Help – all Dropbox files gone - <AUTHOR>

i woke up this morning to find all my dropbox files gone. I went to dropbox website and my folder is empty. I am writing a PhD and my latest rewrite is in there.<p>Any idea what i can do? contacting dropbox seems impossible.<p>?????? thanks <comment><USER2> "My files are missing! How do I get them back?" <https://www.dropbox.com/help/969/en> (Dropbox Help Center)

"Q: How do I recover deleted files? A: You can recover any file deleted in the last thirty days from the Dropbox website." <https://www.dropbox.com/help/296/en> (Dropbox Help Center)

Twitter: <https://twitter.com/dropbox>

Support: <https://www.dropbox.com/support/login>

Forums: <https://forums.dropbox.com/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Hey nclod,

If you are still having an issue, you can email me directly at graham (at) dropbox.com i'll do my best to help.

Graham Dropbox Support

</comment><comment><USER4> Are you sure you don't have any local copies of the files? Storing your only copy of your PhD thesis at a third-party seems quite short-sighted.

Sorry to hear about the loss. I hope you can get your files back.

EDIT: I've not used Dropbox. I gather from gokce's comment that you did have local copies, but Dropbox deletes them when they are deleted from Dropbox. That's unfortunate.

<comment><USER5> The copy of the file that Dropbox stores in your local file folder is _NOT_ the same thing as a local copy. That Dropbox folder is under the control of Dropbox, not you. If you want a local copy of documents, then put that copy in some other folder. Yes, this means that you will have two copies of the document on your hard disk and that may seem redundant but just think, redundancy is the same thing as backup. So be redundant.

In fact it would not be a bad idea to keep many extra copies of an important document like a PhD thesis as it evolves. Either install and use a revision control system, or just save a copy every week with the date added to the filename.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you can't recover them from dropbox a tool like recova (<http://www.piriform.com/recuva>) might be able to recover them from your hard disk (when a file is deleted it isn't really erased, just a pointer gets deleted)

</comment><comment><USER7> Also, did you try checking the Events history in Dropbox? Sometimes old files are in there.

</comment><comment><USER8> since dropbox files are also stored locally it is possible that the files are still on your harddisk somewhere but unlinked. if that's the case I suggest you turn off your computer right away and see a professional.

<comment><USER7> If you have some technical savvy, try <http://extundelete.sourceforge.net/> for ext3/4 filesystems, <http://ntfsundelete.com/> for NTFS.

If you're using something other than than one of those two filesystems, you should probably know how to handle this yourself.

<comment><USER2> You left out HFS+, OS X's file system.

However, Dropbox on OS X has a cache file at ~/Dropbox/.dropbox.cache – so if OP uses a Mac, chances are he won't need an undelete utility.

More info: <https://www.dropbox.com/help/296/en>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Never trust the cloud. Never trust local storage, either. Never trust any one thing to keep your data safe. Keep multiple backups at multiple locations of anything really important.

<comment><USER10> While you are at it, print all your data using Paperbak[1] and store it in your attic. Make a few extra xerox copies and distribute to friends and family.

[1] <http://ollydbg.de/Paperbak/>

<comment><USER2> I don't know much data OP wants to backup, but using Paperbak you can backup 250MB to 1.5GB per ream of paper. That gets out of hand real fast.

It does remind me of how PGP used to be exported out of the US, due to government regulations: <http://www.pgpi.org/pgpi/project/scanning/></comment></comment></comment>


New Extension Detects FireSheep Hijacking - <AUTHOR> http://www.securityweek.com/zscaler-helps-identify-firesheep-usage-new-extension

<comment><USER2> CoralCDN links to the description [1] and the extension [2] - in the event that the ZScaler website goes down due to high load.

[1]: <http://www.zscaler.com.nyud.net/blacksheep.html>

[2]: [http://www.zscaler.com.nyud.net/research/plugins/firefox/bla...](http://www.zscaler.com.nyud.net/research/plugins/firefox/blacksheep/blacksheep- latest.xpi)</comment>


Redditors earning $100k+ a year, what are your secrets to your success? - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/frw5l/redditors_earning_100k_a_year_or_other_high/ <comment><USER2> One thing I've noticed (throughout my career, and by talking to friends in the software industry) is that there seems to be a ceiling on how much you can make as a software engineer at "a company". The exact amount really isn't important, but if you're relying on one company to pay you a higher and higher salary every year, at some point they'll probably stop jumping you up the salary ladder. Or you'll be forced into management to get the bump you want.

On the other hand, if you're a consultant/contractor, you're spreading the money across a number of companies. A company might not want to pay a full- time employee $200k/year, but they won't fret over paying a contractor $150/hr for a few weeks/months of work. The company is happy because, on paper, the one-time payment to a contractor is a lower number, and the contractor is happy because they can jump to the next company after this contract is up. My friends in the software industry who make the most money tend to follow this route. Or, they wrote a Top 10 Paid App in the App Store and got rich that way, but that's a little tougher :)

<comment><AUTHOR> > there seems to be a ceiling on how much you can make as a software engineer > at "a company".

There is. I like to think of this in terms of income scalability. At a company, you are limited to scaling your income vertically, unless you have equity. Owning a company, or part of it, your income can scale horizontally as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think being the sole provider for my family for the last ten years I've just assumed I needed to make more money year after year. I can't really ask my wife to go out and get a job to make up the slack so I get out there and try to be the best programmer I can be. If a company sounded cool but wasn't willing to pay me what I need to provide for my family I just move on. Given the lack of tech talent there isn't much excuse for not making that much if you're a programmer.

I always laugh when I read people say that great developers (not saying I'm a great developer) don't care about money. Often times that's written by people who don't have children to provide for. I have no choice but to care what I make and therefore it's an important factor for me when choosing a job.

<comment><USER4> There's a point of diminishing returns to increased income, and it's personal. I have a family, yet I took a job paying _less_ than the previous job because it was _enough_ money and I _really_ wanted to work there. Later, when my wife was unhappy at her lucrative job I encouraged her to switch to a lower paying position at a different company where she wouldn't be so stressed. We still make _enough_ money, and our children are happier since we are happier.

The "don't care about money" thing isn't really true; you must care about money to some degree. But there are people who would rather do things that make them happy than always go for the biggest paycheck.

<comment><USER5> It's really I don't care about money after taking care of expenses and having a little left over to splash out every now and then. I think it's more commonly used in terms of the engineer deciding between $100k and $200k under vastly different conditions than the engineer deciding to work for free or very low pay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Earnings are important, I'm sure -- but don't mistake them for wealth. I've known people with ludicrous earnings who still lived pay check to pay check. In fact, I suspect it's all _too_ common.

Here's an eye opener: You're a mid-level employee at a medium-sized company and you realize you're as wealthy as your spend-thrift CEO who is making >10x as much as you are.

<comment><USER7> This is very true.

My last two tax filings showed I [edit: grossed] less than $15,000 for the past 2 years, yet I generally have more discretionary income now than the years when I was making ~$50,000/yr. I also have a wife and two kids.

I have no debt of any kind (house and car owned outright), am quite frugal, have two monthly bills (phone/internet and power), and three yearly bills (property tax, car registration, and auto insurance). Telecommuting from a rural area helps, as does raising some of our own food.

Sure, we don't live like kings, but my kids always have both parents around and we live a good, simple life. I'm not rich, but I feel quite wealthy in terms of quality of life.

<comment><USER8> _I'm not rich, but I feel quite wealthy in terms of quality of life._ actually, that's all that matters.

<comment><USER7> I like to think so.

I don't want to give the impression than I'm down on anyone earning (or aspiring to earn) large amounts of money. At one time I aspired to break the $100k/yr mark by age 30 (certainly not too ambitious, but it seemed doable at the time).

Obviously I had a change of heart in the intervening years, and so far I'm quite pleased with things. To each their own.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Tip 1: Be born American. If that doesn't work, emigrate.

<comment><USER10> Tip 2: Be born white or Asian in America. [1]

Tip 3: Be born in a rich country with a growing middle class

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income#Median_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income#Median_household_income_and_the_economy)

<comment><USER11> From what I've seen, it shouldn't matter what color you are. Correlation is not causation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> From someone who's been failing startups since 2000, I can't imagine what I would do with that much money... It's really baffling..

<comment><AUTHOR> Sadly, 100K isn't that much these days if you have a family and you live in an expensive city like Toronto or New York.

<comment><USER13> Vancouver here. 100k is really only enough for a very middle class life.

<comment><USER14> Totally disagree. I've lived in Van for 15 years and it's hilariously more affordable than LA or NY (where I am now). The Mercer 2010 survey put Van at #75 in the world which was surprisingly one spot ahead of Toronto.

Sidenote: the job market of Vancouver is much slower and lower paying than what's happening state side.

<comment><USER15> "I lived in Vancouver for 15 years."

Translates to:

"I bought a place 10 years before the epic bubble of bubbles."

Vancouver real estate is INSANITY.

<comment><USER16> You mean spending $700K for a house a half notch above a fixer-upper isn't sane? :)

<comment><USER13> 700k? What dream world are _you_ living in? What I wouldn't give to be able to buy a house for 700k. Relevant:

<http://www.crackshackormansion.com/>

The worst part about that site: It's a year old. It's worse now.

<comment><USER16> Apparently the insanity hasn't spread to the North Shore to the same degree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Minecraft's Notch replied: [http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/frw5l/redditors_e...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/frw5l/redditors_earning_100k_a_year_or_other_high/c1i6wmo)

<comment><USER18> And here's another really thorough response further down that thread:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/frw5l/redditors_e...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/frw5l/redditors_earning_100k_a_year_or_other_high/c1i6sy9)

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

entrepreneur_taway:

I run a start up media company. I am 26. This year I've made over $100k. Here's how. ... TL;DR:

1) Work for yourself

2) Borrow [build a credit rating buffer]

3) Become an expert, but fake it in the mean time

4) Sell constantly

5) Hire labour

6) Fire bad apples

7) Look after key accounts

8) Charge properly, make profit

9) Be targetted in your sales/marketing

10) Expand

11) Keep control

12) It is a hard game

13) Give them no ammo

Additions:

14) Have principles

15) Decide fast

16) Read

17) Learn from mistakes

18) Flexibility

19) Embrace risk

<comment><USER19>
      > [...]

Well, that's just a random collection of business book platitudes. Have principles, flexibility, embrace risk? Seriously?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm surprised by the lack of answers talking about market forces.

I know many people who think that doing a job that is complex and hard automatically entitles you to money and complain about people with much easier jobs, who aren't as smart, making more than them.

</comment><comment><USER21> IMHO the largest salary jumps happen when you switch companies. Once you start with a company, you're pretty much locked into their payscale and salary increases happen in much smaller increments. Ideally, you would stay at a company long enough to get the requisite experience for the next career level and then switch to a new company and negotiate a healthy salary bump. With that said, my highest paid friends are typically the most dissatisfied with their jobs - something to consider.

</comment><comment><USER22> Be careful about chasing a dollar amount. $100K is pretty baseline for someone who has technical/design etc. skills. Moving into the $200K+ salary range often means working a lot of overtime, which leaves little time for enjoyable pursuits, or side projects which may eventually earn far more than that extra $100K a year.

<comment><USER23> $100K baseline? That sounds like you're talking about entry-level, which can't be right regardless of where you live. I believe that the mean annual income for a software developer in the USA is about USD 75k. I found one estimate as high as 90k. In non-coastal areas (even big cities in the Midwest, Texas, etc.), entry level positions requiring a 4-year CS degree are commonly 45k-60k.

<comment><USER24> Entry level at top tier companies such as Google/Facebook/Amazon/Microsoft will break $100K if you include signing bonuses and stocks.

I suppose those are the exception though.

<comment><USER23> By "entry-level," I mean a first job for an individual. Do those companies often employee programmers with no previous job experience?

<comment><USER25> Of course. Microsoft and Google are likely the biggest recruiters for cs students.

<comment><USER26> Usually those CS students have had multiple internships and/or research experience, however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Marry someone making $$ in a different field. I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned more :) I'm married to a dentist but I know plenty of hacker types married to professionals (doctors, lawyers, etc).

side note: it is _very_ easy to get to a point where you have no time to spend your money - and you won't know it until all of a sudden you have no time anymore for the fun stuff.

</comment><comment><USER28> 1) live in San Francisco and code for a few years. 2) there is no step 2.

2a) on St Patrick's day, despair that you've already paid more in rent this year than your father in Montana will pay _all_ year.

<comment><USER29> Agreed, comparison of San Francisco in $100k to San Antonio, TX where I'm at now...

Comparable salary in San Antonio, TX $58,363

If you move from San Francisco, CA to San Antonio, TX....

Groceries will cost: 24%less

Housing will cost: 66%less

Utilities will cost: 13%less

Transportation will cost: 11%less

Healthcare will cost: 15%less

<comment><USER30> Your also missing something though. The amount put away into a 401K is much higher in SF then in San Ant. TX. I would much rather work on San Fran for a few years, make a ton for my 401k then move some where cheap and rural in my 30s. San Fran people also have more cash for trips compared to Antonio. Overall, The higher salary is better in the long term.

<comment><USER31> I'm doing this now, but the higher tax bracket (not to mention the California taxes in general) make it not nearly as nice an option as it could be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Alternate between billing really high to fix really really screwed up projects and billing a bit lower but taking interesting projects that you can use to update your skillset. I've made 125kish a year contracting this way in the non-major, low cost-of-living cities. Plus these contracts typically last up to _5 years_ so you have better stability than contracts of 6 months. This is just one way, but its an easy way. I've been doing this since 1996 throughout the midwest and southern states.

<comment><USER33> How do you find these contracts? Especially, before you broke into the industry and created a large network of contacts?

<comment><USER32> I really never had a large network of contacts. I just used DICE and the like. My technique is just do as many interviews as possible when it's time. If I wasn't so lazy I would market myself better. I have a bunch of other rules but they are for when you are already on site. I can post those too if you want to know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Kind of tangential, but here's a list of people on the so-called "Sunshine List" - _public_ employees making over 100K in Ontario (Canada). By law, they must disclose their salaries to the public.

There's _lots_ of them. And they're not all super-qualified engineers or hackers. We're talking transit employees, teachers, principals etc. Not to demean those professions, but not typically the professions that come to mind in the US when people talk about 100K salaried positions.

[http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/publications/salarydisclosure/20...](http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/publications/salarydisclosure/2010/)

</comment><comment><USER35> Have some clue about programming. Work for a company with money.

I hear college grads are making $80k out of school at tech companies these days. A few years of keeping your chair warm and you should have no problem getting to $100k.

</comment><comment><USER36> Move to Australia and become a tiler.

<comment><USER37>
      1. Move to Australia
      2. Take up one of many trades (tiling, concreting, wiring, plumbing)
      3. Answer your phone. Respond to emails quickly
      4. Show up when you say you will, quote when you say you will

From my experience dealing with trades working on my house, I am confident that any tradie who is able to do these basic things would have work on tap and expand with lackeys quickly.

<comment><USER10> That'll make you a millionare!

For 100K you can ignore steps 3 & 4, and you'll still have more work than you can deal with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The secret -- the difficulty -- isn't one of having a $100k+ income so much as it is not spending it all. Live like you have a $60k salary, and not only will you still be able to afford a comfortable lifestyle, but you'll also be able to put away tons of cash.

As for actually finding those jobs? If you're willing to do consulting/contracting, ask your friends who are doing consulting/contracting for large companies. They're the ones who are most likely to be in the know about opportunities.

<comment><USER39> In the US not if your paying taxes :) Make $100k, pay at least $20k to the fed, then whatever else to state, make your bare minimum contribution to your retirement, and you don't have tons of cash left over. Makes $200k and live on $60k, and your going to do alright.

People who live paycheck to paycheck and/or borrow money for personal consumption drive up the cost of living. If your trying to be modest but not live someone in welfare it become instantly evident of how much you need to make. Personally I think you should target to spend about 30% of your income. So, make $100k, live on 30, make $1m live on $300k.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> alwaysagoodtime had one piece of advice that really resonates: Find the right woman/(man) or don't have one at all.

And I recently reread a PG article where he says he only had a gf two months in the three years he was working on Viaweb. Good to keep in mind, but I read it, and then promptly forgot. Lesson learned!

</comment><comment><USER41> How much is 100k a year in the US? I thought it wasn't so much for good programmers, at least in SV. Is a 100k programmer something unheard of in the US?

<comment><USER2> It really depends on where you live. $100k in the Bay Area or New York City is a good salary but doesn't go that far after you pay for the exorbitant rent and other high cost of living expenses. Compared to Raleigh, NC (southeast U.S.) where I live, $100k goes pretty far and is a very good salary for a software engineer since living costs are so much lower.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Perhaps this is off-topic, but going from $0 income and $0 savings two years ago to mid-6 figures has not affected my happiness. The things that have made me happier have all been free or fairly cheap.

<comment><USER43> Money doesn't make you happy, but not having money _can_ make you unhappy.

Not that it always does; it depends on your dependencies, in both senses. With a wife, child and mortgage I would be pretty unhappy if my income dropped to 0.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Ha. For the record, I'm an artist and make less than 6000 a year, for nearly a decade now. As you can imagine, I have very few expenses.

</comment><comment><USER45> Here's an interesting comparison of Software Developer salaries, according to Indeed.com. I kept trying to find a city with a lower average than Kansas City, where I live, but of the ones I tried we still get paid the least (on average).

[http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=software+developer&l1=Ka...](http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=software+developer&l1=Kansas+City,+MO&q2=software+developer&l2=San+Francisco,+CA&q3=software+developer&l3=New+York+City,+NY&q4=software+developer&l4=Miami,+FL&q5=software+developer&l5=Austin,+TX&q6=software+developer&l6=Minneapolis,+MN&q7=software+developer&l7=Seattle,+WA&q8=software+developer&l8=Chicago,+IL&q9=software+developer&l9=Salt+Lake+City,+UT)

</comment><comment><USER46> work for the government? i wouldn't call it success though

<comment><USER47> One-fifth of the federal govt earns six figures or more.

[http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-12-10-federal-p...](http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-12-10-federal- pay-salaries_N.htm)

<comment><USER10> So roughly the same as the US population as a whole, where ~16% make > 100K. (Note that this percentage is of all workers, including part time workers. Part time workers are under represented in the federal government workforce compared to the broader workforce)

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Do you mean to ask what are the secrets to earning more money? Keep learning valuable skills, do good work, ask for more money (or ask for ways to potentially earn it, e.g. stocks), all while changing jobs from time to time.

</comment><comment><USER49> There are a couple of comments in this vein already, but I still feel compelled to clamor against such an unreflective regurgitation of the word "success." That so many commenters are diving headlong into this cesspool by applying back-of-the-envelope statistical analysis and makeshift sociology to establish some mythic threshhold for entry into this elite is dismaying and speaks to a serious cultural void in the community. We might as well start whipping out the rulers and unzipping our pants right now.

</comment><comment><USER50> Get a valuable skill, some experience and carefully build your resume.

It doesn't even have to be a skill in high demand, even a hard to find skill can be extremely valuable to an organization.

</comment><comment><USER51> How should such sum ($100k) be counted?

Do you take a company car into account?

Bonuses?

Yearly stock grants?

Employer deductions into pension?

Or is it just the base salary?

Because all of this can make __a big __difference

</comment><comment><USER52> $100k isn't successful, it's the bare minimum as a professional. If you're an engineer, all that's required to earn that much is show up on time and be good at your job.

The cold, hard truth is if you don't earn at least that much, you either suck at your job or suck at negotiating. Your bosses and many of your peers earn twice as much as that.

Edit: _IF_ you work in the corporate world. Clearly if you're a lifestyle- biz/consultant working over wifi at the beach in Thailand this doesn't apply at all. In fact, congratulations, if you're this guy, you probably win the game.

If you asked a lawyer, a CPA or a banker if they'd take $100k to work their ass off for a corporate master, they'd laugh in your face.

Edit: It's quite typical of HN when this topic comes up for someone to be downvoted by people who make very little money when they come out with the cold, hard facts. This place is full of millionaires and super-successful entrepreneurs who mostly stay quiet in threads like these. Wake up and smell the coffee.

<comment><USER53> _$100k isn't successful, it's the bare minimum as a professional. If you're an engineer, all that's required to earn that much is show up on time and be good at your job. The cold, hard truth is if you don't earn at least that much, you either suck at your job or suck at negotiating._

This appears to be true of the Americans I know but this level of salary is.. uncommon amongst the Europeans (particularly the British) I know. I know you weren't speaking for other countries, but salaries are a lot 'flatter' over here.

Contractors will be earning at that level without too much difficulty but for a typical full-time employee to be earning $100K in London, say, they'd need to be an experienced manager or be into the 15+ year point of their career in my experience. It's night and day from the US experience.

This is part of the reason I work for myself. If I were in the US, I could earn $100K full-time pretty easily with my skillset. In the UK, it would be _really hard work_ getting a similar position. Self employment wins for that here since I can just have American customers used to American prices anyway ;-)

<comment><USER54> $100k == £60k. 60 less 33% / 12 = 3300 take home per month. London rent for 2 bedrooms is about £1500-2000 anywhere you would want your kids to go to school. £100 for commuting. £200-£300 for food. Car £150. Local tax £200 ...

<comment><USER53> That's why it's not very common for young professionals to live alone in London. Anyone earning a typical software developer salary in London and renting somewhere _in town_ at £2000 a month just for them is a fool. Most people live out in the suburbs and commute in or live with other people and split the costs. You can get a nice flat in somewhere like Croydon or Kingston (hardly bad places to live and only 30 minutes out on the train) for £800 a month - call it £1000/mo after council tax and utilities. Split that with the girlfriend/roommate and you're spending peanuts.

All that said, the point is that £60k/$100k isn't a _common_ salary for this sort of full-time worker outside of management or in an early stage of their career (<10 years). Clearly people _are_ managing on a lot less because that's what people are earning. The most common solution for the older family types is to have multiple earners in the home which, again, splits the costs down. I can't think of any British family I know around my age where both partners aren't working except for me and my wife..

<comment><USER55> Never thought I'd see living in Croydon discussed on HN. (I currently live in Croydon, very close to the station, for commuting into London)

<comment><USER53> I used to live in Warlingham so Croydon often comes to mind :-) You think that's weird though.. you try bumping into people from Lincolnshire on here (where I live now). It happens!

<comment><USER54> Well I wasn't earning anywhere near £60k when I moved away. But it's not an unreasonable salary for soho creatives or a random job in the 'city' with 5-10 years experience. I used to live in Clapton about 6 years ago just off the 'murder mile' it was a bit like living in 'the wire', but we were younger and didn't care. We shared a two bedroom basement flat between 3 people and the rent was about £900. The second bedroom didn't have any windows. I'm sure you can find rents below £1300 for two bedrooms if you go further out. But you pay in train fares and commute time, especially if your office isn't central. You need two incomes for sure, but when you have young kids all of the second income goes on childcare as both earners need to be out of the house 11hrs per day. That's why we recently gave it up and moved to the country. Is that why you're in Lincolnshire?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Time and experience. A kid out of school isn't going to crack that figure because a) they have no real-world experience and b) if any of the more experienced people find out they'll have a brain drain on their hands. Yes, you'll hear stories about this and that, but always ask for a pay stub as proof when someone opens their mouth.

I've been making over $100K for several years now and even though I recently joined a startup, I held the rate up over other offers. The key is to work somewhere that requires specialized skills and understands the value of hiring someone experienced who can self-manage their work on various aspects of a project and produce results that will win more business. Make your contributions a positive part of the bottom line and you will receive no hassles.

I tend to work with technology-first firms, avoiding business-first firms as they tend to view developers as resources, not assets. Also, in this day and age, if you don't write code or have an intimate IP unique to the product, you don't get a seat at the table and you should steel yourself for a sales job or worse.

Also, keep your skills fresh (edge, not bleeding edge) and avoid dreamers, MBA types and serial wantrepreneurs.</comment>


DUO: The on-the-go dual screen laptop monitor - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/747287659/duo-the-on-the-go-dual-screen-laptop-monitor <comment><USER2> If you already have an iPad, a utility called Duet [https://www.duetdisplay.com/](https://www.duetdisplay.com/) and a Mountie clip [http://amzn.com/B00S74HI1K](http://amzn.com/B00S74HI1K) will do this.

<comment><USER3> +1 on the Duet+Mountie solution (especially if you already had an iPad Pro). Duet has been a little iffy on OSX High Sierra (it only works via AirPlay right now) but the solution is far more elegant than bulky stuff stuck to your screen. Also 1080p resolution isn't that high when used in conjunction with a modern laptop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I coincidentally found out, when looking for a camera monitor, about a 10" 2K external screen⁰ that looks pretty sweet and is cheaper, but it lacks a bit of convenience in that it doesn't attach to the laptop and has an external power source because it connects via HDMI.

⓪ - [https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Slim-2K-10-inch-Metal-HD- Mon...](https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Slim-2K-10-inch-Metal-HD- Monitor-1080P-2560x1440-LED-IPS-10-1-Panel-for-Game/32842655343.html)

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't get why anyone would buy this over the AOC model that already exists, is bigger and doesn't involve Kickstarter.

It's also only $160 at Amazon... less than this Kickstarter deal.

[https://www.anandtech.com/show/12768/aoc-adds-usb-typec- port...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/12768/aoc-adds-usb-typec-portable- monitor-to-its-lineup-156-ips-fhd-resolution)

<comment><USER6> For what it's worth, I'm a backer and "is bigger" is not a selling point for me.

7" to 11" high resolution tablets are a thing, why are there no similarly sized portable monitors (with HDMI/DP input) for laptops?</comment></comment>


How to Hire - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@henrysward/how-to-hire-34f4ded5f176#.w0av7pj1k <comment><USER2> _" We should not be afraid of False Positives. We can quickly fix a False Positive hiring decision."_

That "False Positive" that you can "quickly fix" (by firing them) is a human being. He or she may have left a job they were reasonably happy with to join your company, or even moved to another city. The experience of being fired after a few weeks will cost them money and inflict emotional pain on them (and their family, if they have one). I wouldn't want to work for a someone who had such a careless attitude toward hiring and firing people.

<comment><USER3> Also, this callous attitude will run afoul of labour protection laws in most civilized countries that aren't the US.

<comment><USER4> > _Also, this callous attitude will run afoul of labour protection laws in > most civilized countries that aren 't the US._

I can only speak for Germany, but here it's normal to have a trial period ("Probezeit") for jobs, it's specifically designed for employers and employees to find out if they can work together. Once that trial period (which can last for months) is over, there are additional protections for the employee, but you can still fire someone, it just costs more. It's not a bad deal (and I say this as someone who once had to fire an employee for what I would call malicious incompetence: we still had to pay severance, but after that both parties went on their merry way).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> "Hire Doers vs Tellers". I agree with the statement, but I disagree with the method.

You can separate doers from tellers by _how_ they talk about the work and how they (non-verbally) react to certain questions. However, separating them by creating a totally artificial and unrealistic "doing" situation, be it via role playing or coding tests, will result in a lot of false negatives.

<comment><USER5> Your distinction is interesting. If you could elaborate on what separates doers/tellers, I'd be interested in hearing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Fire fast" is the horrible advice that has made Netflix and companies with similar policies a very stressful place to work at.

What if someone who is amazing at their job is going through a divorce and underperforming? Would you fire the "not doer"? There is no way for you to know what's going on in one's personal life and that can impact their performance heavily.

If your tolerance is just a few weeks to fire someone it's just immoral.

<comment><USER7> > If your tolerance is just a few weeks to fire someone it's just immoral.

>> For those of you questioning the morality of fast iteration of new hires please consider the alternative: we deny people opportunity for fear they won't succeed or we keep people in roles where they won't be successful. This creates walls around (and within) organizations. Let's welcome those who want to join us. Let's give them as much as opportunity as we can. And let's quickly tell them if they will have more opportunity elsewhere. As long as we do it helpfully and respectfully (which we always will), helping people sort themselves into and out of eShares is good for all involved.

The author had that covered. It is not calling for simply throwing people out like the trash because they underperform for a few weeks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I really enjoyed this post, partly because I agree with almost everything. The section that jumped out the most for me is the "Hiring for Strength vs Lack of Weakness." The author is absolutely correct. Hiring is not (and should not be) a democracy. It's the decision of the _hiring manager_. Everyone else's job is to provide quality feedback so that the hiring manager can make that decision effectively. As a side note, the hiring manager's _other_ role here is to cultivate actionable feedback from her interviewing team. The better her team gets at interviewing and identifying strengths, the easier her decision gets.</comment>


Did You Hear We Got Osama? (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://web.archive.org/web/20120328074347/http://www.roshfu.com/2012/02/17/did-you-hear-we-got-osama.html <comment><USER2> seems like kids these days are told to write about news instead of tobacco like we were used to.</comment>


How to Host Your Company Website for Free - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/better-things-digital/hosting-our-companys-website-for-free-b90ff607f8e2 <comment><USER2> Good write up.

As much simplier alternative backed by CDN one can use Firebase hosting[0].

[0] [https://firebase.google.com/docs/hosting/](https://firebase.google.com/docs/hosting/)</comment>


HomeBrew Analytics – top 1000 packages installed over last year - <AUTHOR> https://brew.sh/analytics/install-on-request/ <comment><USER4> I'm surprised that ripgrep is so low, at #227.

I've been using it instead of grep the last few months and I could never go back. Check it out if you haven't! Here is the repo and a technical breakdown by the author:

[https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep](https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep)

[http://blog.burntsushi.net/ripgrep/](http://blog.burntsushi.net/ripgrep/)

<comment><USER5> I hate that ripgrep won't let you specify an arbitrary list of filename extensions to search. You have to do some voodoo to get it to only search .foo files. With ag it's as simple as -G foo.

It's better than ag in a lot of ways, but there are little pain points like that which make me shift back and forth between tools.

<comment><USER4> You can't accomplish that with the -g glob flag?

<comment><USER5>
      $ rg -g l foo
      No files were searched, which means ripgrep probably
      applied a filter you didn't expect. Try running again
      with --debug.

Empirically not! :)

EDIT: I see, you have to do "rg -g '*.l' foo". Well, that's a bit silly. Why force people to put asterisks inside of single quotes on the command line? Asterisks have a specific meaning in a shell setting. It's five times longer than -G l, the ag equivalent.

EDIT: Thanks for all the explanations.

<comment><USER6> `ag -G l` and `rg -g '{STAR}.l'` are not equivalent. The former will match any file name that contains `l` where as the latter will match any file name that ends with `.l`. (ag's -G flag accepts a regex with match-anywhere semantics, where rg's -g flag accepts a glob that matches on the basename of a file, e.g., `rg -g Makefile` will search all files name `Makefile`.)

The asterisk is part of standard globbing. You can also write it as `rg -g \\{STAR}.l foo`, if you find that nicer.

If you want to match a list of extensions, then you can fall back to standard glob syntax: `rg -g '{STAR}.{foo,bar,baz}' pattern`. Or, as others have mentioned, if you're searching for standard file types, you can use the `-t/\--type` flag. e.g., To search HTML, CSS and Javascript: `rg -tjs -thtml -tcss foo`.

Basically, ripgrep's `-g` flag is supposed to match grep's `--include` flag, which also uses globs and requires the same type of ceremony. I'd like to add --include/\--exclude to match grep's behavior more precisely (which is based on user complaints wanting those flags).

N.B. Replace {STAR} in text above with a literal asterisk symbol.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This information is similar to debian's popcon: [http://popcon.debian.org/](http://popcon.debian.org/), but one advantage popcon has is that it tries to measure actual _usage_ of a tool even after it's installed. This avoids over-counting people who install something and then never or rarely use it. Of course, that's more of a problem with Linux distributions (which tend to install a kitchen sink worth of stuff) than with homebrew (where people probably install a much smaller subset). In any case, it would probably be quite easy for homebrew to collect the same statistic (basically just look at the atimes of installed binaries).

[Disclosure: I'm the original author of popcon so I'm biased :)]

</comment><comment><USER8> Homebrew's use of analytics still bothers me; specifically, making data public like this. It was supposed to only be used for development efforts, not showing off top-1000 lists. Also, I guess this following statement is - <USER2> the charitable option - out of date.

> Homebrew's analytics are accessible to Homebrew's current maintainers.

[https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/master/docs/Analytics....](https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/master/docs/Analytics.md#who)

Yeah, I know, my tinfoil hat is quite elaborate.

EDIT: Like I said, my tinfoil hat is quite elaborate; I already have analytics and automated updating turned off. I like to retain some control over what information is reported back to Google or other projects.

That doesn't somehow boost my confidence in Google and volunteer-run open source projects to properly respect the privacy of their users.

<comment><USER9> Homebrew maintainer here. That language could probably be more precise - <USER3> current maintainers have access to _detailed_ analytics (the details being specified on that same page).

I wasn't part of the creation of that particular page, but one thing we (the maintainers) commonly find ourselves doing is publicly referencing install statistics as justification for removing an unused formula or taking extra care during a version bump. Having public statistics for the top 1000 most popular packages makes those considerations a little bit more transparent.

Edit: I've created a PR to fix the language: [https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/pull/3120](https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/pull/3120)

<comment><USER8> > as justification for removing an unused formula

This does not, in my mind, help the case at all. This culture of deletion makes no real sense to me; something not being used for a month or a year doesn't mean it's not being used at all. What's the real cost of just leaving those formula around? A slight problem with it not working immediately when it is used? At least then it can be fixed, instead of seeing the "No formula found" text.

The culture of deletion surrounding the long tail of digital artifacts just doesn't make any sense. Yeah, yeah. Get off my lawn, too.

<comment><USER9> > What's the real cost of just leaving those formula around?

Maintenance.

When unused and unmaintained projects and formulae pile up in Homebrew, we end up spending a tremendous amount of time and effort patching mostly unused software for a very small part of the userbase. That dis-proportionality hurts the 95% of users who expect timely and _well-tested_ updates to major packages.

We used to provide a "boneyard" tap for unused/unmaintained formulae, but even that led to a lot of requests for support that we simply can't provide. If something is being removed from the core tap, our current recommendation is to put it a personal tap[1].

> The culture of deletion surrounding the long tail of digital artifacts just > doesn't make any sense.

Keep in mind that the "artifacts" in question are still available, since Homebrew and all Homebrew taps are just Git underneath. You might not be able to _build_ an old formula for compatibility reasons, but all prior work is available for reference.

[1]: [https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/master/docs/How-to- Cre...](https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/master/docs/How-to-Create-and- Maintain-a-Tap.md)

<comment><USER8> Somewhat of a tangent, but a lot of these reasons seem to boil down to "we don't have the resources". The HomeBrew project does appear to have a Patreon account, but to find it you have to go to the GitHub repo and scroll to the bottom of the readme. It might help to promote that a bit more on the homepage. It might also help to engage a bit more with the community other than "here's a new release".

IOW, HomeBrew seems to be big enough that it needs to start engaging in some PR.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It is weird how small our global tech tribe is.

I would estimate I download tmux via homebrew once a year on average. It is possible 112,000 represents a good estimate of all mac carrying tmux users in the world [*]. For comparison this is roughly the same number as employees at Apple.

Assuming these stats aren't opt in.

<comment><USER11> For another view, I'm a mac user, but prefer to use all those tools via a linux VM, either local, remote server or from a VPS. Also, not everyone doing development in macos uses homebrew.

<comment><USER12> If you don't mind me asking, why do you prefer working in a linux VM or VPS?

And what are the pros and cons?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Don't know what half of these are? Here's some quick and dirty Javascript to make each formula clickable to a detail page:

        document.querySelectorAll("td > code").forEach(code => code.innerHTML = `<a target="_blank" href="http://brewformulas.org/${encodeURIComponent(code.innerText)}">${code.innerText}</a>`)

Cut and paste that in your Javascript Console (`View/Developer/Javascript Console` on Chrome) when you're on [https://brew.sh/analytics/install-on- request/](https://brew.sh/analytics/install-on-request/).

</comment><comment><USER14> Youtube-dl at #18 is hilariously telling, although to be fair it's great for archiving clips (from all sorts of sites, not just YouTube) that may get deleted due to all sorts of reasons.

<comment><USER15> It also is updated very often (I guess to keep step with all the non-public APIs it probably uses). Almost every time I run `brew update`, youtube-dl has an update ready. This might inflate its download stats a bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I wish there was a decent package manager on windows too. Chocolates used to be OK but I often find outdated packages and they keep breaking the syntax of existing scripts regularly (like by making almost all packages now require the flag --allowemptychecksum). I don't know why it never really took off. This is such a practical way to setup a machine.

<comment><USER16> *typo chocolatey.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Someone super needs to turn that list into an expanded version with a 2 line summary of each line.

I found myself tabbing out to google constantly like 'fdk-aac, wow, that's a thing? cool~'

<comment><AUTHOR> > brew info fdk-aac was querying locally with this.

<comment><USER17> oh, nice! I didn't realize that `brew info X` had a nice summary line in it. Thanks for the tip.

<comment><USER18> If you want only that little description you can use `brew desc <formula>` as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Great. Caddy is #666. Hope that's not a sign. :P

<comment><USER20> I moved from NGINX to Caddy on my raspberry pi 3 for my home needs and couldn't be happier.

The automatic LetsEncrypt stuff is great and has removed crufty cron jobs to make sure the certs are up to date, and support for HTTP/2 out the box (with 0 configuration) has seen a marked improvement in the performance of my site.

<comment><USER19> That's excellent to hear! Glad you are happy. Thank you to people like you in the community who test it in various environments to make sure it works well. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Who the hell uses homebrew to install Perl? OS X ships with it, and perlbrew is a much more natural way to install it if you care about not using the system Perl. Maybe it's a dep for another package?

<comment><USER22> `brew install <thing>` is a natural thing to try first. If it works well then why use something else?

<comment><USER21> Works well for what? There's a recent Perl already installed on machines that brew runs on

<comment><USER22> The system perl on my work mac is v5.18.2. It's years out of date. If I want to run something that needs a newer version I can either update it without knowing what impact that has on the rest of the things running on my computer (seems like a bad plan...) or I can install a newer version alongside the system perl. My preferred method for that would be brew because I use brew for pretty much everything. I don't really want a second (or third, or fourth) package manager for every other thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23>
        #575 	algol68g 	3,485 	0.02%

Now that's awesome.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm surprised (in I guess a good way =) that awscli is all the way up at #15. Definitely expected quite a few utilities and languages to rank higher.

<comment><USER25> I saw that and wondered if these count unique installations, or simply number of times downloaded. awscli updates _a lot_ , so if we're counting downloads, that would give it a significant boost, I think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> A lot of people have yet to discover nvm (:

<comment><USER27> More likely due to issues rather than ignorance: "Homebrew installation is not supported. If you have issues with homebrew-installed nvm, please brew uninstall it, and install it using the instructions below, before filing an issue."

[https://github.com/creationix/nvm#important- notes](https://github.com/creationix/nvm#important-notes)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> YARN went from idea to #4

</comment><comment><USER29> Nice stats, also the single software version update frequency should be considered. For example I installed both node and vim, the latest only once.

</comment><comment><USER30> Can someone explain the popularity of imagemagick on there? As in, are that many people tinkering with graphics via the command-line?

<comment><USER31> A lot of stuff at the top of the list is requirements/pre-requisites for other packages, for example wget is in top place used by other packages to download stuff.

<comment><USER32> i'm not sure this is true. erlang ranks lower than elixir, but erlang is a prereq for elixir

<comment><AUTHOR> this list is `install on request`. Find raw metrics at [https://brew.sh/analytics/install/](https://brew.sh/analytics/install/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> While I really like 'yarn', I was surprised to find it at #4. I did not expect it to be that popular :D

</comment><comment><USER34> Just curious, How does the brew analytics infra look like?Datastores, Aggregations, rollups etc.

<comment><USER35> They use Google Analytics. Here's there post about it [https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/master/docs/Analytics....](https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/master/docs/Analytics.md)

There are also instructions on how to opt-out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Interesting:

Python3 #5, Python #6, Pypy #439 ...

Go #22, Scala #78, Elixir #83, Rust #141, Typescript #584 ...

Groovy #150, Kotlin #195 ...

Go #22, Ruby #33 ...

</comment><comment><USER37> #83 elixir

#85 fish

I am glad to see these 2 in top 100.

</comment><comment><USER38> Aren't qt and qt5 the same package nowadays ?

</comment><comment><USER39> Why is yarn installed via HomeBrew and not npm?

<comment><USER22> Because npm can't install a signed app. That said, if you really want to you can install it using npm - [https://yarnpkg.com/en/docs/install#alternatives- tab](https://yarnpkg.com/en/docs/install#alternatives-tab)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> autojump should be higher. It's insanely handy once it gets your directories indexed.

<comment><USER41> I have been using z[1] for a _long_ while now, lovely little thing

[1] [https://github.com/rupa/z](https://github.com/rupa/z)

<comment><USER42> Seconded, it's a great utility, without dependencies, and very simple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> MySQL. Still more popular than Postgres.

<comment> X-Istence Many people on MacOS use Postgres.app for their PostgreSQL needs.

[http://postgresapp.com](http://postgresapp.com)

<comment><USER44> And and I'm sure many people use the mysql.com installer for MySQL [https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/](https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/)</comment></comment></comment>


Thorium touted as The Answer to our energy needs - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestar.com/printarticle/960564 <comment><USER2> Once again, no mention of the _real_ reason we use Uranium:

Thorium is not fissile. It only becomes fissile through transmutation to Uranium 233 by neutron activation. The only place with high enough neutron fluxes to transmute a significant amount of Thorium? A nuclear reactor.

So, one needs a working nuclear reactor (as well as a reprocessing plant to extract the U-233!) to produce fuel from Thorium.

Basically two whole levels of pain in the ass that don't exist in the Uranium cycle, for a system that, no matter what its advocates say, is not that different from a safety perspective.</comment>


Millions of Americans Can't Afford Water - <AUTHOR> https://www.consumerreports.org/personal-finance/millions-of-americans-cant-afford-water-as-bills-rise-80-percent-in-a-decade/?EXTKEY=AFLIP <comment><USER2> One of the things I noticed since moving back to the US is Americans are averse to spending money on anything that doesn't improve their social standing. Municipalities included. Brand new skyscrapers get built and the taxes and fees raised from it are spent on stadiums, arenas, and beautification. But that luxury skyscraper is still plumbed into tired, 50 year old infrastructure that needs replacing now.

<comment><USER3> The problem is best labeled as Ribbon Cutting.

Politicians love to cut ribbons but spending money to maintain does not impart any name recognition. The second motive is anything that fills their campaign coffers.

However it should be noted that one of the most major expenses in cities is paying their payroll and in particular their pension requirements as public employee unions pretty much have them over a barrel and politicians trade public money for political favor without regards to the costs.

finally it also comes down to the penalties, fees, and such, of government services affect the poor far more than any other group. That twenty dollar renewal for your license might be nothing to you but it doesn't work that way when your poor. Throw in that municipal fees tend to be a lot higher and you can see the difficulty.

Atlanta was only forced in fixing their sewers which of course exploded their service costs after they kept dumping into local rivers.

PDF of city of Atlanta budget [https://s3.amazonaws.com/saportakinsta/wp- content/uploads/20...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/saportakinsta/wp- content/uploads/2020/05/FY2021-Proposed-Budget-Book_Final-05032020.pdf)

<comment><USER4> Exactly...the same reason many of our public schools are conducted in immaculate modern buildings (easily visible from the road/campaign commercials and identifiable as something the current politician spent on 'education') yet our teachers are paid a relative pittance.

<comment><USER5> I would encourage people to actually look their local teacher's salaries, they should be a matter of public record. The "teachers make terrible money" talking point has been a talking point my entire life so I was surprised when my wife pulled up our local elementary school records and showed me that our child's kindergarten teacher made over $100,000/yr. Her school's PE teacher made $120,000/yr. This is in a county where the median household income is $66,000/yr so I wouldn't call it a pittance.

I'm sure there are plenty of places in the country where teacher pay is lower than it should be, but teacher's unions have benefited greatly by the perception that they're universally underpaid.

<comment><USER2> In many cases teachers salaries are based on a schedule. If you know how long they've been teaching you can pretty much figure out where they are on the band. And there are additional grants subsidies; Title I school teachers get a Ed Dept supplement for teaching at poorer schools. They also get paid more for having a Master's or Ph.D. A teacher who has a M.Ed in early childhood development and also designs the curriculum (lead teacher) at a Title I school with 10+ years of experience will be pretty far up there. My college roommate became a biology teacher and his starting salary for a small T1 school district was $28k. If I remember the schedule correctly it was going to double once he completed his Masters and gained 4-5 years of experience.

> teacher's unions have benefited greatly by the perception that they're > universally underpaid.

The union would still be closer to correct, teacher salaries, on average, are still low [0]. School performance and property prices are intertwined so maybe your district has decided that to retain good teachers they have to pay good salaries. 200 $500,000 homes will kick in over a $1.2-1.4MM/year in property taxes.

[0] [https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/a-look-at-teacher-pay- acro...](https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/a-look-at-teacher-pay-across-the- united-states-in-2017.htm)

<comment><USER5> > The union would still be closer to correct, teacher salaries, on average, > are still low [0]

A spot check of the linked BLS.gov numbers with Wikipedia's list of household income by state [1] showed that about 2/3 of states I checked paid teachers above the average household income and the rest were within about 10%. As you say, there's likely a large amount of variation in there and there are likely a lot of young teachers who are not getting paid fairly since union members have an inherent tendency to enact policies benefiting current members over future members. But with that said, I still stick by my original point which is that teachers do not, on average, make a "pittance." They make pretty close to an average household income, on average, and typically also have significantly better than average pension benefits and vacation benefits.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Income_by_state)

<comment><USER6> The BLS numbers appear to be mean wages for secondary school teachers. Mean wages are higher than median wages. Secondary school teachers make more than other teachers, too. The BLS numbers also include pay for extracurricular and summer programs.

The median secondary teacher makes about 95% of the median person with a bachelor's degree.[1][2]

[2] [https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2020/data-on- display/mobil...](https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2020/data-on- display/mobile/education-pays.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Nina Lakhani is an environmental justice reporter with Guardian US, where > she's reporting for the Our Unequal Earth project.

I'm not really up to date on American water politics. Is this article presented with a partisan slant or is it fairly neutral?

Job titles like that were a fair signal of things being partisan pieces a few years ago but the style might be changing.

<comment><USER8> Partisan bias notwithstanding, the plain facts presented in the article seem to indicate pretty objectively that there is a major nationwide problem with water infrastructure. Denial is blindness.

\- "Nationwide, the rising cost of water has significantly outstripped the consumer price index over the past decade."

\- Federal funding for water systems has fallen by 77 percent in real terms since its peak in 1977.

\- The U.S. is the only country in the industrialized world without a regulatory system, responsible for monitoring rates and performance, according to Stephen Gasteyer, professor of sociology at Michigan State University.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, and if the piece is neutral those are quite persuasive. But if it is partisan, those facts could be carefully selected to be highly misleading. It is easy to lie with true statistics. Every group of loons has a set of favoured statistics that they can trot out.

Hypothetically, if it was decided in 1975 that there was going to be a transition from Federal to State management of water then the last two points would be evidence of a system working as intended. It isn't a fundamental truth that the US Federal government in particular has to be the body that regulates and funds water infrastructure. After reading the article I doubt there was such a deal but that is assuming the article is neutral despite a signal that I usually assume shows strong bias.

It would be absolutely routine for a partisan to assume that their pet issue requires national funding by the Federal government. Happens in every country on every topic and it is often a stupid assumption.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> That truck driver guy with the 30.000 US$ bill - what? Let's generously assume he hasn't paid a single bill in 10 years to have that bill in 2013. That's 3.000 US$ a year or 250$ a month?!

How is this possible? Here in Germany average water bill is around that _in a whole year_!

What is the US _doing_ with all the money? People pay a roughly thousand dollars on average based on the numbers in this article, and have abysmal service, no maintenance, and sometimes outright toxic water (Flint, the fracking areas where the water is flammable). Where is that excess money going?

[0] [https://www.t-online.de/heim- garten/energie/id_77342378/wass...](https://www.t-online.de/heim- garten/energie/id_77342378/wasserkosten-in-deutschen-staedten-extrem- unterschiedlich.html)

<comment><USER10> I can't speak for the rest of the US, but I have a family of 4, and we pay maybe $50/mo for our water bill, so maybe $600/year. More than the German average, but not egregious. Relative to a lot of other countries, the US is kind of more like strong union of a bunch of countries (states)-- each with unique environments and ecosystems-- than it is like a united, single country. So, you can say: "Americans are like ___", and you can almost certainly find a spot in the US where your statement holds true.

As for costs, the US has wildly variable costs on most things, depending on where you live. For example, I pay $1.50 per gallon for gas, but one state up, it's above $2.00. I live in a comfortable house, and pay less for my mortgage + taxes than folks in New Jersey pay just in taxes on a smaller house. This variance is a side-effect of a more decentralized governmental system where states have a lot of power, combined with a wide variation in environments / scarcity across the country.

<comment><USER11> Germany isn't that much different, the federal government has a bit more power but generally people from one state differ much from another. Compare Berlin and Bavaria, if you want an example. Bavaria is one of the more expensive states to live in and Berlin is somewhat cheap (other former ostblock states are even cheaper) and on the other hand we have the highest average income and pay into the other federal states the most.

Cost of water, electricity and food differ between states. A Döner Kebab in Berlin costs around 3.50€ by my experience, in Bavaria a comparable one costs around 5-7€.

You can't easily say "Germans are like ___", most of the international stereotypes are born out of the WW2 occupation of bavaria, not much else.

<comment><USER12> Germany is smaller than Montana. The sheer size of the US means that people live in wildly different environments and climates, and operate very different local governments/civic infrastructure state by state. Like the parent says, if you make a generic statement it's very likely that there _is_ a place where that applies, but it certainly cannot cover the entire continent.

<comment><USER11> Due to it's structure, Europe experiences wildly different weather, climate and culture. Every german state has slightly different average weather. The north is more often exposed to rain and extreme temperatures, the south has a more temperate climate, etc. Just because it's smaller than some arbitrarily sized state in the US doesn't mean a place can't be diverse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >Austin, Texas, where the average annual bill rose from $566 in 2010 to $1,435 in 2018

How can anyone justify people paying more than $110 for water and sewers? I pay $20 and even that seems a lot to me.

<comment><USER14> I live about 3 blocks from a friend of mine, I'm in township, he's in the city. His water bill is $120/month, mine is $90 every quarter. We get the same water/sewer from the same place.

<comment><USER15> Your neighbor either has huge water needs for watering/a pool or he has a leak/leaky fixture in his supply lines.

$120/month where I live would be 33,200 gallons a month. That's nearly a gallon a minute.

<comment><USER16> > I'm in township, he's in the city

They're in different municipalities, so the _rates_ are different. They could easily be using the exact same amount of water each month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Part of high water costs are certain cities charge increasing per-gallon rates the more you use, to discourage lawn irrigation. This isn't just a drought measure. Dallas's predatory water-pricing scheme is permanent, even when our reservoirs are so overfull that we're just dumping excess water into the rivers, which is a surprising amount of the time. It's been years since there's been any legitimate need for pricing to discourage water use.

<comment><USER18> In the electricity world, things are divided between production, transmission and distribution. You might have tons of generation, but insufficient capacity to get it to markets.

Then there's the discharge/storm water issue. Farmers may not contribute to that, but urban/suburban usage does. A well-watered lawn doesn't hold much water when a storm rushes in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> None of this makes sense to me. Water is still extremely cheap. Prices _should_ go up in drought-prone regions they mentioned (eg Austin) to help incentivize reduced water use.

If you're paying $100/m it means you're using too much water. If you can't afford that use less. Excluding laundry I currently use less than 5 gallons a day between myself and my dog. It's not hard to do.

<comment><USER18> I'd prefer tiered billing. The first X gallons/day cost $x, then it goes up.

That way you subsidize sanitation, but charge for washing your car or watering your lawn.

Many places have complicated programs to do that in reverse (get this credit for removing your lawn or this tax credit for a new washing machine).

California lets you run your washing machine drain into your backyard without a permit, that's one regulatory way to reuse gray-water. If gray water reuse requires $hundreds-$thousands in permits and plumbers, people won't bother.

<comment><USER20> I totally agree, that is the way to do it.

However, we must realize that, specially in California, its actually agriculture that uses most water. Standford university turning of their fountains and other 'publicity' stunts will not fix anything.

You need to fix the pricing in the broader water market, change the intensives for California farmers so they plant things that require less water, or have more intensive to limit water consumption.

<comment><USER18> Right. It also depends on geography.

Sometimes water is easy, but sewerage capacity is the limit, so gray water reuse makes sense to encourage where possible.

Water is measured, but sewage discharge isn't.

I'd like holding tanks for gray water re-use for toilets. Apparently still gray water becomes septic after a day, but if it's your toilet, shouldn't you assume the water in there is septic anyway??

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Late Stage Capitalism" really starts to make sense when you realize that profit is literally the measure of inefficiency in a market.

edit: A perfectly efficient market has no profit margin. As a market increases in efficiency, the profit margin of all participants approaches zero. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition)

<comment><USER22> Profit is the carrot on the economic stick, driving productivity and innovation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> How are we doing on desalination technologies?

<comment><USER24> There's a fundamental lower bound on the energy usage of desalination. The current state of the art - reverse osmosis - isn't perfect, but we should not expect factor-of-ten reductions in energy usage.

<comment><USER25> Somewhere like Austin could definitely use solar energy to boil water couldn't they? Not only solar panels but those mirror/reflective panels into a concentrated spot to shine?

<comment><USER24> Austin is ~150 miles from the sea, so you'd incur substantial pumping costs.

Solar thermal "flash" desalination is one of those things that sounds obvious but is hardly ever done, so I suspect there are good reasons for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > _Water bills that exceed 4 percent of household income are considered > unaffordable._

This seems extremely arbitrary. It's not that they can't afford water, it's that it's a relatively important expense rather than a trivial one. Most people in these income brackets don't even pay water bills directly.

<comment><USER27> Agree... There are plenty of items to cut from the budget first: tattoos, cigarettes, fast food, soda, energy drinks, Netflix, iPhones, or... Just moving to a cheaper area to live that's not an expensive coastal city.

<comment><USER28> Entirely regardless of any cuts made to the expenses side of things, can we agree that having to spend 4% of household income on water in a developed country is absolutely bonkers?

<comment><USER29> Isn't everyone insolvent, in 2020?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


In Pictures: 10 Elements Of A Sound Business Plan - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/entrepreneurs/2007/05/09/palo-alto-software-ent-manage-cx_mc_0509businessplan_slide.html?partner=rediff

<comment><USER2> stop it. just stop spamming the YC boards with this crap.</comment>


NewEgg cracked in breach, hosted card-stealing code within its own checkout - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/09/newegg-hit-by-credit-card-stealing-code-injected-into-shopping-code/ <comment><USER2> Is there a way to protect yourself as a user/client ?

<comment><USER3> If you use a credit card, you won't be held responsible for any unauthorized charges that might result from breaches like this.

<comment><USER4> Is that an automatic process, or is it something I needed to specifically watch out for? (In other words, a headache)

<comment><USER3> A combination of both: the card company will notify you of known issues and clean up what they can, but they won't catch everything. In any case, it's a good idea to be regularly monitoring your card statement anyway because stolen card numbers aren't the only issue with excessive charges you might face: there are also incorrect billing charges from legit vendors who made a mistake, being signed up for services you didn't want (like the kind Wells Fargo was found guilty for doing), etc.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should Hackathons merge into a more incubator type event - <AUTHOR> Currently many hackathons have the issue where innovative and highly potent projects are sitting stale after the hackathon. This is because, there is no incentive platform in the hackathon to motivate the hackers to grow their projects. Currently, there is no hackathons that take an incubator approach into the hackathon event itself. Rather, fellowship programs have been initiated by a scarce amount of hackathons to solve this problem  in a very mediocre way. Fellowship programs prohibit a larger audience to be given the equal opportunity to grow their revolutionary projects into, what could be, the next startup unicorn.
So what I am asking is, should hackathon merge into a more incubator type event (imagine Major League Hacking mixed with Y Combinator).
If you have any more questions, email me at firstname.lastname@example.com <comment><USER2> As a student, hackathons in 36, 24 hours have mostly been like field trip to another campus. But cool learning about other companies I didn't know and students I would never meet but I feel like I never really make a good project if I go in without any thought-out idea.

Forget learning a new tech well enough to use it.

</comment><comment><USER2> Also check MLH Fellowships (although that's mostly for contributing to open source).</comment>


Confessions of a failed indie developer - <AUTHOR> http://www.altdevblogaday.com/2013/07/30/confessions-of-a-failed-indie-developer/ <comment><USER4> A couple of observations.

You probably shouldn't think that you can get your indie game done in a year, release, and ramp up revenue so fast that you'll soon be self-sustaining. Sounds obvious, but most guys starting out actually believe that there's a chance of it playing out like this. Starry-eyed optimism is probably a precondition for going anywhere near this business in the first place, but it must be tempered and kept in check at all times.

If you are building a game of substance (rather than a simple puzzler/platformer mobile app - which is a lottery ticket more than a business model), the game will likely take way longer to develop. As it should. Good games take time. This means that you should either be very well-funded, or have extremely low costs of living, or be working on the side of another income (in which case it will take even longer). This is not the way to instant riches, but since when did that ever work? Double down, dig your heels in, this will take _years_. But the end result is an awesome game.

Further to the point, you should probably not think in terms of _the release_ that ends the project and where all your efforts either pay off or fall flat. Instead, the game should be put in front of users continually, gathering feedback, going back to the lab to improve it and repeating the cycle until momentum starts to pick up. That's when you know that you are near the final shape of the game. Don't even think about talking to the press before this. Luckily, if there is one community that is ready to try new things at any and all times it is gamers, so you shouldn't have much trouble getting this feedback. (Conversely, if even the ravenous internet hordes are indifferent to your project, you might need to tweak the formula).

While a long and hard road, a game developed this way actually stands a chance of success in the market, unlike the 'overnight success' stories that play well in the press.

<comment><USER5> > you should probably not think in terms of the release that ends the project

Yes. I want to stress this some more. I know several people who are/were working on big ambitious projects in a kind of stealth mode, citing concerns that their idea will be stolen, or emphasizing that it isn't "ready yet". I suspect this is usually rationalizing a fear of criticism.

A single-person personal project shouldn't be worked on in isolation for more than a few months. You'll lose perspective. Feedback is extremely valuable. It'll help you grow your idea, and it'll help you abandon something that's not going anywhere. (The same probably goes for small teams.)

<comment><USER6> Do you have any advice on how to put it in front of users to get feedback? Friends are good for a while, but they're biased. Just go on IRC and ask a few folks?

<comment><USER7> Some friends host a games night, which I expect nets them a good number of testers.

You could also just go to a coffee shop. The pitch I'd try: "Hey, I'm making a game. If you try it for 5 minutes, I'll buy you another drink." If people keep playing beyond the minimum, you know you're getting somewhere.

Personally, I wouldn't use IRC much, because then I can't watch people in action. I don't make games, but I regularly watch people using software I've made. Their words may lie, but their expressions and actions usually tell the truth.

You might also have people try a few games, with only one of them being yours. People like to please, so you can just say, "Hey, I'm doing some market research on video games; would you try these?" If they don't know which one is yours, you may get much better answers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think as a developer, the easiest thing to screw up is the understanding of what a business is and how long it takes to build (and how much it costs to run).

Say you are making $50,000 a year. The owner is probably paying more like $75,000-100,000 when you include insurance, rent, taxes, equipment, etc.

Now, imagine you are on a small team of five - an artist, game designer, 2 devs, and a qa person. That is an outlay of about $500,000 a year. So, shipping a smallish game in 6 months is about $250,000.

The author seemed to think that building the whole thing from scratch was "saving money", but it was costing him a tremendous amount of time, which was in fact costing him A LOT of money.

So, if you are trying to start a business, understand that it costs some combination of money and time, and if you are short on one, you probably need to substitute the other.

If you are short on both, you're screwed.

<comment><USER9> If you don't have an artist, you need to be able to do art+code. Even if you're making as simple puzzle game, your game is going to look a hundred times better with jewels/blocks drawn by someone who knows what they are doing, compared to something you hacked up in MSPaint.

And don't go super-cheap on the artist. It might take them a few hours to do just a few simple icons/items, so pay them what you'd want per hour for a contract job. Don't pay them $10 an hour or offer $100 to do an entire replacement of your development art.

The same goes for music. Even an original theme song is going to take 10-12 hours of work. So asking for a $50 song isn't going to yield good results.

<comment><USER10> what's a good rate for music for games? I can see two situations - you either find an artist whose style you liked/suites the game, and pay them for an original composition, or find an existing song that suits the game and pay a "licence" to use it.

I have no idea how much it costs to do either - i'd really like to know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sometimes I wish there were an article like this on HN every day.

The relentless upbeat-ness of the startup world can get to be too much, and it's healthy to hear humbling stories of reality.

<comment><USER12> Agreed. Most startups and indie games especially are fucked. More emphasis on how long the odds are or how difficult the journey usually is for a startup or small business would be good. I know a bunch of people working on startups who are just so naive when it comes to the risk and low probability of success.

It's so easy to get excited about a project and caught up in hubris and optimism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I really enjoyed and appreciated this article. So many harsh comments! Yes, what he did was foolish, but thank god for foolishness. And these things are easier to see from outside and after the fact than when you're following a dream.

I've had a lifelong dream of building my own game, and I'll be sad if I die without trying. I'm way less prepared than the author. I've done web dev for 15 years. My last game was an ASCII roguelike in GW BASIC. I'm almost done reading Game Engine Architecture by Jason Gregory, and building my own engine sounds like a blast---but also like a 20 year project. Fortunately my dream game is more like an old 2-D Zelda 1 or 3. Still, it's tempting to build even that with 3-D techniques. . . .

The big lesson I'd apply to myself is to build something modest. That seems even more true given my lack of experience, although I'm not sure I'll listen.

I guess the difference between the author and myself is that I fortunately don't have the expertise to think of game making as anything other than a creative hobby.

<comment><USER6> Do not build a game engine unless your goal is to be selling a game engine. If you're going to make a game that requires a game engine, use another engine that's already built.

Lets put this in terms of web development: You wouldn't start building a webapp by building your own web framework first.

<comment><USER14> "You wouldn't start building a webapp by building your own web framework first."

If I were starting from scratch TODAY, then I agree with you.

I started a small ecommerce site back in 2003, and django, etc didn't exist. So I did develop a framework from scratch in C. 10 years later, it's the engine my new data storage startup (Nuevo Cloud).

Point is, things like web app engines and game engines aren't things that pay off immediately. They require _a lot_ of development, and during the entire time that you're working on it, you're basically handicapped until it catches up with other engines/frameworks. But after it's far enough along, it can be a big advantage, letting you do something unique compared to your competitors.

<comment><USER6> First, yes: You can only tell someone, "Don't reinvent the wheel" if the wheel has already been invented.

Re: your last sentence: Isn't it even more likely that it could end up being a complete waste of time and effort and be inferior to other frameworks/engines?

<comment><USER14> Yes, that is probably the most likely outcome. That's why I said "can be" an advantage, but maybe that's too strong wording.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Honestly this guy was never developing a game, as he said, he was deluding himself into thinking a game would materialize if he built a game engine. He also managed to burn many bridges along the way by taking money from people in his personal network for the luxury of spending his afternoon messing around with computer graphics algorithms in Visual Studio. A total and completely expected and avoidable disaster.

Honestly if you start a company and don't have a plan and can't connect the dots to how you'll actually ship something you aren't "learning from failure" you are just being stupid and ignorant. And selfish if you are leaning on others to enable you to do this. If the guy read a little bit more he'd know "build a custom 3d game engine" is not anywhere on the list of things to do if you are bootstrapping an indie game. If anything it's on a list of what _not_ to do. Beyond that, there was _no game_ in mind to warrant building a new engine. At least if he had a game in mind that clearly needed a stunning new engine that current tech couldn't handle he could argue he was trying to pull a Carmack and failed. But this wasn't the case since he had only a vague idea of what the game he was creating even was.

The thing to learn from this example is that you should at least do a little bit of reading on entrepreneurism and product development before trying to be an entrepreneur and create a product. (In this case, "product development" means "game design.") Even more simple, realize what product you are even trying to build before you start building intellectually-satisfying but ultimately useless software.

<comment><USER16> Aspects of that comment are true, but that is a pretty harsh indictment on someone who took a real risk and worked to make it happen. Its easy to call someone ignorant and stupid because they did not approach a problem the way you would. Dont do it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> As a 21 year old, I don't see how you could try to go indie with a family and mortgage. I'm in a position where I could now (couchsurf my family until my thing is ready and have $0 expenses) but I just look out at a sea of mediocre indies with "fresh" ideas that are just respins on the same old, often in the form of some 2d platformer with sprites or on Unity.

That just isn't compelling to me, but that is a personal thing. So I don't do it. But while I don't do it now because of my personal outlook (also considering I'm not interested in game dev because the industry eats people alive) I definitely wouldn't fathom risking my family for a pipe dream. And then build my own game engine.

My question is, if you are a game dev dissatisfied with being an office robot, why not get a few friends and make your own dev house? It would be "indie" but you could ask around publishers pitching ideas or doing a kickstarter with more people and a fixed funding goal, with a much better understanding that games take 500% more time than you expect minimum, and make something big. You have the credentials after a decade or more in the industry to attract attention, I'd hope.

<comment><USER18> > As a 21 year old, I don't see how you could try to go indie with a family > and mortgage.

Older devs can more easily have 6 mo to a couple of years in savings. It's not fun to burn that down, but it's quite a different situation from having no savings and student loans.

Also, having a partner with whom you can talk about money, strategize about money, and share income / savings with is a huge advantage.

<comment><USER19> I am struggling to imagine how a guy working for 13 years in software wouldn't have years of living costs covered with liquid assets. What the heck do people blow their money on.

<comment><USER20> > What the heck do people blow their money on.

The interest on 130K of private student loans, to start.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It is always interesting to see how individuals come at the process of creating something like this. When you combine this with the guy who created a game for his kid using paper and refrigerator magnets to cover up undiscovered parts you can really see the difference.

One of the coolest game developers I met was working at Maxis but also working on their own game, but hadn't written any code. They had a notebook with sketches of things and notes about mechanics and small essays on conflict and resolution, risk and reward. All of the parts that are essentially a game but not the six-sided die, the game board, the art assets, or the code. It struck me how important it was to design the core of something before designing the moving bits.

That said he also had about a zillion little hacks, one page programs that would do some thing he was imagining and trying to see what that would look like.

</comment><comment><USER6> "When I say I started building a game, this isn't strictly true – what I actually built was a graphics engine."

This is really surprising to me. If you google for how to make your own game, the first thing you see is usually something telling you NOT to do this. I don't understand how someone in the gaming industry for 13 years could miss this advice.

<comment><USER22> From the paragraph preceding about the graphics engine: "My fellow indie friends advised me I should start small, perhaps making a puzzle game for iOS/Android using Unity and building the company from there. Arrogant as I was, I completely ignored this advice..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Building my own engine, whilst fun and a great learning experience, was an expensive mistake. For six months' work all I had to show for it was a short proof of concept demo. I should have used UDK, Unity or one of the other available game engines and got on with building a game, but my pride as an experienced game engine programmer didn't let me!"

This has been my biggest mistake. I have to keep chanting 'Build a game not an engine'. It would be silly to start building a house by building a brick factory but that is, unfortunately, what I find myself doing.

</comment><comment><USER24> I switched from making simple games on iOS to making simple utilities, it is so much quicker. Games require a lot, good graphics, unique gameplay, lots of testing.

</comment><comment><USER25> _I was way too ambitious with the game I was trying to build._

In the days of yore, I became one of the admin staff for a MUD I played, and you had to write an area. My proposal was for a vast frigid wilderness, and was 500 rooms big. I was significantly talked down in scale by one of the other admins, who'd written half the areas himself. The area ended up being 330 rooms in size (and the MUD prided itself on atmosphere) and it was quite a feat to write at that size.

At completion, I was very grateful to have listened to the other admin - <USER2> extra size wouldn't have changed the quality of the area, but would have meant 50% more work. It certainly made me more humble in accepting advice from more seasoned folks.

Also interesting at the time - I was going to school and working in a sleep lab. Semester break came at the time I was trying to finish the area. For a period of two weeks, apart from the sleep lab shifts (10-12 hours) it was a weird 'natural' cycle of 4 hours sleep, 4 hours awake and writing. I was glad I did it... and that I don't have to do it again.

</comment><comment><USER18> Sounds like a couple of my failed indie attempts.

</comment><comment><USER26> For folks who liked this post, you would probably find _Indie Game: The Movie_ interesting. (It's on Netflix.)

<comment><USER27> And DRM free from [http://buy.indiegamethemovie.com/](http://buy.indiegamethemovie.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is a fantastic view into indie development that I don't think enough people get to see.

</comment><comment><USER29> Are there any more stories like this of failed indie devleoper retrospectives?

<comment><USER30> I say this with humor, but this weekend, I took part in an indie 48-hour game- jam contest. I created the game, Fire Starter [http://dummysoftware.com/games/firestarter](http://dummysoftware.com/games/firestarter)

Created it with HTML5, targeting the desktop, rather than mobile. Didn't win, but had a lot of fun. That's kinda like the op's story compressed into a time- span of a few hours, sort of.

Btw, I recommend game-jams to anyone interested in indie game development. It forces you to create something quick, take decisive actions, and finish the game.

<comment><USER31> He participated in Ludum Dare (ludumdare.com), as did I, it's always a blast. I think you can't be thinking of going indie without having participated at least once sucessfully in a ludum dare (either in the jam or the compo, doesn't really matter)

<comment><USER32> I agree. Ludum Dare teaches you YAGNI. I built a better screen engine during LD in a couple hours than the bloated disfunctional monster I was building for my hobby game I had spend a dozen hours on. "First make it work, then make it modular" and "Create something small that works and then iterate" are now my game design commandments that I constantly have to repeat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Doesn't this guy realize that asking for money they way he did with flex funding defies logic. If you only raise some of the money, how were expecting to finish the project, and what about the people who gave you money - you just scammed them. He still hasn't paid them back yet, instead saying he owes them a game!

Trying not to be harsh, but this guy is obviously clueless - built his own game engine - maybe he should've started by wiring together his own circuit boards and then building an OS.

And another thing slightly disturbing about a lot of game devs - in your teens or early twenties I can understand the desire to make Indie games, you're young and retarded. But later on in life, late 20s and on - can you not find something more worthwhile to do?

Sure, a side hobby making games, or your main job working as a game dev to pay the bills, but for that be the focus of your life? Can you not open your eyes to the multitude of problems that exist out there, in the REAL WORLD, and fix those?

You could say the same about other artists like writers and musicians - <USER3> thankfully, almost all of them suffer financially for their insanity. As time progresses, Indie gamers will also realize that they are just the starving artists of modern times (minus the groupies that writers and musicians get).

<comment><USER34> First of all I would have to say that's really harsh, both on the industry and the developer. He may have been a bit delusional and not thought the plan through but he learned why he was wrong and got better from it.

Calling game development "useless" is a stretch however, they have always combined math,art,computers,music,... into one single piece. They have also personally broguht me into the world of programming.

Saying writers don't have a purpose is also a bit over the top. Some can be reporters, others send ideas to people who otherwise wouldn't have even considered them.

Games are a firm example of entertainment, and people get joy out of seeing people loving their product. Can you honestly say you want to live your life without TV, movies, games, music, writing, art, stories, dance?

<comment><USER33> I'm not saying that entertainment doesn't have value. I said it's perfectly fine if you're earning an income from creating it and it's OK as a hobby to create. But otherwise, the market (the people that constitute the world) have told you it's not valuable.

Art for art's sake is great, but it doesn't mean artists should get a free pass to do whatever they want and the rest of us digging coal mines and waiting tables give them money for art we don't like.

<comment><USER35> _Art for art 's sake is great, but it doesn't mean artists should get a free pass to do whatever they want and the rest of us digging coal mines and waiting tables give them money for art we don't like._

And where has anyone said we should? I didn't see OP demanding public subsidies. You're just attacking a dumb strawman.

<comment><USER33> His wife, the crowdfund backers, and the net loss to society by him taking himself out of productive business. Those are not 'dumb strawmans'.

And I wasn't talking about him in that comment, but the various starving artists who usually free ride on spouse/family/friends/welfare.

<comment><USER35> I'll give you the crowdfund backers, since they haven't got what they expected, but who the hell are you to decided what he or his wife should spend their money and time on? Should we start judging you for the useful stuff you could be doing with the time you're wasting on HN, not only yours but others', by reading your posts?

At least he probably learned useful skills building his game. What do you have to show for the time spent here?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> In my eyes this is not an article about a failed indie, but about one who never started. And yes that is exactly what is the biggest source of failure: Not starting.

You still didn't make that iOS/Android game with simple mechanics! You still didn't earn even 1ct by selling any kind game! You still didn't start to be an indie developer. Maybe it's still too hard to finish a 3D game with so many different programs and IDEs. But maybe it would be easy to make a Candy Crush clone for Android and sell it for $0.5

 _edit:_ Btw I'm sexist, but living off your wife's pay check with a mortgage and children in the house? Wtf?

<comment><USER36> Everything I wrote here was serious criticism.</comment></comment>


Symbols.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.symbols.com/ <comment><USER2> This could really use a visual search, like this: <http://detexify.kirelabs.org/classify.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> Great resource, thank you for posting. For anyone interested, J. E. Cirlot's "Dictionary of Symbols" is an excellent book.

</comment><comment><USER4> i especially appreciated the random symbol option.

if this were the usual "evaluate my app" post, i would have had to signup with my email just to see what was being sold :-)</comment>