Why Is Being Late To The "GitHub Party" Bad? - <AUTHOR>

I recently read a "response article" related to a programmer's difficulty in marketing his product.
There was a line that disturbed me: "If you think you will "buy your way to visibility through ads" then, in marketing terms, you're like the programmer who just discovered Github ... in 2013."
What is so wrong with waiting on joining Github? What if I wanted to wait, or just didn't see the point of "socialized programming"?
Response Blog-Article In Question: http://www.chrisle.me/2013/11/dear-clueless-about-marketing-programmer-yes-its-hard-but-not-impossible/ <comment><USER2> I think Github is great but since when did it become a requirement for validating one's worthiness as a software developer?

I would love to know how relevant being on Github is for most people that are not in SF. I personally think its nice but not really relevant at all.

Sometimes I think its a brilliant marketing move by Github. Get everyone to assume they need a Github account for career advancement, highlight/praise everyone who has one and let them influence their own circle to sign up and repeat the cycle. It's great marketing. I'm not suggesting Github is promoting this but they certainly don't discourage it.

It's nice to have a Github account but it's like LinkedIn. No credible recruiter is going to ignore a candidate because they are not in LinkedIn or they are on it but have a very small number of connections.

Based on a conversation with a highly successful executive recruiter, most people they go after don't even have a resume, let alone a LinkedIn account. Their presence within their peer network plus their work speak for itself.

I guess working in SF and going after start-up jobs, Github account and participation is relevant, but for most of us, the companies we have worked with, the projects we have done will have more relevance. I don't know any company that I have worked with that looks at Github as a barometer (this is with respect to enterprise development).

Another thought in all this is that if I really cared about my Github participation, I could find a bunch of programmers in India, China or somewhere else, or even locally have them go through a few projects and do some work under my account. I would pay them a nice fee and be done with it. This I believe is the elephant in the room with Github that no one talks about. Is this happening? I can't say personally but if anyone seriously believes its not is also likely to take the NSA at their word.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've known about github for a long time, but I have no desire to share my code, and thus have not created a profile.

If one day, in the far flung future, I decide to release my source code on github, that will be the day I create a profile.

The recent creation date of a user profile might cause a silly person to jump to the conclusion that I am inexperienced and naive. But why should I care what silly people think?

</comment><comment><USER4> There is another important possibility; you only just became a programmer and are inherently "late to the party" when it comes to Github.

I don't see how anyone could use a join date as a measurement of someone's skill as a programmer, it reflects nothing.

However in context they may be right. If you're talking about visibility then having only just joined may result in your exposure on the site being smaller due to having had less time to produce work that would attract attention.

<comment><AUTHOR> "you only just became a programmer and are inherently "late to the party"

A good point, thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think that people that turn up to the party not giving 2 shits about the time have a much better party

</comment><comment><USER6> it is being a early adopter, think of guys on twitter having 2 letter id's, you can't get those anymore

unless you are already a celebrity or you have great contribution in your line of work, people do judge you by their prejudices including member since on github

<comment><AUTHOR> "People have prejudices against late-adopters"

Also a good point. I was a late adopter to github, as I had troubles wrapping my brain around "socialized programming" as it related to what I considered a "personal" project.

I saw the light, and signed//repo'd up. In 2013.

The line in the article I referenced made me pause, so I thought I'd ask.

<comment><USER7> Yeah but if you're like me bringing up some of the nice nuggets, still viable, from hard copy in some cases and media that's fallen off the cliff (SUN cartridge tapes, etc) can be a bit more than tedious.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Don't believe everything you read.

<comment><AUTHOR> ... and half of what I hear :)

Reminds me of a phrase from one of the original broadcasts of 'The Shadow': "Believe half of what you see, and nothing you hear." [spoken to sidekick Margo Lane]</comment></comment>


China Bans Foreign Waste – What Will Happen to the World's Recycling? - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/china-bans-foreign-waste-but-what-will-happen-to-the-worlds-recycling-85924 <comment><USER2> Reposted from a few days ago... incredibly relevant to this post.

I urge you to stop believing in recycling.

Here's some things to think about:

The "packaging" industry, is in fact a nice way of saying the "garbage manufacturing" industry.

At least in Australia, the "recycling industry" is owned by the "packaging industry". Hmmm.. why is that? It put it to you that the garbage manufacturing industry has in fact worked out how to "own" the environmental movement by pushing "recycling" as the "balance" to the spewing forth of garbage from the packaging industry. The packaging industry must be laughing so hard at how easily it has owned the environmental movement. Have you ever wondered if all that packaging you put in your recycle bin gets recycled? It's a question worth thinking about.

I have come to believe that recycling, which environmentalists embrace deeply as a core value, is in fact just a smokescreen that allows everyone to feel OK about the garbage manufacturing industry creating an unending quantity of plastics that have made their way into every nook and cranny of our ecosystem.

Please, stop believing in recycling.... if you recycle, then you do not question the unbelievable, and unrecyclable, quantity of plastic packaging that you consume. One you stop believing in recycling, you start to ask the question, "why the heck do we permit the packaging industry to create this unstoppable flow of garbage" Seems to me that world MUST eventually move to a solution which is a set of standardised containers for all products, which are durable, washable, have a refund value attached, and may have paper corporate brand stuck on them after being washed.

Another strategy worth bringing forward is the idea of "garbage brands"..... showing off all those precious brands but in their true context... as garbage in our creeks, rivers and oceans, drains and footpaths. Once brands start to become associated with garbage, they might rethinkg whether they want their names and logos on the digusting mess destroying our environment.

Please, stop believing in recycling and the smokescreen will clear and you will start to ask questions about the packaging industry and our community/commercial system that supports it. Asbestos, tobacco, sugary foods, packaging - all industries that have fooled us into believing things that are wrong but served their own ends. The packaging industry has fooled us into thinking that it is OK because recycling exists.

<comment><USER3> In all that rant of yours, you don't mention once why recycling doesn't work, just implore us to stop believing in it. Why is that?

<comment><USER2> It doesn't work because everywhere you look the world is full of garbage.

I went on a holiday to the pacific recently and stayed on a remote island and walked around it and every 10 feet - literally - was a plastic drink bottle.

Is that not enough to convince you that there's a problem?

<comment><USER3> So recycling doesn't work because you can see trash that _isn 't_ recycled?

There is a problem but it's not a problem with recycling.

<comment><USER4> What are you going to recycle it all into? It's just not economical to do. Sweden gets it, they burn their garbage for power instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > what will happen to the world's recycling?

It will move to another country whose leaders value money over the environment. China now has enough money and clout to say no.

There are plenty of places that don't.

</comment><comment><USER6> China invests in Africa. This is both an economic (coltan, and trade) decision, and a political (influence, votes in the UN) decision.

Now, it looks like it might be a shrewd environmental decision, if you are a province in China with a huge pollution problem from plastics recycling. Voila! export the problem to Africa. .. (not saying this is _good_ in any sense, but it would make sense as an operating model: its what we did to them, so they do it to the next emerging colonial empire)

<comment><USER7> Why the fxxk you drew conclusion like this? It has nothing to do with Chinese domestic wastes. It is about wastes used to ship to China. There are many other countries has been the dump field for west for so many years. India for example. Yes, Africa. If China has been processing imported wastes for a very long time, they should be able to process domestic wastes for some time. I am Chinese, and I get very annoyed that for any title with 'China' in it, you just draw negative conclusion from it which has nothing to do with the article.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure I understand why you think this is anti Chinese? All China is doing is recapitulating colonialism. I expect there are good social and economic reasons to stop polluting Chinese provinces with imported wastes, but Chinese businesses will want to retain profit and trade.

Therefore relocating recycling businesses overseas makes sense. China has now deep roots in Africa primarily aimed at extraction of raw materials but also for sale of goods and services (Huawei for instance supply African mobile operators with turnkey solutions) so inviting African economies with low barriers to pollution and lax labour laws to bid for contracts to reprocess waste is surely normal?

Isn't that why the UK and Europe export the waste to China?

Britain used to make ships. Then ship making moved to Portugal and then Poland, and then Korea. Trade moves to low labour cost economies. As China tightens pollution and labour law the cost of processing waste will rise until it's more economic to do it somewhere else. I just expect Chinese business to defiantly retain a role in that.

The votes in the UN yes, that was perhaps unfortunately said. I apologize. If I said China was merely redressing systemically acquired imbalances by investing in Africa and the Pacific islands,and the quid pro quo was mutuality, would that be better?

I love China. I visit it frequently, lots of Chinese companies invest in Australia, our economic future is closely tied. I am tired of dissembling in this space. What China is doing is not immoral: it's amoral, no different to what the west did, does.

<comment><USER8> The article is not about China exporting waste to Africa. It is about how the Western world might get refused to export their waste to China. Meaning how China is leaving its position of subordinate.

Yet, each time there is an article about China, people here feels the need to point out what China is doing wrong and how China is going to dominate. Also there is a lot articles from the nytimes published here who feels more like warning people that China is going to dominate "us".

This is a long-time classic pattern actually : [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Peril](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Peril) I am french and white here. When I was young I read, as plenty of my friends, these kind of book : [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Lotus](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Lotus) or Lucky Luke with its really cliche depictions of Chinese. It was normal but for sure it shows some racist patterns towards chinese people and people perceived as chinese here in France. Actually the consequences are obvious : [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/28/police-and- pro...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/28/police-and-protesters- clash-in-paris-over-death-of-chinese-man)

I think it doesn't free China of criticism and what is happening in Africa is wrong. But coming from westerners like me.. I mean a french criticizing China taking over Africa feels more like a dog fighting other dogs to keep his bone. After you are free to act like if US or other imperialist power/western countries are so different but I am very skeptical when I see reactions here. People from our imperialist countries act like if they wanted to keep Africa for their own economic development, otherwise they would massively protest against our militaries and our companies ruling over Africa.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Probably will shift to india

</comment><comment><USER10> Url changed from [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-bans- foreig...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-bans-foreign- waste-but-what-will-happen-to-the-worlds-recycling/), which points to this.

</comment><comment><USER11> Very oddly written article. The author seems to assume that the US and EU are above doing whatever China does with the recycled plastics.

<comment><USER12> They are above paying subhuman wages for extreme exposure to dangerous and toxic environments for extended periods of time. Yes.

<comment><USER13> Now maybe, but they weren't during the western industrial revolution and well beyond! Geez read some history!</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Regex Pixie - I built my own real time regex tool - <AUTHOR> http://www.regexpixie.com

<comment><USER2> Would be even better as an online tool?

I sometimes use this <http://www.regextester.com/index2.html>

There is also <http://myregextester.com/> and <http://regexpal.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> that would be nice, but there are some practicalities that would make it difficult. Mostly because javascript does not support named groups out of the box :(

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm a gigantic regex nerd and when I couldn't find a tool that had all the features I wanted, I built my own. I hope you guys like it. My contact info is in my profile if you want to ping me with any questions.</comment>


Ask HN: best way to find christmass presents online? - <AUTHOR>

Any recommendations for sites that give recommendations? <comment><USER2> <http://coolproducts.com/> has a bunch of different categories of gifts. You should be able to find a unique present for someone based on their interests...</comment>


Ask HN: Review my new startup: clickthatbutton.com - <AUTHOR> http://clickthatbutton.com/ <comment><USER2> I realise it's a gag. But...

Have the site sponsored by different people each day, and record the number of clicks on that day. Keep an archive, make it competitive.

e.g. 30th October is Obama day (just an example - not partisan), click to show your support! Sponsor pays some rate per click (or just to hire the site for the day).

As others have mentioned, your button would appear in many places (facebook widget, etc), so that would add some value to the potential sponsors.

Of course, they could put up their own button, but that wouldn't get them into your archives or the kudos of having the one and only 'clickthatbutton.com' buzz.

I don't think I'm being serious. But then, it's not that much crazier than the million-dollar homepage.

<comment><USER3> All good ideas of directions to take this, imo. Now that's insight. The have a different sponsor every day is something I thought of while I was making my pointless post (see bottom of this page) but neglected to mention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's a fine line between irony/parody and wasting everyone's time...

<comment><USER5> Somewhere there's a real startup who posted here and nobody upvoted or commented about their work.

I'm sure this is pressing their buttons about now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thank you for finally emphasizing the fact that not every website is a startup.

</comment><comment><USER7> Unless I'm missing something, that's not a "startup" it's a webpage with a clickable button.

What's the point? What's the business model? (seriously).

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I've always been a fan of the 37signals school of thought around bringing simplicity to web applications. You know - the whole "Getting Real" thing.

The way I see it, this has a better business model than a lot of web startups nowadays. At the very least, we've got a slow "burn rate" seeing as how we've spent about 5 hours on the project. As for generating revenue? I think we've got a while before we have to worry about that. We're more focused on scaling the systems than anything right now.

Over 100k clicks on day one? Here's to a successful launch!

<comment><USER8> This took you five hours? Seriously?

<comment><USER9> Photoshopping a nice button takes longer than you think...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hi,

I'd like to invest in your startup. Would you be willing to implement Social networking features, file sharing (with intelligent auto-removal of copyright infringing material) and live micro-macro-socio-splogging?

Given that you spent 5 hours on this so far, I reckon you'll be able to implement these features in another 10. I'm willing to invest $5 for 40%. Interested?

</comment><comment><USER11> Upvote this if you feel like it. What do you think of my new startup? Got the idea at <http://clickthatbutton.com/>

</comment><comment><USER12> Hmmm... I think you should definitely go after the enterprise market.

</comment><comment><USER13> I cheated:

        while true; do curl -d submit.x=1 -d submit.y=1 -b clickthatbutton=10521 http://clickthatbutton.com/; echo; done

edit: and apparently you (or my ISP) throttle ;)

<comment><USER14> We need to get this code threaded...

<comment><USER13>
        #!/bin/sh

        n=10
        while [ $n -ge 0 ]; do
        	sh -c "while true; do curl -d submit.x=1 -d submit.y=1 -b clickthatbutton=10521 http://clickthatbutton.com/; echo; done" &
        	n=`expr $n - 1`
        done

Change "n=10" to change the number of concurrent requests. Anyone have a better method?

<comment><USER15> Nice approach, My friend and I were trying to do the same thing. [http://juliocapote.com/post/56866975/so-you-want-to-click- th...](http://juliocapote.com/post/56866975/so-you-want-to-click-that-button) bookmarklet version: <http://ubergibson.com/~alan/bmforge/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Is hackthatbutton.com taken?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So, why are you sending the coordinates of each click back to the server?

I'm sure it would make a nice looking heat map, but is there some other reason?

<comment><USER16> Sending the coordinates is the standard http behavior in the case of image submit buttons.

<comment><USER13> Doh. That's a pretty good reason.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I like the simplicity, but not sure how will monetize it? Maybe offer it as widget for other sites? Or perhaps create a FB app? Certainly lots of potential. And people really like clicking buttons.

<comment><USER18> "Go ahead, click the button... That'll be ten million dollars."

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Needs more cowbell.

<comment><USER5> much more

(For those missing the joke, <http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1017105/more_cowbell/> )

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I assume this is a joke.

Having said that, if you are creative you may well be able to cash in on this considering the attention that your site appears to be getting. I remember, a few years ago, some kid made a page that sold ads to people for $1 per pixel on the page. The page contained nothing other than these ads. The kid was trying to make $1m and he did it - enough people were willing to pay a dollar or few dollars to be a part of his idea even if they didn't really benefit from it.

I'd look at adding advertising to the page - I'd love to watch you make a million from a page with a button on it!

</comment><comment><USER21> I didn't click the button.

I didn't want to. Too many people had done it already

<comment><USER22> I clicked it and when I found out others have already clicked it I felt cheap and used.

<comment><USER23> I clicked it several times. The fact that other people had clicked it too made me feel like I belong to a community, like there are people out there who care about me and my button-clicking.

<comment><USER24> I clicked it, and then I wanted to know how my clicking compared to other people. Unfortunately, there are no stats.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> ryan-allen Sweet, all you need is some venture capital and you're on your way to the big time!

</comment><comment><USER25> This is at the same level of madness as "I am rich" iPhone application except that application had a cost model to it unlike this one...

</comment><comment><USER26> Well, your 15 minutes should be up any time now...

</comment><comment><USER11> Brilliant.

<comment><USER13> Google Killer.

<comment><USER27> Techcrunch, is that you?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Not sure about the colors, maybe invest in a designer and a copywriter, and did you know the button was SQL Injectable? You're off to a great start, but I worry about Facebook and Google turning this into a feature instead of a product. Consider the enterprise.

</comment><comment><USER29> "10087 clicks from you... Thank You"

</comment><comment><USER3> _< grunt>_ bigthboy not amused... buttons make bigthboy angry! _< roar>_...

but in all honesty, what is the true point behind this? I am aware of people's addiction to press buttons, but if you can convince someone to pay you in order to press a button then you've got something. Without that, I really just don't think this is anything more than a time-sink for those who are procrastinating, and most certainly not a start-up. =P

</comment><comment><USER30> Anyone else remember "Button, Button" from the Twilight Zone, where a couple is offered $200K if they push a button on a box. The only catch is that if they push it, someone they don't know will die?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button,_Button_>(The_Twilight_Zone)

Creepy.

</comment><comment><USER31> I like it. I gave it around 180 clicks before I left the page. It was a good experience.

</comment><comment><USER32> This is going straight to the front page of TechCrunch!

</comment><comment><USER33> Hm, looks familiar. Mine has chat, though. <http://click-a-billion.com/>

</comment><comment><USER34> this shit is about as cool as a steaming shit coming out of my ass(whilst shitting from a hovering helicopter) and landing inside an active volcano. If you think this is an actual business model, you sir, are fucking delusional. the jig is up, fraud

</comment><comment><USER35> Make an API or an app for Facebook/Myspace or a widget for Wordpress and watch it spread. ;)

</comment><comment><USER36> Your button is bad and you should feel bad. Is this really what Hacker News has come to?

</comment><comment><USER37> A+++++++++++++++++++++

Would click again.

</comment><comment><USER38> Thousands of visitors and it still says "1 clicks" -- doh.

</comment><comment><USER39> why would anyone come back to this..what the hell..i dont get it

<comment><USER40> No, you do. That's the problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I don't get it.

</comment><comment><USER42> shoulda entered this into railsrumble!

<comment><AUTHOR> Rails!? That doesn't scale. This is all Erlang.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Sorry, but :yawn:

</comment><comment><USER44> i admit it, i'm a clicker...

it was just too much for me. i'm suing you for rehab therapy now to cure my aclicktion.

they say you haven't succeeded as a business until you're sued. congratulations, give me your money now

<comment><USER45> i clicke 250 without stopping... whats wrong! and checkout the speed at which counter is running... while biggies like facebook and orkut try so hard to engage users into social networking etc... this simple clickthatbutton has done it with amazing simplicity! wow!</comment></comment>


AK-Datatypes in Development - <AUTHOR> https://forum.amiga.org/index.php?topic=74410.msg849303#msg849303 <comment><USER2> A promise of Open Source (even if not to be done immediately) would help sales and donations.

Amiga owners are tired of sinking money into black holes.</comment>


Original Pentium FDIV flaw e-mail [1994] - <AUTHOR> http://www.trnicely.net/pentbug/bugmail1.html

<comment><USER3> I vividly remember this. I grew up in Lynchburg and one of my best friends' fathers was a professor at Lynchburg College. At the time this happened I was in my senior year of high school and completely immersed in the school's new computer lab (Wordperfect 5, Mosaic, Matlab, Pascal -- woohoo!). I went to hear Dr Nicely speak about the flaw and thought it was super-cool that this was happening in my [really boring] hometown -- thanks for dredging up history. :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Intel's CEO, Andy Grove later wrote in his book "Only the Paranoid Can Survive" that the crisis had marked Intel's transition from being run-of-the- mill B2B operation to major B2C brand.

Before the crisis Intel viewed itself as just yet another supplier of microchips to powerful OEM's, a pure business to business operation that had computer manufacturers as their customers. They genuinely believed that it's up to end-product manufactures to handle user's compaints and then settle any issues with Intel account managers in the privacy of company meeting rooms.

What Intel didn't realise is that their prior advertising campaign that was hammering "Intel Inside" into consumers' minds and re-enforcing the belief that a PC powered by Intel microprocessor is superior to any other PC was incredibly successful. Intel became a consumer brand, but the company didn't have the structure, nor the mindset to serve the end-consumers directly!

When the denial was over and it became apparent what the actual problem is - not the microprocessor flaw, but the company's perception of itself - <USER2> moved with energy, quickly and decisively: hired hundreds extra staff, changed reporting lines, created an entirely new end-consumer servicing structure - all within weeks.

I thoroughly recommend reading Andy Grove's book for the Intel's side of the story.

<http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/bios/grove/paranoid.htm> [http://www.amazon.com/Only-Paranoid-Survive-Andrew- Grove/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Only-Paranoid-Survive-Andrew- Grove/dp/0385482582)

</comment><comment><USER5> I remember this mostly because my boss at the time referred to Pentiums in the plural as "Pentia". "Pentia". Let that one sink in. He also was a chain smoker who would carry his ashtray and smokes _into the machine room_ and then wonder why the big Power Challenge had mysterious SCSI bus problems. Good times.

<comment><USER6> I'm not really picking up why it's so reprehensible for someone to jokingly pluralize Pentiums as Pentia. Can you explain?

<comment><USER5> It wasn't a joke.

<comment><USER7> And it wasn't incorrect either. -um is the ending for neutrums (actually neutra) and -a is the plural thereof.

<comment><USER5> True, except in that Pentium is an _English_ neologism, and thus is pluralized like an English noun. Don't get me started on the plurals of octopus or virus, please.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here is the timeline:

<http://www.emery.com/1e/pentium.htm>

USENET grew one pant-size that autumn.

<comment><USER9> Did it ever, and this parody stuck in my mind:

Open the pod bay door, please, Hal... Hal, do you read me?

        Affirmative, Dave. I read you.

Then open the pod bay doors, HAL.

        I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me.

Where the hell did you get that idea, HAL?

        Although you took very thorough precautions to make sure I couldn't hear you, Dave. I could read your e-mail. I know you consider me unreliable because I use a Pentium. I'm willing to kill you, Dave, just like I killed the other 3.792 crew members.

(etc.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What sticks in my mind the most about this was the estimates on the part of PC manufacturers, of the estimates of the probability of a spreadsheet user, for example, running across this bug. Thinking through the problem carefully, there was no way to calculate such a probability.

</comment><comment><USER11> I was oddly tickled to see that acavax.lynchburg.edu is now serving http, with an index page whose last modified date is not quite 10 years ago.

</comment><comment><USER12> It was one of the best things that happened to Intel. After some reluctance, they proved as a company users can trust in, as they allowed to return their CPUs in exchange for a non-broken one. This trust into Intel was worth much, much more then the cost of the refund policy.

<comment><USER13> It took Intel weeks to realize that they had a genuine PR disaster on their hands, and if it had taken them much longer to agree to replace any defective processor, the Pentium brand would have been ruined. They learned their lesson and wholeheartedly did everything they could to smooth things over, but only after a month and a half of making things much worse. By the time Intel started dealing with the situation intelligently, they were facing several lawsuits and even the mainstream media was making jokes at the expense of their flagship product.</comment></comment>


How a Group of HN Users Saved RestoreTheFourth.net - <AUTHOR> http://sina.is/helping-rt4/

<comment><USER2> This effort was a lot of fun to be involved in -- it's really cool in general that this group managed to coalesce in such a short period of time.

Anyone reading this who wants to meet some interesting people, learn some things, and feel like you're making a bit of a difference on the internet: email Sina!

</comment><comment><USER3> It was a blast, thanks for the great idea Sina!</comment>


Show HN: BBC vs. Fox vs. CNN - <AUTHOR> https://coronavirus.loomi.ai/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hello, this is Al. We have built Coronavirus Knowledge Graph app that takes some of the top news publishers and creates a knowledge graph based on the entities/topics related to the pandemic. This is a research app we are making available freely shortly. Any feedback is very welcome.

<comment><USER2> Funny, I am currently working on a (slightly less ambitious) project that groups headlines from news websites on a single page for you to compare.

Love the super reactive UI.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the feedback. great to hear. we do quite a bit of that for our main product loomi.ai. we should connect. thanks Al</comment></comment></comment>


Would you create a "making of" commentary for your site similar to ones for movies and video games? - <AUTHOR>

Presumably such commentary can give potential users the impression that quite a lot of effort has gone into the design and implementation of the site, thus increasing the chances that users will like the result.

<comment><USER2> This was done in the CD-ROM days, like in Myst. Customer response card claimed they liked it.

<comment><AUTHOR> What's interesting to me is whether such commentary has a positive impact on the core product by showing people just how much work went into it.

Moreover, I would like to know whether such commentary is feasible for web services. Would people find it compelling?

<comment><USER3> It would certainly be easy to make. I would favor better edited content than testimonials in front of a webcam. Those are really boring.

My intuition is that people don't care how much work you've put in.

They care if you care. They like humanized companies. They like to be entertained.

I think it could work, but show it to a few people before showing it off to the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://rockstartup.com/></comment>


Ask HN: Why does "Who is hiring" always drop so quickly from top ranks? - <AUTHOR> I sometimes notice it's ranked lower than submissions that are older & have smaller number of points. It's probably flagged a lot, but why would anyone do it?<p>You can see it happen here with the current post: http://hnrankings.info/6310234/ <comment><USER2> It's explained in the unofficial hacker news blog ([http://jacquesmattheij.com/The+Unofficial+HN+FAQ#selfposts](http://jacquesmattheij.com/The+Unofficial+HN+FAQ#selfposts)).

Basically, it seems that submits that don't include an external link degrade faster than other submissions.

EDIT: So this post too will probably go down the ranks pretty quickly because it fits in the same category.

</comment><comment><USER3> As of this moment, it's at position 27, 3 hours old, 86 points.

The article at position 4 is 4 hours old and has 78 points.

Definitely looks like flagging. The only reason I can think of is job seekers trying to hide the thread from other potential job seekers.

It doesn't help that it's posted on a Sunday morning. It should be posted the first Monday of every month.

<comment><USER4> "The only reason I can think of is job seekers trying to hide the thread from other potential job seekers."

If the expectation is that it would sink quickly, wouldn't employers stop using the service?

<comment><USER5> Even if it does sink quickly I still got quite a few inquiries when I put up a job a few months ago. I expect actual job seekers know the post is coming and look for it regardless of whether its on the first page or not.

[edit] Also for what its worth, the quality of the people that reached out via HackerNews was a lot better than I got else where (I even ran an add on reddit's /r/linux)

<comment><USER6> A method of 'stickying' posts would be great. Even if just for 1-2 days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Among the other reasons here, it also gets lots of comments. The ranking algorithm penalizes that since its a sign of a flame-war topic.

</comment><comment><USER8> While I certainly do not agree with practices such as the ones sker mentions, I do feel that Hacker News is a news site, not a job board. Posts about hiring do not belong at the top.

<comment><USER9> It only happens once a month and I find it really useful while I'm job hunting myself. If you aren't in a tech center, you have very few lines of communication into them, and the hn monthly job lists usually get more signal to noise than every other online job board.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, it's not posted so often to be an annoyance, and if it weren't for this HN thread, I probably wouldn't have spent 2 summers out of my small European country as an intern in a Canadian startup.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: GET /public/data/AppConfigurations/175/logos.png? - <AUTHOR>

Hello
Looking at the weblogs for a site of mine, I see a lot of requests for  /public/data/AppConfigurations/175/logos.png . Occasionally also some variation, like /public/data/AppConfigurations/61/shandrani-web-.png
Does anyone know what this might be? I'm curious, and google gives me nothing.
These have been happening long before the site officially launched, and as far as I can tell, the requesting hosts only do this one GET request, nothing else.
I see a few referers, like "http://es-mg42.mail.yahoo.com/" and "http://webmail.mundo-r.com/". This adds confusion, as they are Spanish webmail sites, and my site is Swedish only.
Does anyone know what this is about?
thanks <comment><USER2> My best guess would be that your domain has been used before? I also get lots of requests on my domains to files that are long gone (couple of years).

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess it's possible, but I don't think that's the case here. The domain name is just 5 characters long, but it's quite obscure; it's not a real word.

We registered both .SE and .COM in April, and I don't think either had been used before. The .COM is currently parked, I'm seeing all of this on the .SE site.

The referals I've seen appear indicate Spanish clients; There could be a mixup (Spain = .ES), but the domain name .ES isn't registered by anyone.

I don't think there's much to be too concerned about, I was merely curious what this might be.

<comment><USER3> Have you checked wayback on the domain? [http://archive.org/web/web.php](http://archive.org/web/web.php)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea I've checked .SE, .COM and .ES. Nothing.

This is why I'm confused about these requests :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


German man living at Delhi airport since March 18 - <AUTHOR> https://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi-news/german-man-living-at-delhi-airport-since-mar-18/story-VIJm8lsHTNxaws4mo99YDN.html <comment><USER2> > "While others were facilitated by their embassies concerned and were taken > for quarantine, officials from the German embassy informed the Indian bureau > of immigration that Ziebat is a wanted criminal in their country with > several cases of assault and other crimes registered against him. Since he > was on a foreign land, they did not take his custody."

This sounds highly suspicious to me. If he is a wanted criminal, I would imagine the German government is especially keen to take him home so that he can be held responsible for his crimes. It sounds to me like he doesn't want to leave for Germany and they can't make him board a "rescue flight".

<comment><USER3> Germany would be happy to have him board a flight to Germany, where he would be arrested on arrival, the problem is that there are (now) no flights at all. India is unwilling to let a convicted criminal in the country, but he has committed no crimes on Indian soil, so they're not arresting him. In a scenario like this there's very little the German embassy can do, it's not like they have their own private jail ready.

At this point, the guy is probably best off just waiting it out in the transit area, and getting a flight out to Turkey or wherever when they resume.

<comment><USER4> At what point does living in a airport become a crime?

<comment><USER5> If the airport were to "close to the public" for any reason he could be considered as a Trespasser.

Heathrow (for example)[0] has a problem with homeless people sleeping there, if they're warned by security staff and found again then they're considered trespassers, and trespass is illegal.

[0]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdAVn5JWkhs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdAVn5JWkhs)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm currently stranded in Vietnam (country, not inside the airport).

I imagine there are many people just like me. I happen to be quite lucky because in a country of 100 million, there are zero deaths and fewer than 300 cases, most of which are treated. Lots of things are open now and there are no strict social distancing laws anymore.

It all comes down to how much money you have saved and how long you can stretch it.

This article mentions one Sri Lankan passenger being taken home. I'm a Sri Lankan citizen although I no longer live there. Sri Lanka had its borders closed from March 22, but arranged flights to bring back citizens from situations like this. I can imagine Germany did the same.

It looks like this man just didn't want to leave. An airport with wifi, some shops, bathrooms and electricity, combined with the staff being kind enough to provide him with a recliner and amenities sounds much better than going to a place that he'd be eventually in trouble for his past crimes. If anything, the German consulate should forcefully take him if his criminal records are that severe, but it's their job and these are strange times to begin with.

<comment><USER7> A few hundred cases and no deaths seems...not likely to be true?

<comment><USER8> It's true. See: [https://www.thenation.com/article/world/coronavirus- vietnam-...](https://www.thenation.com/article/world/coronavirus-vietnam- quarantine-mobilization/)

<comment><USER7> I'm having a hard time believing the numbers given out. So those sorts of articles won't do me much good. I'm having trouble believing almost if not all countries numbers. So this isn't specific to Vietnam disbelief.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As someone who spent years homeless, this is sort of a hoot:

 _According to the second airport official, Ziebat has mostly spent the last 54 days reading magazines and newspapers, talking to his friends and family over the phone, eating at some of the fast food outlets still in operation within the terminal, interacting with housekeeping and security staff, taking walks within the transit area, and using the airport's washrooms and toilets. Authorities also provided him with a recliner, mosquito net, toothpaste, food and other basic essentials.

"He told officials that he can manage his expenses. He sleeps on the beds, benches, on the floors, wherever he feels like. He is alone in the transit area as it is not being used because the airport is closed for passengers," said the second officer._

Gosh, I wish my life had been that good when everything went completely to hell. Sounds fairly cushy to me.

<comment><USER10> I was wondering if he could get access to the executive lounges. I'd work hard to find a connection to get in one. Some have hot showers

<comment><USER9> That's good information. I hope he is getting access to hot showers. I think that's a reasonable request and can be justified on the basis of "there's a pandemic on and it's important germ control."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> You read these headline grabbing stories, also like the one about the couple stranded in Tahiti during this virus, or the original actual guy behind "The Terminal" movie -- and you usually find out that the story is almost always one of bad judgement combined with somewhat unusual circumstances that they aren't trying to avoid like a normal person would.

Sometimes the news tries to make it seem like they were unwitting victims who slipped through the cracks and are lost in the system. But no, they're actively acting pretty dumb too. Not much life lesson to be learned from these cases, just spectator sport.

This guy is wanted for assault, was in Vietnam, hmm? He'd be lucky if anyone wanted to make a movie out of it.

<comment><USER9> Once you get behind the eight ball for some reason, it can be impossible to get out. I don't know how to get out from behind the eight ball in my own life and I think I'm well educated, talented, virtuous and blah blah blah. It's never enough and I'm not some kind of criminal or something.

You don't know the story. Maybe it was self defense. We don't have all the details.

It would be nice if, during a global pandemic, we could not sit around being all judgy going "People fucked over as a consequence of this here global pandemic were just being idiots!"

<comment><USER12> > It would be nice if, during a global pandemic, we could not sit around being > all judgy going "People fucked over as a consequence of this here global > pandemic were just being idiots!"

Wholeheartedly agree. Humans of all stripes seem to have this need to place blame on others' failings on the person being "at fault" yet somehow their own mishaps are "bad luck." It's like the comment threads underneath lapses in security or getting phished. "Oh well, IIiiiiii wouldn't have fallen for that," until they inevitably do.

If humans were always perfectly capable of never screwing up, the entire liability insurance market would cease to exist.

<comment><USER9> _If humans were always perfectly capable of never screwing up, the entire liability insurance market would cease to exist._

Oh, it gets so much worse than that. If you are the "wrong kind of person" for some reason, misfortune comes at a much higher cost than for other people. In the US, white people generally suffer lighter consequences than people of color for the same mistakes. Men are generally judged less harshly than women for various things. Etc.

So it's more like saying "You fool! You shouldn't have done X! And, also, if you had any sense, you would have been born a different color/different gender/richer...etc"

<comment><USER13> > "You fool! ...you [should] have been born a different color/different > gender/richer...etc

Do you actually know someone in person who has said this in response to someone else's misfortune? Or are you just using the image of some random person saying this to fuel an anti-white man sentiment?

<comment><USER9> What I'm saying is that in many cases, telling someone you just should have done it differently boils down to dismissing the very real impact their race/gender/sexual orientation/whatever has on their life.

This is why we have terms like "Mansplaining" or "Whitesplaining." That doesn't mean a man or a white person simply acting like you are stupid and need it explained like you are five and then everything will work. It means that in the context of someone who is completely oblivious to the reality that when women do things exactly like men, they get different results socially and when people of color do things exactly like whites, they also get different results.

When two black men were arrested in Starbucks in Philadelphia for sitting there without ordering and asking to be let into the bathroom because they were waiting for someone they were meeting, one of the reasons it was controversial is because of the white patrons who protested it on the basis of "I've sat in here before without ordering and used the bathroom and no one ever called the cops on me."

I have zero interest in fueling anti-white man sentiment. That's absolutely not my agenda. But racism, sexism, etc are very much alive and well. Pretending they aren't is being part of the problem, not part of the solution.

<comment><USER13> > telling someone you just should have done it differently boils down to > dismissing the very real impact their race/gender/sexual > orientation/whatever has on their life.

Race and gender may still play a role, but acting like it is the determining factor in one's life is too much. People have agency over their lives, and can make choices to make their situations better. The fact that someone is white or male does not negate this. I live in rural Missouri, and there are plenty of white people who make bad decisions and hurt their prospects in the process.

Also, "whitesplaining" and "mansplaining" are really incredibly racist and sexist. You should really consider using other terms.

<comment><USER14> > but acting like it is the determining factor in one's life is too much

I did not read that at all. This is the key message IMHO:

> If you are the "wrong kind of person" for some reason, misfortune comes at a > much higher cost than for other people. In the US, white people generally > suffer lighter consequences than people of color for the same mistakes. Men > are generally judged less harshly than women for various things. Etc.

More eloquently explained here: [https://www.quora.com/Is-life-easier-as-a- white-person/answe...](https://www.quora.com/Is-life-easier-as-a-white- person/answer/Peter-Kruger)

Keyword: "easier"

No one is saying they don't have agency, but sometimes, having a headstart is all it takes for a big difference in results over the years, not to mention if that advantage doesn't go away your whole life.

Perhaps beside the point, but also some people do not believe in 'agency' or 'free will' as such, myself included. I consider myself privileged, and I'm not white.

> Also, "whitesplaining" and "mansplaining" are really incredibly racist and > sexist. You should really consider using other terms.

That we agree on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is the real reason he is stuck.

> "He added that because India did not give Ziebat a visa due to his criminal > background — criminal offences are taken into consideration when assessing > individual visa cases in India — he remains unauthorised to leave the > airport's transit area. In India, an international passenger can normally > stay in transit for just one day, and requires Indian visa to step out of > this designated space for travellers passing through the country. The > officer added that Ziebat has also not formally applied for an Indian visa."

</comment><comment><USER16> Thousands if not more Indians have been stranded all over, as government suddenly closed entry to their own citizens. Even incidents like a KLM flight being not allowed to land in Delhi because it had Indians on board. Much confusing instructions from the government to airlines. Passengers from Europe were banned, but the confusing instructions meant that passengers transiting through Europe also were banned. Then seemingly without material change in situation, now the Government is allowing flights back to India.

Also these flights are being operated at full capacity, no social distancing. People have to pay for seats beforehand too, while other countries like US only requires an indemnity bond for future payment for evacuation flights.

<comment><USER17> > Then seemingly without material change in situation, now the Government is > allowing flights back to India.

Well if a rule was unreasonably harsh you hardly need a material change in the situation to change it, do you? You can't complain that they weren't letting Indians into India, and then complain that they suddenly started to let Indians back into India.

<comment><USER18> I think that's their point. It's tantamount to admitting the earlier decision was without basis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I dont know if it's still the case but in Frankfurt some people were also stuck in transit for weeks. Their counties couldn't take them back because they weren't able to organize flights.

<comment><USER20> Yup, it's taken some people a month to get back home, and that usually involved negotiations between countries and special flights.

</comment></comment><comment> Seb-C I actually read `March 2018` at first. This is not as scary as the story of Mr Mehran Karimi Nasseri (guy who spent 18 years stuck in an airport).

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM4ZpJOAY4k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM4ZpJOAY4k)

<comment><USER21> Yeah, I was surprised that the article made a reference to the movie loosely based on Nasseri, but not to the actual story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Not related to the topic: I have Firefox set to block autoplay, nevertheless the video in the middle of this article just play when I scroll down. Is it happening to someone else? How can websites bypass Firefox configuration?

<comment><USER23> JavaScript. Web browser controls only work if the page uses the standard APIs.

Much of the reason browser's don't block simple things is that advertisers will happily write a memory-hogging CPU-hogging virtual machine to force the feature to run anyway. You can't win by trying to control what hostile code does after you let it run. Block untrusted domains from running code on your machine.

<comment><USER24> It's probably easier to run a JS script to mine crypto than a virtual machine to run a video ad though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> If he has to be stuck in an airport, the Delhi airport is a good choice. They have sleeping lounges (at least they did when I was their in 2001) where you can sleep, although with zero privacy.

<comment><USER26> That sounds like any airport then, except they put a 'sleeping lounge' sign up?

<comment><USER27> Many airports nowadays seem to be deliberately hostile to sleepy travellers, most commonly by having armrests between all seats so you can't lie down across several, but sometimes even by having staff come around and wake up sleeping travellers on a regular basis. _The Guide to Sleeping in Airports_ exists for a reason, and it rates New Delhi highly: [https://www.sleepinginairports.net/guides/new-delhi- airport-...](https://www.sleepinginairports.net/guides/new-delhi-airport- guide.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Red tape is the real reason</comment>


Testing the Grave Digger Monster Truck (2010) - <AUTHOR> https://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/features/testing-the-grave-digger-monster-truck.html <comment><USER2> The mechanical aspects of monster trucks ARE interesting, but it's really impossible for me to separate that from the fact that this is really PR for Feld Entertainment.

They're a family-held corporation famously known for owning the (now defunct) Ringling Brothers Circus... and for getting caught hiring a dirty ex-CIA official to wiretap and harassing their critics. (Clair George, an interesting guy. The highest ranking CIA official convicted - and pardoned by Poppy Bush - in the Iran-Contra scandal, among other dubious achievements.) Salon did a great series on this years back:

Part 1: [https://web.archive.org/web/20081012203919/http://archive.sa...](https://web.archive.org/web/20081012203919/http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2001/08/30/circus/print.html)

Part 2: [https://web.archive.org/web/20060203010938/http://archive.sa...](https://web.archive.org/web/20060203010938/http://archive.salon.com:80/news/feature/2001/08/31/circus/print.html)

tl;dr - the owners of Grave Digger and Monster Jam are Not Nice People. (Posting as a throwaway because of this history.)

<comment><USER3> I am decidedly not nice when you come after my family as well. This reads like gossip, what is your personal beef?

<comment><USER4> That's not "not being nice". "Not being nice" is something like saying "hmm, hi" rather than "Hey, so great to see you! You look fantastic!!" Being a thief is being a thief, being a liar is being a liar, and so on, that such things are "not nice" is a bonus, it doesn't replace what they actually are.

And unflattering truths isn't "coming after" anyone, either.

> _Over lunch, Smith recounted a campaign of surveillance and dirty tricks > Feld had unleashed on her in the wake of her 1990 magazine piece in the now- > defunct Regardie 's magazine. Feld, he said, had hired people to manipulate > her whole life over the past eight years. Feld had spent a lot of money on > it, he said. He may have even tried to destroy her marriage. In fact, > Pottker would eventually learn of a massive dirty tricks operation, > involving former CIA officials and operatives, that would target Ringling > enemies such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and other > groups, not just Pottker._

[..]

> _The final paragraph of George 's affidavit was a stunner, too. It suggested > Feld had set up a special unit, much like the Watergate "plumbers," to > destroy anyone who threatened the image of the circus as wholesome fun for > the whole family, not to mention a conscientious custodian of animals and > circus children. It was headed by one Richard Froemming, one of Feld's > executive vice presidents, George swore. His main target was People for the > Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and similar groups that had annoyed > Feld with charges that the Ringling Bros.' elephants were badly cared for._

If someone does that kind of stuff, and their family doesn't "come after them" for it, it dissed itself harder, and more long-lastingly, than any author or journalist could.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Which is the best article? This one, or [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18768630](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18768630) or [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18768626](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18768626)?

<comment><AUTHOR> They both present a slightly different perspective - one's about the human element of the sport, and the other's about the mechanical. I actually thought the mechanical might be more interesting for Hacker News, but it seems that the personal one has got more traction. Happy for either to be killed to provide more focus - I just went on a bit of a monster truck reading trip last night and submitted the ones I found interesting :)

<comment><USER6> Gotta love the language. For example:

> High-speed oversteer in a monster truck, so we're told, is about as easy to > rein in as a night in Vegas with a sloshed Lindsay Lohan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Loved the writing style in this. It pulled me along at a decent clip, kept me interested right to the end - and that's something I never thought I'd say about monster trucks.</comment>


Stackoverflow, Advertising and the Ethics of a Free Lunch - <AUTHOR> http://www.cforcoding.com/2009/10/stackoverflow-advertising-and-ethics-of.html <comment><USER2> I think I might be in the minority regarding adblockers. I have no sympathy for someone who runs a web server that serves both interesting content and ads (or indirectly requests ads from another server), but is disappointed when my computer only downloads the interesting content. If you don't want my computer to receive the data you send it, then stop responding to my HTTP requests.

I think the typical counter-argument is that somehow I have tacitly agreed to look at ads because other people have historically looked at ads on the internet. But go further back, and there were no ads on the internet. I was there in 1994, and your ads weren't. It's your expectations or the behavior of other people that have misled you, not some activity on my part.

It's true that site developers are counting on the ads for revenue-- I understand that. But I'm just not willing to pay. If the site's free, fine. If I have to look at ads, sorry, no deal. Stop responding to my HTTP requests, and I'll be fine.

Edit: I guess I do feel a little sympathy for someone who hopes to make a living off an ad-supported site, but only because I generally like people and hope their businesses succeed. I just don't find the "tacit agreement" argument compelling. (I'd be open to other, more compelling arguments.)

Does anyone know of an adblocker that negotiates with servers? Like "TCP SYN but only if no ads", "TCP SYN ACK No, you must take the ads", "TCP FIN"?

<comment><USER3> You are not in the minority, and I find it breathtakingly hard to believe that you think you are in the minority. Virtually everyone in the circles I run in (reddit, hackernews, etc.) believe the same as you. If you want a true minority opinion, read on.

From a practical standpoint, I don't care. Leeching can't be stopped and any web business obviously has to understand that. Clearly, businesses are able to be built despite leechers.

What I find incredible is that ads are really that much of a nuisance for people. I've never had the slightest difficulty completely tuning out any manner of ad. I sometimes get the feeling that folks who go out of their way to ad block are actually a little bit offended by banner ads in general. And that makes me think they're a little bit creepy. In real life, no one would repeatedly take favors from someone and not feel a certain obligation.

What I find even more incredible is the pure, uniform rationalization that comes from communities that otherwise pride themselves on their logic. Would you take a cookie from one of those cardboard vendors some office buildings have and not pay? "If they didn't want me to eat their cookies, they should have stopped me from taking one."

It's just that the "crime" is so trifling and anonymous. No single raindrop blames itself for the flood.

Like I said, I don't care about ad blocking per se. It's the collective and willful rationalization that irritates me.

(Incidentally, your edits imply that you would be willing to automaticaly be blocked from sites that serve ads. That's nice, and makes you consistent, but the vast, vast majority of ad blockers would not be willing to live with an Internet hamstrung to that extent.)

<comment><USER2> Most people that I've talked to about this (maybe 10 people?) think that it's bad to block ads on the grounds that we browsers collectively owe the content providers a means of revenue. Maybe I didn't talk to a representative sample-- I'm not sure. I generally don't hang out with many people who read HN or Reddit. But I think something like "I think granola contains meat," is a better example of something "breathtakingly hard to believe" than that I think I'm in the minority. [1]

Your example with the cardboard vendors is an interesting one. I'm not familiar with those things-- are they like an honor-system cookie jar or something? It's an interesting comparison, because I wouldn't steal from an honor-system cookie jar. Also, I think the raindrop/flood analogy is pretty good, except I totally accept that I'm part of the flood. I just don't care at all if the content providers want me to look at ads. They didn't build the internet, they didn't buy me a computer, and they didn't pay for my connection. They're trying to leverage a public good, like putting a billboard next to a highway, and I don't owe them my attention.

Thinking about it a bit, maybe it's because I do actually remember the internet before ads. It was kind of nice. If I hadn't experienced that, maybe ads would seem more palatable.

[1] I did actually know a kid who thought granola was made of meat. He was 12.

<comment><USER4> uhm, if we browsers do owe something and then all ads business shifts from pay-per-view to pay-per-click model does that mean that we will be obliged to _click_ the ads? I do not use ad-blocker (to be fair I do use clicktoflash plugin but the main reason is subpar flash performance on OS X) but I don't click on ads either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> All sorts of things about this are off:

 _Market segmentation is the time-honoured technique of asking people how much money they have when they want to buy something rather than telling them what it costs, meaning what it costs is a function of how much money they have._

What you call segmentation is actually called parallel pricing. In most digital goods and services (high capital cost, low marginal cost), these can get jumbled up.

Parallel pricing pisses people off. Segmentation doesn't.

If you are not sure exactly which one you are dealing with try to figure out the goal. The goal of parallel pricing is to maximise revenue/profit from a fixed number of sales by charging closer to the maximum people are willing to pay without losing those not willing to pay that much. The goal of segmentation is usually to sell more by giving people options that are worth more to them, or at least are better price/value-wise. Segmentation doesn't require not giving high value customers access to low value goods.

People doing A will usually call it B.

 _If the Internet has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that: 1\. Advertising pays for otherwise free services; 2\. People don't like advertising; and 3\. Advertising works._

Actually, I would argue that we knew that before the internet, now we're not so sure.

<comment><USER6> Segmentation certainly pisses people off who just need that one feature that's only available in the higher version. Think of Stack Overflow and Windows Server's memory limits; memory is dirt cheap, but Windows won't let you use it all until you pony up the extra money to buy a whole bunch of other features you don't need.

<comment><USER5> That is parallel pricing or price differentiation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 1/I don't even understand why people complain about ad blocking. It's part of the equation. Some people don't read the ads, some block it. It's nowhere near stealing.

It's like offering a "pay as you like" service and complain that people don't pay or not enough. Well, if you have a precise idea of how much you should charge then change the price tag my friend. Stop the hypocrisy.

2/A service will be more successful if it's "free". If you cannot manage to charge money for your service, it means the perceived value is not that much and you don't have a working business model.

Stop complaining. Rethink your business model. Adapt.

3/A site with advertisement is not free. In exchange of reading content I deem useful, I will read content that might lead to a business transaction in the future.

4/I might be willing to pay a small yearly fee for an ad-free service like Stackoverflow. The deal could be "if you pay a certain amount of money, you don't get ads".

5/AFAIK the content of Stackoverflow is written by people who don't get paid. It's a community web site. People feel that they own a part of the content and therefore shouldn't suffer advertisement (which is why, I guess, you get less aggressive advertisement as your reputation go up, unless I'm mistaken I have more than 3,000 reputation and don't see any advertisement).

6/People mentally block ads on web sites. There was a link about this on HN a while ago, can't find it though.

<comment><USER8> _3/A site with advertisement is not free._

Why is the mental friction of a micropayment so much worse than having to ignore (or block) ads? It's all in our heads. I think people fear micro- payments because it's something they don't know and because there is no cap. A rectangle on their web pages with obnoxious stuff they didn't want -- this they understand, so they live with it or block it.

Unfortunately, this results in the ad market being able to deliver the sub- population of users too lazy or not savvy enough to block ads, and this is _not_ the most lucrative subset!

Micropayments as Ads are very indirect and fraught with problems and ambiguities. I wish irrational emotional factors weren't blocking a well needed _Refactoring_!

<comment><USER7> Because micropayment requires me to do at least 10 actions with the hidden thought "is this secure?" whereas blocking ads is more around like three actions.

More important, when I pull out my credit card, this is exactly the same action than when I buy for 300 € worth of stuff on a web site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The only reason I see why people would complain about adblockers is rather destructive: because I have to suffer (seeing ads), everybody else should have to suffer, too. Other than that, I really don't understand - does the advertiser get his value if I see the ad even though I hate it?

Seems to me rather the opposite: since I hate ads enough to bother installing an ad blocker, seeing an ad might actually induce _negative_ feelings towards that company in me (perhaps psychology can prove me wrong, but my feeling is that ads can affect me in a negative way). Also, since I sure as hell will _never_ click on those ads, showing them to me anyway will bring the clickthrough rate of the site down. So it might also be a net loss for the site owner, who has to sell the ads for less.

Looking at an ad is _not_ the same as paying for something. It is not a productive action. By giving somebody money, something productive has taken place (I produced something to earn that money, receiver can pay somebody else to produce something). Looking at an ad on the other hand is purely destructive - my time was simply wasted, I did not produce anything in the time I wasted with the ad.

<comment><USER8> _Looking at an ad is not the same as paying for something. It is not a productive action._

The market doesn't perfectly distinguish this. If someone if willing to pay for your looking at an ad, then it _is_ productive according to the market. Hence, someone is paid. Does this reflect reality? Nothing is perfect, even markets.

<comment><USER9> I'd argue that a lot of information asymmetric enters into that. If the market knew that the ad makes me hate the company, they would not pay for it.

<comment><USER8> There's always some asymmetric information. If there weren't markets wouldn't exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What if society realigned the meaning of "free?" Some big box store might announce that something is "free at any one of our stores." "Free" can be a big draw. A lot of people will go to get the "free" item. However, to get this "free" item, they have travel to get it. In the US this probably means burning some petroleum in their car, but when gasoline is cheap enough, most people in the US don't think too much about having to get in the car. In times like that, being able to drive somewhere and pick something up without paying is effectively "free." For most people, "Free Software" works somewhat like this. It's "free" and they really don't think of what they pay for network access.

Micro-payments could work like this. If user expectations could be aligned that way, "free" could mean only for the cost of the download. (If you dig enough, for most people "free" just means: please don't make me pay more than $35 a month for doing everything I do on the Internet.)

In other words, it's all in our minds. It's all just how we think of it. Markets are a great way to regulate something ubiquitous. We'd probably benefit from market forces being brought to bear on the Internet in a more direct way.

For one thing, it would make the ad-blocking debate moot. Ads are just a very indirect form of micropayment.

</comment><comment><USER10> A couple of points from someone who works in the online ad business:

1\. People who block/remove ads are a tiny, tiny minority (right now)

2\. If you're that opposed to ads, I'd just as soon not show you one. It costs money to show it -- something like $0.00003-9/impression. That adds up.

3\. A site which doesn't perform at all -- e.g., no one clicks, all ads are blocked, etc -- will eventually cease to make money from ads and will be forced to seek another revenue model.

</comment><comment><USER11> _"... So how does a 'free' service pay for itself? ..."_

Missed the obvious of replicating the service for _foo_ (verticals) & charge for the codebase: cf <http://moms4mom.com/about>

<comment><USER12> I think this is the most important but totally unmentioned fact....I think SO is going to make its money from reselling the underlying engine. Its really quite a strange anomaly...the whole Q&A thing is not new by any means, but I must say Jeff has made the user experience so nice that I think its possible that some sites that couldn't have existed before might now be able to pull it off (its hard to build a big enough network to make a community self sustaining....good software makes it that much easier).

Yes, they have a _lot_ of work to do to make it truly vertical, and not disrupt anyone in the process, but I think thats where their real $ is going to come from.

I've sent stackexhange several emails, trying to get into the beta program early, even trying to pay an extra fee for premiere service...I am more than willing to pay the ~$1000 per month fee so I can get up and running now....but no dice it seems.

Anyways, back to the article.....really, anyone that is technical (geeky) enough that can and would block ads using a script....those people wouldn't be the types to buy software from the advertisers on SO anyways (and I'm sure the advertisers know this),,,so really, I think its just a bunch of hullaboo about nothing consequential.

<comment><USER11> _"... I've sent stackexhange several emails, trying to get into the beta program early ..."_

You had to get in pretty early to get the _beta_ badge ~ [http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/2781240756/in/set-7215...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/2781240756/in/set-72157614753445371/)

 _"... I am more than willing to pay the ~$1000 per month fee so I can get up and running now....but no dice it seems. ..."_

Having said that why not build an alternative?

<comment><USER13> I supppose because it would cost more time and money to build an alternative of the same quality from scratch?

Seriously though, three people was working on that site almost full time for more than a year now. That's about 600-650 workdays. A decent junior developer (the cheapest programmer who could possibly do it) earns at least $200 a day. That's $120000 worth of wages. Which means, you will have to use this software for more than 10 years to justify writing an alternative, and we haven't even considered any additional future development.

<comment><USER14> Then, don't start from scratch:

<http://code.google.com/p/soclone/>

<http://github.com/cnprog/CNPROG/tree>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Advertisers are paying on the _expectation_ of return. And that expectation is based entirely on contingency. They have no claim at all on the public's co- operation. Have they paid the public to watch the ads? No. They merely expect that they will.

But of course those contingencies can change, such as with use of ad-blockers. Anyone who uses ad-blockers is perfectly free to do so. And the advertisers have no 'right' whatsoever to complain.

For a commercial organisation to feel affronted that its customers don't do what it wants is, at the very least, complacency.

If a community wants to agree to fund something, let it do so clearly.

</comment><comment><USER16> I don't mind ads in general, but in Stackoverflow's particular case I find them ugly, jarring, and out of place.

It does not make for a very pleasant browsing experience in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER17> If you are trying to suggest where I can get a product I want, then I want to see it. If you are trying to infect me with mind-viruses or slap my face with offensive content or waste my time, then I'll block you. If I can't tell when I'll get the good or the bad, I'll block you.

Consider it a Darwinian selection pressure.</comment>


Happy 30th birthday to GCC - <AUTHOR> http://shape-of-code.coding-guidelines.com/2017/03/22/happy-30th-birthday-to-gcc/ <comment><USER2> A side note: this historical recap references the 1997 fork and points to my note announcing it. At the time, forking was considered a deep disaster; this fork led to the current "fork often culture."

One important activity at Cygnus was _eliminating_ forks. People would make a local, non-portable change and then distribute the result (with source, thank you GPL!). At one point John had collected over 30 different version of gdb, which he eventually managed to wrangle into a single distro.

So when gcc development ground to a halt, and I realized we had to split off, I spent months on the phone with various key developers, and with rms. All the other devs were frustrated with what was going on, but feared a fork. The result we came up with wasn't owned by any one company (we had no interest at Cygnus in making a "proprietary" fork, whatever that would mean) but had a committee and developed a more formal process.

Of course later developments like git allowed much much finer forking granularity.

LLVM has been great for gcc. gcc development had slowed down IMHO and got better faster in order to stay ahead. These days I do a lot of compilation with LLVM first, switching to gcc for some different diagnostics, better standards conformance and cases where it generates better code (I'm using a mainline language, C++ on mainline CPUs, x86 & ARM, plus CUDA). I suspect I'll finally give up gcc in a year or two.

</comment><comment><USER3> From Wikipedia:

 _In an effort to bootstrap the GNU operating system, Richard Stallman asked Andrew S. Tanenbaum, the author of the Amsterdam Compiler Kit (also known as the Free University Compiler Kit) if he could use that software for GNU. When Tanenbaum told him that while the Free University was free, the compiler was not, Stallman decided to write his own.Stallman 's initial plan was to rewrite an existing compiler from Lawrence Livermore Laboratory from Pastel to C with some help from Len Tower and others. Stallman wrote a new C front end for the Livermore compiler, but then realized that it required megabytes of stack space, an impossibility on a 68000 Unix system with only 64 KB, and concluded he would have to write a new compiler from scratch. None of the Pastel compiler code ended up in GCC, though Stallman did use the C front end he had written._

 _GCC was first released March 22, 1987, available by FTP from MIT. Stallman was listed as the author but cited others for their contributions, including Jack Davidson and Christopher Fraser for the idea of using RTL as an intermediate language, Paul Rubin for writing most of the preprocessor and Leonard Tower for "parts of the parser, RTL generator, RTL definitions, and of the Vax machine description."_

It reminds me that the success of Stallman's free software movement is in no small part due to Stallman being an incredibly talented programmer...Emacs or GCC alone and separately would probably be enough to put him in a hacker pantheon.</comment>


India's Call-Center Talents Put to a Criminal Use: Swindling Americans - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/03/world/asia/india-call-centers-fraud-americans.html <comment><AUTHOR> I've gotten a few of these calls. I have to admit there was a brief moment of concern when they said they were from the IRS. Then I realized that they would probably send me a letter in the mail instead of call me randomly. The language and words used in the conversation were also a bit "off". It's sad to see that some people fall for this enough to send money....

I feel like technology can help here. If we had a consistent way to dealing with the US federal government - a one-stop-shop online portal for example to pay taxes, manage social security, get a new passport - maybe such fraud would be mitigated.</comment>


Ask HN: Angular or React? - <AUTHOR> What are some key points that will help in picking one over the other? <comment><USER2> This article compares both on various parameters like complexity, packaging, templating etc. [https://www.airpair.com/angularjs/posts/angular-vs-react- the...](https://www.airpair.com/angularjs/posts/angular-vs-react-the-tie- breaker)

<comment><USER2> If you ask for my opinion I liked the modular architecture of angular but react is lot simpler to understand and work with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> VueJS</comment>


You can not buy ideas or talent - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2566-you-can-not-buy-ideas-or-talent <comment><USER2> The title is false.

Here is why their style works:

We read the exaggeration and translate it from 37Signals to the reasonable thing we expect they are trying to say. For example, he might be saying:

* "Buying ideas/talent rarely works out"

* "Buying ideas/talent only works if you pay with culture"

* "Buying ideas/talent can't work if the buyer is big"

So when we encounter a 37Signals post and generally disagree with it, there is easy fuel for our side of the argument. Those that agree with the general idea get to argue for their favorite interpretation of what they must be saying.

The imprecision and tone creates two sides maximally equipped to have a stupid internet discussion.

<comment><USER3> Thank you. Couldn't have said it better.

37signals is becoming one of the most accomplished trolls on the internet. The first (non patent) corporate troll? Surely they can't be, but I can't think of another.

The sad thing is, they have interesting things to talk about. But today, just like yesterday, they go for the cheap thrills of a spicy headline over having a substantive discussion about things that are important.

In the short term, this generates pageviews and, potentially, sales. In the long term, it just makes them look like schmucks. Through the tone of their blog, I've gone from having a decent opinion of 37signals to being entirely unwilling to ever work with or for them. They just seem more like zealots than they do fun guys.

Is alienating tech professionals really the best strategy for their business?

<comment><USER4> Have you ever met them in person? I've met Jason and David and they're both smart and understand nuance much more than their style of writing conveys. I've developed a mental filter with for their titles that turns absolutes into mostlys, so "You can't buy ideas or talent" turns into "Buying ideas or talent is rarely successful". "Acquisition Condolences" becomes "Sometimes a big payday includes a soul-crushing earnout where you lose your work environment and your product dies".

Joel Spolsky wrote once about how if you're going to make an airtight argument, it takes so long to list all the caveats that all the power is out of it.

<comment><USER5> Having to apply a mental filter like that is tiresome. I'd rather just skip it.

<comment><USER6> Personally, I find that it's the same mental filter I apply to just about any discussion outside of academic subjects. Very few of the people I know bother to use qualifiers like "usually," "often," etc. Those are just understood.

<comment><USER7> I'm an academic, and I rarely use absolutes such as 'always' or 'never' (this sentence being a good case). It's just so ingrained in academia that there are very few absolutes, and that there are almost always edge cases. As such, I refrain from making those statements...

But that doesn't make it any less tiring... my mental output filter requires a decent amount of effort to keep going and makes things more verbose...

<comment><USER8> In fact, since there _are_ so few absolutes, both in and out of academia, it should be taken as a given that any time someone uses one, they are using it as a figure of speech; to actually come to their true, basically-now-jargon meanings of universal quantification, the speaker must add further words. It's basic Huffman encoding: the figurative use occurs much more frequently, so it gets the short means of expression.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Dreaming. If you can snap up a team of smart developers for $1M cash each + $200k/year salary for 4 years, that can have a large impact on your product road map.

Say you're, for example, Apple looking to push out iOS 4.1 for iPad, and you acquired a Mac dev studio of 30 talented people for $60M - that can have a large impact (eg: bring forward your road map by 6 months) for the next few years.

Another example might be Facebook acquiring FriendFeed, Brett went on to be CTO - are you seriously saying that isn't a talented and valuable acquisition for that talent? $50M is a drop in the ocean for companies turning over billions.

Also saying ideas/talent can't be acquired when they took a "minority private equity investment" from Jeff Bezos for:

> ... the wisdom of a very special entrepreneur who's been through what we're > going through. Someone who sees things a little differently and makes us > feel right at home

If you're looking to create, say, a payment platform (Facebook Credits) maybe it makes sense to get the talent that has created a similar product (eg: TipJoy)

Also Apple acquiring NeXT and Steve Jobs becoming CEO and transforming the company - sure there was tech, _but you know ..._

<comment><USER6> While I agree that the post overstates DHH's point, the Bezos investment isn't relevant. The first line is "When it comes to acquisitions..." He's talking about businesses being acquired, not a minority investment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Yes you can, but you have to do it right. Apple bought SoundJam and turned it into iTunes. Google bought YouTube, and that seems to be working alright thus far. Amazon bought Zappos, and they haven't been relegated to the dust bin.

"As soon as [the talent has] to deal with three layers of reporting, quarterly budget cycles, and swing-door managers, they turn off the creativity and head for the exit."

True, but here is a novel idea: don't make your prized acquisition deal with that crap. Yeah it'll require significant work to get it to be a good relationship, but if both parties can pull it off, it can be hugely beneficial for everyone.

Look, I know 37s really likes to paint acquisitions as black and white, but they just aren't.

<comment><USER11> I don't know about SoundJam, but I'd argue that Google and Amazon bought the brand names YouTube and Zappos. Google wanted the 'eyeballs' attached to YouTube to sell more advertising. Amazon certainly has a big enough retail infrastructure that they could have just started selling clothes on the main site.

<comment><USER11> Where 'brand' translates to 'customers' in the context of the article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Yet another black and white, egotistical, all-knowing piece of shit post on SVN. I used to be inspired by this blog, but now it's just so much drivel.

<comment><USER4> If you've been a long time reader, then you've probably grown and matured to where you understand and appreciate nuance, rather than just needing the jolt of heavy-handed inspiration that their opinionated pieces provide.

I'd bet that their titles and articles from 2 or 4 years ago were just as aggressive and link-baity.

<comment><USER13> Not really. Back then, they weren't looking for cheap controversy, their posts actually contained good content and were reasonably named. Just from a random look ...

[http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/3_ways_to_make_money_with...](http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/3_ways_to_make_money_with_your_software.php)

[http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/confidence_in_people_proc...](http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/confidence_in_people_process_and_purpose.php)

<http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1324-beware-of-future-creep>

I agree with 'nkohari', SVN blog has turned into a self-promotional, douchey piece of shit, existing solely to generate traffic/signups for their webapps, and providing very little actual value.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Here is a great example to the contrary:

"How do you retain startup employees long after an acquisition? Rackspace acquired Webmail.us in 2007, and today an astounding nine out of the ten original employees including the founders are still at the company and going strong. Can you believe that?" \- Bill Boebel, Rackspace VP-Strategy

[http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/6405?return=/ideas/in...](http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/6405?return=/ideas/index/7/category:/presenter:boebel/category):

<comment><USER15> _Can you believe that?_

The Fact that it is presented as being hard to believe should tell you a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Aquisitions are not about buying ideas or talent. They are about buying decisions. Decisions are some of the most expensive thing a large company can make in terms of time. A large company aquiring a startup is purchasing a set of decisions, both internally and in their customer's mind, that has moved that startup to the point they are at aquisition. If the acquisition is made when the startup is moving into a repeatable business model then the aquiring company can transition the startup into a mature business using the operational and finance expertice that a large company brings. If the startup has not yet found a model then the startup's normal pace of decision making will hit the corporate wall and it will fail.

(I added this comment to the svn comments too)

</comment><comment><USER15> I see a lot of comments critical of the generalization, which I suppose is fair, but misses the point.

Generalizations and stereotypes are usually based on a truth. Simply pointing out that a generalization is in fact that does not make it untrue, and it most certainly does not provide enough of a reason to discount the concept in a meaningful way.

You guys are caught up in the fact that 90 is not 100 and extending that to assume that 90 is either not true or not important.

It is on both counts. It matters little whether 90 is 70, 80, or 100 in matters that aren't exact science. If you have some sort of point to make that 90 is in fact 20, then please, make it (I've yet to see one).

Otherwise you add little as a counter to this article.

<comment><USER12> I don't think anyone is debating the point that it's _possible_ that acquisitions can end up this way. But even putting aside the hyperbole and absolutism that's shown in this article, I challenge the claim that acquisitions go poorly more times than they don't. My guess is that for every public flameout, there are a hundred acquisitions that end up positive for everyone -- you just don't hear about them, because saying "everything went better than expected" isn't interesting as a news item.

<comment><USER15> That's rather easy to challenge but at the same time very difficult.

All I have is anecdotes directly, but from being on both sides of 4 acquisitions total, it has been true 100% of the time. Not a single founder/c-level leader has remained from the bought company over five years. Often, significant turmoil was present prior to that final departure.

This has been such an observation to me that I would strongly suggest that if you were to be on the buyer's side you should terminate all staff from the acquired company as soon as feasible, thereby making either a customer or "idea" purchase. This is exactly what DHH is saying.

On the other hand, acquiring a company and letting it live "as-is" I suppose is a viable alternative; better accomplished by just investing in the company itself though.

The benefit of acquisition is control, and it is a waste if you aren't going to exercise that control. I have never seen control exercised by the purchaser that is always, 100% completely inline with what the decision making of the acquired.

That means a clash is an inevitable certainty, so DHH's point is accurate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think it is a great post, and having been through the process, it is absolutely accurate for me and speaks volumes. The fact that there are exceptions to the rule only reinforces the rule. Nothing is absolute, except for the predictable reaction of the people who will attack anything they can come up with a counter example for, usually involving Apple or Google (or some other one in a billion type exceptions).

</comment><comment><USER18> Tell that to Cisco. They practically built the whole dang company on talent and idea acquisition.

</comment><comment><USER19> Ruminations on acquisitions by people who have never been on either side of one?

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm sorry, but does anyone else feel like their blog posts are filled with sweeping generalizations? I also noticed their use of "it turns out", sneaky little bastards.

They seem to write a LOT of opinionated blog posts recently that I just disagree with completely.

</comment><comment><USER21> Let's make a 2d matrix with 4 cells. The X axis is small company, large company, and the Y axis is successful product and failed product. Products hop about these boxes all the time. Large companies sell off divisions or spin off products, small company products vanish and even large companies have turned around failed product lines. This piece seems to assert that the transition from small company / successful product to large company mostly results in failed products. Are there any numbers to suggest a higher failure rate than any of the other transitions?

</comment><comment><USER22> I will happily sell ideas.

</comment><comment><USER23> Android

</comment><comment><USER24> It has been working pretty well for Microsoft. A large portion of their products were bought along with the developers. They were able to develop them and turned out huge product success.

</comment><comment><USER25> Since we don't have slavery it is literally true that you can't buy talent; but renting seems to work perfectly well for most companies.

</comment><comment><USER26> And by virtue of 42 comments and counting, 37signals wins again...

</comment><comment><USER27> Hells yeah you can. Deliver integer (integer >1) multiples of my salary and you can hire my talent tomorrow. And if you're interested, I know a group of people that built systems that work at enormous scale, probably only shy of the G and better than Y. Make the same offer and you can probably get any of us. Especially if the integer is greater than two.</comment>