just a hobby</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Interesting topics where you find it difficult to find people to talk? - <AUTHOR> The deeper I dig into certain topics, the harder it is to find people to talk about it. Unsurprisingly I often found the right people here on HN. I had great video-calls with very interesting people and expanded my network significantly.<p>I'd like to encourage more people to do the same: Post your topic to find the right people and get into video-calls. Be it a personal project, an idea, a problem an insight, a scientific topic, ... anything. <comment><AUTHOR> Ways to scale deliberation and qualitative decision making in the number of participants. I believe this is the base for making politics actually work and enables tackling big wicked problems like climate change. Happy to talk about that with interested people.</comment>


Mises Blog: "There is nothing ethically or morally wrong with an ad-blocker." - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mises.org/archives/007149.asp <comment><USER2> From one of the comments on that page:

 _Attention Site Owners:

Visitors are not responsible for supporting your business model whether it be ad-based or anything else. Business involves risk. If you decide to employ a poor model, such as requiring your visitors to view or click on your ads, and your visitors choose not to. Guess what. That's called a bad business model.

If your poor argument was applied to other businesses, say, grocery stores for instance, it would be an act of theft to go into a grocery store and not buy something or view the in-store ads. By your reckoning, you should then be banned from entering that store. Stupid? Of course it is, but that's your argument.

Here's a tip. If you want to make money, why not offer something of real value to your visitors like a product or service. Provide content that is so good that people will want to pay for it. That's called doing good business.

Begging people to look at your ads for junk they neither want or need is nothing but ad welfare._

I hadn't heard that argument, and I must say that I find myself agreeing with it. On some level, the whole advertising system is a giant house of cards. I have never heard of anyone buying anything from an ad they clicked on, yet ads are so prevalent. At some point, businesses are going to stop throwing invested money at worthless ads and instead are going to find other means for promoting their products.

<comment><USER3> Interesting, but this is just stupid:

> Here's a tip. If you want to make money, why not offer something of real > value to your visitors like a product or service. Provide content that is so > good that people will want to pay for it. That's called doing good business.

If sites supported entirely by advertising had no "real value" then people probably wouldn't be using them so much... The commenter has no clue about internet "business."

> Begging people to look at your ads for junk they neither want or need is > nothing but ad welfare.

And this is exactly the FAULT of google. It is incredibly counter-productive that publishers cannot directly support the advertised products as is the case with CPC advertising.

<comment><USER2> You're right. I mostly was intrigued by his stance regarding business models. Consumers often find ways of using products in an unintended manner, and if your business model does not recognize and account for that, you are likely missing out on a valuable resource. Consumers blocking ads is just another example of an unexpected usage of a product, and if you are not prepared for that, you are trying to ignore the nature of smart web users who just want to get at the information or service without all the distractions. There must be some other way to cater to these individuals without the use of ads, while still managing to get some benefit from their traffic.

One example, which requires no work on the part of the site owner, is realizing that the fraction of people who are blocking ads probably has a large overlap with the fraction of people who use Digg, Reddit, del.icio.us, and other social news/bookmarking sites. So on one hand, ad-blocking individuals are detracting slightly from the revenue stream, while on the other hand, they may be doing valuable work to promote your site to others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If advertisers and ad-sellers hadn't spent the last two decades squandering their credibility by abusing weaknesses in browser technology, hadn't been lazy about allowing large file sizes, and hadn't recklessly pursued intrusive, garish or distracting psychological ad designs, then people wouldn't have spent so much time fighting back.

Google showed users a little respect, and made billions.

</comment><comment><USER5> In a business relationship, anything permitted by the law of the land is ethically sound.

The other question is what kind of effect ad based business models have on the economy and on startups. We all know that someone has to pay at some point. So ad based models are basically a way to shift that burden around to where it is most easily enforceable or acceptable for the consumer. Since startups are on average less able to enforce rules or gain consumer acceptance, they profit from ad based models more than others.

I believe to a large degree, the overuse of ad based business models is the result of not having an effective micro payment system. It doesn't make sense to buy a subscription to every single news site I'm consuming. It's just not practical. It's not even practical to explicitly agree to terms of service. Unfortunately micro payment systems suffer from a huge number of problems. Privacy being just one of them.

<comment><USER6> I read a sci fi book where ads were effectively a micropayment mechanism. You built up credit by watching ads, and you couldn't do certain things online when your ad credit was too low. So you could have a screen with lots of ads open in your loungeroom for an evening and top it up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This article doesn't really say much, but it raises an interesting point. As a user I'm often annoyed by ads (especially big flashy banner ads that also happen to come with sound). Google's ads I don't mind so much except for sites that seem to have ads placed in 3 or 4 different places (across the top, a side bar, in the middle of an article and somewhere at the bottom). So I can see AdBlocking being useful (although I haven't used ad blocking tools for a while).

From the point of view of a web startup however advertising is what pays for the content so the users don't have to. Users end up paying with their attention instead of dollars. So when they try to subvert your ads they are essentially violating your terms of service.</comment>


Ask Slashdot: Do You Still Trust Bitcoin? - <AUTHOR> http://ask.slashdot.org/story/14/02/26/2313242/ask-slashdot-do-you-still-trust-bitcoin?utm_source=slashdot&utm_medium=facebook <comment><USER2> Compare and contrast the discussion about bitcoin on Slashdot to the discussion on HN.</comment>


Material world: how Google discovered what software is made of - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/27/5849272/material-world-how-google-discovered-what-software-is-made-of <comment><USER3> Software is made of a set of symbols unique to its particular function, and user interaction at its most primitive is no more than the relationship of those symbols to the ones present in the mind of the user.

The latest fads in user interaction design seem to ignore this perspective, and instead treat "UI" as another abstraction layer of unique symbols on top of software, then expecting all software to be designed top-down based off this "unified design language". This approach unfortunately ignores the user, providing further indirection away from the underlying software and it's function, herding the user into a church of the designer's own construction where they are now forced to worship interaction in the abstract as a prerequisite to using the software (or at least blindly perform whatever rituals it demands).

The aim of design unification is often a false path, born out of convenience for the designer, and it's pursuit shows a certain level of disrespect to both the user and other designers. Programming languages - arguably interaction design in its purest form - are a more interesting path towards better software (see Smalltalk, Swift playgrounds, and the work at VPRI).

Material is not what software is made of, but it is a pretty good sign of what marketing is made of these days.

<comment><USER4> "Material is not what software is made of, but it is a pretty good sign of what marketing is made of these days." \--> this!

<comment><USER5> Quoting someone and then saying "this" adds absolutely nothing to the conversation. An upvote is sufficient.

<comment><USER6> Not, it's not always sufficient - given no points are shown, there may be no visible way to see that anyone agrees (or disagrees) with a point at all.

I do feel that 'this' on its own is a bit trite, and doesn't add much, but it doesn't add 'absolutely nothing' to the conversation - it's a bit of seasoning, like a dash of salt or pepper.

<comment><USER7> More like a glob of processed cheese.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find a lot of the behaviors of these UIs to be surprising in an undesirable way. When a UI does something unexpected I should be surprised by how much sense the interaction has, rather than the novelty of it or a cool animation. I should be able to anticipate the behavior in a future context.

They are touting this supposed underlying physical metaphor (almost as if that is their own newly developed idea in UI), but it sure looks like a mask over the fact that they just threw in a bunch of shiny animations everywhere with much less regard for physical metaphor and reproducibility than one should expect.

<comment><USER9> Could you be more specific? Which Material interaction do you think you could improve upon?

<comment><USER10> Interaction is like dance: You just know when it's right. Even though there are visual languages for movement, the best way to explain is by example.

<comment><USER11> so asking for an example that's awkward would be right on point, then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I love the visual direction, and I think it will work very well for a diverse set of Google products. The style guide is beautifully done and well articulated.

In terms of interaction design, however, it doesn't break any new ground, apart from better transitions (but at times, too much).

> So the team set about creating this metaphorical material, which is a little > bit like magical paper.

A bit of nitpicking: "a bit like magical paper" can hardly be called a Metaphor. It's just a loose analogy. In fact, I have to force my imagination to see the paper-ness in the UI, otherwise it just feels like flat UIs with realistic shadows.

<comment><USER13> There is no interaction design in the document, it is purely a visual design language. In general: look and feel, typography, layout, animation -> visual design; story boarded user interaction flows -> interaction design (at least in America, in Europe the terms are used quite differently).

I don't think the design language breaks any new ground so much as it sets a strong set of guidelines for what an application should look and feel like.

All UIs are metaphorical, necessarily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> >A material metaphor is the unifying theory of a rationalized space and a system of motion. The material is grounded in tactile reality, inspired by the study of paper and ink, yet technologically advanced and open to imagination and magic.

What does any of that even mean?

<comment><USER15> A cynical translation: "We finally realised that Apple was onto a good thing with their minimalism, layered UI and UI as a metaphor for physically interacting with your data. So we're putting a lot of fancy words together to make it sound like we're doing something amazing and new, while all we're actually achieving is explicitly stating what Apple has assumed to be common sense for decades. After all if we want all these Android developers to conform to a common human interface guideline ruleset rather than inventing their own UI for every new application, we have to make that ruleset sound sexy and awesome!"

I love how the guy presenting on stage starts talking about a new material that will provide tactile feedback, as if Google is already launching phones with shape-shifting screens. Some Android fans are going to be mighty disappointed when we don't have tactile morphing screens in the stores for Christmas.

<comment><USER16> "Finally"? Apple announced iOS 7 barely a year ago, and they were far from 'minimal' before. Google has been using this design since Google Now was launched a year before _that_.

<comment><USER17> I think the parent was making a reference to the original Macintosh GUI guideline [1] (human interface guideline). They are quite famous in the UI / UX community as being a pioneering way[2] of explaining and thus unifying the look and feel of third party applications.

[1] [http://interface.free.fr/Archives/Apple_HIGuidelines.pdf](http://interface.free.fr/Archives/Apple_HIGuidelines.pdf)

[2] [http://hci.stanford.edu/publications/bds/4p-guidelines.html](http://hci.stanford.edu/publications/bds/4p-guidelines.html)

<comment><USER16> Oh I see. But that still doesn't validate his cynicism, as Google has been doing that for quite some time as well for Holo [1]. It's not as if this is the first time that Google has a "design language" for Android.

[1] [http://developer.android.com/design/index.html](http://developer.android.com/design/index.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > You couldn't do anything you wanted with them, just like you can't just do > anything with physical objects.

I find this pretty funny considering all the objects in the video(s) seem to transform/split/create/shapeshift into new object all the time.

</comment><comment><USER19> After reading this morning about it, going out, then getting back and reading about it again, I still literally don't have a clue what they're talking about.

</comment><comment><USER20> The title leaves a lot to be desired. "Software" is more than a visible interface. "Discovery" is more than articulation.

<comment><USER21> That's a very charitable comment. I was struck by the outright arrogance and hubris of such a title. Of course I'm sure no one at Google would use those words, it's just some tech blogger or editor with a knack for linkbait titles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This seems to be more of an approach to UI design rather than software design as a whole. Maybe they've "answered" what UI is, but for me this doesn't answer what software is made of.

</comment><comment><USER23> specifically, the idea that UI elements should behave as if they were tangible objects isn't a new idea. this is what apple have been doing for.. quite a while, and honestly I didn't think this was breakthrough stuff - <USER2> bounce on scroll views, smooth, clean, and consistent UI transitions, and previously skeuomorphic design principle.. the idea that that interactions with a interface should mirror our interactions with things in real life doesn't seem like a shocking revelation.

what's worse is that they have had this epiphany, and then.. seemingly ignored it.

<comment><USER24> I think the term 'skeuomorphic' has become a little muddled but for the sake of argument let's distinguish between 'functional' and 'decorative' skeuomorphism.

It was an excess zeal for the latter kind that Apple quite rightly got criticized for. The green baize in Games Center and the leather-bound notebooks in wherever.

UX/UI people have been talking about 'affordance' for years and if a button looks raised due to subtle shading then that aids in recognising that it's clickable.

Techniques such as this have been around since the birth of the GUI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> A little more complex version of hypercard?

</comment><comment><USER26> The sample phone screen they showed gave me the creeps. All the little stacked up sheets reminds me of a desk stacked with unopened bills. I can do without that kind of real world clutter in my UI. It helps me to focus on one thing at a time, not have a bunch of slivers beckoning around the edges of the current "window", thank you very much.</comment>


I failed to convince my students about code-generation (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://modeling-languages.com/failed-convince-students-benefits-code-generation/ <comment><USER2> I would love to try some but at least 10-15 years ago all these tool weren't very usable for productive work. The generated code was ok, but you could have just written that yourself. That would be especially educational for beginners.

Additionally, fresh programmers, that had an introduction to OO and some design patterns, would probably create excessive wallpapers.

That said, I really like tools that go the other way by visualizing the structure of your code. Not applicable to every language, but still interesting.</comment>


The Fraud Czar - My morning routine on Free-Singles.com - <AUTHOR> http://thefraudczar.com/?p=64 <comment><USER2> Vapid and pointless article...

<comment><AUTHOR> Social sites live and die on the activities/behaviour/culture of their members. While I agree that the article isn't groundbreaking, I found it interesting because it shows in a very pragmatic way the kind of maintenance required to keep a site from going downhill. The author of the site used to be 'fraud czar' of match.com and is now starting a new free dating site.

I think it would be fascinating to see everything that goes on behind the scenes of these sites, and this guy gives a little bit of a glimpse.

Elsewhere he has some interesting commentary on how much money Russian and Nigerian con artists were making on dating sites like Match.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Its a shame that blocking foreign countries works so well.</comment>


Show HN: Enjoy Time Left - Android App that will make you see life differently - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=lifeleft.humanresearch.labs

<comment><USER2> I like the idea, but I think that the $2.45 price is pretty high. Also it would be great to see some citations for the references you make as your statements currently lack credibility. I wish the best of luck to you, but to be honest I can't imagine anyone spending that much money on an app like this, especially in this day where everyone considers their $.99 purchases as if it is a heavy investment.

</comment><comment><USER3> Downloaded and it didn't show up as an launchable app, so I tried adding it as a widget, which gives the "TwLauncher (process com.sec.android.app.twlauncher) has stopped..." error. Tried the obvious fixes for that but none worked. Not sure I'm ready to try a full reset yet. Using a droid charge, if it matters.</comment>


Searching for Value in Ludicrous Ideas - <AUTHOR> http://arieff.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/searching-for-value-in-ludicrous-ideas/ <comment><USER2> Early in the interview he announces, "If I could use two words to describe what it is that I enjoy it is that I love to be sneakily outrageous", and then a few paragraphs later he says as a matter of fact, "I usually spend energy 'turning off' the idea-generating machine just as psychics train themselves to turn off their capability".

Now that's what I call sneakily outrageous :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> Gem in that article: "I had never invented anything before," he told me in an e-mail recently, "because no one had ever asked me to invent anything!"

Makes me really think about how and why I do things. That sentence struck a chord.

</comment><comment><USER4> Treadarounds is hilarious. Reminds me that people get up to exercise, walk a treadmill, then go cart about for their afternoon golf game.

<comment><USER5> These are real, though they don't look any less ridiculous: [http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/01/maker_channel_105_t...](http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/01/maker_channel_105_treadmill_bike_ro.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Love that pedal train. I would definitely hop on.</comment>


Ask HN: Local vs. remote salary gap - <AUTHOR> Any info or insight on how common is it for companies that have both local and remote developers to offer different salary ranges based based on the employee's city/state/country? I am talking about regular full time remote employees ala 37signals, not lowest bidder outsourced contractors. <comment><USER3> Anecdotally, companies which I've worked with set bands based on local market conditions and allocate you within the bands on a roughly cross-company performance basis. e.g. 10 levels of engineers, level 3 engineers in NYC and Bogota are roughly comparable in skill level but the ones in NYC make quite a bit more.

Mostly for internal sensibilities of fairness, it is generally the case that e.g. level 3 engineers in Bogota working at the company would earn above- market for their skillset in Bogota. The companies tried to strike a balance between "We want to pay them equitably with our employees in high-cost US locales.", "We want to retain them versus other offers.", and "We do not want to give them golden shackles by e.g. paying grossly more than any employer in their low-cost locale."

This assumes functioning remote cultures and regular, full-time, full-class employees. Consultants obviously do things differently. (And any consulting client which made reference to Nagoya FTE rates in a negotiation with me would have gotten a firm handshake and non-specific pleasantries _immediately_.)

</comment><comment><USER4> Preface: this is purely anecdotal.

I've worked at two companies where I was explicitly told that I was being given a lower offer because I was working remote instead of relocating. Both companies offered to pay me more if/when I decided to relocate.

Both companies had lousy policies regarding remote employees that left me feeling like a second class citizen within the organization. Poor communication practices, poor or absent advancement opportunities. Both jobs ended around the 8 month mark.

By comparison, two other companies that I've worked remotely made me excellent offers, had awesome policies, great communication, and provided merit raises. At those places I felt like I was on equal footing with all other staff.

So, anecdotally, yes, there can be a gap, but any company that is likely to pay you less as a remote developer probably isn't going to be a good company to work remotely for.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think there is something sort of foolish about the fact that across the board employees are basically not allowed to mention real numbers regarding how much they make or even things like the industry average pay.

Read these threads and you almost never hear anyone mention real numbers because they are terrified of either being fired or having their peers realize what a good/bad deal they've made.

Yet, in a lot of public institutions like Universities, public schools, salaries are a lot more transparent.

Companies probably don't want people to know what other people make because it gives the individual leverage to negotiate. We as developers are terrible at negotiating and don't want to admit it.

Anecdotally, in Lincoln, NE I've seen developers paid anywhere from $25,000 to $120,000, but most range in the $35,000 - 65,000 range. I believe most devs at UNL or the state of NE fall between 45k and 65k, but some can be a good bit higher.

What gets me is if a dev in the midwest who would normally get paid $60,000 or so, how much should they get paid as a remote worker for a startup in SF? In SF I assume a dev costs $120,000 or more, so if you were being hired there what is the right number to ask for?

In a truly remote work environment, does it really make sense to pay dramatically less or more just because of where someone lives? Is someone's relative value decided by their location or by their skills and abilities?

<comment><USER6>
      Companies probably don't want people to know what other
      people make because it gives the individual leverage to
      negotiate. We as developers are terrible at negotiating
      and don't want to admit it.

If you're a developer who is good at negotiating, it's a whole lot easier to negotiate a $20,000 raise for yourself than to negotiate the same raise for everyone on the same pay grade.

If I make the company $200,000 that funds my $20,000 raise right there - <USER2> it's just a raise for me. If I have to fund the same raise for 100 other guys before I can have one myself, funding that will be about 100 times more difficult.

<comment> dnt404-1 totally true that negotiating for oneself is very easy than the rest of the team. back when i was working (before taking studies), it was easy to get my pay raised, however later as i became team leader, and when i tried to raise the pay for all of my team and that never really went through.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We pay the same (and offer a Singapore visa if they change their mind). The method is pretty simple: we pay X amount of money and get Y (or more) amount of code "value" back, and try and keep Y/X relatively stable.

Works out well for those living in cheaper cities, but it does suck a bit if you're in a high tax country/state, since Singapore's tax rate is in the single digit percent.

<comment><USER8> This is exactly the comment I was looking for. So many folks on here that are resistant to the idea of paying everyone equally for the amount of value they bring to the team.

<comment><USER9> It's quantifying that value that is the difficult part. Delivery of x amount of lines of code would be a terrible metric for example...

<comment><USER7> I'm not saying it was the only predictor, but we did have a candidate who solved the application task with a quarter (1/4!) of the code submitted by the next best, whose submission was already beautifully succinct. So, number of lines of code CAN be a meaningful predictor ;)

More seriously, I agree with you. I don't think performance is quantifiable with parametric methods, you just have to allocate a fair amount of mental effort to the problem. For example, a "maintenance guy" who enjoys breaking other people's code, fixing holes and doing tests is extremely valuable, but not someone that is easily sold to non-technical management, nor that is very visible; at the same time, without some builders to work with, his salary is wasted.

We get away with it because we have a carefully selected (around 3 man-month of just recruiting) small team (10) of experienced developers from a small but strong and mature community (Haskell) on a well defined problem (fix and improve a large e-commerce platform). I shudder to think of the magnitude of the problem for a much larger company with much larger teams, like Google or Microsoft.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's relatively common for their to be a gap between local and remote developers.

Buffer have been incredibly transparent about their approach to this: [http://open.bufferapp.com/introducing-open-salaries-at- buffe...](http://open.bufferapp.com/introducing-open-salaries-at-buffer- including-our-transparent-formula-and-all-individual-salaries/)

<comment><USER11> Incredibly transparent about their low-ball salaries.

<comment><USER12> The salaries are low for San Francisco but high for most of the country. The people working remotely are getting a great deal, provided they're using the opportunity to live cheaply. The people working locally in SF not so much.

<comment><USER13> They are low, even figuring in the locality pay.

<comment><USER12> I'm not sure I agree. Take the $88k salary for the frontend engineer. See if you can go get that salary with little experience out in Springfield, MO or a place like that. You'll be very lucky if you get $60k. I think you underestimate how much salaries plummet in truly cheap areas. You're probably thinking of "cheap" areas that aren't actually cheap at all, like Houston or Austin.

<comment><USER13> I'm in SF, so I little expereince with the salaries in those places. It may be that it's their 'cost-of-living' difference that is at the heart of the issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A bit late to this discussion, but I'll provide a comment from the employer side. Employment is a market, and it has market-based dynamics. Most of the developers here are (understandably) looking at this from a cost-perspective - "I should be paid what value I provide" etc. That's not how it works. Just like products aren't priced by what they cost, employers don't value developers by the value they add.

Instead, developers are priced by companies at what the market will bear just like any other product. If a $40k salary in Bangalore will get them X quality of developer, and they need $120k in SF to attract the same quality of developer, then that's what the policy is. The policy might be disguised behind cost-of-living etc., but it's really market-based pricing.

In the same vein, keep in mind that it _costs_ a company more to hire someone in an expensive area. So if developer skill was the only issue, why would companies _want_ to hire locally if it costs more? The answer is If developer skill was the only thing at issue, no developers would ever get hired in SF because there's plenty of great developers elsewhere for less money. The reality is that having people local adds significant value, all other things being equal, so companies are willing to pay more for local people.

</comment><comment><USER15> I make the same remote as I did as an in-house senior developer. But I will note that when I was interviewing for remote opportunities I came across a lot of cases where the salary was different for remote and on-site employees. Even signing bonuses of $10k or so to come in and work from the office.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm in a big financial institution in the US and we have many remote and many local workers in the IT side. The only difference in pay (that I know about) is they might pay local more in some areas because the cost of living, and often the wages, are higher in that area (like San Fran). Only bummer is they're slowly doing away with the remote working.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's very interesting to read that most companies change salaries based on location. I'd like to hear from someone in a senior level position explain the reasoning behind that.

I think that it would make the most sense to pay someone what they are worth, regardless of location.

As a remote worker who moves quite a bit I'd be constantly having to renegotiate my salary.

<comment><USER18> We try to equalize net pay taking into account a reasonably consistent standard of living. As mentioned above, equalizing gross salary across geographies where employees have dramatically different purchasing power doesn't feel fair and takes a toll on morale.

If you move often and work remotely, it seems to me that salary renegotiation would become as routine as any number of other tasks you doubtlessly encounter.

<comment><USER17> What doesn't seem fair is that if I move from San Francisco to Kansas City to save money my pay goes down. I'm not doing anything differently. I'm still working the same amount of time, doing the same level of work.

<comment><USER19> Dollars simply aren't worth the same in San Fran as they are in Kansas City. Your pay is actually not "going down" in an economic sense.

Taxes are part of it. If overall state taxes (property, local, state, sales, and other fees) is 25% of your gross in CA, and 15% of your gross in MO, companies can reasonably expect to pay less in MO for the same work.

Another way to think about it, what percentile does your pay fall into for similar jobs in San Francisco versus Kansas City. If being paid $120k as a 5-yr Rails Developer in San Francisco puts you at the 50th percentile, move to Kansas City and all of a sudden that same $120k could put you in the 80th percentile (numbers are totally made up). Assuming developers aren't actually smarter in CA than MO, your percentile pay shouldn't change.

<comment><USER17> But you're still emphasizing a personal decision that I choose to make. Don't worry about what I do outside of work or where I live.

Worry about the quality of the work I produce for you and then pay me for it.

I completely agree with you in regards to a dollar being very different in SF as compared to KC, but that should have no relevance to how much I get paid.

> Your pay is actually not "going down"

Yes my pay actually is going down. I would literally be brining in less money. What I choose to do with that money should not matter to my employer.

<comment><USER20> Check your bank account in the end of the month. It's going up!

Don't forget that if you earn less money in the same country then you'll pay proportionally less taxes. Made up numbers: CA = 120k gross -> 80k after tax. Another state: 100k gross ->70k after tax; Difference in cost of living: 10k). Now you are breaking even. Of course, totally made up numbers.

And as an extra, for every extra dollar you have in a cheaper state, you can do more with it than in CA.

Sure, I would love to make the same kind of money in the cheapest corner in the world but companies aren't there to make us rich; they are there to have a business! If you want to try to convince company to pay for what you produce instead of paying a fair salary, try contracting instead (and be good at selling yourself)

<comment><USER21> But here are a couple of things to consider.

1\. If I make more than approx $106k a year, I cap out on paying FICA. 2\. As far as I know, everything I buy at places like Amazon costs the same regardless of where I live (with in the US). 3\. Many financial incentives are provided as a percentage instead of a raw dollar amount e.g. 401k's are usually matched by percentage, raises are often a percentage increase.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Something I've noticed is that for projects that are publicly visible (i.e. open source), remote workers can often command higher rates as they work more like a contractor. The independence is a trade off for the quick ramp up.

</comment><comment><USER23> I worked remotely as a sysadmin for an internet security startup in SF for almost 3 years. I made $45K/yr because I was living and working in Oklahoma. My co-workers living in SF doing the same job as me were making 2-3x more.</comment>


Ebola is a 'global emergency' as bodies litter streets - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26030-ebola-is-a-global-emergency-as-bodies-litter-streets.html#.U-egW9Z38jh <comment><USER2> [https://www.google.com/search?q=ebola+vitamin+c](https://www.google.com/search?q=ebola+vitamin+c)

To date, no viral infection has been demonstrated to be resistant to the proper dosing of vitamin C as classically demonstrated by Klenner. However, not all viruses have been treated with Klenner-sized vitamin C doses, or at least the results have not been published. Ebola viral infection and the other acute viral hemorrhagic fevers appear to be diseases that fall into this category. Because of the seemingly exceptional ability of these viruses to rapidly deplete vitamin C stores, even larger doses of vitamin C would likely be required in order to effectively reverse and eventually cure infections caused by these viruses.

</comment><comment><USER3> A great non-fiction book about Ebola [http://www.amazon.com/The-Hot-Zone- Terrifying-Origins/dp/038...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Hot-Zone-Terrifying- Origins/dp/0385479565)</comment>


Supermodels join drive for women to embrace coding - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/25/supermodels-join-drive-women-embrace-coding

<comment><USER2> _" Kloss joins Victoria's Secret model Lyndsey Scott, who has also been vocal about her love of coding. The 29-year old, who holds a dual degree in computer science and theatre, continues to combine programming with her modelling work,"_

going to see more of this, question: Are we going to see demand for different tools?</comment>


The Recycling Myth - <AUTHOR> http://mises.org/story/2855

<comment><USER2> Typical american mindset: Everything is money. Use something, throwaway when don't needed, bury it, contaminate the soil, the seas, it's cheaper.

Of course they are external cost to recycle, what he doesn't say is that THEY ARE EXTERNAL COST TO NOT RECYCLING. Nature knows that since long long ago, she recycles everything.

The Pacific is filled with polymers just because people love to use plastics and don't recycle them, fishes dye (external cost) every day because they confuse it with jellyfish. Jellyfish plague the seas(external cost).

Plastics additives are getting to our food chain(external cost). Our water contaminated by flame retardants and biphenols A when you bury it are affecting us (external cost).

If you want to make new paper you need to contaminate the rivers (Think about International Paper corp.). Making aluminium from oxide, instead of melting takes an exorbitant quantity of energy(external cost).

This article is pure demagogy, if he want to be serious he needs to put numbers over the table.

<comment><USER3> Fishes dye ? You mean they change colour because they ingest polymers ? Or you mean they die ?

My money is on the 'expiry' :)

Anyway, you make excellent points, and the article is spouting typical industry grade bs.

Resources are finite.

A guy called 'Eckart Wintzen' promoted a concept he called 'taxing resources removed', which essentially is the opposite of 'value added tax'. His idea was that you should pay taxes on those resources that you remove from the biosphere, and that products made from recycled goods ought to be tax free.

I think it was an excellent concept.

<comment><USER4> Eckart Wintzen is my hero since I worked at his company, Origin, back in the 90s. He actually implemented that concept at Origin: We had to track and estimate the footprint of each project, and then the amount was reinvested in environmental projects.

Recently I have created a methodology inspired by that experience at Origin: [http://www.scribd.com/doc/5507536/Sustainable-Software- Engin...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/5507536/Sustainable-Software-Engineering)

More info about Eckart Wintzen (who passed away recently): <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.11/es_wintzen_pr.html>

<comment><USER3> And here: <http://extent.nl/>

'Eck's tent' :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The title really should be "The Myth of Forced Recycling"

I guarantee you there are efficient and even profitable ways to recycle, but those not only don't require the use of force but will be made less efficient by its presence.

That being said... Why is this on HN? I would prefer to keep more political topics off of here. Mises.org has some really good technology and Intellectual Property right related articles, but people might be inclined to ignore the source if they're already inclined to believe that it will be off topic.

<comment><USER6> This is more economic than politic. The government creates an incentive to sort garbage, which should lead to new businesses creation and better overall management of garbage/recycling.

The article suggests that people have to sort their garbage themselves, but they could pay someone to do it for them. This is similar to carbon taxes philosophy, create an incentive by making consumers bear the cost of inefficiencies, then some company will find a way to improve things, this reducing those costs.

<comment><USER7> > The government creates an incentive to sort garbage, which should lead to > new businesses creation and better overall management of garbage/recycling.

Either way, citizens will be forced to pay these new businesses to do this task, and most will probably still continue to do it themselves to save money. This recycling program is basically a massive tax on the populace, hidden under the guise of environmentalism. Not to mention it's probably much more difficult to start a business in Sweden than here in the states. I would imagine the Swedish government would take issue with companies profiting off of government programs. That, or there's some other red-tape involved, otherwise we'd already see these garbage sorting companies in existence (it's the first thing I thought of too when I was reading the article).

<comment><USER8> The article is of course exaggerating, noone is forced to do extensive garbage sorting, so paying someone to do it makes absolutely no sense. A lot of people do it because they feel compelled to do "the right thing", others do some sort of best effort, and some ignore it completely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The basic premise is that (in Sweden) the uncounted cost of cleaning and sorting waste and driving to dispose of it is greater than the savings due to recycling. It would have been nice to see at least an order-of-magnitude calculation estimating the uncounted cost. If the cost is so obviously greater than the savings of recycling, then a simple estimation should be sufficient.

The author is probably right, but some concrete numbers would go a long way to supporting his argument.

<comment><USER3> Why is he 'probably right' without proof ?

I remember when I was a kid that factories were paying for old paper and old glass. A whole generation made their pocket money that way. If it was worth something back then I would expect it to be worth something today.

<comment><USER10> I don't know if he is right. But I doubt that a completely manual sorting and cleaning process is the most efficient we can do. Sorting and cleaning waste industrially, using the right tools for the job, has to be better.

Also, there are numerous studies showing how much more efficient public transport is compared to people using their own cars. Now they make people drive waste bags around in their own cars. That has got to be a very bad idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's an easy solution. Put a deposit (tax) on bottles, that gets refunded when the bottle gets recycled.

If it's worth a 10 cent "sin tax" for me to chuck a Cola bottle away, the that's my choice. If somebody can sort my garbage (because they really need the money, or they have a high-tech robot that can sort trash really well, or whatever else), then they win as well.

<comment><USER12> this is already done in Sweden.

<comment><USER13> And in Turkey, for some bottles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't know which part of Sweden the author lives in, but it's apparently not my part. In our trash room here we have bins for glass (white/coloured), paper, batteries and garbage. Card board boxes and other "big" stuff (basically anything that isn't normal consumables) is left at the recycling station (and assuming you do that on your way to work and don't go once per item, the extra energy needed is next to nothing).

I'd say that he's trying very hard to make a point, and exaggerates.

<comment><USER8> I also live in Sweden, and in all the places I've lived, recycling has always been optional. If you don't want to recycle anything, you can just throw everything in the general trash, and noone will know or complain or charge you extra for it.

That said, I read an article many years ago by the head of our environmental protection agency, and he rightfully pointed out the externalizing of the cost of sorting on the population, but most importantly he pointed out that recycling of some materials is completely negative, i.e. it is cheaper and uses less energy to create fresh material than recycle the old.

The materials that _did_ make sense to recycle though was glass, newspaper and aluminium cans. By not recycling milk cartons or plastic containers, you're doing more for the environment than if you recycle them.

The lesson learned is of course that you should always have science to back up your viewpoint, only by making a lifecycle analysis can you find out if a certain activity really is good for the environment, or if it's only good for your conscience.

<comment><USER7> I've never understood why we recycle glass. It doesn't seem like the materials to make glass are in short supply. Is it just much more costly to gather them new than to melt down existing glass containers?

<comment><USER15> At least in some areas, the glass can be plainly reused, instead of going through a full recycling process. In Canada, the brown glass beer bottles can be washed and refilled over a dozen times before failing quality checks and needing to be ground and remelted.

<comment><USER7> So that's why Canadian beer tastes so terrible :-p

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > _The structure works the way all centrally planned structures work: it > increases and centralizes power while the attempted (expected) results do > not materialize_

I find it hard to take people seriously when they mention their ridiculous biases right up front. Central planning has never achieved an expected result? There was never a successful corporation? Nor a military operation? Really?

If you're going to be an ideological shill, at least try to hide it a bit better.

<comment><USER17> Errm, actually (modern) militaries are highly decentralized. The corporal on the ground has a great deal of latitude and is expected to show initiative and creativity.

Contrast that with the highly centralized militaries of WW1 - the attempted result wasn't "get bogged down for 4 years while our troops are mass- slaughtered".

<comment><USER16> I think you've missed my point. The article writer made a ridiculously strong claim: that _no_ centralized structure _ever_ worked. Only a single counterexample is needed to show that this is a dodgy claim, but counterexamples to this aren't rare, they're abundant. In particular, any time the efficiency costs of centralization are less than the transaction costs of decentralized parts cooperating, centralization is a win. There's a reason we've evolved brains.

Coming up with examples where decentralization beat centralization, on the other hand, proves nothing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What is being described here is how the Swedish government is externalising costs. Of coarse it looks good, and profitable on paper because most of the costs (and environmental effects) have been put onto the population.

As the article mentions this is bad for the environment.

<comment><USER19> So, there was basically a glaring hole in the logic of the article, and I was wondering if there's anyone else here that can answer it for me....

Garbage is _already_ a big externality. A positive one. The government takes care of hauling away your trash and disposing of it, somewhere, and you get to benefit from the economies of scale of centralizing this.

The truly individualist, libertarian thing to do with your garbage is not to leave it on the curb for the government to pick up. It's to bury it in your backyard.

What's that you say? "Not in my back yard"?

I had a couple actual questions buried in the snark. Is it still legal to bury trash in your own back yard, on your own property, assuming you take the necessary precautions to prevent it from seeping into groundwater? And if so, would you - or the article's author - do so?

And if someone wanted to start a garbage collection corporation, using land _they_ own, that _they've_ lined so it doesn't leech into groundwater, and hauling away garbage with _their own_ trucks, would the government stop them? I don't think so, but I dunno if it's ever been tried. I think that they'd quickly find out that skipping every other house on the block because they aren't a customer isn't very cost-effective, instead.

I don't think it's necessarily wrong to externalize costs back onto the population if they initially came from the population. It's like complaining about the free food your employer gives you, when there's nothing stopping you from getting your own food elsewhere. (I admit that I've been guilty of that on occasion, but at least I don't write articles - _from a libertarian/anarchist POV_ \- about how the government _owes_ me convenient garbage disposal.)

<comment><USER20> * I think that they'd quickly find out that skipping every other house on the block because they aren't a customer isn't very cost-effective, instead.*

I don't understand why. This is exactly how trash pickup in my area works: there are multiple companies and they only pickup for their own customers. To add insult to injury, I live in a very low-density rural county. Since these guys have been in business for years, I have to assume they're profitable!</comment></comment></comment>


How we chose and furnished an office the Y Combinator way - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cloudant.com/desks/

<comment><AUTHOR> As the Cloudant Founder (YCS08) that opened the Seattle office, I really enjoy the diversity of this comment stream. I wrote this post because I thought it would provide some insight into our company, and because others may find it useful. We have been exceptionally busy building product, revenue and team. After fiddling with the prototype desk in my backyard, we ended up with something economical, fast, ergonomic and flexible. You may say we have a "scalable" desk design.

A bit more about the desks, to address some of the comments below. We can move the desks around easier than "L" shaped ikea frames and have tried multiple positions. I prefer to gaze at a brick wall for focus, others like to gaze out the window or into the room. The desks can be moved in the center of the room and "stacked" like a big lab bench for group hacking. They can also be assembled into mega "L" shaped desks if you need to, say, sort through 2 years of receipts. Getting the height right was a big challenge, and we didn't scrimp on chairs. We also have screws in the feet to adjust the height of the desks if needed. Laptop heat is a non-issue so far, and they don't require coasters.

Per the bigger picture, I'm glad to discuss/listen on the relative merits of team building, brand identity/pride, and balancing running a surprisingly large global data service if that's of interest. We did this for many reasons, but a major portion was to have some fun in the (exceptionally rare) off hours. I would say that building something mechanical and getting the chance to do manual labor is all too rare in my life, and something from which I derive deep satisfaction.

Also, I can't say this enough -- we got a huge assist from friends and family of Cloudant.

<comment><USER2> Kudos to you and the team for caring about the culture.

People tend to forget that the company culture - shared interests and activities being a big part of it - plays a huge part in shaping the quality of the product/service. In addition, it helps build a sense of identity and pride among employees, which is especially important for a fast growing company.

Taking some time off to work on a project like this might actually provide huge returns which are not immediately apparent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Typically when I see door desks, the whole point is to be as cheap and as quick as possible (ie take a big, flat door and throw it on some cinder blocks or makeshift legs). In this case, it seems like those in charge of furnishing the office were more hung up on the novelty of a door desk than any possible cost savings, so they spent way too much time doing things like staining and varnishing, etc. when they could've just bought proper looking desks in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER4> > We decided to build instead of buy

Meaning they decided to procrastinate instead of working on their product/service.

> we instead chose to purchase solid core doors from Home Depot (~$40 each)

Meaning they instead chose to spend more on something that wasn't designed to be a desk than an actual desk.

From [1]:

 _Ergonomically, door desks leave a lot to be desired. Keyboards were usually too high. Typing for hours could be uncomfortable. And those angle brackets have sharp edges; accidentally scrapping exposed flesh against those was a mistake that wouldn't be repeated._

[1] - [http://glinden.blogspot.co.uk/2006/01/early-amazon-door- desk...](http://glinden.blogspot.co.uk/2006/01/early-amazon-door-desks.html)

<comment><USER5> HN has gotten so nasty. I now find that when I click on "comments" I unconsciously brace myself to find this type of comment at the top of the thread.

<comment><USER6> Absolutely. It is so easy to poke holes in somebody project, blog post, etc, and takes some contrarian angle. I just don't quite understand why they get voted up to the top.

<comment><USER2> It might be because people on HN are beacons of productivity who find that these atrocious projects take away from the reams of value that could be created otherwise by working on the product.

This is why they don't read news sites during the work day. Oh wait ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It appears you spent a little bit too much time worrying about stuff that doesn't matter.

</comment><comment><USER8> Seriously? Put most tables facing the wall? Who wants to look at a wall and have no screen privacy?

<comment><USER9> Their at work, they're suppose to be looking at their screen not out the window.

Their at work, they're suppose to be working on their work not watching netflix.

I think its a nice setup. My only concern would be my laptop overheating on those wooden desks.

<comment><USER10> They are professionals--they're supposed to be delivering value for the company. If watching netflix helps them think, let them watch some goddamn netflix. Butts-in-seats is a horrible metric; butts-in-seats-with-code-editor focused even moreso.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm not sure if I'd be all that happy hacking away on a door desk. It's too rectangular and even with a good ergonomic chair I find my elbows aren't supported with my keyboard. I've worked on desks of similar size and shape and they just don't cut it.

I prefer a corner desk with a rounded, concave cutout. I can imagine with a bit of competitive pricing I could put one together for less than $100. I'd probably go with a birch or maple veneer plywood and stain it to the right color.

To be fair though, I'm a hobbyist woodworker and a lot of people don't have the inclination, patience, or skill to build a desk. There is also little point in DIY if what you can buy can be tax deducted as a business expense.

</comment><comment><USER12> All that time and energy you spent making your own desks could have been poured into your product instead. Just saying.

<comment><USER13> Team-building, pride in your surroundings, and creating a culture all pay off huge in productivity. I see it as an investment, not a waste.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It says a lot about the work ethic of a company when they are willing to dedicate a weekend of their own time to build something with their own two hands. It shows that the team can problem solve together on many levels, has common sense, and that they enjoy working hard. As an outside member of this construction effort, I, the "fiancee LJ", appreciated being involved in the start-up process because it provided me a way to contribute and be part of the start-up spirit. Why should my fiancee get to have all the fun? In my opinion, the benefits of this project (team building, original furniture, bragging rights, significant money savings) far outweighed what would have been gained with the satisfaction of a trip to Ikea. Thanks Cloudant!

</comment><comment><USER15> It's hard to see this as the YC way of running a business. The CEO can make desks from doors and his girlfriend can create a floor plan in sketchup, but neither scales. Establishing potentially ongoing relationships with a carpentry shop and with a team of design professionals does.

This is a kneepads v. packing table decision:

 _we were packing on our hands and knees on a hard concrete floor. I remember, just to show you how stupid I can be -- my only defense is that it was late. We were packing these things, everybody in the company and I had this brainstorm as I said to the person next to me, "This packing is killing me! My back hurts, this is killing my knees on this hard cement floor" and this person said, "Yeah, I know what you mean." And I said, "You know what we need?" my brilliant insight, "We need knee pads!'" I was very serious, and this person looked at me like I was the stupidest person they'd ever seen. I'm working for this person? This is great. "What we need is packing tables."_ \-- Jeff Bezos

<http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/bez0int-4>

</comment><comment><USER16> Well done! Wood is an amazing material. Don't not mind these comments about investing your time better. You did it right. A solid and comfortable environment is essential for a good product. Maybe good ideas were created at starbucks, but certainly not good products.

<comment><USER7> Then why did they design their office to look like a starbucks?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah, nice! Ironically, my mom is an interior designer. We're still working on what to hang on the wall, furniture and layout, but I have some ideas of how to make it personal/local, hopefully that'll take it a bit out of the Starbucks genre.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There's a team camaraderie benefit to building desks together, for sure, but if you just wanted desks you could get them on Craigslist for cheap. We got 3 extremely high quality desks for $100 total. (List price was $400 each).

</comment><comment><USER18> I've always done the t leg ikea galant desks (glass, preferably), with aeron chairs ($300 used, $600 new, IMO worth it), and now, ergotron monitor arms. Generic but totally functional.

<comment><USER19> What properties does a good table have?

<comment><USER18> Cheap, relatively stable, strong, flat on top, somewhat rounded edge so you don't hurt your wrists, maximum free span width underneath. Adjustable height. Wheels would be cool, but I haven't tried that.

The glass IKEA Galant desks do make it really difficult to mount monitor arms (you can't bolt through tempered glass, and pressure clamps are risky on glass), so I ended up putting two oak boards on the top and bottom in the back (1" thick, 8" wide, width of the table + 2"), and clamping stuff to those.

Glass is nice because it's really easy to clean. I believe in keeping the desk basically empty when not in use, with all monitors/etc. supported by arms. I do leave 2 keyboards, a mouse, and a magictrackpad on the desk itself, since I don't have a good way to mount them to anything.

<comment><USER19> My glass table always has fingerprints on it, which bugs me. Ground glass probably doesn't have that little problem.

<comment><USER18> The greenish glass tables don't have that problem; the black ones do.

The other nice thing is that Logitech "darkfield" laser mice work fine on even clear glass tables, somehow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If this was a team-building exercise, I think it's worth it.

</comment><comment><USER21> Ikea desks are not too expensive and will have a higher resell value than your door desks when your company goes under from spending too much time making desks.

</comment><comment><USER22> Is this a YC company? If not why are they so concerned about doing things the YC way?

Anyways I am just happy to see something Seattle related.

<comment><USER2> Yes, it is. It says so on the second sentence in TFA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> If it's not too rude to ask, what is your rent? I'm seeing $4.50-7 in Palo Alto for a range of spaces (it gets cheaper for huge space out of downtown); $1-2.50 for light industrial or office space in Mountain View, and $1.50-4 in SF.

I'd far prefer to be in Seattle (and love Pioneer Square), but I think I'm stuck down here.

</comment><comment><USER23> A bit off topic, but this blog design is an example of failing at #1 from this recent post: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4146888>

There's a link to blog.cloudent.com but not cloudent.com, which is where I actually wanted to go.

</comment><comment><USER19> I like those brick walls. Bricks on my country are generally clearer and color doesn't vary that much. Do you know if that is some treatment on the bricks so they look old, or perhaps they are really old?

<comment><AUTHOR> The bricks are quite old. They may be treated, but you can flake them off with a screwdriver if you dig in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If I could choose so, I rather have my screens facing a wall, or even better the front door. I just don't like the feeling that people might be monitoring what I'm doing. Anyone else notices that?

</comment><comment><USER24> really? why not just buy a $99 ikea desk: <http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/40111124/>

if you add up all the time it took to sand, varish, cut, drill etc it would have costs so much more. time is money man.

</comment><comment><USER25> How is progrid chairs? Maybe compared to steelcase leap?

<comment><AUTHOR> See my comment above, but so far very happy with them.</comment></comment>


What Happens When You Re-Upload a YouTube Video 1000 Times - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/JR4KHfqw-oE <comment><AUTHOR> Here is the video after 1000 uploads [https://youtu.be/mfNM8C-dZ9I](https://youtu.be/mfNM8C-dZ9I)

It lost audio because it was shifting forward around a second with every download.</comment>


I can rapidly prototype code but I get tripped up on design - <AUTHOR>

Guys,
I'm a big fan of rapid prototyping.  Get your startup idea up in a week or two and get a feel for how people like it.  I can easily create the code (php/jquery,etc) but I always get tripped up on the design.
I'm not entirely sure what the resource I'm looking for is, but I want to find tools to help me quickly put together CSS spreadhsheets with decent looking designs.
Are there generators with web 2.0 design styles where you can click which features you want and it will generate designs for you?
I'm not looking for a design that will be the design the site will have in two months, just something that people can look at and not think this website is a complete joke.
Maybe something like http://www.web20generator.com that's less of a joke and has more features.
I've been studying at designfromscratch.com to help get some principles, but I'm not a design guy and I'd rather pay for design after my concepts are solid.
I'm not sure if I'll get laughed off the boards for this, but any tips/ideas would be appreciated. <comment><USER2> I know exactly how you feel. A few more thoughts.

I wish I knew how much "design" was the threshold for users to accept the site as "professional", basically what I could get away with.

I think I get tripped up because I don't like those 2.0 designs. I call it "frosting" or "cheese". And I prefer the less frosted sites like HN and craigslist, or even google.

I get especially annoyed when my frequent sites get redesigned to look more 2.0. The worst was slashdot. They threw everthing in there, gradient, bars, rounded corners. To me that looks much worse than before, but I wonder how many people find it better.

The word needs a study or focus group on how frosted a site needs to get to be appreciated by its users.

</comment><comment><USER3> While you struggle with design, I struggle with code since I'm more of a designer. It's even worse because all I can do is stare at a static HTML version and imagine the functionality of my app!

</comment><comment><USER4> How about starting with an html or Wordpress theme from themeforest (www.themeforest.com). You can get a decent one for $15-$40.

</comment><comment><USER5> Have some fun and make your own tool. If you know php and jquery you can make a wicked program to show some sample divs and play with the colors using jquery popups with color wheels and whatnot. Cld be a mighty good iphone app too.

</comment><comment><USER6> Make it functional and ugly, your audience will follow if the idea and code is good. Having it be pretty should be a secondary goal. Once you get real numbers, hire a UI designer.</comment>


The Murky World of Third Party Web Tracking - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/view/530741/the-murky-world-of-third-party-web-tracking/ <comment><USER2> I've been using EFF's "Privacy Badger" to try to cut down on this, with fairly good results (it doesn't break too many things): [https://www.eff.org/privacybadger](https://www.eff.org/privacybadger)

The basic idea is that it can either fully allow a third-party image/script, allow the load but block third-party cookies, or block it entirely. There are some history-based heuristics (can be overridden) to figure out which makes most sense.

HN discussions: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7789350](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7789350), [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7684287](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7684287)

</comment><comment><USER3> I use DNS to block this sort of stuff (doubleclick.net, googleapis.com, etc.). *.doubleclick.net, etc. redirect to a a socket logger so I can see what is being requested.

This is easy for me to do because I run my own DNS root.

I also use DNS in order to log requests from devices that phone home (e.g., Apple).

<comment><USER4> Have you by chance written up how you have implemented that? I suspect there are existing examples of such setups online, but it never hurts to have another, particularly if your implemtation is different in some way. I would be interested to see your setup described in more detail.</comment></comment>


'Trillions of carats' of diamonds found under Russian asteroid crater - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-09/18/russian-diamond-smorgasbord

<comment><USER2> 18 September 12, and already submitted MANY times.</comment>


An A.I. Competed for a Literary Prize, but Humans Still Did the Real Work - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/03/25/a_i_written_novel_competes_for_japanese_literary_award_but_humans_are_doing.html <comment><USER2> OK, so will any of these programs let me give a quick character description, a setting, a general outline of the story, and then give me a couple hundred pages that I need to lightly edit? Because at that point I have a list of about 85 stories I've been wanting to write up and it's going to take a creative AI or the Singularity and a couple hundred year lifespan for any chance of my getting to all of them.

<comment><USER3> To my knowledge, no such program exist, but each of the stuff you mentioned _has_ been done before.

 __INPUT __

Quick character description - Users specify some character traits to be associated with a character. The program then will pick words associated with that trait to be used with that character. Words could be pithy sayings, actions, or even adjectives.

[https://github.com/tra38/Skynet](https://github.com/tra38/Skynet) (Disclaimer: I wrote this as part of my original attempt at narrative generation, but the results was panned. Handling character descriptions was one of the highlights...in the sense readers never complained about my characters. At the same time, people never seemed to noticed or cared about the characterization at all, so it's possible that this approach may have been unnecessary and a less heavyweight solution should be preferred.)

Setting - When writing the story templates the computer will end up using to generate the story, set aside some spaces for describing the setting. You could attempt to just plug in just the name of the setting ("EwanG's Glorious Emporium") into those blanks, or maybe you could have the computer look up information in a database such as Wikipedia or WordNet to give it more flavor. This approach was used in the computer-generated novel "Around the World In X Wikipedia Articles" that uses Wikipedia to describe its settings ([https://github.com/dariusk/NaNoGenMo-2015/issues/142](https://github.com/dariusk/NaNoGenMo-2015/issues/142)) and in a series of simulations fantasy novels that uses WordNet to describe its settings ([https://github.com/dariusk/NaNoGenMo-2015/issues/40](https://github.com/dariusk/NaNoGenMo-2015/issues/40)).

Alternatively, you could generate descriptive and evocative phrases associated with your setting name. This can add more flavor to your story. (This was done in the computer-generated novel "Our Arrival": [https://github.com/dariusk/NaNoGenMo-2015/issues/25](https://github.com/dariusk/NaNoGenMo-2015/issues/25))

General Outline Of The Story - The 'story compiler' approach, invented by Chris Pressey, starts off with a "null story" (characters meet each other and then characters leaves). The compute starts filling in the outline by adding in plots to this "null story", but each plot has a wildcard that can allow for plots to be nested within plots. After it finishes adding plots to the story, it then goes through each scene of the story and then "flesh" it out.

The Story Compiler approach was used to generate "A Time of Destiny". Here's an issue that gives you links to the theory, the code, and the actual novel: [https://github.com/dariusk/NaNoGenMo-2015/issues/11](https://github.com/dariusk/NaNoGenMo-2015/issues/11)

Now, you want to specify the plot, not let the computer randomly decide, so you may want to skip the first few steps, while instead focusing on having the program handle your unique array of scenes. This is going to be the hardest part of your program (writing up the different plots and all the individual scenes within each plot). And you don't want to write up too many plots, because then it will be seen as _you_ writing your stories, not necessarily the computer. You could have plots reuse different scenes to reduce your workload.

 __OUTPUT __Output of Couple Hundred Pages - Every year, programmers all around the world attempt to participate in National Novel Generation Month, where the goal is to generate 50,000 words. This is both a very easy problem (set the program up in a loop until you get over 50,000 words) and a very hard problem (once people see the pattern within the generated story, they will get bored pretty fast and stop reading...or even skimming...how do you prevent readers from getting bored when reading the novel?). Still, if you can build a program that can handle one of your arbitrary input, then you can build a program to handle hundreds of arbitrary inputs. Whether you want to read all of the resulting outputs however is a different question...but then you 're planning on 'lightly' editing the output, right? Maybe it might work.

Every link that I gave you was an entry in the latest NaNoGenMo competition ([https://github.com/dariusk/NaNoGenMo-2015](https://github.com/dariusk/NaNoGenMo-2015)), with the exception of the Skynet link that I gave you. Skynet, however, was intended to be be used in an entry in that competition.

====

So yeah, what you say is doable, and can be done. If you want to take this as a challenge to produce your own lovely program to generate your 85 wonderful stories, go right to it. (Or just find somebody's novel generator and just modify that to produce your lovely 85 stories).

But don't limit yourself to conventional understanding of stories. For example, one of my actual entries to NaNoGenMo involve randomly shuffling the paragraphs of an article, thereby generating a brand new article ([https://github.com/dariusk/NaNoGenMo-2015/issues/180](https://github.com/dariusk/NaNoGenMo-2015/issues/180)). The result was rather surprisingly effective, and I ended up using this similar approach in generating a blog post ([https://gist.github.com/tra38/8a6bf3743cd89687151c](https://gist.github.com/tra38/8a6bf3743cd89687151c)) and a short story ([https://gist.github.com/tra38/02b03745e7da37789ed2](https://gist.github.com/tra38/02b03745e7da37789ed2)). Experimentation can lead to new insights, especially about creativity.</comment></comment>