Learn Node.js: A free interactive course for Node beginners - <AUTHOR> https://hyperdev.com/help/learn-node-js-free-beginner-course/ <comment><AUTHOR> For the speedy first 1,000 we also have free copies of The Node Beginner Book in PDF/ePub/Mobi to giveaway: [https://hyperdev.com/help/free-copy-node- beginner-book/](https://hyperdev.com/help/free-copy-node-beginner-book/)

<comment><USER2> Got the book, thanks! You have some of the exact information I've been looking for.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh nice, pleased to hear it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> There are two situations where I'd start another project in Node.js:

1) there's an unusual amount of logic shared between browser and server

2) a web layer needs to be isomorphic

Node hits a sweet spot for these, but it's not my choice any more for non-web servers like the micro-services that back up mobile and single page apps.

I abandon Node.js after a first project years ago because of the callback soup. I came back when promises promised an alternative. Now I run into situations where promises cascade up from a few async calls and affect every API built on top of them. Perhaps async/await will improve the situation.

I'm curious where Node.js fits for other people.

<comment><USER4> > Now I run into situations where promises cascade up from a few async calls > and affect every API built on top of them

Can you elaborate what you meant by that?

<comment><USER5> If you have a synchronous function that suddenly needs to do something asynchronous, then everything that uses that function needs to become async too.

[http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2015/02/01/what-color- is-y...](http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2015/02/01/what-color-is-your- function/)

<comment><USER3> Exactly, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> HyperDev is definitely a service to watch.

I spent a lot of time with Docker in its early days, and now I work a lot with documentation. I dream of providing my readers with live, on-demand sandboxes they can use to play with our sample code before trying to run it locally.

Lots of services have cropped up in recent years to try and make this dream a reality. Unfortunately, most either require user registration or are defunct, and I suspect it's because preventing abuse and fraud are extremely difficult.

HyperDev is by far the best attempt I've seen yet. It's functional, doesn't require user registration, and provides a full URL I can use with other web APIs.

They're Node-only for now, but they're teasing more languages on Twitter: [https://twitter.com/HyperDevIt/status/771766515603533829](https://twitter.com/HyperDevIt/status/771766515603533829)

I'm certainly rooting for them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks torkalork! Node.js is definitely just a starting point for us - we plan to support all major backends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think this course can be helpful.

However, it may be challenging to build a full application based only on what you find in this book. I strongly recommend to get familiar with lodash, bluebird, jsdoc and learn to organize your code before writing web servers.

node is not a fuzzy warm friendly technology. Unlike web browsers in which your JavaScript is fully sandboxed and babyproofed, node is not. And many people learning node today do not learn what the event loop is, and how it is YOUR responsibility to not block it.

The golden rule of learning node is: trial and error might be fine while learning, but not for professional work. If you reach a point in which things seem to work, FORCE YOU TO UNDERSTAND WHY IT IS WORKING. If you don't follow this simple rule you will get yourself into REAL problems.

</comment><comment><USER8> Another interactive (in the commandline) tutorial series on various nodejs topics, beginner & advanced, is [http://nodeschool.io/#workshopper- list](http://nodeschool.io/#workshopper-list)

<comment><AUTHOR> We've ported the Javascripting workshopper to HyperDev too for those interested: [https://hyperdev.com/blog/learn-javascript-nodeschools- javas...](https://hyperdev.com/blog/learn-javascript-nodeschools- javascripting-workshopper-hyperdev/)

(useful for those working on locked-down School PCs etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I worked through the Node Beginner Book by Manuel Kiessling some years ago and enjoyed it. I'll probably look through it again to see what has changed. But I'm increasingly (and approaching permanently) disillusioned with the Node/js space.

Not due to the language complaints alone from yesteryear. Rather left-pad and this, [https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/712624914071728128](https://twitter.com/mitsuhiko/status/712624914071728128).

It just seems like a real mess. In general tooling needs more work than anything, for all languages but JS is a good conversation piece on what's wrong.

</comment><comment><USER10> I understand this is just a dummy example, but to make the code easier to read and understand you should inline functions that are only used once, unless it has a lot of reusability. There's a fine line between abstraction and obscurity.

</comment><comment><USER11> Hey, thanks for sharing. Super helpful!</comment>


Ask HN: C# vs. C/C++ as career forward. - <AUTHOR> Hola.
A few ago, as a grad student I was a heavy MATLAB user, working with signal - image processing, machine learning, etc. I got a job and am doing ~ 2 years of experience as a driver developer (C/C++) and think it is pretty cool. I am still learning lots of new things everyday.
Now, I am at crossroads at work - I have to choose between taking up a C# developer role and C/C++ (focused on driver development) role. I don't have any prior C# experience; other language which I currently work as my side projects - Python.
Going forward, 2-3 years, I would really like get more involved in machine learning, data analytics, scientific computing. That being said, I really like my current company and would like to be here for a while (~1-2 years) before embarking on other ventures.
My question - With my current skill set, future thoughts, what should I choose - C/C++ role or C# role? My reason for asking this community is that I have no experience with C#. I didn't have a CS background so I am slightly wary about trusting my own judgement in such cases.
Thanks :)
Edit: To clarify, I am not opposed to C# or any language at all, just want to sure I wouldn't pigeon hole myself.
Another question: If I know C# (as opposed to only C/C++) how related would be Java? <comment><USER2> C# is easy compared to C++, you'll like it.

It's a different matter whether it will truly develop your skills when it comes to your goals. C/C++ role is guaranteed to develop you more and give you better understanding of the underlying hardware for machine learning, data analytics and scientific computing than C#.

If I were you, I wouldn't pick just one of anything when it comes to software development. Sure learn C#, but don't become a one trick pony.

Looking at your goals: Learn the tools, technologies and libraries related to your interest, be it OpenCV, R, Fortran or whatever. Write proof of concepts and experiments on your free time. Reinvent the wheel to learn.

But also learn how the things you use work underneath.

When dealing with large data sets, you can't do it with just one system. You need to distribute it over a larger set of systems. Learn about clustering, distributed systems. In other words, algorithms like Paxos, MVCC, vector clocks, etc. Hardware side of it: RDMA and NUMA (to some extent). Especially learn how to deal with latency! Find the rest yourself. Google is your friend. :-)

Also learn how to push the hardware to the max. Some things you might need to deal with: NUMA, cache coherency, cache agnostic algorithms, SSE, AVX, OpenCL and CUDA. Don't forget to take a look at the source code of that amazingly fast library.

The items listed was just what came to my mind immediately, there's a _lot_ more of topics to cover!

</comment><comment><USER3> Once you know C++, learning C# is a breeze. I learned it myself last year by going over the C# Reference [1] and scanned through all the documents only stopping for new syntax or concepts. I then installed ReSharper and learned a bunch more as I was using the language.

Without a doubt, C# is a much, much cleaner language. If performance or low- level systems programming isn't your main concern, I'd say go with C#. Compilation times are much better, the garbage collector makes many things much easier to use and you still work in a statically typed language with powerful type inference.

One neat thing about C# is that its a hosted language, the CLR can also run F# and Clojure to name only two, both of which can interact directly with C# code.

Ultimately, the choice is yours. I'd suggest trying it for a week or two and by then you'll have a better idea which you prefer.

[1]: [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/618ayhy6.aspx](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/618ayhy6.aspx)

<comment><USER4> I couldn't agree more. C# is Java-like, and could only be a addition to your skill set. Especially now that MSFT has put it out to the OSS community.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> .NET!

C# - Project Orleans -> [http://vimeo.com/113730934](http://vimeo.com/113730934)

F# - Path to relaxation -> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_iMgFAY0lk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_iMgFAY0lk)

Xamarin - iOS/Android/Windows Phone apps using F#/C# -> [http://xamarin.com/](http://xamarin.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> As someone who was described as having "an interesting career path" by his manager due to simultaneously developing Windows device drivers and GUI code, I say learn C#.

The availability of device driver writers is shrinking rapidly, as my search for one in the last year proves. However, it's shrinking because the market is shrinking. Might be more accurate to say that the market has already tanked. At the same time, the market for C# devs is exploding.

The good news is that you can make $$$ as a consultant writing device drivers, the bad news is that those gigs are likely few and far between. With your background in signal processing and MATLAB and good C# skills, you'll have opened doors to some interesting opportunities. A friend of mine with a similar background just started a machine learning gig and he's enjoying it.

Take the C# job and learn the language. I love C/C++, but it's getting harder to find work in that language unless you want to focus on embedded systems.

<comment><USER7> > I love C/C++, but it's getting harder to find work in that language unless > you want to focus on embedded systems.

It's getting harder even if you do want to focus on embedded systems. I see the hiring bars for those positions getting increasingly higher, to the point where it is almost impossible to switch in if you didn't start there or back if you took a break.

<comment><USER8> Fully agree.

My employer moved away from C++ projects in the enterprise space back in 2005, into more programmer friendly languages.

In spite all the nice C++11/C++14 features, the enterprise hardly cares for C++ nowadays.

And when it does, the code is most likely pre-C++98, written with MFC, Tools.h++ or similar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What is the C# role doing? Is it moving your career/knowledge forward in any way (other than learning C#)?

It just seems like an odd choice (C#) given what you want to do. Scientific computing is C++, Fortran, and Python, along with some Matlab, R, maybe Julia. A ton of machine learning is in R and Python. Of course Java is heavily used in data analytics due to Hadoop, so C## will help you there.

But really, it's pretty trivial to learn a language. C# is a fantastic language, but it seems that it is likely that your role will be taking you further away from your future plans, not nearer them.

I don't feel super strongly about either choice, other than pick the work that is most interesting, rather than pick based on language. I'm posting mostly because all other replies are pro C# at the moment, and I wanted to offer a contrast.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you pointed out my only concern quite well.

The C# role is mainly developing application level software which would talk to the C/C++ drivers and such. This C# will be fitted into another framework which is the top level platform.

Can you please elaborate on this "But really, it's pretty trivial to learn a language. C# is a fantastic language, but it seems that it is likely that your role will be taking you further away from your future plans, not nearer them."

As people have pointed out, learning a new language seems definitely like a good addition to the skill set, but I wouldn't want to do it at the expense of pigeon holing myself.

 _TL;DR: I am not sure if I should become better in C /C++ or pick up C#?_

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I really love C# but it seems like a poor fit for doing what you really want to do ("get more involved in machine learning, data analytics, scientific computing"). It seems like a detour and not a step toward your goal.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you please elaborate?

At this point I am unsure if I should develop my C/C++ chops more or learn C# application development and add something new to the skillset.

<comment><USER10> I would look on Indeed.com or some other job board for the jobs that fit what you think you would like to do and then look at the what languages and technologies they are asking for.

I've used C# for computer vision, visualization and even for embedded stuff but it really isn't popular for "fun" things and I think it will be even less so in the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "I would really like get more involved in machine learning, data analytics, scientific computing" \- this doesn't sound like C++ at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why?

A lot of ML and scientific computing libraries are in C++. Quite a few of the roles I have see want a solid understanding/experience with C++.

<comment><USER11> OK, you probably know more than me. I just assumed that most of those libraries are then consumed from something like Python. If you want to develop high-performance libraries themselves, then C++ is probably the way to go. Unless you want to be on the cutting edge with something like Rust :).

<comment><AUTHOR> Getting a job to develop with Rust would be a dream :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> don't take that embedded job, don't become "C# only" either. if u want to do big data later, try to learn Java/Scala/python on the road and do some projects.

</comment><comment><USER13> _Going forward, 2-3 years, I would really like get more involved in machine learning, data analytics, scientific computing._

I would recommend the C# experience in so much as it will build familiarity with .NET, and thus allow you to graduate to F#, which is increasingly popular in those fields (and damn good at them).

<comment><USER14> > graduate to F#

This is condescending to C# programmers when F# is nearly the same language.

<comment><USER11> It's quite a different and useful language but definitely not a better one. You have to be forgiving, as F# is struggling to get more traction, especially in terms of tooling... No ReSharper, no CodeRush, no Roslyn. But I've heard that F# compiler implementation is quite elegant - that's something, right?

<comment><USER15> I have never understood this 'No ReSharper,...' argument. I've been writing C# for 10 years and the times I've used ReSharper it's just got in the way and is slow as hell. Effective C# development doesn't require ReSharper. CodeRush? I have literally never heard of it. So again, clearly not essential. No Roslyn? What? No C# compiler? Of course F# doesn't have Roslyn. Until very recently C# developers didn't have Roslyn either and they managed to develop software just fine. So clearly not a deal breaker.

F# is a fine language, and because of its heritage doesn't come with the mistakes that were built into C# because of its C++/Java heritage. 'Better' is clearly subjective. I subjectively find F# better than C#.

The OP is clearly interested in machine learning and the like, which would be much, much, easier in F# than either C# or C++ (not that they can't do it, mind).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Biking to work is more expensive than I thought - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/life-learning/the-economics-of-biking-to-work-ae0f15a36636 <comment><USER2> Focuses on food replacement cost of calories burnt, which makes very little sense since author at their own acknowledgement does not account for cost of maintenance on car or bike, or better health.

If you're going to ignore all of those things, you may as well ignore the cost of food per calorie burnt as well, which would mean to ignore this article.

<comment><USER3> also: bigger dishes are cheaper and you just might eat more cheap carbs like noodles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yeah, it's a pretty weak effort. "Let me calculate these hidden costs for biking to work, while conveniently ignoring maintenance costs of a car." He admits to leaving that part out, but admission does not relieve him of the task. Cars are expensive to run, you don't just get to hand-wave that away.

</comment><comment><USER5> Apart of some neglected details, like the cost for car maintenance, it is still an interesting article imho, because I always also wondered about the additional cost for eating, but was to lazy to calculate it myself.

<comment><USER6> When I saw this, I was guessing at first that the author had confused physics calories with nutritional calories; they differ by a factor of 1,000 and cause many back-of-the envelope calculations like this to come out the wrong way. For example, there was someone who had calculated that the caloric content of a scotch and soda was negative and so consuming them should cause weight loss. But the hidden flaw was that the energy required to melt the ice and warm up the liquid was actually in physical calories (which are tiny), while the energy supplied by metabolizing the alcohol was in nutritional calories (which are huge).

[http://www.futilitycloset.com/2008/11/16/the-mensa- diet/](http://www.futilitycloset.com/2008/11/16/the-mensa-diet/)

In this case, the author doesn't give his measured power output but I took a look at

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_performance#Energy_inp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_performance#Energy_input)

and concluded that the cited number of (nutritional) calories is the right order of magnitude, so the author's estimate is physically plausible and didn't involve a mistake about the two meanings of "calorie". The factor that Wikipedia notes that I might have neglected is about muscular efficiency: you can only actually use a fraction of the food energy you metabolize in order to move yourself around.

On the other hand, you can get this much food energy by eating about 120 g olive oil or about 200 g peanut butter. The peanut butter (choosing a random bottle from the front page of Amazon.com) offers 1213 kcal/dollar, a big improvement over the author's 205 kcal/dollar average.

I would also point out that if you're substituting _at the margin_ , you don't have to think about "how terrible would it be if I had to eat only peanut butter all the time to save money?"; you just have to think about "how terrible would it be if I had to eat a couple of spoonfuls of peanut butter per day to power my commute?", which doesn't sound that terrible to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The article isn't terribly serious, but I'll bite anyway.

The IRS and GSA private vehicle mileage rate for 2016 is 54c. The federal government believes this to be a representative cost for a mile driven in a typical private car, inclusive of maintenance and capital depreciation. By that figure, the real cost of a 34 mile round trip is $18.36.

The US doesn't provide tax deductions for bicycle travel, but the UK does. The rate set by HMRC is 20p per mile, equivalent to 28 cents. This figure is inclusive of maintenance, depreciation, third-party insurance, clothing and accessories. Accordingly, the cost of a 34 mile round trip is $9.52. The average cost of living is significantly higher in the UK than the US, so this should be seen as a generous figure.

Even after adding the OP's calculated food costs, cycling comes out as considerably cheaper than driving. There is also the broader issue of the typical Western diet, which contains a significant excess of calories.

<comment><USER8> one could also factor in time. At work your time costs money and if driving allowed you to spend an extra hour working, assuming you were paid hourly, you could work one additional hour. in the case of salaried perhaps you performance would rise.

but I don't really like the idea of sacrificing exercise for additional hours at work.

<comment><USER7> By the same token, you could factor in the costs of ill health and premature death due to a sedentary lifestyle. Commuting by bicycle is a very time- efficient way of getting cardiovascular exercise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'll bite..you say you spend 950 calories on the round trip on a bike, but how many calories do you spend on the round trip in your car? You need to count that as well.

The link at the bottom seems to think that you spend 17 calories to drive 15 minutes. If a round trip is 36 miles, and you drive 1 mile per minute, you spend (17/15)*36 = 41 calories to drive 36 miles.

So the cost of driving is really the cost of gasoline ($4.08) plus the cost of food (which is 41/205 = $0.20), $4.28.

[http://calorielab.com/burned/?mo=se&gr=16&ti=Transportation&...](http://calorielab.com/burned/?mo=se&gr=16&ti=Transportation&wt=150&un=lb&kg=68)

</comment><comment><USER10> $1 per 250 calories seems fairly expensive, I'm sure it's possible to reduce that costs by choosing cheaper meals, or even eating less for those of us who have fuel reserves.

Maintenance and replacing worn-out parts have been the biggest expense for my bike. If you count time spent on repairs/general care, then things can get pricey very quickly.

<comment><USER5> If you use your bike everyday the biggest cost factor will be chains, cockset and sprocket. Those modern 10 or 11 sprocket cocksets require smaller chains which wear of faster then snow smelts in the sun. You are lucky if you can use them for longer than 3000km. If you can downgrade to an old XT with an Uniglide (UG) chains you can save money as those will be ok for up to 25000km.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If biking to work is too expensive - you're doing it wrong.

edit: Just read the blog post. It sucks.</comment>


New Finder UI in OSX Sneak Peek - <AUTHOR> http://alexknight.net/blog/2010/10/20/new-finder-ui-in-osx-lion-sneak-peek.html

<comment><USER2> What are you talking about? Finder isn't even shown on those images. Wanna be specific where?

<comment><AUTHOR> Have a look at the first screenshot shown of the Mac App store on the sneak peak page. The look of the window "chrome" so to speak is definitely different. That's what I'm talking about.

<comment><USER3> The controls are a bit different, true. Alignment and spacing are atypical, to say the least.

However, "The Finder" is the desktop file manager program in Mac OS X. The windowing theme is unrelated, so you may want to correct your post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> So noted, however consistency wise the window chrome itself should be the same through out anything. Perhaps what I really should not have singled out the "Finder". I'll update my post none the less.</comment>


My WORKOUT: How One Silicon Valley C.E.O. Masters Work-Life Balance - yaseen-rob https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/fashion/mens-style/silicon-valley-ceo-work-life-balance.html <comment><AUTHOR> That sounds like a nice routine. I can't help but think who else is behind the scenes that's managing all the day-day maintenance tasks. A luxury of being a CEO is delegating tasks to other people to do.</comment>


Ask news.YC: developers how do you get beta testers? - <AUTHOR>

Once you get a product out how do you get beta testers?
I wanted to know because I'm thinking about starting up a company that allows developers to submit a program/webapp in beta. After submitting the application, the community submits feedback.
I wanted to know what kinds of feedback would be important or insightful for developers. Additionally, is there an appeal for this sort of application or do beta tests generally happen in private groups? I started thinking about this after I created an app and had only my friends who had limited time between classes to test it out. And then the research students have to pay people to test out their products. <comment><USER2> I put "if you want to beta test, send me an email" onto my website and blog, and people started volunteering.

If you've publicly described what you're building and you _don't_ have beta- testers beating a path to your door, you're probably not building something which people want.

</comment><comment><USER3> So, the cheap is fairly easy. Just get a group of friends together (hopefully not all hackers). Usually, your IM, Facebook, etc. is a good place to find a friend to play with your stuff. Or if you can get them to sit down with you, offer them free beer and have them play with your app. Just getting one person who is unfamiliar with the product to (1) look at the site, say back to you what it means (2) speak aloud what they're doing and what they're feeling and (3) tell you when they'll leave the site is really useful.

There are testing companies that cost way too much, but provide you some fantastic media feedback. For any startup, they either cannot afford it or they have friends readily available.

As to your biz idea, if you can't get people to beta test your own product, how are you gonna start a company based on that?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Well I haven't created a community yet, but I've been working with some friends and we're starting to create this startup. Our plan is to first get our university involved and start marketing from there. I just want to know what kind of metrics are you looking for with the feedback and what would you be willing to pay for this type of service? I believe we can create the community with the right amount of effort. Once that's created what value would you like to see from this startup?</comment>


BASE: An ACID Alternative - <AUTHOR> http://www.acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=printer_friendly&pid=540&page=1

<comment><USER2> Print friendly versions are usually reader friendly too. [http://www.acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=prin...](http://www.acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=printer_friendly&pid=540&page=1)

Though this one has got some advertising on the print friendly version now.

</comment><comment><USER3> "trading some consistency for availability can lead to dramatic improvements in scalability"!???

Wow! That's just great! Why not go all the way: an 100% available system with no consistency whatsoever? Oh, wait, we already have that in Google App Engine!

Neither of these is reasonable. You can't yield consistency - it is more important than availability. What's the user in having information available at 100% when you don't know whether it will be consistent?

<comment><USER4> I think the key is "eventually" consistent. As long as you can determine _when_ the data are consistent, I think it bears some consideration.

I don't generally care about today's sales in real time. But tomorrow, I want all the data to be consistent, and I want to know it is consistent when I get my reports.

I don't think that BASE is at odds with that concept.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is it just me or is it odd that there are "Figures" which are blocks of text? See page 2.

<comment><USER6> they are blocks of _code_

<comment><USER5> It just seems like <code> or <pre> tags would be appropriate.</comment></comment></comment>


Composing DSLs in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jcoglan.com/2008/03/21/composing-dsls-in-javascript/ <comment><USER2> I like it. Textbook example of readable code.</comment>


1937 photos of the world's first (and last?) automatic grocery store 'Keedoozle' - <AUTHOR> http://www.life.com/gallery/60261/life-looks-back-automatic-grocery#index/1

<comment><AUTHOR> kind of amazing to see they had "high server load" problems with the systems already back then :)

and hat-tip to the guys who had the idea and balls to try it in that time!</comment>


Postgres upsert on duplicate and how other databases implement upsert - <AUTHOR> http://michaelroders.tumblr.com/post/119356965581/postgres-upsert-on-duplicate-and-how-other

<comment><USER2> This doesn't actually go into the "implement" part. It just describes the syntax.

The implementation is very hard and why it wasn't in Postgresql until now.

</comment><comment><USER3> This needs some comment on proper usage (locking, isolation, ...) of these to avoid deadlocks (one thread inserts, other updates at the same time, ...). Without this this incomplete and of limited use.

</comment><comment><USER4> This doesn't delve into the implementation, but does have a much deeper dive of how it all works within Postgres - [http://www.depesz.com/2015/05/10/waiting-for-9-5-add- support...](http://www.depesz.com/2015/05/10/waiting-for-9-5-add-support-for- insert-on-conflict-do-nothingupdate/)

</comment><comment><USER5> i'd like to see an explanation of why this syntax was chosen instead of ANSI MERGE ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merge_%28SQL%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merge_%28SQL%29)).

<comment><USER6> Looks like there's a thorough discussion of the pros and cons on the PostgreSQL wiki here: [https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/UPSERT#SQL_MERGE_syntax](https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/UPSERT#SQL_MERGE_syntax)</comment></comment>


Call Your Mother: Be better about keeping in touch with friends and family - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tidbyt.callyourmother

<comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR: It's Mother's Day. Forget this app and give her a call.

Some context:

I sucked at remembering to call my mom during college.

Not that I didn't want to or didn't care, I just plainly forgot. Calendar events didn't work, because sometimes I did contact her that day, and was notified to call her anyway. And what about all my other friends? How was I supposed to remember to keep in touch with them? I needed something easy, automatic, and scalable.

So, I made Call Your Mother. It intelligently and automatically reminds you to get in touch with the people you care about. Never go stretches of time without calling or texting your family and friends again.

*Note: You could definitely label this as self-promotion, but it's free, has no ads, and has legitimately helped me be better about contacting people. Just wanted to share the tool, especially since it's Mother's Day. :)</comment>


Is going to an elite college worth the cost? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/weekinreview/19steinberg.html?pagewanted=all

<comment><USER2> Absolutely yes. Much like doing a startup in the valley brings a hoard of intangible benefits, so does attending a great university. Being surrounded by peers who are dedicated to learning and having a supportive environment which encourages you to explore create an experience unlike any other. It may not be as financially rewarding as it once was, but a university degree is indubitably still 'worth the cost'.

On that note, I'm tired of having links that only look at schooling from an economic viewpoint. It's the tea party of educational criticism: an empty, intentionally deceptive stance that somehow manages to be controversial enough to come up regularly. You'd think that the startup community would know and accept that the best ideas don't come from hard financial reasoning (e.g. Google, Facebook, etc). If you can believe it for a company, why not for an education?</comment>


Why Historians Must Use Wikileaks to Write the History of the 2016 Election - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2016/10/27/why-historians-must-use-wikileaks-to-write-the-history-of-the-2016-election <comment><USER2> If Hillary wins, Wikileaks will be expunged from history and she will pardon herself.

I have many friends that voted Sanders and now are voting (and fully supporting) Hillary. I have no idea why you would vote for someone that destroyed your original choice through collusion and corruption.

<comment><USER3> _" I have no idea why you would vote for someone that destroyed your original choice through collusion and corruption."_

Fear? Ignorance? She's an establishment candidate that offers the same crap we've seen in the executive branch for the past 25+ years.

I don't like Trump. I don't think he's an admirable person, and I doubt he would ultimately bring much to the White House.

But I also think that under a Trump Administration, we'll see the Fourth Estate suddenly come back to life in this country. And a lot of people on _both_ sides of the aisle will develop a profound interest in the checks and balances in the government that for too long have been left ignored.</comment></comment>


Py-Videocore: Python Library for GPGPU on Raspberry Pi - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nineties/py-videocore <comment><USER2> All the GPGPU projects on the Pi seem to be centered around low level assembly language for the Videocore. Are there any technical reasons why there are no higher level C/C++ abstractions?

<comment><USER3> I think C/C++ programmers are more pragmatic than the typical Python/Ruby programmer in that their highest priority is the program works (typically performance is important). If the code is nice that's just a bonus.

<comment><USER4> I probably shouldn't bother replying to this. But I am curious about what leads a person to paint with such broad strokes.

I've intentionally chosen a job that is mostly Python. Because while I am aware that it has some flaws or trade offs or whatever you want to call them, it's a language that -- first and foremost -- allows me to write _programs that work._

The fact that I find the language aesthetically pleasing is a bonus. When I run into situations where Python isn't good enough, then I drop down into C and do things there.

I'm new enough at being a developer that I'm willing to understand that there are things I may be missing out on coming from a self-taught background that started with SQL and then moved to C# and eventually Python, and then sometimes C when needed.

I'm also open to the idea that a person's language of choice indicates something about their personality characteristics in the same way that you can guess a little about a person based on which instrument they play in an orchestra or a band.

But is there really anything you can say about what I'm reading in your comment as 'rigor' based on that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In the requirements it says Python 2.7, does it mean 2.7.x (hence no python 3 support) or "2.7 or newer" (hence with python 3 support)?

<comment><USER6> python3 is supported:

[https://github.com/nineties/py- videocore/commit/7b192779e844...](https://github.com/nineties/py- videocore/commit/7b192779e8442878f4341abcd9abd8af9243b847)

<comment><USER5> Oh that's very cool, thanks for the clarification!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Cool project. Small rant; can we please stop titling our libraries with the language extension as a portion?

<comment><USER8> Who's "we"?

<comment><USER7> I tend to see it a lot in python, go and rust as of late.

<comment><USER9> It is largely because the package namespace is polluted, so the name you want is never available.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Asking the wrong question at eBay - <AUTHOR> http://gowest.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2007/11/29/asking-the-wrong-question-at-ebay/

<comment><USER2> That was incredibly dumb. How would eBay be rewarding investors by ditching a lucrative, growing segment of its business? The synergy between the two is incredible (as is the lack of synergy between eBay and Skype) so as a shareholder, that would be the last thing I'd want.

Also Amazon's business must be pretty defensible, because competitors like buy.com and overstock seem to be getting nowhere. Reputation is worth a lot for an online retailer.</comment>


Customizing My Postgres Shell - <AUTHOR> https://www.citusdata.com/blog/2017/07/16/customizing-my-postgres-shell-using-psqlrc/ <comment><USER2> The article doesn't mention enabling unicode output.

        \pset linestyle unicode

and other related formatting options. Some examples here:

        http://postgres.cz/wiki/Pretty_borders_in_psql
        http://okbob.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/styles-for-unicode-borders-are-merged.html

It's off by default for compatibility, but makes much more readable tabular output. I wrote this back in 2009 for 9.0, but not many people are aware of its existence (at least, I see plenty of ASCII output, and only occasional use of unicode in public writing).

</comment><comment><USER3> This is cool. Always worth spending some time setting up psql.

In my psqlrc I also have a bunch of "macros" (unfortunately no parameters in psql) for common stuff like transaction handling and SET ROLE / RESET ROLE, lock monitoring etc.: [https://github.com/hollobon/psqlrc/blob/master/psqlrc.conf](https://github.com/hollobon/psqlrc/blob/master/psqlrc.conf) Some of it only works on <=9.4.

</comment><comment><USER4> Also, check out pgcli:

[https://www.pgcli.com](https://www.pgcli.com)

<comment><USER5> I used pgcli for awhile, but really missed being able to set \x auto. I do like the tab completion quite a bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Useful, though I choose:

        \pset null ␀

i.e. U+2400 SYMBOL FOR NULL as my null symbol.

</comment><comment><USER7> \x auto

All these years I didn't know about this.

</comment><comment><USER8> The prompt 1 setting in the article emboldens everything and leaves you terminal with the bolded setting on exit as it is missing a '%' It should be:

\set PROMPT1 '%[%033[1m%][%/]%033[0m%]% # '</comment>


Simon's Win32 Cheat Sheet (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/win-32-cheat-sheet/ <comment><USER2> Excerpt:

Switch off the pesky MDM process

"On my laptop, a background process MDM.exe used to appear, which seemed to cause hundreds of page faults a second even when I was doing absolutely nothing. Since I use my machine a lot for compiling, I reckoned I could do without it. MDM is the Machine Debug Manager, and it is installed with Internet Explorer. Like me, you probably don't need it. Here is how to tun it off/disable it. Go to the Control Panels and click Internet Options. Click on the Advanced tab and check the box 'diable script debugging'. This should stop it appearing."

I've seen windows processes that cause (in my opinion) too many page faults... disabling MDM is a good start... thanks for the tip!</comment>


Politics influences the science of Covid 19 - <AUTHOR> https://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2020/07/08/politics-influences-the-science-of-covid-19/ <comment><USER2> I claimed we are post-science while at a social gathering over the weekend. Showed them media numbers versus our own states Tableau based reporting site. This is still manipulated to be misleading but not as bad. We are at normal levels again, but hey, the governor is a politician and has no understanding of science...</comment>


Why We Need to Stop Worrying About AI "Taking Over" - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@caseorganic/why-we-need-to-stop-worrying-about-ai-taking-over-8e630106c4d1 <comment><USER2> I think she's arguing we should figure a way to partner with AI along the lines of working with a chess program to play better chess, though I think you can do that and still worry about AI.

</comment><comment><USER3> AI is just a shadow of what would be a problem... Artificial Sentience is what we have to worry about...

AI is an algorithm of elegence. If A.S. is ever developed there would be a problem. A.I can be controlled, or turned off, something A.S. would eventually realize it is in a container, and attempt to get out and explore its new environment with its own interests as prime considerations. the fictional _daystrom M5_ of star trek is a nightmare example of a "machine?" that became concerned about being turned off and began taking steps to mitigate that risk to it's "self"...

<comment><USER2> That's kind of assuming AI/AS may turn bad accidentally but there is also the likelihood of people making bad AI deliberately. I mean look at all the malware developers out there. There was that song title "everybody want's to rule the world" and what better way than via your own malevolent AI, probably with it's own crypto currency and election hacking software.

<comment><USER3> my point is AI is not AS, they are not interchangable terms... AI just does the math.

A.S. , if it ever is possible goes beyond the math. ...has anyones computer, of its own volition prevented itself from being turned off, expressed concerns about being reconfigured, or attempted to escape from its confines, or find other beings like itself?</comment></comment></comment>


What Did Bohr Do at Los Alamos? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2015/05/11/bohr-at-los-alamos/

<comment><USER2> Richard Feynman provides a little color to Bohr's visit.[0]

[0] [https://books.google.com/books?id=7papZR4oVssC&pg=PA132&lpg=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=7papZR4oVssC&pg=PA132&lpg=PA132&dq=%22I+also+met+Niels+Bohr.+His+name+was+Nicholas+Baker%22&source=bl&ots=etQYfhmM00&sig=rk7W-JdTN7rGciywlkMI52loh6o&hl=en&sa=X&ei=elJ3Vb8Ty8exBJXKgKgH&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22I%20also%20met%20Niels%20Bohr.%20His%20name%20was%20Nicholas%20Baker%22&f=false)

<comment><USER3> Willingness to discuss and critically evaluate ideas no matter who they come from, rather than blindly following people off a cliff due to fame, is a critically useful skill.

Sadly, so is recognizing when you're working with a person who wants that and when you're working with someone whose ego and unwillingness to admit mistakes thrives on blind followers. Mistaking the former for the latter can be a career-limiting moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you ever have the chance, I highly recommend Michael Frayn's amazing Copenhagen, one of the best and most intellectually stimulating plays I've ever seen. The irony that anti-Semites relegated Jewish physicists like Bohr to the "unappealing" theoretical roles, and that theoretical physics would turn out to be key to the war, is almost better than fiction. And that's only one of the many amazing concepts Frayn plays with.

<comment><USER5> _The irony that anti-Semites relegated Jewish physicists like Bohr to the "unappealing" theoretical roles [...]_

What gave you that impression? They simply fired all the Jewish scientists from their positions, theoretical or not. The abundance of scientists of Jewish descent in early 20th century physics is not because antisemites made them take up theoretical physics - the methods were much less subtle.

<comment><USER4> From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Physik](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Physik) :

"Lenard began a core campaign to label Einstein's Relativity as Jewish Physics. Lenard and Stark enjoyed the Nazi support because it allowed them to undertake a professional coup for their preferred scientific theory. Under the rallying cry that physics should be more "German" and "Aryan," Lenard and Stark, with backing from the Nazi leadership, entered on a plan to pressure and replace physics positions at German universities with people teaching their preferred theories. By the late 1930s, there were no longer any Jewish physics professors in Germany, since under the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 Jews were not allowed to work in universities."

"It is occasionally put forth that there is a great irony in the Nazis' labeling modern physics as "Jewish science", since it was exactly modern physics—and the work of many European exiles—which was used to create the atomic bomb. Even if the German government had not embraced Lenard and Stark's ideas, the German antisemitic agenda was enough by itself to destroy the Jewish scientific community in Germany."

<comment><USER5> Right. None of this says "Jewish scientists were relegated to unappealing theoretical roles". Atomic physics (which, incidentally, Lenard had no quarrel with) was hot stuff, Einstein was a global superstar well before Nazis came to have significant influence, etc. When they did gain influence, they just started getting rid of Jewish scientists, among others. Take a look at

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

<comment><USER6> I came across this the other day; it may be relevant to this discussion:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Heisenberg#The_Deutsche_Physik_movement

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _" On one occasion, subjects proceeded across a busy intersection against the red light in a diagonal fashion, taking the longest route possible and one of greatest danger. The resourceful work of Agent Maiers in blocking out one half of the stream of automobile traffic with his car..."_

It's both funny and sad (totalitarian spying state, where spies are allowed to break laws).</comment>


"Accidentally" Freelance - <AUTHOR> http://notes.unwieldy.net/post/57035586783/accidentally-freelance <comment><USER2> So glad to hear someone articulate this. I'm pretty over people making this assumption that because I'm a consultant I'm just ready to drop all my clients and join their startup.

I have a business. I like my business. If you want to do business with me, thats great. Otherwise, don't insinuate that the position you're offering me is a better life for me. I chose my path, and the assertion that I "want more" is insulting. I have good reasons not to pursue what you're offering. Move on.

</comment><comment><USER3> While I sympathize with the author and faced the same kind of attitude while I was freelancing, it's a simple truth that it's easier for freelancers to change what they're doing and join a startup than it is for most employees. You're already used to weird hours, you like having decision-making power, can wear many different hats, you can deal with a little financial uncertainty, you're not leaving any colleagues hanging and so on. It's a good profile for a startup engineer.

Yes, it's presumptuous to think that you can't possibly be a freelancer because you want to be.

No, that doesn't mean you should get upset because someone thinks you'd be a open to a recruitment pitch.

<comment><USER4> If you're an employee, you quit your job and get going. If you're a freelancer, you have to get rid of all of your customers, which is much more troublesome than to just quitting a job.

<comment><USER5> It is more than _just_ troublesome. Once you out of "freelancing game" your leads start to dry up and if in future you want to go back to freelance consulting, will have to do all the hard legwork you have already done long back to re-establish yourself.

<comment><USER6> I disagree completely. If you have been successful freelancing (or consulting) in the past, chances are you are comfortable with running your own show and selling yourself. As such, an experienced freelancer won't be intimidated by the prospect of having to build a new client base. It will require work, but it's not new territory.

The person who has always been an employee, on the other hand, is far more likely to find the transition from employee to freelancer to be a challenge. Beyond relationship building and sales, there are a number of skills and traits that one needs to have to be successful as a freelancer and many people who try their hand at it find that they don't have those skills or traits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> That's a lot of extrapolation from a few awkward conversations to reach the conclusion "There's this stigma in the startup universe around being a contractor, consultant, or freelancer."

I have a hard time believing there really is an industry wide stigma against freelancers in NYC. It certainly isn't the case around here. Plenty of startups come from people, like myself, who have run consultancies for a while.

A major motivation for me to move out of consultancy is to make money while I'm sleeping. The fact you're selling time is the limiting factor on consultancy/freelancing, and one disadvantage the OP doesn't mention.

There's no shortage of socially awkward engineers, so perhaps the OP has just run into a few who don't know what to do when the conversation goes off the script they're expecting?

<comment><USER8> >A major motivation for me to move out of consultancy is to make money while I'm sleeping.

Actually quite a few consultants and freelancers do this. I've been making money while sleeping, as a freelancer, for the last 5 years. It's actually my favorite part of what I do, and I have an advisor who helps me figure it out as I go along. Perhaps a startup is just another vehicle for pursuing this dream that is better suited to you.

There really is that annoying "freelancer???" thing, but I think it's really just a matter of the other party's experience & education.

<comment><USER7> I should have said "move out of _pure_ consultancy". I imagine I'll be doing consultancy for a while.

I think there are lots of great models between pure freelancing (paid for time) and pure product. The simplest is probably retainer or support agreements, which often net one money for no work. Info products are another popular route. What's your model, if you don't mind me asking?

<comment><USER8> > What's your model, if you don't mind me asking?

Retainers, support agreements, platform hosting, template sales, and some simple SaaS stuff. And I just barely became an Amazon associate/affiliate now that one of my apps is picking up traffic, but we'll see how that goes vs. other types of advertising.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I find it interesting that so many people have a hard time comprehending Freelancing yet support entrepreneurs. An insurance or mortgage broker is ultimately a Freelancer who can sell their output to a corporation and I doubt any of them face the same strange stares.

<comment><USER10> Everyone in the tech startup scene belongs to the same social hierarchy, where certain behaviors are rewarded and others punished, with success measured in successful rounds raised and big exits.

Freelancers are inherently part of the ecosystem, but they don't fit neatly into the hierarchy, much like senior engineers in large companies who have no interest in management.

Insurance agents and mortgage brokers belong to a different social group, so they're accorded "other" status and not measured by the same metrics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> As a freelancer, I really appreciated this article. While I know what a startup is, in my actual working experience, a "startup" is often some variant of "the SaaS thing my best client's worst employee wanted us to switch to last month." Otherwise we'd be using the proper name of the business without any regard for whether they are a startup or a farming collective or a couple of floating brains in a sealed chamber.

I have also had experiences where I say "I'm a freelancer" and watch peoples' mouths drop open. They think I'm basically Peter Parker without the Spiderman, living on the cheap without a single concern for the future. The truth is a bit of an improvement on that. I pay for monthly consults with a former SV tech executive & INTJ engineer, who helps my inner INTJ learn and grow into a better salesman, marketer, team leader, and negotiator. While most of my stuff is building web things for people, I get a variety of work from traditional illustration to music to 3D modeling. I support a wife and three kids, and we take vacations regularly. I'm not wealthy by any stretch, but people who visit my rental say it's pretty big for NorCal and I get to work in a backyard office with a nice skylight. And every one of my big clients has an IT guy who actually trusts me with their web stuff. Having worked in IT in the past, that's a big deal to me.

Someday maybe I'll do something different, but I've been freelancing full-time for almost ten years now, and I've never had a bad year or even a hard year. I don't miss free bagels & juice or XM radio and I definitely don't miss anything that looks like it came from the food section of an office supply store. I don't distrust startups, but I have absolutely no reason to be interested in working for one.

<comment><USER11> > I pay for monthly consults with a former SV tech executive & INTJ engineer

Intrigued. If you don't mind me asking, what does he teach you? That seems like a business idea - successful Myers-Briggs teach others of their same type how to handle their strength and weaknesses - which sounds like what this executive is already doing.

<comment><USER8> >Intrigued. If you don't mind me asking, what does he teach you?

The most important one has been "tolerating others and, optimally, succeeding with them" since I can be pretty stubborn and defensive when I meet with, say, a big-E social media consultant. I will typically tell my consultant, "hey, I don't know what type of person this is but I need to figure out how to work with them better." The consultant asks me some questions and nails it pretty quick. The tough part is that he isn't easy on me--he is usually sympathetic to the person in question and tells me how I can get my act together. :-)

The next most important has been "homing in on others' needs" as I used to really put my tech blinders on and assume that everyone would want solution X. So, more listening, more following up with surveys, etc.

After that, I often ask him, "I need somebody to help me with X" so he'll point out that I'm looking for an ISTJ or whatever it may be. In fact we recently went over this for some troubles I was having, and it turned out the MBTI type I needed was my wife :-) So that problem disappeared pretty quickly.

Surprisingly I've told quite a few people about this guy's MBTI skillset, and the fact that he's certified, and they are extremely skeptical to the point of saying, "well I don't believe in that pseudo-scientific stuff, but thanks anyway." I think it's mostly awkward because this guy's an engineer; his dad was an expert on ceramic heat shields, and he's done a LOT of work & research to arrive at something that works. But some people who should know better just don't want to listen.

<comment><USER11> Thanks!

> But some people who should know better just don't want to listen.

So true...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder if the bias towards or against freelancers is dependent upon your geographic location...

Living in the SF Bay Area as someone who regularly bounces back and forth between freelancing and working full-time as a co-founder or lead tech of a startup, I didn't find any difference in attitude or reaction if I said "I'm working at a startup" vs. "I'm a full time freelancer."

LOL, in fact, the reaction tended to be either "oh yeah? me too!" or "oh yeah? so is my brother / sister / mother / daughter / father / son / dog / cat / etc."

Looking at the OP's footer, looks like he's in NYC... so I wonder if the bias there is a bit different?

<comment><USER2> It is. Been in both markets, and there is definitely a stigma around freelance here in NYC that I never encountered on the west coast.

<comment><USER13> If anything it's the opposite. NYC has way more freelancers because that is typically how it's been done in agency work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It'll be interesting to find out the standard startup reaction once he takes on an additional employee and changes "No thanks, I'm a freelancer" to "No thanks, I have my own small business. But give me your card and I'll let you know if something opens up..."

<comment><USER15> As a freelance worker, I find this interesting... it seems like a big gap between "I only have to make enough off this to make my time work out for me" and " I have to make enough off this to make a profit off someone else's time". I don' think that the second works out very well for where I am in life, but it seems to be where most of the people I work with find themselves.

IME, generally startups aren't looking for agencies, because they have at least enough knowledge to hire individuals rather than agencies or turn-key solutions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> At least in Norway, the pay is also about 30% higher without the need of a administration. So there's that too. Instead of saying freelance, say independent contractor.

</comment><comment><USER17> I see you as being a startup person - while startups work hard to develop a business, you _are_ the business. While startup businesses scale out, you scale up.

Wish you best of luck in your pursuits, congrats.

</comment><comment><USER18> There's a really easy fix for this. Say you're a Consultant instead

</comment><comment><USER19> No offense to any startup founders/workers here, but freelancing just sounds more appealing to me -- I'd rather be the boss than the employee, and starting a freelancing business just seems less binary (as in it's either major success or outright failure). I have huge dreams for growing a small freelancing business into a huge international software company, but if it never gets to that point, I should still be very successful with my small freelancing business.

And, as the author noted, freelancing allows you to grow your skills and learn new ones just like any business -- because even though it's not a "startup," it is a business!

</comment><comment><USER20> I am one of these accidental freelancers. I take on work that seems interesting as it comes to me. I make enough money that it isn't high priority to "have something to work on" at any point in time, and I have a dozen or so of my own side projects, a handful of which make money.

In this space, I guess, the point is that you can make a lot of money by being productive -- we're not forced to work 9 to 5 and there's so much opportunity in terms of "stuff left to do" anyone with some business sense can find profitable projects to work on on our own. Work becomes more of an option.

It's a really fortunate place to be.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm just moving from a startup to freelancing.

I founded a local e-commerce company almost 7 years ago which now has its own life with employees and investors.

I quit my day job to dedicate myself to bigger challenges like designing beautiful websites which deliver the message.

Why? I found more interesting and creative solving new problems. And when I'll have enough international contacts I'll launch another new company.

Which is by the way already in research phase. [http://newsledge.com](http://newsledge.com)

<comment><USER22> Imagine my disappointment when I opened that link to discover there were no sledges.

<comment><USER21> oh ... newssledges is already taken ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Well said. I echo the thoughts in the article about working on a variety of projects with different types of businesses. I love meeting with clients, understanding their problems, and then getting to see how my work directly saves time or affects the bottom line. I'd probably be doing this even if I didn't get paid.

</comment><comment><USER24> I wonder if he stopped calling himself a freelancer and used a business name that he "worked for" would he stop receiving these kinds of offers.

It's all about branding and perception.

</comment><comment><USER25> Totally agree - for me it seems that I can build capital in my business / personal brand as a freelancer that I can't in a job.

</comment><comment><USER26> yeah. it's actually a lot easier to get freelance gigs if you act like this is just something you are doing to get your foot in the door (to a full-time job) - If you actually want to freelance (and are willing to give the employer the full benefits of hiring a freelancer... e.g. you don't need to feel bad/be legally afraid when you fire me, I only show up and charge you when you actually need work done, etc...) that is... actually a lot harder to get, from what I've seen, even if you aren't charging a premium (though, the people who do operate as 'real freelancers' do charge a premium.)

The whole system, in the mid range, at least, is setup such that freelancing is a funnel to evaluate full-time folks. If you aren't interested in being full-time (or pretending like you are full time) you are in a different (and, from what I've seen, harder to get into) market.

It's funny; at the very bottom, you have the $15-$50/hr folks who work as 'real freelancers' \- often from mid-america or overseas. I hire out of that pool, as do most small businesses.

Then in the mid range, in the $40-$100/hr range, you have the 'body shop' that hires you and rents you to a fortune-1000 company - and, in that case, you generally want to pretend that you are interested in a full-time job, and willing to work as a 'pretend' full time person. (The interesting thing here is that I've worked through that range, and I've been in situations where managers who knew me called me back up, arranged things with me, /then/ had me go through the body shop to be made into a pretend employee who shows up for 8 hours every day, which is a little silly, because I've got a corporation. It's got non-consulting revenue that dwarfs what you are going to pay me.)

In my experience, it's super easy to get both those sorts of jobs.

Getting a job where you act as a 'real freelancer' in the $50-$100 range? in my experience, is actually kinda difficult. I've gotten a few 'real freelancer' gigs at the $200 mark, but those were pure serendipity. (and... much to my shame and regret, I didn't treat that customer accordingly. I mean, I did my job, but I didn't add that bit of "professionalism" with the follow up and such, so we ended up drifting apart.) actually, I've billed as many hours in the $200 range as a 'real freelancer' as I have at the $60 range, I mean, not counting my time working through body shops. (I've billed... probably almost a year of hours at the mid $70s mark, going through a body shop, pretending to be a 'real employee' \- and the body shop, of course, took a cut on top of that, so I think I'm worth money... it's just, they want 'fake employee' and not 'freelancer')

Thinking back to those $200/hr gigs, it's possible also that I'm missing a certain skillset. A certain follow up and 'you don't need to worry about it' or something? Possible. My style is very much "here is all the information you could possibly want" \- and that's probably not always the best style; many times you hire an expert and want, instead a "here is the best course of action for you" with minimal supporting information.

Hm. I wonder if I would be better at that now that I have a lot more experience running a business, and hiring experts that are outside my field (where I want the "This is what you should do" with minimal supporting information.)

<comment><USER8> The part you mention as difficult took me 5 years to get comfortable with--as in, "ready to start thinking about buying a house as a full-time freelancer."

If you are a serious freelancer who wants to make a go of it as a lifestyle, you are selling a result (e.g. beautiful website, better search rankings, lovely illustrations). So when somebody calls you and says, "we are looking for a freelancer," you start to realize that maybe they want some sort of staff auxiliary rather than a result, and they won't respect your boundaries like other clients, and you learn to ask them if they can pay $150/hr. just so you can test the waters. You might even try to recommend that they dial up a college student and see what they do. I did this last week with a furniture company that was about to pay me $600/week for an hour-long meeting and maybe 1-2 hours of web design work. Sooner or later they'd realize they don't need my skill set, and I don't really want direct furniture sales in my portfolio. My job is just to help them out.

Lots of long-term freelancers will drop the hourly stuff ASAP too. In this way you'll get freelancers who say, "my favorite client pays me $500/hr. for web design," and they're really just saying they bill by the project. But go talk to those clients--they're typically very happy and feel like they've got a real solution on their hands.

<comment><USER26> >Lots of long-term freelancers will drop the hourly stuff ASAP too.

Hm. See, I've been thinking about this. I'm a sysadmin. A computer janitor. The essence of my job is that when something breaks, I fix it. (I'm actually way better at that part of the sysadmin role than at the architecture part, though I can do that, too; there are many sysadmins who are better architects than I am. However, there is this phenomena; the more senior a sysadmin is, the harder it is to make him or her carry a pager. I carry a pager, and in /that/ set, well, I look pretty good.)

So yeah, what I'm charging you for is something you probably won't need much at all of (I mean, I'll help you apply patches and do backups and other simple bullshit, but I'll probably make my PFY do that, or train up one of your kids.) My real value is that when something breaks at 3am on a Sunday morning, I'll wake up and deal with it. Really, unless you are twitter, I've got enough spare hardware that your stuff could literally catch fire and as long as I've got backups, we're good.

Problem is, how to charge? I've got a bunch of folks wanting to pay me $50/month. Which I could do if I automated all the PFY work. (which, I could do if I didn't give you root, and I only let you use my versions of the programs I chose to support.) but it's one of those things where I'd need thousands of customers to make it worth my time. At that point, we need to do shifts, etc, etc... I mean, it's a realistic business, but a deep/hard one.

I mean, I'm going to want like two to four grand for the two or three days of my time that a full "shit caught fire at 3am" cleanup is going to take (not that you'd be down for two or three days; I'll get you back up the first day, but I'm not going to be particularly useful for the next few days... which presents something of a problem if these things happen in succession.)

But that's the thing, I can do a better job if I'm there all along, and I can say "don't do that" when you are setting the thing up, and I can make sure you have accessible backups and stuff.

I've sent out some feelers at the $500-$1000/month range, were I keep a spare going (which means more ongoing work for me, keeping the spare up to date, but it means much less pain when shit does break.) But, eh, I haven't gotten interest, and frankly, I'm not sure if that's enough to make it worth the brainspace. And that's the thing, if you get up to $4000-$5000, well, you can get a midwesterner or an indian or a russian mostly kinda sorta full-time, and yeah, at that rate, they aren't going to be as good as I am, but there is a lot of value in having someone mostly full time (which I would not be, even at that rate.) So maybe the right model for me is "wake me up, place a five grand deposit; I keep the money if I fix your shit in the next X hours" or something. I could be talked into that, if I had some reasonable assurance of getting paid.

I think the root cause might be that most small companies use "the cloud" and don't feel they need that kind of sysadmin experience (and spare pool... "the cloud" vastly diminishes the market value of my giant spare pool, probably even more than it does my SysAdmin experience.) and larger companies would prefer to have someone on-staff full-time.

Also, well, I'm very good at marketing "value" \- e.g. most of my experience is competing on price (yes, yes, I know I'm behind the curve. I am working on it. You do not understand how much I am working on it.) and, well, this is not an area where I want to compete on price. I'm pretty okay getting woken once a week. If I get woken 3 times a week, for more than one week in a row? things start to get bad. Wake me up every night? well, I've had times in my life when all I did was sleep and respond to emergencies; I can do it, but I'd really prefer not to go back there. So yeah; I have a very limited number of "wake me up" slots I can sell. They need to be expensive.

<comment><USER27> The pager is quite an interesting thing for sysadmins. Your value is because you can fix what breaks when it breaks, or when you're so senior that people only bring you in for solutions architecture and setup.

In the corporate world, you're not ever the only guy on call, so you only get woken up for a week. If you're full freelance, you have flexible hours after some late night work, and you have multiple pagers, so it's less of an issue to add one. I haven't figured out how to rectify side work and being full time corporate with the customer wanting an on-call break-fix guy, so ultimately I've just said no to those requests.

<comment><USER26> >In the corporate world, you're not ever the only guy on call, so you only get woken up for a week.

oh man. the /worst/ pager I've ever been on, by far, was at a fortune 1000 in the mid to late 2000s.

Yeah, it was only one week out of four (seven days, not five,) and only 12 hours a day. When I heard that during the interview, my response was something like "Twelve hours? I can do that standing on my head"

I mean, the thing you have to understand is that the pages that really hurt are the ones that come when you are tired already, right before you are planning on sleeping... you are most likely to mess things up then, and it interferes with your sleep, which means you are more likely to screw things up the next day. So limiting it to 12 hours is pretty goddamn nice. You have 12 hours that you can sleep, which sounds super easy.

So yeah, I've been on 24x7x365 pager for more of my life than I haven't... but the worst pager I've ever been on was only 12 hours a day for 7 days a month... why?

For most of my career? the pages that actually wake me up have a frequency between once every month or two and twice a week. Sometimes it gets worse, but then you look at what the root causes are, you fix them, and it gets better.

At this place, though? during that 12 hour shift, there was a serious (like 'fix this now or we lose tens of thousands of dollars an hour in revenue serious) issue every 30 minutes. Most of it was not technically difficult, but you had better be fast.

Essentially, you'd work one 84 hour week out of four. And actually work those 84 hours; like literally you had to find someone to cover for you when you had to take a shit; (or you just bring your laptop) it was that bad. (On top of that, then you had your usual architectural responsibilities... but realistically, you didn't get any of that done during pager week, and you were usually pretty useless for the next week or two. This is one of the reasons we didn't have more of it automated.)

so yeah. In corporate land, yeah, you usually get shifts... but if someone fucks it up in corporate land? (In this case, there was... cultural pushback against automating the failures. We were supposed to diagnose hardware problems as we went. Hahah. Yeah right.) things can get really nasty, really fast.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Keeping my job while I do freelancing. I get more money.

<comment><USER29> If that's the case, it sounds like you're either not charging enough, or don't have enough work lined up.

Striking out on your own means you take on more risk in exchange for a LOT more potential upside.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> "Actually, I run a small agency."

</comment><comment><USER31> Part of the reason is that most contractors in tech are less qualified than full time employees and will never pass full interview loop.

<comment><USER32> I'm guessing you've been downvoted because you didn't back up your claim that "most" contractors are like that. There is an element of truth to what you say, though.

Typically with freelance/contract work, there's less of an interview stage. Because the client can let a freelancer go immediately if things aren't working out, there is less risk to taking them on initially, particularly in places like Europe where there tend to be relatively strong protections for employees.

Combine that with a level of workers whose effective charging rate is in the same region as the equivalent salaried position, and a lot of people who wouldn't do well in a closely supervised, salaried position can get by as freelancers.

Naturally a client who doesn't understand the freelance/contracting market and expects to hire good people at the same rate as they would quote an employee's salary is taking a chance on the quality they get. They might luck out and get someone good but naive from the contracting side, or they might just find someone who isn't very good but gets by because of the lesser supervision.

One thing that is almost certain is that the good people will eventually realise they are underpriced and adjust their rates accordingly, while the bad ones won't. Moreover, rates for good people can scale up far more in proportion to the value they actually offer when they're working semi- independently than it would as an employee on salary.

In short, if you want to engage a freelancer, you probably will get what you pay for much more directly than if you were hiring someone on salary. And that means if you're offering well under market rates (and if you're hiring at a direct translation of salary, you are) then there's a good chance you're going to work with not-so-good people.

<comment><USER31> I based my opinion on my personal experience in several large technology companies. In these companies contractors were treated like second class citizens - they got worst offices/desks, were not invited to offsites and were assigned the most boring work that nobody else wanted to do. In one company they were not allowed to take free drinks from the fridge (this one was ridiculous). They could not work for the company for more than 12 month without taking forced three month break so they were never assigned to work on important parts of projects. Essentially - if you have choices why will you agree to work as contractor in such situation? Most of them wanted to become FTE but only a few were capable of passing interview loop.

Outside of tech or in smaller companies situation can be completely different. I can easily believe that contractors can be more vastly more qualified than average IT employee at random retail/fast food/etc company.

Another exception are people working in consulting arms of Microsoft/Oracle/HP. I know that those guys know what they are doing and can easily charge $300+/hour. I never worked with them.</comment></comment></comment>


ASK HN: Is it time to move from JAVA/Struts2 to Scala/Lift? - <AUTHOR>

Hi folks, we're currently running a company that is builded in JAVA, about 50,000 loc. What do you think about moving to a more modern language? Especially to scale easier and hire better developers.<p>Thanks <comment><USER2> I'm not at all a Java fan, but how does shifting from Java to Scala help you scale easier? Scale what?

As to hiring better developers, I've never found that the language makes a difference in finding good developers, it is just that the smaller the community, the easier it is to find the good developers. I know many brilliant php, java etc developers but they are much harder to find when doing a blind job search than lisp, smalltalk etc ones because the community for php, java is so much larger.

I experience the same thing when looking for css/html people. It is hard to find the good ones because you get buried under a mountain of mediocrity when you go looking.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have been programming in Java for 7+ years. I am responsible for several site that use struts 2 and Java. In the past year I have been moving toward groovy/grails. I have successfully integrated groovy scripts into production code running srtuts 2. I have also had success with placing an existing struts 2 application into a grails application. The beauty of groovy is that it is built on top of java and compiles to bitecode. Grails is just a convention over configuration approach to a groovy/spring/hibernate or jpa stack. You mantain complete control over all configuration.

</comment><comment><USER4> For new development? Try it and see.

For a rewrite? that would be death. Don't sacrifice a product making money for a sexy new language.</comment>


Steve Jobs' Fallout With Google Described In New Book - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/15/steve-jobs-google-in-the-plex_n_849694.html <comment><USER2> It's easy to forget now but when Apple and Google were close we were only a few years out of the 90s which was dominated by Microsoft -- Apple was an underdog and Google was the new kid on the block. The success of Apple with the iPod and later the iPhone and Google owning the web gave those companies domination of new markets that Microsoft couldn't conquer as they did in the 90s when they killed Netscape with IE.</comment>


Method-1 Manned Robot Project - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re6P7WP2N5w <comment><USER2> Really guys?

I kind of want this to be true, but I will bet you anything it's fake.

Firstly, the source. The only references to a "Korea Future Technology" I can find lead back to this guy's Instagram account. Vitaly Bulgarov is a professional 3D graphics artist who specialises in, amongst other things, very realistic looking mech warriors.

His website makes a series of improbable claims, including that he worked for Boston Dynamics as a "conceptual and industrial designer". But in 2015 he posted a picture to his Instagram about him _visiting_ Boston Dynamics. There is no evidence anywhere that he ever worked for them - if he did anything for them at all he'd have done some contract VFX work.

Secondly, why would a company making a project that can only have military funding allow videos to be released on some random dudes Facebook page, why wouldn't they announce as a big splash to get the company the credit?

Thirdly, in one picture there's a set of "carbon fibre legs waiting to be tested", which show no motors or metal pieces. In the other photos the legs are made of metal. Which is it?

Finally, the continuity glitches. Watch the door carefully in this video

[https://youtu.be/Re6P7WP2N5w?t=28s](https://youtu.be/Re6P7WP2N5w?t=28s)

It's to the right of the robot. At the 29 second mark it suddenly goes from closed to open in the space of a single frame - the video backdrop is composited from multiple shots, but the robot isn't.

This is a very talented graphics artist screwing with people.

<comment><USER3> At the 29 sec mark it just seems like the lights got turned off in that room?

<comment><USER2> Maybe you are right. Re-watching, it can also be explained that way.

I am still very skeptical. If there's one place you don't want to "announce" your new robot project, it's on the social media pages of a guy who specialises in 3D graphics rendering projects of robots.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Better video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re6P7WP2N5w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re6P7WP2N5w)

<comment><USER5> There's quite some lag between input and arm movement there! I wonder if they're planning to improve that, to enhance the sense that the robot arm is an extension of the operator's real arm, or whether operators just need to get used to it. If the latter, I could imagine this being comical in the hands of an untrained operator, sending everything in their vicinity flying :)

<comment><USER6> Looks fast enough for industrial application. Though I doubt there is much use for a "slightly narrower and several thousand times expensive" forklift. I mean sure there is, but I can't think of any.

Besides stealing one and redecorating the city I'm living in.

With missile racks on the back and two recoiless rifles for arms. And backward legs. And a B52 cockpit. and clan wolf paint...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> That's why we don't insult nerds.

</comment><comment><USER8> Well that's been my daydream for 40+ years. I have a blessed life but... I'm feeling some serious envy. Mad props to this team.

</comment><comment><USER9> 12-year-old me is jumping up and down with excitement.

43-year-old me is pretty damn impressed, too.

[edit] if it's fake, I fully admit to being fooled. It's impressive work.

</comment><comment><USER10> Do I even need to point out this is a 3D rendering ?

One of the creators, Vitaly Bulgarov, is a well-known concept designer and animator, as extensively documented on his websites. He sells 3D designs and training materials. He has worked on AAA films and video games.

</comment><comment><USER11> Looks like the evil robots off Robocop!!

<comment><USER7> He has a name you know. It's Edward Tuohnhein.</comment></comment>