If you quit, I'll still take you more seriously - <AUTHOR> http://jmtame.posterous.com/if-you-quit-ill-still-take-you-more-seriously

<comment><USER2> I would just like to note that quitting wasn't the first thing Patzer did here.He worked the two jobs. When he realized Mint was something viable, something he not just wanted to pursue but had to give 100% to, then he quit the day job.

I read the 37signals article to mean just this. Had he gotten to this point and realized Mint was an utter disaster, the idea wasn't viable, the technology wasn't there or the team wasn't working out, he had a backup.

Quitting your job isn't the first thing you should do when considering a startup. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but that's how I took it, and it just seems to be practical advice.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. The example actually supports 37Signals' stance rather than counter it. I'm pretty sure even they would agree that it's foolish to continue working at your job when you've got a lower risk way to move on to your start- up.

The point they're making though is that until you reach that stage, don't though caution to the wind if you don't have to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It depends on how you approach things, I would rate someone that works 14hours a day/ 7 days a week in the same regard as a full time job and working 6hours every night.

Devoting all you free time to something, be it with a full time job or not, would get you taken equally as seriously.

On the other hand if someone quits their job and settles down into a 6 hour a day routine they may not get taken as seriously.

<comment><AUTHOR> after thinking about it a bit more, and from my experience in yc this summer, i cannot imagine how anyone could do a start up successfully part time. there may be a few examples, but i don't know of many. i did it in school with my cofounder, and i could feel the gpa's drop. surely your employer will notice you slacking if you're trying to work too hard on a start up. even the ones who do it full time seem to struggle.

if i had to guess, it probably feels a bit like raising money and programming at the same time. maybe less painful because you can program for about 14 hours out of your day. but i really am a skeptic, and i'd say that having the laser focus is one of the best things in a start up. our competition moves pretty fast, we would probably not be standing where we are now if we did this as a side project.

<comment><USER5> I don't think spending your evenings on a startup is necessarily bad for your employer.

Someone spending considerable amounts coding on his/her startup in the evening still brings the knowledge and experience of doing that back to the full-time job. At home you're working on projects you care about, you invest time in learning about new technologies, you research best practices, etc..

That actually adds value for your employer compared to those employees who go home to the wife and kids and don't spend any of their free time thinking about code.

Ofcourse, you shouldn't overdo it and arrive at work a zombie, but that would also have a negative effect on your startup work, so I don't expect people to actually do that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think what you meant was 'if you quit, I'll take you still more seriously'. The way it's written, you suggest you were planning to take me more seriously anyway, and you'll still do if I quit :)

<comment><AUTHOR> i think 37signals was implying that you no longer deserve to be applauded for quitting, because that's not difficult, according to them. i'm saying that i still find it to be the opposite: it's a big step, and it shows that you're determined to accomplish what you're going after.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Also notice he had enough savings to live on for 7 months. This is important, as he had enough time to avoid rushing for immediate profitability.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's offtopic, but I _really_ dislike it when people don't start their sentences with a capital. It makes the text harder to read: a period isn't enough to easily distinguish ends and starts of sentences. I also, I immediately associate you with other people that write in this way (or worse) and believe me: that is not a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER9> No, no, no. It's: "If you quit, I'll take you more seriously than you could possibly imagine."</comment>


Trump's EU envoy admits Ukraine quid pro quo in updated testimony - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/05/trump-impeachment-sondland-ukraine-quid-pro-quo-latest <comment><USER2> If Biden is actually guilty, wouldn't we want him to be investigated _before_ possibly becoming the President?

If Trump didn't push for this, who would? It's the same as when Obama called on the FBI to investigate Trump.</comment>


System76 Rolls Out Ubuntu-powered Bonobo Extreme Gaming Laptop  - <AUTHOR> http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/system76_rolls_out_ubuntu-powered_bonobo_extreme_gaming_laptop800

<comment><USER2> If you're Canadian I highly suggest NOT ordering from this company. I had a nightmare with shipping and vowed to never order from this company again.

</comment><comment><USER3> linux gaming!</comment>


Joe, a Postgres query optimization bot - <AUTHOR> https://postgres.ai/blog/joe-0.5/ <comment><USER2> I've used Joe quite a bit, and all I can say is that it's a great idea that solves a noticeable problem: troubleshoot your queries.

It may not look like is a hard challenge: but the reality is that most troubleshoot them in production, which means that:

a) you need access to production, when you shouldn't; b) you run queries in production, potentially affecting -sometimes noticeably- production workloads.

Joe provisions a database clone using ZFS snapshot (I believe LVM support was added recently) and gives you a full copy of the database for you, with real data. You can test the queries, explain plans, create indexes to test if you need. And when you are done, it goes away. With a Slack interface, so you don't need to bother with connection, provisioning, credentials and decommissioning.

Give it a try, it is a very good tool!

<comment><USER3> > but the reality is that most troubleshoot them in production

I find this hard to believe. Maybe on the very rare occasion where the problem is tied to production and irreproducible elsewhere, but my experience has been that most troubleshooting happens on development, testing, staging, etc servers.

> and gives you a full copy of the database for you, with real data

Other than for small toy databases, I don't see how this would work for large databases. Not to mention the huge security issue.

You can test, optimize, etc queries on non-production servers. If the problem is production specific, it most likely is more server specific and not query optimization related.

<comment><USER2> > I find this hard to believe. Maybe on the very rare occasion where the > problem is tied to production and irreproducible elsewhere, but my > experience has been that most troubleshooting happens on development, > testing, staging, etc servers.

Let me rephrase: many may troubleshoot in dev/staging, but that's not the right thing to do. Query execution plans can change completely based on data volume and even with the data itself. Databases use detailed statistics about the data to influence the planner's decision.

Hence, tuning a query on an environment without production data can lead to query optimizations that are either irrelevant or totally wrong in production. I have seen this countless times in my professional experience.

> Other than for small toy databases, I don't see how this would work for > large databases.

Since it uses cloning at the volume/fs layer, the size of the database is irrelevant --only the rate of changes matter.

> You can test, optimize, etc queries on non-production servers.

No, you cannot, as I mentioned above. It's a waste of effort and can only lead to the false illusion that your query is good --and then beat you in production.

<comment><USER3> > Let me rephrase: many may troubleshoot in dev/staging, but that's not the > right thing to do.

Maybe we have a different definition of "troubleshoot". Also, dev and/or staging should have similar data/specs/etc to production.

> Query execution plans can change completely based on data volume and even > with the data itself.

Yes. That's why you could have your production server generate/log actual query plans for queries that are causing you problems. You could even set performance (cpu,io,bandwidth,etc) thresholds for your server to log. Of course that's in addition to the profile/monitoring data you have on the server.

> Hence, tuning a query on an environment without production data can lead to > query optimizations that are either irrelevant or totally wrong in > production. I have seen this countless times in my professional experience.

Well then your issue is that your dev/staging setup is poor. How or what do you even develop, test and troubleshoot? Might as well develop, test and troubleshoot straight on production.

> Since it uses cloning at the volume/fs layer, the size of the database is > irrelevant --only the rate of changes matter.

Size still does matters. And as I mentioned, it still has a problem with security.

> No, you cannot, as I mentioned above. It's a waste of effort and can only > lead to the false illusion that your query is good --and then beat you in > production.

"waste of effort"? Developing, testing, troubleshooting, etc should be done off production. It's only on the rare cases that you should troubleshoot on production. This is best practices and basic security.

Unless you are working on internal office setup which isn't facing the outside world and where security and uptime doesn't matter. Your comment reminds me of people saying using "admin/root" account for everything is fine because everything else is "waste of effort". Do you even have a dev/staging setup? What do you use that for?

Everyone's professional experience is different, but I've never heard anyone claim "many may troubleshoot in dev/staging, but that's not the right thing to do". Not the right thing to do?

In my professional experience, the testing/troubleshooting is done on dev/staging. Once we feel everything is up to snuff, code gets pushed to production. If there are issues on production, we try to replicate it on dev/staging/etc and troubleshoot it. Most of the time, we find the bug/issue. On the rarest of occasions do we have to troubleshoot directly on production which serve our company and especially our clients who have SLAs with us. Your cavalier attitude about production is something I've yet to come across. But if it works for you, then I guess that's all that matters.

<comment><USER2> Ideally, you would be absolutely right and I would not disagree with you. But I strongly do, based on many years of experience in the field.

Out of all the customers we help with their Postgres infrastructure, and that includes several $B companies, I have found none to have either: * Dev environments dimensioned similarly to production. Actually, this typically neither happens on staging and sometimes not even in QA. * All except QA, if any, have the same data as production.

So in practical terms, I haven't seen it is possible to troubleshoot on dev/test/staging/QA environments, least to have a copy of the full database. This is reasonable, too: how all developers may have 5TB of data on their laptops? (leaving aside all privacy and data protection considerations).

That's why having a tool, Joe, to light provision production-like environments, that are disposable, where you can troubleshoot your queries, is for me a very nice approach to this problem, and the one I recommend.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So... this thing gives full read/write/ddl access to production data ...via Slack?

That is a security nightmare. Hard pass.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, Postgres.ai founder here.

Production is not affected, the chatbot works with thin clones provided by Database Lab [https://gitlab.com/postgres-ai/database- lab/](https://gitlab.com/postgres-ai/database-lab/).

In general, you are right. If, in your case, using the "raw" databases is unacceptable, it is better to anonymize data first (of course, the physical layout will change in this case).

However, Joe doesn't reveal the data. Engineers see only EXPLAIN (ANALYZE, BUFFERS) plans.

It may be considered acceptable. Of course, there are ways to retrieve particular values with some tricks like "explain analyze ... limit (select value from...)"), but this will be noticeable. Massive data leaks are not possible, Joe filters the output, presenting only metadata -- the whole idea was to provide the data for backend engineers, many of those don't have access to production data.

The question you're raising is broader: let's think how many times we send some personal data to our colleagues in Slack, how is it controlled now? are we okay with that? Emails, tokens, and so on.

At the same time, Joe does boost the development speed because it becomes easier to troubleshoot SQL performance and discuss it with colleagues, collecting reliable facts.

What would you say if it would be: 1\. A chatbot for on-prem Mattermost? 2\. A specialized GUI, SaaS or standalone?

<comment><USER5> > The question you're raising is broader: let's think how many times we send > some personal data to our colleagues in Slack, how is it controlled now? are > we okay with that? Emails, tokens, and so on.

People's existing tendency to expose critical data via Slack shouldn't be reinforced, and coming from a product that handles sensitive data by design, it's disheartening to see this line of thinking here. I would hope your product makes it harder for me to compromise data, not easier.

> At the same time, Joe does boost the development speed because it becomes > easier to troubleshoot SQL performance and discuss it with colleagues, > collecting reliable facts.

Great! Now make that troubleshooting accessible via an authenticated URL and I'm in. Especially because I may want to revisit a particular explain sometime down the line, and simple anchor-tag based list of bookmarkable past queries is easier to navigate than having to use Slack searches.

If I were to use this tool, I would envision the ideal version of it being self-hosted and able to function independent from any other service. If there was then an option to add a Slack hook that notified people, that would be good. But it shouldn't be central to the product, and the information should strictly travel from the self-hosted service to slack via hooks, exposing only the URLs/titles of result pages. No need to expose the queries or DB structure.

I think the current Slack implementation is a cool proof of concept, but this isn't a product I would seriously consider until it is able to perform its tasks in isolation.

As for "improv[ing] the level of collaboration of developers and DBAs", great that you're thinking about that, but that's my problem to solve, not Joe's. And depending on my team's existing solutions, this may even rule out Joe simply due to our current tool set.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for very detailed feedback!!

> People's existing tendency to expose critical data via Slack shouldn't be > reinforced

I agree with you. However, depending on company's policy, raw SQL, even with some concrete values, and EXPLAIN ANALYZE plans may be considered as acceptable for using them in Slack.

If it is considered harmful, we have a way to inject anonymization step into the snapshot preparation tool -- see [https://gitlab.com/postgres-ai/database- lab/-/blob/master/sc...](https://gitlab.com/postgres-ai/database- lab/-/blob/master/scripts/create_zfs_snapshot.sh#L173) (we're thinking how to improve usability here, not losing flexibility). For example, you can run PostgreSQL Anonymizer ([https://gitlab.com/dalibo/postgresql_anonymizer](https://gitlab.com/dalibo/postgresql_anonymizer)). Of course, the physical layout will change, so troubleshooting of, say, VACUUM commands would be affected. But rows cardinality, normally, won't change, so for large enough tables, it totally makes sense do go this route, for SQL troubleshooting&optimization tasks.

> Great! Now make that troubleshooting accessible via an authenticated URL and > I'm in.

We are thinking about the GUI version actively, so stay tuned.

And on CLI version as well, but CLI will work in psql (which I'm personally a big fan of, spent 15 years there or so). This means that all the data will be present.

In the case of GUI, of course, we are able to work on meta-level, similarly to the Slack version.

> If I were to use this tool, I would envision the ideal version of it being > self-hosted and able to function independent from any other service.

I hear you well, and it generally aligns with our team's vision. Thank you again for awesome feedback!

> As for "improv[ing] the level of collaboration of developers and DBAs", > great that you're thinking about that, but that's my problem to solve, not > Joe's. And depending on my team's existing solutions, this may even rule out > Joe simply due to our current tool set.

Could you provide some examples of such solutions?

<comment><USER6> > Could you provide some examples of such solutions?

Well, if we're already doing our collaborating via Discord or Microsoft Teams or whatever then a Slack-based tool is at a significant disadvantage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Joe the editor?

Can we just pick sensible and unique names? A simple search for 'Joe Software' would have shown that the name is taken.

<comment><USER8> ...and lo, thereby the world ended.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Just learned about Database Lab. Amazing! Thanks for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER10> But why a Slack app instead of a PG module of some sort...?

</comment><comment><USER11> I've just tried the live demo in the Database Lab Community Slack. It looks amazing! Keep it up!

</comment><comment><USER12> Semi related, SQL Server have query store feature which records query insights on production db and in SSMS you can see the query statistics on various metrics like resource uses, execution counts etc along with query plan applied.

I haven't dug deep into SQL server yet, but query store suggestions are good enough for now.

<comment><AUTHOR> We call it macro-analysis -- the analysis of SQL workload as a whole, with call counts, timing, memory-related metrics, etc.

Currently, Joe helps with _micro_ analysis: you take just one SQL query, don't think about others and solve the task of optimizing this particular query.

For "macro", Postgres ecosystem has pg_stat_statements (and our tool postgres- checkup [https://gitlab.com/postgres-ai/postgres- checkup](https://gitlab.com/postgres-ai/postgres-checkup) for automated health checks builds reports on top of it), pgBadger to analyze logs, auto_explain to capture execution plans.

Building the "bridge" between macro- and macro-analyses is a very interesting topic. I'm going to give a talk about this particular topic at the next PGCon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> How hard would it be to implement the Discord Bot protocol? I'd be willing to help on this front, and it'd be a nice way for me to get my hands wet on Go too.

Thanks in Advance.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool!

Please join our Community Slack [https://database-lab-team-slack- invite.herokuapp.com/](https://database-lab-team-slack-invite.herokuapp.com/) and ping me there -- let's discuss it.

We're refactoring the main code of Joe right now, to improve its extensibility. The main purpose is to simplify the process of adding new protocols.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Any plans to support Citus data?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not yet.

Is there any particular interest? If so, I'd love to explore how it could work, let's connect.</comment></comment>


Edward Snowden and Julian Assange top Bill at SXSW - <AUTHOR> http://ibnlive.in.com/news/edward-snowden-julian-assange-top-bill-at-sxsw-2014/456593-11.html

<comment><USER2> Assange was fairly boring in the end (maybe due to the technical difficulties), I hope Snowden will be better.

I'm not sure it's worth going to the virtual keynotes if you are at SXSW, I would have prefered viewing the Assange one from outside in live streaming.

Neil Degrasse Tyson was magical though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed on Neil Degrasse Tyson.</comment></comment>


Phil Agre Missing - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/article/FriendsColleagues-Search/49222/ <comment><USER2> Really hope they find him, too. I remember reading about him in Wired some years ago, running over to his website, and reading as many of those essays and various things he'd written as possible. Was great stuff...

<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.02/lists_pr.html>

<http://polaris.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/>

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://rondam.blogspot.com/2009/11/life-imitates-art-i- hope....](http://rondam.blogspot.com/2009/11/life-imitates-art-i-hope.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> It is sad that he has already been missing a month, and that the picture used in the news article is such low quality.

<comment><USER5> The article says he slipped away "sometime between December 2008 and May 2009". That's at least six months ago. It's also disturbing that someone relatively popular and important can "slip away" in this relatively wide window. I know the quote was: _"'When his behavior got more erratic, nobody felt close enough to him to help, and we thought we'd help by protecting his zone of privacy,' she said. 'Respecting that zone of privacy is what allowed him to slip away.'"_ It's still rather disturbing.</comment></comment>


Has Facebook's Active User Growth Dropped 25% to 50%? - <AUTHOR> http://searchengineland.com/has-facebooks-active-user-growth-dropped-42036

<comment><USER2> It seems as if it's mostly tech savvy people quitting Facebook, right? What percentage of this group are web developers?

I was talking to a friend of mine who stopped using Facebook a few weeks back, only to sign up for a new account (throw-away) a few days later in order to implement something Facebook related for a client.

</comment><comment><USER3> Whatever they say, the "We've reached 450 million users" blog post is at least a month overdue, either they are not reporting it or haven't reached it yet.

</comment><comment><USER4> could it be related to Norvig's law? "Any technology that surpasses 50% penetration will never double again (in any number of months)". A drop in growth could mean that all the world became suddenly worried about privacy, sure. But it could also mean that Facebook is reaching the possible growth limit in certain countries.

</comment><comment><USER5> everything peaks.

<comment><USER6> and if it doesn't appear to have peaked? why, just wait a bit longer!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Thinking about quitting my job today - <AUTHOR>

For one, I actually like certain aspects of my job - the smart people I work with everyday, responsibility for P&L, the benefits and obviously the pay. After nearly 3 years here, I have however realized that I do not have any ownership of what I am allowed to do and that I am working on someone else's dream. There is a lot of opposition to build and grow and fail and learn.
When I raised these concerns with my manager, he was clueless what I was talking about and offered me a significant raise in my pay. I have always valued the discussions that take place here, so I thought I would solicit your input.
Also, I would like to work on an enterprise solution (Saas). If there is anyone in the bay area who is in the same boat as I am and is interested in collaborating - please drop a line at ccpthink at gmail <comment><USER2> 1\. Choose a goal related to your new business. It could be a tiny MVP that you will launch, certain number of potential clients you will interview or a website with a specific amount of traffic.

2\. Set a date at least a few weeks from now when you think you can get that done.

3\. Quit only if you accomplish your goal.

It will help you build excitement, stay focused on a real target and give you a better base to talk to future collaborators.

And you will learn how hard it is. :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, I did something different. I worked as a consultant for a company and built a MVP. The client has shown interest in the product and believes there is a market for such a product.

<comment><USER2> That's awesome, congratulations.

Did the client say they will buy your product? If they said "it's interesting and there must be a market", that's probably a red flag.

<comment><USER3> They didn't buy the product but they are using the tool for user acquisition and paying me on a rev-share basis which I feel is win-win for both sides.

<comment><USER2> That's really good. You obviously know both how to make _and_ sell a product!

Two people in one... just like your HN accounts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would at least have a "plan" before you quit your job. You suggest that you're at a well paying job, so it would be a shame to quit only to figure out that after 3-4 months you realize you had it pretty good.

In regards to working for somebody else, well, that's what most of the people out there do. It's not easy to successfully start your own profitable operation. It's even less easy to become an adopted enterprise solution. It is easy to begin working towards your own dream, though. If that's what you're aiming for then it sounds like you already have an idea of how to do it.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have a job that pays over 150K in the bay area so that is definitely a lot of money. But prudent saving over the last couple of years has allowed me to build a nest egg that can sustain me for 2 years without pay.

I do want to work towards my own dream and could potentially bootstrap it initially. In terms of a plan, I do not have a concrete plan yet - only bits and pieces. The problem is I am unable to devote time to figuring it out due to the time I spend on my day job and therefore this conundrum

Thanks for your advice.

<comment><USER5> I was in the same boat 14 months ago: worked as a corporate attorney at a top tier firm, folks were actually really cool and the pay was ridiculous. Oddly enough, even my hours weren't that bad. So I knew I had a lot to be thankful for.

But I wasn't thrilled about my job. I didn't feel proud when I told strangers what I did, and that really got to me. I wanted to work on something that I cared about, and I wanted to try my hand at risk, learn some new skills. I also had zero interest in turning into those who were above me at the firm.

So I quit with almost no plan, and I ran a startup I created out of thin air, Trendero.com. It launched, it worked, and I saw a bright future stretch out before me.... Thing is, it actually still hasn't taken off. I haven't made a dime from the idea, and now I'm looking around at BD roles with other startups, since I've basically burned through all of my savings.

That all being said, I'm happier, prouder, healthier than ever before. I fought some battles, lost a few, made some awesome new friends. And I'm proud to talk about what I've done, happy to wake up to my new, much more frugal life.

So do it, screw the plan. That's the story you'll want to tell your grandkids.

Caveat: I have no kids, no wife, no dog, no mortgage. I knew the window was closing for me to do this kind of thing when I quit, which was largely why I made the decision. But if you have other burdens/responsibilities, think a bit more carefully. Chances are, you will be substantially poorer for a while.

<comment><AUTHOR> "So do it, screw the plan. That's the story you'll want to tell your grandkids"

Definitely interesting. I am 27 and no real big responsibilities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can you ask your manager for reduced hours instead of increased pay, and use the extra time for personal projects?

<comment><USER7> I did this a few months ago and it's worked incredibly well. I went from full- time to two days per week, leaving me the other three to work on my own stuff. Had a lawyer go over the intellectual property agreements for me first to make sure I wouldn't be in questionable territory.

It all depends on your manager, the mood of the company, and how useful you are. For me the stars lined up perfectly. The CEO is an entrepreneur and wanted to help me out. I was also a critical member of a small engineering team, so they'd rather get two days of my time than none.

One key when you're having the conversation is to frame it more as part-time vs quitting, rather than full-time vs part-time. Having somebody that isn't in the office all the time makes planning more difficult, so it's in your manager's best interests to keep you full time. If that's removed from the options list and it's a choice between having you part-time vs not at all, part-time starts to look a lot more attractive.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have my 1 on 1 with my manager in the afternoon. Definitely going to bring this up.

Thx for the sound advice

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "I have however realized that I do not have any ownership of what I am allowed to do and that I am working on someone else's dream"

Did you bring this point up specifically? You will run into this problem at any company...because this is what you are doing when you get a job. You are working on someone else's dream and they have control of your destiny.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did bring it up. He was quick to dismiss it by saying you have the freedom to do what you want. I agree that I will run into this problem at any company and I feel that is the impetus for me to explore opportunities on my own and possibly do a startup

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Join a small startup, of which there are many in the bay area. You will probably get a lot more freedom to contribute ideas, and will learn a lot more about what it takes to make a company successful than when working at a big company.

You will also make contacts that will think if you when they are ready to start off on their own.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I will explore that opportunity definitely</comment></comment>


Show HN: newsola - news at a glance - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsola.com?hn First off, yes, it's very much a clone of Newsmap (www.newsmap.jp), but it's written in Javascript rather than Flash, so it works across most (all?) devices.
The tiling algorithm is my own and should work well even on small screens.
The news articles are sourced from the Google News RSS feeds. <comment><USER2> How is this not an exact clone of <http://newsmap.jp> ?

<comment><AUTHOR> I wrote the comment below when I submitted the article but strangely only I can see it:

First off, yes, it's very much a clone of Newsmap (www.newsmap.jp), but it's written in Javascript rather than Flash, so it works across most (all?) devices.

The tiling algorithm is my own and should work well even on small screens.

The news articles are sourced from the Google News RSS feeds.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very nice.

I see at the bottom you say "based on newsmap." Are you getting your data from them (which in turn aggregates google news), or is it just your design that's based on newsmap?

I like your look better than newsmap, but newsmap has more news.

This would be a cool way to view HN.

I wonder if you could make it so you could give your site any aggregatable site, and see the map?

<comment><AUTHOR> I scrape the Google RSS feeds myself. I've set it to only show news published in the last 8 hours, in order to limit the number of articles on screen.

I plan to add HN & Reddit as sources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, this is one of the best aggregaters I've seen in terms of style and delivery. Nice touches with the color coded sections.

Do you aggregate this yourself or does it just crawl Google news?</comment>


Github redesigns Profiles - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/defunkt <comment><USER2> It looks very nice, but there's a couple of things that bug me:

\- Now "owning" a repo seems even more important. Regularly commit to someone else's repo? Not evident unless you go digging for it.

\- The timeline bar-graph used to show blue for your own commits and grey for other people's. Now it either looks like you did all the work (your own repo), or someone else did it (forked repos).

Even if these two don't matter to you personally, I fear it'll help drive behaviour you see a lot in the Ruby community where, unless it's a huge project like Rails, people start their own versions in the hope of getting it popular and recognised. There's little status to be gotten from tinkering on "someone else's" repo.

(Think social startups except with code libraries.)

<comment><USER3> They've also removed the "traffic" graph, that showed you how many people have viewed your project over the last 90 days or so (I can't remember the exact amount). That was a very useful way to gauge interest.

Honestly, IMO, GitHub has been getting worse, not better, since the spring. I have no idea why, but they're taking away features -- perhaps to speed up the site?

Anyway, I don't get it. They dropped their "social coding" motto awhile back, perhaps they're targeting other things now? Maybe they had to scale back features to raise that $100 million? It's a mystery.

<comment><USER4> I really, really miss the traffic graphs. Before I moved to github I had google analytics running for each of my projects, which was absolutely amazing for discovering when people talked about them. The increased contributions is worth the trade off, but I do miss that info.

<comment><USER5> a friend of mine built this which you might find useful: <http://githalytics.com/>

<comment><USER4> The problem with that is it only tracks a single page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am not crazy about the new design. It actually feels less designed to me.

Particularly I don't like that the activity is now hidden on profile pages. I often like to look at people's activity, and it bothers me that it is an extra click away every time now.

I miss the blue to distinguish your own commits from commits by other users.

Information that used to be available right on top such as organizations, and people the user is following are now harder to find or below the fold (on my macbook air 11").

Also now that the filters on top have more emphasis (All, Public, Private, etc) I think they should remove ones that are not useful. For example I don't have any private repos or mirrors so I feel like there shouldn't be links to empty pages, but this is a minor detail.

On top of that I think the page itself has a bit too much white space. It feels a bit plain to me.

<comment><USER7>
      It actually feels less designed to me.

Some would say that less design is a good thing, for the same reasons less code is a good thing.

<comment><USER8> Only if that less code and less design expresses more

I agree the loss of who works on what is poor - but it's always been hard to tell mine vs yours - I am a bit annoyed but on mature reflection I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and see them iterate out

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> More change for the sake of change from Github.

Both the profile and the dashboard now show _less_ information than they used to. The icons are a nice touch but totally irrelevant, and are not effective on a quick glance.

Meanwhile, the streams constantly show redundant information: e.g. 10 successive commits+push or wiki edits on the same project (happens all the time in my feeds) consume 10 distinct rows - why not collapse them together?

The launch bar was actually a cool idea, but it's more of a hack than a useful tool. And pray tell me what good does the /launch page do? Why should I ever use it as a landing page?

And don't get me started on the push performance, which is abysmal and feels like it has constantly been degrading over time.

I'll say it again, I <3 github, and they're a truly awesome team. But for the past several months every single change they've made was a big "wow, new X, let's take a look" followed by a sad, soft "meh".

<comment><USER10> Less information? I can now understand people's projects far quicker, and read information about them far quicker.

As both a designer, and a programer, neither side of me has complaints. It's much cleaner and very much a step in the right direction.

Just because you're not fumbling to say what a beautiful new change it is, I am betting without realising it will make your life easier.

People don't like change.

<comment><USER11> There is definitely less information visible on the Dashboard page than before. The idea of collapsing similar items together would actually add some value, instead of just adding more whitespace and changing the icons.

> People don't like change.

Never say never, Less is more, blah blah blah.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's weird that it doesn't distinguish between your commits and others'.

I have one forked repo that I forked to fix a line in their docs, and it looks to all the world like I spent a time of time on it.

<comment><USER13> Did you mean repositories? There's a slightly different icon for forked repos, but it's not very obvious.

<comment><USER2> The commit activity graphs used to differentiate between your activity (blue) and other people's activity (grey).

Now it's just all grey. :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I still can't write a blurb about myself. I'd really like to see that, since (for a lot of people) Github is starting to be the geek resume.

<comment><USER15> It's pretty easy to tell if you're a "python hacker" or a "C hacker" etc. with a quick glance over your repos and their descriptions.

<comment><USER16> But not everything can be in open view of the public; it'd be nice to mention closed source projects you've worked on as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Im not really sure whats going on here. Github without a doubt is great, however, I'm not really sure how people like these changes. The UI and general flow is going from a concise, fairly simple site (design-wise) to a bloated feeling over-designed (useless icons, far to much white space, and removal of info) website.

This is concerning because its a sign of to much focus, going from x1 amount of resources to x10 means you risk over-developing what was great. You have too much time, to many resources, so you over develop things when they truly don't need any changes (at the time). The only saving grace here is they could be in the middle of a shift to a much larger vision, so these changes all seem poor until it all comes together in the following months. I have to ask though, why the shotgun approach to the updates then, they should take their time, once a week would be enough change for me, allow me to actually feel out the changes before adding more. =/

</comment><comment><USER18> I get the whole big icon small icon thing for the feeds, and it looks great when they're in sequence with others of the same size, but when it's mixed it looks really bad IMHO. I'm no design pro so I dont know what a good solution would be but it throws things off

</comment><comment><USER19> ...how about some privacy controls? I'd really prefer not to advertise which users and projects I'm following or starring. Now I have Facebook trying to own and broadcast my personal life and GitHub trying to own and broadcast my professional one. Ugh.

<comment><USER20> Can you give an example where you would star something you find embarrassing?

<comment><USER19> I don't need to. What I choose to pay attention to should be private by default.

And it's not about personal embarrassment, it's also about security. If I star code I rely on to watch for updates, I'd be publicly advertising the attack surface for my app. That really sucks.

<comment><USER21> How are you getting updates for projects you've starred?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Check your dashboard/News Feed. Also featuring a new design right now.

<comment><USER3> And it's awful. I used to be able to see the description about a repository someone I follow had starred, and it was easily my best way to find out about interesting projects.

Now, all you see is username/repositoryname, which is damn near useless. They replaced actual _content_ with...whitespace.

I don't know how they screwed this one up so badly, but they need to change it back to being socially useful again, and pronto.

<comment><USER23> +1, starred without the description is pretty much useless. All I read is "Random Person starred OtherRandom/random-repo". Need to save room? Group similars together. "X, Y, Z and 15 others starred X/Y, The coolest util in the world".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There's a facebook in my github.

</comment><comment><USER25> Github are absolutely killing it right now. Seems like everyday there's a new HN submission about a cool new Github feature or redesigned aspect. The new profile design is nice, but seems more emphasis has been placed on users who own repos as opposed to contributing to other repos.

Still needs a space to add in a brief bio though considering Github is considered to be the new age developer resume.

<comment><USER3> The frontpage posts recently have been about site-wide GitHub outages (twice), plus their blog post about how it happened.

Not exactly "killing it", unless I misunderstood you...

<comment><USER25> Slow down there for a minute, man. It was in reference to the new command bar feature they recently implemented, being able to search & filter stars, the addition of the commit status API and all of that was introduced this month. September has been a very busy month for Github in terms of changes and functionality, so yes I'd say killing it.

As for the outages, at least they were honest and transparent about the outages unlike many other companies who try and sweep it under the rug. Accountability and transparency are 2 great traits to have in a company.

No need to be so cynical erichocean.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Since they have not posted anything about it yet, this might again be an accidental release of the branch.

I wonder how many of these accidental deploys they have on a regular basis which we don't notice.

<comment><USER26> Or perhaps we've spent the past few weeks furiously improving performance so we can ship this genpop, and we chose to ship during downtraffic times to give extra insurance the feature would improve speed rather than degrade it.

No deploy is on accident.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you saying the last one was not an accident either?

Only reason I thought this was an accident is because there was no blog post about it. Usually Github introduces it's every single improvement[1] on it's blog. Compared to them this definitely deserves an introduction.

[1] <https://github.com/blog/1184-contributing-guidelines>

<comment><USER27> I asked Zach Holman: It wasn't an accident, and a blog post will be up later.

<https://twitter.com/holman/status/248675337536413696>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Not happy with the change. More whitespace, but harder to see what is going on. I would like:

\- to see the activity of all repos at a glance, not just on hover \- visually pick out repos that are predominantly in one language over another

</comment><comment><USER29> I wish they would spend resources on being as fast as they used to be. Pushing and pulling has become slower and slower over the past couple of years.

</comment><comment><USER30> Extremely poor scroll performance, it has to re-draw everything every time I scroll. OS X 10.8.1, Safari 6.0, 15" 2009 MacBook Pro.

The design is nice, though.

</comment><comment><USER31> Interesting cosmetic change - debatable if it's for the better (the repo activity graphs are now barely visible, and the user activity bars have disappeared).

I'd prefer to see work done on features that are hurting the utility of the profile page - like listing repos that you're a collaborator of, but not necessarily the owner.

As it stands, the profile page is a misrepresentation of a user's work on Github.

</comment><comment><USER32> Why do great websites always feel compelled to redesign? Digg, Stumbleupon, Facebook etc. It is very unsettling. The equivalent of someone coming into you home when you're not there and changing the entire floorplan, then expecting you to be elated when you come back at night, instead of confused and disoriented when all of the cupboards seem larger than they appear.

<comment><USER33> It isn't your home, it's a hotel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The profile is a real improvement (although it might be preferable to fit more repos into a smaller space?), but the public activity stream still seems as hopeless as before. I pointed out some reasons with pictures for the older version, but the points still apply: <http://pygm.us/RFLFk4nt>.

</comment><comment><USER35> The page is really, really slow on an iPad 1. There must be something wrong since it's so simple, probably some CSS weirdness.

</comment><comment><USER36> The one thing I wish were clearer is whether a respository is a fork or not. I'd like to easily be able to scan the page and pick out the forks.

</comment><comment><USER37> I was surprised when I saw it too... not even a blog post about it?

It looks nice though.

</comment><comment><USER38> These changed haven't been applied to Github:Enterprise yet.

</comment><comment> saiko-chriskun what's with all the negativity :P. the new design is waay better. I'm surprised they haven't updated it 'till now.

<comment><USER39> While I agree with you, the one thing I miss is the repo description on my news feed. Before I could have an at a glance view of what my friends were starring and hacking on without ever having seen it before. Now If I want to know what visionmedia/every, mattlong/hermes, or erichocean/blossom is I need to click through. It's not much, but it's definitely going to put an extra step in the filtering of signal vs. noise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> It flickers when I scroll down on Safari. Very Annoying.

</comment><comment><USER41> Pretty, not nonsense :^) Will android app aplly too?</comment>


Favorite tool finds under $10 - <AUTHOR> http://kk.org/cooltools/favorite-tool-finds-under-10/ <comment><USER2> Since the website doesn't allow comments: trauma shears are for removing clothing and webbing, not cutting meat and bone. Ouch.

</comment><comment><USER3> interesting.</comment>


Ask HN: So you release your new site. How do you know it's not wide open? - <AUTHOR> You've built and deployed some new website.
How the heck do you know you haven't built something with wide open security holes?
Hope? <comment><USER3> Do a lot of reading and reviews. And then more reading. Start here: [https://www.owasp.org/](https://www.owasp.org/)

Specifically the TOP 10 webapp issues may be helpful: [https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Top_Ten_Cheat_Sheet](https://www.owasp.org/index.php/OWASP_Top_Ten_Cheat_Sheet)

Read your framework's security guide and adjust the settings properly. (for example [https://symfony.com/doc/current/security.html](https://symfony.com/doc/current/security.html) \- every framework should have one)

Scan your dependencies for known security issues (gemnasium, sensiolab/security-checker, etc).

Scan your code with tools reporting security issues (like [https://github.com/openstack/bandit](https://github.com/openstack/bandit) for python, or [https://github.com/HewlettPackard/gas](https://github.com/HewlettPackard/gas) for go).

Based on OWASP make sure bad things are banned in your code - <USER2> unparametrised queries, no manual crypto, no cookies without httponly, only modern, salted hashing for passwords, etc. Reuse as much as possible from the framework, because it's less likely to be vulnerable than new code.

Scan the website tools that can automate finding some common issues for you (ZAP, ratproxy, etc.)

Read the secure development guide [https://github.com/OWASP/DevGuide](https://github.com/OWASP/DevGuide)

Hire me to do an audit? (contact in profile)</comment>


ARMv7 dedicated servers for 3.40 per month - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/02/scaleway-now-provides-crazy-cheap-virtual-private-servers-starting-at-3-40-per-month/

<comment><USER2> Earlier discussion here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10159989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10159989)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've just signed up for one of these instances - here are some speed tests/stats/details, if anyone's interested: [https://gist.github.com/JosephRedfern/57c81ac95bf4f1175e3e](https://gist.github.com/JosephRedfern/57c81ac95bf4f1175e3e)

If you'd like anything in particular running, let me know and I shall oblige when I can!

<comment><USER4> Hi, can you please run the following two fio tests:

      #Random write
      fio --randrepeat=1 --ioengine=libaio --direct=1 --gtod_reduce=1 --name=test --filename=test --bs=4k --iodepth=128 --size=4G --readwrite=randwrite

      #Random Read
      fio --randrepeat=1 --ioengine=libaio --direct=1 --gtod_reduce=1 --name=test --filename=test --bs=4k --iodepth=128 --size=4G --readwrite=randread

<comment><USER5>
      ~# fio --randrepeat=1 --ioengine=libaio --direct=1 --gtod_reduce=1 --name=test --filename=test --bs=4k --iodepth=16 --size=4G --readwrite=randread

      test: (groupid=0, jobs=1): err= 0: pid=17457: Thu Sep  3 12:39:10 2015
       read : io=0B, bw=115612KB/s, iops=28903, runt= 36279msec
       cpu          : usr=17.12%, sys=67.12%, ctx=35506, majf=0, minf=39
       IO depths    : 1=0.1%, 2=0.1%, 4=0.1%, 8=0.1%, 16=100.0%, 32=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
          submit    : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
          complete  : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.1%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
          issued    : total=r=1048576/w=0/d=0, short=r=0/w=0/d=0

      Run status group 0 (all jobs):
        READ: io=4096.0MB, aggrb=115612KB/s, minb=115612KB/s, maxb=115612KB/s, mint=36279msec, maxt=36279msec

      Disk stats (read/write):
       nbd0: ios=55484/53, merge=0/587, ticks=134950/1020, in_queue=135900, util=24.02%

      ~# fio --randrepeat=1 --ioengine=libaio --direct=1 --gtod_reduce=1 --name=test --filename=test --bs=4k --iodepth=16  --size=4G --readwrite=randwrite

      test: (groupid=0, jobs=1): err= 0: pid=17460: Thu Sep  3 12:43:54 2015
       write: io=0B, bw=15741KB/s, iops=3935, runt=266460msec
       cpu          : usr=3.97%, sys=25.75%, ctx=544104, majf=0, minf=23
       IO depths    : 1=0.1%, 2=0.1%, 4=0.1%, 8=0.1%, 16=100.0%, 32=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
          submit    : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
          complete  : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.1%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
          issued    : total=r=0/w=1048576/d=0, short=r=0/w=0/d=0

      Run status group 0 (all jobs):
       WRITE: io=4096.0MB, aggrb=15740KB/s, minb=15740KB/s, maxb=15740KB/s, mint=266460msec, maxt=266460msec

      Disk stats (read/write):
       nbd0: ios=0/1053524, merge=0/106948, ticks=0/4282740, in_queue=4281210, util=100.00%

      ~# fio --randrepeat=1 --ioengine=libaio --direct=1 --gtod_reduce=1 --name=test --filename=test --bs=4k --iodepth=128 --size=4G --readwrite=randwrite

      test: (groupid=0, jobs=1): err= 0: pid=17463: Thu Sep  3 12:48:26 2015
       write: io=0B, bw=16400KB/s, iops=4100, runt=255749msec
       cpu          : usr=4.20%, sys=22.28%, ctx=576266, majf=0, minf=23
       IO depths    : 1=0.1%, 2=0.1%, 4=0.1%, 8=0.1%, 16=0.1%, 32=0.1%, >=64=100.0%
          submit    : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
          complete  : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.1%
          issued    : total=r=0/w=1048576/d=0, short=r=0/w=0/d=0

      Run status group 0 (all jobs):
       WRITE: io=4096.0MB, aggrb=16400KB/s, minb=16400KB/s, maxb=16400KB/s, mint=255749msec, maxt=255749msec

      Disk stats (read/write):
       nbd0: ios=0/1047606, merge=0/56, ticks=0/32543280, in_queue=32545150, util=100.00%

      ~# fio --randrepeat=1 --ioengine=libaio --direct=1 --gtod_reduce=1 --name=test --filename=test --bs=4k --iodepth=128 --size=4G --readwrite=randread

      test: (groupid=0, jobs=1): err= 0: pid=9439: Thu Sep  3 12:48:32 2015
       read : io=0B, bw=28594KB/s, iops=7148, runt=146685msec
       cpu          : usr=8.60%, sys=31.77%, ctx=591701, majf=0, minf=138
       IO depths    : 1=0.1%, 2=0.1%, 4=0.1%, 8=0.1%, 16=0.1%, 32=0.1%, >=64=100.0%
          submit    : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
          complete  : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.1%
          issued    : total=r=1048576/w=0/d=0, short=r=0/w=0/d=0
          latency   : target=0, window=0, percentile=100.00%, depth=128

      Run status group 0 (all jobs):
        READ: io=4096.0MB, aggrb=28593KB/s, minb=28593KB/s, maxb=28593KB/s, mint=146685msec, maxt=146685msec

      Disk stats (read/write):
       nbd0: ios=1047291/4, merge=0/1, ticks=18660030/50, in_queue=18659150, util=100.00%

<comment><USER6> Officially they provide 2000 read/write IOPS for a volume composed of one chunk (50GB) [1]. You measured 4000 r/w IOPS, so does this mean you ran it on a 100GB volume? If yes, then that's pretty amazing you get exactly the expected allocated IOPS performance for a $3.40/mo server.

[1] [https://www.scaleway.com/faq/server/](https://www.scaleway.com/faq/server/)

<comment><USER5> I'm on a 50GB volume :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nitpicking the submission title ("ARM7 dedicated servers for 3.40 per month"): ARM7 is actually very old ARM cores running ARMv4; these servers are ARMv7.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed this up, sorry, don't have a lot of knowledge about ARM architecture.

<comment><USER8> Tangential rant: What is wrong with CPU manufacturers in particular?

What do they gain from giving everything the most confusing names possible?

Sockets LGA1155, LGA1150, LGA1151. CPUs only differentiated by a jumble of digits anymore.

Something is seriously wrong with your product naming strategy when it needs to be clarified that ARM7 != ARMv7.

<comment><USER9> Intel uses the letters to indicate the type of connection between the CPU and motherboard. So LGA = Land Grid Array [1]. The number is the number of pins/contacts connecting the CPU to the motherboard. So LGA1155 is a Land Grid Array Socket with 1,155 pins.

It's definitely not random, at least not with Intel. ARM is confusing as hell though. Part of the issue is that there is the ARM Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) that has different versions, and then there are different ARM CPU architectures, but those two don't necessarily need to correspond.

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

<comment><USER8> _So LGA1155 is a Land Grid Array Socket with 1,155 pins._

Their scheme may be somewhat internally consistent (until they change it again next year). The information it conveys remains completely useless.

Nobody cares about the number of pins on a socket or which "generation" a CPU belongs to.

We want to know which CPU is compatible to which socket, and how CPUs compare on their key metrics.

So here's a useful naming scheme: Sockets should be called S1, S2, S3 [...]

CPUs should be called: S1-8-40W-PM15000

That would be an 8 core CPU for Socket S1 that draws 40W and scores PassMark 15000.

If Intel & co insist on making us sift through hostile numeric identifiers then they should at least make them _useful_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> But what about bandwidth? That's still shared among all the users, right?

And given that they are even advertising 'Seedboxes' and VPN servers [0] hosted in the same network, it makes me doubt the quality of network even more.

[0] [https://blog.scaleway.com/2015/09/02/we-are-slashing- the-c1-...](https://blog.scaleway.com/2015/09/02/we-are-slashing-the-c1-price- by-70-percent/)

<comment><USER11> They have another product mini dedicated for 6 euro/mo[0]. Which I've been using recently and the network performance has been pretty consistent. They are however seem marketed more for personal usage though.

[0]: [http://www.online.net/en/dedicated-server/dedibox- scg2](http://www.online.net/en/dedicated-server/dedibox-scg2)

<comment><USER12> BW on these is shared a rack level, depending on which rack you're put in your speeds can vary a lot

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The submission title really should include a dollar to indicate which currency is meant.

Also, for non-corporate customers in Europe, VAT should be added.

The VAT-inclusive price is €3.59 (for 4 ARM cores, 2 GB RAM, 50 GB SSB disk, and one IP with 200 Mbps unmetered bandwidth). This is the VAT-inclusive number from the site, which is using French VAT (20%). Here in Sweden it'd be 25%, it seems. :|

<comment><USER14> For european union based users without a valid EU VAT number, VAT must be added based on the VAT rate in the users own country, not always french VAT at 20%. Ie we pay 25% here in DK. This is due to the new rules that went into effect 1 January 2015: [http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/vat/how_vat_wo...](http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/taxation/vat/how_vat_works/telecom/index_en.htm)

<comment><USER15> I concur. Rules and rates are summarized here: [https://github.com/kdeldycke/vat-rates](https://github.com/kdeldycke/vat- rates)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interestingly even though it's 'bare metal' you are stuck using their kernel: [https://community.scaleway.com/t/official-linux-kernel- new-m...](https://community.scaleway.com/t/official-linux-kernel-new-modules- optimizations-hacks/226)

/proc/cpuinfo hints at Armada XP so I thought mv_cesa crypto would be available but alas, no:

      # zcat /proc/config.gz | grep -i cesa
      CONFIG_CRYPTO_DEV_MV_CESA=y

      # grep -i cesa /proc/crypto
      #

Shame. Does anyone know what CPU is that exactly? The Soc in the picture at techcrunch seems to have a Marvell logo.

edit: it's definitely marvell, dmesg references 370_xp clocksource, armada xp pincontrol and aurora L2 cache controller.

<comment><USER17> There was some discussion of that in the original announcement. Apparently the kernel requirement is because the root fs is a network drive, and the system PXE-boots: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9309661](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9309661)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> An interesting clause in the terms and conditions:

* Users recognise that piracy harms artistic creation.

<comment><USER19> I recognise that piracy harms artistic creation, but I don't care. So can I sign up? ;P

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Low cost hoster Hetzner also launched an ARM based dedicated server a few days ago: [https://www.hetzner.de/us/hosting/produktmatrix/rootserver-p...](https://www.hetzner.de/us/hosting/produktmatrix/rootserver- produktmatrix-ax)

<comment><USER2> Kimsufi has been also providing cheapish dedicated servers (non-arm) for a long time: [http://www.kimsufi.com/uk/](http://www.kimsufi.com/uk/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wonder if I could buy a couple of those servers for my own. I work on cloud and data-center automation tools and having real metal to test ideas and software would be amazing. I've been toying with the idea of hooking up a couple Edisons or Galileos (x86 makes everything easier on my side) but they have complete running hardware and that easily beats developing my own.

<comment><USER21> BTW, the said software is open source, so there is even some good karma thrown in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> This was announced directly from Scaleway and was a pretty popular thread here on HN, why is an article about it on here again and just as popular?

<comment><USER23> I didn't click on the original article at the time because the title was utterly meaningless without context: "We are slashing the C1 price by 70 percent". I'm not motivated enough to figure out the context for every article, so I just skip those unless they have a very high number of points or comments. I'm probably not alone in this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> FYI - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFhgSKNJP2s&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFhgSKNJP2s&feature=youtu.be)

For my own projects, I wish I could buy this hardware!

</comment><comment><USER25> I like the idea of the product a lot - but the question I have is how these servers stack up in an 'apples to apples' comparison (that is to say, with a DO small / medium / large instance - or an AWS small / medium / large instance) - which would allow for me to work out if it's worthwhile investing..

</comment><comment><USER26> Is there any way to test out Scaleway without having to give them a credit card number with a potential infinite bill?

<comment><USER27> I did test them out a while ago. My impressions are here: [https://www.amon.cx/blog/scaleway-vs-digitalocean-and- deploy...](https://www.amon.cx/blog/scaleway-vs-digitalocean-and-deploying- webapps-on-arm/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I was going to sign up for this immediately. Then I read the FAQ:

\- No IPv6 -- sucks, but I can live with that

\- No IPv4 -- WTF? NAT on a server?!

\- A credit card is required. I can't pay them. Asked via support, they confirm credit card is the only way.

\- I still haven't found where the instances are physically located. (Edit: it's in the "General FAQ", not in the "Server FAQ".)

I really, really like the idea, but they have a long way to go.

<comment><USER29> The IPv4 address is independent of any one server. Think of it kind of like L2 / L3, when a packet gets to its final network the L3 address is translated to a L2 address (ARP typically with ethernet / IP) with the L3 frame wrapped by a L2 frame. So think of this more like L2 is now a combination of classic L2 and the lower end of L3. It's sort of halfway between home router style NAT and switching; and yes, I'm sure it runs as close to full speed as switching does. This kind of set up is very common in cloud based services that support live migration (not that this service does; it's bare metal).

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> They have made a couple of customizations to the regular Linux bootup that have severe security implications (i.e. download kernel modules from them among other things). Contrary to a "classic" dedicated server, with this configuration you are very much trusting them unless you make changes.

Read [https://www.scaleway.com/docs/create-an-image-from- scratch/](https://www.scaleway.com/docs/create-an-image-from-scratch/) and ideally set up a server and look at what exactly is going on.

Unfortunately the script on that page has some errors (it references missing files and it's missing some files that are required), they should really go over it and fix them.

</comment><comment><USER31> Is the storage attached directly to the box or is it a SAN? I'd like to use one of these for a personal email server, but don't want to bother if a fried disk or disk controller would result in significant downtime for my email.

<comment><USER3> It's a SAN, mounted as a NBD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> No IPv6? This is a no-go for servers... Add it and i'm all in. ;)

</comment><comment><USER33> A huge part of the monthly cost of any infrastructure is less about power and the hardware and more about the quality of the internet connection. If I can't get data in and out quickly it isn't going to be much good to me.

<comment><USER15> Scaleway is part of the Iliad group, the third French ISP: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad_SA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliad_SA)

No need to worry about our infrastructure. Our datacenters are well connected: [http://www.iliad-datacenter.fr/infrastructure/connectivite](http://www.iliad- datacenter.fr/infrastructure/connectivite)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Benchmark for those interested

[http://serverbear.com/benchmark/2015/09/03/zCU7qHQu5fCH2q2d](http://serverbear.com/benchmark/2015/09/03/zCU7qHQu5fCH2q2d)

</comment><comment><USER35> their imagelab is pretty cool. finally a place to host my ghost blog cheaply.

[https://www.scaleway.com/imagehub/](https://www.scaleway.com/imagehub/)

</comment><comment><USER36> Kudos to the folks at Scaleway, and mostly their engineering teams :)

<comment><USER15> Thanks ! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> US data center please and i'm all in.

</comment><comment><USER38> RAM, SSD storage, bandwidth, IO are still shared.

It's pretty much a VPS, not dedicated.

<comment><USER3> How does the RAM sharing work? Are there any public details on this?

<comment><USER5> There is no RAM sharing, it's a metal server

<comment><USER3> I thought that might be the case :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Comments on HN normally provide both sides to the story, so I am hoping someone with deep/vast server knowledge and the VPS market will provide a critique of why this is "not so good".

Also, France? Same country that is trying to push privacy-unfriendly laws? Probably not a good idea to use this service for VPN then.

It would probably suffice as a test-box or cheap-static hosting I guess.

<comment><USER40> > _Also, France? Same country that is trying to push privacy-unfriendly laws? > Probably not a good idea to use this service for VPN then._

They are explicitly advertising VPNs, but even though I live in France I'm not sure whether the situation there is secure enough. France is collecting internet logs, and a server has its own IP, is a VPN then even useful?

> _It would probably suffice as a test-box or cheap-static hosting I guess._

More than static. I installed serendipity (a blogging engine, think wordpress) there and it worked good enough for me to assume that it would work fine with medium traffic as well.

Got a pretty good impression otherwise. The thing that bothered me most was that the free test month was not a full month, but till the next accounting period – 14 days for me. Cut my time short to test it. But you can imagine that if that is my sole complain, it was fine otherwise for me. A solid site and their scripts to build images worked fine.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What would your stack be if you started from scratch today? - <AUTHOR> Thinking of a new side project and looking for the opportunity to learn new things. Ideally things that are popular and could help me get hired if I decided to move jobs. Ideally it would be serverless because of the cost savings for a small project and because I'm interested in that but I want to hear what others would choose and why. <comment><USER2> If you're looking for a stack for the purpose of increasing hire-ability then you might consider looking up the jobs in the area you're trying to get hired, and seeing what comes up the most.

On the other hand, you could play around with multiple stacks, and see what you like. Then choose an area based on that.

Personally, if I was starting from scratch today I'd probably focus on the C# .Net Microsoft stack because there are a lot of jobs for that in my area.

</comment><comment><USER3> Vue + firebase gets you up and running pretty fast. Firebase has auth, hosting and nosql database which I challenged myself to learn last year. Was my first javascript only project. Big step for a backend guy ;)

</comment><comment><USER4> My ideal stack is: React -> Go -> MySQL and Redis

But as for the terms of hire-ability, in my opinion, it is more important to understand the core concepts of programming independent of a technology or language. But as for trying to get hired, there are jobs out there for nearly every language/stack you can think of. So you could just start looking around your area and finding something that is popular with companies in the area.

</comment><comment><USER5> SQL Server -> Web API -> Static Pages -> Regular JavaScript (with small libraries as needed) -> webpack (if bundling and minification are required).

</comment><comment><USER6> \- React JS/Native on the front \- Python for general/glue code \- Redis for cache \- Some relation tier-2 storage (MySQL) \- Rust for the computationally/machine intensive stuff \- Airflow for scheduling

</comment><comment> d--b It depends!

Serverless latency is a problem to consider. That definitely killed it for my project.

My goto stack is MySQL/nodejs with express/plain js for frontend.

Because I'm fast at this.

I would try .Net core, though I don't think they have anything remotely as easy as node.

</comment><comment><USER7> What stacks are you already familiar with?

</comment><comment><USER8> React -> Django -> MySQL</comment>


Make a Donation to Help Reduce the US Public Debt. Wait, What? - <AUTHOR> https://www.pay.gov/paygov/forms/formInstance.html?agencyFormId=23779454

<comment><USER2> You can also make a general donation to the US government, that is not necessarily used to reduce the debt:

<http://www.fms.treas.gov/faq/moretopics_gifts.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> They should make it tax-deductible. ;)

<comment><USER4> It is deductible for the next year's returns

<comment><USER3> What about the clause "These donations are voluntary, and no goods, services, or other considerations are provided to the donors."?

<comment><USER4> go to page 88 (the one with - 88 - at the bottom) of the 1040 instructions at <http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040gi.pdf>

There is a section "How Do You Make a Gift To Reduce Debt Held By the Public" and it clearly states "You may be able to deduct this gift on your 2012 tax return".

You can't take a deduction for the 2011 tax year on a gift in 2011, but iirc its treated like any other donation

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I just bookmarked this. They need to have something like this added to tax forms. I'd much rather 'donate' my money to the debt than the Presidential election fund or whatever other things they ask if I'd like to contribute to.

</comment><comment><USER6> are you fucking kidding me? if the system is leaking memory and the solution is to add memory?</comment>


Google Hotpot PM talks freely about Yelp Competition & more - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=zEC42W-UucA#t=290s Great interview with Loir Ron the PM of Google Local/Hotpot, who speaks freely about a bunch of topics including competition with startups like Yelp. <comment><USER2> Really informative interview on how Google launches startups from within.

</comment><comment><USER3> crazy how google is slowly cutting the throats of every company on the planet by creating copy cat products...to trust or not to trust?

</comment><comment><USER4> Loved this interview segment.

</comment><comment><USER5> he was a cool dude</comment>


Celebrating 150 years of MIT - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/celebrating-150-years-of-mit.html <comment><USER2> Interesting, but I find it a little strange that they cherry-picked MIT. There's nothing wrong with MIT, but why did Google feel the need to publicly recognize them above others? Will they write the same article when Stanford, Berkeley, or Carnegie Mellon hold certain birthdays?

<comment><USER3> My guess is only MIT and Stanford would warrant this treatment, MIT because of its association with technology and position as one of the pre-eminent STEM universities in the world, and Stanford because it was Google's birthplace. Stanford's next significant birthday is its 150th in 2041; perhaps you'll see a similar tribute then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 500 MIT graduates work at a company founded at Stanford :p. (I kid, I kid... it's amazing to think about the innovation that has come out of there, here's to another 150...)

</comment><comment><USER5> Wow. 2% of Google comes from MIT! Google rocks!!!

...

Bravo, Google, but it's a bit obvious :)

</comment><comment><USER6> MIT sucks, totally overrated.

<comment><USER7> It's the best place that a scientist or an engineer can be in

<comment><USER2> I find this conversation thread pointless. Let's end this here.</comment></comment></comment>


Jaguar Land Rover to slash 4,500 UK jobs - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/10/jaguar-land-rover-to-reportedly-make-substantial-job-cuts-after-china-diesel-slump.html <comment><USER2> Land Rover had a great reputation 10-12 years ago here in the U.S, but they blew that goodwill by selling high priced junk here.

Right now you can find lots of used Land Rovers for sale with low miles at next to nothing prices that are in great looking condition but don't run and are too expensive to fix.

I don't know anyone who's bought a new one in the past few years.

<comment><USER3> I'd love a used Range Rover but my god, when I see one I cannot understand how the hell anyone manages to keep them on the road - Doug DeMuro made some amusing videos about the massive costs imposed on the company behind his extended warranty for a Range Rover, as I recall eventually prompting the company to stop offering warranties on used Range Rovers entirely!

More here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3jA55TJboA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3jA55TJboA)

As someone that would love to drive a car built in Britain by a British owned company it's a real shame I've so little choice - apparently only Morgan, Caterham and McClaren, so not really perfect for comfortable or affordable motorway journeys.

Edit: also apparently Westfield, Bristol, Ariel, Noble, Ginetta, TVR and a few other very niche manufacturers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Preempting the inevitable, it's important to note that this would likely have taken place with or without Brexit:

'Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) says it plans to cut about 4,500 jobs globally as part of a £2.5bn plan to reverse losses.

The British company, which employs 44,000 in the UK and cut 1,000 temporary workers at its plant in Solihull last year, has been hit by poor sales in China and a drop in demand for diesel cars.

It posted a £90m loss in October.

JLR said on Thursday that the next stage of its "transformation programme" would begin with a voluntary redundancy programme in the UK.'

[https://news.sky.com/story/jaguar-land-rover-to- slash-4500-j...](https://news.sky.com/story/jaguar-land-rover-to- slash-4500-jobs-as-part-of-25bn-plan-to-reverse-losses-11603631)</comment>


The Sex Life of Samuel Pepys (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/behind-the-scenes/blog/sex-life-samuel-pepys <comment><USER2> Related - someone turned his diary entries into tweets and it's amazing to follow: [https://twitter.com/samuelpepys](https://twitter.com/samuelpepys)

<comment><USER3> That's nice and works well in twitter format.

As noted in the OP above, the combinations of Spanish and French that are slipped in ([https://twitter.com/samuelpepys/status/1027169517145870336](https://twitter.com/samuelpepys/status/1027169517145870336)) are _not_ the emissions of some auto-translator gone mad. They are the personal code of Pepys for "sensitive" titbits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Pepys' old house on Buckingham Street in London was my office for a couple of years. It was nice but he seems to have had more fun there. I did encounter fellow cyclist and similarly adulterous Boris Johnson on his bike around there before he became world famous bumbling Brexiteer and Foreign Secretary.

</comment><comment><USER5> It reads oddly today, with the lineup of men who have used their power to demand sexual favors, and then lost their positions for that.

</comment><comment><USER6> wasn't it kind of sexual revolution of post- Cromwell/Puritan England?

<comment><USER7> You will find intelligent people are more deviant and he was an intelligent person. In a way, you could say "Pedophilia - The stupid dont get it" and it would be true for a whole host of reasons.</comment></comment>


Google Stadia Wants You to Replace Your Video Game Console. Don't - lil-scamp https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/18/technology/personaltech/google-stadia-review.html <comment><AUTHOR> Author has never heard of the PC master race... No one is going to consoles when we have PC's. <the end>

Cloud gaming has always been a bad idea imho. Nothing new here, but now its another Google platform to gather data on you for targeting advertisements. I wonder what brought on this from Google to have this platform?

</comment><comment><USER2> Stadia's launch seems troubled. I'm expecting pivots as they search for their audience. It seems like a logical step for mobile gaming, but taken a bit too far.

I think games could just be "stadiafied" the way many apps are just "electronified", where the consumers don't need to care how it's all implemented. A game could be designed around the major graphical elements being streamed while leaving the UI local. That could open up a lot of new ideas and make game dev easier.

Stadia as it is now seems like the right solution to the wrong problem, but I hope it pivots around and finds some good niches instead of going the typical Google route when things don't immediately work out.

</comment><comment> 1-6 Stadia isn't so bad... It's a first time run too.</comment>


Canada creates science-minister post - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/canada-creates-science-minister-post-1.18739 <comment><USER2> It will be interesting to see how this plays out in practice. One of the constraints on the Cabinet is that Trudeau promised that it would be gender- balanced; unfortunately, the pool of MPs from which he was selecting Cabinet members was not (134 men vs. 50 women; the imbalance is even worse if you look at experienced MPs).

There are six major portfolios -- Finance, Treasury Board, Justice, Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Intergovernmental relations -- and of those five of the ministers are men. Then there are 11 portfolios which I'd say are important but fairly self-contained -- things like International Trade, Health, and Fisheries -- and 6/11 of those are held by men. The other 14 posts are what would typically be considered "junior minister" positions, and that's where most of the women ended up. [1]

This gives me a strong impression that some people were brought in as "diversity representatives" and then portfolios were created in order to justify their presence, rather than the portfolios being created because they were deemed important and then the best qualified candidates sought to fill them; it would be nice to think otherwise, but I've learned to be cynical where politics is concerned. Unfortunately, while inviting people to the table has great optics, it doesn't necessarily result in anyone listening to them once they arrive.

[1] You can argue about which portfolios are major vs. minor vs. junior; there's no hard rules here. But I don't think you could find a plausible classification which didn't show a heavy skew towards males filling the most important roles.

<comment><USER3> If anything, I consider that a positive sign, that Trudeau is focussing on meritocratic rather than purely political concerns. One of the worries about him was that he would bend to political correctness, and make a hash of everything.

Well, he still might - but being a bit practical minded is pretty good. And his new Minister of Defense looks pretty Bad Ass. [http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/harjit- sajjan...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/harjit-sajjan- badass-canada-defence-minister-1.3304931)

<comment><USER2> Fair enough. I'd prefer to get rid of the "fake" portfolios and simply have "Minister without portfolio" for the members who are added for the purpose of diversity, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is something of a reaction to the last ten years of anti-science rhetoric from the former governing party. I'm happy to see it in place and especially happy that we are no longer muzzling our scientists.

<comment><USER5> Yes, and also (former PM) Harper's abysmal record on climate change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just wondering, won't this create even more politicization of science?

<comment><USER7> Well, the previous guy was quite bad for science [1] [2] [3]. Perhaps you can elaborate as to how things could get worse?

[1] [http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/hundreds-of-world-s- scientist...](http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/hundreds-of-world-s-scientists- urge-harper-to-end-funding-cuts-1.2063474) [2] [http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/research-library-s- clo...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/research-library-s-closure- shows-harper-government-targets-science-at-every-turn-union-says-1.3199761) [3] [http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/research-cutbacks-by- gover...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/research-cutbacks-by-government- alarm-scientists-1.2490081)

<comment><USER6> Some issues in science are already very politicized, with the left and the right being on different sides of an argument, often with religious fervor.

A separate portfolio and government bureaucracy means more money and power to the party in charge in terms of influencing science, which could easily be misused for harrassing scientists and institutions. There is also the implicit threat of cutting off funding for research, effectively silencing any viewpoints that may be against the agenda of the party in charge.

Just to illustrate, if in your opinion the "previous guy" was bad for science, imagine him in charge of this bureaucracy, with Lois Lerner-type harrassment and promotion of research that would be offensive to other political parties.

<comment><USER8> The "last guy" did what you described already. The federal government has always had significant control over funding levels of both government scientific agencies, as well as funding for research, just with the responsibility diffused among different ministries and agencies. The Harper government introduced significant cuts in funding from both pools, regardless of the degree of centralization of responsibility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> They already had a Minister of Mobile Gaming post, so what?

</comment><comment><USER10> > Kirsty Duncan, a medical geographer at the University of Toronto, will be > the first to hold the job. Duncan, who contributed to the 2001 report of the > Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Climate change, not a surprise.

> "If we take it at face value, we now have two ministers responsible for > science," says Rees Kassen

Sure do, might have something to do with this being about winning an election.

<comment><USER11> You'd think that if anywhere on Earth stands to benefit from global warming it's Canada.

<comment><USER12> Actually - it depends.

Climate Change is intensifying the summers and winters in canada.

Notice the increased number of forest fires per year.

And the winters will also be worse.

<comment><USER13> Lower Mainland B.C. had a water shortage; skiing around Vancouver was dreadful early last winter because it was too warm so recreation and tourism impacted; more frequent and severe floods in the Prairies; more summer storms leading to localized floods in southern Ontario; etc etc.

Up north might get warmer but it would still be a huge undertaking to move impacted people from the south where they currently live.

<comment><USER13> To put some context into that: In the last 10 years, Alberta has had a "1-in-200-year" flood in 2005 ([https://ec.gc.ca/meteo- weather/default.asp?lang=En&n=A4DD5AB...](https://ec.gc.ca/meteo- weather/default.asp?lang=En&n=A4DD5AB5-1)) followed by a three-times-heavier flood in 2013 ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Alberta_floods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Alberta_floods), [https://ec.gc.ca/meteo- weather/default.asp?lang=En&n=5BA5EAF...](https://ec.gc.ca/meteo- weather/default.asp?lang=En&n=5BA5EAFC-1&offset=2&toc=show)).

Just because it's cold in the winter doesn't mean global warming will be good.

<comment><USER14> I'd say that the Maritime provinces have been taking more of the flood/storm damage the last few years. The 2013 flood in Southern Alberta was (or so I was told) was due to a sudden set of warm days in the mountains, and a great deal of the snow suddenly melted. That was a bit of a one off weather event. If you google storms in the maritime provinces for the past few years, you can see that they have been hit far harder than Alberta. [http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/atlantic- stor...](http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/atlantic-storm-a- timeline-of-events-/45509/) [http://www.journalpioneer.com/News/Local/2014-03-27/article-...](http://www.journalpioneer.com/News/Local/2014-03-27/article-3665998/One- of-the-worst-storms-of-the-year-shuts-down-P.E.I./1) [http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/storms- co...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/storms- complicate-2014-celebration-preps-1.2478833) [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/maritimes- soake...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/maritimes-soaked-as- heavy-rain-knocks-out-power-cancels-classes/article26610492/) are just a few examples</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


All the unhealthy productivity things I did as a founder - <AUTHOR> https://hajak.se/how-to-get-things-done-and-not-die-7df12873b388 <comment><USER2> The difference between the title displayed here and the one on the website is aggravating. I honestly wanted to know what _unhealthy productivity_ things the author did as a founder. Instead it's a weightwatchers-style todo-list telling me what I should do and what not.

<comment><AUTHOR> I realized when I posted here that I wanted to be upfront with all the tips not being completely "healthy." I lot of times the think a myopic focus is needed to be able to excel, but also the thing that drives people lonely, insane or sad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> @hajak forgot to mention that he sold his company for $150M and is now one of the best angels turned VC you can have - so you might want to spare a few mins and read this :) (disclosure: he's a friend and investor in my company)

</comment><comment><USER4> So, I wonder how much ADHD medication fuels the unhealthy productivity thing the silicon valley has going for it.</comment>


Please review my startup - Flowshark - <AUTHOR> http://www.flowshark.com/

<comment><USER2> Random feature idea: export to blank properly named templates for Balsamiq, Mockingbird, etc.

It seems like once you have a good idea of the interaction flow in Flowshark, the next step is to actually wireframe the individual pages - having something save me the 6 minutes it would take to essentially outline the pages in (e.g.) Balsamiq would be nice (though it's obviously a pretty random request).

</comment><comment><USER3> No videos, a single screenshot, beta invite only. Is this another minimum viable product experiment?

<comment><USER4> You (and those that upvoted you) seem to thing that this is a problem. May I ask why?

<comment><USER5> The current title feels misleading as it suggest you already have something working. A better title would have been "Review my startup _idea_ ".

<comment><USER6> Agreed. There is nothing to review but a concept here. I don't want to be jaded, but it's possible that you hacked this page together in an hour. To me, it feels like you are simply using Hacker News to draw some eyeballs to your site and generate some leads.

In my mind, you ultimately are hurting future folks who want serious reviews of their products from other hackers. Smart people who frequent Hacker News will get tired of doing these kinds of lead-generating "reviews" and won't up- vote them into the homepage.

My suggestion to others who want to use HN for feedback: you get one good shot at a review, so time it wisely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think what would be really cool is if you could make this process so incredibly simple that my non-programming customers could actually tell me their ideal workflow in my application (for new and existing features and such).

<comment><USER8> Absolutely. That's the big idea here. Flowshark will help everybody really think about the user experience and how to optimize it by providing a collaborative high-level view. We're working hard to make it what I'll call "playfully intuitive" enough that pretty much anyone can get started using it right away, including your non-programming clients.

<comment><USER9> This is awesome. I actually built a very similar tool about 9 years ago and it's incredible how effective it is for selling/managing business consulting services. It's amazing how many barriers can be overcome by simply getting everyone involved to visualize the discussion in terms of simple, changeable work flows.

The one I built had the following features:

\- people could make suggestions for how to improve the flow \- email notifications when a flow was changed \- document uploads tied to each step \- tracking whether each user had viewed new flow changes, etc.

I have gone into a sales meeting and sold thousands of dollars of consulting services just by drawing out how this tool works on a napkin or scrap of paper. The idea is so simple and powerful that it is extremely valuable for businesses that care about process improvement.

I strongly recommend against listening to the 1% of people who get mad that it doesn't do all sorts of complex branching, etc.

I no longer work with the company I built it for (I was a minor partner) but I believe they still use it extensively, though it's focused only on supporting business/management consulting services and not on UI design, etc. We would routinely get $15-20 per user/month for it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd love to talk to you more about this. Would you mind shooting me an email at email@example.com ?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As soon as I read the header text it resonated. My eyes went from the header to the text on the left. Then on to the screen shot.

But since the screen shot is kind of small - I tried clicking on it to get a better view. But there is no click to zoom functionality. Reviewing a larger screen shot is what would sway me from signing up or not. So either make it a click to zoom, or just post a bigger pic of the app. or something along these lines.

<comment><USER8> That's fair. We're working on a screencast to go in its place.

<comment><USER11> You might want to reduce the sharpening of the text in the next version of the home page too, some of the the edges look very jagged on my monitor. The actual home page layout is pleasingly simple and clear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "A better way to visualize and plan user experiences."

IMHO: "A better way to visualize and plan user flows."

then sub text: "Create, share and collaborate on creating beautiful user experiences with your team."

Your primary message is: _this lets you create user flows_

and the secondary message is: *collaborate & create great UX"

whereas currently it's the other way around.

The screenshot when clicked should lightbox and add some more details

I'm not sure what the text below is meant to mean, honestly. "Built for people who build software" but then you list various other job titles in addition to developers...

As I mentioned above, was hoping that I could use it today, I think posts where you can't actually "review" a product (because it doesn't exist) should be titled as such on Hacker News.

Why does your contact google map zoom in on the ocean? :)

Love to get in the beta though, signed up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. The google map is zoomed in on a shark :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Naysayer alert!

Just my opinion (or perhaps I've misunderstood) - but this solves a problem that is better solved by a paper and pencil. Or a whiteboard.

On my mac I have a few different tools that I could use to make these sorts of diagrams.

I never use them.

I always revert to a paper, pencil and frantic scribbles - that's what works best as an individual and collaboratively, I've found. It's unintuitive and adds hurdles to the design process when you have to keep clicking "edit" "save" etc - I just want to rub things out and scribble.

The only time I think this would be useful is when doing UX brainstorming with a remote team, but I think that is a very niche market - too niche to make it worthwhile building this MVP. Unless you're aiming at enterprise where you only need a few customers to make it worthwhile ;)

<comment><USER8> When you've finished sketching out your flows on paper or on a whiteboard, how do you share them? Scan them in or take a photo? And then when someone points out that a change needs to be made to one of the screens or an entire section of the flow, how do you effectively distribute and communicate this change to everyone on the team?

Paper sketches are great, but they become pretty inefficient when you have to keep multiple people on the same page (pardon the pun) during a constantly changing product development project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Looks interesting, but you should have handed out beta invitation codes to the first 50 of us...

</comment><comment><USER15> there is definitely a need for this. I hate sharing word documents. How complicated will the flows be? Seems like in the screenshot it's just sequential. Will there be more like Visio later on where you can create loops and decision points?

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the feedback, and I share your frustration around sharing Word documents over email. Between Word docs and Visios getting flung back and forth around a team, people tend to quickly get out of sync.

Our mission is to make the flows as visually simple as possible, but robust enough to support if/then, validation, loops and decision points. We won't have everything we want in version 1, but enough for most web apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have an immediate use for this - thanks.

<comment><USER17> I do as well. One thing I am worried about though--the first (cheapest?) plan has 1 user, which seems to defeat the purpose of the app. The attraction here is sharing and comments; it's easier for me to draw 10 flows in my Molskine if I'm not sharing them with anybody.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> One thing I'd like to see on your homepage is some text highlighting the differences between your system and other, similar applications that have come into the market in the past year or two.

<comment><USER8> Can you point us to a few of them? We'd love to see how others have approached the problem. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Like others, it's unclear to me exactly how far the product goes.. Is it a way to lay out state machines and make notes, or will it actually allow me to mock-up a user interface within the tool? If I'd still mock up the UI in OmniGraffle, screen-shot it, and upload so that your app will let me lay out the 'flow'.. that's not compelling enough to me to make it worth the trouble. If it somehow takes OmniGraffle/Visio out of the equation.. I'd be interested for sure.

<comment><USER8> Great question. The flows created in Flowshark provide the foundation for you to move forward with your page-level design mockups. In other words, this is a tool to figure out from a high level what the user will see/do on each screen. Once your team (or clients) reach a consensus on the user flow, the next step would be to get into more detailed wireframes and high-fidelity comps. Think of Flowshark as a central, always-current map that everyone on your team can reference while they're working on their specific parts of the project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> _Flowshark makes it easy to design intuitive user flows for your software product, allowing you and your collaborators to optimize the user experience, identify potential trouble spots and know what to design for._ Could be re- written as two or three sentences.

What kind of export formats are you thinking of ?

<comment><AUTHOR> PDF and HTML.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> You may want to remove the references to AppFlows in the footer on some pages. As it is, both sites show the same diagramme. Is one an earlier version? <http://www.flowshark.com/> <http://appflows.com/>

<comment><USER8> Thanks for catching that, fixed now. Yes, Appflows was our original name idea and we decided to go with something a bit more fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I like it.. it looks great man! although I have to agree with others here.. please show more of what the beta can do before I sign up to try it!

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm not familiar with the problem space. Perhaps you could explain some of the pain points on the web site.

</comment><comment><USER24> Have you seen <http://productplanner.com>

<comment><USER8> Hey Paul. Yes, and I think it's great for jumpstarting the process when talking about a new flow and getting new ideas. We're taking this general concept in a more collaborative (but private) direction with Flowshark.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I have a font problem on your website,chrome 5.0.375.99

<comment><USER26> The font doesn't anti-alias in WinXP (Firefox) - hard to read especially at smaller sizes.

<comment> brown9-2 Same deal with Windows 7 - I believe that all flavors of Windows do a horrendous job on html5 fonts

Here is a screenshot (using Chrome 5.0.375.99): <http://imgur.com/aLGBk.png>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Like the name =)

</comment><comment><USER28> Would love to, you have a great form ;)

</comment><comment><USER29> looks interesting, I'd really like to see more screenshots

</comment><comment><USER30> Nice design - shouldn't be too surprising for a design-oriented site. But it's a pleasing and simple use of Blueprint CSS.

Just one question: I don't understand why Wufoo Form Builder was needed for the signup flow. Why not just add a form of your own? Or am I misunderstanding why Wufoo was mentioned at the end of the signup process?

<comment><USER8> Thanks for the compliment. We used Wufoo so that we could spend our time continuing to work on the product.</comment></comment>