Pandora is laying off 7% of its US workforce - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/12/pandora-is-laying-off-7-of-its-workforce/ <comment><USER3> After I discovered Pandora back in 2010, I haven't looked back. While it lacks ability to play a song on demand, where it truly outshines are its recommendations. Maybe its the nature of their recommendation algorithm - <USER2> call it the music genome project; a content based recommendation ending using very finely refined categorizations as opposed to the methodologies most other recommenders follow - a mix of collaborative filtering and content-based, but not as detailed on creating categories that a song can fall into.

I know I'm sounding like such a fanboy but I discovered some of my favorite bands and artists after hearing them first through Pandora's recommendations. I've often heard songs I liked at random places, shazammed them, and created a channel on Pandora, which has led to some really good artists that I would've never heard through other media. So for music discovery, Pandora is where its at. I really hope this company sticks around.

<comment><USER4> Most of the time I don't want to pick a song. I want to listen to a certain genre and just have music play. Pandora was perfect for me. I paid for Pandora ONE for 5 years.

This year I cancelled and moved to Spotify.

For $2/month it was a great product and a great deal. But the product didn't change over a 5 year period. I found stations got stuck into the same set of songs and would stop adding new ones. I wonder win the last time the Music Genome Project was updated? More infuriating, their buggy Adobe Air desktop app was never fixed or updated.

Three years ago the price moved to $3/mo. Two years ago it moved to $4/mo. This past year they got rid of any grandfathered discounts and charged $5/mo. I was sick of paying more for the same product and jumped ship. I do miss my radio stations, but Spotify's prebuilt playlists are pretty good replacement.

<comment><USER5> I liked spotify but requiring a fb account to listen is pretty lame. Don't know if they've modified that requirement.

<comment><USER6> How opposed would you be to creating a shell fb account with zero personal info and a fake name, in order to log in to products? I realize you shouldn't _have_ to take this extra step, but so many wonderful products DO require an fb login...

<comment><USER5> I'll pass/do without. Products should not force users to take any action they are opposed to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've told this before but I haven't used pandora since they wouldn't stop playing me ashley madison ads even after I complained to support about it. They said they only played ads that network tv would run. Every other ad for 6 months was asking me to cheat on my wife.

We all know how that went.

<comment><USER8> You know you can eliminate the ads for $3 a month, right? It's pretty cheap compared to the other streaming services.

<comment><USER9> You're likely talking to the wrong user base. There's a reason why ads business models work, people rather deal with ads than pay anything.

Though your suggestion would solve one set of problems, it doesn't solve the fact that it was an inappropriate ad with a crappy response from the company if true. Guess network tv allowed, includes those 2am ads.

<comment><USER7> I guess. We actually talked on the phone. When the lady said that to me I said, "Are you seriously trying to make that claim." Silence. Then she made some non-apology and ended the call.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I really think Pandora should start full on-demand music service for additional subscription fee instead of just being radio. Playlist creation and sharing is becoming huge but still in fancy from tech perspective. Lot of people are stuck on particular service just because of their carefully created playlists over long time. That generates significant sticky factor. I've personally paid Rhapsody subscription for couple of years without much using it just to keep my playlists alive. This in addition can massively help improve radio itself. Also it can eliminate all that nonsense of not allowing to skip unlimited number of tracks. In my opinion, Pandora still has best of the best radio service (although far from perfect) and if they can supplement that with huge catelogues like Google Music with family subscription, there would be one more reason to stay there.

<comment><USER11> They bought rdio. A service that was regarded by many, including me, as the best streaming service, certainly better than Spotify and with a thriving, enthusiastic community of music lovers - even today I still can't comment on or discuss albums, playlists and songs with others in Spotify, which is a social graveyard.

And then they shut it down.

<comment><USER12> That's exactly why I like Spotify - it doesn't shove the social nonsense down my throat like everybody else. Don't take it the bad way but I don't care what you, or anybody else with very few exceptions, thinks about this or that album.

<comment><USER13> Does Spotify still not allow you to save favorite albums/songs in some sort of personal library?

<comment><USER14> It does allow you, that's all I use.

<comment><USER15> Right up until you hit the 10,000 song limit, which took me all of a couple months to reach. It's not a service built for music enthusiasts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> pokemon-trainer My wife listens to and enjoys Pandora daily. She especially enjoys the curated playlists put together by Pandora. I remember the gimmick at launch had the system build playlists for you based on your preferences. It's interesting to see how the service has pivoted to provide a more radio station-like experience.

What other services do folks enjoy? What's the best streaming service out today?

<comment><USER16> I use Spotify since I get it for free with my mobile phone provider (well, not actually free, but it's cheaper with my provider than on its own).

Discover weekly is usually really good and choosing good music, it's a shame that it's only once a week. Spotify radio is also usually quite good and making a playlist of songs based on an artist or a song.

They also now have "your daily mix", which I'm fairly sure only takes songs that you've listened to before, but often gives me songs I haven't heard in a while.

They also have running radio, which matches songs to your running pace. I don't use it though, since I don't run.

I haven't used any other streaming services out there, but Spotify does everything I need it to. The one thing it doesn't have is Taylor Swift, but none of the streaming services do.

Before Spotify, I had actually never paid for music, I'd usually torrent it (or sometimes use youtube). But the sheer convenience of Spotify has caused me to hand out a few bucks a month for it.

<comment><USER17> Apple Music has Taylor Swift if I remember correctly

<comment><USER18> AM is missing other things, like beyonce's latest album.

<comment><USER19> The music streaming services are competing now with exclusive albums (this was Tidal's big draw; are they even still around?), to the detriment of their users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I am also a Pandora fanboy. I pay for their ad-free service. I have heard more "new to me" music through Pandora than any other source, and for that I am truly grateful.

</comment><comment><USER21> So about ~150 people (Wikipedia says they have 2200+ employees).

<comment><USER22> Wow. What do all those people do? What's the difference between a 100 employee music streamer and a 2000 employee music streamer?

<comment><USER23> I would like to know this too! Say my team has 40 people on it. Every month at least, someone asks what do "40 people do?" and I take them through it 2-4 people at a time across several lines of business maintaining and improving lots of software.

Would be amazing to see some people break down their teams publicly!

<comment><USER24> Agreed - it would be a great bit of content-marketing for a recruitment agency. Lever, TripleByte, Muse... one of you sort it out please!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Article talks about Apple Music and Spotify - but I think they're is a bigger problem: Amazon Prime Music.

Bezos is killing the streaming space with 'good enough' services all bundled into the same, basic Prime subscription.

The Prime Music app on iOS got updated last year and it even looks great.

Streaming music is a commodity, good luck fighting for scraps.

<comment><USER26> Use Amazon Prime, but they'll need to deliver a bigger catalog and better recommendation feature for me to try Prime Music. I have hundreds of songs saved in Spotify playlists, love the selection, as well as the recommendation feature (Discover) - Spotify is sticky for me.

<comment><USER27> Totally. I pay the $15/month for Spotify family (up to six people); I have Amazon Prime and I've never once used a Prime digital service.

<comment><USER28> Prime Video is very good by the way. Their original series catalog is expanding, but they also have other great shows available. For instance, you can stream lots of popular HBO classics for free (Curb, The Wire, etc.).

Oh, and the video player is excellent. The "X-Ray" feature is pretty nifty when it's done well: it lists on-screen actors, name of music playing, and general trivia. The Prime Video Android app is surprisingly smooth as well, and in my opinion is as good as the Netflix app.

For me, it's essentially a free video service, as I already need Prime for the free shipping.

<comment><USER19> My problem with Prime Video is that Amazon is that there's no good way to watch it on your TV, unless you feel like buying their own streaming boxes. They refuse to release an app for Apple TV or Android TV, the Roku channel is merely serviceable (like all Roku channels), and the PS4 and Xbox One apps don't work as expected (for example, the Xbox One app doesn't respond to the official hardware remote's play/puase button).

The experience on their own hardware is great; everything else is second- class.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I remember emailing Pandora in what must have been 2008 realizing about the fact that I could not use the service from Sweden (I had been a foreign exchange student in high school in the US). I got a reply from Tim Westergren which felt huge.

I would not be as much into 80's synth pop without Pandora, that's for sure.

</comment><comment><USER30> Last.fm was the only one that worked for me. Musical preference is a perfect social recommendation problem.

Pandora's supposedly socially-neutral algorithms always circled in on tighter and tighter loops of bland.

This was a bunch of years ago. Maybe they fixed it.

<comment><USER31> Spotify is lightyears from Last.fm both in personal recommendation and album/artist/track radios.

I really miss last.fm :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Music streaming/distribution has to be a heavily commoditized business.

Moreover, even the music itself is heavily commoditized, it's hard to eke out a living unless you build a major brand, or can 'roll your own' fanbase.

I don't even understand how Spotify can stay in business in the long run with competitive margin erosion.

Perhaps when the industry shakes out, the major streamers will have some value chain power and hold onto their margins.

In the meantime, I'm weary of Spotify's valuation as long term credible.

</comment><comment><USER33> I miss turntable.fm. If only Spotify / Pandora has it, then I am a happier customer.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is such a non-issue for many users, but the simple fact that Pandora requires flash on their web interface is a deal breaker for me.

<comment><USER34> They switched to HTML5 like 5 years ago.

<comment><USER35> Pandora asks me to install Flash on Safari 10.

<comment><USER36> Change your user agent to Firefox and it should load the HTML5 version

<comment><USER17> A well designed website shouldn't require a user agent change to get added functionality. If I have to mess with my user agent, install resource heavy plugins or change my browser of choice to use your service, then you just lost me as a customer.

<comment><USER37> Safari is the new IE

<comment><USER38> "Looks good on my rMBP and iPad Pro, ship it!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Sucks because it's practically the only tech company in Oakland.

<comment><USER40> Not exactly. Ask.com is in Oakland! Makes my date everytime I see the logo on that high rise off of 880.

<comment><USER41> The company that fired their mascot?

<comment><USER40> No, Jeeves wasn't fired, he retired.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Maybe now they'll finally consider expanding to Europe?

I don't know if their own hype is true, but I always wanted to try their music recommendation service. It used to be that you could at least play with it (get similar song titles, even if you couldn't listen to them), but now I can't even see the main page.

<comment><USER43> have you tried last.fm.

i loved the service before they where bought by cbs, i used it to stream music, the playlist created where great and i could discover new music. now with spotify its the same songs or artists all the time.

<comment><USER42> last.fm and Spotify both have the same problem:

Let's say I like this one song from a Chilean singer. Not that album, not that singer, just that one specific song.

What both systems do is recommend "here is all of South America's music, and here are all Chilean singers from that decade". Did you pick a Chilean rock song from the late 80's? Here's a Peruvian Charango song from the early '90s. They don't know anything about the songs themselves, only their network effect.

Pandora's "Music Genome Project" was supposedly designed around this issue, but I can't say whether it actually works or not.

<comment><USER43> sorry i did not have that feeling with last.fm, i had the premium feature of last.fm ( before they removed it ) so you could not request a song but you could play a playlist based on tags or artists ( if i remember it correctly )

the suggestions where great, i loved that feature. i still scrobble from my desktop to last.fm and im in 98 percentile of all users. i listen to a lot of music and with spotify i get the felling its always the same , it cannot learn my preference so i have to manually search for playlists that im ok with.

i would say i listen to deep house mostly, but there is also rock, and hip hop, but i get only the latest edm tracks in my recommendation playlist in spotify, with lastfm i would get indie rock and hip hop artists.

<comment><USER31> I second this, last.fm suggestion in and radio in 2010 was better than spotify in 2017.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Funny this comes right after they released a brand new app, after they had the same old web app for more than 4 years it seemed.

</comment><comment><USER45> Funny. Just saw a medium article where some talking head from Pandora was giving patronizing advice about how to fire people.</comment>


C++ needs to modernize its legacy #include mechanism to be really a new language - <AUTHOR> http://www.codergears.com/Blog/?p=799

<comment><USER2> The hilarious thing is that you'll still end up with code mixing the two idioms, because legacy.

<comment><USER3> You don't usually improve the standard for legacy code. You want backward compatibility, sure, but the expectation that a new standard automatically makes old code not suck is just setting you up to be disappointed.

What C++ has allowed us to do is slowly (sometimes wholesale), add the new stuff to old code or just write new code that doesn't suck as much.

<comment><USER4> I have always thought that C++ took the wrong route here. Backward compatibility can be solved via a compiler flag too. So the language can evolve, and deprecate older sub-awesome solutions, while allowing people to still use that via a "\--my-code-still-uses-feature-x-and-i-dont-want-to- update" compiler flag.

You could have deprecated :

\- #includes and have a decent mechanism

\- std::pair when you introduce std::tuple

\- perhaps new when you have make_shared and make_unique

\- etc etc.

There's also a gentle push towards the more recent solutions as at one point compiler vendors will not maintain these flags forever because it's no longer part of the language.

<comment><USER3> The presence of a language feature is already signalled via the __cplusplus define, so it is already done that way.

I think C++ is very pragmatic in the way it has been done so far, but I am not looking forward to the new __* keywords for resumable functions. I think it's fair to steal the "await" and "yield" keywords back from programmers so my eyes don't bleed. I've already been conditioned to treat __whatever as a platform-specific thing to avoid in my code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article is mostly a copy/paste of [http://clang.llvm.org/docs/Modules.html](http://clang.llvm.org/docs/Modules.html)

<comment><USER6> This article is specified in the post as the origin of the disadvantages of include mechanism.

<comment><USER7> Yes, that is true, but the article does not provide much technical meat _other_ than that list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> please fix article grammar

<comment><USER9> Ironic or facetious?

<comment><USER8> Go fuck yourself</comment></comment></comment>


Rails_on_pg: PostgreSQL views, functions, triggers, FKs for rails migrations - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/alex3t/rails_on_pg

<comment><USER2> Can anyone clue me in on how this is helpful (not slagging, just generally curious). Like I don't see how this:

      create_view :active_patients do |view|
        view.select 'p.patient_id as id' ,'p.id as visit_id'
        view.from 'patients as p'
        view.join 'left join demographics d on d.visit_id=v.id'
        view.conditions 'p.status'=>'active','p.name' => 'John' #or "p.status='active' and p.name='John'"
      end

is easier than:

      create or replace view patient.active_patients as
      select p.patient_id as id,  p.id as visit_id
      from patients p
      left join demographics d on d.visit_id=v.id
      where p.status='active' and p.name = 'John';

I don't use rails, and the ORM we use generates in reverse, so we define our database using SQL and then generate the model layer from that. We use a lot of views, stored procs and postgresql features such as table inheritance, which no ORM seems to handle going the forward route.

Is it because you can't do straight SQL in rail's migration stuff?

Thanks.

<comment><USER3> Rails migration syntax is intended to be database neutral. That is one of the main reasons to use it. The migration functionality also generates a database neutral 'schema.rb' file, which is intended to be the canonical representation of your application's current schema. This makes it possible for a new developer to simply run "rake db:create db:schema:load" and start working.

Since this particular plugin is aimed directly at postgres, I am not sure it really adds a great deal of value. It might be useful if it maintained the schema.rb file properly, but it does not.

So (at least IMO), I don't think this plugin is all that helpful. You _can_ run straight SQL in rails migrations (and we do that whenever we need anything postgres specific).

<comment><USER2> 10-4 thanks.

Leaves me wondering why database neutrality is so important that you miss a lot of optimal features of a specific database for it. I can't think of one time in the last 15 years where I've moved a database from one particular database software to another (well not entirely true, I've moved around a few but always on Sybase derivatives, ie Sybase -> SQL Server).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been using sexy_pg_constraints with good success for a while. Doesn't do functions like this though.

<http://github.com/maxim/sexy_pg_constraints>

You do have to switch to sql export for the schema which is kind of a bummer because it's not supported as well by Rails as the "db independent" (aka lowest common denominator) schema.rb file.

</comment><comment><USER5> Anyone know if it keeps db/schema.rb in sync?

<comment><USER3> I just tested it with views, functions and a foreign key. None of those things ended up in schema.rb.

<comment><USER6> The redhillonrails core plugin keeps foreign key constraints in sync in schema.rb. No such luck for triggers or views. But no reason someone couldn't add that functionality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I thought this was about Paul.</comment>


App monetization with 'passive' Bitcoin mining - <AUTHOR> http://icoplay.com/plugins#icominer

<comment><USER2> Interesting idea. Now you just need to make sure that the mining doesn't affect the performance of your game. Plus maybe people will complain that the computer fan is too noisy when running the game. Of course being a game makes that easier a tiny bit.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> PocketGamer has a bit more info on this:

[http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/Full+Indie+UK+news/featu...](http://www.pocketgamer.biz/r/PG.Biz/Full+Indie+UK+news/feature.asp?c=54970)</comment>


Former SpaceX director signs on to crowdfunded hyperloop project - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/26/4766486/materials-genome-initiative-mit-and-harvard

<comment><USER2> Wrong link? Doesn't seem to mention Hyperloop.

<comment><AUTHOR> you're right! resubmited: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6451599](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6451599)</comment></comment>


Scalable and privacy-respectful distributed systems (2017-12-27 Video by LynX) - <AUTHOR> https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-ChaosWest-7-scalable_and_privacy_respectful_distributed_systems_our_chance_to_avoid_cloud_computing#t=7 <comment><AUTHOR> What do you people think ? I feel it's the ultimate solution.</comment>


If you'd be making 100k USD per day.. - <AUTHOR>

Hi. I'd like to ask what would you do if you'd be making 100k per day from your startup company. Would you still hack? Because you know you've got people doing this for you, as well as business people taking care of the business side of your company. What kind of stuff would you do with this kind of money and would you still code/work?
Please let me know!
Bart <comment><USER2> As CEO you'd need to see what the biggest problems are with your company and work on solving them.

Have concentration risk around clients? Go get more clients. Short staffed? Hire or pinch hit on a project. Don't have enough data on what's going on? Start doing data analysis.

Find the obstacles that are there and remove them. Make it easier for everyone else to their jobs better.

</comment><comment><USER3> I personally would still be doing business, coding, and still work. I love this stuff and making/having a ton of money doesn't change this. It didn't in the past and it wouldn't in the future.

</comment><comment><USER4> I will think about this question when I make 100k per day.</comment>


Alienware Android Cell Phone, First Pictures - <AUTHOR> http://www.dialaphone.co.uk/blog/?p=1076 <comment><USER2> No offense to the designers, but I'd be embarrassed to carry around something like that. Hopefully they're listening to early feedback!

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, it's definitely not a "business phone", but my guess is that it might be a big hit with the high school LAN party crowd.

<comment><USER3> That's exactly what they're targeting here -- Alienware's existing (and not altogether small) market, full of gamers, geek chic, and those that might wear t-shirts advertising their hackitude.

Designers look at it and wince, but I can definitely see that phone being successful in that crowd.

EDIT: Argh. I should've paid closer attention to the text. As others pointed out, this thing's completely fictional. They're not targeting anything. Mea culpa.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you're a pimple faced sweaty male teen these might be pretty cool. Otherwise not.

Don't these people have any sense of style at all ?

</comment><comment><USER5> It's the friggin Dethklok Dethphone, wonder if it'll have all of those minute eating menus.?.. brutal.

[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Dethphone&...](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Dethphone&defid=2817051)

</comment><comment><USER6> At the risk of sounding the killjoy, those aren't exactly pictures, so much as an artist renditions notion of what an Alienware phone might look like. The pictures are all labeled "Designed by Jas Seehra for Dial-a-Phone - www.dialaphone.co.uk"

I'm thinking the real phone's probably going to look nothing like this and will probably look more like a phone that people won't actually mind being seen in public with.

<comment><USER7> Not only is the picture totally a speculative mock-up (see the original image here: [http://image.alienware.com/Images/product_detail_page_images...](http://image.alienware.com/Images/product_detail_page_images/area-51_7500/gallery_creative_01_big.jpg)), if you read carefully there is no indication that alienware is actually building a phone at all. Really this is just some guy making up stuff about a phone, in order to have the "exclusive" and get backlinks from people too clueless to realize he's making it all up.

<comment><USER6> Oh awesome. Hey, why report news when you can just invent it, right? It's easier that way.

And on re-reading it, you're totally right. They're saying "Dell MIGHT make a phone. And Dell owns Alienware. So here's the phone that Alienware's going to make."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think I could cut my hand on that one.

</comment><comment><USER9> Hideous.

I want that monitor though.</comment>


Ask HN: Where are the bar/coffee shop programmers go to in SF city? - <AUTHOR>

I just arrived at SF for vacation today. I thought i ask HN readers in SF, where do you guys get your beer, coffee, food & hang out? <comment><USER2> I know that Epicenter is a very popular coffee shop/bar that a lot of coders go to.

Are you looking for a place to work, or to meet people, or what?

And how long are you in town for?

<comment><AUTHOR> Mostly to meet friends and eat good food. Plus, i heard so much about the mission district. I just have to check it myself. I ll be staying for couple of days.

In portland, there are plenty of bar w/ wireless, perfect for hacking w/ friends. I'm hoping for similar experience in mission/soma area.

<comment><USER2> Most coffee shops in this city have wifi.

Ritual Roasters is pretty much the prototypical startup-hangout coffee shop.

Also, this coming week is WWDC, there's probably a lot of mac-related parties that will be happening.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome, will check out ritual rooster as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> heading down to areas in San Jose, like Mountain View, Cupertino, etc. yields tons of people in every cafe talking / working on tech. Going to a random cafe in Mountain View, you'll be sure to hear people talking about something related to tech and code.

<comment><AUTHOR> What's the best public transportation to go to mountain view? Isn't it relatively far from SF?</comment></comment>


IPhone 5 Prototype found at a bar - <AUTHOR> http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2011/0901/Secret-iPhone-prototype-left-at-a-bar-again

<comment><USER2> Title is misleading... the device has not been confirmed found, only missing.

</comment><comment><USER3> tl;dr: it's possible that some piece of hardware roughly the size of an iPhone might have been left at a local bar. Nobody has any concrete details of the device beyond that.</comment>


Rankings of required skills in software development job listings - <AUTHOR> https://www.latitude.work/trends/july-2017 <comment><USER2> In general I would suggest not putting too much emphasis on these sorts of lists, especially once you're an experienced programmer. Yes, over time new technologies become more useful, but there's a whole bunch of core skills that will last you far longer than web-framework of the week:

1\. General problem solving skills. A lead developer needs a whole bunch of skills that aren't listed anywhere on that list.

2\. More slowly changing technologies, and underlying principles. E.g. Python and Java will be around for a long time. RDBMS have been around for even longer, and will continue to be around.

3\. Ability to learn new technologies quickly.

And if you do it right you can get job that claims to require certain technologies even if you don't have know them.

Longer version: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/07/16/which-programming- sk...](https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/07/16/which-programming-skills-are- in-demand/)

<comment><USER3> While I agree with you, just look at jobs ads. They match the list a lot more than your description of a problem solver.

<comment><USER2> They do, yes, but that's what companies _think_ they want; it's not what they actually need. And if you present yourself the right way you can get past that and get hired anyway.

(Blog post I linked to talks about that in more detail, and I talk a bit more marketing vs. skills here: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/01/19/specialist-vs- genera...](https://codewithoutrules.com/2017/01/19/specialist-vs- generalist/.))

<comment><USER4> But how do you screen for these things without tipping off to candidates that that is what you are looking for? As soon as you explicitly mention a set of requirements, you will have candidates looking to game interview processes built around those requirements.

<comment><USER2> If I'm trying to hire people, why wouldn't I want to "tip people off" to what I want? I'm supposed to lie and then trick people into telling me what they're really capable of? That seems ineffective.

Interviewing people about their experience is a traditional way to verify things. E.g. If I'm looking for someone who can solve hard problems I can ask for examples. If they're beginning programmer who just got handed tasks like "code this function"... they will have no good examples.

I can also explain a problem I'm working on and see how the candidate approaches it.

But writing job posting that _hides_ the fact I need someone who can solve hard problems seems silly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Really small sample size, with a lot of potential biases. I wouldn't base any decisions on this data.

<comment><USER6> True... but poor C anyways :(

<comment><USER7> Yeah. But most of the beast Python programmers at my work are guys that used C for decades, and have a strong grasp of classic programming and the full toolbelt of awk, sed, perl, bash etc.. I think the "danger" of these lists is they can convince newer devs that all they need is to learn a Python or JS framework to be a valuable contributor on a software team, viewing the world of C programming to be useless. Many of them will end up writing awful code without understanding why, lacking the larger context of the computing ecosystem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm supposed to respect and acknowledge future tech trends from someone that couldn't be bothered to have a mobile friendly site in the year 2017?

<comment><AUTHOR> For what it's worth, the site aside from the trends page is mobile friendly. The trends pages are something I thought would be cool to throw together with the data I have on the topic and admittedly haven't spent enough time trying to make sure it works everywhere.

edit: should be fixed now

<comment><USER9> On Firefox mobile it's not about getting everything to work, just basics because the page is quite useless on that browser.

<comment><USER10> Apparently,the experience is unusable or terrible in Safari for iOS and Chrome for Android also, but I too came here to complain about it being completely unusable on Firefox Mobile. Hello, fellow Firefox Mobile user!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some fluctuations I noticed when comparing the trends from last month and now:

\- Go took a dip in demand, down from the 6th most mentioned language in listings to 8th.

When looking at trends from all 2017 reports:

\- The top languages steadily in demand this year have been: Python, JavaScript, Java, Ruby, SQL, CSS, HTML, Go, C, and C++

\- The top four application frameworks have fairly steadily been: Rails, Spring, Flask, and Django

\- React is the top choice when it comes to UI libraries/frameworks. Angular doesn't seem to be gaining on it, and mentions of jQuery have been steadily declining.

\- The top three databases/stores have steadily been PostgreSQL, MySQL, and Redis

</comment><comment><USER11> Actually in terms of finding if job site is useful for me that listing is nice. Quick scroll and I see there are no technologies that I use. No .NET, C#, Entity framework.

<comment><USER12> No SQL Server, or any of the Azure PaaS - service busses, event hubs, stream analytics, Data Lake, etc.

Fairly standard/boring "we're making a monolithic app in a dynamic language" stuff.

<comment><USER13> A ton of it is security and Data Science related, if you actually look at the jobs. That's one of the reasons python is so popular, it's pretty dominate in those circles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The UI was unusable from Chrome on iPhone

<comment><USER15> Same thing on Android. Menu items laid over each other, a page's worth of gap between each item, missing graphics (I think)...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm surprised to see no mention of SQL Server as a required skill. Surely, there must be at least one job posting that requires knowledge of some sort of an MS/.net stack?

<comment><USER17> It looks like it's a survey of startup-type organisations listed on that particular site. All across the globe there are plenty of SQL Server and .NET- related roles, but many are corporate jobs and not posted to the same places.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm surprised hadoop is at the top for distributed processing. I don't imagine many businesses really actually want hadoop. Anybody here using it as part of their stack and can justify its use?

<comment><USER19> _I don 't imagine many businesses really actually want hadoop._

I imagine quite a few do. They may not be using the map/reduce API (although there are almost certainly use cases where that makes sense too), but HDFS and Yarn are pretty ubiquitous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Problem is recruiter's and co are the ones always coming up with such nonsensical lists. As a lot of commenters have mentioned, these lists are meaningless to a seasoned programmers who can adapt with changing time and tech.

</comment><comment><USER21> One of the things I find missing from this list of soft skills. These lists are all concentrated in the technical skills, but the professional value gets realized through the soft skills.

<comment><USER22> But few people ask for soft skills, and no one tests for them beyond noting it if you do something wrong.

"Must be an excellent communicator" \- unless they notice you have a hard time talking to them in the interviewer they don't check for it. They don't ask you to write an email for something, or create a presentation, or explain some difficult technical concept to a non-technical person, etc.

<comment><USER21> true... it is hard to test or measure soft skills, but the project result depends on them almost the same as technical skills.

Btw, those are communication skills. There are many others that are also important

<comment><USER22> Sure. They also are not tested for.

I'm not saying these things aren't important. Just that it's almost never included in a job description, and it's invariably eye-roll worthy the few times they are, because no one tests for them explicitly anyway.

"Time management skills", "Ability to prioritize effectively", "Able to handle stress in positive ways", "Able to self-task", etc; no one changes their interviews to actually test for these things. Well, except maybe for seeing how someone handles stress, but frankly, we've heard about companies who do that, purposely make the interview as stressful as possible just to see how someone handles it, and we hate the very idea of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Flask is above Django? Not in any of the job listings I have seen.

<comment><USER23> What's weird is that if you click on it, Django has more results than Flask.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I never heard about Koa framework, Packer provisioning system, Druid time series database, and yet these are listed as most popular.

</comment><comment><USER25> "Container orchestration":

1\. Kubernetes, me: uhm, ok

2\. Terraform, me: WTF

<comment><USER26> My coworker and I were just laughing about that. Not sure how much I can trust this.

Also HTML/CSS as languages? Erm, okay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I got started in software in the late 90s. At that time, there were immense philosophical differences between the communities that drove each programming language. Perl had a well known culture, which was utterly different than what the Python folks were doing. The people around Java were excited about the thought of building the ultimate enterprise language, and there was talk of some day automating UML schemas so that projects would only need architects, not actual coders -- an idea utterly foreign to the Python crowd. Ruby's culture was shaped by Matz, who said that programmers should experience joy while working. PHP rejected all the hype about Object Oriented Programming, instead, PHP was for people who wanted to write programs using a collection of functions, with an emphasis on quick and dirty projects -- and in an era when there were no package managers, PHP's "all in one" philosophy was a real blessing. A huge amount of code was included in the default install of PHP. And C programming was a different beast depending on whether you were focused on Unix machines, or Windows, or Macs.

The idea of Open Source was still in its early days, and only Perl had a great central library of code that was free for anyone to use.

And of all these languages, most were hot with a fanatic idealism about how Object Oriented Programming would solve the problems of the tech industry. Those languages that rejected Object Oriented Programming (Python and PHP, and also, to a lesser extent, Perl) were proud of their defiance, till the moment (a few years later) when they gave in and decided to become Object Oriented.

There has been a convergence of culture. Nowadays most programming languages have all of the same things:

1.) package managers to manage your dependencies

2.) frameworks with command line tools to automate setup and database migrations

3.) multi paradigm -- most languages now facilitate Object Oriented Programming, but also Logic programming and Functional programming and pattern matching, and other paradigms.

4.) open source libraries of code for everything, typically on Github

Nowadays I can go from writing in Python to writing in Javascript, and most of the stuff I expect is exactly the same in both languages. I can think these words about practically any language that I am asked to work with: "Oh, I have to write a module to send email to new users? Okay, let me look up the open source libraries that handle email. There are probably a dozen projects on Github"

There is much more of a mainstream to computer programming than their used to be. This "normalization" happened first with software for the Internet, though lately its even been spreading to hardware projects. A few languages (Clojure, Haskell) still have strong philosophical differences from the mainstream, but they offer the common basics, like any languages that nowadays wants to make a programmer feel productive.

So these lists of skills are less meaningful than they used to be. Once upon a time it would take months to give up one language and learn a new one, whereas nowadays the switch is easier, since so many assumptions that are true in one language remain true when you switch to a different language.

</comment><comment><USER28> The #2 Operating System is iOS, and no Objective-C or Swift in the language listing?

<comment><USER29> That makes sense. Most iOS and MacOS programming uses those languages, and most use of those languages is for iOS or MacOS programming. Thus, I'd generally only expect to see those languages listed for the small fraction of jobs where a company is using those languages for something other than iOS or MacOS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> wouldn't know how they get their data, since Mssql, Oracle are missing.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm honestly surprised to see so many rails jobs on there

<comment><USER32> Loads of people still building great sites and applications with Rails :)

It definitely still hits a nice sweet spot in terms of battery-included frameworks for rapid web application development.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Mobile is broke on this site

</comment><comment><USER34> koa is there but no Express. Thats strange</comment>


Show HN: PGet – Chunk downloader for python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/halilozercan/pget <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN, I have written this tool 2 years ago to speed up my downloads from Google Drive shared files. It has a basic functionality and it works but I'm willing to add different features like custom headers if people show interest.

Edit: a word

<comment><USER2> Yes, please keep up the good work!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> How does this compare to aria2? (in terms of downloading)

Also, what about resuming?</comment>


Ask HN: I've been offered 5% stake in a startup. What should I think about? - <AUTHOR>

Hi Everyone,
This community is great at giving advice on various topics. I felt I should post this to see if you can help me with my decision.
A couple of months ago, I was approached by a founder of a new startup to help build his company's online presence and build software to integrate with his partners. For this he offered me a 5% stake in his new company, an LLC, for 1000 hours of development time. As I get closer to making a decision, I would like know what I should be worried about in these kinds of deals? What questions should I be asking? Are there any legal ramifications I need to think about?
I don't have any experience with startups, besides what I read about on HN, so any questions, comments, recommendations are appreciated.
I won't be going into too much detail about what the company does, and I'm using a throw-away account to post this, but I will try to answer any questions you may have.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> \- Do you vest?

\- If you vest, what metrics determine if your vesting stops? Can they do it arbitrarily, etc

\- what if you finish your work in less than 1000 hours?

\- you should have some benefit if you finish the work and then continue with the company.

\- Does the 5% already have a value? In which case, if you get your stock up front you might have a tax implication.

\- whats your anti-dilution rights? You should have the opportunity to participate pro-rata in any dilutive event (eg. a fundraising)

\- the other founders should have a non-compete (so they cant sell the assets to a brand new company)

\- if vesting, they should vest immediately on any change of control

\- what if your responsibilities change so you are not doing development but some other work (biz dev, sales, etc.

\- i would do basic due diligence on founder and current investors. background checks, etc.

\- what does "5%" mean? Do they have an option pool set aside already? Can they issue arbitrarily more options?

If you have any questions on these I'll check back and answer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure I understand vesting in general, but I will do some research to have the questions you have here answered. Thanks!

<comment><USER2> Vesting means that you get your shares over time. there's several things that can be happening in your deal:

1) you get your shares right away but they are restricted until you put in your 1000 hrs (this might be best because it starts the long-term cap gains clock ticking)

2) you get your shares in 1000 hrs (i dont like this. what if he raises money at a 20mm valuation. you might have a serious tax implication). This is a form of vesting.

3) the 1000 hours happen and then you get your shares over time (vesting) after that

4) all of the above, but you get options instead of shares. Not sure if I like this either but depends.

But all the other things I mention (anti-dilution rights, non-competes, change of control, change of responsibilities, etc) are all very important. you can't do a deal without everything spelled out.

<comment><USER2> If the company raises money 900 work hours from now at $1 per share and they have 20 million shares then 1% of the company is worth $200,000 then. If he is granted the shares then he has to pay taxes on that (he can get away with a discount to that but he still has to pay taxes of some sort).

Right now the shares are probably worth zero. So if he's granted stock now there are no tax implications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> 1000 hours is half a year of work. Do you have an indication that this guy is not a bozo? Because I have one piece of evidence which strongly suggests bozo: he's trying to get a technical cofounder for 5%.

<comment><USER4> Of course, _in theory_ it's only 1000 hours, which is quite different from what a technical cofounder for a startup might have to put in before seeing any money[1]

Until 1000 hours have elapsed, there's more work to do and they're seeing signs of promise but still don't have the budget to pay you (or someone else). When your chances of seeing any return on the work you've already done depend on their startup being successful it's going to be _very_ tempting to do more unpaid work to try to make that measly 5% stake worth something.

If you were the first paid hire at a startup you'd probably also get a low single digit equity stake. And six months salary for six months work.

[1]The other way it's quite different from being a technical cofounder is that presumably you don't have any influence over any strategic decisions they make.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'll give you 6% for my "startup" for 950 hours of work.

Jokes aside, the MBA way of thinking is as follows: 1) What has he already provided for the other 95% (customers, revenue etc)? 2) What is the chance that this startup will be successful and yield a big enough return on your investment?

Here is the math:

Amount of cash the 5% will yield on exit needs to exceed the Salary for $1000 hours of work multiplied by (1/(probability of success).

If the two above make sense, then you need to consider the opportunity cost of spending the 1000 hours on his project over another one.

 Other way of looking at it: Do you really like working with the guy? Is he brilliant, a good team and your not sure where it will end up? If so, maybe it is worth negotiating either some up front cash or a bigger percentage if the math doesn't work and just go for it. Worst case scenario you loose some opportunity to work at another startup and you get some business experience and programming experience you wouldn't have otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER6> I always recommend getting some kind of hourly rate, as well as a percentage. That way if the stock ends up worthless, you still got paid something.

</comment><comment><USER7> He's offering you an opportunity to be his cofounder. Given the high-risk nature of the opportunity (no funding, no salary, no customers, etc.)

Does 5% feel right now? My gut says no. Ask for 30%?

(On the other hand, 5% + a salary for first engineer is pretty generous)

</comment><comment><USER8> I think it's strange that the percentage is tied to a set time period for your contribution. Who knows exactly how long it will take at this stage?

If I were you, the biggest question I would have would be posed in the mirror: do I believe in this company? 5% -- or better yet, 100% of nothing is......nothing.

<comment><AUTHOR> From what I have seen, it is a great team of people. And yes I do believe in what the company is trying to accomplish.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> 1000 hours sounds like a lot of hours for a contract to work with a startup. Does this mean that he's considering bringing you on as a cofounder, or would this be more of an advisory role?

Even if I plan to potentially come on full time and take a significant equity stake, I've learned (the hard) way to always charge for my work. Equity is essentially meaningless before a certain point in the startup's lifecycle. While this potentially allows you to get in early on in the startup, a number like 5% means that the guy doesn't really value the equity all that highly yet. Considering that a lot of founders don't give their first employee 5% (and that vests over 4 years), he either thinks that you are awesome, or doesn't really know what he's doing. I have seen new startups bring an advisor on at 5%, but that implied A LOT of work, vested over several years, and it always seemed like they were being too generous.

If the company is structured as an LLC, it probably isn't going to be a standard startup. If you want real investors, you have to form a C Corp (since there are too many restrictions on transfer of shares in an LLC).

In summary, I would take cash, and setup a contract for 100 hours at most. Feel free to take a significant hit on your normal consulting rate, but charge him something. Also structure the contract so that there are well-defined milestones, and you get compensated as you hit the milestones.

</comment><comment><USER10> BOE scenarios. For simplicity, I assume you earn $100/hour. So the deal offered is #100000 for 5% of the company. That suggests a $2,000,000 valuation of the venture at the present time. Is that reasonable? Would you invest $100000 of your own money in the venture? If you were to put your own money into the venture, what kind of return would you expect in a year? five years? ten years?

What is the vesting schedule? What is the actual cost to you of the stock, that is, what is the current value? What is the cash-out strategy? Are you OK with all your compensation being in stock for which there is no market? Has the company been funded? What about dilution of your share by future investors? What happens to you after the six months is up? Are you critical to the success of the venture? Who owns whatever intellectual property you generate in the course of your work with the venture? How do you participate in the upside if the company is a huge success? What happens it the venture fails? what if it just ends up as the living dead, surviving but not prospering?

</comment><comment><USER11> Is it possible the company may not have more than 6 months of runway? 1000 hours couldn't possibly be a well-scoped amount of work. You're not being given the security or compensation a full-time hire deserves OR the finite scope a contractor deserves. Even if you believe in the company and think the 5% is/will be worth something, consider what specifically you're being asked to do and be very clear with expectations. I'd also break up the agreement into smaller projects, with both cash and equity if you want equity, so that you have the opportunity to part ways on good terms instead of an all-or- nothing equity lump.

</comment><comment><USER12> Who are the other members in his organization? Is he the only founder? (Does he own the other 95%?) How much funding does it already have/does it need in the future? (Dilutive potential)

What are your alternatives? If you have a 250k salary job elsewhere and you have a family, the safety might be worth it. What are your circumstances? The value of a stake in a startup is highly context-sensitive.

jaltucher brought up some great questions you should answer first, so you should take a look at his questions first.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER13> Don't worry about the hours, it's the 5% you should be thinking about, specifically dilution. Watch the movie "The Social Network" and what (allegedly) happens to Eduardo. He had 30% and then ultimately had 0.03% ... unfortunately you have to watch the whole movie to see how that works.

Here's Fred Wilson: [http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/10/employee-equity- dilution.htm...](http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/10/employee-equity- dilution.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> Before you even consider the %, there is a much more important question:

Do you believe in the startup? And if you do, do you believe that there will be a market for the 5% stake you get.

A "no" to either question suggests that you should work for the money and not the equity.

Assuming the answer is "yes" to both, what are the terms under which you can unload that equity later on?

</comment><comment><USER15> I think you forgot the most important thing: How much this startup makes? Did it raise any money?

And since he is looking for free work, so the startup did raise no money and did make no money, too.

P.S. HN users, I have got a startup and I just need 500 hours of work for 20% stake.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is strictly business. I would get / create a full contract that immediately clarifies how and when you get your percentage. Also what type of stock is this? I second jaltucher's response.</comment>


Hashbang URIs Aren't as Bad as You Think - <AUTHOR> http://mtrpcic.net/2011/02/fragment-uris-theyre-not-as-bad-as-you-think-really/

<comment><USER2> > Now, take away the constant loading of the JavaScript and CSS, and you've > significantly decreased bandwidth and server load

On a related note, if this is a problem for you, now might be a good time to check your Expires headers. The 'some clients turn off caching' seems like a bit of a non sequitur too- some clients also have javascript disabled. Some clients are IE6. How many clients are like that in the wild? How many of /your/ users?

<comment><USER3> The caching justification felt very contrived to me. I'd guess that the percentage of users with broken cache handling is lower than the percentage of users with javascript disabled. I'd rather not guess, but the author didn't provide any actual evidence that this is a problem.

If your cache headers are set incorrectly, you should probably fix that instead of reworking your entire site.

<comment><USER4> It's true that the caching argument seemed contrived (and was, in a sense), so I've added an edit to it to take your comments, as well as others, into consideration, and to make them known to other readers. Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5>
      > If I have JavaScript enabled, and send my friend (who has
      > JavaScript disabled) a "Hashbang" URI, he won't load the
      > content!

      > You're right.  This is the primary drawback of an
      > approach like this, and you'll need to figure out if
      > that's acceptable for you.

Simple answer: "no". It's not acceptable for me in any way. Not as a user, who disables JS by default (for speed, security and annoyance avoidance), and not as a site own either.

So, these URLs are still as bad as I think.

Do you know the old joke about Java where people can't by hammers anymore, but need to buy a HammerFactory to produce hammers for them (and then HammerFactoryFactory etc.). Requesting a page that then requests the right content from the server just feels like an unnecessary Factory step.

<comment><USER4> That's why this approach isn't for everyone. To each his own. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that the approach is meant more for projects that can be thought of as "web applications", rather than websites; things that would require JavaScript to be enabled to even work.

Also, another way of thinking of it is to stop thinking of the browser as a browser. If you do the hashbang thing properly, you're now treating your browser as an API consumption service, and treating it as you would any other application. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but does have drawbacks.

<comment><USER6> The problem is that - as Gawker have shown - people start thinking that techniques that might be acceptable for web apps are acceptable for content sites.

They don't think this through as they don't use anything other than a modern web browser with javascript switched on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not a fan of the hash-bang URLs, but I think this article largely misses the objections I (and many others) have to them. Nothing that he said is unique to hash- _bang_ URLs; the same thing could be done with typical fragment identifiers, and indeed has been for ages. My objection to hash-bang urls _in particular_ has nothing to do with using fragments to dynamically load content, which I think is a great idea. If you write your code like the article suggests, you'd be fine by me: he's taking a page which can be accessed by a non-js enabled browser and using js to modify the links so they load content dynamically. I can still look at that page with, say, wget or lynx and nothing would break. The Gawker redesign—and the whole hashbang scheme—requires any agent that doesn't execute js to _mangle the URL_ in order to get at the static content. And that's the issue here— _forcing non- compliant agents to change_ in order to do what they've always done runs in the face of the Robustness Principle. Hash-bang URLs are an non-elegant solution to a minor problem; use normal fragment identifiers for your Ajax instead.

<comment><USER8> "And that's the issue here—forcing non-compliant agents to change in order to do what they've always done runs in the face of the Robustness Principle."

You nailed it. Hashbang URLs are not backwards compatible with the existing World Wide Web. And existing tools that use the Web today, cannot in their current state use these hashbang frameworked sites in the same way.

As another commenter noted, hashbangs silo a site within a non-standard requirement. That approach explains why posts such as these overlook or ignore fundamental behaviour of the Web and how it brings together fragments of distributed conversation.

Hashbang URLs break the World Wide Web stack at the HTTP and URL levels, and attempt to fix the damage at the behaviour level. The fix is inferior, and results in breakage of the World Wide Web model (like framesets).

It's a technical implementation of a walled-garden. Walled off from the exisiting World Wide Web.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Large/lots of javascript files can slow down the loading of the page, but that wasn't the real issue people were taking with JS-controlled sites (as I interpreted things).

The real delay cost was from the inevitable redirect to the root of the website. When you visit domain.com/user-name, a JS-controlled site will usually redirect you to domain.com#!/user-name, and then loading up the page. There is no avoiding this unless you want really ugly urls: domain.com/user- name#!/user-name...

So large JS files might increase the load speed slightly, but adding an entire redirect is the kicker.

Like most things, there's a time and a place. Using hashbang urls can increase response-time when navigating through a site and provide a really cool experience. On the other hand, it definitely doesn't work for all browsers and users.

<comment><USER10> Such a redirect isn't slow? It's near instant if done right. Here's twitter doing it: <http://twitter.com/bjorntipling>

It's absolutely super fast for me. How is that a 'kicker'?

Large JS files only need to be downloaded once and are cached.

There's no problem here.

<comment><USER9> > Such a redirect isn't slow? It's near instant if done right. Here's twitter > doing it: <http://twitter.com/bjorntipling>

On slower devices (such as mobile phones) redirecting can be more noticeable. You're right though, in general it's not really a problem, but might be more so than a larger-than-normal JS file.

> Large JS files only need to be downloaded once and are cached.

Yeah, I was trying to say that. Larger JS files aren't a problem at all; load them once and they're cached.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Shebang. It's called a shebang.

<comment><USER12> "a shebang (also called a hashbang)" -- <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shebang_%28Unix%29>

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hear hear.

I can think of many cases where ajax loaded content and the attendant hashbang URLs are far preferable, like with twitter's web interface or with gmail. It just makes sense for web applications to work differently than static content, and persistent display of information often beats out clean looking URIs.

Plus the whole anti-hashbang thing has a reactionary air to it.

<comment><USER14> "Web app" is a misnomer. If the content isn't browsable hypertext, it has abandoned the Web and stepped backwards into the ghetto of siloed client/server apps that were deservedly hated in the 90s. And the industry has yet to deliver a trustworthy js sandbox that can safely run any code it happens to find anywhere—the majority uses the defaults because they don't know how reckless those defaults are.

<comment><USER13> Thanks for this response, it's really thought provoking. I have a few questions:

'The ghetto of siloed client/server apps'? Would those be like ActiveX controls and Java applets? Isn't JavaScript fundamentally different?

Does the definition of 'browsable hypertext' preclude hypertext that's scripted to operate differently, e.g. 'ajax'? Are you not still 'browsing hypertext'?

The industry has yet to deliver a trustworthy js sandbox—should browsers not support JavaScript?

<comment><USER14> By siloed I was referring to all the VB-style apps that predated widespread use of the Web. You had to use a single mediocre client app because it was the only piece of code in existence that could support the proprietary protocol for the matching server. Lock-in was rampant and building a better client or repurposing the data in any way was almost impossible.

Now we have servers that may technically still be talking XML or JSON or something over HTTP, but it might as well be an opaque proprietary protocol, because there's only one piece of code in existence (the javascript embedded in some page) that knows how to send meaningful requests to the server or decode its responses. The protocol isn't even stable enough to reverse- engineer because the author can make arbitrary changes to it and migrate everyone to an updated version of their client code at any moment. I find this vastly inferior to query strings, multipart/form-data, and scrapable semantic HTML, which a growing number of web devs completely neglect (none of whom I'd ever hire).

> should browsers not support JavaScript?

They shouldn't run it by default without asking whether the user trusts the author. Privacy violations are rampant and even malicious scripts have become a recurring problem. I don't see why a sandbox that works shouldn't be possible, but it hasn't happened yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wonder if anyone has tried this: suppose that to make page transitions faster, you strip out everything from each page other than the data itself? The page should just contain the main content (which would have to be fetched via AJAX anyway), and JavaScript can fill in things like sidebars and navigation.

<comment><USER16> IIRC, Posterous does this as part of their caching strategy. Static content is HTTP cached and dynamic content is pulled in via AJAX on page load. The result is that the primary content is available fast and dynamic secondary information (such as view count, etc) pops in soon after.

<comment><USER6> Jolly good. A site that understands the concept of 'progressive enhancement'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A better approach in all ways is to use the HTML5 history API, a la GitHub.

<https://github.com/blog/760-the-tree-slider>

<comment><USER4> The article makes mention that the example doesn't use the HTML5 History API, and that the onus is on the developer to check for and use that as appropriate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I only wonder why websites who use it themselves, break other shebang urls when you post them - try sharing a twitter url on facebook (always have to strip the #!/ manually).

<comment><USER19> I'm an engineer at Facebook.

We started using Google's ajax crawling spec. Whenever we see:

      http://twitter.com/#!/ptarjan

we actually crawl

      http://twitter.com/?_escaped_fragment_=/ptarjan

Let me know if you notice any issues.

<comment><USER18> Oh, now it works and links fine! Tx for the update

//edit: btw, do you work with the new messages? I got an annoying bug there - as you type, often the cursor jumps to the end. annoying as hell when you edit sth in the middle of the sentence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Much of the speed increase (assuming fast and properly cached server) can come from the decreased need to repaint the entire DOM. For my site, this is a big deal.</comment>


Ask HN: How important is the absence of forced user account creation to growth? - <AUTHOR> It seems like several of the world's fastest-growing websites/apps grew so quickly because they a) offered value to users without b) forcing them to create accounts.
Here are four examples:
1) Google - Users can get search results and Google can monetize them, all without accounts.
2) Reddit - Much of reddit's value is giving users interesting information, and displaying a conversation around it. Accounts exist, but they're not necessary.
3) WhatsApp - Users technically have accounts, but they never have to sign up and create a username/password. The phone number is the auth.
4) Wikipedia - Search the world's largest encyclopedia. No accounts.
Do you believe these services would have taken over their respective markets if users were forced to create accounts? Any ideas for a resource you wish existed without the need for an account? <comment><USER2> In my early days of web app creation, I hated.. and in a way, I still HATE creating an account. I hate handing over my email address. My email is bombarded with .. I would love to call it spam. Hell, I remember spam. My Yahoo email was filled with it! But my Gmail? It's filled with "spam" that I signed up for! It's tech letters and newsletters and things on sale and so on and so forth.. useful? Sometimes. A lot? Nope.

I end up deleting at least 25% of my email without ever reading it. I find some email useful that I wanted or needed. And then the rest? Oh I'll get to it... someday? Maybe? I used to go on a few plane trips every year.. and during that time, sitting, waiting, layover flights, etc., I would go through my emails. I have managed to get through at least 500 pieces of email that way... but as quickly as I delete them, they just re-appear.

And as much as I would love to read everyone's enticing article.. I just don't have the time.

Anyways, I figured I'd create a web app without any sign and no personal information. Only requirement is a headline and a password so that you can return to it later on if you wish. And it is being used throughout the world. I don't collect IP addresses, no email addresses, I don't collect anything. No need.. I'm busy doing other stuff.

But I created to rebel against those websites that require email addresses and email you things you don't want. None of that here... at all. I have no interest in obtaining email addresses or emailing anyone. Just wanted to create a tool for myself where I didn't have to hand over my email address "to the unknown" and I'm happy to have shared it with the world.

Check it out: [https://mypost.io/](https://mypost.io/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the success of those companies is due in no small part to the fact that they don't force account creation for passive use. If wikipedia presented me with some bullshit intro to an article with a promise to be allowed to read the whole thing with an account I'd either go to the competition, or sign up with bogus account info, and then copy/share the article with whoever I can to save them the hassle of making an account.

</comment><comment><USER4> Imgur is another example that gives users a lot of content without a login. I've been turned off by Pinterest because when I hit it through a Google search, it wants me to login. Instant back button.

This is probably too generic a question. Depends on domain and competitors. If you could create a LinkedIn competitor that did not force you to create and account, I would use that. But if you can get that much content, it probably doesn't matter whether you force people to login or not.</comment>


Visualizing All Processes in a Datacenter - <AUTHOR> http://www.brendangregg.com/ColonyGraphs/cloud.html <comment><USER2> I feel like having cron, by default, lock out the next iteration of a program or at least some kind of spawn limit would be ideal.

I see this a LOT with wordpress & PHP "developers" deployed on shared hosting (where they often don't observe the runtime and such of these things). They end up having one script step over the next and the next and eventually combined they are generating so much load on the database or some other service that none of them ever finish. Fun fun...

I wonder if systemd timers can do that?

<comment><USER2> Seems like this is actually the default behaviour for a systemd timer, ha.

"Note that in case the unit to activate is already active at the time the timer elapses it is not restarted, but simply left running."

On the flip side I wonder if you can tell it to timeout and kill the service after a while, as I can equally see them getting stuck and never running again, a problem you don't have with the alternative method :-)

Ah, choices...

<comment><USER3> Right in the doc ([https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.uni...](https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.unit.html#)):

> JobTimeoutSec=, JobRunningTimeoutSec=, JobTimeoutAction=, > JobTimeoutRebootArgument=

> When a job for this unit is queued, a time-out JobTimeoutSec= may be > configured. Similarly, JobRunningTimeoutSec= starts counting when the queued > job is actually started. If either time limit is reached, the job will be > cancelled

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> From 2014</comment>


Verizon Wireless can do no wrong - <AUTHOR> http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnvey/6089802573/sizes/o/in/photostream/ I was trying to login to Verizon when I encountered this error message. Apparently the only reason Verizon's site can get backed up is because they "are experiencing very high traffic levels due to
unprecedented demand for [their] products and services." <comment><USER2> <we are experiencing high traffic due to high demand.. come and shop for more.</comment>


Ask HN: Has Anyone Tried Kava Extract? - <AUTHOR>

Hey all! Recently I was told that Kava extract can have a relaxing effect without diminishing cognitive abilities.  I have been doing some research but was curious if any of the HN members have tried it. <comment><USER3> Sure, email me and I'll send you some. It works and the FDA grants it Generally Recognized as Safe status. The effects don't last very long, maybe 2-3 hours. It is not physically addictive. You can buy it at Whole Foods but it is about 25% the cost online.

I also sell another substance, mitragyna speciosa, that may work for you depending on your situation. Email is in the profile. The other thing you could do is ask a mental health professional! Kava will relax you, but it's a bad idea to use it to treat an anxiety disorder.

<comment><AUTHOR> No need to send but the offer is much appreciated (they sell tea at the local health food store). How would you describe the effects? I have been looking for healthy relaxant to use while coding (and trying to avoid teas and coffee late night).

<comment><USER3> That's probably an appropriate use of kava. I wouldn't get kava tea in teabags, it probably isn't very strong. Look for instant drink mix, extract, or tincture.

Kava's effects are like a mild benzodiazepine. It's a relaxing, mild sedative. Erowid is the authoritative source for the effects of these kinds of things, though most of the people there are probably doing higher doses than you want to do while coding. <http://www.erowid.org/experiences/subs/exp_Kava.shtml>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's the only "intoxicant" I will use.

I import it from here <http://www.realkava.com/>

It's the good Sh __

And instead of filtering it.. I take a heaping tablespoon, mix it with some water and shot it.. then eat something immediately after as chaser to kill the taste.

If you do anymore shots other than one every 3 or so hours it will probably make your stomach sick - I had to figure that out the hard way.

Happy kava-ing!

<comment><USER4> I mean I buy it from there.. I said import .. I live in California and Hawaii "feels" like another country.. :)

I also got mixed up with the Kava extract I imported from China before - <USER2> was crap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Tried it while touring Fiji, sitting with the locals having a laugh.

Its really mild, no big effect, good for socializing...

</comment><comment><USER6> Ask HN: Has anyone tried {any of a wide variety of drugs}? I was told that {any of a wide variety of drugs} has the following effects... I am sick of people selling/advertising drugs on HN.

EDIT: Removed the "flagged" bit. Explicitly mentioning it here as an acknowledgement that it was a violation of the guidelines to mention flagging explicitly.

<comment><USER3> >If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did.

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

>But I am sick of people selling/advertising drugs on HN.

This comes up all of the time in these types of threads, which have been less common since that surge of legalize cannabis threads. Please move along, your complaints are uninteresting, counterproductive, and off-topic for this thread. The OP didn't ask if you think this is a good conversation topic for Hacker News.

The "not Hacker News" meme is the most uninteresting thing here and it ruins many otherwise good threads which is why it is discouraged in the guidelines. This story isn't even on the front page. All you needed to do was flag it and move along.

I am not going to argue with you because this argument has already been beat into the ground thoroughly in the cognitive enhancement threads. Suffice to say, the minority of people that agree with you consistently lose the argument. Discussion of drugs on Hacker News is not inherently off-topic. And yes, I sell legal drugs, just like the health food store the OP refers to. You probably sell software. We're allowed to sell things on Hacker News. If you have a business and you're a member of Hacker News in good standing, it is completely accepted to discuss or promote your business here, whether it is a software business or not.

<comment><USER6> "Please move along,your complaints are uninteresting and counterproductive."

says the drug seller.

"The OP didn't ask if you think this is a good conversation topic for Hacker News."

He doesn't need to. I don't care what either the OP or you think of selling/soliciting drugs on HN. I see it, I flag it.

" And yes, I sell legal drugs, just like the health food store the OP refers to. "

When the health food sells health food on HN (and any entity selling anything legal can post advertising posts on HN) and it is an accepted and encouraged practice, _then_ you have a point.

"We're allowed to sell things on Hacker News. If you have a business and you're a member of Hacker News, it is completely accepted to discuss or promote your business here, whether it is a software business or not."

By this logic, anyone with any kind of business could join HN and have a forum to sell his product, and still be within the spirit of HN.

I see it as abusing a trust when you sell drugs here. Let the moderators decide this one.

I don't enjoy "arguing" with you either. I saw someone selling drugs. I flagged it. The moderators will ignore the flag or confirm it. That's ok by me.

<comment><USER7> Do you have similar beliefs about caffeine and aspirin?

If someone with an interesting product (drugs, nuclear weapons) wants to join HN and spark conversation, that's OK by me.

<comment><USER6> "Do you have similar beliefs about caffeine and aspirin?"

Sure, I have a "belief" that people trying to sell aspirin or caffeine _on HN_ should be flagged.

"someone with an interesting product (drugs, nuclear weapons) wants to join HN and spark conversation, that's OK by me."

There are other places for buyers and sellers of dubious drugs and nuclear weapons to "spark conversations". The first is barely legal but slimy. The second is illegal and should be reported to the authorities.

fwiw this isn't the first time this guy has tried to sell dubious drugs on this forum.

see <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=71371>. (thankfully killed). Read the comments there.

By flagging this I am just requesting this be killed too. Of course it is the moderators privilege to let it live. Which is fine by me.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Startups highlight opportunities for government and startups to work together - <AUTHOR> http://entrepreneur.sfgov.org/opportunity/

<comment><USER2> This is how the valley was born, and how we'll keep innovation churning in America. Thanks for sharing!</comment>


Show HN: Cointrol – Bitcoin trading bot written in Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jkbrzt/cointrol

<comment><USER2> Looks Nice. Do you find yourself trading bitcoin often?

I am unfamiliar with the bitcoin bot atmosphere but I am guessing it isn't a stretch to assume that other bots exist, what made you decide to write your own?

<comment><AUTHOR> I built this bot during the winter of 2013/14\. Back then I remember being able to find open source bots only for cross-exchange arbitrage. What I needed was something simple and purely for speculation (plus for Bitstamp). Nowadays the bot scene might be very different, and also BTC price is much more stable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Any plans to implement other exchanges?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not at the moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How would you even begin to code such an ambitious undertaking? How do you start? Is there a library that does most of the work?

<comment><AUTHOR> Cointrol is built for Bitstamp exchange and leverages their REST API [1], so the blockchain-related heavy lifting is done on their end. Besides that, Cointrol relies on a bunch of frameworks (Tornado, Django, Django REST Framework) for DB persistence, HTTP, REST, WebSockets, and such.

[1] [https://www.bitstamp.net/api/](https://www.bitstamp.net/api/)</comment></comment>


Can Mark Zuckerberg Fix Facebook Before It Breaks Democracy? - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/17/can-mark-zuckerberg-fix-facebook-before-it-breaks-democracy <comment><USER2> "Online, people joked that the photos made him look like an extraterrestrial exploring the human race for the first time."

</comment><comment><USER3> Zuckerberg can't fix it because he doesn't realise the damage his creation is doing to the world.

</comment><comment><USER4> Can he? Does he even want to?</comment>


Show HN: Custom HN RSS Feeds - <AUTHOR>

So I'm building a new Hacker News iPad application and the biggest challenge, personally, was to get the number of comments, points, submission time etc., from the frontpage, latest submissions and highest rated pages. Unfortunately the BigRSS wasn't much help, nor were the numerous APIs - so I made my own version, albeit not RSS spec compliant. Any suggestions for a more compliant feed are welcome!
http://thequeue.org/api/frontpage.xml (updated every 4 minutes)
http://thequeue.org/api/new.xml (updated every 6 minutes)
http://thequeue.org/api/best.xml (updated every 10 minutes)
2 reasons for these odd update times: I do not want to stress ycombinator's servers. 2. dreamhost has odd CRON job times - basically nothing under a 4 minute interval is allowed.
One of the key advantage of those feeds is the ability to preview the submissions before reading them.
Feedback is always appreciated <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable links

Frontpage: <http://thequeue.org/api/frontpage.xml>

Latest Submissions: <http://thequeue.org/api/new.xml>

Best: <http://thequeue.org/api/best.xml></comment>


How to Disrupt the Daily Grind -- Lessons from Jim Carrey, Poets, Artists and Me - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-disrupt-the-daily-grind-slipstreaming-your-dream-be0fae6fc04d <comment><USER2> Taking life advice from Jim Carrey seems like a bad idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why?

Maybe you're thinking about one of the characters he plays?

He's the proverbial "round peg in a square hole". He's an intensely focused person who has taken many risks in his career. His success would be hard to re-create, which I why it's so interesting to learn what he thinks is relevant to success.

<comment><USER2> No. I'm thinking about how he was sued for giving his girlfriend an STD and then giving her the drugs she killed herself with.</comment></comment></comment>


Dear 500 Startups. We hacked passes for your passbooks last night. - <AUTHOR> https://joinfun.org/fivehundred

<comment><USER2> I find this page highly annoying.

To actually contribute to the discussion, possible reasons I find this page highly annoying:

1.) The cutesy startupish language.

2.) It doesn't actually say anything. Ok, you've got my attention. And you've wasted it, because you haven't told me _why_ you have my attention. Oh, wait, on a second read-through, I've spotted what you were trying to say.

Frankly, it seems like they're so caught up in design that they've forgotten to make their message clear. As Aesop said, "Beware, lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow."

<comment><USER3> Similar impression here. What's up with this trend of using 70px font for everything and shouting at the reader? Do designers nowadays have their monitors placed too far away?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Why the f*ck should you care?"

If you want to use the word fuck, use the word fuck. Don't take the cowardly angle of making me think the word while dancing around saying you never actually used it.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, the vulgarity seems off to me. I love a good curse word here and there, but you have use them wisely (or else you just sound like a jackass).

<comment><USER6> Considering they're targeting a guy with a proud rep of swearing like a sailor, I thought that part was quite well played.

<comment><USER5> I reiterate, the usage was off. I could give a fuck, honestly, about bad language. But when I cuss, it is for a fucking reason.

Get it? I didn't mask anything above with "*" . I fucking committed to it. Swear like you got a pair, or don't bother.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm trying hard to not be that snarky jackass guy, but if you truly "live and breathe design" why is your reasons list full of mystery meat navigation links?

</comment><comment><USER8> > "Why the f*ck should you care?"

As far as I can tell from that page, there is no reason I should care. Was that page meant to be informative in some way?

</comment><comment><USER9> When I pull up the pass in Safari, it says "unlimited beer, chocolate, and high"

Is that really how you want to promote your start up?

<comment><USER5> That is what the kiddies are into, I guess...

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> While I appreciate your novel approach, the phrase "hacked passes" is inapt for the substance here. "Hacked together" might do better. Otherwise, hats off for grabbing Dave's attention.

</comment><comment><USER11> Whoa they actually took the * out! HN they took your advice!

</comment><comment><USER12> Looks like a nice way to stand out. Good work guys.</comment>


Ask HN: How to estimate (best case) early user growth? - <AUTHOR>

How do you estimate/predict a new startup's growth? A lot of potential investors want to see numbers like this in a model - and establishing some 'upper bounds' on growth would be helpful for planning technology as well.
I would love to see approximate early growth numbers (first 1-2 years) for social web applications (ideally popular/successful ones, but anything would be helpful). My application is addressing a relatively new market with a large potential appeal (think Craigslist, Ebay, Google, Yelp, Youtube, etc. in their early days), but numbers in different spaces would be helpful as well.
If anyone would be willing to share some numbers for iPhone or Android Applications, I would be grateful as well.
Thanks for the help. <comment><USER2> Have you launched something yet? Paid service? Free? Freemium? Without launching and looking at real, initial numbers just assume you'll be like 99% of the startups out there and get none. That's what your potential jnvestors will do until they see some real numbers.

Seriously, get something real, prove you're on to something, and THEN talk numbers with investors. You've got a bigtime uphill battle without at least one solid proof point. Get that, and then hockeystick that sucker up!

<comment><AUTHOR> Completely free.

I agree with you - we won't be raising money till after we launch and (hopefully) gain some traction. But one of our founders is handling the business side of things and really wants to get at least some rough numbers now. Given his considerable business experience (and the lack of downside to letting him create his model), it sounds like a reasonable request. Rather than have him pull the numbers out of his head, I thought it would be better to do some research.

Don't worry, all our technical people (myself included) are completely focused on making the product as great as possible for launch! And, for what it's worth, we are following a very quick schedule - just two or three months of part time development before we launch and start iterating on user feedback.

<comment><USER3> Not having a model is better than using a model based on imaginary data, which is what you'll have until you launch your site. As other people here have pointed out, traffic for new sites is very bursty and depends in large part on who links to you when.

<comment><USER4> I call bullshit. The purpose of making a forecast is not to predict the future, it is to identify errors in the logic of your assumptions. The experienced business guy is simply putting together a model based on obviously fictional data to help understand the financial dynamics of the business - probably to see if there even IS a real business.

It's nice rhetoric to proclaim that since user adoption figures cannot be predicted with accuracy, they should not be predicted at all. Even without accurate forecasts, it is trivial to calculate the required breakeven users and examine scenarios where that breakeven is achieved in a short,medium, or long ramp period. Other valuable metrics are also more easily discerned from a model than by pure guess.

It sounds like me that that business guy is simply doing his job - and it sounds like he knows his job better than many readers here.

<comment><USER3> You don't need to badger your devs for anticipated traffic figures in order to calculate those kinds of scenarios. It's one thing to calculate various thresholds and set up hypotheses that you'll test later, once you've collected real data. It's another thing to make numbers up out of whole cloth so you can fool yourself into thinking you understand more than you do about your business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I agree with the general sentiment that traction beats a prediction, however, I think its valuable to understand the relationship between the key metrics before you start.

Thats not to say that your model will match reality, but its certainly valuable to understand the dynamics involved.

I'm working on a series of blog posts that develop a virtual world business model. However, the principles also translate to freemium & social business too.

I recently wrote a post (with google spreadsheet) illustrating how the addressable market size (network carrying capacity) effects the viral growth of your application.

The theory goes that as the network becomes saturated the viral invites, paid acquisition, etc starts to fall on players who have already evaluated your service. Over time the success of your marketing and viral actives decline.

Check out the post at: [http://dubitplatform.com/blog/2009/7/30/calculate-how- the-ad...](http://dubitplatform.com/blog/2009/7/30/calculate-how-the- addressable-market-size-affects-your-virtu.html)

The google spreadsheet linked in the post illustrates how I've set about modeling viral growth, paid acquisition, ARPU, churn, and so on.

The model applies to any viral application - but its worth noting that products relying on advertisements can expect a significantly lower ARPU, knocking into your paid user acquisition.

You may also find this post interesting: [http://dubitplatform.com/blog/2009/7/26/calculate-how- much-y...](http://dubitplatform.com/blog/2009/7/26/calculate-how-much-your- virtual-world-can-afford-to-spend-ac.html)

It goes through the relationship between ARPU, LTV, and how your viral coefficient effects how much you can afford to spend acquiring a new player.

I think paid acquisition is a under utilized strategy within social networks - Zynga aggressively bought FBK users.

Hope it helps!

</comment><comment><USER6> Whatever estimate you come up with, will be BS, and if investors know their way around, they'll know this. This is true not only for your user base, but your sales and revenue projections as well. Probably the most accurate number you can get are expenses, and even that won't be very good.

But all of the above doesn't mean you shouldn't do your homework. So you still have to do some research, learn how other startups grew, estimate your market and market penetration in time. What investors really care about is the reasoning behind estimating those numbers, rather than the numbers themselves.

Here's a good series of posts with useful tips for pitching a VC:

\- <http://bothsidesofthetable.com/pitching-a-vc/>

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER7> As lots of people already said, your user growth projection is probably not going to be very exact. ARPU can be pretty close. Expenses can be really close.

Depending on your product, you might be able to set up some initial targets and just run with those. I.e. if your marketing plan is to start at colleges (or one particular college that you have strong affiliation with), you can calculate a growth for that slice of your market. Since you are pretty set on creating a model, this will probably help you get closer. I.e. your user acquisition went from a geometric curve to more lumpy. Kinks in your curve are a good indication you gave it some thought. I.e. is there a point at time where you switch to a more aggressive growth by buying users?

If you have some goals in mind of when you want to hit profitability, you can backout a user growth rate. So you have ARPU and a pretty good idea of what your expenses will be, just divide expenses by ARPU and you have a user target. So if you then have a goal of hitting break even in 13 months, you know that you will need a x factor of geometric growth. You can make this more complicated by changing your ARPU (I don't know your business model but probably ARPU goes up as you hit critical mass?).

Again, probably still a BS hockey stick but hope this helps!

</comment><comment><USER8> x=S+e^(t*0.05)

where S = web sexiness factor

and t = time (weeks)

</comment><comment><USER9> It's quite impossible to predict those numbers, as it depends on so many other factors outside of "it's a social web application!".

For these kinds of things the only thing you can depend on before launch, for better or worse, is your own common sense.

In an industry that tries to be successful by providing value for free, all bets are off and the old rules don't apply anymore.

</comment><comment><USER10> What are your numbers so far?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are prelaunch, so no numbers yet. We are doing a small 'soft launch' in a few weeks (I'll mention it here when the time comes) - but the business guys could use a hand estimating 'best case' numbers (some potential partners, investors, etc. are interested).

Incidentally it would also help me figure out if my back-of-napkin load- testing numbers are in the right ballpark.

I know this is a bit premature for me, but the question piqued my curiosity and I couldn't find very much written about it (please feel free to correct me if my Google-fu is lacking).

<comment><USER11> OK, let's get some numbers out for a typical "not selling anything for money" startup:

\- First 1000 users means nothing whatsoever. \- 10,000 users means nothing. \- If 100,000 free users take 2 years, you should shut down. \- When you double every, say, 3,4 months above 10,000 users, you're doing great. \- Active users (used service in past month) are what matter, not signed-up users.

If it's a for-pay service, ignore above, then you can just calculate the $$</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: BYRD – Bring Your Restricted Documents - <AUTHOR> https://byrd.io <comment><USER2> It's not really clear what it is and what it does.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, I hid the language in the hamburger menu, trying to make the mobile experience less "wall of text". We should think of some ways to bring it out.</comment></comment>