My interview experience with Canonical - <AUTHOR> http://redbluemagenta.com/2018/01/05/my-interview-experience-with-canonical/ <comment><USER3> I think the guy was just priced out.

Companies ought to be more upfront about their salary bands. It's pretty unreasonable to have candidates jump through a phone screen, complete a homework assignment, then travel to come meet in person for the whiteboard pain session before they know if a company can even afford them. I see more companies getting this right lately but we have a way to go.

Otherwise, it can be a huge waste of everyone's time. In this case it sounds like whoever negotiated didn't even have authority to make a deal, which is a pretty big flub on Canonical's part.

The other possibility is that one of the interviewers didn't get feedback in before the negotiation. That would still be a process fail.

A good developer/SRE should basically be able to justify her expense and essentially write her own check, splitting the value capture with the host company. Things are way off and asymmetric in the current hiring practice.

Thanks for posting. It's understandable to be upset here. More companies with bad interview processes should be outed so that they can improve and the rest of us don't have to discover them on our own.

<comment><USER4> >"A good developer/SRE should basically be able to justify her expense and essentially write her own check, splitting the value capture with the host company. Things are way off and asymmetric in the current hiring practice."

I was curious what you meant by "splitting the value capture with the host company." Similarly I would be interested in where you see asymmetry in the hiring process.

<comment><USER5> Not OP, but they likely meant that a developer or SRE can be a force multiplier that delivers value far in excess of salary and costs.

For example, if I produce value to the company of 400k/year, whther that's in new development, or optimising/supporting existing systems, and they incur costs of 50k/year in hiring me, then the 350k is up for discussion in terms of the distribution between salary/bonus and remaining with the company to reflect risk and capital etc.

That said, this calculation applies to most value-generating employees in most industries - techies, and HN in particular, are just more explicit in discussing it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Probably a bad professional move for him to write this post and burn those bridges. It's suspicious that he didn't describe the execs interview. Normally when I've had a good technical interview the execs interview feels like just a formality, or it turns into them selling me on the company. The one time I saw a higher up override the technical manager was when the exec had a bias against consultants. Canonical being an open source company I imagine that more wishy-washy "values" criteria are given more weight.

<comment><USER7> Bridge burning is never a good professional move, and the author goes out of his way to be rude about it. I'm not sure what positive effect they thought this would have.

Based on this post I can't say I'd want to work with the author either.

<comment><USER8> I think it is a good thing he wrote this piece. It is better to go into an interview knowing about possible negative outcomes. I wouldn't mind working with people who speak their mind. Actually I prefer it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Do not _ever_ take an action (such as rejecting other offers) based on a verbal/provisional/anything. Only a letter in hand is any good, and even then you should probably respond quickly if you plan to accept.

<comment><USER10> I've never heard of a "provisional offer" in the UK market - this would be highly unusual.

I don't know if Canonical is culturally UK, but maybe there was a misunderstanding about the stage of the process they had reached?

<comment><USER11> Im not sure about elsewhere, but in the US, at least in my experience, a "provisional offer" is an offer that's contingent on one or more specific condition, usually something like "pass your background check" or "pass your drug test," or "references check out," or "you prove you are legally entitled to work." These are things you won't usually put a potential hire through unless you've both agreed upon employment and salary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > never interview at Canonical, never work for them, don't even entertain the > idea of seeing yourself getting a paycheck while working on tools that > seemingly have zero traction outside of Canonical

All this vitriol seems like an over-strong reaction to an executive panel rescinding his offer. Canonical should definitely have been clear about the entire process up-front, but making decisions before you have a full confirmation doesn't seem sensible.

When we hire we send out an offer letter after all the interviews are done, but that offer is explicitly still contingent on right-to-work checks and satisfactory references. This is normally a formality but there's always a chance something might go wrong.

<comment><USER13> If you look at his work history on LinkedIn, I can see why there would be an issue. Many jobs held less than a year. That's not a pattern anyone wants to hire.

<comment><USER14> Yeah - I'm still looking for that job fit. Takes a while sometimes.

<comment><USER15> Problem is, if I'm looking at hiring you I'm not sure if I'm going to get my money's worth. Hiring is not cheap, plus there's the ramp up time, and the impact on other people's performance while you're ramping up.

If your work history shows you're not likely to stick around for a couple of years, that will count against you in any consideration.

Some times you need to make decisions about how much crap you'll put up with, so that your job history makes you more marketable.

Your resume / work history is one of the _first things_ a recruiter or hiring manager will see about you. It has to speak for you on what kind of employee you are, and you have to assume they're going to take it the worst way.

<comment><USER13> I got asked a lot of hard questions in recent round of interviews about the one gap out of a history that's quite long. Haunts you if you don't have a good story up front.

<comment><USER16> The same applies to short periods of employment. Take your time during updating the CV to create convincing language-neutral explanation, because "they were among the stingiest cheapskates in this part of the continent", or "their codebase was monumental dried pile of Java" will not work in your favor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > instead of getting a stipend for a work laptop you'd ordinarily have to hand > in after leaving the company, you instead get an interest-free loan that's > spread over the course of 3 months that's used to pay for your equipment and > whatever else you need for your remote work space.

I am missing why this is better in any way.

<comment><USER18> I never understood why company's don't just give you the equipment, to keep, forever.

A laptop/monitor/chair/etc is a trivial expense compared to the person's salary and you don't end up with a bunch of random weird ergonomic devices floating around from the ghosts of employees past.

<comment><USER19> "to keep, forever" <\-- they would need to include this on your W2, versus the current situation where it is depreciated equipment over 3 years or whatever.

<comment><USER20> Personally, I woud be fine with that. I think they could even call it a "signing bonus". From what I understand, some signing bonuses are even contingent upon your staying for at least a specified period of time, or you have to pay it back.

<comment><USER21> You don't understand the tax implications, you'd have to pay income and payroll taxes on the laptop, depending on your marginal rate that could cost you an additional 40% of the cost of the laptop. And the company would pay payroll taxes on it as well. Versus the company buying it as their property and being able to fully deduct it over time.

<comment><USER20> So people don't ever get signing bonuses either then, right? Gotcha.

ps. Don't assume that people don't understand something just because they don't hold your opinion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If this is to be taken at face-value I'd view it as "poor show" on Canonical's part. An offer of employment was made and later rescinded. However, while a "provisional" offer might seem unusual, from a UK-perspective it would normally be down to things like eligiblity-to-work, ID checks, and references (a "provisional offer based on satisfactory references" is quite normal).

I'm not sure if the author would say, or know, the reason _why_ the offer was rescinded, but, on face-value, it presents Canonical's HR and recruitment process quite poorly.

On the other hand, if Canonical requested and could not get references, or references were negative, the offer would quite understandably be withdrawn.

From the article, all we know is that Canonical advertised a position, the author was provisionally offered the position, then Canonical withdrew the provisional offer.

<comment><USER23> There should always be transparency in this kind of situation, so that - <USER2> the very least, the person can address the issue going into the next interview.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> If you need a job, why would you reject other offers before accepting an offer from someone? That really doesn't make sense...

<comment><USER25> You can get into a situation where you have multiple offers you need to decide upon at the same time. It's not entirely ethical to say "yes" to all of them, although one lesson here is that you have not _really_ said yes to an offer until you sign.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why would anyone associate his name forever with a failure or problems? Internet will not forget and all kinds of people will search and find it and have some fucking stupid ideas. Im missing the time when job was a job and nobody gave a fuck about what you did five years ago or who are your friends and relatives.</comment>


ViralNova acquired for $100M, while The Dissolve shuts down - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-100-million-content-farm-thats-killing-the-internet <comment><USER2> It's mostly not "superficial" versus "meaningful" content, but rather "destination" versus "value-added" content.

The problem with The Dissolve is that you have to decide to go there to engage with it. Most people won't do that.

Value-added content is explicitly designed to be slotted in anywhere on the whole Internet. _Nobody_ decides to engage with that stuff; it just shows up, like a banner ad.

<comment><USER3> Yeah. I loved The Dissolve every time I remembered to visit it. Sadly, that really wasn't very often. Even as a fan of cinema, _and_ of the sort of cinema that The Dissolve often used to write about, there wasn't much to remind me of the site's existence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Even if it was intended #irony, the random hashtag inserts eventually made the whole piece come off as clickbaity to me and I actually stopped reading it. I mean, I got that you are totally hip to the ecosystem in the first paragraph, you don't have to keep whacking me in the face with it.

<comment><USER5> >and I actually stopped reading it

Same here, I thought it would stop after the first ironic paragraph, but when it went on and on I couldn't stand it any longer

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's a reason why the "News of the World"s of this world stick around. Take a look at the magazine rack at any checkout lane in the US, and you'll see it filled with such trash. Why are these people still around? _Because such baity headlines work!_ It's no secret; they've been doing it for decades. It's not the end of the world; just like newspapers weren't killed by them.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've been thinking about this, and the more I do, the more it feels like there's some pretty bitter irony in the way things have gone. The internet became popular (at least the way I see it) by offering an alternative to mainstream content sources, and it's gradually become the very thing it seeked to get away from.

So let's say for the purposes of arguing, between the TPP, whois privacy potentially going away, and all the other crazy/terrible ideas out there right now, things get really bad? Are you guys okay with starting over from square one?

<comment><USER8> The irony goes beyond media content type. To me, the internet promised free speech, a worldwide community, and freedom from oppressive governments. And now it is well on its way to becoming one of the greatest tools for surveillance and oppression that has ever existed.

I'm all for a fresh start.

<comment><USER9> Agreed on all points, the thing is, what comes after the Internet? The answer seems to be more Internet.

It's not too hard to get away from the social cable TV news like Facebook if you try. The Internet is still as subculture-focused and underground as it always was, you just have to dig a little deeper these days. There are still phreaking groups on IRC. There are still anon remailer nets. Ham radio is still a thing. x86 disassemblers are still useful. Soldering is still a valuable skill.

It's just now, there are a few generations of us out there and the barriers to entry are very low for the Internet at large. Don't give up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well, you gotta remember that the big majority of people are dumber than the remaining (no offense, that's just how it is), plus everyone craves entertainment in a world where everyday life is just boring.

So it's no surprise that a dumb and entertaining website would be so profitable - it appeals to a maximum number of users, most of which don't think twice before clicking an ad or making a purchase, either...

</comment><comment><USER11> This whole story reminded me of Pratchett's The Truth. The starting up of newspapers and William de word trying to write proper articles only to be defeated by cut-my-own throat dibbler who invented news stories that were much more exciting with crazy headlines but were untrue.

</comment><comment><USER12> The highbrow Internet isn't hindered in any way by the chans or the cat GIFs or whatever the current New Media bogeyman is. The great thing about the Internet is that it gives you infinite room to build what you want.

<comment><USER13> The internet may be infinite, but VC attention and funding most certainly are not.

<comment><USER14> Why do you need VC attention and funding to publish film reviews?

That is, to me, the core problem in the article. It seems to suggest that Dissolve deserved to be given money since other less worthy sites are being acquired for millions.

That's not how the Internet works. The 20th century "highbrow" journalist enjoyed a certain income because he had a monopoly on access to media. A widely read newspaper only needed one film critic. But on the Web, any group of people can start a site like Dissolve.

It's not a special privilege reserved to media elite, and that seems to annoy the author: Dissolve had "Pitchfork credentials", which apparently implies that it would have deserved financial success based on that association.

<comment><USER15> I agree. This is, unfortunately, the biggest point old media have been delusional about. We might also add that the way old media tried to stick to old ways of displaying advertising has contributed to fuel the current status quo of Internet Advertising. It was their model that pretended to make every pair of eyeballs equal, now they pretend that they shouldn't be when it comes to content quality... It's obvious that the current page views based model of Advertising is going towards self annihilation. In the meantime you can still exploit it with explosive growth and cash in on that, like viral nova did in just 2 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you want to make some wine, there are plenty of sour grapes for the picking here!

It's actually an enjoyable read, but the idea that a site with some _movie_ reviews on it is so much more high brow than Viralnova is hilarious. It wasn't that long ago movies were considered the lowbrow medium and I imagine some writer was whining about how opera was no longer getting its due.

</comment><comment><USER17> Never heard of ViralNova. Went to their website, and it looks like any other clickbaity garbage site. I'm amazed how much the sold for.

</comment><comment><USER18> "[...] in a cash and stock deal that _could be worth_ as much as $100 million if Zealot appreciates in value."

</comment><comment><USER19> Niche content makes a better hobby than a business? Or at least, such content is best provided for secondary benefits, rather than expecting immediate riches from ad revenue for a few occasional posts.

</comment><comment><USER20> That's basically just one big shit post. Where does he offer any ideas? It's just a vitriolic long-winded rant that I truly don't understand.

</comment><comment><USER21> > The $100 million acquisition proves that there is no more bar for 'quality > content.' Quality content is only a fraction of the equation for > illustrating #value in a media brand. Projecting the idea of having 'quality > content' might even be more important than spending money on the production > of quality content. It's just bad business.

> The funny thing is that Dissolve probably had everything a niche content > farm needs to be successful.

> But you can't really justify a 'team' of writers producing long content that > doesn't even #perform by today's content economy standards.

> A site like ViralNova demonstrates just how a generalist content site ruined > the web.

[rant]

Articles like this make me want to scream: "your metrics for 'quality' are defined by your philosophy!" Your standards (metrics) are based on your values. Your values, which are hierarchical, are based on your fundamentals. Your fundamentals = your philosophy.

A crime boss rules his neighborhood by threatening people with violence unless they pay extortion. He grows rich in terms of money. His large influence is based on force. For those who fundamentally value quantity of money or influence, by their standards, he has a quality and successful business. For those who fundamentally value honesty or the non-aggression principle [1] in their hierarchy of values as more important, he has a low quality and unsuccessful business.

No, sites like ViralNova haven't ruined the web and, no, I'm not conflating content farms and extortion. ViralNova is giving people want they want. Just as contemporary art is a reflection of the prevailing philosophy [2], so is ViralNova a reflection of ubiquitous standards that trends, "hotness," and money are morally proper reflections of value in and of themselves. To paraphrase a famous book [3], "lowbrow" content is not the root of all evil killing the Internet. You must ask what is at the root of content. Until people start experiencing and learning alternative philosophies, their values won't change. If you want to change the Web and raise the intellectual "bar," you need to focus on the philosophies behind the metrics that define "successful" \- not the metrics themselves.

[/rant]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non- aggression_principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNI07egoefc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNI07egoefc)

[3] [http://www.working-minds.com/money.htm](http://www.working- minds.com/money.htm)

</comment><comment><USER22> Who dreamed of a highbrow Internet, and how did they get so out of touch with humanity in the first place?

<comment><USER12> > Who dreamed of a highbrow Internet, and how did they get so out of touch > with humanity in the first place?

The people who invented it, who wanted a way for scientists to access mainframes using a single network instead of having to use a different network for each different big computer.

Oh, you mean scientists can still do things like that, and that cat GIFs don't prevent it? Shut your mouth!

<comment><USER22> > Oh, you mean scientists can still do things like that, and that cat GIFs > don't prevent it? Shut your mouth!

If, as you indicate yourself, the Internet could still be used for science whether or not it also delivers videos of cats, then why would scientists have fooled themselves into thinking the Internet must be 'highbrow'?

Did they use a 'highbrow' telephone system before that? Did they use 'highbrow paper' while the hoi polloi read their garbage dailies? No, the Internet is a tool just as paper and telecommunications were.

What people do with that tool is up to them, but the tool itself won't raise the nature of discourse just by being, anymore than a really nice socket wrench will magically make the beams and struts of a building stronger.

I'm glad the title was revised again because the previous version was practically a contradiction in terms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> >it's also a 'technology company' with its own content management system and the analytic tools to find out what is going viral. They have innovative technology that allows them to A/B test their Facebook headlines.

Such innovation. Many wow.

</comment><comment><USER24> So you mean to tell me that the pure pursuit of profit does _not_ serve the needs of society?</comment>


No Genetic Associations Found in Autism GWAS - <AUTHOR> http://blog.23andme.com/health-traits/autism-study-reveals-no-genetic-associations/ <comment><USER2> This is from 4 years ago ([http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3471395/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3471395/)) and didn't even involve 23andMe (way to go, 23andMe, you've sure been making good use of all that donated phenotype info...).

A more relevant link might be [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4650984/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4650984/) ; the GCTAs show that the common SNPs examined _do_ explain a decent fraction, but it's increasingly looking like rare variants and novel mutations may explain the rest.</comment>


The ASF Resigns From the JCP Executive Committee - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.apache.org/foundation/entry/the_asf_resigns_from_the <comment><USER2> For people who are unfamiliar with all the acronyms:

ASF : Apache Software Foundation

EC : Executive Committee

EE : Enterprise Edition

JCP : Java Community Process

JSR : Java Specification Request

JSPA : Java Specification Participation Agreement

SE : Standard Edition

TCK : Test Compatibility Kit

<comment><USER3> That helps, but can someone provide a babblefish translation of what this means for those of us who don't live in the Java world? Is it basically...

Dear Java,

We remember when you used to be cool. Now you spend all of your time drinking and hanging out with lawyers. We are leaving and taking the dog and all of the CDs with us.

Love, Apache

<comment><USER4> I believe that is basically it. They won't be participating in writing specifications, but I don't think that anyone will be stopping Apache (or anyone else) from implementing any of the JSRs.

If a hypothetical Java Servlet API v4.0 would be released they could still make Tomcat be compliant with it.

On the other hand Tomcat is _very_ widely used in the not-quite-huge- enterprise companies and it is obviously helpful for a spec if all implementers can agree on some common ground before it is written. ECMA probably wouldn't see a point in doing ES5 if Microsoft and Mozilla would not talk to them.

<comment><USER5> It might be a matter of time before Oracle decided to cut all of the oxygen lines for these open source solutions judging from Ellison's comment about RedHat business models.

What do you think would happen in order for a library to be certified (passed a certain TCK) would require to pay Oracle a huge amount of money?

Oracle can get more money from IBM, RedHat, SpringSource (SS uses a modified Tomcat for their tcServer) and a slew bunch of other companies.

Whether they'll do it or not, I don't know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For people confused about the impact of this:

Having Apache on the EC (Executive Committee) strengthened Java by giving an _official_ voice to the (large) open source Java community. This was useful for Java because Apache often agitated to make sure specifications were licensed under terms that are compatible with open source implementations. Open Source implementations have kept Java competitive with .NET in terms of price, and many specifications have grown out of open source Java projects.

The Eclipse organisation remains on the EC, so Oracle can point to them as a voice for open source. However, Eclipse is different to Apache in that it is primarily a pay-to-play organisation, whilst Apache is a meritocracy.

In terms of specifications themselves (JSRs), Apache will no longer automatically have a representative. Individual experts can still be invited, but Apache's withdrawal (as well as that of people like Doug Lea & Bob Lee) makes it less likely experts will want to serve on a JSR committee.

<comment> brown9-2 _However, Eclipse is different to Apache in that it is primarily a pay-to-play organisation_

This isn't related to the discussion at hand, but can you elaborate on this?

<comment><USER7> The Apache Foundation board was initially made up of people involved in creating Apache software, and membership is expanded through election by the existing board.

The Eclipse Foundation board is mainly representatives from companies who have paid the substantial "strategic member" fee.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> First: _Further, the project communities of the ASF, home to Apache Tomcat, Ant, Xerces, Geronimo, Velocity and nearly a 100 mainstay java components have implemented countless JSRs and serve on and contribute to many of the JCPs technical expert groups._

And then:

 _To that end, our representative has informed the JCP's Program Management Office of our resignation, effective immediately. As such, the ASF is removing all official representatives from any and all JSRs. In addition, we will refuse any renewal of our JCP membership and, of course, our EC position._

Holy crap! That just sounds like Java is really bleeding now. Anyone knows how significant the real impact of leaving representatives on the JSRs is?

<comment><USER9> Not really. JSRs have never been leading the innovation in Java world: Ant, Maven, Velocity, Spring, Hibernate, Grails, Hadoop, GWT, Android, Struts, Wicket, Eclipse - none of them started as a JSR.

The only JSR that matter is JavaSE and I don't see it having technical problems. JavaME is dying and Spring showed JavaEE how things should be done so they are catching up now.

<comment><USER10> A counterpoint: On the technical front, I see JavaSE/the JRE falling hopelessly behind C# and the CLR -- fear of Microsoft and distrust of Mono have kept the playing field a bit closer to being level, but I don't see Oracle as an organization that can really take advantage of that.

<comment><USER11> _fear of Microsoft and distrust of Mono have kept the playing field a bit closer to being level, but I don't see Oracle as an organization that can really take advantage of that_

Honestly, as someone who has no interest in Microsoft technologies and distrusts Mono, but who likes the idea of a batteries-included, CTO-friendly, cross-platform, JIT-compiling VM with a huge userbase and oodles of libraries, I am feeling a little lost now. Not that Java is going to die quickly -- I'm still learning Scala and expect that to be a good investment for a few years to come -- but it's starting to look like Java is a platform with a lot less future than I expected.

<comment><USER12> _I'm still learning Scala and expect that to be a good investment for a few years to come_

First let me disclaimer that this is totally my perspective on the subject but as a decision maker in a company that is now looking to move on and believes that this is the fatal shot to Java, I wanted to say that for us we feel that with the JVM shenanigans that any technology that runs on the JVM is in danger of Oracle's legal reach. After kicking this one around a lot among our peers we are hopeful that a language that run on the LLVM makes it to the forefront as a replacement.

<comment><USER11> It will be many years before a new platform can match the libraries available on the JVM. Such a loss :-(

<comment><USER12> Yep needless to say, I am pretty concerned right now. I think the irony of the whole situation is that much of the community expected this from Mono.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13>
         The Apache Software Foundation concludes that that JCP is not an open
         specification process - that Java specifications are proprietary technology
         that must be licensed directly from the spec lead under whatever terms the
         spec lead chooses

So much for Java being an open standard.

</comment><comment><USER14> I always thought it was odd that ASF, one of the early open-source successes, was so heavily Java which has always been semi-open at best. Stuff like this lends more credence to the ideological purity of the GNU guys..

</comment><comment><USER15> Given the conclusion (that JCP is not an open specification process), I wonder whether they will move away from implementing JCP specs, and towards other technologies.

Huge loss for the JCP either way.

</comment><comment><USER16> My, perhaps naive, question is: will there now be a bifurcation of the Java community? Specifically, will there be an open community with its own standards and implementations, and the Oracle community with theirs.

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem seems to be that you can't simply just go implement something independently and call it, say, "Dalvik", rather than Java, and avoid Oracle's lawyers, due to patents.

<comment><USER17> Then how difficult would it be to create a new Java that has the features (syntactical and whatever else) that everybody's been clamoring for and calling it a different name? C# basically did that, and it's still around....

<comment><AUTHOR> That's exactly what I said. You can't just give it a different name and do a clean-room implementation, because it _still_ likely violates some patents.

<comment><USER18> And the patents is where the problems lie. Which is the problem with not being able to pass the TCK - no access to the patent pool.

How does the MS CLR get around this issue? Surely their VM is infringing on some of this pool? Do they now licence from Oracle?

If only it WAS this simple... this hypothetical situation would be awesome!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I am firmly supportive of ASF. I was unhappy with Sun for witholding the TCK, and I am now unhappy with Oracle. Major languages should have multiple high quality implementations. I understand the business issues but something like Java needs to have at least one foot firmly in the 'commons.'

</comment><comment><USER20> Is Google going to follow suit? They were the other ones to vote against Java SE 7 on the same grounds and seem to share Apache's concerns.

</comment><comment><USER21> Uninformed question: How does this affect Apache projects and their further development?

</comment><comment> roman-m Oracle shooting them selfs in the head. The open unrestricted competition in Java world moved that comunity since the begining and everybody got profit from that. The tools were improved and preselected by the user experience only. It was a win win. If your product was not good enough you got the valuable information: that you should to improve yourself. That is the basic foundation of capitalism: don't concentrate on your competitors but on your own products. Now Oracle is trying to block that open market of ideas. They will be the first to get hurt.

"The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me." (Ayn Rand)

</comment><comment><USER22> As pro-FOSS CTO with a JIT-compiling VM userbase, the ASF exit from JCP EC makes it CYA time for us with the FOU restrictions in the TCK and JDK 7/8. Agreed?

<comment><USER23> AMEABFTMA (Aaargh my eyes are bleeding from too many acronyms)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Java by itself as a commercial entity is not extremely valuable. Not really having any clue how to get an ROI out of Java, Oracle like Sun before them is simply hedging their bets that owning/controlling Java IP (of any stripe) may in the future provide commercial returns or business leverage when a Java- based app or framework succeeds (see: the Android lawsuit, the MSVM lawsuit 10 years ago). I guess it's the only logical approach for a company that otherwise has no clue how to monetize a technology as widespread as Java.

Seriously, what did we actually think Oracle was going to do with Java? Get all open and community-minded and crap?

<comment><USER25> Oracle (or IBM) is profitable enough that they don't _have_ to monetize Java at all.

<comment><USER26> But then they wouldn't be Oracle...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> So what does this actually mean for Java and ASF?

</comment><comment><USER28> As commentors have mentioned, you can't simply roll-your-own-Java without being at risk of a legal battle.

Zooming out. What are the biggest technologies being affected by this, and what are the alternatives available to the creators and developers of those technologies?

Would we end up in a situation where someone like Google would have to revamp their entire Android runtime?

<comment><USER29> I'm not sure that revamping would help. Android isn't a JVM, it's already it's own, independently designed and built virtual machine, and yet they're still getting sued by Oracle.

<comment><USER30> I think you need to re-read the lawsuit.

<comment><USER31> The claims in the lawsuit would apply to any modern virtual machine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The acquisition of Java by the intellectual monopolist Oracle is good for programming, because Oracle's rent seeking will discourage programmers from using Java. There are far better languages that have more versatile typing operations than mere subclassing.

</comment><comment><USER33> I don't think this was wise of Oracle. They only seem to view Java as an asset they can make money of. But I don't think it's wise to turn the tide against them for a few cents.

</comment><comment><USER34> Maybe Oracle's doing the right thing for Java afterall. Assuming Ownership.

</comment><comment><USER35> Is their blog down?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah:

"So much traffic/interest in the ASF leaving the JCP that blogs.apache.org is wonky. Oh yeah, it's Java. #JCPIsDead"

<http://twitter.com/#!/jimjag/status/12939142254034944>

<comment> brown9-2 I had to do a bit of searching to figure this out, but that twitter quote is from the President of the ASF - interesting.</comment></comment></comment>


Compiling the Nvidia 415.27 drivers on Linux kernel 5.x - <AUTHOR> https://smalldata.tech/blog/2019/11/14/compiling-the-nvidia-415.27-drivers-on-linux-kernel-5.x <comment><USER2> ITT, proof that nvidia hates linux users. I'm flabbergasted that it still takes so much effort to get this driver running on new kernels. Even more of a problem when you need to sign the module (not much exists for straightforward docs).</comment>


I can get your kid into an Ivy - <AUTHOR> http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/article/103709/I-Can-Get-Your-Kid-Into-an-Ivy

<comment><USER2> Great, someone has figured out the recipe for high-performing, cookie-cutter drones. They might as well submit their super-early-action resumes to Wall Street alongside their college applications.

I have so many more snide remarks to make about this, but I can't say there aren't upsides... at least it tells you there is always a way, if you're willing to find it.

<comment><USER3> I actually think she's creating something very different from drones. It sounds like she's pushing kids to do extraordinary things that they wouldn't think of doing by themselves, but as long as those are the things about which the kids are passionate (music, science, photography, etc). Even if the end goal is to get into a good college, I don't think it diminishes from those kids' achievements under her guidance.

In the end, it sounds like if the parents and the kids were a bit creative they wouldn't need that woman's services. But she helps the would-be uncreative drones be less drone-like, and that's what helps them get admitted.

<comment><USER4> Ok, but how many of her clients would still be clients if the tag line was "I push your kids to do extraordinary things". I could be wrong, but I think the target audience wants to trade their money for a college acceptance, regardless of the means.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> She's hacked the system. This can only be a good thing if it forces the schools to patch it.

</comment><comment><USER6> 1) This is wrong.

2) Why didn't I think of it first.

</comment><comment><USER7> I can't knock her hustle but she genuinely annoys me.

</comment><comment><USER8> it would be cool if people did things they wanted to do instead of things that look good on applications

if colleges didn't care about them, I think membership in student council, natl honor society, habitat for humanity, chess club, band, etc, etc would fall by 99%

people should just be real

</comment><comment><USER9> Article is incorrect. The Academic Index is an agreement between the Ivies about the minimum GPA/SAT necessary for recruited athletes. The cutoff is different for each school, based on the average of the overall student body. However the AI has nothing to do with the general admissions process.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't doubt that you're right in the stated purpose of the AI, but that doesn't necessarily mean the admissions officers don't use it for anything else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I know a lot of people who were able to get into ivies or ivy league caliber schools without paying 40k. They did it on their own, for free. If you have to pay 40k to get your kid into an ivy, they probably don't belong there in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER11> As I read this article, part of me was disgusted, but another part kept saying, "Brilliant!"

What a business model...

Find prospects with essentially unlimited resources and find out what they CAN'T buy. Then provide a service to dramatically increase their probability of getting it. Do that service excellently. And, most of all, find a way to guarantee (if even only semantically) your success.

I know tons of people with lots of money who constantly surprise me with how they spend it chasing something they CAN'T BUY. They chauffer their kids back and forth to every imaginable activity (to improve their chances later on). They take vitamins, eat weird foods, and go to "holistic" retreats to "insure" their health and longevity. They even donate tons of money to religious and spiritual institutions to insure their place in the "world to come".

They can't buy any of it. But they sure can pay to improve their odds. I say this woman is really onto something.

Now if only I could find my angle...

For only $49,995, I will guarantee your ycombinator application gets accepted in the next round. This includes personal start-up business counseling and 2 weeks at my exclusive retreat at a world class resort.

(This guarantee doesn't apply to lame ideas or applicants. "Lame" to be defined by me at a later date.)

<comment><USER12> Or just offer a money back guarantee and honour it. Make 50k off of the 20% who make it through, and Robert's yer mother's brother.

<comment><USER13> Alan Dershowitz once told the story of a court clerk who would approach the plaintiffs in every trial and say "For $5,000 I'll try to convince the judge to rule in your favor. If you still lose the case I'll give you your money back." Then he would make the same offer to the defendants.

<comment><USER14> His mistake was not keeping the vigorish.

<comment><USER11> OTOH, with the speed of our court system, he probably could've made a nice little income on the interest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hey, if she was a publishing agent, she would take 15 percent of all the kids' future salaries.

</comment><comment><USER16> depressing.</comment>


Funny/Inspirational Books? - <AUTHOR> I was in a fedex office recently and picked up a book on their shelf titled Oh The Meetings You'll Go To, by Dr. Suits (https://www.amazon.com/dp/0735213984/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_8p0GCbKE5R1VM)<p>Pretty clever, and funny. Seeking similar books for us software engineers. Any are welcome; those geared specifically to web or front end are especially welcome. <comment><USER2> Clicky [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0735213984](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0735213984) (without the referral part)</comment>


Polaroid cameras to be produced once again - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/6316829/Polaroid-cameras-to-be-produced-once-again.html <comment><USER2> _should both go one sale by the middle of 2010_

Is anyone else noticing a _lot_ more typos in articles and blogs lately? Can these respected publications not afford copy editing anymore? The typo above is obvious and in the first sentence. How can no one have noticed and corrected it by now?

<comment><USER3> The UK Guardian used to be so noteworthy for its typos that it was nicknamed the Grauniad... this isn't new.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I hope it turns out there's a market for Polaroid. Sometimes older, simpler product fade back in to popularity, much like how LPs are bigger now than they were 10 years ago. I'd like it if this were the case.

<comment><USER5> It will be a hipster fashion article more then anything else I think.

<comment><USER4> I don't like the word "hipster". It's meaningless. It really is.

I don't care _who_ uses it. What I care about is that it exists. There's a special quality to Polaroid photos that I'd hate to see go, even if I'd understand if it did.

<comment><USER6> I think we have outed a hipster.

<comment><USER4> What the fuck does that even _mean_? My saying I don't think hipster is really a meaningful term, that makes me a hipster? Because hating hipsters makes you a hipster, too. Hipsters hate hipsters. But if I liked hipsters, then I'd have to be a hipster, because hipsters are so loathsome that only a hipster would love a hipster. It's a derivative and pathetic version of the Red Scare.

<comment><USER7> > What the fuck does that even mean?

As hilarious as I find this whole exchange to be, I think hipster generally means someone who rebels against the mainstream fads by adopting alternative fads, which is somewhat ironic to non-hipsters.

So the hipster looks at mainstream people wearing abercrombie and says, "Blech!", talks about how bourgeois and uncultured those people are, and then play into the same sort of thing with horn-rimmed glasses and 1920's vintage clothing, or whatever the counterculture-du-jour is that season.

People knock hipsters because of a general sense of irony and hypocrisy of people who put down trend-followers by following different trends, and then being elitist about it.

Me? I don't rightly care. Live and let live and what not. But I can see how the sense of elitism expressed by doing the same general thing would be offputting to some people.

<comment><USER4> I know, I know. It just irritates me. More negativity comes out of the people dissing hipsters than comes from the so-called hipsters to begin with.

Perhaps it's because I'm inside the "hipster age bracket" and go to school with a lot of the people that get called Fucking Hipsters, but I really do believe that most of the people calling the name out don't know what they're talking about. A lot of the scary fashion trends that get labelled together have nothing to do with one another; ironically, the fact that a lot of the people in the hipster bubble aren't judgmental is what gives the impression that they so readily judge on people.

I mean, I go to class with a girl who dyes her hair three colors and wears sweaters, another guy who owns a purple-and-black striped hoodie and has thick glasses, and another girl who wears dresses that are slightly out there. Take any one of those people in isolation, and you have a separate clique: Punker, media geek, foreign student. But when those three people like each other despite having different tastes in clothing, suddenly together they're not individuals, they're part of Hipster.

The great thing is that no matter what you wear it's part of being hipster. When I wear a button-down shirt it's Hipster. When I wear a poncho it's Hipster. Unless I'm wearing the exact same clothing as the people all around me, it's Hipster because obviously there's no such thing as nonconformity. If I'm hanging around people that aren't carbon copies of myself, we're _conforming_ to the standard of not looking the same.

It pisses me off, because everything I like has been at some point attributed to Hipsterism. When I discovered _why's Poignant Guide to Ruby_ and started tinkering with Ruby and having a lot of fun, I found that if I mentioned _why on Hacker News somebody would jump up and call me a hipster. When I mention listening to Joanna Newsom or the Arcade Fire on /r/music on Reddit, I'm called a hipster. But, of course, if I listen to the Beatles and the Zombies I'm a hipster because hipsters listen to 60s music. Or if I listen to Mozart or Liszt, that's hipster because hipsters listen to classical music. It's frustrating because of how bloody obvious it is that hipsters don't actually exist. A hipster is somebody who does what they want and explores what they find interesting; other people who think that person's doing something interesting follow along; people see those people having fun and decide it must be an elitist hipster thing that's excluding other people, and they start slinging words around.

Then there's this "anti-antielitist" accusation, where people get mad at hipsters for getting mad at things they like going mainstream because it dilutes the focus, like that's such an unusual thing. If I like something, and I like the small community of like-minded people that surround that something, then when that thing gets huge and suddenly it's swarmed by a lot of people that kill that original community feel, I'm a hipster for disliking the death of the community. By that sense, any of us that complain about Hacker News slowly deteriorating in quality, _we're_ hipsters too. But let's not point that out because of course we're not hipsters because we hate fucking hipsters. Stupid motherfucking hipsters.

I have fond memories of Polaroid, going back just two years. At a reunion of a group I'm a part of, one girl brought a Polaroid camera to snap pictures with. I've got a handful of pictures of us all lying around my bedroom with inked comments in that lower white flap, with that washed-out Polaroid Picture look that speaks of so much nostalgia, and I love it because it's a nostalgic memory for me.

So obviously I only love the idea of Polaroids because hipsters don't like modern technology and because I lack any sort of personal connection to the idea of Polaroid that would make me wish Polaroid could stay in business and find a niche market for its wares, and obviously the _only_ reason to want a fucking Polaroid camera is because I so lack a soul that I'd hoist it around my neck to look cool because looking cool is wearing a camera around your neck, not at all because maybe, just fucking maybe, it's pretty goddamn awesome to have a Polaroid camera because then you can take goddamn Polaroids and pass them out to people and that's a pretty goddamn fun way to spend a day.

_____

I've noticed something about the people I've met in person who don't like hipsters. By the way, this stereotype of hipsters being people that hate hipsters is just as stupid as all the other stereotypes. I've hung out with people who flippantly joke about being "authentic hipster". It's tongue-in- cheek, of course, because tongue-in-cheek is a lot of fun, and when people say things like that the rest of us take it as the joke it is, and go about having fun.

The people who dislike hipsters, I've found, are the people who are "on the outs" in groups. Somebody's hanging out with a guy and meets his friends and they're all reciting inside jokes, or talking about bands that guy's never heard of, or quoting movie lines he doesn't know, and he feels isolated because he doesn't understand the culture that those people are a part of. His defense is to write them off, and write all their favorite things, off, as being hipster, because then it's not _him_ on the outs, it's _them_. Anti- hipsterism is aloof isolationism. It's about dismissing people that're having a fun time because you're not a part of them.

I'm not saying that just to blatantly hate on people that dislike that sort of person, because I find myself in the same scenario pretty often. I sort of hover between a few different worlds of people, so I know a little bit about hacking and a little bit about literature and movies and music and industrial design and all the other things I get into at my leisure. So no matter what group I'm a part of, I feel to some degree like an outsider. And it's really tempting to write off the people I meet for not liking what I like, because it sometimes feels really icky not to completely be at the center of people's interests, but it's not fair to them or to you. It's just blind dislike without a real motive other than awkwardness and alienation.

That's why I find that I get really irritated at people who hate on hipsters, as opposed to people who hate politics or religion or operating systems. I can forgive people who get mad at something because they like something more and get defensive. But I can't readily forgive people who's only reason for hating something is that they don't understand it. That's what most hipster hate is. It's disliking a culture solely because you're not a part of it, magnified because rather than there being a "hipster culture" there are a hundred small cultures that are mistaken for one entity on quick glance.

It's hatred that reeks of ignorance and I really find it off-putting.

<comment><USER8> _A hipster is somebody who does what they want and explores what they find interesting_

This is the _opposite_ of hipsterism. Hipsterism is about trend following and that is what people find humorous about it, because the people associated with it generally express a disdain for trend following.

It's no different than what happened in high school with the cookie cutter "non-conformists" (goths and punks were examples when I was in high school). The difference is that hipsters often carry that on long after high school.

<comment><USER4> That's the cliche, but that's not how it works. I'm in the middle of so-called hipster culture. There are no trends and there isn't really a disregard for trend following. There's more an apathy toward the entire concept of trends. There's also not much self-obsession, either: My friends who wear obnoxiously oversized glasses usually bought them with other friends and wear them because they think it's funny. It's not a nonconforming thing and it's not a trend. If anything it's more of an impulse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _Not only will it bring back an analogue version of the original Polaroid One, the most popular model of the instant camera, it will also manufacture a digital version._

Is the "Polaroid Two" instant digital camera made by Polaroid imaginary, or something?

<http://www.polaroidtwo.org.uk/>

<comment><USER10> Just wait until they release the Poladroid instant picture camera phone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder how small and low power you could make a 4x5" dye sub printer? A digital camera with builtin printer anyone?</comment>


Incubators don't work - and it's fine - <AUTHOR> http://blog.finette.com/post/20869817721/incubators-dont-work-and-its-fine

<comment><USER2> Maybe I'm wrong, but incubators aren't usually for-profit businesses. Most I know are ran by universities or some kind of public fund.</comment>


Internet: 2.6 jobs created for each job lost (PDF from McKinsey Study) - <AUTHOR> http://www.eg8forum.com/fr/documents/actualites/McKinsey_and_Company-internet_matters.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> Conclusion:

In the 13 countries McKinsey studied, the Internet has contributed on average 3.4 percent to GDP, weighting more than agriculture, energy, and other better- established industries, and it adds considerable vigor to economic growth. Perhaps surprisingly, the brunt of this impact (about 75 percent) is from industries that are not directly linked to the Internet, except of course by their computers. This value comes primarily from increased productivity.

Understanding just how much the Internet contributes to national economies should spur government and business leaders to seek ways to optimize their participation in the global Internet ecosystem. Encouraging usage is an unavoidable first step in leveraging public spending, but leaders must also focus on providing human capital, financial capital, infrastructure, and the appropriate business environment.</comment>


Ask HN: Fast compilers for statically typed languages? - <AUTHOR> I am looking for FOSS, production-quality native compilers for statically typed languages that make the compile-run cycle fast enough to compete with scripting language interpreters. Go's gc is the most often mentioned compiler in this category but there must be others (e.g., FPC [1] comes to mind). Please share any such compilers that you know and what your experience has been with them.<p>[1] http://www.freepascal.org/ <comment><USER2> gcc is plenty fast at lower optimization levels. And if you want to get funky about it, [http://www.bellard.org/tcc/tccboot.html](http://www.bellard.org/tcc/tccboot.html) shows that tcc can compile Linux fast enough for a source-only bootloader. ;-)

(The chief downside of compiling with less than gcc -O2 is that dataflow analysis is not done at lower optimization levels, which means that you'll miss some "unused variable" and/or "dead store" warnings.)

</comment><comment><USER3> D's DMD compiler on Windows seems somewhat fast or at least not slow. This is subjective and only based on small programs I've been compiling. Cannot say if the same scales to larger programs with many more LOC. However they do claim on their site that D is suitable for projects with millions of lines of code.

Can say the same about FreePascal, again for small programs. Very fast to compile, even from the CUI IDE.

</comment><comment><USER4> Big +1 for fpc, though its been long time since I've used it.

</comment><comment><USER5> OCaml used to be super fast, IIRC.</comment>


Tesla Roadster's SpaceX thruster will be hidden behind the license plate - <AUTHOR> https://electrek.co/2019/07/13/tesla-roadster-spacex-thruster-hidden-license-plate-elon-musk/ <comment><USER2> > At first, the CEO said that these thrusters, which basically amount to small > rocket engines, will "dramatically improve acceleration, top speed, braking > and cornering", but he also said that it would "maybe even allow a Tesla to > fly."

> He talked about the Tesla Roadster even being able to hover over the ground.

Why are investors still taking Musk seriously at all? Do people really like this shtick?

<comment><USER3> He did find a way to land his rockets upright just like they do in cartoons. People definitely laughed when he first announced that idea.

Since then it is hard to dismiss his other fanciful concepts as crazy talk until prototypes start appearing (or not).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So in order to use them you have to flip away the plate? How is that going to be legal?</comment>


Jeff Bezos sells $1.8bn of Amazon stock - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/f7d855ac-b465-11e9-bec9-fdcab53d6959 <comment> a-priori So what? He sells $1B every year to fund Blue Origin alone. Maybe this is one of these transactions?

On the scale of Bezos' fortune, this is not a significant amount of money.

<comment><USER2> I hope that it is, because before reaching this comment thread I even thought "I hope it is to fund Blue Origin"

We wasted 50 years not going after space like we should have been. Let's get at it.

<comment><USER3> >We wasted 50 years not going after space like we should have been. Let's get at it.

NASA alone spends some 10X-20X every year what Bezos does, but some how a dinky danky 1 billion is now "going after space like we should have been?"

I don't buy it. If NASA's ~22B budget is insufficient, then billionaires making toys for an order of magnitude less is an order of magnitude more insufficient.

<comment><USER4> Falcon Heavy Flew 3x on a development budget of over 500 million, probably under a billion with dev -> launch time being around 6 years or so.

SLS current dev budget is over 7 billion dollars in 8 years, and they haven't finished assembling their first stack.

<comment><USER3> Falcony Heavy only exists because NASA and the taxpayer have given billions to Tesla to develop it and fly it. To consider SpaceX as anything more than a small government contractor attached firmly to the side of the NASA budget is disingenuous. SpaceX itself is hailed as a NASA success for lowering the cost of launching, and an example of smart government spending.

<comment><USER4> News indicates that no government funding was used for its (Falcon Heavy) development. [http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2466/1](http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2466/1)

<comment><USER3> This is pointless semantics.

1) Without the billions NASA has awarded Space X prior to Falcon, there is no SpaceX.

2) Without the billions NASA awarded them during Falcon development for other projects, SpaceX would have not gotten enough money from investors, who rightfully valued the company based on their NASA contracts

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I can't read this article, but looking at other news sources, this is the usual yearly sell-off he does to fund his rocket ship company.

<comment><USER6> Do you think it's real/truth of what he says about building Blue Origin? i.e., like Mark got to build FB from his Dorm room because heavy lifting of Internet and Infra are setup, some kid in the future can launch space program because Blue origin is doing the heavy lifting of putting the foundation.

I mean that seems like a great philanthropic vision, but Jeff Bezos known for serious business would do that with so much money without any foreseeing revenue - just for an improved society?

<comment><USER7> Bill Gates did something very similar, and we were similarly skeptical then. I like to think that once you're the world's richest man, your priorities might shift in a way that's difficult to imagine from the midst of the rat race.

<comment><USER8> I've grown a lot more skeptical of what Gates has been doing with his foundation after investigative journalists started reporting on it.

<comment><USER9> What reports are you referring to?

<comment><USER10> Here's one: [https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/...](https://www.oaklandinstitute.org/sites/oaklandinstitute.org/files/unholy- alliance/olob-bmgf-factsheet.pdf)

<comment><USER9> This publication seems to be relying on the reader to have a preconceived negative bias on GMOs in order to establish some of their arguments. I understand why a casual reader who's been led to believe that GMOs are malicious or toxic would find this disturbing, but knowing that GMOs are basically how we are able to consume most if not all modern food safely, it's immediately sensationalist to me.

I don't know about the other two topics they address, but I kind of question the motive altogether.

<comment><USER10> Nothing wrong with choosing GMO seeds.

Definitely something wrong with trying to force farmers to use them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The stock sale is apparently to fund Blue Origin.

</comment><comment><USER12> Similar non-paywalled article:

[https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/jeff-bezos- se...](https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/jeff-bezos-sells-1-8bn- of-amazon-stock-1.3974276)

He's using the money to fund Blue Origin (aerospace manufacturing)

</comment><comment><USER13> Is selling personal stock to fund your other company tax effective? He's paying capital gains tax when moving money from one pocket to another.

</comment><comment><USER14> Hasn't he been selling good amounts of stock annually for a while now? I thought he'd decided to put $1bn a year into Blue Origin?

Protected by a paywall but why's this news? Isn't it also a fairly small % of his overall holding in Amazon?

</comment><comment><USER15> Why does he selp stock to fund Blue Origin instead of taking out debt backed by shares? If the past is any indication, such debt would make way more financial sense than selling shares.

I don't know how long he's been doing this, but he's leaving billions of dollars of returns on the table.

And don't anyone say he doesn't want the exposure, because he clearly does.

<comment><USER16> Maybe he doesn't give a shit? For example, if I make 250k/year and you offer me another 20k a year, but I have to add >10% additional work to my plate... nah.

<comment><USER17> He likely has people working full time to take care of his fortune, so it's not like he would have to micro-manage those solutions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Vacation went over budget

<comment><USER19> not if u want to take a vacation to mars</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Relationship strain as an entrepreneur  - <AUTHOR>

My girlfriend and I have been dating for 3 years now. I am 21 and formally study computer science, but I've been programming and studying computer science, mathematics, and physics long before university was a thing.
My mind and my studies and my work have been a truly integral, and beyond important part of my life now for about 10 years. I fill up notebooks with ideas and sketches at an alarming rate, barely sleep because my mind is always going a mile a minute (which is fine for me), and devote my self to my own projects however mundane or useless because the process of learning and doing is so fascinating its crazy.
I have now been working on a project/startup of mine for the last 6 months now which I now devote all my time to, and that same exploration for knowledge and work, before that I was working on another for about 6 months, and before that I was paying my bills with freelance work.
So for the last year my girlfriend has been paying for most of our outings since she works, we both still live at home, so we don't really have expenses.
Unfortunately its gotten to the point where she is getting fed up with paying for things (which I completely understand), but she is asking that I now go get an actual job. I know I can as a programmer/soft eng, since I have been offered a few over the past months despite my age.
But I am feeling like there is no way I could possibly stop doing what I am doing but working on my own projects like this has become such an important part of me. I love her alot and don't want to break up, but I dont know how to get passed all this.
I know this has been a long post, but if anyone has made it this far and is still reading, and a subset of those readers has any kind of advice or suggestions, I would love to hear them. <comment><USER2> I read somewhere that when you're starting up, 3 aspects of your life are in play: Your health, your startup and your family/relationships. You can pick 2. I've found this to be entirely true. The only thing that saves family and relationships in my experience is a) setting expectations early and often as to what the final goal is. b) communicating progress towards getting that goal & what the plan is when things are not going as they should

So as with everything, the bottom line is over-communicating. If she doesn't know as much as you about what's actually going on then you're relationship is not likely to make it based on the information provided.

Your only other option is to sacrifice the relationship for the sake of your startup if you are so passionate about it. Nobody said starting up was easy - it always exacts some price (health or relationships). The question is what matters to you more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the response.

I have heard that pick 2 statement before, never thought I would be on that side of choosing.

I will take your advice and try to keep her updated on the progress, as there has been much. Hopefully that will help put her at ease.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Its great to have ideas but sadly they have to be profitable.

So... drop the girlfriend or get some profits or get some gainful employment. It really is that simple. Don't give up good ideas that have legs but don't fall into the trap of deceiving yourself about the future value of your ideas either. You can't eat pipe dreams.

<comment><AUTHOR> We've made huge strides in the passed 3 months alone, now in 2 seperate incubators, and have about to get great office space for free. We just arn't at the stage quite yet to get profits, since we're building a platform. So its been a bit more involved and grueling process then just pushing out an app.

Seems simple when you write it out like that, but reality doesn't feel that way.

<comment><USER3> If that's where you are at and your girlfriend isn't going to be able to support your efforts... drop her.

That's my advice.</comment></comment></comment>


A solid Capitalist argument in favor of a Carbon Tax - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7lh1fD_2Ms <comment><AUTHOR> It comes with a good slogan that will sound familiar to libertarians: _Pollution is Theft!_

Even anarcho capitalists can agree with this. Polluting the air shouldn't be free.

When it comes to the Climate Change debate, we have to stop talking about temperature and start talking about POLLUTION as a general phenomenon. Regardless of temperature. If you pollute my air I am going to care. You would care if a polluter emitted smoke near you and created smog. You would care if nuclear waste was dumped into your water. You only don't care because it's done far away, to someone else, and garbage washes up on someone else's shore, and someone else has to eat the fish with the plastic and mercury. If it wasn't many years away from hitting you, you'd care too.

1) Carbon Tax and Dividend is a bipartisan bill introduced in Nov 2018 to tax Emissions and REDISTRIBUTE 100% OF THE PROCEEDS TO THE PEOPLE OF AMERICA. Even anarcho capitalists agree you should tax negative externalities and provide restitution to those you harm. Climate Justice. Pollution shouldn't be free.

2) When WE THE PEOPLE are getting dividends from the carbon tax we will vote for it to be higher not lower.

3) Even the fossil fuel companies know the jig is up and are diversifying. Their monopoly was sustained by the same government, with decades of subsidies including and especially every time OPEC raised prices. All the wars we fought in the middle east and all the deaths are so we can fuel our cars with their fuel. We have a moral responsibility to become energy independent of the middle east.

4) Meanwhile the TRUTH IS that electric cars represent CHOICE of how you are going to generate your energy. Regular gas guzzlers are a LOCK IN same as Nintendo consoles are loss leaders that play only Nintendo cartridges. Do you want your fridge and computer to have a gas tank or doy you get electricity and let SOLAR WIND GEOTHERMAL HYDRO NUCLEAR FISSION/FUSION compete against fossil fuels? Yes. But for cars? Ooooh whatever can we do.

5) Did you know the EDISON MUSEUM IN NJ has electric cars designed in the early 20th century? Did you know the fossil fuel industry made sure TESLA was denied his funding to bring electricity to the world in larger ways because they were afraid of competition?

If the US government would not subsidize fossil fuels and allow markets to operate, we would have long had electric cars. It is still subsidizing coal miners and gas pipelines. It is choosing winners and losers and even Arnold Schwartzenneger made fun of Trump for trying to save coal and roll back pollution regulations to do it.

Electric cars get cheaper every year and would have already been cheap if not for government fossil fuel subsidies all thru the 60s, 70s 80s and til now.

You don't run your fridge off fossil fuels so notice how "YOUR GAS COSTS TWICE AS MUCH" usually means CAR. In every other case, I could care less that "my gas" costs as much, I'll use an electric stove and electric computer.</comment>


JSON Web Token - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON_Web_Token <comment><AUTHOR> Just thought this was such a wonderful and succinct Wikipedia article covering JWTs.</comment>


Three different kinds of polymorphism - <AUTHOR> http://haifengl.wordpress.com/2014/07/08/ocaml-polymorphism/ <comment><USER2> Wait, what? _Different_ kinds of polymorphism? Shouldn't there be a special word for that?</comment>


Checks if Your Email Is Registered on Hacked Sites - <AUTHOR> https://www.hacknotifier.com/

<comment><USER2> Error 7 (net::ERR_TIMED_OUT): The operation timed out

</comment><comment><USER3> Once you get on Hacker News... site down

</comment><comment><USER4> it's ok it's back now!</comment>


Recovered patients show damage in heart after Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> https://www.cardiovascularbusiness.com/topics/cardiovascular-imaging/78-covid-19-patients-heart-damage-recovery <comment><AUTHOR> i'm not entirely certain of the veracity of the source

<comment><USER2> The article is summarizing a JAMA study done in Germany. JAMA is well respected. Their conclusion was less sensational - essentially they say our findings show 60% of recovered patients had heart inflammation regardless of pre-existing conditions so there should be more research into cardiac effects of COVID-19.

There was no indication of actual danger, or any frame of reference to other infectious viruses (flu and other viruses also cause temporary heart inflammation).

<comment><USER3> Linked to in the article, but may be paywalled : [https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/...](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/2768916)

Key Points: Question What are the cardiovascular effects in unselected patients with recent coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)?

Findings: In this cohort study including 100 patients recently recovered from COVID-19 identified from a COVID-19 test center, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging revealed cardiac involvement in 78 patients (78%) and ongoing myocardial inflammation in 60 patients (60%), which was independent of preexisting conditions, severity and overall course of the acute illness, and the time from the original diagnosis.</comment></comment></comment>


JavaScript is immature compared to Java - <AUTHOR> http://www.codenameone.com/blog/javascript-get-threaded.html <comment><USER2> If you really need threads AKA "OS level threads with preemptive scheduling and all the related problems managing race conditions etc" then please use the languages that support them. If all people whine about X is not in Y language and Y is not in X language then we all will end up with conceptually same languages just with different names.

</comment><comment><USER3> _[..] please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait._

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment>


Fully autonomous cars within 5 years, says self-driving startup Pony.ai CEO - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/18/fully-autonomous-cars-could-be-on-roads-in-5-years-says-ponyai-ceo.html <comment><USER2> I think 5 years isn't necessarily a bad estimate for full self-driving cars, but I'm very skeptical that is in all traffic conditions, operating with mostly human drivers, in all road "structures", and especially in all weather conditions.

Does anyone here have some experience with Tesla's Auto Pilot on snowy roads? Do Teslas have camera that try to read speed limit signs? If so has there been any problems when the signs were mostly or completely covered with snow? How does Auto Pilot do on ice?

<comment><USER3> That's quite a loose definition of _"full"_.

I think we'll make from making small, but significant progress, but not get too self-driving soon. For example, a convoy of two trucks of which the second simple follows the first at short distance would decrease personnel costs and fuel economy, and increase road capacity.

A step up would be self-forming convoys of many cars on highways. Then, drivers in the cars would have to trust the driver of the first car, or that car would have to have good automatic lane-keeping. That problem can be simplified by changing the road design.

The result wouldn't be autonomous and wouldn't work everywhere, but who cares if it makes things safer and more economical?</comment></comment>


Speed breakthrough in Solving Linear Systems - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101021113008.htm

<comment><USER2> also here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1820891></comment>


An F-22 test pilot on the Raptor's flight control system - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/34762/this-lecture-by-an-f-22-test-pilot-on-the-raptors-flight-control-system-is-bonkers <comment><USER2> >> is needed to make the Raptor's super maneuverability a reality.

The term is "Supermaneuverability"... all one word. This is characterized as post-stall, sometimes called "non-aerodynamic" controlled flight. In short, it means the aircraft remains under pilot control even after the flow has separated from the wing (aka a stall).

The 22 is not considered supermaneuverable by many. It can use thrust vectoring and some fly-by-wire tricker to ape supermaneuverability but it pales in comparison to many russian aircraft. The 22's wing becomes very unpredictable in stall, hence the need for all the fly by wire. It was meant for flying fast in a strait line, and for stealth. It was never meant for things like Kobras or Kulbits. That it could eventually do them was an afterthought. The Russian aircraft have wings designed for slow speed/high AOA maneuverability.

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

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jks6TTFsglk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jks6TTFsglk)

Kulbit / Chakra at about 05:20 and again at 06:20. Note how slow/tight the show is. An f-22 could never perform repeated maneuvers like this in such a confined space.

<comment><USER3> To add on, supermaneuverabillity looks really cool and is an impressive technical achievement for sure, but its utility in combat (at least for the time being) is likely low to negative. Among other reasons, the more players in a fight, the less anyone can afford to sell all their energy for a shot opportunity--even if it works, it leaves them extremely vulnerable.

<comment><USER4> This 100%. While really cool demonstrations, the utility of these in a fight is virtually nonexistent. Any air-to-air engagements these days are inevitably BVR (beyond visual range) encounters, where aircraft fire missiles at one- another from extreme ranges. This type of maneuverability has no use whatsoever in such a scenario.

If all of the long-range missiles fail to neutralize one side of the other and both forces opt to continue the engagement, you get to WVR (within visual range) where infrared missiles and—once those are spent—guns are employed. There _could_ be opportunities here where such a trick might be useful, but only in a 1v1 scenario. For any case where you might have two or more enemies to deal with, such an abrupt loss of energy is suicide. And if you're on the side with superior numbers, the odds are overwhelmingly in your favor with little chance of you being defensive in the first place. And in the 1v1 scenario, modern infrared missiles like the AIM-9x (which are effective even when launched at frankly ridiculous off-boresight angles) make such a maneuver suicide as well.

So it might, _might_ be useful if: both sides empty their long/medium-range radar-guided missiles at one-another, only two combatants remain, neither decides to bug out, the aggressor empties their IR missiles unsuccessfully, and the defensive craft is imminently going to be within the weapon employment zone for the bandit's cannon… _then_ this might be a Hail Mary to force the aggressor to overshoot so you can turn the tables. But having bled all your energy, you're going to get at most one shot before you're back to simply trying to survive.

<comment><USER5> All of this is extremely wrong.

First of all, there's no guarantee that you will be able to use BVR. A stealth fighter using its radar is the same as a man in a camouflage at night turning on his search light. Everybody will know where you are. There might also be rule of engagement restriction, as has been many times that forced within- visual-range.

For WVR, the ability to supermaneuver is useful. It can give you that extra edge to get the angle on a target. You have to give up a lot of energy, sure. But you do have >1 TWR, and your buddies to cover you. It's not a magical tool but another one in a toolbox.

Also, in WVR, the advantage goes to the side with fewer planes. There was a study from the korean war to show this. The reason is because if you and your buddy is fighting 20 bandits, you can shoot at anybody that flies in front of you, while the enemies have to visually identify. And the speed of jet combat makes it impossible to verify before you lose your opportunity.

>So it might, might be useful if: both sides empty their long/medium-range radar-guided missiles at one-another, only two combatants remain, neither decides to bug out, the aggressor empties their IR missiles unsuccessfully, and the defensive craft is imminently going to be within the weapon employment zone for the bandit's cannon

Yup. Just like in vietnam. We are gonna fly up there with our f4s afterburning to mach 2, then we will launch all our sparrows at the bandits, who would fly straight into our missiles because they are dumb, and then we will land just in time for lunch.

<comment><USER3> Oversimplified for sure, but I think "extremely wrong" is unfair. I think the jury is still out on whether or not a stealth-on-stealth fight (or a more conventional fight in an ECM-heavy environment) inevitably devolves into a WVR knife fight. There are a number of reasons why this doesn't have to be the case.

You're absolutely correct that ROE can force a VID, but it'd be pretty dumb to box yourself into a corner that would force you into a neutral-ish WVR fight, yeah?

I agree that supermaneuverability has the potential to be useful, but I think it's fair to say that it's very much an edge case, and even then more of an augment to missiles that already have HOBS capability than a replacement for them. It certainly isn't a game-changing capability the way HOBS was. Also, TWR only goes so far to help recover from an energy deficit, especially if you have to go into reheat to make it happen. Gas kills are a thing...

Yes and no. Against a well-coordinated, larger force it's really difficult to win, and I very much wouldn't recommend adopting it as a primary tactic. If you had a fight that magically began at the furball phase (admittedly, this is one potential outcome of stealth-on-stealth engagements, although I imagine we'd need to develop better and different technology to make it a reality), that would be more likely to favor the individual, at least until they run out of missiles (it's difficult to over-emphasize how difficult guns kills are against maneuvering targets, even for a hypothetical magic robot with near- perfect aim). Old-school fights like Korea were much closer to the "immediate, chaotic furball" side of the spectrum than current fights, and there was a much less well-developed set of intra-and inter-flight tactics. A modern 2v1 (even heaters-only) is far more lopsided against the 1 than it was during Korea. With good coordination, this scales. (Aside: a really good book about the air war in Korea is _The Hunters_ by James Salter. Highly recommended-- it's fiction, but based on the author's own experiences as a pilot there.)

For what it's worth, technology and tactics have improved in the last half decade (perhaps more than we can say about our judgement?)... The proliferation of certain technologies will force continual re-evaluation of tactics, but I think it's safe to say that BVR is reasonably mature and not going anywhere in the foreseeable future. (That said, reports of the death of the air-to-air gun will always be greatly exaggerated.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In case anyone else is confused by the title, F-22 and Raptor both refer to the same thing.

</comment><comment><USER7> What I'm really interested is how do you engineer such a software system? I bet they have a simulation system, how do you validate that? What type of tests do they have? How do they iterate when a deficiency is found?

How do the team looks like? Is it 10 geniouses keeping the whole system in their heads or 4000 replacable cogs? If the second how do you make sure they all act in coordination?

<comment><USER8> They do have a very comprehensive simulation system with a large part of the work being done at Dobbins Air Force Base just outside of Atlanta. From what I understand, the team is quite small (<10).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is an amazing talk. Somebody pointed it out in the YouTube comments, watch how he handles the little toy Cessna versus the toy F22. :)

</comment><comment><USER10> Its cool but would be nice to spend the billions on peaceful activities

</comment><comment><USER11> The F-22 is such a marvel. I really wonder why the F-35 is plagued with so many systemic problems since it should be no more complex (and has the F-22 as an example for many of its own requirements).

<comment><USER12> The F-22 is designed first and foremost as an air superiority fighter. The F-35 was intended to replace half a dozen wildly different aircraft with a single plane. That was a horrible idea right from the outset.

<comment><USER13> According to one AF general, the purpose of the F-35 is "to spend money". So in that aspect it is performing admirably :)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba63OVl1MHw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba63OVl1MHw)

<comment><USER14> This is such a silly conspiracy theory. It may make sense for US congressmen to lobby for pork in their districts, but why would the Israeli Air Force invest in defective machines?

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II_Israeli_procurement#2019)

<comment><USER15> Their existing fleet of F-15 and F-16 fighters is getting pretty old. I have been a "fan" of the F-16 since I was a kid and I'm in my 40s now.

I think for political reasons they don't have access to Russian or European aircraft and they probably don't want Chinese ones. This is the first new fighter we have available to them.

<comment><USER16> They can't buy F-22's?

<comment><USER17> No, F-22 is not up for export. Also, F-22 serves a specific role vs F-35 which is geared towards multiple capabilities. There are neither mutually exclusive nor substitute for each other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Around 19:30 he gets the movement of ailerons wrong, in case anyone else was confused by that.

When turning right, the left aileron goes down and the right aileron goes up.

[https://sites.google.com/site/thebasicsofaviation/rudder- emp...](https://sites.google.com/site/thebasicsofaviation/rudder-empennage- and-ailerons)

</comment><comment><USER19> As an aside I thought the prof's comment regarding having commercial co-pilots flying along with the pilot - via remote control - was interesting.

It would seem to me a logical first step to someday having fully remote controlled aircraft flying passengers (which as the F22 pilot notes - is every airline's dream).

<comment><USER20> I would imagine that cargo planes will have to safely fly on fully remote controlled aircraft for a number of years before airlines start thinking about opening themselves up to such liability...

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The level of automation leads one to believe it is not inconceivable there will be versions without a cockpit with even greater flight capabilities.

While many can be seen as making it easier on the human pilot conversely you can see it as making it easier to validate the automation by having a human as a backup.

</comment><comment><USER22> So someone picked up a comment on HN that had this video (or maybe through some other path) and turned it into an article

Interesting

</comment><comment><USER23> Why do we time and again see this horrible blog spam, that is The Drive magazine? All they do is keep padding the prose until it is 8-10 paragraphs while paraphrasing and quoting the original source. Stratechery does that as well, but also provides original commentary and insight. The Drive is a terrible source of information.

Just link to straight to Youtube: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evhrk5tY- Yo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evhrk5tY-Yo)

<comment><USER24> While I generally agree with your sentiment, I didn't watch the video and was satisfied reading summary in the linked article.

<comment><USER2> The article almost made me not watch the video. It is poorly written, by someone not versed in aviation terminology. Much of what said of "raptor pilots" is in fact true of all fighters. And some of the facts are so awkwardly worded that they are borderline incorrect. For instance, the F-22 does not fly at 60-65,000 feet. That is its service ceiling, its maximum possible altitude.

<comment><USER25> > For instance, the F-22 does not fly at 60-65,000 feet. That is its service > ceiling, its maximum possible altitude.

So it flies at 60-65k feet. I don't see how that is wrong? If a pilot wants to keep cruising along at that altitude it is apparently possible, even if they might not generally do so.

<comment><USER26> Actually, TFA says:

> ... Gordon notes the aircraft flies at altitudes from 60,000-65,000 feet.

<comment><USER2> Which would make landings rather difficult.

<comment><USER26> My thought _exactly_ :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>