Ask HN: Looking for contributors? - <AUTHOR> There have been times in my life when I've wished that I had a fun side-project to work on, especially in a team, and especially something open-source. There have also been times when I've managed to create for myself a few side-projects which I have loads of plans for but struggle to find time to do all of.
I know there are folks out there who are in one of either of these camps right now, so with that in mind I invite you to 'advertise' your open-source projects in need of a bit of attention from some fellow interested hackers who might want to get involved. Personally, I have two at the moment that I'd like to get more done on.
Ideally, post projects with some open issues on GitHub/BitBucket/Whatever and a few details about the project (language, context, applications of the code). I'll put mine in the comments if it looks like this is useful to anybody. <comment><USER2> We love community contributors at Mozilla!

I personally work on Marketplace [1], the app store for open web apps [2]. Our properties run client-side apps (HTML/CSS/JavaScript) with a Python/Django API server. Many other options are available depending on your skills and interests:

\- If you know C++, for instance, you can contribute to the core layers of Firefox, Firefox OS, and other Mozilla products.

\- If you know JavaScript or HTML/CSS, you can contribute to the front-end of Firefox, or to Gaia, the application layer of Firefox OS.

\- If you know Java, you can contribute to Firefox Mobile.

\- If you know Python, you can contribute to our web services, including Firefox Sync or Persona.

\- If you know Make, shell, Perl, or Python, you can contribute to our build system.

\- If you know C, you can contribute to a number of low-level and third-party libraries that we use as part of the Mozilla codebase.

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Introduction](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Introduction)

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

Feel free to reach out if you're interested (email in profile), and I'd be happy to either help you find something or put you in touch with somebody who can.

[1] [https://marketplace.firefox.com/](https://marketplace.firefox.com/)

[2] [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/Apps/Quickstart/Build/In...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/Apps/Quickstart/Build/Intro_to_open_web_apps)

<comment><USER3> Any plans for a Firefox iOS browser? I know UIWebViews use webkit, but I think it'd be pretty cool to have a good Firefox mobile experience on the app store. I primarily use Chrome for iOS, and I think it could be way better.

I develop natively for iOS and would definitely down to help out in any way possible there.

<comment><USER4> I forget the nitty gritty details, but as I understand it: Apple's restrictions dictating what can and can't go in iOS apps makes it impossible for us to use Gecko on iOS.

Edit: Here is a more thorough answer: [http://support.mozilla.org/en- US/questions/945460#answer-392...](http://support.mozilla.org/en- US/questions/945460#answer-392552)

<comment><USER5> Question: how is this any different than the scheme Microsoft instituted in the 90s to artificially keep Office and MSIE superior to alternatives? Wasn't it this same regime which ultimately was ruled as anti-competive?

<comment><USER6> There's a big difference in market share. You need to have a monopoly _and_ abuse that monopoly to violate anti-trust regulations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This would be a great addition to the monthly "Who's Hiring" and "Freelancers" posts that go up. Not sure who runs the whoishiring account but maybe they could consider this.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=whoishiring](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=whoishiring)

<comment><USER8> I would really like this. I'm looking for something to contribute to, and threads like this are the ideal place to find projects.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome - you perfectly represent 50% of the people I posted it for. Woo!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You can of course, contribute to KDE.

The community is welcoming, appreciative, understanding and extremely supportive. KDE project includes:

Lots of libraries

Hundreds of applications

An office suite

Different shells (Desktop, Tablet, Media Center)

Lots of artwork, including a complete icon-set, custom font, wallpapers, etc.

You will get experience with real team-work with different people across the globe. Active projects are developed at a very fast pace.

Nice thing about contributing to a project like KDE is that your work will rich millions of users.

More importantly, you are contributing to a community which has an agenda: Free Software.

Take a look at KDE's Junior-Jobs [0]. These are issues which could be easily fixed by newcomers.

[0] [https://bugs.kde.org/buglist.cgi?keywords=junior- jobs&bug_st...](https://bugs.kde.org/buglist.cgi?keywords=junior- jobs&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=CONFIRMED&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&list_id=941447)

</comment><comment><USER10> PouchDB - [https://github.com/daleharvey/pouchdb](https://github.com/daleharvey/pouchdb)

A reimplmentation of CouchDB in the browser based on indexedDB / webSQL, its designed as a library for web devs to build applications that work offline and sync data seamlessly when their users login to other devices.

Theres a contribution guide @ [https://github.com/daleharvey/pouchdb/blob/master/CONTRIBUTI...](https://github.com/daleharvey/pouchdb/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md) and we try to tag good patches for beginners @ [https://github.com/daleharvey/pouchdb/issues?labels=goodfirs...](https://github.com/daleharvey/pouchdb/issues?labels=goodfirstpatch)

As a project I spend a lot (pretty much all) my time on trying to make it easy to contribute (while at the same time producing a well built easy to use library), would love to hear back about how easy / insanely hard the process is.

<comment><USER11> I'm really interested in Couchdb, and have probably spent about 20-25 hours on tutorials so far (and probably another 10-20 perusing the Apache couchdb-dev mailing list archives). Honestly, I don't feel comfortable using it on anything serious yet, though I really want to get there eventually. What level of familiarity with CouchDB + indexedDB&webSQL would you suggest is necessary for a potential contributor?

<comment><USER10> Hey

Absolutely none, there have been quite a few contributors without prior experience in the related tech, I mean not all contributors are / need to be programmers, trying to make that easier too.

If you are interested then look around this issues, or get in touch on irc or email and certain to find something that you will be comfortable working on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Tudat: A modular, generic, robust astrodynamics toolbox

[http://tudat.tudelft.nl](http://tudat.tudelft.nl)

This project has been my life for the last 4 years. Was fed up with the fact that no one was collaborating within my research group in terms of software, so decided to set this up at the beginning of my PhD. Learned a lot of C++ along the way (and a whole lot more still to learn!).

If you're interested in getting involved, feel free to sign up on the website. There's a stack of features that are still to be implemented, and some fantastic research projects that can be carried out. I've also been looking to implement a Python interface so that the code becomes more accessible (especially to undergrad students in the department).

Some example simulations that have been carried out with Tudat:

* Launcher ascent trajectories

* Interplanetary mission design

* Global trajectory optimization

* Low-thrust trajectory design

* Circumplanetary dust dynamics

* Space debris conjunction analysis

* etc., etc.

So if you want to get your hands dirty with some cool space simulations, we'd love to have you on-board. Feel free to drop me an email if you have any questions about the project: me [AT] kartikkumar [DOT] com.

<comment><USER13> If this was integrated with Kerbal Space Program my life would be complete

<comment><USER12> That's sounds like an interesting hack! Do you mean hacking the physics engine for KSP?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Helpful ([http://helpful.io](http://helpful.io)). Ruby on Rails helpdesk software trying to make things like ZenDesk & Desk.com suck less. Github: [https://github.com/asm-helpful/helpful-web](https://github.com/asm- helpful/helpful-web). We've been getting guidance from Kevin Hale (a YC partner) on his vision for the perfect support app. We also do something kind of cool where we share the ownership (and profit) of the app between the contributors: [https://assemblymade.com/helpful](https://assemblymade.com/helpful). Anybody is welcome to be "Helpful" and join the great team that we have building it.

<comment><USER15> I've found contributing to Helpful to be a great way to play with some fresh technologies and get production code onto GitHub while working with a team. The on-boarding steps and task tracker are excellent, even compared to larger not-for-profit FOSS projects.

\- You get to use fresh technologies and learn best practices from some excellent project leads and contributors

\- You earn ownership shares of future proceeds from the project

\- Your contributions are open source and visible on GitHub—this can mean a lot if you later go to apply to a startup job where "point to a few projects on your GitHub" is more important than "send me a PDF of your resume"

You could do much worse per minute spent on a side project, well worth it in my opinion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Tox ([http://tox.im](http://tox.im))

Secure, encrypted, instant messaging, voice, and video, over a distributed network, aiming to be easy enough to use to completely replace Skype.

The core is a library written in C, and there are several different clients in different languages, help on any of them or the core would be great.

[https://github.com/naxuroqa/Venom](https://github.com/naxuroqa/Venom) (Vala/GTK+ cross platform client)

[https://github.com/stal888/Poison](https://github.com/stal888/Poison) (Objective C OS X client)

[https://github.com/Astonex/Antox](https://github.com/Astonex/Antox) (Android)

[https://github.com/Jman012/Toxicity](https://github.com/Jman012/Toxicity) (iOS)

</comment><comment><USER17> I recently open-sourced my web-based vector app Mondrian.

[https://github.com/artursapek/mondrian](https://github.com/artursapek/mondrian)

It's a fun project to hack on for anyone interested in math, geometry, SVG, or web apps. You can try it live at [http://mondrian.io](http://mondrian.io).

My email is in my HN profile if there are any questions.

<comment><USER18> Yo Artur, it's Dan (from Hearo way back when). I just happened to be reading these comments, cool to run into you on HN. Mondrian is looking great.

<comment><USER17> Oy, thanks man. Hope you're doing well

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Nimrod - [http://nimrod-lang.org](http://nimrod-lang.org) \- [http://github.com/Araq/Nimrod](http://github.com/Araq/Nimrod)

Nimrod is a "new" systems programming language which is statically typed, uses space delimited blocks (like Python) and compiles to C to create very fast and dependency free executables.

We have a growing community with a couple of collaborators already who love to help newcomers. There is plenty to do, the most important of which is fixing compiler bugs but I'm certain that most people would not like to start with that. There are of course many other ways you can contribute. You may wish to write libraries in Nimrod and make them available for other Nimrod programmers, you can improve the standard library documentation and the tutorials, or you can simply write software in Nimrod and give us feedback about the language and the compiler.

If you're interested then talk to us on IRC (#nimrod on Freenode) or our forum ([http://forum.nimrod-lang.org](http://forum.nimrod-lang.org)).

</comment><comment><USER20> Hi guys,

We've actually build a site you can use to post your projects to attract contributors who can pick up a task for you, join your team, spread word, provide feedback, become beta users or advisors, etc. It works like a GitHub for non-hackers minus the code (since you can use github for the code). The site is used mostly by top universities, hackathons, and some YC and HN members. Here is the link if you think that could be useful to you or others: [http://www.doerhub.com](http://www.doerhub.com)

<comment><USER21> Nice idea. You have to work on your github connection though. I logged in finally through first making a github connection, then it said my email address was already taken, so I got it to work through a password reset. Just so you know!

<comment><USER20> Thanks! Looking into it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> ShareLaTeX - [https://github.com/sharelatex/sharelatex](https://github.com/sharelatex/sharelatex) is a web-based real-time collaborative LaTeX editor.

The stack is a walking cliché: Node.js, Redis, MongoDB, Coffeescript. Lots of open issues, with plenty that are tagged 'good for beginners' (to the project, not necessarily with the tech). We've also got a dev chat room where we're available to help you get started whenever we're online: [http://www.hipchat.com/g1nJMcj7b](http://www.hipchat.com/g1nJMcj7b)

We have strong opinions about the correct way to write javascript/coffeescript to be unit testable, and how to write apps based on lots of small services which are robust and testable. We'd be delighted to have people contribute and either sway our opinions, or pick up some of our experience.

</comment><comment><USER23> BrickPi, an open source LEGO robotics system for the Raspberry Pi. We have had some great contributions so far and we really need help. The BrickPi is being used in classrooms but because of our limited programming skills it is still lacking in user friendliness.

The first repo is our main python project. [https://github.com/DexterInd/BrickPi_Python](https://github.com/DexterInd/BrickPi_Python). This repo could really use some help with: \- Better motor control. Including a robust pid controller for speed. -Vision analysis with the raspberry pi camera (so much potential for robotics!) \- A way better way to program with Scratch.

Tufts University is also working on a project called blockytalky that's sort of a souped up hybrid of Google coder and Scratch. The project is mostly in Python and uses a more complex version of daemons to control software and make a really beautiful programming environment for kids! They need some help and their project is here: [https://github.com/tufts- LPC/blockytalky](https://github.com/tufts-LPC/blockytalky).

The hardware is easy to get, its on Sparkfun here [https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12732](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12732)

If hardware is a problem for you send me a pm.

</comment><comment><USER24> IHaskell - [https://github.com/gibiansky/IHaskell](https://github.com/gibiansky/IHaskell)

IHaskell is aiming to be (in a sense) a replacement for GHCi for interactive Haskell development. It uses the IPython framework (no Python code in main codebase, of course) in order to provide an interactive notebook interface. It allows multiline expressions, graphical output for things like JSON, charts, images, etc, and is very extensible. It's more or less stable but there's still a ton to do if anyone is interested - feel free to get in touch!

</comment><comment><USER25> Crosslet [http://sztanko.github.io/crosslet/](http://sztanko.github.io/crosslet/) needs a fundamental refresh/rewrite. If anyone fancies D3/maps, feel free to contribute. See here: [https://github.com/sztanko/crosslet/issues/12](https://github.com/sztanko/crosslet/issues/12)

<comment><AUTHOR> Mate that is a cool-ass widget, really slick! I'd love to help if I can find time. All in favour of reducing dependencies too! I'm currently working on a game which involves leaflet maps so could be some crossover.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Pullup.io - [https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup](https://github.com/larvalabs/pullup)

Pullup is the website you have to submit a pull request to join! We're a small fairly tight-knit community right now. It creates a pretty interesting feel, knowing that every member has an invested interest in how Pullup develops.

We're currently putting a lot of effort into making the onboarding process easier, which means there's a load of easy, yet high-impact, issues sitting in Github right now.

Join us on Gitter, if you want to chat! [https://gitter.im/larvalabs/pullup](https://gitter.im/larvalabs/pullup)

</comment><comment><USER27> Prove It! - [https://github.com/ConceptPending/proveit](https://github.com/ConceptPending/proveit)

Given the recent spat of insolvent Bitcoin sites, I whipped together a project that will allow any site that holds customer Crypto Currency funds to verify to all customers and the public that they're solvent.

It also allows anyone to host a third-party verification site (work in progress) that will let someone copy/paste some JSON and then explain to the end-user whether they should trust the site they're using and why.

There's a Python and JS implementation, and I'd like to add more languages. I also need to finish the web verification and make sure everything is explained clearly.

</comment><comment><USER28> We always welcome additional community involvement for any of our projects at Fogbeam Labs. Yes, we're a company and hoping to profit from our OSS work in time, but everything is ALv2 licensed, developed in the open, in true community fashion, not Android style "throw it over the wall" whatever. Code is all on Github.

Most of our code is in Groovy, some stuff is Java. Future stuff might include anything from Clojure or Scala to R, or C++ or Julia.

Quoddy - an enterprise social network. To use an analogy "Facebook for the enterprise" \- but so much more. [https://github.com/fogbeam/Quoddy](https://github.com/fogbeam/Quoddy)

Neddick - an information discovery platform. To use an analogy, think "Reddit for the enterprise". [https://github.com/fogbeam/Neddick](https://github.com/fogbeam/Neddick)

Heceta - a search engine. Think Solr + ManifoldCF + (some other stuff for social search and semantic search). You could say the idea here is to bring the Linked Data approach inside the enterprise.

I can't promise anything definite, but as with any commercially backed open source project, the possibility is always open that if somebody contributes to the project and kicks ass, that we may be able to find (or create) a spot for that person at Fogbeam at some point.

All commercial notions aside, we are working on some wicked cool stuff, especially the semantic web stuff, and would welcome anybody who wants to get involved. At worst, we'll all learn some stuff and have some fun together.

</comment><comment><USER29> Not my own project though related to something I have worked on in the past and would work on in the future :[http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/category/html](http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/category/html)

This is an effort to port science and math sims that were initially built as Java applets but now need to become web-based (HTML5 canvas, SVG, javascript..etc)

I posted a while back asking each developer to adopt a single sim and commit to doing a port on it.

For anyone interested I can get you in touch with folks working on the sims.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is very cool: [http://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/resistance-in-a- wire/late...](http://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/resistance-in-a- wire/latest/resistance-in-a-wire_en.html)

Do you know how many more sims there are to port?

<comment><USER29> A LOT: [http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/category/new](http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/category/new)

It is indeed very cool, if they can all be ported to modern web, you can do a lot of cool things with them.

here's an example of some work I did a while back that uses those sims in a digital notebook type environment: [http://schoolnotez.com/](http://schoolnotez.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> There's plenty of room to get involved with Chicago Boss, a web framework for Erlang:

[https://github.com/ChicagoBoss/ChicagoBoss](https://github.com/ChicagoBoss/ChicagoBoss)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've got two projects that I'm trying to move forward at the mo:

1\. SkiFree.js, my JavaScript port of the Windows classic game _SkiFree_. Trying to remove the jQuery dependency and flesh out all the features from the original game including additional NPCs. I am actually doing some active work on it every couple of weeks but not as much as I want! [https://github.com/basicallydan/skifree.js](https://github.com/basicallydan/skifree.js)

2\. Interfake, a tool for creating on-the-fly JSON APIs. Really handy for front-end devs, mobile devs and anybody writing automated test suites which need APIs to hit. I'd like to add a way to generate collections in responses (i.e., an array in a response) and semi-random data. [https://github.com/basicallydan/interfake](https://github.com/basicallydan/interfake)

All contributions would be super helpful :)

</comment><comment><USER31> Hi! I licensed (MIT) all my Ruby on Rails applications. If you're free, I'd appreciate some UX recommendations and PR's!

Compliance chimp - a simple way to manage PCI Compliance [https://github.com/akshatpradhan/compliance_chimp](https://github.com/akshatpradhan/compliance_chimp)

Spoutlets - a simple way to share your journal for your therapist to read [https://github.com/akshatpradhan/spoutlets](https://github.com/akshatpradhan/spoutlets)

Lending round - a simple way to manage a small loan to an acquaintance. [https://github.com/akshatpradhan/lending- round](https://github.com/akshatpradhan/lending-round)

My LinkedIn: [http://linkedin.com/in/akshatpradhan](http://linkedin.com/in/akshatpradhan)

Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER32> We're building a site, [http://solvers.io](http://solvers.io), where you can give your skills to projects that are trying to improve the world.

We've got projects including helping charities with websites, making software to liberate knowledge, contributing to farming robots and helping develop better yielding crops.

I encourage everyone here to post their projects to solvers - we've already brought some really cool teams together.

You're also very welcome to contribute to solvers itself: [http://github.com/solvers/solvers](http://github.com/solvers/solvers)

<comment><USER33> Great idea - I'm looking forward to taking a look at some of these projects.

Your website also looks like it needs a re-design - if you'd like some help with it, let me know.

<comment><USER32> Hey, thanks! We'd love design help - feel free to drop me a line (email@example.com), or just start taking part on Github.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> ClassicUPS: A Useful UPS Library

This is, hands-down, the best and most useful Python wrapper around the UPS API. Use it to track packages, track the status, delivery dates, create shipping labels - everything you'd want to do!

Their API has a ton of features. I could use help with unit tests, documentation, and, of course, adding more useful UPS features to the library itself!

[https://github.com/classicspecs/ClassicUPS](https://github.com/classicspecs/ClassicUPS)

</comment><comment><USER35> Laymans Law - [http://laymanslaw.co](http://laymanslaw.co) We are working on making a place to make legislative law searchable, understandable and most importantly discussion oriented to identify laws that need to be changed.

Then we can rally a group to contact the right people to make that change.

</comment><comment><USER36> [http://www.zenphoto.org](http://www.zenphoto.org)

We're a nearly 10-year-old open-source self-hosted photo gallery project, with a better backend and design than alternatives like Gallery or coppermine. We also have CMS capabilities like Wordpress, but more geared toward and integrated with your media.

Mostly PHP and web tech. It began very simply and has been run for 8 years exclusively by community contributors. We're about to lose our lead developer, and we'd love to inject some new folks into the project and bring it up to date in terms of UX.

Reach out with an issue/pull request on github if you're interested: [http://www.github.com/zenphoto](http://www.github.com/zenphoto) \- or via our web site [http://www.zenphoto.org](http://www.zenphoto.org)

</comment><comment><USER37> CKAN [https://github.com/ckan/ckan](https://github.com/ckan/ckan) is another project looking for new contributors.

It's a Python project, that produces a data portal, used by data.gov, data.gov.uk, dados.gov.br, and quite a few others around the world (see [http://ckan.org/instances/](http://ckan.org/instances/) for some more).

You could be part of making the world a more transparent place, enabling people to find (and use) data more easily.

Our contribution guide is at [http://docs.ckan.org/en/latest/contributing/index.html](http://docs.ckan.org/en/latest/contributing/index.html). Issues are in GitHub, and we're sometimes about in irc://irc.freenode.net#ckan.

Can you do it, yes CKAN.

<comment><USER38> There're many issues marked "Good for contribution" now in [https://github.com/ckan/ckan/issues?labels=Good+for+Contribu...](https://github.com/ckan/ckan/issues?labels=Good+for+Contribution&page=1&state=open), which are a good place to start hacking.

It's a Python webapp made in Pylons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> A bunch of projects that could use your help.

Hacker News API - [https://github.com/karan/HackerNewsAPI](https://github.com/karan/HackerNewsAPI)

Fully functional HN API as a Python module. It has a bunch of issues such as adding more end-points for getting more data. I could really use someone's help here.

HNIfy - [https://github.com/karan/HNify](https://github.com/karan/HNify)

This is the REST port of the previously-mentioned API. It has a bunch of issues - not all methods have been ported, no unit tests, very slow sometimes etc. The biggest issue is to add a crawler and a database so the API doesn't have to call HN every time a request is received.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>--

Both MIT licensed. Free to use and modify. Fork and send PR's, Happy to merge.

Let me know if there are any questions.

</comment><comment><USER40> BipIO - [https://github.com/bipio-server/bipio](https://github.com/bipio- server/bipio) is all JavaScript, the biggest thing it needs right now is a migration of the configuration dashboard at [https://bip.io](https://bip.io) into the public repo.

Currently a Backbone/LESS/PHP(Zend) stack and needs some CSS consolidation, a decouple from PHP, (most of this is already done), a Gruntjs build system, security audit and general cleanup and also an Apps/plugin framework

oh and there's also Templar ([http://mjpearson.github.io/templar/](http://mjpearson.github.io/templar/)) which could be a whole lot more awesome :D

</comment><comment><USER41> PureScript ([http://purescript.org](http://purescript.org)) is always looking for new contributors.

PureScript is a small strongly, statically typed programming language with expressive types, written in and inspired by Haskell, and compiling to Javascript.

If you're looking for a Haskell project to hack on, or a hands-on way to learn Haskell, we have lots of things to work on. Knowledge of compiler design is not necessary for a lot of the remaining tasks. The goal of the next big milestone will be to write some necessary libraries and to port the compiler to PureScript itself.

Libraries for client-side and server-side web development are also a focus.

The FreeNode #purescript IRC channel is a good place to chat about the implementation.

</comment><comment><USER42> Amazingly I just set up a blog to try and help with this even more as I was having the exact same urge today!

Please check out [http://oss-love.tumblr.com](http://oss-love.tumblr.com). Would love your thoughts

</comment><comment><USER43> I'm actually currently starting to look for a co-contributor or two, there is so much that I want to get done, and having an extra set of eyes and hands would be great.

I am working on a framework/concept called ghostream ([https://ghostream.com](https://ghostream.com) / [https://github.com/ghostream/ghostream](https://github.com/ghostream/ghostream))

ghostream is a stream processing framework, built in C++ - it is a data stream processing framework. Having used numerous commercial ones (most notably IBM's Streams), and building various other part-frameworks (i.e. for time and budget reasons focussed on one particular thing) I has an itch to build an open source one (while storm and samza are definitely related, I feel they fall into a slightly different category - I'm all about the streams :) )

It is still in very active development - but the base is solidified now and the new test framework is starting to shape up nicely. There are a whole list of issues on github + a roadmap waiting to be exploited.

I have already started dog-fooding it in my other personal projects - the most visual of which can be seen here: [http://jamielewis.me.uk/posts/2013-11-03-Mapping- Earthquakes...](http://jamielewis.me.uk/posts/2013-11-03-Mapping-Earthquakes- with-ghostream.html)

If this strikes your interest give me a shout: firstname.lastname@example.com.

</comment><comment><USER44> The glowing bear would be more than happy to be helped out a bit. It's a relay client for WeeChat written in pure client-side JavaScript, for desktop and mobile. You connect directly to your WeeChat (most likely running inside a terminal multiplexer on your server). I like to think of it as IRC for the 21st century.

[https://github.com/cormier/glowing-bear](https://github.com/cormier/glowing- bear) Say hi at #glowing-bear on freenode if you're interested

</comment><comment><USER45> [http://factorcode.org/](http://factorcode.org/) ([https://github.com/slavapestov/factor](https://github.com/slavapestov/factor))

A new programming language based on the concatenative programming paradigm. Not my project, I'm just an enthusiastic contributor. It's the most intelligent and powerful language ever. But a lot of library components are missing and needs to be written. :)

</comment><comment><USER46> Try Bookie. It's an open source alternative to delicious that I've been hacking on recently. They are registered as a project for Google summer of code this summer so activity has picked up recently, but the main developer struggles to find time to work on it.

[https://github.com/bookieio/bookie](https://github.com/bookieio/bookie) hosted at [https://bmark.us](https://bmark.us)

</comment><comment><USER47> Teach the world to code with CodeCombat. We're a YC W14 company that open sourced everything back in January. Our game teaches complete newbies JavaScript, but we also offer levels for advanced devs. Our goal is to become the game that teaches everyone to program.

We have a bunch of issues for everyone from senior devs to people who don't know how to program over on our repo: [https://github.com/codecombat/codecombat](https://github.com/codecombat/codecombat)

If you are looking for independent projects that won't require as much help from us, you can check out our list of Google Summer of Code example projects: [https://github.com/codecombat/codecombat/wiki/Summer- Project...](https://github.com/codecombat/codecombat/wiki/Summer-Project- Ideas-List)

We also just launched a ChallengePost challenge to encourage contributors to submit transpilers so we can make the game available in different languages: [http://codecombat.challengepost.com/](http://codecombat.challengepost.com/)

If you have any problems or need help, the founders (myself included) spend most of the day helping people get involved in our public Hipchat room: [http://www.hipchat.com/g3plnOKqa](http://www.hipchat.com/g3plnOKqa)

Although code submissions are great, the highest value contribution you could make at the moment is to try our first multiplayer level and give us feedback: [http://codecombat.com/play/ladder/dungeon- arena](http://codecombat.com/play/ladder/dungeon-arena)

</comment><comment><USER48> Anyone is more than welcome to help out with some of the projects I have on our even suggest some new ones to collab on. I have a few ideas.

Tyto: [http://jh3y.github.io/tyto](http://jh3y.github.io/tyto)

Still needs improvement but is a purely html,js, CSS project using a nice simple set up for people to get involved with without trouble.

Also fleshing out a UI component library built with the future in mind.

Hit me up if interested: firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER49> Well, Hacking Health is designed to improve healthcare by inviting technology creators and healthcare professionals to collaborate on realistic, human- centric solutions to front-line problems.

It's a not-for-profit organization with thousand of members world-wide hacking on lots of very cool projects. If you want to be part of it, definitely check it out (hackinghealth.ca).

Whether you want to help your healthcare ecosystem by bringing Hacking Health in your city or want to help the Hacking Health organization (we really need help on the design and development side), please feel free to e-mail me directly: phzbox @ gmail

Some pictures and videos: \- [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2scn6yHKVo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2scn6yHKVo) \- [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llQP92K5fGQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llQP92K5fGQ) \- [https://www.facebook.com/HackingHealth](https://www.facebook.com/HackingHealth) \- [http://www.flickr.com/photos/hackinghealth/](http://www.flickr.com/photos/hackinghealth/)

</comment><comment><USER50> If you're interested in scientific visualisation, you can take a look at Veusz: [https://github.com/jeremysanders/veusz](https://github.com/jeremysanders/veusz)

Writing a 3D vector renderer would be very helpful to support 3D plots. Also, adding some extended fitting capabilities or improving the existing data import would be very useful.

</comment><comment><USER21> It's kind of the "same old" perhaps, but we're working on an open-source internet of things platform. Our background is robotics, so we focus a lot on high bandwidth applications, not just simple sensors, but also algorithms and computer vision.

See: [http://dobots.github.io/aim](http://dobots.github.io/aim)

</comment><comment><USER51> [http://www.javascripture.com](http://www.javascripture.com) \- Simple/fast interactive JS API documentation

I started this project a few years ago because I was frustrated with existing JavaScript documentation being too complicated and I wanted a simple way to test out APIs without spinning up a new browser tab/text editor. I finished the basic JavaScript APIs (Array/String/Object/etc) and started adding docs for some more advanced types as I used them myself. Now there are a lot of APIs without descriptions or examples. I would love assistance with filling in missing documentation/examples and possibly translating this site to other languages. If I can get a few people's interest in contributing (here or at [http://www.javascripture.com/contribute](http://www.javascripture.com/contribute)) I will put the project up on github.

</comment><comment><USER52> I'm a Hacker Schooler (hackerschool.com) working on two open-source projects in Python and I'd highly appreciate any contributions! The projects are still in the alpha stage, so there's plenty room for creativity and for contributing to the core architecture of them beyond simple bugfixes. Here are the details:

Checkmate ([https://github.com/adewes/python- checkmate](https://github.com/adewes/python-checkmate)):

Checkmate is a new Python tool for static code analysis. It provides a global view of code quality in a project and focuses on giving simple, actionable advise to the user.

Blitz-DB ([https://github.com/adewes/blitz- db](https://github.com/adewes/blitz-db)):

Blitz-DB is a file-based document database. It is written in Python and doesn't have any external dependencies.

Help with any of these projects is highly welcome, feel free to e-mail me for more details (firstname.lastname@example.com) :)

</comment><comment><USER53> My project is emphatically beginner-friendly because it's a site for teaching web development.

We have groups of beginners work together to strengthen their skills while they are building the very website from which they are learning. All our meetings and coding sessions are not just open Hangouts but recorded on YouTube as well in case anyone would rather lurk for a while before dipping in. Check it out at [http://theodinproject.com](http://theodinproject.com).

Also, if you're relatively beginner, a great new site for finding projects is [http://agileventures.org](http://agileventures.org). They are an offshoot of the edX SAAS courses and have listed a variety of do-good projects for beginners to hook onto. That site is itself open source. They've got a SCRUM meeting for one of their listed projects going on almost 24/7.

<comment><USER54> This is rather interesting. I tried launching something similar, with the exact same philosophy in mind.

Would you like to discuss your findings/feedback/success so far?

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Unvanquished is looking for developers, modelers, and mappers.

[http://www.unvanquished.net/](http://www.unvanquished.net/)

[https://github.com/Unvanquished/](https://github.com/Unvanquished/)

The game is an FPS/RTS hybrid that uses an enhanced engine based off of idtech3 and 4.

</comment><comment><USER56> I've been looking for some interesting volunteer work for non-profit, open source projects and if we can have this post every month with clear project description, goals, where they need help and how to help. I think it would be very well received by the HN community and would benefit all parties.

</comment><comment><USER57> JStruct - [http://github.com/sebinsua/jstruct](http://github.com/sebinsua/jstruct)

The idea is "JSON as the definition language of JSON transformations."

I'm not at the implementation stage yet, hence the prototype is weak (it might even be broken.)

I came up with the idea and have sketched out a few ways that I can imagine it working, but need to bounce ideas off others before I continue.

Take a look. Conceptually where would you want to go with this? Architecturally how would you get there?

If I can get some contributors it would be awesome. There's quite a bit of deep thought that will need to go into refining _how much_ it tries to handle, _what_ the interfaces look like, and _how to make it perform well._

I definitely plan to continue work on it soon, but need two or three heads to do this as well as I believe it deserves.

<comment><USER58> That is something I have wanted for a long time too. I came from the XML world and am very familiar with XPath. It seems like you are trying to create an XPath type parser for JSON, but also including some more complex features than XPath might include (been a while since I touched it, so I'd have to refresh my memory).

Note that in your README, the links to the github repos for json-path and json-pointer 404.

See also, this: [http://goessner.net/articles/JsonPath/](http://goessner.net/articles/JsonPath/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Server optimization recipes:

[http://tweaked.io/](http://tweaked.io/) \+ [https://github.com/skx/tweaked.io/](https://github.com/skx/tweaked.io/)

I've started this and done a reasonably good job, but it would benefit from more content.

</comment><comment><USER60> Rethink-Scala [https://github.com/kclay/rethink- scala](https://github.com/kclay/rethink-scala)

A Scala/Java driver for rethinkdb. Its almost feature complete ,but need to finish the java interpo and clean up a few api. The current branch is for v1.11 of rethink

</comment><comment><USER61> I'm looking to release Min 2.0, an extremely small (995 bytes) CSS framework, and any help would be very useful. [https://github.com/owenversteeg/min](https://github.com/owenversteeg/min)

Take a look at the issues for more detail on what would be helpful.

</comment><comment><USER62> Cylinder (C/Obj-C/Lua) [http://github.com/rweichler/cylinder](http://github.com/rweichler/cylinder)

It's a "tweak" for jailbroken iOS. Basically what it does is it adds animations to the homescreen, like what Android can do.

The cool thing about it is that users can code their own animations in Lua. For example here's a script for cube: [http://github.com/rweichler/cylinder/tree/master/tweak/scrip...](http://github.com/rweichler/cylinder/tree/master/tweak/scripts/rweichler/include/cube.lua)

It's a relatively simple project. It's pretty popular, had about 50K users at the moment. I kinda wish I had other contributors cause I'm the only one working on it atm.

</comment><comment><USER63> Just getting Stubby going ([https://github.com/jkassemi/stubby](https://github.com/jkassemi/stubby)) - and it could use some more love.

It's a suite of tools that focus around declarative configuration of various project environments. For instance, the Stubfile.json can contain the references to your staging and production servers, and you can swap your system to view either staging or production from the command line. Additionally it supports stub packages, so you could theoretically write a GitHub API stub (think pre-configured and packaged webmock stubs) and distribute to other devs over github.

My company's building this out to assist with dev/QA and a migration to docker, so there's some semblance of a team.

</comment><comment><USER64> It isn't my project but OAuthlib needs some help, including Flask-OAuthlib. The contributors there are slow to respond to open issues. OAuthlib is trying to make OAuth1 and OAuth2 easier to implement but the contributors get in the way of accomplishing this when they don't respond promptly to issues.

OAuthlib: [https://github.com/idan/oauthlib](https://github.com/idan/oauthlib)

Flask-OAuthlib: [https://github.com/lepture/flask- oauthlib](https://github.com/lepture/flask-oauthlib)

Requests-OAuthlib: [https://github.com/requests/requests- oauthlib](https://github.com/requests/requests-oauthlib)

<comment><USER65> How will adding people help this situation? You are already saying that contributors get in the way

<comment><USER66> That probably wasn't the best phrasing, but the point seems to have been that the current contributors can't keep up with new issues (so more contributors might address that).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> BackgridJS - [http://backgridjs.com/](http://backgridjs.com/)

Backgrid.js is a set of components for building semantic and easily stylable data grid widgets using Backbone.js.

There are a number of features I'd like to implement soon.

\- Infinite paging \- Fixed header \- Column auto-fit \- Column resizing \- Icicle tree row and cells for multi-dimensional nested data

This project's been around for a little more than 1 year and has already sprung up dozens of different extensions. I look forward to working with whoever is interested in contributing.

Take a look at this ticket if interested:

[https://github.com/wyuenho/backgrid/issues/244](https://github.com/wyuenho/backgrid/issues/244)

</comment><comment><USER68> If you're looking for something lower-commitment, urllib3 could use an extra pair of eyes or two for code reviews.

urllib3 is probably one of Python's most-installed third-party packages. It powers the core of pip, requests, and many other great libraries who need to do HTTP requests in Python. That's probably millions of developers, altogether. :)

We have new PRs fairly regularly, but this one could use attention right now: [https://github.com/shazow/urllib3/pull/326](https://github.com/shazow/urllib3/pull/326)

We've been working on adding more complex Retry configuration support but getting the API and code design just right is tricky. :)

</comment><comment><USER69> I recently open sourced my github api client. It's written in php and there's still lots of stuff to code: [https://github.com/mpscholten/github- api](https://github.com/mpscholten/github-api)

</comment><comment><USER70> NaturalNode: [https://github.com/NaturalNode/natural](https://github.com/NaturalNode/natural) an NLP toolkit for javascript. we're always looking for more algorithms and broader language support

</comment><comment><USER71> 1clickBOM: A browser extension that lets you paste directly from spreadsheet to electronic component retailer shopping carts (Digikey, Mouser, etc.).

Works across retailers and internationally. As well as being a useful purchasing tool (in-house so to speak) could help spread OSHW designs and allow users to purchase a "kit" from their local retailer outlets without the designer (who might be on the other end of the world) having the tedious task of filling bags with components and shipping them.

Written in Coffeescript and for Chrome initially. Firefox port is planned.

[https://github.com/kasbah/1clickBOM](https://github.com/kasbah/1clickBOM)

</comment><comment><USER72> A team of us are working on the Big Data pipeline for Hadoop and Streaming Technologies.

We are a team of 5 working on it now and looking for other people looking to work on things like Nginx, Yarn/Hadoop, Kafka and Presto

If your interested email me at firstname.lastname@example.com

[https://github.com/DemandCube/NeverwinterDP](https://github.com/DemandCube/NeverwinterDP) [https://github.com/DemandCube/Sparkngin](https://github.com/DemandCube/Sparkngin) [https://github.com/DemandCube/Scribengin](https://github.com/DemandCube/Scribengin)

</comment><comment><USER73> Higgs is looking for contributors.

Higgs is a JIT compiler for JavaScript targeting x86-64 platforms. The core is written in D, but most of the runtime/libs are written in JS.

You can contribute by testing, suggesting features, submitting PRs with new libraries (graphics, sqlite, etc), more tests, bug-fixes, documentation, and more.

We're very welcoming and will assist anyone wanting to contribute. Come hang out with us in #higgsjs on freenode (heck, come hang out even if you don't want to contribute) or check out the issues on Github:

[https://github.com/maximecb/Higgs](https://github.com/maximecb/Higgs)

</comment><comment><USER74> turf - geospatial analysis engine written in node.js. The goal is to provide a high level gis scripting api similar to arcpy (but much faster and open source). Anyone interested in maps or stats might find it interesting.

[https://github.com/morganherlocker/turf](https://github.com/morganherlocker/turf)

If you do not have expertise in computational geometry or geospatial analysis:

1) I would be happy to share whatever knowledge I have and tee up a few easier issues to work on

2) Feature requests, testing, design (hoping to get a dedicated site up and running), and help with docs are also extremely valuable.

</comment><comment><USER75> xBoard: [https://github.com/eipark/xboard](https://github.com/eipark/xboard)

xBoard is a canvas based drawing tool like many others - except it can be recorded and played back like video. There are many iPad sketch recorders, but this one works right in your browser.

I originally wrote this in about a week for a college senior project, and haven't been able to give it much love since. I've poked into adding web audio recording with the goal of creating a full Khan-academy like tutorial recorder.

Contact me if you're interested!

<comment><USER76> Just wanted to let you know that I studied your code couple of months ago. It got me interested in the LZW compression algorithm, which I studied and learned a lot from. Thanks for sharing.

<comment><USER75> That's great to hear! I don't know much about LZW... I basically just looked up some common compression algs and tried them out. Glad it helped you out though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Myself and a buddy are creating [http://sidekicks.io](http://sidekicks.io), a platform which allows developers and designers to work with each other on various projects, and in return they gain "karma" to use for work on their own projects that need contributors.

We are accepting sign-ups now and have been able to get some great interest. We will launch the full platform in a few weeks.

Some of our early sign-ups have asked to help build the platform, so they are helping us build it.

If you are interested in contributing let me know!

</comment><comment><USER78> I am working on LuvvieScript, an Erlang dialect that runs in the browser. The aim is to get a functional run-time and abstraction layer for web pages that talk to Erlang-OTP cluster. Details here [http://luvv.ie/mission.html](http://luvv.ie/mission.html)

Early stage project, lots of opportunities to do hard stuff (immutable datastructures in JS, AST-to-AST transpilers, offline-first run times, etc etc)

We're are in the Google Summer Of a Code too, so if you are a student you could get paid over the summer as well...

</comment><comment><USER79> [https://github.com/qq99/echoplexus](https://github.com/qq99/echoplexus)

Echoplexus is an anonymous, web-based, IRC-like chatting platform that makes its best effort to respect your privacy. It allows you to create public or private channels. You can encrypt your chats. You can secure a pseudonym for linkable anonymity. You can code and draw together in real time. You can make free and secure Peer2Peer video and voice calls with the people in your channel using WebRTC.

</comment><comment><USER80> If you're interested in graphics, we put together an engine for ascii/unicode raytracing in the browser: [https://github.com/trevlovett/AsciiTracer](https://github.com/trevlovett/AsciiTracer)

Demo here: [http://trevlovett.github.io/AsciiTracer/asciitracer.html](http://trevlovett.github.io/AsciiTracer/asciitracer.html)

Some work needs to be done to massage the code into a proper library that could be used for demos & games.

</comment><comment><USER81> I'd be interested in contributors helping out with my project. It's kind of in a nascent stage, but I have developed a library for streaming from iOS with it.

[http://www.github.com/jamesghurley/VideoCore](http://www.github.com/jamesghurley/VideoCore)

It's a real-time a/v capture/transform/encode/output library (currently iOS- only, but I want to bring it to other platforms at some point)

It is written in C++ and some Objective-C.

</comment><comment><USER82> If you are into bioinformatics and know a bit o Jenkins, biouno is looking for more curious contributors - [http://biouno.org](http://biouno.org)

Or if you are into QA/Testing, Nestor QA is a test management written in PHP/Laravel, still under development, but we have meeting every two weeks and have some testers helping us to shape the tool [http://nestor- qa.org](http://nestor-qa.org)

</comment><comment><USER83> A group of us HN'ers just started working on a Tinder like site/app for super easy digital BitCoin purchases. Swipe to buy, or swipe to see more. Contributions welcome! [https://github.com/lnanek/GumDrop/](https://github.com/lnanek/GumDrop/) [https://github.com/archerabi/DigitalMarketPlace](https://github.com/archerabi/DigitalMarketPlace)

</comment><comment><USER3> libHN - [https://github.com/bennyguitar/libHN](https://github.com/bennyguitar/libHN)

News/YC iOS App - [https://github.com/bennyguitar/News-YC--- iPhone](https://github.com/bennyguitar/News-YC---iPhone)

The app uses the libHN library for handling all requests/responses to HackerNews and is mostly just a visual representation of the data. Right now it allows logging in, viewing your own submissions, submitting posts, and submitting comments.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>---

 __Known Bugs __

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>---

Sometimes adding a comment crashes the app. I'm not handling an exception somewhere, I just honestly haven't had time to find it.

The landscape view for submitting posts/comments is terrible from a user experience stand point. I know there's some interesting stuff that can be done with NSAutoLayoutConstraints but I haven't had too much time to mess with this either. I think better keyboard frame management can be accomplished too.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>---

 __Additional Features __

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>---

I would like the ability to see comments for a user (similar to clicking "threads" at the top). The data request/response part of this needs to happen in libHN, and the user interface can be similar to the CommentsViewController in the app.

I also would like to just go ahead and namespace the app's classes too, either HN or NYC. I like NYC (love it, heh) because HN is used for libHN and I'd kind of like that library to be a separate entity from the actual app.

</comment><comment><USER84> You can contribute to SwarmESB (ESB type system for node.js) [https://github.com/salboaie/swarmESB](https://github.com/salboaie/swarmESB) If you don't know the purpose of ESBs, with SwarmESB you will understand faster because is basically an abstraction on messages, channels, etc. that hides lot of "useless" details that surface in Java ESBs or MOMs.

</comment><comment><USER85> Pasteye - [https://github.com/shayanjm/pasteye](https://github.com/shayanjm/pasteye) is Pastebin Monitoring as a service. Essentially, the more eyes we have on the repo, the better the service becomes. Looking for contributors to push towards v0.2.0 release - where the service becomes 'really' useful. The project roadmap is included in the repo!

</comment><comment><USER86> Working on an application aimed to make college housing a helluva good time. Stack: Rails Link: [https://github.com/mikeadeleke/domimvp](https://github.com/mikeadeleke/domimvp) New features: [https://gist.github.com/mikeadeleke/9406134](https://gist.github.com/mikeadeleke/9406134)

</comment><comment><USER87> If you are into making games, Monogame [http://www.monogame.net/](http://www.monogame.net/) and Duality [https://github.com/AdamsLair/duality](https://github.com/AdamsLair/duality) (very similar to Unity but 2d and OSS) are awesome open source projects to look at.

<comment><USER54> Monogames URL doesn't seem to work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> wp-varnish - A WordPress plugin for purging Varnish cache when content is published or edited.

A PHP-project I made some years ago, that has some followers. I don't have time for project management on this, but I think the project needs it.

[https://github.com/pkhamre/wp-varnish](https://github.com/pkhamre/wp-varnish)

</comment><comment><USER89> jsg: generates a dump of all symbols and cross-references from JavaScript source files

[https://github.com/sourcegraph/jsg](https://github.com/sourcegraph/jsg)

It uses tern ([http://ternjs.net/](http://ternjs.net/)) to perform static analysis on JavaScript and then outputs it in a format that describes all of the definitions (functions, variables, modules, etc.) and links all names in the source code to the definitions they refer to.

We use it to produce JavaScript docs and examples at Sourcegraph (e.g., [https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/joyent/node](https://sourcegraph.com/github.com/joyent/node)), but it can also be useful for automatic JavaScript doc generation, automatic bug detection, and other static analysis tasks to improve the quality of your JavaScript code.

</comment><comment><USER90> _Shell Environments_

Difficulty: Easy

Language(s): Shell Scripting

In my spare time, I'm working on a set of scripts to be able to create micro- environments in our shell to help better manage environments in the shell when we work on quite a lot of stuff.

[https://github.com/sathyamvellal/shenv](https://github.com/sathyamvellal/shenv)

</comment><comment><USER91> A free open source CDN with a lot of interesting and unique features [https://github.com/jsdelivr/jsdelivr](https://github.com/jsdelivr/jsdelivr)

Lots of work to be done. You can contribute with coding, design, ideas, feedback...

Sponsored by MaxCDN and CloudFlare

</comment><comment><USER92> We would welcome contributors at Loomio! It's a simple tool for anyone, anywhere to participate in decisions that affect them. We have a big vision of a more democratic world at every level.

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

</comment><comment><USER93> Might be up your alley: I'm working on a set of free music quizzes. One prototype is up at [http://kanyetest.com](http://kanyetest.com). If you're interested, feel free to reach out! I'm @dannibles on twitter.

</comment><comment><USER94> Boost.Compute ([https://github.com/kylelutz/compute](https://github.com/kylelutz/compute)) is a C++ GPGPU based on OpenCL.

We're always looking for more contributors with knowledge of C++ and an interest in GPU computing.

</comment><comment><USER95> Ecrire - [https://github.com/pothibo/ecrire](https://github.com/pothibo/ecrire)

A blog engine for those of us that want to write post in HTML. Live preview, per-page CSS/JS, image and partial importer. Check it out!

</comment><comment><USER96> This can also have a section where some people can post their ideas thats worth getting "opensourced" so that others with time, wish and resources can build that.

This will be helpful for non-tech people or techies who are too swamped with other things.

</comment><comment><USER97> I love this thread and concur with the others that it should be made a regular occurrence.

</comment><comment><USER98> Still early in development, but I've been working on an autopilot for quadcopters that uses Python, and the ROS framework.

[https://github.com/rospilot/rospilot](https://github.com/rospilot/rospilot)

</comment><comment><USER99> CRUDForge: [https://github.com/wagnerpinheiro/crudforge](https://github.com/wagnerpinheiro/crudforge)

A scafoldding online service for small business and personal use, using Symfony2

</comment><comment><USER100> Open Hatch lists a number of volunteer opportunities in free and open source software around the world.

[https://openhatch.org/search/](https://openhatch.org/search/)

</comment><comment><USER101> Build agents that monitor and act on your behalf. Your agents are standing by!

[https://github.com/cantino/huginn](https://github.com/cantino/huginn)

All help greatly appreciated!

</comment><comment><USER102> Consider contributing to Debian! We've got tons of wicked hackers working on issues on a massive scale. If you're keen on it, feel free to join #debian- mentors on oftc and say hi!

</comment><comment><USER103> CFWheels - [https://github.com/cfwheels/cfwheels](https://github.com/cfwheels/cfwheels)

An open source ColdFusion framework inspired by Ruby on Rails

</comment><comment><USER104> I wouldn't mind some help.

[https://github.com/nickfox/GpsTracker](https://github.com/nickfox/GpsTracker)

Nick

</comment><comment><USER105> [https://github.com/explore](https://github.com/explore)

</comment><comment><USER106> I'm looking to work with anyone interested in survival analysis.

</comment><comment><USER107> bbus.in BMTC Bus route search</comment>


Execution of Indonesian maid who killed employer while being raped - <AUTHOR> https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6338277/Execution-Indonesian-maid-killed-employer-raped-sparks-outrage.html#click=https://t.co/ZggnG23gnh <comment><USER2> I suggest anyone with a weak stomach not start down this rabbit hole. As someone probably more in the know than most, this is extremely common. There exist tons of videos, typically shared on Facebook, from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other likeminded places of owners beating, abusing, raping, and even killing their housemaids, often it seems just for fun. These 'housemaids' often come from India, the Philippines, Indonesia, and other countries in the area. (Housemaid in quotes, since many times they are legitimately slaves due to owners stealing their passports).

Why there isn't absolute outrage, embargo, or even war over this is beyond me...

<comment> forgot-my-pw > It was the fourth time in three years that Saudi Arabia had failed to notify > Jakarta before executing an Indonesian migrant worker.

Holy shit.

If Saudi Arabia doesn't host the holy city of Mecca, I think Indonesia should already declare a war on them.

<comment><USER3> It gets worse..

> Ms Tursilawati was executed just a week after al-Jubeir, met his Indonesian > counterpart, Retno Marsudi, and Mr Widodo in Jakarta to discuss migrant > workers' rights.

> During the meeting, Mr Marsudi emphasised the importance of having a > mandatory consular notification before carrying out death penalties.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sure enough, murder is worse than rape. But I'd argue capital punishment is even worse than murder.

And should be abolished, everywhere.</comment>


NPM is down - <AUTHOR>

The NPM Registry is down.<p>http://isaacs.iriscouch.com/registry/ <comment><USER2> Not completely down, very slow today though.

<comment><AUTHOR> the couchdb at iriscouch went down completely for me.</comment></comment>


Would HN users have known asbestos was bad for us? - <AUTHOR> I'm curious:
I'm sure you've all read about the speculation regarding the potential carcinogeny of the radio waves emitted (and received?) by mobile phones.
I assume we're right, that mobile phones are harmless.
But suppose they are harmful, would we know?
How would we know that we would know? If, for example, we are able to say, without the benefit of hindsight, that we would have known asbestos were harmful, or any other substance that was found to have been harmful after decades of usage, then we might have a basis to argue that maybe we would know about phones.
So, would we have known about the harmful effects of asbestos? Would HN have been a pocket of protest and warning about asbestos, or would we have been oblivious about it?
If we would have been oblivious about it, how do we know we're not now similarly oblivious about mobile phones? (No, I'm not saying they are harmful. Either they aren't harmful, or I'm oblivious to the fact that they are if at all they are).
How highly do we rate our ability to be correct? <comment><USER2> There's a similar subject here with IAQ or indoor air quality. The experts have been saying it's far more serious than the effects of second hand smoke.

Truth: indoor air quality is for shit, and has always been shit, and it is slowly killing us by contributing to stroke, heart disease, cancers and respiratory disease.

People look at the smog in China and are shocked at the state of the air, as they ought to be.

However most people spend most of their time _indoors_. The concentration of pollutants in proximity to you is what is dangerous.

Indoor air quality in the average home is so bad that it easily exceeds the threshold at which health inspectors would shut down a restaurant.

If you want to live longer there is a few simple things you can do. If you have money, get an actual _effective_ vent for your cooking area and obtain a HRV. If you don't have money acquire a selection of plants and put them into your kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. Then ensure you open a window (using a directed fan if possible) when cooking.

If anybody wants more information I'll look up the videos on IAQ and NASA study confirming what I've been saying.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was actually thinking about this exact topic a few days ago, holding up a phone in hotspot mode to my ear and thinking facetiously "this is gonna kill me someday", but then realizing that there have been many other things in history that were once thought not to be harmful, and only hindsight tells us otherwise.

I then imagined the reactions our societies would have if EM spectrum exposure was suddenly found to be harmful; a vast backlash against wireless devices would follow, communications infrastructure would be litigated against, and there would be a faction of holdouts who just don't care and will continue to do what they want, like it happens with tobacco and other substances widely recognized to be harmful.

In the case of asbestos, it was known in Ancient Greece that those mining or processing asbestos sometimes sickened in ways that the general populace did not [1]. Yet its utility helped it achieve lasting relevance, where by the 19th century it was no longer a curiosity but an important industrial ingredient.

Therefore, I'd say that asbestos is probably a bad example, because its harmful effects in high doses were observed early on, we as societies just didn't find it expedient to combat against it until alternatives were beginning to be available (or we treated miners and workers as more than just expendable). Conversely, I think hydrofluorocarbons are a better example, as it took time for their harmful effects to be observable and in the beginning they were looking miraculously inert and harmless. I don't believe anyone could've known ahead of time that HFCs would cause the environmental damage in the upper atmosphere they ultimately were discovered to have done.

[1] [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3322/canjclin.34.1.44/...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3322/canjclin.34.1.44/abstract)

<comment><USER4> I'd argue that asbestos is a great example, because it shows that in reality it's not the unknowns that harm us, but willfully ignoring the knowns. It's like smoking--the harms were known for a long time. Smoking was considered unhealthy even in the 19th century. Rather, it was the culture that chose to ignore and discount the evidence.

What's different about EM exposure is that it has been heavily studied, yet from theory to experiment there's scant evidence of significant harms. Certainly not at the scale of asbestos, smoking, or other historic or current risks.

I think lesson is that most real risks are knowable and right in front of us. But the way fear works, we tend to think it's hiding around the corner, hidden. So we obsesses over EM emissions rather than regularly testing for lead in our houses or, as a community, our food supply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> On a slight tangent.. but I have a set of 1920's encyclopaedias which lists all the common forms of cancer associated with asbestos we know today.

So it is clear to me people of influence who have much to gain financially are very good at burying the truth even when scientifically proven.</comment>


Interview with Kyle Vogt of Cruise (2014) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQXJaU-i9UQ <comment><USER2> Is there anything in this that is relevant to the legal case re co-founder?

<comment><USER3> just watched it... no.

<comment><USER2> Surely there's an interview somewhere in which he talks about his cofounder.....</comment></comment></comment>


Chiral Key Found to Origin of Life - <AUTHOR> http://www.quantamagazine.org/20141126-why-rna-is-right-handed/ <comment><USER2> > _In addition, radioactive decays produce electrons that are slightly more > likely to be left-handed._

Is this a mistake in the article? I was under the impression that all electrons are fundamentally identical to one another.

<comment><USER3> The handedness of an electron refers to the orientation of its spin relative to its direction of motion. The electrons are all the same but the state they are emitted into is different.

The weak nuclear force breaks chiral symmetry, so in beta decays--which are governed by the weak force--you tend to get neutrinos with their spin aligned with their direction of motion and electrons with their spin anti-aligned with their direction of motion, where "aligned" means if your right thumb is pointed in the direction of motion, the curling of your fingers gives the sense of rotation associated with the spin and "anti-aligned" is the same except that it's your left thumb pointing along the direction of motion.

In a system with strict chiral symmetry the two spins would always be opposed (which is required because angular momentum is conserved) but there would be no preference relative to each particle's direction of motion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > They unleashed a pool of random right-handed RNA molecules and let them > react in a test tube with left-handed building blocks. They hoped that > within that random pool of RNA molecules was a ribozyme capable of stringing > the building blocks together.

Can someone explain the mechanism behind the origin of that ribozyme from original RNA molecules?

<comment><USER5> The mechanism is chance. As I understand the article these are selection experiments which you can think of as fast evolution in a laboratory setting. I tried to find a good reference for you but this was the best I could find [1]. Essentially they start with a large randomized pool of RNA molecules. They are then able to select out the catalytic RNAs through some process possibly involving a column. At first the number of RNA molecules that exhibit catalytic behavior is infinitesimal. But through PCR they are able to iteratively amplify each generation for the qualities they are looking for, in this case catalytic behavior. At the end of a few generations you have a pool of RNA molecules that exhibit the behavior you want.

[1] [http://www.lcg.unam.mx/frontiers/files/frontiers/Tuerk%20and...](http://www.lcg.unam.mx/frontiers/files/frontiers/Tuerk%20and%20Gold%201990.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Such a subtle property has such a large impact. One thing that has stuck with me since undergraduate chemistry is that if you take the aspirin molecule and flip its chirality what you end up with is toxic and nothing like aspirin! I miss organic chemistry.

<comment><USER7> Ummm.... aspirin has no chirality. Salicylic acid is planar and the acetyl group can freely rotate.

The best example of chirality and toxicity is thalidomide. One isomer has low toxicity and the other causes horrible birth defects. Unfortunately the two isomers can interconvert so it isn't possible to create a pure sample of just one of them.

<comment><USER8> "it isn't possible to create a pure sample of just one of them."

Oh, to create a pure sample is a trivial task. But unfortunately it racemizes in your body.

It is actually a very interesting compound. Would not be surprised about a come-back.

<comment><USER7> Sorry, poor wording on my part. You are correct. You can create a pure sample, but it doesn't stay pure in your body.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Likely the title of the article changed, and the title here should change with it, as it's pretty bad. The new title of the article is "New Twist Found in the Story of Life's Start"

<comment><USER10> That's a cute title if you're already definitely going to read it, but to me, deciding whether to skip it like all the others, it's important to know that chirality specifically is the topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can someone explain the intended meaning of the "handshake" in the photo accompanying the article?

<comment><USER12> It is intended to demonstrate chiralty (aka handedness). Notice the mirror in the background that reverses the handedness of the handshake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I have a silly question: how is it determined which side is up and down?

<comment><USER14> The direction of light, from the perspective of the viewer, is the base. Its not about up and down, but rather left or right ..

<comment><USER15> It's still a completely arbitrary mapping.

Well actually, I suspect that it isn't arbitrary at all: historically, people have considered left-handed as deviant, strange, _sinister_ , so _obviously_ the _good_ molecules are right-handed.

(Disclaimer: I'm a slightly bitter left-handed designer who has seen one too many "more intuitive" designs that are optimised for right-handedpeople)

<comment><USER16> The "left" or "right" refer to the direction that the chemical (usually in solution) rotates the plane of polarized light passing through it, from the point of view of an observer that the light is traveling towards.

An experimental setup to demonstrate this is a light source, a linear polarizer oriented in some direction (say along the x-axis for definiteness), followed by the sample container, followed by another linear polarizer, followed by a detector.

With nothing in the sample container, the second polarizer is rotated around the light beam axis until no light passes through. This will be very close to a right angle with the first one (try it with polarizing sunglasses :) ). The sample is then added, and the _change_ in angle of the second polarizer required to again allow no light through is observed.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Design Jargon BS - <AUTHOR> http://designjargonbullshit.com/

<comment><USER2> Yes, design (not engineering design but "artsy" design where human perception is a big factor) is fluffy.

But that doesn't imply it's bullshit.

<comment><USER3> Also, a damn lot of this is marketing bullshit.

I would suggest that if the author is going to make a website devoted to it they should at least learn to distinguish them.</comment></comment>


Once Teased for Her Love of Bugs, 8-Year-Old Co-Authors Scientific Paper - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/19/551876044/once-teased-for-her-love-of-bugs-8-year-old-co-authors-scientific-paper <comment><USER2> It's a great story, with an awesome outcome, but did anybody else notice that when the Entomological Society of Canada was involved, "teasing" became "bullied"?

I'm glad the authors didn't go down that same path.</comment>


I made $1,000 an hour as an SAT tutor. My students did better without me - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2016/1/8/10728958/sat-tutor-expensive <comment><USER2> I disagree with the author's premise that

"Few understand that the SAT requires specific, school-independent training."

I took both PSAT and SAT cold with no specific preparation and did very well. So did my friends. It was even fun.

While I see no _need_ for SAT tutoring, especially for excellent students, I've heard claims that tutoring can raise scores. I would have felt, at the time I took the SAT (and even today, somewhat), that "preparing" was a form of cheating, since those who "prepare" have an unfair advantage over those who did not. It also taints the statistics.

But that was before I read about how physics and mathematics students in the English university systems were sometimes heavily tutored prior to mathematics/physics contests/exams. Having a personal tutor of Nobel-prize quality who drives you hard would undoubtedly sharpen one's skills.

<comment><USER3> I can confirm that tutoring boosts scores significantly. I went to an SAT prep program that was designed specifically to help you beat the test. My score was 1680 as a freshman and 2390 as a junior.</comment></comment>


How upgrading to Google Apps for Business killed my company's email for 6 hours - <AUTHOR> http://floriancornu.blogspot.com/2013/05/how-upgrading-to-google-apps-for.html <comment><USER2> Rackspace Mail. $2/mo/mailbox. 100% uptime SLA. 24/7/365 phone, email and chat support -- you can call and talk to someone with power to solve your problem at 3AM on Christmas Eve. Big mailboxes, configurable backups, good spam filters. Instant e-mail notifications in your choice of native desktop/mobile clients with IMAP push, or use their hosted webmail.

If you aren't fully addicted to the Gmail interface, there are better options for business mailbox hosting.

<comment><USER3> No reason not to use a 3rd party IMAP/POP and still use the Gmail front-end.

Best of both worlds.

<comment> mike-cardwell You're just adding more points of failure.

<comment><USER4> I thought that a single point of failure was a bad thing. Sure you might want to only have a single place where things can fail, but if that failure is catastrophic...

<comment><USER5> "Single point of failure" means a point at which a failure effectively breaks the entire system or workflow. A system may have many SPOFs, which is worse than a single SPOF, which is, in turn, worse than no SPOFs (that is, the desired case is no single failure kills forward progress).

<comment><USER4> This is true, but sometimes be introducing a new risk (point of failure) to the system, you get the ability to route around another. In this instance, separating POP and Gmail gives you the ability to route around Gmail when it's down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> tldr; Author experienced an 6-hour outage in Google Apps service, after upgrading to a paid Google Apps account. This behavior is not documented.

<comment><USER7> Is "outage" the right word? That suggests that it's an error, or down for everyone.

They really screwed the pooch, here.

<comment><USER8> >Is "outage" the right word? That suggests that it's an error, or down for everyone.

As someone who has been in IT for 20 years, I can tell you're in IT. This type of semantics drives business users crazy.

Business User: Hey my system is down!

IT Person: No, it's not down.

Business User: I can't log in to it.

IT Person: We are doing scheduled maintenance so the system is unavailable, but it's planned maintenance so it's not down.

<comment><USER7> Wrong direction. This is not failure-apologetics.

Outage suggests temporary and regrettable.

This is more like Google just straight up fucking people over via neglect. I was suggesting that stronger negative terms be used.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The solution to this is for Google to explicitly tell the end user that the upgrade involves a migration to bigger and better infrastructure, during which their accounts will be inaccessible for a number of hours. Then let the user schedule the migration to minimize the inconvenience. During the migration, show the account status as "Migrating..." instead of empty. Problem solved.

<comment><USER10> _The solution to this is for Google to explicitly tell the end user that the upgrade involves a migration to bigger and better infrastructure, during which their accounts will be inaccessible for a number of hours. [...] Problem solved._

Sorry, but that isn't even close to a solution. The problem here is that a business-critical facility was off-line for pretty much an entire business day, at who-knows-what cost to the business.

Many small businesses that use facilities like this are trading internationally or otherwise need 24-hour functionality, so the idea that you could just schedule something to "minimize the inconvenience" doesn't really help them at all.

<comment><USER11> It wasn't business-critical before, since they were using the free version. Businesses don't use free services with no SLA for business-critical things. Unless they don't know how to do business.

<comment><USER12> Don't make assumptions on what's business critical and what's not. Not every business has the same level of free capital, circumstances or domain knowledge to handle everything theoretically correctly. There is implicit trust in working with companies like Google; you expect everything to work properly. They don't have to, of course, but when they don't, articles like this chip away at the confidence we all have in Google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I had a similar situation where I switched a 50 person charity to Google Apps. They had a 30 day trial period and during that time the CEO's credit card was stolen and replaced. I changed the information but the Apps interface said 'No valid payment information stored' so I called their support and they assured me the new card was stored and everything would be fine.

Surprise, surprise on the day the account totally shut down. I called in a panic and after a lot of fiddling about (and reassuring me that they had recorded that I thought there might be a problem) they got it back up with everyone's mail after almost a whole day of downtime.

To add insult to injury Google don't run a charity program in the UK despite the non-profit laws being a lot stricter than the US and it being easy to validate a charity - so they're paying full rate for Google Apps for Business.

<comment><USER14> That last part is not entirely accurate. I did some IT volunteer work for a charity very recently, and they definitely had a free Google Apps for Business setup. This is in addition to a reasonably generous grant in the form of AdWords credit.

<comment><AUTHOR> Would you have any idea who we're able to contact about this? I'm involved in a registered UK charity and we were looking to use Google Apps before, but can't justify the monthly cost of $5 per account.

Thanks!

<comment><USER14> Sorry for the misleading information, chaps.

I asked the organisation, and found out that it's not an official programme in the UK. The only one they have here is Google Grants for AdWords - [http://www.google.co.uk/grants/](http://www.google.co.uk/grants/).

Basically, an enterprising IT volunteer had set them up with vanilla Google Apps back when it was still free for small business and had a 50 user limit, and they just got grandfathered in to the new Apps for Business. They've never had any problems with the user or space limit since they just use the setup for email, analytics and AdWords campaigns and only have about 4-6 people "working" there.

Apologies again.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah. The offering used to be called Google Apps for Domains back when users could still sign up for free 100/50/10-user-limit accounts. Google Apps for _Business_ , in some of our minds, is the post-December 2012 paid service.

Here's a link comparing the free edition with Google Apps for Business: [http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=17512...](http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=175121)

Thanks for getting back to us though!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> We had another issue, where the catch-all address started bouncing. Apparently they have changed the way they handle email routing. So if you upgrade to the 'new google apps', you better be very careful about your email routing rules. Went through a very similar experience with google customer care. Again turned out to be a bug in their system. But what sucks is for 3 days our emails were bouncing! And we're a paid google apps customer...Would be happy to pay 5X, just want some sort of customer service + acceptable SLAs on issues. And yes, please have a test team go over important features like enterprise email! I know it's Google policy to not have features go through a testing team, but maybe they should consider it for Google Apps.

/end{rant}

</comment><comment><USER16> If you are relying on a third-party cloud email service, please keep a regular backup of your data. From random hacking attempts leading to a account lockout to incorrectly being marked for spamming violations, anything could go wrong. The easiest way is to install Thunderbird and let it automatically sync and backup your emails to your computer.

<comment><USER17> From past experience at an email service provider, admittedly a small one, and quite a few years ago, the most likely failure mode related to internet outages knocking out the customer's internal email unlike a locally hosted email server which customers could never seem to understand, and DNS issues (failure to renew, got scammed / domain stolen because of noobs, etc). Probably the single biggest support problem was people (on either side) getting on spammer lists so genuine business communication can no longer flow.

Generally speaking the web interface being down, or the imap server being bonkers, was very rarely if ever a problem.

</comment></comment><comment> wc- For whatever it is worth, here is my experience from a few hours ago: my google apps trial ended this morning. Google emailed me, I clicked the billing link in the email and entered my info. After submitting, my account was immediately reactivated and I received a few emails that had arrived while the account was suspended. No downtime or anything... Maybe it has to do with how much data your accounts contain when you switch over to paying for access?

<comment><USER18> For a trial, I'd expect you started on the paid infrastructure from day 1, even though you hadn't paid yet. That would mean no migration and no downtime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> So the first thing about Google Apps is that you still need to back it up. Because it's (mostly) pretty easy to use it's easy to fall into the trap that it does everything right first time and that your data is safe when you make a change, unlike say running your own infrastructure. It isn't.

</comment><comment><USER20> Different issue with Google Apps: We work with some big pharma companies. During the free evaluation, Google flagged two of our partners and one of our project managers as spammers and silently suspended their accounts. We hosted our email somewhere else.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've known of a few cases where the Gmail account associated with Google Apps becomes unreachable. Rather than upgrading to the paid plan, most of the people involved just opened a support ticket which was resolved in a few hours.

</comment><comment><USER22> I migrated a company with 60 franchises from a broken, old, 25 MB per mailbox mail system, to Google Apps last year.

The biggest suggestion I have for anyone wanting to use the paid Google Apps is to go through an authorized reseller. You will get better pricing, and they generally have faster access to higher level support than going directly through Google. I had an absolute nightmare of a time with client support (construction workers with little computer literacy) but any legitimate problems during the transition were quickly dealt with by Google via the reseller.

Also, good luck getting a response from the Google Apps sales team in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER23> I used to be IT manager of a company that wanted to save money and they had me switch them to google business. it was a smooth transition, but the company wanted it's employees (50ish non tech salespeople) to still use Outlook. It was ok. google had an app that allowed this. All was good. I left the company but my friend took my job from me when i left. He now has come across the problem of google not supporting the newest outlook. he gets new computers in and has to downgrade the outlook just to get email to work. headache

<comment><USER24> They recently got the Office 2013 connector out there, for what it's worth.

Agree that the transition took ENTIRELY too long.

<comment><USER23> thanks. i hope he noticed. i'll mention it to him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Killed it for 6 hours... not convenient, but probably shouldn't make big IT changes during business hours and without warning staff. Our company's move from GApps to Office365 + Outlook has been much more systemically affecting...

<comment><USER26> How are you liking Office365?

<comment><USER25> Hate it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've been POPing my email since the 90s... am I doing it wrong? Yes, accessing email archives on multiple machines is a kinda-headache (I replicate my mailboxes), but never lost email.

</comment><comment><USER28> tl;dr : Whenever you click on 'Upgrade Now' button just click it and go to sleep. Once you wake you everything should be fine.

Author was awake and saw some horrible things.

</comment><comment><USER29> And where is your backup? Oh wait you dont have a backup...

</comment><comment><USER30> So the upgrade took a few hours to complete and it didn't happen instantly in defiance to the laws of physics. Next time play it safe and upgrade during the weekend.

The post is dated May 27, is Google planning to announce a new feature for Apps this week and this is some sort of a preemptive PR attack?

<comment><USER31> 6 hours... We run a 4 person company and 6 hours during the weekend would still be a problem for us.

Given a company larger than 10 might actually upgrade (small amount of shared email accounts) I could see it causing big problems for some.

<comment><USER17> How do you get 24x7x365 coverage with only 4 people? The "standard" is it takes about 5 to fill a position 24x7x365 over very long term on a larger average with absolutely no failure (unstaffed) tolerated. As in, 50 people can fill 10 positions absolutely positively all the time, but it doesn't downscale well at all to just 5 people and one desk. You can "fill" ten positions with a lot less than 50, but even at scale there's going to be a heck of a lot of time when there's only 8 or 9 people there hence the quotes around "fill". For instance you can "fill" 10 positions with 30 people but there's going to be a heck of a lot of time where the supposed 10 positions only have 7 (or even fewer) bodies actually on deck.

Depending on the business sector of course. If you're a stereotypical weekday business then a 6 hour outage at 9am on a weekday would be a disaster, but a 6 hour outage from midnight to 6am on Sunday morning wouldn't even be blinked at because no one cares.

<comment><USER31> I agree with you midnight to 6am Sunday would probably be okay. Just would be a really bad time to get an email stating an issue with a payment gateway or marketplace listings or an issue with the website.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


I was broke due to Covid-19 so I built a stock tool - <AUTHOR> https://stockgains.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Due to COVID-19, I've been completely broke for months. I was trying to figure out how to pay the mortgage and support family. I remember sitting in my Aeron thinking "So this is how depression feels like?"

Instead of crying myself to sleep, I decided to leverage 15 years of trading knowledge. I've probably read over 100 books on trading stocks. In addition, I've taken notes on Google Docs about key parameters and metrics that the top traders looked for (fundamental, technical, and psychological).

So after more "positive" sleepless nights, I created a tool specifically for trading stocks during COVID-19: [https://stockgains.io/](https://stockgains.io/)

Around February 15, 2020 (Just a few months ago!), many stocks have dropped to unreasonable (bargain) prices and I wanted to pick and choose which ones had the highest upside. Obviously many of these companies have fundamentally changed (airlines, cruises, etc) so it's going to take a long time to recover. But as long as they don't go bankrupt (health column), you "should" make money in the long run. Obviously the cash/debt is also indicative of that as well. I've found that even paid subscriptions (some $300/month!) didn't have all this information in a convenient place. Disappointing.

Beginnings: I initially used a Google spreadsheet (GOOGLE_FINANCE()) but that got a bit out of hand, especially due to the real-time functions.

It seemed simple, but was much more involved (server, app, and database optimizations) than I had anticipated. I did have fun playing with MySQL 8's new window functions and learning how to deploy my first Ruby on Rails app - so that in itself was rewarding.

Anyway, this tool has helped me stay afloat with my bills. I've passed it many friends and they've all found it useful. I figured I'll share it with HackerNews since I've been a lurker from the start. Hopefully, others who are struggling during these tough times will find it helpful as well.

<comment><USER2> @jaylossless, thanks for sharing. What are your recommendations for books to read around stocks? Would you share your google doc notes as well?

<comment><AUTHOR> The usual suspects are always good (market wizards, one up on wall street, trade in the zone, etc) but my favorite was probably this one: [https://amzn.to/3glY1Co](https://amzn.to/3glY1Co)

I'm on the road right now but I'll gather a list. The docs are all over the place so I was just picking parameters out and noting certain aspects I could automate with software.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> tech-historian Well executed, it's fast and clean.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Some low-level and view caching with Redis ;)</comment></comment>


Show HN: A website to help support NYC restaurtants impacted by Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://saverestaurants.nyc/ <comment><AUTHOR> I built a website that makes it easy for New Yorkers to find their favorite restaurants and see how they can support them.

If you live in NYC, please consider supporting restaurants. If you are unable to support financially, please help by adding restaurants or sharing the link.

<3

</comment>