Password Chart - <AUTHOR> http://www.passwordchart.com/

<comment><USER2> SuperGenPass is a much better, simpler, and safer alternative, IMO.

<http://supergenpass.com>

<comment><USER3> By typing the master password into the destination form, then replacing it, the master is potentially revealed to any target site that might use JS/AJAX to view the password before form submission. So, this is not helpful against the "one bad (or compromised) site steals my master password" threat.

If SuperGenPass were to pop its own window, calculate the site-specific complex password, then insert that into the form, it could probably be safe -- but would still need very careful design. (Once a bookmarklet starts interacting with a page, it might reveal its internal state to that page.)

<comment><USER2> Yes, that is still a threat, and I would love to see SGP's algorithm make it into native addons for Firefox, Chrome, etc, triggered by a hotkey or toolbar button. However, my initial attempt fell flat when trying to wade through XUL, just didn't have enough time...

And if you're really that worried about a new site, the mobile version can be saved to your local disk and opened in a separate tab, and then copy-paste the generated password into the site in question.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I glanced over the JS source and didn't find any evidence that the site is malware. Unfortunately, that's about the best thing I have to say about the security of using this method.

<comment><USER5> What are some negatives to using a security method like this?

In my mind, it's just a way to come up with "hard to guess, but easy to remember" passwords.

<comment><USER4> 1\. The biggest negative is that there are no positives: as TimMontague already pointed out, you might as well just use phrase + password as your password. To anyone who knows about this site, the output is no more secure than the input.

2\. The cipher used is laughably weak. Given a sufficiently large output string (and sufficiently large is not large at all), it's trivial to brute- force the seed used to generate the substitution chart and determine the input password.

3\. See my other comment on MITM attacks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> ___Use undefinedundefinedundefinedundefinedundefinedundefinedundefinedundefinedundefinedundefinedundefined as your password._ __

That happens if Cookies are disabled.

</comment><comment><USER5> Wow! I've actually been trying to come up with a secure, but easy-for-me-to- remember password scheme.

What I wanted to build was a password generator which takes a username and domain as inputs and spits out an pseudo-random passsword.

Something like: bgraves & ycombinator.com & salt = ybcgormabviensator#salt

The problem for me is that I use very hard to guess passwords, generated by my password database program (KeePass). Now I have no idea what those PW's are and rely solely on KeePass to keep track, which isn't available on my workplace PC (and, no, syncing my password DB between environments is not permitted.)

This site maybe what I was looking for, and it even looks like it's in JS to prevent most MitM attacks!

Thanks HN!!

<comment><USER4> > even looks like it's in JS to prevent most MitM attacks!

The JS is delivered over cleartext HTTP. A MITM attack can substitute malicious JS code that will deliver your password to a third-party server.

<comment><USER5> Not if you just save the JS file to your local machine, right? There's no HTTP involved in that case (which is precisely how I intended to use it).

<comment><USER4> Provided that the code is intact when you initially retrieve it, that solves the MITM issue. But then you're tied to that computer, and if that's acceptable, then you're far better off just using a password-keeper that uses real crypto.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Another easier and more secure is to use a sha1 hash on every password you generate and just use that as your password.

<comment><USER8> It depends what your defending against and what your original password is.

If the purpose is to turn a short password into something more secure it is pointless. As tptacek is always saying; Sha1 is cheap. It is trivial to incorporate it into an attack :)

Your better off choosing a random long sentence as your password. Easier to remember and much more secure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I use a form of the Vigenère cipher cipher that is simple enough that I can 'get' my passwords with a pen and paper (I've had to do this before for public terminals), but is also made less cumbersome with a simple little utility.

It isn't cryptosecure or anything, obviously, but it works well for my purposes. I've never been entirely comfortable with using someone else's web site or a password database (well, I use a password database at home, for example, but I have to have access to passwords remotely).

</comment><comment><USER10> I think this is in an incredibly bad way to create passwords, at any given moment they could swap out the js so that it phones home and then boom your insecure.

<comment><USER5> It's incredibly simple to save the JS files + HTML file to your local machine and run it locally.

<comment><USER11> Or create an iphone/android app for yourself.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hey folks - I'm the creator of passwordchart.com. A friend just alerted me to the submission here - I guess I picked the wrong day to try to get things done and ignore HN yesterday.

I built passwordchart.com four years ago after reading a comment on Slashdot. It got me thinking about building a simple form of a personal one time pad that could be regenerated via memorable phrase. The interactive password part is really just there to show how to use the chart.

Finally, for a data point for others wondering what a post on HN means for traffic, I normally get around 300 to 350 visitors per day. Yesterday there were 5623 visitors and so far today Google Analytics is reporting 1333 visitors.

</comment><comment><USER13> Why not just use the phrase+password as a password?

<comment><USER14> Because that doesn't give you security if the site is compromised. For example, if my Phase+password combination is RootGod+Facebook.com it wouldn't take very long for someone to realize that RootGod+Gmail.com would also likely work there.

<comment><USER15> I thought that the Password+Site combo assumed the usage of SHA1 or MD5, though I know that this doesn't work for some sites (with max password limits). Maybe CRC32 in those cases?

<comment><USER16> CRC32 is bad way to hash anything, if you want secure hash of some obscure length, just truncate output of say SHA-256 (by the way, SHA-224 is exactly this: truncated output of SHA-256).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I use long and complex mathematical/physics/chemistry formula as password. It's easy to remember, good to practice your memory and very hard to crack (since it contains letters, numbers and special chars).

</comment><comment><USER18> Ugh, garbage. Use a HMAC with a master password and a parameter (e.g. the site name) to generate a site specific password. Forget about shitty crypto.

My humble attempt (based on others work): <http://python.ca/nas/tmp/pw.html>

Edit: just to be clear, the page linked above needs to be hosted on a server you trust and served by something like SSL. Do not use it directly over HTTP and expect some security.

</comment><comment><USER19> See also PasswordMaker: It has extensions supporting several browsers and a javascript version as well.

PasswordMaker uses your password and the website domain name to generate a unique password.

<http://passwordmaker.org/>

</comment><comment><USER20> Not quite sure, but I'm assuming this is recommended for local system passwords, rather than web based passwords?

I can't imagine actually getting people to remember (and enter) strings like p?7J9 _J_ J4M^E97J*J7J into a password field.

Or am I using it incorrectly?

</comment><comment><USER21> This seems like too much work, to me. I'll stick with the "easy for you to remember, but difficult for others to guess" rule for making my passwords. I've never used password generators because I want to be able to log in away from home or work.

</comment><comment><USER22> "Use EJCKVpVpqdGUDCQgHVwWkc as your password."

Yeah, I don't think so somehow.

</comment><comment><USER23> Why the hell one opens a website to choose password and serve it over clear- text (HTTP)?

Isn't that ironic? Trying to make something secure by actually making it totally insecure?

(Before someone jumps, even it's JS it doesn't mean safe against MITM as someone can inject JS before it loads and send all keystrokes to another server)

<comment><USER24> Seems like the real threat here is training a user that it's ok to use third party web sites to tell them what password to use. That's a very bad habit.</comment></comment>


A guide to analyst relations for startups - <AUTHOR> http://www.craigkerstiens.com/2015/07/25/A-guide-to-analyst-relations-for-startups/ <comment><USER2> Good post on analysts, Craig. Couple thoughts: Startups should think of analysts as potential allies and win them over, much as they do reporters. The first step, just like with marketing, is bringing yourself to their attention. If they are publishing papers and being quoted about your industry, but they're not mentioning you, then you need to write them a quick email explaining what you do and why it's different. That's outbound. If you're kind of prominent, you'll get inbound calls from analysts. Treat them like reporters: Give them as much information as you can, help them write the reports they're paid to write, and above all give them insights into your industry that will make them smarter and more knowledgeable. That's their value add, and you can help them get there. If you do, they'll return to the well. I've built some great relationships with analysts over the years doing precisely that. Many of them are smart, curious people, and their reports can be solid social proof for young products. Help them wherever you can.

<comment><AUTHOR> First, thanks! I Completely agree on your points, I've seen the biggest value come from relationship built over years not over a few isolated incidents. I'll add a couple additional thoughts:

1\. Several of them may cover some generic tech or market growth, especially in the tech space around open source. I've often had conversations with some just around the growth of Postgres where there's no product, helping support a community project can be generally helpful to them at times.

2\. They get a lot of email, as we all do, so I might shy away from sending too much. From my experience it's often easier to follow on twitter and start to engage in conversations at the opportune times.</comment></comment>


"Toxt" tool circumvents basic torrent blockers - <AUTHOR> http://toxt.sexopmijniphone.nl/ Some universities block the downloading of torrent files by not allowing users to access files with the wrong mime-type or file extension. This simple block is easy to get around, and that's exactly what a new site called "Toxt" does. It came in handy for me while I wanted to download legitimate Revision3 torrent files... <comment><AUTHOR> The gateways blocked the .torrent file names and MIME types. This tool repacks it to a ZIP file, and make torrent files available to me... very cool!</comment>


Internet start-ups: Another bubble? - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/17733145 <comment><USER2> Although this submission was first, it appears there's more traction over here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2012178></comment>


Research Based on the .NET Runtime - <AUTHOR> https://mattwarren.org/2019/10/25/Research-based-on-the-.NET-Runtime/ <comment><USER2> Great lit review! I'll refer my grad students to this :)

<comment><USER3> Yee bois, this review is _lit_. (But not everything is very recent.)</comment></comment>


Unethical behavior by Manning, the publisher of our book "Big Data" - <AUTHOR> http://big-data-manning.blogspot.com/2015/09/unethical-behavior-by-manning-publisher.html <comment><USER2> Seems a bit overwrought over a font size.</comment>


Machine Learning in Entertainment- Flickstree - <AUTHOR> How about an app that helps you discover brilliant movies you'd love to watch with completely personalised and superb movie recommendations?
Searching movies to watch is a pain, especially when you want to rent or download films. You come across same set of popular films, or would already need to know a few films to look for.
And you end up searching for hours to decide that one film that you want to watch!
Flickstree solves this one BIG entertainment problem- through it's unique and world class, movie recommendation engine!
Visit our campaign page at http://bit.ly/1SvHLKS
Actively soliciting your feedback! <comment><AUTHOR> We are moving ahead with brisk pace, please see our campaign page for more updates.

Ignite the passion, support :-)</comment>


Ask HN: After earning how much money are you planning to retire? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I don't plan to retire. I had a nice half year break after selling my company. It's not that great. Productive engineer = happy engineer.

I'd like to be a kind of tech monk. Someone who goes around on the bare minimum needed to survive, be away from the distractions of society, and polish my skills day after day.

Every now and then I'd leave my monastery to rescue a half billion dollar project somewhere or to take down an evil tech giant with open source. Then I use my loot to continue another few years of peace and solitude.

<comment><USER3> I have had 2 involuntary 3 month breaks between jobs and even though I was strapped for cash I really hated how much my mood fell apart without having the structure of work. I told myself I want to move away from having so much of my life's meaning defined by what work I do (while it's software for any enterprise anyway.) I'm at the stage now where I'm hoping to take off at least a month for travel next year.

Are there any learnings you had from your half a year break like this?

<comment><USER2> It wasn't great. There's a lot of anxiety watching my bank account go down with no plan at all. Resting seems even more unproductive, it resulted in a lot of bad habits forming.

I find I am much happier working 14 hours/day than resting 24 hours.

I did have an extremely productive remote work era during that period for a side project, but unfortunately the team fell apart.

<comment><USER4> > it resulted in a lot of bad habits forming

What kind of bad habits did "resting" form?

<comment><USER2> Well things like needing more rest. I ended up "resting" 3 weekdays a week. Or things like taking 3 hours to prepare for the work day, via meditation, clearing up my workspace, getting exercise, and so on. I wouldn't say it's laziness, but having too much time makes you bad at time management.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I strongly suspect I'll never earn enough retire.

</comment><comment><USER6> For me, I think the answer is very different depending on whether you've got a job with set hours and location (which we should all get away from) or whether you're more flexible and maybe running your own business.

I've run my own businesses since leaving school and although I expect to slow down as I get older, I don't ever want to retire. I just want my role to evolve and spend more of my work time doing the (work related) things I enjoy most. I've always thought that business owners who look forward to retirement need a new business.

</comment><comment><USER7> 5.6MM

      based on spending 18,668/mo = 224K/yr
      25 x 224k = 5.6MM

      assumptions:
      - withdraw 4% per yr
      - earn avg 7%+ per yr
      - inflation 3%

Money will last forever and I will die with bigger balance than day I retire.

[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly- sim...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math- behind-early-retirement/)

ps. I will hit this number in 47 months. Here's how I know: [https://lab.madfientist.com/](https://lab.madfientist.com/)

<comment><USER8> Wow thats a ton!!! I suppose you must live in a higher cost of living area than me.

<comment><USER7> Haha - family of 4. Expensive travel hobbies. Too much house. "Fatfire"

[https://www.physicianonfire.com/fatfire/](https://www.physicianonfire.com/fatfire/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm barely making it so retirement is not likely going to happen for me.

<comment><USER10> Aren't you worried about that?

<comment><USER9> Yes, I'm terrified.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When I have saved and invested around 500k in euros, this will generate about 20k euros per year. My mortgage will be paid as well, so it will be enough to live on. I'll be 55 by then.

<comment><USER5> You've forgotten about inflation.

<comment><USER11> 4% real gains includes inflation

<comment><USER5> Here in the UK inflation was 18% in 1980. It's been over 10% several times since then. 4% assumes things will carry on as they have been for the past couple of decades. There's no reason to believe that.

<comment><USER12> But if you don't hold too much cash/fixed income securities and actually hold equity investments (e.g. real estate, stocks), then why would inflation be a concern? All those investments should easily keep up with inflation by their very nature, or am I wrong?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Just work on your passive income generation, few hundred thousands per year would be enough for most people....

Once you have your FY money, you'll see that retirement is overrated... and I have a lot of hobbies + plans to travel with my wife when the kids are out of the house (hopefully in the next few years), but besides all that, every year I am postponing my retirement, because I just cannot leave the team I am managing... so maybe next year :-)

</comment><comment><USER14> [https://kopywritingkourse.com/fuck-you-money- calculator/](https://kopywritingkourse.com/fuck-you-money-calculator/)</comment>


If You Can Think, Design & Code, You Win - <AUTHOR> http://flyosity.com/application-design/if-you-can-think-design-code-you-win.php <comment><USER2> Become a composer.

Your orchestra will consist of hardware, platform software, programming, architecture, UX, design, images, sound and the general idea of the product. Don't isolate those aspects. Instead, let them influence, supplement and fertilize each other. Concentrate on the product as a whole, and it can become a masterpiece.

Yes, you will need to aqcuire a deep enough understanding and _practice_ in each of these aspects. Don't believe management people who think you can achieve the same result without it. There is no composer I know of who didn't play at _least_ one instrument at a very high level, and the others at least at entry level, knowing their strengths and limitations very well.

The limit to this metaphor is of course that due to practical reasons, composers did not play all 100 instruments of their opus themselves :)

But I do think a lot of the boundaries created in the software industry are artificial to a large degree (I'm looking at you, software architects). Overcome these boundaries in your thinking, and you will become more valuable to your customers and/or to your boss. You can still ask specialists to do an extremely sophisticated job if required. Even if you are a specialist: If you think a little bit more like a composer, you will become even better in your speciality, because you will avoid mistakes that happen in isolation.

A typical example for isolation: My boss (who has no idea of programming) hired a designer to refreshen an old product of ours. At the time I came into play (as software engineer), he had already proposed a lot of major changes to the UX. Too bad: The product was embedded in SharePoint and used the SharePoint-Ribbon (not that that was a good idea, but thats the way it was), which couldn't be changed easily. And of course, layout changes in the extremly degenerated HTML would lead to massive programming effort (which my boss didn't want to pay). So I had to tell the poor designer that all his nice ideas couldn't be done. At least we could change some of the colors :)

An example for over-the-boundaries thinking: I don't recall which device that was, since I'm not the mobile/tablet type of guy, but I saw a presentation of some tablet, where the presenter plugged in a USB device, and the screen showed the device at _exactly the place where it had been plugged in_. So natural. Think of this: Would you as UX designer who typically designs web pages have thought of that when working in Photoshop?

<comment><USER3> This analogy has a practical example. Be like Dave Grohl! He played every part in the first foo fighters album.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As a programmer, I do not expect a designer to know, understand, or be proficient with coding. I don't disagree that any designer who can do both has a tremendous advantage. But, I think it _should_ be possible to just sit down, "draw a picture", and have it _just work_ on every current platform, at various screen resolutions, and various internet connections.

That's not possible right now, but I think that's because us programmers have done a terrible job. We have built awful tools. Some are less awful than others, yes, but with 2012 just around the corner and about two decades of web development behind us, we still have not developed a tool which allows a designer to sit down, and do what they are best at, and make their imaginings into a working reality without the assistance of an engineer who speaks a strange vocabulary.

I would not expect a sculptor to need to know the finer points of structural engineering. Any sculptor who did would have a clear advantage over their peers -- but I am skeptical that it would make them a better sculptor.

<comment><USER5> Sounds like Flash to me.

<comment><USER6> Not at all, or ActionScript wouldn't need to be such a sprawling language.

<comment><USER5> That only happened because programmers freak out over the timeline.

Tons of artists use Flash using little more than stop(), gotoAndPlay(), & onRelease().

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been developing websites for 10+ years and I work with a few different types of agencies.

The websites with richest feel and the most polished interaction and appeal are those provided by a designer in html/css/js.

It is a skill that only a few people have but when you work with people like this, you are disappointed when the next job comes along and you get handed a picture to code up.

Every agency wants 'designers' like this but they are very hard to find.

<comment><USER8> I've had few designers that handed me the design in html/css and it looks fantastic. Then when I start to drop in the code behind I find all types of things broken. Usually these are cascading reflow errors. They put in a few lines of Lorem Ipsums but the returned value might be a paragraph or be an empty field.

Now I have the impossible task of working my own code and fixing the shims the designer put in.

This doesn't happen that often but more than enough. Usually, only the designers that know enough HTML to think it's like Photoshop attempt this. Most others treat it as the markup language it is, with loose constraints.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think this has to be tempered with an acceptance that we all have strengths and weaknesses, and sometimes you are not the right person for 'that' job.

If you are working in a team at a big company it's easy to recognize this because the person who is sits in the next cubicle. Programmers don't start making product flyers because the marketing guy always does them so well.

But working alone, when do you decide to hire another freelancer to do that bit? A friend who designs games always hires artists to concept how important models should look. They send him some pencil sketches. Surely he could save money by coming up with an idea and just drawing it, it's not hard... But the ideas from a good concept artist are just better than what he or I would do. They spend a lot of time getting so skilled, and if he invested that same time, no game would get made.

So yeah, knowing how to do everything is good, but spotting when you need to have spent those 10'000 hours more so...

</comment><comment><USER10> Great post.

I'm a developer/artist spending long hours working on making video games. I 'm doing it all, the design, code & art.

Sounds good. Problem is it can get very lonely, you get no encouragement and no criticism. You might make good progress, but sometimes it seems like it would be easier to settle into the nicely defined role of 'designer', 'coder' or 'artist' and only have one thing to worry about.

Reading your post reminds me that I'm not crazy, it _is_ possible to be 'jack- of-all-trades' in the software development stack and to realise an uncompromising vision of your product.

I'm glad there are some who share this idea, thanks :)

<comment><USER11> Do you have any alpha/beta testers?

<comment><USER10> Ha!

It's just hallway testing with anyone in my immediate vicinity at the moment which provides nice instant feedback but looking into some sort of open beta when the time is right.

But in all seriousness, thats one bit I'm not going to kid myself can be done alone. You cannot user test your own code. There's just too much baggage & you never act like a normal user would.

As the developer you use exactly the right controls in exactly the right sequence & come away thinking the software is much more usable/stable than it is :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I see a core kernel of truth here, "You will be more effective if you understand the job of the people using your work products."

In design, this means creating something useful as well as art. It spans many industries:

\- Colocating design and engineering cut years of development time for new models in the auto industry.

\- Architects who know engineering are more likely to build grand structures.

\- Tech recruiters who have been line managers know how to screen talent for their customers better.

In the end, it's about expanding beyond your specialty. It isn't abandoning your strength, it is moving the boundary.

</comment><comment><USER13> While I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a designer, I do do some design work. I've found that working with designers that can't code is irritating at best. It's not that they're stupid or un-talented. It's really about understanding the medium. It shocks me that so many graphics designers think that they can design for the web without understanding HTML and CSS. That's like saying you can design for print without knowing about different kinds of printing processes. You don't have to be a master, or even proficient, but some familiarity really goes a long way.

<comment><USER14> The comparison with printing technology is insightful.

The metaphor I like to use: most graphic design students, at one point in their education, come across a printing press that works with movable type. They might spend a day setting a simple poem. It's dirty, precise, frustrating work. At the end of the day they print their poem, and after they've cleaned the press they spot a spelling error…

As tedious as this process might be, a day like this learns you so much about the nature of printing technology that your understanding of your profession really deepens. For me it's the same with code. The students need to "get their hands dirty" with code to really understand the medium they are going to work in (since most design is for the screen nowadays)… Even if they are not going to code (predominantly) later on in their careers.

I teach interaction design and I'm always amazed by how scared students are of learning about digital technology. It's a cultural thing really: computers are 'geeky', 'sciency'—not arty, and therefore not their thing.

But when you look at the reality of their practice, designers actually pride themselves in 'geeky' details of their craft when they are related to the printing process, knowing about things like spot colors and paper stocks and binding methods.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Decent article.

A note though, I find the 3-D engraved body text that is popular on some sites such as this one to be harder to read than flat body text. A bit of eyestrain comes with it.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think it's hard to fit the mind of someone that wants to do both design and code. It's a combination of engineering and creativity that usually don't go well together. There's a reason why being a hybrid is more rare.

Either way, I wish there were more like me and like this article suggests. I try to blog about this sometimes on <http://blog.danielfischer.com> and it's also the culture we encourage at Hybrid Group.

</comment><comment><USER17> A master of everything is a master of nothing. I tend to try doing everything myself all the time but I find I usually can't perfect any of it b/c there isn't enough time. P.s. The design of his site is average ... Not ugly but exactly what one would expect from a talented individual who is stretched too thin.

<comment><USER18> It doesn't matter what you do or how many things you do, you can do many things or focus on just one, you will always find ways to do things better, to improve them and you will always admire someone who is (at least from your point of view) better than yourself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If a designer thinks learning a little bit about how things work under the hood is somehow going to make them worse at designing, then they ought to also become worse at designing if they learn about anything else outside of their craft, like cooking, rock climbing, french, knitting, cars, football, or any other hobby or side activity.

Better stay completely incompetent at everything in life except graphic design. To focus, right? Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. The orthogonal skills we acquire don't prohibit us from deepening our existing ones, it's the other way around, really.

<comment><USER20> I think we should coin a term like "web architect" for designers that can code because coding is not something unrelated to your work, it's the thing that makes your work come to life. It's like an architect knows material resistance and other construction engineering stuff so he can make truly amazing buildings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have to say, I attribute most of my success to my ability to take a project from an idea through planning, designing, coding, and yes even server configuration, deployment strategies, etc. I could never have done what I've done without, well, just being able to do it myself.

</comment><comment><USER22> Sadly the headline isn't even close to true in my experience.

My company is called Think, so it's safe to say that I value independent thought highly. I design and I code.

Unfortunately, you also have to be a lawyer, an accountant, a salesperson, incredibly paranoid, and a lot of other things in order to automatically "win." And that's just assuming you play by the rules. Most people don't.

</comment><comment><USER23> Is it "you win" as in "I'm a programmer and I should learn design"?

</comment><comment><USER24> I wish this were true. But it isn't.

</comment><comment><USER25> Obviously.

</comment><comment><USER26> Pretty pithy nerdrage bait, my main takeaways are that he equates retweeting with approval, and that all of the magical powers he describes he (and a fistful of friends) has still does not allow him to take comments.

<comment><USER27> Jeez, Eric, next time please tell me what you really think :)

1) If someone retweets a link, it typically means they agree with the link or think it's important enough to share with their network. Not sure what's wrong with that assumption.

2) I didn't implement comments because much more livelier discussions happen on Twitter, at least for me.</comment></comment>


How did I miss this?  JavaScript shell - <AUTHOR> https://developer.mozilla.org/En/SpiderMonkey/Introduction_to_the_JavaScript_shel

<comment><AUTHOR> It installed for me when I installed CouchDB to experiment. I wish I had known about it earlier (although updating a browser isn't exactly _hard_ , it will be useful for building libraries.</comment>


Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (April 2019) - <AUTHOR>
 Share your information if you are looking for work. Please use this format:
  Location:
  Remote:
  Willing to relocate:
  Technologies:
  Résumé/CV:
  Email: Readers: please only email these addresses to discuss work opportunities. <comment><USER2> Location: Varese, Italy

Remote: yes

Willing to relocate: yes

Technologies:

      Web/Application Server: Apache Web Server, IIS, Nginx, SSL, Oracle Weblogic Server, SOA suite, Adobe
      Coldfusion, Apache Tomcat, Red Hat JBoss, Wildfly, Oracle Forms & Reports, Glassfish
      Business Intelligence: SAP Business Objects, Tableau Server
      Web Analytics: Awstats, Matomo (former Piwik)
      Monitoring: Nagios XI, PRTG
      Other Tools/Products: Ansible, Sonatype Nexus, Memcached
      Single Sign On services (SSO): CAS, Oracle Internet Directory (OID), Oracle Access Manager (OAM)
      Languages: Shell script (bash, ksh), PHP (Laravel), HTML, CSS, JavaScript
      Databases: Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL

Résumé/CV:

[https://drive.google.com/open?id=1atELqJIaPDZOW3fDV8mmvJkDuq...](https://drive.google.com/open?id=1atELqJIaPDZOW3fDV8mmvJkDuq4bJWTj)

[https://www.linkedin.com/in/clagio/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/clagio/)

Email: firstname.lastname@example.com

I have an extensive experience designing HA infrastructures, setup new systems, troubleshooting issues and managing teams.

I'm looking for new challenging problems to solve.

</comment><comment><USER3> Merantix | {Machine Intelligence, Software, Frontend, Clojure} Engineer | Berlin | Full-Time, Internship, Onsite, Visa assistance | [https://www.merantix.com](https://www.merantix.com)

Merantix conceptualizes, builds and scales AI ventures. Our team is made up of entrepreneurs, scientists, physicians and engineers from premier universities in Europe and North America. Many of us have PhDs and work experience at top tech companies. We're based in Europe's startup capital, Berlin, and are growing quickly!

Our Automotive Team is building safety and validation systems for self-driving cars. Currently hiring {Software, Frontend} Engineers, Technical Program Managers.

      * Design and implement a large-scale testing engine for full stack autonomous vehicle (AV) software, that implements both log-based as well as simulated test scenarios

      * Develop applications and tools for data integration, experimentation, quality & modelling

      * Conceptualize and build visualization environments to develop modular scenarios for AV testing, which is able to scale to millions of test cases

In Healthcare, we're making breast cancer screening more efficient and safe with Machine Learning. Currently hiring Clojure Engineers.

      * Develop an impactful and technically challenging medical application in ClojureScript and Clojure

      * Join a team of experienced Clojurists who are happy to mentor you (@volrath, @countgizmo, @olieidel)

      * Have a tight and efficient feedback-loop with physicians (we have two)

      * Interface with our Machine Learning models.

Furthermore, we are always looking for Machine Intelligence Engineers to join our core team.

Have a look at our job openings here: [https://merantix.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/](https://merantix.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Location: Anywhere US, prefer NYC/Bay Area (I'm a Canadian, just got my green card)

Remote: Yes, but I like working in offices.

Willing to relocate: Yes

Shtick: Looking for full-time work as a Tech Lead/Senior Software Engineer on emerging platforms: Spatial Computing, Wearables, Telepresence. I've productized bleeding-edge Computer Vision and Machine Learning systems, have a PhD, am wizard. The past four years, I've worked at a series of venture-funded startups (as an engineer, as founder), but but now I'm looking to build interesting product at an established company. I've published 10 papers, have 4 patents.

Technologies: Augmented Reality, SLAM, Computer Vision, SceneKit, C++, Rust, Python, Unity, Generative Adversarial Networks. Almost every new job I started has required me to learn something new, and then teach other engineers about it.

Résumé/CV: [https://dustinfreeman.org/files/DustinFreemanCV.pdf](https://dustinfreeman.org/files/DustinFreemanCV.pdf)

LinkedIn: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/dustin- freeman-65b82993/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/dustin-freeman-65b82993/)

Academic Page: [http://dustinfreeman.org/academic/](http://dustinfreeman.org/academic/)

Demo Reel: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd8g9HqfUe0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd8g9HqfUe0)

Twitter: [https://twitter.com/dustinfreeman/](https://twitter.com/dustinfreeman/)

Github: [https://github.com/dustinfreeman/](https://github.com/dustinfreeman/)

Email: email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER5> Location: NYC;

Remote: Yes;

Willing to relocate: No;

Technologies:

* Primarily python for scientific/numerical programming (numpy, scipy)

* Strong machine learning background (pandas, scikit-learn, imblearn)

* Experience in text analysis, topic modelling, LSA with NLP( gensim, NLTK, spacy)

* SQL and distributed systems (Hadoop, AWS) experience

* Some experience with web programming in Flask and javascript

* I have a background in Astronomy (Ph.D.) and Data Science and am looking for work that has a strong focus on successfully building and executing machine learning pipelines but I'm open to data science/data engineering generalist roles as well. (A combination of the two would be ideal!)

Résumé/CV: [https://github.com/nityamd/nityamd.github.io/blob/master/cv/...](https://github.com/nityamd/nityamd.github.io/blob/master/cv/..).

Email: firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER6> Location: Albany, NY

Remote: Yes

Willing to relocate: No

Technologies:

* Programming: Python • Django • JavaScript • jQuery • react.js • REST API • HTML • CSS • Bootstrap • Selenium • LATEX • FHIR • Git • Mercurial

* Server / Database: Apache • nginx • MySQL • PostgreSQL • Oracle Database • BIND • exim • Debian • Ubuntu • Solaris

* Networking: TCP/IP • VLAN • STP • Tunneling • OSPV(v3) • EIGRP(v6) • RIP(ng) • BGP • MPLS • Route redistribution

Résumé/CV: [http://jwdougherty.com/Joseph_Dougherty_resume.pdf](http://jwdougherty.com/Joseph_Dougherty_resume.pdf)

Email: firstname.lastname@example.com

After working full time as a software engineer at Oracle (Solaris group) for nearly seven years, I'm looking for my next opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER7> Location: Utrecht, Netherlands

Remote: yes

Willing to relocate: no

Technologies (expert): BE: Go, JavaScript FE: React, React Native Kubernetes, Istio, Knative, Docker Cloud (AWS / GCP) CI/CD / SRE more... contact me or check my LinkedIn

Résumé/CV: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/royklopper/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/royklopper/)

Email: firstname.lastname@example.com

Exhaustive knowledge on the field of developing for a scalable organization, experienced working with start/scale-ups. Looking for a on-premise or remote development / architecture / consultancy job.

</comment><comment><USER8> Location:

San Diego, CA

Remote:

Yes

Willing to relocate:

No

Technologies:

* JavaScript and TypeScript

* Python (API Servers, scripting, etc.)

* React, HTML, CSS

* Node, Express

* SQL, noSQL

* REST, GraphQL

* OIDC, SSO

* Docker, Kubernetes

Résumé/CV:

[https://ufile.io/spltw](https://ufile.io/spltw)

Having worked at a major Fortune-500 company for well over a year, I am ready for my next challenge. I'm a team player, and I love learning!

</comment><comment><USER9> Location: Minsk, Belarus

Remote: Yes

Willing to Relocate: Not really

Technologies: UNIX/Linux, DevOps, AWS, Puppet, Ansible

Resume: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/z4vo3gb6wovrqed/Anton_Safin_CV_Dev...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/z4vo3gb6wovrqed/Anton_Safin_CV_DevOps_Engineer.docx)

Linkedin: [https://www.linkedin.com/in/creosonic/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/creosonic/)

Email: creosonic at gmail.com

</comment><comment><USER4> NOTE: this looks to be a duplicate of the main thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19543938](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19543938)</comment>


The Long Now Foundation - <AUTHOR> http://longnow.org/ <comment><USER2> The clock project <http://longnow.org/projects/clock/> was a motivator for Stephenson's new book, "Anathem"

I was a great read!</comment>


Companies That Try To Outsource Innovation Will Fail - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.dovetailsoftware.com/blogs/main/archive/2007/09/24/can-you-buy-innovation.aspx Buyers in the outsourcing market, which Forrester estimates is topping out at $120 billion a year, were more disappointed in the innovation brought to the table by their provider than nearly anything else...When it comes to innovation, if you have an outsourcing relationship consisting of great communication and naturally occurring collaboration, would this beat a full house of internal departments that don't talk to each other?

<comment><USER2> First,

>She cites numbers showing two out of five principals are unhappy with the innovation results delivered by outsourcing.

Which by default means that 3 out of 5 are content.

Second, What does outsourcing have to do with innovation? By definition, innovation is a cost centre. If outsourced tasks are costing more, they aren't doing their jobs.

Seems to me like you can't have your cake and eat it too... are people being sold otherwise?</comment>


Quantum Computers as Bayesian Networks - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1607.07887 <comment><USER2> My opinion of this paper is not very high. It's not totally confused or crankery or anything like that, but the author doesn't show the data structure they propose doing anything well. Also they seem to think that it will somehow lead to a polynomial time classical simulation for quantum mechanics for no good reason.

I'll just list three quotes that bugged me:

> _The X, H, R(k), M and SWAP gates are discussed in detail and results show > linear scaling as the number of qubits are increased._

How did they manage to spend linear time per operation when you can't even make two qubits interact with the given operations? Just working on the qubits individually will be constant time instead of linear time.

> _The efficiency is still unresolved for these coherent control gates. The > number of edges can still grow exponentially for coherent control gates, > however, it remains to be seen if duplicate edges can be efficiently > merged._

They didn't do the hard part yet, but the easy part was easy, so they expect the hard part to be easy.

> _if BPP = BQP then it is possible that quantum mechanics can be de- > randomized by a deterministic theory thus confirming Einstein's conviction > that nature does not play dice_

Confusing "can be simulated classically in polynomial time" with "is not random". The existence of merge sort doesn't prove that quick sort isn't using randomness.

The arguments for randomness in quantum mechanics aren't based on complexity in the first place (e.g. we can trivially simulate Bell tests).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the criticisms, It will really help with revision so I can explain the work better:

1\. The work is "easy" or "trivial"

I disagree. It does not scale the way we want yet for coherent control gates but we were able to scale the terminal QFT accurately by using Graph Theory on a classical computer vs matrix mechanics. That is an alternate algorithm at the least so not very easy. For example, if someone told you go implement the terminal QFT on a classical computer using graph theory how quickly do you think you could have done it? Or even better, what if I tell you now "implement an alternate scalable terminal QFT algorithm on a classical computer without using QuDot Nets" how easy do you view that question?

2\. Maybe I did not explain the IF BPP=BQP argument well

IF BPP=BQP, and that is a BIG IF, then it is very likely that a different deterministic theory could reproduce the randomness in quantum mechanics. We are not saying that quick sort isn't random, we are saying that quick sort can be replaced by a non random algorithm. Why? because there is much evidence that P=BPP which implies that randomized algorithms can have equivalent non- random algorithms. Similar to how the primality testing algorithm was shown to have a non-random equivalent. "Quantum computing from Democritus" does a nice job of explaining this.

Lastly, it could be that this graph algorithm of quantum computing will never be able to scale coherent control gates. But at the very least we came up with an alternate algorithm to do quantum computing on a classical device. Not completely worthless right? What else are you going to do on a Saturday night? :-)

Thanks again for feedback, even though it was negative

<comment><USER2> For 1: I didn't mean to imply anything about the work being easy or hard, by the way. I was just contrasting against the difficulty of proving BQP=BPP. (e.g. I might refer to Terence Tao's work on Navier-Stokes [1] as 'solving an easier version', but certainly no connotation about the difficulty of the work would be intended).

But I do think you should avoid making such large claims based on what was actually done. It comes off as naive; unaware of how much work has gone into trying to make these things work. Of course people have tried hierarchical models!

For 2: You're still confusing "I have an efficient deterministic algorithm to make predictions about X" with "X must be deterministic". The efficiency of the algorithm is totally independent of whether or not the other system is "really" random or not! Some random processes are downright trivial to make predictions about, even with really truly literally random inputs. And some are arbitrarily hard to predict, even when we replace the randomness with a cryptographic pseudo-random number generator (but don't tell you the seed).

Consider that we _already_ have deterministic algorithms that predict quantum mechanics. The fact that the algorithms take a long time to run has little bearing on _the predictions they make_. Finding a more efficient algorithm for quantum won't turn it into a deterministic process. You'll still be able to pass Bell tests, and the algorithm had better predict that too or its demonstrably wrong!

1: [https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/finite-time- blowup...](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/finite-time-blowup-for- an-averaged-three-dimensional-navier-stokes-equation/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> All kinds of architectures and algorithms can be implemented at the chip level in silicon. But, until recently, the "just make a faster Von Neumann machine" school of chip design has always beaten the "make a task optimized chip" school.

Is there a similar tension of the deign of Q-computers? Can we make an educated guess on which design school will dominate?</comment>


New PayPal scam to trick people into future pre-approved payments - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/PayPalUSA/posts/10152057577559573 <comment><AUTHOR> You might be very surprised to see what you have pre-authorized to pull funds from your account.

Log in to your paypal and then look here

        Profile > My money > My preapproved payments > Update

[https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_manage- paylist](https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_manage-paylist)

I was startled to see I had some that I had no recollection of authorizing.

</comment><comment><USER2> This is a catchy title, its not a scam. Title should be updated.

</comment><comment><USER3> How is this a scam?

<comment><USER4> Not so much a scam as a vulnerability. I found I had "authorized" Zappos some 2 years ago. In the Zappos purchase process, there is no obvious indication you are authorizing _pre-approved, charge me without my authorization_ payments. No other retailer with whom I have used Paypal has done this. (I'm no Imelda Marcos, why should this need to be?)

This makes it possible for an unprincipled employee to embezzle.

The other part that makes this feel sketchy is that it's buried in an unintuitive place on the Paypal page.

<comment><USER3> I think "scam" is a bit strong then - that implies intentional deception.

More to the point, these sorts of pre-authorised and/or recurring transactions are also an issue with credit cards - it's not particular to Paypal by any means, and it's publicised and policed at least as badly with credit cards as with Paypal.</comment></comment></comment>


iKe: Browser-based k-family language IDE - <AUTHOR> http://johnearnest.github.io/ok/ike/ike.html?gist=b274bb7d24b8142660d6 <comment><USER2> The github for the project itself, along with the manual, is here: [https://github.com/JohnEarnest/ok/tree/gh- pages/ike](https://github.com/JohnEarnest/ok/tree/gh-pages/ike)

</comment><comment><USER3> The asteroid demo is as atypical as enjoyable for a k program.

<comment><USER4> Here is a link to the collection of iKe demos: [http://johnearnest.github.io/ok/ike/ike.html](http://johnearnest.github.io/ok/ike/ike.html)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Papers-I-read - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/shagunsodhani/papers-I-read <comment><USER2> It's hard to figure out how someone would try out or play with the list of notes about paper beyond submitting a pull request. That doesn't seem like the sort of thing "Show HN" envisions, e.g. some code that automates creation of a similar repository by other people.

Good luck.</comment>


How the Web App won then lost the battle against the Native App - <AUTHOR> http://bostinnovation.com/2011/05/30/how-html5-won-and-then-lost-the-battle-for-mobile-app-dominance-where-it-still-rules/

<comment><USER2> His thesis: "Although native apps may have won the battle for consumer hearts and minds, for content and business value, the web wins." It will be interesting to see how this changes 3 years from now.</comment>


Show HN: 24 hours && 24 red bulls - <AUTHOR> http://www.bangwithfriends.com/

<comment><USER2> What a distinctive photo on the home page. It's casually erotic and says a lot about who they're trying to target and how.

But, the "How It Works" page is cartoonish and has a completely different (immature, tacky) aesthetic.

One of these things is not like the other.

I wonder if they properly licensed the original photo from Theo Gosselin: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/46799990@N04/5157819128>

I'd put my money on "no."

</comment><comment><USER3> What is to stop someone from saying they are interested (when they really aren't) and instead take your creepy digital advances after finding out your identity and publish them on their FB wall for "teh lolz"?

Seems like it could backfire pretty terribly for people using this. I'm sure it could actually work too.

Though not for me, it's definitely an interesting idea. I agree that the "How it works" page is very immature and could probably turn some potential users off from the concept.

</comment><comment><USER4> I've heard of this done back in the day with pen and paper and one trusted referee just after graduation at certain Ivy League institutions.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think this is useful and a great service, but only if everybody use it. If my friends doesn't use it, why I should use it?

<comment><USER6> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> wow. so brazen it just might work. wish i would have thought of it.

<comment><USER8> Great, the last thing I need is for my sex life to accidentally make its way to my timeline.

That'll will be fun when this data is eventually leaked... I foresee quite a bit of blackmail.

<comment><USER7> i think it's hidden from your friends until you both say you like each other. and you can set it to "only me" so no one else can see you're on there.

<comment><USER9> I think he's talking about a data breach or an untrustworthy middleman.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is GitHub showing you "Permission denied (publickey)." too? - <AUTHOR>

I can't seem to push or pull to any of my repositories right now. Is anyone else experiencing this? <comment><USER2> i am seeing it on twitter right now</comment>


How We Did It: SNL Title Sequence - <AUTHOR> http://www.alex-buono.com/how-we-did-it-snl-titles-sequence/ <comment><USER2> This is incredible. Normally just one or two of these techniques would represent a pretty impressive feat. This used 3d printing, freelensing, pixelstick lightwriting, and a custom bokeh cutout -- in addition to the cool, but more common helicopter shots, timelapse, tilt-shift, and steady cam work.

Being willing to (or maybe having the budget to) use all these techniques AND getting a consistent result is SUPER impressive.

<comment><USER3> > cool, but more common helicopter shots,

I'm glad they pointed out that a similar shot could have been done via drone. I've been told that drones have made cool aerial sequences available to directors who don't have the budget of SNL's 40th though I'd be interested in learning more.

<comment><USER4> Photographers were using RC helicopters long before multicopter thingies that people like to call drones for some reason became trendy. These are still around and they have the lift capacity to hoist your 5D or your Red Epic on a pan/tilt rig, unlike most multicopters that can hardly lift a go pro.

<comment><USER5> That's the issue, this equipment is heavy!

Sure, digital is usually "lighter" but get a DSLR in your hands and you see that even that is not something any drone can carry

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you think this is interesting, there's an entire site dedicated to title sequences in film and television:

[http://www.artofthetitle.com/titles/](http://www.artofthetitle.com/titles/)

<comment><USER7> Awesome! Gonna spend a weekend on this.

And an easy way to share my personal all-time favorite title sequence, Delicatessen:

[http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/delicatessen/](http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/delicatessen/)

<comment><USER8> I have to link to North by Northwest. Just incredible when you consider it was done in 1959.

[http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/north-by- northwest/](http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/north-by-northwest/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As someone who enjoys both programming and video production, this is great to see on HN. In my experience, there is a lot of overlap between both skillsets. As the article makes clear, a lot of time goes into finding cool "hacks" to trick the lens into conveying a particular look via lighting, optical effects and more.

Post-production is also a very technical process that takes a lot of time and effort to get right and involves exploring the particular quirks of your editing software and tricking it to get it to do what you want. There are often little moments of discovery where you do something you weren't even sure was possible. Then there are those serendipitous moments where visuals and audio come together better than you were anticipating or could have ever planned. It's a great feeling.

I encourage any programmers out there who have even a modicum of interest in the subject to go out there and experiment. Video production can be a great creative outlet that uses a lot of the same talents and opens up new artistic pathways.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is a fantastic blog post. I love that we can get this behind-the-scenes look behind something so iconic.

The light painting and lens-whacking details were awesome to read about. I'll definitely have to give the lens whacking a try.

<comment><USER11> I got one of these as a gift a while back - lets you experiment with the 'moving lens' technique without as much potential for sensor damage:

[http://lensbaby.com/lenses-spark](http://lensbaby.com/lenses-spark)

<comment><USER12> I love my Lensbaby (an older one), but the effect is a bit different. There is no light leakage _behind_ the lens like there'd be with freelensing. You sometimes get fun and weird artifacts from light sources just outside the frame, but a subtle streak over the image where light enters the camera behind the hand-held lens ... not so much.

Both interesting effects, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Uh oh, Wordpress problems.

Cached: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:2Z0Puiw...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:2Z0Puiwia-4J:www.alex- buono.com/how-we-did-it-snl-titles-sequence/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment><comment><USER14> Is it just me or is stuff like this way harder to appreciate these days (with the ubiquity of CGI), unless you work in the industry, or see a behind-the- scenes look like this?

This is simply incredible, and yet I don't normally pay the title sequence any attention at all...

<comment><USER15> How many shows have opening credits this long anymore?

You have some shows, like _The Good Wife_ , that use a five-second title card.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rOhzdWZS7E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rOhzdWZS7E)

Some have more elaborate titles, but still only go 15 seconds (e.g. _The Mindy Project_ )

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

Compare with an 80's show like _Dallas_ , where the credits went a whole 1:10! That's like lost real estate for two or three commercials!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iYjgMygIag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iYjgMygIag)

And Twin Peaks, which went _2:36_ :

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2lkvrMa27c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2lkvrMa27c)

<comment><USER16> ...then there's Too Many Cooks: [https://www.youtube.com/embed/QrGrOK8oZG8](https://www.youtube.com/embed/QrGrOK8oZG8)

;)

<comment><USER17> The perfect setup.

<comment><USER15> <facepalm> Beautiful comeback.

<comment><USER16> Thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Great post, really interesting to see how they did the shots and glad to see they opted for real footage and techniques most of the time rather than just post processing everything.

I used to shoot free form lenses, it was difficult to get a still from, shooting video would be a challenge. My (old) post on free lens shooting: [https://mkaz.com/2005/01/08/homemade- lenses/](https://mkaz.com/2005/01/08/homemade-lenses/)

</comment><comment><USER19> I get redirected to "[http://www.alex-buono.com/how-we-did-it-snl-titles- sequence/...](http://www.alex-buono.com/how-we-did-it-snl-titles-sequence/wp- admin/install.php").

<comment><USER20> Yeah looks like their Wordpress box is having a tough time with the amount of requests HN is sending their way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm really happy to see a post like this on HN. Pulling off creative in-camera shots like these are a million times more rewarding for some reason than creating/editing them in post. There's something visceral about getting the shot right in the moment.

</comment><comment><USER22> Wow that's incredible how they combine so many techniques. The use of lenses is really innovative, I mean, people would think it's made only with special effects and it's 3D printed or done entirely manually ! Congrats.

</comment><comment><USER23> I usually fast-forward through the title sequence. Now I feel bad for doing so. Will take the time to watch it next SNL.

<comment><USER24> Honestly the title sequence is one of the best parts. I get nostalgic for NYC, while I'm watching it in NYC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This summer I attended one of the editing workshops put on by Adam Epstein who edits all of the film unit productions. It's incredible how fast they write, produce, edit, and turn around these projects. They are literally working from Thursday afternoon until Saturday evening to build these from scratch.

</comment><comment><USER26> Seems down, archive link still works: [http://web.archive.org/web/20141021121813/http://www.alex- bu...](http://web.archive.org/web/20141021121813/http://www.alex- buono.com/how-we-did-it-snl-titles-sequence/)

</comment><comment><USER27> Was looking forward to watching the final product, but restricted due to being in Canada =/

<comment><USER28> That's a dumb rule :( Here, download this [https://www.dropbox.com/s/qtwv5cdh2dajt0g/new_snl.mp4?dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/s/qtwv5cdh2dajt0g/new_snl.mp4?dl=0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Now I feel bad for always fast-forwarding through this part of SNL.

</comment><comment><USER30> this was a really cool effect...but I never found SNL to be funny. I've never even laughed at it once. I don't understand why people laugh...that and jimmy fallon/kimmel

<comment><USER31> It used to be hilarious. I'm talking Bill Murry era. Maybe I was young and usually stoned, but if the Saturday night was unfruitful(meaning no women); I'd rush home and watch SNL and really got a kick out of it. Just thinking about that "Miss Loupner" thing has me smiling.

<comment><USER15> As a viewer since season 1, SNL has _always_ been funny but inconsistent. If you go back now and watch those early shows yes, there were some awesome sketches, but they were surrounded by a lot of duds as well.

I respect the show just for what it is. These people write and build an entire 90 minute show going from zero to rehearsals in 5 days. No other show has done this for decades and lived to tell about it.</comment></comment></comment>


A Woman's Job Interview Was Cancelled Because She Asked a Simple Question - <AUTHOR> http://twentytwowords.com/a-womans-job-interview-was-cancelled-because-she-asked-a-simple-question/?utm_source=socialmob2&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=influencer&utm_content=2942 <comment><USER2> I once interviewed for a senior software developer job at a startup where I would be the lead developer in charge of an international team and on call pretty much 24-7 for any issues. The CEO put me through a pretty rigorous interview process over 2 weeks. I asked about compensation from the beginning and he assured me that it was in line with current Silicon Valley compensation. When he offered me the job, it was as a contractor for $20 per hour. I was insulted and angry that I'd wasted 2 weeks of my life on this. Any company that won't be upfront with you about compensation is trying to take advantage of you. I'm glad this lady called them out by name.

</comment><comment><USER3> The idea that the responsibilities of a salaried role are typically well- defined, largely fixed, and presented upfront yet compensation is obfuscated, negotiatiable, and settled virtually last is just maddeningly absurd.

Just thinking about the psychology of it... the manipulative nature of it all: haggling for your income; the hidden inequality between coworkers of roughly equivalent skillsets and effectiveness; the idea that you & your potential employer are going to start your professional relationship in such a way.

Sadly, it's far too similar an experience to traditional (American) car buying, another demoralizing dinosaur of a process whose extinction is long overdue.

<comment><USER4> Seriously? How do you fail at car buying. You're more informed than you ever could be. Dealerships know that in the age of online reviews the can't actually take full advantage of buyers who know absolutely nothing. Things have never been better for the buyer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This headline could be less clickbaity, e.g. A Woman's Job Interview was Cancelled Because She Asked about Compensation.

It does look like the company apologized for this nonsense: [https://mobile.twitter.com/SkipTheDishes/status/841512446678...](https://mobile.twitter.com/SkipTheDishes/status/841512446678487040)

</comment><comment><USER6> Why bother interviewing the candidate if expectations on salary can't be met on both sides? I always ask candidates their salary expectations before spending more time on the interview process.

Employees need to feel they are remunerated fairly. Similarly, companies need to derive expected value with the wages paid.

</comment><comment><USER7> I am surprised the company didn't post the compensation with the description. Doesn't the company want people to know the range which the job pays?

Otherwise, 5 rounds in.

A: Congratulations, we want to make you an offer!

B: Great.

A: Okay, first what are your expectations?

B: Um, I hope I can something in the $560k-$580k range, but I would settle for $500k...

A: Uh... we pay $12 an hour...

B: er...

A: er...

<comment><USER8> I don't think even 10% of programming jobs do this. Often only the really good and really bad ones.

</comment></comment><comment> http-teapot This happens all the time... except most times companies will cancel interview without justifications. Companies will never tell why they didn't pick you for the job either.

Always wait until the company wants to hire before talking money.

<comment><USER9> Older people mentioned to me how employers exploited/defrauded workers back in the 1920's and 1930's.

Which is exactly the kinda stuff employers are doing now to the best of their ability. Granted after the new deal and WWII the corporate bottom feeders never stopped, but now it's pretty much every company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I pray this company perishes solely on the demerits of this email exchange. They flew their true colors too early.

<comment><USER11> If this was an hourly position, that should be advertised and openly available to candidates. Basically a priori information.

If, on the other hand, this is salaried (unlikely) I could understand the firm feeling a bit yucked by the candidate asking this so early. That's something a candidate in most cases can research in advance.

But, again, I imagine this was an hourly position and in such case should have been advertised to candidates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The location is Winnipeg Canada. I think I know what happened. There are hardly any jobs out there and even fewer good jobs. . .

In fact, Canada doesn't pay it's developers well at all, (I assume this lady was applying as a coder and not as delivery girl) it's so bad that many end up going South to get better jobs. I know one computer science major in Toronto who quit the field altogether and is working in a warehouse because the 16 dollars an hour he makes there is more than he could make coding. And Toronto is one of the better cities for tech in Canada. Those is Silocon Valley are lucky enough to be outraged but in Canada this is the norm unfortunately, especially in Winnipeg which is one of our poorer cities with high unemployment.

<comment><USER13> 16 bucks an hour in Toronto?

Try closer to 40-55/hour for salaried full-time and 55-125/hour for contracts/consulting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If a person can't inquire about what a job pays it hardly seems fair for a company to inquire about their ability to do the work.

I'd think given this she wouldn't want to be there anyway.

</comment><comment><USER15> The email the interviewee sent was very unprofessional.

Even without the passive aggressive 'Benefits will be included, right?' it was very unprofessional.

To me it would be a big warning flag.

But the reply was also a warning sign, you never call out why you reject the person on specifics it never benefits you.

If you want to be nice do it verbally and be broad.

And the company turn out right, as the interviewee went out and burned the company on twitter because they didn't get the job.

And I'd point out, since the article is making this a women's issue, she was rejected by a women.

<comment><USER16> Considering I've had jobs that only tell me after my first day there that the health insurance wouldn't kick in for 2 months which would trigger the aca fine at that point, I don't think this was an unreasonable request. The person appeared polite in the email based on what's shown in the article here. Personally I wouldn't be insulted if a candidate was completely to the point in an opening question like this.

If employers can just post a list of required skills in a matter of fact manner, why can't a prospective employee act the same way for their requirements?

Edit:Additionally, your problem with the companies reaction is that they told her their reason? That would be the only positive mark for them in my book. That sort of view would imply discriminating against employees for any sort of illegal or immoral reason would be fine as long as they kept quiet about it

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> We should do a more scientific experiment and see what the discrimination distributions are for men and woman per industry</comment>


The Rent-Seeking Is Too Damn High - <AUTHOR> http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-rent-seeking-is-too-damn-high/ <comment><USER4> Here's a quotation from the article:

"Defenders of occupational licensing typically argue that the rules help protect consumers and workers, and that's undoubtedly true in some cases. I want the people filling my cavities to know what they're doing. But it's hard not to suspect that in many cases, these rules serve another purpose: to make it harder for new competitors to enter the marketplace."

While the article seems to criticize rent-seeking behavior only in businesses and professions that require lower levels of education, if we combine this article's statements with the often repeated claim that the US pays roughly twice as much for health care per capita as other developed countries it seems reasonable to ask: Is there a rent seeking problem in the medical and dental fields too?

OTOH, why does the article's author want to deny the poor and less well educated segment of the small business community its fair share of the economic protection which occupational licensing offers?

<comment><USER5> It is logical to require you to have a license to fill a cavity for safety reasons. It is not logical to require a license to cut hair. Yes, it will boost earnings of barbers, who are generally lower-middle class, but it simply doesn't make logical sense.

<comment><USER6> _> It is logical to require you to have a license to fill a cavity for safety reasons. It is not logical to require a license to cut hair._

You mean there are no "safety reasons" involved in cutting hair? A person with sharp implements around your head and neck poses no safety risk?

Also, even if the "safety reasons" are more compelling for dentists than for barbers, that's still not a reason to have the government doing the safety checks by means of licensing. Private organizations could do the same safety checks--plus, they would have an incentive to do only the checks that actually added value, whereas government has an incentive to impose any requirements that have enough of a political constituency, whether or not they add value.

<comment><USER7> _Private organizations could do the same safety checks_

Someone didn't learn anything from the 2008 crash and the issue of private ratings agencies...

Privatize safety checks and businesses will shop around to get a certification.

Believe it or not, capitalism doesn't solve every problem.

<comment><USER8> Someone didn't learn about the de facto monopoly the SEC (federal gov't) gave the Big Three (Moody's, S&P, Fitch) at the time of the meltdown through its NRSRO status: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationally_recognized_statisti...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationally_recognized_statistical_rating_organization#Subprime_mortgages.2C_CDOs.2C_and_the_financial_crisis)

The whole banking and financial system at that level has its tendrils wrapped so firmly around the gov't (and vice versa) that a failure there is hardly an indictment of free market principles.

<comment><USER9> We're not going to remove all government in one fell swoop. So cases where deregulation causes problems are a strong argument against blindly supporting any and all deregulation. "Deregulation works, you're just not using enough of it" is fallacious IMO, but even if it were correct it would still be irrelevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Here's a tech sector example. If your startup wants to become an auDA registrar (i.e. of domains under .au) you must first spend six months as a reseller of an existing registrar.

You read that right. Planning on building anything innovative around a .au domain registration? Please, first funnel all your anchor customer registrations to a competitor. Oh, and build your stack and business processes around their platform, workflows, APIs &c.

<comment><USER11> "Planning on building anything innovative around a .au domain registration"

Can anyone give an example involving innovation around specific domain registration?

<comment> J-dawg I'm only guessing here, but I assume that any SaaS that offers a "white-label" service would need to be a domain registrar. Survey Monkey, for example, does this on the platinum pricing plan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> He's missed another trend that's not as visible - the concentration of commercial real estate ownership. There are many towns and small cities where one or two organizations own most of the commercial property. They control rents and can decide which businesses get to operate.

<comment><USER13> I'm in the market for commercial property. I have a growing company, want a space customized for us, and we plan to stay long term. But buying is making almost no sense as you can't write down the costs against profit, whereas you can with rent.. so the only people buying such property are investors or people with money to burn in my experience. If they changed the tax code to let businesses get a deduction based on property they buy or build, ownership would be so much more diverse.

<comment><USER12> True. That's why it's common to set up two companies, one to own the real estate and one to operate the business. The business rents from the real estate company. This is OK with the IRS as long as the rent is commercially reasonable. Now, the operating company gets to treat the building cost as rent and deduct it. The real estate company gets to deduct mortgage interest and pays taxes only on its profits, the difference between rent and mortgage payments.

If the operating company goes bankrupt, it doesn't take down the real estate company with it. The real estate holding company just has to find a new tenant.

<comment><USER14> Why do you need this two-company set up in order to deduct mortgage interest from taxable income? Why wouldn't it work if the operating company bought real estate?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Professionalization and accreditation could all be described as a closed shop in labor terms. It's classist to say unions are bad while the AMA is good, or vice versa. They're the same thing. Doctors may say they cannot form unions (AMA vs USA) but they have something even better: a closed shop. Closed shops are rarer than collective bargaining, and far more powerful.

<comment><USER16> On the other hand, you really want a professional association that can put a doctor out of business permanently if they persistently fuck up, and assure that new doctors have the requisite training. The AMA is an example of professional licencing that does in fact benefit consumers. A line industrial worker who is always drunk on the job is a much smaller problem than a doctor who is always drunk on the job.

That said, I'm all for unions, because they provide protection for workers from rent-seeking behavior by corporations. If it makes my prices a bit higher, so what.

<comment><USER15> The artificial limiting of supply of physicians is terrible for consumers - <USER2> drives up costs and results in foregoing of care because people cannot afford treatment. I understand that physicians sacrifice a LOT during training, and so can expect high wages in return. I also understand that many physicians give away tens of thousands of dollars of free care every year.

But I think the answer is to amateurize the medical profession. "Amateurize" means to use algorithms and tools to reduce complicated activities into bite- sized pieces that are easier to learn. Henry Ford amateurized automobile manufacturing.

This would enable doctors to begin their careers faster and with less debt, and would enable more people to become doctors because the skills and aptitudes required to become a doctor would be reduced.

Doctors now are still in the craftsman mindset, much like a carriage maker in 1910. I believe most doctors could be reduced to technicians much like CRNAs or PAs without affecting health outcomes. There would still need to be a core of highly trained physicians as there are now, to do research and bridge the knowledge gaps between the technicians, and perhaps this core could be the same size as the current yearly crop of MDs.

But does a family practice doctor need 8 years of post-high school education and 3 years of residency to do routine diagnoses when the most likely course of action is, "Eat less and exercise more"? I don't think so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Someone has actually proposed a constitutional amendment to control rent- seeking:

[http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/2013/11/08/the-anti-rent- seeki...](http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/2013/11/08/the-anti-rent-seeking- amendment-part-i-definitions/)

[http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/2013/11/11/the-anti-rent- seeki...](http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/2013/11/11/the-anti-rent-seeking- amendment-part-ii-the-amendment/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Great example of laws that start out innocent enough, but then become a vector for anti-competitive behavior by the incumbents. The laws that prevent tesla dealers from selling directly to consumers is another example.

These types of misguided laws should come with very short expirations (if they come at all).

<comment><USER19> The Tesla laws don't sound innocent at all however - I guess most people would agree that it seems pretty ridiculous right from the start.

<comment><USER20> > right from the start

Why would thousands of entrepreneurs open GM, Ford, and Chrysler dealerships when the manufacturers could just open a store and undercut them? These laws were a promise to protect that business model.

That doesn't mean that such laws are a great fit for our current economy, but it started out innocent enough.

<comment><USER19> Yes, you're actually right - thinking about it, the issue is that these laws a) don't have any place in this day and age and b) were really abused in the case of Tesla, which never used the traditional dealership model to sell cars as far as I understand it (european here).

On a sidenote: One could argue whether these laws made any sense, even back then - just image how ridiculous it would be if every industry enjoyed the same "protections".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Another problem with the over regulation of professions is that in many states those convicted of a crime cannot obtain a license. They can have totally served their time, both in jail and/or probation but still be prevented from holding a "professional license".

Worse many of the jobs that require these licensees don't pay that much which brought up a whole industry of schools which pass off the costs through student loans and such to get a career which long term isn't going earn a lot of money or even come with benefits

</comment><comment><USER22> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11041340](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11041340)

</comment><comment><USER23> I think Milton Friedman had some great (albeit biased) lectures in which he analyzed these issues from a consequentialist libertarian point of view:

[http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8q71hrwUcu0](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8q71hrwUcu0)

</comment><comment><USER24> This mainly relates to non-scalable industries where everything depends on simply reproducible labor not requiring a lot of training - like yes, barbershops, or real estate. I think it's more of good than bad - it prevents flocking of people into these industries resulting in cutthroat competition, low quality, and desperation of everyone involved. People simply find some other better trades instead.

Sometimes i feel like something like that must be introduced into software development, too: too many random people here, trying to compete only in price. It doesn't work of course, savvy clients see the real picture, but it drops the shadow on the industry in general, like people don't want to learn now to code out of the fear of having to compete with $5 an hour Indians.

<comment><USER21> I would love to know your justification for regulating barbers and stylist. A greenhouse manager requires certification for pesticides which can make sense, but a florist merely goes out of business if they are awful but require certifications. Regardless, from 2013 here is the list in my state. [http://explorer.dol.state.ga.us/mis/Current/cerliccurrent.pd...](http://explorer.dol.state.ga.us/mis/Current/cerliccurrent.pdf)

The document is a little odd as some jobs specifically call out licensing in the state while others mention national certifications (baking food anyone?). Interesting that Computer Engineer is in there, broad enough to catch a lot of people who might not expect it.

<comment><USER25> Stylists do more than just cut hair. It's not unskilled labour. Especially when it comes to dying hair you need to understand the chemical reactions involved and the damage they can do to the skin and hair.

There are a lot of people working in the field who just barely know how to cut hair. But the better ones do more than just design work.

EDIT: For context, in my country (Germany) a lot more occupations are regulated than in the US, including hair stylists / barbers (I don't think we have the distinction). While I agree that for some of the jobs the regulations are too harsh and there are too many hurdles to get foreign qualifications and job experience recognized, I think that the existence of these regulations, especially for jobs that involve exposing customers to hazardous materials, is for the better.

<comment><USER26> One would like to think licensing is about ensuring quality, but if one actually takes a look at the reality, one realizes that licensing is about restricting the field and paying to play, and almost never about ensuring quality.

Even professional licenses are like this, unless you are a complete idiot it's not the knowledge that's the problem (e.g. passing the exam, if there is one), it's paying for the requirements (e.g. the degree and/or the continuing license fee) or fitting the requirements (e.g. being a foreign worker).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Am I the only one who thinks that "rent-seeking" is a wildly misleading name for this phenomenon? To normal people, "rent-seeking" means "looking to collect on a payment for leased property".

Same for "moral hazard". I'm not sure what phenomenon that phrase should be applied to, but it certainly shouldn't be applied to the phenomenon of people taking more risks because they won't have to deal with the fallout. That phenomenon should be called something like "risk asymmetry".

<comment><USER28> It's an established name from economics. The wikipedia definition is: "seeking to increase one's share of existing wealth without creating new wealth". You can think of it as a generalization of seeking rent for a property.

For better or worse, that is what you are doing when you lease a property. You want to be paid just for owning something, not for doing anything.

Analogously, if you provide service X, you can seek "rent" _in addition_ to the value you provide.

One way to do this is by manipulating the market for X by reducing the supply of those who provide X, e.g. through an unnecessarily onerous licensing process. The additional amount you make with the licensing process in place falls under the category of economic "rent".

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent- seeking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking)

<comment><USER27> > The wikipedia definition is: "seeking to increase one's share of existing > wealth without creating new wealth".

I think I figured it out. "Rent seeking" means "trying to get something for nothing" economically.

This would be a lot less confusing if people would just use straightforward terminology ("getting something for nothing") rather than an opaque phrase that sounds like something else ("rent seeking").

<comment><USER29> It's a term of art. It has a very precisely defined technical meaning that specialists are familiar with and share a common understanding of. Its primary purpose is to permit those educated in the subject to converse clearly and unambiguously with one another in an efficient manner.

It is perhaps not the most reasonable thing to expect specialists conversing with their peers in the argot of their field to reduce all their conversations to the point of intelligibility to the average layman. It's also perhaps not the most reasonable thing to expect all terms of art to be re-named every few decades as language shifts. Never mind the challenges of achieving consensus every time someone wants to rename something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The comments in this discussion seem to be focusing on the fact that rent seeking is problematic in highly skilled professional fields as well as lower skilled fields.

While we clearly need to ensure that bad doctors stop practicing medicine, that crooked accountants can't take advantage of people, and...that loud librarians can't be librarians anymore (or something ;)), perhaps this is a better role for the government than a private professional association that is motivated to engage in rent-seeking?

</comment><comment><USER30> Now just imagine if that to be a programmer, you needed a diploma from an credentialed university and passing an exam from some organization.

<comment><USER31> Instead we get stupid coding tests every bloody interview we go to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> ITT: HN arguing whether capitalism is better than democracy.

</comment><comment><USER32> Of course this behavior is artificially inflating the market.

The demand stays the same and the supply is reduced (due to the barrior to entry and hoops you need to jump through), which results in higher prices.

The same principals can also be applied to most unions.

<comment><USER33> It's a complicated problem though. Everyone wants to make as much as possible, but everyone also wants (economically speaking) everyone _else_ to make as little as possible.

A union job is great for me. But it's bad for me if my plumber has a union job because then it will cost more to fix my sink.

In economics (and ecology, evolution, etc.) it's actually quite strange for something _not_ to be a paradox. Straightforward linear behavior in complex living systems is weird, and if you think you have an example you're probably missing something.

<comment><USER34> What's the paradox?

<comment><USER15> The fallacy of composition.

If everyone made more money, everyone would be better off, right? Except in order for this to happen, everyone would need to charge more for their goods and services, so prices would rise and the raises everyone got would be sucked up by rising prices, leaving everyone in the same place as where they started, relatively.

The sad truth is that every economy must pick winners and losers. If everyone wins, no one wins.

Whether this selection process aligns with productivity determines the trajectory of nations. Productivity measures actual wealth creation, and hopefully politics does not lag too far behind it.

<comment><USER35> Countries with high unionization and relatively low income differences between low end and high end workers are excellent performers. Especially if you include quality of life, free time, egalitarianism, low poverty etc instead of just average GDP per capita.

See eg [http://www.nationmaster.com/country- info/stats/Labor/Trade-u...](http://www.nationmaster.com/country- info/stats/Labor/Trade-union-membership)

<comment><USER15> That's a correlation, but the causal relationship is the other way around. Unions form after a country industrializes as a response to income and wealth inequality. So you're comparing the income and wealth of already industrialized countries which subsequently developed trade unions with presumably countries that haven't industrialized yet.

Indeed in the Scandinavian countries you're citing, excessive trade unionism, among other illiberal measures, in the 80s and early 90s led to economic crisis. There were economic reforms in the mid 90s which restored economic growth by paring back the role of the state and trade unions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The problem is that sometimes it is vital for cities to be able to control which (and how many) businesses open up in an area.

Just look at what has hit HN today - an article about Walmart closing down and leaving entire regions without a less-than-3-hours drive to the next grocery store.

It is vital for a city to be able to prevent big chains from entering a market, destroying the competition by price dumping (made possible by sheer scale) and then packing up - leaving a stripped down town in the process.

Oh the other side, it's unfortunate that these laws and regulations more often than not get abused for clientel politics.

<comment><USER37> What does that have to do with requiring two years of training to get a barber's license?

<comment><USER36> I don't have a problem with that. Anything with healthcare or safety (electricians, plumbers, gas installers, builders, car mechanics) must be regulated in order to protect the public.

90% of the skill required in many jobs can be learned in a week or a month. It's the 10% you only learn over the course of education that are safety critical, though. Not to mention practicing in a safe environment instead on your customers or their homes.

Let's take your barber as an example, and only the stuff that comes to my non- professional mind:

\- highly aggressive chemicals that will ruin your health if you're not taking proper safety precautions

\- the fact that you're meddling with a deadly sharp knife at the necks of your customers

\- health hazards for the customers: lice, other transmittable diseases, improperly disinfected equipment

\- health hazards for yourself that can be carried by your customers and you can pick them up (e.g. you cut the customer by accident, he's HIV+ and you have an open wound on one of your fingers while not wearing gloves - <USER3> I rarely see barbers do)

The fact that the IT industry largely consists of self-educated people might be pretty cool but on the other side, how many security incidents could have been avoided by proper education? Even for BASIC security like not doing echo $_GET["name"]? Take a look at [https://blog.setec.io/articles/2016/01/07/software- kill.html](https://blog.setec.io/articles/2016/01/07/software-kill.html) or literally hundreds of similar articles.

<comment><USER37> That's a great, detailed answer. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> > _Defenders of occupational licensing typically argue that the rules help > protect consumers and workers, and that's undoubtedly true in some cases. I > want the people filling my cavities to know what they're doing. But it's > hard not to suspect that in many cases, these rules serve another purpose: > to make it harder for new competitors to enter the marketplace. In Nevada, > according to Politico, barbers need more than two years of training to > qualify for a license; that's a high bar to anyone looking to break into the > business._

So, it's the all powerful Nevada barber cartel that influences legislation in order to keep new people from entering the trade?

Well, I, for one, seriously doubt that.

And I wouldn't call the requirement to have "two years of training" before taking razors to people's necks and scissors to people's hair "a high bar" either.

While there is indeed TONS of rent-seeking going on, I'd look for it in serious industries, with big companies and multinationals involved -- from telcos and ISPs to construction and the health industry for example.

<comment><USER39> A cartel doesn't have to be very powerful at all to influence public policy. For something like this to happen, we need very few factors:

1)A small set of people that have much to gain from a policy change, while it'd be a small visible cost for everyone else. The moment another easily identifiable groups can lose, this weakens considerably

2)Enough political will to lobby. This can be due to single issue voting, or a setup where only the people that contribute economically to a cause will really benefit from it. This is the reason unions are very weak in "right to work" states, as the legislation makes paying dues a suboptimal outcome.

As long as you have that, it's pretty easy to get laws passed that will help you and hurt the public in hard to measure ways. It's easy to sell occupational licensing to people that aren't paying much attention, because the costs of it to the public are not easy to see, but very real to people who know get protected from other people joining their profession.

In Spain, for instance, you'll see a bunch of computer science professional organization that try to recruit people by saying that they will "protect your degree", mainly by lobbying for legislation that would separate someone with a computer science degree from "intruders" (people with decrees in engineering physics and such that can code).

And two years of training before becoming a barber is plenty of barrier: There are other professions that have similar difficulty and pay, but lack the two years of training requirement. So less people become barbers, as losing two years of pay for training is worse than getting a job right away! This leads to decreased competition, and eventually high prices. Two years is A LOT of time to end up getting paid that little.</comment></comment>


Start-Up Plans a More Personal Social Network - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/technology/15photo.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=dave%20morin&st=Search

<comment><USER2> A good example of how to get press when you have a good story. In this case: Ex-Facebook employee.</comment>


O'Reilly Cancels Solid Amsterdam Conference - <AUTHOR> http://solidcon.com/internet-of-things-eu-2015 <comment><USER2> Too bad. Easily the best conference on emerging technology. The San Francisco version is incredible, and I'm bringing my whole team next year. I looked at Amsterdam Solid though, and it seems really small. Just one day long, and only keynotes. Not sure why they decided to go that route when the big one in San Francisco is so successful.</comment>


Open-source software for urban autonomous driving - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/cpfl/autoware/

<comment><AUTHOR> This website contains demo videos [http://www.pdsl.jp/fot/autoware/](http://www.pdsl.jp/fot/autoware/)</comment>