Deepfreeze.io is cold storage everyone can use - <AUTHOR> https://www.deepfreeze.io/overview/

<comment><USER2> I assumed this was going to be some sort of service for storing bitcoin private keys in... cold storage (i.e. offline, in an uber-secure physical bank/safe or something). Whoops!

<comment><USER3> you may give longaccess.com a try for such usage

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've thought about using Glacier but didn't seem worth the hassle. This I might use. Invite requested!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Joshua. This is exactly how we think about deepfreeze.io! Can I quote you?

<comment><USER4> Sure thing!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why not just use Amazon Glacier directly?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you are an expert user and don't mind the technical complexities (keys, buckets, etc.) and the complicated (close to unpredictable for most) pricing scheme, Glacier will work.

deepfreeze.io makes it much easier, and offers integrations with other services too (currently only Dropbox, more soon), that allow you to transfer files between deepfreeze.io and these services on the server side -great if you don't want to re-upload 50 or 100GB, you already have in Dropbox, over your home Internet connection.

Disclaimer: I'm the founder of deepfreeze.io.

<comment><USER6> I immediately assumed this was Amazon Glacier based when I read your post and that is nothing but an extremely good design decision on your part.

You've created a very useful product on top of very sound existing technology. You don't get bonus points from your future customers for reinventing the wheel rather than use very good existing services (and for the most part Amazon AWS services are very good).

People that claim this is basically a wrapper around Glacier do not properly appreciate the difference between a consumer facing service and the sort of services Amazon is offering.

Good luck with deepfreeze.io!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I signed up for an invite a month ago or so when this was posted and still haven't received it.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you signed up a month ago, and you haven't received your invite, please contact email@example.com.</comment></comment>


Disk42: Open-source encrypted cloud storage - <AUTHOR> https://www.disk42.com/en/

<comment><USER2> Hm, what is preventing any competition to run the server and client and compete with your own product?</comment>


Creator of Raft is speaking at our meetup. What questions do you want answered? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I'd ask:

It seems there are a lot of implementations of Raft, few of which are entirely complete (CoreOS's etcd seems to be the best). Perhaps this is the downside of the emphasis on ease of implementation, vs creating 'golden libraries'. Which implementations does he think are the best in each language?

PS What is the meetup?

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, thanks for the question!

We're hosting in SF if you can make it: [http://www.meetup.com/Sourcegraph- Hacker-Meetup/events/22119...](http://www.meetup.com/Sourcegraph-Hacker- Meetup/events/221199291/)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> For context, Raft is the consensus algorithm that powers awesome distributed systems like Docker, CoreOS, Kubernetes, Consul, and more!

<comment><USER2> FYI, there's no Raft in Docker (AFAIK), and CoreOS and Kubernetes both have Raft via etcd.

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoops, I must have heard that wrong. I thought Swarm uses it. +1 for the clarification.

<comment><USER2> Ah, you're right - sorry! Docker Swarm can use etcd or consul, both of which use Raft: [https://docs.docker.com/swarm/discovery/](https://docs.docker.com/swarm/discovery/)

You may want to use consul to the list!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Structure Sensor is the first 3D sensor for mobile devices - <AUTHOR> http://structure.io/ <comment><USER2> Very interesting, but practically speaking it's an answer in a search of a question. This will likely be natively supported by smartphones in a matter of 2-3 generations, so they have very limited time to figure out what the question is and to grab that niche.

But all in all, and I hate to say this, I think they will ultimately fail.

</comment><comment><USER3> Previous discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6400088](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6400088)

</comment><comment><USER4> This would be very useful to make fps maps based on real world places we know, like our neighborhood or make come true a dream of a friend of mine, to play counter strike in a map simulating the university campus

</comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone know the people behind this? i.e. could someone make an educated guess as to whether they're likely to meet their Feb 2014 ship date?

</comment><comment><USER6> honest question: how is this different from a mobilized version of Kinect?

<comment><USER7> Even if it was, that would be great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Another, better input for my self driving Arduino RC car platform!</comment>


What The Economist doesn't tell you - <AUTHOR> https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/what-the-economist-doesnt-tell-you-liberal-democracy-populism-review <comment><USER2> The thing about The Economist - there are small handful of topics, I _do_ know something about. When The Economist writes about them, I tend to think "hey, that's a pretty good article". That tends to give me confidence in the quality of the rest of its coverage.

I don't always _agree_ with it, but it's at least well argued and thought provoking.

<comment><USER3> Michael Chrichton wrote about this syndrome. When the economist writes about my job, IT, it is usually pretty good. When it writes about my country, Finland, it is sometimes a bit shallow, but the facts are still right.

[https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann- amnesia/](https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/)

<comment><USER4> Just to note, he writes about the exact opposite of what is happening here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The Economist is a very good illustration of two distinctions:

\- "liberal" is not the same as "left", even if both of them have often been aligned against "Toryism"

\- "ideological bias" and "intellectual dishonesty" are not the same thing

The liberal pro-market bias of the Economist is something they don't hide, and is fundamental both to their opinion pieces and the subjects they cover. However, they generally haven't surrendered to the temptation to make stuff up or ignore inconvenient facts. They don't really do demonisation of opponents or scapegoats. They are capable of reviewing their own coverage in retrospect (things like predicting the last thirteen of two housing price crashes).

It's possible to read an economist article where you disagree with their angle but still feel that you've learned something and they've made a useful contribution to the discussion. The number of news sources where this is true has shrunk dramatically; the only other one I'd name from US-UK media is the FT. Honorable mention to the Irish Times.

</comment><comment><USER6> By half way through the article, I haven't seen one decent argument presented to justify the author's dislike of The Economist. Instead, this is just an invitation to go _boo_ , _hiss_ when the reader hears the wake-word 'liberal'.

<comment><USER7> Searching the page for "liberal" gives 41 hits, searching for "economist" gives 42 hits. It's very hard to take the article seriously even after reading just the first sentence:

> The publication has a sublime — even smug — self-confidence in its elite > liberal worldview.

What ever they're proposing may very well have merit, but in that tone, there's little interest to hear the case out.

<comment><USER8> As a subscriber to the Economist, I fully concur with the line you take offense with. It is _very_ self-assured in its worldview. Pointing that out should not be controversial.

<comment><USER9> Yes, the fact that Economist has an obvious political stand should not be taken as a bug - it's a feature. Their fact-based journalism is excellent, and when they take a stand on an issue, it's obvious and not hidden inside some fake statistics or pseudoscience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> q-base On the topic of The Economist. I have been a subscriber twice, but each time cancelled because I was endlessly behind on the huge number of quality articles.

I am however yet again considering subscription. But are there any other good physical magazines to consider? I have considered The New Yorker as well, but I need to research whether I can have that delivered to Denmark. But any other suggestions given that I really like in depth articles on diverse topics. Not necessarily latest news also just interesting long-form stories.

<comment><USER10> I've heard good things about "Delayed Gratification." It's a quarterly magazine that "revisits the events of the last three months to offer in-depth, independent journalism in an increasingly frantic world."

<comment> q-base That looked too interesting to pass. I signed up immediately for the print magazine delivered to my door, every quarter. Thanks a lot for mentioning that. I really look forward to seeing it in person!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Do read it. But don't start with the leaders. Start at the back where the > world often appears in a less tidy and more truly thought-provoking form.

I think this is a good takeaway.

I have been reading The Economist for ~ 10 years, a period in which my world view has shifted quite a bit. In the beginning, while still in high school, I essentially treated The Economist as the word of God (it's funny to see that that's actually what they were going for: _when one young recruit was facing the challenge of composing their first leader, the advice they received from a senior editor was simple: "Pretend you are God."_ ). I had no awareness that the publication followed an ideological line, I simply thought that that was the truth and everything going against it was simply wrong.

After having left my native country to study and subsequently work in a bunch of different places, personal experience has clarified a lot of the misunderstandings I had about Western capitalist societies.

I continue to read The Economist in its entirety every week, but I now see it partly as a source of information about current events and partly as the mouthpiece of the current ruling class.

As long as you are able to correct for its biases and to not get too annoyed when they are blatantly partisan, The Economist is still a very useful and sometimes entertaining read.

<comment><USER12> what do you mean "able to correct its bias"?

<comment><USER11> I used the expression _to correct for bias_ , which is a collocation coming out of, I would guess, statistics (see for example: [https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/142875/what-does- to-...](https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/142875/what-does-to-correct- for-the-fact-that-mean-is-the-verb-correct-intransitiv) ).

What I meant was that if you're aware that The Economist has a clear ideological lens through which it sees the world you can take that into account and take its comments with a grain of salt. Initially I was not aware of their clear ideological stance and I took it to be an objective publication.

This being said it's probably not possible to have an _objective_ publication, so it's better to read one that is written competently and subsequently correct for its bias.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I seem to recall they came out in favour of the Iraq war, which in hindsight didn't turn out to be particularly astute. Surprised to see no mention of that.

<comment><USER14> Do you have a link to their coverage at the time? Would be interesting to see their reasoning.

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.economist.com/leaders/2003/...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.economist.com/leaders/2003/02/20/why- war-would-be-justified)

[https://www.economist.com/leaders/2003/07/17/the-case-for- wa...](https://www.economist.com/leaders/2003/07/17/the-case-for-war- revisited)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I wouldn't have put Keynes and Hayek in the same group but I guess that's partly the point the author is trying to make. The 2 couldn't be more different from each other.

</comment><comment><USER16> > The Economist was founded by the liberal Scottish banker James Wilson as a > mouthpiece of the movement for free trade.

I like how they make spreading ideals of Freedom sound like a bad thing.

<comment><USER5> You could carry on to the next sentences:

> This was originally a broad church stretching from radicals like Richard > Cobden and John Bright to the cotton interests of Manchester. But that > coalition frayed as Wilson opposed assistance to Ireland during the famine > and backed the authoritarian usurper Napoleon III following the 1848 > revolution in France.

"Free trade" tends to mean a very specific kind of freedom for a very specific set of people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This article has all the qualities of a first year degree takedown.

Interrogative opening sentence, desperate latching on to Historical precedent(vis a vi Germany and China, use of the word Bromide and or idolatory and conflating Government policies and political movements by dint of shared temporal space.

The economist is broad magazine, the book was written about the editorial the leaders, and the review is an attack of convserative led liberal thinking.

In my expert opinion (of nothing), this article is yucky.

</comment><comment><USER18> Looks like there's an organized "smug attack" going on against The Economist. I wonder who's trying to undermine its credibility?

I've been reading the Economist for a couple of decades and while it's not perfect smugness is not prominent amongst its vices.

</comment><comment><USER19> The article seems to summarize, but doesn't name, Alexander Zevin's book, Liberalism at Large: The World According to the Economist ( [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52105758-liberalism- at-l...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52105758-liberalism-at-large) ).

</comment><comment><USER20> Odd opinion piece hit job on The Economist. Wonder how often the author had pieces rejected.

<comment><USER5> I don't believe they do open submission. They have a small staff, and (almost uniquely) no bylines. Many pieces have multiple authors. The opinion writers are the same from week to week but under pseudonyms.

<comment><USER21> _The opinion writers are the same from week to week but under pseudonyms._

Also worth clarifying that while the opinion pieces are written under pseudonym they are not anonymous and they make no secret about who is behind each pseudonym.</comment></comment></comment>


How to set up your own free VPN server on AWS - <AUTHOR> https://www.webdigi.co.uk/blog/2015/how-to-setup-your-own-private-secure-free-vpn-on-the-amazon-aws-cloud-in-10-minutes/ <comment><USER2> Streisand[0] also only takes about 10 times, but with fewer mouse clicks and is much, much more secure. By default it tunnels OpenVPN over stunnel so that your connections looks exactly like regular SSL sessions (albeit SSL sessions that last for months at a time).

[https://github.com/jlund/streisand](https://github.com/jlund/streisand)

<comment><USER3> is there a way to use streisand at an existing instance of EC2/DO ?

<comment><USER4> Yes.

Streisand is just a bundle of ansible playbooks so it can easily be deployed on any server that meets the requirements: Debian 7 or similar.

It also has a nice menu to deploy to Amazon, Linode, Digital Ocean and Rackspace without extra effort.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I created a Docker image that runs OpenVPN and wraps the verbose key and cert generation process. Works on any cloud provider that runs Docker instances (I try to avoid OpenVZ).

[https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/kylemanna/openvpn/](https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/kylemanna/openvpn/)

[https://github.com/kylemanna/docker- openvpn](https://github.com/kylemanna/docker-openvpn)

</comment><comment><USER6> Why is PPTP still used and promoted?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-to- Point_Tunneling_Protoc...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point-to- Point_Tunneling_Protocol#Security)

<comment><USER7> It's fast, easy to setup and has less overhead. It's perfectly fine when all you're looking for is a different geolocation quickly.

But it shouldn't be promoted as secure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > However, it has always been hard to trust a VPN provider who could > potentially log and intercept your internet traffic!

Later:

> Then under Template, Source, select "Specify an Amazon S3 template URL" and > paste in this URL [https://s3.amazonaws.com/webdigi/VPN/Unified-Cloud- > Formation...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/webdigi/VPN/Unified-Cloud- > Formation.json) and then click Next.

Now you're just trusting your obscure VPN machine-image provider not to log and intercept your traffic! (Or am I misunderstanding what using this URL does?)

Like another commenter, I was sort of hoping for something more generic.

<comment><USER9> I wrote a pretty generic blog post (not AWS specific) a couple of years ago about how to quickly set up a VPN Server: [https://redfern.me/quick-and-dirty- vpn-server-with-pptpd/](https://redfern.me/quick-and-dirty-vpn-server-with- pptpd/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Here is another example using Digital Ocean. This looks complicated but is very simple: [https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to- set-...](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up-an- openvpn-server-on-ubuntu-14-04)

If you want to use Docker: [https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to- run-...](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-run-openvpn- in-a-docker-container-on-ubuntu-14-04)

<comment><USER11> If you don't mind the 2 user limit might as well install OpenVPN Access Server. Gives you a web UI and the setup is easier [https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to- inst...](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install- openvpn-access-server-on-ubuntu-12-04)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Who owns 169.254.169.254? Just looking at the wget in the setup script...

Also I'd suggest people get an OpenVPN VPN if they can. PPTP is insecure/broken, nobody should be using it ever. And while L2TP/IPSec is secure, it is a massive PITA to use and is often blocked on public WiFi (where a VPN is most useful) because they don't allow the ports/protocols (plus IPSec traversal is a nightmare in some cases).

OpenVPN acts like an SSL connection (not dissimilar to that used by HTTPS) so it works more places. It also traverses most network equipment without issue since, again, it looks similar to HTTPS traffic.

PS - I have no horses in this race, but I have setup an L2TP/IPSec VPN on EC2 before, it was an unpleasant experience all around.

PPS - If you REALLY want OpenVPN to work great put it on port 443. If you browse there nothing will happen, but OpenVPN clients will happily use the port and few if any network equipment is designed to block it.

<comment><USER13> 169.254.169.254 explained here [http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3927](http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3927)

<comment><USER12> Ah I see. Here's a better explanation: [http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-insta...](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/ec2-instance- metadata.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Beware that free tier has 15 GB upload limit.

from [https://aws.amazon.com/free/](https://aws.amazon.com/free/):

      Data Transfer

      15 GB of bandwidth out aggregated across all AWS services*

<comment><USER12> I'd always recommend anyone using the free tier to add a free billing alert to your AWS account. For example when I had a free tier server, it cost me roughly $5/month, so I had an alert set to $15/month.

When my free tier ran out (I got the month wrong) the alert notified me ($16 in charges) and I purchased a reserved instance to bring the cost back down to under $10/month.

<comment><USER15> Until / unless there is a way to actually put a cap on billing (not just a notification), it's something I'll stay away from when I can.

<comment><USER16> Which data and servers did you want deleted when you hit that cap? ;)

Although I do think a soft cap (preventing more Ec2 launches etc) would make a lot of sense.

<comment><USER15> I want a hard cap, as in "when cap is reached save current state to disk and don't allow any more CPU time".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I like the CloudFormation bit - I think I'll give that a try. I wrote a book on how to setup your own VPN in AWS for overseas streaming (step-by-step) but using the OpenVPN AS appliance.

Everyone's mileage and needs are different but OpenVPN is probably a better choice over PPTP & L2TP for security and speed - at least in my experience. www.virtualjj.com if you want to take a peak of what I did.

</comment><comment><USER18> They speak of a free tier for new AWS customers but how much does it cost if we're not a new customer?

<comment><USER19> the same tiered machine running for a full month costs about 7usd.

<comment><USER12> Little more than that. $7 with a reserved instance maybe. I'd say $10-11, but sub-$10 with a reserved instance (including the initial buy-in).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I was really hoping this would be a more generic tutorial for various Linux flavors. I failed miserably at setting up L2TP IPSec last time I tried.

</comment><comment><USER21> managed to get my Tokyo vpn server quickly. awesome.

</comment><comment><USER22> Don't use PPTP

<comment><USER23> You can also use L2TP IPSEC. Use PPTP for devices that dont support L2TP.</comment></comment>


This is What Budget Cuts Have Done to Detroit... - <AUTHOR> http://www.policymic.com/articles/44725/this-is-what-budget-cuts-have-done-to-detroit-and-it-s-freaking-awesome <comment><AUTHOR> I'm submitting this not as an endorsement of the article, but because I want to read other people's thoughts on this.

For me personally, this article rings a lot of journalistic alarm bells. In reddit parlance, it's smells like a big ol' circle-jerk.</comment>


Google turning phones into remote controllers - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/apps/2017/12/04/turn-your-phone-into-a-google-slides-remote-control-with-this-chrome-extension/ <comment><USER2> >Now, there's another way to use your phone as a presentation remote, thanks to this handy browser extension created by Malaysia-based developer Henry Lim.

How is this news? Are there not apps that already do this ( turn your phone into a mouse)</comment>


Twitter for Android Security Issue - <AUTHOR> https://privacy.twitter.com/blog/2019/twitter-for-android-security-issue.html <comment><USER2> I got this email just now:

\---

Hello,

We recently fixed an issue that could have compromised your account. Although we don't have evidence that this was exploited, we can't completely confirm so we are letting you know. You can learn more about this issue here.

Please update to the latest version of Twitter for Android as soon as possible to make sure your account is secure.

We're sorry this happened and will continue working to keep your information secure on Twitter. You can reach out to our Office of Data Protection through this form to request information regarding your account security.

Thanks, Twitter</comment>


Neuroscience: Under Attack - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/opinion/sunday/neuroscience-under-attack.html?hpw

<comment><USER2> Interesting article, and a terrible headline in the Times about it. It's not _Neuroscience: Under Attack_ , it's _Pop Neuroscience: Under Attack_ , and it's under attack by scientists.

It's also part of a fad of how science works or is absorbed in culture.

Here's the Times in 1973, reviewing Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, in which the antagonist, Dwayne Hoover's actions are caused by the bad chemicals in his system.

 _Is Kurt Vonnegut Kidding Us?_

[http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/09/28/lifetimes/vonnegut- bre...](http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/09/28/lifetimes/vonnegut- breakfast.html)

In 1973 it was chemistry. In 2013 it's neuroscience.

<comment><USER3> "It's not Neuroscience: Under Attack, it's Pop Neuroscience: Under Attack, and it's under attack by scientists."

Neuroscience itself is generally pretty shoddy, so I don't think the distinction between neuroscience and pop neuroscience is necessarily all that important. E.g. this article explaining that over 50% of neuroscience journal articles are completely invalid because they use statistics incorrectly:

<http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v14/n9/full/nn.2886.html>

And that's only one type of error out of dozens.

<comment><USER4> To be fair, that's generally only a criticism of fMRI experiments. Far from all the neuroscience research being done.

<comment><USER5> fMRI: Modern day phrenology

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As another comment notes, the strength of science is that if something is true, it will still be true even if a report about the fact is initially exaggerated or initially ignored. Over the long haul, people who commit themselves to finding out about replicated results that are consistent with the previous established principles of science will gradually gain a better understanding of reality. Someday, we have hope of understanding our brains and how we think better than we understand that now. The discussion here on HN often helps clarify issues that are not well reported in the popular press. There are several working neuroscientists who regularly post here, and I enjoy the stories they post and the comments they make and learn from them.

From the article: "A team of British scientists recently analyzed nearly 3,000 neuroscientific articles published in the British press between 2000 and 2010 and found that the media regularly distorts and embellishes the findings of scientific studies."

We certainly observe submissions to HN regularly that are based on press coverage of scientific findings that has gone through the "Science News Cycle"

<http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174>

such that a preliminary research finding gets hyped up in a press release, and then the press release is sensationalized by a blogger or by a lazy journalist who doesn't check other sources. This is one good reason not to submit to HN at all any "story" that comes straight from a press release aggregation service, as other participants on HN have been suggesting for years. ScienceDaily is just a press release recycling service, nothing more. Users here on HN think there are better sites to submit from.

Comments about ScienceDaily:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3992206>

"Blogspam.

"Original article (to which ScienceDaily has added precisely nothing):

[http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/abundance-of-rare- dn...](http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/abundance-of-rare-dna-changes- following-population-explosion-may-hold-common-disease-clues)

"Underlying paper in Science (paywalled):

[http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/05/16/science.1...](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/05/16/science.1219240)

"Brief writeup from Nature discussing this paper and a couple of others on similar topics:

[http://www.nature.com/news/humans-riddled-with-rare- genetic-...](http://www.nature.com/news/humans-riddled-with-rare-genetic- variants-1.10655)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4108603>

"Everything I've ever seen on HN -- I don't know about Reddit -- from ScienceDaily has been a cut-and-paste copy of something else available from nearer the original source. In some cases ScienceDaily's copy is distinctly worse than the original because it lacks relevant links, enlightening pictures, etc.

" . . . . if you find something there and feel like sharing it, it's pretty much always best to take ten seconds to find the original source and submit that instead of ScienceDaily."

Comments about both ScienceDaily and PhysOrg, another press release aggregator:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3689185>

"Why hasn't sciencedaily.com or physorg been banned from HN yet?"

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3875529>

"Original source:

[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hinode/news/pole- asymmetry...](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hinode/news/pole- asymmetry.html)

"What ScienceDaily has added to this: (1) They've removed one of the figures. (2) They've removed links to the Hinode and SOHO websites. (3) They've added lots of largely irrelevant links of their own, all of course to their own site(s).

"Please, everyone: stop linking to ScienceDaily and PhysOrg."

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3867361>

"Those sources don't have RSS feeds, and ScienceDaily and PhysOrg have a bad habit of not linking to such things."

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4083766>

"Added value in PhysOrg article: zero.

"Please, everyone, stop submitting links from PhysOrg and ScienceDaily. I have never ever ever seen anything on those sites that isn't either (1) bullshit or (2) a recycled press release with zero (or often negative) added value. (Sometimes it's both at once.) It only takes ten seconds' googling to find the original source."

</comment><comment><USER7> > A team of British scientists recently analyzed nearly 3,000 neuroscientific > articles published in the British press between 2000 and 2010 and found that > the media regularly distorts and embellishes the findings of scientific > studies.

I have a feeling this would be true of most scientific fields.

<comment><USER8> And NYT misreported a good chunk of the topics of those 3000 offensive articles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Because of the Assange affair, us Swedes have had the opportunity to first- hand fact-check statements made by famous leftist/feminist activists (the likes of Naomi Wolf and Michael Moore). The whole process appears to have left a lot of people disillusioned. A lot of books and other kind of media made by these people have been sold here the past decade.

Here is a series of blog posts fact checking Naomi Wolf:

<http://samtycke.nu/eng/category/naomi-wolf/>

After reading this I can't trust this person.

</comment><comment><USER10> This absolutely horrible framing of the issue aside, here is an example of what the Times heretofore have written on the subject of "neuroscience":

1\. [http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2011/10/01/the-new-york- times...](http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2011/10/01/the-new-york-times-blows- it-big-time-on-brain-imaging/)

2\. [http://www.reddit.com/r/cogsci/comments/kyxgi/the_new_york_t...](http://www.reddit.com/r/cogsci/comments/kyxgi/the_new_york_times_neuroscientifically_wees/)

Are we going to argue that medical science is under attack, because homeopathy is criticized?

</comment><comment><USER11> What's wonderful about science is that the facts don't change just because someone doesn't understand them or misrepresents them. It's just the cold hard truth of our universe. Regardless of what anyone says or wants, the world is as it is. So I realize it's tempting to get angry at sloppy science reporting. I don't like to be half informed and I don't appreciate the smugness of decorating bad information with an air of unearned authority. It's on us to teach our children to think critically and point out bad science reporting when it happens. Yet I take comfort in the realization that good science will prevail, because it's just measuring the way things are.

<comment><USER12> We haven't taught critical thinking in (US) schools for at least 30 years. It's all about standardized test scores now; fill-in-the-bubble rather than fill-in-the-blank.

<comment><USER8> I learned critical thinking 20 years ago, and I did some of my critical thinking tests in multiple choice format.

<comment><USER12> What part of choosing answers created and selected by someone else do you consider to be critical thinking?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The 'attack' is a useful counterweight to the recent tendency to "Just Add Neuro- to Everything" (as someone suggested during the "Five Word TED Talks" Twitter trend)

</comment><comment><USER14> Very flawed article. Confuses the media's erroneous conclusions about findings and application of neuroscience with its validity as a subject of scientific study.

</comment><comment><USER15> The author's point is well taken, but misses the greater problem.

Neuroscience has unveiled to us findings which fundamentally contradict what non-scientists hold to be common wisdom. The greater damage that pop- scientists perpetrate is to cherry-pick neuroscientific research to simply reenforce lazy outdated assumptions that the public holds.

Hence, all of the uninformed nature/nurture debates.

<comment><USER13> I think it cuts both ways - sometimes pop science writers cherrypick data that reaffirms existing biases. In other cases, they'll cherrypick tenuous data to contradict these biases. Both are effective headline strategies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Neuroscience" as a word is abused too much.

Half the time that I watch a YouTube video, I see a "Lumosity.com" advert that tells me it "just feels like games" but it's "serious brain training" and "based on neuroscience".

Based on neuroscience my ass. It's a glorified DS Brain Training (Brain Age in US) but you have to pay for it.

<comment><USER8> It is based on neuroscience, just like exercise routines are based on bioscience. It may be low tech, but that doesn't make it wrong. "lifting with your knees, not back" is utterly simple, but it is back by sound biokinematics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> [TFA quoting some scientist:] "it was based on the belief that some humans are genetically inferior"

I thought some members of a species being genetically inferior to others was the principal tenet of evolution. Are humans somehow exempt from this?

<comment><USER8> Inferiority is meaningless in genetics. Evolution randomly selects with a random statistical pattern that prefers individuals who are most able to survive and reproduce _in their particular niche_ , a notion that has minimal relevance to human society, and does not correlate strongly with "superiority" as defined by human social groups. Example: evolution would reward a poor prolific con artist rapist far more than a strong rich asexual genius.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Given how terrible the media is in reporting about any subject, this article might as well have been titled "Everything: Under Attack."</comment>


Things I Should Have Known at 20 - <AUTHOR> http://theburiedlife.tumblr.com/post/24011465597/20-things-i-should-have-known-at-20

<comment><AUTHOR> The Buried Life are actually a group of guys from my hometown Victoria B.C. This was written by Julian Smith, but was reposted by them. It highlights many things we already know, but #13:learn to program shows how important software is becoming.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there any standalone RocksDB server? - <AUTHOR> Having non existing C++ knowledge. I am looking for RocksDB server which can be consumed just like Redis. <comment><USER2> Cockroach uses RocksDB and can be consumed like Redis:

[https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/stable/architecture/stora...](https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/stable/architecture/storage- layer.html#rocksdb)

</comment><comment><USER3> RocksDB is an embedded KV store, so unlike Redis it's not meant to be consumed over the network. Facebook wrote it as a backend for MySQL (see MyRocks - [http://myrocks.io/](http://myrocks.io/)).

Think of it more as a SQLite use case (which is an embedded database). Just like SQLite, it has a variety of bindings (ex. [https://github.com/evernym/python-rocksdb](https://github.com/evernym/python- rocksdb) for Python bindings).

</comment><comment><USER4> You can use kyoto tycoon [http://fallabs.com/kyototycoon/spex.html](http://fallabs.com/kyototycoon/spex.html) . Kyoto tycoon is a http interface for another Key/Value storage kyoto cabinet. There is way to put any other KV storage behind same interface("Pluggable Database" section)

</comment><comment><USER5> Kafka streaming also uses RocksDB under the hood.

Try KSQL ([https://www.confluent.io/product/ksql/](https://www.confluent.io/product/ksql/) ) for a SQL-like interface to stream data from Kafka.</comment>


Chinese entrepreneurs in Africa, land of a billion customers - <AUTHOR> http://www.danwei.org/china_and_africa/independent_chinese_entreprene.php <comment><USER2> This is the fascinating thing about Chinese business investment in Africa: It's business, not charity.

What the bug-eyed rock stars with the big heart for Africa don't tell you is that Africans don't even _want_ their pity, or their charity. They want to do business. Not the "colonial" business of old where resources were essentially taken with almost nothing given in return (except for "teaching western civilization to the natives" or some such nonsense). The Chinese couldn't really care less about that.

All the Chinese want is a stable enough environment for doing business and allowing their million+ workers living there live and work safely. One way they achieve that is by actually living among the Africans, in high-rises that seem to be erected by the day all over Africa, or in African neighborhoods. Where before, Western emigres walled themselves off from the natives, the Chinese actually build shops and restaurants and live in-town, which engenders the notion of "guanxi" between the Africans and Chinese immigrants. It was difficult early on, as the report suggests: First-wave immigrants living in trailers on the worksite, never venturing out to eat or take in entertainment. Now there are shops and karaoke bars all over, peopled with Chinese and African clientele.

Fact is, they aren't there to turn Africa into something the Dutch Boers or German Afrikaners envisioned, but more like whats been happening since the spice routes opened 1000 years ago: You give me raw material, I give you finished products. And, hey, it maybe a bit of a perversion of the Comparative Advantage theory, but one thing it's not is abject exploitation the way it was when the West colonized it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great article, thanks! Very interesting</comment>


Commodore 64 SID replacement using a Teensy 3.6 - <AUTHOR> https://hackaday.com/2018/07/24/sad-without-a-sid-this-comes-pretty-close/ <comment><USER2> Recently I've been watching a bunch of retro-computing stuff on YouTube, and the restoration projects that people embark on have made me wonder how hard it would be to reproduce the required chips?

Sure the C64 can just be emulated, and there are kit allowing you to fit a RaspberryPi in a C64 case, and use the keyboard, but it's not really the same.

<comment><USER3> Part of the problem with the SID particularly is its analogue components, such as the filter, which are very hard to simulate digitally. It's not just demos that depend on their behaviour.

Even Commodore themselves weren't able to reproduce all of its subtleties (i.e., the 6581 vs 8580 differences).

Bob Yannes did some amazing things with the chip, especially considering the limitations he had to work under: [http://sid.kubarth.com/articles/interview_bob_yannes.html](http://sid.kubarth.com/articles/interview_bob_yannes.html)

<comment><USER4> I do wonder what it would take to emulate it more properly on a component level. It's definitely a "weird" filter and doesn't behave like one would assume it to.

<comment><USER5> You could probably emulate the analog sections with a circuit simulator like SPICE.

<comment><USER6> Analog is hard to emulate well. At least, I've never heard of a decent emulation of the legendary Moog filter. 'Infinite' trumps 'many'

<comment><USER7> Analog is hard to emulate because real components have complicated non-linear and stateful behaviors, and because real circuits are full of parasitic components, not because of "infinite" anything. Analog circuits have finite SNR and bandwidth, and the "many" of digital can easily exceed them.

Analog circuits also tend to have high variation between units. You might have a perfect simulation of the average hardware, but it won't necessarily sound like your specific hardware. You'll need to measure your hardware and tune the simulation to match. People have done this for SID chips:

[https://bel.fi/alankila/c64-sw/yourchip.html](https://bel.fi/alankila/c64-sw/yourchip.html)

<comment><USER6> In music 'high variation' is frequently a plus. For example the value of Stradivarius or Steinway (and countless other instrument brands) is dependent on 'hard to emulate'.

Of course digital has its place ... but nature chose to go with analog.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've had to dispose of a Commodore 64 because the SID was dead, since it's pointless without the sound. This is potentially quite useful.

<comment><USER9> SwinSID has been available a while.

[https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/SwinSID](https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/SwinSID)

<comment><USER10> IMHO the best emulation so far is the FPGASID ([http://www.fpgasid.de/](http://www.fpgasid.de/)). There are a number of YouTube videos where it is compared against the originals.

<comment><USER9> Forgot about that one. But ... reservations has been closed.

[http://www.fpgasid.de/fpgasid-reservation](http://www.fpgasid.de/fpgasid- reservation)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _real SID chips are rare as hen's teeth nowadays_

Damn. Now I wish I'd bought that pile of used C64s stacked in the thrift shop window that day.

 _its analogue components, such as the filter, which are very hard to simulate digitally._

Analog's day came, went, and will be back again ... because for sound it's just superior in -many- ways. And hacking is hardware, not software.

<comment><USER7> What are those "many" ways? I can only think of one: it's easier to design good sounding analog synths/effects. The imperfections get you complexity of sound for free, and you don't have to worry about aliasing. But in a hypothetical world where everybody is a DSP genius, I see no reason for analog audio processing at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nowadays one could make or copy one of the vhdl files out there and bake it in pretty much any form.

</comment><comment><USER12> What the heck is the Commodore 54?

<comment><USER13> A typo, obviously?</comment></comment>


EBay Valet - <AUTHOR> http://ebay.com/valet <comment><USER2> _New or like-new designer shoes and handbags: Brands like Hugo Boss, Gucci, Nine West, Ralph Lauren_

I wonder if eBay are potentially setting themselves up for a massive headache with this.

There is a quite staggering number of people who falsely believe that their counterfeit designer items are genuine.

<comment><USER3> FWIW... this is exactly why we launched Lollipuff (YC W13): [https://www.lollipuff.com/](https://www.lollipuff.com/)

eBay is _notoriously_ plagued with fakes. For some designer brands, fakes can account for 75% (or more) of the items sold [1,2].

The key for Lollipuff: We have brand experts authenticate each and every item -- ie. real, human experts augmented with sophisticated software to make things scalable. We like to think of it as "eBay without the fakes", or if you prefer "Palantir for designer goods" (software-augmented humans).

[1] [https://www.lollipuff.com/blog/41/ebays-counterfeit- epidemic...](https://www.lollipuff.com/blog/41/ebays-counterfeit-epidemic- herve-leger-edition)

[2] [https://www.lollipuff.com/blog/123/ebays-counterfeit- epidemi...](https://www.lollipuff.com/blog/123/ebays-counterfeit-epidemic- alexander-mcqueen-edition)

<comment><USER4> Conceptually, how do you guys triage the fakes? The spectrum of quality seems so broad, in that they are convincing enough to be worn on the red carpet (and presumably picked by stylists) etc. Or are all those shots authentic pieces that were then used in fake listings?

<comment><USER5> I can spot fakes for sneakers, but I assume it's the same process. Material, spotting the stitchings, logos, etc. Certain things line up, there's a certain distance between stitches and logos, etc. With purses, some are easy to spot by looking at the pattern, loose threading, discoloration, etc. Once you have an eye for it, it's pretty easy to spot cause it stands out like a sore thumb.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _You get 70% of the sale price if your things sell._

30% commission, and the valet's incentives are for a quick sale rather than the best price, if the behavior of existing bulk listers is anything to go by. These people are usually not especially knowledgeable about the items they sell and so have a poor grasp of pricing - often good for me as informed buyer, but a real pain in the ass for sellers.

<comment><USER7> The alternative is 'throw out not completely useless stuff because I can't be arsed to sell it'. It's win win the way I see it, I'd dump half a truck of stuff on their dock if they'd offer this in Europe.

<comment><USER8> Are there not currently businesses that do exactly this? You drop things off and they list them. I ran one for a while (albeit in the states).

<comment><USER9> This was exactly what I was thinking too. In a weird way, eBay is competing with itself. There have always been companies where you can drop/ship your stuff off at and have them list it for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You can't set your own price, and you only get a two-week run. On the other hand, you don't have to deal with the cesspool that is being a seller on eBay.

I wonder how eBay will deal with the "yes, please iPad to vacant lot near warehouse Miami" folks, other than immediately transferring buyer's funds without the possibility for reversal. If they did that for ordinary sellers, I'd quite happily ship my iPad to the sketchy address and go on my merry way.

</comment><comment><USER11> 40 year old virgin did it first [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEHD6jHXt58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEHD6jHXt58)

<comment><USER12> well... the "we sell your stuff on eBay" type shops have been around for ages. I don't think that movie invented them.

<comment><USER11> Oh really? I thought it was a unique idea. Thanks to you I would never have know others had also thought about and created such a business. You have thoroughly changed my perspective on the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> FOBO (YC2011) has a similar model and it takes only a 15% fee. [http://www.fobo.net/](http://www.fobo.net/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately its only in SF and you can just list Electronics.

<comment><USER14> Gone! (Techstars company) has been testing in a few areas and is not specific: [http://thegoneapp.com/](http://thegoneapp.com/)

Affiliated as they are my friends and have a solid team

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Isn't amazon already doing something similar with "warehouse deals" and "fullified by Amazon?

<comment><USER16> Warehouse is all Amazon returns, AFAIK. But you can do used sales off of the main purchase page, and mail in your stuff to have it Fulfilled by Amazon. I've been looking into this quite a bit lately since I have about $7,000 of Canon gear to sell off.

I think I'll stick with Amazon. Ebay's 30% seems ridiculously steep.

<comment><AUTHOR> For $7,000 of Canon gear, 30% is surely steep. I think you should just sell your stuff directly on ebay. They just charge 10%. I think ebay valet's customer base is people who have something around but don't know its value and just want to get rid of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> 30% commission on top of lower than market pricing in order to sell quickly. Sounds like a steep price to pay for some added convenience that should be part of the experience from the start.

On top of that, like others have said, it's not far fetched for eBay to give Valet listings higher priority in search results, due to their higher profit margins. Punishing users for wanting a streamlined experience, not cool.

I've been dealing with these pain points as both a buyer and seller for over 10 years, and I'm willing to bet I'm not alone here. I'm currently building a p2p marketplace app, and plan to enlist the features of startups like Shyp to make it an all around awesome experience. If anyone has input, feature requests, or would even like to join me, let me know, I'm all ears :)

</comment><comment><USER18> I think the most likely outcome of this is valet items being given preferential treatment on eBay. Just wait until your items are a tiny spot at the bottom while the valet items take the main spots, and that 30% commission will be the least of your issues.

<comment><USER19> Seems like the Appstore 30% fee model is becoming standard everywhere now. That's not a very positive thing...

<comment><USER20> If you think 30% is high, I would like to introduce to you Getty Images, the juggernaut of stock photography. They take 50% now.

<comment><USER21> Filthy peasants, you should be glad your taxes for living on the Kings land arnt even higher I say!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Will it not create conflict of interests? On one side, eBay should make their listing and selling processes as easy as possible for individuals, and on the other side keeping them somewhat difficult will promote Valet service.

<comment><USER23> It would not be a conflict of interest if the Valet service does not generate more profit per sale after everything is factored in.

<comment><USER22> I believe it is fair to assume that Valet service will be costlier for the user. So, if eBay makes the same profit on Valet as on direct selling, then eBay may not feel motivated to push through usability enhancements in direct selling, even though it is definitely beneficial for its users.

Of course, I am over-simplifying things, but I have been in a similar situation wherein the customers of our service started offering to pay us to help them use our service. Instead of accepting payments, we helped the users for free and took their problems as problems with the usability of our tool which we needed to fix. We believed that accepting paid service as a revenue channel would deviate us from making a good tool in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've seen quite a few local businesses in the LA area that do this already; maybe eBay can do it better, but they won't get to eat the entire market by just showing up.

</comment><comment><USER25> "If you send in something that valets can't sell, there's a return fee to have it sent back to you." Not very good for me if i send a big amount of items

</comment><comment><USER26> This is not going to end well for eBay, I can see it now. Some fake items are surprisingly good, you'll be reading stories of people being ripped off because valets were told they were given designer brand items only for them to be discovered as fakes later on. Somewhat cool idea I will admit, but when you're dealing with e-commerce and allowing users to get other people to sell their items, it'll open up a rather complex wound.

<comment><USER27> Isn't this just a rebranding of something that already existed? This service has existed for a long time.

<comment><USER26> eBay Valet is a new application. Easy there, tiger. Unless I'm misinformed, it is a new service leveraging eBay's existing auction/commerce platform.

<comment><USER8> It's a new implementation of a common service. You have a point with the auction house providing the service it blurs some lines. Similar points have been brought up regarding some of Amazon's services. I think it will rely on eBay's willingness to shutdown bad vendors (something they aren't known for at the moment).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> the Gone! app does this for you, but it's even easier and you don't have to ship anything out (they'll supply and even pick up the boxes for you).

definitely worth a try, but eBay Valet is interesting: [http://thegoneapp.com/](http://thegoneapp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER28> Like some people mentioned already, I mostly worried about the pricing of items. Looks like to me like they will poorly judge value of items.

Overall, this is not the worst idea eBay had so far, I would love to see how this plays out.

</comment><comment><USER29> Goes to show how seller-hostile EBay is if they need to provide a service like this.

Imagine if you needed to provide a "valet service" for your SaaS. Wouldn't that say something about your UX?

<comment><USER30> This has nothing to do with UX. Yes, eBay has a terrible UX but some people have stuff to sell and no time on their hands.

Does Instamotor exist because of the terrible UX of car dealerships?

<comment><USER31> >some people have stuff to sell and no time on their hands.

The quality of ebay's UX is the main determinant of how much time you need to have on your hands to sell something on ebay.

>Does Instamotor exist because of the terrible UX of car dealerships?

Yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I remember ebay consignment stores that existed locally years ago. They took on the order of 50-60% of the total sale price.

It was a horrible deal, and every single one I knew of is now closed for business.

</comment><comment><USER33> One of ebay's Cottage industry got absorbed into the mothership. I wonder if they made consideration for consolidating all the various auction listing businesses across the country.

</comment><comment><USER34> hardly any innovative things come out of ebay, nice to see something new... can other sellers become valet ? or is it the ebay itself serving as valet ?

<comment><AUTHOR> "How do I become a valet? Valets are carefully screened for inclusion in the program. Requirements include, but are not limited to: (1) ability to list 100,000 listings each month, (2) storage capacity sufficient to hold and manage items received for at least 21 calendar days, (3) ability to list items across all eBay categories, (4) physical presence in all major metropolitan hubs in the U.S. and (5) demonstrated ability to reach Top Rated Seller status on eBay within 90 days of starting valet services. "

[http://pages.ebay.com/sellforme/faq.html](http://pages.ebay.com/sellforme/faq.html)

<comment><USER35> How do they expect people to post just over 4700 items per day?

<comment><USER36> From the looks of it this is something they expect to be run by a small business with a few people.

Not many individuals have space in their home to store and turn over 100,000+ items in a month. Or have "Physical presence in all major metropolitan hubs in the US".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Some of the valet-service users will become regulars sellers. Some people who would never use ebay might become users because of this.

</comment><comment><USER38> "Valets accept like-new items worth $40 or more"

So are they committing to getting you at least $40 on what you're selling?

<comment><USER39> 70% of that, no? So $28.

        You get 70% of the sale price if your things sell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> ebay doing its hardest to be like amazon, while their actual auction experience is getting worse and worse.

<comment><USER41> They're doing that on purpose. I think a major turning point was discovering that "buy it now" auctions (i.e. normal, fixed-price sales) were massively more popular than auction auctions.

<comment><USER40> Thats because they failed to ever fix bid sniping, switching to dutch auctions would have been better for everyone.

Edit: Dutch auction is the wrong term and I cant track down the actual name. But essentially the auction gets extended by 10 minutes every time someone bids if the auction is going to end in less than 10 minutes.

<comment><USER42> Beaten to it.

Sniping is hugely frustrating and the main reason people either use buy it now or plain old ads (cf gumtree/Craigslist etc)

<comment><USER43> Why is sniping frustrating? How can sniping make me lose an auction if their snipe bet is lower than what I entered as my maximum?

<comment><USER44> While it does not frustrate me personally, it does seem rather pointless to list an item for several days or weeks when the actual sale takes place in the last five minutes, and to show a 'current price' which has little relevance to the final price.

Ebay might as well call it a sealed bid second price auction and be done with it.

<comment><USER45> You need to list it for a while for discoverability. Having a low price makes it seem more attractive while you browse.

<comment><USER44>
      Having a low price makes it seem more attractive
      while you browse.

I can see how buyers would find that - and by extension sniping - frustrating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I wonder if this will depress the market. Perhaps they will start all items at $1.

</comment><comment><USER47> I wonder what the username(s) are for the Valets, is that public yet?

</comment><comment><USER48> Interesting idea. Would love to see how it works out for them!</comment>


List of YC Companies - <AUTHOR> http://yclist.com <comment><USER2> That's totaling $ 75M.

Even if you multiple this amount by 2. Dividing this into the number of companies makes one wonder about the exposure rate in hte media for YC startups. Seems like are getting headlines and cover stories more than others.

Saying, for that only, it is worth to join YC. Let alone the weekly meetings (dinners, etc.).

Just for instance, let's just take a look at the following two CrunchBase entries:

1\. <http://www.crunchbase.com/person/moshe-yanai>

2\. [http://www.crunchbase.com/company/{YC-Funded-Startup-Name- He...](http://www.crunchbase.com/company/{YC-Funded-Startup-Name-Here})

While the first have sold his first startup (XIV) to IBM for $300M, Three year later, he sold his second startup (diligent) to IBM (again) for $165M, ($465M in total), the knowledge of TC about him is nearly zero. All they can tell is that for his new startup (third) he raised $9M.

On the other hand, if you'll wake up Mike arrington in the middle of his deep sleeps and ask him to name 18 YC startups he will do that right away, without even opening his second eye, wouldn't he?

<comment><USER3> Techcrunch predominantly covers consumer startups, b2b startups in general get much less coverage. Crunchbase has better b2b coverage, but by-and-large it's because companies have added themselves (and naturally smaller startups have more incentive to do this, so you'll find more recent b2b startups than older ones).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This doesn't seem very accurate, judging from the first couple entries. Textpayme was a morph of Firecrawl, and Club Beta I've never heard of.

<comment><USER5> Is there an 'official' list that's better? Seems a useful thing to have.

<comment><USER6> Why would it be useful?

<comment><USER7> It is interesting just to see what types of companies they fund.

<comment><USER8> I thought that as well and then I remembered, they don't fund companies or ideas, they fund teams. These teams, may or may not change the idea the had when they applied.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey all, I'm glad to see this has attracted some attention. I originally made it for myself to get an overview of all the startups in one place. I couldn't find an official list and the spreadsheet I linked was the best I could find, but I can't even sort it.

The data is pulled from the spreadsheet, but unfortunately it's not all accurate. The estimated aquisition price is estimated by the author of the original spreadsheet. Also, a number of domains are defunct, but the startups aren't listed as dead or exited. And as pg points out, some names are also wrong.

There are several other bugs I'm aware of too. I just wanted to get something functional out to see if anyone was actually interested. I'll fix things up and add more features when I have time (who the acquirer was, link to a press release).

I was thinking of making this into an open wiki, as there's no one reliable source to pull data from. It'd also be much easier to maintain.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone!

</comment><comment><USER9> Here is an old blog post (not sure how accurate it is), but it has info on some other companies as well,

[http://blog.awesomezombie.com/2009/12/analyzing-y- combinator...](http://blog.awesomezombie.com/2009/12/analyzing-y- combinator.html)

Heres the summary according to the post,

        * YC S05 - 1 Active /3 Failed / 2 Acquired / 2 Other
        * YC W06 - 5 Active /1 Failed / 2 Acquired
        * YC S06 - 3 Active /6 Failed / 1 Unknown
        * YC W07 - 5 Active /4 Failed / 4 Acquired / 2 Unknown
        * YC S07 - 12 Active /4 Failed / 3 Acquired
        * YC W08 - 9 Active /10 Failed / 1 Acquired / 1 Unknown
        * YC S08 - 17 Active /3 Failed / 1 Acquired / 1 Unknown
        * YC W09 - 14 Active /1 Failed / 1 Stealth
        * YC S09 - 16 Active /1 Acquired /9 Stealth

<comment><USER10> W08 stats are out of date ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Speaking of this, anyone have any insight as to why LaunchHear.com has a page rank of zero despite being linked to by TechCrunch and a few other sites? Granted we aren't promoting the site right now because we're working on other parts of our business, but it annoys me because we haven't done anything that's even grey area, let alone in violation of Google's rules.

<comment><USER12> Toolbar PR!=Actual PR.

Toolbar PR updates are done on a rolling basis, so you never know when it will update. Don't worry about it, the number means nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looks like your sorting is buggy. Sorting by acquisition (high to low) puts GraffitiGeo ($750,000) at the top of the list.

Still, good work. It's great to have a list like this. Would you consider adding in who the acquirer was?

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed the sorting issue. Thanks, I'll add in a column for acquirer next time I work on this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The largest exit in the history of YC is only $20 M?

<comment><USER15> Keep in mind the oldest YC companies have only been around ~5 years. There are some YC companies worth more than that but haven't exited. The common examples (based on others' estimations) are Dropbox and AirBnB.

<comment><USER4> Most of the companies mentioned on <http://ycombinator.com> are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This one gives a rough estimate for chances of being successful. I am surprised that even for Y Combinator funded companies it's rather small (when looking only at exits) considering the fact that PG says being acquired is almost always the way to go. It's interesting to know how the rest of the companies are doing (how many are profitable).

</comment><comment><USER17> Suggestions:

\- link the word "exited" to a press release about the exit, or something similar.

\- If the exit was in the form of being absorbed into a larger company, something like "Exited - [company name]" would be nice (for example, Divvyshot should say Exited - Facebook).

</comment><comment><USER18> Sorting not working, e.g. Click on the column "Est Aq Price"

<comment><USER10> Also the class date sorts by month first then year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Seems to be lacking a good amount of data, but a reasonable first draft. Why not make this a public-editable Google Spreadsheet (or the equivalent)?

</comment><comment><USER20> what makes a company 'Dead'?

buxfer might or might not fit into this category, the site is still up and functional, but it doesn't seem like it's actively maintained: [http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/17/buxfers-founders-both- work-...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/17/buxfers-founders-both-work-for- facebook-who-works-for-buxfer/)

<http://getsatisfaction.com/buxfer/topics/is_buxfer_dead>

a simple yes/no from one of the founders would be simple enough.

<comment><USER21> I already asked, I didn't get a response, partially because I think buxfer was a interesting startup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This spreadsheet is followed a lot but does have a lot of missing and wrong information. You find them in YC and the other incubators as well.

</comment><comment><USER22> The Kiko price is known because it was sold on eBay.

Also, the "date" column doesn't sort properly. It sorta alphanumerically instead of chronologically.

</comment><comment><USER23> Can we have a "showdead" option to turn the dead companies on & off? Yeah, you can sort them away, but...

</comment><comment><USER21> Does the app pull directly from the spreadsheet when there are updates?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not yet. I'll have to see what updates to expect first. Otherwise I risk breaking the site.

<comment><USER21> ic

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> You should add ZumoDrive and ZumoCast (products) to the Zecter entry.

</comment><comment><USER25> wow, Scribd has a higher Alexa rank than Reddit?

<comment><USER3> It has for years, Reddit has only come close to it fairly recently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Your list is good enough for me :-)

</comment><comment><USER27> Thanks for sharing the info!</comment>


Moo.do makes email a powerful todo list - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/moo-do/moo-do-makes-email-a-powerful-todo-list-7ca7adc7e531 <comment><USER2> This is cool. My inbox is woefully unequipped to function as a to-do list, but that's where most of my tasks live now. Hope this lives up to the hype.</comment>


Fingerprinting Web Application Platforms by Variations in PNG Implementations [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/isislovecruft/library/blob/master/computer%20science%20theory/Fingerprinting%20Web%20Application%20Platforms%20by%20Variations%20in%20PNG%20Implementations%20%282015%29%20-%20Bongard.pdf <comment><USER2> You can do a similar thing with valid PNG files by using the gamma attribute: [http://thume.ca/projects/2012/11/14/magic-png- files/](http://thume.ca/projects/2012/11/14/magic-png-files/)

I reverse engineered this technique a few years ago, it doesn't look as good but it never crashes anything and it has some very useful splits. For example the thumbnailing servers on most sites produce one version but then clicking the thumbnail will show a totally different image in the browser.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting paper. The end result wasn't very comprehensive though, or am I missing something?</comment>


All Revenue is Not Created Equal: Keys to the 10x Revenue Club - <AUTHOR> http://abovethecrowd.com/2011/05/24/all-revenue-is-not-created-equal-the-keys-to-the-10x-revenue-club/

<comment><AUTHOR>
       This is a great discussion of these items:
       1. Sustainable competitive advantage - "How easy is it for someone
          else to provide the same product or service that you provide?"
       2. The Presence of Network Effects - do more customers create more
          value for all customers?
       3. Revenue Visibility and Predictability
       4. Customer Lock-in/High Switching Costs
       5. Gross Margin Level: higher is better
       6. Marginal Profitability / Economies of Scale
       7. Many Customers: Low Customer Concentration
       8. Lack of Dependency on Major Partner(s)
       9. Natural Demand (vs. Heavy Marketing Spend Needed)
      10. Growth</comment>


Do We Live in a Sick Society? - <AUTHOR> https://academyofideas.com/2020/06/do-we-live-in-a-sick-society/ <comment><USER2> I've always considered maturity to be when a person develops the understanding that there are other people in the world than themselves, and that those people are also important, and that one must think ahead for yourself and others. That's pretty universal.

I'd say a society can only be considered sick to the extent that its members are incentivized to be immature by my definition- in other words to the extent that people within the society act in an anti-cooperative way and therefore the society attacks itself. Most often this happens because certain elements of society become parasitic on the rest. The parasitic portion will be the wealthiest and most powerful layer- the poor cannot become that way since they lack the power or influence to shape society to suit them.

In that situation the wealthy will seek to preserve their position by means of a priesthood or value system that says that what one should value is whatever the ruling class is doing, or that their position is divine, or whatever. So that's how you end up with a sick society.

<comment><USER2> And I guess the corollary would be that if you believe society to be sick, then the way to fix it is not to proclaim oneself to be a rebel and separate or look down on the "normal" people around you, that will not change anything and just makes you look like a jerk. Instead you should first understand why society is sick, figure out who is benefiting from it, and organize in opposition to those forces. That takes a lot more work and maturity, of course and is much less fun, but real change has always been the result of a lot of dangerous, thankless work with no guarantee of success. Acting like a rebel without a cause is lots of fun but is useless and immature.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [https://scoop.upworthy.com/viral-shopping-cart-theory- determ...](https://scoop.upworthy.com/viral-shopping-cart-theory-determines- moral-character)</comment>


Growing a Golf Simulator Business to $50k/month - <AUTHOR> https://www.starterstory.com/stories/24-7-golf <comment><USER2> VR pool and VR golf seem worth making for the Vive. Also swordfighting.

In fact, all three of those have something in common: You want to hold an object (cue, club, sword), not just a controller.

I know there are vive trackers that you can put onto objects, but it seems like the next step in VR is generalized object tracking with generalized full body tracking. Hopefully the next gen tech can solve some of these problems natively.

<comment><USER3> I can't imagine VR golf working well for this use case. This is a serious simulator. $3000 before the projector and mat.

1\. The VR headset would probably have a negative effect on swing or at the very least cause it to not translate well to real life

2\. A short virtual club won't have the same weight and feel as a real club.

3\. A real club while wearing a VR headset makes being a house cat suddenly very dangerous.

Maybe AR?

<comment><USER4> Allow me to address these one by one:

1\. Have you worn a vr headset for any amount of time? They aren't nearly as cumbersome as you'd think. I've been playing plenty of VR games involving a lot of movement -- frisbee, paintball, etc -- never have I felt like the headset was impeding me in any way, aside from the odd stumble across the cable every now and then.

2\. This is _easily_ solved. HTC sells separate tracking dots you could very well stick on an actual golf club.

3\. Close the door and move your breakables somewhere else ;)

AR doesn't really address any of these issues more or less than VR.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm genuinly curious how he got his SAP Business from $280k to $4m in 4 years.

That seems like an accomplishment in and of itself, nevermind the online store

<comment><USER6> I'm more curious how he started at the 280K mark.

<comment><USER7> It's pretty well known that SAP consultants make a high hourly rate.

<comment><USER8> Still... that's a pretty high number. I doubt 4M is true, it seems a bit exaggerated. Good for him if it's true though.

<comment><USER9> 280k is not a high number for a senior SAP consultant with a big mouth, but 4M indeed is but definitely not impossible or even rare. Anecdotal, but at least I already know 1 person from my own friend group, a friend worked as SAP consultant in utility; he started his own company specializing in SAP for utility but he wrote specific small tools for parts where SAP was(is?) very hard / cumbersome to use or where it has gaps for the particular (big) electricity providers he contracted for. Selling those on the side next to his high contracting fee, he made (makes) millions.

<comment><USER8> Wow, just... wow. It really goes to show that there are oppurtunities in this world where one would not expect. It looks like I completely misjudged the size of this market and the magnitude of consultants' income in it. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is this image from the article a simulation of the golf simulator?

[https://images.ctfassets.net/t0pm5m7uku03/6f5J0wJUtikAU4yoqg...](https://images.ctfassets.net/t0pm5m7uku03/6f5J0wJUtikAU4yoqgeGok/69bb04a9fe38e537134af58128d143c2/20_Foot_Trailer.png)

Simulations all the way down...

</comment><comment><USER11> Not much to add, aside from: this is a cool business</comment>


Neanderthals Feasted on Seafood, Seabirds, Perhaps Even Dolphins - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/science/neanderthals-fishing-ocean.html <comment><USER2> Can't help but feel we wouldn't have to go too far back in time to discover people ate whatever they could.

Are you likely to find evidence of fruit having been eaten?

<comment><USER3> I think it's safe to say yes, given that human's evolutionary ancestors lost the ability to produce vitamin C ~60 million years ago and there's no reason to assume they didn't require a similar diet to our own. To your larger point, that has always been the case from what I've seen from archeological and anthropological studies. Take Pokeweed for example which is toxic unless it's boiled three times in salt water.

However, the larger point of the article is that Neanderthals were a much more intelligent and adaptable species than we've given them credit. Given this evidence of food it would not be surprising if they found net sinkers or other tools associated with fishing. It seems every time we learn more about Neanderthals the more they resemble our species than not.

<comment><USER4> Not only were they smarter than we give them credit for, they were smarter than modern humans. There's nothing about intelligence that guarantees not becoming extinct.

<comment><USER4> They had bigger brains. In all the studies of humanoid fossils, there's a clear relationship between brain size and ability to make tools etc. (which is presumably caused by intelligence). It would be very strange that this is the sole exception to that relationship. This relation is defined between different species--irrelevant to the more controversial claim that brain size matters between humans (of the same species) which is probably why you're rejecting the idea.

<comment><USER5> Structure matters a lot. Look how intelligent crows are, in spite of having such small brains. Humans do all sorts of things Neanderthals never did, so maybe we have differently structured brains that allow us to do them.

<comment><USER4> Humans never did anything either for approximately 100% of history. Newton could have lived a caveman's life if his top priority was basic survival, regardless of the quality of his hardware.

<comment><USER5> True, but if you are going to argue Neanderthals are smarter than homo sapiens, you have to ask why they didn't do anything that humans couldn't when both were foraging societies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade that, with it, Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits in Thy mercy.' And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats and..."

<comment><USER7> I like it, but I don't get it.

<comment><USER8> It's a quote from 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'.

<comment><USER9> Yes, a reading from the Book of Armaments, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20

...

Skip a bit, Brother

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is it widespread to only call mammals meat? I.e. is "fish meat" widely understood to be a contradiction?

<comment><USER10> We sometimes call fish "steaks". I often eat tuna steaks. So to me fish is meat.

<comment><USER11> Steaks are cut across the grain of the muscle as opposed to fillets which are cut along the grain. Tuna just happens to be large enough that you can do that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I read a claim the the most reliable distinguishing quality between neanderthalensis and sapiens was that the former was never found in possession of something traded from far away. Would welcome correction or enlargement.

<comment><USER13> Another distinguishing trait is that Homo Sapiens are dreamers (e.g cave paintings).

Not sure how relevant or true the claim is, but it's surely romantic.

Or we might simply be more aggressive and that's it. A species determined on dominating its environment will win against one that's not, all other things being equal.

Otherwise Neanderthals were larger than us and had similar cognitive capabilities, they were also using tools and language etc.

<comment><USER12> Neanderthals made cave paintings. Probably non-cave paintings too, but those didn't last.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Why is it shocking, you don't have the luxury to pick and choose...eat all you can, including your own kind, if needed.

</comment><comment><USER15> Somehow I can't picture that being a very feast like affair.

</comment><comment><USER16> Dolphins?? I draw the line there those damn Neanderthals!

</comment><comment><USER17> The poor little dolphins!

Ha ha just kidding, I've had dolphin it's very very good, but I feel it's immoral and a little like cannibalism since they are probably smarter than us.

<comment><USER18> Pigs are supposed to be as smart as chimps, making them in essentially the smartest animals out there except for dolphins and humans. However, we as humans design, build and run industrial systems that breed, feed and torture hundreds of thousands of them constantly, so we can eat them.

<comment><USER19> They're intelligent, but I've never heard that suggestion. It's not as though they use tools.

Years ago I thought the reason we didn't kill certain animals is they're cuter than others. Maybe, but there's a perceived scale of demonstrated consciousness. If an animal appears more intelligent and compassionate (e.g. chimps), we're more put off on slaying them.

<comment><USER20> Tool use in animals is fairly common. Generally we haven't seen it in the past because we simply weren't looking.

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S16165...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1616504719300333)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


EBay Lays Off 10%, announces 2 acquisitions - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/06/news/companies/ebay/index.htm

<comment><USER2> Yunno why people hate eBay, business practices. They layoff 1000 people and turn around and buy 2 companies. This pisses me off.

<comment><USER3> why does eBay even need that many employees? They could probably run it the same way with only 10% of the people

<comment><USER4> I agree, their customer service hardly did anything when those pesky nigerians kept messing up my auctions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I correlate that Google could do this easily, but I don't think they will.

</comment><comment><USER6> layoffs are coming all over the bay area. whatever started with GOOG going public is now over in the markets. AAPL and GOOG are off 50% from the highs. YHOO is headed for 14 (congrats jerry, could of had 34). INTC is trading at levels from the 90s. and at least these companies can claim to be "in business". for the rest of the living-on-funding, maybe-one-day crowd, its time to read the tea leaves: the party is over

<comment><USER7> Far (not 10% worthy) fetched but could this also be related to them improving operational automation?

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought the same thing. The acquisitions part seems to me to be positive news, and my impression of eBay is that it has become large, slow and bloated.

<comment><USER6> they are chump-change acquisitions in the grand scope of ebay's market cap</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Starting Computer Science: A Good Web Development Enviroment for Linux?  - <AUTHOR>

Hello, I'm just starting my Computer Science studies, for the moment as hobby, studying at nights after a full time job. I'm starting from zero.
Could you recommend me a good set of web development tools (IDE, I guess) for Ubuntu? (I'm not trying to start a flamewar, I guess good options from KDE and Gnome will appear, both are fine for me)
I plan to focus on LAMP. (specially interested in Python)
Thanks in advance. Alex <comment><USER2> For the budding student, Ubuntu is a fantastic idea. Good idea also with LAMP. I recommend using simply phpmyadmin for your backend work as it's simple and intuitive. Get XChat and stay tuned to the #ubuntu, #python, #apache, channels etc for instant assistance. I believe there's a Dr. Python IDE/Interpreter, similar to Dr. Scheme... if you look in Synaptic and do a search for python, you'll find a few IDEs you can install and take for a whirl. I have Netbeans and Eclipse installed, but for quick throwaway programs, nothing beating the terminal, Vi and/or Gedit.

Best of luck!

<comment><USER3> PHPmyadmin? Only behind the firewall please, it's pretty much equivalent to a root login with a 'changeme123' password if it's publicly accessible.

If you want to use a graphical SQL client use <http://www.squirrelsql.org/> (mysql is not the only database, squirrel talks to most of the common ones including mssql, sybase, postgres and oracle)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks to ALL for the responses.

I will look at those SCIP lectures. I'm not really that noob, but I wanted you to assume that when giving me advice.

Also will check the developer toolbar for firefox.

I have never used IRC, maybe later I will make use of them, thanks.

Thanks for pointing me to Django, that will be later, when I have developed my skills.

BTW: Ubuntu is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER4> _I plan to focus on LAMP. (specially interested in Python)_

Well, you're already off to a great start, and welcome to Hacker News. Take a look at Django if you're interested in Python. Fantastic documentation, and great support on a variety of things.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you think is worth trying Python 2.6 or maybe (asumming it's going to take a while for me, and maybe by that time will be stable) better focus on the new Python 3k?

<comment><USER4> That's a good question. I want to say start with python 2.6 and get the fundamentals under your belt, but at the same time I picked up PHP right in the middle of the transition period to PHP4. That said, my best advice would be to start with 3 and have all the new concepts right away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Get the webdeveloper toolbar for firefox3 and install firebug; learn to use those tools to examine other websites.

Pick an editor (vim, emacs, gedit, kate; whatever works for you) and learn it to the point where you can add functions to it.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you are starting _Computer Science_ then you want to download the SICP lectures from MIT and work through the examples in Scheme before even thinking about making websites.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you give a link for those lectures?

<comment><USER5> Here you go:

[http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson- sussma...](http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson-sussman- lectures/)</comment></comment></comment>


Developers: Help to shape Reactor into the right tool for you - <AUTHOR> http://forrst.com/posts/Reactor_What_would_you_like_to_see-9Uc

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm looking to get a limited group of alpha testers signed up in the next week or so. There will be bonuses for getting involved so early and helping to shape Reactor, what will become a niche developer community. So make sure you're on the mailing list to find out exactly when the alpha stage is open

<http://reactorapp.com/></comment>


Police Storm Park in Istanbul, Setting Off a Night of Chaos - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/world/europe/protesters-in-turkey.html

<comment><USER2> [http://occupygezipics.tumblr.com/](http://occupygezipics.tumblr.com/)</comment>


$2.25 Lyft Line Rides. That's Right - <AUTHOR> http://blog.lyft.com/matchmuni/ <comment><USER2> This was from a few weeks ago, was on HN already, and it has now expired. It was in response to Uber bringing their Uber Pool (ride-sharing) down to $5 "anywhere" in SF. Lyft has since ended this offer, but made any ride in the same area < $5, simply undercutting Uber Pool.

"Seven days ago, we matched MUNI by lowering Lyft Line prices to $2.25 for a limited time. And your response was amazing. So, instead of letting the Drive Happy District disappear, we're keeping low prices around longer!

Starting tonight, we're setting a $5 price cap on all Lyft Line rides in the Drive Happy District, so you never pay more than $5. No coupon necessary, so go forth and spread the news to all of your friends! Just request a ride to and from anywhere in the District, and you're golden."

[http://blog.lyft.com/posts/lyftline5](http://blog.lyft.com/posts/lyftline5)</comment>


Ask HN: How can I be a better team lead? (corporate) - <AUTHOR> After spending more than 10 years as Software Developer I was recently promoted to lead my own team (5 devs, 3 remote) working on a complex web application. We are doing daily syncs (Slack), but I still get blindsided with unknowns, bottlenecks and so on. Drive our throughput to the ground, and my weeklies with the boss to an unpleasant experience.
I'm in a in a conflict of measuring my people and understand what they do and if they do the right things to being too bossy and nudge them too much, which may hurt their productivity and retention.
- Do you measure your people and if so how?
- Do you have any kind of telltale to the health of the team/developer?
- Some kind of crystal ball that help you manage your team?
Any advice is appreciated. <comment><USER2> Were you a team member on this team before you were promoted to lead? If so, it's going to be a tough road ahead because you are going from a peer / co- worker relationship to a manager & direct report relationship. These are tough transitions to make, and a reason the military will often transfer someone who is newly put into a leadership position.

Have you started to train yourself as a lead / manager? A couple of resources I've found useful in the switch have been Manager Tools [0] (book, site, and podcast) as well as The Manager's Path [1].

While his shtick can be a bit thick at times, I enjoyed Extreme Ownership by Willink [2], if only because it codified a lot of thoughts I've had for a long time. I've worked with a lot of military and defence so the stories and life views he teaches through didn't throw me, but I know it does for some people so YMMV.

I have found that the Manager's Tools suggestion that the single best thing you can do is have weekly one-on-ones with your team to be true. It can be tough, especially if you still have a lot of your IC responsibilities alongside your new team lead roles, but it is truly remarkable how much more insight you can get into what your team is thinking from holding these sessions. This is they crystal ball you are looking for. And remember, the weeklies are about your team members, not about you (refer to manager tools).

[0] [https://www.manager-tools.com/products/effective-manager- boo...](https://www.manager-tools.com/products/effective-manager-book)

[1] [https://www.amazon.ca/Managers-Path-Leaders-Navigating- Growt...](https://www.amazon.ca/Managers-Path-Leaders-Navigating- Growth/dp/1491973897)

[2] [https://www.amazon.ca/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy- SEALs/dp/12...](https://www.amazon.ca/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy- SEALs/dp/1250067057)

<comment><USER3> +1 for [0] and [1]. Exactly what I settled on when jumping in to these roles and both great for giving you enough comfort to start acting.

Now I have to have a look at [2] and see if it's as good, too :)

I also struggle with being the product manager at the same time and also stretching beyond my team in that role, even if in my team it's just ~5 directs for now.

<comment><USER3> found a good summary for [2], guess that will do for me: [https://thepowermoves.com/extreme- ownership/](https://thepowermoves.com/extreme-ownership/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Something not commonly talked about is knowing how to respect the IC's that a lead/manager will manage. All the bad leads/managers i've had, had always been people who would jump to please their bosses and take on horrible deadlines or scopes that put huge amounts of stress on the people they managed. This lack of awareness to a balance in productivity for personal gain is very apparent to your employees and they will lash out by slacking, leaving the company, or sabotaging the project just to get one over the lead/manager. The best managers i've had will push back against their bosses and tell them what's realistically possible to do because they're aware of their employees stengths and weaknesses, knows that en employee just had a personal tragedy and won't be able to be working at 100% for the forceeable future, etc etc. lastly i've seen companies try measuring things like lines of code committed per day, and that never ever works out the way upper management thinks.

</comment><comment><USER5> > _I'm in a in a conflict of measuring my people and understand what they do > and if they do the right things to being too bossy and nudge them too much, > which may hurt their productivity and retention._

Your approach will probably be tailored to every individual's characteristics. Some are laser-focused. Some know how to prioritize. Some will need your involvement to move forward, others will move forward inspite of you. Some get tired fast, others have a lot of stamina. Some can handle complexity, some understand business, some this and some that.

Clear communication is important. Your thoughts are only obvious to you, and they make sense mostly in your head. Writing them down exposes holes. Repeating sucks, but it's worthwhile when you say something and someone says: "You know... you must have said this a hundred times, but it's only now that it clicked.".

The major focus in my opinion ought to be the product, the roadmap, on the clarity of the objectives and making sure everyone understands what you're building and why and why you're _not_ building and why, and what you will build but not now. When this is taken care of, people will get to work and give it a shot. If you want to measure something, introduce quantities for the phenomena that matter most, the output of the system: user satisfaction, experience, ease of use, stability, and work your way back.

Low tech things work: having a Slack workspace for users where all your team answers questions and supports users pretty much guides you. You prioritize the issues faster according to what's causing the most pain. When almost every message is on problem X, you have your work cut out for you. Suddenly you realise some of your users have low bandwidth and are the application doesn't even load. Who would have known? It also puts pressure on the team when real people are having problems, and it's also satisfying.

I've written a few replies to similar topics.

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21808439](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21808439)

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21598632](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21598632)

[2]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21614372](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21614372)

</comment><comment><USER6> Be aware there are different styles - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_style](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_style)

Find one that matches your personality [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_NEO_Personality_Invent...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_NEO_Personality_Inventory#Personality_dimensions)].

Don't try to do things because its effective for some other manager, whose personality is different from yours.

Find managers/mentors within the org who share your personality traits/values and are on career trajectories you want to follow and talk to them regularly about your issues.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you hire a front-end developer? - <AUTHOR> We are trying to interview a front-end developer in India. I know how to interview for JS since I am fairly familiar with frameworks in JS (however, Not very experienced). But I am finding it very difficult to test CSS skills. What are some of the things I should test for CSS? <comment><USER2> Check out [https://github.com/h5bp/Front-end-Developer-Interview- Questi...](https://github.com/h5bp/Front-end-Developer-Interview- Questions/blob/master/questions/css-questions.md). You can find the answers here: [https://github.com/yangshun/front-end-interview- handbook/blo...](https://github.com/yangshun/front-end-interview- handbook/blob/master/questions/css-questions.md#what-is-css-selector- specificity-and-how-does-it-work)</comment>


RECORD LOW UNEMPLOYMENT, STILL 397,400 JOBS VACANT IN CANADA - <AUTHOR> http://www.dg.ca/blog/record-low-unemployment-jobs-in-canada-vacant <comment><AUTHOR> Skill deficiency is a real issue for the Northern nation as it has not been able to fill in nearly 400,000 vacant jobs for over 4 months now!

<comment><USER2> Is it skill deficiency or wage deficiency?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, Govt stats put YoY hourly wage increase at 2.6% - which should be considered healthy.

<comment><USER2> Is that number with inflation? Inflation seems to be running 2.5% as of june '18\. And around 2.2% before that. I think that puts the wage increase in the noise of flat to a small increase.

[https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/inflation- cpi](https://tradingeconomics.com/canada/inflation-cpi)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> please no all-caps titles...

<comment><AUTHOR> Noted. Thanks.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Free DNS hosting? - <AUTHOR>

Since EditDNS decided to change to pay-only, and EveryDNS got bought by DynDNS, I'm stuck finding a DNS service to use for my meager 2 domains, has anyone got any suggestions for free DNS hosting? <comment><USER2> <http://www.dollardns.net/>

Despite the name, it's actually free. I use it for a bunch of my projects.

There's also <http://www.zoneedit.com/> .. But I haven't tried them.

<comment><USER3> I've used zoneedit.com in the past and was pleased with the service. It's free for up to two or three domains, or it used to be, and the web interface was simple but did everything you needed it to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why DyDNS buying EveryDNS is a problem for you to use EveryDNS? (I too have a domain hosted on EveryDNS and like to know)

<comment><AUTHOR> Because this isn't the first free DNS hosting service that DynDNS has bought, and in every case in the past they've rapidly migrated to a non-free service.

Given that running EveryDNS as a free service directly competes with their own 'dynamic dns free, static dns pay-for' model, it's unreasonable to believe that they'll be willing or able to continue EveryDNS as a free service while utilising the same resources as their DynDNS products.

To clarify, if I was already using EveryDNS, I'd probably at least consider that I have a little time before I need to jump ship. But switching _TO_ EveryDNS, given that it's future as a free service is now very much in doubt (IMO), would be foolish I believe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Afraid.org - freedns.</comment>