Stylesheet Limits in Internet Explorer (2011) - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ieinternals/2011/05/14/stylesheet-limits-in-internet-explorer/ <comment><USER2> Sounds like, based on the comments, these limitations trace all the way back to the beginning of CSS support in IE. It was probably reasonable at the time and I'm not really sure who could've expected the explosion in complexity that ended up happening later; at the time stylesheets were used in a much more straightforward manner - I remember some sites let you select between multiple stylesheets!

</comment><comment><USER3> If anyone hits this the tactic to overcome it is called "blessing" the CSS:

[https://github.com/BlessCSS/bless](https://github.com/BlessCSS/bless)

It's a giant pain but if you're running highly complex sites that have to work in old IEs then this may be something you want to implement. Often you see the need for stuff like this when pulling in frameworks like Bootstrap, etc.

Haven't had to do this for years (thank goodness) but depending on market, etc. IE9 still rears it's ugly head sometimes.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wonder how long it would take IE 10 to render a page with 4095 style sheets that each have 65534 selectors?

</comment><comment><USER5> I ran into this when we concatenated our css so all the styling would load with one round trip. No warning in the console, IE just ignored the rules after the 4095th. And because the concatenation was a build step you wouldn't normally see the problem in a dev build. Good times.</comment>


Ask HN: What are your best "soft skill" resources? - <AUTHOR> I'm at this point in my career where I'm in a good groove improving my technical skills, but I'm starting to require more and more time into my softer skills (communication, negotiation, persuation, et al). What are your favorite resources (classes, websites, books, blogs) that you use to develop those skills? <comment><USER2> Always a risk to self-promote, but last month our team launched our Compass Platform - Behavioral Indicators and associated support to help business founders and leadership teams in private enterprise [1].

I've found these are more balanced, so work better than tools like DISC and Myers-Briggs, which tend to 'put people into a box' and therefore work against creating an inclusive environment.

The four soft skills these tools help me understand with my clients and prospective clients are Communication, Attitude to Risk, Role Preference (Entrepreneur Leader Manager), and Natural Pace (what pg calls Makers v Managers).

I've obviously done some training on these, and nowadays deliver (mostly internal company) training on them as well. The website and online tests are a great starting point - having an understanding of a potential client or recruit's Risk profile, for example, makes it so much easier to connect with them and explain a value proposition.

[1] [http://www.shirlawscompass.com/](http://www.shirlawscompass.com/)

<comment><USER3> _...having an understanding of a potential client or recruit 's Risk profile, for example, makes it so much easier to connect with them and explain a value proposition..._

Maybe I'm not getting this, but I can't think of a reason why I'd supply someone with information to help them deliver a sales pitch or to negotiate with me.

<comment><USER2> Good point. I'm a business coach/consultant, so my clients provide this information because it also helps enormously with understanding why they are doing what they do as business leaders. It's slightly deeper than providing your email address (hello sales emails) for an ebook (which is worth it).

To the OP's point, however, being aware of these skills and your own preferences makes it easier to assess others you meet. If you know the Risk Profile for you and your team, you may be able to judge in a negotiation that the other party chases returns but abhors volatility and adjust your approach accordingly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You might try Toastmasters. Once you get past the first few "nervousness" lessons they focus on how to convey meaning with speech. Every chapter is different, so YMMV. Several of the speeches you have to prepare cover persuasion, motivation, and how to structure a speech so that everyone remembers exactly what you want them to remember. They teach through having you give a series of 5-7 minute speeches, but I've found the practice helpful beyond giving a formal talk.

<comment><USER5> I second Toastmasters. They took me from a shy undergraduate who had panic attacks the night before speaking in front of a class and turned me into someone who genuinely loves public speaking and hasn't used notes to speak in over a decade!!

There are two caveats to Toastmasters:

\- each chapter is different. I have now belonged to three and loved two. The third chapter was my personal hell of realtors and financial managers who were trolling for clients. My self promotion allergy was way too active...

\- you get exactly what you put into TM. I know a guy who started in the same chapter at the same time as me. I spoke every chance that I could get and improved quickly. He was never willing to truly embarrass himself, rarely spoke and got next to nothing out of the organization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I just finished The Charisma Myth:

[http://www.amazon.com/Charisma-Myth-Science-Personal- Magneti...](http://www.amazon.com/Charisma-Myth-Science-Personal- Magnetism/dp/1591845947/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1438459778&sr=8-1&keywords=charisma)

On audio book and immediately bought a physical copy. The book is filled with tips and tricks to increase your charisma that can be applied right away.

<comment><USER7> Great book, author stopped by Stanford entrepreneurship class so you can watch her talk here [http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=3005](http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=3005)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What helped me was going full-time digital nomad for the last 2 years.

Mostly out of my desire to see specific places, I ended up going to cities very far away from all of my existing contacts and acquaintances. Getting incredibly lonely in a foreign city where I don't speak the language and have no friends or coworkers, I was forced out into the wild to get to know people through any means possible. It was important for me to learn to connect quickly and deeply with people to have meaningful relationships fast enough to provide me any value before I moved on from that city to the next (about 2-3 months).

I was terrible at it for the first 2 cities I went to, but by the 5th I was surprising myself.

</comment><comment><USER9> Empathy

The book Search Inside Yourself by Chade-Meng Tan the best book I know. It describes scientifically studied exercises of the mind that you can do by yourself. It will boost your empathy much higher than anything I've experienced (or read about on Sciencedaily). It explains the science too and you can look it up. One thing though, reading the book is part 1, part 2 is performing the exercises. If you won't perform the exercises, then reading the book has not much of a purpose.

In my experience, I got to amazing levels of empathy by doing these exercises. I felt like I had godlike skills. My intuition could immediately signal me if a woman liked me (first time ever in my life). Two months later I was in a relationship. I could spot feelings that my friends had that they were not aware of.

There are some caveats though, which goes for any book that will be presented here. The moment I stopped practicing, my level got down a bit above baseline before I started. So most structural gains are hard to keep, which goes for any trained skill. Another downside is that everything you see has a bigger impact on you. So when you'd go to an action movie, you'd feel like you're right in it. When you look at a rose you feel like you're a rose, that sort of thing. When you drink one sip of alcohol you feel the effect of it already on your perception in very subtle ways (that might be a good thing though).

Some final thoughts: I believe books train deliberation aka the slow system. Exercises, mental or physical, train the fast system. Checkout Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. I believe it's a useful approximation to how thinking works. Also, while empathy is a big component in becoming better, it's not the only component.

</comment><comment><USER10> "Nonviolent Communication" by Marshall Rosenberg was very helpful for me. A great resource about choice of words and the internal assumptions we make when we communicate in certain ways. [http://www.amazon.com/Nonviolent- Communication-A-Language-Li...](http://www.amazon.com/Nonviolent- Communication-A-Language-Life/dp/1892005034)

</comment><comment><USER11> How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie should be required reading for anyone who interacts with human beings.

<comment><USER12> This book has been mentioned to me at least a dozen times. For some reason, your comment is the one that just pushed me over the edge to buy it :)

I'm posting this just because it's been recommended so often to me there must be something to it.

<comment> t-3-k For me that tipping point was when I came across this:

>The one book we encourage startup founders to read is Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. It's critically important for anyone in business.

[http://www.paulgraham.com/startupfaq.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/startupfaq.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What actually helped me was to get married - it's the best training in soft skills that you can get.

</comment><comment><USER14> I actually wrote a book, specifically to teach "soft skills" to software developers.

In fact, my whole life and business is dedicated to that aim.

Soft Skills: The Software Developer's Life Manual ([http://simpleprogrammer.com/softskills](http://simpleprogrammer.com/softskills))

</comment><comment><USER15> Do some volunteer work, it looks good on your resume, it does some good in the world, and it improves your soft skills because it takes you out of your grove and sticks you in a new, non-threatening situation (hopefully). Plus, most volunteer events have mentors that will teach you how to deal with people. Do something simple, do not go overboard, and listen to how the professionals there deal with people.

</comment><comment><USER16> I recommend "Soft Skills: A software developer's life manual" by John Sonmez

[http://www.manning.com/sonmez/](http://www.manning.com/sonmez/)

<comment><USER17> I own / read parts of that book. I found it lacking on advice about working within a company, there were two chapters on working within a company and then it dives into quitting your job and working on your brand.

Are there any other recommendations that have more information on working within a company?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> 1) Tactical Office Politics

[http://www.manager- tools.com/2013/04/politics-101-chapter-3-...](http://www.manager- tools.com/2013/04/politics-101-chapter-3-myth-just-world-part-1)

[http://www.manager- tools.com/2013/05/politics-101-chapter-3-...](http://www.manager- tools.com/2013/05/politics-101-chapter-3-myth-just-world-part-2)

" _This guidance probably should have been Chapter 1 of our Politics 101 series. It's foundational. It's a HUGE problem for many professionals, particularly young – and dare we say it, naïve – professionals. So many young people say, "I don't 'play politics.'" The more savvy folks around them think, that's good, because this isn't a 'game' you can 'play.' "_

2) Improve human memory, reduce dependence on high-latency offboard storage (paper, web)

[http://mt.artofmemory.com/wiki/Main_Page](http://mt.artofmemory.com/wiki/Main_Page)

3) GTD for Hackers, [https://gtdfh.branchable.com](https://gtdfh.branchable.com)

4) The language of organizational models/patterns. The book _" Key Management Models"_ has a good overview, [http://www.google.com/search?q=key%20management%20models](http://www.google.com/search?q=key%20management%20models). The 3rd edition has 75 org models which help when designing the model de jour.

5) Richard Hamming, "You and Your Research", 1986, [http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html](http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html)

 _" One of the characteristics of successful scientists is having courage. Once you get your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then you can. If you think you can't, almost surely you are not going to. Courage is one of the things that Shannon had supremely. You have only to think of his major theorem. He wants to create a method of coding, but he doesn't know what to do so he makes a random code. Then he is stuck. And then he asks the impossible question, `What would the average random code do?' He then proves that the average code is arbitrarily good, and that therefore there must be at least one good code. Who but a man of infinite courage could have dared to think those thoughts? That is the characteristic of great scientists; they have courage. They will go forward under incredible circumstances;"_

<comment><USER19> >'" The more savvy folks around them think, that's good, because this isn't a 'game' you can 'play.' "

Politics strikes me as something very atavistic. I avoid people who play politics at all costs - I simply can't imagine anything good coming from them.

<comment><USER20> Unfortunately, as Pericles said, "Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you." (Sometimes also attributed to Trotsky)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> how to win friends and influence people - Dale Carnegie.

<comment><USER22> The title of the book put me off, but it worthwhile to read. Some of the stuff seems basic, but we all (speaking as a developer) had to learn the basics of computer programming, too.

<comment><USER23> About to say the same thing. I resisted a couple of times. Just wished that they did not pick a title comes across as manuscript for snake oil selling.

The basic and obvious stuff needs to be spelled out as it solidified the concepts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm surprised by the lack of philosophy writings mentioned here.

I'm averse to sociopathic and manipulative teachings such as my book-by-its- cover judgement of "How to Win Friends and Influence People" and the like.

Instead, I began my journey several years ago reading through "Mindfulness in Plain English" by Guranatana. More recently I began frequenting the Farnam Street blog, being turned onto reading "The Obstacle is the Way," by Ryan Holiday, which lead me to "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius, and I'll be picking up "Letters from a Stoic" as soon as I'm done with "The Kingdom of God Is Within You" by Tolstoy (having never read Tolstoy's non-fiction writing previous to "A Letter to a Hindu," which was posted to Hacker News a few weeks ago).

I would say that the most powerful book I've read is Meditations. The perspective the book holds is that you are a person, and people are pre-wired to do good for society and for other people (as entities); that this is innate in you, and you MUST use this to do good. It is a book focused on resilience in the face of circumstances, people and things that people do that aren't good.

<comment><USER25> I second this. Focusing on good teachings such as "Meditations" is simply a good way to live life, and the rest follows. Related to "Meditations" is "The Art of Living" which is a collection of teachings from Epictetus. Epictetus was Marcus Aurelius' teacher. It's collected in such a way that each page makes a point that you can think about for the rest of the day and try to apply it - like a devotional.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Best way, is to actually put yourself in a situation where you have to live the skills you're trying to get better at. i.e. I'd suggest you work a short (part-time) side stint in Sales or Customer support or Recruiting, especially under a seasoned manager and sincerely carry a quota. The pressure of actually closing that deal will improve you at a rate nothing else will.

Books and everything else will definitely help, but I'd treat them as supplemental resources. You don't get good at soccer by reading about it. You got to play it. You don't get good at coding by reading about coding; you have to actually write code.

Not saying you meant that you only want to read in order to get better and nothing else, but just trying to draw attention that getting better at soft skills is also about actual practice, like anything else.

[Me: [http://InterviewKickstart.com](http://InterviewKickstart.com). We practice for tech interviews, and we get better at those too]

<comment> at-fates-hands Came here to say the same thing. It's one thing to read a book, it's quite another to handle objections on the fly with an argumentative customer standing in front of you.

I had a buddy who was terrified to do presentations and was very socially awkward. He finally decided in order to overcome these issues, he started a side company and created a small app that he wanted to sell. He literally forced himself to cold call people in order to get more comfortable interacting with clients. Then he would try and set up meetings where he would have to present his idea to the clients.

It was a very elaborate way for him to overcome his fears and get comfortable being in front of people and selling people on his product. It wasn't easy, but the one thing he had going for him was determination to do it in order to learn some very valuable skills.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath [1]. They ask "how is it that certain ideas seem to stick our minds better than others?", and give concrete advice on how to improve the stickiness of your own ideas. I've found it useful to avoid forgettable business waffle that fails to change people's minds nor behaviour. One of the many examples they give is of Nordstrom (a fashion retailer). They could have said "we want to delight our customers". Instead, they use stories of employees that embodied those principles: ironing a shirt for a customer that needed it that afternoon, refunding tyre chains even though Nordstrom doesn't sell tyre chains.

[1] [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Made-Stick-ideas-others- unstuck-x/dp...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Made-Stick-ideas-others- unstuck-x/dp/009950569X)

</comment><comment><USER28> Harvard's Program on Negotiation.

'Any meeting, discussion, or human contact, is basically a negotiation.' is their stance, with a real emphasis on role play. Position vs. Interest, Group vs. 1-1, etc.

The role play exercises can be downloaded from [http://www.pon.harvard.edu/store/](http://www.pon.harvard.edu/store/) * Free for checking / testing with detailed notes for the trainer / post-exercise * Low price for use (around $3 dollars/copy licensed use - super low for what they bring)

What do they bring? Really accelerated understanding of behavior (yours and theirs) in any interaction you have. This is be done via role-play and reflection, not a reading and 'know it' resource, so download a few and play them with colleagues.

</comment><comment><USER29> 1\. Career Tools and Manager Tools podcasts. Career advice, interviewing help, resume-building, team interactions, navigating office life/culture, salary negotiation, having your voice heard, and many other topics discussed in a friendly and approachable way. I listen every week. [https://www.manager- tools.com/](https://www.manager-tools.com/)

2\. "How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk" isn't just for talking to children. Some good advice in here that applies to talking with adults also. [http://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Kids-Will- Listen/dp/145166388...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Kids-Will- Listen/dp/1451663889)

<comment><USER30> Related, "How to Speak How to Listen" by Mortimer Adler, [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/169928.How_to_Speak_How_t...](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/169928.How_to_Speak_How_to_Listen)

Also, Alan Watts [http://www.openculture.com/2014/01/the-zen-teachings-of- alan...](http://www.openculture.com/2014/01/the-zen-teachings-of-alan-watts-a- free-audio-archive.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Toastmasters is a phenomenal resource for improving one's public speaking and improvisation skills.

</comment><comment><USER32> I have many many recommendations. Here are a few of what I've experienced and practiced:

[https://www.neuroleadership.com/education/bbc/brain-based- co...](https://www.neuroleadership.com/education/bbc/brain-based-conversation- skills/) Training -- Brain-Based Conversation Skills

[http://www.quietleadership.com/index](http://www.quietleadership.com/index) Book -- Quiet Leadership

[http://www.centerforappreciativeinquiry.net/](http://www.centerforappreciativeinquiry.net/) Training -- Appreciative Inquiry

[http://www.amazon.com/Appreciative-Inquiry-Positive- Revoluti...](http://www.amazon.com/Appreciative-Inquiry-Positive-Revolution- Change/dp/1576753565) Book -- Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Revolution in Change

[http://aliainstitute.org/](http://aliainstitute.org/) Authentic Leadership in Action Institute (Buddhist foundation)

[http://shambhala.org/](http://shambhala.org/) The path of meditation focused on creating "enlightened society." Starts with where most of the issue is: your own mind.

<comment><USER33> Let me second the appreciative inquiry stuff. As a programmer, I'm used to looking for problems so I can fix them. But I wasn't nearly as good at consciously appreciating what was working well. It has been a big help in improving how I work with people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> For negotiation, I can recommend: Getting More, [http://www.amazon.com/Getting-More-Negotiate-Succeed- Work/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Getting-More-Negotiate-Succeed- Work/dp/0307716902)

The author, Stuart Diamond, gives workshops at my company. I was able to attend one early at my tenure there and the book and workshop helped me understand how to use negotiation to get what I want.

</comment><comment><USER35> From my point of view, it boils down to communication and self awareness. Nonviolent Communication that was mentioned before is a great book.

Also, I found that the Pathwise Leadership Program ([http://pathwisemanagement.com/](http://pathwisemanagement.com/)) has helped me a great deal in knowing myself and finding out how to frame your communication in the best way possible.

</comment><comment><USER36> I urge technical people to explore non-technical subjects and general "well roundedness". I've gotten immense relaxation and satisfaction from community art classes, martial arts, yoga, etc. There's a powerful argument that technical work is inherently creative, but creative work without the technical is something else entirely.

I also urge technical people to study history, language, speech, public performance and public speech giving. All of those things give a sense of perspective, and abilities to confer with partners and customers on a level that most technical folks don't understand.

Public performance in particular enables one to overcome lots of fears and be able to talk in front of both crowds and executives. This capability is often rewarded in important ways that build one's career...and the only way to get good at it is to do it.

</comment><comment><USER37> Negotiation: [http://www.negotiationgenius.com/](http://www.negotiationgenius.com/)

Networking: [http://keithferrazzi.com/products/never-eat- alone/](http://keithferrazzi.com/products/never-eat-alone/)

</comment><comment><USER38> "The Art Of Charm" podcast has some great episodes about that stuff. Check out some of these: [http://theartofcharm.com/best/](http://theartofcharm.com/best/)

</comment><comment><USER39> Dale Carnegie's book is the obvious choice. However, Lifetime Conversation Guide by Van Fleet had a ton of specific stuff tailored to different situations. Stumbled upon it in a thrift store and bought it because of its thoroughness along with giving me a few good ideas.

[http://www.amazon.com/Lifetime-Conversation-Guide-James- Flee...](http://www.amazon.com/Lifetime-Conversation-Guide-James- Fleet/dp/0135364000%3FSubscriptionId%3DAKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q%26tag%3Dduckduckgo-d-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0135364000)

</comment><comment><USER40> My two go-to books on the subject, very complementary to each other, are:

\- The charisma myth: [http://www.amazon.com/The-Charisma-Myth-Personal- Magnetism/d...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Charisma-Myth-Personal- Magnetism/dp/1591845947)

\- Make your contacts count: [http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Contacts-Count- Networking/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Contacts-Count- Networking/dp/0814474020/)

</comment><comment><USER41> I've found the best is a combination of being social and spending a good amount of time reading. If you're looking for books, take a look at The Great Books of the Western World.

</comment><comment><USER42> They're not soft skill. They're really fucking hard skills: [https://vimeo.com/134601419](https://vimeo.com/134601419)

</comment><comment><USER43> Pretty much the entire Jerry Weinberg canon, but 'Becoming A Technical Leader', and 'Secrets of Consulting' are two excellent places to start.

<comment><USER44> Just want to vigorously agree with the recommendation of "Becoming a Technical Leader".

That's even if you don't think a leader is what you want to become. One of the earliest points he makes is that leadership is something you do, not something you are - and if you're trying to persuade people, that's a leadership behaviour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> The book of Proverbs in the Bible. I'm amazed at how useful these brief, to- the-point and very practical advice have been in my life, time after time.

While being very (sometimes almost humoristically) concrete, I have figured that there are great principles there in behind, that you'll get committed into your spine, by testing these advice out in practice.

</comment><comment><USER46> Soft Skill by John Sonmez (published by MAnning)

Although written as the "Software Developer's Life Manual" the lessons taught in this book is universal to all careers.

I really wish I had this manual 21 years when I started out on my career. It would have been a great guideline in stead of lessons learned the hard way.

</comment><comment><USER47> _" What are your favorite resources that you use to develop those skills?"_

Non verbals, body language skills ~ [https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/spycatcher](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/spycatcher)

</comment><comment><USER48> What do you want to achieve with soft skill. If to help you develop better software. I think always ask detail question about business, user requirements. Able to break down large business case to smaller ones. Write better comments about your code, should be enough.

</comment><comment><USER49> There are many soft-skill and career courses on pluralsight [http://www.pluralsight.com/search/?searchTerm=career](http://www.pluralsight.com/search/?searchTerm=career)

(yes, some of them are mine)

</comment><comment><USER50> Not a resource, so much as a technique, but I've just been baffled to find myself moving slightly into management, and my new mantra, whenever I'm not absolutely positive what I should be saying is: listen.

</comment><comment><USER51> RSD Blueprint by Tyler. Really life-changing stuff.

</comment><comment><USER52> [http://changingminds.org/](http://changingminds.org/)

Wiki-style collection of this stuff.

<comment><USER53> Wow. This is an incredible database with a lot of interesting things. Thanks for sharing!</comment></comment>


Show HN: Wordroot.net – learn word root by examples - <AUTHOR> https://wordroot.net/ <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. I am not a native English, have trouble to grow the vocabulary.

So I created a web app to help learn word roots by examples.

Key features: 1\. search the word root or matching the whole word 2\. Root action to show or hide the word root, then you can catch if you have master the word root.

Hopefully have some help for your English vocabulary growing.</comment>


Javascript/Canvas implementation for the Instagram Challenge: The Unshredder - <AUTHOR> http://vidoss.github.com/

<comment><USER2> I had the same idea and submitted on saturday, here's mine.

<https://github.com/rjenkins/instagram-html5-unshredder>

demo page: <http://memoization.com/unshred.html>

I added drag and drop support, Tokyo image can be found here <http://bit.ly/sQPUje>.

I like how he repainted in place, makes for a cool demo.

</comment><comment><USER3> Whoa, this is really good - beat me to it - but why oh why is the code minified/obfuscated?

I really want to see how their solution pares up to what I was trying out.

<comment><USER4> It's there on his/her github. <https://github.com/vidoss/instagram>

<comment><AUTHOR> Its a "he" :-)</comment></comment></comment>


US sanctions International Criminal Court officials - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/02/politics/us-icc-sanctions/index.html <comment><USER2> I'm going to give an unpopular view here because I think we need to look at actual facts and laws instead of emotions.

Buried right at the bottom of the article: "the US is not a party to the international tribunal".

Now, you can say they should be. But they're not. So if you look at it from a purely impartial and dispassionate standpoint, the court shouldn't get any special treatment - and the US would be entitled to take such actions against any other foreign group that set itself up and issued threats. It's like me setting up my own private court and then coming to arrest you.

The fact that most other countries are part of it may make a _moral_ case for the US to join but not a _legal_ one, which means that, again looking dispassionately, the US is entitled to do this.

<comment><USER3> It's not like you setting up your private court at all. It's more like the UN (the majority of UN member states are also ICC members). It has plenty of legitimacy.

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

<comment><USER4> To those parties who accepted the treaty, sure. We didn't.

The highest court in the US is the supreme court and every court any of us can be subjected to is under it. The ICC has no sovereignty over the US. Our foreign policy with regards to international law is to support it having sovereignty over others but not ourselves, the world peace enjoyed for the past eight decades or so is a direct result of American hegemony and if you don't like it start building a military to rival ours.

There is a power imbalance on purpose which results in a little injustice and a big lack of armed conflict.

<comment><USER5> World peace? Did you ever looked at all the wars that happened since? Many involving the US army ... And not in a nice way...

If you speak of the western world, the main reason for peace is the construction of the european union, creating much more cooperation between countries that had always been fighting each other.

US foreign policy is not driven by peace, freedom or whatever propanganda created to have people's support but by self-interest. It's the same for any country.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Isn't there also a law on the books in the US that permits 'exfiltration' of a captured US citizen from The Hague if it were ever to come to that?

<comment><USER4> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service- Members'_Prot...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service- Members'_Protection_Act)

prevents cooperation, extradition, etc and authorizes actions to protect citizens from the court

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nothing particularly surprising here. US - probably the only country in recent history where you get decorated after downing a civilian airliner killing everyone aboard - protects its war criminals, it makes them more effective.

</comment><comment><USER8> One more step towards dystopy.

</comment><comment><USER9> On historical sanctions: If france had not been able to bust the british blockade[1], the US would not have become independent[2] in 1783.

[1] As a naval power, the british were also fond of economic sanctions.

[2] which would not necessarily have been a bad thing: a british North America would have ended slavery sooner with much less bloodshed.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZzDP- vQXao&t=3195](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZzDP-vQXao&t=3195)

</comment><comment><USER10> Disgusting. This administration is shattering any form of international cooperation not based on power and submission. This brings humanity back to a pre WWs mentality.

<comment><USER11> You have it the wrong way round. International cooperation is based on US power, in particular US nukes, US air and naval superiority, US protection of Europe and US financing of European defence (NATO), US protection of international trade routes ...

<comment><USER10> Let's say there's a bully, and he just takes and steal stuff. And then there's a big guy seeing that and telling the bully to fuck off and let the kids play without fear.

Both are power moves. Do you think they're the same thing though?

Yes, power is good way to bootstrap cooperation based on trust. This is a much more effective form of cooperation as you waste less energy on paranoia and watching over your back. You can also base cooperation on submission but then you have to constantly be at an all out war to protect your regime. Much less efficient or reasonable.

<comment><USER9> As JFK alluded to in his Inaugural Speech, 騎虎難下.

[https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/kennedy.asp](https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/kennedy.asp)

> "We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall > always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom--and to > remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the > back of the tiger ended up inside."

[https://www.indiewire.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/07/mad.jpg](https://www.indiewire.com/wp- content/uploads/2013/07/mad.jpg)

Edit: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i4dJaYMebI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i4dJaYMebI)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's pretty normal that any organization trying to unlawfully assert its jurisdiction over another country will be met with a response. ICC has been trying to do the same thing to Israel which it also has no jurisdiction over.

</comment><comment><USER13> If they also investigate china Great Leap Forward, ... up to rent Hong Kong or they try Russia ... just get everyone then I am all ears. For now, destroy USA credibility meant more than just touch the last remaining power sort of helping humanity.

<comment><USER14> They have all committed crimes so prosecuting either one isn't mutually exclusive. The great leap forward happened within the confines of a nation so its less clear cut then America invading another nation since thats a much more clear international interaction. Same with Russia since they had hidden their actions using "volunteers"

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The court is ridiculous. It has had 2 convictions in 13 years and has cost over a billion dollars.

Have the UN set up a trial commission whenever there is need to prosecute someone internationally.

No need to have it wander around on geopolitically volatile fishing expeditions when they have nothing to do.

<comment><USER8> That's nihilism right there. There should be an international court and if you want to "judge" it you should have the credentials to divredit their work. Software developer is not one of them.

<comment><USER16> Who better to pass judgement on a court than its constituents/subjects? If the people that the court is meant to protect believe the court is illegitimate or lacks authority, then the court has failed.

<comment><USER8> It's subjects are the people of Bosnia, Rwanda etc. You are not from there and therefore you think it's just a money sink. You can't feel the value. But if you know how to better it please write an open letter to the court or UN</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Voxel Quest Is on Kickstarter, AMA :) - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gavan/voxel-quest

<comment><USER2> Earlier events in the Voxel Quest timeline

"My Isometric GPU-Powered Voxel Engine" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6358394](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6358394)

"My Isometric Voxel Engine 6 Months Later" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7487935](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7487935)</comment>


Evolution of a Python programmer - <AUTHOR> http://gist.github.com/289467 <comment><USER2> Web 2.0 programmer:

      import urllib
      import json

      def fact(n):
         res = urllib.urlopen('http://math.org/factorial/?' +
             urllib.urlencode({'n':n, 'format':'json'})).read()
         return json.loads(res)['answer']
      fact(6)

Edit: for a "web scale systems guy" throw an @memcache_memoize in there :)

Edit2: fixed a syntax error.

Edit3: general cased it. thanks lolcraft!

<comment><USER3>
      {'n':6, 'format':'json'}

Shouldn't that be:

      {'n':n, 'format':'json'}

<comment><USER4> why write such a general case, YAGNI

<comment><USER2> More of a scotty principle type thing: when management comes by and wants to us to figure out combinations of 7 things, we can claim it will take 5 days, get it done in a 1 char fix, play games all week. Come monday morning's meeting, don't drink coffee before hand (to look tired), and claim that for a little extra work (and a looong weekend) you got it to work for combinations of ANY NUMBER of things! Worse that happens: you get credit for taking one for the team, best case: "take the week off, thanks for your heroics!"

<comment><USER5> If you happen to know of a place where you earnestly hear "take the week off, thanks for your heroics!", please don't be stingy with their URL. I'd be interested in working there.

<comment><USER6> I actually got a week's worth of PTO after a little crunch time (a month or so) at the last startup I worked for. However, I don't believe they still exist in any substantial form anymore (and couldn't in good faith recommend them anyways, for reasons I don't believe I should go into).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7>
      # "close enough" programmer
      import math
      def fact(x):
        math.sqrt(2*math.pi*n) * math.pow(n/math.e, n)
      print fact(6)

      # lazy-er programmer
      def fact(x):
        factorials = {6:720} # found on my calculator, add more as they come up
        if factorials.has_key(x):
          return factorials[x]
        else:
          raise NotImplementedError
      print fact(6)

<comment><USER8> NotImplementedError - that kills me!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> <http://dis.4chan.org/read/prog/1180084983/>

<http://www.hackerne.ws/item?id=1012877>

Wow the domain can make a huge difference. :)

<comment><USER10> What's with the hackerne.ws link?

whois ycombinator.com -> pg

whois hackerne.ws -> some godaddy registrar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The web designer and windows programmer snippets are brilliant.

<comment><USER12> The enterprise programmer one is pretty good too. Reminds me of EJB (shudder).

<comment><USER13> Productivity can only be measured by lines of code-- what a co-worker told me. Reminds me of that dark, evil place.

<comment><USER11> Likewise, productivity of surgeons can only be measured in numbers of stitches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm proud to be a Lazy Python Programmer... but not lazy enough to skip "What's New in Python 2.5":

        def factorial(x):
            return x * factorial(x-1) if x > 1 else 1

</comment><comment><USER15> This is an uninspiring ripoff of the older original here:

[http://www.ariel.com.au/jokes/The_Evolution_of_a_Programmer....](http://www.ariel.com.au/jokes/The_Evolution_of_a_Programmer.html)

And here is one that is actually well done for Haskell.

<http://www.willamette.edu/~fruehr/haskell/evolution.html>

<comment><USER16> The article is entirely new content updated to fit an existing idea. How is that a 'ripoff'?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm ashamed to admit that I actually learnt something new from this (the @tailcall thing)

<comment><USER18> You should never be ashamed to admit ignorance, especially after it's been cured. :-)

<comment><USER19> wait, is @tailcall part of the Python standard library? or just something the author made-up for illustrative purposes?

<comment><USER20> made up [http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2009/04/final-words-on- tail-...](http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2009/04/final-words-on-tail- calls.html)

<comment><USER2> There are a few /very/ hacky @tailcall decorators floating around the web. In some cases they actually speed things up some small amount. A year or two ago there was a bug furor over bytecode hacking -- such things were the result :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Functional programmer:

        import operator
        def factorial(n):
            return reduce(operator.mul, xrange(1, n+1), 1)
        print factorial(6)

Cutting-edge programmer:

       import math
       print(math.factorial(6))

<comment><USER22> reduce is pretty much the same thing as foldl. The functional programmer is already included as "Expert Python Programmer"...

<comment><USER23> The difference is, the code given here actually works out of the box.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Java programmer:

      class FactorialCommand(object):
          def set_num(self, num):
              self.__num = num

          def get_num(self):
              return self.__num

          def execute(self):
              result = 1
              i = 2
              while i <= self.get_num():
                  result = result * i
                  i = i + 1
              return result

      cmd = FactorialCommand()
      cmd.set_num(6)
      print cmd.execute()

<comment><USER25> I thought the 'enterprise' programmer was the java programmer.

<comment><USER26> No, that's the crappy java programmer

<comment><USER27> So... The FactorialCommand one was the good Java programmer?

<comment><USER28> More like C# programmers. Java programmers would either not know how to solve this problem (the majority), or write the 3 line static method.

Sarcasm based on interviewing experience =P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The "I find a way to use list comprehensions for everything" Python programmer:

      def fact(n):
          return eval('*'.join([str(x+1) for x in xrange(n)] + ['1']))

<comment><USER18> Here's a better one (taken from <http://code.activestate.com/recipes/67668/#c7> ):

        f= lambda n: [[[j for j in (j*i,)][0] for i in range(2,n+1)][-1] for j in (1,)][0]

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Where's the one where the Python programmer has to make something go fast and needs to write a C module?

<comment><USER31> That would be trickier than it looks. Run this in your python interpreter:

        reduce(lambda x, y: x * y, range(1, 100))

Replicating that in C is certainly possible but you're probably not going to do it quickly, unless you're already pretty deep into that sort of thing.

<comment><USER32> Clearly the answer is -1818210304. My C program told me that really quickly!

<comment><USER31> I stand corrected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Bored Python programmer:

      def fact(l):
          return sum(map(bool,reduce(lambda I,l:''.join([l for I in I]),
                                     ['+'+'+'*l for l in xrange(l)])))
      assert fact(6)==720

</comment><comment><USER34> I think I'll have to contribute some J code (can anyone uglify Python this much?):

      (*$:@:<:)^:(1&<) 6

Finds the factorial recursively. J programmers are masochists.

(From: <http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Factorial_function#Recursive_11>)

</comment><comment><USER35> The "first year pascal" example has a metasyntax error. It's missing a "#end" token for symmetry with the C example.

</comment><comment><USER36> So funny. The Windows one makes me wanna abandon computers altogether.

</comment><comment><USER37> Doesn't PEP 20 say that there should be only one way to do it? :-)

<comment><USER2> I know your question is a joke, but it is frequently asked in seriousness, so: No. Not at this granularity. Otherwise the python community would still be using plone, and Django would not exist. Or there would be only blocking (or non-blocking) io. And so on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I don't understand. What's wrong with the factorial function that comes with python?

        from math import factorial

done.

<comment><USER11> You can't amuse thousands of techies with an import from a math library..

<comment><USER39> But the 'Seasoned Hacker' from the original article does something likewise with the Hello, World program:

      % cc -o a.out ~/src/misc/hw/hw.c
      % a.out

;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I kind of miss an @memoized version

</comment><comment><USER41> Python one-liner anyone?

        >>> reduce(int.__mul__, range(1,6))
        120

<comment><USER42> Range should go to 7 if we are doing factorial of 6.

<comment><USER41> Treat it as gamma function instead :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> ;; python programmer who reads HN and Proggit

(defn factorial [n] (reduce * (range 1 (inc n))))

<comment><USER44>
      ;; Any programmer reading HN long enough to experiment with some lisp / clojure ;)
      (defn factorial [n]
        (apply * (range 1 (+ n 1))))

<comment><USER43> I was torn between those two formulations, but decided on the reduce because the academic purity of an implicit hylomorphism ;) However, your formulation is more idiomatic of a lispy solution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> "I've got a lot of memory" or "runtime is more importatant than initialisation" programmer

        fact = init_fact()
        ...
        res = fact[x]

</comment><comment><USER46> Enterprise programmer made me laugh. Especially after spending a few days buried in SAML.

</comment><comment><USER47> Heh, this is quite even better than the "Evolution of a programmer".

</comment><comment><USER48> I am going to have to go with Lazier Python programmer

</comment><comment><USER49> Wonder what a mathematicians python looks like...

<comment><USER50> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1089936>

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> <http://www.willamette.edu/~fruehr/haskell/evolution.html>

for all the closet functional programmers around here :)

<comment><USER52> _That's_ the link I was looking for, I knew had seen this somewhere before. The Python one is entertaining, but the Haskell one is brilliant. "explicit type recursion with functors and catamorphisms", ha. I finally learned what a functor is a few days ago.</comment></comment>


I did it: The postmortem of doing 31 features in 31 days - <AUTHOR> http://enjoysthin.gs/i/did/it

<comment><USER2> I didn't know about enjoythin.gs, thanks at least for that.

I really like the look of the page with all the different images together. In fact, I'm more interested in just scrolling down the page than clicking on the different links (even though they do look interesting)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahh yeah. The images can be fun to look at... there is also an image only viewer: <http://enjoysthin.gs/explore/images>

<comment><USER3> Interesting site, it's fun to explore. It might be nice to display content inside the cell itself once clicked, or in a lightbox, as the back/forward through history is quite jarring.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. I'm probably not going to do a lightbox, but I need a much smoother way of going from one thing to the next.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I had never heard of this, and I have to say I really like it. Your personality really comes through in this web site. So often I go to sites and just think "who cares", even if it's doing something cool, because I can't see anything that clue's me in that it was a unique item made by human beings.

And too often a web site will actually just say "we are ordinary people with a passion for...". But that's insulting to their audience. It's the small things in the design that make this site unique. I hope you grow a great community out of this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow! Thanks for the kind words. I decided early on to be as honest as possible about everything with this site.

Sometimes that means my personality shows through in the design and other aspects, other times it means that I rail against youtube for a few paragraphs in the public changelog/blog.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Seems like the opposite of the 37 signals way... aren't you supposed to introduce fewer features that are well thought out?

(Not saying that's the only way, but it seems more sensible than building loads of features really quickly without giving much thought to them.. after all, extra features increase the complexity/difficulty of both user experience and maintenance)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it's definitely a trade off. I'm not sure I agree with the 37 signals way though.

A good example of my issue with them is their highrise product. It took over a year from launch [1] before they had any type of bulk editing [2] features. Simplicity is one thing, but that is a long time for a feature that really should have been there at launch... or close to it.

[1] <http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/329-launch-highrise> [2] [http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/908-tiny-projects-keep- it...](http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/908-tiny-projects-keep-it-new)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> How many hours a day did you put in on average?

<comment><AUTHOR> I generally worked from about 10pm (after tucking the wife in) until 2am. I have a full time job in the R&D lab at the New York Times, so I was super careful not too push it too far.

I found that I can function pretty well on 5-6 hours of sleep.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Well, congrats. That's some determination.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Awesome concept, I'm jealous of Ted's drive and motivation</comment>


Map Design – a guide to good looking maps (2008) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://orienteering.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Map-Design.pdf <comment><USER2> HA! My wife is a cartographer (for the past 15 years) and it is a dying career. Her company is in its death knells and there is little hope of getting a design job these days, it's all GIS and barely any artistic design work nowadays. This is all nice to know, but there won't be but a few cartographers in 20 years.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _but there won 't be but a few cartographers in 20 years_

Yeah, processing LiDAR, GPS-tracks and other sort of GeoData using GIS in our days is very handy and mostly decreased needs in "old-school" cartographers.

But, in the future "old-school" cartography would be some sort of art, such as B&W film photography now.

Also, painting using pencil & paper still popular by artists and now old technique mostly combined with draw in image editors, but last not fully replace pencil & paper. So, I'm not sure that now there are only 20 artist who use pencil & paper around the world.

Number of such professional artist really decreased in last 20 years, but PC and mobile image editors give chance to draw art for many users, that not paint before or lack experience with pencil & paper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for posting, I really enjoyed reading that. I have found personally I enjoy the more interactive learning more engaging. There are some pretty nifty online carto-courses floating around.

I know Esri runs a free one every now and then, it would be interesting to see how much of the teachings from different sources align with one another. Maybe once day there can be an open standard for cartography! [https://www.esri.com/training/catalog/596e584bb826875993ba4e...](https://www.esri.com/training/catalog/596e584bb826875993ba4ebf/cartography./)

<comment><AUTHOR> > _There are some pretty nifty online carto-courses... by Esri_

And you can't do nothing with it in offline.

PDF book is much better, as it fully acceptable without Internet. And downloaded book not require any registrations.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR: This guide written by _Brian Mee_ (member of _British Orienteering Federation_ ) originally for design printed _orienteering maps_ , but would be useful for creators of any type of maps.

FTR, I would recommend to try _OpenOrienteering Mapper_ [0] app (desktop publishing software for cartography) if you need free & open-source tool for draw orienteering maps (or other types of vector+raster maps) and prepare it for printing or export it in many different raster and vector formats (powered by _GDAL_ lib), including PDF with CMYK or Spot color separation.

 _Mapper_ sources available on GitHub[1] and binary builds provided for Linux, Mac OS, Windows and Android (including Android-x86).

[0] [https://www.openorienteering.org/apps/mapper/](https://www.openorienteering.org/apps/mapper/)

[1] [https://github.com/openorienteering/mapper](https://github.com/openorienteering/mapper)

</comment><comment><USER4> If you enjoy reading about map design, I highly recommend this article:

"A YEAR OF GOOGLE & APPLE MAPS - How much do Google & Apple Maps change in a year?" [https://www.justinobeirne.com/a-year-of-google-maps-and- appl...](https://www.justinobeirne.com/a-year-of-google-maps-and-apple-maps)

</comment><comment><USER5> I found the book Cartographic Relief Presentation ([https://esripress.esri.com/display/index.cfm?fuseaction=disp...](https://esripress.esri.com/display/index.cfm?fuseaction=display&websiteID=118&moduleID=0)) to be an in depth resource on this subject.

<comment><AUTHOR> > _This book is no longer available from Esri._

Also, this book is not free and not available as PDF.

<comment><USER6> Not only is not free, it costs about €150

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> BTW, for digital cartography, I highly recommend The Guide to Map Design by Amy Lee (Mapbox): [https://www.mapbox.com/map- design/](https://www.mapbox.com/map-design/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you provide link to free PDF-version of _«The Guide to Map Design» by Amy Lee (Mapbox)_ ?

<comment><USER8> [https://www.mapbox.com/resources/guide-to-map-design- part-1a...](https://www.mapbox.com/resources/guide-to-map-design-part-1a.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why do they think they need arrows on the (north?) ends of all the longitude(?) lines? Surely one is enough?

<comment><USER10> This guide is intended for orienteering maps. When using them you will usually be running with the map folded up so it is only partially visible.

A much recommended activity by the way. Your local orienteering club will probably have open runs every weekend where everyone can just show up.</comment></comment>


23andMe hits the mall ahead of the holiday DNA-testing rush - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-07/23andme-hits-the-mall-ahead-of-the-holiday-dna-testing-rush <comment><USER2> I submitted my DNA to 23andMe this past year. I was fortunately very happy with my results and their specificity. I shared the sample-taking and results with my parents and it was a great experience. We all know a bit more about our heritage now.

There is something magical about learning where you came from in the 100/1,000/10,000 year ranges.</comment>


Google Maps will let you chat with businesses - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/14/18095863/google-maps-business-chat-rcs-messaging-feelings <comment><AUTHOR> For me, the key quote in the article is this: > what the heck is going on with Google Maps? It is becoming overburdened with so many features and design changes that it's becoming harder and harder to just get directions in it.</comment>


Startup Hotbed Inferiority Complex - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/07/startup-hotbed-inferiority-complex.html <comment><USER2> "the creative cost of living in an echo chamber"

I've never heard anyone who used this expression offer any evidence or argument to back it up, and this post is no exception.

Till a few months ago I used to live half the time in the Valley and half the time in Boston. I never noticed Boston startups getting any creative boost from not being in the Valley. If anything, it was the opposite: they tended to be constrained by lack of confidence, and by the conservatism of the local investors.

<comment><USER3> A very smart guy says "ignore everybody" to be creative. Maybe that's harder when there are more people around a lot like you, but not quite. <http://www.changethis.com/6.HowToBeCreative>

<comment><USER2> Sounds good in principle, but if you look at the matter empirically, very creative people almost invariably cluster in hubs. Empirically you seem to lose more from being in a backwater than you gain.

<comment><USER3> Those hubs can be online. Hugh is always on Twitter and often in the bay area.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Currently I don't run a startup nor do I work for a startup(I know, what am I doing on hacker news!), but this is something I think about a lot.

I live in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada which has a fairly lively technology community and what seems to be a growing startup community and it always gets me to wondering whether the Silicon Valley thing is just hype or whether it really is the place to be.

The main thing I always consider in this(especially when i consider possibly starting my own startup) is whether it is hype or not. Maybe it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy that Silicon Valley will always be king if all the best talent moves to silicon valley to start or work with new startups.

<comment><USER5> The web is a great leveler, but when it comes to securing funding (in a later stage of your project) it really helps if you are in the neighbourhood of potential investors.

Other than that if you're self funded and you have a project that has a clear business driver making money from the start then it might actually be an advantage to _not_ be in an expensive area.

First of all your retention of employees will be higher, second your cost of living and your salaries and expenses will be lower.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sure, a lot of successful tech companies come out of Silicon Valley, but there's a disproportionate amount of tech companies in Silicon Valley to begin with. It's certainly not obvious that the success rate is any higher there.

<comment><USER2> You could use the same argument to "prove" that the hub of any industry is not a particularly good place to do that kind of work. By the same reasoning, LA is not a particularly good place to make movies, or New York to run a hedge fund.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> When Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were working on their Apple I, Apple II in garage, the hottest computer company then were in Boston like DEC.

Of course both Jobs and Wozniak were lucky to get an angel investor, Mike Markkula, due to Intel's wealth from its IPO.

So the important parts are those:

1\. You are good enough.

2\. you can meet someone who is rich enough, understands the process of starting a tech company,is willing to risk his/her fortune to help you out while taking a good windfall later, if you are really good.

It is easier in SV. But there are all those people in start up hotbeds. I guess the problem is where and how to meet them. But as we all know. Rich people hates people come forward to ask for money without showing something interesting first.

</comment><comment><USER8> Here's how I've always looked at it. It's retarded to think a startup cannot succeed anywhere. You can do ALL the things you need from the middle of Iowa, and still kill it. Here's what you're NOT given in Iowa? All the opportunities and resources you COULD have. By being in Silicon Valley, you have the maximum amount of opportunity and resources to succeed. Think of it like playing a video game: sure you could win with the basic pistol they give you, but it's probably best to face the game boss with a rocket launcher.

The other main question is scaling a company. If you're doing the typical venture back startup thing, then scaling is a huge issue. You need access to capital and talent to the point you can grow the company from 3=>30=>300 people. That's hard to do, especially on the engineering side outside of most startup hotbeds. If you're in a crappy city for a startup, think right now if you could go recruit 50 of the brightest engineers in the next 18 months there.

So in short a) you don't need to be in the valley to succeed, at least in the short term b) the valley can give you the maximum opportunities c) think about how the current city you're in can help you scale the startup when (or if) it needs to grow heavily, but don't think about it too soon.

</comment><comment><USER9> This whole subject seems to circle around here fairly often and it seems like there's not a clear cut answer. There are some advantages to Silicon Valley and some disadvantages. But at the end of the day you just need to build the right project with the right team. Get those two right and the rest is gravy.

</comment><comment><USER10> Ok so what is Fred saying here? Defending generalizations by specific examples is fairly pointless. He almost confirmed the argument by citing examples!

"Deep down inside, every entrepreneur working outside of the bay area worries that they are not as competitive and will not be as successful because they are not in Silicon Valley" well, if it is indeed easier to meet people in the Bay Area and to meet other entrepreneurs, then sure you are at a disadvantage being elsewhere. Doesn't mean you won't get anywhere, just means you'll need a different plan.

Generalizations will always have counter-examples and I think it's very silly to take them to heart as I believe Fred did.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is quite interesting given the "London startup scene is dead, world revolves around Silicon Valley" post by Paul Carr from today too. What gives? You can succeed anywhere; some parts of it may be easier in the Valley, but it's not the _only_ place successful businesses are growing by any means.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think it all depends on people's personality type. Extrovert will be more successful when he lives in a startup hotbed. Introvert doesn't need anybody, he can live anywhere he likes.</comment>


Intel is laying off a major portion of its wearables group - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/18/intel-layoffs/ <comment><USER2> This is too bad, and a bit understandable. Intel is in a really odd place at the moment. It is the 800lb gorilla in the CPU space who knows that the manufacturer of gorilla food is currently unable to produce enough food to feed it (the PC market). More systems running windowed operating systems that people use will on a day to day basis will ship with ARM chips this year. That is a huge shift. And while Intel is still king of the server shipments there are people who want to be there too (Power and ARM). Two things contributed to that, the first was that the smartphone became the "PC" for the masses, the second was that Linux is instruction set agnostic in the data center.

Intel really _really_ needs a market they can dominate that consumes lots and lots of chips. IoT is one bet, Wearables (apparently was) one bet. The scary thing for Intel is that if they don't have enough demand to keep their billion dollar fabs pumping, they start burning cash. Not clear what the strategy there is. Look at IBM which sold off their chip capability to Global Foundry. Once you have over capacity, a chip fab rapidly becomes a huge liability.

That said, the world could probably use a state of the art open access chip house that wasn't in Asia or controlled by the Chinese. Not sure that Intel could go there given their company history and organization.

Digression: One of the uniquely nice things about Sun was that since their fiscal calendar ended on June 30th, when they axed major projects the layoffs came in the spring rather than right before New Years. It always sucks to be laid off but there are worse and better times to do so.

<comment><USER3> Intel has never been a company focused on chip volume, they chose to exit the DRAM business 20+ years ago. They focus on high end high margin products, which is now primarily servers with the contraction of the PC market. This is how they justify greater than $10B yearly expenditures on fabs and R+D. They have maintained, and still do maintain a 2 generation lead on process technology.

Alternate architectures are not going to do much to dent the two generation lead in process.

IoT and Wearables mean nothing to Intel, there is not enough money there. Mostly a marketing effort to signal to their investors they aren't going to miss the next big opportunity like they did mobile. Of course that ignores the fact that Intel was never going to be much of a player in mobile. All the money in mobile is in the base stations, not in the handsets, and Qualcomm (3rd largest semi conductor company behind Intel and Samsung) completely dominates the IP in that market. What matters there is radio technology, not microprocessors.

<comment><USER4> > IoT and Wearables mean nothing to Intel, there is not enough money there

Wearables maybe, as the market is relatively small as form factor-defined markets go, but I wouldn't be so quick to write off IoT, which describes a business model change more than a certain form factor or set of devices.

I listened to Murthy Renduchintala, President of the Intel IoTG group, speak at GE Minds+Machines earlier this week. He stressed FPGAs (acquisition of Altera) as well as SDN/NFV as key areas of interest for Intel going forward.

<comment><USER3> This is considering IoT from a semiconductor company's perspective; There will not be much revenue from the chips for this market. How much can they make per smart light bulb? You also have to note that Intel doesn't have semiconductor IP for nearly any radio protocol (BT, BTLE, Zigbee, they have wifi but not low end) necessary to build SoCs to win those markets.

IoT will be a big market, but the profits won't be going primarily to the semiconductor companies via chip sales. We won't likely see an "Intel Cloud Platform" or Intel selling IoT deployment services.

The FPGA tech is interesting, but mostly irrelevant to IoT. FPGAs can really benefit from Intels leading edge manufacturing, so that is a smart acquisition (even before considering IA integration possibilities).

Intel does not have much of a presence in networking, and there are a lot of competitors there who are more invested, and further, design their own silicon (Cisco, Juniper, Huawei, brocade maybe). Maybe if they are able to productize the silicon (as opposed to more exotic materials) optical transceivers they have spent a ton researching they would have something huge here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Intel took it a step further and shut down the Peak's software support (including cloud storage), effective by year's end._

And thus the reason I stick to companies like Garmin for my "wearables". If Garmin up and pulls out of the wearables market, then the market is well and truly screwed and my choice won't make any difference. But a company like Intel or Microsoft can just up and go "well, that hobby project didn't work out. Back to our core business. Oh, and pull the servers down." and you the consumer are left holding the bag.

<comment><USER6> > you the consumer are left holding the bag

Not in this case. They're issuing MSRP refunds, no questions asked, in exchange for returns whose shipping they also cover.

Full disclosure: I've just shipped back my own Basis Carbon Steel - a device not even implicated in the overheating issue, but one for which they're still accepting returns and providing refunds. I paid ~$150 for it a few years back; they've said they'll be sending me a $234 check. Obviously, since I haven't yet received the check, I don't yet know with certainty that they'll live up to that claim, but they've given me no reason to doubt that they will. Overall I'm very favorably impressed with the way they're handling the issue.

<comment><USER7> It's true that you'll get your money back, but it's still a pain for the consumer since this isn't an optional recall. They're shutting down the servers that enable the client-side apps, so the Peaks won't sync anymore. This means consumers have to deal with the hassle of returning the unit and move to another platform, after taking the time to move to this one.

<comment><USER6> Business units and companies sometimes cease to operate. It's less than ideal, but a fact of life all the same. In this case, they're doing so in a fashion that's as consumer-friendly as possible. I think it's more worthwhile to laud that, in hopes other IoT businesses will find it worth their effort to do likewise, than to fuss about something that can't be changed in any case. But of course that's just my view of the matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I see the article mentions the Basis recall, but I want to expand on that here for those who might look first or only at the comments.

For those who don't already know: Because the Basis Peak developed a nasty habit of overheating to the point of second-degree burns, Intel has recalled all Basis devices - not just the Peak, but prior versions as well.

If you currently own a Basis device or devices, visit [https://www.mybasis.com/safety/](https://www.mybasis.com/safety/) in order to find out how to send your recalled device or devices back to Intel, in exchange for a full MSRP refund. (This is no small consideration! In my case, I bought a Basis Carbon Steel several years ago for about $150. In exchange for shipping it back to Intel, to whom it is currently en route, I'm told I will receive a check for $234.)

Be advised also that the Basis data services will be shut down at the end of this year. If you have fitness data in those services which you want to retrieve, you must do so before January 1, 2017, or it will no longer be recoverable. Also, and for the same reason, no Basis devices will be able to sync from that date, which will make them essentially unusable even if they would otherwise be.

It's sort of a shame to see a good product go down in flames like this. On the other hand, the way Intel's handling it is extremely impressive, and I'm very glad to see it - we can but hope, however forlornly, that this is the first example of a new and much more customer-friendly style of handling IoT deprecations.

</comment><comment><USER8> Intel's wearables push always seemed more like a PR stunt than an actual, thought-through business tactic. They put a great deal of effort into stuff like Arduino support and sponsoring BMX championships, a TV show (America's Greatest Makers), conceptual clothing lines, etc but apparently people who actually wanted to use their hardware in products had trouble getting support or chips and the specs just didn't seem to stand up (when they were available at all).

<comment><USER3> It was, and to appease investors that they are doing something about new markets after missing mobile. No one in their right mind would choose Intel as the platform for a wearable. The microcontroller companies: ST, NXP, Freescale, etc have been deeply embedded there for decades.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm happy to be a /former/ Intel employee. Staying for layoffs sucks.

<comment><USER10> > Staying for layoffs sucks.

Depends on the country. I've heard about people who made little fortunes being laid off. The most lucky one got laid off _twice_ after long tenures at two different companies (due to the companies closing sites in the country or something like that).

<comment><USER11> True. It's not uncommon to get laid off, receive a few months pay. Find and start a new job weeks or a month later.

Though not everyone is so fourtanate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> With moore's law slowing/dying out, hard to blame intel for desperately trying to find new revenue streams.

<comment><USER13> Latest CPU leaks mention 10nm cpus about to land. They managed to keep Moore's law afloat surprisingly longer than expected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I paid the original Basis B1 for $199. Is the original Basis B1 covered in the recall?

The notice says "... Service Shutdown Information We are shutting down service ... offering refunds for all Peak and __B1 __devices and accessories. ... "

So sounds like Intel is recalling ALL Basis device, not just Peak. However, B1 is not mentioned anywhere else on the page besides Peak.

<comment><USER15> Yes it is

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Who could of predicted 1 Watt x86 booting in real segmented mode with 300Hz gpios is not the way to go in wearables?!?!

<comment><USER17> Who could _have_! Who could _have_!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ever since the old guard missed the mobile wave, they don't seem to want to take any change on the "next-big-thing". If apple goes into something, they all jump right in, business case or not

</comment><comment><USER19> Tech companies should just not try to make consumer products. Build your chips and your displays and your compilers and OSes, but please let retail businesses figure out what customers might want before you start building stuff just because you can. Apple is just about the only company that has managed to get away with doing both.

<comment><USER20> Asus, Acer, Samsung, Toshiba, MSI, IBM, Sony... all these companies and many others sell components to other companies, but also made consumer products that many people love. I don't quite get your logic.</comment></comment>


Leaked emails won't harm UN climate body, says chairman - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/29/ipcc-climate-change-leaked-emails

<comment><USER2> > Some commentators, including the former chancellor Nigel Lawson and the > environmental campaigner and Guardian writer George Monbiot, have called on > Jones to resign but Pachauri [chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on > Climate Change] said he did not agree. He said an independent inquiry into > the emails would achieve little, but there should be a criminal > investigation into how the emails came to light.

The chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Pachauri, does not inspire trust in the scientific results. Rather than focusing on the misdeeds of the scientists, he's pushing for those who exposed the misdeeds to be punished. Mr. Pachauri's reactions are more consistent with a fake who is afraid of being found out than with an honest scientist who is just interested in exposing truth.

<comment><USER3> He's a politician, of course he isn't interested in the truth. He's interested in getting the biggest dollar value into his pocket, that's all politics is and ever has been.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The chairman is not very concerned that his scientists are behaving badly, but is very concerned that they were caught.

 _I really think people should be discreet … in this day and age anything you write, even privately, could become public and to put anything down in writing is, to say the least, indiscreet … It is another matter to talk about this to your friends on the telephone or person to person but to put it down in writing was indiscreet. If someone was to say something like this in an IPCC authors' meeting then there are others who would chew him up."_

That last sentence almost makes me want to ask the obvious follow-up: do you keep records of what people say in IPCC meetings? Where are they?

<comment><USER5> _very concerned that they were caught_

I don't think this is it. There is a system for exposing confidential correspondence to the public; it's called a trial. If there is reasonable suspicion that fraud is going on (and lying about your data to get more research money _is_ fraud), then charges can be filed, and the internal emails can be legally obtained. (Or, a condition of receiving research money can be that all your emails must be made public.) Some Random Hackers breaking into private computer systems, though, is not acceptable, no matter how noble the goal. Some judicial oversight is necessary to protect the researchers. (Even criminals deserve privacy.)

<comment><USER4> I would very much have preferred for this information to come to light via the legal way for exposing it: a FOI request. Unfortunately, there seems to have been a consp^H^H^H^H^H intentionally organized effort to defeat FOI requests. That makes things sort of a catch-22. (I am starting to believe the theory that this archive was prepared for a FOI request, quashed, and then leaked by a whistleblower. The argument that cinched it for me: how the heck did somebody get a random dump of emails and documents with the ratio of work : personal : spam looking like infinity: negligible: negligible? Either our mysterious hacker has OCD or someone was pretty careful when collecting this data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Surely if the original data sets upon which important decisions will ultimately be based are missing or destroyed, such that the results can't be independently reproduced, that alone ought to be cause for concern and discussion.

<comment><USER7> Most decisions at that level aren't made based on data and facts. They are made based on the emotional appeal of the acquisition of power both through increased control and financial benefit.

Politicians ignore the facts all the time. They invent facts all the time. Politics has little to do with science.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> HAHAHAHAHAHA !!! The surface station audit is almost completed BTW, Check out the graphic at <http://www.surfacestations.org/>

<comment><USER9> This is a very interesting resource. Thanks for the link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The IPCC and CRU are really starting to look very guilty in their words and actions, whether they are or not. This whole thing reminds me of the 'sexing up' of intelligence reports to justify invasion of Iraq. It started out as a trickle of leaked information and turned into a torrent that eventually led to a lot of people losing a lot of respsect. They need to come clean now, admit their faults and invite others to look at the data and come to independent conclusions.

It's turning into a big mess, and it's not going away. Whoever was behind it knew exactly what they were doing.

</comment><comment><USER11> It is very funny that many of the people that spent 8 years saying amen to the broad war against science by the Bush administration are now "oh, so chocked!" by some out of context comments and suppressed data by some researchers in a UK university.

<comment><USER12>
       war against science

I'm not familiar with that war. Is it "outlawing stem cell research", when all he did was say we wouldn't use federal tax dollars to do it? Or is it not toeing the line as far as Kiyoto, because "all scientists agree the end is near if we don't"? Refresh my memory as to this "war against science"? I'm interested.

<comment><USER13> 1) They banned using ANY equipment or resources payed for with ANY federal dollars in stem cell research (and very strictly enforced it). Since many labs have to share equipment between projects, this effectively banned most stem cell research.

2) They had direct ties to the Discovery Institute, the main force behind the Intelligent Design Creationism pseudoscience movement.

3) And whether or not there's a vast pro-AGW conspiracy, that doesn't excuse interfering with publication of climate science from NASA.

And that's just off the top of my head, fortunately I haven't thought about this in a while. For more info: [http://www.amazon.com/Republican-War-Science- Chris-Mooney/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Republican-War-Science-Chris- Mooney/dp/0465046762/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259539189&sr=8-1)</comment></comment></comment>


Elcomsoft turns your PC into a password cracking supercomputer - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/24/elcomsoft-turns-your-pc-into-a-password-cracking-supercomputer/ <comment><USER2> That is simply insane. With advances in CPU speeds and multiple core computers becoming standard I wonder how much longer passwords will survive as a reasonable form of protection.</comment>


Ask HN: Questions about using open source software for a SasS business.  - <AUTHOR>

I am trying to determine what open source licenses (GPL/AGPL etc) offer the most flexibility for commercial SaaS offerings:
If you use open source software to offer a hosted SaaS solution commercially to customers, are you also required to
a) Give the users an option to download the original open source software?
b) Disclose that you are using an open source software for the site?
c) What if the software is modified and customized?
Note : The software will only reside on the server and the users will not normally have access to it. We may also modify the software to offer additional features.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> It does depend on the license used. Some licenses ensure that any code changes must be released publicly. This is why Apple has rewritten a number of Apple internals so that they can be used under a bsd license

<comment><AUTHOR> So just to confirm - does this imply that a BSD license does not require you to release any modifications publicly? And does not require you to link to the source files if you are using it to run a SaaS business?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If it's GPL 2.0, no. If it's 3.0 (or AGPL), yes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok, thanks!</comment></comment>


Workbench: Seamless, Automatic Dotfile Sync to iCloud - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mxcl/Workbench/ <comment><USER2> What's the point of this? If you already have iCloud (or any other service like Dropbox), why not just symlink your dotfiles from your Dropbox folder to their appropriate local directories? Then, sync is handled for you by your backup service and it's the same result.</comment>


Smooth-dnd: light and fast drag and drop library for many scenarios - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kutlugsahin/smooth-dnd <comment><USER2> Looks good, I will give it a try.</comment>


Ask HN: Reasonable expectations of a senior co-founder? - <AUTHOR> Last August I joined a startup. I really like the company, the work, the ideas, and the people (I'm the 3rd) but there's one issue that is starting to upset me, and it's getting to the point where it's affecting my work. I'm looking for advice on whether or not I'm being reasonable, and what I should do about the matter.
I joined as the third, youngest, least skilled, and most junior partner. The others I'll call the CEO and CTO. The CEO is very smart and fairly technical, but not familiar with most of the tools I am going to be using, so he can't really mentor me on my day-to-day work. The CTO is an excellent hacker, and using the same tools that I'll use. I came on with the expectation that I'd be learning from the CTO and eventually rise to his level of technical skill.
Our CTO decided to take a working vacation to San Diego, starting Oct. 20, for entirely personal reasons (family + dislike of Chicago weather). When I joined the company, I knew about this, but was led to believe that it would be one month. However, he pushed it out to two months, then a little more, and now it's essentially indefinite.
I'm an ardent opponent of the two weeks' vacation policies set by Big Dumb Companies, and I'd be completely fine with him taking a 1-month working vacation (especially since I knew about it when I took the job) but an indefinite and possibly 3+ month absence during a startup's critical phase just seems excessive to me. He's writing code and putting in the hours, but I don't find email and phone calls to be conducive to mentoring. As far as education goes, there are too many intangibles that work only in person.
I'm the newest and most junior co-founder, so I'm not in a position to tell the CTO what to do, but I am starting to get pissed about the indefinite nature of the absence, and the fact that his reasons are entirely personal. First of all, I think anyone who has as much equity as he has ought to be fully committed to building the business, which means more than writing code. Building the business also entails being there in person, mentoring the new guys, interviewing (when that becomes an issue), et cetera. Second, his working vacation benefits neither me nor, in any way I can see, the company. It's personal and not of an urgent nature. Third, it's frankly discouraging to me that our CTO isn't planning on coming back to Chi on a definite and reasonable date, and it's starting to affect my work. Fourth, I don't feel like either he or I have "earned" the right to take 3-month working vacations; shouldn't we build a successful company first, and take lifestyle liberties after accomplishing that? Fifth, I wouldn't have ended my job search had I known that one of the partners, especially the person who was supposed to be mentoring me, was going to do this.
Am I getting bent out of shape over something I shouldn't, or do I have a legitimate grievance? Also, what should I do? I'm considering bringing the matter up with the CEO on Monday, but I don't really want to "play politics" against the CTO. He's my friend, a co-founder, and a great hacker I hope to learn a lot from. On the other hand, though I might be asking too much, I feel completely shorted on this matter. I'm not learning nearly as fast as I would if the CTO were on-site, and I frankly feel like this point in the company's trajectory is too important for 1/3 of the company to be thousands of miles away. <comment><USER2> Thoughts in no particular order:

() a 'working vacation' isn't really a vacation

() make sure there aren't other personal matters which make his indefinite presence in San Diego more important -- an ill family member, crucial relationship to be maintained, etc.

() is he still being highly productive, even though not at the level of personal interaction you desire? If so, it's at least plausible that he thinks he's doing his role properly, until he's clued-in otherwise.

() physical presence always helps but it's now very possible and even common for key contributors to be remote, and indeed sometimes that better fits a person's most productive workstyle. So don't get hung up on location if everything else is OK (or can be made OK).

() speak directly with the 'CTO' about your desire for more interaction/mentoring before going to the 'CEO'.

() There are many ways to be 'present' besides physically; give him a chance to deliver the closer involvement/mentoring you think that you and business need those other ways, too -- don't make physically "being there" the only litmus test of commitment.

You concern is legitimate but focus solely on productivity (his, yours, and team's), not symbolism, and express your concern in a way that gives him many ways to address it without making it an ultimatum about returning by a certain date or otherwise making him defensive.

<comment><AUTHOR> He's productive. I'm not bothered by his original decision to spend a month in San Diego. I think that's reasonable and I wish more companies were accepting of that sort of thing. I'm just annoyed about (1) the indefinite nature of his time away, and (2) the fact that I was led to believe it would be a month, not 3+. I probably wouldn't have called off my job search if I had known that the person who was supposed to be mentoring me was going to be spending a majority of the time away from "the office" in my first 6 months. At least, I would've waited till there was more stability before committing to the company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think you are asking the wrong people here. It might sound scary, but it will be a lot easier than you think to just have an honest and frank conversation with the CTO. Don't go into a blame game, just explain your expectations in an honest, direct, and highly respectful tone. You are not going to make any progress if you do not open up communications and let yourself be heard.

</comment><comment><USER4> Arrange for your company to house you in San Diego during this critical period and enjoy the winter in California.

</comment><comment><USER5> Going into business is sort of like a marriage. There is no right or wrong - just people's expectations, their individual effort and willingness/determination to get along.

Aside from when people are being ludicrous (it happens) there is no point in asking "should I be annoyed at this?". The company is something you are building together and you together get to decide how it works and looks.

Just tell them you find this unusual, you want to discuss - ask what their view is. They might have a quite reasonable interpretation - of they might be jerks about it - or you might find out you're being a jerk about it... just start a rational dialogue first.

</comment><comment><USER6> Having a highly skilled and productive co-founder is a huge asset. Nobody is perfect and living 3000 miles away doesn't seem like a deal-breaker (not even close).

Effort (and appearances) are not the same thing as results. It's possible you are mixing these up to _some_ degree. Consider: face-time, "earning" vacation and lack of clear policies/directions are all prized in big corporations.

Oh, and I second (or third) the idea that you just move to San Diego. Seriously.

</comment><comment><USER7> This might be crazy, but if you are afraid to bring it up, you could pull a Seinfeld-style maneuver and say, it's really important that we all be in the same place, and suggest that if the CTO doesn't want to ever move back, then maybe the whole company should move to San Diego. At least it's a way to get it out there.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm not sure I would discuss it unless it really gets in the way. He may have picked you for a bright team member who can handle it-- and maybe you can. When and if it starts to be a problem, that is, when you actually are sure you are not learning what you feel you should be from him and the project is suffering, then broach the subject with the CEO. Perhaps the guy _will_ come back when a need is demonstrated.

If this business is a good opportunity for you, just hang tight. The other guy could have the bigger problem anyway: Your proximity to the CEO is going to make you very valuable to him if you end up being a reliable player. The CTO may find himself out of the loop.

</comment><comment><USER9> I also think you should discuss it with the other two - this can't be good for your productivity - which is essential in such a small team. I've always been pretty good at making sure I'm happy and productive with my work AND learning stuff. Each of those ingredients is important - I think that even if only one is not there to your satisfaction, you should think about moving on. But moving on is not something that should be taken lightly. Because you're going to have lots of really tough times in a startup. Full of doubt and angst. And I mean really. And there will be disagreements. Big time.

</comment><comment><USER10> how does your equity break down?

<comment><AUTHOR> He has 5 times as much as I do. This is reasonable because he's been working for over a year on the project (all pre-funding, thus on deferred cash) and I came in recently, understanding that funding (and regular salaries + health coverage) would probably come circa Nov-Jan. Obviously, if funding is later to come, I'm going to ask for more equity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'd be disappointed and speak your mind...</comment>


Brother sues CEO who gave workers $70k minimum salary - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekwire.com/2015/brother-sues-ceo-who-gave-workers-70k-minimum-salary-alleging-he-unfairly-boosted-his-own-pay/

<comment><AUTHOR> Timing of everything is pretty interesting - perhaps the CEO (Dan Price) lowered his salary down from $1M since he knew this lawsuit was coming. From the article it appears the brother (Lucas) was prepping for this before the whole $70k thing went down.</comment>