S&P 500 triggers 15-minute trading halt for the second time this week - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-11/asia-stocks-set-for-losses-dow-enters-bear-market-markets-wrap <comment><USER3> I see only doom & gloom comments here. Did people miss this positive note:

"On Thursday, China said it had just 15 new coronavirus cases and 11 deaths over the previous day." See: [https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/world/coronavirus- news.ht...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/world/coronavirus-news.html)

China has controlled the problem. By taking drastic measures the rest of the world will too. In a couple of months the virus will be under control. The stock market will not recover as quickly as it crashed, but it _will_ recover! How do I know that? Because crashes have happened in the past, and the world didn't collapse and disappear. A single company can collapse and disappear but not the entire stock market.

The only question is, how long will it take to recover. I think it will take 2 to 3 years. People who sold during the financial crisis of 2008 did not get to participate in the recovery that followed. There isn't an email or a notification that goes out when the market starts to recover. Attempting to time the market is futile. Staying out of the market will only mean that you will miss out on the largest portion of the recovery.

<comment><USER4> China's numbers make no sense at all. A country with 1.4B people and they at one point had 80k people with the coronavirus in the country which includes many big cities, smaller cities, and towns. Somehow they only have 15 new cases in the whole country?

How does that make any sense if you take a moment to really think about it? It's clear they are either deliberately not testing or skewing/hiding their numbers for political purposes. It's a bit similar to India's numbers. India (population 1.3B) has fewer cases than Iceland (Isolated island of 300k people), again, how does this make any sense? It only makes sense if they're not testing people or hiding numbers.

<comment><USER5> They locked the fucking place down. No movement = no transmission.

But people not doing stuff basically means a recession, if not depression is guaranteed.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure that locking the place down for a little while per se will cause a recession. Numbers will take a hit for a while because people are prevented from spending and working, but the normal course of action after a snow day or staying home with the flu is to get up and go back to work and resume spending money. This is the path China could be on for its economy overall, if not for its economic interdependence with the U.S., which is handling things differently.

The U.S. is steering itself toward a year-or-more-long issue that has people fearfully avoiding stores, deliveries, workplaces, and the consequences of this will ricochet. A recession happens when people and businesses restrict spending and hiring, and that's exactly what this scenario causes in a chronic way.

But who knows? Maybe Gilead's experimental antiviral will be approved within a month or two, and maybe that will be enough to make people not fearful and regain economic confidence.

<comment><USER7> A common definition of recession is a decline in GDP lasting for 2 consecutive quarters. It seems likely for this to cause a decline in GDP in Q1 and Q1 at a minimum, so a recession seems inevitable.

I do think there will be a point when going out becomes less of a concern and there will be a lot of pent up demand for travel. The recovery will likely be sharp (V-shaped).

<comment><USER6> I was speaking to the strategies that could be employed vs what we're actually doing, and I am concerned that what we're doing will cause a recession.

To relate the strategy to that formal definition of a recession, if everybody stayed home for a month this quarter, we might lose 1/3 of the quarter's GDP. But if that break is structured so that it's expected and we resume normal activity afterward, then in the next quarter we would see the GDP "grow" a ton, if only back to normal because people are working and spending for the full three months, and we would cleanly avoid this formal definition for a recession.

<comment><USER7> Oh, I understand what you are saying now. I think the issue is that government officials aren't comfortable defining an endpoint right now. There are a lot of unknowns as to what could stop the spread at this point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have alot of unvested RSUs and my reasoning is that if 2008 repeats itself, there is a real chance I may get laid off and lose my RSUs. I donate most of my income and I have very little savings.

To protect myself, when I see sharp dips in the markets like this, I usually buy a put (option) just in case 2008 repeats itself. I bought a put last week for 2k (CMG) and now its worth 18k. If the markets keep falling, I may end up with around 30k, which is enough for me to pay my mortgage for a year and a half.

Maybe someone finds this helpful, maybe not. Be safe, play responsibly.

<comment><USER9> Your employment situation is uncertain, you give away most of your income, you have minimal savings _and_ you speculate in the stock market?

You, sir, are made of sterner stuff than I.

<comment><USER10> If you expect volatility to increase, which I think is very reasonable, then buying options is a very safe bet, and if you only put in a reasonable amount, it merely serves as insurance against getting laid off.

If the market gets bad enough for him to have to be laid off, his presumption is that the puts will be valuable enough to get him along for a little while. If it doesn't, then he probably loses money on the puts, but he's still employed, so it doesn't make much difference.

edit: I'm an engineer, not an economist, so this is probably wrong, but I think it's the line of thinking that songzme is on too.

<comment><USER11> > If you expect volatility to increase

If you have high confidence that volatility will increase more than the market expects it to.

> buying options is a very safe bet

There is no world in which buying options in a volatile single stock is a very safe bet

Unless OP actually works at CMG (in which case they're probably forbidden from buying puts), this is gambling, not hedging.

<comment><USER10> >There is no world in which buying options in a volatile single stock is a very safe bet

I agree. I didn't pick up that CMG was Chipotle (that's what comes up when I search CMG). Do you think if the underlying was something diversified, this would be a safe strategy?

> this is gambling, not hedging.

My understanding of it is that in times of high volatility, options go up. If OP expects ^VIX to go up in the future, which I think is very safe to assume at this point, then won't the value of a diversified option go up?

Again, maybe I'm confused... I don't really trade anything, so I don't have skin in the game. I just talk about the markets a lot with my friend who is into Quant Finance.

<comment><USER12> > My understanding of it is that in times of high volatility, options go up. > If OP expects ^VIX to go up in the future, which I think is very safe to > assume at this point, then won't the value of a diversified option go up?

Only if it's not already priced in. The price of options should reflect the market's _expectation_ of what the VIX will do in the future. If everybody else thinks that things are going to get more volatile in the near future, then prices for options go up _now_ , they don't wait for things to actually get more volatile. So when you're deciding whether buying options is a good deal, you not only have to decide whether or not you think that things will be more volatile in the future, you also have to decide whether _other people already know_ that things will be more volatile in the future.

It's pretty dangerous to do this unless you're a statistician with an algorithm that can take all emotion out of the decision. As a (non- sociopathic) human, your natural impulses will be subconsciously influenced by the emotions of the people around you, so when you have a gut feeling that things are gonna get rocky in the near future, it's probably because everyone else already had a gut feeling that things are gonna get rocky in the near future.

<comment><USER11> More precisely, you can back out an implied forecast of future volatility from options prices, and the VIX index is actually computed _from_ the prices of options on the S&P 500 index; it's not just trailing realized volatility.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Deal with the pandemic. People won't invest again until they feel safe. That doesn't mean tax cuts or propping up shale oil companies. It means getting the deadly disease under some semblance of control.

<comment><USER14> Yes WTF, this is not about interest rates, it's about test kits for sick people, sick leave and pandemic risk

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> For people who think that this is just automatically a buy because "prices have to go back up again, right?", it's worth looking at the Nikkei[1]. Note the peak in 1989 has still not been regained, and the market is about half that level now. Now is the US economy fundamentally less messed-up than Japan? Absolutely (in general). But every fall is not necessarily a buying opportunity even if you have a very long-term horizon.

[1] [https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EN225?p=^N225&.tsrc=fin- sr...](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EN225?p=^N225&.tsrc=fin-srch)

<comment><USER16> They also have had massive deflation stemming from lack of making babies. They've even have had to _gasp_ allow more foreigners to come in and do some jobs.

<comment><USER17> The US stopped making enough babies too, but growth continued due to immigration. That is changing. Now I don't think the US market is headed towards something that looks like Japan's, but its something to think about.

<comment><USER18> somehow, I'm skeptical that the US's main mid term problem is going to be too many old people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is going to turn out to be the great investment opportunity that I mostly missed out on in 2008.

<comment><USER20> Everyday is a great investment opportunity given a long time horizon.

<comment><USER21> On the contrary given a sufficiently broad timeline the value of every company drops to 0.

<comment><USER22> Buy an index fund, not individual stocks. All companies don't go to zero at the same time.

<comment><USER23> They will all go to zero, given a sufficiently broad timeline. They're making a joke.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> There is more bad news to come. Infections in US and EU, supply chain issues, local business impacts and bankruptcies, repo markets, etc.

Buy-the-dip and dollar-cost-average work but you don't need to go in blind. I advise waiting until there's actually repeat good news before you buy in.

<comment><USER25> Why would one buy the dip when momentum is heavy downside (long term)? April will most likely be a short slaughter, sure, but after that very unpredictable.

<comment><USER24> That's what I'm saying. I see too many people get too mechanical about it when they would be better off making adjustments on significant news.

If you don't see some sudden positive in the next quarter, there's no reason to buy in now.

<comment><USER26> The market reacts to expected news, not just current news. The fact that bad news is coming might already be priced in. It's hard to say how bad a piece of news would have to be to make expectations worse.

<comment><USER24> The market hates uncertainty the most and nothing about this pandemic or the economic impacts are certain. There is definitely no good news anytime soon for there to be a serious uptrend.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Ecb is flooding market with money again. The dynamics of all this liquidity sloshing around is really hard to grasp. Sure everything is crashing around us but all that liquidity has to go somewhere, and since 08 it's basically just ballooned up the stock market and real estate. Where's the money sloshing off to next?

<comment><USER28> Right now? US treasuries. They're paying below 0.5% for the first time ever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Here is my logic as a retail investor. The market has lost close to 20-30% from the peak. Will it regain the peak, for sure. By when ? Hard to predict. All I know is that the rate of climb need not be the same as the rate of the fall.

This virus will bring about significant collateral damage to the global economy. Already airlines, cruises are hurt. Soon, tourism and hospitality industry will be hit. Transport and logistics will be next followed by retail. So the cascading collateral damage is quite unpredictable at this time. Double this with plunging oil prices.

So unless you are willing to wait for 10+ years from now, it's unwise to invest a lump sum amount at once. If it were me, I will just invest small amounts periodically. Like every couple of weeks or so.

<comment><USER30> The majority of individual investors should be dollar cost averaging (investing the same amount of money at consistent intervals) over the long haul. This pandemic isn't impacting my strategy and i'm staying the course. I'm not aiming to retire for 20 years so this will (hopefully) just be a blip in my long-term returns.

<comment><USER31> Meanwhile people about to retire are watching their retirement funds evaporate.

<comment><USER32> Isn't it suggested to wean off equities as one nears retirement age? Isn't it done automatically by pension funds? I'm from India where the government owned retirement fund (EPF) is only now testing equity waters and the recent fund (NPS) isn't big enough to cause damage so I'm not aware of how this works.

<comment><USER33> I've heard the following advice: Hold a % of bonds equal to the % of life you've lived and a % of stocks equal to the % of life you have left.

Ex. If you're 40 and think you'll live to 100, try to hold 40% bonds and 60% stocks.

<comment><USER34> An even simpler and mostly equivalent formulation is the "your age in bonds" rule of thumb.

<comment><USER32> The version I've heard is "equity share of your investments == life expectancy - current age"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> As someone who has very little grasp of global markets, I'd kind of assumed that bitcoin and other cryptos would rally if stock markets were falling under a global pandemic, but the cryptos seem to be tanking along with them. Is this down to reduced consumer confidence?

<comment><USER36> Yours was a widespread conviction born of the idea that bitcoin and other crypto-assets would be seen as de-correlated safe-havens for funds drawn from volatile traditional equity markets.

The simultaneous drop in value is the very textbook definition of correlation, and therefore suggests that the same decision processes (perhaps even the same decision-makers) are operating in both types of markets and that, consequentially, bitcoin and crypto-assets are factually not alternatives at all.

<comment><USER37> Even more interesting is Bitcoin has been a leading indicator for tech stocks for some time now. Bitcoin drops often led FANG drops by a few days.

<comment><USER36> One of the prevailing ideas in several theories of financial market agent behaviour is that crashes occur when all or at least most participants' horizons synchronise, leading to everybody acting on the same information uniformly. This is likely what is occurring: probably most investors are focussing on the here-and-now and thus on stopping their losses and/or reducing their exposure to risk.

<comment><USER38> Makes sense. Good thought

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> We're tanking the world economy to try and stop the spread of a virus that cannot be stopped, and has a median death rate older than the expected life span. It's so mild young people think they have the flu or a cold, and over 80% of people over 80 also recover.

The economic outcomes of the interventions could end up being worse than the disease, as people will lose their jobs, houses, and healthcare.

<comment><USER40> You're missing a very important fact, which is that 15-20% of all ages need a hospital. Get ready for warehouses full of sick people like China had: and that was _with_ a total social lockdown.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> People are panic buying toilet paper for crying out loud.

Unless you are planning on retiring in the next few years, you should be looking at this as the buying opportunity of a life time. This is at least the 4th panic sell off I've seen.

<comment><USER42> The toilet paper "panic buy" is overblown. People are stocking up extra on necessities, sure, but what's different about toilet paper is how bulky it is. I doubt most stores have large stocks to cover extra demand cause it takes up too much space. Hence it doesn't take very much extra demand to deplete shelves.

<comment><USER43> More charitably, a toilet paper run is a pleasing, simple, humorous and yet correct metaphor for general preparedness. People are buying cans too, but that's not as funny.

<comment><USER42> It's not as dramatic to show a picture of a shelf of canned goods only half- stocked instead of fully stocked, as opposed to a an empty shelf of toilet paper.

That's what I've seen at my local Costco. TP is gone, canned goods are running lower than usual but not actually out of stock.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> If you want to be contrarian:

DO the opposite of whatever the top comment here says

<comment><USER45> There is some deep truth in your comment, however simple it may seem.

Joe Kennedy, a famous rich investor in the 1930's, exited the stock market in timely fashion after a shoeshine boy gave him some stock tips. He figured that when the shoeshine boys have tips, the market is too popular for its own good.

In general the public consensus seems to be always one step behind after the developments on the stock market. It might actually make sense to do exactly the opposite of what everybody is advising.

<comment><USER46> Ha, I had a co-worker make the asinine comment that "real estate only goes up!" in about 2007. I sold my property a few months later. Great timing? Naw I put the profit into the stock market just in time for 2008!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Something ive wondered about these 'circuit breaker' halts...do they actually work to prevent mass sell off or are they just prolonging the inevitable?

Apparently not only can the powers that be halt trading momentarily, they can simply close the market altogether if trading is "bad" enough. How is that not manipulating the market? Why shouldnt we all be able to sell?

disclosure: Im firmly in the blue collar worker category. I dont own stocks.

<comment><USER48> > How is that not manipulating the market?

Nobody said it isn't. In fact, that's the whole point: manipulate people to chill out, take a few minutes to think, and then get back to it.

<comment><USER47> so isnt it bad to manipulate a free market? I know China gets beaten up about it all the time.

<comment><USER49> When knowledgeable people talk about "market manipulation", they're generally talking about _secret_ market manipulation, fiddling with the market structure in private to extract value from it. Wash trading is a good explanatory example; you're tricking people into thinking market volume is higher than it actually is, to get them to do things they wouldn't do if they knew the real story. Setting clear rules known in advance is "manipulation" by some definitions, but it's not really the same thing.

There are some people who beat up China for simply setting rules in the market, and they're definitely wrong to do so, although you shouldn't confuse this with people saying the specific rules China sets are bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I'm going to recycle advice I gave earlier this week [1] and say it's way too premature to consider this a buying opportunity. Short term dips followed by recoveries are the hallmarks of a bull market. We're now clearly in bear market territory. In a bear market, you need to be wary of "dead cat bounces" ie a short term rally followed by a steeper decline.

In 2008 this bear market lasted well over a year.

If you're already in the market, well you're kind of stuck now. Who knows how much further it will fall or even if it will? If anyone knew that, they'd be rich.

But this, as always, is a question of probabilities. In the short term there seems to be way more downside than upside potential. As much as it may have fallen in the last month, we're only now really getting back to the long term mean. Typically, during a market correction, the market oversells so further drops are entirely possible, even likely. Another 10-20% drop is (IMHO) completely realistic.

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22527631](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22527631)

<comment><USER40> I don't think it makes sense for there to be such a thing as a bear market. If everybody knows that it's going to go down, then they will sell until the price drops to about the place where they expect it to eventually hit. That's what a crash is. The final price after the crash is the price at which the market is split between "it will go up" and "it will go down." If the bears and the bulls had any other proportion than 50/50 then the price would go up or down until the bears and bulls changed teams back to 50/50\. The only thing that's guaranteed about stocks is that the average person is always uncertain.

<comment><USER51> People don't know how far it's going to go down.

We have no idea what kind of disruption is going to happen to global GDP. As the situation clarifies itself, it may very easily become worse, which would continue to drive it down.

<comment><USER52> What OP is saying is that the current price reflects the average investors best guess at how bad it's going to get. If some more people start thinking it's going to get worse they will sell and that statement will (essentially be) instantaneously true again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Can anyone say why gold (GLD) is dropping so much too? I would've thought it would be a rough inverse of the market. It's still up over the last month (just barely), but down over the past several days.

<comment><USER54> The impact of the Coronavirus epidemic means that many companies & individuals can see that they're going to have a short term cash squeeze this year - <USER2> have interest payments due & the income to pay it isn't going to be there.

So they're selling anything that can be sold to raise the cash to make those interest payments - in a strongly deflationary environment you'd expect $/£/€ to rise against everything, including gold and bitcoin, which is exactly what's happening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> officially into the bear market.. so far 8000 points down from its peak in a month, Now this may be good for the option sellers or biggies, regular investors should stay away (or use this to accumulate)

<comment><USER56> Average people should not try to time the market for good or for bad. It's a fools errand.

Keep putting money into low cost mutual funds, preferably though some tax efficient vehicle (e.g. a pension if possible).

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> When's the lowest point? I did some rough fits with some stupidly simply logistic function:

[http://s9w.io/corona_2020-03-12.png](http://s9w.io/corona_2020-03-12.png)

US point of highest increase according to this is in "2.6" days with a standard deviation of 0.76.

</comment><comment><USER58> Does this bode well for the private equity technology sector? Intuitively it would seem that people will be looking for different investment vehicles, and here we are in startup land already working remotely, ahead of the curve. Of course the risk is higher and it could be wishful thinking.

<comment><USER59> Private equity and public markets get money from the same source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Precious metals like gold is also underperforming when it supposed to act as a safe haven

<comment><USER61> My suspicion is this is a very small number of entities going "sell our bullion on paper so we can buy the dip", probably why bitcoin is down 25% and change last time I looked too.

I've seen precious metals move a lot more than this for no apparent reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Do not "buy the dip". It will go down more, like in 2008.

<comment><USER63> It seems everyone is a financial guru these days. I wonder what these people are doing on their keyboards. Why aren't they all on gold plated yachts?

<comment><USER64> I've pulled off some pretty great trades in my time, for example, I had the conviction that the Sprint merger was going to get approved and I bought Sprint stock in January, nearly doubled my money.

The only problem is that I've only got $5k to invest, especially if I'm maintaining a healthy rainy day fund. And I'm not throwing all $5k into a single stock. That's why I'm not on a gold plated yacht.

The truth is you could be a financial genius but if you grew up in a middle class family and have basically zero inherited wealth, you're not going to have the money to invest.

<comment><USER65> If you are a financial genius you will soon have money to invest, it doesn't take much to start, and every year there are a few doubling opportunities. Most of us are not financial genius and so we only realize they existed in hindsight. However there were always signs that could have been seen in advance - and there are always ways to cut your losses. If you don't start with might it might take 20 years but a real financial genius can be rich even if their source of income during that 20 years is flipping burgers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> The market has been overvalued and manipulated for years. Even Apple took out billions in loans for stock buybacks.[0] Boeing took out $43 billion in loans for stock buybacks[1] instead of investing in planes, QA and employees. Everyone knew this was a stock bubble caused by record low interest rates. COVID-19 is the pin that woke everyone up.

[0] [https://9to5mac.com/2019/09/05/apple-is- borrowing/](https://9to5mac.com/2019/09/05/apple-is-borrowing/)

[1] [https://wolfstreet.com/2020/03/11/boeing-crashes- as-43-billi...](https://wolfstreet.com/2020/03/11/boeing-crashes- as-43-billion-in-past-share-buybacks-turn-into-existential-threat/)

<comment><USER67> Interest rates are still low. This is not yet the financial crash and depression that will happen when the bond market pops.

Still, it was the first time when lowering interest rates didn't have a huge effect on the market, so the signs are there.

<comment><USER68> What is the proposed mechanism for the bond market popping here?

<comment><USER69> Disclaimer: not a specialist, this is what I gather from online research and discussions on reddit (please correct me if I get anything wrong!).

The issue is with corporate debt. A lot of it is unsustainable in the event of an economic downturn [1]. Already people are leaving the junk bond market [2]. There is a risk that BBB-rated bonds will get downgraded, which would mean that pension funds can no longer keep them in their portfolio. If this happens, these bonds will move into the junk bond market, increasing supply in that market with already decreasing demand. That means that interest rates on lower-rated bonds will go up, meaning that it will become harder for companies that are not in a strong position to obtain credit, which they might need to if times get harder.

Especially in a few sectors (tourism, shipping, oil) it's clear that companies are going to get hit this year. Central banks are aware that this is an issue and they are taking some steps to soften the blow.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/oct/16/global- econ...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/oct/16/global-economy- faces-19tn-corporate-debt-timebomb-warns-imf) [2] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-11/junk- inve...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-11/junk-investors- seen-pulling-cash-again-setting-fund-exit-record?srnd=markets-vp)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> German stock market suddenly fell another 3 percent within a few minutes. I wonder if that was triggered by the circuit breaker in the US with traders trying to sell on other market places.

</comment><comment><USER71> I'm trying to refinance my mortgage. Is now a bad time to put 20% of my savings into the market?

I've been waiting for this moment since 2018

<comment><USER72> What's the indicator that this is the bottom? Stocks fell last night as soon as Trump opened his mouth. Stock market has been Wile E Coyote running on air for years, now the market is looking at the ground. America has a government incapable of sensible action. There's a real possibility that the republic ceases to exist within the year, after Trump tries to delay or invalidate the election (and if you think this is far-fetched, recall that's what his pal Giuliani tried to do after 9/11, so it's in their playbook).

There's non-zero volume and interest in S&P future puts striking at 1000. There's plenty of potential downside.

<comment><USER73> Please keep this kind of stuff in /r/politics. It has no place on HN.

<comment><USER72> Government is not politics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> I wouldn't be surprised if we hit another circuit breaker by the end of the day.

This will get worse before it gets better.

</comment><comment><USER75> Who got puts? I think a lot of people called this yesterday.

</comment><comment><USER76> That sudden slide to Biden looks like a big clue.

"Turn those machines back on! Turn those machines back on!"

<comment><USER77> Big clue for what?

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> When financial bubbles burst the markets fall an average of something like 42% in the first two months.

<comment><USER79> Market movements follow a power law, not a normal distribution, so average is an utterly useless measure.

<comment><USER78> > a normal distribution

Not really clear what you mean here. If you take the peak index value and its value two months into the bubble burst, the average value of this will be ~42% lower than the peak.

<comment><USER79> Right, but what is the purpose of statistics like this? The purpose is for them to inform our understanding of what might happen in the future. As mentioned above, since market movements follow a power law rather than normal distribution, the average gives us absolutely no information about what might happen. Thus this statistic fails at the goal of having a purpose; it is just a meaningless number, like those meme baseball statistics about who is the third-best thrower of fastballs on a rainy friday or whatever.

<comment><USER78> > Right, but what is the purpose of statistics like this? The purpose is for > them to inform our understanding of what might happen in the future. As > mentioned above, since market movements follow a power law rather than > normal distribution, the average gives us absolutely no information about > what might happen. Thus this statistic fails at the goal of having a > purpose; it is just a meaningless number, like those meme baseball > statistics about who is the third-best thrower of fastballs on a rainy > friday or whatever.

Thanks for restating using almost the same words and using an apparently non- applicable analogy (i.e., the 42% covers all bursts effect on indexes, your sports example covers individual performance). My experience is people who provide such poor explanations usually don't actually know what they are talking about.

Your claim on its usefulness makes assumptions about where to apply the information. The perma-bears use these kinds of numbers to demonstrate why being in stocks during a bubble is a bad idea.

<comment><USER79> I recommend you read Taleb. Much of his work focuses on the differences between domains following normal distribution vs power law, and the folly of mistaking one for the other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> I very much feel this could be another recession albeit a small one. It has very cascading effects throughout the world. Making everyone stay at home is effectively halting the world economy.

I still have a decent amount in my 401k and stocks, sold 70% of them incase shit hits the wall (I quit my job earlier this year to be an indie hacker)

Plus the upcoming election usually slows things down. So my prediction is until 2021 we're deffo in for a ride.

</comment><comment><USER81> My goodness.

I transferred most of my retirement savings out of stocks in early March, realizing a 9% loss. The market had a little upswing that day, so that worked out as well as possible for me, considering.

I was hearing advice from an acquaintance to just "ride it out".... yeah, no. After hearing about the inadequate testing and other half-measures taken by the Administration, I was convinced it would get much worse before it got better.

I had thought about cashing out on January 31st, because I figured Brexit would trigger an Europe-wide recession, which would lead into a worldwide recession. But I didn't get around to that (lazy).</comment>


Ask HN: How did you change your HDD on macbook pro mid-2012? - <AUTHOR> Hi there,
I've a Macbook pro mid-2012 that is still working fine. I'd like to change my HDD by for a new SSD (1To or 500Go) before the old HDD crashs, as the lifetime for a HDD is like 4 or 5 years.
Have you already done that and how did you do ? I'd like to do it the easiest way if possible :D Which SSD did you choose ?
Thx ! <comment><USER2> My experience is with an earlier MBP.

I bought my MBP in mid-2009. Early 2010 I replaced the 160GB HD with a 240GB SanDisk SSD. Speed improved markedly and it felt like the battery life became longer as well. In 2017 I had to replace the battery (can't remember the brand, just bought of the internet and it came with a set of required screwdrivers). The MBP is still going well, yup in late 2018. The replacement battery was never as good as the original but it kept me going.

The SSD is still going fine. In the last couple of months I have been using the MBP less, as I do most of my work on a fast mini-tower running Ubuntu. The MBP churns along nicely on the side, running programs which have no suitable, IMHO, substitutes under Linux.

Of course, I run regular backups with TimeMachine using three, in rotation, external USB (spinning rust) drives. Never had to restore due to system losing data, only due to an occasional fat fingered carbon interface glitch.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you.

What do you think of SanDisk SSD ? How did you do that ? I mean steps by steps, what tool did you use ?

<comment><USER2> I think that SanDisk SSD is a good product. It certainly has been reliable over the past 8+ years. I'm sure that these days, there are faster SSDs out there, but you need to confirm that you MBP model has the appropriate SATA speeds to interoperate.

I googled a guide on how to replace disk drives and since it was a long time ago I can't remember the exact steps. But it was roughly as follows:

Put SSD into a USB HD case.

Clone internal disk onto new SSD, the tool allowed the use of larger drive. Again, can't remember the exact program. It was recommended by the guide I followed.

Make a TimeMachine backup - you know, just in case something goes bad.

Shut down MBP

Remove screws on bottom

Locate HD, remove, move some mounting hardware onto SSD (now out of USB case)

Screw in SSD and connect cables - power and SATA.

Put bottom back on, replacing screws. NB: some are longer than others so you need to keep track of which ones go where. Again the reference guide had good hints.

Power up MBP, activate Trim program.

Enjoy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I upgraded my 2012 in 2014 with a SSD from crucial.com. It was as easy as backing up the drive with Time Machine. Swap in new drive. Restore to new drive.

</comment><comment><USER4> For now, I'd suggest you just attach a bigger external HDD and enable Time Machine. ;-)

There is a fine guide on iFixit: [https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Mid...](https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Mid+2012+Hard+Drive+Replacement/10378)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok so what you are suggesting is to :

\- create a time machine copy on an external HDD

\- put the new SSD in the computer, restart it

\- get the copy of time machine on the new disk

Will it be possible to reboot with the brand-new SSD inside the mac ?

<comment><USER4> No. The Time Machine part is for if everything goes REALLY BAD _and_ for when you are reinstalling on the new hard disk.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask YC: Did you apply to YC s2008? - <AUTHOR>

And if so -- what was your idea? (c'mon they're worthless anyways til you actually execute :) ) <comment><USER2> www.housingninja.com

A student housing site, we have a alpha/beta thing going on in Cornell.

<comment><AUTHOR> is it in cooperation with the university?

will you have admin control for the school or totally independent?

school housing huge market, but also very big problems with liability on University's end if they have no control

<comment><USER2> No, it's independent, the housing listing are ones from local landlord and sublets from students, not university housing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I hope to apply in the winter.</comment>


Hillary Clinton's Statistician - <AUTHOR> http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/hillary-clinton-data-campaign-elan-kriegel-214215 <comment><AUTHOR> One section I found especially interesting:

> At the most basic level, for instance, districts with an even number of > delegates, say 4, are far less favorable terrain, as she and Bernie Sanders > were likely split them 2-2 unless one of them achieved 75 percent of the > vote.

> That so-called "flippability score" was then layered atop which media > markets covered which seats. If a media market touched multiple districts > with high "flippability" scores, it shot up the rankings. Then the algorithm > took in pricing information, and what television programs it predicted the > most "flippable" voters would be watching, to determine what to buy.</comment>


Looking for cofounders - <AUTHOR>

Me - 35, MIT, MBA, Business guy learning programming. Seeking cofounders looking to build a business that makes money and solves a problem. I like mobile-enabled services like Lyft and Hotel Tonight.
I'm interested in things like the following:
-Uber for lawncare, tow trucks, moving small items (furniture, etc. that you'd buy on craigslist)
-Bundling social services that people add to their app (post to fb, twitter, email, etc) and offer it as a plug in to developers with a monthly cost
Let me know if you'd like to meet for coffee, I'm in San Mateo but happy to meet wherever.
Best, Russell
email@example.com www.linkedin.com/in/russellmiller/ (415) 859-8060 <comment><USER2> I co-founder is a strong word (akin to "spouse") and the best co-founders are people you have worked or studied with before. That is why I created DoerHub - so you can post your projects or see open projects and contribute to the stuff you are interested in in little or big ways (pick up a task, refer someone, join the team, etc). You don't have to be technical but you can check out and help on projects by technical people to demonstrate you can contribute with value. You can also see who is drawn to your project and how you can work together before pop-ing the Cf question. The site is [http://www.doerhub.com](http://www.doerhub.com) ( "A humanized GitHub, so everyone, including non-hackers can collaborate on projects.").

Don't be yet another "business person" with an idea looking for a "technical co-founder". There are way too many of those out there.

</comment><comment><USER3> Check out [http://www.cofounderslab.com/](http://www.cofounderslab.com/) if you haven't already. It is the one place I know of that seems active at all.

I'm looking too, but I live in PA and would like someone who is more of an expert programmer and/or has experience with the payments industry.</comment>


Ask HN: app generators, OK or evil? - <AUTHOR>

Ignoring the iPhone niche where they are not allowed to begin with, would you say app generators are acceptable?
The obvious issue is that they could be seen as spamming the app stores. But I tend to think that it just shows that discovery mechanisms in the app stores would have to improve. Even without app generators, there are already hundreds of thousands of apps, so they can't be searched manually anyway.
The web seems to do kind of fine with the issue. For example suppose I would generate an individual app for every free book on project Gutenberg. That would be a lot of apps. But at least on the web, it is possible to find and read individual Gutenberg books without too much of a problem (one book could be considered a page a ka "app on the web"). They are not drowned out because there are so many of them. (I don't plan to do the book thing, it was just an example).
The alternative to the app generator would of course be a "mother app" that bundles all the other apps. The example would be an ebook reader with a special interface to project Gutenberg. Businesses might not be satisfied with that solution, though, they probably want an individual app for their brand. <comment><USER2> I'm not sure about the app generator side of things, but I am struggling with trying to work out whether it's best to have one app or many.

In our case this is mapping. Generally I see that we only need 1 map app, and that each slice of data should just be a layer for that map. This is the way I would've traditionally done it, and it's the way that I think is 'right'.

However people seem to search not for layers on an app but for a specific app that fills their very specific needs. An app that shows them locations of ATMs is more discoverable and useful to them than a plugin to a different app that supplies a layer to the generic mapping app.

People seem to prefer to have one app that does one thing well and does nothing more. Even if this means that they end up with 50 such apps on their device and a lot of functionality is duplicated in several of their apps (with mildly inconsistent UI).

So we're seeing in our own apps that multiple apps dealing with one small thing is more successful than fewer apps able to deal with multiple pieces of functionality.

Going back to your example, I'd rather have a Gutenberg app that allowed me to grab the books I wanted, but I suspect you'd see more success having apps that match how people would search for them, which I bet would be by author... a "Philip K. Dick compendium" for example and then a "James Joyce compendium", etc.

I still prefer the fewer richer apps, but I seem to be in a minority.

<comment><USER3> that's an interesting observation, and I think you're right. from an engineering perspective we feel a multi-functional app is the more optimal solution. yet the consumer would rather have a dozen separate apps.

why? I think it's maybe down to the product message. a specific app can have a specific, clear, simple message.

E.g "indian restaurant finder" is definitive. it's extremely easy to understand, it's purpose is clear. and more importantly, when you need to find an indian restaurant - ahh! there's an app for that! it has that mindshare. but an app that is "search for everything" doesn't. when you need an indian restaurant it's much less likely to come to mind - and even if it does, it'll be behind the specialised one.

plus I think there's a trust/quality issue. if an app does just one, precise thing, you will believe it will do that very well. an app that does everything - well for any given search it just wont be as good, will it?

<comment><USER4> Not to mention that an app for an extremely narrow set of needs will probably have a simpler, more intuitive UI. With a complex application, it's easy for users to not even realize a feature is available.

For example, did you know Word 2007 can generate "Lorem Ipsum" filler paragraphs for you automatically? Most people, myself included, are more likely to go to <http://lipsum.lipsum.com/> whenever we need filler text, even when we have Word open and running.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My opinion is that app generators are alright as long as you know what they're doing. It becomes a problem when you have it magically generating apps for you when you have no idea how they work. When something goes wrong, you'll likely be left scratching your head.

</comment><comment><USER6> Won't app folders in OS 4 help solve this problem? Granted it's not going to allow you to keep 50 ebooks in one folder, but at least solve the problem where you may have multiple navigation apps for different regions.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think they are ok, as long as the apps submitted meet some minimum criteria.

i.e. no things like "top 10 _______ images" apps

</comment><comment><USER8> Clients have found many individual apps to sell better than a single multi topic app that can use multiple pieces of content.

No idea why. But that is the issue and the crux. More individual apps sell better.</comment>


NASA's James Webb Space Telescope Faces Another Setback - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/06/nasa-james-webb-space-telescope-delay-human-error/563903/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> > The total lifetime cost of the telescope, which includes development, > launch, and five years of operation, will increase from $8.8 billion to > $9.66 billion, officials said.

That includes everything already invested and 5 years of operation. But to compare:

Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter plane:

"Program cost: US$1.508 trillion (through 2070 in then-year dollars), US$55.1B for RDT&E, $319.1B for procurement, $4.8B for MILCON, $1123.8B for operations & sustainment (2015 estimate)"

1.5 trillion is 1500 billion, or enough to for 150 years every year launch one more new generation of James Webb telescope, every one with the new development costs of the same scale as for the unique one done now.

And, sadly, that fighter plane won't bring us any new knowledge about the universe. It's just a damned fighter plane:

[http://theconversation.com/what-went-wrong-with- the-f-35-loc...](http://theconversation.com/what-went-wrong-with- the-f-35-lockheed-martins-joint-strike-fighter-60905)

"The Pentagon is trying to argue that just because taxpayers have flushed more than $100 billion down the proverbial toilet so far, we must continue to throw billions more down that same toilet."</comment>


Zimbabwe Has Only $217 Left in the Bank - <AUTHOR> http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/01/30/zimbabwe-has-only-217-left-in-the-bank/

<comment><USER2> Using the same logic, if you have one dollar you're better off than the US.

<comment><USER3> Ha, I was thinking the exact same thing. If you have a penny you're better off than the US :)

<comment><USER4> If you are only in debt $15 trillion you'd be better off too… dumb logic.

However - the interesting thing is that his government created the problem in such a short period of time.

<comment><USER5> Also, the US can print more money or ask for more money from investors. There is a limit to how far that can go, of course.

Zimbabwe passed that limit long ago. So $217 left is a much more meaningful problem there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> After the land redistribution of President Robert Mugabe the economy collapsed, causing the crazy hyper-inflation that Zimbabwe is notorious for. They are struggling to recover from that disaster, and a government known for looting on a staggering scale, even for an African government. This is actually doing pretty good for them.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwe#Economy>

<comment><USER7> Hyperinflation was a separate consequence of the deliberate decision by the state to print money. Yes, the economy collapsed (from that and many other decisions) and they needed more money, but capital is scarce even with infinite money.

<comment><USER6> " . . . capital is scarce even with infinite money." You'd think that would be obvious to people running a country, and yet, so many countries have tried it, over and over.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> That was a joke by the Finance minister of Zimbabwe, according to Telegraph [1]. It seems they have 30-million dollars in the bank.

[1] - [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianoce...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/zimbabwe/9842156/Zimbabwe- would-be-shut-down-if-it-was-a-company.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm poorer than Zimbabwe

</comment><comment><USER10> I wonder how much money the leaders of Zimbabwe have on deposit outside of Africa?

</comment><comment><USER11> I have more money in bitcoins than Zimbabwe has in USD

</comment><comment><USER12> That's called a balanced budget. :)</comment>


Python 3.2.1 released - <AUTHOR> http://www.python.org/download/releases/3.2.1

<comment><AUTHOR> Highlights of the release:

* numerous improvements to the unittest module

* PEP 3147, support for .pyc repository directories

* PEP 3149, support for version tagged dynamic libraries

* PEP 3148, a new futures library for concurrent programming

* PEP 384, a stable ABI for extension modules

* PEP 391, dictionary-based logging configuration

* an overhauled GIL implementation that reduces contention

* an extended email package that handles bytes messages

* a much improved ssl module with support for SSL contexts and certificate hostname matching

* a sysconfig module to access configuration information

* additions to the shutil module, among them archive file support

* many enhancements to configparser, among them mapping protocol support

* improvements to pdb, the Python debugger

* countless fixes regarding bytes/string issues; among them full support for a bytes environment (filenames, environment variables)

* many consistency and behavior fixes for numeric operations

Full list of What's New In Python 3.2 - <http://docs.python.org/dev/whatsnew/3.2.html>

<comment><USER2> This is completely unhelpful. All of those are changes for 3.2, not 3.2.1. 3.2.1 is a minor bugfix release.

Source control has a changelog for 3.2.1 specifically[1] but I didn't see it posted anywhere outside of Mercurial.

[1] <http://hg.python.org/cpython/file/v3.2.1/Misc/NEWS></comment></comment>


Graph rendering: Same code, two platforms - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/anvaka/ngraph/tree/master/examples/fabric.js/Node%20and%20Browser

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm working on graph algorithms and this is all work in progress. This example shows how to render graphs from both node.js and a browser, using the same code. Would really love your feedback</comment>


Ask HN: Deploying django on github to AWS? - <AUTHOR>

How do you go about deploying django on a github repo to AWS? <comment><USER2> You have a number of options, not specific to django, depending on how complicated your setup is and how much manual work you want to do-- and you want to automate as much as possible. Going from least automated to most- 1) ssh into your server, pull from the repo and restart whatever processes need restarting that feed your app. Ideally you have symlinks or pointers to your git repo folders so you don't have any file copying to do 2) write a deploy script using fabric (<http://docs.fabfile.org/en/1.4.3/tutorial.html>) that does what you did manually in #1 3) use a tool like puppet, chef, or even salt (python-based)

Ultimately, you need to be doing #3, but it helps to go through #1 and #2 to get a sense for how awesome deployment management tools are.

A couple things to keep in mind: \- server authentication with git: you'll want to use public key-based methods to pull from git so you don't have to deal with entering passwords \- dev vs prod environment settings: you'll want to have a smooth way to transition config settings between your dev and prod environments so you aren't editing files everytime you deploy.

These are just a few tips-- the overall guiding principle is to automate everything. Anytime you find yourself doing a task more than twice, write a script to do it.

<comment><AUTHOR> wow thanks for the long description. have you ever tried to use a tool like nudow.com to do this? Is that any good?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you're so intent on finding a specific solution, why not try someone who prepackages deployments, like heroku. <https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/django>

</comment><comment><USER4> you might want to try stackoverflow.com - there isn't much technical support happening here.

<comment><USER5> When I want to learn about software, I find myself on HN every time.

It doesn't cover everything, but what it does is top-notch.</comment></comment>


Paul Graham Interviewed By David Weinberger (Pretty Interesting) - <AUTHOR> http://media-cyber.law.harvard.edu/VideoBerkman/paul_graham_2006-11-08.mov <comment><USER2> I made the interview! My team was one of the "We're doing X but easy to use" people. We didn't have a functioning demo but we did have graphical mockups of the design. I thought we nailed it, but apparently Paul didn't get it because we didn't have an animated demo. I've been kicking around an essay for a while about just how trivial easy-to-use design can be, it'll be on here eventually.

<comment><USER3> A demo works. Explaining -how- you're going to make it easy to use might be useful as well.

Describe a real hypothetical user (three if possible) using the software. Describe in as much detail as possible, and then explain at some level how your technology will allow you to accomplish this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just to discuss a question that was skipped:

Romantic music (19th century) isn't always more complex than baroque music (early 18th century). Indeed, in many ways the transitions saw a decrease in certain kinds of complexity. Harmonic rhythm, that is the speed at which the underlying chord pattern changes, slowed down during the late 18th century. Tuning shifted from meantone to equal temperament. (More complex to implement, but results in a cleaner+simpler UI for musicians ;)

Also, there were advances in instrument design. In particular, the piano of the 19th century was much like a modern piano. Compared to the 18th century piano, it had a much more expressive power. Bach for example really could not write crescendos into his keyboard music. The keyboards of the time didn't do dynamics very well. He had organs and harpsichords and clavicords and such. In contrast, Brahms had the modern Piano.

</comment><comment><USER4> can someone please make an edit of this video... the interviewer is killing me!!! I stopped watching after 3 minutes...

<comment><USER5> Same here. Here is a business idea: write a software that automatically creates transcripts of online videos. I hate the YouTube culture (old fashioned guy who likes to read here).

<comment><USER6> Actually - that's pretty hard to do. What would probably be more "doable" is to take a transcript (done manually by a transcriptionist) and sync up the text with the video.

You could provide links in a transcript which when clicked take you to the part of the video in question, if you'd like to see it. You could also go the other way, and use a transcript to provide subtitles.

Any ideas on how to make this happen? My intial thought is to exploit pauses and breaks in the sound and map them to sentences, etc. Voice mapping would help too, so you could map a sentence to Paul Graham and another sentence to the interviewer.

What would be pretty cool (actually, REALLY cool now that I think about it) would be desiging a transcript markup language that could be married to a video. Has anyone done this? Why not?

<comment><USER5> I know that speech recognition probably is not quite good enough yet :-( I have another interest in this: since I am not a native english speaker, I find it often hard to understand everything that is being said in a video. English subtitles would often be helpful (especially for those videos of interviews or conference speeches etc.).

Perhaps Amazons mechanical turk could come in handy here? Would a clone of the mechanical turk specialised on movie transcripts be feasible? Or is it too special interest? (Perhaps most people either understand the words or they would prefer a translation?).

As for syncing subtitles: I don't know the details anymore, but I remember from ripping DVDs that the subtitles come simply in a text file along with the movie. So presumably something like you propose already exists.

<comment><USER6> Sure, that exists because the movie studios usually ship movies out with a transcription. I don't think something like this exists for run-of-the-mill type videos. In the example of the video above, if there WERE a transcript, you could use the software I propose above to provide subtitles automatically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The interviewer seems pretty clueless and confrontational, but PG handles it quite well and makes some great points.

<http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mediaberkman/2006/11/09/web-of-ideas-with-paul- graham-2/>

<comment><USER7> I disagree. It is true that:

1\. Video is a slow way to process information in the internet era.

2\. Weinberger doesn't come off well. The frequent interruptions at the start are irritating. What starts out seeming like a talk turns into a debate between two people, and the change in format is jarring for a bit. And it is hard to understand what Weinberger is getting at. This might have to do with our disparate vocabularies, and the wide disparity in the worlds he and I live in.

In spite of these, W does have a point. It is non-trivial to separate the fashionable from the timeless in a thing of beauty. 'Space aliens' may require a human-like visual cortex to appreciate the Mona Lisa. Does that make it just a narrow fad as well, or is a visual cortex a protocol prerequisite to evaluating it? As I asked PG over email, where does fashion end and convention begin?

A lot of the ancient philosophical arguments are between polar opposites like these. Should we find out about the world with reason or the senses? Is mind or matter supreme? Is it ok to abort foetuses or not? We know that one can exaggerate anything to make a point, and yet it is easy to fall into the trap of ending up with an extreme viewpoint because one can't decide where to draw the line. Eventually we (will) figure out for each of these issues that there can be richer answers than the obvious black-or-white.

So beauty can be timeless, but also tightly bound to a context. It is not clear that all of the latter is bad. How to separate the two? Open question. Relativism is no worse than believing passionately in the wrong anwer.

\---

So much for the academic debate; PG's outlook is more utilitarian[1]. The problem of building beautiful things is a hard one, and it makes more sense for a builder to 'flow timeless' rather than to follow fashions. The alternative may work too, but there's less percentage in it. This is perfectly reasonable, it's just not the same question W is grappling with. Both of them are right, they're just asking slightly different questions. They don't ever figure this out in the video, IMO.

BTW, I believe this conversation contributed to a PG essay: <http://reddit.com/info/ufsk/comments/cugnx>

[1] A utilitarian philosophy of aesthetics, heh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I went to this talk back in Dec. and also found it a little painful. PG mentioned some interesting things about actually using Arc to build the YCombinator site (include this Reddit-like site). A lot of the rest of it approached the "what is beauty?" stratosphere where oxygen gets thin...

</comment><comment><USER9> I have a proposed unifying theory that covers the beauty of both simplicity and excess.

Humans appreciate intelligence. Showing how much you can do with so little is one way to show intelligence. For example, if you can create a brilliant artistic masterpiece with only a single line then this is clearly a work of amazing intelligence. The other easy way to demonstrate intelligence is by doing the absolute most that you can with every resource you have available to you. This explains the beauty of things like H2G2, where the beauty comes from incorporating all of these random plot elements and linguistic tropes into these beautiful sentences and descriptions.

</comment><comment><USER7> Related:

When something is built for a well-defined purpose it's much easier to judge how timeless its solutions are.

<http://rodfrey.wordpress.com/2007/04/18/the-craftsmanship-of-code>

Appreciating beauty in a specific medium requires knowing the 'language', the conventions of that medium.

<http://www.tinkerx.com/index.php/2007/04/15/the-box-part-2-the-frame>

</comment><comment><USER10> I actually really enjoyed this. My first guess is that when we find something complex beautiful, it's because it is tapping into something innate (I would love to write about how music taste works). Also, I thought comment about "how easy something is to use" actually being a measure of how well it is made, is brilliant, which sometimes people don't get. Alas, it's 3.30am and I should sleep.

</comment><comment><USER11> I thought the interview was pretty interesting. Good to see some critical thinking and conflict over one of PG's essays -- much more interesting than just a biographical interview or unnecessary flattery.

My favorite part:

"If you want to date a painting -- like in the sense of to identify its origin, not to have a relationship with it..."

Thanks for the clarification there... ;-)

</comment><comment><USER12> use juwo!!!

<comment><USER13> Shouting at people to use your product may work, but I think long-term you're better off making something users want!!!

<comment><USER12> sorry, not shouting, simply excited (and frustrated, if I may add).

It is released. Please see

<http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=14254></comment></comment></comment>


What do you think of my podcast, Bits vs. Bytes? - <AUTHOR> https://bitsvsbytes.com <comment><AUTHOR> I started a podcast a while ago and would really love your guys's opinion!</comment>


Ask HN: Do "average" programmers build "extra ordinary" companies? - <AUTHOR>

We all know about how selective are large companies like Google, Apple, Amazon etc about recruiting.<p>A startup on the other hand, has to fight hard to get top talent. I want to know are there any examples of startups that have worked around this problem and implemented ideas so that by recruiting "average" talent, they are able to be successful? <comment><USER2> Companies built mainly on getting to a market first or best, rather than on a technology edge, seem to often have fairly run-of-the-mill tech.

Craigslist is perhaps the most extreme example, a highly successful company with very average tech even by the standards of the time (and now almost comically obsolete, but still highly profitable).

eBay, unlike most web startups, has long had a really enterprisey stack and dev team, all J2EE and SOAP and whatnot.

</comment><comment><USER3> My impression is that a lot of startups start at "average" and work their way up through the learning curve very fast as they build the business. That may or may not mean a lot of tech know-how - take Twitter vs. Groupon, for a relatively extreme example.

</comment><comment><USER4> If you or your CTO/co-founder are not "gurus", I would focus your efforts on the commercial realities of the space you are going to be competing in.

I spend a majority of my time in the ip-video sector corp dev and can tell you that no matter how sexy your admin UI or what stack the software was written in, a sales verticalized approached and good service go a long way to make the company generate revenue.

</comment><comment><USER5> An average dev specialzing narrowly in the startups area would be a lot more valuable that a "rock star" generalist.</comment>


It's Up to You, Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/news/516521/its-up-to-you-entrepreneurs/

<comment><USER2> I like the article but it reminds me of the quote:

        "A politician is someone who gets in front of a mob calls it a parade."

I don't mean that as a slight. I just think that the article makes him out as the figurehead of a movement that comes from a different place.

I think startup communities are a nature consequence of geeks getting money and deciding it is more interesting to build companies that buy fancy cars. It is somehow an echo of the original .Com boom combined with Moore's law changing the balance of power in the business world.

<comment><USER3> He (and some of his associates) basically bootstrapped the entire boulder startup scene. His advice that is takes 20 years is direct personal experience of his.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> From the title, I had expected an article on start-up communities that were themselves spread across many countries around the globe. However, it turned out to be about city-centric startup communities that can be in any city.

Are we still at the stage where a community needs to be based in the same physical place? Why don't the currently available collaboration tools enable start-ups and the communities around them to be independent of location?

Does it come down to: most VCs won't invest outside their own cities?

<comment><USER3> Humans are built to socialize in meat space. I've been on HN since about the beginning. I have met... two people through it that I now consider friends. I've met so many more outside of it, it's hard to even compare the two concepts.

<comment><USER5> I think you are comparing nuts and bolts. HN and its other popularity-forum colleagues like reddit are not very conductive to network building or long term friendship forging. Your interaction with me, for example, is at most reading this post, _maybe_ reading my comment history (1 in a million) and either replying with your own take on what I wrote, or moving on. There is no commonality there besides the discussion topic and the means of communication, and the dialog ends instantly when you are done posting.

I made most of my current online-friends in video games, mainly WoW, some in rpgs like Neverwinter Nights, some from my emulator days. I think it is the difference between a shared hobby and interest in it you can talk about outside the discussion channels, and the blurred lines between what HN topically discusses - since it is usually all about startups and VC and tech, it is very business driven rather than hobby driven, even when you get a fair bit of hobbyist and OT threads at the top, the culture, expectations, and environment stay the same.</comment></comment></comment>


Simplified BER MetaOCaml N102, for OCaml 4.02.1 - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/fa.caml/x4P5sWWrn5Q

<comment><USER2> For anyone else who wasn't previously familiar with MetaOCaml, [1] provides an overview and relevant details of this implementation. E.g.:

 _BER MetaOCaml is a conservative extension of OCaml for ``writing programs that generate programs ''. BER MetaOCaml adds to OCaml the type of code values (denoting ``program code'', or future-stage computations), and two basic constructs to build them: quoting and splicing. The generated code can be printed, stored in a file -- or compiled and linked-back to the running program, thus implementing run-time code optimization. A well-typed BER MetaOCaml program generates only well-scoped and well-typed programs: The generated code shall compile without type errors. The generated code may run in the future but it is type checked now._

The bit about generating only well-scoped, well-typed programs is pretty interesting!

[1] [http://okmij.org/ftp/ML/MetaOCaml.html](http://okmij.org/ftp/ML/MetaOCaml.html)</comment>


Stumped by Trump's success? Take a drive outside US cities - <AUTHOR> http://nypost.com/2016/08/22/stumped-by-trumps-success-take-a-drive-outside-us-cities/ <comment><USER2> Success?

[http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election- forecast/](http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/)</comment>


Break the Power Circle to Save Your Customers - <AUTHOR> http://www.64notes.com/the-power-circle/ <comment><USER2> Great article! Best advice for ALL companies! TY again for sharing your brilliant mind!</comment>


Last flying Avro Vulcan enters her final season - <AUTHOR> http://www.vulcantothesky.org/news/669/82/Press-Release-28th-May.html

<comment><USER2> This must be where the TIE Fighter got its sound from.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am deeply saddened that I cannot find a schedule that will allow me to see XH558 in her final season. I've been a contributor to her maintenance and upkeep for the last few years. The license plate on my motorbike is "XH558" in her honour.

I only saw a Vulcan flying once, when I was five years old at the Abbotsford BC air show. It made a massive impression on me that I still (obviously) hold to this day. YouTube videos of the "Vulcan Howl" are a poor substitute for that memory.

Setting aside politics and moral discussions about warfare and nuclear weapons, the Vulcan represents the pinnacle of British power and global authority. It is the culmination and distillation of the essence of "Rule Britannia". Yes, the Royal Navy Vanguard's have greater destructive power and (arguable) applicability in the modern era, but they lack the visual presence and and iconic stature.

Thankfully, the Vulcan To The Sky foundation will keep and preserve XH558 and continue their educational mission.

</comment><comment><USER4> I saw one fly at an airshow near Houston, maybe 30 years ago. Completely cool, and more than a little spooky.

</comment><comment><USER5> Brings back memories and completely forgot about the sound! Use to see them pretty much everyday while at primary school (near Northolt Airport).

</comment><comment><USER6> It's quite a loud plane, and a lot of fun to see it take off at an airshow. It has a distinctive howling sound: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_ARSE8jEHQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_ARSE8jEHQ)

It's hard to believe it's 50 years old when you see it maneuver like that. Then again it was surprising to me how powerful and agile an empty A380 or other passenger plane is (check out A380 or A400 Farnborough airshow videos)

</comment><comment><USER7> Always reminds me of Thunderball.

</comment><comment><USER8> I saw this plane flying while I was visiting York today, it's still a remarkable sight.

</comment><comment><USER9> Wow I'd never seen nor heard of the V-bombers [0] before and, while the Vulcan looks incredible, the Handley Page Victor [1, Image][2, Wiki] is otherworldly. The Brits had some interesting gear.

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_bomber](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_bomber)

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Handley_Page_HP-80_Victor_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Handley_Page_HP-80_Victor_K2_AN1103895.jpg)

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handley_Page_Victor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handley_Page_Victor)

<comment><USER10> Shame we never purchased the TSR2 - it was a fantastic machine:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAC_TSR-2](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAC_TSR-2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think the Black Buck missions during the Falklands war are among the most impressive combat missions of any conflict. The most comparable mission I can think of is the Doolittle raid in WW2. But, considering the technical complexity, environment and potential for disaster, Black Buck was much more risky.

Back in the 90's I spent many hours playing Harpoon, a naval and air war simulator. It was easy in a game to send planes on a mission to the far limits of range and capability, bombers that flew past fighter cover with little or no radar coverage. That such a "crazy" mission was actually done is very impressive.

Sad to see the last one stop flying, wish I could travel to the UK to see and hear it in person.

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

<comment><USER12> Impressively done logistically and came up as a complete surprise to the Argentinians, but had no effect militarily. The mission also exemplified the rocket equation with aircraft.

The under-construction airport in St. Helena is probably a legacy of that conflict, since British planners need an airport closer to the Falklands than the one in Ascension (should the island fall again).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Vulcans are probably some of the few foreign strategic bombers to have flown attacks on US cities in exercises - they had relatively little difficulty penetrating US defenses:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Skyshield](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Skyshield)

I remember as a kid watching a Vulcan doing aerobatics above the small Scottish village I grew up in - the sight of a huge aircraft being thrown around was quite stunning but what I really remember was the _noise_ \- I don't think any other aircraft I have heard (including Concorde) made such an incredible noise.

Edit: It wasn't just the fact that it was loud, very loud, it was that Vulcans make a very spooky wail/howl when their engines are close to full power.

<comment><USER13> I'm more than a _little_ disappointed about this news, having watched some of the various interviews and such related to the restoration project of XH558 along with tons of Youtube footage taken from airshows in the UK. But, I also understand their reasoning. It doesn't make me any less sad! I just wish I had taken the chance to watch her fly. The Vulcan is a gorgeous aircraft.

> Edit: It wasn't just the fact that it was loud, very loud, it was that > Vulcans make a very spooky wail/howl when their engines are close to full > power.

This reminds me. I live in an area that was once home to the F-22. Their engines made similar ghastly noises during maneuvring, which I suspect was due to the shape of the inlets. It'd scare the tar out of the household pets when they were flying night missions and usually get the neighborhood dogs worked up in a tizzy. I rather miss it!

Hilariously, residents complained to the USAF about the persistent sonic booms from the F-22 training missions, and were later relieved when they were recently replaced with a wing of F-16s. Now that training has resumed (along with the sonic booms), I can only imagine what those same people must be thinking. ;)</comment></comment>


Show HN: WebMenu, a platform to discover new web apps - <AUTHOR> https://webmenu.org/apps/webmenu

<comment><USER2> Looks great! We're doing almost exactly the same thing at [https://starthq.com](https://starthq.com)

Some initial observations:

\- you have a much better UI for the directory

\- we have more data on the apps, which we pull in automatically via API integrations

\- our launcher has a few more features, including new tab replacement extensions for most browsers

\- you seem to be targeting consumers, while we're focusing on business users

\- you're further along with the app admin & app promotion side of things, we're just getting that going and aren't planning on having that as our main source of revenue

Can we collaborate somehow?

For example, we already have an RSS feed of all the new apps being added to our directory. You could use that to populate yours.

I would be happy to share all our app data with you via a REST API as well if we got something in return, such as a small link in the footer.

You can reach me here in comments, via Twitter (handle in profile) or by signing up and using the feedback form.

<comment><AUTHOR> You have an awesome service as well, and I would definitely enjoy possibly collaborating. Right now, I'm focused on featuring smaller Saas and consumer applications that need help presenting their service to new users in an easily understandable format. I really want this service to provide users with high quality information about applications through descriptions, screenshots, and reviews. I would love to talk a bit more privately. You may email me at contact(at)webmenu.org if you want to get in touch or get featured.

<comment><USER2> Great! Mail sent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hello all, As a bootstrapper myself, I've noticed getting exposure for new web services is hard. The major media outlets usually don't care and focus on gossip more than products. I've built a simple platform to help connect web applications with the users looking for them. I hope I can help you find new users and get reviews. Any feedback to improve the service is appreciated.

<comment><USER3> This is a beautiful undertaking. Webmenu looks nice and clean, good job!

Since it's about helping upstarts and new web-apps you might wanna consider presenting more details about the apps you take up. Like information about what the app does, friction you felt, coolness etc. Just throwing in the logo/icon and the name of the app will not cut it.

In effect a critique which could either be your own or sourced via the community you intend to build will make this offering more compelling.

Most definitely you might want to keep away from presenting logos of Linkedin, Google Docs or even Trello i.e. of big, rising or successful companies. It starts looking like a hypocrisy if you do that, but obviously monetization is one concern in this spot.

Overall, it would be great to have a new web-app review destination which focuses solely on the product/founders and is zero on gossip.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the feedback. I definitely want to focus more on independent web applications and smaller startups or bootstraps, although users are allowed to upload and add popular web apps they are fans of as well. I'm going to try my best to evolve the service based on the community and see where it goes. I may have to provide personal reviews for each application to help users get more information to draw from.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just added BitBalloon ([https://webmenu.org/apps/bitballoon](https://webmenu.org/apps/bitballoon)), some comments on the process:

Really would be nice if I didn't have to manually crop & resize the screenshots before uploading. Just resizing and cropping them centered would have done a fine job in my case. Though you would probably want to disallow images that are too small so you don't get scaling artifacts.

When you get a validation error for a screenshot, the form forgets the URL, so you have to retype that every time.

Would also be nice with a tagging widget when entering tags. Currently there's no indication of existing tags.

Apart from that everything looks great! Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, I'm going to have to optimize the uploading process a bit. Thanks for the feedback. Your page looks very nice and will be featured soon!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this is a great idea Rooshdi and I wish you the best of luck. I think creating a market place is hard because you need both buyers and sellers. As far as I can tell, you found 12 apps of each type and listed them here. I can see the clear value for sellers. What do you think the value is for buyers?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think there's value in providing a quick, clean overview and recommendation of applications to potential buyers before they pursue further. WebMenu could potentially be sort of like a mall, where buyers walkthrough and get a glimpse of what apps are selling through their window screens, so to speak, before they enter the store.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A lot of your assets are not retina compatible. Specifically your logo image: [https://d2avfbmbvwlo8q.cloudfront.net/assets/logo- fd9cab1e82...](https://d2avfbmbvwlo8q.cloudfront.net/assets/logo- fd9cab1e82fce8107efa7a596a4c8fb3.png)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, I definitely need to optimize a few of my assets. Hard to tell on my non- retina display, but I hope to optimize eventually.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very nice, hopefully this platform will get more attention!

<comment><AUTHOR> I hope so! I really want to help developers get the attention their apps deserve!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love these types of services! I dont yet have my own but love discovering them. I guess i'm your target audience?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep! I enjoy them too! Never know what surprise you'll find around the corner. Should be a fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> awesome service!

Nicely done! Love the UI, its so clean and intuitive.

Looking forward to publish my apps there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome! Would love to feature yours too:

[https://webmenu.org/promote](https://webmenu.org/promote)</comment></comment>


Book Review: Showstopper the Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT - <AUTHOR> http://www.observationalhazard.com/2020/04/book-review-showstopper-breakneck-race.html <comment><USER2> Talk about the IBM Microsoft breakup of OS/2 and Microsoft taking their OS/2 code to make Windows NT. How it was originally called Advanced DOS before the OS/2 name.</comment>


Ask HN: I'm a high school student. Is my job searching strategy flawed? - <AUTHOR> I've been on the lookout for summer internship opportunities at bay area/SV startups for ~3 months now. I haven't heard back from... all but one of the ~20 companies I've emailed, and I'm curious as to if this is the behavior I should be expecting.
My cover letter is short, sweet, and proofread (mentions hackathon I won, personal projects, etc), and I've been attaching my resume (http://www.scribd.com/doc/126461525/) to it. The emails I send out are generally to generic firstname.lastname@example.com email addresses, which I feel are eating up my submissions and never make it to real human beings.
So I ask you: is my experience representative of all job seeking, or am I doing something wrong? Should I be seeking out employees to reach out to? Is your company even remotely interested in filling pre-undergrad positions, and if so, does my pitch reach the barrier of entry for consideration?
(email == firstname.lastname@example.com, if you'd like to talk privately to me) <comment><USER2> Think about it from their perspective. Imagine you are an HR person, maybe if its a start up the CTO, and you receive the application you've been sending out. How would you react? Would the application be memorable? Would it impress you and make you think, this person seems like they are really enthusiastic about working at our company and they have impressive skills?

To this end, I'd say make sure you show them something you've built that's up and running and 100% completed. It only has to be just one thing, but make sure its impressive - something you're proud of and would consider your best piece of work. Send it as a link in your initial email.

Anything unique and cool that makes you stick out is good. Why not strap up your resume as an interactive app designed specifically for that startup you really want to intern for? Or whoever said you had to send a standard resume word doc? Why not mock up a sweetly designed resume - even if you're a programmer it shows motivation and ability to think outside the box. (See this link for inspiration: [http://dzineblog.com/2011/09/35-brilliant-resume- designs.htm...](http://dzineblog.com/2011/09/35-brilliant-resume- designs.html))

Also, Looking over your resume I see a lot of stuff but nothing that looks like its completed (maybe it is but the resume doesn't show it). I'd also scratch anything from your resume that doesn't impress. The link to <http://countervailinteractive.com> goes to an expired domain, so I can't see what your skills are like, so I'd get that working or scratch it if you can't. Saying you built one website doesn't do much to get you in the door.

Anyways, I hope I didn't sound to harsh, I like seeing young people enthusiastic about programming and would like to see you get that internship. Good luck :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I absolutely see what you mean about releasing polished projects-- you're saying I should spend some time getting products launched for real instead of just taking on learning projects repeatedly. That's a good message to take to heart. :)

Not overly harsh at all! Thank you for the valuable advice and the heads-up on the dead domain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> In my humble opinion, firing off an email is a lost cause. HR folks are blasted all the time and it's really hard for them to "separate the wheat from the chaff" as they say.

Your idea of getting in touch with the employees is the right direction. You need to connect with someone personally from these companies. Connect with them on LinkedIn, hit them on Twitter, friend them on Facebook. Be wherever they are.

Also, consider posting your resume and cover-letter within a Hacker News posting asking for advice... oh wait...

</comment><comment><USER4> Some of my thoughts:

It is very common for high schooler resumes to get no attention. After all, these companies want college interns. And to top it off, you're a high school _sophomore_. Most HS seniors never get internships either.

I'll second what jfaucett said. It is much more important to show 1-2 projects that you actually shipped, rather than 10 projects you never finished. This should make intuitive sense.

Things on your resume that are not very impressive: 1) Your GPA (high school GPAs are meaningless to a startup) 2) Software Dev Club VP (high school club leadership is meaningless to a startup)

Honestly, it's a turn off when the first 3 things I see on your resume are that you're a sophomore in HS, your GPA, and a club leadership position, since I know how meaningless those things are. You should put your experience/projects at the top, since those are the most impressive. I'm not saying that you shouldn't include those other things (GPA, club), but they should be at the bottom of your resume.

Some notes 1) Get your app on the Google Play store. 2) Add a link to your django-based news aggregator 3) Countervail is down. Get a version up on your own domain (randallma.com) and link to it just so you can show it off.

In fact, you should get your personal website up and running so that you can have a digital resume that actually _shows_ people your projects (with links and screenshots). A drab resume is not going to get past HR.

Your Hackers&Founders description also has a grammar error.

Finally, the high school students I know who got internships at software companies ALL had some sort of inside connection - typically through their parents or a family friend. See if your parents have any contacts they can leverage.

<comment><USER5> I'd agree with some of this. HS resumes are going to get binned unless you prove otherwise. Your resume might be decent in getting a "high school" job like a supermarket, but it's still not great.

I think the Software Dev Club VP could be something, but you don't explain it at all. What is it? Did you cofound it? What do you do as VP? Accomplishments?

Your resume is somewhat fluff. You have skills, but it takes up >1/3 of the page without much to show for it. Try 2 column for skills. I'd also move it to the bottom, since your experience should speak for the skills you have, the skills are just a reminder^H^H^H^Hkeyword spam and list other things that may have not been included.

Not enough info at that point? Try speaking to some of your hackathons. It's an extracurricular thing.

One trick for designing resumes is to flip it upside down and look at the text as shapes rather than words. How is it balanced? Are there noticeable gaps, and are those intentional or should they be filled in?

Also, cover letters should be custom for each job. If you template them it's really only 1 paragraph you should have saved, and the rest should be custom per job.

As a high school student, don't send to jobs@. How do you even know the mail alias exists and actually gets looked at? Send to somebody.

EDIT: One last thing -- your resume is pretty flat. You are obviously strong technically, but you have no reference to teams or working with others. Hence why you should expand Club VP (maybe to experience section). If you do volunteering or organized something or did a Boy Scout project, I'd put that on there. You do get a bit of resume forgiveness as an intern that you don't get professionally.

I've looked over resumes for interns before, and basically you know that the most you can hope for is technically strong. Most of the time you want strong soft skills and they just grow technical skills through the internship. You don't show me any of the soft skills.

<comment><USER4> Two things I would like to disagree with / clarify:

1) Just to be clear, the software dev club VP position is not a _negative_ , just that it's not going to impress anyone. And honestly I can't think of situations in which it would. Co-founding a club in college, let alone HS, is very easy.

2) I disagree with the statement that "Most of the time you want strong soft skills and they just grow technical skills through the internship." Keep things in perspective. It's hard for a HS _sophomore_ to impress on the soft skills side of the equation. I mean, even something that might be impressive to a college in admissions, like organizing a community service outing, is not going to be very relevant to a startup engineering internship. I actually think the way that you shine on your resume is to have extremely strong technical skills. _If I know you have exceptional technical skills, I am assured you will be a useful contributor. If I am assured that you have exceptional soft skills, that still does not tell me how much you will be able to contribute. It's not like you'll be doing biz dev or sales._ Looking through your github profile, it's hard for me to get a handle on your technical ability, which is why I recommend having a personal website with a visual portfolio (screenshots) of your projects and more detailed descriptions of the technical challenges and features of your projects.

I am not saying that you should neglect the soft skills side of things. Be involved in clubs. _I cannot stress how important it is in the general scheme of things to be involved in something that requires public speaking._ Club leadership is not public speaking. Something like theater or debate is. The payoff for those things shows itself in college admissions and in life after college when you have to deal with people and managers. As an intern you are not likely to face interpersonal challenges that require articulation and persuasion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well, maybe one approach would be to search Hacker News for popular tech companies and see names of people at the company and then e-mail them? Ethical? I dunno. Attention grabbing? Probably.

Dropbox. E-Mail Drew Houston. Twitter/Square. E-Mail Jack Dorsey. Google. E-Mail Kevin Rose.

I dont't know how much this would help but maybe worth a try...

Kevin Rose also does a Foundation Podcast, a bunch of which are here in the bay area. Maybe review those for potential people to contact.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haven't heard of the Foundation Podcast before/will definitely take a look at it. Thanks for the heads up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> See also: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4079567>

\---

EDIT: In short, open source contributions help a lot. (also: you'll have better luck finding not just jobs, but also valuable connections on HN, than anywhere else)

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm a HS student and you basically have to know people/get personal referrals. Sent you a message

</comment><comment><USER9> You should probably try emailing one real person at each company; after that it's a lost cause.</comment>


Travis – thank you for leading us at Uber - <AUTHOR> http://andrewchen.co/travis-thank-you-for-leading-us-at-uber/ <comment><USER2> This reads a bit like a heliography. I'm sure there's plenty of people who have fond memories of him. Sadly that does not offset the literally illegal things that occurred on his watch, under his responsibility. If anything emphasising his hands-on, interactive, lead-from-the-front style only heightens his responsibilities because it implies that he should have detected what was going on and directly implemented countermeasures.

<comment><USER3> _> heliography_

Maybe you meant "hagiography"?

<comment><USER2> Yes, I definitely did, damned spellchecker.</comment></comment></comment>


The Hot New Channel for Reaching Real People: Email - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hot-new-channel-for-reaching-real-people-email-11547874005 <comment><USER2> Paywalled. :(

Edit: Why down-vote if it's the truth? Dafuq?

To Read the Full Story Subscribe Sign In</comment>


Beauty of Testing - <AUTHOR> http://blog.learningbyshipping.com/2014/09/25/beauty-of-testing/

<comment><USER2> _" Too often some view testing as primarily a function of large projects, mature products, or big companies. One of the most critical hires a growing team can make is that first testing leader"_

To be honest — I don't see that mistake much any more. Indeed I'm generally much more upbeat about the current state of testing that the author of this article seems to be.

The thing that strikes me most about testing is how much the profession and practice has changed over the last twenty years. All for the better.

In the 90's and early 00's it was very much as the article says. Seen as something for larger organisations only. Generally something done by a separate person or team alone. Almost never something integrated with ongoing development work (those ghastly integration sessions that took weeks and months… shudder…). Almost never something that developers were involved with themselves — which led to some god awful code coming out the end of the sausage machine. Testers were generally seen as folk who couldn't hack programming. And there were an awful lot of folk that I encountered with a testing job title in those years who were bloody awful at their job — who were basically human automated tests running through checklists and providing relatively little value to the organisation.

These days every language has half a dozen test frameworks, supporting different styles of automated testing. Knowledge of testing at some level is _expected_ of developers.. Anybody but the rankest newbie should be able to discuss it — even then I'd be pretty shocked if even the freshest of faces didn't at least have an opinion and knowledge on the topic. Almost every codebase that I interact with will have some kind of automated test suite. Often really excellent ones. Testing is integrated into the development process rather than being a separate phase. Because of this a huge number of the dumb errors that the checklist-style tester had to catch are now caught by machines. Which has freed up the professional tester to spend their efforts on the hard problems. You get so much more value out of testers these days because they're spending their time coming up with evil edge cases, isolating those bastard intermittent issues, or feeding back a metric shed load of issues from sessions of exploratory testing. Stuff they never had the time to do when they were dealing with the errors that the devs should have caught themselves.

Don't get me wrong. I still encounter teams that really, really need a specialist tester but don't realise it. I still encounter teams that could be way, way better at automated testing than they could be and their shipping problems show it. The testing profession is currently having to deal with the idiocy that is ISO (see [http://commonsensetesting.org/stop29119/OpenLetter/](http://commonsensetesting.org/stop29119/OpenLetter/)).

Life's not perfect.

But compared to 20 years ago — the state of testing is good!

</comment><comment><USER3> Why do we have to read about testing from an ex-Microsoft employee (even manger, if I am correctly informed)? A company that ships bs since its beginnings.

Just see, what they do to skype, if you don't know what I am talking about.

<comment><USER4> That's an extremely short sighted and uninformed viewpoint. Just because you might not hold the person or context in high regard does not mean nothing learned from his viewpoint / experience...

<comment><USER3> I dont know the person, so I don't want to judge him. And I also agree, that it can be possible to learn from everybodys viewpoint. That is a pretty general statement though. The possibilities to learn something valuable certainly vary by the source.

I hope you agree, that skype, that was a great software, has been systematically wrecked by microsoft. It has not only become unusable, it gathers more and more bugs (don't start to talk about the MS classics).

So MS did not get it in 40 years. You are still in good mood, that they have something valuable to tell about software development? Certainly, there are always new developers. But the culture did not change. Good luck with your hope to still learn something valuable from MS. The chance is just not too high, I guess. Yes, the author is not the company. But he takes his experience from MS as an example.

And, btw., my viewpoint is neither uninformed nor shortsighted. It is pure anger about 40 years of bad software and especially about ruining skype.

You one the other hand, assume things of me from 2 lines of comment. How can you believe, this is less shortsighted than you think my comment is?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Yes indeed Mr.Sinofsky. Testing is very important.

Also, testing user acceptance/ ease of use of use of the interface is also important on a major product with millions of users. Let's not forget that.....

<comment><USER3> Sarcasm? Would you mind to go into detail?</comment></comment>