Ask HN: What job did you leave IT for? - <AUTHOR> I've recently been diagnosed with an illness that has left me little to no concentration and a very low level of comprehension,as such I will most likely have to leave my job as a software engineer as it's becoming overwhelming. So my question is, if you have had to leave  your IT job, what was/is your new job. <comment><USER2> When I stopped in 2009, I went tourign Europe with bands for four years, doing mainly roadie/driver/merch guy stuff.

It's been a relieving experience, I went back to thinking only about today, what we had to do for today's show and nothing more, eventually planning tomorrow's trip, but without much stress.

No planning, no meetings, no standups, no due dates, just load/unload the van, mount the stage, check check check one-two-one-two, waiting for people to show up at the merch stand, with a glass always filled with something.

I was in charge of checking that the venues were respecting our rider, so my job ended up being counting beers and having fun with friends while having party every night.

It has also been cheaper than living in my city, everything was already paid: meals, sleeping accommodations, booze, even drugs most of the times.

Then the band I was working the most stopped for a couple of years to write the new album and I went back into programming, learnt Elixir/Erlang, and now I am consulting for different kind of companies (including banks, video games and insurance companies) to eradicate Java from this planet :)

p.s.: during this awesome times I also had the pleasure to work at an EOTM concert with Nick, their merch guy who was brutally killed in Paris at the Bataclan.

He truly was a great guy, may he rest in peace.

p.p.s.: I think I should add that I left because I had been working home for too long, I was stressed, almost burnt out, plus I was having big problems getting paid on time (if paid at all).

It's been one of the economically lowest moments of my life, I barely had enough money to buy cigarettes, but absolutely one of my greatest and funniest achievements.

It gave me the boost to rethink my life in terms of working better and do less, not more.

I was absolutely no kid anymore (I was 30 already) and still doing it from time to time, when i need to take the steam out.

</comment><comment><USER3> > little to no concentration and a very low level of comprehension

This might sound like a flippant response but it's not: could you move into management? You don't need to know the finer details, but you'd have the experience required to empathise with the developers in your team.

<comment><USER4> I think this may backfire even more. Sure there are stories about how one can get by as a manager without knowing much or doing much, but that's rare. As a manager you have to answer to your boss and make sure team delivery is met. You will need to do budget and stay current with what's happening at work, so that you don't become clueless in meetings. This can be stressful at work since politics is inevitable.

<comment> UK-AL Yes, but all these things are "bigger picture" stuff.

It's not trying to comprehend 1000 little things at the same time using deep concentration, as a software developer does.

<comment><USER4> Not really. If you aren't able to concentrate for a long time, how can you join a meeting and catch the important stuff? If your mind is wandering and you appear to ask questions which have been answered you are going to sound like you didn't pay attention. I have seen people struggle to keep up because they have so many meetings so many emails and so many questions to take care. Sure you donmt code anymore, but you have a lot of little things to take care of. I work in infrastructure/operation so maybe that's different from a manager working on iOS product. Point is you will get frustrated and that's bad. It lowers your confidence, maybe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sorry to hear that.

Personally, if I ever get to leave IT before retirement, I plan to equip a workshop and start making electric guitars. It connects various craftsmanship skills with some engineering and art. And the best part is, end product is a instrument.

Unfortunately, this is not the best career choice where I live in (Eastern Europe). Although if you are good, you could make a living out of it. At least I would have better website then the competition :) Backup plan is to build modern/minimalistic furniture where there is no guitar orders.

Another direction would be to create a hub for amateur craftsmen. Well equipped workshop where you can rent a space to make things on your own, or take a course.

As you can see, I would pursue something related to making things as that's something I really love, and I'm doing as a hobby (IT takes a lot of time though). So, my advice would be to find something you love and see if you can make a living out of it.

Good luck!

<comment><USER6> with your it skills you can easily go global. make a great website with a customization widget or twitch the making of a guitar. lots of possibilities to distinguish yourself

<comment><USER5> It is true, and I will try it for sure at some point. Thing is that I tremendously enjoy software development as well, so this idea is on hold for now. Going global asks for solving more problems like logistics, but it is certainly worth the effort.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here is an inspiring story of a Hacker News contributor who was once in a similar position (though he has since recovered):

[http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/we-made-it- our...](http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/we-made-it-ourselves- scream-sorbet/?_r=0)

        "What product could I, in my mentally addled state,
        come up with making?" he wondered. That's when he
        remembered his longtime love of ice cream.

<comment><USER8> Inspiring, but it looks like the business failed sometime around 2013 for violating health code / zoning laws. Disappointing, as someone who likes the idea of leaving tech to run an ice cream shop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I was a power engineer for utilities. I now work on ERP systems for fortune 500 companies. SQL from one bad implementation to another.

</comment><comment><USER10> Become an artist. Don't make art based on your expression of your feelings or whatever. Take it on like you would a startup. Create things you think will sell and based on what works iterate quickly. Make lots of work, sell it at cost and increase your price as you refine your process.

You can involve computers in the process of creating work. Things like conceptual art doesn't even have to involve any artistic skill necessarily, but there are many other areas that do if you want to try it out. Paintings from unknown artist can sell for $5K and if you have the energy and space to make sculptures, they can sell for much more.

Always keep in mind who the buyers are, it isn't always directly to customers (galleries, governments, large corporations). Only make work that sells. In the process your pitch will need to be refined. It can't be simply that you want to make money, it has to speak the the audience.

There are many different customers out there looking for different things. Keep in mind there are very few people who devote themselves to this and few of these people have any sense of business, branding, marketing, or even creativity as deep as what is available in technology today. Sure many people can draw or whatever but this isn't want makes a successful artist.

Success comes from all of the same stuff that every other industry focuses on.

R.Mutt QED

<comment><USER11> > Success comes from all of the same stuff that every other industry focuses > on.

Sure, but a major difference is that art is highly subjective and typically bought with arbitrary disposable income as opposed to a value-based purchasing decision. The kind of art that large corporations buy isn't what any artist actually wants to make.

<comment><USER12> >The kind of art that large corporations buy isn't what any artist actually wants to make.

I think that's exactly what they are suggesting. Make art that will sell, not art that artists want to make. Methodically approach art to appeal to a specific niche (be it corporate clients, government orgs all the way down to stay at home moms and anime fans). You could argue that at that point it isn't really "art", but that's kind of the idea. Take art out of it and sell a product to appeal to a certain market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Honestly, depending on your age you should think about applying for permanent disability (ssdi).

<comment><USER14> That sounds a little more realistic than a jump to management or skilled trades for someone with the difficulties the OP describes.

<comment><USER7> It's a good idea no matter what other activities the OP decides to pursue. Having base income could open up many options.

There are lots of meaningful and rewarding ways to participate in society, including volunteering for charitable organizations, that do not require the highest levels of skill and competitiveness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Well, there is another group of jobs that is not yet outsourced to machines and doesn't use concentration and comprehension as much: detailed, complex manual work that requires years of training. For instance high quality wood work, soldering, fine grained painting.

<comment><USER16> Soldering? Soldering for electronics is almost all automated now, and with most electronics being surface-mount it's mostly done by stenciled solder paste and reflow. The exception is for the few remaining items that can't be done that way, such as when wires need to be soldered to PCBs (though here for high-volume stuff they usually use connectors because the wires can be assembled with connectors elsewhere, and then the wire harnesses simply plugged in during final assembly).

Are you talking about some other kind of soldering, such as for stained glass or plumbing? Stained glass with real lead and real glass is pretty rare these days, much more rare than high-quality woodwork, and mainly for hobbyists. Plumbing soldering is done with a blowtorch and isn't all that difficult, but worse, copper in plumbing is being replaced by plastic which doesn't use soldering, but rather press-fit connectors. So don't count on that as a long- lived profession either (the soldering part I mean; plumbing itself will be around as long as humans have biological bodies and need to use water for cooking, hand-washing, toilets, and bathing, it'll just be easier as new technologies replace legacy ones).

<comment><USER15> That is mass production you are talking about. But there are a lot of people who build their own special purpose devices, and all the alpha/beta testing happens with manually soldered hardware, since prepping a machine for just 10 boards is way too expensive. For that reason even in production many of these devices are at least partly manually assembled to save money. We are talking 1000+ devices to make machine production profitable. Many devices don't have that many customers, at least until the next set of hardware is there.

<comment><USER16> >But there are a lot of people who build their own special purpose devices,

Those are called "hobbyists".

>and all the alpha/beta testing happens with manually soldered hardware, since prepping a machine for just 10 boards is way too expensive

This is absolutely wrong. You can't manually place BGAs with any accuracy. I work in an R&D environment; our electronics are custom-built in-house at very low volumes, and they do use machines even for a one-off. Some parts can be fixed manually if they didn't get reflowed right, but BGAs cannot.

Even if you're doing boards with nothing smaller than SOICs, even there it's simpler and easier to just get a Kapton stencil and use solder paste, though you can of course pick-and-place with tweezers.

<comment><USER15> I know a few single digit million dollar companies who do that. I wouldn't call it a hobby if you have 50 employees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I "left" IT to travel for a year. When I resettled in another country I took different jobs (waiter, bartender, air traffic controller trainee). Software development was always my passion so I got involved with a lot of social causes by building and hosting websites and forums for them. Which eventually led me back to working in IT.

I'm not sure what your symptoms are but if this is a degenerative brain disease you may wish to use that time to visit family, friends, and experience new things.

</comment><comment><USER18> I hate to say it, but sometimes corporate IT support in mid-size companies might be the way to go if you are dead set on staying in your lane. Depending on the company, it could be as simple as going through a binder for answers, logging in requests into a ticketing system, rinse & repeat.

I am sorry to hear that you are suffering such an illness, it definitely sucks to lose physical abilities and it takes great personal strength to get through it. I wish you all the best to still keep your intended career path, but if not I wish you all the same in finding an ideal worksite for yourself.

<comment><USER19> There are other roles like that in large organisations. Release management, standards compliance in regulated industries, maybe scrum master jobs.

<comment><USER18> Sure, I just went with the first thing that came to mind

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Depending on your location and political views, a marijuana trimming job could work out.

</comment><comment><USER21> Quit my job as a system architect / software engineer and pursuing martial arts and spiritual cultivation full time in China.

I don't plan to give up IT for good. Having been in the industry for 10 years, I know I must follow my heart to be happy and be a well-adjusted person.

</comment><comment><USER4> I would take a break and perhaps work in animal cares or something that would give you a break from human politics. Call it therpay if you want. For me I might eventually get a master and teach in university but in your condition this is probably a bad idea. The best thing right now is use up your vacation days and sick days and quit if you can support for a while before look for a new job.

Banking teller job is also a good option that makes decent money without having to work extremely hard all day long. Museum Tour guide is also a good one but I imagine the pay will be quite low.

</comment><comment><USER22> My side project is an organic farm school.

I raise pigs, cows, goats, chickens, ducks, rabbits and grow organic produce. It doesn't require much concentration. You might think this is a huge reach from I.T. but it still requires a lot of problem solving skills and discipline. It doesn't require the same kind of concentration, but you find out very quickly that the concentration it does take is engaging. It holds your attention because like the ocean, if you turn your back on it, it'll get you.

A lot of people's response to this has been "wow, that's my dream, but I could never do that because X, Y or Z"

3 years ago, I lived in the city, no land, no first hand experience rearing animals, could barely keep a tomato plant alive long enough to get tomatoes off it. I grew up in the country, I had some friends whose parents were farmers, my Dad had horses and we had 2 cats - that was the extent of my experience.

Anyone saying "Oh that's my dream but I could never do that because I have no land, I have no experience, I don't know where I would start." Neither did I. I found a place I could rent that had enough land to make a start that was within my means. Enough to learn how to grow fruit and vegetables and raise chickens, then by the time I ran out of room, I had a pretty good idea that I could do this and rented a place with more land. The side bonus is that the kids now have 100 acres to run around on and be kids without having to micromanage them like I did in the city, they can find themselves and grow like we used to as kids, learning their own limits and building confidence with no parents helicoptering over them making sure they don't hurt themselves - and they love it.

I also don't have to put up with the marketing bullshit that we're bombarded with about how awesome our manufactured food is, which it may be, but probably not. I know where my food comes from, from my land to my plate. I know what they've been fed, I'm happy with how they've been treated. I can see they're happy before they go to the freezer. I know my produce isn't treated with harmful pesticides and herbicides.

It's not for the feint of heart though, I knew it was going to be a lot of work going in, but I had no comprehension of the fact that it's not like a job you can put down when you're not feeling up to it. There's no "I just don't have the motivation to get out of bed today" or calling in on your depression because you just can't face the world. It's there, day in, day out, come rain, come shine, come mosquitoes, come drought, come blizzard, come flood. It's there and needs tending to. There's no days off or vacation without arranging someone to cover for you.

Animals have their own behaviour and their own way of doing things. They have their own motives and desires. They will show you very quickly that you cannot control the world around you and that all you can do is learn to harness and exploit their behaviour against them to keep things working. If you're not already, you will quickly learn to be adaptable, you will quickly learn to improvise with the things you have to hand right now, you will quickly learn to do whatever it takes or you don't have food on the table.

There are many days when I wonder what the fuck I've done and want to go running back to the safety and convenience of the city where I can be lazy without any repercussions. But when the sun comes out, the animals are behaving and happy and you've got a full harvest in front of you, you smile to yourself and you know why you did it. That's a level of satisfaction you just don't get anywhere else.

When I finally decide that programming is too much for me - which seems like a long way off yet, this side project will become my main gig. I have other ideas that will become side projects to complement this, but for the moment this is taking a fair portion of my free time and energy.

<comment><USER23> I have considered farming in the past, quite seriously. I think bringing an engineering/scientist mindset to it might be a distraction, but it might also actually help me stay interested in what looks like otherwise very tough work.

Farmers have moderately high suicide rates: isolation, hard work, long hours, and the inability to just stop, as you state.

I read your account - and have read many others like it - and immediately start to think of farming more like Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea": hard work, rewarding, but there's little choice in getting on with the work.

Maybe one day. Maybe.

<comment><USER22> Bringing an engineering/scientist mindset isn't a distraction - it's often a godsend. Another tool in your belt. It gives you an ability to research, to understand, to figure things out. It puts you streets ahead of a lot of farmers.

You don't need to be isolated nor put in long hours. But it's more work than I should perhaps have described as "a side project." If I made it my full time job and quit programming for a living, I'd probably be able to say it was only a part time job relatively quickly.

The hard work and inability to just stop are inescapable. You need to be aware of that going in. As the quote about surfing big waves from Point Break goes "You can't just call time-out and stroll on into the beach if you don't like the way things are going" much as I sometimes wish I could.

The peace of mind and living in harmony with your surroundings is good for your soul though. It definitely makes you more aware of living in the moment and having backup plans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I did not. There is not much work outside IT. Also alimony...

Solution for me was to change a lifestyle and sell myself much better. I work remotely a few hours a week.

<comment><USER25> >change a lifestyle and sell myself much better.

What is this magic?! Please enlighten. I, like many IT folks, loathe sales. As such I can not sell myself out of a paper bag. Do you have any resources to help in this matter?

<comment><USER26> Check out The Interview Guys- that site was invaluable for me earlier this year when I pulled myself together and left my horrid horrid horrid OldJob. I had a lot of good resources for putting together a great resume but up until I found that site I hadn't found anywhere that laid out exactly what to do in an interview.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Technical writing/Technical Communication. Throughout my IT career, I've always been "the guy who documents everything". It's actually my favorite part of my job because I feel like I'm adding a layer of structure and peer reference to what is otherwise chaos and tribal knowledge.

<comment><USER28> Does it pay well? Availability of jobs? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> My dad left and does Heating and Air work now-- but that still requires being analytical with the electrical work. He owns his own business.

Others in my family do concrete, which is physically hard but they also seem to make good money. Again they own it themselves.

Hard to get jobs that compare to IT money though without being management, sinking time into school, or starting your own business.You'll probably have to try a few things out to figure out what you can actually do. I know that might be frustrating, but hang in there. You'll find something that works at some point.

If you have the ability to do so, maybe you could make some apps at home? You could pace yourself. You might have to change the way you work, using a lot of written organization, but it depends on how your mind works.

</comment><comment><USER30> I left my job to help people quit their jobs. Seriously. Even though I was writing code and managing teams for big clients (Google, Starbucks, P&G) I found people's individual careers more exciting.

Really sorry to hear about your illness and struggles. That sounds pretty tough. Would you say that IT feels like "your calling?"

I've had friends and clients leave tech for more fulfilling, but lower wage work in cooking, farming, design, music, art, after-school work, and non- profit work.

There are a lot of good ideas on this thread, but it would be easier to speak to your situation if I had some more details.

Email me if you're up for sharing more, I'd be happy to help if I can:

email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER31> Not so many good responses to an evergreen question. I left my best IT job ever to be FT caregiver for my folks, years longer than I'd intended. If you a diag of early stage dementia,cardiac, diabetic etc, fix those 1st. Nothing works if your brain doesn't. Your choice is IT, in or out. You offer the same skills in lesser potions in law, real estate, or where contracts are written. If you are truly going out, know that's what will happen. No insurance, no bennies. If you have a progressive chronic disease, take what stock you can today. Pre-existing conditions are back. If you have migration route, take it.

</comment><comment><USER32> I left my original job (not in IT)so that I could pursue my passion in this field. I've seen many people leave IT for more pure careers such as teaching, food service or farming.

the answer lies inside of you, not in HN. what are your passions and interests other than IT? if its say "farming" you may not be able to go start a farm, but maybe you can go work for Home Depot in the garden center for 6 months, and start "farming on the side" (ppl do this) from there.

</comment><comment><USER33> If I can, to the ranch with the family, breeding plants and apiculture.

If I can't... depend in function of my physical condition. Repairing cars, welding, industrial agriculture, photography lab or making photos... Or simply one mill and make pieces.

If you can choose, be yourself, live, one Shabbatical year can be a good election.

I'm sorry Jerry I hope it is nothing. My best wishes.

</comment><comment><USER34> I left a sysadmin role to become a land surveyor and GPS/GIS technician. Loved the job but then in 2008 the commercial real estate market tanked, and took surveying down with it. So I went back into "IT", but instead of going back to sysadmin I started working in web dev.

</comment><comment><USER35> What illness does this?

<comment><USER36> Tragically things like Dementia and Alzheimers can do this. Also numerous mental conditions e.g. depression, stress, etc.

I knew one guy that got a degree in Comp Sci and in his first job began getting severe debilitating headaches. He was diagnosed with a visual problem and was told to stop using screens in his day to day job. He quit a promising career as a software engineer and went and joined his dad's gardening business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Left IT to go back to school and get my degree in Computer Engineering. Not a good choice for someone with little to no concentration / comprehension. Take all the stuff you do in (embedded/systems) software, then add in hardware design.

</comment><comment><USER38> Do you really need to leave IT just because of these symptoms? There are so many areas to work in.

Anyway, what illness are you talking about here? Boredom? Got stuck in a place where the project sucked the life and general interest out of you? OCD? Depression? Anxiety?

UPDATE: Got good answers about what can cause these symptoms.

If you want to leave IT then try to find jobs that are still challenging your creativity, but don't need huge amount of concentration in the same time. Like becoming a carpenter, professional gardener, etc...

These still make you use your creative side, but rely on more physical work then intellectual.

<comment><USER39> Being a carpenter might involve handling tools that are potentially dangerous if handled without one's full attention. So, may I suggest that one avoid such endeavours unless one is able to fully focus on the job at hand.

<comment><USER40> Being a carpenter also sucks

<comment><USER38> Ever tried it? You sound someone who has a great deal of experience in the field.

My father was one and I loved the smell of wood in the workshop.

I would have loved to be a carpenter. It's one of those professions that might never go away. Even having mass production stuff, there are still people who prefer the human touch and the originality in the arts and crafts.

<comment><USER41> There are different kinds of carpenters.

There are construction carpenters (framers) that work outside in the sun, rain, cold hammering dimensional lumber together to construct the skeleton of a building. It's physically demanding and chance of injury is significant.

There are finish carpenters who do the detail trim work like window and door frames, baseboard, wainscotting, etc. You work indoors but still on-site.

There are cabinet makers and furniture builders. You probably work in a fixed location/shop.

Probably a bunch of others that I haven't thought of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I would open a bar on beach or become a surf instructor. Or write novels or something. Becoming an artist is also a good idea.

<comment><USER14> How is someone with "little to no concentration and a very low level of comprehension" supposed to write a novel?

<comment><USER42> > So my question is, if you have had to leave your IT job, what was/is your > new job.

I think I answered. That's what I would do, maybe it sparked a new idea in him, maybe it didn't. Maybe he can do something that can be documented and be turned into a novel by someone else. He's in a stage when he can still perform and plan ahead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Some years ago, I left my job and country to be a private tour guide in Kyoto. Did it three years, great times.

</comment><comment><USER44> Travel Writer / Photographer.

Currently driving around Africa for 2 years.

Leaving my desk was the best decision I have ever made.

<comment><USER45> how do support yourself? money from previous job or do you have some passive income?

<comment><USER44> Bit of both, but primarily savings from previous jobs.

details on how I did that here: [http://theroadchoseme.com/work-less-to-live- your-dreams](http://theroadchoseme.com/work-less-to-live-your-dreams)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I left for storytelling and film/tv. If anything, it's more taxing, so there's that.

<comment><USER47> What factors make storytelling and film more taxing, deliver scripts on time, shoot the scene, video processing? I'd think that fixing bugs on a tight schedule and delivering features would be more taxing? It depends on setting as well I presume.

<comment><USER46> Writing scripts itself is the most relaxing part of the job, it takes some concentration though.

Film and TV production is on a whole other level. Breaking down scripts for production schedule and framing everything within a budget and then talking to a lot of people where their job is to take your money and yours is to keep it. Then keeping track that everything is in order for production to take place and solving lots of last-minute crises, everything involving a lot of people. If it's a live TV type of situation or there's an oversight from larger production, stress gets amped up a lot. It's a busy hive, somewhat like an organised chaos where most of the work is handling people and being handled by people. That's production. Pre-production alone is, more or less, stress free process. That might be a direction to explore if you're art or organization oriented.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Not to derail this thread, but say you are not sick. What do people leave IT for?

</comment><comment><USER49> Writing and directing movies

</comment><comment><USER50> farmer

</comment><comment><USER51> If I had such an illness then what I would do would depend on my financial situation.

E.g. can partner support you for a bit? Do you have children? Do you have total and permanent disability insurance or temporary sickness insurance. Assets? Own an expensive home and can downsize or move to cheaper city to access equity etc. Etc.

Based on this and a target income and number of work hours I'd look for jobs that don't require much mental agility.

It depends what is meant by no concentration but most jobs require some. However something with more carpe diem like waitor, cleaner, gardening etc where you d your days work and that's it. A small fuck up usually doesn't mess your backlog etc. In these jobs.

If financially able consider doing no work but plan daily activities to keep from stagnating. E.g. long walk and salsa class every day or whatever. Or learn Haskell for an hour a day but turn off if concentration becomes an issue.

</comment><comment><USER52> musician

</comment><comment><USER53> Why are you looking for a new position now? This is for employed candidates considering a job change.

</comment><comment><USER54> Unless you are close to retirement, the new job you should be seeking is "How do I heal myself". Unless of course you want to go through the rest of your life with your condition...

If school medicine won't help you, you should start looking for some alternate approaches, there are enough out there.

<comment><USER55> Wow never thought the top comment on hn would be advocating for non evidence based medicine.

<comment><USER56> Why is non-school-medicine inherently non-evidence based? Yeah there's a ton of garbage out there, but I think it's been abundantly shown that incentives are screwed up enough that many mainstream healthcare providers will often ignore potential treatments or even conditions for which there is evidence (but for which they don't have a pill to sell you) or leading to it not getting studied enough to be considered evidence-based.

Classic example is fibromyalgia: family member of mine believed they had it and now has a formal diagnosis, but was told by multiple doctors that it wasn't a real thing and probably all in her head. Went to a chiropractor who dabbled in all sorts of stuff who ended up helping her manage it really well with some diet and lifestyle changes. Now I don't know how well those recommendations were backed up by evidence, but I was blown away at how a few months later there was a widely-advertized FDA-approved drug to treat a condition that according to at least 5 or 6 doctors in our town didn't exist (and they all suddenly recognized it and had fliers for it in their offices). It's amazing how suddenly the "evidence" came up the minute it had a marketable drug.</comment></comment></comment>


Making a Timelapse of your PCB design in KiCad - <AUTHOR> https://blog.krastanov.org/2020/02/17/pcb-layout-timelapse/ <comment><USER2> I think it's really important to show how things were made with visuals like this. This is very cool, and will likely inspire others into using KiCad and then being able to show their family and less tech-savvy friends how they progressed. :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> I completely agree! A big part of the educational project behind this kit is not only to have a bunch of small exciting intro activities for novices, but to have all the resources that a hobbyist would need in order to recreate the creative process behind the process.

I would love to teach not just the intro electronics lessons, but the entire social/technological/ecomonical process behind the creation. We are aiming to have an "Engineer's Diary" write up that includes all that information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I love timelapses of things that were made. Wish all creation tools natively supported creating them.

Timelapse of a Sketch doc.

Timelapse of a code repo.

Timelapse of a painting.

<comment><USER4> I wonder how hard a tool to do this could be. Probably not too hard, as long as the window is maximized, you can specify the coordinates beforehand and just leave the screenshot program to do its thing.

The only wrinkle would be that taking screenshots based on intervals isn't as interesting as taking screenshots based on activity, but that doesn't seem insurmountable.

<comment><AUTHOR> It depends on whether you want to show the particular thing being designed (like in this post) or to show the entire process. There is an esthetics issue with showing the whole thing: all of the small undo/redo steps and panning around makes for a jittery experience. Occasionally that looks good, but it is less easy to pull off.

<comment><USER4> Hm yeah, agreed. I wonder if there's still a way to automate this, like taking a snapshot after every undo.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dropbox's summer 2007 application to YC - <AUTHOR> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27532820/app.html

<comment><USER2> After reading about Drew's abilities I find myself depressed. Are all startup founders so amazingly talented at an early age?

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't matter ;) <http://pix.am/CQR8/> Waiter at Pizza Hut -> Parking garage attendant -> co-founder reddit.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Previously [1] discussed [2].

[1] - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=801503>

[2] - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1939832>

</comment><comment><USER4> Why is there a link to google docs at the bottom? Doesn't look like an ad.

Cool stuff, I wish more YC companies released their applications, they are interesting.

<comment><AUTHOR> I got this link here <http://ycombinator.com/howtoapply.html></comment></comment>


The Rogue Experimenters - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/25/the-rogue-experimenters <comment><USER2> > Anybody can go there to learn about, and then do, the kind of cutting-edge > bench science—gene editing, synthetic biology—that is generally confined to > well-funded academic institutions and private corporations.

Cool stuff! Can anyone who is more familiar comment on how "legit" these biospaces actually are? I also had the vague sense that cutting-edge biology is totally intractable outside of a very well-funded lab.

<comment><USER3> Here we go again :) Let's see if HN will crucify me for daring to compare a PCR machine to a slow cooker.

Also, look up OpenTrons. Lab automation is not glamorous work. There is no huge consumer market like 3D printers and drones to help push the price down. Even on the evangelism side, there has yet to be an "EEVBlog for biotechnology" (the closest are Thought Emporium and Josiah Zayner's channel). Perhaps this pandemic would change things. 80% of the expensive stuff are mostly imaging or spectrometry related. Most of the remain 20% are expensive because they are _niche and proprietary_ , not necessarily because they are _hard_. There is no printer driver moment (Stallman et al.) to catalyze any mass change because, well, the entire society that brought up the poor postdoc using the printer sees nothing wrong in biomedical research being expensive and gatekept and that postdoc him/herself is a product of that system, otherwise he/she won't have made postdoc. A lot of things are niche and expensive, just ask those who had to work on video protocols like AV1. Yet they are available for free. There are a ton of biotechnology that requires, to use a gaming slang, "grinding", but are a magnitude easier than good video compression, instead they are all extremely out of reach for the casual practitioner. Just google "basal cell media". It is bread and butter of many labs but cost more than caviar. Think of bio instrumentation being like obscure fintech time series databases. They are not necessarily more difficult to build or engineer than anything else but are simply constrained by demand hence ridiculous pricing.

As for legitimacy of hackerspaces, I will frame it through your lens (from your username I am guessing that you are a quant). The FDA is essentially the SEC of anything biomed related. However it is not a true free market in the sense that anyone can enter. Hence legitimacy is a problem. The equivalent of FINRA accreditation is a PhD and/or medical school. Small independent traders are very much not a thing when it comes to biotech (which is what the various movements mentioned in the article is trying to change). Also people like Josiah Zayner are very unpopular because they upset the usual narrative about biohackers being unaccredited "they know not what they do" and merely attention-seeking stunt people.

If you want some reading resources that are hacker friendly, try this O'Reilly book:

[http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920033783.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920033783.do)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I bought myself a used Stratagene MX4000 (а qPCR machine), found the drivers and software (it is quite old), and now learning to run qPCR experiments, particularly for coronavirus RNA detection (the primers, master mixes and other consumables are available everywhere now — I am always telling every biochemical supplier that I am a hobbyist researcher — no problems so far). It is super fun.

<comment><USER5> Nice! As a Software guy who is bored with "normal" software, i would be interested in learning Biotech and the usage of Embedded Computing for the same. Can you elaborate a little bit on what the machine is, what you do with it and its potentialities for a total noob? Any books or other resources that you would recommend?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It sounds easy in theory but most people hate the idea of messing with biology, believing that it should be regulated and professionalised as much as possible. Even on this very forum, the mere suggestion that a PCR machine (basically a glorified slow cooker) can be built with off the shelf parts is enough to invite a flood of downvotes - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22578216](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22578216)

The lack of easy commercialisation of biotechnology and regulatory capture in the name of "move fast break things and people die" has resulted in very poor understanding of biochemistry among the general population (most advocates and detractors of vaccines cannot explain how they work or don't work at the chemical level, one of the reasons for the whole Thiomersal controversy). The top minds who do go into this field often do so for the sake of medical school, where the number of places are limited by politics and gatekeeping rather than any practical meritocratic reason. The lack of money and opportunity is a fundamental problem. Currently large numbers of the general population have a damn good understanding of how computers work, thanks in part due to web dev bootcamps and the rise of FAANG driving the industry. The same cannot be said for biology or even organic chemistry. Bill Gates has famously said that he would study biology if he was to go back to school again, but in the current environment it would be doubtful any unicorn-level of fast financial gains/reward can be achieved in biotechnology. He will most likely end up as one of the numerous healthcare workers whose ultimate reward after each day of dealing with a pandemic is orchestrated clapping instead of spearheading vaccine research through his foundation (assuming of course he had not already switched to working as a McKinsey consultant given his family connections). Global pharmaceutical and healthcare research is still currently led by the United States; FDA-approval being the universal standard. Sure there are a couple EU-only projects and some attempts in Asia too, but the world's biotech research and development still operates fundamentally within the system of American capitalism. The dearth of opportunities due to politics, regulatory capture, and general lack of appreciation of biology is as much a tragedy as lack of health insurance. Most people would immediately identify with or quote the various media talking points when it comes to healthcare pricing, but hardly anyone would question why there are such tremendous gatekeeping and lack of competition.

I will also link to my previous comment on this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22471482](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22471482)

Giving up in the face of ignorance is not good policy so I will continue my advocacy of more open biology and medical education even if my comments succumb to the ego of software engineer hordes.

<comment> xkcd-sucks All these points are correct.

But, to be fair, the state of the art in biology is still full of Magic and other nonreproducible effects.

Computery people get annoyed if a compilation takes 10 minutes and fails with a cryptic error message. Compare this to an experiment where (for example) you spend a full day harvesting fetal rat hippocampus cells, cultivate them for weeks, and then finally run your experiment which "fails". Did you fail the rat prep? It worked for the wizard postdoc but she has been dissecting tiny little hippocampi for years -- maybe the cells aren't what you think they are. Or maybe, due to some unknown factor (temperature? feeding schedule? co2? mycoplasma? ...), the cells are "unhappy" for... some reason . Etc. More of the same, another month, another year, another replication which may or may not be sufficient to quit the experiment altogether. The systems are not understood well enough to debug; the systems which are easily debuggable are not relevant to the real world. But, it is not difficult to do at home what one does in an academic lab. (corporate labs have a bit more money which shortens the iteration loop a bit but doesn't make it less cryptic)

Anecdotally, I got a life science PhD and went into a softwarey career because the iteration loop of biology just plain sucks. When I was in grad school, I had free reign to do absolutely whatever with no oversight (if the bills looked normal) -- and did, for a while. All those cool ideas I had, I am content to let other people have and realize them. I am content to read their papers and to hire them.

<comment><USER6> >But, to be fair, the state of the art in biology is still full of Magic and other nonreproducible effects

No, it's not. It's full of things that have week long design cycles (instead of a 200 ms compile loop) and are a pain, and lots of grad students that have either never heard of design of experiments, or know about it and are overeager to apply it. A friend worked at BP biofuels. The team kept waving off irreproducibility as 'biology being strange'. For months she kept saying "hey guys our feedstocks aren't defined". Then finally after a half a year they caved and let her do her experiments, and sure enough there was a limiting nutrient in the feedstock that correlated with the fluctuations. Then a few months later the supreme court ruled against BP and the biofuel project got cancelled.

I had a similar experience, and switching model organisms took my design cycle from 2 weeks to two days, and got huge results out of it. We then put the results back in the original organism and recapitulated the improvement. Then my project got cancelled.

In the end though, it seems I'm better at software and it pays better.

<comment><USER2> > I had a similar experience, and switching model organisms took my design > cycle from 2 weeks to two days, and got huge results out of it. We then put > the results back in the original organism and recapitulated the improvement. > Then my project got cancelled.

Very cool. If you care to elaborate on this: what were the two organisms, what made the second amenable to much faster design cycles, and how did you know that the results would likely carry over to the original organism?

<comment><USER6> Slow organism was synechococcus, fast organism was E. Coli, original results were highly likely to carry over since it was a fundamental alteration to the enzyme function.

[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23819621/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23819621/)

If you use the right tools and live in the right place you can get an e coli design cycle down to 48 hours. In San Diego, i could design primers in the afternoon, have them on my desk in the morning, do a pcr/Gibson assembly that was done by lunch, pick colonies in the evening, miniprep and retransform early the next day and have phenotypes soon after.

It's also robust. I trained an intern with only classroom experience in molecular biology and he made 50 mutations and biochemically tested half over the course of 10 weeks.

[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24934472/](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24934472/)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: I wrote a book about WebAssembly - <AUTHOR> Hey HN!
I've been working on a book about WebAssembly over the last few months, and it's finally available at http://levelupwasm.com!
Why a book on WebAssembly you ask? Well... WebAssembly is awesome (obviously ) but it's certainly not the easiest thing to learn. So I wrote this book as a practical intro to using WebAssembly in your web apps.
I would appreciate any feedback! <comment><USER2> Congratulations on shipping! You accomplished something that vanishingly few people do. You should be incredibly proud of yourself.

Always Remember: the people on this site complaining about price are not your customers, and that's ok. There are _always_ people on this site that complain about price. When I launched my book and it got on here half the comments were about the price instead of the book itself. Ignore them. They're noise. Focus on selling to your audience.

<comment><USER3> Well here it's more a self published pdf than a book. It didn't pass a publisher screening nor got an ISBN so it's hardly a "real" book.

<comment><USER4> Yes, the ISBN is what gives it that booky authenticity.

<comment><USER5> FWIW, my second printing of Donald Knuth's _Fundamental Algorithms_ from 1969 lacks an ISBN.

So either it is also not a book, or else OP is in good company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice work. A small note - you might want to redirect http->https on your site, especially as you are taking payments. You wouldn't want a MITM to redirect your customers to another payment processing page.

Also my browser is reporting your https certificate as invalid so sort that out too.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip! Luckily I don't process payments myself but use Gumroad to do that, so payments are safe, but I'll get an https certificate for the landing page.

<comment><USER7> if someone mitms your landing page, they'd be hijacking the payment links to redirect to their phishing hook rather than your payment service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hey congratulations ! Funny enough, I had offers to write a book on WebAssembly, almost 2 years ago, after writing an article[1] on that topic that somehow ranked #1 on HN for a day :) Had to decline but never doubted someone more experienced would write one!

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14495893](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14495893)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Really nice article btw, I like that you go into that much depth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The capstone project and little pacman game look pretty interesting. Think you can spare a short portion of the book to show what the writing is like? I find them to be some of the best litmus tests of what I'm about to get myself into on a technical book purchase.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Posibyte! Here's a sample section about how to compile jq to WebAssembly: [http://levelupwasm.com/sample- jq.pdf](http://levelupwasm.com/sample-jq.pdf). But note that it's from Chapter 7, so some of the HTML portions might not make complete sense without reading the previous chapters, but hope it gives you a sense of the writing style!

Also, here's the table of contents in case it helps: [http://www.levelupwasm.com/toc.pdf](http://www.levelupwasm.com/toc.pdf)

<comment><USER9> Thank you!

<comment><AUTHOR> No problem, thanks for the idea! I added the TOC and sample chapter to the landing page too since it seems like a common question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> That's a really expensive (and I can afford it). How did you figure out these prices?

<comment><USER11> Seems like it's in the same price range as a lot of other similar books and courses. Authority and Marketing for Developers are two that spring to mind. I'm sure if you subscribe to his mailing list there'll be some sort of sale on at some point.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes that's right! I did base my pricing on books like Authority

<comment><USER12> Any discount for students?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This seems to be a book about unsing emscripten to get c/c++ to run in the browser. What if I want a book about writing wasm from scratch?

<comment><USER14> From scratch, what do you mean?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> As someone who spent 2 days fighting with an Emscripten config I can say that good information is worth the money.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I felt the exact same way about those configs when I was learning WebAssembly (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Congrats! Any comments on how straightforward you found completing the book? Did you get stuck at any point? What was the most difficult part?

Also, do you have a marketing plan? How are potential buyers going to find this?

Random SEO tips from a quick look: clean up you heading hierarchy (start with H1, nest H2 - H5 appropriately; right now they're pretty random), add ALT text to all images (the ones with source code could get you more search hits for example), add a meta description and also add HTTPS (very important for security as well).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the tips! I'll be writing an article in coming weeks about my experience writing this book. This is the second book I self-publish, and unlike the first one, I actually tracked how much time I spent on each category of tasks (writing, editing, marketing, head scratching, etc), so the article will also include that. Stay tuned!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Congratulations on your book! May I ask why you choose self-publishing road instead of publishing it on publisher? I am not saying one way is better than the other. I am just wondering.

Is it because no interest from the publishers? Or is it because you think the royalty percentage from publishers is too low? Or you don't have any particular reason? It's just feel natural to do self-publishing.

Also, do you hire editors?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I like to self-publish mostly because I can craft the book in my own way and move faster. I also enjoy being able to touch all aspects of the book, including the design and marketing.

This is actually my second self-published book (first one was about wrangling data on the command line with bash), so it does feel natural to self-publish at this point!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Table of contents and sample chapter?

Webassembly for genomics sounds cool :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! Here's the table of contents: [http://www.levelupwasm.com/toc.pdf](http://www.levelupwasm.com/toc.pdf)

And for a sample of the writing, here's the section on compiling the CLI tool jq to WebAssembly: [http://levelupwasm.com/sample- jq.pdf](http://levelupwasm.com/sample-jq.pdf) (though note that it builds on previous material so it doesn't re-explain everything)

Edit: Also, if you're curious about using WebAssembly in genomics, check out [https://github.com/robertaboukhalil/aioli/](https://github.com/robertaboukhalil/aioli/) and [https://github.com/robertaboukhalil/fastq.bio](https://github.com/robertaboukhalil/fastq.bio), a tool to get a preview of DNA sequencing quality that uses WebAssembly to speed up the analysis portions.

<comment><USER18> Awesome! Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Intersting, I've been looking into this recently and this might be the thing I need to finally get stuck into it. Pricing seems reasonable, I'm not sure about other comments saying it's a little high.

</comment><comment><USER20> Looks cool!

If I don't know any C++ (and never plan to) but am learning Rust, do you think there is value here? Or is really focusing on the C++ -> WASM experience?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Yes the book focuses on C/C++, but you don't need very much C/C++ knowledge to follow along in the book.

Most of the time, we treat C/C++ libraries as black boxes that we compile to WASM, though in some cases like Pacman, we do have to modify the original code, but you should be able to infer what we're doing from the context and the text.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This looks really neat! I noticed that it talks about how to call command line programs from my own webassembly program. Does it talk about techniques that could be used for package management, where someone publishes webassembly binaries and people consume them in their own webassembly binary? If so, does that work even when the webassembly "packages" are written in different languages?

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm getting your book - thank you. Also wanted to say I really like the site you have put together. Minimal yet everything there. Perfect.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for the kind words!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why not place the compiled demos directly on the website?

This could show the practicality of the approach, e.g. that the demos work in every browser. It also shows (hopefully) something that can be done only in WebAssembly, and not in plain JavaScript, which can provide motivation to actually learn about WebAssembly.

Also, I'd like to see a TOC and sample chapter.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi amelius, here's an example app that uses WebAssembly: [http://jqkungfu.com](http://jqkungfu.com) (compiled jq to WebAssembly!)

Here's the sample section from the book that covers exactly how that app was built: [http://www.levelupwasm.com/sample- jq.pdf](http://www.levelupwasm.com/sample-jq.pdf) (though keep in mind that it's from Chapter 7 and it builds on previous chapters)

Also you'll find the table of contents at [http://www.levelupwasm.com/toc.pdf](http://www.levelupwasm.com/toc.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Great job mate! Congratulations for shipping.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Can you share any data on bounce/engagement/conversion rates for the different packages (eg. X% leave the page without scrolling/reading, Y% read the page but don't buy, Z% actually make a purchase, purchases break down A/B/C% between the different packages)?

</comment><comment><USER26> How can web assembly deal with per-env variables? Need to recompile for every environment? That means recompile at startup, since I deploy the same artifact to different envs and allow the env to define its vars. For this reason, as a sys admin, I hate web assembly (and most other asset pipelines)

</comment><comment><USER27> The book looks good (I like the demos of the examles), but what motivated you to choose that pricing scheme?

</comment><comment><USER28> Looks nice. If you are planning to expand this, I would be interested in a comparison of the different toolchains (e.g. Emscripten vs. Go vs. Rust). Currently, I would choose the toolkit of my favorite language, but I have no idea what kind of consequences such a choice has.

</comment><comment><USER29> Looks great. I would definitely buy this if there was an option for a printed book.

</comment><comment><USER30> Region specific pricing would boost adoption a lot. you can buy full courses on Coursera/other MOOCs for 30bucks in some countries and your pdf+cheat sheet costs more = guaranteed your book shows up on libgen

</comment><comment><USER31> I see the sample chapter has an autoconf porting example. Is porting a CMake based project covered anywhere in the book?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't have an example that specifically uses cmake, though similar principles apply but you'd use the emcmake utility. That said, thanks for the feedback! I've added that to my list of things to add to the book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Looks interesting, unfortunately I don't have the time now but I will for sure maybe buy this book in the future!

</comment><comment><USER33> Just picked up the "complete edition". Really looking forward to going through it all. This looks great!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I do not have time to read it now but for sure I will buy it. It looks good, well done!

</comment><comment><USER35> Does the book cover anything on rendering with OpenGL or graphics libraries?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! Chapter 8 talks about graphics; the Pacman example shows how to port a C++/SDL2 Pacman clone to WebAssembly and OpenGL (with Emscripten). That said, the focus of that chapter is porting games like that, but it doesn't go into writing OpenGL directly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> So much PR of this book is everywhere, as if Brendan Eich himself wrote it!

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, I can confirm Brendan is not the author. Just curious though, where else have you seen this book mentioned?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Congratulations on getting it done.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks pjmlp!

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I would appreciate its free for testers on HN.

<comment><USER39> What's there to test? It's a book. You just read it.

<comment><USER40> Don't be obtuse. He means a sample chapter so you can evaluate quality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Honest feedback: Pricing is high.

Also, to me, this doesn't look like a good way to use Show HN. A link to Amazon wouldn't be different than what you just did.

<comment><USER42> While shameless self-promotion would be an issue, I think this is exactly in line with what HN (and even Show HN) is for. Although that's really up to Dang et al.

It's a topic that is highly relevant to this community and for which there is high demand, given the number of Web Assembly tutorials that make it to the front page. Obviously, it's commercial, but so are many of the projects in Show HN. The ones that aren't are still self-promotional in some manner.

I often find that looking at book sites is an interesting way to learn what technologies are getting popular and I'm always curious to see the projects used to teach these things. Posting a book's website can start a conversation, whereas an Amazon link is more likely to start purchases and little more.

Finally, writing a technical book is an impressive accomplishment. Specifically, it's an impressive technical accomplishment.

Regarding price, $29 seems quite reasonable for a technical book. Many cost $35-45, and that's without getting into textbooks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you jamestimmins, that's also my understanding of Show HN</comment></comment></comment>


Tip: Work around the iPhone alarm bug with Google Calendar - <AUTHOR> http://jarinheit.posterous.com/tip-work-around-the-iphone-alarm-bug-with-goo

<comment><USER2> Why do iPhones have so many alarm bugs?

<comment><AUTHOR> It _should_ be a simple thing, but I do know that working with timezones and daylight saving time can often be a huge pain in the ass. Lots of opportunities for bugs.</comment></comment>


Paul Allen's tech team brings 50-year-old supercomputer back from the dead - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekwire.com/2016/paul-allens-tech-team-brings-50-year-old-supercomputer-back-dead/ <comment><USER2> I can remember seeing some sort of a lunar lander program running on the console screens of the CDC ?6600 at Indiana University in 1970, as I peered in to the machine room waiting for my sad little student Fortran program to fail.

</comment><comment><USER3> If only he could also pay Signature Plastics to make keysets like this one cheaper: [https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=86143.0](https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=86143.0)

</comment><comment><USER4> Would a 50 year old supercomputer be still considered a supercomputer? I think not. It would probably not even be considered a computer. More akin to a calculator like the TI-series.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is a 1960's Formula 1 still a Formula 1 car?

<comment><USER4> [https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/47j9x9/questionho...](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/47j9x9/questionhow_fast_are_the_f1_cars_from_the_50s_and/)

> A 1956 Maserati 250F weights 550kgs and has 270hp. Top speed 290.

> So you would need a quite serious road car to beat it. But not impossible.

> A big performance factor are also the suspension, tires and brakes. 1950s > tires were quite skinny and not really grippy compared to what you can find > on a sport car today, so I would expect the performance gap to be more in > favor of the modern car in the twisty bit and the braking.

> But to summarize, you daily driver would still be smashed by a 1956 F1 car, > except if you daily drive an Ariel Atom, a Porsche GT3 or something even > more exotic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My memory is bad but I recall it was the CDC 6600 or one of the CDC's that came up with Register Renaming right? The precursor to Tomasulo's Algorithm.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'd love to see some close-ups of the console screens. Maybe even a dump of the geometry of the fonts (I'm guessing it's a calligraphic display)

<comment><USER6> Not much text is visible, but here is the picture I took there a few months ago: [https://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/31080357160/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/31080357160/)

It is a vector display.

<comment><AUTHOR> It looks like the x,y are a bit slower than they should and that distorts the letters a bit. It'd be cool if we could read the geometry data out of the terminal. If it's a list of traces generated on the computer that gets refreshed from time to time, it may be easier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> at school we had a CDC, not sure if it was a 6200 or 6500. Wonder if I still have a deck or two in an old box :)</comment>


The 727 that Vanished - <AUTHOR> http://www.airspacemag.com/history-of-flight/The-727-that-Vanished.html <comment><USER2> If a non-pilot and a private pilot took off in a 727 (that had recently been "repaired") from Angola and were last seen flying over the ocean, it's not terribly difficult to understand _exactly_ what happened: they crashed into the ocean.

<comment><USER3> That's not really the mystery, tho': rather _why_ they suddenly decided to go ahead with that plan, given that it was obviously reckless. And if anyone else was onboard.

As an aside, it's fascinating that the economics of diamond mining are such that you fly fuel to the mines.

<comment><USER4> _As an aside, it's fascinating that the economics of diamond mining are such that you fly fuel to the mines._

They tend to be in the middle of the desert or other rough terrain, and the distances are enormous. In many cases there aren't any public roads they can (reliably) use for heavy freight, and maintaining their own would be costly. Staff are flown in anyway, so they already maintain regularly used airfields. (my dad used to be an engineer working at various African diamond mines, and my first cousin once removed still consults for them after retiring)

<comment><USER5> This isn't an Africa-only thing either. The Canadian diamond mines routinely fly staff in and out, and on occasion materials too. However, the Canadian mines have the somewhat luxury of being accessible by ice roads for a portion of the year.

Desert doesn't suddenly become hard enough to support a tractor-trailer, but water does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe the plane was...

L O S T

(sorry, couldn't resist)

</comment><comment><USER7> Come to think of it, the survivors are probably stuck on an island, lost in time. Someday they will be saved, and will return to society. This will seem like a cherished moment, but they will soon come to realize that they truly belong back on the island. When they return, it will come to light that they were really dead all along. We will all proceed to watch the next soapy primetime drama.</comment>


Nigeria's nuclear plans - tefo-mohapi http://www.iafrikan.com/2017/03/21/lack-of-leadership-said-to-be-hampering-nigerias-nuclear-electricity-generation-plans/ <comment><AUTHOR> Surely you mean "nuklear"?</comment>


Why Does Microsoft Still Offer a 32-bit OS? - <AUTHOR> https://www.backblaze.com/blog/64-bit-os-vs-32-bit-os/ <comment><USER3> This is a terrible article.

> The main gigantic upside of a 64-bit process is the ability to support more > than 2 GBytes of RAM ... Since only 1.6% of Backblaze customers have 2 > GBytes or less of RAM, the other 98.4% desperately need 64-bit support, > period, end of story.

This would only be true if all those Backblaze customers were only running one process on their machines. With PAE, A 32-bit system can support more than 2 GB, just not a 32-bit process. And actually, there are workarounds available to enable even that.

> And remember, there is no downside.

There is a downside. 64-bit systems consume more RAM since every pointer and word is double the size. This could mean a performance penalty due to more swapping too.

> Because there is zero downside, the first time it could, Apple shipped with > 64-bit OS support.

No, Apple did this because they are in control of the hardware their OS runs on, so they can ensure that everyone is supported. Microsoft don't have that luxury. Even then, Apple was still building for 32-bit just 5 years ago. They also weren't first to support it as the author seems to imply -- 64-bit Windows XP was available before OSX even ran on Intel CPUs.

> There are a variety of security features such as ASLR (Address Space Layout > Randomization) that work best in 64-bits. The 32-bit version is inherently > less secure.

Yeah, in the sense that it's easier to guess a 32-bit long number than a 64-bit long number. It's still unfathomable.

> Supporting both versions is complicated. The more data our customers have, > the more momentarily RAM intensive some functions (like inheriting backup > state) can be. The more data you have the bigger the problem. Backblaze > customers who accidentally chose to disable 64-bit operations are then going > to have problems.

Has Backblaze honestly ever had this problem, where 2GB of RAM was not enough to reliably find a customer's backup state? That seems ridiculous to me.

<comment><USER4> > No, Apple did this because they are in control of the hardware their OS runs > on, so they can ensure that everyone is supported. Microsoft don't have that > luxury.

I don't think Windows 10 supports any of the 32 bit only processors. AFAIK, all Intel and AMD processors in last 10 years has 64 bit support.

Update: Another user(geofft) mentioned debian analysis which confirms my point(albeit it says, none in last 13 years): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14524215](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14524215)

Update 2: Looks like I am wrong. See comments below it.

<comment><USER5> > I don't think Windows 10 supports any of the 32 bit only processors.

I have Windows 10 32-bit edition running on a Fit-PC2 with an Intel Atom Z530. I believe this is a 32-bit-only processor.

I can't say it runs _well_ with only 1GB on this old box - I'll probably put Linux on it instead - but Windows 10 definitely boots up and runs.

[http://imgur.com/a/J9fGh](http://imgur.com/a/J9fGh) (screenshot)

[http://www.fit-pc.com/web/products/fit-pc2/fit- pc2-2i-specif...](http://www.fit-pc.com/web/products/fit-pc2/fit- pc2-2i-specifications/fit-pc2-specifications/)

[http://ark.intel.com/products/35463](http://ark.intel.com/products/35463)

(edited to include information about this 32-bit system)

<comment><USER6> The existence of a 32-bit Windows 10 is not in question. 64-bit x86 CPUs will happily run a 32-bit OS.

<comment><USER7> EDIT: nvm

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This quote:

> Moving over to a 64-bit OS allows your laptop to run BOTH the old compatible > 32-bit processes and also the new 64-bit processes. In other words, there is > zero downside (and there are gigantic upsides)

is fairly clueless. I know of several enterprises that actually still depend on the 16bit NTVDM MS-DOS emulation for some legacy systems. Only 32bit windows 10 can keep running those; 64bit windows 10 removed that feature. So there is definitively not "zero downside".

 _Edit_ : This quote:

> I can't imagine having any problem hiring somebody to rewrite the original > functionality but in a modern 64 bit Python program. Probably take somebody > a weekend for most apps?

is so laughable I won't even comment further.

<comment><USER9> But why do they offer 32 bit windows to consumers? I get why you'd keep some embedded skew for just this dos emulation legacy case, but why are 4% of backblaze customers running a 32 bit windows? Microsoft shouldn't be offering that as a choice.

<comment><USER10> What if those customers want to run legacy 16 bit apps in NTVDM? I have a few games I like that I occasionally fire up a 32 bit VM for just for this reason.

If you're using 16-bit Point of Sale software for example you might just decide to stick with 32-bit Windows as the VM wouldn't be worth it and would add more complexity for users.

<comment><USER11> I'm curious, why this approach instead of something like DOSBOX?

<comment><USER12> The question is why add a VM layer (and suffer the loss of direct hardware access for drivers / dongles / having all your programs in the same context / user confusion / other drawbacks) just so you can run a 64-bit host?

This doesn't always have an answer.

Even if you do use DOSBOX, you still need to run a guest OS - will that be DOS, unpatched and unsupported Windows XP, or something relatively modern (if still 32-bit) that might let you stem the tide - instead of decaying further into your legacy hellhole?

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure I understand your complaints here, I believe dosbox has support for hardware passthru.

and you can run dosbox on a modern 64-bit machine, so the idea of needing unsupported Windows XP (or similar) doesn't seem to be valid imo.

<comment><USER12> > I'm not sure I understand your complaints here

I'll try to clarify.

> I believe dosbox has support for hardware passthru.

There's a huge difference between hardware passthru and hardware passthru _working_. I've spent a lot of time fighting e.g. VirtualBox trying to get the simple task of USB passthrough working with relatively modern host _and_ guest OSes, and failed. I don't even want to imagine the fun of COM and LPT passthrough, to say nothing of more proprietary options.

> and you can run dosbox on a modern 64-bit machine, so the idea of needing > unsupported Windows XP (or similar) doesn't seem to be valid imo.

You're thinking of the host OS. Yes, I've run dosbox on modern 64-bit hosts.

You need a guest OS - the thing that runs _within_ dosbox. I've often used DOS (what _dos_ box is named after, after all) or Windows 3.1 - both of which are unsupported and unpatched. These will run the 16-bit programs I'm interested in... and absolutely nothing else, including any less-legacy applications that have been upgraded to 32-bit. I could run those on the host instead of the guest, and that works for most of my needs, but now you get to manage trying to share data between the two OSes for all your existing workflows.

If you've got a mixture of 16-bit and 32-bit stuff going on, a better idea might be to run a 32-bit version of windows (it can still run 16-bit programs after all) instead of DOS or Windows 3.1 - this way I can run everything on the same OS, and get rid of all those sharing issues. Because Microsoft still offers 32-bit versions of it's OSes (to the chagrin of the author of this article), that could be a fully up to date, supported, and patched 32-bit version of Windows 10.

In the alternate history utopia for the author... where perhaps Windows XP was the last 32-bit version of Windows... well, XP is no longer supported, and basically no longer patched. I now have a significant tradeoff of convenience (single 32-bit OS context running all the programs) vs security (a supported and patched OS where possible), and that sucks.

Back to our current timeline, a similar story will play out when Microsoft finally stops cutting new 32-bit versions of windows. But for now, we've got our 32-bit Windows 10 guest OS running inside of DOSBox, VirtualBox, or whatever. And we've got our 64-bit Windows 10 host OS running DOSBox/VirtualBox/???. If we aren't actually _doing_ anything with that 64-bit Windows 10 host OS besides DOSBox/VirtualBox... why not simplify and just run the 32-bit Windows 10 guest OS directly on the actual hardware?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "This is how bad it is -> When Microsoft released Windows Vista in 2007 it was 64-bit and also ran all 32-bit programs flawlessly. So at that time I was baffled why Microsoft ALSO released Windows Vista in 32-bit only mode – a version that refused to run any 64-bit binaries."

For what it's worth, at that time, a lot of computers were still being sold with 32-bit only processors or an inadequate amount of RAM to handle 64-bit Windows. I can't count how many machines I saw sold with Vista and 1 GB of RAM. This actually became the subject of a class action lawsuit: [https://www.slashgear.com/acer-offers-to-settle-vista- class-...](https://www.slashgear.com/acer-offers-to-settle-vista-class-action- suit-with-flash-drive-apology-26279471/)

It also makes sense supporting those users upgrading their computer to the newer, more secure OSes. So I can see why Microsoft wants to continue to make 32-bit builds people can upgrade to for a number of years. I suppose the only real mystifying question is when doing a fresh install of Windows, it would allow you to ever select 32-bit. If the installer detects adequate system resources for 64-bit, that's what it should install.

</comment><comment><USER14> You lose at least one thing with 64 bit Windows versus 32 bit, support for legacy 16 bit applications or components. When Windows Vista, 7 and 8 were released there were still many in use which alone justified Microsoft releasing 32 bit OS versions. I still see them in use today but at a much much lower rate than 5 years ago when Windows 8 was released.

<comment><USER15> _Exactly_. That small number of 32-bit Windows-running Backblaze customers might very well have legacy 16-bit applications that they need to continue to support. It's remarkable that the author of this post completely missed that point, and in fact goes on and on about how you lose nothing by running 64-bit Windows.

<comment><USER9> Those customers can use emulation to cover their needs. The point of the article is that whatever benefits exist of the 32 bit skew, they are outweighed by its costs.

<comment><USER14> From his perspective but not from the perspective of those who still need to maintain the systems using 16-bit apps. The costs of emulation and virtualization outweigh the cost of deploying a 32-bit version of Windows for them.

Emulation and virtualization aren't always an option. For instance if the application is used to support a piece of hardware that needs to be physically connected. Also some methods of copy protection or license validation used then will not work with emulation or virtualization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I may read it the wrong way, but basically it says "since all (98.4%) our customers have more than 2 Gb of RAM, then Microsoft should only make 64 bit OS".

So, how many of Microsoft's customers are also customers of Backblaze?

Like 0.1%?

As a side note, the even point for the _need_ to go 64 bit (bigger OS, bigger executables, more memory used, etc.) is not in my experience at the 4 Gb of RAM level, but rather at the 6 Gb.

<comment><USER17> I think you actually did. They are not saying - "Hey, we are having only a few 32bit customers, Microsoft should dump them". The problem is much more complex.

<comment><USER16> No, they are saying, more or less "Hey, having to support a tiny fraction of our users that are on 32 bit causes us a whole lot of problems, so, since we don't have the guts to tell these customers to switch to 64 bit, we are telling Microsoft what they should do in order to totally remove the inferior OS architecture."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Most of the comments addressed the issues with the article. It mostly boils down to, Microsoft will support legacy for as long as possible (such as 16 bit apps), some performance advantages of 32 bit OSes. And that one reader who correctly stated that some are still on 32 bit CPU architectures.

But really, is nobody concerned that the author of TFA was the _CTO_ of Backblaze and that somehow nobody stopped this awful article from being published?

</comment><comment><USER19> I imagine an upgrade path from 32-bit to 64-bit installations would take care of a huge chunk of the population MS keeps the 32-bit editions around for (enterprise 32-bit installations on 64-bit-capable hardware).

There's no technical reason this cannot be offered, as the Windows installer already replaces all system directories, detects incompatible hardware, disables drivers that aren't supported, and everything else that would be technically required.

<comment><USER20> > There's no technical reason this cannot be offered

this actually isn't true. and I say this as the person who pushed for a 32->64bit upgrade path at microsoft in longhorn. at the most basic level - <USER2> is easy for the core OS. but any apps you've installed are going to be a crapshoot to see if they work, with their installers only expecting a 32bit OS, registry, etc.

upgrade is hard enough as it is so risking the experience to a customer of breaking many of their apps with no good path to resolution isn't worth it versus waiting ~3-5 years for a PC purchase cycle and their next preinstalled version of windows being 64bit and going from there.

<comment><USER19> Like I said, no technical reason. Just a user experience one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The upcoming battery friendly ARM based windows PC will support x86 emulation 32-bit apps in near native speed. Not sure if it will support x64 now or in the future and perhaps someone can comment if this is a technical limitation or an economical or both.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14518290](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14518290)

<comment><USER22> I think they don't support x64, and probably they never will, or at least not before a very long time.

It's possible MS can leverage part of its existing WoW code with x86 on ARM64. They would have more work to do with x64 on ARM64.

Plus the CPU might need special support to help things, for example I'm curious about how to efficiently emulate the stronger memory model of x86 on an ARM, and if the CPU provides help, it might be using low level tricks, reusing some bits here and there, to do the magic. Just some wild hypotheses though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am so much shocked by the comments here giving reasons that they provide 32 bit operating systems, ranging from ability to run 16 bit softwares, to the speed. I mean, it's not a bad thing to debate, but I seriously did not expected it here.

</comment><comment><USER23> It usually doesn't matter, but there are two possible downsides of 64bit:

\- Every pointer becomes twice as big (8 bytes vs 4 bytes).

\- Potentially less data fits in the CPU cache lines, because the data is bigger.

One thing I wonder if the 32 bit edition mostly exists for small VM's?

</comment><comment><USER24> Lots of new computers are sold with 32-bit Windows on them. I think this is primarily devices with lower memory, because 32-bit Windows uses less RAM and less disk space. I own a Windows 10 tablet with 1GiB RAM, for example.

<comment><USER25> _> I own a Windows 10 tablet with 1GiB RAM, for example._

I own a Dell Venue 8 (3845) and the reason it's running Windows 10 32-bit instead of 64-bit is because Intel inexplicably decided to ship 32-bit UEFI on Bay Trail instead of 64-bit UEFI. As far as I know, all Bay Trail devices are running a 32-bit copy of Windows because of this.

For Linux this isn't a problem, you can have grub x86 load an x86_64 kernel, but Windows doesn't have something similar. So 32-bit bootloader forces you to have a 32-bit OS.

So, thank Intel. I'm sure Microsoft and OEMs would have put x64 Windows on it if they could have.

<comment><USER10> > As far as I know, all Bay Trail devices are running a 32-bit copy of Windows > because of this.

Can you not just boot it in BIOS mode? Should be possible for the OS to escalate from there.

<comment><USER26> At least some of these devices don't have that option.

<comment><USER25> Correct. There is no way to "legacy" boot on the tablet.

So it's 32-bit UEFI or a brick.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I remember back in Windows Vista days (and early Windows 7 builds) doing extensive 32-bit Vs 64-bit testing and the 32 bit system outperformed the 64-bit in everything from startup time to application launch time.

This being said, PAE doesn't seem to work great and out of a lab, when you start running multiple applications, you will usually want 4GB memory on the smallest system and typically 8GB, so, I think 64-bit is worth the sacrifice!

(No idea if still true, haven't done tests like this in many years)

</comment><comment><USER28> The way Microsoft implemented 32-bit support in Windows 64 broke a lot of the legacy applications I help maintain (from an admin/support standpoint, not development standpoint) at work. Years after switching to 64-bit Windows, we still uncover subtle bugs that need to be patched in our configuration or by the vendor (if they still exist).

If these applications were more mission-critical, we'd definitely want to stick with 32-bit Windows.

</comment><comment><USER29> But, but when you upgrade to 64-bit you DO lose access to 16-bit programs! (I seriously did go into slight withdrawal when I couldn't play BOWEP Tetris anymore. No other Tetris will ever be the same...)

</comment><comment> m-j-fox Question: why did Firefox ask if it was allowed to "take and record video" on this page?!?

</comment><comment><USER30> Yeah. Its called having options and you don't get much of that with Apple. I remember when Apple stopped supporting the Core 2 DUO machines because the EFI was 32bit(not even the processor). I was not pleased

<comment><USER31> Wasn't that only the first generation of hardware they made with Intel's processors? IIRC, my friend and I both got laptops about 3 months apart and mine had support longer than his, I don't know if this was the issue or not.

<comment><USER32> The first Intel Macbook Pro in Early 2006 was Core Duo (32-bit), then in October they reved them with Core 2 Duo (64-bit w/ 32-bit EFI). I remember specifically because I had to wait out the first couple months of my freshman year of college without a laptop, waiting for that 64-bit support that was supposed to drop at any time...

<comment><USER31> Right. I guess I replaced mine from that revision before it became an issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Because some users still have 32-bit computers. How is this not obvious?

He's talking like there are people with 64-bit PCs running 32-bit Windows out of cluelessness or spite.

<comment><USER34> When my sister started grad school at Harvard she bought a brand new 64-bit Dell laptop from the school store that came preinstalled with 32-bit Windows. I was amazed.

I wiped the computer and installed a 64-bit OS, but there are definitely people out there selling 64-bit PCs running 32-bit Windows out of cluelessness.

<comment><USER35> Haha. I helped out IT for a major corporation. This was only a few-ish years ago, but we were just moving to Windows 7 from XP.

It was funny, because the only XP image they had was 32 bit. So we had really new PCs (Dells that are now 5-7 years old) running on these 32bit machines, with no choice by their IT staff: they couldn't make a new image (was a "global IT" thing).

So, they gave us a Windows 7 image that was only 32bit. Fun getting that one sorted before it was on everyone's PCs.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask YC: Good Introduction to Economics / Markets? - <AUTHOR>

I figure a lot of people here have a background in CS / Engineering and have the same question. Any suggestions? <comment><USER2> Economics? Get a good, _mainstream_ textbook (read the alternative stuff after you have a good grasp of the regular material, if you want). Here's one that's free:

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

Also, following blogs is a good way to learn. I like this one:

<http://economistsview.typepad.com/>

and this one:

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

Start with those, and they'll link to others.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1) [http://www.amazon.com/Investments-Zvi- Bodie/dp/0071263101/re...](http://www.amazon.com/Investments-Zvi- Bodie/dp/0071263101/ref=pd_bbs_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209585851&sr=8-5)

2) Wikipedia all the terms you may be unfamiliar with.

3) Read pmarca's blog :)</comment>


A conversation with Ed Catmull - <AUTHOR> http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1883592

<comment><USER2> There are a lot of very talented people at Pixar but I think Catmull is really the heart and soul of the company. He's one of those ridiculously rare people that are both a brilliant engineers and expert managers of people. Working at Pixar for ten years taught me just how crucial the _character_ of a CEO can be to the success of a company.

</comment><comment><USER3> Key quote:

       ...when most people talk about "the new," they're actually talking
       about it after the fact. They look back and say how brilliant you were
       at seeing all this, and so forth. Well, it's all nonsense. When it
       is new, you don't know it. You're creating something for the future, and
       you don't know exactly what it is.

I used this quote as a point of departure for "Early Adopters Have Already Let Go of the Past" at [http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2011/01/07/early-adopters- have-...](http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2011/01/07/early-adopters-have-already- let-go-of-the-past/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Keep Your Crises Small, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc>

It's a lecture from Ed Catmull. I highly recommend it, many gems from a brilliant developer turned brilliant manager.

</comment><comment><USER5> When I saw his name, I wondered if it was the same Catmull from the Catmull- Rom splines that you can find on a number of 3d design programs such as 3dsmax.

Turns out it is: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Catmull>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I love his analysis about the training in arts. Too many people discount the artistic side of things in the technical world, but it is quite obvious after working in the animation industry that there's nice parallels and inteconnetions between the two seemingly bifurcated fields.

</comment><comment><USER6> I liked the part about "finding good ideas" vs "finding good people". I think this is why devs are annoyed by postings looking for someone to implement their great idea. "I have a great idea for a fantastic product. I just need you to implement it. You'll get paid when the project makes money."</comment>