Show HN: Make a video of any word forming out of candy - <AUTHOR> https://customanim.com/ <comment><USER3> Thanks to Captain Disillusion I know how this is done (obvious in hind sight, but cool to learn):

The movement of the marbles is pre-rendered and you can color the marbles in the end result right so at the beginning the distribution looks random, but everything falls perfectly into place.

<comment><USER4> For those not aware Captain Disillusion is an impressively well produced youtube series mimicking the vibe of 90's kids TV, but for an adult audience. The Captain uses Blender for the 3D effects in his videos, and did a great presentation at the Blender conference last year [0].

The type of effect used to create these candy words is covered in the "Marble Sorting Machine" video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em- pVICrnqM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em-pVICrnqM)

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qSTcxt2t74](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qSTcxt2t74)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would cache the default animation. You're doubtlessly getting hammered by folks just running it (like me) to see what it looks like, only to get stuck waiting for a GPU slot to render the same word again and again.

<comment><USER6> Yes. 90% of people are going to render Hello without changing text.

<comment><USER7> Click on "example animation" to get this [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyWqcY_oyo4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyWqcY_oyo4)

<comment><USER5> Right, but that doesn't solve the UX problem. If you try to render hello, it should just go to that video.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love that not only does it work with emoji, but it gets the colors of the emoji correct.

</comment><comment><USER9> From "There are 16 jobs ahead of yours", to (eventually)

"There is 1 job ahead of yours"

To

"Lost connection to server, please try again in a bit."

Ouch.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry.

I was running out of memory on the queue server, so had to restart the server many times while fixing it.

Instead of caching all the render results in memory, they are now being served from disk instead, which should solve the issue.

<comment><USER10> Super excited to see results but reporting same issue just now...

<comment><USER10> And fixed, thank you this is great fun! Font choice possible?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nicely done, but getting stuck at

        Waiting for GPU server slot, there are None
        jobs ahead of yours...

with a progress bar not longer even crawling.

From the console:

        websocket open                                                                                app.js:189:14
        Got text message: progress: GPU render server received target image...                            app.js:203:12
        Got text message: your ticket is xxx                                                              app.js:203:12
        Got text message: progress: Waiting for GPU server slot, there is one job ahead of yours...     4 app.js:203:12
        Got text message: progress: Waiting for GPU server slot, there are None jobs ahead of yours... 61 app.js:203:12
        onclose

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, took me a while to find the issue.

I had a feature where if the same client (by IP address) starts another job, their previous jobs are deleted. But after I added secure websockets support by proxying through nginx, all IP addresses from the server's point of view became "127.0.0.1" and every job would just be deleted when a new one came in, because they all had the same IP.

<comment><USER12> I keep getting countdowns from 8 or 15 to 1 [or partway there], and then "onclose", with the UI saying "Lost connection to server, please try again in a bit". For variety now and then I get a 502 somewhere in websocket setup.

When it is counting down, it takes 100+% CPU.

The sample render looks really cool, though. Nice project; thanks for sharing it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Designed while making love to a bunch of old men", what is that supposed to mean?

Edit: I guess it's some kind of frivolous random quote generator. Confusing and awkward.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, it's a random byline generator. I had fun with it while making this, getting a new byline every time I tested the site.

I replaced it with a real byline now.

<comment><USER13> I think it's just that the one I got was attention grabbing in the wrong way, enough that it was hard not to interpret it as being somehow significant for the whole site.

I think the whimsy/random thing can work, but putting sexual references in there just makes it feel immature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is really well done. I was wondering if it is open source or if it ever may become open source? I would love to see how it all comes together.

<comment><USER15> Given that comparing multiple previews, the _locations_ of the pieces doesn't change, I'd guess the animation data is saved or reproducible. Given an input text, the text is turned to an image, overlaid, the pieces are colored matching the image/the colors matched to piece IDs, and then the animation is rendered with the colors applied to the pieces from the start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I might have broken it by adding an emoji heart  into my message! If so, apologies.

<comment><USER16> I removed the emoji heart and rendered the message successfully. :) Thanks! The recipient was happy to get it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How does this work behind the scenes?

Seems rather alot of work to put text on candy - can you explain the purpose of it more please?

Presumably it is made with Blender at the back end judging from the random quote generator "Created while running away from a squad of offensive drunk guys who are fans of the black skills of Blender."

UPDATE:

This looks like an interesting thing - I'd like to hear more about it - <USER2> I've tried several times to render and it always eventually loses connection to the server.

It looks like it was too early for it to hit the front page of HN, some more scaling testing was needed.

<comment><USER17> I have no clue how it works, but I know how I'd do it:

1\. render the animation a bunch of blobs falling and coming to rest, once

2\. save a mask for the pixels each blob occupies on each particular frame

3\. note the position of each blob in the final image.

4\. pick a color for each of the blobs according to their position in the final image and the text (or image) you you want to display on the blobs

5\. go through all frames of the animation and color each blob

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I got it to work and my grand child liked the "Haunted M&M's" that make their name

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER19> Pretty fun doing this with unusual unicode characters, like the various emojis.

</comment><comment><USER20> Very cool.

It would be nice, if you could add a behind the scenes page on how you did it.

<comment><USER21> This part of Blender's physics animation is deterministic, so you can get this effect by running the physics animation forward to the last frame; recolor the target candy; then go back to the start again. All Blender functions are exposed by a Python API.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > there are None jobs ahead of yours...

Sounds like I'll be getting it soon then :)

</comment><comment><USER23> Very nice! I've just made a birthday "card" out of it ;)

</comment><comment><USER24> Have you looked at the possibility of doing it client-side ?

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm a video maker and this is very cool! Good job

</comment><comment><USER26> That was fun. Thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER27> Super cool. How's it work?

</comment><comment><USER28> How long did that take you to make, ballpark?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd estimate 2-3 weeks of actual rendering and coding, plus 2 years of having "I wonder how you could make a rendering such that..." bugging me at the back of my mind.</comment></comment>


YouTube tightens rules after David Icke 5G interview - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52198946 <comment><USER2> good guerrilla marketing though.

everyone is again talking about recently-forgotten 5G.</comment>


Mono 2.4 and MonoDevelop 2.0 released - <AUTHOR> http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2009/Mar-30.html

<comment><USER2> Woot! Integrated Debugger

This is a big release for mono, I'm huge fan of the project. C# is actually being designed unlike java, and with each new revision is getting much better.

Here's a cool demo of a mono REPL:<http://lucasmeijer.com/files/messagewindow.swf>

<comment><USER3> I agree, this release will make mono a lot more attractive to windows developers.

Can't wait to see some mono based asp.net mvc apps built with this new version

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You know what, i love the idea of mono and i did a lot of c# projects. But I just don't trust enough mono to build my stuff on top of mono.

<comment><USER5> Isn't it compatible with the Microsoft variants? I mean, isn't that the point? Shouldn't you be able to build on Microsoft tools and then compile on Mono for other platforms? Or am I completely missing the boat?

<comment><USER6> That is exactly the point, however last year I had an existing .NET build that I wanted to port over to linux - it was developed with VS2005 / .NET 2, so should have been fairly trivial to port.

The issues I ran into were many (eg windows forms, data access being not or only partly implemented) so I just gave up and ran the original .NET in a windows virtual machine, rather than mangle it to work with gtk#.

So in principle it is an ideal idea that in practice has many issues due to MS driving .NET development and MONO having to play catch-up and then attempt to mangle the windows-specific code to be cross-platform. YMMV.

<comment><USER2> It's doing quite well, there are some areas that they aren't really focusing on, but before porting try running this tool: <http://www.mono- project.com/MoMA> It's a migration analyzer and it will help to identify incompatibilities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've been using Mono for about 3 years now, and I must say C# is great. Mono has gone a long way, and it is pretty solid now. I really love the fact that I can use the same language, and same libraries, for Desktop Applications, command line tools, and to create a web site. The option to be able to create standalone program (no need to have the Mono libraries installed on the client) is also a great plus.

</comment><comment><USER5> Has anyone built any cross-platform games with Mono? I'm working on a little hobby project that I'd like to release in an installable version for Windows and Mac OS X, and I'm not really sure where to start. I've been so deeply rooted in the UNIX world for so long that I don't even have a guess about good solutions to Windows/Mac desktop application problems.

<comment><USER2> This uses mono as a scripting engine, it's a pretty advanced game engines and there are quite a few games that use it: <http://unity3d.com/>

It supports both windows and os x.

<comment><USER5> That looks really promising! And fun, to boot.

My game is very simple, graphically, and doesn't need 3D (it's a pattern and sound-based brain game, so it isn't fast and it isn't flashy; it's being written first as a web application, and then it'll be ported and enhanced for desktop and iPhone/Android)...but I might try to figure out a way to make it use 3D just to have an excuse to buy and tinker with Unity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> * yawn _</comment>


New York's Newest Skyscraper Is 32 Floors of Prefab Apartments - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcoexist.com/3020237/new-yorks-newest-skyscraper-is-32-floors-of-prefab-apartments-that-click-together

<comment><USER2> Maybe this works because they're building apartments so tiny they can be carried on a truck.

There's a more successful concept - prefab bathrooms and modular kitchens. See "ameripod.com" (bathrooms). This reduces on-site labor on the parts of the building that are labor-intensive. It's much cheaper to build a bathroom in a factory, install it as a unit, and plug it in. In a factory, you can hold tolerances and all the parts fit. Bathrooms are a convenient size for trucking purposes, too. Moving standard-width loads is cheap and routine.

Making the exterior walls part of the module means more exterior seams. Building shells aren't expensive. Steelwork and exterior walls go up fast. Building steel and concrete boxes is a solved problem. Most of the time and money go into interior details.

</comment><comment><USER3> They failed to mention that this project is close to _two years_ behind.

The modular construction project has been such an abject failure that the other two building projects on the site have broken ground with conventional steel frame construction.

</comment><comment><USER4> A comment on the article page links to a description of how construction stalled on recriminations of flawed designs and construction problems:

[http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.ca/2014/09/in-dispute- ov...](http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.ca/2014/09/in-dispute-over-stalled- modular-tower.html)

<comment><USER5> It's true - and work resumed shortly after that. [http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city- hall/2014/11/8556...](http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/city- hall/2014/11/8556922/after-agreement-work-resume-atlantic-yards-tower)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I live across of it, and I have to say it has the grace you'd expect of a 60's housing project in the eastern bloc. The rendering is quite flattering.

<comment><USER7> I also live a couple blocks from it and the only upside is that it'll eventually block the rusty looking Barclays Center from view. I'd gladly take the old Freddy's back.

<comment><USER8> I really enjoy the rich tones of the facade: [http://www.rew-online.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/04/Barclay...](http://www.rew-online.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/04/Barclays-Center-SHoP-main.jpg)

Does rust automatically turn people off because of cultural connotations? It's self-finishing, already appears established, and doesn't require maintenance.

<comment><USER9> Rust doesn't require maintenance? It will keep going until the underlying steel is all gone - not really something you can just let go.

As opposed to aluminum oxide which is self limiting - it only forms a thin layer, then stops.

<comment><USER10> Barclay is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weathering_steel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weathering_steel)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For background, here's some info on Walt Disney World's Contemporary Resort (1971) that was built with a similar technique:

[http://www.yesterland.com/contemporary.html](http://www.yesterland.com/contemporary.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> "Imagine a future where..."

I guess everything old is new again. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corbusier](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Corbusier)

<comment><USER13> From around the same time period: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilton_Palacio_del_Rio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilton_Palacio_del_Rio)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm on a phone so didn't fig into the differences which must be huge but china has built a few large projects using prefab techniques and keep breaking time to complete records. Example [http://inhabitat.com/200-chinese-workers- erect-a-30-storey-p...](http://inhabitat.com/200-chinese-workers- erect-a-30-storey-prefabricated-hotel-in-just-15-days-video/)

<comment><USER15> Main difference as far as I can see is the NYC structure is made up of pre- assembled room-size room-size units, whereas the Chinese hotel is more conventional beams, panels and cladding but pre-cut to specific sizes (and presumably also for the interior finish)

The Chinese seem to be trying to prove a point with their speed, though they do have a considerable advantage when it comes to costs and lack of regulations to adhere too though, probably aren't building to the [unusual] level of tolerances specified for the US project.

(my dad was doing this back in the days when 9 storeys was "possibly the tallest of its type in the world", and under a year for a building that size was really fast. Which really wasn't all that long ago.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Serious question, what makes this the "newest" skyscraper? There are various buildings that are more and less complete than this one.

<comment><USER13> Journalistic flair?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> My Dad has worked in the modular construction industry since before I was born and it's quite an interesting method.

It allows things to be done at the same time, so whilst the groundwork and any preparation is being done on site, the modules for the building can be being built in a factory.

It's a fairly popular method in the UK, whether it's constructed entirely modularly or using modular parts like bathroom pods (prefabricated bathrooms).

The uses are fairly varied too, it's been used for hotel bathrooms, prison cells, McDonalds restaurants, sections of Tesco supermarkets, petrol station shops, hospitals and schools. I've probably missed a few, but you get the idea.

It's very weird to step into a bathroom pod when it's at the end of the production line and hooked up to water and electricity for testing. When you shut the door, you'd have no idea that you were in a factory (besides the noise) .

</comment><comment><USER18> A giant project like this just opened in LA, One Santa Fe

[http://www.onesantafeliving.com/](http://www.onesantafeliving.com/)

The place looks huge from a distance because it's so long

[https://www.google.com/search?q=one+santa+fe+apartments&tbm=...](https://www.google.com/search?q=one+santa+fe+apartments&tbm=isch)

But, I went in to look at the apartments and they're boring as hell which is sad because they're in the LA Arts District which is full of amazing lofts (similar to SF's SOMA District).

</comment><comment><USER19> I got a laugh out of this:

> the kind of line assembly popularized by Henry Ford's T-Birds

Henry Ford never saw the T-bird (Thunderbird): he died eight years before it was released. Of course the author meant the Model T, but that such an error about a major milestone in American history slipped through editing is pretty amazing--like crediting William Boeing with the invention of the airplane.</comment>


Simple Cross-Browser HTML Video? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for simple HTML code for video that will work in all browsers (including iPad Safari, Chrome, IE, Firefox). It seems like everyone is using their own version.<p>What's the simplest version? <comment><USER2> Check this one out: <http://www.html5video.org/kaltura-html5/>

This is supposed to work in all browsers (fallback to flash & all).

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML5_video> also has a few interesting links for various solutions.</comment>


Never-Slow Mode: Opt-in Chromium proposal to limit website's available resources - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/slightlyoff/never_slow_mode <comment><AUTHOR> From the "why would developers opt-in to this" section:

> In recent years, many web platform features have become gated on TLS opt-in > [0]. We can imagine browser vendors taking a similar stance with regards to > new features and NSM: only sites which demonstrate that they are willing to > prioritize user experience might continue to be able to request certain > permissions (e.g., Push Notifications) or access upcoming features.

[0] [https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2016/04/geolocatio...](https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2016/04/geolocation- on-secure-contexts-only)

I'm torn about this. On the one hand, TLS was unequivocably good for the internet, and I think in general encouraging sites to be less resource- intensive is also good for the internet. On the other hand, a lot of this proposal smacks of "meet these limits or Google won't bring traffic to your site with Chrome and search", which they've already shown a history of doing with AMP pages getting prioritized search results. That really makes me mad, and it's scary that one company has amassed so much power over the web they can basically dictate how sites should be built and served. That fundamentally undermines the principles of the free and open web.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Note that although this proposal is couched in the language of "browser vendors" and "web platform features", this is posted by a Google employee and the "incomplete prototype" that is under development is in Chromium.</comment>


You are an amazing engineer, but you are a terrible fit for our startup - <AUTHOR> http://blog.burhum.com/post/37128895836/you-are-an-amazing-engineer-but-you-are-a-terrible-fit <comment><USER2> Maybe the problem isn't with the engineers, but with your startup.

Being compensated through equity is a gamble. Most times it doesn't pay off. So many more startups fail than succeed that the odds are heavily stacked against those options ever being worth anything.

Sometimes people are willing to take that gamble anyway, in spite of the horrible odds, because _they believe in the business._ They look at the product, the founders, and the rest of the team, and think "this is going to be one of the ones that succeeds" -- strongly enough that they're willing to bet their own money (in possibly lost compensation) on the outcome.

If you're showing talented people your idea, or your product, or your team -- or _yourself_ \-- and they're not coming away convinced that what you're showing them is good enough to justify taking that risk, maybe it doesn't mean that they're lamers who don't understand startup culture. Maybe it means they looked at what you showed them and decided that _it wasn't a horse worth betting on._ So they'll work for you for salary, which they can put in the bank the moment you give it to them, but not equity.

If that happens _consistently,_ maybe it's time to step back and look more holistically at your business. If you can't convince potential employees to bet on you, you might have set your product up in such a way that you'll have trouble convincing potential customers to bet on you too.

<comment><USER3> Side note, but there are other reasons people will take that gamble.

Sometimes, the reason employees take equity is because they think they will have a nontrivial impact on the business and want to feel like an owner. The actual financial consideration of the equity can be triumphed by the emotional connection it gives them with the team and their work.

This might explain why some early employees don't even know what percent of the company they own.

<comment><USER4> 1-2% (max!) equity in a company doesn't make me feel like an owner. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=973106>

<comment><USER5> Exactly because you really are not.

By the time you get diluted you effectively are a stockholder with way too much of your net worth locked into one likely extremely volatile company. If you are lucky enough to be in a succesful startup you still have to survive the inevitable whiplash when your liquidity frees up.

Ironically and sadly I have a couple old-timer friends who have been through IPOs where they have lost money on the whole damn thing mostly due to taxes and poor timing.

<comment><USER4> Treating employee-level equity as anything other than the chance for a nice bonus some day is a sucker's game. Especially for early employees who'll take a significant haircut on salary for the privilege of getting "points on the package" (to quote The Wire)

Edit: and that really sucks for your friends. I feel bad for them :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Talented engineers are well served by a rule of thumb _not_ to reach for more equity, but rather to negotiate in terms of their actual rate. The startup that can't reason about your comp in terms of the going rate for engineers, that instead reflexively assumes you're wasting their time, is a startup you want to avoid working for.

Employee private stock outcomes are generally very poor even when the startup "succeeds". No party to the financing of a startup is served less faithfully than the ones who contribute via deferred or diminished salaries.

That doesn't mean you can't compensate engineers by giving them "skin in the game", but it does mean that when you write derisively about a candidate using their going rate as a starting point, you risk communicating something very unfavorable about your business and hiring practices.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Employee private stock outcomes are generally very poor even when the > startup "succeeds". No party to the financing of a startup is served less > faithfully than the ones who contribute via deferred or diminished salaries.

A six-figure salary is by no means "deferred". And, of course, I understand that there is a big difference between 100K and 150K/year. The whole point of the blog post is that if you want the 150K, then you can easily go to a Series C funded startup and get that (alongside the lower equity offer). If you want a higher stake, then you can go to the earlier stage startup, get your 90K and huge chunk of equity. If the parties want to have a custom "in between", then that is reasonable, too. Some startups can do it, others cannot depending on cash-flow. Expecting early stage-like equity and later-stage-like salary doesn't make sense. Not to mention the other equally important issues that we had with the candidate.

<comment><USER6> Your first sentence is a non sequitur. It's grammatically correct but contains no detectable semantic meaning. Salary is deferred when it would ordinarily be due immediately but is paid later. Formally, a deferred salary is a commitment to pay a precise amount of money at some point in the future. Colloquially, any promise of compensation that would ordinarily be due in the next pay period but will instead come 1-2 years from now at "exit" is a deferred payment.

Your reasoning about "Series C" versus "Series A" startups and salary expectations is also suspect. We pay market salaries to a large number of very talented, very specialized engineers and haven't raised a dollar of funding.

The problem with your reasoning is that it isn't based on the market, but rather on some kind of status hierarchy about startups. The mistake I think you're making is that you frame things in terms of "90k and a huge chunk of equity", rather than "your market rate of 150k, 2/3rds in salary, 1/3rd in equity, risk-adjusted based on expected liquidity from revenues we forecast at N, N+1, N+k over the next k quarters, at acquisition multiple y".

If you write the blog post that way, so that you can make a case that a 150k candidate is effectively demanding 300k, your post starts to make sense (but it's a little boring, right?). But when you write it in terms of "Series A employees should get 90k", you go way off the rails.

 _Later edit: you can also reason through your equity valuation with a candidate the way 'ChuckMcM does, but it seems like to do that honestly, your equity would need to be liquid enough that you could place another x00,000 shares; in particular, you can't just treat your last valuation as gospel; just like your B investors can reduce your valuation, so can candidates._

<comment><USER7> Your analyses are very good and your posts pedagogical.

I'd like to add that, just as you have the company presenting this in a certain light, the engineer needs to look at this investment of $60,000 a year of his personal money as cash salary to buy stock in a startup the same as a $150,000 a year earning person would view any other $60,000 a year stock investment in an extremely high risk unproven early startup. As a point of comparison, we know that Y Combinator gets significant equity for one time investments of only $10,000 in early stage startups. An investment of $60,000 a year should be valued similarly. Clearly the employee is directly contributing more than six times as much as Y Combinator does and should receive six times the equity for that first year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've had non-founder equity in four "startup" companies including a couple of which most people here would have heard of and some of them even had exits that were "publicly successful", and I've never seen a dime of money beyond my base pay.

In one case, the company simply failed to fully gain traction despite a good 6 year run, no harm no foul. In the other cases various forms of dilution and manipulation put everyone not in the preferred stock category underwater despite what were seen as positive exits. In the worst case I took a fairly substantial (though temporary) tax hit due to AMT on stock that was never worth a real penny at any time when I could legally sell it.

I'm still open to the idea of someday working for a startup at the founder level, but I'd advise all "James"-like engineers to avoid the situation he was trying to get hired for. Being an early stage employee but not a founder is the worst of all worlds and basically amounts to buying a $60k ($150k - $90k OP was looking to pay) lottery ticket, one where the rules of the lottery might be changed in all sorts of ways after you sign on the dotted line.

<comment><USER9> _one where the rules of the lottery might be changed in all sorts of ways after you sign on the dotted line._

There is a pattern:

Company: We will give you 1% of the company.

Employee: Sounds good.

And the Company probably believes this in good faith, and that the employee will not be diluted

<years later things go bad>

Company: You now have 0.01% of the company.

Employee: I had 1%.

Company: Not anymore. That wasn't any kind of promise against dilution. Check the paperwork.

Switching from the "let's trust each other" to the "let's go by what's written in black-and-white" is a common trope. You, as the Company, don't even need be engaged in bad faith for it to happen. But it's often considered rude to tell the employer "these shares are probably worthless."

 _Being an early stage employee but not a founder is the worst of all worlds_

Founders usually are completely averse to giving anyone hired after them a better deal then they have. (I've done it as a founder, too, so I understand those feels.) But non-founder non-investor shares are extremely vulnerable. If you aren't prepared to fund very close to market salaries, you need to give something spectacular.

<comment><USER10> Dilution in bad faith is lawsuit-worthy. Most founders these days have common stock just like everyone else, and get diluted in the same situations.

Dilution during fundraising isn't an absolute bad thing, either. There are shenanigans, and investors with preferred stock definitely get paid first, but the basic theory is that 20% equity dilution comes along with an investment that immediately makes the company 20% more valuable. It's basically a zero sum transaction ... except for preferred shares, options pools, etc.

<comment><USER8> "Most founders these days have common stock just like everyone else, and get diluted in the same situations."

True but given the vast differences in allocations that may turn their theoretical 100s of millions into dozens of millions while turning employee shares from a "really, really good bonus" into "not worth the transaction fees".

<comment><USER9> It's also easier to defend your stuff when you are sitting in the board room.

I've seen it happen to former employees at previous companies; once I even asked at a meeting if anything was being done about their massive dilution and the CEO gave a prepared spiel that was pretty close to Paul Graham's piece about how VC's like to wipe out angels: <http://www.paulgraham.com/startupfunding.html#f9n>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think I interviewed That Guy :-)

I ran the numbers for this guy, but I'll make some up here to show the process I went through. It went like this:

Here is an offer $100K/yr 100K shares vesting over 4. Counter $150K/yr, 100K shares. My counter $150K/yr, no equity.

This is this math, I've got a fixed amount of money in the bank, its going toward zero. I can sell your 100,000 shares to one of our investors for $2/share, giving the company $200,000 which I will then pay out to you $50K per year on top of your $100,000 a year salary. You get $150K per year, the investor gets the 100,000 shares. Or I can give the 100,000 shares to you with a strike price of $0.25/share, vesting over 4 years. So at the end of the four years you will have one of three outcomes.

1) $130,000 in the bank (that is $50 - 35% marginal tax rate) * four years.

2) A right to buy $xxxK of stock for $25,000.

3) A different job.

So realistically the stock needs to be worth $300K and saleable for you to make money. ($300K - $25K exercise - approx $137.50K in taxes) So $3/share. If I have investors willing to pay $2/share for common stock today, you (the engineer) need to believe that in four years the common stock will become 50% more valuable. You've got to ask yourself one question, "Do I feel lucky?"

For lots of people though its also more 'fun' to work in a startup in terms of engaging problems to solve and level of impact on the company is involved.

<comment><USER12> If you have recently sold stock at a $2 valuation, you should be very wary about issuing options at $0.25. This will put you across the ISO/NSO line and has tax implications for the employee.

If you haven't actually sold stock recently, you are probably better off using ptacek's formula and computing future value rather than present value, and avoiding pricing your stock at all.

<comment><USER11> The numbers were fictitious in order to work the example. Our CFO in conjunction with our general counsel determines the effective valuation which is ratified at the appropriate board meeting and becomes the official strike price until the next valuation 'event'.

There are two numbers in play, one is the value of common stock and one is the value of preferred stock. Preferred stock is used in conjunction with raising capital and often has terms and covenants attached to it which make it significantly more valuable than common stock early in the company's life cycle where they effectively converge on the same value at the IPO (or 'liquidity event')

That said, the example is illustrative but not strictly accurate (accurate in principle but not in execution). What _really_ happens is that you run out of money faster with a higher salary load, and that means you may need to raise additional funds sooner. That fund raising round would proceed like any other round, caveat your 'target' now includes an additional $200K to cover the salary you're paying out. Worse that stock you sell will be preferred and not common stock, and as such might have preferences like 2x return which would further reduce the benefit to common stock holders in the event of a sale or merger.

Its truly a good prisoner's dilemma game setup. If all of the employees take large common stock grants and low salaries they all benefit more on a non-IPO type event, if a few take big salaries they can make the threshold for everyone else benefiting higher, thus by not co-operating get a better salary and reduce total compensation of their peers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Seems like mostly a bunch of whining about how because you are a startup it is ridiculous to think you'd pay people decent salaries. This could have been condensed to "I'm a startup, therefore I pay pennies on the dollar; don't expect anything else." Full stop. ... All right, there was a tiny bit about people should expect to work on a variety of things rather than just Javascript or whatever, fine, but common sense to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe there is this stigma that says "equity conversation" == "I will pay you crap". Personally, I don't believe this to be true. If you are switching to my startup, it is so you can be in a better situation and I have to acknowledge that. How we pull/push the equity vs cash lever should make _both_ parties happy.

<comment><USER14> I know you're taking a fair amount of criticism about this post, with some saying that your attitude toward employee compensation reflects poorly on you and/or you company. However, as someone who doesn't know you, I'm pretty damn impressed with your ability to respond in a very cool, calm, and _rational_ manner to very pointed criticism. If I lived on your side of the country, I'd certainly look into your company since that kind of attitude in a founder tends to permeate a company. I would take (and have taken) a 20%+ pay cut to work with calm, rational bosses and co-workers.

<comment><AUTHOR> And it is comments like yours that make posts like these worth it. Thank you for the kind comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A top 10% engineer should expect more than $135k/year, a top 10% executive founder should have no problem raising enough money to pay those kind of salaries. Sounds like an average (at best) founder looking to recruit out of his league.

<comment><USER16> That depends on how you define "a top 10% executive founder".

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have a group of friends and ex-coworkers who are part of the Los Angeles startup scene. Every so often I get to be asked to be part of startups. We've had something like the above conversation. Floating my family situation requires that I get more salary than they are able to afford. Their equity offers were generous. I wished my life was different because I believed in them and thought they had a good chance of making it. Sometimes they do.

At least 3 times now, I've passed up the opportunity to make millions. I don't regret it - it was what I had to do. But I do sometimes wish that my life had worked out differently.

That said, for every startup that I would personally take seriously enough to consider the offer, there are dozens who would try to make it to me, and I would laugh. Unless I know, and respect, the people making me the offer, I treat equity as a fancy piece of paper that I'll ignore.

<comment><USER18> You have a social circle where founding a startup and eventually making millions is a regular occurrence? Outside of the bay area? Can I be your friend?

Why not skimp and save for a few years worth of survival and take a shot at one of these companies so that you have the financial cushion to give the college try and move on if you have to?

Edit: Guys, calm down. I was teasing him for casually claiming that he was surrounded by inspired millionaires but had to wear the hair-shirt.

I understand the lifestyle tradeoffs different people have to make and I don't begrudge people for prioritizing family. I don't have one, but I imagine that if I did, I'd go the safe/secure route too.

I'm sorry I made you feel like your life choices were questioned by a stranger on the internet.

<comment><USER17> I am replying out of order for reasons that should become obvious.

 _Why not skimp and save for a few years worth of survival and take a shot at one of these companies so that you have the financial cushion to give the college try and move on if you have to?_

I tell you what.

Why don't you get married. Pay for your wife's medical school. Have 2 kids. Discover what full-time high-quality child care costs. Have your wife get injured and have to leave residency. Have her get better, only to get in a bad car accident. Have her recover from that, only to go into another very intensive residency (no money, tons of time).

After a few years of being a primary breadwinner and effectively a single parent under very stressful circumstances, I'll get someone to make a comment like this to you in a public forum, just so you can understand what it feels like.

Does that answer your question?

People have lives. They are not always as simple as they look like they should be on paper. If someone indicates that their life has had complications, the polite thing to do is to take what they chose to share at face value and move on. There is often more to the story than you really want to know.

 _You have a social circle where founding a startup and eventually making millions is a regular occurrence? Outside of the bay area? Can I be your friend?_

Obviously you don't believe me.

Yes, my social circle does include the founders of companies like ZipRecruiter and Campus Explorer. Those were founded in Santa Monica, which is indeed outside of the Bay area.

And no, you can't be my friend. I don't like people who are acting like assholes to me.

<comment><USER6> I thought his question was annoying too, but I don't think he's being an asshole; he's just being a nerd. We're all nerds sometimes.

<comment><USER17> Maybe in an hour I'll calm down and agree with you. But right now I really wish he had the honesty to have simply called me a liar rather than trying to paper that over with sarcasm. And there is simply no way that his "advice" could not have been something that I didn't know.

According to his bio he's 24. There is a lot he doesn't know. Hopefully he will be a little more careful in the future about stepping into emotional minefields like this.

<comment><USER19> You're assuming sarcasm rather than a "whoa, seriously?" response, which given your social circle is I think fairly unusual isn't accusing you of lying so much as asking if he read it correctly.

And he didn't -advise- you, he asked why you -didn't- do that.

Of course, assuming bad faith and then using his age as an argument as to why your knee jerk reaction was ok apparently is also an option - but not up to your usual standard. I think perhaps the 'emotional minefield' part is crucial here, and next time you should step away for that hour before replying at all.

<comment><USER17> _You're assuming sarcasm rather than a "whoa, seriously?" response, which given your social circle is I think fairly unusual isn't accusing you of lying so much as asking if he read it correctly._

I certainly did that.

 _Of course, assuming bad faith and then using his age as an argument as to why your knee jerk reaction was ok apparently is also an option - but not up to your usual standard. I think perhaps the 'emotional minefield' part is crucial here, and next time you should step away for that hour before replying at all._

In this case stepping away for an hour would not have helped. Because with a strong emotional frame in my head, I had no path from there to seeing any other reaction. It was going to take someone else, in this case you, to show me another possible way to frame it. I'll need to take time to digest that fact before I try to figure out how to avoid responding that way in the future.

Thank you for your helpful response. I'm sorry that I had the reaction that I did. These things happen with humans. Some days more easily than others. Some humans more easily than others.

PS: Ironically, knowing a few successful startup founders is one of the most normal things about my social circle.

<comment><USER6> Chalk it up to message boards and at least be happy he didn't suggest you sell your kids to fund the company. :)

 _LATE EDIT WAIT WAIT I CALL THAT BUSINESS MODEL FOR YC'S13_

<comment><USER18> I'm making baby back ribs on the BBQ next weekend, so I think I'd be a customer of this company.

I look forward to your application to YC regarding this modest proposal with great interest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't really like the term 'hiring' when you're talking about someone that is barely drawing a salary and is taking a large amount of equity. In that situation, you are _partnering_ with them.

It sounds like the guy in the article just wants to make a reasonable amount of money while hacking away at a problem. That's fine. You need to let go of the notion that every employee you have is going to be as heavily invested in your product as you are, because very few will be. If they are and they want equity, awesome. If not, they could still turn in some fantastic work for you if you're just willing to pay them a decent wage.

</comment><comment><USER21> It seems like you didn't want to pay to have the best engineers or you advertised the position in the wrong way. To be honest it feels like you believe you are entitled to have the best while not having much to offer in return.

<comment><USER22> It does kind of read like the kind of company who advertises for "the best of the best." Then again, when was the last time you saw a job req that covered adequacy in a realistic fashion? "You should eat and breathe Big Data and stomp the kittens of database caching in your sleep." I could go to Craigslist (or HN YC job postings) or wherever for in-the-wild examples here, but I'm sure we're all remembering the same things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The last couple "startups" I've talked to about working with have deigned to offer "1% equity", and expected me to be happy with that, along with no money. Or... "a good salary when the first/next round comes through".

Didn't seem to faze them that I'd be working alongside them for months with $0 pay, actually potentially working _more_ (in both cases, a 'founder' had a day job as well).

I'm not sure if they understood why they were having trouble getting good people to work productively with them.

<comment><AUTHOR> A founder with a day job + working at $0 for 1% is just dumb.

<comment><USER23> _They_ weren't working for 1% - that's what I was offered. A chance to work for $0 for an undetermined amount of time on something with no other technical resources or colleagues, all in exchange for perhaps getting 1% of something I have little control over.

I've said "thanks but no thanks" both times.

In one case, I mentioned that typically someone working for $0 with no end in sight, essentially building a prototype from scratch is more considered a founder/cofounder, and would generally be given a more equitable split. I got told that I didn't understand, because person X had already put a lot of time in to the project, and since I wasn't there on day 1 (when they were thinking about it in the garage), then I wasn't cofounder material (or words to that effect).

Odd how much the 'startup myth' prevents some people from moving forward.

<comment><AUTHOR> That "offer" just shows that they don't know what they are doing.

<comment><USER23> Believe me, after a few meetings with people, that comes out pretty quick. The couple times I've let it get that far, I've kicked myself for the time wasting.

Should I have known on day 1? Possibly, and sometimes I do, but I don't want to live my entire life distrusting 100% of what people tell me on day 1.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> _sigh_

The 'job security' part is the one that worries me the most in stories like this. I'm not alone. I need to support a family. While I'd love to sink time (and money, to a degree) in a company, the risks turn me off to even apply.

It seems that the general consensus is that you need a really good savings account not just for starting your own business, but for joining a new startup as well.

I _know_ that I'll find a job around here again. That's not a problem. The time frame is. Let's assume I can (ignoring all legal issues for a second) join a startup, remote, from this small town in Germany. Wherever they are, they probably can cut me out quite easily (even here, if the headcount is low enough), quickly.

The companies that I'd turn to for safety are slooooooow. So you risk being out on the streets waiting for bigger, safer companies to return your calls and get back to you. Which might, which WILL happen if you're a decent programmer/engineer/whateverpatiowouldsuggestmewritinghere.

But .. in time? Fast enough to not worry about your family? I'm a chicken here. I wouldn't bet on that.

<comment><USER25> In Germany perhaps this strange beast called "job security" can still be found in the wild. In the US there is no such thing outside of government work, and at a startup the idea is laughable. "Career security" is what you want to think about, making sure you are always up to date and desirable. And also, building up a savings account no matter how difficult that may seem.

<comment><USER24> That's a very interesting and good thought.

Maybe my whole point of view is skewed: I'm reasonably safe in my job even without a savings account (got none. Is that a bad idea? Yeah, probably. But that's a different point).

That said, Germany isn't alone in the rules I'd take as granted. What I rely on here is just a decent time between being let go and being without salary. I don't claim to have a lot of experience here, but I know that this exists in various other EU countries and was told that this is common in IL as well, for example.

If you want to fire me, you still need to pay me for a ~reasonable~ amount of time (and I need to work, of course). I'll try to find another job during that time.

Startups seem to have a tendency to go down in flames (what law could order a company that has no money to pay salaries?) or are exempt of a lot of laws that make me feel safe (as I said, here in Germany the law makes it far easier to drop people while you're below a certain, single digit(?) head count).

I'm ignoring your 'build up savings' suggestions. It's a good one. I agree. And if I'll ever manage to do that, I'll either keep it for my family or .. for my own startup (if that might be realistic). It still wouldn't be a cushion to join a startup myself. The point of the OP of this thread seemed to be that you have to find a ratio between decent pay and nice equity. I understand. I agree.

I just think that this totally ignores the cost of searching for another job in this silly "I pay you X. That means that you make X * 12 / year. Let's compare that to the shares now, with various outcomes in the list" kind of posts.

That's ignoring a big issue for the guy signing the contract. Saying 'Yeah, if it goes down you lost $marketValue - $startupSalary' is just .. well .. stupid. Unless you _know_ that there's an instant job opportunity for the guy at the end. No? Nothing nearby / close to family? Nothing that allows enough free time or fits the _basic_ interests of the guy that was let go?

Ah well, that's what a savings account is for, right?

Disclaimer: No personal grudges here, I just don't think that these discussions are .. sensible. In general. Most of the time these arguments are lead from the mind of a 23 year old single with a lot of self esteem and confidence.

I handed my membership card in, a couple of years ago. It's nice on this side of the fence, but the perspective really changes a lot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why are you asking engineers to be investors in your company? Don't you need engineers to build your secret sauce and you have investors to invest?

If you need money ask VCs for money and hire the people which will make you rich. It is really that simple. It is 10x easier to get 20K more in investment than finding an engineer which will work for 20K less than market salary.

</comment><comment><USER27> Sorry, but the original poster made a huge mistake. The only part of his reasoning that makes sense is the part about the guy only wanting to work on one thing. That is definitely unacceptable, but it is unacceptable at any programming job (except the crappiest ones).

Someone who is an expert and highly valued is exactly who you want at your early stage startup.

It sounds like this guy actually knew what he was talking about with regards to equity.

Equity is crap. It's a lottery ticket, like someone said. it's fun to think about what might happen if you win, but don't bank on it.

I've been in 4 startups, two of which were bought out "successfully". My equity payout? Zero. Sorry, your common stock is worthless while the founders' preferred stock makes them millionaires. Luckily, I didn't lose out financially, since I didn't take a pay cut to work at these startups.

I agree, job security is a non-issue. We're programmers, and if we're any good at all, we're in demand.

However, no one with half a brain is going to take a 60k pay cut on $150k. Do you think we don't have bills? Someone who has been living on $150k probably owns a half million dollar house. Are we supposed to sell our house to work for your startup? If I'm a founder, I might be willing to do that. Otherwise, no.

Talk to me about the expected return on investment for this $60,000 in stock I buy every year. Since 95% of startups fail... I better be getting enough founder stock (yes, not common stock) that if we have a mildly successful IPO (I'm talking like $10 a share) that I make more than 20 times my ~240k investment.... that's over 5 million dollars - 500,000 shares of founder stock, at least.

Let's talk reality, though. Stock is what lets you compete with Google. Google gives you nearly infinite resources, a fantastic stamp of approval on your resume, the chance to work with tons of really smart people, and crazy good benefits. In order to compete with that, you need to pay equal or nearly equal, and use the stock to make up for the stuff you can't actually afford.

This is why so many startups fail. They only hire the people dumb enough to think equity is really worth something.

</comment><comment><USER28> I've been in the same position as this James guy and as a founder doing the hiring. No founder is going to find an over-achieving experienced engineer that will work for pennies on the dollar, make a statistically stupid bet with your equity, and work on something she is not ridiculously passionate about. One, or all of those, have to be flexible if you want the top talent.

On the surface it seems financially ridiculous to have not given the tiny bit extra James wanted. I have to assume the culture clash was the main driver. If he were truly exceptional, he would have been potentially worth more than 10 other guys you will hire that are not negotiating with you. He would have attracted more great talent. He would have pulled off many heroic acts. This short sighted thinking, more than anything, is what frustrates me about the job market.

There comes a time when you reach that point in your individual contributor career where some lightbulb turns on and you realize how valuable you are. You realize you don't get what you don't ask for and start negotiating. But if you're in the job market you have to be able to back up your lofty compensation requirements. This is obviously not a newly realized situation and it has been discussed endlessly in the past. There's a reason great talent in Hollywood makes 100x more than the rest of the cast and crew, and great sales people can do the same, even though they are just employees. The top performers are obvious. The talent in software doesn't have this luxury without going out of the way to self promote. Unfortunately, putting enough proof out there is only possible when you work largely on your own and promote that fact for people to see. Otherwise there are too many varying factors and nobody can know if you were the core reason for the project success.

So, James, go do something on your own, publicly. Make it not suck. Then watch the above-market salary and equity offers come rolling in. Or, start your own startup.

And for all you founders out there. Either loosen those purse strings and be ready to terminate employees that don't work out, or work on truly interesting problems. Otherwise you're just going to end up with a whole bunch of average or inexperienced engineers. Not that there is anything wrong with that talent strategy, just know that it will happen, and realize the implications of that situation.

Who else thinks we need Software Engineering talent agencies?

</comment><comment><USER29> This throwaway line gave me a chuckle:

 _James did not ask me once about health insurance and did not really care when I told him about the plan_

A year ago I left a cushy job as a software engineer at ClearChannel to go work for a startup, and I didn't bat an eye when they said they didn't offer health insurance. But my wife is a nurse at Kaiser, and we get a Cadillac plan through them with no out of pocket cost. That gave me the flexibility to accept the offer.

</comment><comment><USER30> We could just as easily be reading a post from "James" about how his time was wasted by some punk who has no clue how much value he would bring to a startup. And I would consider that equally tacky.

He asked for what he wanted - it was not in line with what you wanted to pay. End of story. Not all job interviews end with a hire.

</comment><comment><USER31> I don't think you would hire me given the amount of snark in your post and my waning tolerance for it, but if I were to be a "good fit" for your company, I would probably pass on the interview for fear that I might become fodder for your next rant.

Do you suppose you could have generalized this post into a lesson with a little bit of ranting versus a rant with a little bit of lesson?

If I were James, I would feel like crap reading this. What did that gain him in reality and what did it gain you?

</comment><comment><USER32> I got burned out by the start up scene in the original internet boom in the '90s. Probably lost 200K in salary due to betting on the startups, only to have the founders make bonehead mistakes or shaft the programmers.

</comment><comment><USER33> Be careful with point 2, "Let's not even talk about job-security".

I know, I know, the startup ecosystem (more specifically, web startups, so I suppose the term engineer refers to that too) are booming right now and nobody can imagine how bad things could ever happen. Yet, often enough, bad and unforeseen things do happen, a boom ends rapidly, lots of people are without jobs. Don't scold the guy for wanting to know where he will be at in a couple of years.

<comment><USER25> It's a startup. What else do you need to know?

<comment><USER33> The point the author makes under that heading is: One need not worry about job security at a specific startup, because if it goes bust one can always join another startup.

<comment><USER5> Except when they "all" go bust. There is only so much VC money to go around and when that contracts open positions do too. We've been in a good period for a while but tech is also very cyclical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The flipside of this is you hire inexperienced developers who take a bad deal out of sheer inexperience. I was stupid after college and did took a terrible salary with what I learned a few months later was a small options package. I saw others do it too, and it just created bad energy, retention, and talent acquisition problems.

</comment><comment><USER7> Start ups need people who know what they are doing. These people make well above the median. Making market salary in an expensive area like the Bay Area is not negotiable, and it's certainly not traded for equity.

The equity is what gets talent to accept the tremendous risk of leaving a solid position with an established company, for an unstable one at a high risk venture.

If you can't afford to pay market rate, that means you're not funded enough to be hiring. Equity is in addition to market salary.

</comment><comment><USER35> > Want more equity? Take less money. ...

> Want more money? Take less equity. ...

> The Cash and Equity are actually inversely proportional to each other.

Nice rules, but be prepared: Not everyone plays by the rules, and your competition might be among them.

(OTOH, things will get better as the shakeout occurs over the next two years. People will go back to being happy just for being employed.)

<comment><USER7> > People will go back to being happy just for being employed

Those who actually know how to do things never face this scenario. It's true for the incompetent though.

In the OP's scenario, we have a real treat. He testifies that this engineer is extremely skilled and a nice guy that is easy to get along with. The only issue of dispute is whether he will agree to be paid vastly below his market rate. The engineer, obviously well employed, acting rationally, is unwilling to do so, and the incompetent start up so-called "entrepreneur" is unwilling to pay market rate for the talent his enterprise needs more than anything else to succeed.

I agree with you a storm is coming. In my view, it is these "entrepreneurs" with nothing to offer who will be happy after the shakeout to be employed at all - making $8 an hour at McDonalds, if they can even manage to hold that down.

The exceptionally talented engineers don't ever have a problem finding employment.

</comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands You would think people (even engineers) would do their homework and find out if you want to do the "startup thing" you should go in expecting to take a pay cut and work 50 hours out of the box.

It seems like the engineer in the article had a romantic notion about what it would be like to work for a startup and had not done his homework.

<comment><USER22> What is your suggested reading list for the homework you mention?

<comment><USER36> <http://news.ycombinator.com/>

<comment><USER22> You mean the place where I am currently reading people disagreeing on the validity of approaches like yours, that it's not necessarily to be expected?

<comment><USER36> "approaches like yours"?

<comment><USER22> Sorry, I conflated your comment with the GP's. However, you two would appear to be agreeing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Its your job to make him fit!

Its your job to coax the useful skills out of him. Besides doing 2x the work of a normal employee, many people who are brilliant at computer science are good with strategy and customers as when they are asked to write it down. This was your loss.

<comment><USER38> Getting a truly talented developer is not easy, and given their productivity, you should offer _both_ equity and a high salary, because you will get your money's worth from them tenfold.

You will know within 2 weeks if they are genuinely talented.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> That song from Weeds is awesome, it could very well be the theme song for entrepreneurs and other misfits.

To everyone arguing with the author: I'd say he knows best who is a fit for his startup. You guys can run your own startup any way you like. Go for it.</comment>


Engines of Creation, by K. Eric Drexler (1986) - lachlan-sneff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engines_of_Creation <comment><AUTHOR> One of the great scams of the late 20th century.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/08/pt- barn...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/08/pt-barnum- biography-robert-wilson/592780/)

<comment><USER2> Explain?

<comment><USER3> His comment is a suggestion to read the linked article, which takes the position that Drexler wasn't simply too optimistic in his futurism, but willfully misleading about the technology. Everyone loves a good story, and Drexler was happy to sell one.

<comment><USER2> I do not think you read the link. It is not about Drexler, but P. T. Barnum, which does not seem an apt comparison.

Few would claim molecular assemblers are physically impossible. Drexler made claims about what was possible under physical law. They are pretty conservative.

I don't think he ever pretended to having technology he didn't have.

I do think Drexler committed the grave sin of writing a book for popular consumption. He should have published Nanosystems first and waited decades before writing Engines of Creation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Both books are the sheerest science fiction. Drexlerian "you can't prove I can't build this" is eternal goal poasting. Yeah, I can't prove someone won't eventually discover anti-gravity, faster than light travel or little green men in flying saucers. That doesn't mean serious people should waste even a second thinking about such nonsense.

Now a days, Drexler seems to make a living opinionating on "hard AI" -similar level of vaporware. I mean, whiggism is the default national religion of the US and the West in general, and I guess we need our preachers, but his career is preposterous, and the ideas he peddles are beyond snake oil.

<comment><USER2> FTL and antigravity violate physical law. Drexler's designs just don't. Point me to a design in Nanosystems the that is physically impossible to construct.

The point of Nanosystems was to explore what technologies are feasible given our current understanding of physics at that scale. It turns out there is a lot of latent potential there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Both FTL and antigravity have about more evidence in their favor (white juday interferometers, while probably bullshit, are at least _physical_ ) as nanotech.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Privacy preserving synthetic data tool - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/gretel-ai/gretel-synthetics-version-0-10-0-fa77e960ecc8 <comment><AUTHOR> A synthetics library that works directly with Pandas DataFrames and allows batched training of columns to exchange your source DataFrame directly with a synthetic DataFrame of the same shape.</comment>


How to shuffle songs - <AUTHOR> https://labs.spotify.com/2014/02/28/how-to-shuffle-songs/?m=1 <comment><USER2> Here's a link that actually worked for me: [https://labs.spotify.com/2014/02/28/how-to-shuffle- songs/](https://labs.spotify.com/2014/02/28/how-to-shuffle-songs/)

Also, the title should include [2014]

</comment><comment><USER3> The link doesn't work?</comment>


Can a Translation Be a Masterpiece, Too? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/01/21/can-a-translation-be-a-masterpiece-too/ <comment><USER2> Lacking Spanish and French fluency I cannot but read them through translation. Carlos Fuentes work was translated by Margaret Sayers Peden and is a joy to read. Fantastic prose.

Proust was mangled by GK Scott Moncrieff but rescued by Terence Gilmartin. Stendhal, Dumas are somewhat florid in English but as period romps not high prose work fine.

I am told Cervantes in translation loses its edge. Key linguistic jokes don't survive. Perez Reverte hints at this in some of his writing. About the pseudo battles between the glitterati conducted through jobbing poets. (Perez-Reverte either writes beautifully in E flown or has good translators)

Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky? Half the world only know them by translation. Or Rabindreth Tagore. He still won a Nobel prize didn't he?</comment>


Ask HN: What's the Future Of PLC Programming? - <AUTHOR> Hello. I'm in a company which uses PLCs for assembly lines and manufacturing stuff. PLC world is kinda foreign to me and seems to be far behind current software world. Everything I learned about programming is kinda useless when programming PLCs... What are you guys using or would like to use in PLC world so it can be a bit closer to regular programming that I'm used to? <comment><USER2> Structured text

</comment><comment><USER3> Ladder logic</comment>


Nice graphic: which cities have a surplus of single men or women - <AUTHOR> http://creativeclass.typepad.com/thecreativityexchange/2008/03/the-singles-map.html

<comment><USER2> same article: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=152497>

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a totally different piece. Are you sure you've got the right link?

Edit: Incidentally, the web page I posted is a little embarrassing. It's the graphic I think is cool, both as a graphic and for its striking content.

<comment><USER2> My fault, wrong thread.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What Keeps you from moving? - <AUTHOR> So like any person in tech I've seen the growth in second(and third) tier cities as viable places to live. The low rent and ability to build smaller businesses(cafes, rental properties, etc) without massive loans is a big sell. However the dynamism of bigger cities and the flywheel that they sustain draws me to stay.
What keeps you from moving to another city/town/etc(Or what made you move)?
What would you need in a smaller city(something like Boise,ID or Salt Lake City, or anywhere in the world that isn't "The place to be") to make the Jump? <comment><USER3> I honestly can not ever imagine living in what I'm guessing you'd call a first tier city.

The traffic, the people, just the non stop hassle of every day life would just totally grind me down. _for me_ what you're calling First Tier is really just not something I would ever want to do, and I'd never consider that Tier One.

You'd probably consider my home here a Third Tier city, but I have non of the drawbacks and all of the positives here. It's maybe not quite as dynamic, maybe that flywheel here is a bit smaller, but everything else is easier, it's livable and easier to live here. I don't make $200/k a year, but I don't need to make that, or anywhere near that to afford a life that would never exist for me elsewhere, with money left over to go visit those Tier 1 places a few times a year.

So for me at least, family keeps me here more than anything, but if it didn't I'd still stick to 2nd or 3rd tier cities, life is so much easier here.

</comment><comment><USER4> The money was good enough to make me hide my hate for living in NYC somewhat. Also, finding jobs in Dallas from NYC was surprisingly hard (they either didn't want to pay for relo, or they thought I was joking). I did have an opportunity to move earlier, but I met a girl around that time that I didn't want to leave (we are engaged now).

The hate overcame eventually, so I got serious with my search and moved once I found a job that kept my NYC salary in Dallas. It took me about three months, >35 applications and a few LinkedIn messages. That was in May 2016.

\---

We had to go back to visit my family for the week. It was awful (my family wasn't!). The trains were gross, the streets were gross, the air smelled terrible, and the weather wasn't great.

I didn't realize how much cheaper eating and drinking out is in Dallas until I took a friend to a crab roll place in Grand Central. I spent $70 on two crab rolls and two mainstream domestic beers; I believe they were $8 each.

SEVENTY. DOLLARS. They weren't even that good.

In contrast, when my fiancée and I go to our favorite Thai restaurant in Southlake (an upscale Dallas suburb), we are able to get three beers made in house, two spring rolls and two main dishes for under $50.

I spent most of that trip wishing I made it three days instead of seven.

<comment><USER5> You realize that the place you get crab rolls (or anything for that matter) in grand central is a tourist trap? The neighborhood Thai place in NYC isn't going to be all that differently priced from the one in Dallas.

<comment><USER4> Fair point!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I moved from Philadelphia to the Portland, ME area a few years back. My wife was relocating to work for an aerospace startup and I found a job working for an ed-tech startup. So my initial motivation to move was really for her. Aerospace is a very different field, people tend to move to where the jobs are, and the jobs tend not to be in big cities.

We ended up leaving Portland and returning to Philadelphia because both of the startups we were working for eventually ran out of capital and had leadership issues.

Why didn't we stay?

Well, we're both engineers and we both want to continue doing that for a while. There really weren't very good MechE jobs for women in Maine. So, that was a big part of it.

But we aren't entirely happy with big city life, either. Here's what we are looking for at the smaller towns we are evaluating:

1\. Healthy, diverse economy. This is hard for a lot of small towns as they tend to be dominated by a single firm, institution or industry. It helps to be "on the border" or in-between a few things.

2\. University or College. Having an institution of higher education nearby generally means you have access to cultural institutions (performing arts, galleries, lectures, libraries...).

3\. Decent internet access. If you are going to work remote (and you're going to work remote in order to maximize your income) then you want decent internet access. A lot of smaller towns are now getting FTTH service at better prices than we are getting here in Philadelphia (home of the Comshaft). We've seen in this in Norther MN and WI, especially.

4\. Within 2 or 3 hours (at minimum) of a decent sized airport. You will likely need to travel for work. Smaller, local airports are expensive and prone to cancellations.

5\. Whatever other personal things you are looking for...

</comment><comment><USER7> I need to be in a place where it is safe for me to hold hands with my husband.

I need to be in a place where my husband (who is not from the US) is not discriminated against for his accent or color of skin.

I'd like to be in a place where there are enough other gay people that form a community.

There needs to be a good food scene. (I'm missing that in Boston.)

The cost of living difference has to be more than the wage differential.

Most of my life was spent in Tucson, Arizona. I don't have the same fears of living outside the "it" city, but let it be said that a large problem in Tucson was that there were only so many places to work. That will be a problem in Boise, because relocating two people for a job is much harder than relocating one.

<comment><USER6> Philly has a vibrant LGBTQ community, lots of immigrants, and an amazing food scene... and it's a quick hop to NYC or DC. Just sayin'...

<comment><USER7> The question is about places like Boise, ID. Philly is usually considered a large city, even if its tech scene isn't particularly well known.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> All my friends and family are here, my whole life is here. The idea of moving away for money (given that I have a steady job) is completely alien to me.

<comment><USER9> Plus some of us have children who go to school, and all their friends and life are here, too. You'd need something much stronger than money to get me to move. Say a pressing need to relocate to another country.

<comment><USER10> Similar. My wife's family are here where I am. A lot of our friends from our youth are here too. I have a really nice job.

On the other hand, the political situation could grow _extremely_ uncomfortable in very short order, so ah well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't like cities. I've lived in San Diego and Sunnyvale for a while and didn't enjoy either. When I visit other cities, they all seem dirty and too crowded for me. Now, I work remotely in a small town. It's cheap, the people are friendlier, I don't feel packed in like a sardine, and the outdoors are only minutes away from my front door.

</comment><comment><USER12> Having lived in NYC all of my life, it was hard to imagine places where I could consider living. After visiting, Paris, London, Seattle all seem viable though they would seem like lateral moves at best in terms of culture and quality of life so I stay here.

That said, I don't like the trend of gentrification, classism, disparity, and the overall sterilization of the city so I would certainly go somewhere with some remaining personality that doesn't consist of the finding the latest "hidden gem" restaurant.

I would really love to find a place that is safe, near a beach with clear water that I can swim in daily. I crave it. But I can't uproot my family. I have young children and depend on my family for help with caring for them. Moving would mean separating them from the people who love them and are invested in their lives and that would seem like a selfish move.

So I stay here.

</comment><comment><USER13> Family, and despite 8 years spent in the midwest, Seattle and the Bay Area, not finding a better place to live (views, the people are friendly, and there's more here to do outdoors than you can do in the time allotted).

Montana is just so damned beautiful.

<comment><AUTHOR> Every time I drive through Montana I am just awestruck. Where in Montana are you at? Whats the real cold you deal with?

<comment><USER13> Bozeman. And the realistic worst is what we've currently got - <USER2> between -10 and 0F for about a week. Lowest it ever gets is probably in the -40 range for a day, but the entire city has shut down at that point, and it's a once-in-a-decade event.

Ultimately, the cold is annoying, but it's no worse than dealing with high heats - most of the time you're moving from a warm building to a warm car, and back into a warm building. And you can always put on more clothes. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Finding, evaluating, and renting/purchasing real-estate is extremely difficult, and the current market makes concurrent evaluation basically impossible. This is similar to the job interview problem. Some move faster than others, and you end up having to either cut options early, or let good options expire. The situation is very "bird in the hand".

</comment><comment><USER15> Manhattan is just my home now - I love the convenience of everything, and the "always open" nature of this city. I've been here for 18 years now, and thankfully it's no longer just a place for financial or agency jobs when it comes to the tech sector. I'm far enough in my career where I can afford to live here and not really worry about much.

I know I can get a lot more for my money elsewhere, and being in a position where I manage remote employees, with some buying nice houses, it still isn't enough for me to give up the conveniences I am used to.

This also rules out the west coast tech hubs - I love visiting San Francisco, but I could never live there. I don't want to _have_ to drive somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER16> 10min from the beach. Great schools. If not here, somewhere in the mountains.

</comment><comment><USER17> As somebody who has been moving every year or two since I was 10, I am trying to force myself to stay in the same city/country for at least 5 years. Being in the same location enables you to develop a social network. Most of your basic needs are already solved (housing, job, visa, friend...), and you get to spend time focusing on other issues or hobbies. Moving places is an exciting thing. But you get lots of advantages by sticking somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'd love to move somewhere smaller, but you'll have to persuade the wife. I think that is a big issue - large cities allow careers for both partners, where smaller cities are less flexible. In the old days it was common to move around to follow the husband's career where now it isn't that easy.

OTOH one of the big differences in the old days more shops and services available to only large cities where now Amazon etc are everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER19> For me, it's a fantastic metro that hooks right into the high speed rail, an expansive network of parks and paths for biking and hiking, four hour delivery times, 24-7 conveniences and crazy fast internet service.

Moving somewhere smaller would mean giving up at least the metro. I wouldn't give up much more than that and there would have to be something really significant I was gaining in exchange.

</comment><comment><USER20> The weather, mostly. I grew up in Southern California, and moved to NorCal for college (and have been here ever since, so more than 1/2 my life now). Even the Bay Area gets a little too cold for me in the winter.

I love to visit the snow but most certainly don't want to live in it.

Pretty much the only place I'd consider moving to is San Diego, the only major California city I haven't lived in yet.

</comment><comment><USER21> I second what some other people say... my friends and family are here. I have also made it a point to be active in the community and the community is here too.

With that said, I already live in a second tier city (second largest city in my State with only 90,000 people in the city) that happens to be a 60 minute drive to the largest city in the region.

</comment><comment><USER5> What keeps me from moving out of NYC? Inertia mostly. A little fear of change. A little indecision.

What would it take to move to a smaller city? Good weather. Good job market. Decent level of diversity and multiculturalism. True walkability. Great public transit. Ocean views.

</comment><comment><USER22> The biggest thing is: I don't know where. I moved to US 3 years ago, and while I find Bay Area to be very expensive, and not necessarily perfect for family life, I have no idea how would I like living in other places.

</comment><comment><USER23> I've spent 15 years building up a network of friends and family and connections. Abandoning that support structure is hard to do, and harder now that I have a family of my own.

</comment><comment><USER24> I guess I'm one of the few people who stay in San Francisco because my family was here before tech was.

</comment><comment><USER25> im in a smaller city, if it can even be called that, in the UK, im still here because there isnt really anywhere in the UK i particularly like so i see little point in moving to another city and i lack the funds to leave the country and move where i would like to be.</comment>


What I learnt working on my startup this New Year's Eve - <AUTHOR> https://www.techinasia.com/talk/learnt-working-startup-years-eve <comment><USER2> This is stupid. The real lesson of running a startup is "don't trade your real life for the illusion that your startup needs you that much".

I read an article once about a startup founder who didn't go to his brothers funeral because he was so committed to his startup.

It's not cool or clever or even giving you an edge. If your startup depends on you working New Year's Eve then you are doing it wrong.

</comment><comment><USER3> You seem like cool guys - I just hope you don't kill yourself working, nothing impressive about working excessive hours and not seeing your family!</comment>


Install The iPad 2 In Your Car's Dashboard - <AUTHOR> http://lifehacker.com/#!5781355/install-the-ipad-2-in-your-cars-dashboard

<comment><USER2> awesome</comment>


Cookie Demoparty 2017 - <AUTHOR> http://cookie.paris/2017 <comment><AUTHOR> Interesting to note that someone used an Atari TT:[http://cookie.paris/images/2017/_MG_0081.jpg](http://cookie.paris/images/2017/_MG_0081.jpg)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_TT030](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_TT030)</comment>


Ask HN: How do you foster strong engineering culture in your organization? - <AUTHOR> What steps can a VP of engineering or a CTO take to inculcate high engineering standards, specifically software engineering.  I understand hiring is a big part of it.  But apart from this what has helped the Googles of the world to stay world class?  How is knowledge management and learning done at these places? <comment><USER2> * Instill a learning culture. An easy way to start is to do brown bag lunches/lunch and learn once a month. Ask engineers to volunteer to talk about things they're playing around with, or on anything they find particularly cool. Worst case scenario, play a conference talk from a recent conference during lunch. If there's interest, buy a subscription to Safari Books. Try to bring in interesting people to give engineering talks (ex-colleagues, if you have VC money maybe investors).

Invest in tools that provide feedback loops. Have tests with CI/CD. Set up linters so that code is consistent. Have monitoring tools in place that catch all errors and report them to the engineering team (even better is if it includes performance problems as well).

Use best practices and document those best practices, even simple stuff like blameless post-mortems.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think hiring people with right attitude is the only solution. You can try to create a strong culture around them, but it's like taking a horse to water. The drinking part can't be forced. I am not saying right incentives and good culture is not necessary. That however only takes you so far.

Another thing that comes to mind is peer pressure with right people can do wonders.

<comment><USER4> I'd second this.

I'm guessing from the OP that the issue is the current state of affairs, and that will be tough.

In fact, I've never heard of a company significantly increasing its engineering culture without significant turnover.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Be one yourself. If you can't, then quit your job and let someone who can do it. I know this does not sound nice, but it's a honest answer. Culture can't be ordered at aliexpress, it's something that lives, breathes and developes like a living organism. If i'm allowed to generalize i would add that in order to change a culture, you have to change a generation.

</comment><comment><USER6> (1) Highlight a code of professional ethics (e.g. IEEE) (2) Internal lecture sessions (like twunde advises) (3) Engineering is about application of systematic thinking to issues. Highlight measurements, automation, professional conduct, and cost management. (4) lead by example.</comment>


U.S. attorneys warn of upcoming 'spike' in prosecutions related to China ties - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/us-attorneys-warn-upcoming-spike-prosecutions-related-china-ties <comment><USER2> Am I wrong to say about time the government does something about this problem? Or could it be that the media has convinced me that Chinese theft of American IP is a big deal when it really isn't?</comment>


Startup Acadine picks up the torch for troubled Firefox OS - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnet.com/news/startup-acadine-picks-up-the-torch-for-mozillas-troubled-firefox-os/ <comment><USER2> Key sentence:

 _" It's developing the software with $100 million in funding from Hong Kong- based Tsinghua Unigroup International, a subsidiary ultimately controlled by the Chinese government and the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing."_

Sounds like the Chinese government wants its own Android alternative.

<comment><USER3> It's extra funny when you read this sentence, understand how business goes on in China, and then read Li Gong try to backpedal from the fact that everybody knows what is really going on here, saying _" We carefully chose to incorporate in Hong Kong instead of the US, or mainland China for that matter, because we foresee geopolitical factors that may impact our global business down the line."_

Yep, sure. I'll choose to follow the money over the rhetoric.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not to be too pessimistic, but this basically sounds like someone wants to create a more-burdened/less-free clone of FFOS.

Mozilla was in the best position to pursue FFOS in the purest possible manner (as they're not necessarily so driven by profits) -- glad there's interest, but I highly doubt Acadine is going to make a product I want to install on my phone

<comment><USER5> > Mozilla was in the best position to pursue FFOS in the purest possible > manner

Well, maybe philosophically, but they didn't have enough influence, money, or manpower to actually make it successful. The first version of FXOS shipped without a calculator app because they couldn't work all of the bugs out. Clipboard support didn't make it until sometime around v2 or 2.5. Apps never got API support for things like front-facing cameras or bluetooth, or even access to which wifi networks were available. One constant complaint was that the Alarm app would sometimes go off at the wrong time, and sometimes not at all.

There's also other components to FXOS that simply weren't free software. The everything.me integration (which was a for-profit service baked in) was truly abhorrent. Hardware vendors refused to provide open drivers in many cases, leading to chunks of FXOS not being open source. Operators and carriers insisted on installing their own crapware on devices and forced the OS to lock them down so they couldn't be uninstalled. At the end of the day, FXOS as it was sold wasn't nearly as free as it was made out to be.

I don't want to pick on Mozilla, but despite having a great vision for FXOS they ultimately were vastly underprepared to build a solid mobile operating system. Even worse, Gary Kovacs bet the farm on FXOS and let Firefox proper rot in a corner.

You really make a tradeoff with FOSS. You can have software that's free in the most pure way possible, but it's ultimately going to be terrible unless the company putting it out is fiscally incentivized to make it great. If Acadine keeps FXOS as open as it is today, that's still a great win for the community and probably most of the users.

<comment><USER4> I'm not familiar with everything.me... I had the Flame (and now a flashed-by- me LG Nexus 5), so maybe I never saw that integration.

All the things you mentioned are true though -- it did have it's slew of problems, but the beauty is that most of those things are fixed now :)

Mozilla didn't have what it takes to bring up a mobile operating system, but I'm glad they had what it took to start it -- It has a life of it's own now (as I've previously said)

Highly doubt Acadine will have what it takes to put FFOS on par with Android and iOS (mostly because I don't think any company does) -- so it feels like they lose both on the philosophical and practical ends.

But love the publicity for FFOS :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would like to pay for my mobile os, as long as its open source and I can reinstall it. Why does the os have to bundled by the phone for free and spy on you?</comment>


In a blast from the past, Logitech releases a new trackball - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/09/in-a-blast-from-the-past-logitech-releases-a-new-trackball/ <comment> mark-r Why do they keep making wireless trackballs? The whole point of a trackball is that it doesn't move, so a cable is a lot less hassle than it is with a mouse. I really don't want to worry about charging or changing batteries on my trackball.

<comment><USER2> > Why do they keep making wireless trackballs?

Much more convenient to use with laptops, or with setups where wires are inconvenient for reasons other than mobility while in use (e.g., any situation where you would use a wireless keyboard, which is also usually stationary when in use.)

<comment> mark-r I wonder what the breakdown is then between wired and wireless keyboards? I have to think the wired ones are far more popular.

I've had a wired Logitech trackball for many years, and I worry that on the day it breaks I won't be able to replace it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Loving the M570, this one seems interesting. Good to see new trackball products.</comment>


Boycottdocker.org - <AUTHOR> http://www.boycottdocker.org/ <comment><USER2> This article has been about for a while if I recall correctly, remember adoption is always optional, and in many cases your direct exposure to Docker [images] and it's perceived limitation is pretty limited. I am really liking Kubernetes at the moment and high-level concepts it embraces around container management, my exposure to Docker is limited to the image format (and Docker hub until I sort out a private registry), it's a minor implementation detail to me at this stage and none of what this article writes concerns me too much.

Evaluate docker and containers and any orchestration software in general on how it fits with your systems/values/requirements, the author talks about not being able to run his archaic insecure FTP server due to not having 15000 random ports available, right there I knew we are different people with different requirements..

In 2016 we should really be boycotting FTP if we choose to boycott free/open software...</comment>


Yahoo's Doug Crockford On JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2012/04/27/yahoos-doug-crockford-on-javascript/

<comment><USER2> Doug must be feeling really great about now. Javascript has gone from that little scripting language for web developers for form validation to now being the most exciting thing going, IMO.

Making projects in CoffeeScript has been a real delight for me. Thanks to tech like Node.js and Titanium, you I've used JS to make web apps (front and back end), iOS apps, and Android apps. Unless you're writing linux drivers, what else do you need?</comment>