Ancient Academia: the life of a Mesopotamian scholar in the seventh century B.C - <AUTHOR> https://www.archaeology.org/issues/372-2003/digs/8437-digs-iraq-assyrian-scholars <comment><USER2> Cuneiform tables [1] are one of those historical artifacts that I find fascinating. Some fun facts:

\- Between 500,000 and 2,000,000 tablets have been found

\- Less than 100,000 have been translated

\- Cuneiform tablets date back to ~3500 BC

\- Roughly 30,000 tablets were recovered from the royal archives at Hattusa (Hittite capital) [2] in central Turkey. This archive and the site probably survived because this ancient city was largely forgotten about until archaeologists discovered it in the 19th century.

\- This archive produced the earliest known peace treaty between the Hittites and Egyptians

\- These archives contain essentially the personal correspondence between Ramses II and the Hittite king [3]

\- Cuneiform tablets have been one of the most important sources of written records from the ancient world [4]

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

[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hattusa#Cuneiform_royal_archiv...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hattusa#Cuneiform_royal_archives)

[3]: [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/magazine/2016/07-...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/magazine/2016/07-08/ancient- egypt-ramses-pharaoh-hittite-royal-wedding/)

[4]: [http://cdli.ox.ac.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=objects1to10](http://cdli.ox.ac.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=objects1to10)

<comment><USER3> "Less than 100,000 have been translated"

Can't that be addressed with deep learning and crowdsourcing?

<comment><USER4> Perhaps, but I'm skeptical.

Transcribing the cuneiform script is difficult. There are hundreds of signs. Transcribing a tablet requires some understanding of the language because a sign can take on many different values (polyphony), some signs are so similar that they can only be differentiated by context, and if you're dealing with a language like Hittite, you need to recognize when a sign should be understood as representing an Akkadian or Sumerian word or grammatical construct as a scribal abbreviation. All this changes from language to language and era to era. Also, how signs are written changes over time. And then, getting into the physical aspects of working with tablets, pretty much all of them have damage. Cuneiform is a 3D script and tablets requires varying the light, which won't be captured from a single photograph. Indeed, line drawings are the standard way of publishing tablets. When photographs are used, many are taken with varying light. Some computational techniques are beginning to be used, but very few tablets are recorded in this way. Many tablets are in fragments spread around the museums of the world—figuring out which fragments go together or which tablets are duplicates of each other (to fill in damage) is the largest part of publishing cuneiform texts.

<comment><USER5> 3D scanning ought to help, then. Even X-ray CT might make sense, if the resolution can be pushed high enough to fully capture the carvings that encode cuneiform script.

<comment><USER6> The British Museum are working on digitising their collection with 3D scans and high resolution imaging. The catalogue is slowly coming online, an example: [https://research.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_onlin...](https://research.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?assetId=1516160001&objectId=295190&partId=1)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Programming Is Difficult (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://joearms.github.io/published/2014-02-07-why-programming-is-difficult.html <comment><USER2> Agree with almost all of this, but one section bothered me:

> This problem is, by the way, the thing that takes most of my time, 60-70% of > my time at a guess. I once spent over a week trying to get a broken LDAP > server to work - my boss had forbidden me to implement my own LDAP server - > but after a week of struggling with a broken LDAP sever written in C and > badly documented I had a lapse of memory and forget that my boss said and > accidentally implemented a server from scratch in Erlang during my lunch > break.

> To be honest it wasn't a full LDAP sever, but I didn't want a full LDAP > server. I only wanted a couple of commands to work, and that was pretty easy > to fix

Knowing _when_ to flip the table and reimplement is probably more challenging than anything else outlined in the article.

Joe probably had a good sense for that. Most programmers, however, do not seem to (requires tremendous breath of experience!).

It takes a certain amount of arrogance to assume that you understand (or can predict) the entire problem space along its warts. And if you're wrong, it's often another poor programmer down the line that pays for it—not you.

<comment><USER3> I had a similar experience with a silly little content assist widget of all things. The company I was with had a very particular set of standards that made a lot of sense for the sort of work they did, but none of the features we wanted were standard in the common drop down libraries. After about a day and a half of trying to wrap my head around some of the hilariously complex content assist widgets, I had a conversation with a colleague that prompted me to write my own. Two hours later, I had it. And it was compact and simple enough that other developers were able to easily make modifications as our problem space evolved.

This is an eternal problem of software design, when do you borrow, and when do you implement your own. I don't know the answer but I think there are some factors that can lead you in the right direction.

Did you do your homework? Implementing your own tools should be the last resort not the first resort. It should be driven by frustration at the inadequacy of current tools, and not based on a whim to do something cool.

Of the examples tools you've found, how much customization is required to get them to do what you want? If a 3rd party library requires a lot of hacking to do what you want, it's a hint that those tools don't actually solve your problem and you're going to end up hand rolling what you really want anyways.

How much overhead do the other tools bring in? Sometimes you need to do one simple thing, but all the tools available have a lot of overhead. That's a hint that maybe you should do your own implementation

Have you talked to other people about this problem? A conversation with a capable colleague is usually the fastest way to get useful perspective on what exactly you're trying to do.

How well do you understand the problem space? No matter how much it may suck, if you don't know what you're doing, take the time to figure out how to use the tools instead of creating your own.

All of these factors must be balanced against each other. One of the most important things though is that if you do decide to hand roll a specific tool, don't keep it to yourself. Such pieces of code can be a little hairy sometimes and you need the feedback from others to ensure the code is clean, and to make sure they know what's going on.

<comment><USER4> > Did you do your homework? Implementing your own tools should be the last > resort not the first resort. It should be driven by frustration at the > inadequacy of current tools, and not based on a whim to do something cool.

IME having to learn a fancy framework to edit a couple of things on an open source app that was mostly what we needed hurt a lot more than it would have to make something very KISS with something like Flask as a proof of concept.

Whether choosing to implement your own thing from scratch should be a last resort, or that it necessarily requires tremendous breath of experience, really depends on the circumstance, as you described. In many circumstances you don't have to be a genius to know NIH is probably the sanest option.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > I don't want to have to read a 391 page manual first

Actually, I have no problem reading the 391 page manual first because I've learned, the hard way, that that's the best (only) way to make sure you're not overlooking something - it's my boss who has a problem with it. Thy fingers shalt be on thy keyboard at all times and thou shalt be closing Jira tickets as fast as possible.

<comment><USER6> In an ideal setting, would you actually go through the whole thing before programming?

<comment><USER5> Well, I guess that depends on what you mean by an ideal setting: in an _ideal_ setting, everything would be so intuitive that there'd be no need to read any documentation at all; you'd just have a goal, and you'd sit down and immediately start working toward that goal. You could consult an all-knowing "oracle" if you had a specific question that you needed the answer to and that all-knowing oracle would always provide a correct and specific answer. I don't know if this is actually achievable, but I do think most software tasks are estimated under the assumption that it's not only achievable but the present state of things. If the manual exists, though, then whoever wrote it thought it was important to present topics in a specific order rather than just organizing it in an "if you need this result, then do this" FAQ form.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Using the Google casino for bug fixing is terribly frustrating. I Google a bit and after a while find a posting where some poor unfortunate soul has encountered exactly the same problem that I have. My heart leaps for joy. My trembling fingers enter the magic spell that will remove the curse, and ... nothing. The problem remains." LOL

<comment><USER8> It sounds funny until you run into this over. and over. and over. and over. again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Being a good programmer takes a long time, you need to learn lots of stuff and you need to know who to ask when you get stuck."

<comment><USER10> I really like this quote. It succinctly summarizes what being a programmer is for me. However I would like to add to it that you have to know what to ask when you get stuck.

When I try and learn something and then get to the point where I know what questions to ask, that is when I know that I have learned something.

If you're staring at a problem and you don't know what it is or how to describe it then you can not progress, but that is how you progress. You try and fail and ask yourself why you failed. Building on failures is a slow way to progress, but gradually those failures becomes knowledge and it gets easier to progress.

When I learn a new language, tool, library or feature my knowledge gets me going quicker. It doesn't necessarily bring me the whole way home each time, sometimes you really have to learn something new, but looking at that thing that I know that I don't know is what gives me confidence in feeling that I will learn it.</comment></comment>


Mapbox Vision SDK - <AUTHOR> https://vision.mapbox.com/ <comment><USER2> Nice HUD, I really like it! With the sign detection, does it save signs or feed them back to be added to the OSM base layer perchance?

Also, for parking pricing & zoning are you scraping cities maps for this? Eg: [http://web6.seattle.gov/SDOT/SeattleParkingMap/seattleparkin...](http://web6.seattle.gov/SDOT/SeattleParkingMap/seattleparkingmap.htm)

My only annoyance was is your website seems to depend on ajax from Google and Google Analytics btw.</comment>


toomuchimagination: An offer you can't refuse - <AUTHOR> http://toomuchimagination.blogspot.com/2007/03/offer-you-cant-refuse.html <comment><USER2> Hiring top notch employees is kind of like dating. People want a company that is seen as desirable by others much like how people seek a mate that is desirable from others. Unlike the dating world, alot of special attention early on to woo the prospective employee doesn't come across as "creepy" :)</comment>


Ask HN: Review my startup Weegoh - <AUTHOR>

In short, weegoh is a social messaging utility with geolocalization. It lets users know more about what's going on nearby, where their friends are, what interesting events are happening around them, and to connect with friends while on the go.
On Weegoh users can: Share their current location and find what is going on around them Publish messages, photos, videos or comments to other services Discover new places and people nearby.
On this version we have
A mobile and WAP site: m.weegoh.com Updates via an IM bot Updates via e-mail
Sign in with Twitter/Facebook
We have been in private beta for about 3 months, and we would really appreciate your feedback.
http://weegoh.com
Thanks! <comment><USER2> I have been using it for a while in alpha mode, and I agree with BenRB27 that it needs more people, but that is the catch 22 of any social app, right? It seems to me that its straight to the point, i like it. I would make the search bar a little more obvious.

</comment><comment><USER3> btw, <http://weegoh.com> is the link to the site

</comment><comment><USER4> Seems like a good service, but there is no one in my area using it. You need to get more people using the service to be useful. When I pressed enter in the message it didn't post.</comment>


Sama'sTweet: nearly everyone that tries to copy YC includes either a coworking.. - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/sama/status/567412740562513921 <comment><AUTHOR> This tweet became a hot discussion on twitter between Sam, Dave and many others who had something to say.

IMHO Sam took a strong stance with his tweets; he probably has a justified reason for doing so. Many subsequent replies gave examples of successful startups that worked at co-working spaces as a counter argument.

I would like to know what HN thinks about this. Can a co-working space really be the reason why many incubators don't work? There are a few examples that suggest otherwise; so this may be a not so meaningful pattern that Sam seems to support?

</comment><comment><USER2> This topic deserves a full Sama essay imho, but I'd venture that maintaining a coworking space would be a major energy suck for management. And no, coworking spaces do not manage themselves, although to those that do not contribute, it may appear they do.

Plus it would attract people who are not scrappy enough to use their own workspace solutions (garage, apartment, kitchen if need be).

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you mean by "people who are not scrappy enough"?

<comment><USER2> I'd point you to one definition of the word here:

[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=scrappy](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=scrappy)

There are several definitions there... warning, it's user-submitted content, and not all of the definitions match my meaning. The definition by user 'preshere' (scroll down one page or so) is the one that matches my meaning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Having everyone find their own individual accommodation and work spaces just gives people who don't already live there a whole lot of hassle, for what advantage?

<comment><AUTHOR> The tweet isn't clear about the advantage. Many of the subsequent replies try to sum the advantages, without much success (which is why I submitted the link here).

<comment><USER3> I think this is actually a bit of a fake argument. Everyone is focused on "coworking" as a giant collective open office where nobody can concentrate.

The other option is private offices within coworking spaces.</comment></comment></comment>


Nokia selected to be technology partner for Mission to Moon - <AUTHOR> https://www.nokia.com/en_int/news/releases/2018/02/27/nokia-is-selected-by-vodafone-to-be-its-technology-partner-for-mission-to-the-moon-project <comment><AUTHOR> Full (too long) title is,

        Nokia is selected by Vodafone to be its technology partner for Mission to the Moon project

Can be really cool; spaceX + 4g + moon + streaming video/pics!</comment>


High Speed Robot Hand Dexterity [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR1lIOlg0CY

<comment><USER2> I watch a lot of How It's Made. On many episodes you'll see an assembly line that is almost entirely automated, except for some small section. Sometimes that section involves (A) precision work that we haven't yet figured out how to automate. Most other times it seems to be (B) extremely "automatable" work (e.g. grabbing widgets six at a time and putting them in a package) that leaves me scratching my head as to why the robots aren't there as well.

I watch these episodes and think to myself that these workers are just the last portion of the line to be replaced by robots, and it's only a matter of time, capital, or both. Demos like this move the line between (A) and (B). The Industrial Revolution was only a half-step--just the "brawn" part. Now we're in the middle of the "brains" part, and the outcome is both exciting and scary.

<comment><USER3> My presumption was it came down to money.

Machines have a lot higher initial one off costs. The repair costs of some robots might make them more expensive per hour. Humans are tried and tested, they don't break-down and stop your production line.

When designing the production lines they must weigh up the cost of a machine at each stage (initial cost, elec, repairs) vs workers and decide a time-frame they want to project and compare the costs over (because of their higher initial cost the longer period you do your projection over the more likely a robot will ever be cheaper).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a fairly old video, I first saw it about 8 years ago. The interesting thing for me was the motors. Modern pick and place robots (surface mount circuit assembly) operate at speeds that make them invisible to the unaided viewer, and they are manipulating parts that are the mass of rice grains or smaller as well, with precision placement.

I kept hoping they would do a follow up which went beyond holding and went to multi-arm manipulation.

<comment><USER5> I came to comment to point that this demonstration is from may 2009 at ICRA[1] which is getting old by now (though not enough that you had seen it 8 years ago). It's the work of a research lab of university of tokyo called the sensor fusion project[2] and more videos of their work are available on the official page [3].

[1] [https://ras.papercept.net/conferences/scripts/abstract.pl?Co...](https://ras.papercept.net/conferences/scripts/abstract.pl?ConfID=18&Number=1645) [2] [http://www.k2.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/fusion/index-e.html](http://www.k2.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/fusion/index-e.html) [3] [http://www.k2.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/movies/fusion_movies-e.html](http://www.k2.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/movies/fusion_movies-e.html)

<comment><USER4> Well I was doing mental math, a coworker at Google forwarded it to me while I was there, and I didn't think I had been there all that long ('06 - '10) so guessing mid-tenure at '08 and subtracting off that from '14 should have given 6 years but given [1] above I'm sure it was after the conference in '09\. (Now added to my Evernote database so I won't make that mistake again :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That dribbling and re-grasping? oh man. Ugly bags of mostly water should be very afraid of the future. Meatbags are able to achieve similar level of skill, but not repeatability and endurance, not to mention the scale. Think about any Jackie Chan movie. We have one Jackie, and it takes him >20 takes to get some things right, but in the future we can have an army of robot Jackie Chans getting every single movement right at the first try.

Forget Bigdog or Atlas, turns out future will be exactly like AMEE from Red Planet.

</comment><comment><USER7> FoxConn is trying to get robots to make iPhones. They are close but the precision isn't quite there. Will millions of workers be replaced in the next decade?

[http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/195556-foxconns- robot...](http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/195556-foxconns-robotic- workforce-isnt-precise-enough-to-assemble-iphones)

</comment><comment><USER8> [https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=982690585087334](https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=982690585087334)

<comment><USER9> My first HN LOL thanks!</comment></comment>


Show HN: My MVP Securegate – Reliable Two Factor Authentication via SMS - <AUTHOR> http://www.securegate.io

<comment><USER2> What provider are you using for sending the SMS?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm using Infobip.</comment></comment>


The web is awesome - <AUTHOR> http://blog.lmorchard.com/2015/08/07/web-awesome/

<comment><USER2> The author mentions the principles Mobile First and Progressive Design. Which I've been thinking about a lot lately. Since they could be solutions to the bad experience users like me have on mobile sites.

The key thing that is undisputable at this point is building several separate ghetto incomplete versions of the site while forcing users to go to the desktop for the complete and full site is bad. So. Don't. Do. That.

Don't care what you have to do as long as you don't give me the ghetto incomplete version. If that means gradually building a progressive design version of the site on the side then that's fine. If you find some other strategy that works and will work on what ever crazy device I might want to use now or in the future that's fine too.</comment>


Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht Sentenced to Life in Prison - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk-road-creator-ross-ulbricht-sentenced-life-prison/

<comment><USER2> I suppose this doesn't come as a shock to anyone who has even had a passing interest in the case. The DOJ definitely wanted to make an example out of Ross and send a clear message to those that would try to emulate him.

Even many in the crypto/cypherpunk communities find it difficult to defend Ross given the allegations of attempting to solicit people to commit violence (and even murder) on his behalf.

I hate quoting memes but it somehow feels appropriate here: Unfortunately, DPR was the martyr that none of us wanted but ultimately deserved.</comment>


The Noob Friendly Guide To: What Is Usability Testing - <AUTHOR> https://userpeek.com/blog/what-is-usability-testing/ <comment><USER2> This account exists only to keep posting this awful website. Please see this thread for a short list of evidence that this website is malicious:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23190295](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23190295)

Can we please ban this account?</comment>


Ask HN: What is your most popular GitHub repo? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Much to my surprise, it's <https://github.com/Ovid/DB--Color>

Screenshot: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/publius_ovidius/5208642982/>

That's my work to bring syntax highlighting to the Perl debugger. It involves some deep magic with the debugger and still needs more work, but people are very happy with it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Lucky for me and my ego, we're not comparing popularity relative to one another... anyway this is an implementation of perceptual hashing in PHP, to catch image reposting on forums and imageboards. It counts as the 'most popular' because it's the only repo I have that anyone's contributed to or made a fork of so far (they did it in js)

<https://github.com/kennethrapp/phasher>

</comment><comment><USER4> This is a great idea! I think there should be a monthly thread for HN'ers to show off their projects. Or maybe a special category for posts about projects, which you can filter based on.

Wait a minute, I'm describing Show HN...is there a way to filter and see only Show HN posts?

<comment><USER5> Unfortunately there's no way to do that on HN, but if you use HN Search it's pretty easy: [https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22Show+HN...](https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22Show+HN%22&sortby=create_ts+desc)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> <https://github.com/swanson/stringer> by far

I've noticed that very few projects are able to get a high star count without 1) a clear value proposition in the README 2) screenshots, screenshots, screenshots.

<comment><USER7> That looks really nice. Is there a live site up somewhere or do I have to do it myself? :)

<comment><USER6> It is self-hosted - one user per instance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I created a mildly popular LAMP Stack template for Vagrant using Chef [1]. Proud of every single one of the 40 stars. Hehe.

[1] <https://github.com/MiniCodeMonkey/Vagrant-LAMP-Stack>

</comment><comment><USER9> A sprite tool. My biggest ever single-handed project. I don't know how many man hours it represents and probably rather wouldn't. <https://github.com/darkFunction/darkFunction-Editor>

</comment><comment><USER10> I made a lightweight CSS grid, and I'm blown away by the 700+ stars. Creating something that people can use is a wonderful feeling.

<https://github.com/ThisIsDallas/Simple-Grid>

</comment><comment><USER11> Very embarassingly, <https://github.com/L8D/delvs>

Almost every project I have is completely unseen and just there for personal use or my stupid amusement.

</comment><comment><USER12> An Octopress theme. It's the first repo that I've made with the intention for others to use.

<https://github.com/alexgaribay/octoflat>

</comment><comment><USER13> It only has a handful of stars & forks, and is pretty terrible/hacked together.

<https://github.com/dannytatom/muddy>

</comment><comment><USER14> Staff management app Team Sheet <http://hey-jimmy.github.io/TeamSheet/></comment>


AWS for Kids - <AUTHOR> http://awskids.club/ <comment><USER2> This is beautiful, if a bit close to the bone.

> "The AWS poster has led to healthy conversations with my child, especially > how to show the green checkmark even when things are not going so well." \- > Manager

<comment><USER3> Nice. It's almost enough to bring (laughing) tears to my eyes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Risky to copyright it to Amazon at the bottom when it's not actually them....begging for a lawyer's call. Hilarious, though.

> "My child was a huge fuck up but with the help of the AWS poster they're > well on their way to a successful life of getting paged at 3AM because the > web team can't write a stable service." \- Parent at YC Company

<comment><USER5> We are tremendously brave

<comment><USER6> And understand lock tight affirmative defenses.

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

<comment><USER7> Not for false attribution of authorship.

<comment><USER8> I'm pretty sure it's covered as parody, otherwise every skit comedy show ever would have been sued out of existence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > "If your kids don't start learning the AWS Dashboard now, they'll be in your > basement until they are 35."

Mastering even one of AWS services is mission impossible, due to their awesome, so-easy-to-understand, state of the art documentation. I think we can all go back to our parent's basement.

<comment><USER10> Their documentation is always so up-to-date, and easy to discover too! I've never once searched for something, only to stumble onto a page of docs that's 3 years old and no longer relevant. Nope!

<comment><USER7> TBF, AWS documentation is way better than 95% of open-source projects.

<comment><USER10> At least with open source projects you can dig into the code for yourself and see WTF you need to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The irony is that something like this is probably coming one day - it seems that many April Fools jokes are only a step away from reality.

What better way to get kids hooked on AWS early than to make it free for high school kids?

<comment><USER12> As a high school kid, I'm hooked on digital ocean and azure because the github student pack gives me free credits ($25 a month on azure as long as I'm a student, and $50 credit on DO, which works out to be 10 free months on their $5 option). AWS is probably too late in that regard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I know this is a joke but it would be interesting for AWS to introduce learning material targeted at high schoolers (setup a Minecraft server).

</comment><comment><USER14> > root@s1:~$ host 126.96.36.199

> 22.214.171.124.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer > ec2-54-235-210-130.compute-1.amazonaws.com.

Nice.

</comment><comment><USER15> I thought I was sick of April Fools' Day jokes, but you got me laughing. TY

<comment><USER3> Agree, really funny. Especially the "Parent at YC company" quote.

I'm on AEDST, was paying attention yesterday but I missed a beat when I saw this today (April 2nd). These things are really stretching out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> You can tell it's fake because the error pages are JSON rather than XML.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is dark comedy from Amazon. I like it. Not campy. Pornhub apparently had a real good April Fools too.

Well done.

n/m. Doesn't look like it's done by amazon.

</comment><comment><USER18> LOL, though the services selection screen on the dashboard has changed to a monochromatic one now, with line icons and all services categorised by operational type. The depicted poster is the older AWS dashboard, no?

</comment><comment><USER6> It's missing baby's first fake dashboard.

<comment><USER19> It's... actually right in there? Although not being Amazon's creation kinda diminishes it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm confused with the AWS service names. I'll be jealous of my kids start learning about these names so early on.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm getting 404s on all but the home page. Part of the joke?

<comment><USER22> Hmm, works for me. I just ordered one. The price is pretty reasonable. Maybe try emailing support?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I bet you could sell a few hundred $40 fancy printed posters.

</comment><comment><USER23> I want one of these for ME...

It makes me ill every time I look at the thing.

</comment><comment><USER24> > Happy Dads

Kevin and Kyle, really???

p.s. Fuck you for your tiny brigade of down votes</comment>


Show HN: Commit News – Stop Consuming News Like a Bag of Chips - <AUTHOR> https://apps.apple.com/us/app/commit-news-follow-the-story/id1446357612?mt=8 <comment><AUTHOR> The horrific deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery sparked something. But we're in that familiar national moment after public interest is piqued, and "back to normal" starts tip-toeing over offering a hot cup of amnesia.

We need to rework laws, reset precedent, but I firmly believe we critically need to reimagine our relationship with the news.

So I built an app called Commit News. And it's available on the App Store!!!!

WHAT IT IS. Commit News is a single-story news aggregator that scrapes 30K+ sources to collect relevant coverage for any unique news article you choose. You open the app to see your story's coverage -- over time and across sources. It's free, and it's helpful, and it's yours.

WHAT IT ISN'T. There are news apps out there, most predict what you'll like, which is weird because it's the news, not Old Navy. Commit News is not about predicting. Instead, it's personalizing. -You don't need to set up "channels, boards, books" or "collections." -You don't have to choose between "politics, lifestyle, local" or "environment." -And we don't assume what "you might also like…"

WHY NOW? The idea for Commit News started in my head years ago -- I was tired of being forced to forget news stories that were important to me - I'm a Black/Mexican Woman, child of an immigrant who geeks out on the Environment. The news industry would probably call my entire existence "special interest," needless to say the stories I want to follow fall off the front pages pretty quickly.

A couple of months back, while testing, America's shit hit the fan. We're witnessing so many stories that feel consequential and unresolved, but the news cycle slows for no man...woman, murder, or pandemic. I sped up development, and I decided that it needs to be present more than it needs to be perfect.

I need more ML muscle - there's no doubt. But I'd appreciate your feedback and connection to any Data Scientists who may also want to completely change the news landscape and, in doing so, save society??? You can email - listening at commitnews.com.

</comment><comment><USER2> This is actually pretty interesting, I will give it a spin! I appreciate the write up. Very good copy, making it clear who the product is for and why you are passionate about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Big thanks. I look forward to your feedback.</comment></comment>


Sinclair's script for stations [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLjYJ4BzvI <comment><USER2> As background: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc) (Last Week Tonight)

</comment><comment><USER3> Hmm... I wonder if this is extremely dangerous to our democracy.

</comment><comment><USER4> Reminds me of the old Conan segment that highlighted this behavior. Here are some clips from 2012-2014.

Twinkie Trouble [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzdV0Imti3s&ab_channel=TeamC...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzdV0Imti3s&ab_channel=TeamCoco)

Could this be the end of email overload? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p7RnDQwFRw&ab_channel=TeamC...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8p7RnDQwFRw&ab_channel=TeamCoco)

I scream, you scream, you know the rest. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46-fI18pJyw&ab_channel=TeamC...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46-fI18pJyw&ab_channel=TeamCoco)

Enjoyed from a desk or the couch. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZnoSy7NHgI&ab_channel=TeamC...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZnoSy7NHgI&ab_channel=TeamCoco)

You don't need us to tell you that gas prices are back on the rise. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAkxR9T01pw&ab_channel=TeamC...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAkxR9T01pw&ab_channel=TeamCoco)

Economic factors may take some spring out of the Easter Bunny's step this year. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dguiAWrUGMM&ab_channel=TeamC...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dguiAWrUGMM&ab_channel=TeamCoco)

A child's happiness is priceless, especially on a birthday. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFsDnn9FjOQ&ab_channel=TeamC...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFsDnn9FjOQ&ab_channel=TeamCoco)

Mike Myers says "Yeah, Baby." [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIevazPIPzU&ab_channel=TeamC...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIevazPIPzU&ab_channel=TeamCoco)

It's okay, you can admit it if you've bought an item, or two, or ten for yourself. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM8L7bdwVaA&ab_channel=TeamC...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM8L7bdwVaA&ab_channel=TeamCoco)

Don't worry, be happy. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ1mA1NeUmU&ab_channel=TeamC...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ1mA1NeUmU&ab_channel=TeamCoco)

Those with a special someone may look to their mobile device to help them say "I love you." [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44ojS4UNn8I&ab_channel=TeamC...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44ojS4UNn8I&ab_channel=TeamCoco)

Frank Ocean tells a major fast food chain to buzz off, and which celeb peed in a glass jar? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u41bQG_Ll7E&ab_channel=TeamC...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u41bQG_Ll7E&ab_channel=TeamCoco)

Is it time for dogs to have a social network of their own? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZElSajQdOo&index=13&list=RD...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZElSajQdOo&index=13&list=RDu41bQG_Ll7E&ab_channel=TeamCoco)

The final days of the campaign can get a little salty. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKziIEXT6MU&index=18&list=RD...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKziIEXT6MU&index=18&list=RDu41bQG_Ll7E&ab_channel=TeamCoco)

</comment><comment><USER5> This reminds me heavily of Gail Wynand in The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand. That said, this video probably suffers from some sort of selection bias. However, I do not doubt that a centralized group of individuals can pull the rights strings in the right places in order to achieve a desired outcome. There exist people who stand to gain from the destruction of Facebook.

If the incumbents of mainstream media could somehow get rid of Facebook by encouraging legislation to be passed which prevents unqualified individuals from disseminating news, it would not be a win for society at all, even if it's a loss for Facebook. There is a fine line between regulating Facebook and destroying freedom of speech on the internet. It would seem that the very notion that Facebook is a tool for democracy destruction is more dangerous than Facebook itself.

It seems crazy to think this is even possible, but I don't put anything past anti-terrorism efforts. I am quite afraid to consider such an outcome. I find myself conflicted; if Facebook goes down, I really hope it's for the right reasons. I really hope freedom is not taken away in this ordeal. We are already starting to see freedoms being taken away from the people. YouTube, Craigslist, etc. have already banned certain types of content in the past 2 weeks because of new legislation.</comment>


Ask HN: Alternative to cj.com for affiliation program / referral for web product - <AUTHOR>

We run a small web service and we would like to promote our service thru affiliation program (we have partners which will put us on their site right now). CT.com is the biggest but expensive. Are there any alternatives? Something Web 2.0 simple? <comment><USER2> I've never used it myself but have seen e-junkie recommended in the past for in house affiliate programs.

<http://www.e-junkie.com/> <http://www.e-junkie.com/ej/affiliates.htm>

</comment><comment><USER3> What about share-a-sale ??</comment>


Back to school because entrepreneurship leads to mastery of nothing - <AUTHOR> https://davidquail.com/2016/03/18/back-to-school/ <comment><USER3> I think you misunderstand, the mastery _is_ entrepreneurship. The ability to do whatever it takes to solve problems and be profitable, picking up skills along the way is just a means to an end.

<comment><AUTHOR> Entrepreneurship is mastering - if anything - "operating" in extremely uncertain and risky conditions. There's no tangible hard skill you're mastering. It's fulfilling - but personally completely void of the feeling I've had truly "mastering" a sport. (I'll use "mastery" loosely here - <USER2> wasn't nearly good enough to play pro. It's a completely different feeling than "mastering" a subject such as physics or calculus (again using "mastery" loosely). Perhaps mastery of soft skills leaves me a bit void and its the hard skills that entrepreneurship lacks.</comment></comment>


Tweetbomb - A Tweet To Shake The World - <AUTHOR> http://www.singularityhub.com/2009/04/22/tweetbomb-a-tweet-to-shake-the-world/

<comment><USER2> I've coined a phrase for a powerful phenomenon that's purely imaginary er I mean theoretical. Embrace my meme immediately.</comment>


How to hire a Rails developer - <AUTHOR> http://matschaffer.com/2011/04/how-to-hire-rails-developer/

<comment><USER2> I think your final point is the most valuable takeaway here. That's usually the biggest differentiator to me between "good" and "great" developers. The good ones are usually passionate about a particular technology and know it like the back of their hand.

The great ones approach things from a the perspective of "what is the correct tool for this job." They're not firmly in the Ruby, Python, Java, or .NET camp - they approach each technology as a tool in a larger tool belt and bring out the appropriate one for the task at hand. These people also tend to keep up on the latest and greatest - much like people who collect and maintain a garage full of physical tools - great programmers generally maintain a mental library of great programming tools (languages, libraries, frameworks).

Partisan allegiance to any one specific technology rarely indicates overall mastery of the field - at least in my experience.

There are obviously plenty of exceptions to what I've said - but this has been my general observation.

<comment><USER3> This is a very big problem: the constant focus on tools and specific technologies instead of looking at the people and their abilities.

A great developer will always be able to pick up a new language/framework/paradigm quickly. So if you plan to have a longer relationship with your hire, you can by all means afford not to check every bullet point regarding technologies. By strictly requiring explicit experience in the fields you are working in, the only thing you really accomplish is to drastically reduce the number of possible applicants.

For example, since Django is still a lot less common than Rails, if you need a Django developer and specifically require Django experience, you will not have an awful lot of candidates. If you broaden your search to anyone with experience with a web framework, you are almost guaranteed to attract some more good candidates. Once you screen those, you pick the best. Best case: he/she was already familiar with Django, congrats to you. Worst case: the dev was not familiar with Django, but still a better fit than ALL the candidates with Django experience. Sounds like win-win for me...

<comment><USER4> I think us developers all tend to know this. But for some reason most employers still don't get this. Almost all job listings look for candidates with specific experience in technology X, rather than just all around smart and able people. When I am job hunting these types of employers are an immediate turn off for me, but they are by far the majority. I wish we could succeed in convincing employers to look at the bigger picture.

<comment><USER5> While I agree that you probably miss out on finding a lot of great candidates, there is a significant advantage in finding someone that already knows your chosen platform.

Already knowing the OS and Tools allows a new hire to focus on understanding the business domain quickly. For some companies, that's far more important than raw technical ability.

<comment><USER3> The "quickly" argument is a strawman, if you plan on having a working relationship that lasts longer than 3 months or so. If you just need someone to upgrade your current Rails 2.3.8 project to 3.0.6 and then move along, by all means get someone with Rails experience.

But if you intend to employ that person longer, the specific experience is of diminishing importance.

<comment><USER6> That's why I usually try to describe myself as a bard of programming. Pick a language. Pick a framework. I know enough to get started, and I know where to find answers to my questions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting post, though I don't agree with the last point. A good rails developer will present himself as a rails developer, even if he does other things. A typical rails app includes html, javascript, maybe even xml or some other fancy stuff, so a real rails developer is always a bit of an jack-of- all-trades.

Btw, outside US, it seems like it is the other way round. I develop rails apps and have trouble finding work at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't think it's a good idea for non-technical founders to specify the framework.

</comment><comment><USER9> Step one: hire a good developer

Step two: give 'em a "Teach Yourself Rails" book

Step three: wait two months

<comment><USER10> This is a very good point. It's absurdly easy to learn, even if you're still learning programming. It must be a doddle if you're already extremely experienced.

(This is not meant as a slight against rails. On the contrary.)

<comment><USER9> _(This is not meant as a slight against rails. On the contrary.)_

Exactly. Rails is good because it's easy. That doesn't mean that just anybody can write a great program using Rails, though, it merely means that who can write the best program becomes about who is the best programmer, not about who knows the most about Rails.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Thats a lot of effort to put into getting a rails developer. Just imagine if you needed two or three.

I particularly like the last rule. Never hire anyone who claims to be a rails developer, hire an erlang dev and you are set!</comment>


The 50 Definitive Business Books of All Time - <AUTHOR> https://taylorpearson.me/best-books-entrepreneurs/ <comment><USER2> Nice list! Will definitely come back to it.

Also: invest some time to learn speed reading - you'll be amazed how much more reading you can get done.

I used this book: [http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/350613/breakthrough-...](http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/350613/breakthrough- rapid-reading-by-peter-kump/9780735200197/)</comment>


Study: How governments use GitHub - <AUTHOR> https://emanuelfeld.github.io/blog/2016/04/27/government-github-ecosystem.html <comment><USER2> I wrote this up, if anyone has any questions or feedback. Thanks!</comment>


Bootlin at the XDC 2018 Conference - <AUTHOR> https://bootlin.com/blog/bootlin-at-the-xdc-2018-conference/ <comment><USER2> Here were some of my favorite talks:

Matt Turner - An Introduction to i965 Assembly and Bit Twiddling Hacks

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raRBi-33Vz4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raRBi-33Vz4)

Mark Janes & Clayton Craft - Mesa Continuous Integration at Intel

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm3U7jaNJQQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm3U7jaNJQQ)

And of course, my own short demo ;)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuRXHJu5Kmg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuRXHJu5Kmg)

</comment><comment><USER3> Bootlin docs are awesome from the start over the years. I hope there is a similar company that is focused on linux training in US, or other continents for that matter.

</comment><comment><USER4> Keep up the good work! All Bootlin team members are totally worth following if you're interested in kernel development.

 _(I 'm not affiliated with them in any way but I wish to join them someday)_

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> What's the best way to perform automated/regression testing of display drivers, e.g. HDMI and DisplayPort protocol support?

</comment><comment><USER5> It's frustrating when I'm intrigued about what a company does and a visit to its front page does not say.</comment>


Cut the PR Agency? Are You Sure About That? - <AUTHOR> http://www.pr-squared.com/2008/10/cut_the_pr_agency_are_you_sure.html

<comment><USER2> A reasonable article, but I have my qualms with it. While it's true that the best time to spend on PR is when it's cheap (in the tradition of buy low, sell high), and that happens during a recession, it's not the last thing one should cut. If you got caught with your mouth open, PR is down there next to other low priorities, like design and marketing. So, to summarize, if you see a recession coming, save your PR and marketing money for when it hits.

</comment><comment><USER3> ha pr from a pr agency for itself... shouldnt that website just be a black hole?</comment>


Winter Olympics on Linux - <AUTHOR> http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2010/Feb-11.html <comment><USER2> FWIW, I watched the Winter Olympics (well, the snowboarding) on <http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/olympics/> which worked fine on Linux. I'm guessing it's not usable from North America? (this isn't a pirate site, the Vancouver 2010 site actually links to it.)

As much as I hate Flash, I'm not sure replacing it with Silverlight is vastly better. I suppose with Moonlight lagging only a few months behind the MS plugin it's a lot better than the Adobe monoculture (hah, "mono"-culture). Still, I think the real problem is the fact that it's a plugin, not part of the browser itself, which Silverlight doesn't change.</comment>


Restaurant Mobile Payment App War Heats Up - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2014/02/21/cover-restaurant-app/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is OpenTable's fight to lose but we could see a world in which different apps win different cities. Still waiting to see if any can take this national.</comment>


Amazon is the biggest threat to Bitcoin right now - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/amazon-is-the-biggest-threat-to-bitcoin-right-now-62a56d8435e4 <comment><USER2> Why would an ordinary consumer ever want to pay for retail goods in a currency other than the one that their salary comes in? Amazon is happy to eat credit card fees, and if they really wanted to avoid that they could let customers link their bank account directly to Amazon.

<comment><USER3> > Why would an ordinary consumer ever want to pay for retail goods in a > currency other than the one that their salary comes in?

You are thinking of Consumers in the West, almost all of who have Bank Accounts, Credit Cards and in these cases, your statement makes sense.

However, a large majority of the developing world still works on Cash economy. And in rural areas in these regions, most people don't have bank accounts, credit cards with with to shop on Amazon. They do have mobile phones with internet.

So it would make sense for Amazon to use crypto-currency to allow such people to make purchases on it's site.

Do you know that Amazon in India has a COD feature (Cash on Delivery), so the dude delivers your package and takes cash from you for your purchase from Amazon.in.

<comment><USER4> Honest question -- how do you buy crypto with cash?

Wouldn't it be simpler to partner with various retail outlets to let cash based consumers load their amazon accounts with cash (via gift cards or other means), or even issue Amazon branded debit cards that these people can top up in store?

I mean cash on delivery and cash on delivery to a convenience store are both real and very popular options in Japan (the former with pretty rampant delivery fraud issues, but that's another can of worms), an affluent country where many consumer can get credit cards, but one where culturally people are skeptical of financial products and prefer to deal in cash.

<comment><USER3> > how do you buy crypto with cash?

Right now, you have to open an account with 1 of the exchanges, like Kraken, or Bitstamp, or GDAX, or wallets like Coinbase, link your Bank account and wire money in.

This is like the Wild West these days, with horror stories of wire transfers not getting credited for weeks and some not getting any response from customer support (all do email only, no phone). I think they are also having a hard time with the insane spike in interest. Kraken CEO is claiming that they are seeing 50,000 Account openings per day[1] and are not able to handle it and hence the 5XX HTTP errors that people are seeing on their site.

> This blaze is on fire.

> The recent, unexpected explosion in demand has been overwhelming. Each of > the past few days has produced 50,000 new account registrations and 10,000 > new support tickets — an order of magnitude above where we were just last > quarter. Concurrent users, daily trades and volumes are also hitting new > all-time highs. We are struggling to keep up.

[1] Source: [https://blog.kraken.com/post/1399/degraded-service- upgrade-n...](https://blog.kraken.com/post/1399/degraded-service-upgrade-next- week/)

One thing I'm still not able to wrap my head around is this. In order to 'BUY' Crypto currency, you have to pay plain old Paper currency like USD or JPY (referred to as FIAT currency in the crypto world). So how does this make Crypto like Bitcoin an independent currency? There are also some stories that 40% of Bitcoin is 'OWNED' by less than 1000 individuals / institutions around the world. That's not the case with paper money though.

<comment><USER5> Local bitcoins allows you to use cash from your wallet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article is pretty light on content and doesn't answer the question of why Amazon would want to adopt cryptocurrency.

I would expect that they will adopt a large number all at once and accept whatever the customer wants to pay with. They currently support dozens of currencies so a few dozen more is really just a case of customer demand.

As soon as customers want to pay with a cryptocurrecy, Amazon will roll out.

What would be really surprising is if they make their own cryptocurrency for use on Fire devices or something that would reduce their credit card processing fees.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, Amazon is considering Cryptocurrency but not Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is decentralized and not regulated, whereas alt-currencies / "alt- coins" like Ripple are centralized and regulated by the Company and several Banks including Amex, non-profits like Gates Foundation, have come on board and use Ripple for Liquidity and speed and lowered costs ( no-need to maintain Nostro, Vostro accounts in FIAT currencies) in international markets.

From a Ripple presentation slide from a while back, it looks like Amazon, AirBnB and Uber are all looking to alt-currencies like Ripple (which has seen the widest adoption so far in this space).

> But because it allows globally distributed companies like Airbnb, Amazon and > Uber to move money from all their various locations to their appropriate > bank accounts. Clearly, this will save time and money compared to the > current modus operandi.

Source: [https://oracletimes.com/does-ripple-xrp-latest-price-move- ha...](https://oracletimes.com/does-ripple-xrp-latest-price-move-have- anything-to-do-with-airbnb-amazon-and-uber/)

[ Also, it's somewhat shortsighted on OP's part to look at domain name registrations and come to a conclusion. Big companies like Amazon, Facebook pre-emptively register 100s of domains on combinations of their brand name and new tech solution to avoid confusion / fraud ]

<comment><USER7> Agree with you on Ripple's potential but I wouldn't read too much into that slide. Those companies were on the slide as an example use case. I don't think it meant any official buy in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I disagree.

If it takes consumers 22 extra steps to do something, they won't use it. I feel that's the problem with bitcoin.

The other aspect is it's ripe for a company that already does transactions to take over. Pay-pal, Visa, AMEX, etc.

I can already hear the Visa commercial tag line, "Just remember to take your Visa, because they don't take Bitcoin."

</comment><comment><USER9> Bandwidth or not, how can you pay for retail junk with something that may go up 2x in value in the next few hours? Or down by as much.

</comment><comment><USER10> When (not if) will the Primecoins arrive?

</comment><comment><USER11> math is the biggest threat to bitcoin

cryptographic hash functions are only as strong as the magnitude of our ignorance

<comment><USER12> Can't argue against you there, but isn't the point of Proof of Work that it grows as our ignorance (inverse of hashing power) diminishes?; The smarter we get, the more difficult it gets.

<comment><USER11> sure, but at some point you run out of leading zeros

or as bitcoin attempts to obfuscate it: "target=0"

it has yet to be proved, in the positive or negative, whether an algo can compute any target of a 256 bit hash in polynomial time forcing difficulty to require, at least, larger hashes or specific hardware

the problem with larger hashes is what makes the PoW difficulty where you need it also would cause the 'difficulty' of storage and reading of that hash to increase impractically

the problem with specific hardware is purely speculative but i would assume issues of frauds claiming to mine on the impeded hardware but truly use fully functioning hardware, or force the network to be centrally mined to ensure the hardware used which breaks cryptocurrency's image as decentralised

from [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty#What_is_the_maximum_di...](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty#What_is_the_maximum_difficulty.3F)

"The actual maximum difficulty is when current_target=0, but we would not be able to calculate the difficulty if that happened. (fortunately it never will, so we're ok.)"

that 'never' is simply offensive to the foundation of mathematical rigor that bitcoin is built on, and i would argue an attempt to defraud potential, and current, users

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Amazon needs to adopt Ardor with it's own child chain.

Ardor's network speed, I believe is setup to do 35x faster transactions than bitcoin and 3.5x faster than ripple. Disclaimer: I own some Ardor.

</comment><comment><USER14> It's not about Bitcoin, it's about Cryptocurrency. Amazon is being forced (disrupted before our own eyes) into this new economic model.

<comment><USER15> The point is that Bitcoin doesn't scale well enough for Amazon. If Amazon chooses a lesser known cryptocurrency or creates their own, Bitcoin will suffer.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What were 5 milestones that you encountered on the way to becoming a CEO - sahin-boydas <comment> sahin-boydas A good read:

[https://www.saastr.com/what-were-5-distinct-milestones- that-...](https://www.saastr.com/what-were-5-distinct-milestones-that-you- encountered-on-the-road-to-becoming-a-ceo/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Why five milestones? Working on a listicle?</comment>


CloudAPI, a free API generating/management tool [FIXED BAD LINK] - <AUTHOR> https://cloudapi-server.herokuapp.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> If your interested in learning how servers/databases and websites work it might be an interesting tool to try out.

Or if your a software developer you might be able to automate your job a bit with it ;)</comment>


Staring down seagulls can stop them stealing your chips - <AUTHOR> https://www.newscientist.com/article/2212592-staring-down-seagulls-can-stop-them-stealing-your-chips/ <comment><USER2> video [https://twitter.com/newscientist/status/1159734010484072450](https://twitter.com/newscientist/status/1159734010484072450)</comment>


The value of an engineering degree - <AUTHOR> http://avc.com/2014/03/the-value-of-an-engineering-degree/ <comment><USER2> This is BS, most of these companies are looking for snowflakes from top 10 schools, who have been programming since they were in middle school.

I have plenty of competent friends who had a hard time finding anything better than an IT desk job after graduating from Stony Brook, NYU-Poly and City College.

Most smaller tech companies don't even consider training their new employees. Instead they want a 'ninja' who is comfortable with their tech stack and can hit the ground running straight out of school. To make things worse 90% of them think their analytics platform or social network for cats is the next Google, so they put their candidates through ridiculous interviews that have nothing to do with writing CRUD apps.

I even know people here at Columbia University who didn't get any good offers outside of finance.

<comment><USER3> I don't disagree that companies are often looking for people who have resumes and skills far exceeding the simple, minor needs of particular jobs.

On the other hand, I have met many CS majors at local New York colleges, and even among the seniors who seem to be in the top half of the class, their knowledge of some basic things is almost universally absent. Such as software version control - they don't know what it is, they don't know the names of any version control systems, like git or perforce, and they don't know how to use any of them.

They study for class, mostly, but seem to have no interest in all of this outside of class. Not once in four years do you check a project out of github, fix a bug, and then send a patch and pull request? And that's among those who study and are in the top half of the class. Some kids don't even care about studying much and I don't know why they're even bothering.

<comment><USER4> Learning things like git are very doable on the job.

In university, one should concentrate on learning things that are impractical to pick up on the job - calculus, statistics, theory, quantum mechanics, dynamics, etc. Stuff that takes sustained, concentrated focus to learn.

For example, although I got an engineering degree from Caltech, my practical knowledge upon graduating was about nil. But I found on the job at Boeing that the practical stuff was easy to pick up, and pairing it with the theoretical stuff I learned in school made for an effective combination. Others who did not know the math/theory, never picked it up, they'd spend their career avoiding it.

<comment><USER5> I'm with you in this. I would just like to add that learning calculus, statistics, quantum mechanics etc is important learning to apply it from young age is equally important.

I had a friend in school who was so very good in physics, he could just grasp every concept and get top grades. Once, we decided to make a video game or two in the computer lab during the sports periods (we bunked sports periods). We started with implementing simple projectile motion of ASCII characters, Simple Harmonic Motion of an ASCII gauntlet and lots of cool stuff and effects. I remember, even with his top notch knowledge of mechanics, he was unable to do simple things, and I ended up doing the games alone. Then after he avoided interacting with me, and rather completed his school homework during the sports period. He would come to the lab just to say that the game is not looking good, and I could have done this or that. I think he had inferiority complex. I scored lesser than him, and all the teachers heavily favored him. Our friendship became more formal.

I am sure he will get a very nice job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm Canadian, but I always thought I was knowledgeable about American universities.

I'd never heard of Harvey Mudd college, and here it is competing with the two giants of US engineering, MIT and Caltech.

The take away from this seems to be that you shouldn't assume your interviewer knows that your degree is from a "name" school, or that the school you went to will influence any one in a positive way.

I remember someone here mentioned that they went to University of Texas Austin and that they thought that should ensure them of getting an interview anywhere and I wasn't sure if they were joking or being serious as I'd never heard of UoT Austin before as being a good computer science school.

<comment><USER7> Caltech is much the same way though, outside of engineering nobody has heard of it. Like Harvey Mudd, it's a small *private school that hasn't yet become a household name.

<comment><USER8> Small note -- Caltech and Harvey Mudd are both private, not public.

<comment><USER7> Whoops, sorry. Edited.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You can also make an incredible ROI by not paying for an expensive degree and instead gain knowledge & experience through other means (teach yourself, free online courses, open-source projects, paid internships, etc). Just take a look at today's "Who is hiring?" [1] and you'll notice very few list degree requirements. Most are looking for a combination of experience and knowledge.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7507765](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7507765)

<comment><USER10> Don't take this guys advice seriously. Not having a degree means you will get paid less than people you have proven to have better skills than, and many doors to many lucrative opportunities will be locked. You'll have a social stigma, and you'll constantly have to be proving yourself in situations where your coworkers don't.

EDIT: my comment was a bit angered, and I apologize for that. Just this morning I found out that a company i had a great interview with yesterday told me that despite liking me the company had a policy that they can't hire senior engineers without a technical degree. Its tough.

<comment><USER9> It's precisely that line of thinking which has resulted in the most debt- laden, over-educated and under-employed workforce in history.

Getting a degree can be a good thing, absolutely, but it's by no means a requirement to success.

<comment><USER10> I never said it was a requirement, I feel myself successful and I don't have a degree. But the path has definitely been harder than my friends who do have one. So with that, I recommend not taking that path intentionally.

<comment><USER11> I'm a University drop out, 20 years of it. It has _always_ been in my mind that I don't have a degree. It has closed doors to me, made me feel inferior in conversation and with the job market getting harder has shut off the job supply and I've got 20 years professional programming experience. The ad says Graduate Degree, that's that, no interesting job for you.

I tried to go back to Uni but it was: you dropped out, so no loan for you, you have to pay for the first year yourself (we didn't even have loans the first time round).

I have finally done it, this September I start at University once more.

<comment><USER12> _> I've got 20 years professional programming experience._

According to many, 20 years of professional programming experience is a death knell to even those with the best degrees money can buy. It is assumed you should have moved on to bigger and better things by that point (not an opinion I hold, but a sentiment that seems pervasive).

Did you find that it became more difficult to find work as you got older?

<comment><USER11> A bit. I always worked at startups / business development. I love programming and I'm very good at it. I can smell hype.

One of the things that turns me off, though, is the framework de jour scene but the converse is dull plodding.

My degree is a BSc in Supply Chain Management after doing an HNC (part time) in Manufacturing Engineering financing it all working as a Cad draughtsperson for 3 years.

The BSc is about 20% IT based and there's plenty of scope for modeling and statistical analysis so hopefully a perfect blend of skills.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I invested a little cash in '97 when I went to college. If I'd invested 4-5 times more I might not be working right now. Or I might have gotten excited, over extended, and lost it all. Who knows.

I also wonder how the typical ROI compares to just buying a condo in a college town instead?

<comment><USER14> The gotcha with that comparison is that people will give you 100k in student loans at 18 years old, but you'll have a hell of a time getting 10k to go margin trading with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The world is not a meritocracy, and so we must not underestimate the value (ROI?) of the various social connections one makes at different schools and degree programs.

</comment><comment><USER16> The value of a lot of things in life including an engineering degree cannot simply be reduced to a dollar amount, unless the moment you set out to get a degree, your only and final goal was how much that degree would fetch you down the line.

<comment><USER17> Unfortunately that isn't really up to us, since in our society you have to work to survive until you die or retire. Until having no job means a livable lifestyle, most people have to consider real dollar values when considering education.

<comment><USER18> Well then, we'd better get to work on fixing that problem, shouldn't we?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Looking at the ROI on a college degree is very tricky even if you are just using to to compare schools. I clicked through to the original data set ([http://qz.com/193400/here-are-the-american-colleges-and- majo...](http://qz.com/193400/here-are-the-american-colleges-and-majors-with- the-highest-roi/)) and it shows that they used a net figure for calculating tuition that assumes average grants and loans. I don't believe this includes a TVM calculation for the loans though. This can really add up if you have 70K in student loans...

I'd like to see a better comparrison with public schools in the engineering field across the entire career of an engineer. I went to a good state engineering school for mechanical engineering. Cheap in state tuition (and a 529) meant no debt post graduation. That's huge when starting out. Additionally my classmates and I had offers inthe 60k-80k range. That might not be as high as people right out of Stanford but I can't imagine it has a large effect over the length of someones career. When you factor in that many of the graduates from more prosetgious colleges carry debt for 5+ yrs after graduation.

<comment><USER20> The annual % ROI on my degree is basically infinite, since the state of Florida paid for my entire BS. Sure, Florida Atlantic is not a place most people have heard of, but I still managed a Fortune 500 EE job right out of school, in late 2002 no less.

<comment><USER12> I would suggest you still have opportunity cost to consider. Assuming a four year program, you could have, on average, earned $120,000 during that time. If you then invested that at 5% until you reached retirement age, you could have earned right around $1,000,000 over your career above your regular income going forward. As such, your ROI should really be calculated on what you are able to earn in your career above that.

To add, I would suggest that someone who has the determination and mindset to successfully complete an engineering degree should be able to earn even more than $120K during that initial period, but there are lots of variables that could be considered. It is impossible to narrow down exactly what opportunity you lost during that time, but it is almost certainly not zero.

<comment><USER20> > I would suggest you still have opportunity cost to consider.

The opportunity cost comes in to the 20-year ROI column, which I admit without a change in my career trajectory would have me well below the top schools in that list.

> Assuming a four year program, you could have, on average, earned $120,000 > during that time. If you then invested that at 5% until you reached > retirement age, you could have earned right around $1,000,000 over your > career above your regular income going forward. As such, your ROI should > really be calculated on what you are able to earn in your career above that.

As you said, the actual cost depends on a lot of variables. However, that is an unrealistic starting point, at least for the period 1998 - 2002 when I was an undergrad. As a trade apprentice, which is probably the best job I could get with only high school, I would be looking at about $20,000/year, or $80,000. Plus, your starting point neglects living costs and taxes, which are going to consume a significant portion of that amount and which my scholarships covered. It further neglects working during school; I made $3,000/year - $5,000/year doing landscaping, maintenance, tutoring, and other odd jobs. That amount is about what a part-time (20 hours/week), minimum wage job would pay at that time. That cuts the opportunity cost down to $20,000 - $40,000 for the entire period, which is not much of a head start on a career that is going to pay me more than that in my first year after graduation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I argue that mathematics and physics degrees are more valuable than engineering degrees. It prepares you for one of the most fundamental of skills for white collar jobs: critical thinking.

Much of the other stuff can easily be self-taught given a strong/exceptional foundation in critical thinking ability, and it can be used to great advantage in differentiating yourself from your peers.

<comment><USER22> I don't know what engineering degrees they offer at your school, but pretty much every one of my classes was Math & Physics.

<comment><USER23> A degree in math or physics requires much more math than that which engineers study. Likewise a degree in physics requires much more physics than engineers study.

<comment><USER22> Neither of which is an indication that they are better at engineers at critical thinking.

<comment><USER24> I think the difference might be this, in undergraduate degrees:

* Mathematics is _entirely_ about proving arguments and solving problems within logical systems. * The 'hard sciences' (esp. physics) are about working within a theoretical (often mathematical) framework and testing it with experimentation.

Contrast this to engineering disciplines, or even medicine, where the focus is on gaining knowledge which you can use to solve problems. It's problem- solving, but doesn't have much of the scientific method about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Surprised that Georgia Tech is not on that list.

GT has consistently ranked among the top 5 colleges for ROI on most of these lists that are published.

<comment><USER26> GT and UVA get special shout-outs in the source article-

[http://qz.com/193400/here-are-the-american-colleges-and- majo...](http://qz.com/193400/here-are-the-american-colleges-and-majors-with- the-highest-roi/)

<comment><USER27> Not starting your Y-axis at zero is a sin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm not sure what this post provides when the original post they link to is pretty much the same data plus some additional data about computer science degrees specifically.

[http://qz.com/193400/here-are-the-american-colleges-and- majo...](http://qz.com/193400/here-are-the-american-colleges-and-majors-with- the-highest-roi/)

</comment><comment><USER29> Note that the list is based on self-reported data from PayScale.com, and doesn't include any graduate-level education.

It's not news that engineering degrees pay well coming right out of undergrad.

<comment><USER30> Here's the link

[http://www.payscale.com/college-roi](http://www.payscale.com/college-roi)

<comment><USER31> Are you aware of anyone who's done a similar analysis of graduate degrees?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Becoming an engineer is a great foundation upon which you can change the world by building and doing.

However, to advance higher you also need to complement those skill sets with good interpersonal skills.

<comment><USER33> Ah, but if you have those interpersonal skills, you can advance almost as far without the engineering degree at all.

You see the problem.

The business economy rewards bullshit and schmoozing to a higher degree than it does actual work. Until that changes, any attempt to get kids to learn useful things instead of how to work the system is fighting to swim upstream against a very strong current.

As a result, a lot of people that are engineers, scientists, or any other profession that requires a great deal of training in proportion to the typical monetary rewards are doing it because that is something they had a personal interest in doing. They achieve personal satisfaction in doing work that is too difficult or detailed for others to do well.

You can only rely on that for so long. If you structure jobs in your companies for such people to be spectacularly unrewarding, the people who would have otherwise been engineers will choose other difficult careers that pay well, and satisfy their engineering urges as a sideline or hobby.

As long as we have a business culture that values the ability to have a conversation over the ability to land a camera inside a 10m by 10m square on a completely different planet and still get clear images back, the people who can do both will often choose to engineer their own career path rather than work for the benefit of people who do not fully appreciate their work.

<comment><USER34> Big things are only accomplished by teams. Building and maintaining a team of people who are skilled and work well and productively together is actually very difficult. Most teams fail to achieve anything lasting of note. For example, most startups fail.

NASA needs great engineering to build things like the Mars Rover. But they also need great management--it takes both.

<comment><USER33> I don't think I can agree with everything you said.

Big things are accomplished by people with high ability. Adding team support to those people will reduce the amount of time required for those people to finish. Adding good management to the team reduces the overall cost and prevents friction.

Building a team that works better together than the sum of the individuals in it working separately is actually pretty easy. The hard part is getting everyone to do something specific and profitable. The reason why startups fail is usually because not enough real people wanted to spend enough real money on the product to pay the team members as much as they could earn doing something else. If you try to assign blame for that, it might not even land on the same continent.

NASA only needs great management to stay on time and under budget. With no basis for comparison, no one can say for certain whether any particular feat of engineering prowess was fast or slow, cheap or expensive. But it is starting to become apparent that engineers of equal ability, working at SpaceX instead of a larger and older space contractor, can launch cargo into orbit faster and more cheaply. That's the difference management makes.

Engineering provides the raw ability. Management sets the multiplier for time and money costs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why do you think Babson's ROI is so high, considering it's an undergraduate business school?

Disclaimer: I go to there, but want your genuine insight

<comment><USER36> The "usual suspects" answer is that the students there are elevated in quality relative to other schools.

For a similar concept, I lost a job as a teacher that paid $20k / year after taxes. For a year after that, my job-seeking strategy might be best described thus: [http://xkcd.com/874/](http://xkcd.com/874/)

Then I got a job (in software development, not teaching) paying low six figures (...before taxes. Watch the magic of accounting render two similar things nearly incomparable to each other). Does that reflect the incredible (in excess of 100% annual return, say) effectiveness of "fuck around" as a way to get jobs?

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Degrees are not valuable until you know what you should know.

<comment><USER37> Politics is a different thing but still.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> _" There are more technical jobs open than qualified candidates to fill them."_

I love how virulent memes just get reiterated as fact once they reach a certain critical threshold. This one in particular, is pure bullshit as has been falsified over and over again [1][2][3][4]. If you see people bring this up, please set them straight. This meme needs to be killed.

Labor has never been in such high supply, and it has never been cheaper. [5][6]

With regards to stupidly overpriced education, I recommend it to those who can afford it because it is an extremely enjoyable experience. Don't take out 300k of loans to do it though. Instead, use online courseware (EdX, Coursera) to build a useful skill set, work for a few years, then go to college if you really want the social experience and old boys network. Because that's the only thing college has to offer in this day and age.

1\. [http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem- crisis-i...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a- myth)

2\. [http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/the-fake- skills-...](http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/the-fake-skills- shortage/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0)

3\. [http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/the- myt...](http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/03/the-myth-of-the- science-and-engineering-shortage/284359/)

4\. [http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9245494/What_STEM_sho...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9245494/What_STEM_shortage_Electrical_engineering_lost_35_000_jobs_last_year)

5\. [http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/opinion/capitalism-vs- demo...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/29/opinion/capitalism-vs- democracy.html)

6\. [http://inequalityforall.com/](http://inequalityforall.com/)

<comment><USER39> > _Labor has never been in such high supply, and it has never been cheaper._

But _qualified labor_ is in short supply, and it's never been more expensive.

> _" There are more technical jobs open than qualified candidates to fill > them."_

I'm going to be very pedantic here. This statement is in fact true. Had the word _" qualified"_ been taken out, then you are absolutely right, there is no shortage. However, the problem with STEM jobs isn't the lack of "on-paper" qualifications, but rather "off-paper" qualifications. Everyone wants the next Facebook engineer, but they are in limited supply. Case in point? Me. On paper, I've written web apps in Rails, Python, JS, and PHP for 5 years now, but I do not consider myself on par with my technical co-founder. On paper I am 100% qualified to fill a majority of these positions, but in reality, I'm not. Our expectations are offset by the stories we hear daily about Dropbox, Facebook, Google, etc. We are just seeing starting to approach the bend of the hockey stick in the "software is eating the world". It's only until we have a large quantity of _qualified_ engineers when the hockey stick starts shooting upwards.

<comment><USER38> This is another perception issue that I keep encountering. The job description you've written above is for an extremely senior engineer, what some would call a product architect (e.g. your co-founder), not a fresh graduate. In fact, being a new graduate is now, by your own admission, considered to be an unacceptable level of training for a "Facebook engineer".

This is corporate bullshit, and you've fallen for it. If companies want someone who has mastered a technological stack, this is not an "engineer". This is an architect. And this position should be paid significantly more than an engineer. Although you may not consider yourself a competent engineer by the "Facebook standard", not only are you a competent engineer, but a senior engineer by every definition of the word. The fact that your evaluation of your own competence is so warped by corporate PR is extremely worrisome.

What I see here is that the bar for the definition of "competent engineer" keeps going higher and higher, without a commensurate increase in salary. This is a classic symptom of excess supply.

<comment><USER39> > _This is corporate bullshit_

I spent 4 years at the largest business software company in the world and have spent 3 years on and off in very small (3 employee) startups. I would presume my bullshit meter is fairly well tuned.

> _you 've fallen for it._

I haven't. I tried finding a technical co-founder that didn't cost me an arm and leg, and it's taken me 6 years to do so. (YMMV)

> _This is an architect. And this position should be paid significantly more > than an engineer._

This is laughable. I've seen more architects in my day than most people have seen sales people. Just type in "SAP Architect" on any job search and compare it to the number you get for "Rails Architect". Architects are the bullshit powerpoint pushers I used to see day in and day out in Enterprise IT, who, after 5 years of never coding or implementing, fell short of guiding their dev teams because they couldn't keep up with the ever-changing technology stack. You know who should be paid more than anyone else? The person that can build a small team, make crazy revenue in a very short (relative) amount of time. It doesn't matter what you call those people, but they do exist, are in short supply and should be compensated equal to their productive output.

> _What I see here is that the bar for the definition of "competent engineer" > keeps going higher and higher, without a commensurate increase in salary._

Actually this has more to do with time than anything. The Next Big Startup™, can't afford to spend 6 months on software, when they can higher Rockstar Dev Mcgee™ who can create it for them in 1-2 months.

Lastly, I'm failing to see the motive behind "corporate bullshit" you speak of. Google and Facebook do _not_ want to pay these insane salaries, so it's in their interest to actually (1) have a large supply and (2) promote that there is a large supply, not the opposite. Their compensation packages are a direct effect of the shortage of supply of qualified talent. If this "corporate bullshit" is being lead by a small amount of vocal developers who are artificially padding their salaries by crying "supply shortage", then this is far from being "corporate".

The question ultimately becomes, what is our idea of "competent". From what I've seen, there is _massive_ demand for people to create the next AirBnB/Dropbox/etc, which requires some very talented individuals to run and maintain. The other 99% clones of those companies that fail are because they don't have those competent people. So it's a loser's game with a bunch of people who demand that they win. Thus, the situation we are in.

EDIT: This video by Gabe Newell says it all: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8QEOBgLBQU#t=12m20s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8QEOBgLBQU#t=12m20s) (from about 12:20 to 16:00 - these "least correctly valued" people are no longer incorrect valued, that's my point)

<comment><USER38> > The person that can build a small team, make crazy revenue in a very short > (relative) amount of time. It doesn't matter what you call those people, but > they do exist, are in short supply and should be compensated equal to their > productive output.

Precisely. I realize that we're using our definitions loosely, but this is exactly what I'm referring to when I mention Product Architect.

My next point is, what makes you think Google/Facebook/etc. have anything they can offer this person? The reality is, this eponymous engineer is a future billionaire, not a stock employee you can just hire with 120k a year and free pop. If this is what big corps mean when they say "competent", then excuse me as I laugh my ass off at their excellent "compensation package".

>From what I've seen, there is massive demand for people to create the next AirBnB/Dropbox/etc, which requires some very talented individuals to run and maintain.

You have to realize that it is absurd to expect someone like this to accept a job at a big corp. Just as a recent example, look at the Whatsapp founders.

Which brings me to my initial assertion: there is no skills shortage. Just a superstar shortage at bargain basement prices.

<comment><USER40> 1) I think there's only a couple of hundred billionaires in the world.

2) 120K is a lot of money for an average American.

3) I don't think 'crazy revenue' is built by the merit and efficiency at which you can complete your tech stack. Case in point, FB during year 1 of its PHP stack; or Digg or Reddit year 1. Personally I think luck has a lot to do with it.

Which brings me to my assertion: There is no superstar programmer. Just a delusion sold by capitalists to get the proletariat to consume more information on an advertising-driven business model. I just want to be a ramen-sustainable programmer (but not ramen-sustainable startup).

<comment><USER41> I'm with noname on this one. 99.99% of those excellent engineers are NOT going to be billionaires.

They'll be lucky to be millionaires (and I'll envy them if I can't join them).

For those marvelous engineers to become millionaires, they need to have the luck to be paired with an excellent business team, build the right product and have a large dose of luck.

I'd rather have a not-so-brilliant engineer and an excellent team, vision and execution (as in build the right thing at the right time and produce value), for most products (very especially for your AirBnB or Facebook examples) you don't need top-tier talent to build it (you do need some to scale).

Edit: some of these marvelous people, which have actually built a succesful startup, tried again and FAILED. So it's not just the person, the idea must be right, the timing must be right and luck has to be on his side.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Physicists accelerate the hunt for revolutionary artificial atomic materials - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2020-08-physicists-revolutionary-artificial-atomic-materials.html <comment><AUTHOR> >Determination of interatomic coupling between two-dimensional crystals using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy

[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17412-0](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17412-0)</comment>


Show HN: Quickly move data between Google Drive and Dropbox - <AUTHOR> https://movebot.io/how-to-transfer-dropbox-to-google-drive <comment><USER2> Not drag and drop, but free and supports many more storage options.

[https://rclone.org/](https://rclone.org/)

I imagine it wouldn't be all that hard to put a web interface over it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Rclone is complex and technical. Also it has other limitations when scaling to handle big data transfers in the TBs. It also can't do simple things such as convert Google file types or support team migrations... In the end my time is expensive and paying a little bit for these guys to do it is worth it for me.

I just moved my team of designers from Google Drive to Dropbox and it was pretty darn simple.

<comment><USER2> Different needs, different tools. rclone is an option. I don't find it particularly complex but that depends on the user.

If you need document type conversion it doesn't do that. I'm not aware of any limitations regarding big transfers -- I've used rclone to move terrabytes of video files with no problems. It copies incrementally and can retry/restart failed transfers.

Google Drive has a daily transfer limit, maybe that's what you mean, but that's not a limitation of rclone.</comment></comment></comment>


Iosevka, Version 3.0.0 - <AUTHOR> https://typeof.net/Iosevka/ <comment><AUTHOR> Version 3.0.0 was released yesterday:

[https://github.com/be5invis/Iosevka/releases/tag/v3.0.0](https://github.com/be5invis/Iosevka/releases/tag/v3.0.0)

Sorry, I just noticed that the github release was already submitted to HN.

This post can be ignored/removed.</comment>


Show HN: Hacker News for mobile devices - <AUTHOR> http://hnmobile.herokuapp.com/ <comment><USER2> I'm a fan of the design, but lack of comments is a deal breaker for me.

I currently use this site for hn mobile: [http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/](http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/)

<comment><USER3> I use MiniHack, which is mind-blowingly good now that the update came through. Full comment posting on mobile and tablet, upvoting, flagging, everything.

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/minihack-for-hacker-news- yc/...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/minihack-for-hacker-news- yc/id631108846?mt=8)

<comment><USER4> MiniHack is easily my favorite iOS app now. The dark theme is beautiful and it has all the basic features you need.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've tried many hn mobile redesigns and have settled with [http://hn.premii.com](http://hn.premii.com) and use it every single day!

<comment><USER6> Did they make an iOS app as well? This looks just like my HN iOS app. Love it.

<comment><USER7> Yes, its very nice. I use this iOS app as well.

iOS: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news- yc/id713733435](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news-yc/id713733435)

Google Play: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.premii.hn](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.premii.hn)

And its open source too! [https://github.com/premii/hn](https://github.com/premii/hn)

<comment><USER8> I use the iOS app. I wish the developer would update it to support left edge slide for going back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been using a combination of Hacker Web [1] and TheNews [2].

Hacker Web IMO is perfect for browsing on mobile devices, whereas TheNews is great for desktop viewing.

[1] [http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/](http://cheeaun.github.io/hackerweb/) [2] [http://thenews.im/](http://thenews.im/)

</comment><comment><USER10> Note that it is probable that Hacker News / News.YC itself will in the relatively near future have a more "responsive" design: [https://github.com/HackerNews/HN/issues/96](https://github.com/HackerNews/HN/issues/96)

</comment><comment><USER11> Also see TheNews (iOS) [http://bit.ly/thenews-ios](http://bit.ly/thenews-ios)

it's for both hacker news & designer news. It also has support for viewing comments in addition to the clean design :)

*disclaimer, I built it lol

</comment><comment><USER3> Not bad, needs some work, but not bad!

My favourite app is MiniHack. Lets you post comments on mobile, and has a really nice interface now that he's updated the UI. Well worth the money.

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/minihack-for-hacker-news- yc/...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/minihack-for-hacker-news- yc/id631108846?mt=8)

<comment><USER12> If you are a lurker: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news- yc/id713733435?m...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news- yc/id713733435?mt=8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> [http://ihackernews.com/](http://ihackernews.com/) ... if only it had more button.

</comment><comment><USER14> Since Y Combinator has been redesigned, I hope they redesign HN and make it responsive and modern.

<comment><USER15> Verdana is a bit dated (it still looks good, but it's very reminiscent of early 2000s web design, as it was one of the few fonts that looked good without antialiasing on a 640x480 or 800x600 display), but I'd like to ask this of whoever gets tasked with refreshing HN's typography in the future: stick with a humanist sans serif. Don't go with Helvetica or another geometric sans serif.

<comment><USER16> Verdana is really easy to read though.

Compare your comment as Verdana to Arial: [http://d.pr/i/u0Ys](http://d.pr/i/u0Ys)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> These kind of HN redesigns pop up every other day. What makes this better than the rest?

</comment><comment><USER18> When I click the hyperlink, I jump to another web site, although in desktop HN work will, for mobile devices is too bad. In my way, it propose a new mechanism to translate the other web page to adopt the mobile devices, do in app.

</comment><comment><USER19> A couple of months ago I built [http://news.hdn.io/](http://news.hdn.io/) after aggregating data from Hacker News and Designer News for The Hacker and Designer Newsletter.

</comment><comment><USER20> [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ncom.yahn](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ncom.yahn)

</comment><comment><USER21> No comments? That's like 70% of the reason I come on HN.

ihackernews.com is another alternative for anyone still poking around for good mobile versions of HN.

</comment><comment><USER22> Also see [http://hckrnews.com/](http://hckrnews.com/)

</comment><comment><USER23> A mobile version that works with javascript disabled. What a relief.</comment>


Tim Berners-Lee Launches Solid- Open Source Project and a Related Startup Inrupt - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90243936/exclusive-tim-berners-lee-tells-us-his-radical-new-plan-to-upend-the-world-wide-web <comment><AUTHOR> From his Medium post "In 2009, I said, "The web as I envisaged it we have not seen yet." That was because people were using the web just for documents, not for the data of a big web-wide computer. Since then, we have seen a wave of open data, but not of read-write data. For example, much open government data is produced through a one-way pipeline, so we can only view it. With Solid, it becomes a read-write web where users can interact and innovate, collaborate and share."

[https://medium.com/@timberners_lee/one-small-step-for-the- we...](https://medium.com/@timberners_lee/one-small-step-for-the- web-87f92217d085)</comment>


AdBlock replacing ads with anti-censorship messages this weekend - <AUTHOR> https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/03/world-day-against-cyber-censorship-ad-protest/ <comment><USER2> Oh goody.

I appreciate the causes but the precedent is terrible.

<comment><USER3> Yep, an ad blocker should act as a fully agnostic content blocker, stopping content of all kinds, designated by the user, from crossing the network. It should not under any circumstance cause frivolous extra use of the network connection, at least not without asking. Quite a few people use these not just to get rid of an annoyance, but to manage quotas on their connection better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Previously: Adblock Sold to Mystery Company [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10318200](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10318200)</comment>