Ask HN: How does a Jr. to Mid-Level programmer find work? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a senior Computer Engineering student and I have 2 years of experience working as a Software Developer, mostly J2EE. I've been looking for work for a couple of months and it seems to me that most of the work out there is for Sr. Level/Ninja/Guru people and I'm finding it hard to find a new place for me to grow with. Has anybody here been in a similar situation? How did you do it? <comment><USER2> Spend some of your time building something real. Nothing demonstrates that you can perform like envisioning, building, and launching a product that real people are willing to pay real money to acquire.

It doesn't have to be particularly big or complicated, either. Just proving that you can accomplish the aforementioned tasks will go a long way to getting you through the door.

<comment><USER3> Nobody outside of HN cares if your software makes money. They just want some proof that you can write code. Being able to show working code at an interview puts you in the top percentage of candidates; most have clearly worked on interesting projects, but can't show you anything they have done. This makes hiring them a big gamble.

Another thing that helps is knowing something other than Java and Oracle, or whatever other combination of brand-name technologies is popular this week. A team I work closely with is trying to hire a Java developer. They got 50 resumes, most of them "meh". Nobody was really exciting. This is probably because after reading 48 resumes, you are not going to be in a good mood, so even if someone is really good, you are not going to notice.

Conversely, they also needed another Perl developer. They got one resume, and the guy was awesome. It was easier to spend time on him since he was the only applicant, and being the only obviously qualified person to apply is good for your odds.

The other team is thinking of changing the language requirement from Java to Scala, since people that know to put Scala on their resume are more likely to have a clue, and it will reduce the applicant pool enough to spend time talking to everyone on the phone. Plus, who wants to do a Java project when you can do a Scala project instead? ;)

Anyway -- working code + unusual skills == you getting the job.

<comment><USER2> How is "your software makes money" not an "unusual skill"?

Plus, I care. If the business I'm applying to for a job doesn't care, it'll probably reduce my interest in them.

Let me give you a strawman scenario: I walk into an interview at a startup that just landed its Series A round. I'm interviewing for a position as the chief products guy or the CTO or something. The interviewer across the table from me says "You spent a paragraph of your resume talking about the business you built from scratch into a $200k/year revenue source. That's not very interesting; let's talk about this cool IOCCC entry of yours from last year, instead."

I'm going to assume that the interviewer (likely the founder or a co-founder) is probably an idiot for dismissing a significant accomplishment of mine and focusing instead on something that is—relatively speaking—quite trivial, and that his priorities are totally off. My bozo bit's been flipped, and there's not a chance I'm going to want to work with this guy. He's going to spend the next 18 months burning KPCB's million-plus stake on architecture astronaut'ish goals that have nothing to do with solving real problems and making real money. I'm going to shake his hand, say 'no thanks,' walk out the door, and go have a pint. (bear in mind, this is a strawman).

Please note that I'm not a Perl guy, so I can't speak for you or Ingy dot Net or Larry Wall. I'm a 'business guy' who happens to have a Computer Science degree and writes his own code.

<comment><USER3> Sure, but startups are an unusual case. Very few programming jobs are for startups. Most are for established companies that already have the business side down; where you are going to be too far away from "the business" for your experience to have any use. They need programmers that can add features in such a way as to avoid needing 50 new QA testers and overnight support staff. "Architechture astronautics" are fine; the company has plenty of time and money to invest into better solutions than whatever would put out the fire right now.

I've worked at small and large companies, and this has always been the case. The business was already well-established and does not really need help from the programming team. The programmers just need to craft extensible and clean solutions that solve the current problems and the anticipated future problems.

Startup experience wouldn't count against you, but neither would being able to run a marathon. The reality is that neither skill will be particularly useful. Being able to prove that you've written software, however, _is_ a useful skill.

(People on HN seem to think that "good software" == "software that makes money", but that's not necessarily true. Good software products made money because of good marketing, good customer support, and general good business skills. The actual code quality varies. Ever use Windows? Yeah.)

Also remember that the OP is applying for a "junior developer" position, and I am answering with respect to that. CTO is very different from "junior developer".

<comment><USER2> Posting a question to Ask HN suggests a predisposition towards startups.

I've worked at small and large companies as well, and I've always been well- rewarded in job interviews and in the positions themselves for exactly what I'm describing. It's good to hear that two very different people can succeed in this business, just don't try to call BS on what I've found to actually work. I'll agree to refrain from the same.

<comment><USER3> _Posting a question to Ask HN suggests a predisposition towards startups._

Why? I am a pretty well-known contributer to HN, and I have approximately 0 interest in startups. Since the word "startup" was never mentioned by the OP, I have no reason to assume he is interested.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The big companies like Google and Amazon are hire lots of entry-level people, since they have the time and resources to train them. It's a decent way to get experience if you can get it. (My first "real" software engineering job was at Amazon.) The interviews are tough and there's a strong chance of getting rejected even if you're good; follow the other advice on this page and also study up on both CS theory (algorithms, complexity, networking, OS/architecture) and programming practice.

</comment><comment><USER5> Work on an opensource project that fits into your area of interest. Build up your expertise in all areas of development, especially your ability to work with a distributed team of developers. Learn debugging skills (they don't teach this in school).

Support people (users and other developers) on mailing lists and forums related to the project you're working on as well as the areas of technology that you have some experience with (note, you don't have to be an expert, just interested). Work on your page rank, so that when someone searches for you on the web, they see several pages worth of problems that you helped someone fix. For this same reason (among others), never be rude or overly sarcastic on a forum. Be helpful, and if you can't be helpful, be attentive.

In the course of doing all this, you'll sometimes come across people who work at companies looking for young hotshots (hint, that's you) or reliable developers (hint, that's also you) or an experienced programmer with an eye on customer satisfaction (yep, you again). Don't ask them for a job, but hint to them that given the right conditions, you may be open to a more permanent technical exchange.

Now if you're active enough, you can get this all done in a couple of months. When I graduated from college, my resume already had two pages of projects that I'd played a primary role in. This helped.

</comment><comment><USER6> The other advice about doing something open source or building something you can sell is great and all, but it's March and you're a senior which means that you're probably looking to land something in the next 3-6 months, which isn't a lot of time.

In that case, your answer is: _network_!

I've seen so many qualified candidates get passed over for someone equally or even marginally less qualified because they had an inside line on the position. It's probably too late to do much networking at school (i.e. joining clubs, etc.), but the thick part of conference season is just getting started. Get a student rate to something while you still can (JavaOne seems to have been free for students in the past...not sure what Oracle plans for this year, though). I'm guessing that your 2 years experience has come from internships, so that would be a good place to start too. They might not have been your ideal place to work, but they'll give you a paycheck while you plan your next move.

If you are going to work on an open source project, pick one that's sponsored by a big name company (i.e. not an academic project or start-up). No matter what the project leader asks you to help with, _do it_! If he says they need work on documentation or fleshing-out the test suite, don't complain. I know it's not sexy work, but when the project leader gets a req. to hire someone, he'll know that you're someone that can be counted on to get the job done.

Finally, learn something new. I recently saw a very qualified developer get passed over for a job not because he didn't have the skills listed in the job offer, but because he didn't show an ability to work outside of his set of core competencies. Since you're new, nobody is going to hire you based on expertise. Your secret weapon will be the fact that you can learn whatever new skill or technology it is that the hiring manager needs next. In other words, you probably want to branch out from Java (it's a skill area flush with "experts" and hiring managers who are only looking for people who can spit out code quickly).

</comment><comment><USER7> I was just in a similar boat (got an offer not too long ago!) and I think there are 2 important components:

1) Show that you are passionate and driven, which it seems you already have with your experience. Other ways could be get an iPhone or Android app out on their respective marketplaces so you can provide hard numbers (# of downloads, $ made, etc.). Contributing to OSS is always a good way to spend your time as well, but only if you really care about the project.

2) Make connections. This can be rough but a few things I've found can make it a lot easier. I've gotten a few really good leads through Twitter actually. Follow enough people from a company you'd like to work for and eventually one of them will mention something about openings. Another good avenue is going to technical talks (most universities hold a few of these a month, maybe more frequently). Go up and talk intelligently to the speaker and if they are accepting resumes definitely provide your best. The main thing is have someone inside the company turn in your resume for you. This informal referral or recommendation is huge. I read a statistic that only 1 in 20 online applications result in a face to face interview, those aren't great odds and being denied a lot is sure to affect your morale. Getting someone to turn in your resume is a sure-fire way to hear something back from the company.

</comment><comment><USER3> Learn on your own and hang out in the social circles of other programmers.

Help answer people's questions on SO or irc. Learn the other JVM langauges. Learn about tools that J2EE people like, such as Maven and Hudson. Learn algorithms. Present at conferences.

Do this, and people will find you. Last time we needed to hire someone, I visited my favorite IRC channel, said "anyone want a job?", got a privmsg, and had the person interviewed in person and given an offer in just a few days. (A few because the weekend was in the middle.)

What you want is a friend who will talk you up to the people making the hiring decisions. What you don't want is to be another boring resume in a 50-resume- deep stack.

</comment><comment><USER8> First two jobs were networking, remainder were through recruiters or online ads (note, this is quite unusual). For reference sake, my first job was at a company I had interned with, and my second job was due to me ending up at my soon to be bosses house for a swing dance lesson the week after my resume had crossed his desk. When you are just starting, it's all about catching the right peoples attention from the hundreds to thousands of resumes that they see.

Suggestions:

Figure out where you want to look, and what the hot technologies are. In the Philly area, if you can demonstrate knowledge of Spring and Hibernate, you'll get far more offers then not anyone not having it.

Network: Join the local JUG, IEEE, etc. The more people you know, the better.

Volunteer: Something to add to your resume, and you'll get to know more people.

Read: Grab "What color is your parachute?" out of your local library. It's a great starting point for any job hunt.

Most importantly, keep at it. Actively job hunt and program. Sitting around playing games and randomly commenting on the internet are far less likely to connect you with the people you need. Do something that you can add to your resume.

</comment><comment><USER9> Anecdotally, the company for which I work (big financial research company, fortune 500) really likes people with 2-4 years of professional experience and has been having a hard time finding them.

Talking to our HR people, the majority of programming candidates they see are either fresh out of school with zero professional experience, or they're consulting refugees (Avanade, IBM, etc) with 10 years of experience who are just going to bolt as soon as the consulting industry recovers.

Honestly, two years of real world experience and willingness to take a junior position makes you kind of a commodity.

Are you not getting to the interview stage? If that's the case, I would echo what the others say, check craigslist in bigger metro areas.

If you're getting to the interview but not getting offers, well, that's another Ask HN in and of itself.

</comment><comment><USER10> Be willing to relocate. This is the single biggest factor. If you're not in a tech-hub you'll find it a lot harder to find employment as a developer at any level.

Where abouts are you based at the moment ?

<comment><USER11> Tricky. I'm in a similar position (3.5 years of info sec background) and I'm willing to work anywhere in the entire world. The problem becomes interviewing; nobody wants to fly me out to Amsterdam.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've had luck applying to positions that were looking for more senior devs but was something I was interested in. My current job came that way. Looking for someone with 7 years, I had 3, but I also had built projects in the same space and was actually a really good fit. Fresh out of school I got an interview the same way for a small company looking for 10+ years experience.

Just say "hey, this is me, this is what I've worked on that you'd be interested in, I'd like to interview. If not, hold on to my resume"

</comment><comment><USER13> There's all sorts of levels of skill in the market. You need to demonstrate your skills first - either an open source project or host an SVN with some example code. There is no harm in writing a place looking for a senior dev, they often have other openings. I hope you're already checking dice.com ....

</comment><comment><USER14> You should consider contacting "head hunters" / employment agencies. They will match your skill set with client's budgets. If you have two years experience, you should be able to find something that way, even though I agree that senior level developers are the going thing right now.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks everybody for the insights, I really appreciate it. I have this idea for an app I'm gonna build it and see what happens :P. In the mean time I'll change my resume a bit so that it emphasizes the stuff you guys pointed out.

</comment><comment><USER15> Honestly, it helps to know someone who is looking to hire.

Persistence/experience/credentials are important, but without a personal connection the job market (in any profession) is a crap-shoot.

My girlfriend had a similar situation (she's not an engineer), she finally managed to get a job by doing an internship, all the while applying to a ton of jobs. (Of course all of them were looking for 5+ years experience and a masters).

She was rejected a lot and it was demoralizing for her.

But what paid off were the personal connections that she made during the internship and interviews (she made a good name for herself), eventually one of her acquaintances gave a colleague her resume (who then offered a job).

I'm not really a people person, so I know that this can be a difficult road for us introverted folk, but I think the best thing to think about is 'where can I meet people who would be looking to hire someone like me'.

Then go to those places, meet those people, and get them on your 'team'. Eventually you are a proven commodity and are able to get something.

</comment><comment><USER16> The answer is persistence. Check Craigslist/eng/ in all major metro areas - chicago, nyc, sfbay, austin, lax, wdc. Email promising job ads daily. Post your resume on craigslist, especially in SFbay, weekly, and alternate with other metro areas. I would be shocked if you did not get at least a few promising leads after a few weeks of hitting up the craigslist rotation.

in the meantime, code up something cool, and post it on HN. Then in your signature or whatever, mention that you're looking for work.

<comment><USER17> I was in a similar situation just two years ago -- newly minted college graduate, didn't have a CS or related degree, trying to find work based on a couple of programming classes I took and a meager handful of outside projects. I used Monster, recruiting firms, and Craigslist to get work; surprisingly, the two jobs I've landed in Austin were both the result of Craigslist posts, and I couldn't be happier with my current position.

Just keep at looking for open doors, and work on independent projects when you're not actively engaged in job hunting. In my personal experience, the projects don't need to be exceptionally unique and amazing -- find something that's a manageable size, and prove that you have the chops to see something through to completion with solid code.</comment></comment>


Microsoft Delivers First Update to the Windows Technical Preview - at-fates-hands http://winsupersite.com/windows-10/microsoft-delivers-first-update-windows-technical-preview

<comment><AUTHOR> Does anyone know if they fixed the "bug" in Windows 8.1 where your mouse can get stuck on the border between monitors when moving left to right?

Happens a LOT to me. Like it is trying to open the charms bar but without the charms bar appearing. Only way to fix it is to move away from the left border and count to five, then try to move across again and it normally works.</comment>


`new-component`, a CLI utility for quickly creating new React.js components - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/joshwcomeau/new-component <comment><AUTHOR> [Author here!]

I made this for my own use, since I was sick of creating the same files over and over. It occurred to me that others might find it useful, so I released it

That said, I haven't really tested it on other machines, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated. PRs are even more greatly appreciated; I would love for this to become a community project.

</comment><comment><USER2> It would be cool if this automatically created components set up to be compatible with inferno and preact as well</comment>


Taking the challenge to work the polls - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@paulglenn/taking-the-challenge-to-work-the-polls-61a3bb70e44e <comment><USER2> I also volunteered in my area to work the polls. Very rewarding work watching democracy take place. Please consider volunteering for the 2020 elections!</comment>


The Dark Side of Dark Mode - <AUTHOR> https://tidbits.com/2019/05/31/the-dark-side-of-dark-mode/ <comment><USER2> >There's an obvious caveat to the comment about the human eye preferring dark objects against a light background. Apart from a few exceptions like fire, lightning, and bioluminescent fireflies, almost nothing in the natural world emits light. In our modern world, however, screens do emit light, and quite a lot of it.

This for me is the crux of dark mode and is where this post falls flat: devices are just simply a different beast. They aren't newspapers or photographs, they are lamps with a color profile hotter than the Sun, and we should treat them differently. That's especially true of mobile devices, where being used before sunrise/after sunset is typical.

It's not the same, but it reminds me of how we think and talk about color (additive versus subtractive). Finger painting as a kid you learn that mixing the three colors — Red, Yellow, and Blue — makes black, but play with a computer and you'll learn that the three colors — Red, Green, and Blue — make white. It's a different system because, simply put, it's an entirely different system.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. This article is frustrating because, while yes I do in general like black text on white background, I definitely do not when the background emits hot white light into my eyes.

Strangely, the same can be true for plain old fashioned paper. The other day I was outside and had to look at a paper. Plain, white printed paper with black text. The bright hot sun reflected off of the paper and I couldn't see anything. A darker shaded advertisement however was easy to read.

So it's all relative. In my case I just prefer not to feel bright light blinding me, so I spend most of my time in dark mode editors/etc. My biggest complaint is that websites don't let me choose. I really wish OSs would start enforcing _full_ dark or light modes as an accessibility feature. As I wright this, my HN screen is quite bright. I frequently flip between my dark editor and my bright Slack work screen. Those bright flips kill me.

<comment><USER4> A lot of properly old fashioned paper is a very long way from white, and much more friendly for reading in the sun. Brilliant white bleached paper in even paperbacks seems quite recent, requiring use of sunglasses. Most of the books I remember from 70s and 80s - and I still have many - were much lower contrast, even in expensive hardbacks or heavy glossy art papers.

On desktop I prefer black on white, on phone white on black - but I would generally prefer tuning both down to lower contrast than either OS or websites want to let me. On my laptop I have the darkreader addon that lets me turn contrast down. My phone gets to stick in inverted accessibility mode as a part measure that is the nearest I can get. :( I've never yet had a smartphone that let me set display as I'd like - either on Android or Apple.

<comment><USER5> Has book paper actually tended more white recently than in the past? I have a lot of older paperbacks that are quite yellow these days, but I always assumed they started out that same brilliant white and yellowed over the years to their current state. Interesting to hear that they might have started out more yellow in the first place!

<comment><USER4> Like ajross mentions the cheapest paperbacks started out quite tan or greyish, had quite a rough texture, then faded to even more yellow quite quickly.

The nicer hardbacks and art stock were often more a milky or creamy white, occasionally a more neutral hint of grey. Definitely much whiter than paperbacks, but I think most would be a few steps from the hard brilliant white most often seen now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Every article like this ignores the fact that Dark Mode is a fantastic accessibility feature if you have a vision impairment that results in ghosting/blurring/light-sensitivity. Features like "Dark Mode" are not about brightness, but contrast.

I'm all for giving people the option. Assuming everyone is able is a crux of UI/UX design.

<comment><USER7> You mentioning that reminded me that iOS and macOS don't have a high-contrast mode like what Windows has had literally for decades.

<comment><USER8> What do you mean by "like what windows has had"? iOS and OS X have an accessibility setting to increase contrast, but maybe that's different from how you expect it to look.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Writing code in a dark mode for as long as I can remember, I thought that I'd always prefer light text on dark background when reading text on a screen, but eventually I realized that I prefer dark text on light background for almost everything, _except_ reading code. I like using syntax highlighting and for me colorful text on a light background, no matter the quality of the color theme, is harder to read than the inverse.

<comment><USER10> I do too — probably because most of my early coding was done over telnet / ssh and those almost always have white on black text.

Agree that colored text contrasts better on a black background too.

<comment><USER11> The reverse is probably why I have always preferred light-mode color schemes - I got my start with VB6 and then VC++ 6, where everything was black on white or black on light grey.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Dark mode isn't popular because it's hip, but because it's used. Apple follows tredns here, not set them. The reverse assumption in the article makes me doubt the rest.

I don't trust results that say black on white put less strain on their eyesight and general congnitive stress, because I've personally consistently felt different. At best it depends on surrounding both backgrounds and light sources.

<comment><USER13> >Apple follows tredns here, not set them

CD Drives and USB Ports beg to differ

<comment><USER14> OP said "here" => "in this case"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is silly. Dark mode isn't about marginal differences in speed-of-visual- processing. It's about reducing eye _strain_ , which is a different thing. My eyes physically hurt less when I'm using a dark theme. I really couldn't care less if my brain takes an extra few milliseconds to process what I'm looking at.

<comment><USER16> It's also about information density. The brain can discern so many different shades of color if they're not all washed out by a blinding white background. Or any lighter-than-the-text background.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> We evolved with dark objects on a light background, therefore dark mode is bad for your eyes? Wat?

That argument makes no sense. It's like saying we evolved to walk barefoot, therefore shoes are bad for you.

Just because we evolved a certain way, doesn't mean that's the best way to do things.

My hypothesis is Dark mode is less light, and less light is better for your eyes.

But until there are scientific studies on the topic, who knows.

<comment><USER18> Shoes are indeed bad for you. They are good for you NOW because all your life you've been walking on shoes.

If you were walking barefoot all your life, you'd have strong feet, as evolution wanted.

Low light condition is actually awful for your eyes. I can use drive without glasses in the morning, but at night I really need them, because our eyes are designed for day light conditions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > The human eyes and brain prefer dark-on-light, and reversing that forces > them to work harder to read text, parse controls, and comprehend what you're > seeing.

If you've ever had an eye injury or been visually impaired and had to use a computer screen, you'll know the author is just plain wrong here. Absolutely amazing the author cites zero studies dealing with visual impairment.

My anecdote: injured my epithilium in both eyes, almost went blind; looking at a computer screen produced unbearable pain that was only marginally tolerable in dark mode. Developed new empathy for visually impaired people.

</comment><comment><USER20> The author lost me as soon as he/she compared dark mode to green screen crt. Do you really think the green crt was a design decision?? It was the balance of cost to performance that 1970s tech allowed.

As for the other points, its largely subjective but I have dark mode enabled in every app that will support it. On windows, I run the experimental build so I can have more complete dark mode support, and enabled the half baked dark mode in sql server management studio. All my IDEs are set to dark mode, because eye strain is a thing and for me at least dark mode is much easier on the eyes.

<comment><USER21> As soon as there were raster CRTs, there wasn't much of a technical reason for light on black. Continuing with this was probably more for tradition and aesthetical expectations ("the gloom of the monitor" and a certain kind of heroism, which goes with it).

Personally, I don't think there is an ideal solution to match all scenarios. There are some applications, where light on black may be superior, and others, where it's the other way round. Empirically, for content-heavy, lengthy text we had a few trends for light on black in the past (e.g. "cool web design" in the late 1990s) and reversed from this soon each time. For an example, I much prefer reading HN comments as-is as compared to a hypothetical dark mode UI.

<comment> cbm-vic-20 > As soon as there were raster CRTs, there wasn't much of a technical reason > for light on black.

This isn't entirely true; many CRT-based terminals have phosphors that dim slowly. If they used a black-on-light color scheme, the letters would be washed out a for a lot more time than light-on-black. Light-on-black hides other defects more (like a not-quite-centered horizontal and vertical hold) and may possibly use less power (since the electron gun is off for more time).

<comment><USER21> However, this is true for both modes. It's quite possible to imagine a world in which we had become accustomed to ignoring washed out dark on light, just like we became to ignore ghost images and trails. (Also, early LCDs were terrible at this, but somehow acceptable.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I used to have perfect vision - I could see an amber LED display the size of an A3 sheet showing the time from 100m away. And remember preferring dark mode then.

Now that my vision has somewhat deteriorated with age and I use glasses for driving during the night, I find dark mode annoying and blurry.

My take is that it boils down to this.

</comment><comment> 1e-9 There is a significant physiological advantage to black text on white background. A bright background causes your pupil to constrict, which reduces the active area of your lens focusing light onto your fovea. Using less lens area reduces the affect of any lens imperfections, which results in a sharper image. If your lens is nearly perfect, you likely don't notice a difference. If you have significant imperfections, the difference is probably very noticeable.

Edit: The effect is similar to a pinhole occluder used by an ophthalmologist to test your eyes without the affect of refractive errors from imperfections in your eye lenses. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinhole_occluder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinhole_occluder)

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't believe the (recent) move in customers for requesting dark mode in pages, programs and apps allows for that broad statement:

> Vision research has shown that humans prefer dark-on-light.

There are obviously quite many humans who don't. Even if it's scientifically better or god knows what.

I do that. Prefer light-on-dark. Everywhere. I want to paint it black! It's not a hip, style thing. I'm not hip or stylish. I just hate the white and as a day moves on, my hate for that becomes greater. And yes I know about the programs that make your screen brightness lower. I have it on my home PC (and I don't like the yellowish tone...but it's better than nothing I guess). I can't have it on my work PC.

<comment><USER24> If I look at a white background I get eye strain and headaches. And if I look at a co workers screen while standing I can't read the text. But with dark background I don't get eye strain and headaches.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> first they argue that the MOAD and Xerox' Smalltalk pioneered dark-on-light after years of the reverse, then they argue that actually it's because vision- psychology. Well, which is it? Because there's no way the MOAD and Smalltalk chose dark-on-light because of visual perception research. Smalltalk's choice was probably motivated by a desire to make the UI look like paper (Xerox being in the paper business). Same with Apple's original Mac. At the time everyone's UI was paper so this familiar UI was important to replicate to sell.

It also ignores the fact that we've had light-on-dark mode for ages: blueprints and microfiche, blackboards and granite tablets

I mean, the Rosetta Stone is light-on-dark

</comment><comment> _o-O-o_ I especially love the way you can create a dark-mode CSS stylesheet with something as simple as:

        @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {

        }

</comment><comment><USER26> Well, it's subjective.

For me personally light interfaces make my eyes hurt.

Dark themes are, for me, without questions MUCH easier on the eyes, irrespective of what this article claims or the science says.

Dark mode is a choice. You don't have to use it. I really hope the choice is preserved and extended into as many interfaces as possible.

Just because YOU don't find it easier on the eyes (article author), does not mean that is true for everyone.

If I was using a light theme in Sublime Text, or Office, or Terminal, I wouldn't be able to last very long in the workday....

</comment><comment><USER27> This is a very narrow argument, it's well know how much eye strain is caused by staring into a full screen LED all day. A darkmode allows concentration and focus over longer periods without strain that completely outweigh any reduced focus due to slightly worse perceived contrast... not to mention how much better rested you will be after using darkmode before bed.

</comment><comment><USER21> Dark mode has certainly a "cool" vibe to it. It reminds me much of when light text on dark (mostly black) background was the hype for cool internet pages in the late 1990s. Incidentally, this trend ceased to be much of thing over the course of a year or so – for some reason.

</comment><comment><USER28> "Attention, Axiom shoppers. Try blue! It's the new red!"

</comment><comment><USER29> Dark Mode looks nice to me at night, but I don't particularly care for it during the day. I save myself the hassle by having a Launch Agent automatically switch between the two around sunset and sunrise.

</comment><comment><USER30> Personally I find light-on-dark to be much easier on my eyes over the course of the day, and especially at night. With light-on-dark, I can turn the screen brightness up higher without it hurting my eyes.

Regarding the "dramatic new look" angle, what I find hilarious about this is remembering the vaporware that was MacOS Copland. My family had a Centris 610 and a MacUser magazine subscription. I was so eager to get that HiTech dark mode that I installed Kaleidoscope and Dad was Not Happy.

Apart from the nostalgia of being a kid with a computer customized to the point of dysfunction, there is a sense in which Mojave is a realization of Copland's visual ambition, offering an alternative hi tech theme that takes a step away from the original desktop and paper metaphor.

Interesting article on Kaleidoscope that I found while googling for an example screenshot: [http://freshmeat.sourceforge.net/articles/learning-from- kale...](http://freshmeat.sourceforge.net/articles/learning-from-kaleidoscope)

screenshot: [http://pcdesktops.emuunlim.com/pictures/ss/hitech.jpg](http://pcdesktops.emuunlim.com/pictures/ss/hitech.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER31> Am I the only one who would prefer to just use f.lux's "Darkroom" mode (red on black, basically) for coding at night / in the dark? Doesn't kill my night vision. Of course you have to switch all of your apps out of "Dark Mode" or you'll just be starting at giant blobs of red.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm pretty sure Light Vertigo has never been trendy.

Tons of folks have used Dark Mode browser extensions for years to stave off the nausea from bright white layouts (and overly-lit rooms!). For us, the widespread adaptation of Dark Mode has been a God-send. Turning down brightness and contrast only works so far.

</comment><comment><USER33> I have Dyslexia and have always found light on dark background easier to read. I used green screens (amber even) and like everyone I went to the "light" side as GUI's became a thing. But I always kept my xterm with black backgrounds.

At one point I read an article about dark backgrounds helping dyslexics read better. I tried it on Kindle and in one year read 6x as many books as the year before, it was like someone had transformed me with a magic wand, I could read and enjoy more of what I was reading.

I haven't figured out a good way to get dark mode on iOS nor css hacks for dark mode HN. I did find a way to hack dark mode into Slack and Jenkins and those were amazing changes for me (and quite a few of my team).

I worry that people think Dark Mode is a fad, to me it's a gift and I hope the trend continues.

</comment><comment><USER34> Many of the studies mentioned in the article were made with CRTs. I wonder whether peculiarities of CRT are to blame for these results. Phosphor has non- linear response and limits ability to have sharp, thin white-on-black lines.

</comment><comment><USER35> Dark mode is not only about reading text, it is also about (the interface around) viewing images or videos. I'll take a performance hit in reading some numbers on my banking app if it means not being flushed with white light in between watching images or videos. I haven't tried (extreme and perfect) adaptive brightness, this may be a solution too. But it should work pretty close to perfect in a very dimly let room if it is to prevent squeezing eyes when suddenly being hit by a completely white interface while keeping things legible.

</comment><comment><USER36> I really like white-on-black dark modes. They are somehow more pleasing than the other way round. There's a problem with all dark modes, though. If one is using laptop running on battery juice and needs to prolong the battery time, then conserving battery with low screen brightness makes reading the dark modes really hard. Hence I've ended up using multiple crucial apps like IDEs with black-on-white themes as they are more readable on dim laptop display. Annoying but better compromise than writing code without laptop, haha.

<comment><USER37> This is why OLED displays are so nice. They have much better battery life with a dark background.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> One interesting trend I've seen is amongst Keratinous (uneven thinning of the cornea, causing bubbles) patients: they overwhelmingly prefer light mode on screens. The reason why is fairly straightforward - the additional light constricts the pupil, making the text sharper, leading to less eye fatigue.

For this reason, I know a few of us tend to get annoyed when _only_ offered dark modes (or half-baked light modes - looking at you, Discord).

</comment><comment><USER39> Based on my research, light on dark is actually better for you when you're staring at an array of lamps all day. With OLED screens you would also be saving energy.

The one thing I do agree is that contrast is king. You should also always have night mode/redshift enabled and choose palettes that use low energy colors to reduce eye strain.

</comment><comment><USER40> In a dark environment, I strongly prefer "dark mode"

In a bright environment, I strongly prefer "light mode"

The author here does have a point, but I'm not advocating for a world where we choose one over the other in every case. I appreciate designs that support both, because each has it's own advantages and disadvantages.

</comment><comment><USER41> I used to prefer dark mode because it reduced all white light. But then I realized that I don't have an issue with white light, just the blue light spectrum in white light.

I have switched to light mode but with a heavy blue light filter and find it much better than dark mode on my eyes.

</comment><comment><USER42> While I was reading this post, I found the bright background was straining my eyes, so I turned on my dark-mode browser plugin, and then I found I could continue reading more comfortably.

</comment><comment> Funes- Fully functional e-ink displays with a good refresh rate and color-capable are the solution: lower power consumption and better for our eyes. I'm looking forward to that.

<comment><USER16> The youtube channel Technology Connections and its #2 channel is doing a series on this right now. The potential is exciting, but the reality of how little development is going into the area is disappointing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> > Vision research has shown that humans prefer dark-on-light

This is what bugs the ever-living shit out of me about this type of research.

A study may well have been done that shows a majority preference by humans for dark-on-light.

But unless the study showed that _every_ human studied had that preference, it _doesn 't mean_ that all humans prefer dark-on-light.

Going from "the bell curve is a bit skewed to dark-on-light" to "vision research has shown that humans prefer dark-on-light, therefore light-on-dark is bullshit" is the thing that bad science journalism does, and it's a blight on humanity.

<comment><USER44> In terms of productivity, I'm probably like the average person. I probably do better with dark-on-light. I do know with certainty that light is much more comfortable if it's not fff white. A light grey or a light beige (f6f6ef) is infinitely more comfortable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Why can't apps properly separate interface from implementation and let people make the app look however they want? Maybe I don't want dark mode or light mode. Maybe I want the background bright orange and the text florescent green. I'm the one using your app on my device, it should look the way I want.

Seriously, why isn't choosing the text and background color of apps and websites a standard, simple thing?

<comment><USER9> Because just providing config options for text and background wouldn't be enough. Most apps use more colors than just background/foreground, meaning those other colors should be configurable as well.

Allowing users to configure all colors, would be in conflict with apps that use colors as part of some brand identity and for apps where this wouldn't be an issue, I guess most developers decide providing complete customization of colors is not worth the extra development time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I have a serious eye pathology and I hate you, guys. Really, dark mode makes it possible for me to work.

</comment><comment><USER47> Most of the comments here seem to be gripes with the article, claims that dark backgrounds on light-emitting screens are better etc.

I wholeheartedly agree. My first computer was a FreeBSD terminal in my dad's office closet. Black screen, white text. Glorious.

Now, can we _please_ get a dark theme for HN?!

</comment><comment><USER48> For me, dark mode is largely a battery-saving measure. Especially with more OLED screens coming out on mobile devices, you can save a lot of energy by having some of your pixels completely turned off</comment>


Reasons to Start a Company in Britain - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2012/07/09/five-reasons-why-britain-may-be-the-best-place-to-start-a-company-in-2012/

<comment><USER2> Great read!</comment>


Show HN: Blupee – Ethereum, OmiseGo and ERC20 API/SDK - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/fogonthedowns/blupee <comment><USER2> are you building a payment gateway for crypto currency?

<comment><AUTHOR> OP here! Blupee is an Ethereum API that abstracts web3, ABI and contract use. There is no USD-ETH exchange, but you will be able to exchange coin-coin for gas price ~15-20 cents.

This also solves the issue of secure wallet hosting (we never know the password), and management.

The best use case is those that have deployed a smart contract and would like to easily enable others the ability to use your token.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the best growth hacking tools? - <AUTHOR>

Startup growth hackers in the HN community, what tools do you use? (preferably free/open source) <comment><USER2> If you decide to build a house, would you start by asking, "What are the best construction tools?" Probably not.

Start by defining what it is you're trying to do. Are you trying to get more visitors to sign up for a trial? Are you trying to lower the bounce rate on your homepage? Are you trying to get more lifetime value from your existing SaaS users? ...

A list of tools won't help if you don't know (or don't specify) what you want to do.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think this question is too vague to be answerable.

Enterprise SaaS for example is going to be entirely different than a game for iOS.

<comment><AUTHOR> good point, I meant what are good growth hacking tools for startups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not open source but Colibri is pretty nice. [http://colibri.io](http://colibri.io).

Also check out [http://iwantgrowth.net](http://iwantgrowth.net) for potential websites where you can find more resources.

</comment><comment><USER5> For startups, we have a handful of growth hacking resources here:[https://globality.be/tools?tags=Growth+Hacking](https://globality.be/tools?tags=Growth+Hacking)

</comment><comment><USER6> I use Mixpanel. It's really powerful and has a nice free tier from which you can test things out.</comment>


Clones of the Apple II - <AUTHOR> http://tedium.co/2017/05/04/apple-ii-clones-franklin-vtech/ <comment> TD-Linux I still have my grandparents' Franklin Ace 1200. It's actually quite a beast for an apple II+ clone, fully loaded with 64k of RAM and two disk drives. It also comes with the fastest CP/M card available. Unfortunately, it uses the capacitive Keytronics keyboard, which was a rather tedious repair when the foam degraded after 40 years. Its serial card is too old to be compatible with the Super Serial Card, and has a bit of a funky ROM, so I had to write some custom scripts to bootstrap ADT, and hack ADT itself to support the card: [https://github.com/tdaede/franklin-tools](https://github.com/tdaede/franklin- tools)

</comment><comment><USER2> I had an Apple ][+ clone. It wasn't a brand name one or anything, it was purchased as just a logic board with no parts. I guess you could think of it as a bootleg PCB. My dad brought it home one day and said, I'll show you how to build this and when you're done you'll have your own computer. I still have it :-).

<comment><USER3> Your dad sounds like he is/was an interesting guy. I try to build memories like that with my children.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _" Surprisingly, it wasn't a PC clone-maker that forced the question, but one making Apple II machines."_

There were far more cloners than mentioned in the article. My second computer was a Apple][e clone shipped in parts from South East Asia mixed in a consignment from Rockwell Collins.

The cost, that magical $2000 dollar mark.

The parts were re-assembled and that's what I used from High School into my early Uni days until I started using PCs, punchcards and Vt100/Mainframe to learn programming. With a Z80 card, 80 Column card money was made off this machine spitting out resumes via a dot-matrix printer and a large supply of spooled paper. If I remember correctly the shell was a direct clone of the 2e chassis. The operating system was a direct clone. Most of my software was cloned and that's were I learned how to program 6502 machine language to interface with hardware. [0]

Reference

[0] Marvin L. De Jong, _" Apple II Assembly Language"_ [https://www.amazon.com/Marvin-L.De- Jong/e/B001H6SRHE/ref=dp_...](https://www.amazon.com/Marvin-L.De- Jong/e/B001H6SRHE/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1)

</comment><comment><USER5> Growing up in Brazil, my first computer was an Apple II+ clone made by CCE. It looked a bit like the Franklin and had a couple interesting enhancements (like being able to switch between a more NTSC-like mode and PAL-M) over the II+.

My first actual job was programming educational games for the platform.

Apple II+, //e clones were popular machines in Brazil, with at least a dozen local manufacturers (the US-sponsored dictatorship prohibited computer imports). They were largely superseded by MSX machines at the home and PCs at the office.

<comment><USER6> I still have a Atari 2600 clone from Brazil with some very nonofficial looking multicartridges for it. Seems to be late '80s though, long after Atari stopped making them.

<comment><USER7> According to Wikipedia Atari manufactured the 2600 till 1992!

<comment><USER8> Older consoles often get used in developing countries for quite some time since they're much cheaper (typically at least one console generation longer than the US).

IIRC Microsoft only shut down Xbox 360 production very recently, because it was still selling well in South America. The Playstation 2 had a similarly long lifespan, I think production was just shut down a couple years ago.

<comment><USER7> Also the Atari 8 bit series of computers (introduced 1979) was selling in Eastern Europe well into the 90s.

<comment><USER5> They were great game machines. They had no SID, but the graphics were way ahead of what you could do with a C64.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I actually have always wondered what the "alternate universe" would be like if Franklin had won the case. Do you think that software patents wouldn't be abused? Do you think another kind of abuse would form in its place?

</comment><comment><USER10> I had a Hong-Kong made II+ clone which reported itself as "V.S.C. 1203" on power up (top line of the screen, where you'd see Apple ][+ in an original).

Only meagre Google result for searches related to this:

[https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/200492012/](https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/200492012/)

This is apparently a digitized archive of some 1984 issue of a newspaper from Burlington, Vermont, in which a classified AD mentions an "Apple II Clone made by VSC" which might be the same manufacturer.

[https://books.google.ca/books?id=uC8EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA9&ots=IF...](https://books.google.ca/books?id=uC8EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA9&ots=IFVy0E5mpw&dq=%22VSC%22%20%22Apple%20II%22&pg=PA9#v=onepage&q=%22VSC%22%20%22Apple%20II%22&f=false)

InfoWorld 1983, full page ad by some company lists a VSC-002 Apple II clone.

</comment><comment><USER11> The USSR had Apple II clones called "AGAT". I don't think they had been used outside "computer classes" in schools. The only original software I recall had been a Russian keywords educational programming language so I figure there had been no industrial applications intended for them.

</comment><comment><USER12> My first computer was a Franklin Ace 1000.

Up until he died in 2005, my Dad still used it for printing address labels, and for running software he'd written in BASIC. I finally had to get rid of it when I moved house a few years back.

</comment><comment><USER13> A high-school friend and I sold some GraFORTH animations to dealers of the MicroEngenho I [0] Apple II clone in Brasília in 1982/1983\. They were crowd- pleasers and attracted lots of attention at trade shows. GraFORTH was awesome, I used it to explore math, did floating-horizon hidden-line f(x, y) plots before I knew it was a thing.

[0] [https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_Microengenho_I](https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_Microengenho_I)

</comment><comment><USER14> When our Commodore 64 died, I wanted an Apple II or clone to replace it. Instead my father bought a Commodore 128 and 1571 drive. I had my eye on an Apple IIc because I had a friend with it. Franklin Ace and Laser 128 models were available as well.

When I went to college in 1986 I bought an Amiga 1000 from Commodore with the PC Transformer 5.25 inch floppy drive. It had the C64 and Apple II emulators but for college I focused on DOS and the PC emulator.

</comment><comment><USER15> I did ERP (Fact ERP from New Zealand company Fact, later acquired by Geac and then Infor) implementation at VTech at the end of the 80's at their HQ in Taipo district in Hongkong. Later bought a Laser 128 from them to play with. Had always wanted an Apple II after learning to code BASIC on one at high- school in late 70s. Great memories reading this article.

</comment><comment><USER16> Don't forget the Bell & Howell Apple ][, the "Darth Vader" model:

[http://shrineofapple.com/blog/2011/11/15/apple-ii-plus- bh/](http://shrineofapple.com/blog/2011/11/15/apple-ii-plus-bh/)

<comment><USER17> Which is explicitly mentioned in the article along with a link to someone's YouTube video of theirs, in high-contrast white on red text.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Before the big Apple IIe order, my high school bought one of the Franklins. For all the trouble, they didn't any money if time counted. It glitched a lot.

It would have been an interesting history, if instead of cancelling the II line, Apple had kept shrinking it and reducing its price.

</comment><comment><USER19> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_II_clones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apple_II_clones)

</comment><comment><USER20> They forgot to mention:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITT_2020](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITT_2020)</comment>


Ask HN: Becoming a programming tutor, any advice? - <AUTHOR>

Hello,
I was thinking of offering my services as a programming tutor in my local area (Bristol, UK). I haven't quite worked all the details out yet, but I was wondering if any of you had any advice on how to go about it. I don't even know if there is any interest for it yet, but I plan to start small and do it in evenings and weekends and see what happens.
I think that I would mainly be targeting beginners of any age, but perhaps also university students. I would either teach Android development, or just a language (C, Java or Perl).
Has anyone here done something similar? Is there anything you wish you knew before you started? <comment><USER2> I considered doing this myself but didn't for a few reasons. I have tutored math (college level) for sometime now and it has proven to be quite lucrative at times. I don't do it much anymore but in college and my early-career time frame (when I usually needed money) it was great.

The primary reason tutoring math is better than comp sci (IMO) is the following: In all levels of schooling and in practically every domain, math is required whether you like it or not. Computer science is not.

I chose upper level math because of the types of rates I could charge. It's very common to get clients who have high paying jobs who also need tutoring in math. For example, a nurse who wants to sit for the GRE to get into grad school will probably need help in math because math wasn't a primary focus area when he went to college 3 years ago. That same nurse probably makes a lot of money and can pay you well (Especially if you show that you made an extremely high score on the math section of the GRE.)

Computer Science isn't required in most walks of life so so you'll automatically reduce your clientele to mostly just students. Furthermore, they'll be the smartest of the students (engineers, comp scientists, physicists, etc..) so there won't be many to chose from. These kids didn't go into these fields cause they're bad at learning from their teachers... They also are reasonably savvy at looking up a free tutorial online. Worst part of this is the fact that most of that group will be broke. If you're looking to make money at this, you need a steady stream of people who can pay. This demographic will not result in that (my experience only. yours could be different).

This is not to say that you should tutor math. It's to say that you shouldn't tutor comp sci. All this changes if you're doing this for fun/volunteering. I mostly just tutor younger friends/family members now for free. There are definitely worse ways you could spend your time.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have not tutored but I can offer you my experience from being tutored. My classmate tutored me in C++ last year. He was part of a peer tutor program at my school.

Things I liked:

       -Flexibility in hours to meet up

       -Signing up for a certain amount of hours (keeps the
        commitment there)

       -Being patient with me

       -Answering my questions without speaking over me

       -He asked me to prepare specific questions or code to go  over before we met up

       -Before the first session, we talked about specific goals I wanted to achieve

Things I didn't like:

       -It was hard staying on topic sometimes because we were also friends

Good luck with your tutoring business!

<comment><AUTHOR> Lots of good points, thanks. Signing up for a block of hours is a good idea, I hadn't thought of that.

<comment><USER3> Your welcome =)

Btw, the standard at my school is to do 5 hours as sign up, then do one hour tutoring sessions (and sometimes the odd two hour session). It's kind of nice so you have a commitment and people will be more likely to show up and continue tutoring than waste their money and your time waiting for them to show. Once again good luck with everything, I'm sure you will be successful since you're planning this out well!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have tried teaching programming and here are some things I would suggest other than the usual stuff:

\- Do not assume that just because _you_ think a topic is simple, it will be simple for your student to understand. Remember you have done this thing many times over the years. So _now_ it seems trivial to you but probably not to your student who has never done it before. So be patient and go slow.

\- Everyone learns differently. Figure out what works for _that_ specific student and use it to your advantage. If you user is a writer who wants to learn how to program, try and use some references to writing if you can when explaining a concept.

\- Focus on the negative cases. Teach a specific concept (say pointers in C or vector in Java) not just by showing an example program that works. Teach it by breaking the program and showing how the compiler/interpreter etc. behaves when something does not work the right way.

\- Try and use pictures/diagrams to illustrate a concept if necessary. For example, pointers can really be explained well if described in pictures where you show the address, the value etc. and how they are related. For example, when you say int * p, what really happens.

\- Teach them how to "design" a program for larger programs. For example, I was taught to use nouns and verbs where nouns _usually_ become class. Something like that. But knowing how to design an app is very important in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER5> Hello, fellow Bristolian!

Most of the advice I'd give is already here. All I can suggest is that you tailor your lessons towards a certain goal. For example, if you were teaching Java to a struggling student they may need strengthening in certain areas of OOP to solve their specific problems. A guy in my old CS class at UWE got some outside tutoring because he was struggling with designing his classes and the person that taught him gave him a generic run-through of how to write Java instead of aiding him with his problem, whereas an hour with a TA managed to resolve his misunderstandings.

</comment><comment><USER6> Just one tip from someone experienced in tutoring/training others (non- technical skills): _Be very patient_.

Whatever you might think how easy something is, your view is blurred by years of experience. A beginner will take far longer than you expect him to take for any given task

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that's a good point. It's easy to forget how much of your "Common sense" is actually years worth of experience.

PS * or her

<comment><USER7> He is almost certainly being used as a neutral pronoun in this context.

<comment><USER6> thanks for the support :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What startup/tech podcasts do you listen to? - <AUTHOR>

I have a 30-45 minute commute each morning to work, and I'm looking for podcast suggestions. I typically listen to most of the 5by5 and TWiT podcasts, but I'm looking for some suggestions. Entrepreneurial podcasts are especially welcome. Thanks! :-) <comment><USER2> I'm addicted to This Week in Startups: <http://thisweekin.com/thisweekin- startups/>

Jason Calacanis has some real world empathy for entrepreneurs having been in the game since the web 1.0 era in NYC. His interviews and insights can be great, I often find myself reaching to write things down as I listen...

<comment><USER3> #1 This Week in Startups.

#2 This Week in Venture Capital

#3 Mixergy

All three are hit and miss. The best episodes of each are equally great because it's usually the interviewee that makes or breaks it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Killer Innovations - a pretty good listen for ways to look at problems and keep innovating

Automate my Small Business - to hear interesting ways to put parts of your bis on auto pilot

Manager Tools - to learn how to manage the team you are building

NPR Planet Money - to know what is happening in the economy and how it might affect me and my bis

</comment><comment><USER5> Mixergy interviews are great to listen to. Not sure if they're still available on iTunes, I simply download the mp3's from the website as I like to pick and choose.

Note - most interviews are about an hour long so you'd have to listen to them over 2 commutes.

</comment><comment><USER6> <http://ecorner.stanford.edu/podcasts.html>

(they cover a much wider range than web tech though; some of their biotech and clean energy ones are particularly good)

</comment><comment><USER7> +1 for This Week in Startups/Venture Capital and Mixergy.

I'm also a long time listener of This Week in Tech/Google with Leo Leporte. Buzz Out Loud and Today in Tech are also good daily tech headline podcasts.

</comment><comment><USER8> Mixergy is incredibly valuable. I've started interviewing people in the markets I am hoping to serve and realized how much people want to share and how much an entrepreneur can benefit.

</comment><comment><USER9> I love <http://iamstarting.com/> for covering Indian entrepreneurs- it's a 30 minute talk a week.</comment>


Barbies. A Response to "Why Women Don't Code" - <AUTHOR> http://mirihyman.com/index.php/2018/06/21/barbies-a-response-to-why-women-dont-code/ <comment><USER2> James Damore did not write a 'sexist article'. Anyone can read what he wrote and also listen to him explain his thoughts. He doesn't write or say anything that is intentionally anti women in tech. His motivation for writing in the first place seems to be because he wanted to be helpful in some way, then people threw him under the bus, which seems to be what you are doing now.</comment>


Scientists Make Type-2 Diabetes Breakthrough - <AUTHOR> https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/excited-scientists-make-type-2-diabetes-breakthrough-with-first-ever-glimpse-at-how-protein-behind-disease-works/ <comment><USER2> got weird ads on the site.</comment>


U.S. Amasses Stealth Jet Armada Near Iran - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/04/armada-masses-near-iran/

<comment><USER2> More "run-up" to another middle east war? Given the population of Iran, it's hard to imagine that the US could invade, conquer and rebuild, even without Iraq and Afghanistan going on at the same time.

Also, who pays for this one?</comment>


Elasticsearch Based Image Search Using RGB Signatures - <AUTHOR> http://sujitpal.blogspot.com/2016/05/elasticsearch-based-image-search-using.html <comment><USER2> For anyone interested in the computer vision side of this topic, the author here is using a variant of color histograms, which was state of the art around 1990 [1][2]. Since 2003, bag of visual words approaches have usually meant extracting SIFT-like features from a database of images, quantizing the features down to a list of thousands or millions of "words", and then treating the images like documents containing those "visual words" [3][4]. (Nothing wrong with the approach he's using [simple and fast], but the bag of words terminology in the article usually suggests a different class of approaches.)

[1] [https://staff.fnwi.uva.nl/r.vandenboomgaard/IPCV/_downloads/...](https://staff.fnwi.uva.nl/r.vandenboomgaard/IPCV/_downloads/swainballard.pdf)

[2] [https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/dana/Swain1.pdf](https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/dana/Swain1.pdf)

[3] [http://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~vgg/publications/papers/sivic03....](http://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~vgg/publications/papers/sivic03.pdf)

[4] [http://www- inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs294-6/fa06/papers/niste...](http://www- inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~cs294-6/fa06/papers/nister_stewenius_cvpr2006.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Forgive my ignorance, but is there something like word2vec but for images- like an image2vec? In terms of text processing, word2vec is one of the best approaches. So can't you describe the features of images using neural networks and then vectorize them using word2vec?

Its been acouple years since my computer vision course (was my favorite course in university) but isn't SIFT a bit '99? Aren't there better methods now such as neural networks for feature description?

<comment><USER4> Recent research in deep manifold traversal may interest you [1]. This method uses deep neural networks to approximate the manifold of natural images, learns transformations that traverse the manifold from one image class to another (i.e. from images of young people to images of old people), and then allows you to transform any source image into a new, automatically-generated image by mapping it to the manifold and performing the transformation. So, for example, the paper's authors learn the transformation from images of young people to old people, and then are able to generate realistic-looking images of the celebrities with older facial features (as well as darken hair colors, change skin tones, and even colorize black and white images). This is somewhat analogous to the way that word2vec vectors allow you to do things like queen = king + (man - woman), with an image's projection onto the approximated manifold being analogous to a word's word2vec vector.

[1] [http://arxiv.org/pdf/1511.06421v3.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1511.06421v3.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My "Ghost in The Search Machine" talk builds a really naive image search demo (which Sujit uses for his starting point). You might enjoy that:

[https://www.elastic.co/elasticon/conf/2016/sf/opensource- con...](https://www.elastic.co/elasticon/conf/2016/sf/opensource-connections- the-ghost-in-the-search-machine)

</comment><comment><USER6> If you're interested in searching photos with ES - I took a some what simpler approach focusing just on major colors in the image.

But with some of the machine vision API google cloud etc. you could extend to other "features"

Details: [http://blog.sandeepchivukula.com/posts/2016/03/06/photo- sear...](http://blog.sandeepchivukula.com/posts/2016/03/06/photo-search/)

</comment><comment><USER7> In my [limited] experience with CBIR and image based search, I found that using a color space with perceptual spatial qualities (such as one of the CIE LaB variants) to be more effective than a purely normalized geometric color space (such as RGB or HSV), as color similarities in the latter may not make much sense to a human.

</comment><comment><USER8> I have put quite a bit of similar effort to image retrieval using Elasticsearch before. While it is nice and convenient, what I found was that Elastic Search is too slow for larger scale (million of Images with dictionary of millions visual words in BoW model). May be there're some steps that I did not do right, but I gave up.

</comment><comment><USER3> Really cool. But maybe its just me, aren't butterflies kind of hard to distinguish between each other. I feel as though his search result page- i couldn't really tell if it was good or not because they all looked kind of similar shape-wise. Only difference is color and even then its fairly little color.

<comment><USER9> The strategy does seem to assume a highly normalized set of images that only differ in color and contour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Another open-source implementation using a similar concept and Elasticsearch is image-match: [https://github.com/ascribe/image- match](https://github.com/ascribe/image-match)

</comment><comment><USER11> Does anyone have a solution to this where the input (search) is also a vector as opposed to a single color, but would still allow for exact color matches?

Bucketing means that you can't get the granularity of a specific shade of a color.

</comment><comment><USER12> I wonder if pHash wouldn't make this a lot more effective. Anyone tried building an ES-usable distance function for pHash?

<comment><USER13> Hello, author of the post here. Thanks for all your valuable comments. I noticed that there was some talk about neural network driven models. In my follow up post to this one:

[http://sujitpal.blogspot.com/2016/06/comparison-of-image- sea...](http://sujitpal.blogspot.com/2016/06/comparison-of-image-search- performance.html)

I describe how I use transfer learning to generate image vectors for my butterfly images from the Caffe reference model trained on ImageNet. There are some other approaches too, but probably not as interesting to this audience.

@GrantS - thanks for the intro and the links, and for pointing out that I was using BoVW incorrectly. Not an image person, trying to get into it from a search/NLP background.

@infinitone and @deckar01 - I measured the goodness of search by checking how many times the query butterfly was the #1 result. I agree its pretty hard to distinguish butterflies from one another, but I needed something to work with, and that was as good as any. I did not want one that crosses subject areas, such as flowers and cars, so a search for a red flower might bring back a red car.

@chrischen - if you got rid of the bucketing portion in my pipeline, I think you might achieve what you are after. But if you are only looking for exact match on color, then hashing might be cheaper.

@rcarmo - thanks for the reference to pHash, I think it might work better in near-duplicate detection kind of cases. Will check it out.</comment></comment>


If I hear one more entrepreneur complain I'm going to puke - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupottawa.com/?p=3164 <comment><USER2> The click-through is the real source of info:

[http://inoveryourhead.net/maybe-you-should-just-stop- being-a...](http://inoveryourhead.net/maybe-you-should-just-stop-being-a- fucking-pussy/)</comment>


Luna visual programming language beta release - <AUTHOR> http://www.luna-lang.org/# <comment><USER2> Duplicate: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16163769](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16163769)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm looking for visual language that does not require ability to read (except, say, knowing numbers 1 to 10). Does anything like this exist? I looked at Spark but that doesn't fall in to this category.

The idea is as follows: Devices like tablets and smartphones are naturally usable by 4-year old with minimal and even no instructions even if they can't read yet. Is there a visual programming language that can be implemented on such devices that is usable by just 4 year old?

<comment><USER4> Scratch requires only a very basic understanding of terms, and has been widely extended, as in translated to many languages and perhaps completely visual versions have been made.

Here's a link to the base project → [https://scratch.mit.edu](https://scratch.mit.edu)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=luna&sort=byDate&prefix=false&...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=luna&sort=byDate&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=last24h&type=story)</comment>


Solar Powered Vehicles-is it possible? - <AUTHOR> http://evehiclesworld.com/electric-vehicles-powered-by-solar-panels-is-it-possible/ <comment><USER2> I mean, the issue is getting enough charge to be useful. It'll certainly help, but you aren't going to be able to assume your car can run off solar, probably ever. There's huge inefficiencies with car-mounted solar since you can't adjust its position, and many times your car is in the shade. And even if you could fully power your car with optimal solar input, bear in mind the falloff of being in a more northern region, for example, is steep.

I could ideally pull a couple hundred watts in solar panels that would fit on my roof rack, and I've considered trying to power a computer with it.</comment>


SpaceX Rocket Explodes After Launch - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-explode-2014-8

<comment><USER2> SpaceX official statement: [https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/502976401729798144](https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/502976401729798144)

KWTX has some videos, too: [http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/Rocket- Explodes-at-Space-...](http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/Rocket-Explodes-at- Space-X-272370541.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> The explosion supposedly occurred at their test facility which probably makes this a not-so-big deal. Sure you don't want to damage (or blow up) test equipment but if you're going to do it, the test facility seems like the best place.

I wonder if Elon will be the one who responds and/or how detailed will the explanation be...?

<comment><USER4> One thing you have to admire about SpaceX is how detailed / technical they are with their reports, unlike most other companies who just try to move past an incident.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. One of the other interesting / admirable things about Elon as a CEO is his ability to talk in such detail about his products. I think this is probably more normal for a founder than a CEO, but it sets a high bar for CEOs (and other executives) for them to be able to talk about the very details of the products they are building. Unfortunately I've never had a CEO like this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is only a test. Repeat this is only a test.

</comment><comment><USER6> they testing failure conditions?</comment>


Why 23andMe Terrifies Health Insurance Companies  - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/3022224/innovation-agents/why-23andme-terrifies-health-insurance-companies

<comment><USER2> > Here's a hypothetical. Say 23andMe's results indicate a 30-year-old client > has the three most common BRCA1 and 2 gene mutations that 23andMe tests for, > suggesting high risk for breast cancer. That person might book an > appointment with a doctor, an appointment she might never had made without > the DNA results. The physician might recommend a mammogram, a test a > thirtysomething would not normally get. In more extreme cases, such as the > much-talked about case involving actress Angelina Jolie, someone with > particularly alarming results might decide to get a preventative mastectomy. > Insurance companies are concerned that they'll end up paying for every step.

This seems reasonable. Someone does a genetic test, gets a result, and sees a proper doctor to discuss the results. If that person has a strong family history, and has the mutated genes, they might take preventative action which imght include surgery.

Insurance companies should be paying for that.

It's not like someone's got a whole body CT scan and is then getting unnecessary tests from the uncertain results of the scan.

> At the same time, health insurers can't increase premiums for these > potentially expensive customers because of the Genetic Information > Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), a law that makes it illegal to do just that. > The logic goes: People don't get to pick their genes, so it's unfair to > penalize them for the unfortunate bad luck of having a predisposition to > Alzheimer's.

I expect to see a bunch of people who don't disclose their 23andMe results and who then have their insurance cancelled.

Insurance companies have departments dedicated to finding ways to avoid paying out. See, for example, the woman who was about to get treatment for breast cancer when her insurance company cancelled, stating her undeclared visit to a dermatologist for acne several years earlier. ([http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/16/health.care.heari...](http://edition.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/16/health.care.hearing/))

<comment><USER3> Preventative mastectomy in this specific case might actually save money. Breast cancer is not guaranteed, but the risk multiplied by the costs should work out profitably.

Also, in other countries than the U.S., insurers are supposed to maximise well being and life expectancy...

<comment><USER4> Exactly - I fail to understand how, if the person is already at a higher risk for breast cancer, how an earlier screening could increase costs.

Isn't a mastectomy for a 35-year-old cheaper than paying for years of chemotherapy for a fragile 80-year-old person whose cancer has already spread too far for surgery and needs to be hospitalized for months on end?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This type of conspiratorial nonsense would be thoroughly trashed here if a startup was "the big guy" in this story. Instead the nonsense flies because the FDA is the baddie here. People are just telling themselves things and don't care to find out why they took action against 23andMe in specific, or their regulatory purpose in general, mixed with generic gov't mistrust. Bring in guesses about financial benefits to larger companies and you've got a stew going.

I've had a professional relationship with the FDA for a few years. Sometimes I like what they do, sometimes I don't. I'm not going to show my hand on how I feel about them (or their 23andMe action) any more than that. Ever since the FDA sent the warning letter, the reaction online reminds me of the Pavlovian whining I hear from folks in the industry every time the FDA issues new guidance that effectively says "don't cut corners X Y and Z" regardless of the merit in the FDA decision. You'll have to forgive me if I'm unsympathetic, I read way too much of what comes out of the FDA to stomach the broad knee-jerk against everything they do, or middle management suits just looking for something to bitch about.

edit: Rolled my already not-saying-anything about the FDA back even further, I'm talking about the response: [http://i.imgur.com/tAfqLKY.png](http://i.imgur.com/tAfqLKY.png)

<comment><USER6> It's not so black an white: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6794122](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6794122)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does it harm insurance companies? Or does it in the long term harm us, the consumers?

Here's a hypothetical example: Say there's a horrific genetic condition (let's call it 'The Lurgy') that would involve lots of expensive treatment if you developed it. Now, a cheap genetic test kit comes along that can give an accurate prediction of whether or not you are likely to eventually suffer from the lurgy. What happens?

The first effect is that more people test themselves, and go out to buy quality healthcare plans if they see that they are going to get the lurgy. These people might not have otherwise bought the insurance. Result: the insurers suddenly get a much higher % of lurgy sufferers. Their costs rise, and this pushes the insurance price up. This exacerbates the problem: Non- lurgy people are less likely to buy the insurance. Worst case, the cost of insurance comes close to the general cost of treatment, meaning that the insurance is useless.

BUT: The obvious counter to this is that the insurance companies can adjust their range. They can split their insurance offerings up into two products: One that covers the lurgy, and one that doesn't. People are free to buy either. Naturally, the lurgy-inclusive policy is much more expensive. Suddenly the risk is back on to the consumers. They don't have to declare their genetic tests, and the insurers can't force them. But now they can't afford _not_ to take the genetic test and buy the appropriate insurance (and in so doing, effectively 'declare' their genetic test results - after all, you'd buy the cheaper insurance if you could)

So the endgame is that everyone suffers. You can imagine a world where there are genetic tests for all kinds of disorders and combinations of insurance coverage that cater for all. But now the insurance pools are smaller, the uncertainty of costs is reduced, and so the insurance costs come closer to the expected costs of treatment. i.e. insurance costs are high, the insurers still profit, and the benefit to the consumer is vastly reduced.

<comment><USER8> Does it make sense to buy insurance if you take a hypothetically accurate genetic test? The business of insurance companies only makes sense (at least to me) if we are talking about preparing for uncertain loss. But with a genetic test kit (and for argument's sake let's assume it's very accurate) the concept of "uncertain loss" flies out the window, if not at least vastly different from its current conception.

Doesn't this just mean the eventual death of health insurance completely?

<comment><USER7> At the extreme, imagine a future world where long term health is so predictable that there's no uncertainty. You definitely can't offer an optional insurance policy here (at least, the insurer either isn't going to make any money, or the policy costs will make buying it pointless). In a similar way, you won't do very well selling retrospective fire insurance, as only those people with burnt-down houses will buy it.

Insurance needs 1) a large pool of coverage, where the combined average costs will cover the peak extremes. It also needs 2) variability: you have to have people with lower-than-average costs to balance out the higher-than-average costs. If everyone has average costs then once again, you've lost the uncertainty and any benefit of insurance.

To get 1), you could enforce insurance on people. To get 2), you have to ensure insurance products aren't ultra-specific. Neither of these are popular!

<comment><USER9> If you're in a world where long-term health is so predictable there's no uncertainty, there's no need for insurance on your long-term health. What you want is _some structure to pay for your long-term health care_.

You are certainly free to advocate for your government to initiate a wealth transfer. Perhaps you will also consider a variety of ways of conducting this wealth transfer. (On that note, our current approach of "make young people buy more expensive insurance or get fined to pay for it" is a dubious one, and quite regressive.)

<comment><USER7> I don't think this is true. Let's say that a child from a poor family is discovered to have a rare heart condition that would require very expensive treatment. Should they be expected to pay for it? Should we just let them die if they can't? Isn't this the kind of situation that healthcare insurance is designed to fix?

<comment><USER9> The situation you propose and the situation the grandparent poster proposed are different. He proposed total foreknowledge of future health outcomes. Unrealistic? Yes. Different from what you just proposed? Also yes.

Insurance is designed to restructure uncertainty: it replaces a tiny risk of needing HUGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY with a 100% risk of paying a small amount of money. If the long-term health outcomes are known, as he proposed, then there is NO UNCERTAINTY about it. You either need the huge amounts of money to pay for care, or you need no money. All else being equal, the same amount of money is needed, and _less_ money is spent on the overhead of running an insurance company and paying off the capitalists in charge of it.

Now, if you'd like to argue that __society has a duty to assist someone who needs this care __by transferring wealth to them to cover cost of the healthcare procedures they need, that 's a perfectly legitimate thing to argue. It's also another matter.

<comment><USER7> Fair point. I was confusing/merging health insurance and some generalised form of 'health coverage' in my last post.

Even in a situation with no uncertainty, you can still have forms of personal health insurance, e.g. you have a system where everyone is enroled, everyone pays and everyone gets the same cover. The collective benefits of insurance still apply, even if one individual's outcomes and costs are known. Whether this system counts as 'healthcare insurance' or it is now a 'national health service' just depends on how you want to name it...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This article is a blast from the past. The past before having health insurance was required and when pre-existing conditions could be omitted from coverage.

The worst case scenario they used was if someone at risk for breast cancer got mammograms early. The horror, but also the cost savings from early detection! If you claim your grandmother had breast cancer you will no hassle getting a mammogram at an early age, there should be no difference if you have genetic hints at the same risk-factor. No insurer would pay for a preventative mastectomy without strong medical evidence (e.g. not just a genetic test), there's no sense in bringing up a world-famous rich actress who almost assuredly paid for her surgery out of pocket.

The most expensive thing for a health insurer is the customer who doesn't get a mammogram when she should.

<comment><USER11> Customers getting pointless preventative care such as mammograms before age 50 increases costs in two ways. First, the mammograms cost money. Second, the mammograms make the patients less healthy (via stress, unnecessary biopsies, infections caused by the biopsies, etc) which costs even more money.

Luckily Congress is looking out for women and passed a law requiring medically useless tests.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-31/in-mammogram- debate...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-31/in-mammogram-debate- politics-trounces-science.html)

[http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/uspsbrca...](http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/uspstf/uspsbrca.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a bunch of speculative nonsense. As the article itself finally admits in the last paragraph, there are "situations in which preventative procedures lead to healthier people with lower overall health expenses". In other words, the additional care that 23andMe customers (might) request can actually help insurers. But let's not let that stop us from painting a startup David vs. BigCo Goliath story and bashing the big bad insurance companies...

</comment><comment><USER13> Why aren't the health insurance companies pleased? Doesn't early detection save them money?

<comment><USER11> Genetic information that the insurance companies cannot use to price insurance leads to adverse selection. If insurance companies were permitted to use (and demand disclosure of) genetic tests, it wouldn't affect them.

Consider a world without GINA/other regulations and with simple actuarial pricing of insurance. Say you have a 1 in 100,000 risk of a disease costing $10k before a genetic test. After the genetic test, you risk is either 1 in 1,000,000 (if negative) or 1 in 10,000 (if positive). The insurance company would charge you $1.10 for a policy if untested, $11 for a policy if tested positive, and $0.11 for a policy if tested negative. These policies result in a 10% profit per person (ignoring admin costs, etc). If you lie about getting tested, that's grounds to revoke your policy.

As a result of GINA, people can get tested but the insurance company can't price insurance accordingly. As a result, the people with a negative test will drop coverage while people with a positive result will buy it, and prices will have to go up. If everyone behaved this way, then P(disease|buys insurance) = 1/10,000 in spite of the fact that P(disease)=1/100,000. Prices will rise to $11.

Price increases will reduce the quantity purchased (resulting in lower profits) and result in political/regulatory pushback.

<comment><USER10> This is just fake posturing by insurance companies, their risk is unchanged in the post-ACA marketplace. Policymakers aren't all stupid, this scenario is exactly why having health insurance is now a requirement. As you noted, it's quite risky to both cover all pre-existing conditions and not have a mandate.

<comment><USER11> Not everyone will buy insurance even with ACA (I don't plan to, now that cat coverage is illegal) and genetic tests can cause people to select Platinum vs Bronze plans (or whatever the exact categories are).

<comment><USER10> It's not perfect yet because true universal coverage was not politically viable (even this giveaway to private companies--formally _the_ GOP's desired solution--was politically unacceptable to the GOP). Choosing plans will happen annually, it doesn't take a genetic test to figure out you'd save money with another plan.

Why aren't you going to get coverage? If you mean catastrophic coverage, the exchanges have them if you are young (under 30) or poor. It's not a terribly smart plan to have now that the other plans are available, but to each his own:

[https://www.healthcare.gov/can-i-buy-a-catastrophic- plan/](https://www.healthcare.gov/can-i-buy-a-catastrophic-plan/)

If you're not poor you really should buy insurance, besides the obvious health benefits you're going to be paying 1% of your household income as a penalty in 2014, 2% in 2015 and 3% after that. Many people would pay more in penalties (and get _nothing_ in return) than they would for getting insurance, it's a no brainer.

<comment><USER11> Your own link shows catastrophic plans are not really catastrophic plans - they cover all sorts of non-catastrophies like preventative care, a therapist, maternity, etc ([https://www.healthcare.gov/what-does-marketplace-health- insu...](https://www.healthcare.gov/what-does-marketplace-health-insurance- cover/)). It's moot since I'm over 30. In any case, I was never able to figure out what insurance would cost me, since the website doesn't work.

Also I only live in the US part of the year, and it's unclear which state I'm even allowed to buy insurance from (I have no US address right now). I'd certainly be paying for months of care I couldn't use since you can't buy month to month.

Lastly my income is low right now since I'm building a startup, so 1% won't hurt me much.

<comment><USER10> > Your own link shows catastrophic plans are not really catastrophic plans - > they cover all sorts of non-catastrophies like preventative care, a > therapist, maternity, etc

... Only a percentage (60%) and only after you reach the deductible (in my area that's over $6k), which is how these sort of high-deductible plans work (and is what I currently have because that's what was available before the exchanges). Again, from my link:

> A catastrophic plan generally requires you to pay all of your medical costs > up to a certain amount, usually several thousand dollars. Costs for > essential health benefits over that are generally paid by the insurance > company.

Unlike a high-deductible plan that you may have now, the new ones do provide for 3 primary care visits annually as well as preventative care (essentially screenings and vaccines which end up saving everyone money).

> Lastly my income is low right now since I'm building a startup, so 1% won't > hurt me much.

Since your income is low you would qualify for a subsidy and likely be able to get insurance for little to no cost. Or you could be bankrupted by some bad luck and pay a penalty for the privilege.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just another reason why private health care as default is a broken concept. It is already broken from an human standpoint as it makes people in a very hard moment of life to care about money, and the more it will be possible to predict illness in general, the more broken it will be for the reasons expressed in the article.

</comment><comment><USER15> >At the same time, health insurers can't increase premiums for these potentially expensive customers because of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), a law that makes it illegal to do just that.

Wth? Do people not understand the point of insurance?

This also stifles innovation since they would otherwise have an incentive to invest in this technology. And more importantly it would save people's lives if the insurance made them take tests and caught this stuff early.

</comment><comment><USER16> Why fastcompany writes misleading headlines?

</comment><comment><USER17> Health insurance is the obvious dinosaur. It has no place in modern society, except perhaps for cosmetic surgeries. People should get all the medical treatment they need, full stop.

If we still have private health insurance in 2050 then we have failed, and society will probably be like in that rock opera, "Repo! The genetic opera."

Also, we all know that they'll be the first ones to use genetic data against people.

</comment><comment><USER18> What's the tldr? Can't be bothered to watch a video of someone talk when it could as well be written down. My ability to skim or parse a written page is significantly faster.

<comment><USER19> Scroll down.

<comment><USER18> Thank you. Guess design was too clever for me :)</comment></comment></comment>