A new boilerplate for MEAN (Mongo/Express/Angular/Node) based applications - <AUTHOR> http://mean.io MEAN is a boilerplate that provides a nice starting point for MongoDB, Node.js, Express, and AngularJS based applications. It is designed to give you quick and organized way to start developing of MEAN based web apps with useful modules like mongoose and passport pre-bundled and configured. We mainly try to take care of the connection points between existing popular frameworks and solve common integration problems. <comment><USER2> [http://mean.io/linnovate/mean/blob/master/package.json](http://mean.io/linnovate/mean/blob/master/package.json)

404 There isn't a GitHub Page here.

</comment><comment><USER2> Got the zip. Nice :) Thanks, am working on Node+Angular+Mongo+Express these days.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks needy. I'll try it up.

</comment><comment><USER4> Good luck. Nice to have all in one.</comment>


Hong Kong Solves Airport Problem - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/hong-kong-solves-airport-problem-2014-8 <comment><USER2> I'm envious, as a contrast, in southern California, we can't even manage to get LAX directly connected to the light rail system...</comment>


Babbage's Debugger - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jgc.org/2010/09/babbages-debugger.html

<comment><USER2> The article says: "Clearly, that's not quite the same thing as the way debuggers are used today, but for Babbage he needed to debug prior to making the machine. He was using a form of static analysis to ensure that a machine would work."

Looking at the way he used it, it seems more akin to verification than debugging to me. Still, extremely fascinating! I've always wondered what would have happened if I time traveled back and gave Babbage a copy of Turing's Entscheidung paper. Or if he (together with the ravishing Lady Lovelace) traveled first to the 1950s, to get the basics of computer architecture, and then arrived at today. Would they be able to grasp it?

I bet there are many steampunk novels on this very topic, any suggestions for what I should read?

<comment><USER3> Not quite what you're looking for, but <http://2dgoggles.com/> has a very witty but also very irregularly updated cartoonified steampunk Babbage/Lovelace story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's not a debugger, it's a high-level programming language.</comment>


A customer recounts Solar City/Tesla installation hell - <AUTHOR> https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10103428251702903&id=207923 <comment><USER2> Belongs on #InternetOfShit.

It shouldn't need an Internet connection. Adds a point of failure. It might have one, but it shouldn't _need_ it.

Tesla is sending some of their battery units to Puerto Rico. Will they work with the network down?

Tesla FAQ: _" Powerwall needs internet (wired Ethernet or your home Wi-Fi) or cellular service to communicate with the Tesla mobile app and receive software updates. A reliable connection is required to provide new product features over time. Powerwall can function if the connection is temporarily lost but should not be installed in a location without internet or cellular service."_

<comment><USER3> This is a bit unfair -- charging / discharging / safety on that scale in a home should be actively monitored and managed, otherwise you end up with real danger a few years down the road.

<comment><USER2> That's what local alarms are for. Green, yellow, and red lights, and a message display, both on the unit and remotable to the house, should be sufficient. If you want remote maintenance, you go to the unit and push the "remote maintenance" button, and _then_ it phones home, if it can. The service it connects to probably won't last as long as the device. "Cloud" services seem to have a life of about 5 years. Sometimes less.

<comment><USER4> > That's what local alarms are for.

Ideally, yes. In practice, people neglect them and then sue the company for $millions if something happens because "they clearly should have made alarms more prominent so I couldn't neglect them". Remote monitoring ensures there a) independent record of what was going on and b) ability to monitor the system and take proactive steps if something goes south.

That's not even getting into situations of how unreliable the users are in reporting both what they did (the dreaded "I didn't do anything and it doesn't work!") and what happens with the system (the dreaded "it doesn't work, fix it NOW!").

If you install a complex system on user's side which requires maintenance (and what system doesn't) you better have remote diagnostics or you'd be a very frequent guest there. I don't see a reason why Tesla things would be different.

<comment><USER5> In practice, we have lethal systems at home already: the electrical system and the hot water balloon.

They have been working fine for the last decades without an Internet connection. We do have accidents, but compare to the incredible deadly danger they pose, it's very low.

How ?

Well they have fail safes that disable the system when it enters a dangerous state.

You should not need an Internet connection for anything essential in your home. Certainly not for something that is marketed to take your "off the grid".

<comment><USER4> Well, the difference is boilers are old, and Powerwalls are new. People always discount risks from old things and emphasize risks from new things. Thus, the risk of being successfully ruinously sued for boiler manufacturer, if they follow accepted industry practices and something goes wrong, are known, priced in and probably not very high. The risks of the same for manufacturer of a system that has no precedent, no established industry practices and no experience of running it into home environment for decades is much higher. And if something goes wrong, the first question that will be asked would be: why didn't you create a monitoring system?

And, also, whoever made old systems has no option for remote internet monitoring. If they were designed today, the option would probably be added.

> You should not need an Internet connection for anything essential in your > home.

 _You_ don't need it. Tesla does. And you need Tesla if something goes wrong, thus by extension you need it too.

> Certainly not for something that is marketed to take your "off the grid".

You can really be "off the grid" if you can maintain this system for decades. Can you? How many of average citizens can? Given the newness of technology, you'd probably will go to Tesla for fixes within couple of years for this or that thing, and will repeat that several times over the next decade (if it keeps working). You can manage that loop without internet connection, but the fact is you and Tesla are working together for the life of the product, so why make it harder? You can design the system that works Sneakernet-style, but why?

<comment><USER5> > Well, the difference is boilers are old, and Powerwalls are new. People

The legal and perception issues are a good point. Annoying, but I get it.

> And you need Tesla if something goes wrong, thus by extension you need it > too.

No, what you mean is that they can get away with it, because among their customer base, more people don't care that people that do.

> And you need Tesla if something goes wrong, thus by extension you need it > too.

Trying to get "off the grid" rarely is extreme to the point that you cut yourself from civilization completely. It's ok to have external help from time to time. It's just that your daily operation should not depends on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My solar city installation of the solar panels was a breeze.

<comment><USER7> And nobody will report that because it is not "news". Therefore we will see a disproportionate amount of bad installation experiences reported. Actually, expect _all_ of the bad experiences to be recounted publicly, while the happy majority stays silent.

<comment><USER8> why do they have bad ones? they shouldn't. don't try to blame the media

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sounds like the issue is stemming from the PowerWall (Tesla) side of things more than the panel (SolarCity) side. Not surprising, since Tesla has been more product & marketing focused and likely has some growing pains for something as involved as a home installation.

It feels like this could still be in the window of two large-ish business units coming together and working out the kinks (~9 months post acquisition), so it will be interesting to see if more of these stories of clearly botched service emerge or if OP is just unlucky on timing.

</comment><comment><USER9> As a South African this just sounds like a standard process for doing anything at all in this country. Took me 8 months to get a fiber line and several strange holes in my wall.

</comment><comment><USER10> Lovely bit of fuckery. Customer support and ease of installation usually make or break products. That said, Tesla is probably experimenting several things by letting David be the Guinea pig.

</comment><comment><USER11> I have a feeling Elon will be reaching out to fix this customer's issue soon. Hopefully this can help them fix whatever issues they've been having.

<comment><USER12> Errr. Seems infinitely more their style so far to use whatever data the customer has given them to point out why it's entirely the customer's fault that something happened.

<comment><USER13> I have asked this question before on HN and did not receive an answer: Tesla's level of access and handling of customer data scares me. Are there any car manufacturers who respect their customer's privacy? Or does buying a car in 2017 mean I should expect my every move watched by the manufacturer and available to them to use as they please without my consent?

<comment><USER12> I believe, sadly, it's the latter.

They are also required by law (IIRC) to include more and more invasive black boxes in the cars anyway.

So i guess they figure they might as well use the data.

(I'm just waiting till my car says "Tired of stomping on the brake so much? Maybe you should stop commuting and try UberPool!")

<comment><USER13> I would be OK if the black box is just that: a black box. A data source that can only be accessed via physical connection does not concern me. But 24/7 data transmission to manufacturer's severs is way too 1984 for my taste.

<comment><USER14> I have mixed opinions about the "black boxes" in vehicles.

In theory, it sounds like a good idea but I learned recently that police can quite easily download the data from them (via the OBD port) and apparently it is common for them to do so when investigating accidents -- especially fatal ones. AIUI, they are not required to obtain a warrant in order to grab this data and that is my primary concern.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why I left Google to join Grab - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com/why-i-left-google-to-join-grab-86dfffc0be84 <comment><USER4> I think that Google has a very well thought long term strategy. The sole aim of Google is AI, strong AI. I would like to say like Terminator, Person of Interest or transhumanism, but each time I lose many karma points. One of their main scope was analyzing web pages. By "accident", this has created a lucrative business (search engine). Google's aim is to keep the money flowing to pay their AI research. For research, Google needs data. That is the aim of gmail or android. The main peril for Google may not be the lack of money, but politicians and reglementations. Google fear to be broken like Microsoft was broken in two because of their monopolistic behavior. Google spends a lot of money to avoid being a monopoly. I think they could make hangout or google+ far better, but this involves the risk of killing the concurrence and disrupting the market. The progress of AI are impressive: in 2016 AlphaGo has reached the level of the best player, at the end of 2017, with alphagozero they compute the time needed (in hours) by a computer to surpass millennia of human knowledge (centuries in chess). Now, computer games are giving handicap stones to world champions at a game that was thought too hard for computers (AI drosophilia).

I think Google's strategy is far deeper than short term profit.

<comment><USER5> The problem with your theory is there are a TON of evidence it is not in any way reality.

For example, if their primary motivations were Preventing Monopoly status, and feeding their AI Research they would be embracing open standards, Federation of services, and a whole host of other things they have rejected the last decade or so.

They would have never Killed Reader, they would have never taken Hangouts off XMPP, they would have never killed alot of their API's and services web sites were using, they would have never killed the Search Appliance... I could go on and on and one

Google does not have a Grand Master plan playing 5D chess to get to the Singularity.... They are just another Top Heavy Corporation focused on Quarterly earning statements and marred in Internal and External Politics.

<comment><USER4> A social network is better when almost everyone are on the same network like it was with facebook. Google avoids having a too good social network to avoid becoming dominant.

If Google provided a good stable API, people may never consider going to concurrence. By pissing off some users, Google stimulates competition and avoids becoming a "public service". I think this reasoning explains well Reader, XMPP, their dropped API and explains also why they do not embrace open standards.

I disagree with you on their focus on earnings, but I fully agree with "marred in internal and external politics".

<comment><USER6> I don't get your reasoning at all. You're saying that Google wants to feed its AI as much data as possible while at the same time not appearing too dominant.

Launching a bunch of terrible and failing copycat projects and closing down actually useful "niche" projects sure helps with not appearing too dominant, but it does nothing to help feed Google's AI.

It also does nothing to prevent Google's competitors from becoming dominant and getting locked out of important data sources like social interactions (Facebook) or product search (Amazon).

I agree with syshum. Supporting federated, open protocols would make much more sense. It would make Google appear benign while at the same time granting them access to a lot of data and help keep competitors at bay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Grab is very popular here in Vietnam but I'm not as enthusiastic about it as Steve is. First of all, taxi service here is great. Taxis are cheap and plentiful and ripoffs are actually quite rare if you use one of the well known companies. Grab is burning VC to undercut the taxi companies and doesn't really deserve a better rep than Uber in that respect.

Grab motorbike service is also very popular but in this case also displacing an existing local market of independent moto taxi drivers. I'm not sure how their prices for rides compare but I don't see any obvious improvement in the quality of life for drivers.

I'm also less excited by the prospect of food delivery replacing restaurants. Not only does it involve a ton of wasteful packaging, but almost all food suffers a lot in transport. There is no comparison, for example, between a pizza fresh out of the oven and one that's been in a steamy pizza box for 15 minutes.

<comment><USER8> put the oven in the car

<comment><USER9> Like zumepizza? Relevant panel discussion at last year's startup conference: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlW3wau3Lis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlW3wau3Lis)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The view from Shenzhen:

Naomi Wu / @RealSexyCyborg / 10 Dec 2017 / Naomi Wu Retweeted Seruko

 _If food delivery cost $0.40USD with no "tip" lots of Western countries might be at a similar place. Cheap migrant labor is the backbone of our e-commerce boom. The way they treat those boys is unforgivable._[1]

The gig economy - more cost-effective than slavery.

[1] [https://twitter.com/realsexycyborg?lang=en](https://twitter.com/realsexycyborg?lang=en)

<comment><USER11> Actual permalink to the tweet: [https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/940058014886780928](https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/940058014886780928)

The previous tweets in the thread seem more relevant here:

[https://twitter.com/BeijingPalmer/status/940010649010233344](https://twitter.com/BeijingPalmer/status/940010649010233344)

> I'm generally skeptical of anyone who makes a week-long trip to China and > comes back awed by 'how advanced they are in X.' In my experience Chinese > academics and firms lie their ass off to visitors.

[https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/940013406458757120](https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/940013406458757120)

> Unfortunately...yes. It's economics- photos of "foreigners looking impressed > at X" is pretty much a requirement for any sort of fund raising here. > Western counterparts have incentive to play along so they can say "the > Chinese are beating us at X" and get more funding back home.

<comment><USER12> Her profile pics are basically NSFW...

<comment><USER13> Which has no bearing on what she is saying at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Not sure I follow the logic.

"[Google] stuck in me-too mode and have been for years. They simply don't have innovation in their DNA any more. And it's because their eyes are fixed on their competitors, not their customers."

[...]

"I just witnessed history in the making. (...) I have not seen a land rush this massive since the early days of the Web, and it just might be even bigger.

So what is Grab? Well, the simple and unsatisfying answer is: They're the Uber of Southeast Asia."

<comment><USER15> They aren't really the Uber of Southeast Asia. They are more like "the potential Alipay/Wechat" of south east Asia.

And given those apps have managed to re-arrange e-comm, on demand, banking & payments industries over the course of a few years id say they are pretty innovative. Take a look at what Kudo (a grab acquisition) does for example.

Also agree with the comment below re countries with high un-employment. At least here in Indonesia on-demand services seem to have made a net positive impact on income levels for low income demographics. Hopefully when one emerges as the victor some regulations are put in place to make sure this remains the case.

<comment><USER15> Only on HN would you be confused whether the down-vote was for defending On- Demand services or talking about regulating them :P

<comment><USER16> Probably downvoted because your comment is irrelevant to the point you're criticizing.

"uber of southeast asia", "alipay of southeast asia", "wechat of southeast asia" all that doesn't matter in this context. They're all unoriginal. Parent was saying how OP is claiming to have left Google because they are unoriginal and frame themselves against competition. That's exactly what "X of Y" is. Doesn't matter what X, or Y is. That's what that expression is designed to do.

<comment><USER15> Ok, thats kind of fair.

I should have been more specific. What they are on track to becoming (the we- chat, alipay of SEA), requires a high level of innovation in itself.

As We-chats rise was very different to Alipay's - Grab & co's are to the chinese companies. Its most definitely not cookie-cutter territory.

<comment><USER17> Are Alipay or Wechat even that innovative? I mean, would they exist if Chinese companies were required to play fair with American competitors?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> :( I loved this authors previous blog posts but man this one has a lot of inaccuracies

\- People don't trust apps more than they do banks. Traditional bank accounts are expensive (for bank & users) and its this has been the primary limiter of financial inclusion. Mobile wallets reduce branch costs. Mobile wallets like Grab, where the "bank" has a few hundred thousand employee / customers and millions of potential users to sell to have a great head start.

\- People use grab-pay / go-pay instead of cash because you get a big discount on services when you do. They need to this, because cash-in to mobile wallets is such a pain. And no, they don't have much trust in apps. Subsidies can be reduced of course as they cement habit and provide more utility from the app (hence the rush for merchants & new use cases).

\- Credit card fraud doesn't stop people from applying for credit cards. Central bank regulations on ownership criteria do. As does financial prudence (& religious reasons here).

\- The NO TIPPING signs at Jakarta Airport are to let you know its a free service. Because tipping parking attendants is commonplace. Its not related to bribary.

\- "Thieves are everywhere". Not gonna comment on that one. But I will on the "the evil taxi drivers in cahoots with the police" one. If this was commonplace there would obviously not be much demand for the legions of taxi's that operated before online apps came around. Once, I was ripped off by a guy offering a hotel in a train station in Rome. It doesn't mean hotels in Rome are inherently untrustworthy.

The latter part of the article is pretty accurate - Grab & Gojek are have made huge improvements in employment and financial inclusion. They have opened up the door to insanely cool new services and Id struggle to think of tech companies who have made such a huge impact into daily life here (Including FB & the like). Its also extremely likely that one of them will become the Alipay/Wechat of SEA and re-arrange the banking & e-comm landscapes too over the next few years.

<comment><USER18> > \- "Thieves are everywhere". Not gonna comment on that one. But I will on > the "the evil taxi drivers in cahoots with the police" one. If this was > commonplace there would obviously not be much demand for the legions of > taxi's that operated before online apps came around.

Taking taxis in most of SEA (and China), at least as a white foreigner, is a gamble every time. In KL, it takes me about 3 times each time to get a taxi that doesn't try to charge me a fixed fare, which is usually about 3x the normal fare. On my last two visits to Shanghai, i had one ride each time where the driver was "asking" for extra money by yelling and in one case threatening physical violence. In Bangkok it much depends on the location. Worst case you'll have to ask about 5 parked taxis before one agrees to use the meter.

Before Grab/Uber, there were not many alternatives to taxis, but that does not mean that taxis were providing good service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Currently staying in indonesia for vacation, i can verify, a lot of green go- jek jackets, not so many grab ones.

Personally i use go-jek. Got an sms just like whatsapp, and i was setup. Grab wants me to create an account, meh, so i stopped there.

I like the live tracking, so i can see, where the driver is. Helped me a lot to get out and find the driver, as the navigation route is most likely wrong in all these small streets. Hard to give notes, they ignore them anyways.

The Go-Jek apps, for each purpose one, meh. The update mess on each day, whenever i get wifi, i hate it.

And i see signs everywhere: only drop-off, no go-jek, no grab, no uber. They are pretty vocal about it. So yeah, its a war.

Surely it breaks up local schemes of corruption. One can see it, when streets are closed down by types in army clothes, and a caravan of cars enter the streets, with dudes in open jeeps, moustache and laughing. There goes the money.

I do not know. There is a global economy and local businesses. I wish it was not a few companies driving the disrupting changes, that will destroy most likely local businesses, that have developed over decades. Sure, people use it and that is good. Good ideas replace ideas not so good anymore in these times.

Ah, i dont know. I want tools, that allow people to connect directly in an open market. Without a big company controlling the flow and taking a percentage here and there. But maybe thats the prize to pay for now. Everyone can take a camera now and do tv, its not monopolized anymore by a few.

End of rant. I wish that dude good luck. I also have left a well oiled machine to start something else. I do not share his excitement, though. The food delivery business will never be mine except for emergency. That beats crusty, non plastic wrapped 'fresh' together with a few friends. But thats just me. :)

<comment><USER20> From what I understand Go-Jek is kicking Grab's ass in Indonesia. Go-Jek is presently only in Indonesia, and Grab is probably larger in SEA as a whole , but nothing prevents GoJek from expanding to other countries, so yes major war going on. May the best company win!

I think Steve just wrote a great recruiting piece for Grab _and_ Gojek ;-). Both are incredible companies, so all for the good. $Diety knows we need some great companies outside SF.

Due Disclosure: (I have no real interest in the ride sharing space but) Some of my friends are driving the tech at GoJek, and they are incredibly sharp people, with great vision _and_ the tech chops to match. If Yegge wanted to be in a war with formidable opponents, he's got it in spades!

<comment><USER19> If you can tell your friends, that customers also like to be tracked/found, temporarily (if needed) Phoning is not really helpful, i dont understand them, they dont understand me. SMS the driver also does not work, as i usually do not buy SMS budget. And the notes are ignored by drivers! Maybe even a little doodle to show them how to drive best to the location on the last mile, could be useful. :)

<comment><USER21> Good point. I work on the Data Science team, but I will pass along your comment and suggestion to the relevant product team.

<comment><USER19> Do i see results of Data Science in the App? Never been on the driver side. Like, do you distribute drivers to busy places and things like that? Do you also block drivers in certain areas? What are driver's common problems? OOh, so many questions. Dont you want to write a blog post as well? :-)

<comment><USER21> Best bet to learn about our ML systems is at (and after) talks we do in Singapore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > "Today I just want to tell you about my new gig, because I think you're > going to be amazed. In fact I think I can safely predict that no matter who > you are, something in this post is going to amaze you."

I'm getting super excited!

... a little bit later...

> "So what is Grab? Well, the simple and unsatisfying answer is: They're the > Uber of Southeast Asia."

Lost me at this point!

</comment><comment><USER23> So much of this post reeks of venture-capital colonialism:

>"Aside from Singapore, the traffic infrastructure ranges from bad to terrible to near-nonexistent. (I mean, c'mon, Indonesia alone is 17,000 islands.) The credit-card industry is near-nonexistent."

>"And it is growing more rapidly in Southeast Asia, because — as any Asian person will happily tell you — they love their food more than you do."

>"I'm getting myself involved in a land war in Asia."

>"Asians use smartphones possibly more than anyone else in the world."

>"Not so in SEA. Everyone stares happily into their smart phones all the time."

It's not the 1300s anymore, many of us "Westerners" have spent time in South East Asia. And one of the great experiences there is going out to dine at night markets, hawker centers and food stalls. Getting food delivered ... not so interesting.

I get it that you came back from a company offsite and were eager to show management your enthusiasm but oh how cringeworthy this piece is.

Also talking crap about your previous employer as a means of getting publicity for your new one is incredibly tacky. More especially so considering you spent 13 years with them.

</comment><comment><USER24> The only way to stop labor practices that involve abusing workers, not paying a living wage or for healthcare, is to say (as a customer and voter) that you will not tolerate this type of business existing.

In other words, if company X can only deliver your low price pizza and Diet Coke via abuse of its workers, then that business should not exist. It's a hard leap to make for many people, but a necessary one.

<comment><USER25> The burden to track company behaviour shouldn't be on customers. The normal way to counter this is via unions.

<comment><USER26> It sounds like unions are the new Rust on Hacker News.

<comment><USER27> I've got many friends in unions (e.g. pipefitters/welders) and based on the stories they tell me, unions need a 21st century reboot. They need a simple platform to organize/communicate digitally. Do you know of anything that exists like that?

<comment><USER25> I feel there's a clear difference how people see unions in the US vs. in Europe. I don't have much insight in to the differences, but it would be nice to hear why that is so.

I'm a proponent of strong unions with generally binding collective agreements (= collective agreements defining legally binding minimum terms for the whole industry), but I suppose the model won't work everywhere for one reason or another.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Steve Yegge's writing, whether on technology or business (or both), is always delightful to read.

If he can start to write more now that he's no longer at Google, then I'm happy not just for him and his new job, but also for the rest of us, who can (hopefully) hear his voice much more often.

<comment><USER29> Delightful? More like excruciatingly long and boring.

<comment><USER12> The man needs an editor. Granted, he's enthusiastic and conversational, but he writes like a person who simply transcribed a long, spoken rant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> So he complained about Google just copying, and then boasts this new company is going to be "the Uber of South East Asia"? This is in all seriousness the 5th startup I've heard of that is doing this exact thing. And like everyone else here pointed out: the demand doesn't exist.

The only explanation is that if they really worked at Google for 13 years, they must have made so much money that they don't care about making good financial decisions anymore.

<comment><USER31> "The only explanation is that if they really worked at Google for 13 years"

Just FYI, he's a pretty famous blogger. He also accidentally posted a supposed-to-be-private rant about Google a few years ago, which became pretty famous too.

So yes, he really did work at Google for 13 years.

<comment><USER30> That wasn't intended to be a comment of doubt, it was a logical implication, if P then Q. So in that case, I double down on saying he must just have no financial sense to think this idea is going to compete with every other copy cat.

<comment><USER31> I understand. It read like a statement of doubt, and since you also referred to him as "they", it sounded like you didn't know of him. Just wanted to point out that he's a pretty well known blogger, and in my opinion one of the best software developer bloggers, I highly recommend looking at this past work.

Which is not saying I disagree with you about this particular case, it sounds a bit overblown to me too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I relied on Grab in MY and SG, both app and drivers were excellent, but if we needed a distilled example of how out of touch and tone-deaf tech can be then we need look no further than this article.

</comment><comment><USER33> >> This is not hyperbole. This morning I saw a spy photo of an Indonesian mafia-run operation: a big seedy-looking room full of guys with stacks of phones doing fake ride bookings.

WTF? Why would the mafia do fake ride bookings? Who is paying them? Sounds like a certain company is trying to pump up their numbers artificially.

The whole ride-sharing thing is a massive bubble and OP's blind enthusiasm only confirms this. When I went to Thailand, taxi was so cheap, I felt compelled to give the driver a 100% tip.

Halfway through, the article started to sound like satire. I was expecting to get to the end of the article and see "Just kidding! seriously people; stick to Google..."

<comment><USER34> Where in Thailand were you? In Phuket and Bangkok drivers frequently tried to scam me or negoiate very high fixed prices for rides. Grab was perfect for avoiding that. Even when I couldn't get a ride through Grab, it told me what this ride should cost. Basically a cheat code for haggling. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> It's a delightful read. I am no fan of Google but people do realize that once a company becomes big innovation has huge costs involved, more people means lesser room for growth and hence the politics, as well as some arrogance of being a large company.

That said I kind of disagree with this: _Restaurants and food trucks are both about to be obliterated by Peach and Uber Eats._

The biggest cost to a restaurant was their location and hence, the rents. Sure using food delivery apps helps them a lot. It also lowers the barrier of running a restaurant. So people might be all in for these apps. But that is one side of the equation.

The real question is - How is this a viable business for the food delivery apps? Is the market large enough to make real profits? As an example, most of the food delivery apps in India are not doing great:

[https://www.vccircle.com/swiggy-lost-rs-1-5-for-every- re-1-i...](https://www.vccircle.com/swiggy-lost-rs-1-5-for-every-re-1-it- earned-last-year-revenue-jumped-six-fold/)

Swiggy has been the "Uber" of food delivery apps here in India and they have revised their prices upwards quite frequently.

<comment><USER36> Right now, what we have are the first generation of delivery restaurants which is basically "restaurants, only it's delivery". We won't start seeing the real revolution until we start seeing formats built natively around the assumptions of delivery. The second generation of "delivery, only it happens to be restaurants" format is going to look radically different from what we have today.

For example, right now, restaurants are naturally incentivized to disperse around the city to take advantage of foot traffic. But this turns logistics into a N x M challenge which is expensive. Delivery restaurants are instead incentivized to cluster together because 1 x M logistics is so much more efficient.

Once they cluster, further efficiencies can be unlocked. For example, right now, if there are 10 Asian restaurants in a block, each of them offers steamed rice and each of them owns a rice cooker. If you exist in a cluster and all your orders come from delivery, it no longer makes sense for you to be a "jack of all trades" restaurant, you can just have one restaurant make the 3 - <USER2> types of rice required for all Asian cuisines and it gets added on as a side for your order. Similar with like, mashed potatoes for Western restaurants, just have one restaurant focus on making the best damn mashed potatoes possible with all sorts of customized mixins and all the other restaurants don't have to deal with mashed potatoes. Prior to delivery restaurants, a "rice and mashed potatoes restaurant" would be totally non-viable. But with the disaggregating effects of delivery, it's now a possibility.

Probably the closest analogy I can think of is the Singaporean Hawker centers. Each stall is only responsible for making 2 - 3 things and they make the best damn version of that thing possible. America, for whatever reason, has never managed to produce truly decent food courts so it's a totally different paradigm.

On top of that, clustered delivery allows for the sharing of a lot of common infrastructure (HVAC, refrigeration, suppliers, dishwashing services, cleaning services, etc.) in a way that makes the entire enterprise more plug and play. Think AWS instead of dedicated servers. Rather than each kitchen having to hire a cleaning crew or worrying about what happens if the walk in is on the fritz, dedicated teams who specialize in each respective task can deploy it as a service scalably across the entire set of restaurants. Instead of incurring $X00,000 in startup costs, you can instead just lease at $X,000 a month and scale up your spend as you scale up your revenue.

All of this requires delivery as a format to get over certain scale humps so that efficiencies can start to be unlocked. But once they do (as they're currently reaching in Asia), we're going to start seeing much more interesting, innovative business models that take delivery as a premise and innovate from there.

<comment><USER35> I completely agree on how it will lead to innovations on the restaurant side. Sharing infrastructure and bringing down costs.

The question really is on the app side - today they might be in making say $X from 3-4 places serving steamed rice. But tomorrow as you pointed out this might reduce down to $x/3 because all 3-4 can band together to pay for the same delivery. It will affect the food delivery app's bottom line.

So, the question remains is - how do food delivery apps deliver long term profits from this?

<comment><USER36> By turning from a service to a platform. Traditionally, companies that have a direct relationship with the customer are able to derive revenue by auctioning off that access to the highest bidder.

What we've seen across a range of creative industries is a transformation of incentives from those who are able to run the best business into those who are able to make the best product.

Take Youtube for example. Prior to Youtube, creatives had to figure out how to create compelling videos, where to market them to attract the most eyeballs and then how to monetize the ensuing attention. Those are three disparate skillsets that are rarely found in the same person.

Now with YouTube, while possessing the skills to market and monetize are beneficial, they're no longer essential. Instead, what you can do is purely focus on producing the best damn videos possible (where "best" is defined by whatever Youtube algorithm of the week is optimizing for) and Youtube will put your videos in front of the right eyeballs, grow your audience for you and monetize that audience (in exchange for taking a hefty cut and locking you into the platform).

We're seeing the same thing happen with Medium in blogging, AirBNB in accommodation, Facebook with news etc.

Right now, most restaurants fail, not because the food is bad, but because restauranteurs rarely make good businesspeople.

There's a compelling value add to chefs to offering them a platform where all they need to focus on is making the best possible dish for a given price point and customers naturally are delivered to them. At the same time, there's a compelling value to consumers where an app can look at my past purchase history, use machine learning, and add a free sample sized portion of a dish it think I will like to any delivery I order in order to expose me to new restaurants.

Any app that manages to insert itself into the middle of that transaction is going to redefine the food industry. That's why everyone is so hot for delivery right now. Even though the short term game has horrible unit economics, delivery is a natural choke point by which you can own the customer relationship.

In reality, in the US, this is really Yelp's game to lose. Yelp's stranglehold on reviews gives it a natural leverage point to pivot into this space. It's only Yelp's horrible executional ability that has opened up the space to so many well funded competitors.

<comment><USER37> _Any app that manages to insert itself into the middle of that transaction is going to redefine the food industry. That 's why everyone is so hot for delivery right now. Even though the short term game has horrible unit economics, delivery is a natural choke point by which you can own the customer relationship._

Which is precisely why no restaurant worth its salt limits itself to a single delivery app...Delivery is an add-on value for restaurants. People who assume it's just about the food fundamentally misunderstand why people go to restaurants in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is hilarious to me sitting here in Southeast Asia. I see Grab make a mess of their technology every single day. Grab drivers almost always have to call before they make their way over. Software they use to detect fraudulent accounts is laughable. Several people I know have gotten kicked off the app because they traveled for holiday and were forced to start a new account. Sure whatever. Then Grab turns around kicks them off the app for being "fraudulent".

</comment><comment><USER33> >> Grab is the biggest startup in the history of Southeast Asia. Grab is fighting the most important battle in the world today, on the biggest stage. I am typing this on a plane coming back from Jakarta, where I just witnessed history in the making.

Sounds like this is OP's first startup.

</comment><comment><USER39> "'s not uncommon for people in Southeast Asia to get jobs as drivers and make 3 to 5 times their previous income."

Not unlike how Uber drivers did.

At first.

</comment><comment><USER40> Did he try talking to Uber or Lyft? What he described is fairly similar to the other ride sharing companies' realities.

As for Didi vs Uber, I think there were some 'government' realities that made it a bit more skewed compared to the rest of the world, much like many other non-chinese companies in China.

<comment><USER41> No horse in the race, but in South-East Asia, Grab does seem to be kicking Uber's ass. In terms of visibility and mindshare. Mainly has to do with the amount of money Softbank and the various government-linked investment companies are pouring into it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> In the beginning of this piece I couldn't figure out who the author was referring to as Google "customers": Google users or advertisers? If users, this Google employee didn't know who the customer was!

Then when the author revealed the innovative business they were most excited about, it was pretty difficult to process. Really? This is the exciting innovation you want in life? Take out delivery?

Every day I have to remind myself everyone is different.

</comment><comment><USER43> So, working for an Uber clone that underpays its workers and exists to further enrich its billionaire shareholders is the most exciting thing this guy could find to do with his life? After already making millions off of his past career?

This is why people hate tech workers.

<comment><USER44> I'm sure you must be speaking from a country where everyone is employed. The ground reality is how businesses like these create tons of indirect employment feeding their hunger. This is often overseen as we can't imagine in someone else's shoes.

<comment><USER45> I actually think getting a job delivering food can be a local maxima - <USER3> make a few extra bucks, but it ties up all your time and leaves you less open to opportunities and training.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> He mentions that Uber is losing so much money. But how much money is Grab losing? He says drivers make 3 to 5 times their prior wages. How can grab afford to pay that?

<comment><USER47> I was just talking to my UBer driver in Manila. He made $550 per month working as a registered nurse in one of the largest hospitals here. Driving for Uber he makes $1700 to $2100 per month. I'm assuming Grab pays similarly.

I don't think he's really done the math to figure out maintenance and fuel costs, but presumably he's coming out ahead in any case. This is a major issue in developing countries where institutional wage increases have not kept pace with the "gig" economy. So a skilled and educated professional can make 3x to 5x the local wage by working as a virtual assistant or an Uber Driver.

This pulls educated professionals out of the labor pool for things like medical and drags down the quality of care. Medical facilities in the Philippines can be really nice, but many doctors and nurses are recent grads and quite frankly completely clueless about anything but the most basic issues.

<comment><USER48> What I am afraid of is that these people payments are being subsidised by VC money, when that money runs out and they have to compete truly based on market self-regulated prices I fear the workers will be getting paid less and less to make up for the costs, it's good for a while but people are becoming dependent on something that is still very unstable.

<comment><USER49> Strictly speaking though, the rides aren't what is being subsidised by VC money, that is, the company aren't losing more money with each additional booking. The rates are pretty competitive with existing taxi business, and their entrance to a market hasn't exactly brought down ride prices.

I think most of the VC money are used on the "war" to gain dominance. Tech, marketing, lobbying, and such.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I felt like his rant was all over the place this time. I would like to understand his definition of innovation and by that definition, who is innovating and who is not innovating. Google+ example is an ancient one, and the current Google is very different from that. Does he have a problem with Sundar's vision of making Google into a machine learning first company? Does he see the distinction of Alphabet and Google, and the notion of separating the big ideas into Google X? Does he think innovation is easy without failing 100 times?

<comment><USER26> It often is. we should just ignore it but given that it's Steve Yegge that's not gonna happen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Innovation these days happens around the edges, not necessarily in big step- function creation of new product categories. We remember those, they suck up all the oxygen and inspire a year of me-too funding of fast followers. You hardly notice it the daily innovcation, when it's happening in small steps. Just look at photo/image search, or improvements in low light photography or portraits, in translation, or voice.

I think Yegge suffers from the same affliction that actually afflicts Google: a reward structure for new launches, not for perfecting what already exists. Google's problem is often not innovating, it's trying to hard to do something innovative, rather than the boring stuff that actually matters to a lot of customers. I think Google Photos is a perfect example of innovation focused on solving the boring stuff. You can say it's an iPhoto clone, but photo storage and backup is a commodity, it's organization and maintenance that's the real consumer pain in that regard.

And as many noted, the irony of the complaint about copying competitors and lack of innovation, and then a feverish, almost religious pitch for yet another O2O gig-economy clone, like the numerous that already exist in China.

</comment><comment><USER52> Steve makes a good point that the largest technology companies have stopped (boldly) innovating. Obviously, all the engineers at the companies still go to work and write code. But with 10x the resources they seem to be outputting 1/10th the innovation.

What are the bold innovations to come out of Facebook, Google, Microsoft over the past decade or so that haven't been acquisitions? With Facebook, you have a bunch of work on better targeting ads. Oculus and Instagram are both acquisitions.

Amazon is the exception. With Amazon, you have AWS, Alexa, Fresh/Prime Now, while also breaking into new geographies and verticals etc.

</comment><comment><USER53> I actually, because of the app I was reading this on, failed to realize this was a Yegge post until the end. No wonder it was such a good read.

Welcome back to the real world, man, hoping we see more blogs from you in the future!

<comment><USER54> My first thought upon reading the title was "who cares why somebody left Google, unless it's somebody like Steve Yegge."

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Would like to see the gig economy move off of human labor. Do any of these companies like Grab or Go-Jek have much of an autonomy story or any real competitive differentiators?

If not, this whole space is otherwise a race to the bottom and a question of who can raise the most money. The fact that money from Softbank and Alphabet is allocated to competitors illustrates that it is very unclear how these companies differ from one another.

</comment><comment><USER56> [https://youtu.be/eaCHH5D74Fs?t=21](https://youtu.be/eaCHH5D74Fs?t=21)

Steve, I can't think of a better way to satirize the gestalt at Google. Genius! Or maybe sandwich genius, where crowds can critique whether cheese goes over or under the meat.

</comment><comment><USER57> Google landed their ivestment in Go-Jek, and Go-Jek is Google Cloud heavy user. And this guy made a blogpost why he jump to Grab after Google while mentioned Grab is AWS heavy user.

Purely advertorial for me :)

</comment><comment><USER58> Man, I have missed Steve Yegge's posts and style so much. Can't believe that it's been 13 years that he's been locked up in Google.

I always kinda assumed that Google were paying him to write his essays for internal consumption only — not just making him stop blogging completely. Hopefully this means that we'll be hearing more from him in the future.

I'm still thankful for him getting me (and thousands of others) pumped up for the Common Lisp renascence of the mid-2000s, and I keep on hoping the world will cotton to its advantages (or — even better — develop something better yet). No dice so far, though.

</comment><comment><USER26> Ah the innocence of youth...

Or in this case, someone's first startup job.

</comment><comment><USER59> Not related to the story but it's depressing that I can no longer follow Steve in my rss reader. Unless there is a non obvious way to get Medium posts in rss.

<comment><USER60> Your comment prompted me to look for it. Apparently you can by appending /feed/ before the author's name. so for steve, it would be [https://email@example.com/](https://firstname.lastname@example.com/)

Source: [https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/214874118-RSS- feed...](https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/214874118-RSS-feeds)

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> afaik, riders' time wasted on resto's queue are not paid

also, riders don't get compensation for parking fee

so most riders avoid crowded resto and [tall] buildings (have to park and take elevator -- more unpaid time)

also, money spent on internet and phone calls are not compensated so u get random whatsapp messages from grab/gojek riders ... and sometimes sms (still costs little money tho), but rarely a phone call

</comment><comment><USER62> Just wanted to point out how happy I am that Steve is blogging again. I've missed that a LOT. Welcome back!

</comment><comment><USER63> > When this idea inevitably takes off, people are going to be able to order > take-out from their neighbors, from anyone in the city who wants to cook > their family recipe. It will change cuisine forever.

I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. As if such things as hygiene regulations didn't exist and you can just open a restaurant by hanging a sign out and telling someone to deliver whatever you just produced in your kitchen.

Well, probably in some part of the world you can. In some part of the world people die of food poisoning all the time, in other parts we learned the hard way that sometimes you need this thing which bothers startups to no end called regulation.

<comment><USER64> I made a similar argument to a friend while eating at a small street food vendor in Bangkok a couple of months ago. I was turned off by the flies and the fact I was a couple of feet from a dirty alley. My friend, who likely grew up eating in similar shops in Nigeria, pointed out I was looking at it from a very Western pov.

He argued that these kind of establishments were safe to eat at because their entire livelihood is dependent on their reputation among locals. Looking around at all the competition along the street we just walked down, it kind of made sense.

In my north american city if a shop fails inspection they are closed down for 48 hours, after which they can open back up and operate until next inspection. In Bangkok if a vendor makes some one sick the news spreads via word of mouth and their business is DONE.

I was able to enjoy an amazing meal after calming down.

<comment><USER65> Does the word-of-mouth reputation system still work if you're using a phone app to order food from someone who isn't necessarily local? Now, everyone's competing against everyone in a much larger geographical area. Sure, you can go by reviews, but now you've got a negative-comment war.

<comment><USER66> Reputation seemed to largely work for The Silk Road. I mean, there might have been isolated incidents, but I don't seem to recall a broad trend of people dying from buying bad drugs.

At the end of the day, I think it always remains the case that "killing your customers is bad for business".

<comment><USER54> Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #10: "A dead customer can't buy as much as a live one."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Wow, that's an impressive recruitment material (apart from being an interesting read, of course)! That works so much better than a bland "We're hiring" page, having the picture painted that way makes it much easier to imagine yourself taking a side in that "war". Is that a new trend?

Good luck to Steve!

</comment><comment><USER68> People leave companies because they get into problems within a company and do not get along, or are under paid, or otherwise their life is limited.

This guy's report is biased, he is simply apostate from Google.

</comment><comment><USER69> How depressing. Our living planet is collapsing at a dizzying and increasing pace, and not only do our 'best and brightest' (if that's what they are) work largely on trivia designed to accelerate the collapsing trend, they advertise their superficiality with this crude purported messianic zeal. Froth and bubble atop the dank turbid waters.

<comment> iso-8859-1 Which project should he work on instead?

<comment><USER70> Not everyone is in a position to make the world a better place through their work, but it would be nice if they didn't actively make it worse.

<comment><USER26> I would reframe that as "Not everyone is in a position to make the world a better place through their work, so it would be nice if didn't pretend they were"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Does Grab use REST or gRPC?

</comment><comment><USER66> Another note to all the people screaming "muh regulationz. What about t3h food poisioningz???"

Anybody... and I mean _anybody_ can already cook for other people in their own kitchen, and serve food to others with absolutely no special legal regulation whatsoever. It's called "invite a bunch of people over for dinner". Or "take a dish to the company pot-luck". Or "take a dish to game night at the local hackerspace". Etc.

This is nothing but an extension to what people can already do. And while accidents can always happen, the bottom line is that anybody tempted to take advantage of the

 _" When this idea inevitably takes off, people are going to be able to order take-out from their neighbors, from anyone in the city who wants to cook their family recipe. It will change cuisine forever."_

bit is almost certainly not interested in killing their customers.

<comment><USER17> I agree with you, mostly, but the profit motive does incentivize riskier behavior here.

Example: If I am having people over for dinner and accidentally leave out shellfish for too long, I can toss the expensive ingredient and just order pizza or anything else. If I depended on that shellfish to make a living, I would almost certainly risk using it.

<comment><USER66> Fair enough, but there's still a limit to how far you're going to push that line, no? Because a. deep down you're a human being and you don't really want to kill anybody and b. pragmatically you know if you get a reputation for killing customers (or making them sick) your customers will go elsewhere.

<comment><USER58> Well, Typhoid Mary was an actually woman who didn't care.

But yes, most of the time most people care enough.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best books on getting started with renewable energy and solar power? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I would start by learning the basics of electrical work via YouTube (books are available at home depot or lowes) and building electronics projects.

Assuming you are in the US, I would reference the National Electric Code (NEC). I think it's even available free online. This will go into detail about all the requirements for electrical systems to be safe and pass inspection.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you are looking for DIY, there are some pretty solid channels on YouTube. I looked a few years back and it was impressive what they were doing then.

If not DIY, could you be more specific with the topic you are interested in?</comment>


The good internet is history - <AUTHOR> https://theweek.com/articles/875251/good-internet-history <comment><USER2> I think this article would have been better if the author had taken the time to state their premises outright. Not every reader will understand or agree with the notion that these quasi-corporate blogs were a good thing. Also, I couldn't help but wonder whether this blog genre is not gone, but just being carried on by a different cohort than the author is lionizing.</comment>


Stop SOPA site template - <AUTHOR> http://www.zachstronaut.com/lab/text-shadow-box/stop-sopa.html

<comment><USER2> This is a really nice design but it's missing an important opportunity to convert what will initially be shock and irritation into sympathy and action.

When sites go dark, what remains will be the difference between the country getting behind the internet companies and hating them for causing disruption.

The blackout page needs to do three things:

1) making people understand the SOPA proponents made the site go dark (and not Reddit etc.)

2) make people understand just one thing about why SOPA is dangerous

3) make people take some form of action to help prevent SOPA (sign a petition etc.)

It's tough but it also has to do all of this in about 20s while people landing on it reel from the shock that Reddit / Twitter / Tumblr etc. have gone.

<comment><USER3> We tried to do that with <http://sopablackout.org>. Granted, this drop shadow implementation will get people's attention more, but we wanted to focus on allowing people to learn why the site is blocked.

<comment><USER4> I think this is the method I plan on using and offering to my customers. It will get the point across and still allow them to function.

<comment> micro-ram So I don't have to change the sites manually I check the date. Here is a snippet of php code to check the date and only include your .js on Jan 18, 2012:

<? if(date("Ymd")=="20120118") echo '<script type="text/javascript" src="hxxp//js.sopablackout.org/sopablackout.js"></script>'; ?>

Note: replace hxxp with http.

<comment><USER5> Needs timezone support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As user of NoScript [1] (and its Chromium sidekick, ScriptNo), I'm often let down by pages posted to hacker news that have poor or no graceful degradation [2], and that often makes me feel like writing a comment complaining about it (which I haven't, _won't_ , at least as long as I don't start offering quick fixes along with the complaint).

It's really refreshing to see a page of such a design complexity having given thought to scenarios where javascript might not be available. Kudos! (I actually have a hunch this default state was crafted with mobile browsers in mind — but it was nonetheless a thoughtful thing.)

[1] <http://noscript.net/>

[2] [http://www.rdrop.com/~half/Creations/Writings/Web.patterns/g...](http://www.rdrop.com/~half/Creations/Writings/Web.patterns/graceful.failure.html)

<comment><USER7> Why do you use noscript to block JS? I've never understood.

The inconvenience of dysfunctional sites surely outweighs the one in a million chance you will have your login to HackerNews stolen, or something else that's more of a nuisance than an actual danger.

<comment><USER6> I'm not a security guy. I don't know what reasons other people might have. I actually started it as an experiment, and grew fond of it for no specific laid-out reason.

Actually _seeing_ what trackers and other such spyware are embedded in most pages these days is interesting, but I could live without the granular control. I think what I'm most interested in is just really seeing how different pages will break (or degrade gracefully) confronted with the missing functionality of javascript.

If you haven't yet, I suggest you give these add-ons a ride for, say, a week, if anything for the sake of learning.

<comment><USER8> i think you may be better suited with an add-on like ghostery which specifically blocks tracking scripts, rather than cutting off javascript completely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's nifty, but difficult to use, to read the actual "meat" of the page. Perhaps the spotlight should be a bit larger?

And this is a total picked nit, but the kerning of SOP A is killing me. Wrap that P in a <span> and letter-spacing it, pleeeease.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's cool but I feel like the gymnastics takes away a bit from the message. I prefer something plain, simple and not entertaining. Give them the message and tell them to call their legislator. The point to me is that the site is down, not that the site is interesting.

</comment><comment><USER11> Slow and barely usable in stock Android Gingerbread and Honeycomb browsers, as well as Firefox mobile. Massive clipping errors in stock ICS browser render it unusable. Opera Mobile manages about the best, ignoring the lighting outright.

Hover effects really don't translate well to touchscreens.

<comment><USER12> It looks great on my iPhone

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Very clever, but that was horribly slow for me and as soon as I moved the mouse on the screen the spotlight moved so I was no longer able to read the text.

Let's just keep this simple, do away with the mousemove following spotlight altogether, if you want to make the page more interesting then embed a youtube video explaining the issue.

The text is kind of hard to read too. Personally I would just do a white background with dark text and possibly an amusing cartoon image or something to visually illustrate the concept of a blackout.

</comment><comment><USER14> Nicely done... I just updated my Drupal blackout module to use it.

<https://github.com/mcantelon/drupal-sopa-blackout>

</comment><comment><USER15> Neat effect, but please make the spotlight slightly bigger so I don't have to move my mouse around as I read the text.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think you should probably shy away from wording like 'vast majority of Americans' -- that might be consensus on the interwebs, but it's still a bit hyperbolic for something this serious.

Very nice bit of code, though; especially the thrown shadow :)

</comment><comment><USER17> FWIW, this page does not render at all on my Galaxy Nexus. Comes up as a black box in a grey box in the corner of the screen.

Does it look OK on other mobile browsers? Seems like mobile browser support would be important for this "template"?

</comment><comment><USER18> Wow, the effect is AMAZING, especially the dynamic shadow on "STOP SOPA". Nice work!

</comment><comment><USER19> Absolutely stunning effect - nicely done. Just a small report - using Chrome 16.0.912.75 on Windows 7, waving the mouse around absolutely kills my CPU - the browser process uses 75% of one core.

<comment><USER9> Seconded, running it in Chrome on my 2011 Macbook Air is laggy.

<comment><USER20> To dissent, Chrome 16.0.912.75 on my 2011 MBA is perfectly smooth, CPU under 30%.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> john-n Nice effect, may want to use your no-script version in IE, as it appears quite broken in IE 9.

</comment><comment><USER21> don't get me wrong. the idea is great, the effect is awesome.

but we have to reach as many people as possible. i think a plain site with the message would be more effective.

</comment><comment><USER22> Awesome work, this is amazing.

</comment><comment><USER23> Very genius work!</comment>


Washington pressures TSMC to make chips in US - <AUTHOR> https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/Exclusive-Washington-pressures-TSMC-to-make-chips-in-US <comment><USER3> I think there is a geopolitical reason why most TSMC's 300mm GIGAFAB's and advanced backend fab are located in Taiwan (1 fab in China). [https://www.tsmc.com/english/contact_us.htm#TSMC_fabs](https://www.tsmc.com/english/contact_us.htm#TSMC_fabs)

Concentrating geopolitical risk of TSMC operations makes Taiwan more important to the rest of the world. The US would naturally want to reduce this risk. In Taiwan-China conflict world chip production would take a huge hit or be in the danger of falling under Chinese rule.

If TSMC's leadership is patriotic, they should refuse this pressure as much as they can and ask more weapons for Taiwan instead.

<comment><USER4> > patriotic

Be careful for what you wish for. Taiwan's formal name is Republic of China, the older generations does not exactly share the younger generations wish of independence. In fact, they are often patriotic .. to China.

<comment><USER5> I think the last elections argue against that [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/11/world/asia/taiwan- electio...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/11/world/asia/taiwan-election- china.html)

<comment><USER6> I think you might need to interpret "China" in the grandparent to this post as literally the land and people, instead of the more common meaning of the current government.

Taiwan's official view, as I understand it, is that they are the rightful government of the land and those people, and that the people currently reigning are illegitimate.

<comment><USER7> Yes that's the "official" view but relatively few people actually believe that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What Washington should be doing is investing in creating a US-based top-notch semiconductor foundry business. And that's something that takes 20+ years.

<comment><USER9> Are Apple and Tesla building their own foundries or outsourcing?

<comment><USER10> Apple's A chips were, once upon a time, manufactured by Samsung in Austin, Texas until 14nm in 2015. Tim Apple switched to TSMC in Taiwan shortly after defending Apple's outsourcing practices in a rare national TV appearance, boldly claiming that "the engines of iPads and iPhones are made in US."

Tesla's chips are made in Samsung's Austin, Texas plant.

<comment><USER11> Well, there's the American fab we've been looking for! Samsung isn't too far behind TSMC, is it? Even if the Austin plant were a generation or two behind their Korean plants, it shouldn't be too difficult to bring it up to date -- especially if the investment will be rewarded by lucrative defense contracts. Besides, Samsung already builds a lot of military-grade stuff for the Korean government, so it's not like they lack the experience.

This sounds much easier than telling TSMC to build a whole new fab on American soil.

<comment><USER10> Well, the key thing is to get everyone to use the US plant, but nobody wants to use potential competitor's foundry, who recently announced that they plan to spend $100+B to challenge other logic chip makers. A few minuscule defense contracts aren't probably worth what they have to invest in -- Samsung for instance has already spent $15B in their Austin plant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> DoD's having a crisis with its trusted Foundry Program [1][2].

Originally, IBM's East-Fishkill plant was the largest trusted-foundry of near latest generations (14nm, 22nm) but that was sold off to Global-Foundries, which then sold it off to ON Semiconductor. Now it needs someone to fab the latest generation with a full chain-of-trust.

[1] [https://semiengineering.com/a-crisis-in-dods-trusted- foundry...](https://semiengineering.com/a-crisis-in-dods-trusted-foundry- program/)

[2][https://www.dau.edu/cop/dmsms/DAU%20Sponsored%20Documents/Ou...](https://www.dau.edu/cop/dmsms/DAU%20Sponsored%20Documents/OutreachHandoutJanuary2016.pdf)

<comment><USER13> ON is at least a US owned company. Should make it easier to maintain the trusted foundry there, as they have several other sites which are accredited. According to their marketing material, they are licensing the GF/IBM 45nm/65nm nodes.

[https://www.onsemi.com/pub/Collateral/BRD8079-D.PDF](https://www.onsemi.com/pub/Collateral/BRD8079-D.PDF)

</comment></comment><comment> awinter-py security risks aside, andy grove of intel publicly regretted offshoring semiconductor manufacturing because of his suspicions about generational shifts in innovation and expertise

I've tried to read econ papers on colocation of innovation and manufacturing -- they're mostly long-winded and unconvincing but the concept is compelling

<comment><USER14> intel is one of the few companies with leading-edge fabs in the US.

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

<comment><USER15> Doesn't Samsung have some fabs in Texas?

<comment><USER16> Samsung does have a fab in Austin (maybe elsewhere), but it's mostly flash in the 50-180nm range, not a leading edge process AFAIK.

<comment><USER17> The Samsung LSI/flash lines in ATX are not a leading process node in terms of all foundries (i.e. TSMC), but last I heard they were pretty close to the bleeding edge of what Samsung is capable of in their Korean factories. The ATX lines were always intended to be exact copies of their Korean counterparts, but this may have deviated in recent years (I have been out of the loop for ~7 years now on their internals).

Some of the major reasons behind Samsung building that factory in Austin were to satisfy Apple and to also leverage the more "open" innovation attitudes of the average American worker.

<comment><USER10> According to Samsung's own account, their first fabrication plant in Austin, Texas opened in 1997, followed by major upgrades/expansion in 2007 and 2017.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Couldn't this have the opposite effect from what is intended? If all the US military TSMC chips come from a separate facility from those for Huawei, etc... then there's only one, big, target with minimal collateral damage.

<comment><USER19> No. If you're already at the point of China bombing fab plants in the US, you're at absolute war and many millions of people will die. The US would respond very badly, quite overly irrationally to an extreme to having its mainland bombed. Having those fabs in eg Taiwan and of mixed use (US & China both deriving supply from them) would be pointless under that conflict scenario anyway; all it would do is keep China from bombing them - maybe - <USER2> instead they'd seize them physically and shut off US supply while trying to keep their own supply going (the US can't stop China from taking Taiwan; if they move on Taiwan, they're getting anything left standing, including fabs). There's zero upside to keeping them mixed with US / Huawei if there's a conflict.

<comment><USER20> > the US can't stop China from taking Taiwan; if they move on Taiwan, they're > getting anything left standing, including fabs

I've seen this repeated in this thread, is there any evidence of this apart from conjecture?

<comment><USER19> Sure, I think it's quite technically obvious when you look at any aspect of the matter. Taiwan is five feet from mainland China and they have a massive military that is increasingly quite advanced technologically (clearly the overall #2 military in the world in both capability and technology at this point; Russia is superior to China in a few categories, but not overall; China is rapidly rising, Russia's military is rusting) and they have an increasingly potent navy. They can stand off US carriers effectively and are building multiple carriers of their own. They can rapidly, massively resupply locally, whereas the US would have the British Empire problem of trying to supply a conflict very far away (and facing non-stop Chinese harassment & losses in attempting to resupply into Asia). US bombing capability is far too limited in volume now versus a target as massive as modern China's manufacturing and military (we can't take it down effectively or fast enough; and we couldn't easily consistently penetrate their territory air defenses anyway; Russia would very happily feed them volumes of S missile systems, which would severely restrict US bombing efforts). US military resupply is wildly expensive, Chinese military resupply is not (specifically on such a local/regional basis). My god the resupply capabilities of a full war footing modern China in the local region - just get the fuck out of the way of that. Picture WW2 scale US manufacturing arms output capability and then double it.

What is the US going to do, lose a couple hundred thousand soldiers and a large number of naval ships trying to save Taiwan, which is an impossible task long-term. No chance the American public goes for that unless the mainland US is at risk or unless China makes the mistake of killing a large number of US soldiers in eg South Korea or Japan. Taiwan is an ally, it isn't necessary for US national well-being. If China gets Taiwan, and the US keeps its manufacturing-import relationship with China/Taiwan for its domestic economy benefit, the US public will have little appetite for an actual war with China. Where's the US public self-interest otherwise?

Do you kill everyone in China, alternatively (not plausible, as that's all out nuclear warfare between the two nations)? Because that's the only way to permanently stop them from taking Taiwan if they want it. They have an authoritarian system, truly epic scale manufacturing capabilities of all sorts, a rapidly advancing military, and 1.4 billion people to throw at problems (with only minimum regard for killing large numbers of them if it's regarded as absolutely necessary for national goals; China will tolerate losses far better than the US, authoritarian systems have demonstrated that repeatedly in the prior century).

<comment><USER21> This is more obvious scenario.

[https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/taiwan-can-win-a-war- wi...](https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/taiwan-can-win-a-war-with-china/)

Any invasion plans would require a ton of perpetration that would be seen months before.

The US Military is a logistic machine. No President would sit by and watch the preparations and do nothing. The death of a US carrier group in defense would ensure that the US would not backdown. Think of the US after Pearl Harbor. It would end with nukes and the US would "win" for some definition of the word win at that point. The Russians would op out hoping to come out the untouched as the US and a China destroy themselves. Because of this a well reasoned response risk wise would be for the US just to go nuclear day one and decapitate China before they saw it coming. That's far more likely.

<comment><USER22> MAD

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I thought the deal about the F35 and other fighter planes was that when the various countries bought this hardware they got to build a part of it. Really as a way to soften or justify the absurd cost of these things,

For example here in Denmark, the Danish company Terma which is specialised in radar technology produces a number of components for the F35:

[https://www.terma.com/media/444108/f-35_and_terma_171012_scr...](https://www.terma.com/media/444108/f-35_and_terma_171012_screen.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm curious about the politics here. I get making the chips in the US, but if security is the concern they should no be made by a company based in Taiwan regardless of where the fab is.

<comment><USER25> Why is Taiwan specifically a threat? They're a long-term ally and their voters recently gave a new mandate to anti-China leaders in an election. If the US is worried about threats from Chinese electronics companies like Huawei it doesn't make any sense to alienate Taiwan.

<comment><USER26> Taiwan isn't the threat. China annexing (or otherwise disrupting) Taiwan is.

<comment><USER27> At which point the US can nationalize the fab on US soil. That makes a compelling argument for forcing fab creation here.

<comment><USER28> Not if you're Taiwanese.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> It's not a bad idea. It would (presumably) insulate them against future border tariffs.

</comment><comment><USER30> Would the location of the factory really make much difference? If TSMC was to buckle under China pressure, it could probably find a way to interfere with or distribute secrets from the US military chips regardless of the physical location.

<comment><USER31> TSMC is "in China" it's just that ROC fabs are a few process nodes ahead of anything in the PRC.

Various US military and government orgs prefer to buy chips entirely sourced within the US, this isn't as much about pointing fingers at China, but it is presumably harder to suborn domestic workers than foreign workers.

Personally, my take on things is that the major world powers should use silicon entirely manufactured and assembled within their borders for critical and military/government hardware. It is too damn hard to verify chips after they are manufactured, because potential backdoors and vulnerabilities are too small to see these days. It is always an arms race between attackers and security, and whichever side is "winning" in a particular domain will shift back and forth, and the cost-effective tradeoffs will shift in position. Same thing happens in physical warfare over the course of history.

The argument that PRC "could probably find a way to interfere" is not germane, because perfect security was never on the table in the first place. We are just comparing different relative levels of security on a probabilistic basis comparing cost of attack and cost of defense.

<comment><USER32> Military prefers locally sources parts because if war breaks out you need absolute certainly you can get the critical parts you need to build whatever weapons you don't have. For short war this isn't a big deal because you are stuck with whatever you have one hand. For a longer war you need to buy more weapons - and that means you need a source you can buy them from. Friends and enemies change all the time, so the only way to be 100% sure is to produce your own parts in your country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> So, at first we encouraged military companies mergers to save our money (back from 1980s?) and left only with a few monopolies, then suddenly there is only one company that can make our military chips? What a surprise! And now we have to pay premium to have them made on our soil? Same situation with non-military monopolies and near-monopolies.

<comment><USER34> It was the 90s, and the only major defense contractor that had large fabs for digital chips was TI. The consolidation had little effect on where the chips are made.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Sounds like forced IP transfer to me.

</comment><comment><USER36> TSMC is beating Intel for making chips.

Still Intel is the last hope for US to secure IC manufacturing should a war, or a huge earthquake brought down Taiwan someday.

I suddenly think it's time to buy INTC stocks.

<comment><USER37> Texas Instruments, Micron, OnSemi, Amkor, Microchip...there's lots of options US based for ICs!

<comment><USER36> None of them are advanced these days comparing to TSMC, other than Intel.

<comment><USER38> Not even Intel.

<comment><USER36> That's true, Intel is the only one that is closest, though a little too far behind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Politics aside that is the huge problem of having a monopoly in that industry. I really hope we will have more contract chip manufacturers at some point in the future.

</comment><comment><USER40> From a purely economic viewpoint, fabs these days have such high levels of automation that locating them in Asia doesn't carry the cost benefits it used to

</comment><comment><USER41> I fail to see how this removes chinese interference purely by moving manufacturing to US

</comment><comment><USER42> TSMC already makes chips in the US through Wafertech in Washington (state)

<comment><USER43> From the article:

> _The U.S. accounts for 60% of TSMC 's sales, but the company operates only > its subsidiary WaferTech there, producing chips for mature technologies._

In this case[1], "mature technologies" appears to mean downto 160nm tech node...essentially irrelevant with respect to FPGAs.

[1] [https://www.wafertech.com/en/foundry/technology.html](https://www.wafertech.com/en/foundry/technology.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Good

</comment><comment> lota-putty How is it different from colonialism?

Leeching in the name of democracy?

There are several democracies between Taiwan & USA.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm wondering which foreign company would trust today's president.

The current president receives worse approval ratings than Poetin or Xi ( was a Washington company based petition in Europe, Asia,...)

Which is a very hard achievement to reach.</comment>


Your Last Straw: Reusable Drinking Straw - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/140119717/your-last-straw-reusable-drinking-straw-project <comment><USER2> How will I carry it? Pockets won't work -- between my wallet, knife, phone, and keys, I already have enough things in my pockets. Lint doesn't sound too appetizing either.

If you're really concerned about straws ending up in the ocean, just don't use a straw.

<comment><USER3> "Just don't use a straw".

Agree. Also you won't be able to take this on an airplane in carry on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are quite a few of these already on the market - not sure why it needs kickstarted. <http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/kitchen/e59c/?srp=1> or [http://www.amazon.com/Endurance-Stainless-Steel-Drink- Staws/...](http://www.amazon.com/Endurance-Stainless-Steel-Drink- Staws/dp/B000AUIN18) for starters.

Personally, I'd lean for the titanium one. I've got one of the titanium sporks, and it's _totally_ flavorless, which makes it quite a bit better for, e.g., stirring lighter teas. Stainless steel has a bit of a flavor that comes through with anything light.

<comment><USER5> This was my first reaction too. What I'd like is research into the application of these straws? Do most of them stay in first-world countries? Or are these in wide use in third world countries where I'd expect the most need for these straws? Anyone has more info on this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How many traditional straws do I need to use (and then just throw away, not recycle) before the ecological benefits of a steel straw kick in?

<comment><USER7> Depends on the source of the straws (maybe the material can be sourced from leftovers from some other production) and if you plan to let your grandchild inherit it.

</comment></comment><comment> Tim-Boss Cleaning and the stiffness/inflexibility of the whole thing are going to take some getting used to! Not entirely convinced these will be taking off in a massive way any time soon...

<comment><USER8> Maybe they could have the last few inches made of a rubberized/plastic material which would slide over a lip (to ensure a seal for suction). This tip would allow flexibility and would also avoid painful accidental biting on metal.

<comment><USER9> Biting could be one of it least problems. Consider a scenario of a kid using this in a car going over a speedbump.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My biggest fear with any of these hard straws is people chipping their incisors.

These questions need to be answered:

[ _]How does this stainless-steel straw impact the environment compared to a 3-5 year supply of single use straws(on average per user)

[_]How is this any better than the other hard straws available?

[*]Why is stainless-steel the best material?

</comment><comment><USER11> Here is another one: [http://dx.com/multifunction-stainless-steel-straw-spoon- pudd...](http://dx.com/multifunction-stainless-steel-straw-spoon-puddler- silver-113471)

</comment><comment><USER12> I have to think silicone straws would be much better for this. Theya are flexible so you can stick them in your pocket or wallet, and they feel similar to plastic straws.

</comment><comment><USER13> I already have a reusable drinking straw made of metal (<http://goo.gl/hkcmp>); how is this one different?

</comment><comment><USER14> Why do people use a straw? I never use one.</comment>


How Big Is The NYC Tech Sector? - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2013/10/how-big-is-the-nyc-tech-sector.html

<comment><USER2> One thing that makes counting tough is that in NYC there isn't a hard divide between tech and non-tech, and many firms support niche verticals. Rather than general purpose Big Data companies, we have Big Data for Media, or Big Data for Finance.

The industries supported also wind up looking very technical. Is an exchange a place where stocks are traded, or a technology where stocks are traded? It's looking more like the latter. Are digital media companies part of media, or part of technology?

For those into applied technology, this is the beauty of the NYC tech scene. Perhaps it's a little less glamorous for researchers.

</comment><comment><USER3> It doesn't seem like "positions that require 'advanced tech sklls'" is the right measure for the size of the NYC tech sector. Surely Foursquare's office manager is a part of NYC's tech sector, but their job likely doesn't require "advanced tech skills".

</comment><comment><USER4> As someone on both coasts often, NYC seems to have many fewer tech events. I might get a hackathon or two a month in NYC, but in SF/SV sometimes there are 7 in a single weekend and it is rare to have a weekend without one. The prizes are much better too. A 5k purse is normal, but they often go up to 40k or even 850k investment for the top two with the upcoming LAUNCH hackathon. The conference situation is the same. You get much bigger, much more frequent, with many more companies in SF/SV. If you are looking to do business development or just find a job, your chances are much better. I'm not saying NYC is bad, it has something. The something it has is just much less than the tech center of the country.

<comment><USER5> As someone based in NYC (since 1996) but debating a move to SF, I'd agree. I was here through the .com boom and used to attend NYNMA events (remember those?), but NYC has never really been tech startup-oriented in the way SF is. They've tried, what with billing it as 'Silicon Alley' and all, but it never really seemed to take hold. And the big tech events where they'd have Bloomberg as a keynote and then do a handful of tech demos... the demos would be things that we'd seen before coming out of SF and seemed like copycat products.

A big part of it is the culture here. If you tell someone in NYC that you're bootstrapping a startup out of your living room, the response is 'oh, so you're unemployed'. Do the same in a conversation in SF and people start talking about who might be a good fit for you to meet. So, I wouldn't recommend starting a tech company here.

Don't get me wrong, NYC is a great place for tech. But I'm talking about tech in service to financial services institutions. So, web development, financial software, etc. And mostly around Microsoft tech (ASP.NET, SQL nowadays). I've worked at corporate banks, I've built ecommerce systems, I've built events management systems. They've paid the bills. But the dream change-the-world startup idea? It's just not part of the culture here. Fashion? Absolutely. Food? Sure. Music? Maybe. But tech that's not gonna be a financial services play? I'd suggest looking elsewhere.

<comment><USER6> Where's a good place to find (and list) tech events that happen in NYC?

<comment><USER7> There's a pretty young subreddit for this [http://www.reddit.com/r/nyctech](http://www.reddit.com/r/nyctech).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The big confusion is whether we're trying to measure the "tech sector" or the "startup sector." The former is likely a superset of the latter, and the latter possibly includes companies which aren't necessarily in the former.

Should I be counted as part of the NYC tech sector? I'm working in a technical role at a media startup. Is that more or less techy than an office manager at a tech startup?

Purely anecdotally, the tech scene in NYC still feels extremely intimate. It's easy to know/recognize a lot of people at any tech event.

</comment><comment><USER9> Instead of asking how big is the sector? I believe the real question should be, How joined/fragmented is it? I won't call it a problem, but the difference between CA and other places is that other places are much fragmented and disjointed. NYC tech sector might be large, but it doesn't have that CA appeal because everyone is everywhere. If they were all brought together into the same region it would bubble up like Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER10> Er... The Bay Area's tech scene stretches all the way from San Francisco down to San Jose (and a bit beyond, even). That's a 50 mile drive all by itself. I recall when living in SF that the SF tech scene and SV tech scene were eerily separate because of the city/suburb divide. It's far from unified.

Compare with the tech scene in NYC which is almost entirely based in Manhattan - a 5-mile stretch of it no less (from Bowling Green up to 59th St), that you can traverse by train or cab in a matter of 20-25 minutes.

If pure concentration of people/companies is the X-factor, NYC should've trounced California by now :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> NYC's financial industry pays well for tech jobs, I'd guess more people get a nice 9-5 job with a good salary vs a startup job with a lot of pressure.

<comment><USER12> > I'd guess more people get a nice 9-5 job with a good salary vs a startup job > with a lot of pressure.

NYC financial jobs are _not_ 9-5 or without a lot of pressure.

For any job that you're likely to get in your 20s, NYC finance jobs pay worse, have far longer hours, and are much more high-pressure.

Beyond your 20s, it varies greatly by level of seniority, so it gets tougher to compare, but the high-paying jobs still require very long hours.

<comment><USER13> > For any job that you're likely to get in your 20s, NYC finance jobs pay > worse, have far longer hours, and are much more high-pressure.

If you're working in the front office then your pay is going to be a multiple of a startup job. And it's going to be significantly higher then any established company in the area (Amazon, Facebook, Google). A good rule of thumb is your base will be similar what established companies pay and your bonus is all gravy.

Pressure and hours vary by firm. It's hard to generalize.

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure how much bonuses software engineers get. I've heard it's great for bankers, traders etc. But do software engineers(who work on building infra/tools, not the kind who write trading algos) get paid good bonuses as well? By good I mean 30%+

<comment><USER13> The closer to the trade you are the higher bonus is as a percentage of your total comp. I did mention "front office" in my original post.

\- Infrastructure is vital to most trades. Bonuses are going to more than 30% if you're on the cutting edge here - prop shops, some technology oriented hedge funds, and some banks.

\- If by tools you mean GUIs then no.

\- Engineers who write trading algos (or more likely algo components that are used by a trader at a higher level) will have a bonus that is more than 30%.

<comment><USER14> Thanks for the clarification. Is it feasible to get into a prop shop or hedge fund as a programmer and "graduate" to trader? How common is it?

<comment><USER13> Common enough. Skills are so specialized thhough that it doesn't always make sense to switch though. Its a different career track, not a promotion. Top end trader will make more but top end developer will make more then the average trader. You should focus on what you are good at.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Speaking from my own experience, the NYC startup community is large and very active. I'm hoping this growth continues after we get a new mayor in.

<comment><USER16> I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you worried De Blasio will negatively impact the startup sector?

<comment><USER15> I'm saying that Mayor Bloomberg has been highly proactive in pushing the tech and startup sector forward. It would be hard to deny that he's partially responsible for fostering the growth that's occurred in NYC. I don't know that the next mayor will be quite as bullish on tech as Bloomberg was. Also, I'm suggesting there may be a reduction in growth, not a decline. I wouldn't necessarily call a reduction in growth a 'negative impact' \- just less of a positive impact.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I live in NYC, and I've seen the tech community grow pretty quickly over the past few years.

I run a meetup group - NYC Python: [http://www.nycpython.com/](http://www.nycpython.com/) \- and the number of events, attendees, companies, and conferences dedicated to just Python has grown substantially since I started getting involved a few years back.

</comment><comment><USER18> Does anybody have a number on the San Francisco / Silicon Valley / Austin / Seattle tech sectors in comparison?

</comment><comment><USER19> I lived there for 7 years.

New York is a great place in general, but I wouldn't recommend its tech scene. The Meetups are of high quality (in general) because there are so many people, but most of the people at <Cool Technology X> meetups don't get to use X in their day jobs.

The VC-funded startups are thick on quantity but dogshit (on average) for quality. Most of the talented people move to finance (or leave NYC) after 30 because the startup scene is so awful: most of the founders are well-connected wankbaskets, not real technologists.

<comment><USER12> > The Meetups are of high quality (in general) because there are so many > people, but most of the people at <Cool Technology X> meetups don't get to > use X in their day jobs.

Clearly you had the misfortune of going to the wrong meetups. I haven't felt that way about any of the Meetups I attend, except for _very_ obscure or emerging technologies (such as Haskell or Go - which I think is true almost everywhere).

> The VC-funded startups are thick on quantity but dogshit (on average) for > quality. Most of the talented people move to finance (or leave NYC) after 30 > because the startup scene is so awful: most of the founders are well- > connected wankbaskets, not real technologists.

I'm sorry you feel that way. That has not been my experience in the slightest. Perhaps you were in NYC at the wrong time? Things have changed dramatically (for the better) since 2009/2010 or so.

<comment><USER5> I've been in NYC since 1996 and am looking to move to SF for the same reasons. Tech here has always been about financial services and just doesn't gel with the kind of startups you see in SF. I got tired of seeing demos of stuff that had already been done (and better) on the other coast and tired of VCs that just didn't understand software unless it was financial services-oriented.

Or am I missing something? I'd be happy to venture out again and give it a shot.

<comment><USER12> > Tech here has always been about financial services and just doesn't gel with > the kind of startups you see in SF. I got tired of seeing demos of stuff > that had already been done (and better) on the other coast

It sounds like you haven't seen the full extent of what the NYC tech community has to offer, because I that view doesn't resonate with what I see at all. I'll admit that discover-ability is a problem in any community in any city, not just tech and not just in NYC (this is one problem that Meetup[0] aims to solve).

If you're still in NYC, drop me a line (my email is easy to guess from my username), and I'd be happy to get together in person and give you a map of the New York tech community the way that I see it.

> VCs that just didn't understand software unless it was financial services- > oriented.

Again, I think you've had the misfortune of meeting the wrong VCs. I'm an engineer, but I used to work for a venture firm until very recently, and of the ~40 companies in our portfolio, only one was financial in nature.

And, ironically, that one company is based on the West Coast!

The _only_ statement that I _might_ say about NYC startups versus west coast ones is that NYC startups often seem to interact with the other industries we have in NYC, instead of being "just" tech companies or B2C consumer products[1]. But that's just a general feeling, with no hard data to back it up. Certainly there's no dearth of either kind of startup[2] on either coast.

(There's also definitely some sampling bias there, because those types of companies happened to be the investment focus of the company I worked for).

[0] which, incidentally, is an NYC startup that has nothing to do with finance! [1] ie, [2] Tumblr and Mongodb are examples of successful "tech" and B2C companies in NYC, for example, and there are plenty of industry-targeted companies in SF too.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the detailed reply. I'm giving it another shot with another meetup and a couple more groups. And I dropped an email to what I guessed was yours.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>