Cellphone Radiation May Alter Your Brain. Let's Talk. - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/31/technology/personaltech/31basics.html?_r=1&src=dayp <comment><USER2> From the study:

"In healthy participants and compared with no exposure, 50-minute cell phone exposure was associated with increased brain glucose metabolism in the region closest to the antenna. This finding is of unknown clinical significance."

The specific finding referred to is localized mean differences in brain glucose metabolism of 2.4 μmol/100 g per minute (a 7% increase).

The linked article is a fluff piece providing "advice" for people wanting to avoid exposure to cell phone radiation. The study makes no claims regarding possible health hazards related to their findings.

<comment><AUTHOR> _The study makes no claims regarding possible health hazards related to their findings._

To do so at this point would be reckless. There's a concern here and certain steps ("advice") seem reasonable.

It could be years, if not a decade or more, before any hazards are clearly known. Better to be safe. We're born with only one brain and neural implants are still a ways off.

<comment><USER3> We've had cellphones in common use for, what? Two decades or so? Shouldn't we have seen some indication of widespread harm by now, or inexplicable increases in cancer rates and whatnot?

I'm not going to claim that it's impossible, just highly unlikely that this causes significant harm.

<comment><USER4> If the harm only consists of something like a permanently reduced ability to concentrate or trouble falling asleep ( _which I don't claim it does_ ), then we'd only have noticed that people get dumber and pupils don't learn like they used to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hopefully someone with access to the full article can answer these:

According to the abstract, they tested phones on and muted or off. A phone that is powered on (but not on a call) shouldn't be expected to use the radio much. Is it the case that the only difference was the power being on or off?

Any explanation given for why they compared powered-on vs. powered-off instead of, e.g., airplane vs. non-airplane mode?

Next, every phone I've seen with a mute feature mutes the audio FROM your phone, not TO your phone. Some phones also make a hiss even when they're supposed to be silent. Electronics can themselves hum, sometimes at a high enough frequency that only some people can hear it. Is it possible that there was an auditory difference between the two test conditions?

Cell phones that are off vs. on look different (e.g., screen) and feel different (e.g., heat generation). How was blinding maintained?

Speaking of that, how did they control for one being warmer than the other? Abstract says it was placed on the ear, so assumably the subject could feel that.

When they say that phones were placed on the left and right ears, what do they mean? Hopefully they used a random ear for the "on" phone.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why not? After all gadgets alter your brain: <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/technology/07brain.html></comment>


FCC accused of colluding with Big Cable to game 5G legal challenge - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/25/fcc_accused_of_colluding/ <comment><USER2> So if I'm understanding this game of thrones correctly:

1\. Pai's commission pushed regulation fixing the cost of establishing 5G cell sites to the benefit of big telecom and economic dismay of cities--in particular, those known for their high cost of living.

2\. Cities litigate in the Ninth Circuit, which has a history of overruling in favor of local governance.

3\. Before the Ninth Circuit can reach a decision, the 4 largest telecom companies in the country file comparable yet independent suits in different circuits; their national presence suggests they could have filed anywhere. Their suits claim ommission of "deemed granted" provisions which would grant cell site auto-approval if cities fail to respond to permit requests within an allotted 3-month window, but eyebrows are still raised at why these companies would place direct legal backpressure against regulation that already favors their bottom line overwhelmingly.

4\. Cases were consolidated, triggering a procedural lottery to determine which of 5 circuits--including the Ninth--these cases would be heard in. Tenth Circuit gets it and appellants were instructed to migrate accordingly.

5\. A plea to delay the migration order was rejected by the Tenth Circuit; Commissioner Carr, a former legal advisor to Pai during his Verizon days, publicly cheers, dropping a hint of shrouded legal maneuvering.

6\. Tenth Circuit nevertheless decides that the cases be moved to the Ninth Circuit. Telecom companies push back hard.

7\. A Democrat-controlled House Commerce committee gets wind of the possibility that the FCC has leveraged its influence to game the judicial system by colluding with the companies that they oversee. A communications data dump and accomplice shit list is requested.

Not gonna lie...it's a dirty yet clever gambit.

<comment><USER3> Is it too late to force the fcc to back out of 5g approval?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > _the letter alleges that FCC staff – almost certainly from Pai 's office – > put pressure on the big telcos to challenge an order that is designed to > benefit them as a way of gaming the judicial system so the case didn't end > up in a court likely to overturn it._

<comment><USER5> The FCC is so corrupt. FBI really should be brought in to clean house.

<comment><USER6> As much as everyone hates Trump, he has been outstanding in highlighting the absurdly corrupt system. Can't drain the swamp you didn't know existed.

<comment><USER7> Everyone knows corruption is rampant. He's just the first one to talk about it so much. Too bad he's only worsened the problem.

<comment><USER8> Uhm no America has been corrupt for a long time and people have been talking about it for a long time.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The dream is over.

Corruption has seeped it's way to the highest office and some of the most important government organizations. What would be earth shattering 20 years ago is just business as usual these days.

Can we find our way back to the light?

<comment><USER10> Gotta call the plumber every now and then if you catch my drift.

<comment><USER11> Brazil, IMDB [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> What kind of job could one of these alleged FCC sellouts expect to get when they go into the private sector? I mean, what does it cost to capture the FCC?

<comment><USER13> A future board member of TelCo?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> So essentially the republicans are trying to force (telephone pole) rent control onto cities ? Commies.

</comment><comment><USER15> This seems like a very consumer friendly move. The last thing we want for 5G rollout is for it to be hampered by NIMBY cities. Clearing barriers for 5G equipment to be rolled out is a good thing.

<comment><USER3> Consumer friendly would be making telecoms pay for it, not taxpayers.

<comment><USER16> Telecoms do pay for it. They pay for hardware, install, and rent for the pole space. This ruling just limits how much local govt can charge for pole rent. It is consumer friendly because it helps accelerate a stable roll out and keeps costs down. It also limits the ability of NIMBY cities to block rollouts by over charging.

<comment><USER17> Ignoring the local economics is the same as getting a huge discount which is the same as the taxpayers paying the difference.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


10 Java Interview Programmatic Questions and Answers - <AUTHOR> http://javaconceptoftheday.com/10-java-interview-programmatic-questions-and-answers/

<comment><USER2> They claim to be good, programmatic Java interview questions, then proceed to violate just about every single Java coding standard/convention [1][2].

[1] [http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/codeconvtoc-136057.ht...](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/codeconvtoc-136057.html)

[2] [https://google- styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/javaguide...](https://google- styleguide.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/javaguide.html)</comment>


Airbus Corruption Scandal May Lead Straight to the Top - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/airbus-corruption-scandal-threatens-ceo-tom-enders-a-1171533.html <comment><USER2> Corruption is everywhere in business, but it's selectively enforced. No finance execs went to jail for the financial crisis.(0)

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about the current political climate is that while fighting corruption headlined presidential campaigns of the long-ago past, it never headlines them today even though almost all of our country's problems are direct results of corruption.

Jobs is a headline issue, but corporate corruption is endless. The financial sector has not been punished, in fact, Goldman Sachs has an influential post in Trump's cabinet(1). The auto industry was awarded bail outs for its corruption. This list goes on forever.

Healthcare could not be fixed, despite the desires of a popular President that wanted to make it his trademark legislation, because of corruption.

We have spent trillions on the War on Poverty, but it's hard to say Americans have much of a social safety net. The War on Drugs has created endless misery and violence, while the journalist who accurately exposed CIA drug running somehow suicided by two gunshot wounds to the head.

We have endless wars, police murdering people without punishment, unconstitutional three letter agencies, and useless government bureaucracies. All the while growing socieconomic inequality.

As developers, we are builders, and so it is in our self interest, and not just moral interest, to fight corruption. And personally, I'd much rather live in a world ruled by innovators and builders than by thugs and thieves.

But every election cycle it feels like there is a divide and conquer to distract us from threatening the plutocracy. Goldman and Wall St win every time. The military wins every time. Healthcare finance execs win every time, etc...

0- [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-07-26/why-no- on...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-07-26/why-no-one-went-to- jail-in-the-financial-crisis)

1-[https://theintercept.com/2016/12/09/trump-makes-america- gold...](https://theintercept.com/2016/12/09/trump-makes-america-goldmans- again-maga/)

2-[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb)

<comment><USER3> I view corruption as some kind of a necessary evil to protect and defend national interests.

I mean you can't always allow corruption at a micro level because it would be inefficient, but it's always allowed at the higher level.

I view corruption as a mean to keep the control of a social structure in the hands of certain interests so that it cannot be hijacked by strangers.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apM0d3M-sps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apM0d3M-sps)

Frankly, the mafia exists because some people don't trust the government or outside/remote political power to gain influence on them. So this way corruption allows people to take back things they think are owed to them.

People call this corruption, but I think people can act in their own interest and as long as we consent to it, it's not corruption, it's just public consent.

I mean there are countless ways that the public benefits from overseas corruption. For example nobody complains that gas is cheap enough. That's a form of corruption, to me.

You call that corruption, I call that consent and a balance of self interest. As long as people are happy enough, everything is good.

<comment><USER4> This type of doublethink is what undermines confidence in the global order and rule of law.

When some European/Western companies indulges in corruption and out-and-out egregious behavior, it's "just boys being boys" and "too big to fail."

A Chinese company indulges in some industrial espionage or uses that country's diplomatic levers and suddenly the sky is falling down.

E.g., why is Volkswagen still in business after literally setting fire to the world? Why should Airbus not be summarily be liquidated in found guilty of corruption?

Back in the day, news of such corruption would percolate slowly into the rest of world. That is no longer the case. News spreads quickly. People (like me) are watching and hoping that the standards get applied equally and if they don't, I like to think the strength in numbers and youth lies in the East, not the West.

<comment><USER5> Why do you think that liquidating companies that are employing tens of thousands, and providing transportation mechanisms for billions is a good idea?

The market for civil airliners is already far too concentrated and dysfunctional, it'd be even worse with a single player (Boeing).

Finding who's been involved in the decision-making process and punishing them harshly is fair and does send the right message. Destroying a large corporation arbitrarily doesn't.

Besides, in both Volkswagen and Airbus cases, they're far from being the sole bad actors in their respective industries. You'd only hand their marketshare to others who've been slightly better at not getting caught but were really doing the same thing all along.

<comment><USER6> Destroying companies hurts shareholders, who ultimately allow/encourage/demand their companies' bad behavior. If you're a fund manager, and the value of your Xyz Corp stock were at risk of going to $0 due to its execs' bad behavior, you would be incentivized to make sure the board is actually discouraging bad behavior.

Without this threat, we have the situation we have today: Companies never get significantly punished for anything, "because jobs," and corruption is rampant.

<comment><USER7> Shareholders don't have much insight or influence on the day-to-day in a business, so I don't think this would work very well.

<comment><USER8> I don't think they would have to if anyone involved would face this ultimate payment for their misbehavior. However, I think that it would lead to even better mechanisms to hide the corruption and turn the lobby machine on. It's easy to lobby when a company has to be closed down and many uninvolved people lose their jobs. Which politician would like to face this anger?

Maybe it's better to start the change from the other side. Make people understand and feel what it means if they are being cheated of their tax money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's interesting to think about what we call corruption. If a company bribes someone in the government with decision-making power, it's corruption. If a company pays money to a person in another company with decision-making power within his company (not gov. related), it's usually more difficult to qualify that as corruption.

One could argue that political corruption only arises when someone breaks the illusion of the State being some kind of entity that seeks the well-being of every citizen. I mean, the crime doesn't appear to be about receiving money, but about breaking the illusion (by seeking your own well-being).

<comment><USER10> > If a company pays money to a person in another company with decision-making > power within his company (not gov. related), it's usually more difficult to > qualify that as corruption.

That is indisputably corruption. It's call commercial bribery.

<comment><USER9> That may be illegal in the US, but I don't know if it is in other countries.

<comment><USER10> Sure but there are also countries where bribing government officials is legal. It's still corruption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Buffering of the leadership is part of any top down culture. The hint that corruption may lead to the top is naive, as it almost always does. Plausible deniability often comes into play.

</comment><comment><USER12> What was the deal with the Dacia Duster? I found this article difficult to follow.

<comment><USER13> The owner of a Romanian company has recently bought a car by taking a loan, while his company received millions from EADS. They seem to suggest that the company was used to channel money for bribes, in exchange for a modest dividend for the owner.

<comment><USER14> Thanks for that -- I had the same problem as the OP, I found the article hard to follow.

<comment><USER12> Lol glad to know I'm not the only one. Still confused on what accepting millions in bribes has to do with a car loan.

<comment><USER4> The guy who bought the Duster was living in the Gulf and became friends with the nephew of someone in the royal family of the country he was living in. The Bullshit Castle guys knew the buyer of the Duster and channeled money thru him to the royal family presumably in exchange for favorable treatment at the time of contract negotiation.

The Duster guy got a haircut for making the connection with which he bought the Duster and subsequently, an apparently crummy apartment somewhere.

<comment><USER15> But till now we don't know for sure if (and the article - confusing as it might be does state this) the Romanian guy's identity has been used without him knowing.

It could be a simple identity theft of some kind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm writing this as a thought experiment, so please don't respond if what I say angers you. I'm hoping to possibly seed an interesting conversation from which I can learn, not trying to make any specific points.

\---

why is corruption bad? Well, it definitely feels dirty, and it probably usually directly harms someone (who has to pay, doesn't pay, etc.)

But what if we looked at it from a trust based perspective? Single incidents of corruption have an outsized impact on the overall trust a society has in itself, and others.

So, what if the cost isn't created by the act of corruption, but by the perception / dissemination of corrupt events?

From that perspective, the best overall utility to society after the VW scandal was both to make it appear like someone is watching (disincentivize others) but also downplay the size of it (maximally maintain trust).

This isn't particularly thought through, but I was hoping to invoke Cunningham's Law to learn more about something I know very little about.

</comment><comment><USER17> Airbus is the epitome of crony capitalism. The company receives billions in "loans" from the EU, without any requirement to repay.

<comment><USER18> As opposed to jet planes that cost billions of dollars payed with a smile by the US government?

<comment><USER19> This is such a ridiculous comparison and shows a severe lack of understanding of how these companies operate.

The defense and commercial sides of Boeing operate very differently and have limited overlap, in terms of people, budget, and location. For example, nearly all of the commercial work is performed in Seattle at the plant, while the defense work is spread around the country at numerous sites. There is of course overlap in terms that they share common infrastructure (HR, training, some office space, IT services, facilities, etc.), but by and large, of the 120,000 employees out of 140,000, you are either working in the commercial side or the defense side.

Now, anyone can tell you that government contracting works very differently than commercial business. There is a large, large set of laws in place and all sorts of processes that must be followed to comply, and how you charge the government for things and account for them is _very_ strict. Working on commercial products and charging a government contract for it will put you in jail. Even using government funds for things not called out in the contract will put you in jail.

Furthermore, if you are on the defense side, you are almost always working on specific projects. You bid on a contract, you win it, and you work on it. If the contract is canceled or not extended, those people usually get canned. If the project is classified, you cannot share with anyone else, even on the defense side. You can't use commercial money, and you can't use the money you get for anything except what is explicitly called out in the contract. It is all very much a silo. And believe me, there are many audits, and they are painful. The government doesn't fuck around with these things.

If you are an employee working on the defense side, you may work on commercial projects, and vice versa, but you are only doing one or the other at any time, and you rarely switch. Most people will switch from commercial to defense once _in their careers_, if at all.

If you work at these types of companies, this separation of assets, budget, and people is very obvious, even down to the physical nature of it. You can visit any office in Seattle and it will be much nicer than an office in a defense site; the government does not look kindly on buying big screen TVs with their money! The people are different, the terminology is different, the restrictions and processes are VERY different (how you handle government property, classified or ITAR information, how you charge to contracts, etc.), the unions are different, the payscales are different, etc. Even down to what types of computers the employees use. Sometimes it is like the two wings of these companies are completely different creatures.

I would also point out that the defense side is under constant pressure to lower their costs. These companies win and lose contracts all the time, and no one is safe; just ask anyone who got fired after they lost a bid. The vast majority of these contracts are competetive, they are not cost-plus, and there is severe pressure to keep the costs down from all sides. You are constantly being audited and being held accountable. And even making a plane, for example, is no guarantee that you get any of the other business (maintenance, upgrades, training, etc.). Defense companies can and do "steal" projects from others, unlike in the past.

The defense and commercial sides of Boeing exist to be counter-cyclical. They don't exist to share money, or for a back-door for the government, and the contracts, obviously, are used to produce goods that are actually used (planes, bombs, etc.), and are completely different from a government "loan" that is never intended to be paid back.

There are _plenty_ of criticisms one can level at the defense industry in America, and Boeing in particular, but using government funds to prop up their commercial business is not one of them.

<comment><USER20> There is overlap, as you admit it. They should make it 2 completely different companies, with different owners etc.

At the moment it is clear the Boeing receives state funds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> _In describing what the business climate at EADS International does to newcomers, a person with knowledge of the company says: "If you put Mother Teresa in a neighborhood with rampant drug use, she wouldn't remain a saint for long, either."_

Not exactly a good analogy. From the Wikipedia page on Mother Teresa [0]:

She began missionary work with the poor in 1948 [...] adopted Indian citizenship, spent several months in Patna to receive basic medical training at Holy Family Hospital and ventured into the slums. She founded a school in Motijhil, Kolkata, before she began tending to the poor and hungry.

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

</comment><comment><USER22> What is the best strategy to deal with corruption? I mean in case I run my own company, others expecting bribes, I want to be a moral rock, coping with loss of business due to these principles etc. What is a survivable strategy for this?</comment>


An Intuitive Explanation of Solomonoff Induction (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Kyc5dFDzBg4WccrbK/an-intuitive-explanation-of-solomonoff-induction <comment><USER2> Stop posting LessWrong they are a cultist around Eliezer Yudkowsky they use Occam's razor without realising Occam (monk) literally imitated St. Thomas Aquinas who was a theologian/philosopher</comment>


The Failure of the Surveillance State - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2495289,00.asp <comment><USER2> All good points, but he doesn't seem to realise that the Paris attackers did indeed use electronic communication - unencrypted!

This seems to point to a much more serious failing; it puts the lie to the entire premise that if only the spooks had the data, they could prevent such things. They did, and they couldn't.

</comment><comment><USER3> A surprisingly accurate take on surveillance by the Dvorakasauraus I mean Long Time PC Ecosystem Commentator John C. Dvorak. Thanks for posting this link, I didn't know he was actively writing.</comment>


Picwing (YC S08) Reboots With An iPhone App That Prints Photos For Your Mom - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/29/picwing-reboots-iphone-mom/

<comment><USER2> Fantastic gents! I've loved the promise of picwing from day one. There is definitely a large market for the problems you are solving.

This was a great business pivot. I really hope it works out - and i think it will - you could be doing some serious revenue in no time.

<comment><USER3> "This was a great business pivot."

Yes, indeed. Would love to hear more details about it. Mixergy interview maybe?

<comment><USER4> It was actually a really tough decision to make. Having to let go of something you poured blood (literally), sweat and tears over. In the end, the decision was the right one. The business Picwing is in now is profitable, has a much larger market, and scales better. Plus, something about mailing baby photos to grandparents makes me feel good inside.

<comment><USER5> Alright, I have to ask.

> _blood (literally)_

Care to elaborate?

<comment><USER4> We were manually putting together the Picwing frames, and drilling holes were involved. The spinning drill bit slipped out of the hole and went into my forearm. A trip to the ER, a few stitches and tetanus shots, and a couple thousand dollars later, I was good to go =)

<comment><USER5> Ouch. Yet another reason to use VPSes/cloud hosting :)

<comment><USER6> That's a nearly Reddit-level non-sequiter ;)

The "Picwing frame" is/was an actual photo frame - <http://www.picwing.com/blog/?p=22>; I don't think edawerd drilled into himself assembling a server.

<comment><USER5> Oh, ok. I hadn't heard of it and wasn't reading carefully, so I was thinking a server rack

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I love Picwing! In fact, I was just uploading my latest installment of photos when I noticed this article came out. This is the only way my grandmother gets to see photos of her great grandson. I also have Picwing set to mail me the photos, so I actually have prints to frame or put in a baby album. Otherwise, it just wouldn't happen.

<comment><USER4> I'm glad you use Picwing just as we had hoped people would use it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wow, as soon as I read the description of the service, I instantly saw a need for this and realized it hasn't been met. I'm not a parent, but I can definitely see the value here.

Guys, I wish you all the best.

P.S., this brings up the market for services that operate with the real world without your direct intervention. I'm sure there can be other uses for this.

<comment><USER4> There definitely are other uses. We've had customers using Picwing to automatically send prints to soldiers deployed in Iraq, convicts in prison, and other interesting use cases.

With that said, 95% of our customers sending prints through us are parents sending photos of their babies.

</comment></comment><comment> jim-greer I wish someone would run with the original business and fix digital photo frames... I've spent so much time on the phone with my parents and mother in law trying to keep their Flickr feed of granddaughter pictures working. The Kodak connected picture frames are god awful.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps devices like the iPad are making the original business irrelevant?

Granted, $500 is a lot of money for a digital frame–but the iPad has a great digital frame mode, so I think its not too far off.

<comment> jim-greer It's a good point, I'm sure it won't be too long before there's a $300 Android tablet that would do the job well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Do they do email distribution? I personally just throw out every non-digital picture I get (after scanning the ones I want to keep). I may be an anomaly in that regard now, but I won't be in 10 years.

Either way, it would be relatively easy to add more digital methods of distribution if the market shifts that way.

<comment><USER11> Yes, email distribution is way easier than prints, so I think you can count on them implementing that feature, certainly before you're a grandparent. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I sense brlewis and ourdoings will be adding a new feature soon ...

<comment><USER11> Heh. I'm actually busy with features current users are asking for. But the "The reason this is so valuable" paragraph does sound like exactly the people we help. Some kind of integration is probably in our future. Of course, all Picwing has to do is pull from RSS feeds and they'll be integrated with everybody.

<comment><USER4> Actually, we also just released an API so other services can send their photos to Picwing.

<http://www.picwing.com/apidocs>

Would love to work with OurDoings. Wanna chat about this sometime?

<comment><USER11> Sounds intriguing. I'll get in touch...probably next week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm actually bummed they ditched the picture frames. I tried to order one from the first batch but they were out. My mom and dad would be stoked.

</comment><comment><USER14> Have to say I love the title.

"So what do you do?"

"I print photos for your mom"</comment>


Ask HN: Autism, depression and shyness - <AUTHOR> Hey all.
I've been thinking recently about my personality and how it's affecting my professional opportunities. I was hoping perhaps someone here might have some advise?
So I'm on the austism spectrum. It's not severe, but bad enough that I often don't know what's funny and what isn't. I cant make small talk. And I find it generally hard to form relationships even when I try.
I also suffer from depression. I think about killing myself a lot. People hate depressed people. And I get it. I try to pretend I'm happy, but some days I can't and that pushes people away.
Being a solitary kid also caused me to develop an extreme shyness. It's better these days but I still have noticeable anxiety in social situations, and I tend to avoid them whenever I can. That makes it even harder for me to form relationships.
I was recently let go from my job and I'm certain part of that was due to me never really fitting in. And again, I understand why people wouldn't want someone like me around. I'm a terrible team player, I'm weird and unsociable, and when I do have to communicate I'm crippled by shyness.
I've spent my whole life trying and failing to start my own thing so I can get away from people. But it's never worked out, probably in part because I stuck at making the kinds of contacts I should be.
But I need to get a job soon because I'm going to be homeless in a few of weeks. I know if I apply to enough places someone will over look my awkwardness during the interview and give me job. But I'll never get promoted because I'm the weird guy in the corner. And one day the markets will change and I'l naturally be first in line to be let go.
I'm getting fed up with it honestly. I've always been bright, but that's doesn't mean much.
Is anyone in a similar position? What's the answer?
Oh, and if by any chance someone reading this happens to be looking for a depressed autistic developer, send me a message or something - I'm fully qualified for the position. <comment><USER3> Try to develop your spiritual and emotional intelligence. A lot of people in the tech and science industry seem to be so focussed on the hard skills that they neglect soft skills and other important parts of life. Success in software development is only 20% coding and 80% communication (a wise person told me). Your anxiety can be overcome, look for opportunities to build positive relationships with people, volunteer, help someone, read some non- tech literature e.g. novels, creative writing, poetry, scriptures. Personally my Christian faith has helped me understand people and become more emotionally sharp. If you have any Christian friends or family get in touch with them. Believe you can grow and overcome, the lowest moments can be the most significant turning points from which you can move forward. You can do it man.

<comment><USER4> Though well intentioned, that's not really the right advice for someone on the autism disorder spectrum. It's kind of like telling a person with muscular dystrophy to try jogging.

<comment><USER3> Some people with autism do make significant progress to the point where they can achieve a lot and live a fulfilling life. The muscular dystrophy simile is inaccurate and quite disempowering, like saying "sorry your stuck in a condition so don't try to do anything". Getting a formal diagnosis and professional medical advice is of course a good idea as per the other comment. There are stories and research showing the brain can develop and learn in autistic children and they become more able to deal with the social challenges of life [1]. The OP has already said s/he has made progress with shyness, this is an encouragement to take steps forward in other areas too.

[1] [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2271608/Can- really...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2271608/Can-really-cure- child-autism-With-parental-devotion-pioneering-treatment-Jamies-behaviour- transformed-So-experts-sceptical.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a similar person.

> _So I 'm on the austism spectrum... I also suffer from depression... I still > have noticeable anxiety in social situations, and I tend to avoid them > whenever I can..._

Is this self-diagnosed or do you have a formal diagnosis from a clinician? I would recommend getting a formal diagnosis if you don't have one, as it offers you certain legal protections and opens some options for help. All of the things that you describe are well known syndromes and are, to varying degrees, treatable. I recommend seeking a psychiatrist / therapist at a teaching hospital, if you can, as you have a better chance of getting higher quality care.

> _I 've spent my whole life trying and failing to start my own thing so I can > get away from people..._

Aside from a few extraordinary talented individuals, the day of the solitary hacker is over; software engineering is a team sport.

What worked for me is to:

1) Accept that you're not going to fit socially in the way that normal people do. Aloofness, as long as it's not taken to extremes, is actually OK.

2) Find professional aspects that you are willing to work extra hard in in that others will value, e.g. hard working, willing to take on dirty jobs, or developing a technical specialty. People are willing to forgive your social limitations if you are of value and not otherwise unpleasant to be around.

3) (The following is going to sound extremely weird to people not suffering from autism.) Develop an synthetic set of social behaviors that cater to your limitations. For example, I memorize certain canned responses to use during short social interactions and use other other techniques to cut the interaction short if needed to in order to prevent awkwardness from arising.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply.

I was tested for Austin when I was younger and I was told I was on the spectrum. I was offered extra help in school and all that, but I always refused it because I figured I'd never get that same help in real life, and it was probably better just to work twice as hard. For the same reason I don't care for any legal protections. I wouldn't take them even if I was offered. But I haven't been formally diagnosed with anxiety or depression. It's extremely clear to anyone who's spent time with me that I suffer from both. I just don't see the benefit of being diagnosed as I don't want any special help, or to take drugs to treat something that I don't see any a character flaw.

1\. Yeah, I take pride in being a bit different. That being said, I'm very aware that going too far isn't a good thing if I still want to relate to others.

2\. I guess this is really the answer I'm looking for. I don't want to be "normal", I want to be myself yet not be rejected by people professionally. I guess in reality the only way to do that is offer something special.

3\. Oh man, I have so many canned responses for everything. My issue is that sometimes when I'm having a rough day I don't care enough to pretend I care about what I'm saying. I find a forced response like, "Oh wow, that sounds cool! Tell me more!" quickly becomes, "oh. Cool."

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> For the depression part - you might want to look for a therapy. It's not a shame and it might improve quality of your life. Therapist will help you find out the core reason standing behind your depression and will help you to make it let go.

Apart from that - if you are technically gifted and you `are always right` with your ideas just try to get somebody who will do `small talk` part for you and get them on board as co-founder. The best solution is to find somebody like that in your nearest circles (friend you already know long enough) - <USER2> you will suffer each other for long enough for the idea to kick in :-)

</comment><comment><USER7> I am in a _similar_ position (except for the depression part—I've been there, but I'm now over it—and I also don't have immediate concerns over becoming homeless). What country do you live in? In my country (France), the solution to this situation is to ask for welfare/social support. With an official diagnosis, you can then get financial help and a "disabled worker" status, which _really_ helps professionally.

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't have Autism, but I've struggled with PTSD/depression for most of my life and have pretty debilitating shyness (so much so that people have asked if I'm autistic).

It looks like ThrowawayP has really good suggestions, but I thought I'd throw in a couple resources you may find helpful.

1) I know a huge barrier to getting counseling is the cost. Before you find a stable job you could try online counseling. I found a couple sites that seem pretty affordable (Both options start out free and have comparatively low monthly fees after the initial consultation). I think both have chat options, which is great for people like me who are really shy :) You mentioned that you may be homeless soon. Definitely talk with a counselor about that; they may be able to point you to helpful resources. \- [https://www.betterhelp.com/](https://www.betterhelp.com/) \- [http://www.7cups.com/online-therapy/?ob=1](http://www.7cups.com/online- therapy/?ob=1) (This site has licensed therapists and "listeners". This link should take you to the licensed therapist option, which should be more useful.)

2) A few tech companies are starting Autism hiring programs. Here's a general article about it: [http://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/autism- hiring-i...](http://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/autism-hiring- initiatives-tech) \- Here's microsoft's program: [https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/diversity/inside- microsoft/c...](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/diversity/inside- microsoft/cross-disability/hiring.aspx)

3) I've been trying to find ways that I can work on my interviewing skills and am considering using [https://interviewing.io/](https://interviewing.io/). It allows you to do anonymous technical interviews for practice where you can get feedback on your communication skills. (If your interview goes well, it can even lead to real job opportunities)

You mentioned that people hate people with depression, and I just wanted to add that this isn't necessarily true. There are people who don't understand it because they haven't experienced it, but there are a lot of people who will relate to what you're going through. When you have depression, it feels like everyone dislikes you. I'm not trying to put a bandaid on the issue, and I know there are people who can be cruel and unempathetic. I just want you to know that there are a lot of people out there who do care and will relate (and they're the ones worth knowing).

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. I've had some experience with counselling and psychotherapy. Truth is I really don't see my depression as a bad thing. I see it as something that in my case is entirely logically routed and I don't understand why other people are so happy all the time. I don't see myself as someone who needs help or curing, but the only sane person in the room. I guess I just want to know how to live my life as a person who's different mentally in certain ways rather than feel like I need to thinking positively like the people around me just to survive.

2\. Ah, that's cool. I'll look into it although I'm not sure I would personally classify as disabled, or even want to. I certainly don't see myself as disabled in anyway.

3\. That's a really cool service. I wish I could sign up, apparently it's in private beta and I can't see an email form anywhere. =(

And yeah, some people relate of course. But in my experience it's probably around 1 in 25 who relate, with probably around 5 out of every 25 who strongly dislike people who are depressed. And I'm not hating on these people, I almost hate people who are unrealistically optimistic all the time, but society often tells us that kind of disorder is good. Which is crazy to me.</comment></comment>


Git and GitHub Secrets - <AUTHOR> http://zachholman.com/talk/git-github-secrets <comment><USER2> A few thoughts:

1) Wow, awesome deck. I love the style.

2) How is the vastly superior "git status -sb" not the default? [https://speakerdeck.com/u/holman/p/git-and-github- secrets?sl...](https://speakerdeck.com/u/holman/p/git-and-github- secrets?slide=131)

3) It would be nice if we could tell linguist to ignore certain directories in our own repos. Not all of us use rails and/or have a /vendor directory.</comment>


How to Create a Successful Tech Event - <AUTHOR> http://blog.evenues.com/post/2011/10/The-Story-Behind-a-Successful-Tech-Event-Lean-Startup-Seattle.aspx

<comment><USER2> This is sort of random, but my single biggest gripe with many of the tech events that I've been to in DC is the lack of preparedness around the AV setup.

Have two AV inputs, one for the live presenter, and one 'standby' that's just hooked up to a monitor right next to the podium or something, and some kind of easy way to switch them over. That way while Presenter 1 is going, Presenter two can plug in / set resolution / restart a laptop 3 times, etc. If any presenter is playing a video, make sure the sound works and reaches to the back of the room.

I've been to two (otherwise great) 'A big batch of startups get two minutes each to pitch' events in the past month where we've burned half an hour of awkward DJ time in between the 'quickfire' presentations because presenters were getting the projector to play nice, which would've been avoided easily if they'd have done a dry-run the night before. I know these are tough and usually using borrowed resources, but why risk ruining your event to save a few hours of work in the week before the event?

<comment><USER3> The Health 2.0 event last week had this set up. They actually had two separate podiums at opposite sides of the stage. It worked quite well and more than once they were able to flip to a backup and recover gracefully.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you use Google Sheets for? - <AUTHOR> With yesterday's announcement of Microsoft Lists, I was curious to learn more about how people use spreadsheets today. Are we using them for complex calculations, or simply to store lists/tables of data?
Most of my recent sheets were simply lists. Here are the last five I've opened: 1. Lead prospecting (accounting firms) 2. Lead prospecting (B2B SaaS companies) 3. Cap table 4. Health insurance plans 5. VSCO April 2020 Layoffs Candidate List
If you're curious, you can get your list at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/. <comment><USER2> We, extracttable.com, use Google Spreadsheets, a minimal, to save the signup via Google Forms which is also linked to an endpoint using the app scripts to generate an API key.

The biggest workflow I witnessed is from our user, a financial intelligence platform from Brazil, which initially takes data from images and do a manual entry to spreadsheets, has a significant pipeline with as many as 200+ macros defined for their business flow that takes down to close a final output of their clients need.

 _Prerelease: I planned for a Show HN post, next Tuesday, as we are yet to publish the below content in our site._

We have built a Spreadsheet Add-on ([https://gsuite.google.com/marketplace/app/extracttable_image...](https://gsuite.google.com/marketplace/app/extracttable_image_to_spreadsheet/387162865168)) to aid their business process that extracts table data from images and puts into the spreadsheet.

 _Offer_ : For HN community, take 20% extra credits on your purchase with an email to email@example.com with the subject "From HN."

<comment><AUTHOR> extracttable.com looks cool! Looking forward to reading the Show HN post!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have so many Google Sheets.

I track my weight, running performance, workout progress, my spendings, savings, investment performance, car expenses, all trips out of the country (for visa purpose) and more.

Everything with fancy charts showing progress and how well I'm achieving my goals.

<comment><USER4> wouldn't this be easier if you could do it in an application?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm using a Google Spreadsheet as a database backend for my portfolio. ([https://andrefuchs.github.io/](https://andrefuchs.github.io/)) I wanted a solution that is lightweight and easy to update.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's pretty cool! I took a look at your repo out of curiosity. I didn't realize Google Sheets had an easy way to read sheet data as JSON. Neat!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A few things that I use it for: Pre-programed D&D stat trackers because it's free and Pathfinder is... complicated. Factorio base ratio calculations, and EvE online related market data. Quickly sharing database query output. A simple weight tracker.

Most of these things are and can be independent services, the issue is if I need something now that's ad hoc, then Sheets provides a computation sandbox in a format that most people are familiar with.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting! I also used a spreadsheet a while back when playing reactoridle.com. Similarly, I had a spreadsheet for my weight and body fat % every day.

Agree that while independent services are possible, it's hard to beat the flexibility you get from Sheets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Currently, I use Google Sheets for tracking expenses and investments. There are two files, one for tracking expenses and the other is for investments.

I track my daily expenses in a sheet. A sheet is indicated the month and the year. Once I spend the money I input the expense soon to prevent from forgetting. It's simple. A table with a category expense, detail expense, and the amount. This is something that I want to do because this habit can make me understand how I spend my money. I mean do I appreciate the money?

For investments, a sheet is indicated a category of investments. Stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, for example. I also use a simple table to track what I buy or sell. By the way, Google Sheets has a GOOGLEFINANCE formula [0] that is very usefull for getting the price of a stock.

[0]: [https://support.google.com/docs/answer/3093281?hl=fr](https://support.google.com/docs/answer/3093281?hl=fr)

</comment><comment><USER8> For a fun side project, I decided to use Google Sheets as a database that would be easily editable by the general public (non-developers).

It is currently populating data for a crowdsourced map of San Francisco Bay Area third-wave coffee roasters:

[https://hdehal.github.io/coffee-maps](https://hdehal.github.io/coffee-maps)

I was able to quickly get the app created in React, and while Google Sheets has extensive API docs ([https://developers.google.com/sheets/api](https://developers.google.com/sheets/api)), I found it far easier to use the simplified Node.js wrapper from [https://github.com/theoephraim/node-google- spreadsheet](https://github.com/theoephraim/node-google-spreadsheet)

On occasion, I'll get a friendly "request for access" with someone adding a roaster to the list (and the map gets populated automatically), so it's fairly hands-off.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's pretty cool! I was recently looking at Google's API docs as well, but I'll definitely check out node-google-spreadsheet.

One thing I could never figure out from Google's API docs is whether you can retrieve the revision history of a particular cell? Going out on a limb here, but has anyone had any luck with this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I use it as a great way to share data from ad-hoc queries, and often times can drive a quick workflow without having to build out a full set of screens in our line of business app.

On a personal level, despite many attempts to find a perfect app, my relatively simple set of budgeting spreadsheets is still the best solution I've ever come up with.

Not Google Sheets, but the president of our company has been able to build out a new line of business app using Excel in a few weeks, something that would have taken use several months or more using our traditional development approaches (it will eventually be moved there for robustness, but using spreadsheets as a prototyping tool and letting those who understand the business hammer out the logic, before handing off to developers, is a great approach. A working spreadsheet is definitely the best requirements doc in the world)

<comment><USER10> I use Google Sheets to share ad-hoc queries with other people too. Fun tip for those who use Postgres: psql has a command `\copy` that allows you to write the results of a query out into a local (clientside) CSV file. From there, it's pretty straightforward to import that into a Google Sheet.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, I use Datagrip, which lets you easily copy a query's results to TSV data in the clipboard, so you can't quickly paste into Google Sheets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> To see an interesting use -- check out [https://www.tillerhq.com/](https://www.tillerhq.com/). An entire business built on top of google sheets.

Unfortunately, i didn't care for it (I didn't like the way they handled splits or the import from amazon)

</comment><comment><USER12> I've got three files open right now. One is calculating contract rates based on hourly, weekly, and monthly contracts and various discounts. One is a list of RFPs, contacts for them, and their status. One is costing out a few options for a home office setup.

So a combination of lists and light calculations.

In the past I've also used them as awkward makeshift databases and leaned heavily on conditional formatting to highlight data points that required action.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've tracked my wedding-related costs with my at-the-time-fiancee-and-now- wife.

Then we've used couple times it to calculate some monthly living costs and savings.

And the last time I've used it was for keeping track of all recruitment processes I've took part of (because over a week I've applied to like hundreds companies and it was difficult then to differ which company was offering what etc.)

</comment><comment><USER14> "Let's build a product that is better than spreadsheets!" \- 50% of founders of recently-failed B2B startups

Sorry for the joculariry, but having worked for such a company, I have a bit of amusement of how prevalent that idea is, and also how amazingly Teflon free spreadsheets are in comparison to so many of the more beautiful and usable paid alternatives (freemium things like Airtable aside)...

<comment><AUTHOR> No need to apologize. :) There's a reason spreadsheets are so widely used, and I often find myself using Google Sheets or Excel for a wide array of tasks before even considering more specialized alternatives. I'm already paying for it (or it's free), I know how to use it, and it's extremely flexible.

"having worked for such a company" If you don't mind me asking, which company was that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> In my personal life, I use Google Sheets to help me shop for larger purchases. For example, choosing tires for my car. I made a spreadsheet of all the available tires that fit my car, with columns for specs, prices of different retailers, user review numbers, and government ratings. Then I filter what's important to me and calculate my own rating based on the remaining columns.

</comment><comment><USER16> I recently used Google Sheets to create a simple list[0] of people who want to co-hack on projects.

[0] [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YKQ9g6h4BuWI32xcMbSM...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YKQ9g6h4BuWI32xcMbSMUSP5ndaOCtEewa14WISqNaY/edit?usp=sharing)

<comment><AUTHOR> Curious - do any online communities exist for this purpose?

<comment><USER16> None that I know of. But in the past people use to linger around various IRC channels to meet others and start projects together.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I use one sheet every day to track my time. It's simple enough with 24 x 365 cells for each year's sheet. It takes me around 30s a day to fill it out. It's mostly guesstimating what I was doing during the day. It's a fun way to look back on my week.

I honestly think this is one of the most impactful things I've done to reduce wasting my time.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's great. Do you use a consistent naming scheme or categories to help aggregate data?

<comment><USER17> Yep! Every cell can hold values from a list. You can read more about it from where I originally found it: [https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/5lh6tc/eve...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/5lh6tc/every_hour_of_my_2016_charted_by_category_oc/dcx5jrb/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Connecting APIs with Google Sheets for business intel and data analysis purposes using our tool [https://apipheny.io](https://apipheny.io)

</comment><comment><USER19> I track my workout progress in a sheet that is backing a google form. After every session, I enter the details from my phone. My priorities were: 1. not having to install yet another app; 2. not locking my data into a silo.

</comment><comment><USER20> I've been using Google sheets to curate the remote jobs from many job sources. It's a really an easy database for me since I have limited database skills.

Also, Airtable for some cases and when it's relevant.

</comment><comment><USER21> I use Sheets for personal data tracking, for content planning, for making quick financial projections, etc, etc, etc.

Would be easily top used tool for me if it wasn't blocked on the company level where I work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting- why is it blocked at work?

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Tracking shipping containers as they progress from supplier -> port -> ship(s)/port(s) -> port of discharge -> rail -> depot -> our warehouse and then returned to the depot.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting use case! Any reason you didn't consider something like Trello for this? It seems like it would fit it nicely and give you a nice visual overview of where each shipping container is.

<comment><USER9> Aside from draggable cards and swimlanes, Trello doesn't make for a great solution where you need to store structured data, especially if you need to additionally query or filter on that data.

Probably far easier to just build out a visualization and keep the data in the spreadsheet.

I tend to store status in a dropdown in the spreadsheet, and color-code the row based on status.

<comment><AUTHOR> I see. I haven't used it myself, but I know Trello has a custom fields feature to add structured data to each card ([https://help.trello.com/article/1067-using-the-custom- fields...](https://help.trello.com/article/1067-using-the-custom-fields-power- up)).

Are you the only one working out of this spreadsheet or do you share it with others?

<comment><USER9> In this instance, it's just me, but I've used shared spreadsheets on Google with no issues.

<comment><AUTHOR> Got it. Transparently, I've been working on a tool called Flowdash ([https://flowdash.com](https://flowdash.com)) that helps bring structured data to workflows like this. I'd love to get your feedback since it sounds like you're pretty familiar with the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> My most recent spreadsheets are: Budget, Shared expenses, Catan Quarantine League, Metrics Dashboard, Talent List.

So a mix of personal finance, dashboards, and lists.

</comment><comment><USER24> I used them to grade students, multiple teachers can edit the document at the same time and the grades are computed dynamically.

</comment><comment><USER25> I track my budget in Sheets. I have some AWS Lambda functions that IFTT calls to update the sheets with new data

<comment><USER26> I'm interested in hearing more about this setup. What triggers the IFTTT calls and what do the Lambda calls accomplish?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Budget and date night ideas are our two main used sheets

</comment><comment><USER28> They fit perfectly on my Google Bed.

<comment><AUTHOR> (^▽^)</comment></comment>


[Presto-based] Opera 12 and Opera Mail security update - <AUTHOR> http://www.opera.com/blogs/security/2016/02/opera-12-and-opera-mail-security-update/ <comment><AUTHOR> Just an example of how to treat an "unsupported" product somewhat nicely.</comment>


Regex to match Egyptian Hieroglyphics - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28896329/regex-to-match-egyptian-hieroglyphics

<comment><USER2> mirror? this was removed from stackoverflow</comment>


Ask HN: Can an employer sue for ownership of domains an employee owns? - <AUTHOR> Are domains considered Intellectual Property or a business and is an employer allowed to sue for them even if they are not related to their business? <comment><USER2> Just to be clear: anyone can sue for (almost) anything whether it is reasonable or not.

Whether they win has a lot to do with many, many details regarding the contract, and details like where you registered it, what your job is, and others.

</comment><comment><USER3> Check your contract to see what your employer owns and doesn't own.</comment>


OpenBSD ports are more than just a Makefile - <AUTHOR> http://homing-on-code.blogspot.com/2015/04/ports-are-more-than-just-makefile.html

<comment><USER2> I had much experience with ports about 10 years ago building from source and even maintaining and creating a few. I can say the community around ports and specifically Marc Espie were great.

I also always found ports and OpenBSD to be explainable, non-surprising and simple as opposed to much of what I saw with rpm and apt.

<comment><USER3> Ports work pretty well and without much hassle. In contrast, rpm and apt are pretty complex. I've never felt I've understood them. If using Linux, I very much prefer pacman.

However, all seem to be stuck in the past. I wonder why the ideas pioneered by [http://www.gobolinux.org/](http://www.gobolinux.org/) are not more widely implemented, leaving nix aside.

<comment><USER2> I was always a fan of contained packages as well. Apple generally does a nice job with application packages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Edit: I was wrong about OpenBSD ports on several counts, it seems. OpenBSD seems to have corrected several omissions in package management that I've seen in the past; some of these changes seem to have come recently, in version 5.5. I'm reading docs now to see which of these issues have been resolved.

Lest anyone be misled into believing ports is comparable to yum or apt...it is not.

With ports it is not only possible, but likely, that you will end up with upgrades to some software that can break other pieces of your system, because the dependencies often do not account for things, like compile flags, which can be changed by the user at install time. This leads to a very fragile system a couple years down the road, after a bunch of upgrades and new software installation has occurred. This isn't theoretical; I've seen it happen more often than not in my very limited use of the ports system...it is avoidable, but it is not obvious or well-documented how to avoid it, and adds not insignificant costs to maintaining your systems.

With ports it is not possible to verify that the files installed by the port match what was originally installed. This can be useful for security purposes (i.e. has the ps command been tampered with?) or for troubleshooting purposes (i.e. did someone install a program from a source tarball over the original package, or did permissions/ownership change?). _Edit: I was wrong on this one. pkg_check verifies package contents against checksums, which is comparable to rpm -V or debsums._

With ports, it is not possible to reliably roll-back to a prior version in- place (i.e. without uninstalling everything, and then reinstalling it).

With ports, it is likely you will, over time, end up with multiple versions of some things (libraries, languages, etc.) installed. This is common on Linux, as well, but the ability to determine what is built against which versions, and to be able to keep up with whether, say, an insecure version can be removed without breaking things on the system, is much weaker (non-existent, as far as I can tell).

OpenBSD has many fine qualities and very smart people working on it, and I don't think it's the dumbest idea ever to use it. But, ports is simply not a sufficient answer to the package management problem. RPM/yum and dpkg/apt are not perfect, but they are vastly superior to ports in every dimension. FreeBSD now has pkgng which is very much a move in the right direction, and it would be definite progress for OpenBSD to adopt it.

Note that providing binaries or not is not on my list of complaints about ports, above. Somehow, in every conversation about ports failings as a package manager, there will always be people talking about binaries, and how you can totally install binaries with ports and so there's no reason to not like ports. I find it annoyingly time-consuming to build everything from scratch, but it's not a deal-breaker. Providing binary packages is not why apt and yum are vastly superior to ports.

<comment><USER5> OpenBSD's ports tree is only distantly related to FreeBSD, and the package system is a complete rewrite. Implying that it shares any of the same problems without researching it is being quite disingenuous.

Users are only discouraged from building ports because binary packages have been provided for all available port flavours, there is no opportunity for users to customize ports or tweak compile flags without them venturing into the realm of already unsupported tasks.

The ownership and permissions of files are tracked, and the package tools will notice if files are missing or have been modified. Dependency tracking, resolution, individual file check-summing and package signing are all performed. And OpenBSD handles the versioning of shared libraries separately for the whole system, even ports.

FreeBSD's pkgng was undoubtedly a good move for FreeBSD, but OpenBSD already received it's very own next-generation package system a few years prior.

<comment><USER4> _" Dependency tracking, resolution, individual file check-summing and package signing are all performed."_

Can you link me to the documentation that covers this? I googled before making my comment, because I have limited (and mostly old) experience with OpenBSD ports, and wanted to be sure I wasn't making incorrect assertions. I couldn't find anything about verifying packages.

Anyway, if what you say is true, and OpenBSD now has effective package management, I'm going to spend some time with it, and possibly add support in our installer for it. I was under the (seemingly) mistaken impression that it would have the same faults as ports on FreeBSD.

<comment><USER5> Marc Espie is who developed the package tools, and has given talks about it. Ted Unangst created signify, which is the basis for the package signing capabilities.

You could also check the pkg_add(8), signify(1) and ports(7)/packages(7) man pages.

[http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi/OpenBSD- current/man1/...](http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi/OpenBSD- current/man1/pkg_add.1)

[http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi/OpenBSD- current/man1/...](http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi/OpenBSD- current/man1/signify.1)

[http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi/OpenBSD- current/man7/...](http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi/OpenBSD- current/man7/packages.7)

[http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi/OpenBSD- current/man7/...](http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi/OpenBSD- current/man7/ports.7)

<comment><USER6> Also relevant:

* packages vs. ports[0]

* porter's handbook[1]

[0]: [http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq15.html](http://www.openbsd.org/faq/faq15.html)

[1]: [http://www.openbsd.org/faq/ports/index.html](http://www.openbsd.org/faq/ports/index.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Teen Mathletes Do Battle at Algorithm Olympics - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/11/mf_algorithmolympics/ <comment><USER2> One neat thing: at Harvard, Neal takes Math 55, a course so famous it has its own Wikipedia page.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_55>

" ... covers four years of math in two semesters."

Otherwise, that "will he die a virgin ?" quip was really uncalled for.

<comment><USER3> That quip is pretty much why I don't subscribe to wired anymore. Showing contempt for the audience is not a good thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you can find it, _Beautiful Young Minds_ is a great documentary about the British team for the International Math Olympiad.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beautiful_Young_Minds>

</comment><comment><USER5> It'd be interesting to observe their workflow, from editor choice to debugging methodology. Sure, choosing and developing a sensible algorithm is the "meaty" part. I, for one, am fairly impressed by the stuff these kids do.

But I'd be surprised if they didn't have some serious Vim-Fu going on as well.

<comment><USER6> There's very little usage of either Emacs or vim at these competitions (they seem to prefer a simple text editor). Also, they code _fast_ , literally at the limit of how fast they can type! Maybe it's a consequence of the language choice (typically C++)...

<comment><USER5> _Maybe it's a consequence of the language choice (typically C++)..._

Because it allows them to type as fast as they can, or because it forces them to do so?

<comment><AUTHOR> Too much to type in C++ as compared to language like Python

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Single page: [http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/11/mf_algorithmolympics/a...](http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/11/mf_algorithmolympics/all/1)

</comment><comment><USER8> How to become matheletes like them ? Any guides ? Books? Where to get started ? You suggest to learn python by it clearly says C,C++ and Pascal. Should I learn C++ as first language ? Help ?

<comment><USER7> Ask for opinions of 10 HNers and get 10! answers ...

Personal opinion only ...

Learn Python first. Work on problems from Project Euler. Learn to program Python in OO mode. Learn C. Learn C++. Learn to program Python in functional mode. Read about the algorithms mentioned in the article. Understand P vs NP. Understand why this is funny: <http://xkcd.com/287/>

<comment><USER9> I have to disagree. I participated in few algorithm competition (however much easier than IOI) and I think that: \- OOP \- C \- functional python are redundant. Creating more advanced objects than graph vertex/edge is usually unnecessary in algorithm tasks. Functional programming - well, that would be useful sometimes, but as IOI and most similiar type competirions support C/C++/Pascal, you won't be able to use it anyway. Problems from project euler seems to be a good start, however. Learning mentioned in article algorithms too.

<comment><USER7> If I want to play Rachmaninov's second piano concerto, I don't start by trying to play it straight away. I start with simple pieces, with scales and arpeggios, and with speed exercises. I build my basics, initially leaving out things that I'm not ready for.

I think learning Python first, and then the concepts behind both OOP and FP, better prepare someone for solving problems in languages like C++ than trying to start with C++ first.

As I said, personal opinion.

ADDED IN EDIT:

Fascinating. Rather than refuting the point I'm trying to make, someone has simply down-voted it without comment. That's a shame, as it doesn't provide me the opportunity to learn. Perhaps I simply haven't been clear, or perhaps they simply disagree without caring to articulate their point.

To try to be more specific, I think that learning Python, then learning Python in an OO style, then learning C++, makes a better programmer faster than trying to learn C++ directly. I have no evidence, only anecdotes, and they're not worth much. I think it's like trying to make a 6 inch reflector telescope. It's faster to make a 4 inch, then a 6 inch, than it is to try to make a 6 inch first. Again, there have been no controlled, double-blind experiments, but it is the conventional wisdom.

So there it is. If you think that expressing such a thought is detracting from the value of HN then feel free to downvote this comment further. If you disagree, but think it's an interesting point that deserves to be refuted, I'd love to hear your reasons.

<comment><USER10> Algorithm competitions aren't like playing Rachmaninov's second piano concerto.

It's more like playing a simpler piece that everyone knows, like Canon in D. Except you learn to play it faster than anybody else.

You're giving advice on how to be a better programmer, which is significantly different from being a programmer who implements algorithms. In a programming competition, I don't go back and optimize my code. I test to see if it works, and go on to the next question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In case anyone's interested, there's a syllabus: <http://people.ksp.sk/~misof/ioi-syllabus/ioi-syllabus.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER12> "For kicks, he took the tryout test for Harvard's team. He came in first place."

I knew I recognized him from somewhere! ACM Regionals in New York took place a couple weeks ago. MIT managed to solve 7/8 problems, Harvard solved 3.

No one on our team has been doing competitive programming for nearly as long as some of these guys have. It took me only about a year of (very casual) practice to get to this point. So it doesn't necessarily mean you need to spend every waking moment on TopCoder.</comment>


Ask HN: What would you use to build a super simple web app? - <AUTHOR> I need to create a very simple web app. What are some good micro frameworks out there that I could use?
My needs are very basic: users need to be able to create an account, post new discussions, reply to things and see what's new. (Basic CRUD stuff).
I considered Rails when I first worked on this project many moons ago, but I find it's is overkill for what I want. Too much magick. I want as much of the code to be stuff I've written and understand. For the db, I'm curious about noSQL solutions but again, I want to keep it light.
I don't care if it's in Ruby, PHP, Golang, Perl 6, JS, Python... it's for a personal project so I'll have fun playing with it.
What are you guys using for your small side projects? (Thanks!) <comment><USER2> Django with SQLite. It has built in Admin panel, authentication, and a very simple DB api. The learning curve is not hard. SQLite requires no additional dependencies and you can backup your db by copying the database file. It also performs very well.

</comment><comment><USER3> You could get this project setup in Meteor (JS framework) in ~2 minutes using Telescope

[http://www.telescopeapp.org/](http://www.telescopeapp.org/)

<comment><USER4> I second this. I've been playing around with Meteor for testing side project ideas. Super simple to get up and running.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I use Flask if it's an API or Django if it's a web app. These days I use Elixir and Phoenix for most serious web apps though but if it's a small side project, I would reach for Python since that's the language I am most comfortable with. I really like SQLite and I think it's very underrated for small apps, but if it's serious I would use Postgresql since it's fast, reliable and awesome.

</comment><comment><USER6> Generally I'm doing side projects to fix an actual need of mine, rather than where some people are trying to learn a new language or framework, so I pick PHP because it's the language that I'm most proficient at, it's probably not the best language for my needs, however the most powerful language is the one that you know!

Are you looking to build something, in which case playing around with new frameworks may just be a distraction...? Or do you actually want to play around with something new?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nah, the goal isn't to learn a new language per se. It's in response to an actual need. I've sketched it out quite in detail (I previously sketched out db table schemas) a while back, and now I want to build it.

I'm just out of touch with what's out there. What PHP framework are you using?

<comment><USER6> I've played around with Larvel and others seems to like it, to be honest I can build stuff in it but I struggle to grasp everything going on behind the scenes, so kinda suck at debugging it... However this is 100% because I'm not a coder, and not a pit fall of the framework.

I actually kinda use my own framework, I learnt php from a Lynda video tutorial, think it was one where you build a blog. Main part of the tutorial is building a framework, and I naturally just started reusing it for my own side projects...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My personal choice at the moment is Ruby with Roda[0] and whatever ORM meets my needs best, or even skip the ORM and use the DB adapter directly if it's something quick and simple

[0]: [http://roda.jeremyevans.net/documentation.html](http://roda.jeremyevans.net/documentation.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest a Rust framework called pencil [1]. It's inspired by Python's flask and is just as easy to get going.

[1]: [https://fengsp.github.io/pencil/pencil/](https://fengsp.github.io/pencil/pencil/)

</comment><comment><USER9> If you truly want no magic and barebones "on the metal" code, go with Flask. You'll have every choice down to the way you serialize your objects into views, models, and every aspect of the database. You can write everything yourself with no or minimal dependencies, or pull in the most popular packages as you see fit (SQLAlchemy, Marshmallow, Jinja, etc.).

Django will provide some (useful) magic, but nowhere near as much as Rails. If the site evolves, I really recommend transitioning to Django for it's ecosystem. In either case, I recommend sticking with plug-and-play auth.

(Disclaimer: I'm an engineer at a startup whose backend is 90% Python, mostly Django.)

</comment><comment><USER10> Python and Flask on Heroku. What you're describing is almost the "tutorial" web app (look up Grinberg's book on Flask). Heroku is a nice platform to work on that takes a lot of the complexity out of cloud hosting. Flask lets you do almost all the coding yourself, but it has add-ons available to take care of whatever you don't want to do.

Heroku gives you a PostgreSQL database with one click, but you could easily integrate a MongoDB database if you wanted to try NoSQL. In Mongo, you'd actually store and retrieve your data in JSON, so it's even easier than writing SQL.

</comment><comment><USER11> For basic CRUD and REST API I use Sails.js [0]. You can literally roll-up an app in 20 minutes.

[0] : [http://sailsjs.org/](http://sailsjs.org/)

</comment><comment><USER12> If your interested in making a RESTful back end I would suggest the Falcon microframework for Python.

[http://falconframework.org/](http://falconframework.org/)

Or just using Go out of the box. It has a lot of what you'll need built in and is pretty fun language. I'm learning it right now myself and it has a lot of interesting features.

</comment><comment><USER13> What you're describing isn't "very simple".

Use a proper framework. Something like Elm, Om Next or React.

<comment><AUTHOR> Will check those out, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> You may find this thread useful: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10302879](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10302879), though it's about CRUD on the JVM specifically.

</comment><comment><USER15> Pux (like Elm) in PureScript (purely functional JavaScript).

[http://alexmingoia.github.io/purescript- pux/](http://alexmingoia.github.io/purescript-pux/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Python and CherryPy and any light DB like SQLite. Or Bottle instead of CherryPy.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think either Django or Ruby on Rails would do. You can roll out these basic functionalities in less than 2 hours if you are reasonably familiar with these frameworks.

</comment><comment><USER18> Stop thinking about "overkill". It's such a foolish pre-optimization. If sometching helps you solve a problem quickly, just run with it.

</comment><comment><USER19> Python+Flask is awesome

so lightweight, yet extendable... some extensions that might be worht looking at: Flask-Login, Flask-SQLAlchemy, Flask-WTForms, Flask-Admin

<comment><USER20> Plus one for flask. You can have a web app up and running locally in about 15 minutes, then deploy to Elastic Beanstalk in another 10.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm going to build my side project in gwt ( with bootstrap for responsiveness) and host it in google app engine.

</comment><comment><USER22> CGI, basic auth, and bash can go a long way. Add git and baby, you've got a stew going.

</comment><comment><USER23> I think if you find rails to be too hard you ought to be looking for some hosted solution to do what you want or just pay somebody else to do it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nah, it's not too hard -- it just has a bit too much magick for my liking. I'm comfortable with Ruby and the MVC pattern. It comes with too many things that are free but I don't need.

For example, for my blog, I didn't use WordPress because it's too bloated -- it comes with jQuery, widgets support, themes etc etc. All I needed was a way to generate articles. So I used node.js-based Metalsmith[1] and it does just enough without getting in the way.

I've never built an public-facing app but that's kinda the point of it why I want to do it. Hiring someone else and miss out on all the fun? ;)

[1] [http://www.metalsmith.io/](http://www.metalsmith.io/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> PHP

</comment><comment><USER25> PHP and MySQL. Also Bottle and Python.</comment>


Obama Proposes Surveillance Policy Overhaul - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324522504579002653564348842.html?mod=djemalertNEWS

<comment><USER2> Obama proposes nothing of the sort. All he's proposing is a fresh coat of paint over the same policies and procedures in an attempt to make it seem like it seem like Obama cares about civil liberties and privacy, but he really doesn't. The security of the state and the establishment is what matters to him. Hasn't his Justice Department's failure to go after the big players in the financial crash, failure to go after the Bush Administration war criminals and instead go after easy targets like Aaron Schwartz proven that to you yet?

Sorry guys, we thought Obama was our friend, but he's thrown in the law enforcement and military types over the geeks. Color me a disappointed Obama voter, but at least I know where the Democrats stand. It'll be third party voting for me here on out.

<comment><USER3> I think we can officially start calling all this "transparency theatre"</comment></comment>


Can we really secure php script ?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.itechjunky.com/?p=24 <comment><USER2> security is dependent upon many things. the language in which something is written is not at the top of the list of things.</comment>