Is Bitcoin a Waste of Electricity, or Something Worse? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/business/economy/bitcoin-electricity-productivity.html <comment><USER2> I would imagine the vast majority of bitcoin is not mined using clean energy, so yes, something far worse.

</comment><comment><USER3> When the electricity prices are demand-driven, the question is meaningless.

If one thinks that the energy can be put to a better use, they can set up a shop next door and start paying slightly more per kWh than the miner, thereby destroying their margins.

<comment><USER4> Except that the resources here are finite, and using them has side effects.

Gosh this is ridiculous, why do I even have to explain it. If someone starts wasting fire extinguishers by emptying them out a window, do you proclaim that "if one thinks that the fire extinguisher can be put to a better use, they can start using them for that better purpose next door"?

<comment><USER3> Where do they get the money to buy new extinguishers?

<comment><USER4> Depends on who buys them. The point, to completely overdraw the analogy, is: Fire extinguishers are finite, and using them damages everybody's house. So wasting them excessively on pointless activities might not be the smartest thing to do, even if you just waste your own money on them.

<comment><USER5> You still don't get that if that electricity had a better/profitable use it would be used for such a purpose rather than Bitcoin mining.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is Bitcoin efficient? Perhaps not. But it's no worse than the alternative - banks.

Story 1. I went to Taipei to meet someone from HN. He wanted to pay me back for my train tickets. His American bank card didn't work in the ATM. I suggested, half-jokingly, "Why not Bitcoin?" When he was back in the US, I set up an account, and the transaction was easy.

Story 2. I wanted to donate to a webcomic: [http://blog.mixflavor.com/p/donate.html](http://blog.mixflavor.com/p/donate.html)

First I tried PayPal. "We're sorry. You cannot use your PayPal account registered in Taiwan to send payments to, or receive payments from, other PayPal accounts registered in Taiwan."

This lunchtime I went to my bank, to try to make a transfer. The guy at the entrance saw the screenshot, and asked a colleague. She and he then made a phone call. A third person came downstairs, and she spoke English. She couldn't understand the written Chinese, and told me it's not their bank's problem. She told me to go to another bank down the street.

The second bank involved 3 people reading, translating, discussing, searching Google Maps, to then send me on to a third bank.

The third bank had a security guard at the entrance who asked what I was trying to do, and took me to an ATM to make a deposit. He navigated the Chinese-language menus, asked for my phone number, took cash, and finally made the deposit.

It took 45 minutes and 8 people to try to send money to someone, and I was late to come back to the office.

Bitcoin is doing well, not because the blockchain is so hot right now, but because banks are just awful.

<comment><USER7> I don't know. My bank account doesn't drop %20 in one day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Now, the nation's hottest investment is buying money. And the investment > rush is raising questions about whether one reason for the slow pace of > economic growth in recent years is that the nation is busy distracting > itself. I can't stop laughing at this sentence. Oh the boogeyman!

</comment><comment><USER9> Bitcoin is a first iteration of a greater group of technologies. Latest versions do not require extra energy at all.

But even Bitcoin uses much less energy for transmitting money than bank buildings etc.

</comment><comment><USER10> As a New England resident I was always curious about the heat output efficiency of a miner compared to electric resistance heating. Somebody really wants that waste heat. If only it were useful in warm weather...

<comment><USER7> So moving an electron generates heat. While we use transistors at the low level to do the computation, the method they work by is shuttling electrons through substrates, which have some kind of inherent resistance.

So it's all I^2R heat losses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is it any worse than burning the electricity with electric cars? The energy burned is never coming back in either case... I mean, why one is environmentally friendly and the other not?

<comment><USER12> Electric cars are moving a person from one place to another, often displacing fossil fuel engines that would otherwise be used. Bitcoin miners are... facilitating one of the least useful currencies for doing transactions?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I agree bitcoin is an extreme waste of electricity, but plastic bottle caps... maybe it's "good" plastic and most of it is recycled

</comment><comment><USER7> Why is this flagged?

<comment><USER14> My guess: Someone with flagging rights either likes Bitcoin, or feels that it's a divisive topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This headline is a good example of getting the target (you) to think past the sale: if you deny bitcoin is "something worse" you are implicitly conceding it is, in fact, a waste of energy (when contrasted with HFT server farms, I suppose?)

Trump did this with the "and mexico will pay for it" addendum to building the wall. By getting people to say "Mexico will never pay for it!" they are mentally conceding the wall.

I dislike these sorts of verbal tactics, but they are effective manipulations.

<comment><USER16> This might sound weird, but we should teach rhetoric in schools, which includes these kinds of dishonest player verbal tactics, because my thinking is that if we can name and speak openly on a meta level about these types of manipulative tactics, we can defend against them more effective.

Similar to teaching people how to hack for the sake of improving computer security, or maybe more similar to the old fantasy trope of the monster / sorcerer or whatever losing it's power if you know it's name. I feel like most people know of these tactics, but they can't call them out effectively, because it's cumbersome and awkward to do so.

<comment><USER17> We used to: the 'liberal arts' originally referred to the 'quadrivium:' arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy; and the 'trivium:' grammar, logic, and rhetoric.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Move over Betteridge!

<comment><USER19> "Has Bitcoin Stopped Beating Its Wife Yet?"</comment></comment>


AndroidFFmpeg - FFmpeg build for android architectures - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/appunite/AndroidFFmpeg

<comment><USER2> Is there an AndroidLibAV ? :)</comment>


"Startup" asks internship applicant to build their app before phone screen - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/78rhz7/this_startup_asked_me_to_do_a_project_for_an/ <comment><USER2> 'This position is paid after a 3 month training. This is non-negotiable and keeps us from hiring engineers that end up being toxic to our long term goals and just looking for a pay day'

What the hell? That is the whole _point_ of a job. You know...to get paid for it.

Like, what do they expect their employees to do for three months while they're not getting paid? Live in a cardboard box down by the river?

I mean, I get it. It is probably just a scam to get people to work for free, but regardless, that policy is absolutely idiotic.

<comment><USER3> When I read that I was fuming on behalf of all the interns that have to put up with this sort of crap. It's disgusting. The original poster has named the company as _" Bee Technologies Inc"_ [1].

They're also advertising for a "Junior Front End Engineer" for _no salary_ and 2-5% equity. They seem to think they are doing the world a favour. Arrogance in the highest. [2]

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/78rhz7/t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/78rhz7/this_startup_asked_me_to_do_a_project_for_an/dowook9/)

[2] [https://angel.co/bee-technologies-inc/jobs/275465-junior- fro...](https://angel.co/bee-technologies-inc/jobs/275465-junior-front-end- engineer)

<comment><USER4> I agree this is pretty ridiculous. It does make me wonder though, what is the appropriate way to bring people on when you can't pay them? I.e. you have no money and are just starting out (1-2ppl), and need someone to help? Do you just make them a co-founder? Or can you structure an employment agreement that grants a substantial percent of equity with a guaranteed salary starting X months after start? I ask because I'm wondering how companies that bootstrap without investment grow headcount.

Edit: I guess I should have been less ambiguous, I wasn't really talking about an employee/employer situation, I agree all work should be paid for. Now that I think about it more, I guess the scenario I was describing was 1-2 people working on a project, and then getting someone else in their immediate circle (i.e. friend, connection, etc) involved. I guess this person would then be called a co-founder, since they are assuming similar risk as the 1-2 original people. My question was more, how have others structured equity for those people, (co-founders?) who join significantly after inception?

<comment><USER5> > what is the appropriate way to bring people on when you can't pay them?

You don't.

Pay people for their work, or don't hire them. Anything else is at best ethically gray, but almost always bad.

<comment><USER6> So much this.

If you aren't generating profits, and want someone to work for you, either:

* borrow the money in your own name

* borrow against your house

* don't bring them on

You're the one creating the risk. You've gotta eat it.

Anything else is massively unethical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _Bee is a photo sharing site that connects you with your favorite brands.You post photos to Bee and they 're sent directly to the people who matter. You get nationwide exposure and photo credit as your shot is featured on everything from billboards to social media.

How it works:

1) Share photos directly

No more @-ing companies and hoping they see. With Bee, every photo is sent directly to our partner companies. Your photos, not your follower count, is what matters. Take your talent to the next level and get the nationwide exposure you deserve.

2) Bee yourself

Bee lets you connect with your brand judgement free. No more worrying about spamming your friends feeds. With Bee, you can post what you want, when you want. This means more fame for you with none of the downsides.

3) Bee famous

Bee is all about making you famous. We turn brands into your personal PR team. Companies agree to give you photo credit on everything from billboards to social media. You keep all the rights to your photos while the world's biggest brands give you nationwide exposure._

[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/bee-technologies- inc](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/bee-technologies-inc)

I don't understand at all what they're trying to build. An easier way for people to let brands use their images for free?

<comment><USER8> AFAICT they want people to take photos for free and give them to advertisers to use. They expect their programmers to work for free too.

Do I detect a pattern there?

<comment><USER9> Soon they'll roll out a new tier, you pay them $10 per photo you take. New jobs will open up too, for the low price of $100/hr you can pay to work at a hot new start up.

<comment><USER10> hahahahha. There will surely never be jobs like that in the furture right ? right ? ...............

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It is illegal for unpaid interns to do ANY work, at ANY point, which provides value to your business. Interns need to know this. Employers need to know this as well, but they've proven that they can't be trusted a million times.

'Make game of that which makes as much of thee.' Employers are going to treat employees like a cost center to be reduced, a factor to be manipulated in order to optimize things, etc and the only way that can not end in tragedy is if everyone is aware and the employees play the employer just as much. This is what employers chose.

<comment><USER12> this comment would carry a little more weight if you could cite the laws to which you refer

<comment><USER13> for the US: [https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.pdf](https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.pdf)

<comment><USER14> The employer that provides the training derives no IMMEDIATE advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;

Thus, an intern can do work that the company profits from, it just doesn't need to be immediate.

<comment><USER15> Yes, but in context that clause seems more aimed towards an intern being accidentally useful, not picking up tasks with a deadline more than X months out.

Having something done now that will start being useful later on still has arguable immediate value from the perspectives of scheduling and investing in the future of the company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Here is the founding team from crunchbase:

      Erik Byargeon, Lucas McGartland, Lukas Huberman, Andrew Ullmann . Three of those guys are not technical.

Erik Byargeon was an intern at Amazon.

So I am not sure how you are going to mentored by top Amazon Engineers. It also doesn't look like their site has much traction so I don't know how the stock is worth anything.

I guess you fake it until you make it.

<comment><USER17> I actually know some of the family members of one of the guys here - they are good people and he's got a brother that is also a known entity in the tech world - here's to hoping they can understand why this was a poor approach and learn from it.

We've all been young and made mistakes - I know that does not make all of this OK but I also know I wouldn't want to have to live in infamy for everything I did when I was in college either

<comment><USER18> There's mistakes and then there's premeditated immoral scamming. They'll learn - how to be more clever next time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm reminded of Donald Trump. "We have a complex tech stack, the most complex tech stack in the world. Tons of great people work here. The smartest people working on the most complex tech stack in the world. Lots of great code. The best code ever."

Some people are so dehumanizing when it comes to work and full of themselves.

<comment><USER20> This was my exact impression as well. "you will also be working alongside one of the leading React developers in the world"..... Wow, wonder if he'll sign my laptop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is there a single interview method on Earth that will satisfy HN? These are all arguments I've heard in the last few weeks on here:

\- Whiteboard coding is too far removed from "real work", not effective at testing general aptitude, and is demeaning.

\- Asking to see side projects presupposes an unhealthy amount of focus on work, discriminates against people with lives, and is demeaning.

\- Asking for a custom piece of real-world code that matches the company's actual stack is exploitative, should be illegal, and is demeaning.

\- Basing everything on answers to 'soft' questions about previous experience discriminates against people who aren't interested in showmanship, leads to too many suits and bros, and is demeaning.

What on Earth should we be doing, then? Everyone on Hacker News is so enlightened and skilled at their job, that any form of verification is demeaning and beneath their dignity. Apparently I should make my hiring decision based on their comment history or something.

<comment><USER22> You come in and hack with the team for a couple hours. You know, the activity that you'll be paid to do. How is this that hard?

<comment><USER23> You are saying that an engineer from my already resource-constrained team should be allocated to:

\- make a quick onboarding of the candidate

\- explain the general architecture of the system

\- find an issue/story that is "superficial" enough to be taken by someone with zero-experience _at that job_ , but "deep" enough that you can test their experience and knowledge (oh, and that story better not involve anything that might be related to core company IP.)

\- do a pair-programming session with the candidate, and be the main driver ALL OF THE TIME (because the candidate does not have any git access, so their development environment is useless)

\- evaluate the candidate

You really think that is something for "a couple hours"? Even if it were, do you think it is a good use of the time of the engineer that is going to be allocated to the task?

<comment><USER22> Never said it needs to be the current system. Make a simplified version if you want. Or something completely different that uses the similar languages/paradigms?

> Even if it were, do you think it is a good use of the time of the engineer > that is going to be allocated to the task?

So what exactly is the alternative? Look, if you can't prioritize hiring, don't be surprised that you aren't able to hire. Yes, the engineers should be able to do this.

<comment><USER23> How many "systems" do you think your run-of-the-mill startup has?

What is the alternative? As most of things in life, the answer is "it depends". It depends on the size of the company, the type of candidate they are looking, the industry, and so on.

But let's assume we are talking about the average startup that is neither looking for superstar candidates nor only looking for fresh graduates from Stanford. For those cases, I believe that one simple programming task, that exercises some of the technology required can be used as a _screening filter_. The task should not take more than 2 hours to reach a working state. If the solution presented by the candidate is satisfactory, _then_ you go to the interview to discuss the solution and how they got to the solution, the things that were easy/hard, and so on. Then you ask about the things that are missing, and the candidate's evaluation on how they would like to tackle.

Is that a satisfactory alternative?

<comment><USER22> I feel like we are talking past each other.

> How many "systems" do you think your run-of-the-mill startup has?

These dont need to be production systems, they can in fact be simple systems used just for interviewing.

So in your alternative, how long does an engineer really spend on interviewing the candidate?

<comment><USER23> In my alternative, the engineer needs to:

\- Check out the code and review the solution.

\- Give a pass or "call for interview".

Let's say that is half-hour of work.

Only for the candidates that get called-in, you can have an hour-long interview. Make it two hours if if you want. It will still save the interviewer time, and allow a better use of the time together.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Ah, the startup is a photo sharing site. Of course.

That explains the "very complex tech stack" that requires a 3 month unpaid stint before you can even get hired.

<comment><USER25> Looking at their vacancies, getting hired equals an unpaid position with 2-5% equity. Maybe the landlord and local supermarket accepts equity with a 4-year vesting scheme.

<comment><USER26> Well, if your mom or dad pays your rent and groceries like these guys, no salary and 2-5% is totally realistic, I guess?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> They're asking an intern to build a competitor, when they themselves have as much traction as a tank in a swamp, and the product is an easily-built-with- React Instagram clone.

I look forward to the inevitable Medium post when they fold next month.

<comment><USER28> It's been an incredible journey though!

<comment><USER29> marco??

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> * Unclear business model * "Complex tech stack" for a photo sharing site * Building a product against something that has been tried many times, and failed each time (crowdsourced brand identity) * Unpaid "internships" studying under other junior developers * Probably solving for a problem that doesn't exist (see point 3 above)

Man, where do I sign up!

<comment><USER31> I am surprised they aren't doing an ICO.

<comment><USER32> Oh boy, don't give them any ideas.

<comment><USER31> You're right. They will start paying devs with tokens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> According to Crunchbase, the CEO has a degree in Law/Business Economics.

He probably felt this hiring approach was a) legal, and b) economical.

<comment><USER33> Interesting... it's actually listed as "Bachelor of Arts in Law, History, and Culture"

Which sounds more like anthropology or something, USC defines as:

>This major is designed for students drawn to interdisciplinary study of legal and cultural issues, as well as those who intend to pursue a law degree. It offers students an interdisciplinary education in legal institutions, languages and processes that are central to social, cultural and political developments in the past and present, and play a critical role in shaping our most basic concepts and categories of thought and identity. It combines approaches from history, literature, philosophy, political theory, religion and classical studies to explore the law's position at the nexus of society. The major will help students develop the critical skills of reading, writing and analysis crucial to both a liberal education and the study of law. Students will gain theoretical and analytical perspectives on ethical, political and social issues relevant to law as they explore specific legal issues from a humanistic perspective.

And the requirements seem... um, not very comprehensive, to say the least... There's only nine classes required for a _major!_ I just checked my college transcript, because I have it handy, and I required eight classes just for my _minor_. Is it actually common to have so few classes required for a _major_?

He also has

       Bachelor of Arts in French Literature
       Minor in Business Economics

<comment><USER34> BAs tend to be a bit more lightweight in terms of major requirements, and well, even among BAs I guess there's lighter and heavier major requirements.

<comment><USER33> I think that's really _unreasonably_ "lightweight" as far as calling it a "major," that's a minor level of education at the most. I really hope colleges aren't routinely giving out "bachelors" degrees for such a small amount of education.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Loved this little gem:

"keeps us from hiring engineers that end up being toxic to our long term goals and just looking for a pay day"

<comment><AUTHOR> That's why I look for a job so I can then be paid and eat food using that money. Such clown asses.

<comment><USER31> You don't want to be a rockstar or a ninja?

<comment><USER33> Pretty sure rockstars and ninjas still get paid. :)

<comment><USER35> Plus, ninjas DO work for selfish gain. As mercenaries, they only care about pay day in the end, and they're not loyal to a faction.

<comment><USER31> Good point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> A week??

Our interview code test is to make a URL shortener (two endpoints: create and redirect, use any tech you like). I'd never expect more than 2 hours max to be spent on it. If you can't work out whether you want to employ someone based on that (and discussion of it with the candidate) then you're probably not worth working for.

<comment><USER37> I feel like two hours for something like this is still too little if you want to actually see a ~relatively~ prod level app. The business logic is obviously straight forward, but starting a new app, adding unit/integration tests, (maybe proper logging), caching etc, and basically anything showing that you're a competent dev will easily eat up 5 hours of your time in my opinion. And if you don't expect anything close to a prod level system, then why ask to build a system like this in the first place as opposed to some basic domain logic functions vs a whole e2e system? Maybe I'm just a shitty/slow dev.

<comment><USER38> I think that's the test though and a perfect lead in to the interview. Build the MVP. Then in the interview explain to me what it lacks and what you think the next steps are to get it production ready... The task isn't build me a URL shortener that's ready to take bit.ly's load.

<comment><USER37> well i never said anything about bitly's load, but the ability to write readable tests is a skill in itself. same with caching strategies, etc

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Yikes, the nerve. For a really junior applicant, getting a startup internship on your resume can be a big deal for your career. You'd also learn a lot from ex-Amazon engineers.

But realistically, I don't think the company would get much from an intern at this level. If they want the intern to build the app, then they better be good enough to demand payment.

Doesn't seem like the company will be successful with this approach.

<comment><USER40> Just throwing this out there: you can learn a lot by working with _current_ Amazon engineers, and having Amazon on your resume can be a big deal for your career. We train you on our stack, and as complex as it might be it will take less than 3 months.

[https://us-amazon.icims.com/jobs/473568/sde-intern/job?mobil...](https://us- amazon.icims.com/jobs/473568/sde- intern/job?mobile=false&width=1245&height=1200&bga=true&needsRedirect=false&jan1offset=-300&jun1offset=-240)

<comment><USER39> And they pay you too!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Even if this was a fairly paid gig, I'd be out of there the second someone holds complexity up as a good thing. Doing more with a simpler stack has always been my goal. After all, I'm not trying to impress people with how complicated of a system I can design... I'm trying to deliver a product, simply and effectively.

<comment><USER42> But how do you pad your resume with a simple stack?!

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> This sort of feels like an anecdotal example of a bubble. People are so sure of big payoffs that a company can run this sort of job ad and seem to be taken serious.

</comment><comment><USER44> On the CEO's LinkedIn page: A. Ullmann varies between an idealist and a fool.

I guess he truly does fit that description.

<comment><USER45> You left out the rest, which is even cringier: ...Andrew can literally always be found working or writing. By banging his head repeatedly against the walls that are un-transparent advertising and unsustainable food, he plans to topple them - no matter the ultimate concussive side effects. A steadfast optimist, Andrew believes that with a little luck he will change the world. "Fingers crossed," he says while looking defiantly into the distance.

<comment><USER46> Haha that's hilarious.

I suggest everyone apply for the internship from HN and send them all our resumes with all the mediocre things we have all helped build!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> LOL. I'd ask they pay me for 3 months while I did no work just to make sure you know... that they are solvent and going to be around.

After all it's best to avoid companies toxic to ones long term goals that only care about how much work one produces.

</comment><comment><USER48> The exploitive behavior here is sickening and deserved to be called out. As a marketing person it's also amusing that they claim to want to connect images for brands yet they use company logos apparently without permission all over their web site. The sort of thing likely to irritate the very people in those companies they want as customers.

e.g. [https://www.thebeeinc.com/all-pages](https://www.thebeeinc.com/all- pages)

</comment><comment><USER49> I think this says it all (from the employer's website)...

      <meta name="keywords" content="Instafamous, Contacting brands, sharing, posting, get famous, make money, exposure, more followers">

<comment><USER50> Are we sure this entire company is not satire?

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I spit out my drink at "our very complex tech stack."

<comment><USER31> Their management team is mostly non-technical. So it's plausible they are viewing their stack as incredibly complex.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> After 3 months of training and work.. " sorry but we don't really feel your a suitable match for our team" 3 months of work no pay thx and goodbye. I hope nobody falls for this trap !

</comment><comment><USER53> Looks like they just took down their Facebook page due to negative reviews (as I was viewing it, interestingly enough). Curious to see how they attempt damage control.

[https://www.facebook.com/thebeeinc/](https://www.facebook.com/thebeeinc/)

<comment><USER54> They also took down their job postings on angle.co.

[https://imgur.com/a/CDxDb](https://imgur.com/a/CDxDb)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> You know, this is pretty bad, but I'm also a little put off by the mob mentality that I'm seeing (mostly in the Reddit comments). Following the link in the original post, I see that their entire executive team is between 20 and 22 years old. What they did is definitely crummy and shady, but I also wonder about the harassment that they're likely to be subjected to shortly. Will their names forever be associated with this? Do they "deserve" it? Who knows...I just hold some faint hope that if anyone chooses to reach out to Bee they'll take their level of maturity into context and make this a teachable moment.

</comment><comment><USER56> This looks bad, but I've been through worse.

After a long, drawn out interview process, which involved a group interview where four candidates were in the same room competitively trying to answer random questions about JavaScript edge cases, I received an offer. $23k/year in NYC, no equity, and a 1% share of profits.

I would've been pretty much the only engineer, so it's not like I would've gotten any training or support. They also never told me what the product was. I had to go find a notary to sign an NDA, but I tore that up when I got the offer. I'm pretty sure the company never went anywhere.

<comment><USER35> They don't sound like great entrepreneurs just because they don't want to tell you what the product is about before signing the NDA. Telling people about your product is what gets people excited.

All these experiences make me curious as to where the salary _floors_ lie for programmers, city-by-city. And excluding unpaid work, like the internship discussed here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Someone should build the anti-linkedin. You know where the co-founders of this company would be added to that list.. and populates any relevant articles on why they're not good people to work with.

<comment><USER58> GlassDoor can serve that goal

</comment></comment><comment><USER59>
      This position is paid after a 3 month training.

This attitude—along with unpaid internships, expectations of "side projects", international experience, etc.—perpetuates a lack of diversity, particularly in under-represented minorities. They're basically saying, "Unless you come from money and can eat 3 months salary, we don't want you." It's pay-to-play in the worst way.

Not to mention that no self-respecting person would work in an environment that toxic.

</comment><comment><USER60> I used find "jobs" like that freelancer.com, you don't work for those kind of people you just steal their idea and do it for yourself.

<comment><AUTHOR> His "idea" is some utter bullshit though. Either they are very very naive or just fools. I am veering towards fools.

<comment><USER60> it's just instagram but worse

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> This type of thing is a big reason why young companies with young co-founders have such a bad rap.

</comment><comment><USER62> To me, as a software engineering student, the take home brief seems like a reasonable one? It's the uncompensated three month onboarding and training that sticks out to me. I wonder if school credit could be negotiated for that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why? You are basically being asked to rebuild a competitor application for them for free.

> It's the uncompensated three month onboarding and training that sticks out > to me.

This part is just cherry on top in all honesty. Its insane.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I have been given quite a few of these kinds of opportunities over the years. Nice to see this one called out so well and get such a great response.

</comment><comment><USER60> the best you can do is make a crappy app, and if they still hire you just no show. eventually they'll go out of business.

<comment><USER64> Wouldn't the best you could do be to just walk away, and not bother with them?

<comment><USER60> If their test is challenging enough and interesting, just mash a project together for fun and submit it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> I had a similar experience with a company in Bangalore.[1]

I wish there were a law to prevent such exploitative hiring practices.

[1]: [https://github.com/surya- soft/Interview/issues/2](https://github.com/surya-soft/Interview/issues/2)

<comment><USER66> What's "exploitative" about this? It's a simple coding project that would just takes a few hours.

<comment><USER64> The "work" for "no pay" part. That's always exploitation, no matter how you try and justify it.

<comment><USER66> Yes I agree, but this is not about working for 3 months unpaid, this is about a coding interview: [https://github.com/surya- soft/Interview/issues/2](https://github.com/surya-soft/Interview/issues/2)

This is a completely different company than the original post mentioned.

<comment><USER65> A 4 hour coding assignment is half a day of work. I don't care if it is a toy project and if there is no business value in the work. But a 4 hour coding assignment is still half a day.

I may have to take a leave from my current work, take half a day off off my current contract or spend a significant part of my weekend on this problem, instead of with my family. I certainly expect to be paid for it.

<comment><USER65> @jonandersense Honestly, I prefer doing a 1 day onsite interview. The equation is different here. Here, the company is investing as much time in interviewing me as I am putting in them. It sounds fair.

But doing half a day coding exercise even before any technical interviewer in the company is ready to talk to me has a very imbalanced investment of time from both sides. I invest 4 hours in the company when the company invests none.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> "Erik the Greater, built the back end. He conquered the Django in a single weekend."

From their blog: [https://blog.beeaweso.me/to-bee-or- not-76f9b0f8b84f](https://blog.beeaweso.me/to-bee-or-not-76f9b0f8b84f)

<comment><USER68> The amount of cringe is literally unfathomable. Django huh, what happened to the super complex tech stack? This company is a joke.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Meanwhile I get bothered by some of the free work companies ask for in the interview process.

</comment><comment><USER70> Their website: [http://bee-usa.co/](http://bee-usa.co/) [https://i.imgur.com/4q18GfX.png](https://i.imgur.com/4q18GfX.png)

<comment><USER71> Actually, I'm pretty sure this is it: [https://www.thebeeinc.com/](https://www.thebeeinc.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER72> These guys are being roasted, and rightly so. But let's also cut them some slack. Lord knows what kind of trouble I would have gotten into if the Internet had been around in its present form when I was in high school/college.

So there was no Internet or WWW when I was young. Instead, when I was 14 or 15, I was into the BBS scene. I found a file manager utility I liked that was shareware. Being dumb and young, I took a hex editor to the executable and modified the name/address of the author to my own, and re-uploaded the utility, hoping people would send money to me instead. Nothing good or bad came out of that, but I can imagine doing the equivalent these days would land me in hot water.

</comment><comment><USER73> I've always considered it a red flag when a "startup" seems to have no other employees, no product, but somehow enough time to play company by giving four C-level titles away.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've spoken with seemingly well connected and funded early stage startups that have asked for the same. (Of course I passed.) This kind of thing is not that uncommon sadly.

</comment><comment><USER74> [https://blog.beeaweso.me/what-it-means-to- bee-532968d91764](https://blog.beeaweso.me/what-it-means-to-bee-532968d91764)

<comment><USER3> > "Our mission is to create justice in an unjust world."

That whole page is cringeworthy hyperbole but in the context of what has blown them up on HN this is just hilarious now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> On the plus side, at the end of that unpaid 3 months, you'll have the ability to work "anywhere in the world."

Hey wait a minute, don't I have that _now_?

</comment><comment><USER76> I had to do this for my current job. For me it the task was about 4 hours of work and not a big deal. The main caveat is that I was also in the process of my current work project being discontinued. That means I had 4 months to basically do whatever I want while still collecting my salary so spec work wasn't a problem for me. If you have a job, family and other obligations outside of work, completing a project like this is extremely challenging.

</comment><comment><USER77> Are there no laws against this stuff?

<comment><USER33> There are indeed laws against this stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> Playing devil's advocate here, it's possible they think they're doing the intern a favor by teaching them, as opposed to an educational institution where they have to pay to learn. The intern is not expected to get work done.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yet the project they are asking to be developed is literally their core app.

Its more like getting your own application rebuilt for free.</comment></comment>


New Delhi Police Arrest Leader of Anti-Corruption Protest  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/world/asia/17india.html?_r=1&ref=global-home <comment><USER2> This sucks, the country cannot do this. We have to allow for peaceful protests.</comment>


Firefox Daylight (new Firefox for Android) launched in Europe - <AUTHOR> https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/mobile/ <comment><AUTHOR> See: [https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/08/25/introducing-a- new-f...](https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/08/25/introducing-a-new-firefox- for-android-experience/)

</comment><comment><USER2> This put users through much unprompted and unsollicited change, Url bar at the bottom? etc

We should have a disconnect between the engine updates/security features and the UI.</comment>


Big Pharma's Hidden Business Model and How Your Company Funds It - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/09/big_pharmas_hidden_business_model_and_how_your_company_funds_it.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29 <comment><USER2> While I agree that the pharma business model sucks, the real problem is still the rep/doctor relationship, and not the research and marketing.

Convincing a doctor to prescribe a medication with no noticeable benefit but that is orders of magnitude more expensive than the out-of-patent generic is, to the pharma industry, a victimless crime, but it drives care costs _way_ up.

Insurance companies are not shining bastions of consumer choice, but if I had to pick between the pharma/doctor complex and the insurance companies, I'd side with the insurance companies on this one.

The worst part of this whole scenario is that many patients are on medications they really do not need, and I had to shop around a _lot_ to find a doctor that wasn't prescribing things to me that I didn't need.</comment>


Defining Information - <AUTHOR> https://stratechery.com/2020/defining-information/ <comment><USER2> I'm not sure what the author means by "sensitivity", in this context. Do they just mean "particular details"?</comment>


I made a thing. QuickBox – Access a contained Linux environment in one click - <AUTHOR> Hi HN I want to share a project I've been working on called QuickBox. It's a web app that lets you access a Linux environment in one-click. Check it out here:
http://bit.do/quickbox
I built this because I wanted a fast and easy way to spin up an Ubuntu box to test some scripts without affecting my machine. I also wanted to show my friends (who don't use Linux) what Linux is like without them having to install it (or Docker or a VM). I wrote it mostly with Go and Javascript using the Docker Engine to do all heavy-lifting. I'd appreciate any constructive feedback. Also, I am currently looking for job opportunities in the Bay Area. Feel free to check out my GitHub to see some more of my work (https://github.com/eightlimbed), and I'm happy to send you my resume. Thanks! <comment><USER2> It seems to be throwing a 503 error when trying to create a container.</comment>


Girls-only app uses AI to screen users' genders - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/7/21128236/gender-app-giggle-women-ai-screen-trans-social <comment><USER2> > Giggle, founded by Australian screenwriter Sall Grover, supposedly looks at > the bone structure of a person's face to determine their gender.

Maybe they should be measuring skull size instead.

<comment><USER3> The tweet that this started with has turned into a rather funny chain of bearded men posting their "verified by AI acceptances" and how messed up the whole process is, while women (both cis and trans) have been posting their rejections about how they're too manly.

Meanwhile, the founder is doing desperate damage control while telling people it isn't racist or sexist and has nothing to do with skull size.

Lovely. As a bonus, it appears they don't really validate anything and you can just send an accepted API call? WTF?

<comment><USER4> Where are these tweets? I can't find them.

<comment><USER3> The original is now protected. Some replies:

[https://twitter.com/Authw8/status/1225596902567292928](https://twitter.com/Authw8/status/1225596902567292928)

[https://twitter.com/Scooz_virtual/status/1225594955105816581](https://twitter.com/Scooz_virtual/status/1225594955105816581)

[https://twitter.com/mediumeli/status/1225589175107244034](https://twitter.com/mediumeli/status/1225589175107244034)

Some of the posts also say that women are being forced to smile to pass.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad... - <AUTHOR> https://mondaynote.com/apple-no-macintosh-forks-but-the-ipad-78894ddfadfb <comment><USER2> For some context: the author of this article, Jean-Louis Gassée, was a former director at Apple, founded Be, Inc. and was chairman at PalmSource for a while.

His background may help or hurt his viewpoint, depending on how you see things.

I will say that I disagree with his points. And I'll also point out _that the Mac ARM transition is happening right before our eyes with the T2 chip_ , which replaces a bunch of system components (memory, i/o, disk controllers, etc) with an ARM-based platform.

Practically, the only thing that hasn't been replaced are the main CPU and the GPU, but it's only a matter of time.

<comment><USER3> Is the struggle for microprocessor supremacy still even relevant? I'd ask, "who's going to build the best quantum processor?" rather than, "who's going to dethrone x86?"

<comment><USER4> > Is the struggle for microprocessor supremacy still even relevant?

Absolutely. Today, it's not about performance, but about performance/watt. Simply using a web browser is a huge power drain.

Even if that wasn't the case, getting rid of the "Intel dependency" and the "x86 premium" would make sense from a business standpoint.

<comment><USER3> x86 is a free/open isa. The patents are expired up to i486 and x86_64 patents should expire soon. A guy from Oracle not too long ago implement i186 in Verilog as a hobby project. At least we know that if Intel ever gets too authoritarian, we can do that for i386.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think the argument holds very well. Apple has made three processor architectural changes including one on the current OS. "Too complicated" doesn't really align with the execution history Apple has. The fat binary support Apple has is a huge tool and the ability to add instructions and optimizations to their chips to help with x86 emulation is a big deal.

I don't know if Apple will ever actually do this, but it seems odd to suggest it's not feasible given past performance and their current technology holdings.

<comment><USER6> Apple has made two transitions while retaining compatibility, in one case with emulation of the old architecture being around the speed of the previous (68k to PPC) and in the other with emulation being faster than the previous architecture (PPC to x86). There's no ARM that's fast enough to emulate an x86 in the same power envelope, so right now any transition would either require all performance sensitive apps to be ported or would result in machines that were slower for many tasks.

Bear in mind that both previous transitions were due to the processor line Apple was using being effectively EOLed (explicitly in the case of 68k, more implicitly in PPC - nobody was interested in making CPUs that had the appropriate performance/power ratio for consumer machines). Apple is doing great things with ARM, but they're not /that/ far ahead of the rest of the industry that they can pull off a seamless transition in the near future.

<comment><USER7> Apple sells iPad Pros which they call "computers". Those are powerful devices, but there is not much productivity software available, and UI is very different from traditional desktop interfaces. Apple could offer an Air-class machine powered by ARM with a familiar macOS, and most developers would be able to support it in a matter of weeks, if not days.

<comment><USER8> There is Microsoft Office and Adobe has previewed full Photoshop on it. What other mainstream productivity software do most people need?

<comment><USER9> Visual Studio?

<comment><USER8> I did say "mainstream". Despite the HN bubble, development is not in the "mainstream". Besides, personally, I can't stand developing on just a laptop screen. I need at least one external monitor and preferably two.

If I had to do a lot of development on the go, I would have invest in a portable USB monitor or use my iPad as a second display.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My take on the iPad form-factor hasn't really changed since the introduction. Its really great for certain casual use cases, but as soon as you sit down at a desk to get some work done, oh god does this fucking suck. And the keyboard cases actually make it worse because you delude yourself into thinking it makes it better, when it does not.

So an iOS/iPadOS laptop with full KVM support always seemed like a no-brainer in my mind. Or at least a much more obvious move than MacOS/ARM (which would split a small ecosystem behind the only logic that "they did it before and it worked out".) Plus 'the future' is obviously iOS.

<comment><USER11> I love my iPad with the keyboard case. When I hook it up to an external monitor and my Kinesis keyboard, it's even better. I'm looking forward to mouse support in iOS 13.

One of my favorite apps when it comes to the keyboard is Blink. It's an SSH/Mosh client with a limited local shell. I use it to build a Jekyll site on an EC2 instance. Blink supports multi-monitor, so I can have different shells on different screens.

Multi-window in iOS 13 is going to be another game changer. This is the best device I've owned and I'm excited about what's to come.

<comment><USER12> The new Safari in iPadOS makes it possible to use Code Server (Visual Studio Code on browser) with keyboard. If you already spin an EC2 instance, it is definitely worth a try. This also gives hope about the upcoming Visual Studio Online and its compatibility with iPadOS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Every analysis I've read, including this one, assumes that Apple would start at the bottom rather than the top, as they have with every other CPU transition in the history of the company.

Is there something especially difficult about making a high-core-count CPU? The A-series is already crushing single-threaded performance and they're competitive with Intel desktop CPUs for some applications. Once you have a high-performance CPU with multi-core capabilities, is there any reason you can't just copy/paste cores?

<comment><USER14> It isn't especially difficult, but is is expensive. The big challenge with CPU design is to make up for the costs and for that you need numbers. In the 90ies, there were plenty of high-performance CPU designs, Alpha, Sparc, Mips. They were alle killed by two mechanisms, that Intel had a lead in fab technology and that Intel had much higher numbers, consequentely could gain back much higher investments as the competitors could afford.

The big question wouldn't be whether Apple could make a high-performance ARM, but if the financials play out for it. The Mac Pro numbers certainly wouldn't pay for such a CPU development. This could change of course, if they would bring back the Xserve in a modern incarnation or find some other uses for a high-performance ARM cpu.

<comment><USER13> > The Mac Pro numbers certainly wouldn't pay for such a CPU development.

Again, though, what exactly does "development" mean here? Apple is already fabless. TSMC makes 32-core chips for AMD, so that scale is not new to them.

<comment><USER15> You will need to buy different set of tools to work and design for TSMC 's node. And while it is still from TSMC, the node for Desktop ( High Performance ) will be different to Phone / Tablet ( Low Power ). The cost of designing and testing a 5nm chips is roughly a billion. For iPhone that is spread out over 200M unit over its life time, or roughly $5 per chip excluding the actual cost of wafer.

For Mac you are looking at 25M unit per year, with TDP going from 15W to 250W. Apple could follow the same path as AMD and make one die to fit all. But in reality it is waste of engineering recourse and focus for little benefits.

<comment><USER13> > the node for Desktop ( High Performance ) will be different to Phone / > Tablet ( Low Power )

The iPhone CPUs are already competitive with Intel chips. They've got incredible single-core performance, great memory bandwidth, and solid 64-bit and SIMD support. What specific feature of a "high performance" node would they require that they aren't using for iPhones now? They've been pushing the limits on allegedly "mobile"-oriented architectures for years.

Every time this comes up, I hear from the naysayers "Yes, Apple is great at mobile, but desktop is a different game", but then also "Apple's mobile chips are faster than many Intel desktop chips". The skeptics sound awfully similar to those who said "Apple is great at iPods but smartphones are a completely different game".

> The cost of designing and testing a 5nm chips is roughly a billion.

AFAICT, nobody in the world has a production 5nm chip yet. How can you put a price on something that nobody has successfully produced yet?

If I were Apple and I were confident that just throwing $1B at it would solve all the engineering problems, I would absolutely do it. $40 per Mac for the best CPU (and independence from Intel) sounds like a steal.

<comment><USER15> >The iPhone CPUs are already competitive with Intel chips.

In selected benchmarks. That is like saying the Qualcomm ARM Sever Chips are already competitive with Intel Chips. But it is pretty close, at least to the point for most consumer usage it doesn't matter.

>The iPhone CPUs are already competitive with Intel chips. >What specific feature of a "high performance" node

At sub 10W ( The TDP for iPhone and iPad Pro ), not at 15W+ or 250W on the Mac Pro. You will require different tools, nodes, design guidelines operating at those TDP. No one is saying Apple cant do it, the question is if it make any financial sense doing it.

>AFAICT, nobody in the world has a production 5nm chip yet. How can you put a price on something that nobody has successfully produced yet?

[https://semiengineering.com/5nm-vs-3nm/](https://semiengineering.com/5nm- vs-3nm/)

The lead time for designing a chip / SoC with new node is roughly 2-3 years. Apple are already working ( finalising ) on 5nm SoC for next year, and they already knew the basic costing, ( excluding yield issues ). 3nm Costing Projection are also already known and are being worked on as we speak.

>If I were Apple and I were confident that just throwing $1B at it would solve all the engineering problems, I would absolutely do it. $40 per Mac for the best CPU (and independence from Intel) sounds like a steal.

Quoting myself _excluding the actual cost of wafer._ and yield. Apple would have made the jump if it really only cost them $40.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> ARM on the Macbook Pro would put a lot of software shops (I'm guessing tech and design firms are the main purchasers of Macs) using Docker in an awkward spot with their containers not running on dev machines.

<comment><USER17> Do these shops have to use the exact same container on their dev machine as elsewhere? Can they not build an ARM flavor of their container? Same Dockerfile but with an ARM base image instead of an x86_64 base image?

<comment><USER16> Generally no, but it's been convenient to have the architectures match up. It minimizes surprises. Different architectures also make people ask if they should switch to PCs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I see a lot of Surface Pro in the iPad[1]. That isn't a bad thing, it is great to have two design studios trying to out do each other. If you agree that these devices should work better on ARM chips rather than x86 chips, then the iPad has an advantage with an already ARM based ecosystem. Of course the Surface R/T tried that too, and stumbled. But I wonder if Apple saw that as a hint of where Microsoft might go.

I find it particularly interesting that at both companies these are the products that have a license to kill sacred cows[2]. The Surface R/T was "Windows on NOT Intel", the iPad has "stylus improved UI". Both of these were antithetic to Gates and Jobs way of thinking.

Both products (and I've got several different generations of both) feel to me like the "post PC" product. An application focused, battery operated, network aware device. I am a bit surprised that Surface hasn't embraced cellular connectivity as strongly as the iPad has, that is a key feature of "on the go" computing.[3]

[1] And chuckled when the new ones had the pen attach with magnets.

[2] The colloquialism, "that is a sacred cow." meaning a feature or rule that cannot be broken.

[3] Yeah, I know the 'tether it to your phone' mantra, I get that a lot, but it simpler (lower friction) to have it built in.

<comment><USER19> This trope about jobs needs to die.

He made fun of the idea of putting a color screen on the iPod and a year or so later presented the iPod color.

Of course apple was gonna put a stylus on the iPad, with or without Jobs.

Apple might be content with asking users to buy third party hardware to draw on Mac, but they aren't stupid enough to say you need to buy a Citrix to draw on your iPad.

<comment><USER20> I'm not sure you actually mean Citrix for that example, but I actually have a mouse somewhere for iPad from when I was working for Citrix and they built an iPad mouse that works with virtualised apps. I think Apple are even adding official mouse support to iPad OS now too.

<comment><USER19> Cintiq, by Wacom. Looked it up and I have been calling those screens the wrong company name for years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's amazing to think the iPhone launched without copy and paste and now it's a prominent feature on the iPadOS sales page.

I'm a bit happy we're movinf back to just letting people do stuff and let the developers figure out how to make it work.

<comment><USER13> Every feature on the macOS sales page today is something that macOS shipped without for almost 20 years (and Mac OS for almost 20 years before that). That's what sales pages are for: they show off the new features.

Apple didn't withhold copy/paste out of spite. They were shipping a completely new platform, and you can't do everything in 1.0.

For comparison, with the first version of the Macintosh system software, copy/paste crashed 50% of the time: [https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...](https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Cut,_Paste_and_Crash.txt)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> My prediction is an A-series Mac won't start from the bottom up it'll start top down - beginning with a Mac Pro addin card.

<comment><USER23> Perhaps like the "Math co-processor" in the 386 days?

Imagine a future generation T-series chip with the neural cores that the A-series chips have. Accessible using the existing frameworks that you are already using. Or adding GPU cores to the MacBook Pro lineup as a replacement for the AMD GPUs that they have now.

And while they are doing that, they can release a Smart Keyboard for a future iPad Pro that has a trackpad. That's got to be one of the least risky ways to try out the iPad as a laptop replacement. If it's a flop, you're out the $150 or whatever it would cost but still have a perfectly good iPad that you keep using as an iPad.

Apple is in the position to take a "lets see where this takes us" approach. As long as they keep the OS and Frameworks from drifting apart, there are a lot of nice things that could happen.

<comment><USER24> 386? Where's the love for Intel's 8087?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_8087](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_8087)

<comment><USER25> Everyone with any sense was running Weitek back in those days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Apple would like to be less reliant on both Qualcomm (radio/modem) and Intel (CPU). Qualcomm is ahead on 5G and Intel was behind on 5G and 10nm. Apple needs TSMC's 5nm performance-per-watt for AR glasses and moving MacOS from x86 to Arm, and it carries keyboard debt into the post-Ive era.

      - Qualcomm settlement bridges the 5G modem gap
      - Intel modem acquihire rekindles dream of radio autonomy
      - Did Intel modem deal delay "x86-Arm" mobile Mac transition?
      - Can 16" Macbook + 2015 keyboard buy time for new designs?

</comment><comment><USER27> He is right for right now, but the long game is the axx chip in most apple products. The MacPro won't have one, if it's still around then. ipad pros will get a dock much like today's dell usb type c docks. you will connect up to your screen while at your desk. do what you need to do with the keyboard and mouse. Even have a vdi app for access to some corp windows only apps. Then unplug it for meetings with note taking etc. It sounds like an interesting future.

</comment><comment><USER28> I agree that Apple would prefer to use the ipad pro as a way to migrate users from their intel machines. I bet there's more margin in an ipad pro than a macbook pro.

</comment><comment><USER29> I have realised a long ago that Apple has for a long time now been working towards steering the Macintosh way from its open, Unix-based foundation.

I used to work with the old MacOS, long before OSX, and it was just the way they wanted it: a closed platform with a nice (for the time) user interface and giving Apple full control over what is being developed on it and how.

Dropping this platform for NeXTSTEP-based OS X was the right choice at the time it was made, when they needed a more advanced platform, and they needed it immediately. But the side effect was that it opened the Mac as a development platform, and Apple has since been trying to close it back, without affecting the existing users too hard.

The success of mobile/tablet market allowed them to build a new, closed platform, with precisely the features described above. After MacBook Air was first released I expected them to soon release an OSX-based tablet, but I have soon realised that it is not going to happen: instead of pushing Mac to the tablets, they will more and more push iOS to the Mac, until they have one uniform platform that will make it nearly impossible to develop on except if sanctioned by Apple.

<comment><USER30> Which we're going to see how that sits with antitrust law pretty soon.

<comment><USER8> The same as "it sits" with console makers.....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It doesn't make much sense. The processor architecture should be an implementation detail to a user. This has very little to do with product lines.

<comment><USER21> We're the only people who know what a T2 is too. I doubt that had big marketing implications like they are trying to spin 'Axx'. Absent some geopolitical/supply chain risk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I don't believe Apple will transition away from x86 anytime soon but for different reasons. They would abandon the pro market if it moved to arm. Most x86 pro applications would have to be rewritten. What would be the incentive for software makers?

Apple might very will be able to bring out a arm stack for consumer market but there is no indication that they can compete with x86 pro or server market.

<comment><USER17> They did a migration like this once already for PPC -> Intel (twice if you count 68k -> PPC).

<comment><USER33> PPC was niche compared to Intel. So they moved from a dying ecosystem to a thriving one.

If they moved from AMD64 to ARM, they would be doing the opposite. AMD64 is not going anywhere on the desktop and is by far the undisputed performance king. Not to mention how many shops and pro end-users they would instantly lose. The number of developers that run macOS and depend on AMD64 virtual machines must be enormous. Given how much Microsoft is embracing Linux, it would be commercial suicide for Apple to abandon the AMD64 platform since they would be driving all these devs to their competition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Couple of points here:

\- Apple is about to ship a new mac os that comes with improved support for running ios/ipados applications as well as using an ipad as an extension of your screen.

\- The reason for the Mac Pro and the Mac Book Pro to exist is to enable professional artists, developers, and other people that need this kind of hardware to do their thing. Mostly they use tools not developed by Apple. E.g. Adobe is king for anything related to graphics. There are a bunch of third party 3D tools out there. Same for video. Same for Audio. Porting all of that to a new processor architecture will take a lot of time. It also has a severe risk of alienating developers and users during the transition. E.g. Adobe took their sweet time launching optimized versions of their tools for Intel ten years ago and meanwhile some users moved to Windows.

\- Mac developers targeting intel macs (i.e. all existing macs), would probably want to develop and test on the machines they are actually targeting. Building cpu/gpu intensive x86 software on an ARM architecture with an X86 emulator makes no sense. You'd want the real thing. Xcode on arm would be a hard sell (except for IOS developers).

\- A key money maker on IOS/IpadOS is the app store and the whole point of an ipad is that all the software comes from there. The whole point of Mac OS is that pro users get a lot of their software outside the app store.

\- VR/AR is slowly starting to happen and Apple has mostly ignored this on mac os and only done a little bit on IOS (AR mostly). Any hardware that Apple is going to launch here is extremely unlikely to involve Intel or AMD hardware. In fact I suspect this is the primary reason Apple has not pushed hard on this on mac OS: they are looking to disrupt this space with an Apple product that consists 100% of Apple hardware and software and are not interested in filling the gap short term by depending on third party hardware.

So, a processor architecture change on mac os would be short term disruptive and risky. They have a coherent strategy for getting mac users to buy an ipad and double dip in revenue and it seems they are pushing a lot of users toward that platform. Also the pro market is comparatively small but extremely lucrative in its current form.

</comment><comment><USER35> Apple product ecosystem has fast become a solution looking for problem combined with touchy feely hokus pokus aided by synthetic exclusivity and nonsensical differentiation.

Why the hell do we need the iPad to take over the PCs? Why the hell do we need ARM CPUs in Macs? Nobody is solving any real problems with those things - it's only purpose is to make Apple's margins and control even greater. And we as consumers are supposed to pay attention to the news outlets droning on about it for no benefit!

I think Apple will do well going back to the basics - simplifying the product lines, selling what matters and focusing on increasing the reach of its products to price conscious buyers. I don't think the market has a big enough appetite for more BS however well marketed it may be.

<comment><USER36> The trash can Mac Pro and butterfly keyboards are perfect examples of solutions looking for problems.

But I don't think making the iPad's operating system usable is an attempt to somehow position the devices as "PC killers." For use cases where a tablet is sufficient to produce a particular work product, a more usable OS only enhances its effectiveness. This has no bearing on the huge number of use cases where a tablet is insufficient.

I agree with the author that Apple would be barking up the wrong tree trying to switch the Macs to ARM processors. Macs are already comparatively a low- volume market and segmenting that market would not do them any favors in the face of increasing competition from Microsoft and Linux implementations.

<comment><USER35> > But I don't think making the iPad's operating system usable is an attempt to > somehow position the devices as "PC killers.

I agree with that one - meaningful improvements to make the iPad a better choice for the users that can get away with using only the iPad as their primary device is a good thing. There's also a significant number of those users. But in practice, deciding what those capabilities are and how best to implement those are far more complicated questions - adding a mouse pointer is maybe a perfect illustration of the conundrum - should we, how should it look, what about the click targets, what about touch first, pencil etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I really hope there is a hybrid MBP with an Apple chip running mac OS and first party apps along with an intel chip that runs on demand for third party apps that need x86.

</comment><comment><USER38> Such a bad analysis. Switching CPU architecture has been done before in the macos ecosystem. And it has been successful.

<comment><USER25> Both times were out of necessity though.

<comment><USER39> Arguably, the necessity here would be energy consumption, thermal performance and potentially speed?

<comment><USER40> That's not really necessity unless you can show that the current values for those 3 are insufficient and that an Axx transition will produce big gains in at least 2 of those 3 areas, is it? Even if native apps compiled and written for the Axx architecture have better energy and thermal performance, what about all the x86 apps that have to be emulated? There'll be a tax for that. It could be worse. Intel-based macs are probably wasting some power that Axx would theoretically not waste, and Axx might theoretically have better thermals, but there's not some massive demand for Apple to upend the whole ecosystem like that. Does Apple have competition threatening to steal their lunch because Macbooks' battery life isn't long enough? Not really, no?

<comment><USER39> I did say 'arguably' ;)

> Even if native apps compiled and written for the Axx architecture have > better energy and thermal performance, what about all the x86 apps that have > to be emulated? There'll be a tax for that.

Initially, probably. Think of the long game. This is something they have already done, twice. They have the experience and expertise to make this less impactful.

> Even if native apps compiled and written for the Axx architecture have > better energy and thermal performance, what about all the x86 apps that have > to be emulated? There'll be a tax for that.

Longer battery life is always preferable in portable devices, no? Alternatively, what about the reduction in the need for the materials, therefore the environmental impact, used in making batteries for laptops? Apple want to be the greenest manufacturer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Would Apple be looking at RISC-V as another option here?

<comment><USER42> Extremely unlikely. The beauty about RISC-V is that it's open source and royalty free. Both arguments aren't that relevant for Apple, as they got an architectural license from ARM which gives them full access to everything and allows them to design their own chips and because the royalty charges are vanishingly small compared to the prices Apple charges for it's products.

Apple has also already invested so much effort in its own ARM chips that I believe it wouldn't make much sense for them to throw that away in favor of RISC-V, just for saving a few million dollars per year in royalties.

<comment><USER43> > Extremely unlikely. The beauty about RISC-V is that it's open source and > royalty free

The other beauty is that you can extend the ISA with whatever proprietary instructions you want. Others develop 99% of the ISA for you, and you focus on the 1% that differentiates your product.

I'm not sure if the ARM licenses allows them to extend the ISA with "Apple- only" instructions, but RISC-V does and it allows Apple for more vendor lock- in. E.g. you can't use a Hackintosh anymore without buying a CPU directly from Apple.

<comment><USER44> I think Apple could stop Hackintoshing on Intel (in a practical sense) if they really cared to do so. There will always be the extreme fringe who would get it to work, but it's so easy at the moment to get a fully functioning Hackintosh (including iCloud, iMessage, App Store, etc) that I have to believe Apple is both aware and doesn't care to try to stop it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Does anyone find the use of the word "fork" outside of open-source projects a bit annoying? BMW forked their 3-series coupe and called it 4-series. Ugh...

<comment><USER46> Will you also complain about Yogi Bera's "When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It! Inspiration and Wisdom from One of Baseball's Greatest Heroes", published in 2001?

<comment><USER47> But that doesn't verb the fork...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I don't buy the permanent fork argument for one reason.

AMD had the cancelled ARM version of Zen. There aren't any public plans to bring it back as far as I'm aware.

But if Apple transitions past x86, it's going to provide critical mass for desktop ARM and the Zen chip will be back.

AMD would be sitting on the highest performance single socket ARM chip, and Apple would just use that.

<comment><USER49> I can't see Apple using any ARM chip other than their own. If they commit to converting OS X to ARM then they'll either produce it in-house or, less likely, buy AMD (or maybe just buy AMD's Zen tech only).

One of the main reasons for Apple to move to ARM is to control more of their technology stack. It's the direction they've been moving in for a while now and this would be part of that strategy.

<comment><USER48> The article claims Apple would need to keep x86 around indefinitely for the Mac Pro - I'm just saying that makes no sense.

Apple would definitely prefer to only use its own chips, but if they're unable to, using ARM Zen from AMD makes a million times more sense than x86 Intel.

I think you may be underestimating Apple's willingness to let the Mac Pro be an ugly duckling. This is a platform that they left stagnant for years after all.

<comment><USER49> _> but if they're unable to, using ARM Zen from AMD makes a million times more sense than x86 Intel._

How do you figure? Transitioning from x86 to ARM would be a major, expensive undertaking. If it's justified at all it would mainly be by Apple gaining control over that part of their stack. I doubt they would make such an effort and investment only to switch from the current third party, Intel, to a different third party, AMD.

But otherwise yes they're really not likely to make the transition at all. Given how small a proportion of their overall sales Mac sales are, they're most likely to just leave it on x86 indefinitely.

<comment><USER48> I'm speaking specifically about the Mac Pro, which Apple doesn't really care about. I get the sense you think I'm talking about using Zen in their laptops etc.

They're not going to build a chip that competes with high end Xeons just to field the new Mac Pro.

Given that, in a world where MacBook Pros are powered by A15s, Apple can either cut the Mac Pro, keep it as their only x86 product or put an ARM Zen in it.

I'm saying keeping it as x86 will straight up never happen. ARM Zen or cancellation are the plausible options.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Frankly I'm surprised no one hasn't built an external core/ram expansion docking station yet.

With OS support for Numa and a broker to schedule tasks on Big/Little cores all the pieces are there.

My guess is the halo effect around the cloud that put these devices back into the drawers; when you can sync files across two conventional independent devices, risk aversion wins.

But people might become aware and weary of routing everything through Facebook/Google so the value of cloudless mobility might tip the scale.

Plus, if AR/VR ever takes off, the hardware for high bandwidth wired or not PAN will become available

<comment><USER51> > Frankly I'm surprised no one hasn't built an external core/ram expansion > docking station yet

I imagine that the distance and all the connectivity required between the CPU and RAM sitting in an external docking station would destroy performance.

<comment><USER52> How would this be much different to a GPU running over the PCIE bus?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> > Today, I'll contend that moving the macOs to an Axx processor is a fantasy, > it's too complicated and will never happen, at least no time soon. Mac users > are wedded to x86 processors for the foreseeable future.

No wonder Be Inc went belly up. Apple had switched before from architecture.

<comment><USER40> To imagine that the transition from ppc to x86 is remotely comparable to a present-day x86-to-ARM transition is utterly absurd. Basically everything has changed: Hardware architectures, software architectures, OS design, etc. The amount of software out there for x86 macs is massive and end users are going to expect all that stuff to work (even if they'll grumble and accept it when Apple tells them that only 50% of it will work). You're also having to maintain compatibility with a massive set of third party hardware used by creatives, developers and enthusiasts - are you gonna run those drivers in an emulator? In kernel mode?

This would be an undertaking beyond any past one, because in the past computers were much simpler and Apple controlled a bigger part of the picture. Now they're shipping elaborate GPUs and hardware stacks that mash together chips from various vendors and there's a ton of third party hardware and software all working on top of it. If they don't keep most of that working users won't stand for it. Something like "we need to get AMD or NVIDIA to provide us a top-tier video driver for the Axx instruction set and convince them not to demand a king's ransom for it" would not have been an obstacle in the PPC days but it's unavoidable now unless they want to ship their own GPU too (which they could do, but again, compatibility)</comment></comment>


A Short Guide to Minimal Web Development (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://meiert.com/en/blog/minimal-web-development/ <comment><USER2> I would recommend linters (ESLint) to beginners as I use it as a long time not-beginner to point out silly mistakes, which can be the hardest and most frustrating to spot.

> [T]hey're as useful to learn coding as it is to use ready-to-heat-up dough > and buns to become a baker.

I would imagine getting a familiarity with a new oven would be a good use for a new baker experimenting with ready to bake items.

I get the feeling the author is into a very brutal style of learning that might resonate with some, but probably not most with their steps.

This is from 2018 and updated last in 2019, but the title didn't show that.

<comment><USER3> I remember adding a linter to a relatively large project that I was working on after a few months and then realizing how many errors there were that I was surprised the project even worked in some cases (it probably didn't but I never bothered testing those edge cases).

<comment><USER4> Plenty of projects that are actually fine blow up linters.

If you to want to add a linter you can either add one rule at a time or make it part of your process that the number of warnings goes down with every merge.

<comment><USER3> In that project it was about 100 or so errors that were all really easy to fix (no major refactoring required) so I just sat down and went through the list one by one until I had 0 errors, 0 warnings. A lot of the errors were just styling. Some were errors where the value could have been null/forgot a try- catch block (although almost never was in practice unless I changed some code elsewhere accidentally), and a few were so major that one of the features that I implemented wasn't working at all but I never realized (mostly because I was one of the few people using the app and never really tested the feature).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would argue that reset style sheets or normalizers should be part of your "minimal web dev" process, even if you roll your own version. There are so many browser nuances that these things fix so that you don't have to hack it later down the line.

<comment> replies-to-fool I think the idea is for you to build your own reset as the need for each individual feature comes up, instead of just throwing in a style sheet and not bothering to understand it.

For example, setting the box sizing properly in order to ensure consistent widths regardless of borders or padding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I recently started a new project using only pixi + vanilla js. No frameworks. No npm. Just pixi.min.js + vanilla js included into an html file. It's super refreshing - the js files are tiny, the load times are _insane_ (instant), other people can read my code without having to learn a new framework.

I am thinking about using npm to get access to linting, uglify, etc. but that would be strictly for distribution, not development.

<comment><USER7> Never heard of Pixi. What are you using it for?

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

<comment><USER6> A video game. A week ago there was a HN post on ct.js[0], and that's when I discovered pixi.js. I suppose I could have also used phaser.js, but pixi is more minimal and I liked the idea of developing a custom engine for my game idea (apart from the rendering bits).

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24176655](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24176655)

<comment><USER8> I worked on a game for a couple of years and did the same thing. Phaser was too clunky for my purposes and didn't seem to scale for the size of game I was working on. I learned a ton by having to write a ton of the rendering/camera logic that Phaser gives you for free. Highly recommend it for learning purposes alone!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As an experienced back end developer that has done a bit of ASP/JSP/PHP in the past but really tried to avoid JS. What is the best place to start now? I figure react is #1 but vue looks simpler. Any moocs or books worth reading first? Or dive in and build something?

<comment><USER10> Skip the frameworks, start with modern ES5/ES6, don't use babel/ts/etc initially.

Modern JS is pretty clean and the native DOM methods are actually very pleasant generally. You can get really far without even needing a package manager, but eventually something like npm becomes useful if bulky.

<comment><USER11> Further, you will then understand why you need a framework like React should your project become complicated enough on the frontend.

<comment><USER12> There's nothing stopping you from tracking client state in a a simple window.state object. This object can be of arbitrary composition, so I see no reason you cannot manage even the most complex UI state in this manner.

For me, minimal web development means doing as much as I can at the server. This includes tracking client UI state if feasible. The more stuff you have in 1 domain like that the easier it becomes to control complexity.

When your state machine is split between 2 realms is when you get into traps that things like React were created to resolve.

<comment><USER13> I agree that if you have state in two places you're doing it wrong. That's why I keep all my state _client_ -side (the only thing in session storage is your user ID if logged in). My server is basically just a thin wrapper around my database, providing an API for my client to call.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm sorry, but any guide that suggests you start by reading the entire specs for HTML, CSS and JS is just not realistic.

The guide gets it right in the "practise" part, though: the beauty of the web is that you can write an HTML file and immediately see what you created in the browser. You don't need to read the HTML spec's instructions on Microdata before you do that.

<comment><USER15> Few people have probably read those specs cover-to-cover with full attention.

But never opening them is a mistake. The value of taking a look, skimming around, reading a few parts that seem interesting to you, is HUGE compared to never even having looked in there. And then continuing to do so when a curiosity arises.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This article is pure poison. Ideological purity is a problem in every facet of human life, and engineering doesn't have to be so painful. The computer should work for the human.

<comment><USER17> Just two more generations and writing vanilla js/css is an elitist skill for ancient blue whales.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think this is a great counter-argument to the current state of the frontend development ecosystem, which is far from minimal. The article might be too extreme, but I would love to see more minimalism on the general approach to things.

</comment><comment><USER19> Strange no one has yet mentioned Resilient Web Design Book [https://resilientwebdesign.com/](https://resilientwebdesign.com/)

Besides those principles I find Pug to be indispensable for writing "pythonic" style HTML [https://pugjs.org](https://pugjs.org)

You can rearrange the structure easily by "moving" lines of code up or down in your editor, you can set it to auto-compile on saving, just awesome.

</comment><comment><USER20> As someone who developed web applications appx 20 years ago and back doing it for a few personal projects in the past couple of years, I am a bit disappointed in the progress that's been made in the web development space.

Edit: specifically front end.

<comment><USER21> As someone who did the same for the same amount of time: it could not be farther from true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Static site generators are great if you do plain/vanilla static HTML sites. Server-side-include only gets you so far, a static site generator give you much more freedom and it can do _a lot_ more work for you.

</comment><comment><USER23> What is someone is trying to build a blog? I think the most minimal web development for building a blog comes from Static Site Generators that the author is suggesting to avoid.

You can't get more minimal than Hugo, Jekyll when trying to build a blog. My blog is fully functional and apart from Google Analytics, it doesn't use any JS at all.

<comment><USER24> > You can't get more minimal than Hugo, Jekyll when trying to build a blog.

Untrue.

> My blog [...] doesn't use any JS at all.

Now suppose there were JS used on some page(s), and that _is_ the static site generator...

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This isn't minimal, it's primitive. Knowing the difference is key.

</comment><comment><USER26> Stopped reading at "Did you know? Not blocking ads helps content creators[...]" How are you gonna advocate for a minimal web when you're so oblivious to adtech current year?

</comment><comment><USER27> This webpage which is a guide to hand coding things appears to not have a closing </head>, </body>, or </html> tag.

<comment><USER28> That is completely valid HTML5.

[https://html5.validator.nu/?doc=https%3A%2F%2Fmeiert.com%2Fe...](https://html5.validator.nu/?doc=https%3A%2F%2Fmeiert.com%2Fen%2Fblog%2Fminimal- web-development%2F)

<comment><USER29> That maybe but it differs from what is shown in the inspector (which shows the <head> and <body> tags). This could be confusing as the source html doesn't match how the browser interprets it.

<comment><USER30> Web inspectors are showing a representation of the DOM, they are not showing the raw source. Netscape and IE used to have "Show Source" functions that literally showed just the page source.

Inspectors will do things like display colors as their RGB triples i.e. rgb(x, y, z) in computed styles when a color has been defined in the HTML like in a body tag or table cell's bgcolor attribute.

<comment><USER31> All browsers still have show source. It's just not usually that useful anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> small gripe, vanilla is a flavor. Please use plain javascript.

</comment><comment><USER33> A terminal client is recommended... Yeah let me just pitch that to my client-- nope, that gig is gone now.

</comment><comment><USER34> Should be: "A short Guide to Hippie Web Development"

</comment><comment><USER35> "Minimal Web development" now theres an oxymoron, "Efficient Waste of TIme. Look into Gemini its much better.</comment>