New York is the heart of a new digital economy. - <AUTHOR> http://www.nyctecheconomy.com/

<comment><USER2> "The average NYC tech ecosystem hourly wage is $39.50 49% greater than the NYC median (AND 44% OF THOSE JOBS DO NOT REQUIRE A BACHELOR'S DEGREE.)" This seems like a terrible abuse of statistics. The average wage of $39.50 may be 49% greater than the NYC median, but what is the median tech ecosystem hourly wage. It is probably lower than the average. Of those jobs that do not require a bachelor's degree, how many are actually held by people without a bachelors degree, and what is the average (or better yet median) wage for those without a bachelors degree.

<comment><USER3> The average-median thing seems to be just a mistake by whoever wrote that summary. If you look at the full report, this is what they have:

"Workers in the New York City tech ecosystem earn 49% more than the average City-wide hourly wage. The hourly wage for the tech ecosystem is $39.50, while the average City-wide wage is $26.50."

Your other points are valid, of course.

Edit: this is the full report and is quite a bit more informative than the summary: [http://www.hraadvisors.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/03/NYC_Te...](http://www.hraadvisors.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/03/NYC_Tech_Ecosystem_032614_WEB.pdf)

Edit2: no longer completely sure what they are talking about:

"As of 2013, the average New York City median hourly wage was $26.50. Tech ecosystem jobs pay above the City-wide average. In fact, tech ecosystem workers are paid 49% more than the City-wide average of $26.50. In comparison to this average, tech workers in tech firms earn 75% more, tech workers in non-tech firms earn 51% more, and non-tech workers in tech firms earn 25% more."

I suspect their "average" "median" income is median income by job category averaged together. With that said, it looks like they arrived at the tech average wage in a similar fashion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The tech sector has always been big in NYC, but it's not the same as a Silicon Valley. There's far fewer pure tech companies and a lot more tech services especially around our traditional big industries, finance and media. There's a handful of significant tech shops, but mostly it's consulting, IT and the like. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

<comment><USER5> Yes, it definitely seems like the best play to make in NYC is to build a business catering to, or symbiotic to, one of the big existing NYC industries. This way you can leverage off the time/place advantages of being in NYC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It really is awesome being in NYC. I have lived here my whole life, from when every neighborhood was dangerous to now when even harlem is hoarding hipsters.

I have no basis of comparison, but this city really kicks ass. The restaurants, the activities, the opportunities for work. If something is holding you or your startup back, that something is not NYC.

<comment><USER7> Cost of living, mostly just rent.

Why would I choose to live and start a business in NYC when places like Seattle, Portland, Austin, Chicago, and DC all have drastically lower costs of living?

<comment><USER8> If saving money is your top priority, stay out of NYC. Move to Springfield, Memphis, or Wichita Falls.

If you enjoy certain characteristics of urban living -- dense, progressive, diverse, bustling -- NYC is peerless.

<comment><USER7> > If you enjoy certain characteristics of urban living -- dense, progressive, > diverse, bustling

Plenty of cities have these characteristics that have a much lower cost of living than NYC.

I love NYC. It's a great city, probably the greatest city on earth, but there are plenty of other options out there.

<comment><USER8> Those traits are no more boolean than cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The industry will be in a better place when there no longer is any physical center to a 'digital economy.' When people don't feel the need to move to places they can't afford to 'make it' and instead can work where they are or where they want to be and still do what they want to the maximum their product or service allows.

<comment><USER10> You realize that there are a lot of "they" who don't want to spend all of there lives in NowhereVille in the state of NothingEverHappensHere ?

In fact there are many people who select their career exactly because it allows them to move to places like that?

<comment><USER11> Despite being condescending and smug you are actually agreeing with the person you replied to.

The lack of a physical center to an economy means its participants can live wherever they choose to live, whether that is New York City or, as you so condescendingly put it, "NowhereVille".

There are still many perfectly fine places in the world that people are forced to move away from in order to participate in the tech economy. Getting rid of these barriers will only increase people's freedom to live where they are happiest.

The existence of choice for people who don't want to live in a tech capital of SF and NYC doesn't at all diminish your experience of living in such a place. What's with the misplaced anger?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The saddest part of the New York tech economy are the dozens(if not hundreds) of ad "tech" companies selling retargeting disguised as some new proprietary technology.

<comment><USER13> I am about to be job hunting in the city. Can you name some names to save me a bit of trouble down the road? Who should I avoid?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The claim made in the headline is not supported by the text that follows, which doesn't provided data on tech employment in any other cities or metros. It'd be better to say "New York's tech scene is thriving" if that's what the data support.

</comment><comment><USER15> Regardless the the somewhat deceptive title, this is still an impressive collection of stats. The full study does a great job of explaining how the tech economy is also good for the traditional economy and those without technical backgrounds as well. Some of the anti-tech set in SF could stand to learn from it.

</comment><comment><USER16> Now let's get some of those jobs out onto long island.

</comment><comment><USER17> Another New York is the best at X story. Every time another city does something good New York tries to copy it. They have to keep this kind of PR up to promote living in an ultra expensive area.

</comment><comment><USER18> hardly new

<comment><USER19> The study was just release today, so it is about as new as it gets - if you're talking about the study results.</comment></comment>


Scientists Talk Privately About Creating a Synthetic Human Genome - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/14/science/synthetic-human-genome.html <comment><USER2> Current discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11692360](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11692360) (46 points, 18 hours ago, 43 comments)

</comment><comment><USER3> Related:

Scientists Talk Privately About Creating an AI (1956) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartmouth_Conferences](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartmouth_Conferences)

</comment><comment><USER4> Putting aside DNA, is it even possible to emulate the whole birth process sythenticly. For example, currently would a surrogate birth mother be required and is this likely to change?

<comment><USER5> There are too many, rarely understood processes involved in fertilisation and subsequent embryogenesis. I don't think we can fully create a human (or even other complex life forms) fully synthetically. Rather, i think scientists would just exploit tried and tested natural mechanisms such as embedding half of the synthetic genome into the spermatazoon with the other half residing in the oocyte and letting "nature" take its course.

There's just too much knowledge we're missing right now (even the calcium signalling cascade initiated by the sperm fusing with the egg isn't fully understood). Of course, who knows where we'd be in 10, 20, 50 or 100 years?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Yeah. Also, the other day me and some scientist friends smoked a few blunts and privately discussed creating a warp drive.

</comment><comment><USER7> Of all the problems facing the 8 billion people on the planet, making more of us isn't one of them.

<comment><USER8> It't not about making "more", it's about making "better", not leaving everything up to chance.

See the movie Gattaca, for an example.

<comment><USER9> I hope I die before we get to that phase of reality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reading through the comments on the article's page... Ignorance and fear run deep with genetics.</comment>


Unethical human experimentation in the United States - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States <comment><USER2> OMG</comment>


Inside Brigade: A look at the bet Sean Parker's making on his 'civic network' - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/08/01/inside-brigade-a-look-at-the-bet-sean-parkers-making-on-his-civic-network/ <comment><USER3> I thought one of the comments on the article was particularly interesting.

> One million comments filed in the FCC's Open Internet proceeding shows that > the public at large is interested in "civic engagement".

> But if you look at the many "Wheeler is a dingo" comments, the public still > has a long way to go in terms of engaging civilly. Many of the comments are > little better than graffiti (submitting a complete Whirlpool Washer Repair > manual?). I think the public WANTS to be engaged but they are so cynical > about the effects of that engagement, that they don't take it seriously.

> How will "Brigade" change that, other than putting a shiny new interface on > the klutzy FCC comments page?

One additional consideration: what will Brigade mean for privacy? I like the idea of getting up and doing something meaningful to improve my city... but I don't want everyone else in the world knowing my political opinions.

<comment><USER4> Seriously privacy is really dead. Comments like yours (which in a previous world would be sensible legitimate comments) make me realise just how gone it is - it was as if we lived in a world of peasouper fogs. Now the atmosphere is better and we can see where we are going things will be much better - but the cost is everyone can see what everyone else does

I am pretty sure that you leave a trail of your political opinions everywhere even here on HN ... Looks at comments in profile ... Yup family history, environmental positions , job, citizenship, rough age. Shit I wonder what the hell trail I am leaving :-)

(I realise that reading two pages of your past comments may seem invasive - <USER2> often do it for people whose comments interest me but this is probably the first time I have good anyone - and as a former privacy / liberal (UK definition) activist it's quite painful but i do feel it's best to deal with the real world instead of tryin to undo the fog.

<comment><USER5> Of course, this assumes he tells the truth. ;)

Personally, I just use random aliases of two words [e.g. open+dais] that are meaningless and use them for things. If asked me age, I lie, etc.

You can poison the well pretty effectively as long as it isn't RL.

<comment><USER4> I doubt that any (non psychopathic) human can maintain that charade for very long. Even lying about your age will show inconsistencies and betray anchoring. You will give away far more than you think. Hence the advice to captured soldiers and arrests felons - name rank and serial number and shut up!

<comment><USER5> I must be a psychopath then.

It isn't hard really. It is like acting or playing D&D. You make some quick character stats and use that persona for awhile.

In the past 24 hours I've been accused of being a racist and a psychopath on HN. I know that wasn't your intent but that is the outcome.

<comment><USER4> Ok I'm confused. Are you ShitLord (shit+lord)? Then having multiple personas does not seem particularly useful in keeping your own privacy. Let's say you are _really_ MikeSoap - then no matter how much ShitLord or opendias are well played personas - anything you say as them is ignored when it comes to working out what Mike's preferences and political opinions are.

If you aren't any of those accounts, in other words if you only come online as personas, then, why bother at all? You are not expressing yourself and it all seems a bit of a waste.

And even if you are really ShitLord then this is the age of clever fraud detection - I will lay money that your personas follow your timezones, that one persona never comments on the same thread within $SPEEDHUMANTYPING seconds of the other, or any other "tells" that we humans are really bad at hiding.

I understand that Only psychopaths or mentally badly ill people can maintain deeply convincing acts over long periods - that was my point - not that you are a psychopath.

<comment><USER3> Just FYI, I'm a different person. I don't know who that person is.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Old Falcon 9 rockets done firing their engines will now inflame imaginations - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/spacex-donates-first-stage-booster-to-space-museum-in-houston/ <comment> who-knows95 i would defiantly travel to see the 9, if i was in Houston. i'm glad to hear that spaceX is willing to expend some resources to inspire our next Gen.</comment>


Should you fear your USB cable? - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnet.com/news/usb-type-c-cable-problems/ <comment><USER2> I remember plugging in a damaged mouse into my old Win XP desktop and it displayed a nice notification saying "Your device tried to draw too much current and so the USB port has been disabled." I fail to understand how such basic stuff has eluded USB C port manufacturers, specially on high end devices like Macbook and Pixel.

>When you connect your USB-C-equipped Nexus 6P phone to a MacBook Air port designed to only provide 1.1A ... the phone can pull too much power ... and potentially destroy internal components.

This is just nonsense, as far as I know. No device can "pull" more current than you can provide. Even if you short the pins, the port will just be shut down, as noted later in the article itself.

>But Saunders, chairman of the USB-IF standards body, says he's not aware of any protection against a completely miswired cable like the one that struck down Leung's Chromebook Pixel. "That was something that the circuits of his notebook can't protect against," he says.

I highly doubt that. What's the worst that can happen? You deliver 20V to the pin expecting GND. Trivial to protect against. And this is also only for things like chargers. If it is any peripheral device, the voltage drop will never exceed ~5V I'm guessing. All this just comes down to bad engineering on the part of laptop manufacturers. Bad cables, bad devices, reverse polarity chargers have always been present. And our computers have always had protections against them. And that is how it should be. A completely miswired cable should simply not work.

Now if you're talking about differentials of >100V, then I would understand. But we're nowhere close to those levels. Google and Apple: Your ports are badly designed and you should feel bad!

<comment><USER3> PC hardware often (including Macs) often have self-resetting fuses on USB ports that make the port look dead but come back to life after some time. Some fuses take longer than others. So it's sometimes easy to think your USB device killed the port. A friend had this with a Macbook and a USB charged bike torch.

Apparently polyfuses can take days to properly un-trip.

<comment><USER4> Polyfuses are temperature driven and will reset within a few seconds. USB ports on non-cheap bare-minimum laptops use a chip in monitoring the current draw and can block that port. The OS can re-enable the port right away but I believe OS X requires you to reboot.

<comment><USER5> OS-X (Yosemite + El Capitan) has displayed the message to me: "Your device tried to draw too much current and so the USB port has been disabled".

When I took the offending cable out, and tried with a different device, it worked straight away, no reboot required (not sure about earlier versions/alternative scenarios though, it's possible they do require a reboot).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> USB-C has too many pins.

USB started with four pins - GND, Vcc, Data+, and Data-. USB-C has 24. Yes, 12 of them are just the other side of the connector flipped over. And there are two ground and two power lines on each side, for heavier current. But there are 10 different pins, with 3 differential pairs for data (the original bidirectional pair, plus two unidirectional pairs), and the SBU line, which is used to tell the ends that some lines are not being used for USB, but for some other protocol, such as DisplayPort or PCIe. (Coming soon to an airport near you - power outlets with enough smarts to load exploits through these features.)

A true USB-C cable is simple - it's just wires. It's the ones that are adapters to other connectors that give trouble. Here's a USB-C to DisplayPort connector.[1] There's far more in those devices than a programming resistor.

Controlling USB-C ports is so complicated that Cypress's IC has a 32-bit ARM processor just to operate the port.[2] Either end can be the master, and either end can be the power source. (These need not be the same.) If all the complicated setup fails, the interface drops back to USB 2.0 and pretends to be a "Billboard device", which gives diagnostic info.

The scary part is that USB-C can potentially deliver 100 watts, as 20V at 5A. USB-A was rated for 5V at 0.5A. Botch the power handshake and Bad Stuff is likely to happen.

[1] [http://www.ecnmag.com/product-release/2015/05/adapter- soluti...](http://www.ecnmag.com/product-release/2015/05/adapter-solution- includes-usb-billboard-device-class) [2] [http://www.cypress.com/products/ez- pd-ccg2-type-c-port-contr...](http://www.cypress.com/products/ez-pd-ccg2-type- c-port-controller)

<comment><USER7> > Controlling USB-C ports is so complicated that Cypress's IC has a 32-bit ARM > processor

...it's a Cortex-M0, 4k RAM, 32k Flash. By today's standards, this is a very small controller. For the Arduino-Crowd, it's roughly equivalent to the ATmega32u4 on the Arduino Leonardo, but with a Cortex-M0 instead of the 8-bit AVR. Both, by the way, run 16bit opcodes. -- But I get your point, it's nevertheless a lot of "brains" for what people wish would be a dumb cable.

> Either end can be the master, and either end can be the power source.

Unfortunately, this is what people expect from a USB device these days. The poor little "ID" pin on micro-USB was overloaded with functions already: There are interface chips that can distinguish 40 or so different resistor combinations on various lines (see the ancient TSU6721, which was used in the Galaxy-SII). So, I think requiring some intelligence at least for the more complicated combinations really makes sense.

Regarding the number of pins, I don't think it's that bad: USB2+/\- has stayed the same, just bridged to two pins each. USB3 Tx/Rx is still two differential pairs, with two extra differential pairs for "future use", Display-Port, ... The ID-pin with resistors to Gnd/Vcc just has been massively upgraded to a serial protocol spoken on the CC1/CC2 pins.

So, for me, after reading a little bit about it, I now see USB-C as Micro-USB3 plus upgraded ID-Pins plus two spare differential pairs... But I was very skeptical at first, too.

<comment><USER6> The power negotiation alone takes 15 pages in the developer's guide.[1] One can see how an adapter cable with a botched power negotiation protocol could screw this up. Also, statements such as "Should the USB specifications change, then a new firmware will be updated and released" are kind of scary when applied to power negotiation. Especially since you can load new firmware from the connector side of the port. Someone is going to develop an attack based on this, with a USB "power outlet". The OS can't even see this level.

[1] [http://www.cypress.com/documentation/application- notes/an965...](http://www.cypress.com/documentation/application- notes/an96527-designing-usb-type-c-products-using-cypress-s-ccg1)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Short version - If you tend to use a USB-A to USB-C cable it's probably worth a second or third look. USB-C straight through is probably less of a concern after some research.

<comment><USER9> A little off-topic, but I've come across 3 of your tl;dr summaries on front page stories in the past half hour. Thanks EwanGbot!

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I should probably program a bot to do this eventually. It's more that I get tired (personally) of seeing an article on the front page with no discussion, and from some of the titles wondering what it could be about. So figured the easy answer was to read and share for folks like myself :-)

<comment><USER9> I definitely appreciated it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is the second article on these cables that I've read saying the charging device "pulls too much power"

>When you connect your USB-C-equipped Nexus 6P phone to a MacBook Air port designed to only provide 1.1A ... the phone can pull too much power ... and potentially destroy internal components.

Does anyone know what the hell they're talking about? There is no electrical force to 'pull' power. The source 'pushes' power at a certain voltage, and can supply a certain manufacturer-set amount of current. If the charging device can use more current, nothing happens. There is no way to pull "unsupported" amounts of current out of something.

<comment><USER11> The limit to how much power you can pull is just the ESR of the power source. Don't take a car battery and connect the two terminals together with large- guage wire, unless you want to see some impressive fireworks.

With purely passive loads, the power "pulled" from a fixed-voltage power supply is related to the impedance of the load, and can be calculated with a fairly simple formula.

Phones, however, are active, and can regulate how much they draw to charge the battery.

Perhaps a simpler explanation: if you plug a night-lite and a vacuum into an identical outlet, they will clearly pull different amounts of power.

<comment><USER10> Does that explain things when you're talking about a DC power supply? Isn't that what we're talking about?

<comment><USER11> DC and AC don't matter for generalities (though there are significant differences in how a given device will draw power from an AC or DC source, the underlying principle is the same).

A DC power supply can still largely be modeled as a DC voltage plus some small amount of resistance, capacitance and inductance. This will give it a characteristic impedance for a short-circuit which is the only limit on how much power can be drawn from it.

Aha! I found where the confusion is in this sentence:

> If the charging device can use more current, nothing happens. There is no > way to pull "unsupported" amounts of current out of something.

This is wrong. If you draw too much current, then something bad will happen. The UL just makes sure that "something bad" isn't "will start a fire or electricute someone" it could very reasonably be a component of the DC power supply that fails with an open-circuit, which would then need replacing for the power supply to work again. In some cases it may be a part specifically designed to be a fuse, in other cases they may just take a diode, MOSFET or resistor that they needed anyway and choose a part that will die if too much current is drawn.

Dell is claiming that their USB ports will not die permanently in this case, but will shut-down temporarily, more like a self-resetting circuit breaker than a fuse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> At least when it comes to the Chromebook Pixel, it could happen even with a A-to-A cable. Heck i have fried thumbdrives because of a very similar mistake to the one in the cable that fried the pixel.

Basically it had the data and power pins switched, thus feeding high amps where it should not be.

For myself, i managed to crosswire a case port (the supplied wire required me to attach individual pins rather than socket a fixed block).

The only major difference would be the amount of As bouncing around (the Chromebook, hooked up to a dumb wall wart, would get some 2-3As rather than the .5A my thumbdrive got).

Anyways, there also exist a proof of concept "badthumb" out there that is basically a capacitor that will reverse the polarity of the USB connection after having built up a sizable charge. This will likely take out at least the controller, if not more.

</comment><comment><USER13> Don't buy cheap crap off ebay or amazon and plug into your laptop if you care about it. It was always so for chargers, now it's cables as well.

(I once bought a noname car charger, "it's for 12V so how bad can it be?". Turns out "very" is the answer as that phone never took charge again.)

<comment> nommm-nommm Don't buy cables or chargers off Amazon or eBay at all, regardless of price. Unless they are shipped and sold by Amazon - not a third party seller. There is more fakes on those two sites than the real deal.

<comment><USER14> I always warn the ones I care about the same thing. The worst thing about fake/cheap electronics is not that they don't simply work, but that they might work 99 times out of 100, but the 100th time burn your house down due to failed/non existent surge protection or whatnot. It's easy and cheap to convert AC/DC to nominal rates, but protection from burning down is the hard and expensive part.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've blown the USB bus on my old Mac Mini by plugging in a crappy USB hub. IIRC (the machine is no longer with me), some of the ports no longer worked but at least one did which was enough for me to plug a "real" hub in to. Still a PITA.

Edit: that was a 12V powered hub, not "a cable", so maybe that's why.

<comment> jon-wood I once accidentally used a charger rated for much more than the hub I was plugging it into and it fried half the things plugged into it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> A different concern entirely, but I've often wondered about the risks of plugging some of those impossibly-cheap USB devices you can buy from overseas from eBay and other sites. Seems like an attack vector that could easily be exploited to compromise the device of the buyer.

</comment><comment><USER17> Apple designed their product to isolate damage to just the USB circuitry, whereas the bad cable seemingly tookout the entire Chromebooo laptop.

<comment><USER18> The failure modes are completely different. The MacBook went overcurrent when a bad cable told an attached phone it could draw more current than it should. Detecting overcurrent due to a badly behaved device or a short in the cable is fairly common.

The cable attached to the Chromebook was totally miswired and flipped Vbus and ground, supplying -5V where 5V was expected. As the article said, nothing is really designed to handle this kind of failure because it should be blatantly obvious to the cable manufacturer if there were any sort of quality control.

<comment> X-Cubed That's not entirely true.

Reverse polarity protection is very common, and often only requires a single diode in series with the +V line, so that current can only flow in one direction.

<comment><USER19> A diode will drop about 0.5-0.6 volts, which could eat 10% of your energy, so reverse polarity protection is usually used in devices where someone could plausibly install the batteries backwards. I think it's probably rare on something on a highly controlled standard connector like USB.

<comment><USER20> It's fairly easy to do it without the diode drop if you use a mosfet, but you do incur the cost of a more expensive part.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mozilla Contributor Calls Mozilla CEO Open Letter Hypocrisy - <AUTHOR> http://benjaminkerensa.com/2015/07/30/unnecessary-finger-pointing

<comment><USER2> The HN discussion of the letter itself can be found here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9977836](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9977836)

</comment><comment><USER3> Since when did the switch to Yahoo! override user search engine preferences? I don't recall ever having to reconfigure DuckDuckGo as my default search engine during the switch.</comment>


Google's Chrome OS will start using Debian 10 (Linux) - <AUTHOR> https://www.xda-developers.com/chrome-os-80-debian-10-buster-linux-installations/ <comment><USER2> I might be wrong, but didn't they used to use gentoo to roll their own custom distro? Then why are they changing, or did change to Debian? I'm guessing a Debian base is quite different from Chrome OS requirements isn't it, with most work having gone into thousands of package integrations that aren't used on Chrome OS?

<comment> vertex-four They're not changing to Debian to build ChromeOS itself - ChromeOS now ships with a Linux container to run Linux apps, and that is currently Debian 9, will soon be Debian 10.</comment></comment>


Hacker High: Stories of Teenage Hackers Getting into the System - <AUTHOR> http://www.focus.com/fyi/it-security/hacker-high-10-stories-teenage-hackers-getting-system/

<comment><USER2> Its crazy what age kids are learning this stuff. I think hacking is the new age Prank Call</comment>


I need 20000 USD to pay my education bond - <AUTHOR> My education (Bachelor's degree) was sponsored by an agency with a term that I would have to serve them for a period of five years or break the bond by paying a sum of 20000 USD. Right now, I earn about 800 USD a month and the job is mind numbing. I have been serving them for about 15 months and would have to go on for 45 more months. How do save / earn USD 20000 in the shortest time possible ? <comment><USER2> This sounds pretty close to indentured servitude. Are you in the US? Did you come from another country?

I'd look into pursuing human trafficking claims against the "agency":

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_bondage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_bondage) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victims_of_Trafficking_and_Viol...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victims_of_Trafficking_and_Violence_Protection_Act_of_2000)

You might also want to check with the labor board in the state you live in, or the US Department of Labor to see if the agreement is even legal. If it's not, or the agreement is questionable (sounds like it), they can put pressure, negotiate, or prosecute the agency on your behalf.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, actually, I am from India. I have checked with lawyers and the agreement may actually not be legal, but I do not want to get into a legal mess, given the current state of Indian judiciary along the lawyer's expenses, it may get stretched for years. In the mean while, my prospects for higher education are at stake as I have to save for it as well. Right now, I am looking for somebody who could possibly guide me through a project, website or application that I can possibly develop in the mean while and pay my bond in a year or two.

<comment><USER2> Hmm, well I'm not familiar with India and it's government. Are there any "watchdog" government agencies that handle violations of labor laws? If you can get the government on your side you might be able to avoid lawyer's fees.

Have you already completed the Bachelor's program? What happens if you just leave the agency and move somewhere else?

<comment><USER3> Indian here.

> Are there any "watchdog" government agencies that handle violations of labor > laws?

No.

> If you can get the government on your side...

This is possible, public prosecutor will be assigned. But the case will take easily 4-5 years to come to a conclusion.

> What happens if you just leave the agency and move somewhere else?

Highly unlikely that agency may sue OP.

6 of my friends were working some companys and had signed 3 years bond. or would have to pay about $5000. Four of them just left the company, no notification or official resignation. Just, said goodbye. Other two cited health reasons and said they cannot work for next 6-7 months etc. They were let go.

I don't know for which agency OP works for. But I am yet to see/read someone paying up for breaking the agreement/bond in India. Companies also wouldn't want to pursue the matter further, cos it will cost them more anyways and courts will drag the cases for years. So they simply let people go, atleast in 99% of cases. That's how it is in India.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, the government agency involved here is the Department of Space, Government of India. I am currently working for Indian Space Research Organization and did my Bachelor of Technology from Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Trivandrum, Kerala, India. My certificates and transcripts are still held up and would not be released unless I clear my bond or complete my tenure. If I leave without notification, the money would be demanded from my surety, followed by legal prosecution if not produced. No health excuses here either. And yes, the department will and has in the past pursued such cases in the court of law and as far as I know, all of them are pending so far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you are working for ISRO, is the position in India or the US? If it's in India 800USD seems quiet fair and not "indentured servitude" as a commentator has suggested.

What kind of technologies excites you? Which city are you in? If it's something like Banglore/Delhi, I would suggest going to some tech meetups and explore what people are doing and which technologies are in demand in your city.

I would suggest you to start freelancing, but pick the technology that really excites you.

Considering that you would be working full time at the same time, that's really important.

</comment><comment><USER5> $800 / month is a bit on the low side I'd think. Ask for a raise and save the remainder?

Try to find an employer that is more respectful of your time, and take out a bank loan (interest rates are really low right now) or come to some kind of pay-in-installments agreement with your current employer.

Finally, there is always the option of declaring personal bankruptcy but I'd only use that if you feel that your employer has acted dishonestly, I see no evidence of that.

<comment><AUTHOR> I intend to continue with my education and as such, banks are not willing to finance my bond which would effectively leave me with no further source of income. My pay scale is non-negotiable and my first review for appraisal would be at the end of 2017. I tried finding alternate job opportunities but my particular set of skills does not have a requirement in the current Indian industry as of now, but I am still looking.

<comment><USER6> Do you have "free" time after work?

If you have a decent programming foundation, I'd look into Android programming or other reasonably-paying skillset that you could use after hours.

One of my classmates started doing Android apps, the first year she ended up earning close to U$ 600/month extra, but now she makes U$ 2000/month extra, for 20 hours of work each week or so. (I'm in Uruguay, U$ 2000 monthly is more than a junior dev's salary).

I took the Coursera classes, and I'm going to release my first app sometime next month :)

[https://www.coursera.org/course/androidpart1](https://www.coursera.org/course/androidpart1)

There used to be plenty of "income reports" here on Hacker News from people that launch their own apps, it's certainly not overnight success, but the timeframe is significantly lower than 45 months :) . Plus, if you get good at it, you can do freelancing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that is an option I am considering. Thank you for the suggestion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Learn some skills (Java, SAP, Oracle apps), anything that is hot in India right now and get you a job quickly. You don't necessarily have to be a programmer, if you don't want to program, there are lots of other tracks which don't need programming.

Get an entry level job in that skill, most entry level jobs pay as much as what you currently make.

Once you have an entry level job offer, get a personal bank loan, pay off your bond. SBI, HDFC, ICICI or whoever you bank with. Just google for "personal bank loan india".

Once you have 6 months experience, you can move on to a senior level job, paying a lakh+ per month. This will save you at least Rs.60,000 per month to pay off the loan.

Of course, you don't have to pay off the bond. Just start working for another company, find a cheap lawyer (they are a dime a dozen) and make your case if they go after your surety. This will definitely take years and you can pay off the bond leisurely. This may turn out cheaper than paying interest (maybe 13%) on a personal loan.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice. I am currently looking into it. The back end development seems to be in demand right now, I am focusing my effort on Python with Django. In the meanwhile, if I do not pay the bond straight away, I will incur an interest of prime lending rate + 3%, which turns out to be about 15% the last I checked. Thank you for the advice anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What agency? What job?

<comment><AUTHOR> Engineer at Indian Space Research Organization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Start programming

</comment><comment><USER10> get them to fire you?

<comment><AUTHOR> I cannot get them to fire unless on disciplinary grounds. Under performing would just get me humiliated. And my place of work is a facility where I am not allowed to carry my personal belongings such as my laptop and as such, I can not work my personal projects in the mean time either. In case, I quit without notice, my bond surety would have to pay for the bond amount.

<comment><USER10> exactly get them to fire you on disciplinary grounds

also you can only work as hard as 800 is worth to you. and you can start a business in your part time, try to find a buddy to code some apps with

<comment><USER11> Before doing that, read the paperwork carefully. It may have the standard clause "All your work are belong to us". So the side project you do in your free time is also property of the agency even if it's only tangentially related to your work there.

Perhaps you may get an exception to contribute to a big open source project. You will not get money, but you will get more experience and things to put in your CV.

<comment><AUTHOR> As a matter of fact, I am not allowed to contribute to open source projects if not officially approved (read : simply not allowed) and whatever I contribute will remain with the agency I am working for and would be classified.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Take it from somebody who's shaken hands with the Indian High Commissioner of a country, chatted up many members of the State Bank of India and who's friends with a venture capitalist that takes investing in, and expanding, domestic infrastructure for cleaner air, water and electricity very seriously. He's setup many electric generations facilities, water generation facilities and more.

Given my background with the Indian government (nope, not Indian here) you're out of luck. The only way to "Save, earn, etc," with your situation is the exact same as I went through as a poor American, owing (today, 15 years after graduation) more than $35,000 dollars for my college degree. That's more money than I earned in the last eight months - and, I have two children, the IRS also claims I owe them about a ton of money, but thanks to finally catching up on filings, it's a smaller number - or soon will be.

Friend, it is hard for people who know billionaires, who know people, shook their hand and made them _millions_ via Ycombinator and others (I got turned down, but, applied late).

The facts are the following: * Nobody owes you a living, period. If they do, we're all standing in line and it's not moving. * Save money. If it's a Penny, a Pound or a Franc, it matters. * Create works - code, write, etc - so when and if you CAN publish, you're ready. Even if you develop skills that you can't use, nobody can EVER steal what's in your head. :)

Finally on a very, very serious note. Everybody has a sob story. My mom's currently a cancer survivor; my step dad has been on dialysis for a decade and thank goodness they are poor enough the US government pays for their medical treatment - or they'd already be dead. Life can be hard, it generally can suck, but, you own what you know. Knowledge is power. Stop whining in public, produce, learn and grow. Most of us, here on a "dot com," address are global, or rather, "Not Indian," so won't be able to give you the best advice.

However, if the goal was, "Learn how to compete with the best & brightest," this is a fantastic place. Sympathy is hard to find, but positive, productive suggestions - hard work, acquire knowledge - are the real keys to growth.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sir, I am not cribbing. Rather asking for help to focus my effort in more fruitful direction, the foresight of which I lack, so that at the end of it, I have a reasonable chance of coming out on the top.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What web services should exist that haven't been developed yet? - <AUTHOR>

List any top ideas that you have. It is an interesting exercise to come up with startup ideas.
Back in 2005 Fred Wilson said "Last year, when Brad and I were on the road raising our fund, we used to talk a lot about web services that should exist but don't." http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2005/08/indeed.html
This exercise helped them target indeed.com as a potential investment and potentially others.
What services are missing from the internet these days? <comment><USER2> A reddit/HN clone that customizes the content you see based off your voting history. This has been tried a few times before, but I've just never seen one take off. In fact, reddit had this feature when it started but couldn't scale it well enough so dumped it.

I feel like it would increase the quality of upvotes generally because people would know that their votes will impact the future content they see so it may slow the rate at which people up vote just to show they simply agreement and reserve it for actual high quality they we to see more of. That is just my theory, perhaps in practice it would reveal that people just care more about only seeing content they agree with anyway.

<comment><USER3> StumbleUpon sort of does this, although it's more attuned to drag up older content than new stuff. I guess this is because the older the content is, the more data you have to make statistical associations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Product Configurator (eCommerce Web Stores)

Basically, the visual deal where you select a t-shirt, change colors, change patterns, etc.. Toys, computer parts, boat parts, shoes, cheerleading outfits, you name it...

I was asked to build a product configurator a year or so back for a a store that sold customizable backpacks. I looked into building one and thought "hell no". I turned the job down.

During my research I found some Enterprise level solutions, I saw 1 service (a manual thing with a couple guys), a TON of posts on outsourcing websites asking for the same, and I believe a complicated piece of software (it's hard to remember).

I offered to build the thing for much more then they wanted to spend thinking I could turn it into a product, but obviously they passed.

I think there might be a market out there for small and medium sized eCommerce store developers/designers/owners for a plug-and-play product configurator. It would have to tie in with some popular carts; X-cart, Magento, (a few others), but at least for me I thought there might be a business there.

Or there could be a reason why it was never done.

</comment><comment><USER5> A data ETL tool. Now that lots of companies are moving to MPP databases like Vertica, Redshift, Teradata, and Netezza, it's incredible that there is still no straighforward way to do so without extensive systems and data engineering experience.

Every time a customer asks us to recommend a tool to do this, we are baffled that nobody has taken this on yet (and wonder if we should do it ourselves).

The opportunity to build the Stripe for ETL is only going to get bigger.

<comment><USER6> You should check us out[1]. We're haven't quite got to the full ETL stage as we've focused on individual databases first. If you've got a decent imagination though then you can figure out what we're trying to get to.

[1]: [http://www.jackdb.com/](http://www.jackdb.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Poo Analysis as a Service

Upload image of your poo, computer program will tell you if you have any health problems or you should change your diet.

<comment><USER8> This would be a great addition to a "Smart Toilet" where it analyzes your urine as well. Through wi-fi it uplaods the results to the website and checks if you have any health issues.

<comment><USER9> How is this not a thing? This should be a thing.

<comment><USER10> There's a kickstarter for that:

[http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/uchek-universal-the- medica...](http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/uchek-universal-the-medical-lab- in-your-phone)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Anything that recognizes and encourages the good behavior of people.

<comment><USER12> That would be... people, e.g. the Good Guy Greg and Good Girl Gina memes, you could I suppose do a RL version, GGG t-shirts with individual QR codes for up voting people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Android and iPhone dev environments exposed as a web endpoint. This would help ease development of opensource applications and improves portability and reuse of components.

We could harness the power of the cloud and free developers from having to worry about hardware performance issues to run the heavy dev environments. If the app has to be debugged on a device, the apk file can be downloaded and injected. The apk can have an default injected script to automatically communicate with the cloud dev set up (sending over logs etc.) to create a really simply environment to work with mobile applications and collaborate efficiently across the world

</comment><comment><USER14> SaaS model all-in-one marketing toolset service for bootstrapping apps. The current ones are either to much data analytics, or too dumb mail-list management tools.

<comment><USER15> We're currently working on this and would love to get some feedback. With just 5 min of your time you can help shape the roadmap and get early access. Survey here: [http://bit.ly/15GpvsD](http://bit.ly/15GpvsD)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The first thing that springs to mind for me is natural language search that really works. Along the same lines, reliable transcription.

<comment><USER17> +1 for natural language detection and transcription. Current systems are too fragile or completely closed. The ones available aren't better than what we had in 2004.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Speech recognition: send an audio file, receive text.

<comment><USER19> AT&T offers this: [http://developer.att.com/developer/forward.jsp?passedItemId=...](http://developer.att.com/developer/forward.jsp?passedItemId=12500023#link01)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> A solid natural language processing API.

</comment><comment><USER21> hemmingwaymaker.com. Makes long sentences short. An online de-obfuscator and English to English translator. Helps me finally read Finnegan's Wake and Of Grammatology.

slantrime.com. bends user provided words to make unlikely rhymes, with seed capital from slim shady.</comment>


Why Soylent is a dangerous cult - <AUTHOR> http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2015/08/18/2137612/why-soylent-is-a-dangerous-cult/

<comment><USER2> Good to read a critique from someone outside the tech bubble. I had read the amazingly boneheaded blog post about some guy giving up alternating current and always buying new clothes instead of doing laundry ( [http://robrhinehart.com/?p=1331](http://robrhinehart.com/?p=1331) ) but didn't know it was the same guy peddling soylent. Now that I know, things make a lot more sense ;-)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm interested in this article, but I can't read it because apparently I must register with this particular subsection of FT.</comment>


Would the actions of the Digital Economy Bill be tolerated "offline"? - <AUTHOR> http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/03/18/would-the-actions-of-the-digital-economy-bill-be-tolerated-offline/

<comment><USER2> If you're in the UK and were thinking of writing to your MP, use this form to do so:

<http://www.38degrees.org.uk/page/speakout/extremeinternetl>

You don't even need to be particularly detailed or articulate. I used to work for a political campaign and the mantra from our lobbyist was "Politicians do not read their mailbags. They weigh them."

<comment><AUTHOR> However, our lovely UK politicians have a history of counting all the many responses from a campaign as "one response" from a single organisation, then disregarding it as a minority view.

Lobbyists are so much easier to listen to than constituents. I'm wondering if there's merit in hiring some to represent the interests of the wider population? Perhaps we could call them MPs.

<comment><USER2> That's right. Better to not write, not participate, not change anything. Nothing can be done, after all, so don't do anything.

<comment><AUTHOR> Where did I say anything about not contributing to the bulging postbag?

It's not that I don't believe in expressing views to those who are supposed to represent me, it's just that I have very little faith that my view counts for anything.

When the system rejects rationality and evidence, and is perfectly happy to explicitly state that this is what they do (eg Prof David Nutt's experience), should I expect millions of voices to make a difference?

I am not apathetic or disengaged, I just suspect that I don't have enough money for my view to count for anything. I am depressed about continually getting HTTP 402 response codes from my MP.

Should I have a more positive outlook?

<comment><USER2> "Should I have a more positive outlook?"

Yes, I believe you should and I apologise if I came off a bit snippy. The campaign I was involved with (the PCG, opposing IR35) was ultimately unsuccessful in parliament but won some victories on a case-by-case basis and ultimately made a significant difference to people's lives. In my own case, the Inland Revenue tried to over-tax me but were forced to drop the case because of what the PCG did. Did I feel pleased about that? I think so, yes.

I also wrote letters about the RIP Act when that was going through parliament. I wrote to (and met with) my MP, Mark Oaten, who seemed like a thoroughly decent and intelligent man who grokked the issues immediately. I also wrote to Jack Straw, Tony Blair and (because she was saying the right things) Anne Widdecombe, even though I suspect she is in all other respects quite barmy. Of course, they ignored me, afaik.

What I think did make a difference was a casual conversation with an acquaintance who turned out to be the Conservative front-bench spokesman in the Lords for Trade and Industry (Francis Lord Northbrook if you're interested). He asked me to write a briefing paper, which I did -- a couple of sides of A4 saying what was wrong with the legislation. He used it as a basis for his response to the RIP Bill, as it was at that time. OK, it shouldn't come down to personal acquaintance but it sometimes does, and if I hadn't written all those futile letters we would never have had the conversation which prompted his request to me.

Now to my point: if the situation is really that desperate why even post the article? Just STFU and continue to let them rip you, me and everyone else off. Or you could, you know, _engage_ with the flawed people in this flawed situation and possibly, I don't know, do something to make a difference. Win or lose, I'd rather participate than sit and whine about things.

"What did you do during the Internet Wars daddy?"

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe I can say that I have done my bit in the Internet Wars so far, and will continue to do so by engaging with the flawed people in this flawed situation. As you point out, posting the article suggests more than a passing interest in the situation.

But I see the system as flawed and part of the problem, and have a huge amount of frustration stored up as a result of trying to talk to my elected representatives. Please excuse my whining; it is a symptom of desiring positive change and trying to do something to get there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's taken months for them to get it through the Lords.

If they manage to get it through the Commons in 10 days flat that would be a ridiculously impressive feat. Can't see it happening myself...

[http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2009-10/digitaleconomy.h...](http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2009-10/digitaleconomy.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> They're proposing to use a special "end of government" process where the whips agree amongst themselves it should pass without debate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wish some creative person could subvert the meaning of the word "internet" by establishing different protocols that exist on top of existing communications infrastructure.

<comment><USER5> If you mean you want to alter the scope of the DEB by redefining the internet then that won't work.

UK Judges commonly look at the intention of law when considering judgements and when the normal language [at the time] is not sufficient to define the word then definitions are included (made up example: "for the purposes of S4 the meaning of xylophone excludes instruments constructed primarily of metal"). Also there are laws on harmonising with European law and so when a law is drafted and intended to harmonise with European law the interpretation in the European courts can also be taken into consideration.

Perhaps this <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers> is the sort of thing you meant?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The "home sewing" comparison is false because you pay for the non-exclusive use of a pattern and the materials to produce your own clothing. People who pirate music aren't paying for any use license and aren't creating their own music.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hopefully that was just clipart, rather than any serious suggestion. It's not mentioned in the article text.

<comment><USER7> Home-taping, however, _is_ mentioned; a comparison only slightly less egregious.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Will HPKP work with an Publickey? - <AUTHOR> Hey, do someone know if HPKP will work without an Certificate as backup? So when I generate an Priv/Pub Key, do I need to sign it before I publish the hash or can I do it, when its needed?<p>-MuhPirat <comment><AUTHOR> Ohh to add this: I know HPKP works with Publickeys, the only question is, if I need to sign it first or can I sign it when I need it?

<comment><USER2> [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/Security/Public...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/Security/Public_Key_Pinning)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahh nice, thank you :-)</comment></comment></comment>


TweeterGetter is very cool.  So why aren't the top Web 2.0 blogs talking about it? - <AUTHOR>

Maybe it's not in their self-interest to promote this service?<p>http://tweetergetter.com <comment><USER2> Did somebody hack your account to post this spam?

It's quite clearly a pyramid scheme.

Edit: I now think it's likely you're being sarcastic.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is a legal pyramid scheme since there is no money involved.

One could argue that it encourages tweeters to spam their followers with numerous mentions of their link on Tweeter Getter. But if you mention your Tweeter Getter link too many times to your followers, then many will stop following you.

<comment><USER2> From an idea perspective, it's actually quite cool, since it does all the work for you.

To me, it just doesn't make any sense to start following random people, and have random people start following you.

That, and the format of the page is the familiar "skeezy product" pitch format.. so I just don't trust it. What's in it for the guy running the show? Besides thousands of usernames and passwords?

<comment><AUTHOR> He's getting lots of followers!

But yes, the presentation of the page could be improved.

As for getting lots of random people following you -- well at least it's a start!

If you are worried about your password, then change it immediately after using the service. A more serious problem concerns privacy (e.g., access to your direct messages).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> A one-page sales letter? Web 2.0? Are you serious?

<comment><AUTHOR> Did you read the page? Do you understand how it works?

It's actually an automated service.</comment></comment>


Facebook reverses on paid influencers after Bloomberg memes - <AUTHOR> https://apnews.com/86f306176a5e1043d2f825483e75f70d <comment><USER2> Sponsored content should be labeled as such and it should include who paid for it and how much they paid.

This is absurd. Wild Wild West in the "free world."

<comment><USER3> In this circumstance, it was. It was just so surreal people thought it was a joke!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Building an email killer - <AUTHOR> Hi
Need help in building an email killer app. The concept around it is taking the logic of collaboration tools and apply it to tame emails. Here's how we are thinking:
Step 1: We build a collaboration tool (done it already: https://comtify.com). It has a thread-like architecture wherein each issue is discussed in threads (just like email threads) and the logic of email (to, cc, folders, etc.) apply.
Step 2: We are in the middle of this. We are injecting the features of email import-export into Comtify. So it will work like this: A message thread in Comtify will detect whether an external user (email ID) is tagged into it. If yes, when a new message is posted in a thread, it will fire that message as an email to the external user (email ID). This email will be like a regular email with all other members of thread visible in To/cc (for whom, the email will be imported and ignored). Now if the external user makes a reply-to-all on the email, it will be imported, recognized and posted as a message in Comtify in the same thread. In case this user does not do a reply-to-all but changes the recipients, a sub-thread (within the master thread) will be created in Comtify.
So this should solve a much needed problem with collaboration tools (Asana, Slack, Wunderlist, Smartsheet) which is that they are only limited to use within an internal team and fail in external communication.
It should also solve the problem of single-user utility which no collaboration tool currently has - user wouldn't require any team to be first invited and even one user from a particular team can use it, while others might not.
Need deep thoughts into this on whether:
1. You think this is a big problem to be solved.
2. How exactly do you visualize the system to work.
Regards,
paekut <comment><USER2> This doesn't sound like an 'email killer' to me, and I'm quite sure this functionality exists elsewhere (I'm sure I've seen it, not sure where).

I'm REALLY most confused as to why you think this is an 'email killer'. You're using email, how can you kill what you are using?

If you are trying to kill email, you need to understand the problem with email. Is the problem that email doesn't integrate with other systems (which it seems you are somewhat suggesting)? No. Clearly, email integrates with systems too easily, it is a no brainer.

Before you go touting that you are building an email killer, I suggest you deep dive into why email needs to die.

<comment><AUTHOR> @pedalpete sure, it's not that in the exact sense. But surely an 'email client killer' in another sense.

Yes there are teams working in this direction notably Front ([https://frontapp.com/](https://frontapp.com/) \- they raised an investment from Slack's founder) and Fleep ([https://fleep.io/](https://fleep.io/)). But we have taken a different approach to it, according to the problems we faced.

Taking the views of community specifically on this particular approach.

<comment><USER2> Sorry to disagree, but I don't see where you're going that you think you're an 'email client killer'. Again, I would still need an email client for everything outside of comptify.

Neither of the apps you pointed to suggest they are killing email or email clients.

I'd suggest that if you're going to be a collaboration tool, focus on that. Note that Fleep is a messaging platform and front seems to be organized group emails. Neither of these guys are claiming to be a collaboration app.

What are you trying to do? Figure that out, and do it. But only one thing, or else the market is going to get confused as to what they are supposed to use your product for.</comment></comment></comment>


Diary of a High Functioning Person with Schizophrenia - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=diary-of-a-high-function

<comment><USER2> "Except for my first two years at Oxford, I have been spared the so-called 'negative symptoms': apathy, withdrawal, inability to work or make friends."

The article is a good illustration of an unappreciated fact about most complex behavioral disorders: the disorders are so polygenic and multifactorial in origin that two patients can have the same diagnosed disorder, based on the most current diagnostic criteria, and still have very different courses of disease progression. It appears some difference in Professor Saks's genes or childhood environment (or, most likely, both) spared her from some of the most debilitating effects of schizophrenia and gave her the opportunity to practice introspection on a mental disorder rarely looked at from the inside.

"COOK: Have you ever been treated against your will, and, if so, can you explain the circumstances and the effect this had on you?

"SAKS: I have been subjected to the use of force on numerous occasions. In the first instance, I was hospitalized against my will. I was said to be dangerous to myself and dangerous to others. I was also said to be 'gravely disabled,' and the reason given was I couldn't do my Yale Law School homework!"

I'd like to know more details about who petitioned for her involuntary treatment in that instance, and the legal procedures followed then. It seems like a big leap to go from "the patient can't do law school homework" (many high-functioning normal people can't do Yale Law School homework successfully) to "the patient is a danger to self or to others," the legal standard for involuntary treatment in most states. A lot of persons with mental illness are chronically unemployed or underemployed but their relatives cannot successfully get them treated.</comment>


Circuit behind the Internet Age turns 50 years old - <AUTHOR> http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080913161206.5phq0e94&show_article=1 <comment><USER2> See also:

[http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/09/dayint...](http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/09/dayintech_0912)</comment>


Impressive: Video and voice calls in your browser without a plugin in sight - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/dd/2012/03/01/impressive-video-and-voice-calls-in-your-browser-without-a-plugin-in-sight/?utm_source=HackerNews&utm_medium=share%2Bbutton&utm_content=Impressive%3A%20Video%20and%20voice%20calls%20in%20your%20browser%20without%20a%20plugin%20in%20sight&utm_campaign=social%2Bmedia <comment><USER2> Neat, but is it really that impressive? Instead of using an external plugin, the plugin is rolled into the browser. There was no reason to expect that would be difficult. The real difficulty will be getting different browsers to provide reasonably compatible implementations.

<comment><USER3> WebRTC is a w3c standard - it's part of HTML 5 - so getting browsers to support it isn't going to be as big of a problem as you suspect.

Browsers today (even with HTML5) are mainly consumers of media. There's great ways to get audio and video to a browser, but no capabilities for getting access to a user's microphone and camera and no way of sending media from a browser to elsewhere. WebRTC fixes that.

A phone call has two halves, there's the signaling (where does this call go to, is it still active, did the other party hang up, etc) and the audio (the "media" in telecom parlance). What Phono is doing in this demo is connecting the media and the signaling from an early WebRTC implementation to the public phone network. Using the audio capture from the browser and letting you make and receive real phone calls with it.

<comment><USER4> Nicely put.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For basic video calling you don't need phono, WebRTC can do that all on its own.

The other stuff is impressive.

<comment><USER6> Well, then you need to implement your own discovery and routing mechanism. It might just be a web page a la ChatRoulette, but _something_ is needed.

Phono uses XMPP for this (IIRC), which opens the window for really cool integration with existing endpoints.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Related: <http://weblog.bocoup.com/javascript-webrtc-opera-mobile-12/>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> More info on the Phono WebRTC plugin can be found here <http://phono.com/webrtc>

</comment><comment><USER8> An article that talks about two companies that I like a lot so far. On the other hand - couldn't vox.io plug WebRTC in whenever it is supported and therefor make the flash requirement optional in the future?

Interesting - I hope it'll land in a FF beta for me.

</comment><comment><USER9> Only a matter of time.

<http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/getusermedia/intro>

</comment><comment><USER10> And Microsoft paid all that money for Skype....

<comment><USER11> I believe Microsoft (and eBay for that matter) vastly overpaid for Skype, but at the same time Skype does way more more than this does. Comparing the two things at all is disingenuous.

<comment><USER10> Not really, I've used Skype since it launched and I love it. But like Word my guess is that most people probably only use 20% of its functionality, voice/video calling and chat. If this does that easily and for free, it will very quickly eat into Skypes market. I for one would switch.

<comment><USER11> Google Voice w/Gmail integration and Google+ Hangouts have been doing all this stuff for free for a while now and I'm a huge fan of both but I don't think either has substantially changed Skype's market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> nice...!!!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> :)

<comment><USER13> Very nice effort. Hopefully this will help start a shake up of the entrenched videoconferencing industry and all their expensive and cumbersome technology...</comment></comment>


The birthplace of the illuminati - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20171127-the-birthplace-of-the-illuminati <comment><AUTHOR> This walking tour looks really interesting [http://www.ingolstadt- erleben.de/illuminaten/termine/](http://www.ingolstadt- erleben.de/illuminaten/termine/)</comment>


Tesla banned in West Virginia, whose Senate president is also an auto dealer - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2015/4/3/8340433/west-virginia-ban-block-tesla-sales

<comment><USER2> [http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1096212_the-tesla- gigafa...](http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1096212_the-tesla-gigafactory- is-big-really-really-big--this-big-in-fact)

</comment><comment><USER3> Its a bit bizarre, considering Teslas are mostly coal powered for the time being.</comment>


Why China Is Reading Your Email - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323419104578376042379430724.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop <comment><AUTHOR> First, There is a nice counter argument in the article -

        But what about the argument that the U.S. is shedding crocodile tears?
        America (and Israel) were almost certainly behind the most successful known
        cyber attack to date: the Stuxnet virus that impeded Iran's uranium-
        enrichment program. There might be some comfort in knowing that the U.S. is
        doing unto China what China is doing unto the U.S.

Second, I think people who are saying - "I don't care" to China reading their email account are unaware of the implicit repercussions. Another snip from the article

        "If I had access to your bank account, would you worry? If I had access to
        your home security system, would you worry? If I have access to the pipes
        coming into your house? Not just your security system but your gas, your
        electric—and you're the Pentagon? Maybe nobody's been killed yet, but I
        don't want you having the ability to hold me hostage. I don't want that. I
        don't want you to be able to blackmail me at any point in time that you
        want."

It's the potential ability for a foreign host to keep you hostage which is the real worry was a citizen.

</comment><comment><USER2> I don't care why (and if) China is reading my email (I have a Gmail account).

Can you please answer why the US and EU is reading my email? Both has related laws, email retention policy, email "wiretapping" systems, and have been known to abuse the "court order" system and just go ahead and read everything they like.

I could not care less for China reading it, because China is more than ten thousand miles away, and is not known to interfere with my country and people's lives, unlike the US and EU.

<comment><USER3> Solutions exist, but no one uses them. You are getting spam because you are not requiring hashcash. They are reading your email because you are not encrypting it.

Government and law-enforcement, even if trust-worthy, function via intermediaries who may not be. This will just never improve and I think we have to address that with the tools we know will do the job.

<comment><USER4> "They are reading your email because you are not encrypting it."

One of the problems we have here is that tools like PGP and S/MIME require the _receiver_ to do something before the sender can encrypt a message for them. We need something like identity based encryption, where the sender decides if the message will be encrypted and the receiver does not need to publish anything in advance (threshold IBE systems should probably be used to ensure that no single entity can read everyone's mail). Unfortunately, IBE and related technologies are thoroughly patent-encumbered, and so it will be a long time before we can just deploy it freely.

<comment><USER5> You need to exchange key's before you can encrypt a message.

Think of it like this in a pure one way communication you send all parts of the message, and anyone who reads it can decode it. If you instead get one of there key's (even if it's from a 3rd party) you can encrypt something for them. Or you can think of it like this, if the receiver never makes any key's there is nothing special about them that prevents others from reading there messages.

<comment><USER4> In identity based encryption, there is a key generator that gives out secret keys, and a master public key that the sender needs for encryption. To encrypt a message, the master public key and the receiver's "identity" (e.g. email address) are used. Thus the sender and the receiver do not need to exchange keys in advance; the receiver must get their decryption key from the key generator, but there is no need to do so _before_ the message was actually encrypted.

The key generator can decrypt any message, of course. That is why I said threshold systems should be used, so that no single party is the key generator. In that model, the receiver would have to request that several parties jointly compute and issue the decryption key. It is also reasonable to imagine a world where there are many IBE authorities, and the sender of the message can choose which IBE authority the receiver will have to get their keys from.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_based_encryption>

<comment><USER5> Think it through, your treating public information as a private key which is hardly secure. You could also use the users email address as the seed for a random number generator which would spit out keys and not involve 3rd party's but that's also unsafe.

After all, what tells the Key Generator that firstname.lastname@example.com is actually email@example.com and not Alice?

<comment><USER4> I think you should actually read the Wikipedia IBE article, it basically answers your questions.

<comment><USER5> I did. Look at the picture provided it's the authenticate step that's the problem. Alice wants to send Bob a message. Alice contacts public key authority and says give me firstname.lastname@example.com's private key, encrypts the message and sends it. So far so good.

Now, someone contacts the key authority and says I am email@example.com what's my private key. Without prior communication between Bob and the key authority there is no way to do that exchange over an open channel securely. Assuming email addresses are public information and someone can get bob's email address before he communicates with the key authority.

<comment><USER5> Err, _I did. Look at the picture provided it's the authenticate step that's the problem. Alice wants to send Bob a message. Alice contacts public key authority and says give me email@example.com's_ public _key, encrypts the message and sends it. So far so good._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article is EXACTLY correct.

I speak/read Chinese and Japanese fluently, since 1987.

The scale of China's corporate hacking is historic and state-sponsored - exceeding any nation in history by a wide berth.

State sponsored hacking at this unprecedented scale wrecks society in both China and America. The massive level of invasion will leave us all living in a more broken down world.

<comment><USER7> It has always puzzled me that even sophisticated audiences like HN regard this situation by killing the messenger. Usually reactions are mostly "meh", "Where is your tinfoil hat?", or "the US does it too".

At the end of the day, as proprietors of Internet services, the information being stolen from you or your company is your customer's data. You should care and be alarmed.

<comment><USER8> I'd just keep track of the usernames who say that, wait until they reveal their identity elsewhere on HN via a "Show HN" or something, then ask them publicly to explain what their stance is on protecting their users' data. When they give the famous cookie-cutter response of, "Obviously we care." then you can hit them with, "but did you not say 'meh' when this same issue came up a few months ago?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow, this is fantastic. The US media is preparing a new scapegoat: Chinese hackers, so if financial institutions fail(they are currently set to fail for their selves) they have an enemy they could use.

Note in the article, if people can't use their ATMs, like in Cyprus, Chinese are the ones responsible!!

Brilliant, like Nazism used Communism(Reichstag fire) and Communism(Stalin) used Nazism as an excuse to gain more and more power from its citizens, US of America needs new enemies, as Sadam Hussein and Osaba Bin Laden are dead in order to make the powerful more powerful, the TSA more freedom killers and citizens less autonomous from the government.

<comment><USER10> You are more than right.

To the other readers: Whenever you can read the kind of articles like the TFA you can be certain of only one thing: some propaganda office somewhere either wrote it or motivated somebody to write it that way. The military people have zero interest to present such details to the public, the propaganda people do but only if the purpose is "to prepare the opinion at home" (the pretext) for something that is going to follow. So just remeber this for now, I'm sure you'll see something will happen soon but not initiated from the other side. It's not a tinfoil-hat-imagined conspiracy but how "the machinery" of structures with different interests imperfect as it is "shines" to the outer world. For examples of similar actions from not so long ago:

[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/avrticle/0,9171,994414,00....](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/avrticle/0,9171,994414,00.html)

Unless you're one of those on the payroll, don't happy, be worry.

<comment><USER11> >> you can be certain of only one thing: some propaganda office somewhere either wrote [the article] or motivated somebody to write it that way.

When you wrote that, my first reaction was -- is he part of "the 50 cent army"? 1/2 :-) The propaganda thing goes two ways.

I've seen arguments that the reason why e.g. the Mideast countries are _swimming_ in tinfoil-hat conspiracy theories, is that they LIVE inside a conspiracy theory -- auctoritarian dictatorships. The same goes for Chinese people. And you, too?

<comment><USER10> Are you too young to remember this, just as an example:

<http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/03/14/sprj.irq.documents/>

If you want something from the most recent times, it's still unchanged:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/18/panorama-iraq- fr...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/18/panorama-iraq-fresh-wmd- claims)

Do you remember the times when Americans not only believed that Saddam took part in 9/11 (heck when Bush says so it must be true) but that he was also ready to nuke US?

Now Chinese are almost presented as posessing "the weapons of mass destruction" because... Wait for it... They have access to the internet!

I mean, really...

Btw I had to look up for the term you mentioned in Wikipedia. FWIW I've never read any sources that aren't the western ones. But I was already old enough in 9/11 and WMD times to read the articles like the above as they were written and the book from the earlier link the year it was published. Call me biased then. But do try to read a little on the subjects I refer to, and also try to avoid ad hominems. EDIT: I've just tried to see some of your earlier comments, to get your context. Hmmm:

[https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=50+cent+ar...](https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=50+cent+army+berntb&start=0)

<comment><USER11> I bothered to find this for you, not that I expect you to be grateful -- you probably think that attacking your conspiracy theories is the same as attacking you...

It still isn't relevant for China, but a more serious viewpoint on how the Iraq WMD opinions were built:

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21786506>

<comment><USER10> These two spies are irrelevant to Tony Blair's clerks who were so desperate to actually take a student's thesis (!) as a constructed "proof" for the Irag's WMD, it's documented since 2003:

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

<comment><USER11> From the wikipedia page you referenced, that was something given to journalists:

>> issued to journalists on 3 February 2003 by Alastair Campbell, Blair's Director of Communications and Strategy

In short, a PR release had bad quality control. Wow, that must be the first time in world history...

You have gone from: Claiming propaganda offices get their world view out in media without criticism.

To: Pointing to low quality propaganda from governments, which is laughed at.

You're arguing against your original position. Film at 11.

(I might also note, re the original point, that you didn't answer when it is pointed out that lots of sources in other western countries say the same thing about Chinese spying.)

And so on.

(I don't know if you have a point, is trolling, you're writing from China -- or what the hell this is. It isn't interesting, so never mind.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> We do need a proper response to this kind of threat, but it's almost certainly not the response we're ever going to get from the politicians in Washington. Serious cyber policy should at least include the following:

A. Comprehensive technological education for employees who even might come into contact with sensitive information at government institutions, military institutions, or high-profile private firms like banks and software companies.

B. A push for using modern, transparent, open-source, reviewed software and hardware for all vital tech infrastructure. No more legacy FORTRAN or Windows XP or Internet Explorer 5.

C. Taking the power grid off of the public internet and onto a closely monitored and private infranet.

<comment><USER13> Definitely B. I think a scary percentage of IT managers feel that their legacy Fortran XP/IE5 computer systems are actually more secure than modern alternatives. We're going to have a find a way around that sentiment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I did go back, and checked my email account. No, its only me who is reading my emails, its a corporate espionage problem, corporations have to deal with it. Normal people don't have anything of interest for state sponsored intrusions, thus are not targeted. Please dear journalists, don't drag me in this war, I know someone is pissed here and there on both side, and both have armies like muscles, too tempting for both side to flex, but seriously, this is not diplomacy! We as people, should root out both govt democratically if they even dare to wage a open cyber war.

If my govt would do that, I would seriously vote against any war, no matter how just it may sound. Americans have a life, Chinese people also have a life. I don't see the problem in common people's life.

</comment><comment><USER15> Mainly because none of this has ever been done before, there exists a low- level state of war between many opposing nations, even small third-parties ([http://freedom-or-safety.com/blog/when-will-the-first- hacker...](http://freedom-or-safety.com/blog/when-will-the-first-hacker-be- killed/))

I don't see China as being made a scapegoat. I see the system working itself out. New technologies always create new relationships between people and governments. When the net rolled out, we thought the openness would bring about positive reforms. What seems to be happening is that governments are getting very good at controlling what citizens read. Instead they're using the openness of the net as an attack vector. Not exactly what we expected.

</comment><comment><USER16> I keep hoping we'll respond to these challenges with more DARPA challenge like prizes and fewer additions to the CFAA.

</comment><comment><USER17> Create a bunch of well-crafted honeypots, put the proof on the international stage. Embarrassment and sanctions ensue.

<comment><USER18> Digital forensics aren't as damning or incontrovertible as, for example, Adlai Stevenson's Cuban Missile presentation[1].

[1]: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSV9_J8Csts>

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you want to discourage this kind of behavior stop feeding the machine....

You can't do that when you run year over year trade deficits with these guys. Reign that in and you will have a chance at solving this problem.

<comment><USER6> Freakonomics - cyber attacks must "cost" China money.

Bitter pill, but strong trade damage is the only pocketbook China will listen to.

Cyber attacks must be directly tied to China losing money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Countries engage in espionage. Water is wet.

<comment><USER8> Countries don't usually engage in espionage on behalf of private entities, with other private entities as their target, with explicit economic goals.

<comment><USER20> _What?_ Industrial espionage is age-old, and you would expect nations to engage in it. It is a method of economic development.

<comment><USER8> No you wouldn't, that's a huge conflict of interest in the modern world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Because US tech companies still use MS Windows and their employers may use Facebook and Gmail on their PCs. Easy as that

</comment><comment><USER22> That was absolutely chilling! I am sorry I don't have anything of value to contribute but to me this is an historical equal to the Soviets launching a satellite into space. I think it deserves an internet infrastructure response from the US.

Thank you for posting

</comment><comment><USER23> Not mine...</comment>


Ask HN: How to buy English skills in two week? - <AUTHOR>

Money cannot buy everything, but I got saved some money that I want to spend to get out of mediocre english skills. I am in this state for last 20 years. My english has not improved much in this period. I cannot/should not live rest of my life wishing to have a good english skills to communicate my ideas.
I am not good at persistence and consistency which are key to become good at anything you want to be. I am highly paid software engineer and I reached to this position by pure luck and talent. Now time has come that the talent alone is not enough. I want to achieve more and first step is to remove my inability to write/read/speak english fluently.
I know the best method people recommend is to read as many books as possible to become good at it. I have tried buying books and reading first few pages before forgetting about reading them again. I get impatient because of my slow speed and lack of vocabulary. The books of kids are not that interesting to keep me engage. My symptoms are close to ADHD but I have not consulted a doctor for that. For speaking its best to be among among natives but unfortunately wherever I work its all expats.
I got some money saved on which I want to spend in two full weeks to learn English. I am thinking of taking leave from my office and pursuing to learn all about English in those two weeks. But I don't know what will be the medium to learn extensively in those two weeks. Please suggest me what can I do in those two weeks? Can I hire some professional that can spend full two weeks with me? Or should I go into field and work in an environment (i.e. restaurant?) for two weeks that that will force me to speak with natives and learn from them?
I am thinking of posting a job description on different job portals to hire someone that can help in this regard. What should be criteria to hire someone for this purpose and what schedule we should be following in those two weeks (8 hours a day)?
I live in Seattle area. <comment><USER2> Post a gig on Craigslist for a native English speaker who is pursuing or has pursued a degree in English Arts or something similar. Pay them for 4 hours a day ($20 an hour should be sufficient for a college student on summer break) and have it be conversational. Spend the rest of your time watching English language learning videos on YouTube and repeating along with the video.

The only thing that will help you is discipline so you have just work on it at all times. I, for example, have bad posture. I realize it sometimes and so I sit up straight, but I am not disciplined enough to do it all of the time so I have not improved enough.

Hope that helps.

</comment><comment><USER3> These have been good folks to my students in the past (however it's been awhile): [http://seattlelanguages.com/private.php](http://seattlelanguages.com/private.php)

call them up. talk to them (perhaps in your native language). see if you like what they say. however i've no idea what anyone might accomplish in just two weeks. furthermore, if the text of your question is a sample of your own english abilities, i'd say you might be wasting your concern relative to the average english capabilities in the technical world in general.

</comment><comment><USER4> You can't buy skills, you can only nurture them. To do so, engage in conversations: Go to discussion clubs, book clubs, meetups etc. Talk and mostly listen! It's not a matter of money, it's a matter of dedication!

</comment><comment><USER5> Language exchange? What's your native language? Several years ago I found someone on Craigslist to exchange an hour of English for an hour of Spanish. We did this for several months. You can find several people to keep it interesting.

<comment><AUTHOR> I speak Urdu and never found someone wanting to learn it.

<comment><USER5> Go to a not so loud bar, have a beer, and talk to people.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask YC:  How to avoid trademark infringement with domain names? - <AUTHOR>

What sort of precautions should I take to avoid trademark infringement when coming up with a domain name?
Do I need to search trademark databases in many countries?  If so, how?
Also, if a multi-word name contains a word that is trademarked, then is that a problem generally? What if the trademarked word is commonly used outside the scope of the company that owns the trademark but still in the same field? <comment><USER2> do your best to not register a domain name that is a specific trademark.

other than that, you're probably going to be in the clear, especially if you can prove the domain name is relavent to your own business name. you'll find that US trademarked words are used in other countries' TLDs for other businesses.</comment>


Covid-19 Pandemic Drives Patients – and Deal Makers – To Telemedicine - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-pandemic-drives-patients-to-telemedicine-deal-makers-too-11598358823 <comment><AUTHOR> [https://archive.vn/EHlzP](https://archive.vn/EHlzP)</comment>


Ask HN: Some real world, open source Rails project - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
I know of https://coderwall.com/ open source their app recently. Also http://yumhacker.com/ and https://github.com/afternoonrobot/photographer-io
Those are big Rails project (to me), real world application that I can learn from. It's better than watching sometime outdated screencast, book, tutorial.
Do you know any of other on Github?
Thanks. <comment><USER2> This was a top post recently: [https://github.com/churchio/onebody](https://github.com/churchio/onebody)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is awesome. Thanks! Very big application to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Instructure's learning management system called Canvas is built in RoR and is open source.

[https://github.com/instructure/canvas- lms](https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms)

</comment><comment><USER4> This is one that I work on:

[https://github.com/hummingbird- me/hummingbird/](https://github.com/hummingbird-me/hummingbird/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I love this. How long you guys work on it? The code is very big too me. Thanks.

Edit: ALso love that u use React and Ember. I have another chance to learn then ;)</comment></comment>


Despite Harvard outreach, underprivileged students face socioeconomic gulf - <AUTHOR> http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/05/12/the_harvard_disadvantage/?page=full

<comment><USER2> Oh boo hoo.

You get a full ride to Harvard.

20% of _everyone_ at Harvard comes from a family making less than $60k/year.

...and yet, because _some_ of the other students get driven to campus in fancy cars, you feel left out.

I arrived at my Ivy League college in a station wagon and signed up for a four year commitment to the Air Force in order to help me pay for college...and, yeah, I knew kids who had gone to Phillips Exeter and "summered" places ("summered" ... never knew that was a word before college ... I "summered" at the mall, working retail for $5/hr...).

And you know what?

It wasn't a big deal.

I felt a bit excluded from some groups...just like in high school, and just like after high school.

So many people love to bitch and moan and whine.

You're born into an amazing country, at an amazing point in history, and someone gives you a full scholarship to one of the most amazing universities the world has ever known...and you whine that you feel a bit left out?

Cry me a !@#%@#-ing river.

<comment><USER3> Haven't you heard the news? Since John Rawls got popular, you're allowed to bitch at the injustice of the universe if anyone was born with a slight advantage over you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> See

<http://works.bepress.com/c_kirabo_jackson/12/>

which leads to

[http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?ar...](http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1080&context=workingpapers)

for a detailed analysis of how the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative influenced admissions, written back when there couldn't be any analysis of what happened to the students after they arrived at Harvard. The submitted article from the Boston Globe is an interesting follow-up.

</comment><comment><USER5> Real solution to bridge socio-economic inequalities is inter-faith marriages. Govt must give incentives to inter-faith couples.

<comment><USER6> Could you explain why inter-faith (as opposed to inter-class) marriages make such a difference?

<comment><USER5> inter-faith marriages are inclusive.</comment></comment></comment>


All I want for Christmas: the perfect office - <AUTHOR> http://justinjackson.ca/perfect-work/

<comment><AUTHOR> Have any of you seen this in play at your office?</comment>


Ask HN: Does anybody need 16 years old designer? Hire me - <AUTHOR>

I'm very good with HTML5, CSS, Photoshop and some of css frameworks like Bootstrap or Gumby. I know also basics of javascript and jquery.
Here is my recent work:
- http://ewooy.com/img/streamio.png
- http://ewooy.com/img/edure.png
- http://ewooy.com/img/flare.png
- http://ewooy.com/img/enyo.png
- http://ewooy.com/img/karla.png
- http://ewooy.com/img/truffle.png
Can any of you suggest me a way to get some recognition? Or maybe how to get a freelance job? Any design job related tips?
Thanks! <comment><AUTHOR> Clickables:

\- <http://ewooy.com/img/streamio.png>

\- <http://ewooy.com/img/edure.png>

\- <http://ewooy.com/img/flare.png>

\- <http://ewooy.com/img/enyo.png>

\- <http://ewooy.com/img/karla.png>

\- <http://ewooy.com/img/truffle.png>

<comment><USER2> I mean this with the utmost respect. You're not there yet. Don't get me wrong, these designs are great and 3 years ago I couldn't do anything like what you're doing, but it's not something I would pay for at this moment.

Design #2 in particular, something just feels off after I look at it. Might be inconsistent margins? Lack of focus for my eyes? I think a few more months of practicing and you'd be a great person to hire, but keep working on it.

You're in the home stretch and just have a bit more to go imo.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your opinion, I'm always trying my best.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> My advice is, always post images in full size, scaled down images look odd in the sense, they don't show the real spacing and readability.

Also, you could use more spacing between sections and 12pt fonts are too 2003-ish

Keep working. All the very best.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your opinion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Your work looks good! Keep it up! Try sourcing projects on odesk, guru, elance, freelance. You work is surely hire-able. Love hearing about a 16 year old designer who's out looking for freelance work! You've got a bright future!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for help. I'm trying my best.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A portfolio page could probably go a long way to help secure some work. A web designer without one is odd to me.

Your stuff looks really good though. Keep it up.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the reason I asked on HN for job, to fill my portfolio page.

</comment></comment><comment> saiko-chriskun Great work! Keep it up ;). If you ever want to hack on some side projects with a developer hit me up. I always have a few things on the backburner :P.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I am always willing to do on new projects. I will contact you soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good work. Am sure you will get better. All the best.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks man.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> send me an email (contact info in my profile). I am looking for freelance designer.</comment>