Airbus Patents Detachable Cabins to Cut Plane Boarding Times - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/11/airbus-patents-detachable-cabins-to-cut-plane-boarding-times/ <comment><USER2> Good luck pressurizing the cabin module without making it excessively heavy. The flat bottom is going to be tough and the sharp corners where the flat bottom meets the sides are going to be really tough.

It would be a _lot_ easier to do a "tube in a tube" concept using a swing up nose like what is already available on the 747 (could be available for the A380). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cargolux_B747-400F.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cargolux_B747-400F.jpg) Then use cameras and video screens to simulate windows.

References:

* Boeing 747 "Large Cargo Freighter" aka Dreamlifter [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Dreamlifter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_Dreamlifter) / [http://www.primeportal.net/hangar/howard_mason3/747_lcf/](http://www.primeportal.net/hangar/howard_mason3/747_lcf/)

* Airbus Beluga [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_Beluga](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_Beluga)

</comment><comment><USER3> Given how good your average airline is at directing baggage, I look forward to being accidentally put on a plane to Murmansk due to a misread barcode or something on the modular cabin.

<comment><USER4> In Soviet Russia, Cabin boards You!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If I recall correctly, the slow part about boarding a plane isn't actually the boarding part. That only takes like 15 minutes. The unloading/loading of luggage, refueling, and restocking is what takes the most time. If you took the Mythbusters solution and boarded everyone as quickly and efficiently as possible, you would still be waiting around on the tarmac for another 15+ minutes for the plane to be ready for take-off. In fact, I believe that's why they _don 't_ use the most optimal board algorithm, because while you're attempting to board the plain, you think that other passengers are the problem and not the airline. (citation needed)

So I'm not _super_ clear on what, exactly, this solves in that regard. If there were modular fuel tanks and some sort of cannon that shot your luggage from check-in directly into the luggage compartment, maybe... :)

<comment><USER6> I was always thinking, if they let people in only via front doors, why they don't let the passengers from the back enter first. If people enter randomly, the ones in the front are blocking everyone else while they're putting their luggage in overhead lockers etc.

Maybe this is because of what you wrote :)

<comment><USER5> It turns out that the back-to-front is what they actually do now. I believe the most efficient method, as determined by the Mythbusters, is the WILMA (Window-Middle-Aisle) technique. Here's the video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss1S3-Kv6R8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss1S3-Kv6R8)

<comment><USER7> The problem with WilMA is that by the time they get to "A" all of the overhead bins are completely full. So those of us who prefer aisle seats end up being forced to gate check our carry-on bag.

<comment><USER5> As an aisle-preferrer, I sympathize and agree!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wouldn't the XC-120 count as prior art here? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_XC-120_Packplane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_XC-120_Packplane) Seems like a very similar idea

</comment><comment><USER9> I have a great, patent-able idea to cut turn-around time: It's called 'Fuel- Along'. Re-fuel as the plane taxis down the runway. Think of it as 'just in time juicing'. The tanker physically attaches to the aircraft, which tows it along as it taxis and pumps. I mean, we've all waited and waited while the line of planes inches along, right? And they can re-fuel mid-air already, so connect and disconnect should be solved aready. Would cut at least 20 minutes off the turn around, right? /s

</comment><comment><USER10> This was totally my idea :-) Actually mine was a bit different, in mine you loaded into a "cabin pod" with seats and LCD screens for "windows" and then the whole pod gets loaded into the back of a C-130 transport to fly you to your next destination. For safety the pods could have integrated parachutes so in the event of a flight issue they could be ejected and recovered with the people on board safe. Ah well.

</comment><comment><USER11> doesn't look remotely reasonable. granted I am no aircraft designer but air frame integrity, aerodynamics, and extra weight to facilitate the detachable parts, all look to doom it.

Look to improving movement of planes at airports, unobtrusive but thorough scanning of flyers and crews; both ground and airborne, and more automation. (didn't they have a cool concept in the Running Man?

</comment><comment><USER12> I see the advantage for the airline, but I can't find any improvement from the traveler point of view. How does the detachable cabin reduce the time between approaching the check-in desk at the depart airport and collecting your baggage at destination?

</comment><comment><USER13> This was invented in the 80s. I read about it in Popular Science. The purpose of the detachable cabin at that time was to allow the cabin (with its passengers) to parachute to safety in case of an eminent crash. Why planes do not have whole plane parachutes to this day is disturbing enough, but now they come along to re-patient what is essentially the same idea, but instead to save small bit of money by loading the cattle faster is pretty disgusting.

<comment><USER14> In what modern situation would a whole plane parachute actually help save lives? The vast majority of the (extremely rare) commercial aircraft disasters occur during takeoff or landing, when a parachute would provide little utility due to the distance the aircraft is from the ground. Other notable recent disasters had either instantaneous destruction of the aircraft (Metrojet 9268, Malaysian 17) or were caused by pilot error or murder/suicide (Germanwings 9525, Colgan 2407).

Perhaps the only incident I can think of where a parachute may have helped was US Airways 1549, where a bird strike caused loss of power to both engines. In that case, however, sufficient safety controls existed to enable landing on the Hudson river, and the aircraft functioned as designed (engines broke off when hitting water, the aircraft floated long enough to ensure safe evacuation of all passengers, life rafts deployed, etc). I would argue a parachute would probably have resulted in loss of life as a giant A320 parachute falling uncontrolled on to New York City would probably kill people crashing in to a building.

Rather than focus on superfluous, impractical safety measures, commercial aircraft designers have instead spent time on things that actually save lives, such as Traffic Avoidance and Ground Proximity warning systems.

Note that parachutes do exist for smaller planes, where the risks and benefits are substantially different. A good example is the Cirrus SR-22. It seems that most cases of deploying the parachute on the Cirrus is due to pilots running out of fuel, a failure which is extremely improbable in commercial aviation.

<comment><USER15> > Perhaps the only incident I can think of where a parachute may have helped > was US Airways 1549 [...]

Another is United 232, the Sioux City crash during a landing where all hydraulics had been lost, leaving the pilots with only differential thrust to steer with.

Perhaps TWA 800, if I'm recalling correctly that the explosion basically decapitated the plane leaving the passenger section largely intact.

Also maybe Aloha 243. That plane was able to land after a large chunk of the cabin blew out with no fatalities other than a crew member who was sucked out during the initial blow out, so like USAir 1549 a parachute would not have saved any lives in that _particular_ incident. In that _type_ of incident, though, it probably would have been a good option. Such incidents leave the pilots with a plane that is flying at the moment, but that has severe structural damage leaving them with no idea what maneuvers they can do without tearing it apart and no idea if it is even going to hold together in stable level flight. That would probably be an incident where your probabilities would be better with popping the 'chute.

<comment><USER14> Those all happened at least 20 years ago - I was looking at things that have happened in recent history.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Patents last for 20 years. Aren't they supposed to heavily invest so they get the max value out of it?

</comment><comment><USER17> Well, that's something we've all invented before. Why does it warrant a patent?

<comment><USER18> "Thinking of" != "invented"</comment></comment>


Reflections on Trusting Trust (1984) - <AUTHOR> http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html

<comment><USER2> David A. Wheeler's Page on Fully Countering Trusting Trust through Diverse Double-Compiling (DDC) - Countering Trojan Horse attacks on Compilers

[http://www.dwheeler.com/trusting-trust/](http://www.dwheeler.com/trusting- trust/)

First step:

[https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds](https://wiki.debian.org/ReproducibleBuilds)

</comment><comment><USER3> Thompson's conclusion that compromising computer systems is no more amazing than driving drunk surprises me. I must have missed that in prior readings.

</comment><comment><USER4> Looks like the last significant discussion was 3 years ago, so have at it.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?q=reflections+on+trusting+trust#!/st...](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=reflections+on+trusting+trust#!/story/forever/0/reflections%20on%20trusting%20trust)</comment>


Ask HN: Ideas for digitizing historic significant computer magazine collection? - <AUTHOR> (Australian context, but input from anyone on this topic would be valued).
I'm starting work on a project to get a historically important computer magazine collection professionally digitized for preservation and release to the public.
There are at least ten years worth of monthly magazines there and we want to get every page including all the advertisements digitized.  Doing it well would be an epic task.
Any ideas, thoughts or input on how to get that done to a high quality, with great respect for ensuring the source magazines are preserved? <comment><USER2> Ship it all to Jason Scott?

</comment><comment><USER3> Not so sure about "epic task," mostly just "labor-intensive" task, coming from someone who's built a few book scanners and preserved material in a few different ways.

Lots of established practices in this area, but it all depends on time, budget, and level of effort. Are you looking to do it yourself? Do you have a budget? Do you need to do it on-site or can you ship them somewhere? Are you expecting to preserve the physical magazines, or do you expect to destroy them in the process?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hoping to get government grant funding from the various history preservation programs.

I wonder how much approx it might cost to get professional digitization done of ~ 120 to 150 magazines.

<comment><USER3> There's still a few unanswered questions; the answers make a difference.

That said, the Internet Archive scans and preserves material for US$0.10/page, including storing it in one of their warehouses. 150 100-page magazines would be, uh, a US$1500 donation.

For that, you'd get ~300dpi scans (actually photographs) of each page, taken with a DSLR without damaging the magazine.

That's about the page count and what I donated to preserve the out-of-print works of Jan V. White: [http://www.janvwhite.org](http://www.janvwhite.org)

To get higher resolution scans, generally you either need even more expensive, larger format digital cameras (41MP gets you 8.5x11 at 600dpi), or multiple cameras stitching the photographs together, or to do destructive scanning, cutting the binding and feeding the pages through a high-resolution sheet-fed or flatbed scanner (don't do this).

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Vitovito

Thanks for your reply.

>> Are you looking to do it yourself? No

>> Do you have a budget? The idea is to raise funds from government grants to pay for high quality scanning

>>Do you need to do it on-site or can you ship them somewhere? I'm assuming we'll need to ship the collection somewhere - ideally Sydney or Canberra but if there is a compelling case perhaps elsewhere - there would be a fairly high level of anxiety about losing the collection in shipping.

>>Are you expecting to preserve the physical magazines, or do you expect to destroy them in the process? To preserve, ideally perfectly.

<comment><USER3> While the Internet Archive sells and supports their scanning hardware, and there are community plans if you wanted to build your own, since you don't have a budget and don't want to do it yourself, perhaps the National Library of Australia's "Trove" project is a better avenue:

[http://trove.nla.gov.au](http://trove.nla.gov.au)

They're a partner with IA as part of the Open Content Alliance, and they provide complete end-to-end non-destructive scanning and hosting services through the Trove site and software:

[http://help.nla.gov.au/trove/digitisation-partner- guidelines](http://help.nla.gov.au/trove/digitisation-partner-guidelines)

150 magazines * 100 pages * AU$1.65 for a "journal" page is AUD$24,750, plus whatever it will cost you to "negotiate and document reproduction permission with copyright owners."

(For that price you alternatively could buy the Internet Archive's scanner, but you'd still need labor to operate it. Or, for US$1750 you could get the parts for a DIY book scanner, and then use the rest of the money to hire people to build and operate it, which might cost less, maybe. The results wouldn't be guaranteed, however, as they would be through IA or Trove, and you'd still need to host it and the content somewhere.)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Entry Level Ruby Developer Guide 2016 – How to Start a Rails Career from Zero - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@louisror/entry-level-ruby-developer-guide-2016-how-to-start-a-rails-career-from-zero-1e5d1d6600ca#.d69e6omqp <comment><AUTHOR> Hello, I've been writing a lot over December due to work being fairly relaxed. Any feedback on this is most appreciated and I'm happy to ammend & add any additions that people think are relevant.</comment>


Enthusiasts in Denmark to launch manned spacecraft with private funding - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/08/danish-rocket/

<comment><USER2> See also:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1626177>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1624552></comment>


Ask HN: As a programmer do you have ups and downs and periods of intense doubt? - <AUTHOR> Hi all,
Am a developer based in Africa and have developed small applications for the company I work for an airline ground handling company and have also created apps for sale on codecanyon.
Am a competent programmer not necessarily a good one but am able to get things done when under pressure, For example I made the codecanyon application at a previous job as an intern when we were required to comply with certain ISO regulations within a month. I did it as I had no way out. It has earned me approximately 250USD per month which in Africa is enough to pay rent but not be self employed.
The problem comes when I need to do something that I am 100% responsible for. For example create a SaaS app. The usual process goes like this Have an idea, Get excited, come up with all kinds of cool/new features that look marketable/useful, sometimes I go to the extent of buying a domain, when it reaches to implementation I get this crippling doubt on whether what am creating will sell/will be a profitable SaaS application. I am simple crippled by the fear of  failure and abandon my wonderful idea. As a result I have numerous half baked personal projects. This projects do have their advantages as I discover new ways to do things that are very beneficial to my work projects but for my personal projects and personal life they are a dead end.
Do any of you experience this, do you just push it to the back of your mind and push on forward or is it just that am a coward? <comment><USER4> Definitely I have similar fears and a harddrive full of half-finished code, so you're not alone. Some of it I feel is just natural creative process. Famous painters like Monet often painted over canvases and didn't finish work - <USER2> know the masterpieces, but the process is dirtier and less organized than we imagine sometimes.

One thing that comes to mind as an antidote is to market-test your ideas before writing much/any code. This has the benefit of helping you prove the idea without wasting time on it, AND get you a group of people waiting for your thing so that you can be motivated to finish it. If you read some of these entrepreneurial bloggers (Pat Flynn, Tim Ferris, etc), they talk about this in detail better than I could. Depending on what the idea is, go to forums related to the topic and get some credibility by helping people. Then ask around about your idea or pitch it as "coming soon". (Don't be dishonest and say it's built when it's not). Set up a quick MailChimp or SurveyMonkey form, blog, etc. to start a discussion around your product and get an core group of interested potential customers. Try not to be biased one way or another - if there's a market and you think it could earn an income with reasonable effort do it. If not, don't.

Now, why have I done that and _still_ not finished this idea....

</comment><comment><USER5> What you're experiencing is entirely human, and I would venture all developers experience this at given points, unless they are just working through a queue of bugs in a backlog tracker or some such. Now, being a software engineer, I'm not really interested in working harder or just telling myself to get over it. I'd rather use software and a process to hack my own behavior to keep pushing forward. Here is how I've had a little success with this.

For a given product, I have a Trello board that tracks the entire machine I am trying to create. (A business is a machine that accepts money and/or time as inputs and outputs a sufficiently interesting amount of more money: the profit.) I'll have lists like Lead Generation, Conversions, Upsells, and Churns. Every project I want to work on within the product needs to fit into one of those lists; it's an easy way to remind myself to not build or work on things that don't matter.

Within the lists I have cards for initiatives. These are the projects I would assign to an executive if I had a team of VPs. For example, "Launch ZenDesk with help articles."

Within the cards I have checklists of specific milestones or tasks. "Sign up for ZenDesk." "Add CNAME."

When I don't have much energy after a full day's work, I can look at my cards and find something I do have the energy to take care of. When I'm wide awake and excited after a good night's sleep, I can add more tasks or initiatives to the Trello board, but the lists help ensure the initiatives are actually pushing the business forward.

Finally, I'd look for projects within your product that make sense to open source. One, that makes the projects easier to use on future projects; two, you can show them off when trying to get work in the future; and three, it gives you a really nice sense of satisfaction and a milestone you can point to along the way of building your product.

</comment><comment><USER6> I spent about a year alone building a fairly complex server tool. Some days were great. Many were hard. I'm 40 now, and have enough experience with myself and software that I got it done and enjoyed almost all of it. Here some things that worked for me.

* Kept the initial push of code very simple, and doing something useful from day one. The software needed to always "work" so that I could be adding features, tuning or bug fixing. If it wasn't working, I was UNHAPPY.

* Tried to ship every day

* Which meant I was disciplined about drilling features down into coding efforts of about a day.

* I kept a notes.txt file, and wrote down any ideas and thoughts; features would get drilled down into component steps, and I would work through them one by one.

* I resisted all urges to 'rewrite the whole codebase', this would have kept me from having working code for weeks, an absolute no go.

Overall, I'm happy with what I (and later a friend) built. It took discipline, but the discipline is just there so that I could do mostly the fun stuff -- build something new that people thought couldn't be built.

The worst two weeks for me were a terrible bug-hunting expedition that ended with filing a compiler bug. I was tetchy and annoyed the entire time. For me at least, I like having working code that does something useful. :)

<comment><USER7> > The worst two weeks for me were a terrible bug-hunting expedition that ended > with filing a compiler bug.

That actually sounds like incredible fun to me. :) And you likely did end up with useful code after the experience, just not in the project you intended to work on. ;)

<comment><USER6> haha. Or just a reminder not to use go tip.

It was satisfying to fix, very satisfying. But probably not the two week build up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One fundamental feature of programming (development, software engineering, whatever the name), is that you have to face the unknown.

If you already knew what problems lie ahead and their solution, you would already have programmed it, and then what use would it be to rewrite the program? Just re-use the previously written code!

So by definition, what you will develop, will be a program solving a problem with unknown dimensions and solution. You start by writing the code for the known parts, but while doing that, you have to live with the fear of the unknown that lies beyond the next procedure.

Performing specifications and analysis phases is a way to deal with this fear of the unknown, by drawing a coarse map. But often it's not possible to precise the map much better than labelling "Here be dragons" ahead (or worse, to hide the dragons with reassuring words, like Module X, or Component Y).

So be courrageous, plow ahead, and you'll be lucky, when you'll get close, you'll see that what you thought to be dragons was just a hill, and you'll find a solution to climb or circumvent it.

What you need to learn however, is how to deal with the complexity that emerges from discovering problems and solutions as you go: then you have to step back a little, and find simplifying abstractions, to refactor the work done so far, to get a simplier solution englobing all the problems seen so far, (and hopefully that will be found in the future).

<comment><USER9> In "Code Complete", the Steve McConnell describes that as the wicked problem of software development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> All the time. I feel like crippling anxiety, insecurity, mental anguish and deep self loathing is par for the course in this career. When it gets to the point where I literally hate myself for being alive, I start to consider dropping everything attached to a circuitboard and cleaning floors for a living instead. This happens about 2-3 times a week.

<comment><USER11> It takes a lot of _cojones_ to acknowledge those feelings (even to oneself), let alone share them with others.

So (despite the triteness of the slogan), thanks for doing that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> You're not a coward, you're facing the doubt that everyone else does. However, it is unhealthy to think that the SaaS you dreamed up will be successful, when so many others have failed...that realization that you've had, that there are advantages to undertaking projects that fail...that's worth holding on too...as while you may not frequently succeed at first, you can still keep learning the skills from building the failures that will be needed for a success.

Also worth realizing that the success of a project is not based purely on hard work and skill. A great amount of luck is involved.

</comment><comment><USER13> You pretty much nailed it on the head. Fear of Failure. Why exactly are you afraid of failing? Who are you worried about being embarrassed to? This is what you really need to work out, because who cares if you "fail", at least you tried, and the beauty with programming projects is that you learned along the way.

You need to stop worrying about it being a success, and instead concentrate on making as good a product as you can, for your own education and pride. Imagine you are going to submit this along with your next job application instead. You want to showcase your programming abilities, not in your abilities as an entrepreneur. Change the focus of WHY you are starting this project, maybe even assume that it won't be used at all except to show any potential employers what you can do.

</comment><comment><USER14> > This projects do have their advantages as I discover new ways to do things > that are very beneficial to my work projects but for my personal projects > and personal life they are a dead end.

Absolutely I experience this and I expect most programmers have a few half baked or in-progress projects laying around.

You are focusing on the wrong aspect (the half done part) and not on the very beneficial part - learning for future projects. Keep those half done projects organized and in version control so that you can come back to them later. Better yet, license them all as BSD and put them in a public repo. Then if you need them for work 1) they can't be exclusively co-opted by a company even if they are used there (after all you built them on your own time) and 2) others can learn and contribute.

If you are definitely not coming back to them be sure to tag them as abandonware so people aren't expecting bug fixes.

</comment><comment><USER15> I have a similar experience.. The thing is that although many of us can work on one or other part of a complete product, it is pretty hard to focus on everything at the same time and build an entire product alone!

For me, I have identified my problem not as fear of failure but perfectionism. So I start questioning all little things and things move very slow. I am currently building a SaaS app, and I've built others before but none made me any money so far. But lately I've been tuning my strategy to make things work faster, and have been seeing some success on it. Some of my main points are:

* start with something very simple that has the minimum functionality, like drawing a chart if the app is to draw charts, etc.

* since I'm working full time on this, decide to implement a feature per day (until you have enough features for now).

* THIS ONE IS REALLY IMPORTANT: never leave an inconsistent and non-working application between two commits. Make sure that the version on your repo is always fully working even if it lacks features (it may not be between two commits, I hope you get the idea..).

* ANOTHER IMPORTANT ONE: when you have a stable app, do a release to your server, even if you have it mounted on a personal url. It will give you the feeling of being moving forward..

* When you have something usable enough for other users, invite them to use it. Non-technical people feel flatered if you invite them personally to test your application. \- Use a repo such as github (or gitlab for private projects). Commiting the code to those repositories will give you the feeling of moving forward every day. And if your local copy does not work anymore, you can always reset to the latest working commit..

I've been working on this project for much more time than I ever wanted (5+ years) and the points above have been what I learned from it.

</comment><comment><USER16> Keep going.

If you build something and it fails, the experience you gain will be valuable - and a failed project is more valuable than an abandoned project - so even if you fail, you'll be in a better position you are in now! :D

Self doubt is normal - it's part of the creative process. But use it to be critical of your own work, but in a constructive way.

If the work seems daunting, remember the words of Dori on finding Nemo - <USER3> keep swimming. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time!

</comment><comment><USER17> You just need a team. Stop trying to do a SaaS app all by yourself. Work with at least 1 other person, even better with 2 other people. The team will keep the idea going if it's a good idea. By yourself, the odds are not in your favor.

</comment><comment><USER18> > As a result I have numerous half baked personal projects.

Every decent developer has dozens of half-baked personal projects. Some get finished, some don't. All eventually get abandoned.

They are never a waste.

If you go through your codebase, you will find that you re-use code and techniques that you learned on your next project. This is how we learn.

<comment><USER19> I second this! I have never done a project that I fully regretted or gone to a job wishing I had stayed at a previous job. While I have gone to a job that I hated almost immediately, I still didn't see returning to the previous job as a viable option.

Every new venture I take, I feel I couldn't have done without the accumulation of all my past experiences (both professional and nonprofessional).

Where you are is also a function of where you've been, which can be hard as the human mind sometimes likes to dwell on regret.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> From my previous experiences one man show is very difficult. Especially if you dream big and have high goals (e.g. monetization, startup idea etc.).

I am now trying to involve at least one person to all my side projects. Even for small projects. There is great problem solving attitude - Divide-and- conquer.

If you can split problem to smaller parts , you can involve some other passionate friends who can participate and help you.

<comment><USER21> >> From my previous experiences one man show is very difficult. Especially if you dream big and have high goals (e.g. monetization, startup idea etc.).

It's been my experience as well. Pretty sad to recognize the limits to what you can accomplish alone. Sad but necessary.

<comment><USER22> True, but I think it force us to focus and put limits in time and features.

A solution can be to outsource : hire contractors to make all that is not your core project (ex design, content...).

Yes, as a dev you can do everything, but not with limited ressources (your time and money are precious!)

<comment><USER21> Sometimes you can't outsource. If it's a small personal project and you can't pay anyone to work for you. It it doesn't smell like a hot startup, nobody's going to be attracted by equity either.

<comment><USER20> Sure. You are absolutely right. If its personal project for fun or learning and there is no one (except of) you waiting for results then outsourcing has no sense.

I was talking mainly about projects with commercial intentions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Yes, it's perfectly normal. If you can, find a programming buddy. That will help you across these humps far more quickly than you can do on your own, in fact you may no longer even notice them.

Fear of failure is best dealt with by successful delivery.

A story from the dark ages (pre-internet).

I'd landed a contract to pioneer the automated digitization of passport photographs and the printing of those photographs on credit cards. Unfortunately, this project was _way_ above my skills at the time and every day I regretted taking the job. But, day-by-day my knowledge grew and at some point I started to see a way out. In the end it took almost two years from start to working prototype scanner / printer but my self-doubt was dealt with on the day the customer took delivery of the first machine. As long as you are making progress (even if it is slow) you'll get there, if you give up then that's the end of the line.

So don't give up, just keep plugging away at it. And if you can, find that buddy. It's more fun that way anyway.

</comment><comment><USER24> Am not a programmer but I think I am in that phase myself. Especially also being an African, I tend to think the adoption of technology in our markets is quite slow & the effort needed to implement a tech based product takes more time & a lot of marketing to just kick off. I have created a company that wants to digitize all forms of analog data & do offline archival. But then the doubts has kicked in. Will I crack the market? Most importantly, how will I crack it. It eats me up even more knowing that I have no competition whatsoever. Its now my full time job & I feel stuck. I think of pivoting but that will be just another project left undone so I have to keep pushing on.

</comment><comment><USER25> Of course. Because we spend most of our time fixing our own bugs, no other profession confronts someone with their limitations and shortcoming as much as computer programming does.

But a cheesy pop-culture reference rings true here:

Q. "Can a man be brave when he is afraid?" A. "That is the only time a m an can be brave." -Game of Thrones.

</comment><comment><USER26> I've got all sorts of ideas with various levels of work done on them in the dustbin. Sometimes you get an idea that you think will make money, but you're not really that passionate about it, and find that it takes a lot of effort to get back into it. That could be a sign that it's not worth pursuing and let it die. But if you do keep coming back to the idea, even with some time in between, it's probably worth sticking it out until the end. At any given time I've got about 15 ideas that I have varying amount of energy for, and 10 that I started briefly but never went back to, but usually only one main project per medium (not everything I do is programming) that I keep going back to over and over again.

Those are the ones you really need to make sure get out there. Then finish those and see what's next you want to go back to. It's taken me over 8 years to finish a novel, for example, but I already know what the second novel I finish is likely to be, because I keep coming back to it and putting a little work into it here and there.

Sometimes those ideas you got super excited about for a week and abandoned will be incorporated into future ideas too, and they'll all meld together into some super idea. I've got something like that percolating that I noticed is basically combining three of my past ideas into something simultaneously simpler and more powerful.

But I'm not doing it for a business, just for fun. If I did it for business, I'd have to focus a lot more, and have a lot less fun, I imagine.

</comment><comment><USER27> I experience the exact same thing. I get an idea for a side project, get really excited about it, think about all the great things it could do, work on it like crazy for a weekend, and then never touch it again. I got to a point where I got really frustrated with myself that I can't finish anything. So this past Saturday I picked a really small simple project I had and said to myself "No matter what, I'm doing a ShowHN before I go to bed." So (after some hesitation) I did [0]. It really helped knowing that the HN community doesn't tear down ideas or projects. And while this was not a big, badass, super cool project like some others, it does feel good to have finally put a project out there.

Based on this I would say, define a small simple project that you can finish before losing motivation or succumbing to fear of failure, and then just get it out there. You will receive valuable feedback and learn a lot. You have little to fear as the HN community seems to shine at not making you feel embarrassed about what you've made. At least this is the impression I got from watching previous ShowHNs.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11930331](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11930331)

<comment><USER28> _the HN community seems to shine at not making you feel embarrassed about what you 've made._

Not in my experience. Several Show HN type of things I posted were highly criticized with harsh words. I'm not posting anything on HN ever again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Sometimes that fear can be a good thing. It means you are trying to do things just outside of your comfort zone, which can help you grow. If you are always 100% confident that you can do something, then that means you may be at a plateau in your personal growth. Run towards the fear.

Some specific advice that might be useful...

Bring in other people to your projects. It helps vet the idea, gives you someone to lean on if you're having an off day, and it is a huge intangible 'good' to know that you're in it with someone else. I'm reminded of a GK Chesterton quote, "It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one."

Second, bite off as small a chunk as you can at a time. Not just in terms of features, but break your work down into one or two hour tasks. Sometimes this is not possible, but more often that not it is. Write all of these small tasks down. As you finish one, cross it off. At the end of an 8 hr day of work, even if you have no user-facing features to show for it, you will have a sense of accomplishment over these 4-8 tasks that you were able to finish. This can help act as a positive motivator to push forward.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER7> I have periods of ups and downs and intense doubts _as a person_.

</comment><comment><USER30> If you can push yourself hard enough to get the idea built, you will face another bout of crippling self-doubt when you decide whether to show it to anyone. And then a MUCH bigger wall of doubt when you begin to market the idea and realize that good ideas don't sell themselves.

My advice is to choose smaller projects, even if they're not as commercially promising, just to build up your strength and ability to finish the job.

</comment><comment><USER31> I feel like that often, both as a musician and as a programmer. I've got enough skills that it's not hard to get folks to want me on their teams (and they pay, too, which is nice).

The problem is that when I launch something wholly on my own I often back off.... there are usually good reasons:

it's not gonna be as profitable as I thought,

there are actually problems with my idea I couldn't have seen until I got into the project,

it's just not as good as the alternative of working on other folk's porjects.

My solution to this (because it happens maybe 4 times a year that I drop some project I was working on) is to identify some small goal, even if that goal is "learning how to install postfix" or "getting my banjo chops to the point where I can roll chords along to someone else's songs".

Even better is when these small goals are in themselves something I can return to later (like a save point in some dumb video game).

Like, I just made a marketing site to try and pick up some event music work. If I don't push on it hard and it doesn't generate a bunch of leads, then it can at least still just sit there and when I come back to it in a couple of months and try and make a push on the idea, then I already have that part of the marketing collateral done.

And, with this project, I've progressed in my skills at setting up the server and specifically configuring mail programs, I've learned a little bit about adwords and analytics, and I have something to show my musician buddies.

Projects don't have to be all or nothing-- if you can learn from them or jest get some small tangible thing out of them, that's okay and often quite valuable.

</comment><comment><USER32> There are a lot of factors in being a developer relating to stress, income, talent, vision, responsibility, maturity, and emotional intelligence.

I think most of us go through cycles of high productivity inter-mixed with moderate productivity, and some small moments of being useless. The best developers are the ones that seem to be slightly higher than moderately productive all the time. Those people are rare in my mind. Then there are a handful of rockstars that can code at a high level all the time. I've only met a couple people like that in 31 years.

As for crippling doubt, well, I think those are signals to listen to, but learn to review your ideas pragmatically. I'm on my second start-up and this second concept is no sure thing. I've had doubts many times, but I also see the merits in building it. So I persevere. It's not at all easy. You have to forget about the future and focus on the here and now. Focus on the things you _can_ do, not the things that you have no control over.

But yes, we all have unfinished projects that were stopped because of doubts.

</comment><comment><USER33> Failure can be very valuable experience.

You might fail at making money / market share but gaining the experience of how and why you failed is very valuable information.

Failure is great business knowledge it makes you wiser and dealing with it makes you stronger.

If you don't fail a few times you might make an avoidable error on the next app, which could have succeeded.

Just don't take it personally, learn from it and grow as an entrepreneur - sometimes the time is just not right.

Maybe you'll pivot and only discover a winning formula by failing at your initial idea.

By taking something forward you will encounter others on a similar journey, your professional network is a very valuable asset.

Fail fast; fail often. Only then will you be truly ready to win when the right idea and right moment coincide.

</comment><comment><USER34> Read the book "the new business road test". It oulines a checklist of things prior to considering a business. You can apply a lot of it to new software project (e.g conducting marketing research for similar projects).

When it comes to software development and adding features, adapt an investor mindset. Ask yourself what is the return on investment (ROI) of implementing that feature? What are the risks? How can you hedge your bets? etc.

I remember reading a book "software by the numbers" which I think covered that. [https://books.google.ca/books?id=tW14FDkNYv4C&dq=software+by...](https://books.google.ca/books?id=tW14FDkNYv4C&dq=software+by+the+numbers&source=gbs_navlinks_s)

The last thing you should do though is "push blindly" and not "overthink". Analysis prior to acting is a good thing and the anxiety you feel is because you're uncertain about your the future. You cannot predict the future because you don't have any research.

It doesn't mean you should wait for certainty. Nothing is deterministic. But you should always operate on your best guess; after having done your homework to investigate all known unknowns and minimize risks.

</comment><comment><USER21> Yes, I've had similar periods of doubt when considering ideas for my personal projects, though never to the extent you've been experiencing.

In general, doubt is a healthy thing. It allows you to weight the decision and the consequences before blindly jumping in and possibly making a terminal error. Without doubt as a balancing mechanism, humans would be acting on a rush and we would be living in anarchy and chaos.

That said, however, there is a limit as to what you should allow your doubts to do. Speaking of your personal projects, it is normal to have an idea, initially consider it great, get excited about it, then in a few days sometimes weeks/months to cool down with regard to it. This is in principle the necessary process. You need to let your ideas prove themselves before you act on them.

But then when you're convinced this is a solid idea, which has a potential for market acceptance and the real need it can satisfy, then it's time to put your doubts in the back drawer and decide whether you go with it or not. The idea may be great but too big for you alone to handle it, in which case you start to look for outside help. If it's small enough and you can pull it off alone, then do it. In the past I had ideas I began to work on to realize later their scope was beyond my abilities to complete them so I stopped them unfinished. I choose not to think about them as failures, but as painful but valuable lessons which taught me things I otherwise would never have learned. Then in the future I would not make those kinds of errors in judgement again.

Fear of failure is also a cultural thing. Certain cultures are very much averse to risk taking and failing where the society looks down on those who tried something unconventional and did not succeed. I don't know if it applies to your situation, only you can tell, but at least you should be aware that this may potentially be affecting your perception of reality.

No one starts a software project with an official warranty letter from some authority stating that it will work. You simply recognize its potential, you believe in it and that should be enough to keep you going. That's how the mind of an entrepreneur works.

</comment><comment><USER35> This is normal. I'm feeling it right now with what I want to do.

In my heart and mind, I _know_ I can do it, but then the doubts and fears rush in. I totally understand the feeling you're going through.

I just finished _Art & Fear_ by David Bayles and Ted Orland which is a fantastic book about creating stuff. Nearly all the advice applies to software developers.

Don't give up.

Success isn't binary either.

Release your project (Some success!). Make some sales (More success!). Market your project to get more sales (Success!).

You probably won't get fuck you money on the first day, but with enough marketing, maybe you'll be able to quit your job within the first year.

</comment><comment><USER36> Failure is an opportunity to learn. If you don't fail once in a while, you're not pushing yourself. Failure is a normal part of life, to expect perfection in software development is insanity.

</comment><comment><USER37> You don't have doubt, you are just not motivated. Not doing your real work has consequences such as losing your job and ending up homeless. The cost of not doing your personal project as you perceive it is not that high. This is true for most people that are employed, I'm in the same boat. The struggle is to find out how to have a high level of motivation and to replenish it when it runs low.

</comment><comment><USER38> As many others have said here, I have this not just as a 'programmer', but as person - I think most people do. Sometimes it's crippling, sometimes not.

For the most part, you have to ask 'what am I worried about'? Usually it boils down to an issue with your own ego - the idea of failing or looking stupid, usually in front of your peers. If you can get over that, everything becomes a lot easier.

</comment><comment><USER39> This isn't unique to you, or to developers. What you're describing is part of the human experience. There's even a name for it, "Dark night of the soul". Everyone experiences it, in every walk of life.

[1] [https://www.eckharttolle.com/newsletter/october-2011](https://www.eckharttolle.com/newsletter/october-2011)

</comment><comment><USER40> I think you should read/watch the following 2 resources if you can:

        'Start Small, Stay Small A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup' [0]
        'Creating and selling a digital product' [1]

Your product on codecanyon appears to be doing quite well and has good reviews/sales [2] so you should probably market it more (if you're not doing so already). Also, building an ecosystem of free/paid plugins around it might be something you could explore. Finally, you could look into offering hosted instances for less technical savy users.

Good luck and keep up the good work!

        [0] https://www.amazon.com/Start-Small-Stay-Developers-Launching/dp/0615373968

        [1] https://www.pluralsight.com/courses/creating-selling-digital-product

        [2] http://codecanyon.net/item/stock-awesome-inventory-system-and-stock-control/11210315?s_rank=2

</comment><comment><USER41> The root problem with the SaaS project example is that you should be aware that, in general, many people are involved in projects like this. If you want to push it alone it is obvious that the number of tasks will be much bigger than when you are an employee. This kind of projects require a different approach and if possible one or more collaborators.

</comment><comment><USER42> As everyone else has said - the doubt is normal. My advice would be to try and strip the product into parts more & tackle them one by one.

Creating a total product end to end in one go, that's scary. Creating a user model, easy. Creating an authentication level on that model, easy. And so on. Take it one step at a time.

</comment><comment><USER43> "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." \- Bertrand Russell

Read about the Dunning Kruger effect and relax.

[http://highexistence.com/dunning-kruger- effect/](http://highexistence.com/dunning-kruger-effect/)

</comment><comment><USER44> Accept that frustration, fear, and doubt are just part of the job. Those feelings don't mean you're a bad software dev or a coward, they're just the natural reaction to consistently facing the unknown. Sometimes you have to slog through it, even if it feels bad, and actually finish. You will not finish perfect. There are always bugs. But get something put out there anyways.

You are always going to be learning with this kind of job. And sometimes that makes you look back at your old code and say, "Oh boy, this sucks." It's because you're improving. If you weren't, you wouldn't be able to look back and see your mistakes.

</comment><comment><USER45> I ran into the same situation many times. Come up with an idea, buy a domain, do some coding, drop the idea.

You really have to stick it out and work through the idea. The best way to approach it is to do customer development first. Steve Blank was probably the first to bring this idea to the forefront.

Find out if people actually have a problem for which you are building the solution. The book Running Lean has some scripts you can mirror to do this. It will save you lots of time and actually get you pointed to an idea that has some merrit.

Derek Sivers from CDBaby had a great approach to this where he contrasted pushing onto people verse pulling an idea from people where there is already demand.

</comment><comment><USER46> The thing you're describing is not unique to developers.

What I do is just forget about the potential consequences of failure (OR success) and just make the thing. If it works and takes off, great. If not, oh well, at least I spent time doing something I love.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think your fear is good ! It forces you to test the business, not the techno.

Have you checked the leanstartup and customer dev methods ?

The goal is to quick test and fail your assumptions.

Because you need true users to continue your project.

Fake it before you make it ! ;)

</comment><comment><USER47> Do not doubt yourself. Practice emotional hygiene: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rni41c9iq54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rni41c9iq54)

</comment><comment><USER48> Never surrender. I could write more here, about my startups which are less than successfull and I keep trying, other optimistic bullshit. This is all crap, just never surrender.

</comment><comment><USER49> For me, lots of failure, some moderate success, hang in there. You always learn from anything you do

</comment><comment><USER50> Not at all. It is all part of the creative process. You WILL fail most of the time. That's OK! Accept it, pick yourself up and move forward. Most famous entrepreneurs failed many times before they succeeded.

</comment><comment><USER51> Yes and it is normal. It is very hard sometimes and you need to push through that. I abandoned lot of projects in the past because of this: now I push on and usually things work put actually as long as you persist.

</comment><comment> angry-hacker Yes. I have big a downswing right now, if anyone wants to talk with me let me know.

</comment><comment><USER52> where does 'Am' come from? 'Am' does not save much than I'm

</comment><comment><USER53> Getting excited, coming up with features, buying domains, feeling doubt, questioning my sanity... I consider these all normal stages of product development.

Try thinking of them as road signs. They indicate you are getting closer to your destination. If any of these road signs are amiss, _then_ start worrying (and check your pulse to make sure you're still alive).

</comment><comment><USER54> I'd argue what you are experiencing is not fear of failure but fear of success. Steven Pressfield wrote a fantastic book that addresses the problem you describe called "The War of Art". I highly recommend it to read, it will show you at least what you are feeling is very human and can be overcome.

<comment><USER55> Thank you !</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Want to set up a niche social network - <AUTHOR>

I want to setup a social network for a very particular niche Im interested in. Ideally something with web, IOS and Android apps for sharing chat and images. So rather than reinvent the wheel Im wondering what hosted, open source or otherwise solutions are out there people might know of? Please no comments about why I want to setup another "facebook for cats"! I have a very specific idea Im looking at. <comment><USER2> Our open source project has a significant social network component, one option could be to use it as a base and get rid of the stuff you don't need. Not sure how closely it fits your use-case.

[https://hummingbird.me/users/vikhyat](https://hummingbird.me/users/vikhyat)

[https://github.com/hummingbird- me/hummingbird](https://github.com/hummingbird-me/hummingbird) [https://github.com/hummingbird- me/hummingbird](https://github.com/hummingbird-me/hummingbird)

</comment><comment><USER3> Buddypress paired with Wordpress on WPEngine should give you a start. None of the commercial solutions have the expandability that is found in buddypress.</comment>


Exploring Physics with Geometric Algebra, Book I [pdf] (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://peeterjoot.com/archives/math2015/gabookI.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> I've been talking on HN basically non-stop about geometric algebra (aka Clifford, Grassman, Exterior algebra) which I've been exploring as of late. I'm not a math person but GA is possibly the most exciting math field to me. It's a replacement for linear algebra but unlike LA it actually makes fucking sense (e.g. cross product generalizes beyond 3 and 7 dimensions, but there's a lot more).

Basically it unifies the geometric concepts of a line and a circle (in GA, a line is just a circle with points on the circle at infinite distances). As a result, you can do very useful computations very easily. E.g. a point times a point gives you a line connecting the points. It kind of makes sense, because generally, you care more about objects around you as opposed to all objects in one direction to infinity.

It's also a generalization of the complex plane beyond 2D. I finally kinda understand complex numbers.

So much shit is easier in this formalism, esp. anything related to reasoning about space. This includes but isn't limited to computer vision, crystallography, graphics, physics (all the quantum shit makes sense in GA, Maxwell's equations too, in GA, Maxwell's equations are reduced from 4 to 1!!!, [https://slehar.wordpress.com/2014/03/18/clifford-algebra- a-v...](https://slehar.wordpress.com/2014/03/18/clifford-algebra-a-visual- introduction/)).

For example there's something called CSVM (Clifford SVM) which learns any given manifold, unlike an SVM which learns a hyperplane.

It also replaces quite a bit of differential geometry[0], as you you can answer questions from differential geometry without resorting to calculus.

I feel like some sort of burden has been lifted from me, because I feel like so much higher mathematics is a lot more accessible in this formalism. But your mileage might vary.

[0] pls note that some time ago I didn't give a fuck about differential geometry but somehow I do now.

Check out this project [https://github.com/reloZid/algeosharp](https://github.com/reloZid/algeosharp) it's c# but cross platform.

<comment><USER2> A few nits:

* GA is not a replacement for linear algebra. It's a vector space equipped with a certain product. All of linear algebra still applies to it. There's just more structure. What it does replace is Gibbs-Heaviside vector analysis.

* Unifying a line and a circle is a classical part of projective geometry. It can be written in Clifford algebra straightforwardly, but the identification is centuries old at this point.

* Quaternions and octonions are the generalization of complex numbers beyond the plane. A lot of stuff just happens to reduce to the same thing in 2D.

* Maxwell's equations are reduced to one in any relativistic formulation. The hard part is rewiring your brain to work in spacetime instead of space plus time.

* It doesn't replace differential geometry. It's a convenient notation for parts of it, the way that bra-ket notation in quantum mechanics doesn't replace the underlying structure, it's just a notation adapted to it.

But, yes, it's cool stuff.

<comment><USER3> >* Quaternions and octonions are the generalization of complex numbers beyond the plane. A lot of stuff just happens to reduce to the same thing in 2D.

Would an octonion by any other name, not smell as sweet?

The even graded sub-algebras in GA are isomorphic to complex numbers, quaternions, etc...

For me at least, coming at the same structure from a completely different direction is the best bang for the buck in increasing understanding.

<comment><USER4> Do you happen to be a tauist? ;)

<comment><USER3> I was reading Shakespeare yesterday. I guess it leaked.

4*pi is of course, the most reasonable circle constant.

<comment><USER4> Ah yes, the "when in doubt, annoy everyone equally" approach. I approve.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> To me, the text feels more like a set of notes that are meant to be read by the author. Even the "introduction" must be completely incomprehensible to a reader who is uninitiated in whatever topic the author is trying to present.

Geometric Algebra is a beautiful subject (best explained in Hestenes' Oersted lecture). On the other hand, in practice, as the proposed "geometry of physics" it has been long replaced by the machinery of differential forms, with a _vast_ amount of literature devoted to it; a short introduction to this you can find, for example, in an article by Ted Frankel: [http://www.math.ucsd.edu/~tfrankel/the_geometry_of_physics.p...](http://www.math.ucsd.edu/~tfrankel/the_geometry_of_physics.pdf).

(The Geometric Algebra being discussed here is not to be confused with the subject of the marvelous book by Artin that bears the same title.)

<comment><USER4> The author is pretty much in agreement with you. From the preface:

> _These notes are more journal than book. You'll find lots of duplication, > since I reworked some topics from scratch a number of times. In many places > I was attempting to learn both the basic physics concepts as well as playing > with how to express many of those concepts using GA formalisms. The page > count proves that I did a very poor job of weeding out all the duplication. > These notes are (dis)organized into the following chapters_

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The main problem I have with geometric algebra is that it's an alternative framework to express exactly the same things. Some things are expressed or derived easier in G.A. e.g. the Kerr solution of General Relativity, electron Zitterbewegung, etc. The problems with G.A. as I see it... 1) It's a specialized tool that does not generalize well to simple everyday physics problems. Don't get me wrong, I like G.A. and learned it from Hestenes' papers almost 20 years ago. I just don't see the point in trotting out G.A. to solve certain problems or illustrate some theory any more than I would abandon Gibbs vector calculus and insist on doing all calculations in 4-vector notation using field tensors and differential forms. I wouldn't even want to use it to teach differential geometry. Once someone knows these subjects I'd say go for it and learn G.A. It's actually very easy once you know the more conventional stuff.

2.) I don't know how things are now but in the past G.A. had the feeling of a cult theory. Unlike most cults, this one had substance. The problem learning the material first with G.A. is that you won't be able to understand other papers, books or solved problems of others. You'll be dependent on using G.A. and unable to make sense of Goldstein or Spivak.

3.) I'm all for alternative ways of doing things. If you have time to burn there's a "Bird Tracks" method of doing calculations in Lie algebras which is very different than the traditional Cartan matrix, Dynkin diagrams. I advise you to avoid learning these topics the first time around in a weird mathematical language. After you know you're way around these topics go for it.

<comment><USER4> Sorry, but pretty much every argument you make looks like a different flavour of "I already put a lot of effort into mastering other ways, and now that I have they work fine for me, I don't see why we should switch to this one."

Because you seem to suffer from survivor bias, that's why. By comparison, I am a physics drop-out. Allow me to give you the view from below.

First, I know this pdf is about GA in relation to physics, but you're throwing all kinds of names and terms around that only make sense to people who already have studied physics; conscious or not, that's basically gatekeeping via jargon.

Claiming that we'll be unable to make sense of Goldstein and Spivak is also directly contradicting your claim that it's easier once you know the "more conventional stuff" \- so learning one thing after the other is easier, but not the other way around? Why would it _not_ be easier to learn the more conventional stuff after you have a solid GA fundation?

Both my own experience and that of many commentators here seem to indicate GA is inherently more intuitive to grasp than the disparate mathematics it connects, precisely _because_ it all seems more logically structured and connected. And perhaps the people who _didn 't_ manage to get through have a better idea of what is more intuitive to learn that the people who did here. Similarly, given that GA connects so many things together, I have a hard time believing that it is a "specialised tool", but since I never had to deal with most of the stuff you mention I guess I can't be a good judge of that (did I mention the gatekeeping?).

Anyway, why should people first have to slog through all the other stuff, sometimes learning it more by rote than insight? We don't force kids to learn assembly or punch-cards before we let them play with a higher level programming language either.

I'm not suggesting we throw all the old physics books out the window, but we also managed to stop doing science in Latin. That removed a huge barrier of exclusion, has not lead to a loss of knowledge, and making the field more accessible to everyone has only benefited humankind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I loved the axiomatic approach followed in the introduction! It builds intuition from the very beginning. At some point I could not follow anymore as the notation and the concepts started getting more complicated and I lack the math background to keep up.

One of my favorite undergrad classes was linear algebra. I wonder if there are any linear algebra books out there that follow this approach of "build the world, one axiom at a time". My sweet spot would be something aimed at someone who is not a mathematician but has some math background (like an engineering unndergrad) and can follow along with a bit of effort and study. Any recommendations?

<comment><USER8> > I wonder if there are any linear algebra books out there that follow this > approach of "build the world, one axiom at a time".

Basically any math book—so most textbooks don't qualify as math books—will do things this way. SUMS ([http://www.springer.com/series/3423](http://www.springer.com/series/3423)) and most MAA publications ([https://www.maa.org/press/books/book- series](https://www.maa.org/press/books/book-series)) are good places to look. I didn't see one in a glance at the MAA series, but SUMS has Further Linear Algebra ([http://www.springer.com/us/book/9781852334253](http://www.springer.com/us/book/9781852334253)). I haven't used it personally, but it looks like it has a chance of being the sort of thing you want.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Would be cool if it were interactive like this site: [http://immersivemath.com/ila/index.html](http://immersivemath.com/ila/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> what a beautiful pdf

<comment><USER11> Agreed! I think I've seen it before as a theme, but I'm not sure what it's called. Wish there was a CSS version available somewhere.

(Edit: thought it looks like it's not using small-caps variants for numerals, which is a shame)

<comment><USER12> It's a variation on a LaTeX style called classicthesis ([http://www.miede.de/#classicthesis](http://www.miede.de/#classicthesis)) based on Robert Bringhurst's _Elements of Typographic Style_. Unfortunately this particular version has messed up some things (notably line length), so use the original!</comment></comment></comment>


Pharma CEO Worries Americans Will Embrace Single-Payer Plan - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2017/09/13/pharma-ceo-worries-americans-will-say-enough-is-enough-and-embrace-bernie-sanders-single-payer-plan/ <comment><USER2> Throw-away because I like to keep my financial details personal.

I'm self employed and have been for about 15 years. We purchase health insurance from the state exchange. Prior to this, I'd purchased it as an individual directly from the insurers, or used the plan my wife had through her employer. Those options are no longer available to us, so we use the state exchange.

My family's health insurance rates increased 17% last year. This year, my state has approved an increase of 27% for the provider I use and a 31% increase for one of the other providers in the state.

To insure our family of four, we'll pay around $25,000 for insurance before a dollar is spent on deductibles, co-pays or other associated costs. We're generally all healthy. Have no pre-existing conditions to speak-of. We earn more than the level where you qualify for any subsidy.

This is unsustainable.

<comment><USER3> > This is unsustainable.

It's not just unsustainable, it's absurd! $25,000 USD is most of, if not the entirety, of the TOTAL income taxes many people pay in other OECD nations. How are these other nations providing all of the functions of government, including universal health care, for what Americans are paying just for insurance? This shouldn't be a partisan issue - even the most conservative of Americans should be outraged that we are being ripped off.

[https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health- spending.htm](https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm) \- the US spends $9,800/year per capita, clearly an outlier, and yet we still can't cover everyone in a reasonable way?!

I took my child in for a regular 15 minute doctors appointment recently and the cost of seeing the provider (no tests) was $350. Does it really cost $1,400/hour to operate a medical clinic? Google tells me that the average GP salary in the US is $189,000 ($90/hour), average salary for a nurse is $67,000 ($32/hour), and average for a receptionist is $27,000 ($12/hour). Add another nurse for administering shots/drawing blood and the total payroll per hour is about $166/hour. Where is the other $1,234/hour going?

I'm sure there are reasonable explanations for some of it (cost of the building, cost of medical equipment in the clinic, professional insurance, and maintenance on the fish tank) but the ridiculous cost of everything is the elephant in the room that no amount of "cracking down on fraud" or "incentivizing healthy behaviors" will solve.

As an immigrant to the US, it's maddening. It just doesn't have to be this way, there is half a century of evidence showing that alternative systems are cheaper and more effective. I also look at that $9,800/year per capita and wonder what our economy looks like if everyone had an extra $2-4,000/year in their pocket. Or if we eliminated the burden of health care from businesses and individuals trying to start a business.

<comment><USER4> To some degree, hospitals perform a kind of internal socialism: a poor, homeless person can't be turned away from the emergency room, but they also can't pay for its actual cost. To balance their books, hospitals then have to overcharge people with good insurance.

This is similar to private universities charging rich students the full sticker price, while giving poorer students scholarships and financial aid.

<comment><USER5> Hospitals put the costs of uncompensated care at 5-6% of total expenses:

[http://www.aha.org/content/16/uncompensatedcarefactsheet.pdf](http://www.aha.org/content/16/uncompensatedcarefactsheet.pdf)

(that's charity care and non payments but not any unfunded expenses due to Medicaid and Medicare)

<comment><USER6> "*The above uncompensated care figures represent the estimated cost of bad debt and charity care to the hospital."

Cost is the key word there and is bolded in the link. The billed amount they would have lost would be much higher. Most hospitals collect about only 25% of patient payments owed to them. When they write it down, they use the cost to the hospital not the amount billed.

<comment><USER5> I don't see what is important about that.

What is interesting about the amount they attempt to bill?

<comment><USER6> For example, if we're talking about a $5 bandaid (in terms of cost), the hospital will list the price at $20 on the chargemaster. They'll charge an in- network payer $15 and an out of network payer $20. An uninsured patient would probably get charged $10.

In any case, if the patient gets charged $10 and doesn't pay, the hospital only writes off $5 as uncompensated care because that's the requirement for government reimbursement. But really they lost $10 on gross patient revenue. It scales up much higher as you can imagine. The point is that the financial cost of uncompensated care is much higher than the dollar amount and why so many hospitals are in financial danger today.

<comment><USER5> Why are "cost" and "financial cost" different things?

The stated "cost" of say, taking an x-ray, should be the fully loaded cost, the facility space, the equipment depreciation, any consumables, the time, etc.

<comment><USER6> Because the margin is so huge in healthcare products and services, especially at hospitals. Hospitals rely on astronomical margins on certain payer classes to subsidize uncompensated care costs.

The point is that providers are far more invested in maintaining the huge margins rather than minimizing the cost.

Problem is the payer mix has been shifting from insurance companies to patients via high deductible health plans over the past decade so it's starting to wreck their margins, even though the cost doesn't change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Something has to be done as status quo is not working. The idea that one could go bankrupt if they don't have health insurance or god forbid are hit with an illness such as Cancer is ridiculous.

Is single payer the answer ? Frankly I don't know. But as Americans, we live in fear when it comes to healthcare. If you have a job where your employer provides great coverage, then you are ok for the time being. But what if you lose that job ? What if you want to start your own business ? What if you want to be self employed ? What if...there are more like this.

Ok lets pay out of pocket then. Fine. If you have a family of 4 or more, be ready to shell out anywhere from $1500-$2000/Month (yes per month) to get a decent enough plan that doesn't have crazy deductibles and out of pocket limits. Can't afford this ? Oops sorry, you are on your own (some exceptions if you can prove you are extremely poor and get medicaid etc)

Fear. That is the issue I have. I don't want to be scared and I am not a dramatic person. But it is scary. Just the thought of getting sick and not having insurance.

Not to mention too many cooks. Don't believe me ? See below:

1\. The Patient (so far so good)

2\. The doctor/hospital (still good)

3\. Insurance Company (things start to get worse. Too much power)

4\. Doc's/Hospital Billing Company and their own process (now this is really idiotic). I once ran for a month to get billing errors corrected (not kidding).

Ideally, a system should only have the top 2 mentioned above. Single payer can certainly replace #3 with Govt. but that part is the tricky one. Part 4 should not even exist. But hey, medical billing/coding is an entire Business in the US.

<comment><USER8> >Is single payer the answer ? Frankly I don't know

I think so, it works for European countries, and Canada, which are comparable in wealth to the US. I don't see why not.

<comment><USER9> They're not, however, comparable in obesity rates.

I'd be happy to see a single-payer healthcare system in the United States with strict denial of coverage for smoking-linked lung cancer, type 2 diabetes, and any other medical problems caused by the choices of the patient.

<comment><USER10> What about sports-related injuries? Serious question.

Should a marathon runner in this scenario get treatment for knee damage or amateur / recreational boxer - for head trauma?

<comment><USER9> I didn't say no treatment, just no coverage. If you choose to engage in risky behaviors/activities, then you are more than welcome to buy supplemental insurance as one of the costs of your lifestyle. It would likely be fairly cheap for boxers and runners. Possibly even offset entirely by their associated healthy lifestyles, and therefore eligible for default coverage on a net cost basis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Isn't it in everyone's best interest to revamp healthcare? Who exactly loses here? Rich people in the health industry? I don't get it.

I read somewhere that half a trillion _a year_ [1] would be saved by single- payer. It's probably an exaggeration, but even if its an order of magnitude too high... sounds good to me.

[1] [http://www.pnhp.org/sites/default/files/docs/2012/Dollars%20...](http://www.pnhp.org/sites/default/files/docs/2012/Dollars%20and%20Sense.pdf)

<comment><USER8> Absolutely, except for the wealthy private interests like pharmaceutical companies and insurance.

Polls show the majority of Americans have favoured a single-payer system now for decades. This was the case under Reagan even, and still is today.

This shows the degree to which the US is not in fact a true democracy, but more of an oligarchy. However things can change if there is enough public pressure. People just need to be organized.

<comment><USER12> Pharma companies don't necessarily lose out with single payer. Consider that the vast majority of drugs prescribed are generics, and most generics (aside from those making headlines) are available pretty cheaply (you can check GoodRx to see real prices). Of course, you might shave a good amount of profit from big pharma by negotiation (if there's a single payer or a few payers, they have a lot of power), but you don't want to stop R&D. How we shift that R&D burden and to whom, I have no idea.

Disclaimer: I work in big pharma research (nothing to do with pricing)

<comment><USER13> This is very true. Prices might go down under single payer, but more people are covered. Overall, prices may go down, but volume drives overall revenue up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Healthcare is a racket. It takes advantage of our fear of death and suffering. It suggests it has solutions if you are willing to exchange your life savings for a few more weeks in $100k/ day ICUs.

I lean libertarian, but I have given up on the current system. I'd like to see all of the insurance companies and health care bureaucracy burned. This is an idea worth voting for Bernie.

I doubt that any real change is on the horizon as long as people keep confusing affordable health insurance with affordable health care. Obamacare was never the solution to the actual problem, which is unnatural pricing that is extracted under duress.

</comment><comment><USER15> "The CEO has been under fire for taking the unprecedented step of transferring the patent of one of Allergan's blockbuster drugs, the eye medication Restasis, to a sovereign Native American tribe as part of a bid to maintain monopoly control of the drug and its revenue."

"The Restasis patent was approved 15 years ago and was set to expire in 2014, but the Allergan deal is part of an attempt to renew the patent and extend the company's control of the drug through 2024."

no shit people are fed up

</comment><comment><USER16> I like Sanders as much as anyone else, but can anyone who supports it explain how Single Payer is obviously better than expanding the current system to provide universal healthcare? It seems to me that single payer would require a radical overhaul(more than 100 million people leaving their employer given insurance) and huge tax increases that requires a level of political consensus among the public and Democrat majority in both houses not seen since The New Deal.

That's not even to mention the fact that more vulnerable Blue seats are up for grabs than Red in 2018. I just don't see the current roster of the GOP supporting anything the Democrats put forward, especially something as radical as medicare-for-all.

<comment><USER17> ... yet all of these concerns have been addressed by every other nation doing single-payer...

Your own research might be the best way to go - that way you can get the answer to your exact question.

People: We Americans think we are special - really we are just isolated and not exposed to other ideas _directly_.

There is a world of difference between reading about an idea, visiting a country's hotels, and really talking to the locals.

I see discussion time and time again:

* Healthcare * High-Speed Rail * Renewable Energy * Cities built for walking/biking instead of driving

All the above are solved problems for a generation in other parts of the world.

At some point, we owe it to ourselves to find out directly from the locals how things work.

<comment><USER18> What you list were solved by two things: the US providing the EU a military during the cold war and the fact that most of Europe was centered around dense cities since the Middle Ages.

You can't make high speed rail with stops in the US because our cities are spaced just far enough with low enough density to make the start stop process worthless. Walking cities are only possible if we force people into dense cities. As a country that does like freedom, you're going to start a civil war trying to relocate people through emanate domain into small apartments.

We need to learn what works for us. We have a different land useage pattern than Europe. We have a different approach the neighbors than The EU. Learn from them, but don't mindlessly copy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Single-payer is the most startup-friendly system available.

It moves variable health care costs entirely out of your HR and payroll systems. You can get more experienced employees when they aren't afraid to risk their family's health care on a job move. By reducing risk exposure there, the risk of salary vs equity becomes more attractive.

<comment><USER20> You don't even need single payer. Most European countries don't have single payer either. what they have is more rules on pricing.

<comment><USER21> Price controls might see more resistance in the US than setting up a government (near) monopsony and letting that reduce prices (single-payer). The idea that price controls can ever, _ever_ be a good idea is heresy to a lot of people here, to the point that they hold it as nigh-axiomatic that they _always_ fail, and (clearly) no amount of real-world examples will convince them to add any nuance to their economic ideas.

<comment><USER20> I am afraid the US would mess up single payer if that attitude doesn't change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Until I can see the VA work successfully or Doctors being excited about TriCare, I don't think we should entertain this idea. Further, right now all parts of the government are being weaponized by Democrats and Republicans. The last thing I want is my healthcare being used a political leverage, even more than it has been since Obamacare was passed.

</comment><comment><USER23> I went to a walk in clinic a few months ago to get antibiotics for a severe sinus infection and I have insurance. I had to pay a $50 copay. While I was waiting another customer walked up who did not have insurance and was charged $99. A few weeks later I was billed an additional $97 because my insurance refused some items.

The clinic is allowed to charge some customers more than others, that seems unreasonable. The root issue though is that health care is a for profit business.

While I understand that profits are what drives drug companies to assume the risk of new drug development, people should not be forced to decide between going to the doctor or dentist to get important medical help or paying the rent. Many high cost procedures could be eliminated if they were caught earlier with affordable preventative care. Health care costs are further driven up by the hospital having to initially eat the cost of treating uninsured people.

Prior to obamacare both of my parents were uninsured due to being self employed and pre-existing medical conditions. In a span of a week my father had a heart attack and my mother shattered her arm (requiring surgery). Total cost was over $80,000. They of course could not pay that and defaulted.

Once Obamacare was introduced they both signed up and had insurance.

Long story short if you provide affordable options for people they will generally take it. Basic human decency states that the cost of medical care should never be prohibitive enough to stop people from seeking the care they need.

If Europe can make it work I see no reason the US cannot.

</comment><comment><USER24> Want to hear something completely mind-blowing? I'm working on an issue regarding prescription drug benefit scoring. Whenever you fill a prescription, the pharmacy is required to share that information with certain entities, such as your insurance company. However, those entities then share it with data brokers.[0] Ever been turned down for health, or life insurance? Seen a premium spike? It could be because the prescription data brokers have rated you (based on your prescriptions) as a health risk. You cannot opt out of this. The only way to opt out is to never fill a prescription.

Whenever you apply for any type of health or life insurance, these brokers (think credit score for health) report a score based on the medications you take, have been prescribed but not filled, and those you've filled. You have no idea what's in the report, but you can request your report if you've been denied.

[0] [https://www.consumerreports.org/drugs/prescriptions-not- secr...](https://www.consumerreports.org/drugs/prescriptions-not-secret/)

</comment><comment><USER25> There is a sweet spot for businesses who have massive regulatory protection the way pharma does, and who want to maximize rent extraction from society as much as possible.

For big pharma, this peaked in the past few years. The Mylan lawsuit and the outrage about Martin Shkreli are flare-ups that signal that public outrage is on the horizon.

In terms of social benefit, the trade-offs are not optimal at all. We are overly risk-averse to the point where FDA bureaucrats needlessly hold up drug approval, yet once a drug is granted approval we are very slow to sound the alarm if it turns out that additional data shows unanticipated risks. For example, the risks of Vioxx (as with many other NSAIDS) were well known to physicians long before the drug was taken off the market.

There is no such thing as a single _wise_ entity that can appropriately vet all drugs for maximal societal value. Different people have different levels of risk-aversion. Our system exists to maximize the winner-take-all aspect of intellectual property protection for pharma, not to maximize the benefits of innovation to society or maximally incentivize innovation.

Certainly, someone who is 80 might be more willing to try a new drug with unknown 20 year side-effects than the parents of a 10 year old. The single regulator model is deeply flawed and creates massive harm on both ends of this risk spectrum.

But there is no need for big pharma to worry. We have broad bipartisan support of massive, long-term sponsorship of big pharma companies. Unlike Martin Shkreli, these companies play a longer-term game and for the most part avoid embarrassing fiascos such as the one that impacted Mylan.

But yet, in spite of this, they are insulated from competition by regulators and manage to extract sweeter and sweeter deals. Note the way Mylan gradually ramped up the cost of epi-pens following ACA? Mylan was just trying to get its share of the pie. Other firms, like health insurance firms, got their piece of the pie "de-contenting" bronze plans and removing high deductible options from ACA. The government got its share by being able to claim credit for passing a landmark law, etc. Like tigers tearing chunks of flesh from a fallen gazelle, the powerful interests manage to get what they came for, which is why the ACA passed in the first place, they all knew/expected the benefits to occur. The only group who got a bad deal were Americans relying on the ACA who were not poor enough to get a heavily subsidized plan... these people just had a massively regressive additional tax.

</comment><comment><USER26> I simply cannot understand why the following question is never asked, addressed or even acknowledged to be a valid question:

"What health plan are all senators and government officials on? If congress cares about healthcare "for all Americans" \- then put every American on the same health plan they have, or force them to only be allowed to use ObamaCare or whatever plan it is that they offer the people."

WTF!

<comment><USER5> People ask it all the time.

At the moment, Congress and staff get subsidies to buy plans from the DC exchange.

All the time: [https://www.google.com/search?q=congress+dc+exchange](https://www.google.com/search?q=congress+dc+exchange)

<comment><USER26> I mean, I want a prominent, on air "news" personality to ask specifically this of any senator kvetching about healthcare live in front of millions.

It's like on NPR today they were talking about the tax reform, and the senator was asked if there was one single thing that he would want to see come from the tax bill. He said "many" she said again "name one" he said well there are dozens" and she said "yeah but name one change you want to see that will help middle class" and he deflected again and said "we will see what happens and if the American people want a simple tax system, then we will see about giving that to them" \--- they are all lying sacks of shit.

<comment><USER5> What would the question reveal? They _are_ on the same system as everyone else.

"Yes Woof, I buy my plan from the DC exchange and get services both in DC and from an excellent hospital in my district." KAPOW!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Non-story.

TL,DR: CEO of company screwing Americans, says one thing for PR purposes and then continues behavior for the dollars, euros, pounds.

Move along nothing to see here.

</comment><comment><USER27> > I think we've got to do things to bring that trust back

The cynic in me wants to say "like not making indecent amount of profits on the back of miserable people".

There is nothing wrong with turning a profit, which is healthy. But when profit maximization is the prime directive, well... you know what happens.

As other commenters have pointed out, single-payer works well enough in Europe (there are issues, but I doubt they are directly inputable to the single-payer policy). Of course, that's rather hard to understand for the fringe of the population that can't distinguish between socialism and communism, solidarity and reckless selflessness.

</comment><comment><USER28> Enough IS enough. When common arthritis drugs cost more than a year's salary, there is a problem. Normal people can't afford that. [0]

[0] [https://www.everydayhealth.com/news/real-monthly-cost- arthri...](https://www.everydayhealth.com/news/real-monthly-cost-arthritis- medication/)

</comment><comment><USER29> So what fraction of GDP goes to health costs in US vs other countries?

And are Americans healthier as a result?</comment>


Teleport 4.2 – Enhanced Session Recording, Workflows, and GCP - <AUTHOR> https://gravitational.com/blog/teleport-release-4-2/ <comment><USER2> Teleport often pops up in my search for replacing a home built rbac system that powers 30k machines. Must say it rings some warning bells when there no price info available, not sure I would even want to know.

<comment><USER3> Graviton here - Teleport and Gravity actually both have open source editions (which are naturally free) that you're welcome to download. [https://gravitational.com/teleport/download/](https://gravitational.com/teleport/download/)</comment></comment>


SQL Injection [video] - <AUTHOR> http://informationsecurity.451research.com/?p=4986

<comment><USER2> I teach at University of Texas and introduced students to SQL injection (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4QxOxGL1tI>) but the production value on this video is way better. Thanks for posting this, I've bookmarked for my course.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice introduction to SQL injection :)

I like to explain to clients that software security flaws form out of what I call "developer tunnel vision." Developer tunnel vision occurs when a programmer fails to predict the types of input that an attacker could enter into a running application that would cause problems.

It's these untested edge cases, not _necessarily_ an unknowledgable developer, that allow so many security problems to occur.

This seems especially true when developers are rushed to ship products, rather than taking the time to properly test them. I'm not saying that the philosophy of "build often, ship often" is _wrong_ , per se, but it is absolutely a major cause of security issues.

This issue is compounded when developers are, in fact, not knowledgable about security issues. Up until very recently, university-level courses and textbooks taught students to write code with security problems in the examples themselves. Many courses and textbooks still do. This is true for SQL injection, buffer overflows, and many more classes of vulnerabilities.

The problem is compounded when developers and sysadmins rely on over-hyped security tools instead of secure code. Don't get me wrong--a well maintained WAF or updated and monitored IPS can absolutely add incredible protection to an organization's defense--but it doesn't solve the problem of insecure code.

I know that most developers in the startup scene are eager to deploy their MVPs and ship immediately. I'm okay with that, and not only do I encourage it, but I've been there myself. Let me throw out a word of caution, though: if you're going to create a product and get some early adoptors, _don't_ lose their data. Do some preliminary security testing. It doesn't need to mean "go out and hire a security firm to test your application," since that can often be expensive. Take an hour or so before launching, though, and test for common problems like SQL injection, cross-site scripting and cross-site request forgery. Check out the OWASP wiki. Throw a single-quote into your login fields and see if things start to break. Trust me, it's better to delay launch for an hour than to have easily-fixed security problems that expose your application to the TechCrunch crowd because your database got stolen and put on Pastebin. Even better, try to adopt security best practices into your software development lifecycle, even if that "lifecycle" currently consists of "post up at Startup Weekend and work until it's ready."

You don't need to spend all your time and money on security, but when your reputation is everything, it is generally a worthy investment.</comment>


Issues with Vscode License – You Should Worry - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/twitmyreview/issues-with-vscode-license-you-should-worry-1li4 <comment><USER2> This is really not a big deal to the point "you should worry." The binaries Microsoft distributes are under a different license than the source (which is MIT).

The binaries contain telemetry, and it's definitely a bit suspicious-looking they don't want that disassembled but I'd guess that's a standard boilerplate license clause rather than deliberate. Questionable legal protection isn't going to do anything to stop someone from looking, so unless they've also put in effort to protect the telemetry mechanism and/or its payload through some technical means - which the article doesn't claim - it's hard to see a nefarious intent here.

On the plus side, I did learn about VSCodium [1] which I wasn't aware of before.

[1] [https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium](https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium)

<comment><USER3> > On the plus side, I did learn about VSCodium [1] which I wasn't aware of > before.

Thanks for pointing it out. TIL.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What happened to the Netflix Instant queue? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> This isn't Netflix's customer support. You should ask them whatever unknown question you have.

<comment><AUTHOR> haha, yeah i know, but response times on here are so much quicker. i guess i was just hoping someone could randomly fill me in.</comment></comment>


Job tenure by country - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/daily/chartgallery/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9934771

<comment><USER2> Does that include public sector workers? If so, countries with a large public sector will show long average tenures even if the rest of the economy is based on hire and fire principles.

</comment><comment><USER3> Americans, do you consider this a strength or a weakness of your economy?

<comment><USER4> A huge strength. A ability to leave a job easily, or to be fired easily, is also the ability to get a job easily.

Closed systems don't allow for mobility. Guaranteed employment, from a company's perspective, adds huge barriers to hiring.

In high tech, this is doubly true.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: When and When Not To Have A Front Page Sign Up Wall? - <AUTHOR>

By "sign up wall" I mean a front page that requires you provide information (location/name/email, etc) before you can enter the site.
When does it make sense to have a sign up wall the way Groupon or Quora does and when doesn't it make sense?
Should all new products do it and then stop at some point (when)?
Should user-generated sites do it (to reduce the friction of contributing later)?
Has anyone written intelligently about this? <comment><USER2> You should only use that technique if either the only way you can look at the information in context is to signup (think of a game or Facebook) or if the content is so amazing that you're not afraid to peel off users. It should be noted that many ad driven campaigns force you to these screens — in that case the ad was about acquiring your email address so the site figures it's now or never.

If you want to see if it's a good idea for your site just do some A/B testing. In fact with A/B testing you can even play with the wording of the signup to see what works and what doesn't work. You can also do A/B testing with pages that don't have a wall but have a tout to encourage you to signup.

On a user generated site you might only dare to do this if you already have a pool of content that people must look at no matter what. But if you don't have that pool the kids will be very upset that you made them get an ID card.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply. My big concern is that A/B testing is so limited in scope. I know I'd get _more_ sign ups if I have a sign up wall, but what am I trading for that? Do 50%+ less people know about my site now? Is that worth the sign ups?

My gut instinct is that sign up walls suck, but then you see some people who seem to really believe in them. Just not sure how to measure the medium-term consequences or even really think about the topic in a coherent way.

<comment><USER2> I think you should put that energy into making a great product and marketing to get the word out! Look at it my way:

If you spend 40 hours doing A/B testing that could be 20 hours adding that one cool feature and another 20 hours doing PR to get the word out.

Yes if you've already spent $100k to build your product and another $100k for a banner ad campaign then put up that wall and hold onto each body -- but if you aren't that stage really focus on making something great.

You'd be better off getting people on the site to tell a friend than to drive away each person with a signup (look at dropbox as an example).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> what is a sign up wall , like an invitation only site ?

<comment><AUTHOR> I added a definition to my question. I'm not sure what the most widely used term is.</comment></comment>