Ask HN: How to deal with inexperienced interviewers? - <AUTHOR> Some interviewers are great - they are patient, let you talk, are genuinely curious about your previous work, and ask questions such that the interview is meaningful for both parties.
On the other hand, I frequently come across some inexperienced interviewers (often young, or early in their career). They interrupt you before you finish, ask obscure questions, and try to assert that your professional experience and knowledge is somehow inferior to theirs (or at least make you feel that way).
I feel excited about challenging questions/interviews but sessions with such folks (over the phone, or in person) are always disappointing, and negatively impact the interview outcome. I was wondering if there are any tips on how to handle such interviewers. <comment> git-pull I am at my wits end. I am getting exhausted and drained in these interviews.

There are times where I just botch interviews. Here and there, I look back and realize I came off the wrong way, like wow, I did that. But I reflect, and strive to get better. Sometimes it's just not a fit. Or someone comes along that's a better option than me.

But there is a growing pocket of places I interview at where they blatantly lie, bait and switch, ignore my portfolio and go right into brainteasers, code golf, and refactors that have absolutely nothing to do with the role being filled. Then radio silence.

I'm coming to the conclusion I'd rather earn less and work more hours on my own than enable this system. Because I have an indictment far more damning the OP: Some of the people interviewing me can barely code and are trying to survive another day. Not to mention, there are some who are afraid of letting in a stronger candidate that could replace them. Heh, what do you think they do?

Last interview I had, I discussed multiple times it being in Django and Python. Come the time of our call, interviewer flipped the script, it's in JavaScript, Underscore, and the data being passed around is so ambiguous it meshed together in my mind through the remainder of our call. I don't know if it's a clueless interviewer - or a really shrewd one who knew how to lay one over me.

Or is it me? The problem I face is getting beat down by all these tests makes me feel I'm not a good coder. Due to the fog of Dunning-Kruger, I know I can never be sure if the deficit is really on my end or not.

Does anyone else out there feel this?

I have published code all over. I code 10+ hours a day, even on the weekends. I get hammered in technical interviews.

<comment><USER3> Sometimes in an interview its better to just say "This is not the right job for me" and end it yourself. I've done that a few times now for various reasons. Sometimes simply just because I know I probably wouldn't like to have the interviewer as a Colleague or Boss.

If I thought I was interviewing for a Django/Python job and they completely changed the job description on me I'd have probably cut it right there. You can't just completely change the job someone is interviewing for from under them.

I definitely feel you on it though, I'd much rather earn less in a comfortable job where I'm happy than go through the stress of interviewing and having to refresh my knowledge of CS trivia so interviewers can throw a few at me.

<comment><USER4> >they completely changed the job description

>the stress of interviewing and having to refresh my knowledge of CS trivia

I was recently visiting a friend from uni, he wanted to start working in a bigger company, so he took his chances on Amazon (they had office 10min walk from where he lived). He applied for Java/C++ backend role with some indication that's related to robotics.

First week interviewer told him to refresh knowledge from basics of machine learning, searching algorithms and path finding, so he spent all weekend reading wikipedia and our notes from uni. During the interview he was asked questions about his experience with JS, Angular and CSS. What interesting JS projects he did and why links to the projects are not in his CV.

He graduated with second best grade at the uni with a major project from autonomous sailing robot and failed interview in Amazon because he didn't do anything hipsterish with Angular on Github. I showed him link to the FACE of Amazon to cheer him up... and it worked, he decided not to apply there any more. What a waste of time.

<comment><USER5> For the interested, this is the page referred to: [https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/](https://sites.google.com/site/thefaceofamazon/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some five years ago, I was having a phone interview for a company that were looking for people specializing in embedded programming with solid knowledge of OS internals and assembly. It seemed a great fit for me as that was what I have been doing since the start of my professional career.

As soon as the phone call started, the interviewer asked a puzzle question which had absolutely nothing to do with what I would eventually have to do if I got the offer. Bemused, I promptly solved the puzzle. He went on to ask three more puzzles after that. I solved each one of them. Now, it had already been 20 minutes into the interview and not one relevent question had been asked. I was getting a bit edgy.

He then went on to ask me textbook questions like difference between a process and a thread, types of memory management and so on.

It was one hour into the interview and he hadn't asked meaningful question that could justify the lofty requirements they had mentioned of their desirable candidate in the Job description.

When after around 1 hour, he asked me another puzzle, I politely asked him the relevence of that question with respect to the job. He told me that since he was the one interviewing me, he got to decide what was relevent and what was not.

I told him that I would like to end the interview right there. He protested. I hung up.

<comment><USER7> I think this interviewer was not that bad actually. He checked your problem solving skills, and he ensured you knows some textbook basics. That's fine. Thats what we do too: In the first interview ensure the candidate satifies the minimum requirements, and is a problem solver.

<comment><USER8> I think that the scope of the interview should have been more explicit in such a case - up front, ideally: "this is a first-level interview, I expect it to take an hour and a half; if you're successful, we will get to the specifics in the next one." Without an introduction, an hour of general quizzes would seem excessive to me.

OTOH, if the recruiter reacted to this expectations mismatch with an equivalent of "no explanations are given", I would have bailed, too: the interview is a two-way street, and both sides are interviewing - "do I want to work in such a company culture as evidenced by the recruiter"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interviews aren't only for the company to get a feel for you- it's also your chance to get a feel for the company. Would you want to work with someone who talked over you? How about someone more interested in boosting their own ego than doing their job (interviewing you)?

If the company thinks this is the person best qualified to judge applicants, you're dodging a bullet.

<comment><USER10> _If the company thinks this is the person best qualified to judge applicants, you 're dodging a bullet._

There are so many reasons this is a bad way of thinking.

\- A sample size of one is never enough. This alone is enough of a reason.

\- The interviewer could have normally been a great person but been having a rough day (maybe some personal stuff or a huge deadline coming up - <USER2> company has those every once in a while, you might have just got them at a bad time)

\- The original interviewer had to cancel last-minute (call from the hospital/school, car crash, etc) and the company decided that it would be more professional to put you with someone with less experience than cancel thirty minutes before your interview (which could be good or bad depending on how you see it)

I'm not saying that you're completly wrong - it's definitely an indicator that the company _may_ not be one you want to work for. But you shouldn't rule out a company because of one bad interview.

<comment><USER11> I guess the onus is on the company to fix these things rather than on interviewer.

Let's say the candidate behaved in this way, should the company ignore it?

<comment><USER10> The company probably won't ignore it, but they also might have missed out on hiring the best candidate for the position. Just like how you may miss out on the best career move.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Make friends. If they're inexperienced, it's your opportunity to manage the interview and establish a rapport that an experienced interviewer might not allow, or might discount. Someone who belittles like that is afraid to encounter someone who "really" knows their stuff and the right words can lead to their imitating you instead of intimidating you.

<comment><USER13> Why would a more experienced interviewer not allow or discount a good rapport? I've spent my fair share of time on both sides of the interviewing table (or screen, in most cases), and have always sought to spend the first ~20% of the interview building rapport.

I think the candidate's ability to communicate about non-technical matters is important, and if you can put someone at ease, you're likely to get a more realistic view of their abilities.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Here's the secret: Don't apply for those jobs and cut your losses short by finishing the interview yourself and walking out.

TL;DR: Bad interviews are a strong, pretty reliable symptom of a lack of good company culture.

What few people understand is that interviews aren't just for the employer, they are also your chance to choose who you're working for, what you get to know and how to progress your career. Your colleagues are the people who you will regularly spend more time awake with than your spouse.

They say "you don't leave a company, you leave a boss" — and it's true. Interviews are exactly the other side of this coin: You will usually sit across the table of your future boss. So choose well, as your choice will have a profound impact on your wellbeing for next few years, impacting work-life balance, chances and hirability afterwards.

Don't screw it up and just politely leave as soon as possible.

</comment><comment><USER15> Normally, I also reject companies that have bad interviewers - it means that the rest of the people they actually hire are likely below average as well. Which also means poor growth, poor salary growth for you, and likelihood that you'll have to lift some of your colleagues' weight as well.

Sometimes it's just the recruiting dept that's bad. I've interviewed with one company, where the recruiters were quite incompetent and insecure. Forms were extremely long, including personal things like t-shirt size and education level of siblings.

But the company was quite good. It was just a side effect of a rapidly growing company not hiring the right people for those slots. People who filled in those forms just treated it as another hurdle and the tech team still remains awesome.

<comment><USER16> Wait, they honestly asked you about the education level of your siblings? This is the most SVesque thing I've heard all year.

<comment><USER15> One of many questions. It was more like spouse, children, parents, siblings and then a table of age, job, education level. They made it look something like it's asking for emergency contacts.

I'm sure they asked pregnancy status too. Also I've heard some forms will even ask your spouse's race and religion.

Very personal questions are normal where I live, but there's no law that says I have to answer them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I had the exact same problem with an interviewer recently. He came in with a preconceived notion to reject and kept moving the conversation towards that.

He was interviewing me for a Sr. Engg role , and his first question was what is the difference between Server side and Client side scripting. I took it in good humor and answered him. He stunned me by saying "That's not what I was looking for. You should have just said server side scripting runs on the server and client side runs on the client" :P

I know I should have hung up there, but I was referred by a friend so had to sit through the entire hour.

<comment><USER18> Ahh so JavaScript is just Java which runs of the client as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> My worst interview ever was the head of HR for a Fortune 500 company that transferred to the Non-Profit side of the company. The job was working with non-technical and working with children. My interview was very invasive. I had two private investigators looking into my past, an interview at home that included my wife and two children and medical examination and physical test.

I arrived at the final interview and waited 50 minutes. Then the two people doing the interview never even read anything about me and came into it cold. I was prepared for a very detailed interview and instead I got ambiguous questions and when they asked me questions they actually reflected back what they heard and it was 50% just wrong. I corrected their mistake and the person gave me attitude. Later in the interview the person read their notes and he wrote down what was factually inaccurate that I corrected before. I corrected the inaccurate statement again and he was beyond pissed. I didn't get the job. When I was called I said to the person who I was in contact with for the whole 9 months that it was the worst interview I have ever had and made me look very negative at the whole experience. He just acknowledge what i stated and stated sorry. I still get request to reapply. I still might.....

</comment><comment><USER20> I think that commentators on this page have got this one completely wrong. It is important to let inexperienced engineers have a say in the recruitment process because they are the ones who will be working under you (right when you join or maybe in 6-12 months)!

Just to give an example, in one of the onsite interviews at a big tech company, I was interviewed by someone 1-2 years out of his undergrad. He asked me to solve a puzzle. Though I am not a big fan of puzzles, I answered it to the best of my ability. Then the conversation turned into what work he is doing and how he was getting frustrated on not having any meaningful projects. I gave him some standard career advice - do a side project that will improve the efficiency of your team (a new build system, test integration, wiki, etc.) and discussed higher education options. Both of us were happy by the end of interview. In addition, it also allowed me to catch a breath between the many back-to-back interviews.

<comment><USER21> OK, but if he's junior, he shouldn't be telling you your answers are wrong. If he does, he's not the kind of person you want under you.

<comment><USER20> Completely disagree. In most of the companies, unless it is a strict hierarchy, a 'junior' should be able to tell a 'senior' that his approach is wrong or propose a different solution. Now the 'junior' might be correct or incorrect, that is why the 'senior' should be a level-headed person so that he/she can recognize his/her mistake or correct the 'junior' without insulting him/her.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If a company can't spare the time of a senior team member to talk to you after some initial vetting they are probably not worth your time. I've been on the other side quite often and properly interviewing is time intense. Preparation, conducting and wrap-up can easily be 4 hours. We only assign a senior member if we think it could be a match and we need to actively persuade the candidate. So unless you really want a position, if you get an inexperienced interview partner just cut your losses and move on. Don't think too much about it and focus on the next one.

Just generally, be bolder with how you select your employer. If they don't want to know you personally, move on. If they are not interested in what you did in previous positions, move on. If they are only interested in skills you built up previously, move on (because they won't want to develop you). Etc...

</comment><comment><USER23> Interviews go both ways. If everyone was unpleasant, then it might be representative of the culture there and you may have dodged a bullet. If it's just one round or one person souring the experience, let the recruiter know. Companies that care about their culture or image will take the feedback to heart.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think the best way to handle it is: Sit trough the interview. At good companies you get to talk to more than 1 person, and a group of persons decide whether you get hired. If you really want to join the company you are interviewing with, then just try to get trough this interview, and try to make the best of out it. The company you are interviewing with also has limited developers time, and developers need to get an idea of your skill in a short amount of time. Try to be the nice person. Or try a different company if it gives you the bad buzz.

</comment><comment><USER24> There's nothing you can do. Complain to the recruiter afterwards, if they bother calling you, but make sure you tell them that the particular interviewer was not good.

<comment><USER25> > Complain to the recruiter afterwards, if they bother calling you, but make > sure you tell them that the particular interviewer was not good.

That would be a bad idea. The recruiter knows nothing about the OP, and probably not much about the interviewer. But the recruiter probably will be in better terms with the interviewer than the OP (or the one who is being interviewed).

So the end result would be that the OP will be considered not a good candidate because he/she complains the interviewer because it didn't went well, or at least, that will be how the recruiter is probably going to assume.

<comment><USER26> _That would be a bad idea. The recruiter knows nothing about the OP, and probably not much about the interviewer_

A recruiter wants to place candidates and thereby earn commissions. If they get a stream of candidates they've sent to interview at company X come back and say "the interviewer was deeply unpleasant and I would never work there" then they are going to have to react - either by raising it with the company or by stopping wasting time by sending candidates there in the first place. No candidates placed == no money.

<comment><USER27> This. Know thy recruiter, they can hand pick your interview loop with better interviewer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Look somewhere else.

If company X has inexperienced interviewers, then company X almost certainly has other problems. Inexperienced programmers? Inexperienced managers? Bad processes? Something, anyway, because a company shouldn't be sending people to interview who are unfit for the task.

And if you get past those interviewers and get hired, then you're going to have to live with whatever else was going on that allowed those people to be the interviewers. So I think you're better off taking those people as being a datapoint about the company. Walk away, and be grateful you found out early enough.

</comment><comment><USER28> It is made up profession. Of course they have to make it sound and look like there is any value is HR hiring. Sure younger interviewers don't know all the tricks yet to make it sound like it all makes sense. More than once I was talking to a guy (different ones) and when they proudly say they are in HR/interviewing people I feel genuinely sorry. Bragging to be a parasite and being proud about the fact. I've been nice in this post in case anybody is wondering.

<comment><USER29> H != R.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Unfortunately I don't think there is much to do about it. The strategy I've adopted the past couple years is to just grin and bear it and get out ASAP. Even if I get an offer (not usually in these cases, because the interviewer is dead set on proving you're an idiot and they are smart), I will reject it (unless I've been through several interviews with other teammates that I enjoyed).

</comment><comment> blubb-fish I guess the answer depends on how strong your desire is to work for that company and whether you consider the (annoying) interviewer representative for the place. Who would like to work with a bunch of wise-asses?! and also it depends on your mental features - like patience and communication skills.

I usually just stay friendly and see what I can do to keep the interview short.

</comment><comment><USER31> For me an instant turn-off is live coding (I get too stressed) and pointless academic questions that have nothing to do with the things I would be doing there.

And to be honest after I experience that combo I usually give up cause that means most people there were chosen based on that.

<comment><USER32> Interviewer: Can you explain me linked list structure? Candidate: blah bla blah .... Interviewer: Great. Can you tell me where linked list structure is commonly used? Candidate: On job interviews

<comment><USER33> Linked list of buffers are pretty useful for ferrying data in and out fast when you cannot allocate a lot of contiguous memory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> If you have interviewing skills, reverse the interview. Take the reins and guide them through it.

</comment><comment><USER35> Just give up.

My experience is terrible with them. There is a huge chance that they will sent wrong information about you, and you will have problems with even talking with the next recruiter from the same company.

</comment><comment><USER36> >try to assert that your professional experience and knowledge is somehow inferior to theirs (or at least make you feel that way).

I had this exact situation happen a while ago. I applied for a front-end developer role and the interviewer insisted on asking questions about the deep internals of node. And whenever I gave a satisfactory answer he would immediately tell me an alternative answer, as if mine isn't somehow good enough. The entire interview just felt like he had to one up me at all times.

<comment><USER37> Your comment was dead. Looks like you were shadowbanned due to your previous comments. I have vouched for this one, as it seems reasonable.

Downvoting this seems strange... it's pretty standard practice to explain why you've vouched for a dead comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Wrong audience</comment>


To fasten your seatbelt, insert the flap into the buckle - <AUTHOR> http://30dayflight.com/day11.html

<comment><USER2> I'll share something my mom said to me when I was scared of flying as a kid:

"They pilot doesn't want to die either".

That has more-or-less destroyed any fear I have of flying.

<comment><USER3> I agree.

I was recently 4 hours into a flight from Chicago to Germany on a large double-decker Airbus when I started smelling smoke on the plane.

Suddenly I see flight attendants running to the back of the plane with fire extinguishers. Other flight attendants are running to the front of the plane with bottles of liquor.

The captain comes over the intercom: "Flight attendants, prepare for emergency landing"

Over the next 5 minutes I watch how different people react to the scenario. Some people grab hands, some start to pray, some people just close their eyes. Others start demanding up-to-the-minute information about our situation.

Without warning, we hit the ground. In a made-for-the-movies moment, the entire plane erupts in applause.

The rest of my trip I was a little nervous getting back on planes. However, the one thing that helped me keep things in perspective was something the flight-attendant said during our emergency landing:

"I have a husband in Germany. I don't want to die either. We're doing everything we can."

Simple and rational. It always works for me too.

FYI, the smoke turned out to be a coffee maker--and after several hours stuck on the tarmac in Newfoundland, we were on our way again.

<comment><USER4> It's in situations like that where you see flight attendants doing their "real" jobs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ugh, I know exactly how that guy feels. I hate flying with an abiding passion (indeed, I view their 30 day trip as about as much fun as hitting myself in the nuts with a hammer over the course of a month). It is completely and totally irrational, but there's not much to be done about it. Drinking helps, some, but they don't serve drinks during takeoff, which is the worst part (I usually manage to relax a bit after about a half an hour of total panic).

The "can't get off" part is really important too.

<comment><USER6> I don't hate "flying". I went halfway to getting a pilot's license just because I've always wanted to learn how to fly (for real, not in simulators).

It's not the _flying_ that makes me hate flying on airliners; it's being locked up in a cramped, uncomfortable, jetlag-inducing space that makes me feel like a pig on a CAFO, where I always emerge to my destination with a splitting headache due to an old neck injury.

I don't generally have claustrophobia, but I'm sure that also has something to do with people's feelings about flying on airliners.

<comment><USER7> I dont mind flying at all - but sometimes the claustrophobia hits me and I immediately have a sudden vision of wrenching open the door and falling thousands of feet.

It passes in a few seconds but it's pretty scary!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> His fear of private aircraft is comparatively rational. The big commercial carriers have a far better safety record.

<comment><USER9> But he'd probably have his choice of seats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> People often spend a significant amount of time worrying about what tomorrow will bring and in turn negatively affect today. This is a dilemma that we all face on a regular basis. We worry about hitting our quota because if not, we will potentially lose our job; we dread an upcoming family event because we are going to be forced to spend time with a "long lost" relative; we are concerned about going on vacation because we have not kept to our diet; we worry that our start-up will not get funded and we will be forced to work at a corporate giant; we fear an upcoming airline flight and do not enjoy our vacation; and we are troubled that a loved one, (or even ourselves), is going to die because of a recent diagnosis of a terminal disease. All of these worries, dreads, concerns, and troubles lead to what I like to call "F-e- a-r"or in other words, False Evidence Appearing Real. I am sure we will agree that we often worry about future events that never turn out to be as bad as we originally thought. So in the time from the initial thought, up and until the event, we have "destroyed" a period of time that could have been significantly more enjoyable. Now there are cases that are inevitable, like the eventual death as a result of a terminal disease, but even with these occurrences, the death component is going to occur when your time is finished on earth, but the life element is up to you. Remember, F-e-a-r is only False Evidence Appearing Real.

</comment><comment><USER11> Fear is a really interesting thing... If you can control people's fears, you pretty much control everything. Currently on display in US healthcare "debate"...

<comment><USER12> Off-topic right-leaning political banter? Ah yes, it's HN on Friday night.

<comment><USER11> Not at all. That was just the first thing that came to mind. Generally you could say that every major decision in politics rises and falls with people's fears. This was just a placative example, and not the least right-leaning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The preservation of one's own life is perhaps everybody's primary goal in life, and so there are many excellent reasons for somebody to avoid risks so that this goal is repeatedly achieved. But such a life (devoid of risk) is stagnant and hindered. I wonder if this is the difference between living and merely existing.

</comment><comment><USER9> On the concept of control, one thing that has been effective for me in helping me get over my fear of heights it trying not to control my fear. It's sounds strange, but the more I try to control the fear the worse it gets but if I just let it come and don't get caught up in the tug of war of my anxious thoughts and feelings but force myself to carry on regardless of my thoughts or feelings (which I know to be irrational anyway) I find that the fear tends to fade on its own.

</comment><comment><USER14> I found this about Disney World's sound more fascinating: <http://30dayflight.com/day10.html>

</comment><comment> brown9-2 I don't understand the confusion that someone who is supposedly rich would fly JetBlue.

They _are_ pretty sweet as far as flying goes.

<comment><USER15> Yeah, but flying private means no TSA, no queues and you decide when to fly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> The other thing about flying:

I cannot even possibly describe to anybody who hasn't spent time in the captain's chair how good of a job the FAA and the aircraft manufacturers do planning for _EVERYTHING_.

You practically have to ask for clearance, then follow a checklist, when you scratch your beard.

</comment><comment><USER16> I hate warped statistics. A probability is not "2000% lower". That would imply a -1900% chance. I suppose he meant that the probability of dying in a flight is 1/20 of in a car, although I cannot be sure.

</comment><comment><USER17> "More than half of fliers report some level of anxiety before boarding a plane, and 5% of the population refuses to fly at all."

Where does this data come from?

</comment><comment><USER18> How are they engaging people on these flights? What's the opening line? Are they recording them? I'm really interested in how they're pulling this off.

</comment><comment><USER19> I wonder why he doesn't take anti-anxiety medication before flights. It's a straightforward enough solution.

<comment><USER5> I tried that, and it had _zero_ effect. Then I had another one, and something to drink, and _that_ worked, but was probably not a bright idea. I did manage to sleep just a little bit, which was a first for me, flying. I was still terrified for the first half hour, though, so I wouldn't really say the anti- anxiety stuff had any effect at all.

<comment><USER19> Oh, they work for me. They mainly work on the physical side effects of anxiety -- the muscle tension, pain in the chest, etc. I need to also take a melatonin to be able to sleep.

The mental fear is still up to you. Usually I just embrace it and take the moment of takeoff as a time to reflect on my own mortality -- if you can come to terms with the chance of your early, violent death then there is no need to panic.

<comment><USER9> It's been theorized and shown in various studies that a lot of a drug effectiveness due to the placebo effect, so it may be that if you don't think it will help you it's likely not to.

<comment><USER20> Yeah. I have a relative who is deathly afraid of flying and she has tried taking anxiety meds. She said they just make want to talk to strangers more about how scared she is. ha ha. It breaks down normal social barriers but she is still deathly afraid. I think she'd rather try to keep it to herself as much as possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> it's not irrational. it's fear off lack of control for ones live.

I do _not_ know how to fly an airplane. I do not know the commander.

I _do_ know how to pilot a bike. I ride a bike in heavy traffic at high speeds.

Despite the death rate for the bike case is higher, i crap myself on an airplane. because i'm not in control.

<comment><USER11> This concept of control is a _very_ irrational one. Of course you steer and pedal your bike by yourself. But by taking part in traffic you give up at least as much control as flying by plane. Some guy hitting you with his car from behind is not exactly in your control.

<comment><USER4> Agree.

When I was getting my pilot's license, I learned to be hyper-aware of another airplane that was less than say 1000 feet from me. But the strangest part of those lessons was getting back into my car afterward and getting onto the 417, where I was a couple of feet away from other cars, also going 75mph. I was _completely_ at these other drivers' mercy: I had effectively no time to react to them, and knew from experience that lots of drivers are just plain awful (and this was really before you'd see people driving while texting with one hand and changing their kids' DVD in the other.)

It was very, very scary. Total loss of control — far more than in an airplane, where to a much greater degree if things go sideways, it was probably your fault anyway.

The other interesting thing about the scary drive was how long it stayed scary: maybe ten minutes, tops. After that — business as usual. Didn't even think about it.

It's interesting what we can get used to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm really impressed with the look and feel of the site. Good luck guys.</comment>


Show HN: Sandstorm-powered "Try a demo" on Etherpad front page - <AUTHOR> http://etherpad.org/

<comment><USER2> I like Etherpad but unless you give us a reason for posting this here that is HN-related, it should be flagged.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Scott!

I think this is interesting for two reasons:

1\. Open source web apps often struggle to maintain a "Try it" server. The interesting thing here is that Sandstorm (through our package ecosystem and demo server) makes that easy for any open source web app, and this is an example of that.

2\. Since I wrote the code that powers that link, I thought it would be a great thing to "Show HN", per [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html) "Show HN is a way to share something that you've made on Hacker News."

<comment><USER2> That's better - thank you. We (the community) just saw this as "Is it spam?"

Sorry - I thought you were a new account. I'm using the chrome extension "Hacker News Enhancement Suite" and it highlights yours in a very-similar- color-to-newbie-color.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Groove Basin also has one of these buttons!

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

</comment><comment><USER4> Did you make this? Show HN is for showing your own work.

Edit: yup. See below.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for taking an interest!

I personally wrote the code behind Sandstorm's "appdemo" feature, which is what the "Try it now" button links to, from the Etherpad front page. Etherpad itself is not written by me; it's written by many other great people.

See e.g. [https://github.com/sandstorm- io/sandstorm/commits?author=pau...](https://github.com/sandstorm- io/sandstorm/commits?author=paulproteus&page=2)

I also wrote this blog post about the feature: [https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2015-02-06-app- demo.html](https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2015-02-06-app-demo.html)

Happy to answer other questions if you have them!

<comment><USER4> Ok, great! We put "Show HN" back in the title. We also added "Sandstorm- powered" in an attempt to make it more explanatory.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much, dang!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's like irc. Irc with more formatting.

Can I insert pictures?

woo, a time slider. nice.</comment>


Marriage finances for the modern era: a proposal - <AUTHOR> http://plusbryan.com/marriage-finances

<comment><USER2> My wife and I took the cue from Scott Hanselman & his wife Mo a few years back. Pay all income into one account and then pay yourselves an allowance for "guilt free spending" for all the little things you want to just buy.

[http://hanselminutes.com/216/geek-relationship-tips-with- sco...](http://hanselminutes.com/216/geek-relationship-tips-with-scotts-wife)</comment>


"Just try to take a released feature away from customers and see how pissed off they get." - <AUTHOR> http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch05_Start_With_No.php <comment><AUTHOR> Anyone have experience with removing features from a live product? What was the response -- would you do it again?

It seems like this advice conflicts with being experimental and releasing stuff early for user feedback. What if you release something and decide it's obtrusive to 95% of people but there's a small group who loves it? Do you hide it away somewhere -- what if it's a drag to maintain?</comment>


Om Next - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByNs9TG30E8

<comment><USER2> Yeah, that was a great talk.

I really want to try out Om Next. I've been building a bunch of stuff in Om lately and the Falcor/Relay/GraphQL stuff is really going to be great to have at my disposal.

The clojurescript compiling clojurescript stuff looks great too.</comment>


AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1920X and 1950X CPUs Announced - <AUTHOR> http://www.anandtech.com/show/11636/amd-ryzen-threadripper-1920x-1950x-16-cores-4g-turbo-799-999-usd <comment><USER2> I really hope the ECC carries through. It irritates me to have to buy a "server" CPU if I want ECC on my desktop (which I do) and it isn't that many gates! Its not like folks are tight on transistors or anything. And on my 48GB desktop (currently using a Xeon CPU) I'll see anywhere from 1 to 4 corrected single bit errors a month.

For things like large CAD drawings which are essentially one giant data structure, flipping a bit in the middle of them somewhere silently can leave the file unable to be opened. So I certainly prefer not to have those bits flip.

<comment><USER3> I have a Ryzen 5 1600 with a pair of Crucial ECC UDIM. It works perfectly on the ASUS Prime B350M-A/CSM uATX board. Stress tested. Errors are logged and halt behavior is confirmed (ubuntu 17.04).

<comment><USER4> Interesting, could you possibly explain how "halt behavior" indicates that ECC is fully functioning? I've just read a lot about ECC being compatible but not tests explicitly showing it works.

<comment><USER2> On my system if an uncorrectable error were to happen the system goes into a 'machine check' state (a halt). In theory, the BIOS supports 'chip kill' which is that it reboots with a bit set to not use that specific chip in the DIMM. I've never seen that happen on my desktop but in the data center when it happened a system that should have 128GB of memory would reboot and come back with less than the full amount (as expected by the DIMMs plugged in) reported by the BIOS.

<comment><USER5> Chipkill is an IBM name for the feature that corrects multiple bit errors in DRAM, are you sure about the reboot thing or are there two similarly named ECC techs that do different things?

<comment><USER2> Intel discussion of Chipkill ([https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents...](https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/white- papers/xeon-e7-family-ras-server-paper.pdf)). Servers in question were Supermicro "Jupiter" chassis with the Westmere processors, discussion on Supermicro of their implementation ([https://www.supermicro.com/support/faqs/faq.cfm?faq=2642](https://www.supermicro.com/support/faqs/faq.cfm?faq=2642))

When systems rebooted with less memory than the system configuration database said they should have most of the time there would be a multi-bit error detection, machine check, and 'memory update' in the IPMI buffer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Best thing about this is that competition is back (in the high end x86 market) and the winner is the consumer, CPU market have been stale for a while.

<comment> le-mark I kinda missed the boat on this story, I was of the mindset that cpu game was over, and Intel had an insurmountable advantage in 14 nanometer fabrication, and basically their scale meant AMD could never compete again. How has AMD managed to a comeback like this?

Edit; reading wikipedia, seems like it was the fact AMD could outsource 14nm finfet fabrication to GlobalFoundries that they're able to do this, since they didn't have to build their own fabrication facility, or could they have done their own fab?

<comment><USER7> Because AMD doesn't handle it's fabrication any longer. It's all done through third-parties (GloFo and Samsung, particularly) whom are competitive against Intel. Intel still has the advantage in that they are vertically integrated, however Samsung is pushing out far more chips/day than Intel and is the lead fab for cutting edge ARM processors. This makes it much more capable of multiparadigm fabbing.

<comment><USER8> AMD founder Jerry Sanders used to say "Real men have fabs" (i.e. ownership of the whole production chain), and is probably sad that had to be given up for financial reasons.

Looking up that phrase gets a history of upsides and downsides, e.g. [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Oxfqym...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:OxfqymS01qAJ:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/1994-04-10/real- men-have-fabs+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How do people with many CPU cores find it helps their day to day, excluding people who run VMs, or do highly parallelisable things as their 80% core job loop (ie you run some form of data.paralellMap(awesomeness) all day)?

Does it help with general responsiveness? Do many apps / processes parallalise nicely? Or is it more "Everything is 99% idle until I need to run that Photoshop filter, and then it does it really fast"?

<comment><USER10> Build Time!

I will pay a great deal of money to reduce my build times. Building is readily parallelizable and with a good enough build scripts and system design there are several smaller linking steps instead of one huge serialized one at the end. On my current system building the code I care about only takes about 2 minutes, about 5MLOCs of C++.

Anything more than 10 seconds is enough to get stuck in the time waste that is Reddit... or HN... I am getting back to work now, my build is likely done.

<comment><USER11> Oof, I'm limited to building at -j4 due to memory constraints, not CPU constraints.

<comment><USER10> How much memory do you have and what are building? Last I was memory constrained I was trying to build Clang on a Raspberry Pi.

<comment><USER11> 16 gigs working on internal code, but apparently the culprit is boost::units....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A CPU that large reminds me of the famous remark made by Grace Hopper about how light can move 30cm in one nano second, I guess theoretically meaning that CPU could have some kind of maximum size.

Of course since current CPU contains cores, it doesn't apply.

<comment><USER13> Instead of placing the dies next to each other on a flat surface, the dies could be above each other, or the CPU made spherical, for optimally close distances. And RAM of the motherboard could also be in a circle or sphere around it.

Is there any other concern than cooling with this?

<comment><USER14> Well for one thing, _light doesn 't bend_. There's something to be said for the flat rectangular shape.

<comment><USER15> Really? I'm pretty sure Einstein would disagree.

<comment><USER16> If your cpu is dense enough to gravitationally bend light by any significant amount then you might have other problems.

But we bounce light off of electric fields all the time, so the a flat chip is not really required (even if you made an all-optical chip). As others have said, it's all about heat distribution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm still waiting for this bug to be fixed: [https://community.amd.com/message/2796982](https://community.amd.com/message/2796982)

Note: this isn't a bug in gcc, but looks like hardware bug related to hyperthreading.

<comment><USER18> Just a question (this is how out of touch I am). I thought most linux compilation moved over to a lvvm toolchain?

<comment><USER19> Not even remotely close. No major distribution uses the LLVM toolchain.

<comment><USER17> If you are talking about the kernel itself, I think Debian did some work to support building Linux with clang. But last time I checked, it wasn't ready.

See also: [https://wiki.debian.org/llvm-clang](https://wiki.debian.org/llvm- clang)

<comment><USER20> Distributions compile more than just a kernel. That's just one of several thousand packages we build. Usually the problem (even with something as simple as PIC/ASLR) is that old projects might have problems compiling.

We just switched openSUSE Tumbleweed to GCC7 a few months ago, and it was a very large amount of work. I can't imagine how much work it would take to switch to LLVM.

<comment><USER21> Counterpoint: We compile more than one entire linux distribution (one is gentoo based, others vary) with llvm with essentially no issues (the number of local patches is incredibly small, and most is actually just buggy code that clang happens to detect, and we are waiting for upstream to accept).

Is it work? Sure. But it's not like "years of real work". It's about 5-10 people for a quarter or two.

<comment><USER20> It is definitely possible, but I was saying that switching to LLVM would take a while, and that even GCC updates are painful. 5-10 people for 6 months is a fairly serious time investment for a community project (especially since we have a lot of other things on our plate).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What I am going to be interested in is this versus EPYC parts. I think the higher clocks are mainly to achieve some of the more insane (and useless) FPS counts for games. If you are willing to ramp down the FPS to a number that your monitor can actually display, it may be better to find a general purpose EPYC MB and chipset, and use that. Especially if homelab / big data / compiling linux/ occasional gaming is you cup of tea.

<comment><USER22> There's still plenty of room to grow into VR and/or 120Hz/240Hz monitors at 4k/5k.

<comment><USER23> Resolutions has nothing to do with it. To the contrary: You need less cpu power since you will get your FPS limit from the gpu, not the cpu. Similar for VR: Current cpus are strong enough to get the 90FPS current VR headsets want. 240Hz maybe, but those processors won't be faster in games than a Intel Core i7-7700K, as games don't use that many cores.

<comment><USER22> So then what is the original comment referring to?

<comment><USER23> I think that is is comparing Threadripper to other workstation cpus, or it rather explicitly does compare to EPYC. Since Threadripper has a high clock, it might work better in games as well. Parent is right in saying that when adapting expectations, that additional gaming performance is unlikely to be necessary.

Reminds me of using one of the Xeon E5-2670 for gaming, as in [https://www.techspot.com/review/1155-affordable-dual-xeon- pc...](https://www.techspot.com/review/1155-affordable-dual-xeon-pc/).

<comment> dis-sys Posting from my dual Xeon E5-2670 here, it is a great machine for gaming, look at those average fps benchmarks in your link.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Its been awhile since I've built a computer with my own two hands, but either that man's hands are really small or hot damn AMD Ryzen CPU are huge.

<comment><USER25> For what it's worth, I interpreted that image to be a still from the announcement video, which from the article:

> _Today's announcements, accompanied by a video from the CEO of AMD Dr. Lisa > Su_

So, given that she's an Asian woman, it might be a smaller hand than you were thinking. Nevertheless, it does seem to be a very large component (hence the joke image at the bottom of the article).

<comment><USER26> Of course it's her, no one else publicly showed a Threadripper yet :)

It is large — 4094 pin socket!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm still waiting for a more diverse set of synthetic and real-world benchmarks. It'll be interesting to see how IPC performance holds up with Threadripper, however I think the most interesting debate will be whether the 1920x or lowest end Epyc CPU are a better buy.

Unfortunately, even as an enthusiast $799 is more than I'm willing to spend on a CPU. I'm also still hard pressed to build a Ryzen 1700 System since I can purchase an i7 7700 from MicroCenter for about $10 less than the Ryzen part (and have equal or better general performance with notable better IPC).

<comment><USER27> Cinebench scores are fantastic for speculating on how these CPUs will work in the context of 3D rendering/simulations. That personally has me very excited.

<comment><USER28> Agreed - 3062 for the TR-1950X and 2431 for the TR-1920X are colossal results. 2167 for the i9-7900X is still huge!

At first I thought that (given it's AMD running the test) they'd hamstring the Intel CPU with an under powered cooler, but it looks like they gave it a big Corsair H100i 240mm water cooler. If that's not enough for a 140W CPU, I don't know what is - it was probably on turbo the entire time. They gave their own CPUs an "EK Prototype SP3" cooler, though - is this it? [https://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-kit-s360](https://www.ekwb.com/shop/ek-kit-s360)

Regardless, the message seems to be that if you want top performance, get a big cooler.

<comment><USER29> The "EK Prototype SP3" cooler was probably a prototype of a water block designed for the X399 platform. The chip is massive, so the existing solutions probably don't fit it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> strong-minded A simple formula: The 1920X beats the 7920X by a few hundred in Cinebench and a couple of hundred in the pocket.

I wonder if the 'Number Copy War' (started with the X299 vs. X399 Chipset) will continue throughout the year.

</comment><comment><USER30> Since the article does refer to these as desktop CPUs, I'm curious what kind of desktop workloads people are running that could benefit from / justify them?

<comment><USER31> Intel likes to market these CPUs to people who 'mega-task'.

Video Editing while Gaming while Streaming while Hosting a server while Dealing with encrypted data while Multi-monitor while Contributing to science while while while

etc

AMD hasn't really declared which market they are after yet. It's likely going to be a big part of the launch event.

<comment><USER32> Mega task - as in have a hundred tabs open, a dozen Excel spreadsheets plus Outlook. Maybe there will be lots of cores since there is no more Moore's law, 32 core computing will be the new core i5 with 64 core computing being the new i7. Some software might run albeit slowly on older computers that only have 16 cores.

In this future the choice of 64 core computing is one of those things like car choice. Obviously we need cars electronically restricted to 155, we would not consider a car that only did 120 or so. There is a theoretical scenario where that vital power is needed but it is not a rational decision based on cost benefit analysis.

Therefore you can expect a change over time to where core total becomes marketing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> It is great that they're announced for an August release, but when I can actually _BUY_ one?

Given that Naples (aka Epyc) was "released" in June, I went looking to actually buy one, and I could not find a single place selling them. Not Newegg, nothing local, nothing in Google shopping, etc.

<comment><USER34> On July 27, you'll be able to buy an Alienware Area-51 with Threadripper.

<comment><USER31> You'll be able to pre-order. Still no official word on when it'll ship.

<comment><USER35> With recently a flood of CPU SKUs, I suggest to wait at least end of this year for all of them widely available.

<comment><USER36> All three R7 SKUs were all readily available at launch, and so were the R5s at their launch. Now mobos on the other hand...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> dis-sys $999 list price translates to $1100-$1150 retail price in countries where you have a GST style tax, then you factor in an expensive motherboard plus heat sink, 64GB of RAM, the upgrade is like $2k.

the problem is with this confirmed return of competition between Intel vs AMD, I am no longer sure whether it is a good idea to upgrade now as it is basically the first iteration between those two. Are they going to release something even better in 6-12 months time?

<comment><USER37> Well, the new iMac Pro (8/10/18 core) will _start_ at $5000 - I also feel ever slower development experiences on my MBP and it will be pretty much a solved problem on a 16 core Threadripper workstation.

I feel like I can't wait for another iteration (actually don't need to) or the _planned_ December release date for the new iMac Pro...

[https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/imac- pro/](https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/imac-pro/)

<comment> dis-sys Wow, that 18 core iMac Pro with 4T SSD and 128G ECC RAM could shot up to $15k. I can buy an army of Ryzen at that price.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> AMD needs to come out with a few AVX-1024 instructions for vector ops. Essentially make one core into a GPU that doesn't suck at branching.

<comment><USER39> A "GPU that doesn't suck at branching" is basically what the Xeon Phi is intended to be, with 72 AVX512-enabled Atom cores per chip. However it costs over $6000.

<comment> dis-sys and it is export controlled - Chinese are not allowed to buy it.

<comment><USER40> And it is not competitive with GPUs for truly parallel workloads

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The comparisons in this article are mostly against the high-end Intel core line, but these CPUs support server / enterprise type features like ECC memory, lots of PCI-E lanes, and virtualization features (I think?).

Shouldn't Threadripper be compared to Xeons?

EDIT: Or rather, what I'm really wondering is what these CPUs lack that AMD's server line (EPYC) have.

<comment><USER31> EPYC has double the PCIe lanes, double the DRAM channels, and will have enterprise level support. Threadripper is classified by AMD as a Ryzen family product, and is consumer focused (or super high-end desktop focused) rather than enterprise focused. TR will be on shelves, EPYC will not.

AMD's 16-core EPYC part (the 1P 7351P) is around $750, but supports 2TB/socket and 128 PCIe lanes in exchange for a good chunk of frequency (2.4G base, 2.9G Turbo). Threadripper is also single socket only - most of EPYC is 2P.

Though given Intel's pricing, if AMD has the ecosystem, then the mid-range of the Xeon line might migrate to TR/EPYC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I'm waiting for these to launch so I can build a great multi-threaded computer. My Elixir apps are waiting for all these threads! :)

Does anyone know if Plex is going to see much benefit transcoding video files on the fly?

<comment><USER43> > Does anyone know if Plex is going to see much benefit transcoding video > files on the fly?

Does the underlying avcodec / ffmpeg support huge thread counts?

<comment><USER44> It's not ffmpeg that matters here but libx264, which does support multithreading. I ran a quick test on my PC (workstation class Xeon with 6c/12t) and found that with 1/2/4/8/12t it took (wall time) 28.5/14.7/9.7/7.2/6 seconds to encode 10s of video at 1080p. So it is able to take advantage of multiple cores but there are diminishing returns.

For Plex I'd really focus on using hardware encoders rather more than anything. NVENC and QuickSync are both widely available and able to do decent H.264/HEVC encodes far faster than any CPU and on a home network you're not really bandwidth constrained so the degree of compression doesn't matter too much. On a mobile network I'd go for Plex's offline optimization.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> soon as i have some funds i will be getting one but only if ECC is supported -- what would be even better is if one could do a mild OC on the part but also have ECC

</comment><comment><USER46> Quad channel, so you have to install RAM with 4 match sticks at a time?

<comment><USER47> If you don't want to run in Dual or Single channel mode - yes.

<comment><USER48> Kinda.

Modern (newer than ~10 years) modern controllers are quite flexible, so you can pretty much populate any number of DIMMs in any slots (apart from wrong ordering, though this is not a IMC restriction, rather firmware, for stability).

However. Disregarding the recommended populations usually means that the MC can't interleave the channels properly and also must choose other settings in a lowest-common denominator way. This severely reduces the performance of the memory subsystem, _which includes cache coherency and all core communication in Zen_.

<comment><USER47> Interesting, thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I did a lot of work with artificial life and evolutionary computation in the early 2000s. Wish we had these chips back then.

</comment><comment><USER50> How long does it take to drip a threa?

</comment><comment><USER51> Opteron feels o//

</comment><comment><USER52> I recently tried to go the AMD/Ryzen route. I like an underdog comeback story as much as the next guy.

But be warned: Motherboards that "support" Ryzen do not in fact support Ryzen out of the box. You have to update the BIOS to support Ryzen. How do you POST without a CPU you ask? Who knows? Magic, possibly.

I still don't understand how AMD expects their customers to have more than one CPU (and possibly DDR4-2133 sticks) to be able to POST and update the BIOS.

I returned everything AMD and went back to safe, good ole Intel. Worked on first try. I'm never getting sucked into AMD hype again.

Also, when I went back to return the AMD components to Fry's, the manager said they were aware/used to getting Ryzen returns because of this.

<comment><USER26> What?!

That sounds totally bogus. You don't have to update the BIOS to support Ryzen. Ryzen is the first CPU on AM4.

You don't need "DDR4-2133 sticks". Ever. Any DDR4 sticks can run at 2133, that's literally the DDR4 standard, everything above is overclocking. 2133 rated sticks are the cheapest (and worst).

I got my R7 1700 and mainboard yesterday. Everything worked on first try. Speaking of DDR4, my 2400 rated (Hynix) sticks overclocked to 3200, with decent timings, even :) (Well, decent for Hynix.) My previous system (overclocked non-K Skylake) couldn't run these sticks above 2450.

<comment><USER52> Why... why would I lie? What could I possibly have to gain from lying about this? I only have HN karma to lose, which I don't have much to begin with.

You can, before simply defending AMD, research and see for yourself that required BIOS updates are indeed an issue.

I tried it with an MSI Tomahawk, and an Asus B350 Prime. Had a Ryzen-5-1600 and a Ryzen-7-1700, as well as a pair of DDR4-2133, and DDR4-3000 modules each, and tried every combination, and was never able to post.

Switched to Intel CPU and Asus Intel-supporting MB with the same DDR4-3000 RAM and POST'd on the first try. I'm saying that to 'prove' that the other components were fine.

I'm glad that it worked out for you, and I wish it had gone smooth for me too.

[http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3387164/am4-motherboa...](http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3387164/am4-motherboard- ship-ryzen-support.html)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/66b7vu/to_all_ryzen_5_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/66b7vu/to_all_ryzen_5_owners_did_you_have_to_flash_bios/)

... so many of these.

<comment><USER53> You messed up something. My 1700 and Asus B350 Prime were able to POST without issues and without any BIOS updates, and I got both a couple of weeks after release. Most BIOS updates have only been required for overclocking improvements.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Prototype for a Server-less Internet of the Future - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2013/10/30/eu-researchers-create-prototype-for-a-server-free-future-internet/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OmMalik+%28GigaOM%3A+Tech%29

<comment><USER2> Followed by Breadless Sandwiches of the Future?</comment>


Wappalyzer: Stats on the usage of web based software - <AUTHOR> http://wappalyzer.com/ <comment><USER2> My initial reaction was 'why?'!

But this actually an interesting tool for getting data on the most used platforms and tools. Rather than just giving the list of stats on a top 10 style, how about showing just how much more popular jQuery is than prototype and mootools, i think a % based dataset would be more valuable.

Nice work!

<comment><AUTHOR> You can click through to categories and applications.

Compare all Javascript Frameworks: <http://wappalyzer.com/stats/cat/JavaScript%20frameworks>

Compare jQuery against Mootools: <http://wappalyzer.com/stats/app/jQuery|Mootools>

<comment><USER2> Much better! Sorry I didn't see that. If I were you, I'd put something like that on the home page so it is apparent to people what they can do with your product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I launched this website today. Wappalyzer started out as a simple Firefox add- on that detects software used on websites, later I decided to keep track of these applications and make the statistics publicly available. Feedback is more then welcome.</comment>


Germany's Covid-19 expert: 'For many, I'm the evil guy crippling the economy' - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/26/virologist-christian-drosten-germany-coronavirus-expert-interview <comment><USER2> I just posted this to another thread - but I think it would be of value here :

I think it is interesting that the discussions are only framed in measuring deaths, and also focus on deaths of the old. I'm watching friends and family knocked back by this virus for weeks, and now pushing into months (36 days and 42 days since first symptoms for 2 people I know), and research in the US and China points to the increase in long term health risks in the 20 to 50 year olds that recover from this. I know people that just walk away from this with no impact, but if we only focus on death we are likely missing the bigger picture.

</comment><comment><USER3> Living in a country led by a Chemistry PhD who lets Dr. Drosten and his colleagues do most of the talking about Covid-19, and has long had some pretty sturdy expectant mother protections in place has been about as good a pandemic experience as I can imagine having as a relatively old pregnant woman. My company medical office called my boss to order me to work from home two days after I decided I'd prefer to - unnecessary, because my boss agreed to let me as soon as I started worrying about it. The next week, we were all ordered to work from home.

I'm flabbergasted every time I see a news story from the US about a pregnant woman worried about having to keep working in a public-contact job with inadequate protection. Here right now, it's completely out of the question; if her employer can't find her a role that doesn't require public contact, she's on medical leave at most of her pay. This is usually the case for preschool workers and some medical professionals, as well as women in jobs that involve exposure to harmful chemicals or biologic agents.

</comment><comment><USER4> _He fought dinosaurs, body snatchers and aliens. Now I trust him to deal with the virus._ , [https://i.imgur.com/ofKsRhI.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/ofKsRhI.jpg)

The best thing about the reaction here in Germany (beside 'things working out fine so far') is how unexcitedly things are happening. Nobody is showing off in biohazard suits, no 'fearless' politicians shaking hands in hospitals, just 'There is a problem and we will deal with it'.

After the pandemic (and I hope it will come to an end one day because distancing sucks), we should communicate that the climate crisis shares a lot of properties with the pandemic. It is getting worse the longer we keep doing what we are doing, the consquences are delayed and dire and the efforts required to bring about change are massive. I still think we can deal with this problem as well if we want to, especially _now_ since the 'official future' (basically the assumption that the world will look like it used to) is dead [0] and a lot of things that were accepted until now are questioned.

(To make life easier for future Internet historians: it is Jeff Goldblum in images 1 to 3 (from top-left to bottom-right) and virologist Christian Drosten in the bottom right image.)

[0] Related: [https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/10/30/official- fu...](https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/10/30/official-future-dead- long-live-official-future/)

</comment><comment><USER5> The part about the death threats is the clickbaity part, but there is actually interesting stuff in this short interview. Like about camels in the Middle East.</comment>


Show HN: Turn any image into ASCII art - <AUTHOR> http://www.asciiator.com

<comment><USER2> Add a few sample images to try. I have to think "Where can I find a test image in my PC?" (I finally opened Paint and draw a dummy image.)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys! This is a project I made three or four years ago and figured I might as well share! Questions and feedback welcome.

:)

</comment><comment><USER3> that's actually really cool - congratulations. not 100% sold on the colour art, but the B&W one is really clever. no option to save as ascii though?

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice work! This is going to be alot of fun.</comment>


What's up with those Microsoft ads? - <AUTHOR> http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2008/09/11/what-s-up-with-those-ads.aspx

<comment><USER2> I guess this: "We are currently unable to serve your request. We apologize, but an error occurred and your request could not be completed."</comment>


Let Me Be Your Intern - <AUTHOR>

Hey Everyone! I am a business student currently enrolled at Babson College. I've fallen in love with startup companies and would love the opportunity to work with one over the summer! My concentration is in marketing and I would be down to help with any brand management, marketing, product management or business development projects you are working on...Hell, I'll even get you coffee! Attached is my resume and a variation of a cover letter that I wrote for a venture capital firm: Resume- http://ow.ly/d/2aB Cover Letter- http://ow.ly/d/2aD Thanks for taking the time to look!Dan Simerman Babson 2011 flavors.me/dansims <comment><USER2> Working for free is a bad idea. It encourages both the "employer" (if you want to call them that) and you to think in sloppy ways not focused on doing things to make money.

The idea that a person can be appropriately compensated just by the presense of others is a creepy feudal notion that has no place in the modern world, and should be left in the ages that allowed the divine right of kings and other nonsense.

I like the idea of apprenticeships; I think more learning is done on the job in aprenticeship type relationships than we acknowledge. However if a Master can't direct an apprentice in such a way that at least produces a minimum wage, he is not a Master. Any fool can glean some small advantage to free labor; why start out your career under the direction of fools ?

Finally, such a relationship is especially unsuited to startups. By their nature your internship will be supervised by people who have about your own level of experience, and thus have no more to contribute to teaching you than you have to teaching them.

<comment><USER3> Where does it say he'll work for free??

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's a nitpick, and it might be just me, but I find "business student" a slightly misleading way to identify yourself as an undergraduate business major.

EDIT: Also, if I was interviewing you, I would push you pretty hard on some of your "interests". Quantum physics? Awesome demonstration of well-roundedness if true, but... could you walk me through (e.g.) the time-independent Schrodinger equation?

FURTHER EDIT: I think there are a couple punctuation issues in this sentence: "I have held an interest in marketing since high school when I founded my cities first youth filmmaker's festival." I know these are all minor points, but I'm hoping you'll find them helpful.

</comment><comment><USER5> Dan, you should watch out for the spacing in your post (and other minor issues). Try to convey attention to detail.</comment>


Ask HN: Are there any good competitors to Paypal? - <AUTHOR>

Is there a good, solid, reliable ecommerce solution for a guy that's just starting out? <comment><USER2> WePay could be a good solution depending on your needs. They are great for groups, clubs, charities, etc that need to collect money. <http://wepay.com>

</comment><comment><USER3> Some questions:

1\. What are you starting? a Startup? a Barbecue? an e-shop? 2\. What kind of needs are you looking for? Are you looking for a payment gateway?

I'm asking this because i'm looking some solutions for in-app Mobile Payments, and i found that Boku is great for what i need, but certainly your solution depends directly in your needs.

</comment><comment><USER4> Google Checkout and Amazon Payments. Between those two, most of your users likely already have accounts.

</comment><comment><USER5> Google checkout? See also: [http://blog.reddit.com/2010/08/reddit-gold-now- takes-google-...](http://blog.reddit.com/2010/08/reddit-gold-now-takes-google- checkout.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> I notice no one is saying FastSpring or Braintree Payments. Is it because those are not considered in the sane classs as Paypal or aren't good for people starting out?

<comment><USER7> Take a look at FastSpring if you're selling downloadable products.

Dan at FastSpring</comment></comment>


Progress in the making - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/progress-in-the-making/ <comment><AUTHOR> Sorry to be negative, but these are all bad. GAP-bad.</comment>


Show HN: FeaturedFounder.io transparently showcases startups seeking co-founders - <AUTHOR> https://featuredfounder.io <comment><USER2> I like this idea and I think you've done a nice job with the site. Kudos.

My question/concern is: most of the time when I see "seeking cofounder" posts, sites or apps it's a non-technical person seeking a technical person. Only they dont have the budget to pay full wage so the offer is as cofounder. I'm not knocking it, you go with what you've got.

But aren't most technical folks in this arena working on their own idea(s)? Will you have technical folks as featured who are looking for sales or marketing etc? My business is 100% B2B lead gen and biz dev for SAAS and digital companies and its never occurred to me to confound even the best idea; I'm working on (and getting paid plenty) for my own. Good luck to Travis finding someone, will be interested to see if he has success here.

As to his idea, I would pay for this right now. I love podcasts but the experience on android is garbage (or maybe I'm just used to apple). I have no idea how to download my favorite pods and play them later and find discovery to suck compared to iTunes.

That said, I dont know how viable this is as a business. Music is evergreen whereas many (most?) Podcasts are not. People can also consume a lot more individual pieces/tracks of music than individual podcasts due to duration. You'd learn more about me by seeing an hours worth of my spotify plays compared to seeing that i listened to a one hour podcast about basketball. Best of luck.

<comment><USER3> > >As to his idea, I would pay for this right now.

Thanks for the compliments, made my day :)

>> Music is evergreen whereas many (most?) Podcasts are not

Good feedback and something I have given quite a bit of thought too. I agree to some extinct however I would take the other side and say that the majority of podcasts are evergreen (or at least have a long shelf life) such as story or research shows like This American Life, RadioLab or interview types like The Tim Ferriss Show, Joe Rogan Experiment. The minority of podcasts that are not evergreen would be current affair or political types of shows - which I agree may not be a good fit for this.

>> You'd learn more about me by seeing an hours worth of my spotify plays compared to seeing that i listened to a one hour podcast about basketball

This is where Repod is trying to come in. I don't see myself wanting to see an hours worth of tracks that you listened, I may play one of two of your songs but it would likely end at that. In fact that would inundate my feed if I am following multiple users who also listened to the same amount of tracks. Rather, if you listen to 3x podcasts a week then that would be much easier to scroll through in a feed of many users that you follow.

Podcast episodes offer much more depth as well. Being a basketball fan I would want to know if your basketball podcast was worth the 1 hour long listen, or have a conversation with you about it (i.e. if the episode compared MJ vs Lebron then I might comment on your feed with my own thoughts - or see what you thought about it), or if I really liked it then I tend to share episodes via text with my group of friends/family.

<comment><USER2> My point was that from a data gathering, targeting, and recommendation standpoint you can get more insights from an hour of my music than an hourlong podcast.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This feels like Tinder for founders.

Much like Tinder, I suspect mostly what you will get from this is good conversation and if you're lucky, an all night hacking session.

But you probably won't find a long term relationship.

<comment><USER5> If it's like Tinder, you'll accumulate a mile long list of "matches", and maybe talk to .5% of them. Of those, you might actually spend a night with one or two.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Heavily biased question: Does this sort of matching work out for founders?

I'm curious because I would only consider starting a company with someone I knew personally and was quite sure I could work with.

Still, I realize I'm risk-averse in some ways and willing to admit maybe I'm being a bit stodgy here.

<comment><USER3> Travis here, I'll let you know if this works or not :)

The reason I am trying this approach is that I don't have a big (or any) connections to an app co-founder so I have been looking for alternatives to finding one and this is one option Jeremy suggested. We'll see how it goes!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Thanks for this!

I'm in the other boat - I have a pretty good experience base to start a company, but am waiting for the right subject-matter expert to come along with the idea, passion, and background to make the other half of the startup.

I've subscribed to the (sometimes interesting) Opps Daily, but this seems like a more direct mechanism.

Thanks again!

<comment><USER8> Are you in Boston by any chance?

<comment><USER7> Unfortunately not - I'm in Silicon Valley.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> FeaturedFounder.io creator here. As a developer I get approached all the time about potential co-founding roles. Too frequently the people I speak to are cagey, vague, or unclear about who they are, what they're building, and what they have to offer.

I created Featured Founder to add transparency to the cofounder search process so people can stop searching and focus on building their product.

<comment><USER9> My favorite is, "I have this great idea, if you build it for me, I'll give you a cut."

"What are you going to do?"

"I have the great idea."

"..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Oh hey, looks who's on PH today! [https://www.producthunt.com/posts/featured- founder](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/featured-founder)

</comment><comment><USER11> I feel like the best approach to matching founders is to have a list of trivial app ideas people want, and then let a team build that open source project. So it might take that team 1-3 months to build it and when they are done they can decide if each other's temperaments are tolerable. Short of such a thing I have no idea how you'd know some random person is on the same wavelength.

</comment><comment><USER12> How is this going to avoid becoming a begging site populated by no-money "revshare" wankers like /r/inat is?

</comment><comment><USER13> Any plans on expanding to match-making model?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a definite possibility if that's something people want!

I also created [https://findkismet.com](https://findkismet.com) (which introduces two random HN users to each other every day or week), so maybe I'll fold the two together.</comment></comment>


A curated list of Computer Engineering resources - rajesh-s https://rajesh-s.gitbook.io/compengg/ <comment><AUTHOR> And, of course, let's not forget:

\- Free Computer Science degree-like path at [1]

\- Free collection of Math resources at [2]

As a self-taught person, I recently started attending a college for computer science. I don't need the degree, but I wanted the knowledge. Granted, I'm just at the end of 1st year, but a lot of what is being taught is nothing more than giving formal definitions and formal names of things I've already taught myself.

So, I truly believe there are so much free good education out there for you. All you have to do is have the right mindset to get it.

[1] [https://github.com/ossu/computer- science](https://github.com/ossu/computer-science)

[2] [https://github.com/rossant/awesome- math](https://github.com/rossant/awesome-math)

<comment><USER2> About 95% of the value of a degree for me has just been not _ever_ having to explain why I don't have one. Maybe 99%.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's basically why I'm going through the university myself. I already have a job, being in a mid-level SWE position, but because of quite large imposter syndrome, I decided to try the uni.

At this point, I'm past the disappointment. I'll finish the degree just to demonstrate "see? I could do it" and not to justify to my future employers why I don't have one.

<comment><USER3> Are you doing it part time?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, there are a number of good online degrees, OMSCS [1] being probably the most popular one.

[1] [http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/](http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm also dropping [https://quanticdev.com](https://quanticdev.com)

It has articles on software engineering, case studies, and 'how to' guides on engineering in general.

Unrelated: gotta love GitBook. Looks so clean and it has built-in navigation. Now I'm having seconds thoughts about having built quanticdev.com using GitHub Pages.

</comment><comment><USER5> Why not call "Computer Engineering" 'Computing'?

<comment><USER6> It's funny you should ask that as I was just watching a lecture by Harold Abelson in which he addresses this exact question.

[https://youtu.be/-J_xL4IGhJA](https://youtu.be/-J_xL4IGhJA)

In case you don't have the time or inclination to watch the video it can basically be summarized by saying the following. When the Egyptians first discovered geometry it was considered crop science as it's primary application was for determining crop yields and when to plant and harvest. In the same way now that computers science is applied to computers today. But just like Geometry is really about farming, computer science is not really about computers. Professor Abelson goes on to explain that computer science provides a means to determine proofs for abstract mathematics a reasoning, so that we can understand with definitive proof things that until now were only theoretical.

<comment> rajesh-s Thank you for sharing this!</comment></comment></comment>


A report on attacks on land and environment defenders in 2017 - <AUTHOR> https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental-activists/at-what-cost/ <comment><USER2> > Companies have a responsibility to their customers, who should have > confidence that the products they buy are not fuelling human rights abuses, > cultural destruction or environmental devastation.

We need better agreements between countries that force politicians to support humanitarian actions. Right now rich countries expect to get goods without looking at the atrocities committed to produce them. And then, there is an increasing willingness to protect frontiers to shield that some countries from the consequences of their actions.

We need to improve the world together. We need to support environmental protection all over the globe. It is very difficult for small economies to eradicate violence and corruption when rich countries pour money that makes the problem worst. It is not an easy task. Patronizing developing countries is not going to work.

The article also links to that: [https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental- act...](https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental- activists/what-businesses-governments-can-do-defenders/)

<comment><USER3> This ought to be the primary purpose of trade deals.

Currently agreements like the TTIP and TPP are written with the primary purpose of advancing the interests of the corporations who secretly shadow- write them and the secondary interest of increasing net trade (e.g. ensuring that you can buy a t shirt at hot topic for $4 instead of $6).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> this is the new "sponsor a child in the third world" scam? their only actual actions I could find on the site is to publish business self regulation?

I'd love to be wrong...

<comment><USER5> What do you mean by that? Surely comparing charities with advocacy groups is a red herring in of itself?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I suppose this hinges primarily on who is counted, and it sounds fishy. "Defending one's land" would technically include anyone who defends themselves against intruders, South African farmers for example. Yet those are not counted because they aren't "defending" their land for environmental reason, while south american farmers that are murdered by "unknown assailants" or "criminal gangs" are included.

<comment><USER5> I can't help but think you're attempting to race-bait people, because most people bring up South African farms as part of the idea that a 'white genocide' is occurring in South Africa, which is funny because a significant proportion of those murdered in farms in SA are black.

<comment><USER7> Honest question: what are the parameters for a 'white genocide?' To clarify, what would have to occur for you to believe that title is appropriate?

<comment><USER8> Not the op, but:

Genocide is an organized attempt to drive a race to extinction. An effort whose stated goal is to kill everyone of European decent residing in South Africa would qualify as genocide.

Genocide is not just any large-scale killing. It's certainly not the seizing of property, regardless of scale.

<comment><USER7> Here[1] is the United Nations definition of genocide. Do you think what is occurring in South Africa (or what occurred in Rhodesia-Zimbabwe specifically as well as in Zimbabwe ~2 decades later) qualifies?

[1][https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/genocide](https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/genocide)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Evaluating Fuzz Testing - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1808.09700 <comment><USER2> I'm one of the authors of the paper. Two quick things I want to say:

I've written a blog post that is a short but rigorous description of the paper's results: [http://www.pl-enthusiast.net/2018/08/23/evaluating- empirical...](http://www.pl-enthusiast.net/2018/08/23/evaluating-empirical- evaluations-for-fuzz-testing/)

The paper does not make strong statements of the form, "fuzzers are/do X" or "all prior papers' claims are bogus." Rather, we say that the standard of evidence should be higher, and we demonstrate why failing to reach that standard _could_ result in bogus claims. It's quite possible that a paper's idea really is an improvement. But it's also possible that additional evidence would cast doubt on that, or nuance it. For example, our experiments show that AFLFast probably does improve on AFL, though perhaps not as much as that paper made out (note we didn't do enough experiments ourselves to make that definitive statement).

<comment><USER3> It was a very interesting paper, thanks for writing it.

Now to figure out how to fuzz my program...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This paper is absolutely fascinating.

Fuzzers have some inherent nondeterminism, meaning that some runs agains the same program will differ in how many bugs they find.

It turns out pretty much every fuzzer evaluation to date has not been statistically rigorous. We dont actually know if a lot of published results are, well, really an improvement.

There is also a fascinating bit towards the end. It turns out doing the dumb thing and _not_ tracking code coverage finds more crashes faster than intelligent coverage tracking, but only with good seed inputs (see page 7).

<comment><USER5> > It turns out pretty much every fuzzer evaluation to date has not been > statistically rigorous.

Shall I tell you a not so well hidden secret? Almost nothing published in computer science, let alone in IT security, is statistically rigorous.

<comment> Ar-Curunir That's not true; plenty of papers in the systems field perform careful and rigorous experiments. This doesn't even include the theory side of stuff, where you only have proofs, and no statistics to get wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Choice bit from abstract: "We surveyed the recent research literature and assessed the experimental evaluations carried out by 32 fuzzing papers. We found problems in every evaluation we considered. We then performed our own extensive experimental evaluation using an existing fuzzer."

<comment><USER2> Note that some papers do come close to meeting what we view is the right standard. Table 1 shows that T-Fuzz does pretty well, for example.</comment></comment>


Painting of Tica by Dru Blair - <AUTHOR> http://www.drublair.com/comersus/store/tica.asp <comment><USER2> Saw this a couple of weeks back. 9 other paintings by 9 other folks that look like photos:

[http://www.thetoyzone.com/2009/blog/10-awesome-images- that-a...](http://www.thetoyzone.com/2009/blog/10-awesome-images-that-are- actually-paintings/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I can't wait 'til somebody makes the tools to let this guy create holograms of people.

</comment><comment><USER4> my housemate's first python script was to help with documenting processes such as this one. when he runs the script it takes a screenshot and then provides a text box for him to comment in. it basically added version control to his mechanical engineering design process. he wanted to document why he was making certain design changes as he went. i imagine it work for this process, too.

</comment><comment><USER5> This guy is amazing. He also was the official artist for the Star Trek: Voyager books.

</comment><comment><USER6> awesome

</comment><comment><USER7> What would you paint if you could paint like that?

<comment><USER8> Money. I suspect that Dru could make quite the counterfeiter if he decided to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What bothers me is not that he claims that what he has done is art --- it is. What frightens me is that he claims photography is not art.

Photos are not 'mere reproductions of reality' any more than his painting is. Paint, print, screen, clay, plaster -- these are _not_ reality; they do not have the fidelity of the real world. When I paint, I must decide to what degree the intensity of light is important, to what degree the detail is important, to what degree the tonal range is relevant to my portrayal. Even more importantly, choosing which part of reality to examine is vital! Can a photographer pay no attention to aperture, shutter speed, composition, crop, focus? Can they ignore the possibilities of manipulating the world before photographing it (arranging, building, lighting, removing components until their "metaphysical value judgment" is satisfied? Sure, they can ignore all that. A camera with a timer can make an exposure, no metaphysical presence necessary. But no artist _must_ do so. And even leaving things up to the camera is a "metaphysical value judgment."

You didn't make art. You used tools to apply pigment to a surface replicating a temporary sensory input; a purely mechanical recording of reality.

<comment><USER10> "What bothers me is not that he claims that what he has done is art --- it is. "

Well, perhaps, but it's border-line kitsch.

"What frightens me is that he claims photography is not art."

Lots of people think that way. Often they prefer kitsch and schlock.

Technical skill for it's own sake is pretty worthless. It's impressive, to a degree, but what matters is to what it is applied.

It's the difference between being able to recite the whole of On Lisp from memory and being able to write innovative software.

<comment><USER9> "Well, perhaps, but it's border-line kitsch."

Bah. I'm not making aesthetic judgments --- I don't care if it's _good_ or not. I do care that he is willing to deny an entire medium the ability to change the way I think, feel, and sense the world.

We live in a time when people think that art is a frivolity; silly at best and a senseless waste at worst. That is not because people have become less intelligent or less capable of culture. It's because artists (a community I count myself within) are failing to communicate, to relate to the rest of humanity. Artists denying each other's work and medium of choice is a pretty vicious act of treachery against the mission of reminding the world that art is vital --- it is both a living field and a necessity of life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I agree with him completely when he writes: _"The act of merely copying a photograph has no artistic merit except to hone one's artistic skills."_

However, when he writes: _"This painting of Tica is not just a copy of a photograph, but is a product of many artistic decisions, whereas I deviated from the reference photo for more aesthetic appeal"_ I have to say, "not so much".

<comment><USER5> The decisions he made for the painting go down to a level of detail many of us could not comprehend. It's akin to writing an entire operating system, then showing it to someone who uses computers very rarely in their life. That person may think that the operating system is just like all the others they've used, but it's only the people who are coded the thing that can realize how different it truly is.

<comment><USER11> That doesn't make much difference to me as a viewer. I'm impressed with his chops, but I don't see what makes his reproduction better than the original photo.

<comment><USER5> Oh, I'm not arguing the artistic/aesthetic quality here. I was only saying that I do agree with him when he says that he made many decisions in changing the original for what _he_ sees as aesthetically better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> as the article points out photorealism is pointless, except as practice and enjoyment for the craftsperson. What I find interesting in this is that what he has actually painted is not Tica but the imperfections imparted by the little digicam and the inkjet printing technique. That's pretty funny, to reproduce the imperfections of the medium. It's only really interesting from an artistic perspective if the picture were instead titled 'Nikon 8700 Inkjet print'.

Very talented craftsperson.

<comment><USER13> Uh, no, he didn't say photorealism was pointless. In fact, he said the opposite:

> As a style, Photorealism has a few detractors, who often dismiss it as > pointless, or non-art. They fail to realize that many photorealistic > paintings are not mere copies of photographs, but interpretations of reality > based on the artist's vision. The act of merely copying a photograph has no > artistic merit except to hone one's artistic skills. Most of my aviation > paintings would be impossible to photograph, such as Timing is Everything > for example. This painting of Tica is not just a copy of a photograph, but > is a product of many artistic decisions, whereas I deviated from the > reference photo for more aesthetic appeal.

Your "craftsperson" reference is snide. I have a couple of snide opinions myself, I guess. It's obvious that there is a wide variety of compositions just dying to have photorealistic treatment--subjects where, as the author points out, getting a camera shot would be impossible. Unfortunately, being able to do photorealistic art takes real skill, and that skill appears to be consistently deprecated by the art world.

<comment><USER14> Somewhere, there's a forum full of artists arguing the finer points of programming.

<comment><USER15> I was wondering what this posting did on HN anyway, but after your enlightened observation I will invest some time in searching for this forum.</comment></comment></comment></comment>