PayPal, GoFundMe, and Patreon Banned Some People Associated with the Alt-Right - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeed.com/blakemontgomery/the-alt-right-has-a-payment-processor-problem?utm_term=.icn28xRVW#.wrDayM2Lv <comment><USER2> China is also building a system to impede the politically disfavoured ( [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602987/china-turns-big- da...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602987/china-turns-big-data-into- big-brother/) ):

"allow the trustworthy to roam everywhere under heaven while making it hard for the discredited to take a single step."

It's okay if private near-monopolies collude to do the same, though.</comment>


How many people will you kill? - <AUTHOR> https://redirect.is/sa0fky <comment><USER2> How is the math done?</comment>


Why is your software aging - <AUTHOR> http://plumbr.eu/blog/why-is-your-software-aging

<comment><USER2> I think you meant "your".</comment>


Programmers are a commodity... right? - <AUTHOR> http://usingimho.wordpress.com/2010/03/19/programmers-are-a-commodity-right/

<comment><USER2> I went on a sales call yesterday to a small business in my little rural village. His current website was done by someone he knows and I talked to him 6 months ago about it and it hasn't changed, so I whipped up a demo and put it online and went to show him in his office.

When he started typing in the URL to the demo site, he was typing <http://> into the yahoo search form. I said, "You should type it into the location bar."

The what? he said. Up there at the top I told him and pointed at it. Whoa.

"Well, you know, my friend is building this one for me and ... " _This one_ was a default wordpress install that had no customization except the header and footer and nothing at all close to what his business needs, yet he had to run my site by his friend, who I can tell has no idea how to write code or create a database.

How can any of us here ever expect someone like that to comprehend the difference between someone who can put up a web page and someone who can build an enterprise system with customer interaction, inventory management, and any sort of security whatsoever?

They can't. Looking at a web page is like looking at the clothes someone is wearing and trying to figure out if they can do algebra. Yet that's how they do it. To 90% of people, maybe more, putting up a static web page or a word press site requires the same knowledge as understanding one-way hashes, caching, and parameterized queries.

And _yes_ , I believe we should charge _a lot_ more, but instead, we give away our software for free because it _feels_ good. I love open source, I create open source, I use open source, yet I know that open source isn't going to feed me. It feeds some. It feeds the business guys who sell services on top of free open source systems. Those guys can't use a command-line, but they can pay programmers 10% of the deal, sometimes more. It feeds programmers who are lucky enough to work for a progressive employer who can afford to staff a team to support the project and defend it when it is stolen by a corporation and embedded in their set top boxes, but for those of us who want to create a path for ourselves, creating an open source project is like buying a lottery ticket. Sometimes it works, Zimbra did well, word press does well, MySQL did well, but those are but a _tiny_ fraction of the open source projects out there. As long as we give away our work for free, why do we expect people to pay for it?

Outside the programming world, it is _completely_ different. If a business person, a sales guy say, works for a technology company, they work on commission. Sell one product, take 20-50% of the sale price. If a programmer writes something that increases sales by 50% they get _nothing_ additional. No percentage increase, hardly a raise at most places. Yet, code on.

Corporations simply _could not operate_ without IT, yet it is considered a _cost center_ , not a _profit enabler_ , a _cost cutter_. Imagine a human without a brain!

Yet, code on. Why? Because we love it. Doesn't matter that sales guys also love to sell. CEO's also love to execute.

When I was a consultant, it angered me greatly that a sales man would win a client and while I was there, I would sell additional project after additional project, extending my time at the client and building more and more revenue for the company and I got a $5k raise the _next year_! The sales guy got the same commission on the additional work _I_ sold! Why didn't I get the commission on the additional work? Why didn't someone say, "Awesome, you were at the client 5x longer than we expected and you doubled your expected billable hours for the year!"

Instead, the sales guy got a new flat screen TV.

<comment><USER3> That's why you need to be on both sides of the spectrum - create AND sell. It's much easier for technical people to pick up selling skills than it is for salesmen to pick up engineering skills.

<comment><USER2> Eventually I quit that job and did start my own company and I'm _so_ much happier for it my eyes are welling up right now just thinking of the contrast. I'm emotional, I know, but it's like I came _alive_ when I started building something that I owned and loved and appreciated. When other people started appreciating it and I make other lives better with my work and I get the reward -- you just have to _feel_ it to know, but it took a long time to get that feeling -- years.

It was _sooo_ hard. There were months and months of this low frequency buzz in my gut, constantly thinking, "How am I going to make money? Am I going to make money? Why don't people understand what I'm building? Will I be able to survive on my own?" All the while my bank account was going down, down, down...

And from my own hands, I've created a 1 year runway! A whole year! That I _built_. That's plenty of time and we're growing and I look back and understand completely why almost everyone I know thought I was crazy. But now they are envious. "I wish I could do that. I wish I could quit my job. I have a mortgage." I had to move back to my childhood home in the middle of nowhere to make ends meet. I had to make _real_ sacrifice. I was living _on_ the beach when I quit. Now I'm 1500 miles from salt water, but I'm _happy_.

I do think sales is hard though. I don't get why _they_ don't get it. I don't know how to speak _their_ language. I don't know what motivates _them_. On the proposal yesterday, I didn't put a price, because the money doesn't really matter to me, what I _want_ is to help him have a better site and provide a better experience for his customers, and _bring technology home_.

My state has had a severe brain drain. People like me don't stay here. Technology people who work for the corporations are actually consultants who live in the huge metro areas -- in _other_ states! They fly in on monday and fly home on friday.

I work with companies all over the world, but people in my own town -- in my own state for the most part -- don't even understand what I'm doing and I wonder how or when I'll break through, but I'm going to keep trying. Next time I'll put the payment options on the form.

I've gotten it down to three options: Fixed fee, Hourly rate, or Revenue share. I have learned from past experience, that if you just put a price, people say no. If you give them options, they have something to think about. Some people want to take no risk. Some want to know what it'll cost up front and some just want the absolute best you can produce.

 _Every_ potential customer is different. I can't seem to find a strategy that always works and it's difficult for me to predict how people will react and how to figure out which kind of customer the person is. Are there subtle questions I can ask? Can I tell from looking at their business or customers how I can convince them to proceed. It's good technology. I know for almost sure that I can help them, but they are suspicious. They don't understand and don't want to be taken for a ride. How do I reassure them? How do I let them know I'm not one of those business guys who just wants to take their money?

I read lots of books and keep trying, but I don't know if it's easier to pick up sales. There is an aspect of gift to it I think. Persuasiveness. That "status" part of the theater class thread from the other day. Lots can be learned, but it takes a lot of practice and a lot of time and a lot of -- just numbers, really. Take your pride out of it. Be confident and tell everyone you know. Don't worry that you sound like you're tooting your own horn. That's what you have to do. If you don't tell anyone, no one will know.

I don't begrudge sales guys for what they can do. I envy it, but I also think it is overvalued. But why shouldn't it be? Sales guys are better able to sell _their own_ value to their company than the programmers are able to sell _their_ value. It's not the business guy's fault. It's our fault for settling for less than we are worth -- literally.

<comment><USER4> Fnid, very good write-up. For sales, I heard from a Harvard Business School study that good sales people enjoy rejection, or at least turning rejection into positive feeling. There are 100s of rejections for 1 good sales. Good sales organizations have been trying to foster environments that celebrate rejection and make it seems normal. So for those "people don't get it" encounters you have, just view them as a mild rejection and move on to next prospect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The problem is that there are far more average or mediocre developers than there are even decent ones, severely diluting our image. Developers are in such high demand, the good pay has caused millions to enter the field that would otherwise be unfit for a typical engineering or scientific field, just because they feel comfortable after a few sessions of hacking together a LAMP app or getting some watered-down MIS degree. Large corporations victimized by their rigid hiring policies have been inundated with thousands of these droids that expend maximum time to build minimum solutions. Further fueling this fire is a total misunderstanding of the process by upper management, whose day-to- day role in the company couldn't be any more antithetical to that of a software developer.

<comment><USER6> It's a similar situation for designers, as you can see with some of the recent discussions regarding 99designs. There's good pay at the high end (with a somewhat pronounced falloff), lots of "artsy" kids go into college for it because it's the one art program that promises to actually make them a living, and there's certainly a lot of misunderstanding of the process at the management level.

<comment><USER7> I was just wondering if we can extend this to any field. Is it true that every field will have its standouts and then a lot of mediocre members that dilute the image for everyone else?

I think the problem is that the barrier to entry is so low in a lot of technical fields right now because demand is high. Companies are willing to hire a lot of mediocre programmers (or outsource to places of questionable quality) because they simply need something and the cost of failure is not catastrophic.

On the other hand, medicine and law have high barriers to entry, and you would be considered a fool to hire a doctor or lawyer who did not have the appropriate degrees, certifications, and licenses. This is not true with technology these days.

It's like the programming industry doesn't even have a bar to jump over.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Programmers are a commodity. Lawyers are a commodity. Managers are a commodity. Dentists are a commodity.

Experts are not.

In any given field, probably 80% of the practitioners can do an adequate job and at least complete the tasks required by their position. In my experience, that number narrows to about 40% if the requirement is that the job is performed on time, on budget, and performed correctly the first time.

The question for the employer is simply whether the task at hand requires a "cog" or an expert. Most businesses require both.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. But: I don't really know exactly what these guys are looking for, still I'm pretty sure (because of the ads) they're having an hard time finding it. I won't say programming as a profession is special, because it's not, but from my experience even finding just a good coding "cog" is a huge win from the employer's perspective. What I think it happened is that those guys went looking for somebody "ready for industry" into the university, and they hit the wall. I know a lot of very, very smart guys that are studying CS: I'm sure one day they will be awesome hackers but they will need a lot of experience under their belt before they can provide real value to a "real world" project.

<comment><USER9> To be fair to CS programs, though, that's true of most areas that have significant practical components. A straight-out-of-college chemical engineer is not going to be able to provide immediate valuable work on a Dow Chemical plant; they need to learn all sorts of things first. One difference might be that Dow expects this more than companies hiring programmers do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It doesn't surprise me that this happened at a university. They tend to view programmers as a neccessary evil rather than as a potentially valuable asset. Most likely, they didn't get anyone that would work for the salary they wanted to pay.

<comment><USER11> KTH is the biggest technical university in Sweden, it's got a very good CS programme and all the other engineering programmes have at least some programming on their curriculums. It's definitely not a dinky little liberal arts college, there's no lack of technical knowledge overall. :-)

However, this job ad was posted only outside their little division, because.. well.. uh.. academics are narrow-minded?

If they had bothered to post it about four buildings away from their department, it would have been seen by about a thousand CS students instead, which would have increased their chances of getting someone good with quite a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't get it, what is the problem? That they offer an internship?

<comment><USER13> I think the point of the post was that the author assumed all the adds were actually for the same position. The problem (if that was the case) being that C++ programmers/Flash programmers/HTML designers are not interchangeable.

<comment><USER12> Even so - in other hacker news post people complain that employers don't understand that programmers are more versatile than just "5 years of Java experience". I have never programmed Flash, but I am pretty sure I could pick it up within 2 days or so.

It actually seems cool that they made an ad saying "no experience required". When else do you get that? And it makes perfect sense. Why would a student taking on the challenge be able to learn to program what they need?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: My employee equity? - <AUTHOR> Hey HN,
I Have been working my butt off for a startup for approx 1 year and I have just recently brought up the discussion regarding my equity in the company.
There were no formalities such as a contract in place, it was purely based on trust but with a promise of equity towards the end of the year. I agreed to by paid far less than normal.
I wore a number of hats as you do in startup land, especially in the early days. I was a Project Manager, Tech Lead, Designer & Developer. Not to be arrogant here, but somebody with this skill set was absolutely crucial to get us to where we are today. Solid deliverables were delivered and the founders were always so pleased and excited to have me on the team.
Before I came on board, they were trying to outsource their technology to india. Sending bad looking designs and technical specs written by a non-techy. The final result was always so average. A company specialising in delivering tech, couldn't deliver tech.
When I started, we continued with the outsourcing for sometime but with my oversight and redesign of the platforms.. After some time, it simply was not working. I had the connections to bring on a new developer so we could start building things in-house, with proper development cycles, oversight & accountability. So we did that. Over the course of the year the team grew. We're now at 6.
Once this happened, we started landing some pretty cool projects thanks to the teams work. The capability and the quality of work we were putting forward and the character of us all helped significantly with getting these projects on board. A year has passed and I have poured my heart and soul in to the company. I'm pulling 70-80 hour weeks every few weeks- working till all hours of the morning getting things done. Not to forget I'm not on a cushy funded start-up salary (far from it). HN, what would you value somebody like myself on your team? What are people like myself usually rewarded with?
Cheers HN! <comment><USER2> 1\. A promise of equity is a red flag. A professional startup puts this in writing. If things don't work out, that's what vesting is for.

2\. Wearing all the hats and the only technical hat initially puts you a lot closer to founder status.

3\. "landing projects" doesn't sound like a startup, sounds like a consultancy. Taking reduced market salary here for equity doesn't seem right, the equity will never likely payoff to justify it.

Step 1. Interview at big companies. Figure out how much you could earn (total comp: salary, bonus, and guaranteed equity). Also to get a BATNA.

Step 2. Value the startup. Account for professional investors, market size, likelihood of success, etc. Don't just go off what the founders tell you. Look at comparable startups and their exits.

Step 3. Figure out how much the money you gave up is worth. Multiply it by 4 (last year plus the next 3) then figure out the percent of the company. Would also probably double it for the risk you are taking. (Note: You should immediately vest the prior year and have no cliff for the three remaining).

Step 4. Negotiate from a higher starting point (I'm a sucker for putting out what I think is fair and having it cut). Be ready to walk with your BATNA. 5-10 percent might not be unreasonable with what you are bringing to the table, especially if this is more of a lifestyle business than a professionally backed startup.

Good luck and don't be afraid to move.

</comment><comment><USER3> Do not leave such critical things under specified. If the response from the founders goes even slightly short of your expectations you run a real risk of burnout because you have obviously gone over and above for an extended period of time. Make sure that there is a reconciliation on your value add between you and the founders as soon as possible.

Try to also put yourself in the founders shoes and see how you would approach such a situation rationally. Its best to have a number in mind before you speak to the founders and have thresholds on either side representing delight / time to put in the papers.

</comment><comment><USER4> Your only leverage is getting a new job and/or straight up quitting. Unless you're willing to do either of those, they're going to keep dangling that carrot.

Force their hand and say you'll have to seriously consider other offers unless there's an equity package coming from them within a week.

Only do this, however, if you're willing to have your bluff called. If you're not, you have no negotiating power and will be relying on their kindness.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do have some upper-hand in that they simply cannot afford to replace me - they'd need to employ 2-3 new people plus all overheads of getting them up-to- speed with our process, adjusting to team dynamics etc..

Thanks for the advice.

<comment><USER4> How many people have you worked with who have required 2+ people to replace them when they left? Personally, in about 10 years "professional" experience, I've worked with 0.

I'm willing to accept that perhaps I've worked with non-exceptional people (I am one myself). But really consider whether your employer would actually hire 2+ people to replace you. Your domain knowledge is worth something and the cost of switching is high, but if your employer is paying below market, would they really pay below market for 2+ new people?

What I'm trying to get at is the fact that your perception of your value might be significantly different from your employer's perception. And if that's the case, you really don't have much leverage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > I have poured my heart and soul in to the company.

First-- take out the emotional aspect of your contribution (I know this is difficult).

Can you calculate your impact on the bottom line? How did you help them save money/make money?

Breakdown all of your job deliverables-- compare & contrast difference with what they would likely pay at market rates. Based on your brief description, you might easily be the equivalent of a $200K/year guy and a full-partner in the business.

Assuming they agree conceptually-- and recognize your contributions have been vital to the teams success. Give them options (not ultimatums) on moving forward from here.

</comment><comment><USER6> Just get out. They're exploiting you. Leave, start your own consultancy, poach their clients. You'll probably be surprised how much they're willing to pay.

</comment><comment><USER7> Who are you negotiating with? Does one person own all equity or several founders plus investors?

<comment><AUTHOR> Just the 2 founders, no investors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It sounds like you are the first employee? If so 1-2% seems to be the norm.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok cool, this is roughly what I had in mind. Yes, first employee.

<comment><USER9> 1% is way too low as a first employee, unless this is something that's literally going to be worth 50 to 100 million USD.

Ask for 10%. Accept 5%. Walk away at 1%.

<comment><USER8> This doesn't seem to jibe with reality^. Most of the literature [0] [1] [2] suggests that the first 10 employees split 10% of the equity (with founders receiving 50% and the rest left over for VC and later employee pools). Y Combinator for instance only takes 6%. Sequoia is said to take 30%. Suggesting that an employee (any employee) is worth the same as YC to the markets seems like a hard sell.

[0] [http://themacro.com/articles/2015/12/splitting-equity- among-...](http://themacro.com/articles/2015/12/splitting-equity-among- founders/)

[1] [https://gist.github.com/isaacsanders/1653078](https://gist.github.com/isaacsanders/1653078)

[2] [http://blog.samaltman.com/employee- equity](http://blog.samaltman.com/employee-equity)

^ I'm no expert on equity and am a "get paid with american dollars" kind of guy...

<comment><USER2> Saying there should be a standard number for the first employee is like saying there should be a standard valuation for every startup. Sure, YC throws out a fairly generous standard valuation, but they are choosing top notch startups and trying to cultivate an entrepreneur first mindset.

To roll into any random startup and say, "I guess 1 percent seems fair" is silly. 1-3 percent is fairly standard for the first employee of a well-backed (YC / VC / Quality Angel) startup, where professionals are taking a calculated risk because the payout could be huge. They are really overvaluing every startup, but know that 1 out of 10 will pay off enough to make it up.

One percent probably isn't fair for someone taking a reduced salary at a "startup" financed by someone's uncle targeting a niche market. The limited upside will never pay enough to justify the money lost. If the startup isn't financed by professionals, I don't see 1-3 percent and reduced market as reasonable. Even then, I think it's questionable and really depends on the product, market, founders, how far along things are, and what you bring to the table.

Certainly the value you provide and what you can negotiate are the critical parts, but I feel that a lot of startup pay is exploitative, taking advantage of younger workers who don't understand what is going on, that the real payday in a startup is the equity and they probably aren't getting a large enough percent to justify the risk. Why do startups payout so handsomely for founders and investors, but employees are supposed to be learning and doing it for the love?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You are replacable. You can try to give them an ultimatium and threaten to leave. But they may just show you the door.

Even if they don't now, when things get better, they will probably be thinking about ways to reeuce their risks by replacing you or dividing your responsibilities.

Most people in your position don't get much equity. Even if you do, it's usually diluted down to nothing with rounds of funding or you never see anything when the company crashes and burns.

I've been there more than once. It's much better to just work for a salary that you are worth and forget about equity.

It's a carrot used to prevent you from leaving when things get bad.

</comment><comment><USER11> Also, ask for a pay rise it's been a year dammit.</comment>


Proposed Lego set that aims to inspire girls interested in engineering - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-57439674-235/lego-for-girls-this-time-hardware-hacker-style/

<comment><USER2> Lego Friends has been panned? By who? My daughter absolutely loves them. They come in three different shades of pink and two shades of purple, which is a huge hit, and she's got all the pieces she needs to make houses and gardens and such.

Before we discovered them (last year at around Christmas time), she played with her brother's Lego just as well, but I think the real lesson from Lego Friends is that Lego was not making a diverse enough play system for children - Lego City has been particularly boring for probably a dozen years.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a noble idea, but read the fine print. Winning 10k votes doesn't guarantee a model will go into production - only that it will "be reviewed" by Lego for worthiness and fit into their product line.</comment>


Ask HN: Would you hire a burnt out engineer? - <AUTHOR> If a candidate responds, "because i'm burnt out." To why are you leaving your current company? Would you disqualify them? <comment><USER2> That depends on exactly what the candidate means by "burnt out" but it is a red flag that warrants asking some deep and probing questions. If it's just shorthand for "I was tired of my old job", fine, that's not a problem, probably. If it's actually incapacitating or the candidate has a history of such, well, that would be very concerning. I've been in the throes of long- term burnout before and I know very well how hard it is to get anything done when that happens.

</comment><comment><USER3> I can't say it would disqualify them out right, but it would definitely be a major red flag. If you are a solid candidate then I'd be asking questions to understand how you got burnt out and why.

Being burnt generally means one of a couple things (there are others but this is where I'd start wanting to understand):

1\. You can't manage expectations so you overload yourself. e.g. you can't say no

2\. Your manager was poor and drove people into burn out.

And to be clear, I wouldn't be asking you if you just can't say no, I'd be testing you in the interview to see if you can be disagreeable. If you can't be disagreeable then you'll just do the same thing for me and I'd be replacing you again shortly if I hired you. So it would be a pass.

If instead it is #2 or some deviation of the same, then it'd be less of a red flag, but still concerning to make sure you were good by the time you start on my team.</comment>


Plot Against Ethereum: Is the ProgPoW Algorithm Custom-Built for Nvidia's GPUs? - <AUTHOR> https://decrypt.co/9729/the-alleged-plot-against-ethereum <comment><USER2> I think so. It's why I'm getting out of crypto. Too many shady deals shading up the place. It's shady.

</comment><comment><USER3> I agree. NVIDIA is quietly pulling the strings. It's like how Ethereum is mostly run on AWS. It's all a scam!</comment>


Review and teardown of a cheap GPS Jammer - <AUTHOR> https://phasenoise.livejournal.com/3185.html?utm_source=media <comment><USER2> This part is ... a worry.

> He was working on a job inside the Newark Liberty International Airport when > his jamming signal interrupted air traffic control.

Shouldn't it have better protections against a $25 internet purchased jammer? Are such protections possible?

Also, what would happen if you used this while in an Uber?

<comment><USER3> > Shouldn't it have better protections against a $25 internet purchased > jammer? Are such protections possible?

I don't think so. GPS is a purely passive system. If someone is broadcasting a signal in your immediately area that overpowers the GPS satellites, there isn't much you can do.

<comment><USER4> > If someone is broadcasting a signal in your immediately area that overpowers > the GPS satellites, there isn't much you can do.

directional receivers?

<comment><USER5> It would be pretty difficult to track 3-12 satellites at a time with a directional antenna, particularly with both the satellites and the plane in motion.

You could employ something like a directional antenna who's radiation pattern will basically look like a half-circle, with the flat part facing down, but, radiation patterns are not black and white, even if 90% of the energy is received from the main side, there is always some signal still received from unwanted directions. With as weak as GPS signals are, it wouldn't take much to drown them out, even on the back side of a directional antenna.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> GPS navigation is generally a good thing. GPS tracking is a slippery thing, seen by some as an invasion of privacy. The vehicle owner should be entitled to know where their property is, but it is none of their business where I go and what I do during the day. Insurance companies would love to hike premiums based on where you park, where you eat, how many mistresses you entertain, or those brief stops in the seedy part of town.

On one hand, GPS tracking can help against theft, or at least facilitate recovery. On the other hand, it opens up a wealth of possibilities for abuse

<comment><USER7> It's really incredible to be part of the security industry and know how widely used these things are as part of private investigations. At a rough guess I would say at least a third utilise them in some way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Would the jammer also work against other global navigation systems?

Xiaomi phones, for example, can receive GLONASS and BeiDou signals.

In the future, Galileo may also be an option.

<comment><USER5> From the chart in the article, this particular model generates a well defined signal between roughly 1550mhz and 1590mhz.

The BeiDou[1] and Galileo[2] system both operate in the same band, but have an additional band around 1250mhz they operate in.

The GLONASS[3] system operates on two bands, one just outside this one (roughly 1598mhz to 1606mhz) and one lower band around 1246mhz.

GLONASS would appear to be the only one completely not susceptible to this particular device, though a device that would be effective on GLONASS is probably available as well.

I don't know the technology well enough to say for certain that the BeiDou and Galileo systems would operate in the presence of this device, but I believe they would.

For the non-RF engineers, scroll down to the tables on each page, they are a bit easier to understand.

[1] [http://www.navipedia.net/index.php/BeiDou_Signal_Plan](http://www.navipedia.net/index.php/BeiDou_Signal_Plan)

[2] [http://www.navipedia.net/index.php/Galileo_Signal_Plan](http://www.navipedia.net/index.php/Galileo_Signal_Plan)

[3] [http://www.navipedia.net/index.php/GLONASS_Signal_Plan](http://www.navipedia.net/index.php/GLONASS_Signal_Plan)</comment></comment>


Ruby vs. Python - A n00b's perspective - <AUTHOR> http://futurefun.tumblr.com/post/31711240986/ruby-vs-python-part-1

<comment><USER2> The way Ruby handles string interpolation (evaluating code inside a string) is what pushed me to learn Ruby. It was the only way that made sense to me. Also, completely disagree with your first comment. When reading my code out loud, saying "print" makes me think of a printer, which doesn't make sense to me. Puts, as in, put string, describes exactly what is happening, as you're "putting" a "string" on the screen.

<comment><USER3> The 'print' metaphor is a remnant of history. Programming used to be done on a teletype terminal, like this one: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletype_Model_33> . You would work with a teletype printer, so 'print' means, quite literally, "print using the printer."

Other words with similar heritage are 'tty', which is short for "TeleTYpe", and 'terminal', since you were working with a teletype terminal. One could use "glass tty" to distinguish between a physical printer-based terminal and a CRT screen-based one. That terminology is almost never used these days.

When you use the word "print", you are asking Python do to the modern equivalent of sending text to the teletype terminal's printer. So I see "puts", the part of me which knows history wonders if it's also possible to put the text to a GUI, or to a web browser, or to something other than a terminal-like object.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone dissatisfied in a large tech company? Where did you go next? - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
I was wondering how many people here formerly worked for large tech companies, became dissatisfied with their day to day work and moved on to other things?
I would really like to hear why you felt that way. What was missing for you? Lack of impact? Unexciting tasks? Inability to be free and creative?
A lot of people can't understand when someone is unhappy working at top 5 tech company. It's what we all worked so hard for right? Except it's not quite always what we expected it to be.
I would love to hear thoughts and experiences on the subject of dissatisfaction at large tech companies and what it is we all really want in life. <comment><USER2> Totally dissatisfied. The main complaint is how blatant and mindlessly people are concerned with power. Every single aspect to them is a huge political game. Their chosen profession is 'power'. They have no other goals and just see tech as a means to that end. It is as mindless as it is bizarre. Entire departments are created by high level people with the sole goal of trying to take over existing departments. The result is there are lots of people and departments who have the same job. Obviously it is difficult to develop software in this environment.

I just want to make an honest living making useful stuff without having to deal with the crazies that fill large companies.

</comment><comment><USER3> For me there were a lot of factors, but the biggest one was that the large tech company was my first job out of college, and I didn't want to stay there for the next 40 years. So, after 4 or so years, I left to try something different and see what was out there in the big bold world. I don't regret it at all. Perhaps I will end up at a big tech company again someday, but until then, I'm enjoying lots of other experiences (startups, mid size companies, etc).

<comment><USER4> Same. Worked for IBM for a year, while I was still in uni, didn't enjoy it because of how you were just another cog in the machine. I just thought, I wouldn't want to look back in 20 years and think I wasted opportunities by staying there. Now I'm working for a company with a 3 man software development team and it's so much more rewarding and satisfying.</comment></comment>


Interview With Barney Pell and Ramez Naam About Microsoft's Powerset Acquisition - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/02/interview-with-barney-pell-and-ramez-naam-about-microsoft%e2%80%99s-powerset-acquisition-integration-to-begin-this-year/ <comment><USER2> lol how arrington thought the natural language algorithm was developed at "Park" instead of "PARC"</comment>


My side project: an open-sourced comedy community - <AUTHOR> Hi everyone, I just launched a side project I've been working on for the last month or so ... it's fairly simple, but I'd love your thoughts.
http://www.ChompChompDead.com --> it's roughly what happens when you get eaten by a shark.  We like to think of it as open-sourced comedy.
Anyways, there's a cast of 10 members who submit articles that are rated by the public.  At the end of each week, the lowest rated cast member gets demoted, while the funniest member of the community is promoted.
Basically, this is one of those 'life is too short' kind of initiatives.  I just love writing and reading comedy, nothing existed like this before, I knew I could build it... so I did. I'm not really expecting to profit off of it -- I merely wanted it to exist.
I'm launching it with the help of a bunch of screenwriters and comics I know.  It's amazing how much the creative world doesn't understand about the online world, and vice versa.  Hopefully this is one of those things that helps to bring those two worlds closer together.
Thanks for reading, and enjoy!  Maybe you can even try your hand at being funny :)... <comment><USER2> I think that's a really neat idea. I'd definitely visit.

However, the design needs improvement. Please stop using that font. Add some color to it. Segment the site a bit more, it seems a little jumbled to me. Perhaps encapsulate each section of the site into it's own box, like the comedy pieces and 'the cast,' etc. I had some difficulty reading the links under your header image. Give your headings/subheadings/piece headings some more differentiation - everything is black and I feel like on the home page, the heading for the first piece is a subheading for 'Fresh Kill.'

Other than that, congrats on launching. Seems like the type of field that could generate a very lively and tight knit community.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback -- it's funny, I showed my design mockup to a bunch of designer friends, and they all said take the borders/boxes off of things, and leave as much white space as possible :).

As for colour on the site, I deliberately left it monochrome with the intent of focusing your attention not on the surrounding bits, but on the text in the content area. I'm guessing this might not be working in that case!

As for the font -- are you using Safari? When I was cross-browser testing I found that Safari seems to render black courier font almost grey-ishly. The reason I'm using it is because it seems to be the least represented standard font-family on the internet. It feels like it comes from another era.

Overall, the design was going for a 'film noir' aesthetic. Weird font, labeled headings, and contemporary content with a classic broadsheet-looking feel. I could be way off though, let's just say I didn't spend too much time iterating it...

<comment><USER3> Have any of your designer friends ever seen an issue of Army Man (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_Man>)? That was the first thing I thought of when I saw the page.

Anyhow, It looks like a really cool idea. Count on me to toss in some chum soon.

J

<comment><AUTHOR> Man, I wish I could say the design was intended to be like something that cool! Alas, it's just a case of 'don't bite off more than you can chew' of working within my abilities. But that army man looks really cool. The best comedy is spartan in its presentation anyways ;)...

I look forward to your contributions. The Chum will basically turn into a chaotic comedy twitter I hope...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hey, great idea. As a former comedy writer I think it's really cool you decided to focus on written content instead of the usual YouTube stuff; comedy articles are an underappreciated form these days.

I agree with those who've said the design needs some work. I can see what you were going for, but I'm not sure you got there -- film noir is a tough look to pull off on the web. The monospaced font does feel like it's from another era, but to me it feels more like the early 90s than a 40s broadsheet. Personally I'd go with a regular serif font like Georgia, with a healthy amount of linespacing. For consistency's sake, I'd also keep the number of fonts you use to an absolute minimum -- the use of Tahoma on the right sidebar makes the "Cast" and "Popular Articles" sections look sort of like RSS widgets that don't fit in with the rest of the content. All that aside I do like the simplicity of the layout.

Yeah, I love the idea and I hope it takes off. Best of luck.

<comment><USER5> The comedy article is hard to pull off because it's so rare an unexpected. There's not much precedent so it seems like an unusual art form. I think it would be easier to write stand-up, sit-coms, or YouTubeish videos.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, the only really good era for written comedy was the 70s, when the National Lampoon had millions of readers. These days when comedy articles appear in the mainstream they're almost always in the fake news format, which is pretty rigid. Even the more creative outlets like McSweeney's have a fairly narrow style.

There are a bunch of decent college humor publications out there, though, and some of them have wide readership at their campuses. There might be a large enough base of people familiar with the form for it to get some mainstream traction again, if it's given the chance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think you are on to something here

perfect site for the aspiring onion.com writer

</comment><comment><USER7> This is a cool idea - but I think you definitely should have video.

If you could reach out to the stand up community and get them submitting videos it'd be cool - there are thousands of them as well, so filtering the good stuff is always tricky. Maybe you could tie your voting system into that.

If you are using wordpress I would recommend showinabox.tv - it lets you easily add video to your blog and let people subscribe to it. I'd consider offering footage in HD or Hi-Resolution on Miro (www.getmiro.com) it's by far the best video rss aggregator. I think youtube videos are such poor quality they really don't do most videos justice, when there is an opportunity for people to watch them full screen in DVD quality.

</comment><comment><USER5> Yeah, that's awesome. Very impressed.

I agree about the design, it's just too colorless. And this is coming from someone who does a lot of design for a lot of different things and always has people tell him he uses too much black and white.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Matt, I'm glad you dig the concept. The simple comedy article is a lost art imo. A lot of sites buried themselves into one format or another, which is why I like the concept of leaving the format entirely up to the writer. In that regard, entertainment is generic. As long as people like it, it'll get the support.

My original idea was to have everything black/white, and then have like insanely weird mouseovers on things, but it ended up looking like an 80's ode to graffiti gone horribly wrong. Perhaps I went a little too crazy on the simplicity front.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Neat idea, but I'd like to see something more visual. When I'm looking for comedy online, I'm in more of a "stop reading, just watch" mode. That's what works well with funnyordie.com, although that feels like it's becoming more of a showcase site for already famous comedians to advertise their upcoming movies... Even the Onion has pictures with their stories.

What about allowing some images and even home-made videos in posts as well (e.g., jokes, routines, skits)? I imagine there's help for people afraid of moving pictures somewhere in Alberta... ;)

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a joke, right?

<comment><USER9> Ba da, bing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks interesting. I had a few good laughs.

I may have missed something, but it seems that some articles i'm able to chomp, while others im not. Is this intended, or a bug? I thought one was hilarious, when to chomp it, and it said "Chomped!" I hadn't chomped it. So I was a bit confused. Bug maybe?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I noticed the non-member chomping seemed a bit weird, I'm going to double check this tonight, thanks for the feedback. Basically, it should allow one vote on each story for each unique IP, whether you're logged in or not. I hope it's not allowing only one vote total for each non-logged in IP.

Maybe I should add a 'beta' tag at the top -- but I'm assuming my target audience wouldn't even know what that was ;)...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great idea, The look---not so much. It is a jumble of text and bright colors which confuses me (I had ape-brain transplant). So if you want to make an improvement, I'd start there. Otherwise, Great!

</comment><comment><USER12> Awesome, finally an intelligent social site where being funny won't draw allusions to digg and reddit:D

Anyways, I'm in. May be just the creative outlet I need.

<comment><USER12> I wrote a fairly lengthy article and published it, only to find I'd been logged out:(

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmmm, thanks for the head's up, I smell a bug. I'll double check my session flow after registration tonight.

<comment><USER12> It's either that, or I wasn't automatically logged in after registering. Either way, there is at least a usability bug. If a person can write a submission without logging in, then the published work should at least be caught somehow, so it doesn't disappear into the ether through a user mistake.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, it did actually catch in the database, it just didn't register your user number. I've put your user number on the entry now, so it's live. I think there was one page in the site that didn't carry over the session variables, but that bug has now been fixed.

Thanks for submitting, I liked your article!

<comment><USER12> Great!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Looks like the site has a lot of potential. I love a good laugh. I was rolling on the floor after reading the FAQs.

</comment><comment><USER14> Can you provide RSS feed so that I can subscribe it in my reader?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, you can subscribe @ <http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChompChompDead>

Feedburner may have its faults, but I still find it very useful.

<comment><USER14> The feed has partial content. Can you publish feed with full content like TechCrunch or GigaOm does?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point -- changed my raw feed info to full text. Thanks for pointing this out...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Great idea!</comment>


Ask HN: Talk radio shows from your reigon? - <AUTHOR> Hey HNers, What are the good talkback / talk radio shows where you're from? I am looking to broaden my understanding of life and current events for people and places unfamiliar to me. I find talk radio, or interview shows with listener feedback is a good direct way to hear what people care about. Any suggestions? Very local stuff welcome too. <comment><USER2> A fantastic sports talk radio station in Dallas/Ft Worth is [https://www.theticket.com/](https://www.theticket.com/). They have a great mix of current events, random topics, funny bits and local sports. You can easily listen to their stream using the SportsDay Talk app. The morning show from 5:30 - 10:00 is the best.</comment>


Funding Innovation Through Google Glass - <AUTHOR> http://www.glasscollective.com/

<comment><USER2> It's interesting to see how Google is approaching this, very different to some of their other efforts. The active recruiting of developers, strict guidelines for apps, deliberate seeding of journalists and enthusiasts with advanced access, and now this - seeding the venture capital market too (and I bet Google hopes what really happens is they start a race among VCs to fund Glass projects).

If you compare to other launches where they just lobbed things out there at launch this seems very deliberate, planned and cognizant of the challenges Glass faces in getting off the ground. It will be very interesting to see how it works out.

</comment><comment><USER3> this is cool (and a nice endorsement), but our belief is that true killer applications will be multi-platform (which may include Glass's future competitors). We see Glass as a natural extension of the mobile web, not a closed garden by itself. Glass applications need to be able to tie into the lives we (and our friends) are already living. Given the adoption curve of most (non-Apple) tech gadgets, it's difficult to see Glass-only applications achieving sustainable revenue for their creators, which in turn makes it difficult to see this Glass fund as anything other than outsourced R&D - as in "let's have devs throw spaghetti at the wall and buy the ones that stick". Not much wrong with that, I just didn't think it was a16z's style. don't get me wrong: we love Glass, are spec'ing out multiple Glass-ready projects, and can't wait to get our hands on our dev units, _but_ we believe sustainable businesses must be built on more than one pillar. If you decide to take the myopic approach, just be aware that your startup becomes but one roll in someone else's roulette game.

</comment><comment> T-A Not much info on that page, except for the link to <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpWmGX55a40> Watching it now. It gets interesting at 16:30. By the looks of it, developers won't get direct access to the hardware; everything will go through a Google-hosted cloud API.

<comment><USER4> I've mostly always handwaved away concerns people had about Google and privacy as being overblown, and I think the idea behind Glass is pretty cool and potentially limitlessly useful, but the privacy implications of a world where Glass-users are common and all data goes through a single entity are staggering. Particularly since they will impact you even if you aren't explicitly opted in (just being seen/scanned by someone who is wearing the device potentially involves you in it).

A world with even just a fraction of a percent of people actively wearing the devices but with all that real-world data streaming back to The Goog in real- time would make Batman's little cell-phone network scanning thing in The Dark Knight look absolutely quaint in comparison.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "We don't publish independent contact information for the Glass Collective because we've learned that it's difficult to sort through the noise that comes through an open email alias. Good opportunities get buried and we miss them."

Sounds like an opportunity for someone to solve this problem.

<comment><USER6> No, because the commonly held belief of many investors is that entrepreneurs need to be savvy to succeed and an example of that would be figuring out how to reach them either, "directly, or through our friends and associates," with the latter usually being the preferred.

I could see how that might be much more difficult for startups based outside of the United States but since they are currently looking to invest domestically this is a pretty good method of filtering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looking forward to seeing what everybody does with this. We've been trying to build mobile apps with this in mind since we first heard the whispers about "Google's Secret Augmented Reality Glasses Project". It's amazing to see how far things have come since then.

</comment><comment><USER8> Google Glass will bring about an interesting UI challenge for designers. Seeing VCs step forward for a new technology is no surprise, especially when we're talking about Google.</comment>


Cory Doctorow Rejoins EFF to Eradicate DRM Everywhere - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/press/releases/cory-doctorow-rejoins-eff-eradicate-drm-everywhere/

<comment><USER2> I,ll rooting for this initiative. I used to take for granted that I'd own the things I buy. But it seems that every year that goes by I'm having less and less ownership of my possessions.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd recommend Cory's latest book: "Information doesn't want to be free" where he addresses the problems presented by DRM and other copyright issues. It's a short read but hugely valuable for folks creating digital content. [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00R4ZJTMO?btkr=1](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00R4ZJTMO?btkr=1)

<comment><USER4> The book is recommended (and the print version is surprisingly attractive). It may be somewhat disappointing if you've been following Cory for a while though as the book doesn't really tread any new ground from his previous works, speeches, etc.

That said, he seems to be trying to hit a different audience with this book and his message is communicated simply enough to make an impact. It seems that hitting a broader audience would be a core mission of this "1201" project with the EFF.

<comment><USER5> I agree, but would put a more positive spin. The book didn't break open for me any new ideas about the topics that Cory's been super eloquent on in the past... but it was marvelous in it's simplicity and encapsulation of concepts. I felt better for reading it, if only because it provides new ways of communicating these arguments to others.

<comment><USER4> The positive spin is more fair and accurate. I didn't intent to come off so negative. Part of the reason I've kept reading and listening to Cory is because, as you note, he provides new ways of communicating arguments and it was interesting to see him work to direct this at a broad audience at the same time. For example, at the end of a long section talking about the fluidity between the roles of creator, investor, intermediaries, and audiences in the introduction he closes with: "...and some of the most dedicated audiences are made up of creators themselves (which is why authors are usually photographed standing in front of a wall of other people's books.)"

It's not fully represented in this quote, but when you read that closing line it instantaneously becomes obvious how blurry the lines have always been and how silly many of the distinctions truly are. We're talking about something bigger.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> DRM isn't inherently bad, it's just that it's most common usage today is in controls that deprive me of my rights. What about scenarios such as if I where to use DRM in the kernels on my systems to restrict the loading of modules that I have not signed?

What if instead of abolishing DRM, we advocated to change the laws to require that any consumer who wishes to control the keys to their own property must be given said keys, because this allows people like my parents and grandmother to relinquish the controls that they aren't interested in to people they trust.

<comment><USER7> DRM _is_ inherently bad, because there is no such thing as perfect DRM and whenever you construct an argument for DRM you have to add the sort of "it's just that"s you've just written.

If you are given content to play, you should be given it in a 'perfect' format. Anything else is idiocy, because at some point it'll be played in that format anyway.

<comment><USER8> From considering the demand-side point-of-view only, I would tend to agree. It gives content distributors a false sense of control at the expense of complicating the average customers' lives. ("Penny-wise, pound-foolish" like a neighborhood coffee shop that requires a key to use the restroom and doesn't put out napkins whereas the Starbucks next door making far more money does neither.)

From the supply-side point-of-view (film maker, movie theater, on-demand service), it depends. Artists can choose to release for free like The Beastie Boys are other doing, knowing enough people will still buy the retail package to keep them afloat. But to see your blood, sweat and tears shared without people paying a dime, might be tough. It's further complicated because you don't want to tick off freeloaders that can be converted to customers or whom happen to be major customers in same-brand products/services.

Both taken together, it's becomes a self-selecting, personal choice to vote with one's wallet.

<comment><USER5> Cory's book is written specifically for the content creators (slash distributors), not the demand side. He handily makes the argument that DRM is an inherently and objectively Bad Thing for them, bar none.

The problem is you're presenting a false choice "Release for free, or release with DRM and get paid". In truth, that's not quite what happens. Instead DRM hurts sales, and lack of DRM helps (or at least doesn't hurt) them... and I'd challenge you to find any time-tested evidence to the contrary.

<comment><USER9> > Instead DRM hurts sales, and lack of DRM helps (or at least doesn't hurt) > them... and I'd challenge you to find any time-tested evidence to the > contrary.

The math on this is very straight forward. Very few of the pirates the DRM stops go out and pay instead, but 100% of the customers who don't buy your product because the DRM sucks are actual lost sales. This is basic supply and demand. Offer free chocolate and everyone will be filling up the back of their trucks with it, but charge $1 and you'll be lucky if each person even buys one bar. Even less when it comes out that you've made it hard to eat. Worse, all but the first pirate are getting the DRM-stripped version from the first pirate but all your paying customers are getting the annoying DRM version.

And to add insult to injury, you have to spend money to build and maintain the DRM system -- unless you outsource it to someone like Apple or Amazon, in which case they become a toll collector that sits between you and your customers.

It's like paying someone to chase away your customers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I love Doctorow. Great work sir.</comment>


I Am an Indie iOS Developer – Part 2 - <AUTHOR> http://gabrielhauber.net/devBlog/2014/09/06/indie-dev-part-2/index.html

<comment><USER2> I don't have a family, and I wouldn't even dream of going indie with revenue like that, and my side revenue is about 3x+ that.

Until I'm clearing 10k/month, quitting isn't even a remote possibility. It would probably even need to be more with health insurance and self employment tax to consider.

Edit: I wish you the best of luck. Maybe I just lack the stomach for betting on something that isn't a sure bet.

<comment><USER3> You're in the US, right? I don't need anywhere near 10k a month in order to live, even with a large family and a mortgage, here in Australia.

<comment><USER4> Where in Australia? I lived there for a few months in both Melbourne and Sydney and everything was almost double the price compared to the US.

<comment><USER5> I live in the Sydney CBD fringe, about 1.5km out of the CBD. My rent is about $2,500 AUD a month and with other costs of living I could easily have a good life on $5,000 AUD a month.

It's just that my wife won't let me... :)

<comment><USER3> LOL. I think many people's expectation of what they "need" is actually skewed way high. If I was pulling in a consistent AU$5000 a month from my app business I would be quite content with that (as would my wife!).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Best of luck and skill to you.

Worth mentioning: there is an attractive Plan B which is not "Sell house to avoid defaulting on debts." It is "do iOS development contracting work at market rates, which are somewhere between $1k and $2k per day." The failure of this business should not cause catastrophic financial consequences for your family.

<comment><USER7> Yeah. I just don't get this desire to become an independent app developer building your own apps. I know it's a dream to be your own boss and work from home and so on, but as a consultant (or contractor or freelancer, or whatever term we currently decide sounds most important and impressive), you will accrue the kind of finances that mean you can take very long holidays if you want, during which you can work on your own apps, or do nothing at all. Yes, you have to work for clients the rest of the time, and clients are often mercurial, but - especially if you're pitching yourself as a mini-agency who can take care of development, design, and even some strategy (subcontracting the bits you don't want to do, as appropriate) - really you often have a lot of freedom; and remote working is definitely becoming more common.

I just can't comprehend why someone would take such huge risks with potentially such limited returns (eg. months where this guy was making $100), having to learn the bizarre vagaries of "App Store Optimisation" (which I'm not really convinced isn't much more than a lottery anyway, and is hardly a core competency for many developers), when the same strong technical skills you already possess can guarantee you a fantastic income.

<comment><USER3> Hi bshimmin,

I've been an independent consultant for many years, and it was never lucrative for me. Maybe I just had the wrong network of contacts. I don't know. I only relatively moved into the iOS space and I've had some decent work, but again, it has been sporadic. Hence my desire to be completely independent and not have to rely on finding contracts all the time.

I have some very specific mid-long term goals for my life, and having to constantly find new contracts will not get me there.

There were never months I only made $100. I've only been committed to this path full-time since July 1 this year. The rest of SongSheet's history I did have other work that kept me somewhat busy.

You have to realise that where I live (Sunshine Coast, Qld, Australia) there isn't a lot people wanting apps built, and there aren't a lot of companies around here to work for, either. I chose to live here, though (biggest reason - my parents and my wife's parents are here, so my kids get to know their grandparents), so I have to live with the limited work opportunities.

I appreciate your thoughts, though :)

<comment><USER7> Thank you for your thoughtful and considered response to my slightly hasty one (I was half-way out of the door as I was typing it!).

You're absolutely right that contacts and location are important; I live out in the countryside and mostly work from my home office, but I think I can only do that right now because I spent most of the previous ten years in London building up the right sorts of connections to allow me to do that - and I still go to London regularly (usually weekly) and am willing to concede I may end up back there again.

With the right approach and attitude, building up connections isn't hard, but it takes a certain pushiness, persistence, and resilience (and an occasional willingness to work at less than a reasonable rate in order to secure future work - the so-called "loss leader" projects) - and in certain locations it may be much harder than others.

I guess I'm guilty of taking it for granted that everyone lives in London, SF, or NYC, where contract roles on eye-watering day-rates - the sort whereby you can work for some fraction of the year and do what you like for the rest, and still maintain an excellent lifestyle - are pretty easy to come by once you have a bit of experience under your belt.

<comment><USER8> (Wow, I'm late to this thread)

You seem to have a good handle on the London freelancing situation. Do you mind if I shoot you a few questions via email (mine is in my profile)?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > if you imagine a smoothed curve then the levelling off between $4.99 and > $6.99 and subsequent drop at $7.99 suggests that $6.99 may be the current > sweet spot for SongSheet's pricing.

At 4.99 and 6.99 the income was almost the same, with 6.99 having only a small edge. However at 4.99 more people are using your application, that may improve the long term growth. Also in general for about the same income, isn't it better to have more users benefitting from your work, and a cheaper to buy application?

<comment><USER3> Good question, one that I did consider at the time. I figured that the normal weekly variation at $4.99 actually made the total a little higher than it would otherwise. i.e. I went with my gut to a certain degree. You may be right about the more users thing at the lower price point giving better growth in the long term. The interesting thing (something I glossed over in the post) was that during the experiment, the total during the week it was at $4.99 was a lot higher than the baseline before the experiment (when it was also at $4.99).

<comment><USER9> Maybe the previous weeks have an effect on the next, for example a low price point brings more new users that will bias the result of the next week and so forth. It's hard to make a controlled experiment... but at least it is possible to do multiple experiments over time shuffling the order in which the prices are tried.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Great look into the harsh reality (and yet awesome optimism) of indie devs on the App Store. I've been fairly successful doing staying independent for over three years but I'm still constantly amazed at how hard it is sometimes. I love seeing others take a shot, and when they have success it's a great thing.

Best of luck to you with SongSheet.

</comment><comment><USER10> I live in the us. My current monthly expenses are about $1300. (Young, no kids, rent, own a car). I have ~18 mo worth of savings and and 1 very simple app on the App Store so far. I'm thinking I could quit my current job (java dev, strongly dislike it) now and spend at least a year trying to become indie. Do you think this is a reasonable thing to do?

I figure at the end of that year I will at least hopefully have enough of a portfolio to get hired as an ios dev somewhere and continue working on my dream with some more stable income.

I know it's probably smarter to keep working on apps on the side but I feel like I could progress south quicker not having a full time job. Also I dread mornings right now. Just curious about others' probably more seasoned opinions.

<comment><USER11> My advice to you would be to forget about it. Even if your apps do well you can easily make more money consulting. It's good to have a few apps in the store as a portfolio but if your goal is to become financially independent as a developer you're better off writing web apps or perhaps native desktop apps. Mobile is bad for indies now and steadily get worse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I see no reason why someone should limit shimself to such a narrow field ("iOS" in this case). You shouldn't limit yourself even for "Mobile"... I mean, you're an engineer, you solve tasks, no matter if it is iOS related, Android, mobile in general or desktop...

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "I see no reason why someone should limit shimself to such a narrow field"

For one person building and maintaining an app to a high standard on just one platform consumes all of your time. If you start developing it on another platform the first platform will suffer.

<comment><USER13> This. I'm an iOS developer and only working and learning new things in the field consumes all my time. I can't image how would I start working on different technology (say node.js, which is something I want to) without impacting on my iOS learning curve.

<comment><USER14> Ignoring the more generic point the gp poster made, if you want to learn Node but not sacrifice expertise on iOS why not identify a mobile app that requires a server side component and do that in Node. That way you still feel like you are working towards a singular goal of doing app development.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Insights in the post are incredible. Even though the details make the Indie way look a bit risky, the adventure part seems quite tempting. Wish you best of luck and thank you for sharing :)

<comment><USER3> Thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> can anyone point to other articles from indie iOS/android developers where they share figures and learnings?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've done it several times:

[http://www.entrelife.com/2012/05/how-i-went- from-0-to-50k-on...](http://www.entrelife.com/2012/05/how-i-went- from-0-to-50k-on-app-stores.html)

[http://www.entrelife.com/2013/01/my-first-year-on-my-own- in-...](http://www.entrelife.com/2013/01/my-first-year-on-my-own-in- review-2012.html)

[http://www.entrelife.com/2014/01/my-app- business-2013-year-i...](http://www.entrelife.com/2014/01/my-app- business-2013-year-in-review.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> A really, really insightful post Gabriel.

Great job - it's great to see someone really detailing things.

<comment><USER3> I'm glad you enjoyed it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It does look very promising i wish you best luck :D

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for that :)

<comment><AUTHOR> No problem. thanks for sharing your story.</comment></comment>


Anna Karenina Principle - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Karenina_principle <comment><USER2> There is a wonderful corollary in basic statistics modeling that success tends to be a long-tailed distribution.

Reason: the easiest framework that allows modeling "the resulting random variable _R_ is zero if any of the incoming variables _v_ ₙ is zero" is the product formulation,

 _R_ = Πₙ _v_ ₙ

which by taking the logarithm of the individual variables becomes a standard central-limit-theorem prediction; as a result success in such contexts follows a log-normal distribution[1], which is long-tailed, even if the individual factors _f_ ₙ = log _v_ ₙ do not look very normal.

This then leads to a growth pattern called Gibrat's Law[2].

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log- normal_distribution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log-normal_distribution) [2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibrat%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibrat%27s_law)

</comment><comment><USER3> Incidentally, this is why UNIX uses zero for "success" and nonzero for errors.

<comment><USER4> Zero is not an indicator of success. It is a lack of failure (NULL). That distinction is why some people think the "flag" is inverted.

<comment><USER5> I always took this to be 'there is only one success, there are many failures', there is only one zero, but many values other than zero. It seemed kind of logical.

<comment><USER6> There is only one of any number.

<comment><USER5> That is true, in the pedantic sense but zero has many properties that other numbers do not.

<comment><USER7> > zero has many properties that other numbers do not

In particular, zero is the additive identity [0] in almost all the "usual" number systems in which it appears. That is roughly speaking, it is the _only_ A such that X + A = X, for _all_ X, where X and A are elements of the number system (e.g. field of real/complex numbers).

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

<comment><USER8> It's also the only real number that does not have an inverse element for multiplication (there is no number b such that (a * 0) * b = a)

<comment><USER9> The integers form a group under multiplication though and a key property of a group is that every element has an inverse. So how does the definition hold if there is nothing that could be considered an inverse for the number 0? Curious about this... I never thought about it before.

<comment><USER10> The integers do not form a group under multiplication. As you noticed, the multiplicative inverse of any integer other than 1 or –1 is not an integer.

You might be thinking of the rational numbers (excluding zero).

<comment><USER9> Woops. You're right.

Looks like I need to play Group or Not Group.

[https://youtu.be/qvx9TnK85bw](https://youtu.be/qvx9TnK85bw)

But then even for addition what's the inverse of 0? -0?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Each misspelled submission is misspelled in its own way.

<comment><USER12> Use the bookmarklet, people!

      javascript:window.location="http://news.ycombinator.com/ submitlink?u="+encodeURIComponent((document.location+'').replace(/.utm_.*$/,''))+"&t="+encodeURIComponent(document.title)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> My friend has a kind of reverse saying: It is not possible to please everyone. But to piss everyone off, that's not a problem.

</comment><comment><USER14> I just started reading Thomas Sowell's newest book _Discrimination and Disparities_ and on the first page I encounter this passage:

"When there is some endeavor with five prerequisites for success, then by definition the chances of success in that endeavor depend on the chances of having all five of those prerequisites simultaneously. Even if none of these prerequisites is rare—for example, if these prerequisites are all so common that chances are two out of three that any given person has any one of those five prerequisites—nevertheless the odds are against having all five of the prerequisites for success in that endeavor."

Sounds like... the Anna Karenina Principle. He goes on to point out that this simple and reasonable model produces extremely skewed distributions for success in any particular endeavor.

<comment><USER14> And this:

"One conclusion is that we should not expect success to be evenly or randomly distributed among individuals, groups, institutions or nations in endeavors with multiple prerequisites—which is to say, most meaningful endeavors. And if these are indeed prerequisites, then having four out of five prerequisites means nothing, as far as successful outcomes are concerned. In other words, people with most of the prerequisites for success may nevertheless be utter failures.

Whether a prerequisite that is missing is complex or simple, its absence can negate the effect of all the other prerequisites that are present. If you are illiterate, for example, all the other good qualities that you may have in abundance count for nothing in many, if not most, careers today. As late as 1950, more than 40 percent of the world's adult population were still illiterate. That included more than half the adults in Asia and Africa."

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> They mentioned Guns, Germs and Steel, and how Jared Diamond gave concrete examples of this with domesticated animals.

One of the most awesome books ever written.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs_and_Steel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs_and_Steel)

There's an entire generation that hasn't read it. Probably worth a shufti.

<comment><USER16> It's an interesting book but it's got a ton of glaring holes.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/1rzm07/wha...](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/1rzm07/what_are_some_of_the_main_anthropological/)

<comment><USER17> Bear in mind that anthropologists are not historians. Anthropologists are dedicated to the study of human culture, which is related to but no the same as the study of human history. Guns, Germs, and Steel chiefly argued that geography was a much stronger determining factor in the development of human societies than culture. Unsurprising that those dedicated to studying human culture weren't a fan of this framing. Contrary to the claims made in that subreddit, Diamond's high level points have been widely influential and positively received by historians. The claims made in that subreddit are not at all representative of the attitude my university history professors had towards Diamond's work.

Furthermore the claims that the book promotes a racist outlook is absurd. Guns, Germs, and Steel is one of the most anti-racist explanations to the disparities in levels of development that there is. One of the chief points of the book is that these disparities are due to being in the right place at the right time rather than racial superiority.

<comment><USER18> > these disparities are due to being in the right place at the right time > rather than racial superiority

The problem is that many of the supposed adaptive phenotypes were conjecture or based on poor science. Such sloppy characterizations, when combined with the seeming authoritative weight of genetics, is fodder for racism.

It's like the stereotype in the U.S. that blacks are genetically better at singing and sports. It's a "compliment" that actually serves to justify racism --the implied corollary is that to be good at those things is to be maladaptive at intellectual endeavors. There's no real scientific evidence to back it up. What "evidence" exists is far better explained by environmental factors (i.e. racism), but superficially it all seems intuitive because the entire society is constructed upon that narrative. (Actually, traits like athleticism _positively_ correlate with intelligence, but that's irrelevant because the stereotype was flawed from inception.)

The only way to suppress such racist tendencies in humanity (to characterize and group people en masse and to rationalize post hoc our behaviors) is to be _highly_ skeptical about proposed substantive genetic differences, particularly those which seemingly justify existing cultural or social differences. When they do exist they almost never (if at all) operate in the way we originally believed. Even recent scientific history (as in past couple of decades) is littered with hypotheses and evidence of this sort that turned out to be faulty.

<comment><USER19> > The problem is that many of the supposed adaptive phenotypes were conjecture > or based on poor science.

What phenotypes? It's been a while since I read GGS but as far as I remember the argument of the book lies directly on the environment, not on human adaptation on that environment.

Since reading the book I've seen a lot of comments claiming racism on Diamonds part that to this day I can't understand. I've seriously considered the possibility that there's two different editions of the book, because I find it hard to justify any racist view using the book.

<comment><USER18> > That is, natural selection promoting genes for intelligence has probably > been far more ruthless in New Guinea than in more densely populated, > politically complex societies, where natural selection for body chemistry > was instead more potent.

> ....

> That is, in mental ability New Guineans are probably genetically superior to > Westerners....

It's hard to pinpoint anything as boldly suspect as what he wrote early in the book, but in searching what stood out to me was his casual use of words like "evolved" and "evolution". In various parts it's ambiguous whether he perceives a genetic component to the evolution of various political societies.

I thought I remembered a part where he says some seafaring peoples score higher on spatial reasoning tests, from which he infers an evolutionary genetic adaption. But I couldn't find it.

FWIW, here's the full text: [https://archive.org/stream/fp_Jared_Diamond- Guns_Germs_and_S...](https://archive.org/stream/fp_Jared_Diamond- Guns_Germs_and_Steel/Jared_Diamond-Guns_Germs_and_Steel_djvu.txt)

<comment><USER17> The full quote is:

> Besides this genetic reason, there is also a second reason why New Guineans > may have come to be smarter than Westerners. Modern Euro- pean and American > children spend much of their time being passively entertained by television, > radio, and movies. In the average American household, the TV set is on for > seven hours per day. In contrast, traditional New Guinea children have > virtually no such opportunities for passive entertainment and instead spend > almost all of their waking hours actively doing something, such as talking > or playing with other children or adults. Almost all studies of child > development emphasize the role of childhood stimulation and activity in > promoting mental development, and stress the irreversible mental stunting > associated with reduced childhood stimulation. This effect surely > contributes a non-genetic component to the superior average mental function > displayed by New Guineans.

> That is, in mental ability New Guineans are probably genetically superior to > Westerners, and they surely are superior in escaping the devastating > developmental disadvantages under which most children in industrialized > societies now grow up. Certainly, there is no hint at all of any > intellectual disadvantage of New Guineans that could serve to answer Yali's > question.

This is part of the prologue where Diamond rejects this genetic explanation, as well as Classical environmental determinism:

> A GENETIC EXPLANATION isn't the only possible answer to Yali's question. > Another one, popular with inhabitants of northern Europe, invokes the > supposed stimulatory effects of their homeland's cold climate and the > inhibitory effects of hot, humid, tropical climates on human creativity and > energy. Perhaps the seasonally variable climate at high latitudes poses more > diverse challenges than does a seasonally constant tropical climate. Perhaps > cold climates require one to be more technologically inventive to survive, > because one must build a warm home and make warm clothing, whereas one can > survive in the tropics with simpler housing and no clothing. Or the argument > can be reversed to reach the same conclusion: the long winters at high > latitudes leave people with much time in which to sit indoors and invent.

> Although formerly popular, this type of explanation, too, fails to survive > scrutiny. As we shall see, the peoples of northern Europe contributed > nothing of fundamental importance to Eurasian civilization until the last > thousand years; they simply had the good luck to live at a geographic > location where they were likely to receive advances (such as agriculture, > wheels, writing, and metallurgy) developed in warmer parts of Eurasia. In > the New World the cold regions at high latitude were even more of a human > backwater. The sole Native American societies to develop writing arose in > Mexico south of the Tropic of Cancer; the oldest New World pottery comes > from near the equator in tropical South America; and the New World society > generally considered the most advanced in art, astronomy, and other respects > was the Classic Maya society of the tropical Yucatan and Guatemala in the > first millennium A.D.

(some paragraphs later)

> Nevertheless, we have to wonder. We keep seeing all those glaring, > persistent differences in peoples' status. We're assured that the seemingly > transparent biological explanation for the world's inequalities as of A.D. > 1500 is wrong, but we're not told what the correct explanation is. Until we > have some convincing, detailed, agreed-upon explanation for the broad > pattern of history, most people will continue to suspect that the racist > biological explanation is correct after all. That seems to me the strongest > argument for writing this book.

And the answer he offer to refute the racist biological explanation is a geographic one.

<comment><USER18> > Why did New Guineans wind up technologically primitive, despite what I > believe to be their superior intelligence?

That's a direct quote where he says flat-out what he believes. It sets the tone for the entire book and the implications about how societies evolve. In the context of everything else, one could reasonably infer that he believes that Eurasians conquered the world because they _genetically_ evolved to develop authoritarian, centralized societies where intelligence took a back seat to being a pawn in a hierarchical political machine.

But he doesn't say that explicitly, and probably doesn't even think that. His discussion of natural selection and evolution is so loose, equivocal, and as you point out even contradictory, who knows what he believes. Point being, no matter who's the good guy or bad guy, he uses very specious reasoning to build a sophisticated theory about how the world is ordered, the very kind of specious logic used in racist thinking everywhere.

<comment><USER17> His discussion of New Guineans is used to directly refute the claim that Eurasians were more advanced due to intelligence - New Guineans are just as intelligent (or more intelligent in his opinion) as Europeans, but did not develop advanced technology, thus intelligence cannot be the determining factor in technological development. He rejects intelligence as a determining factor, and spends the rest of the book after the preface explaining how influence of geography is much more convincing causal factor.

How you reach the conclusion that this reinforces racist thinking, particularly when he explicitly states that the geographic explanation he offers in Guns, Germs, and Steel is meant as a refutation to race-based explanations, is beyond me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Family psychologists say it's false -- there's only a handful of problems that families are unhappy about. But there are millions surprising ways happy families are happy.

<comment><USER21> It's hard to understand how family as an abstract entity can be happy. If we don't have some metric of happiness for one, how can we add it up?

If abstract happiness existed it would be incomprehensible, like consciousness in China brain[1] thought experiment. Or such happiness would be observable for all but this particular family, i.e. show-off happiness. The latter is a punchline in Dostoevsky books.

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

<comment><USER22> I'm not sure what you're saying, but I would point out that there is no such thing as an abstract family. Families are real living organisms.

<comment><USER21> I mean family is a structure built on top of real human beings. Social structures are real while everybody trusts in them, same as how any belief system works, money, etc. Even the definitions of family are different in various cultures.

What it means in real life, the happiness of family is not a sum of everyone's, but some sort of compromise.

<comment><USER22> It's complex and unquantifiable, I agree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> When I worked in a research lab with some finicky bespoke equipment, I remember the boss making a related point. If our experimental device is made up of N components that are each 95% reliable, that sounds pretty good... until you start thinking about how big N is, and how the overall reliability is only 0.95^N. It doesn't take long before you're only getting data one day a week or whatever.

<comment><USER24> This is a point to think about when combining 20 services with "5 9s" of uptime in your favorite cloud provider.

<comment><USER25> For those curious, .99999 ^ 20 is around 0.9998.

<comment><USER26> And that's 1.7 hours of downtime per year.

Usually WiFi/internet is a bigger downtime problem for most users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Compare and contrast with the Swiss cheese model [1].

There's not enough cross-domain awareness and discussion of such quips that approximate useful and widely-applicable mental models.

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

<comment><USER28> The Swiss cheese model applies for redundant checks, the Anna Karerina principle applies for cumulative checks. Or, if you get success if _any_ of your components works, you get the Swiss cheese model, if you get success only if _all_ your components work, you get the Anna Karerina principle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> On a practical note, when I need to write code for a platform (I usually write for Apple platforms), there's usually a dozen ways to do something, but only one or two ways to do it right.

I just went through this today, as I was selecting the best way to trap and pipe stdout.

<comment><USER29> My experience is that with software there's very often _no_ correct way to do it. It seems to me that most of engineering is simply deciding which compromises are acceptable to you today. Or picking something, and shoring up the leaks yourself.

<comment><USER30> There's always at least one right way, but it may not be cost-effective to do it right.

<comment><USER31> Various impossibility theorems say otherwise, eg. the CAP theorem for distributed computing, the scalability trilemma for blockchains, Arrow's impossibility theorem for voting systems. Many times you have mutually incompatible constraints that are both desirable, and the best you can do is pick a point on the continuum that's satisfactory to the particular subset of users you wish to serve.

<comment><USER32> > the CAP theorem for distributed computing

The (highly cost-ineffective) Right Thing is to invest enough in network infrastructure that there _are_ no network partitions.

I don't know about the other examples off the top of my head, but they're probably similar (and similarly impractical).

Anyone can design a bridge that won't fall down; engineering is the process of figuring out which corners you can cut and still have the bridge _just barely_ not fall down.

<comment><USER33> >> The (highly cost-ineffective) Right Thing is to invest enough in network infrastructure that there are no network partitions.

And... It's no longer a distributed system.

<comment><USER34> It's still a distributed system if clients connect to the closest server, speed of light latency between servers exists, and the system deals with consensus between servers, even if the design assumes network partitions never happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> In organizational behavior, success is also multiplicative:

Success = ability * motivation * opportunity

(So if any factor is zero, success is zero.)

<comment><USER36> In criminal investigation, success is also multiplicative:

Success = means * motive * opportunity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> It's difficult to verify Tolstoy's original statement: does anyone know a happy family?

<comment><USER38> It's just a pithy quote that is obviously false and yet very difficult to unlearn. People with different values can be equally happy. There are tons of objectively crazy people who are happy, and even a few who are rich. There lots of miserable people with "perfect lives". There are many approaches to learning something. There are many ways to contribute to a successful team. There are lots of good programming languages, and lots of different ways to solve problems.

I'm not suggesting that there is no such thing as happiness or that wrong can't be distinguished from right, I'm just pointing out that you'll probably go through life being very judgmental and probably unhappy if you really believe Tolstoy's quip.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> You could call this the "maze principle": there is one way to get out of the maze, and all other routes are dead ends. (Actually, there's often more than one way to get out, just like not all "happy families" are the same; it's just much harder to find another correct route than it is to run into a dead end)

<comment><USER5> Solving mazes is dead easy: put your hand against one wall and keep it there, now run.

<comment><USER40> Assumes the exit is on the periphery and you're not stuck on a loop (a free standing wall in the interior).

<comment><USER41> Also, that there isn't a hungry Minotaur hunting in the maze.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Buried the lede I think:

"Correlations, Risk and Crisis: From Physiology to Finance"

Abstract

> We study the dynamics of correlation and variance in systems under the load > of environmental factors. A universal effect in ensembles of similar systems > under the load of similar factors is described: in crisis, typically, even > before obvious symptoms of crisis appear, correlation increases, and, at the > same time, variance (and volatility) increases too. This effect is supported > by many experiments and observations of groups of humans, mice, trees, > grassy plants, and on financial time series. A general approach to the > explanation of the effect through dynamics of individual adaptation of > similar non-interactive individuals to a similar system of external factors > is developed. Qualitatively, this approach follows Selye's idea about > adaptation energy.

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222687003_Correlati...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222687003_Correlations_Risk_and_Crisis_From_Physiology_to_Finance)

</comment><comment><USER42> Amazing book. I recommend it a lot.

<comment><USER43> Did you read a particular translation? It's a book I've always intended to read and I started trying to read Constance Garnett's translation recently, but the writing felt awkward and it turned me off pretty quickly. It felt like I was reading poorly written fanfiction or a book intended for young adults with limited vocabularies.

An example from one of the first few pages:

"There happened to him at that instant what does happen to people when they are unexpectedly caught in something very disgraceful. He did not succeed in adapting his face to the position in which he was placed towards his wife by the discovery of his fault."

<comment><USER42> I read a french translation so I cannot recommend an English one, sorry. But it definitely didn't read like fanfiction in my translation!

<comment><USER44> I wonder if the French parts of the book were altered in the translation or kept as is. Or do you get excerpts of untranslated Russian instead, huh?

<comment><USER42> No excerpts of untranslated Russian. What about the English version?

But I read that Tolstoy participated in the french translation, since he spoke french fluently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I wonder if this could be applied to success of frameworks or programming languages. (Of course, you'd have to define "success" as something relatively binary which might be hard to do.)

<comment><USER46> Each tool unsuited to a job is unsuited in a different way?

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> There is a crime version along the lines of, a criminal needs to be lucky 100% of the time, the police only need to be lucky once.

<comment><USER9> There is a security version which is the inverse of that!

Security is fundamentally asymmetric as you have to make 0 mistakes and the attacker only has to find one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I must use this quote at least once a month with various clients, in an attempt to awaken them to the source and solution for their delivery performance problems

</comment><comment><USER49> aka the _weakest link_ : because a chain breaks if any link breaks. (Being more mechanically-minded, I prefer this less literate metaphor.)

I haven't read AK; from context, is that really what Tolstoy meant? Without context, the well-known quote could be read as happy families are alike in that they are happy, since, in practice, happy families are not identical.

</comment><comment><USER50> None of these examples are about being good, exactly. They're about being a good fit for another thing.

</comment><comment><USER51> So, how do I raise a happy family?

Or rather, I have a idea of starting a MOOP company - Massive Open Online Psychology.

By monitoring a household, listening to conversations (interruptions, time to respond, aggression etc) and even vision (physical contact etc) it should be possible to see where we all are on some scale of "good interpersonal relations"

And presumably guide us to be better

Let's say a SatNav for your life

</comment><comment><USER52> The "Perfect Principle" would be a much better name.

</comment><comment><USER53> Can you fix the typo anna KARERINA please?

</comment><comment><USER54> Oh, the "weakest link" syndrome!

</comment><comment><USER55> Is it Karerina or Karenina?

<comment><USER56> It's Karenina. There's a typo in the title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> This post has a misspelling. Can you fix this?

`s/Katerina/Karenina`

<comment><USER58> To be clear, the title's misspelling is "Karerina".

<comment><USER59> He is clearly stating the substitution assuming time is reversed.

<comment><USER58> That can't be, as "Katerina" is neither the mistake nor the correct name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Yeah, I've noticed this to be true in many different ways. As Jesus said, the path to heaven is narrow.</comment>