The global population pyramid - <AUTHOR> https://ourworldindata.org/global-population-pyramid <comment><USER2> My concern is that population will shrink after 2100 globally but it will already be shrinking in the rich countries long before that. And all indicators right now is that shrinkage will speed up.

There is something wrong with rich modern secular society here or anywhere (it happens to all societies right now whether they are European, Japanese, Chinese, etc) in that it currently leads to sub replacement reproduction. This is the next global issue as it will lead to instability in modern rich societies in that they are not sustainable.

Japan is the future of all other rich societies, rapid shrinkage if you exclude immigration.

And if you encourage immigration as the solution to shrinkage you end up with rising racism and other reactionary trends to these changing demographics.

Right now the only societies that are growing or even stable are either developing/poor or highly conservative/religious societies.

If we do not address this issue then the world's future is likely poor or highly religious (most likely both) as demographics is the future whether we like it or not.

Also societies with shrinking populations will tend to have horrid economies and probably negative growth as the pyramid is inverted. Probably again like Japan.

<comment><USER3> I'm going to give my not so popular answer for this.

Western society is moving away from traditional families. When I ask my son what he wants to become when he's older, he says he wants to be a police officer.

When I ask my 2 girls, they both want to become a mom. My social engineered response to this was "maybe you should become a school teacher, that way you can work with kids and be home when your kids are home". Because let's face it, being only a mom as a girl is not socially acceptable. It's a weak position to be in. We are told to push them into engineering, STEM fields, becoming CEO's, world leaders, whatever. That's what we should do. But my girls, at this age, just want to become a mom.

Western society is trying to make boys out of girls, and girls out of boys. I have no problem with women working in tech fields, and I worked with many great ones. But the question needs to be asked is if our society will survive such a thing.

On one hand it's great that women have all these new rights, are getting more "equal" to men. But if your own culture is unable to produce enough children, and you have to import families and children from regions where womens rights are questionable, you need to ask how sustainable your democratic equal society is.

This is still a big question for myself, so any real discussion is welcome, because maybe I'm overlooking something (so please don't just downvote).

Maybe if we want our society to survive, we need to accept that although women are equal to men, they are very different. A family is made up of a man and a women, who support each other in their strengths and interests, and raise children together. Maybe our society should steer away from pushing women into a 'male' role that on one hands makes sense, but on the other hand is questionable. Maybe instead of pushing women into 'male' roles, we should support them better in how they benefit our society.

I know this comes across as really terrible, because history has shown that stay at home moms are in a really weak position. But on the other hand, modern society is unable to produce enough kids, and so import people from 'stay at home mom' cultures.

Any constructive discussion is welcome.

<comment><USER4> Words fail me reading comments like this.

To say that "women" should be "women" and not do "men" things is an attitude that belongs in the dark ages. It's sexist. It's degrading. It treats women like mindless children who can't make their own choices about what work they want to do.

Nobody is forcing women to go into STEM. We are encouraging them because unfortunately they have to deal with toxic attitudes all the time and simply don't stick around.

And seriously to act like western society is forcing transgenderism is utterly ridiculous and ridicules the stressful and tough choices these people have to make.

<comment><USER5> We should support any woman that wants to work in STEM. We should NOT encourage anybody to work in STEM. Women are more likely to want to work with people, not sit in a chair looking at a screen, droning for the corporation 8 hours per day.

The "toxic environment" is just what the field is. Dehumanizing by definition. It's got nothing to do with patriarchy or whatever else trending buzzword corporations push promoting more people take a career path working for them.

> To say that "women" should be "women" and not do "men" things is an attitude > that belongs in the dark ages

We need more women on construction sites, mines, fighting on the front line, fighting men in MMA, etc. If you say no you are soooo dark ages. /s

<comment><USER6> People should be free to do what interests them, and should be encouraged to follow careers that benefit society and themselves.

Maybe we need _fewer_ people - men and women - giving each other head injuries in combat sports. Fewer people fighting in senseless wars.

Maybe we need safer worksites, so that people - men and women - can work in construction or mining if it appeals to them.

<comment><USER7> > _Maybe we need safer worksites, so that people - men and women - can work in > construction or mining if it appeals to them._

Are you implying that construction site work is almost exclusively a male domain because it is relatively unsafe work?

I'm not saying that I'd disagree with that statement, not at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It seems to me that the segment of the population that is most affected by societal/political policies are the young to middle age adults who are raising kids, establishing their careers, building wealth, etc.

My understanding is that in the past, due to shorter life expectancies, this was also the generation that was generally in the majority; so each generation got a fair shot at making sure society served their needs during those key years.

However, as life expectancy has increased, it now seems like there is a large enough cohort of people who have already established themselves that they can push for society/government not to spend resources on the policies that benefited them during their formative years.

<comment><USER9> People seem to like asking for and getting things but slamming the door behind them. Can't have it both ways, although which default is better is an open question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Its an interesting visualization. Another site that shows this for individual countries is [https://www.populationpyramid.net/](https://www.populationpyramid.net/)

It is interesting to contrast countries at different points on their development. E.g., in Japan, where the population has already started contracting, vs say, Kenya, where the population is still growing rapidly.

However, these curves should come with error bars that grow as you go farther out. There could be all kinds of black swan events we know nothing about right now. A major antibiotic resistant bug could sweep the world, there could a nuclear war, risks of climate change could be worse than we are projecting. If someone in 1900 had made similar curves, I wonder how they would look to us. On that count, I wonder if there are similar projections from, say, 1950 that we could look at and see how they turned out.

<comment><USER11> > If someone in 1900 had made similar curves, I wonder how they would look to > us. On that count, I wonder if there are similar projections from, say, 1950 > that we could look at and see how they turned out.

Thomas Malthus attempted to describe the future of the world population in 1798 in his book, An Essay on the Principle of Population. He predicted a doubling of the global population every 25 years until a lack of food limited the population through hardship or famine and death. Pierre François Verhulst went on to mathematically model this bounded exponential growth and, in doing so, created the logistic function. The necessary data to create a chart like the one in the article didn't exist then, but Malthus' book did contribute to the passage of the Census Act of 1800, which enabled the first census of England, Scotland and Wales.

<comment><USER12> Mathus didn't quite predict that, he was smarter than that.

The fact that exponential growth of population was a rare and short-lived phenomenon in world history (he had numbers from new england or quebec, and knew they were highly unusual) led him to conclude that there must be other forces. The equilibrium population is set by the balance of such forces.

And not just in humans, obviously. Any animal could reproduce exponentially, but the world is not 100-km-deep in rabbits just yet. And this observation was an important ingredient for Darwin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> At this point it is useful to reiterate that global population growth right now is no longer exponential. Not even linear. It is sublinear, and the population expected to be stabilized around 2070, in the vicinity of 9-10B.

<comment><USER14> Yes, that is right the population growth rate started declining more than half a century ago. In 1962 the growth rate peaked at 2.2% and has halved since then: [https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#the- globa...](https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth#the-global- population-growth-rate-peaked-long-ago)

The projections from different research teams differ in when they expect the population population to peak. IIASA suggests what you say, the UN expects it later. I looked at the different projections (and what is behind the differences) here [https://ourworldindata.org/peak- child](https://ourworldindata.org/peak-child)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Perhaps a bit grim, but I'm actually visting my dad, who ended up in hospital a couple of days ago. He's survived, but he's not been in great health recently and I've been thinking a lot about life and death.

In 1950 he'd have been about 6 years old. If you then look at the 2018 curve for 74 year olds, you can see a fairly large part of his cohort has passed. Looks like more than half actually, if I'm interpreting this right.

If you look at it, he's also on that part of the chart where your annual hurdle rate is rapidly increasing. Nobody's surprised that people in their 80s and 90s pass away.

What's maybe a bit more surprising is for younger people, even though your annual loss is quite low, it's still there and accumulating. If you look at 1980, those of us nearing 40 in 2018 are slightly fewer, but it's noticeable.

I'm also of an age where a few of those have started to hit home. I went to a small high school, maybe 90 people in my year plus the two adjacent years. At least 4 have passed away.

<comment><USER16> We're around the same age, and our fathers are, as well. My father was recently hospitalized, another minor heart attack. He's been alive for the past 14 years thanks to a pacemaker. My oldest living uncle had bypass (5 bypasses!) surgery last week. My wife and I are well into the third trimester of a spontaneous multiples pregnancy. It feels like life and death are literally chomping at the bit on either side of me right now, and it's bringing out a lot of emotion. I'm trying to funnel that emotion and it's raw energy into journaling, to keep it from spilling out into my personal or professional life.

All of this backstory lends this visualization a bit of a different meaning or context for people like us who are in the middle of these situations.

> What's maybe a bit more surprising is for younger people, even though your > annual loss is quite low, it's still there and accumulating. If you look at > 1980, those of us nearing 40 in 2018 are slightly fewer, but it's > noticeable.

This struck me, as well. But, for different reasons. My graduating class was marked with death by the 5th grade. We lost 7 kids between the 5th grade and graduation (a couple of suicides and a terrible car accident involving 2 cars of class mates). We lost 3 or 4 more before we had turned 20 (suicide, drugs and alcohol related deaths). Another half dozen or so in our 20s (drug and alcohol related deaths). In our 30s, cancer and other terminal disease have claimed a few. My graduating class was < 100 people, so for a while there this was a frequent topic with the group of people that I remain in contact with. I suppose that there have to be instances like this but it's interesting to see it presented in this visualization. Thinking about it now, we actually haven't lost anyone that I'm aware of since in the second half of our 30s. Maybe we're turning a new leaf.

<comment><USER15> Sounds like a real outlier that you lost that much of a class. I guess the car accident is actually one event, but it's still a big and shocking loss.

For me the surprise was that two of the four were murdered. Your chances of dying at all in a given year before 40 is something like a quarter of a percent. Your chances of being murdered has got to be some tiny fraction of that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Pensions are not sustainable. Current mandatory CPP contribution in Canada seems like that. It's a promise that government makes that we contribute now which is taken to cover the current senior citizens. What if there isn't enough working force when we get older? How would the government keep the promise?

<comment><USER18> Social Security in the US as well. Most of my generation that I've talked to have just accepted it as another tax; there's not going to be anything left of it by the time we would actually expect to withdraw from it.

<comment><USER19> I (and many others) maintain that social security at the federal level is completely unconstitutional, and lament the system that has evolved around using it as the de-facto national identification in the United States. Of course there are externalities associated with the lack of a social safety net for the elderly, and at this point it very well may be "worth it" for the younger generation to pay it to avoid the consequences. What a mess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> There's a good presentation by Hans Rosling about why population will peak at 11B (stick with until 26m):

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FACK2knC08E&t=19m12s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FACK2knC08E&t=19m12s)

Further on he explains why we may not have to worry about resource use given growing prosperity:

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FACK2knC08E&t=35m36s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FACK2knC08E&t=35m36s)

</comment><comment><USER21> This is a really interesting visual presentation of the data. Some cool observations:

1\. The first five curves (1950–1990) are all in 10-year increments, so for instance, 1950's 20-year-old population maps very directly to 1960's 30-year- old population (hence the "rippling" effect produced by those six curves).

2\. What's with the sudden pinch in the population of 20-year-olds in 2018? It tapers in very heavily from the corresponding point on the 1990 curve, and apart from the newborn population, is the only local maximum anywhere on the chart. Did I miss something in the news? Why would such a large number of kids born in 1990 be dead by now, compared to previous generations?

3\. Why do curves for previous years have such pronounced staggering, while projections for the future are comparatively much smoother?

<comment><USER14> Hi rlue!

This is largely due to China's population dynamics.

Here I've made a chart that shows the number of births (and deaths) in China over the last 69 years: [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/births-and-deaths- project...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/births-and-deaths-projected- to-2100?time=1950..2019&country=CHN) 30 and also 50 years ago China had large cohorts of newborns, these are the 'ripples' you see going through the global population pyramid.

The number of births is always determined by two factors: the number of children per woman in the reproductive age bracket (called the Total Fertility Rate). And the number in the reproductive age bracket.

Here is the Total Fertility Rate for China: [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman- un?tab...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman- un?tab=chart&time=1950..2015&country=OWID_WRL+CHN)

The large cohort born around 50 years ago is the parent generation of the large cohort born 30 years ago.

So the question is what explains the large cohort in the 1960s? That is the cohort born right before the rapid reduction of the Total Fertility Rate (from 6.4 children per woman in 1965 to half of that 15 years later as the chart above shows; this is largely before the introduction of the strict one-child- policy by the way). And it is the cohort born after one of the largest mass deaths in history. The Great Leap Forward Famine from around 1951 to 61 [https://ourworldindata.org/famines#great-leap-forward- famine...](https://ourworldindata.org/famines#great-leap-forward-famine- china-1959-61) Around 30 million died and as in all famines the fertility rate declined substantially, to then jump again right after the famine.

Good questions! I should have mentioned them in the post. Let me know if you want to know more.

<comment><USER21> Wow, wasn't expecting a response! Taken together, the data and the historical context tell a really powerful story.

So the chosen UN projections for this graph don't stagger like the historic data because they assume no famines or other high-death-toll events in the given period then?

On the one hand, I imagine we must have a big disaster coming our way eventually. On the other, if you factored it into your projections, you'd have to guess at the approximate time and magnitude of such an event, which I'm sure is not the business of whoever's making these projections.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> That visualization of the population pyramid is just very beautifully done.

And I was saying this exact point for some time. "We are at a turning point in global population history. ... Not children will be added to the world population, but people of working age and old age."

Super important post this one!

</comment><comment><USER23> I went through the interactive chart following the references. Asia seems to be on a bell curve with the continent reaching saturation in the next 3 to 4 decades. Will be really interesting to see how the world deals with population explosion about to happen in Africa.

Will be it the next Asia? The next continent we outsource our industries to? Does it have any significant advantages or disadvantages owing to its geographical location?

<comment><USER24> It will be also interesting what will happen when the population pyramid inverts in Europe and North America.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> It took me a few minutes to understand the chart shown here, I think because it has the dependent and independent axes inverted.

To look at the number of people of a given age in a given year, you follow the line for that year, go down the left to find the given age, and see where it lines up at the top to get the number of people.

The shading between the lines is irrelevant and just serves to confuse: the area under the line doesn't mean much.

<comment> dan-robertson The area under a line is the global population, no?

<comment><USER25> Ah, yes, you're right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> These types of graphs are one unique example where using "time" not on the x-axis is preferred. I think because it highlights the symmetry around x=0.

</comment><comment><USER27> I just had an idea how to visualize the population pyramid by an animation. Start with 1950 then show the pyramid for each year till 2100. But also have black dots representing a group of people of same age moving upwards as to show their age with time.

</comment><comment><USER28> It kind of seems like wealthier countries, as their population demographics become tipped toward older people, would benefit from immigration of younger people, no?

</comment><comment><USER29> Religious and wealthy people will continue above replacement forever. Probably why these two strategies persist. Who is the poorest person you know? Are they religious and do they have many children? Who is the wealthiest and how many children do they have? Flattening this curve has been the world project of the Anglo-American establishment post WW2, with dubious results - unless replacing themselves and their own populations was the goal. The demographic winter largely of their own making, a case of idealism meeting unintended consequences which may go down as the biggest blunder in world history.

<comment><USER30> Are you really saying that Anglo-American's not having enough children is the biggest blunder in world history?

<comment><USER29> The Anglo-American establishment is a power consensus after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, two world wars and decolonisation. It refers to the hand off of power from Great Britain to the US. It has nothing to do with "Anglo- Americans" unless you're talking about a specific small group of anglophile elite families from the north-east of America with political and industrial wealth. A ruling consensus was established after the Yalta conference and Bretton Woods accord. In the immediate post war period the USSR has lost 30 million people and there is only one global nuclear power. Losing this dominance to the degree of the present world order is the second biggest blunder, should these people also then be completely minimized inside their own nation states by the force of global capital they allowed to emerge would be the biggest yes. It's the equivalent of receiving the entire wealth of the world then losing it in a few generations. What do you find controversial about this? A blunder is an unforced error which greatly diminishes your own position in a game, perhaps leading to a total loss. Or do you believe all human beings are playing equally for the interest of all others?

<comment><USER30> I believe calling it a game and using those analogies trivializes the ethical implication of some of your views. And while I definitely don't think "all human beings are playing equally for the interest of all others", I do think if the "ruling consensus" elects to share power with a more diverse group of people that would be in the greater interest of humanity in the long term.

<comment><USER29> Power diffusion leads to asymmetric instability (and inverse). It is dangerous to assume non relativistic ethics in a pluralist world.

Conflict will happen in a persons head when holding oppositions simultaneously or inevitably between persons opposing heads simultaneously.

Self interest is true, self negating and both.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: To go open source or not to go open source. - <AUTHOR>

Struggling to raise last $13,000 needed to stick a new UI (and JS) on the site -
http://vanillamonitor.com
So perhaps, it's time to give up, and perhaps, release this as open source?
Here is the new look I intend to stick on it http://cl.ly/image/1t3l2q3c3d3v2R0X3i04
And the description of what the software actually does http://cl.ly/420H472P0m1o3f131e19 <comment><USER2> Why? I think your design is fine for an initial minimum viable product. Furthermore, I think the product looks interesting. I don't doubt there is a market for something between <http://monitor.us> and Nagios, especially one with a clean, simple interface.

My advice would be to forget the redesign, get some minimal set of functionality working really well, turn off the rest, and start a beta. I'd be interested in participating in that beta.

EDIT: Feel free to contact me if I can help (with advice or a beta). My email is in my profile. I recently went through the process of finding a low-cost monitoring solution for a few servers so can give feedback in that regard.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hi. I am a designer and front-end developer and I could probably help you out with designing and implementing the new UI.

Email me at firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link <http://vanillamonitor.com>

</comment><comment><USER4> I really wish I could read your "About" page without having to log in.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I agree. I'm wondering what the OP's company does exactly. Like Amazon S3 stats?

<comment><USER5> Ahh, the site just changed and now I can see everything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You have Django Debug ON. Turn it off so it shows the 404 page.

</comment><comment><USER7> We need more software designed like this.</comment>


Ask HN: How long should it take a single developer to develop a single app? - <AUTHOR> I know, the first thing is what is the app? Let's benchmark on a given app. Let's say:
1. A todo app like http://todomvc.com
2. Or, say a blog app, with login (authentication)
How many hours ought it take a "typical" developer? If you feel like answering it, you can of course give a range or talk about other factors (experience level, is it documented, is it secured etc) <comment><USER2> 100% depends on the number of features - if you were able to granularly document them, then could probably estimate based on that. Otherwise, this is useless and too high level.

For instance, how long does it take to build a car? Okay well if the car needs an automatic transmission, that takes x weeks longer. Oh you need a cupholder? thats another x weeks. Oh also deployment. Oh also tests. Etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> What is a typical developer? My definition and yours will be different. It would need to be established what skills and experience this person already has to get to the meat of your question.

Choosing a framework would increase or help speed along the project.

There is multiple aspects that would need to be addressed. Architect, rough design or proof of concept, testing/QA, documentation etc..

I would agree that this is too high level....</comment>


Ask HN: What if usernames were only visible after you have voted on a comment? - <AUTHOR>

Recently, it feels like HN discussions are dominated by a minority of commenters.  I am worried that comment threads are less valuable when they are dominated by a few voices.  People begin to up/down vote comments based on who's saying them, and not on the merits of the ideas being presented.<p>What if our usernames were obscured, at least until our votes have been cast? <comment><USER2> Who posted is often relevant to judging the response, e.g. PG in an "Ask PG" thread, grellas on a question of legal organization etc.

It's not that I don't sympathize with the sentiment behind the suggestion. I just don't think that increased anonymity would be an improvement to HN.

Everyone has an opinion, but everyone's opinions aren't equally grounded in knowledge and experience.

</comment><comment><USER3> That would be very annoying. Whether comment threads are valuable or not has less to do with the diversity of the commenters than the quality. A hundred random responses are far less valuable than two well-informed and well-written responses.

I would stop reading HN if we could no longer see who said what — as it is, a lot of my reading is through HackerFollow. I get more out of the site that way. To be blunt, some commenters _are_ better than others.

<comment><USER4> What would be annoying? The comments with the highest votes would still be at the top. He/she said nothing about randomizing the comments. The only effect of the idea would be to eliminate "celebrity" votes.

<comment><USER3> Who cares if the comments with the highest votes are at the top? That's just as true of /r/lolcats. I care about how much trouble it is to find _good content_.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Given a practical and insightful essay on the day-to-day running of a business and a picture of a cat in a funny pose, most people will vote for the cat _every time_. Making it harder to find good comments will only exacerbate this, because it's easy for the cat-lovers to find silly pictures, so to speak, while carefully reading every comment on every post for insight takes more time than most people have to spend on an Internet forum.

In fact, I'll go further, although tentatively: I think authorship is _probably_ a stronger predictor of comment quality than votes are. For example, blind contrarianism will almost always take the top spot in a thread — at least for a while — and even mildly criticizing Apple on a thread where lots of Apple fans happen to be will get you several downvotes. There are so many factors besides quality and authorship that affect voting — the mere popularity of a comment's sentiment is often enough to trump everything else.

(EDIT: Thanks, anonymous downvoter, for making my point for me!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can see how that can be an issue. For me, and this may not be true for everyone else, I would rather who is posting not dramatically influence how many votes they get, because I want the comments with the most votes to be the most informative and valuable.

I don't agree that this is a good solution, because who is posting can be important to context.

Plus I think good comments tend to head to the top, and may create conversations... that's why you can reply to comments directly.

Basically you should:

Don't be afraid to make comments.

Vote for comments you think are good.

Explain when and why you like a comment to encourage others to vote for it.

I think you might have a more productive post if you submitted the issue, instead of floated a particular solution.</comment>


My Recent Development Stack: OS X Tools - <AUTHOR> http://www.renownedmedia.com/blog/my-recent-development-stack-os-x-tools/ <comment><USER2> Thanks for the heads up on Jason. I work with a lot of web apis and this looks like a great tool for browsing json responses.

<comment><USER3> This is also a great website for quickly viewing prettyified json:

<http://json.parser.online.fr/>

<comment><USER4> Another great way is via the json ruby gem, which installs a prettifier which can be used from the command line, like this:

        curl 'http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.json?screen_name=twitter&include_rts=1 | prettify_json.rb| less

<comment><USER5> Another way to do it without having to install anything extra:

curl "[http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.json?screen_...](http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.json?screen_name=twitter&include_rts=1) | python -m json.tool | pbcopy

<comment><USER6> I use the Chrome extension JsonViewer. It automatically formats the json. Great for api inspection.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My application Library Inspector is also pretty useful if you are a developer: <http://www.oriontransfer.co.nz/software/library-inspector>

If you are developing Mac and iOS applications it is especially useful as it gives .a and .dylib files custom icons indicating their architecture.

</comment><comment><USER8> Jason looks great. It definitely makes JSON management easy. I loved it and even donated money.

</comment><comment><USER9> GitX is good (and free), but if you're looking for the best Git client for Mac, without a doubt it's Tower (<http://www.git-tower.com/>).

<comment><USER10> I've been using GitX for months and it's pretty good, but it still buggy at times. I've been using the GitX (L) fork, since the original GitX doesn't seem to be actively maintained anymore. It's available here: <http://gitx.laullon.com/>

A few days ago a co-worker turned me on to SourceTree (<http://www.sourcetreeapp.com/>), which is also free and developed by Atlassian. I've got to say it's a bit more polished and so far it looks like it might be replacing GitX for me.

<comment><USER11> I just found source tree myself and really enjoy it. The best feature for me is how it allows you to view diffs of all your changes as you write your commit message, that makes it easy to include good detail on all changes.

Also, it's great that Source Tree supports multiple projects. I tried Tower a while ago and it only allowed you to have one project open at a time. Maybe that's changed now, but it's also not free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interesting, this article helped me with some VIM issues.

Does anyone know if you can open multiple docs in macVIM, in the same window and switch back and forth between?

<comment><USER13> Vim buffers fit what I think you're describing. Put `:set hidden` in your vimrc and you can flip between buffers in the same window with no trouble.

<comment><USER3> You can also use tabs in macvim and split windows, or any combination of buffers, tabs and splits. It's pretty flexible that way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'd be really interested in hearing how you got the swipe left/right commands to map to buffer management in MacVim.

<comment><USER14> He linked to his vimrc on github from the article. The binding is done in this block:

      if has("gui_macvim") "Use Experimental Renderer option must be enabled for transparencY
        set transparency=15
        set guifont=Monaco:h10
        set noantialias " I like my Monaco this way ;D
        " Swipe to move between bufers :D
        map <SwipeLeft> :bprev<CR>
        map <SwipeRight> :bnext<CR>
      endif

<comment><USER13> Ah, I missed that- thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> It's been a lifesaver. I usually have 20 buffers open and swiping between them makes editing a lot quicker.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't see what people get out of Property List Editor style interfaces - syntax highlighted JSON is easier to read once it goes through a prettifier, and surely writing JSON is drastically faster with a text editor.

<comment><AUTHOR> I like GUI tools for quickly visualizing data, otherwise you're correct, a text editor is (currently) better/faster for editing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Can anyone recommend a good GUI on Mac for Postgres? Sequel Pro is amazing, but it unfortunately only supports MySQL.

<comment><USER17> There is always pgAdmin (<http://www.pgadmin.org/>) which is very close to the Postgres core development and thus is always updated to support the latest features of Postgres.

It suffers a lot from the has-to-work-on-all-platforms UI design issues though (even though it uses wxWidgets).

Personally, I hardly ever use the GUI tool (the exception is explaining really big query plans) because the command line psql client is really, really good. It has an awesome line editor and so many convenience features like always shelling out into $PAGER for big result sets, or the very handy \x mode.

And it offers tab-completion not just for internal commands, but even for the SQL queries you are typing.

<comment><USER18> $EMPLOYER's databases are behind a firewall, so I've never had access to a GUI tool, and learned to love psql.

When I need to pick apart a query plan, I paste it into <http://explain.depesz.com>.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've found that when it comes to GUI tools the Mac is your best friend. Even a good majority of command lime stuff is really a joy to use. I'll never abandon the Mac but I must say that the deeper into my programming journey I get the more I'm reaching for my Linux machine. Last week I caught myself thinking of dumping the Mac altogether! But that's heresy and I quickly banished those thoughts.

The Mac gives you a really great portion of 2 worlds - the ability to operate from the terminal much like Linux but with amazing support for anything requiring you to either use or create GUI apps. The only problem is that once you venture off too far in one direction or the other you're either wishing you were on your Mac or you Linux machine. I don't subscribe to the belief that on OS is superior to another. Mac and Linux each have their very special uses. Instead I subscribe to the belief that 2 OSes are better than the third (unless you're coding for Windows exclusively in which case I wouldn't want to be you).

<comment><USER20> Out of curiosity, what were you missing from Linux?

That's not to say I don't miss things from Linux (/proc, XMonad to name two), just nothing all that much.

<comment><USER21> Can't you run XMonad on a mac? I'm pretty sure a couple people I know do just that. (There might be some wrangling and virtual machines, but I doubt it.)

<comment><USER20> You _can_ run XMonad on a Mac, but it will only tile X11 apps, not standard OS X apps, which unfortunately makes it fairly useless for me.

And of course, working in a VM with it is always an option (and I have a VM setup with it for when I want to drop back into linux).

<comment><USER21> Does that include Chrome? Because I've definitely seen them use Chrome, and it looked Mac OS-y. Of course, the people I'm thinking of probably have a different outlook on OS X: they like it, but not the UI. (That's a paraphrase from one of them:)).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I agree Sequel Pro is awesome, hands down best MySql client I have used on any platform. I also love Textmate, great text editor. For CSS - CSS Edit can't be beat however the developer is no longer offering it as a standalone app. :(

<comment><USER23> If anyone's looking for something like Sequel Pro but for SQLite, I recommend Base. Sadly, not free.

I only wish I could find a good Mac client for Postgres. pgAdmin III is awful.

<comment><USER24> Have you tried [http://www.navicat.com/en/products/navicat_pgsql/pgsql_detai...](http://www.navicat.com/en/products/navicat_pgsql/pgsql_detail_mac.html)

I haven't, but they have a full suite of tools.</comment></comment></comment>


Goodbye, Apple... forever... mostly... - <AUTHOR>

I have been developing web apps in PHP and Python on MacOSX for the past five years. IMHO, it really is a nice UI, and there's lots of apps.
Sadly, I have run into too many problems trying to run pretty standard Linux software, like RabbitMQ or PostgreSQL on my Macbook Pro, so I'm dumping it.
Forever.
The last straw was when I tried to install RabbitMQ using Macports, and it took 4 1/2 hours, and that's using a 24GB SSD I have installed on the ExpressCard/32 slot.
Even after it was done, it wouldn't allow connections, despite being properly configured (and yes, the firewall was turned off).
So, I dug out an old HP laptop (dv9000), circa 2007, popped in a 16GB SSD (yep, only 16GB), and installed LinuxMint 12. Within 20 minutes, I was in business.
On my "new" laptop, rabbitmq-server took 2 minutes to install, even though it's half the power of my Macbook Pro (granted, on OSX, macports wants to build everything, but still, 4.5 hours to build erlang? seriously???)
That, plus Apples ridiculous antics regarding developers have worn too thin on me. I'm leaving you for a better, leaner, less restrictive environment.
Don't leave the light on. I won't be back.
Well..
That is, until I want to write an iPhone app.. since you won't let me do it on any other platform.
Sheesh. Feels like Microsoft all over again.
- PyDev <comment><USER2> Why not just a Linux desktop on VMware? You get the great Apple hardware and exactly what you want with the software. I'm currently running Windows that way and I don't think I'm ever going back to buying a PC...

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/>

<comment><USER3> /usr/local/Cellar/rabbitmq/2.7.1: 158 files, 3.4M, built in 2.2 minutes</comment></comment>


Microsoft's attempt to recruit interns is a barrel of cringe - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2016/07/how-do-you-do-fellow-kids-asks-microsoft-recruitment-mail/ <comment><USER2> Regarding the cringiness. The mail should have started with 'fam', not 'bae'. 'bae' is babe and definitely unacceptable, either to men and women!

</comment><comment><USER3> Can I just say as someone interning at Microsoft that this isn't much of an issue. This was an INTERNAL email sent by a recruiter we know to the local bay area interns. She was making a joke and none of us were offended or bothered. This seems to have caught on as viral because people think it is a public email and society as a whole has a general disdain for us young people.

<comment><USER2> Does not look like INTERNAL when it is sent to 'bay area interns'.

<comment><USER3> it is sent to Bay Area Microsoft interns :) does that make sense to you? as opposed to the majority that are in Redmond. not sure why that doesn't make sense to you?

<comment><USER4> How comes you are here and bring this to "the right" light so fast?

<comment><USER3> because I've seen demeaning comments and attacks on both us interns and our company all day and I find it personally offensive? whenever there is a Google article on Hn, dozens of googlers defend them. if you think I don't have the right to then I can stop.

<comment><USER4> well you can do what you want, no idea why you would find something like this personally offensive tho.

Its just strange that you answer so fast, even a hour later. But maybe you just use Karmalert & HN Replies or something ;)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Magic for web scraping tasks - <AUTHOR> https://scrape.it/magic

<comment><USER2> Dude. It's "you're welcome" not "your welcome"

(in reference to the screenshot on this page)

<comment><AUTHOR> you are absolutely right.</comment></comment>


The Internet Is Actually Controlled By 14 People Who Hold 7 Secret Keys - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.in/The-Internet-Is-Actually-Controlled-By-14-People-Who-Hold-7-Secret-Keys/articleshow/31232908.cms

<comment><USER2> Much like owning a CA back in the day, basically a license to print money.</comment>


Ask HN: How to provide health insurance for one co-founder? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a co-founder in an LLC Partnership company. I have one other founder who already has health insurance through his spouse. I'm looking now to purchase health insurance for just myself and trying to figure out the best way to go about doing that.<p>Ideally I'd like the company to pay the premium but that seems to be a bit difficult since I need an individual plan. It sounds like some things have changed since the Affordable Care Act and possibly only under certain conditions can a company pay for or reimburse an individual health pan. Has anyone done anything similar? What is the best tax deduction and cost effective way to go about purchasing an individual health plan for a single person? (I receive a K-1 as a member of the LLC). <comment><USER2> [https://www.healthcare.gov/small-businesses/provide-shop- cov...](https://www.healthcare.gov/small-businesses/provide-shop-coverage/)

I'm assuming you take a salary in addition to your K-1 share. If your co- founder is covered through his wife's plan, he doesn't count against the 70% requirement.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think you should look into ACA plans. This link might help regarding taxes: [http://www.taxact.com/support/715/self-employed-health- insur...](http://www.taxact.com/support/715/self-employed-health-insurance- deduction/)

</comment><comment><USER4> have him / her pick an individual plan and then set up a reimbursement.</comment>


What's Obscene? Google Could Have an Answer - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/technology/24obscene.html

<comment><USER2> "Obscenity" in general is such a silly concept. Why should anyone control the morality of ___viewing_ __certain things? Is anyone here familiar with law that could explain the doubtless inanity behind "obscenity"?

Honestly, what do the "community's values" matter ___at all_ __? That's like arguing a religion with only ten constituents in a given town can't have any evangelism because most people think it's nutty. It seems like violating free speech, to me.

EDIT: I have to admit, however, this line was gold: "people are at least as interested in group sex and orgies as they are in apple pie."

</comment><comment><USER3> non-reg link: [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/technology/24obscene.html?...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/technology/24obscene.html?ex=1372046400&en=6a96980039695dd9&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink)</comment>


Show HN: Google Site Search Alternative - <AUTHOR> https://www.expertrec.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Google Site Search, which can be used to power the search for websites has started showing Ads (miserably even competitors ads). Here is an alternative, where you can get complete control on your search UI as well as the Ranking algorithm. You can build a demo for your website in 5minutes (there is a free 15day trial) and give me your feedback. I am looking to learn where should our focus be. Is it more on the frontend design (Search UI control) or on the backend algorighmic control(ranking, boosts, filters).

I will be happy to offer 6months free for your feedback. Thanks HN community.

<comment><USER2> > Google Site Search, which can be used to power the search for websites has > started showing Ads (miserably even competitors ads).

Indeed. It is unbelievably bad! I was recently trying to integrate Google Site Search into [https://share.cocalc.com/](https://share.cocalc.com/), and on many test queries I would see _an entire page_ of ads for our competitors (or completely irrelevant) products. E.g., if I searched for "julia" (thinking of the programming language), I would get a full page of ads for jewelry! I ended up just building a little search box from scratch myself that pops up another browser tab with a normal Google search that has "site:share.cocalc.com" pre- pended to it. This seems to work surprisingly well -- there can be ads (it's just a normal google search), but they are at least completely blocked if you have an adblocker installed. What is the drawback of this approach of just using site: rather than Google site search or expertrec.com?

<comment><AUTHOR> Expertrec - since it is built specifically to be used by site owners, will give you complete control on your ranking and crawling (which you can try contacting google support for a response). I wont complain about google search, (I was part of it and had worked hard to improve it), but remember you dont have any control when your new page or your modification will be re- indexed by google. you cant fix a broken result if something obviously bad shows up.

You have a clever hack, and I appreciate your ingenuity. You have got rid of the Ads, but still have the handicap of not having full control on your search. Why not use this time to leapfrog? It is just 9$

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I use Algolia as a search provider. It's fast, and free for me(because my need is really small, and fits their free plan). How does this compare to Algolia?

<comment><AUTHOR> Expertrec is an end to end solution for site owners, so you go live with a single JS inclusion and pretty much everything else is optional. As a bootstrapped startup, we cant afford to have any free plans, but at 9$ it is totally unbranded experience. Aravindh, you should certainly try our solution (at least the demo that is automatically built for you) and share your feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Ecosia.com, if you want to save the world. ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Expertrec is not a Google Alternative and no where closer to saving the world like ecosia, but it helps site owners to save their users from forced ads by providing an alternative to google site search.</comment></comment>


Show HN: My first webapp is online - a link checker and analysis.... - <AUTHOR>

Hi!
Long time reader, first time submitter.
I've finallllyy got my first webapp online. It's been a long time coming, I started it over a year ago and just been an hour here, a couple of hours here, and a period of a couple of months of nothing.
I first wrote it as a way to learn some python it sort of grew to fill a need I had. It's at a point now where I'd LOVE some feedback as I am going round in circules.
Please, it's free, just hit the home page, plugin in a name/email and url you want to links checked on.
If you use the name 'DeleteMe' I will remove the account after a week, so feel free to have a play.
Any and all feedback welcome. http://sitecrawl.net/
Thanks Nick <comment> mike-cardwell Please honour rel="nofollow" attributes on anchor tags. Every comment on my blog articles contains an anchor tag which looks like this:

      Reply

Clicking that link reloads the page, but with a textarea underneath the comment available for replying.

So your crawler is currently loading the same blog post over and over with a different reply_to attribute each time atm.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi there,

Thanks, thats a good point! I will modify the crawler to respect those items, and also listed them as nofollow (similar to blocked by robots).

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> A bunch of people have done scans. It'd be great to get some feedback.

Note; You need to enter a real email to get the password for the backend to see the results and do more. If you have a name of "DeleteMe" I will remove the account, so don't be shy!

</comment><comment><USER2> If you put in an address without the "<http://> it pops up an error saying you need an "<http://>. If you know that it's missing this, why not just add it automatically?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I should do this for sure! Feel free to give any more feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Quite handy really - I will certainly try it for our new site.

I haven't looked around to see what exists in that area so I can't compare it to anything I know of, but I quite like the uncluttered interface and the overall simplicity.

One thing though: your interface doesn't scale well with big screen resolutions - when viewport's x-size passes 1400px the right panel with the 'Create' button doesn't stick to the right edge of the screen.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, I'll check into that issue with the Create button. Im typically on my laptop most of the time so don't get past 1300~.

Any more feedback is welcomed.

<comment><USER4> You need to work on the dashboard. It wasn't at all intuitive how to get from the dashboard to the info your site is trying to share with me. Right now there is a giant link right in front of the user which leads back to the website. I don't need that link, I know what my website is. But all the good info is hidden behind the tiny number of links found (if there is another way to get there from the dashboard, I couldn't see it).

Your report should really be your main focus. I came there to get info about my site and you're hiding it. Why? Put a big "Site Report" or "info" button. I clicked on the "Complete" button, that was a nice red button, seemed important, but nope, doesn't lead anywhere either.

A better way would be to have a big link with "See crawl report for [website address]" and then I would suggest formatting the first page of the report a bit more.

<comment> adam-_- I second this. It took me a while to figure out what I was meant to do to find out anything useful about my site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks both of you. Yes this is an item of the software that really needs some love. Thanks for the suggestions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just ran a scan - sleek UI :) I can see a freemium business model working on this with some twists here and there.

Will look at the results of my scan closely (it showed up some errors which should not be there) and then report the specifics to you if I find any errors on the report.

Feel free to ping me (address in profile) and all the best moving forward.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, Thanks for the feedback, yea probably will do a freemium at some point - really just want to get some people using it constantly each day so I can see there is a need for it / it's helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A couple of notes:

In Chrome if I expand the window past its max-width the area to the right of the "Create" button on the dashboard is not colored properly.

I wasn't sure how to view my task index; maybe something more obvious than clicking on the links found hyperlink?

All in all it worked nicely, seems like a useful tool.

</comment><comment><USER7> clickable: <http://sitecrawl.net/>

</comment><comment><USER8> The privacy link (<http://sitecrawl.net/privacy>) is giving me a 404 error.

<comment><AUTHOR> Isn't that ironic! Will get sorted asap.</comment></comment>


WeWork to buy co-founder's property stakes with new $2.9bn fund - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/130f9b20-7706-11e9-be7d-6d846537acab <comment><USER2> WeWork is so shady, I don't even understand how half of what they do is legal.

[https://www.businessinsider.com/wework-ceo-adam-neumann- offi...](https://www.businessinsider.com/wework-ceo-adam-neumann-office-space- landlord-2019-1)</comment>


Ex-NASA Man Squeezes Cloud Onto USB Stick - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2011/09/piston-cloud-computing/

<comment><USER2> Is it just me or this article is built on the fact that "cloud" has a very vague definition?

If I try to anchor the information in the article onto the real world, I got this: the combination of a magic usb key and a compatible switch gives us a fully automated installation system, complete with PXE boot-over-network and remote OS/software installation and configuring.

But I'm only guessing, because this article lacks technical details, don't you think?

<comment><USER3> I think the "private cloud" concept can be restated as "Big blob of semi- automatically-managed computing resources onto which diverse applications can be easily deployed."

They're basically giving you a way to easily bootstrap your own little EC2 zone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is genius. I'm going to start putting an nginx installer on usb drives and sell them as full fledged web servers.

(Incoming downvotes...but really, this is silly)

</comment><comment><USER5> The guy who created this has great cred, but geez, this is gimmicky as hell! Hardly something to be taken seriously in the large enterprise datacenter.

</comment><comment><USER6> We're going to look back with fondness to the days when USB sticks only carried passive viruses that required a vulnerable Windows computer to activate. Now they can carry dataloggers, sniffers, active attacks, ...

Stuxnet on steroids. :-O

</comment><comment><USER7> I'll hold off until they implement a cloud in Javascript.

</comment><comment><USER8> Does the whole "onto usb stick" really mean much these days? I'd hope you could get a software stack onto 8 (16, 32, ...) GB of storage.

Also, that article is quite light on details (as has already been stated)</comment>


Skillful Service Is Born of a Quiet Heart - <AUTHOR> https://jackkornfield.com/skillful-service-born-quiet-heart/ <comment><AUTHOR> as a completely-stressed-out techie cofounder, i've started taking sunday sabbaths—a simple weekly break from technology and distraction. it's been essential to my well-being. it takes way more discipline than coding and doing tasks 7 days a week.

<comment><USER2> I really agree with this. It's way easier to get into a rythym and just keep following a never ending checklist.

I've recently started meditation again and I'm realizing how hard something simple like remembering to pay attention to your breath is

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Time away from the keyboard is as important, if not more important as time at the keyboard.

Taking guilt-free breaks for a few minutes every hour, an hour every day, a day every week are invaluable and restores productivity and efficiency the other 6 days of the week like nothing else.

</comment><comment><USER4> Nah. Mountain Dew techno Red Bull 24/7 hacking parties for me plz.

<comment><USER5> I don't suppose you're in the midwest? This place could use more of that.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do startup companies want to see on your resume? - <AUTHOR>

I'm fixing up my resume(CV) after a few years and I want to target startup companies. It'd be great to hear from some other folks at startups that either hire or have been hired about what should go into a modern resume.<p>(And of course, you should have your portfolio/github/etc. That's a given.) <comment><USER2> When I look at resumes, I'm looking for a few things:

\- You're passionate about being a software engineer. This could manifest itself as side projects, or simply showing that you were passionate about a work project and went above and beyond.

\- You've had broad experience, and understand many areas, not just one narrow area. This is less about specific programming languages as broader technology areas. For instance, have you worked on performance tuning? Can you explain to me how a network works in excruciating detail?

\- You have a formal CS education. Some may not care about this, but it's a good indication that you have solid fundamentals, and understand things like big O notation. If you're a new grad, getting good grades is important too.

\- Have you worked at another startup? If so, I want to know about it - it's an indicator you understand what working at a startup entails.

</comment><comment><USER3> 1\. Your own projects.

2\. Your own projects, using interesting/relevant technologies.

3\. Proof that you get Stuff Done (ie. your own projects).

4\. That you can wear multiple hats.

</comment><comment><USER4> stackoverflow, linkedin profile are helpful. A lot of startups prefer generalists, showing breath and flexibility on your resume is a plus.

</comment><comment><USER5> Well I am barely getting things together in my startup and far from hiring anyone yet. The key thing people are looking for aren't on a resume, what have you created? What are you into? Show what you have built, if you haven't create anything, better start. Yea, a resume can look great and have some big names that look good, but when it really matters its what you have actually been apart of or created.</comment>


An email from a very confused guy who can't find a job - <AUTHOR> http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/confused-career-decision/

<comment><USER2> _Build skills before you need them_

Oh ok, then I'll win the lottery, trip over a cure for cancer and land inside a supermodel.

That has to be one of the most vapid pieces of advice I've ever heard. It reeks of quintessential motivational-self-help-guru-dom. It _sounds_ like great advice, but when you break it down, it brings absolutely nothing concrete to the table. He might as well add 'Water is wet, so take off your clothes _before_ you jump into the beach'.

Everyone, including 'Ryan', already knows this.

I would usually ignore something like this, but doling out buzzword laden one- liners like 'Networking is not a dirty word' seems to have become a trend these days. Restating the obvious in memorable sentences doesn't help anything. What _does_ help is taking his resume, deciding if he can hook him up, and directing him towards a contact he knows, since he's in the same field as Ryan. You know, actual _concrete_ help.

Or maybe it's the smug 'see how well I condense my ideas into 2 lines? that's just too cool to ignore' attitude dripping all over this self-promotional article.

P.S. You know what's even shorter - 'Sorry. I have no clue how to help you.' It's just _one_ line!

<comment><USER3> (I'm the author of the article.)

I actually know exactly what you mean -- if I had just stumbled upon this post, I would probably think the same thing.

I wrote this for my community, who know exactly what I mean: Don't try to charge $ too early, focus on the long term, invest in yourself and be entrepreneurial, etc. Many of them have read my articles from years ago that go into detail on this.

But for people that just clicked through and are seeing this for the first time, I can understand the skepticism.

Hopefully this doesn't make you think of my site as just another guru-blah- blah-blah site, because my readers have really done some amazing things -- saving millions, starting companies, automating their money, etc -- over the years.

<comment><USER4> If you had replied to Ryan with the thoughtfulness you display here, your post would have come across far better. You are giving very banal advice in a rude way to a guy who is temporarily down on his luck for very understandable reasons. Sorry but I called you a douchebag in your comments section (You can take it off)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _One of the most important differences between rich people and non-rich people: Rich people plan for things before they need them, while others are caught treading water when something bad happens. Think about how to apply this to your life._

If I'm being really optimistic, I can take this to mean, _rich people become rich because they plan ahead and non-rich people stay non-rich because they don't_. I have to be _really_ optimistic to read it that way and it's dubious advice anyhow.

So let's take the analogy a bit further. We have a person treading water. They know they need to figure something out because they can't tread water indefinitely. Then something bad happens. Crap, maybe a shark shows up or a lightning storm rolls in, whatever it is, it's not cool. Ramit Sethi leans in to give this poor person some advice. "Let me tell you something. You could be rich right now if you had just planned ahead."

Useless!

<comment><USER6> This reminds me of the guy at work whose proposed solution to any problem is "well, this would never have happened if we'd done X." You know the guy.

O Rly? Well okay, we'll just invent a time-machine, go back in time to when this stupid decision was made, convince those in charge not to make it, and then make some other stupid mistake.

I think it's very valuable to analyze and to learn from mistakes, but in the middle of a crisis, you need to first get out of the crisis.

The real problem is that financially speaking, most of the US is in crisis- mode all the time, without even realizing it.

Most USians won't get rich (by US standards), but many more might be able to get out of the living month-to-month quagmire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If that's the full text, those reply emails aren't very long at all. Yeah, they get into details that aren't very important, but they are pretty reasonable, especially considering he's unemployed in a dry spell. Maybe everyone else just has less patience.

</comment><comment><USER8> A reminder of how brutal unemployment is at the margin. A 1 percent increase in the unemployment rate is not a huge jump statistically but when you are looking for work on the ground it is thousands more people chasing the same job as you.

</comment><comment><USER6> Well that was useless. P.S. I wonder whether Amit asked "Ryan's" permission before posting this e-mail exchange.

</comment><comment><USER9> "And stop depending on recruiters."

Bravo!

I'd like to apologize in advance to the 7 respectable recruiters left in the United States before I say:

Most headhunters are slime.

They are low level bottom feeders who are rarely capable of producing value for anyone else and can only produce income for themselves by engineering a scarcity situation where none would otherwise exist. They don't give a flying fuck about you or the companies except to "not bite the hand that feeds them". Now that times are tougher, they will resort to anything to make a buck, because they think they have to. Ethics and value mean nothing to those who have no ethics and produce no value.

Just a few of the "tricks" they are pulling these days:

They will list a job on the internet that doesn't exist just to collect your resume. They will lie about it until they are caught.

They will change critical details about a job to make it difficult to identify the company so that no one "goes around them" (when they don't have an exclusive).

They will edit your resume to suit _their_ needs, not yours.

They will use you to show an example of an overpriced person so that they can easily place someone else.

They will make up total bullshit in order to protect "their turf", hoping that you're an idiot and will buy in to it. (I recently had a headhunter tell me I MUST go through them with a vendor referral to one of their clients. Huh?)

If you're lucky enough to find a good recruiter that can actually make something happen for you, hang on to them for dear life (that is until they switch careers). Otherwise, stay clear. Don't waste your time with job board entries placed by recruiters (I know, most of them are).

You're much better off getting up off your butt and going out and meeting people on your own. Do this without restriction. You never know when the person you met at a party, breakfast, or BBQ may be the one to send you your next job or contract. YOU are always your best recruiter.

<comment><USER10> _You're much better off getting up off your butt and going out and meeting people on your own._

Since I've been in the recent job market (about a year now), I've found similar numbers of (apparently) helpful recruiters and sleazy ones. Even if the ratio were 1-in-20, it would still be better for me and people like me to use recruiters. To be clear, "people like me" here refers to those of us who strongly dislike networking, gladhanding, and basically pretending to be interested in people we know nothing about except that they might be able to help us get a job at some point. While it's not nearly so strong as my dislike of meeting new people, my aversion even to interacting with people I already know is strong enough that I regularly fail to keep in touch with family and close friends for months or years at a time. Fortunately, I have very understanding friends. :)

<comment><USER9> "basically pretending to be interested in people we know nothing about except that they might be able to help us get a job"

No! No! No!

This is not what I meant and I apologize if I inferred it.

Pretending's got nothing to do with it. On this or any other subject.

You do not "network" (or whatever you want to call it) to "get a job" or to "get" anything for that matter. You network because you are a human being.

If you are extremely introverted or dislike being among others, fine. Many of us here are either like that or once were. I understand. I suggest you give it a try. You may be the best assembly programmer in the western hemisphere, but you are still a human being. You are already hard wired to interact with the rest of us. It's not really that big a deal.

Getting business referals is a natural byproduct, not the purpose, of normal human interaction. The more you interact, the better your chances. The better for everyone.

(As an aside, if you "pretend" at anything, prepared to get clocked, sooner or later. Pretending is an investment in nothing.)

<comment><USER10> Oh, I don't dislike being among others, all the time. I dislike meeting _new_ people a bit, and since "networking" involves meeting as many new people as possible, it's basically a shorthand for the part of social interaction I dislike. :) I'm not "extremely" introverted or anything; it's just that going through recruiters has seemed to be a more pleasant avenue than meeting dozens or hundreds of new people over the same period.

We disagree about pretending, too. Pretending is the quickest way to changing your personality, distasteful as it is in the short term. Want to be more optimistic, happier, more outgoing? Start acting as though you are right now, and you'll move in that direction. Pretending is 80% of social interaction, too, as far as I can see. "Hey, how are you, today?" is, in the vast majority of cases, a pretense of being actually interested in my day. If you want to find out how many people are pretending, answer in detail rather than just saying "Great!" or some such answer. I sometimes answer in detail, anyway, because I forget that virtually everyone else is pretending (or because I'm not paying enough attention to consciously respond correctly), rather than interested, and this almost always ends awkwardly. :)

<comment><USER11> Do you also do this :

You: "Hello! How are you?"

Someone: "Good! How about you?"

You: "Good! How about you?"

Someone: "...?"

You: "..."

<comment><USER10> Of course. It's another awkward failure mode, since it becomes unavoidably clear that we're just saying stock phrases. :)

<comment><USER11> Indeed. I think I only learned how to small-talk and "network" as a parlour trick (like Fry).

Fortunately I am able to form deep and meaningful friendships; anything above an acquaintance level is possible, but requires hard work. Yay introverts. =P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My group is trying to fill several software engineer positions and at least one DB engineer position.

Don't get excited; we were recently told we can now only hire internally to our technology megacorp. That pretty much makes the task hopeless, but we didn't have much success hiring externally, either. It just means a bigger pile of internal resume spam from people who don't even claim to have the skills we need. Yes, this is the classic "we're hiring and can't find good candidates" counterpost to the classic "I've got mad skills and experience and can't get a job" post.

Or rather, it's an offer. Does anyone want to hear why we're having trouble finding candidates and my advice for people wondering how to get this kind of job?

<comment><USER11> Yea, actually I would like to hear. I'm looking for a job myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't understand the point of this article or why I'm seeing it here.

As far as I could tell, the author got an email from a friend looking for help and instead of helping him, he decided to humiliate him on the internet.

<comment><USER11> The author is not a friend; the piece's point of view is from that of a "celebrity" writing about how he dealt with a "fan".

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Don't depend on someone else to score you a job.

Network.

Verbose resume's bore, simple resume's score.

There, same advice, but far less writing (and far less self-congratulatory, please-read-my-article-while-I-masturbate-over-how-superior-I-feel-compared- to-this-poor-dude bullshit).

</comment><comment><USER15> Hmm... if I had to choose a personal motto, maybe it'd be "it's almost time to become desperate" right now. I like Ramit's style of writing.

Also thinking about "I'm not hearing you" and "big company"... :)</comment>


Cisco's New 322Tbps Router - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/191125/new_cisco_router_supports_322tbps_designed_for_internet_video.html

<comment><USER2> I fail to understand how this would make that much of a difference in the speed of the _internet_. It a core router, and 322 TB is the back plane bandwidth. Is there anyway this is relavent except it is marketing speak?!

The real need for bandwidth is in mobile aggregation devices, particularly wireless and wireline convergence.

 _Disclaimer_ : I work for Ericsson, and this is my personal opinion</comment>


Amazon, GM in talks to invest in electric pickup truck maker Rivian: sources - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-rivian-electric-amazon-com-gm-exclusi/amazon-gm-in-talks-to-invest-in-electric-pickup-truck-maker-rivian-sources-idUSKCN1Q12PV <comment><USER2> The only thing I really take issue with on this truck is that the spare tire is accessed through the top of the bed. There are two reasons you don't want to do this in a truck:

1.) The bed needs to be very strong because people routinely put weight on dunnage in the bed, and the door doesn't appear to be corrugated to withstand load.

2.) If you want to change your flat tire you need to unload everything in the bed, which will be a huge pain in the ass on the side of the road.

Otherwise thank god someone is actually trying to capture this market. I really want one of these and can't wait until they're closer to market.

<comment><USER3> > If you want to change your flat tire you need to unload everything in the > bed, which will be a huge pain in the ass on the side of the road.

aren't you already supposed to unload your vehicle before you jack it up on one side? maybe it's different for "work vehicles", but my car comes with a puny little jack that's only strong enough to support the weight of the car when there are no people or heavy items inside. I suspect the hardpoint on the car itself isn't designed with much more headroom than the jack.

<comment><USER4> The hard point of the car is part of the frame on every vehicle I can recall. And I recall a lot, because back when I was a mechanic I had to find those points to get the car on the hydraulic lift. One had to be careful of rusty VW Beetles as unibody as kind of a new thing, and a lift could punch a hole through the floor of a rusted Beetle if one wasn't careful.

Anyway, enough resume flouting. Yes, you should unload your truck before changing the tire. What if that 1000 lbs. is pea gravel? Still unloading it first, Dr. Safety First? If I had 1000 lbs. in the bed and I had a flat? I'd change it as is. It won't be the smartest thing I do that week, and I am going to keep my hands out from breaking the vertical plane of the wheel well as much as possible. But I am confident that the solid point of the frame will hold it, and even the puny jack is likely stringer than it looks.

But in reality, if I had a load, I'd just call AAA or a mobile truck service. They carry really nice heavy-duty jacks. Flat tires are such a rarity these days, I'd roll the dice on paying someone $200 to change my tire.

In the end, if you're that worried about it, do what we did when I was kid with our old '63 Chevy: throw the spare on top of the load when you're done loading. Doesn't fix the jacking problem, but at least the spare is accessible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really hope Rivian makes it. They seem to have the right idea working from the top of the market down like Tesla. They could probably survive on only high-end low volume sales for quite a while. I hope Tesla gives them time and room to grow before introducing their own truck.

Also - There was a video with Sandy Munro on it and he couldn't talk about Rivian so he's either working with them or someone who wants to invest in them. So it seems like they are getting the right brains working on their problems.

Edit - this video, which is very interesting - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVnRQRdePp4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVnRQRdePp4)

</comment><comment><USER6> Why do auto makers seem to be so against working with Tesla to bring electric vehicles to market?

Now that I think about it, it seems like most car companies are trying to do the electric thing on their own, and if they do ask for help it's from somebody that's sort of out of their industry and not a direct competitor (yet).

This is in contrast with for example how Mazda is working with Toyota on hybrid drive, and how GM used to work with Toyota on hybrid drive.

Or is it Tesla that is 'anti-cooperation' with industry leaders? I was under the impression that it was teslas goal to make electric cars more common, not necessarily Tesla cars were common. I've never properly researched this, but I've always wondered why a business model for them isn't to just provide the skateboard platform for other companies to build upon...

<comment><USER7> > _I've always wondered why a business model for them isn't to just provide > the skateboard platform for other companies to build upon_

Volkswagen beat them to it. Volkswagen has developed their MEB electric car platform which they will use across their VW, Audi, SEAT, and Skoda brands:

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

[https://jalopnik.com/the-fascinating-engineering-behind- vws-...](https://jalopnik.com/the-fascinating-engineering-behind-vws-electric- car-pla-1829257860)

VW is also open to licensing the platform to other manufacturers. Ford is thinking about using the MEB platform for their EVs:

[https://jalopnik.com/volkswagen-wants-other-automakers-to- us...](https://jalopnik.com/volkswagen-wants-other-automakers-to-use-its-meb- electr-1832269531)

<comment><USER8> Porsche/Audi will need a small redesign after tearing apart a model 3.

[https://electrek.co/2019/02/09/tesla-model-3-cost- surprise-p...](https://electrek.co/2019/02/09/tesla-model-3-cost-surprise- porsche-audi-reverse-engineering/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The Fully Charged YouTube channel did a great piece of this car:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMfxJEfb4lw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMfxJEfb4lw)

If you're interested in electric cars then it's well worth a subscribe.

<comment><USER10> Wow great video! I had ZERO idea this company existed and I'm on my 2nd EV...this is awesome

<comment><USER9> The YouTube channel is even better if you're a Red Dwarf fan. Robert is amazing!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is great, but I also want Amazon to build a high speed rail network across the country. I think they're trying to build their own airline, at least for package logistics but they can't get planes fast enough. They could probably build rail much faster in certain areas and they could use it for people and order logistics.

<comment><USER12> > _They could probably build rail much faster in certain areas and they could > use it for people and order logistics._

You're not alone in this, but why do you think passenger rail makes any sense in the U.S? As far as I can tell, it makes very little. People's big plans for rail in the U.S. tend to rely on some _major_ change in one or more factors of feasibility, and people justify these plans by calling that or those factors "trivial, with political will!"; I find it unconvincing.

<comment><USER11> Well, I don't think high speed passenger rail makes a lot of sense on its own. But, it might make sense along with high speed delivery trains, especially on certain routes:

West Coast: (Seattle?), SF, LA, SD

Midwest: Twin Cities, Madison, Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit

Northeast: NY, Philly, DC

Southeast: Atlanta, Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami

Yes, flying is faster and maybe even cheaper. But, the experience of flying is awful and getting worse. If it's between 3 hours in airports, security and an airplane or 4 hours on high speed rail where I can put my feet up, catch a nap in an actual bed, use my cellphone and wifi, collaborate with colleagues, eat good food, etc... I'd take the train every time. Hell, on the Toronto/Ottawa route, flying is cheaper and there's no high speed rail, but many business travelers still choose slow rail because the experience is so much better. Make it a little more competitive in travel time, and it starts to become very attractive.

Business travelers aren't as price sensitive, and if they can make good use of the time working or resting then it can easily be justified.

<comment><USER13> Along those routes though you're talking 3hrs max in the air, vs like 6 in a direct hs rail train with no stops. I'd love to ride a train mind you, ESPECIALLY to get around within metro areas or between close ones (sea to Portland is more time in security and preflight than time in the air). But the long distance ones seem like it'd only make sense along the eastern seaboard

<comment><USER14> Sure, but it's rather unfair to compare time in the air to time from city to city. In the best case (comparing airport entrance to airport exit with TSA PreCheck and no check-in baggage) Detroit to Chicago would take just over 2 hours. In a more reasonable case, considering most people want to end up closer to the city center than the airport, may have check-in bags, and may not be eligible for PreCheck, the train would be noticeably faster and likely more convenient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Plenty of recent car startups have raised giant sums like Lucid, Karma, Faraday Future etc. , but none of them have produced a viable car yet. Hope Rivian does better, but car manufacturing is HARD

</comment><comment><USER16> I've been an electric car naysayer for some time. I just don't think the price to value is there. However, with proper towing and payload, these could have a large impact on the job-site truck market. It's common to have to travel > 60 miles each way for construction type jobs, and this much range would fit the bill.

Bed just needs to be longer. At $61k and about $25k (roughly) in fuel savings over an F250 diesel over 250k miles, this could potentially be a huge win.

</comment><comment><USER17> I saw this vehicle at the LA Auto Show and was able to speak to a team member prior to the general doors opening for a little while. Really cool technology at play here and it sounds like they have their shit together a lot more than Tesla.

The fact that they take advantage of the individual motors to steer the vehicle without turning the wheels is pretty cool. It can rotate in-place similar to a tank.

<comment><USER18> > it sounds like they have their shit together a lot more than Tesla.

Is that really a meaningful comparison considering the tremendous difference in scale? They probably won't have their shit together when they have to deliver thousands of vehicles per week.

<comment><USER19> Tesla also struggles with this, and I think it's because of their direct model. If Rivian uses dealers they should have an easier time in theory.

It strikes me that Rivian is combining the advantages of electric vehicles with the advantages of auto industry know-how, instead of independent hubris.

<comment><USER20> Lots of people have theories as to what Tesla's problems are, but you'd be hard-pressed to find many Tesla owners who think they'd be better off with a dealer. I can name several things Tesla ought to do better, and none of them have anything to do with dealers.

<comment><USER19> Parts supply logistics and repair times wouldn't improve with dealers?

<comment><USER18> If Tesla can't supply enough parts introducing a dealer layer won't make the parts magically appear.

It would add more overhead to the transaction and if history is any indicator, sleazy interactions and business practices thrown in as well.

I'm fairly confident once the dust settles Tesla owners will be happy to not have auto dealers in their lives. There's just a teething period while Tesla ramps up to a mature manufacturer at scale.

<comment><USER20> As a data point, Tesla isn't very good at delivering body parts to independent body shops. I don't see why dealers would be any more successful at nagging them.

I also suspect it's a lot easier for Tesla to fix their parts problem than it is for dealers to stop being smarmy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Looks like a great truck, but the entirely-touchscreen interface makes it a non-starter for me.

I'm still holding out for the Bollinger B1 (and hoping it won't be terribly bank-breaking).

</comment><comment><USER22> This is interesting, so now Rivian is worth between 1 and 2 billion, while TSLA is worth "only" 53; makes TSLA look undervalued.

<comment><USER23> Tesla kind of is for what it has pulled off with the Model 3. Either Tesla is undervalued or Rivian is overvalued.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why would an electric pickup truck sell well? Needing to use a pickup truck isn't correlated with caring about electric cars. No one wants to try to find a gas station with an electric car charger in the middle of the countryside, where most people who actually need a pickup truck live. This doesn't pass my sanity check.

<comment><USER25> You're conflating need with desire... and you're also wrong.

Not everyone who drives a pickup needs a pickup. That's pretty apparent by the fact that the F-150 is the highest selling vehicle in the US while less than 20% of Americans live in rural areas. Plenty of people buy pickup trucks and also live in the city. Even living in the countryside, most people in rural areas don't need (or even own) pickup trucks.

And pickup trucks aren't just useful for farm work. I'd wager that most of the pickup trucks sold in the US are for commercial use. Plumbers, construction workers, contractors, lawn care/snowplows. These people tend to live and work in cities, and they buy pickup trucks. And what's important for a truck? Torque. What do electric motors have? Lots of torque. For businesses buying pickup trucks for work, they don't need range or lots of chargers. They just need to get to the job site, park, then go back to the office at the end of the day to charge it.

That's also ignoring the millions of people who buy pickup trucks as daily commuter vehicles, who have the normal daily commute of 20 miles. Well within the range of even the worst electric car in the US. Pickup trucks are a status symbol for these people, not a work vehicle. An electric pickup is an even greater status symbol.

<comment><USER24> > Plumbers, construction workers, contractors, lawn care/snowplows.

You say an electric pickup truck is a great status symbol, but I doubt it is to the majority of people in those professions you just mentioned. The people who view pickup trucks as a status symbol want massive and loud ones. Electric cars are very light, and very quiet.

<comment><USER25> >The people who view pickup trucks as a status symbol want massive and loud ones.

Sometimes, but not always. The F-150 Platinum is neither massive nor loud but it costs $60,000. The base price of an F-150 is around $28,000, so the Platinum is status symbol of wealth and comfort.

If the F-150 can be used both by construction workers looking for something basic and cheap as well as rich people looking for a luxury car, I don't see that changing just because you swapped the V6 for an electric motor.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Apps attracts 3,000 new businesses a day, search giant claims  - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/cloud-computing/3289699/google-apps-attracts-3000-new-businesses-a-day-search-giant-claims/ <comment><USER3> "A large proportion of the customers are small and medium-sized businesses"

A present-day startup would have to be insane to spend cash on installed office software, when GApps and other cloud-based offerings offer features for free that cost $$$ and take serious configuration effort to get working with MS Office, such as collaboration/sharing (Sharepoint! Ugh!)

And once a company is using a browser-based office suite, I can't see them migrating to MS Office as they grow, except for some specialised tasks, such as large-scale financial modelling in Excel.

Word is massive overkill for intra-company documents, and I honestly prefer <http://prezi.com> to Powerpoint for presentations (though Keynote is still top of the heap IMHO).

I'd be interested in seeing a web-based equivalent of MS Access - super easy database creation and hosting. Anyone got any links?

It all spells trouble for MS in the medium term, I would say.

<comment><USER4> "It all spells trouble for MS in the medium term"

Only if Google increases their level of support. I work at a large business and we spoke with both Google and Microsoft. Though I'm a Google fanboy, I'll admit that the level of support from Microsoft is currently much better than Google. Microsoft's cost of implementation was also lower.

<comment><USER5> Could you elaborate how/why Microsoft's implementation was cheaper?

<comment><USER4> Perhaps I should have said I work for a large _educational_ institution. Microsoft was free and Google was going to cost around $200k.

<comment><USER6> Google Apps for EDU is free.

<comment><USER5> That's what I thought or are the 200k for training people who have been used to MS Office etc.?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Apps is not compatible with quite a few Google products currently - <USER2> Google+.

It's a great product, but as soon as you start paying you do feel like you've become a second-class citizen to Google.

Possibly indicates that non-paying domestic customers are worth more than £33/year to Google in revenue.

<comment><USER8> It is easy enough to use Google+ etc. by enabling simultaneous sign-in of an Apps account and a regular Google account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> wow -- that's a whopping 0.019% per year! [ snore ]

</comment><comment><USER10> So, what are people using to back up their data? I'm familiar with doing it piecemeal; does anyone have an integrated solution that covers the entire domain (from an administrator account/credentials)?</comment>


U.K. Lawmakers Publish Seized Internal Facebook Emails Online - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-05/secret-facebook-documents-published-by-british-parliament <comment><USER2> PDF document posted here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18608710](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18608710)</comment>


Amazon confirms: All new Kindle Fires stuck with ads - <AUTHOR> http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-3126_7-57508526/amazon-confirms-all-new-kindle-fires-stuck-with-ads/ <comment><USER2> I have recently been considering buying a tablet. I heard nothing positive about the original Fire, but I intended to give the new one a look. I am a fan of my Kindle 3. Although a total bust as a lightweight alternative to textbooks (as the formatting was generally poor and the greyscale diagrams worthless), it allows me to read outdoors in direct sunlight, which something I do quite a bit. The forced advertising, however, has convinced me to skip the new Fire entirely.

I realize that I personally am a marginal corner case for any large manufacturer, but I am failing to grasp the logic of not providing a paid opt- out. People who don't care will buy the cheaper device, people with strong feelings in the negative will pay extra to avoid the ads, and some number of people will buy it thinking they will opt out later and never bother to do so. In any case Amazon would have hard numbers on the eyeballs they have for sale. I think those numbers would be greater with paid opt-outs than without those who now will not even consider the device.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been buying Amazon ebooks for the Kindle. I like the Kindle 3 keyboard without special offers well enough, but I don't really like the "we want to make money when you use the device" angle. Making money when I'm buying content is okay, but this Kindle will have to be replaced eventually, and then my entire ebook collection is retroactively adified.

Very irritating. I suppose I'll have to rip the DRM off of them and use them with another device if every eInk kindle has mandatory ads in the future.

</comment><comment><USER4> This can prove to be a show stopper. I own one with offers. But I know few people who are very "religious" about their gadgets - they can pay more but having random ads/pictures (AT&T, new books ads by Amazon itself..) displayed on their devices is something they cannot tolerate.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have owned every Kindle including the Fire, but I will not purchase a device with mandatory ads.

</comment><comment><USER6> Canceled my preorder. Don't like the policy or the sleazy way they glossed over it during the press conference. Really disappointing.</comment>


Ask HN: How to Get IT Job as an Medical Doctor? - <AUTHOR> Hello,
I'm a medical doctor with medium IT skill (soft dev,network management) working in Algeria (north africa), and I want to change my career.
I want to have an IT Job in the western world (french or english speaking countries) , but I have 02 obstacles.
1) No IT degree 2) No prior IT experience 3) Immigration limits
So here is my questions.
0) Is my profile valuable ? 1) Can I find a job + immigration opportunities without a degree (ex: Healthcare IT sector) ? 2) Which is better (online or offline) bootcamp or IT certification so I can immigrate ? 3) Should reply to job offers or is it better to contact management directly ?
Thanks. <comment><USER2> Due to your country of citizenship, I think the main option for you is to find remote devops work for a company that will take a chance on you :) A certification won't be too helpful-- you'll just need to convince the owners of a company that you can do what they need.

Alternatively of course you can marry an American and find legit corporate work as a traditional W2 employee :)

Our immigration system is horrible and a national disgrace-- I apologize that the government isn't more welcoming to you.</comment>


NASA's new Mars rover "Curiosity" to carry nuclear batteries - <AUTHOR> http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/rover/energy/

<comment><USER2> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_gen...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator)

They've been in use for decades in everything from Soviet lighthouses to space probes including Cassini, New Horizons, both Voyagers, both (famous) Pioneers, both Viking landers, the Apollo Moon landing missions, etc, etc.

There are probably a lot of clever, new and interesting things about Curiosity, this isn't one of them.

<comment><USER3> A lot of people don't know that they were also used in pace-makers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Right, and it's going to be much better than solar panels given that they'll be able to do science before landing and also at night! Here's why it's totally secure: [http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20111121/NEWS02/31121001...](http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20111121/NEWS02/311210010/Q-What- you-need-know-about-Curiosity-s-power-source)

<comment><USER5> Without RTG, missions beyond Jupiter are not possible. There is the Juno probe launched recently, which runs on solar panels, but those things are pretty hefty (60m^2 surface area) and a much greater weight than an equivalent RTG.

This means limited missions up to Jupiter (or perhaps Saturn) and no further exploration of the Kuiper belt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Some people think that these power sources are actually devices which NASA will use to 'ignite' Saturn or Jupiter into a second Sun: _The Lucifer Project_ [1]

There exist a Skeptoid episode about this, explaining that this is impossible. [2]

 _"But the main reason that an RTG could not explode like a weapon is its structure. Each of Cassini's three RTGs contains 72 marshmallow-sized pellets of plutonium, each weighing about 150 grams, and each separately enclosed in iridium inside a shock-proof graphite impact shell. Four of each of these are enclosed within one of 18 separate General Purpose Heat Shell modules, each with its own separate heat shield and impact shell. Should any kind of crash or problem happen, including breaking up during a re-entry, these impact shells separate from each other and scatter.

Conversely, in order to detonate Pu-238, you need a single critical mass of solid plutonium weighing at least 10 kg. This critical mass has to be imploded with a simultaneous explosion from all sides, applying sudden pressure precisely from all angles at the same exact instant. Obviously this couldn't happen with an RTG design. Although each RTG does theoretically have enough plutonium to make up a critical mass, there isn't any way that it could all be brought together into the right shape. "_

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucifer_Project> [2] <http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4143>

<comment><USER7> I thought Pu-238 was not even fissile.

<comment><USER8> All plutonium isotopes can be used to make nuclear weapons [1], though Pu-238 would give big problems to weapon designers due to its intense decay heat.

[1] <http://cstsp.aaas.org/files/selden.pdf></comment></comment></comment>


DiffCam – demos related to motion detection with JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://diffcam.com/ <comment><USER2> For anybody doing similar things in javascript, you might look into jsfeat: [https://inspirit.github.io/jsfeat](https://inspirit.github.io/jsfeat)

It provides some basic building blocks for interesting computer vision in js.

</comment><comment><USER3> I spent Memorial Day weekend working on Python/OpenCV traffic counter that uses similar motion detection techniques. I tried to explain how it works in the readme on the GitHub repository:

[https://github.com/iandees/speedtrack](https://github.com/iandees/speedtrack)

</comment><comment><USER4> I have been working on a binary image diffing algorithm for a project called Narcis ([https://github.com/deckar01/narcis](https://github.com/deckar01/narcis)).

The idea is to provide visual regression testing for integration tests. It's not a new concept, but the weakest part of the solutions I have seen are really ugly diffs. I am also playing around with the idea of streamlining a manual review UX instead of the standard change threshold concept.

I have mainly focused on assumptions that can be made about screenshots of a webpage which allows more fine-tuned diffing behavior.

Demos:

[https://narcis.us/test/google/master/home/000000/diff/000001](https://narcis.us/test/google/master/home/000000/diff/000001)

[https://narcis.us/test/google/master/home/000000/diff/000006](https://narcis.us/test/google/master/home/000000/diff/000006)

[https://narcis.us/test/google/master/home/000000/diff/000009](https://narcis.us/test/google/master/home/000000/diff/000009)

</comment><comment><USER5> Excellent demos. One suggestion for the creator/maintainer of the demo pages: It would be nice if the imageDiff demo had two pre-made images to do a diff on. I spent a few minutes taking a shot with my webcam and then another with my had in the scene just to see how the static diff worked. Pre-loading a shot of a background and one with something added to the image would be a nice start to the demo instead of making the user drag/drop their own images.

As a totally unrelated note, if this interests you, you might also get a kick out of coherent change detection (CCD) which works on synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images: [http://defense- update.com/features/du-2-05/sensor-5.htm](http://defense- update.com/features/du-2-05/sensor-5.htm). CCD has been used by military intelligence for a while now, and although a lot of the cool stuff is classified, the basics of the technique are unclassified and kind of cool.

<comment><USER6> Good point! I've added some sample images to the demo to make it easier to play with. Thanks for the feedback.</comment></comment>