Digital sundial - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_sundial <comment><USER2> This guy's output is awesome: [http://www.hineslab.com/digital- sundial/](http://www.hineslab.com/digital-sundial/)

Check out his other inventions.

*link from the wikipedia.

<comment><USER3> Anyone else found it a little surprising he managed to get a patent for it? Encoder wheels for 7-segment-displays have been around for a long time (e.g. [http://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/old-two-digit-led- wit...](http://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/old-two-digit-led-with-no-7seg- driver-ic-how-did-they-do-it/) ), and this is just the straightforward implementation of one using photonics - basically a 1-of-10 to 7-segment decoder with OR gates.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A slightly more detailed explanation: [http://www.fransmaes.nl/genk/en/gk- zw08-e.htm](http://www.fransmaes.nl/genk/en/gk-zw08-e.htm)

</comment><comment><USER5> If you think that's cool, check out the generalized full color version: [http://resources.mpi-inf.mpg.de/prfdisplays/](http://resources.mpi- inf.mpg.de/prfdisplays/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Oh how I wish that math was replaced by a natural language explanation in simple words.

<comment><USER3> It's basically exploiting parallax to mask/unmask segments depending on the angle of the light source. With a suitable mask pattern, the segments can be used to form digits.

I think it's a very similar principle to this:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax_barrier](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax_barrier) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenticular_printing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenticular_printing)

<comment><USER7> Unfortunately the math doesn't really say this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cool stuff!

They cost 91€ plus shipping, and cannot currently be shipped to the U.S. [http://www.digitalsundial.com/ordering.html](http://www.digitalsundial.com/ordering.html)

They are apparently tuned for a particular latitude, so they won't work in the tropics either...

<comment><USER9> They can't be shipped _from_ the US but they _can_ be shipped _to_ the US from Germany, the page clearly says so. The shipping cost depends on the shipping agency. Therefore they say "Please inquire at <email on the page> about shipping and payment options" and list the fixed costs to Germany and Europe where the delivery is fast.

<comment><USER10> I see this on the ordering page[1].

> Sundials will be shipped from Vermont via USPS Priority Mail.

[1] [http://www.digitalsundial.com/ordering.html](http://www.digitalsundial.com/ordering.html)

<comment><USER9> Obviously they saw the increased interest and modified the page. It's more inviting to allow US users not to worry about the possible import taxes. Good move.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I understand the optical fiber version, but the fractal version went flying right over my head. Can anyone give a simpler explanation?

<comment><USER7> tl;dr If, for each angle of the sun, you want some object to have a particular shadow, that object exists.

The theorem says something like this: imagine you have a 2D plane, with the usual x and y axes. For any θ between 0 and pi, there is a unique line passing through the origin. That's L_θ [1]. Now for each line, say we pick out some subset of the line, called G_θ [2]. In the picture I've made G_θ thicker for emphasis, but if you think of the whole line as a bunch of points, then G_θ is just some of those points. So for each θ, we have a line, and a corresponding subset of the line. If we add all the lines together we get the entire 2D plane, and if we add all the G_θ's together we get some set of points in that plane. The important condition in the theorem that needs to hold for the results to be true is that if we add all the G_θ's together, we get a set which we can say has some area.

Now proj_θ F is sort of like the "shadow" of F on L_θ, for some set F. See this picture [3]. The perpendicular projection takes a 2D set and projects it onto a 1D set (the line). Analagously, if the sun was in the sky above your head and you were standing on a 2D plane, then your shadow would be the perpendicular projection of a 3D set (you) onto a 2D set (the ground).

Anyway, if we add all the G_θ's together and get some set which is suitably "nice", then there is some other 2D set F such that if we project F onto any* line L_θ, the "shadow" on L_θ covers G_θ completely, and the part of the shadow that isn't covering G_θ is negligibly small [4]. So applied to the sundial, this means there exists some shape such that its shadow at some time of day will be that time.

* Technically, it's "almost any", which means, informally, for all but a negligible number of lines. The stuff about measure, measurable and almost all is all from measure theory [5]. I can explain some of the measure theory concepts if you'd like.

[1] [http://imgur.com/dx15rLx,7xB9tpv,a3evQpR,35j9cwu#0](http://imgur.com/dx15rLx,7xB9tpv,a3evQpR,35j9cwu#0)

[2] [http://imgur.com/dx15rLx,7xB9tpv,a3evQpR,35j9cwu#1](http://imgur.com/dx15rLx,7xB9tpv,a3evQpR,35j9cwu#1)

[3] [http://imgur.com/dx15rLx,7xB9tpv,a3evQpR,35j9cwu#2](http://imgur.com/dx15rLx,7xB9tpv,a3evQpR,35j9cwu#2)

[4] [http://imgur.com/dx15rLx,7xB9tpv,a3evQpR,35j9cwu#3](http://imgur.com/dx15rLx,7xB9tpv,a3evQpR,35j9cwu#3)

[5] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measure_(mathematics)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measure_\(mathematics\))

<comment><USER12> Very nice! That's a thoroughly earned upvote.

Measure theory is super cool.

<comment><USER7> Thanks, I really appreciate the compliment. And yeah, it's great.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The moving slits of light and shadow reminded me of zoetropes. It might be a fun maker project to do some kind of animation using a similar set up. Maybe not with the sun as the light source (too slow?) but something handheld that could be moved across a light source.

</comment><comment><USER14> Amazing!

I always wondered if it was possible to make a sundial with a minutes pointer... this is even more complex.

<comment><USER15> A note on [http://www.hineslab.com/digital- sundial/](http://www.hineslab.com/digital-sundial/) linked elsewhere in the thread states you can get +/\- 2 minutes accuracy with the sun.

<comment><USER16> I wonder where he gets that from. Due to the equation of time, the difference can be up to about 15 minutes. But maybe he compensates for that already in some way? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equation_of_time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equation_of_time) (This is of course ignoring things like Summer Time.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> daniel-levin I wonder if it's possible to design (and build) a digital sundial with arbitrarily many digits (the obvious upper bounds of 'arbitrary' imposed by our physical universe notwithstanding). It's an interesting thought experiment...

edit: spelling

<comment><USER17> I don't see why not, although limiting factors will be brightness and diffraction limiting how hard the edge of the shadow sweeping across the ends of your optical fibers can be and also how small the fibers themselves can be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Of course doesn't account for Daylight Savings, or the inherent inaccuracies of time zones?

<comment><USER19> You can adjust it forward or back however far you want by turning it.

<comment><USER20> Yes, but also consider the Equation of Time.

<comment><USER19> Oh, cool! My sundial might be 17 minutes fast! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equation_of_time#Apparent_time...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equation_of_time#Apparent_time_versus_mean_time)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Where can I buy one of these? Would love it on my backyard!

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.digitalsundial.com/](http://www.digitalsundial.com/)

This website sells small versions, my guess is that larger ones (as seen here[1]) are made on order, if at all.

[1][http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/genk-sundial- park](http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/genk-sundial-park)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> To me, "digital" means binary electronics. These objects are very analog.

<comment><USER23> Digital means "with digits". I play the guitar digitally; that is, with my digits (fingers). With another meaning of digital, the time is not displayed on a clock face but rather by showing digits to represent time.

<comment><USER22> Oh right, I forgot about that definition of digital. Now I'm wondering about the etymology. How did it go from fingers to numbers to binary electronics?

<comment><USER24> Well you our decimal numbering system is based on our digits, so that's why digit is another word for number. Computers only work on numbers, even more, integer numbers, the kind you can count with your digits. Most computers work with binary numbers, but that isn't a rule, in fact some older computers worked in other systems than binary. So calling them digital was more appropriate than binary.

I don't think many people call computers 'binary electronics', the usual term electrical engineers use would be discrete circuits. Note that that does not rule out other counting systems either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> How accurate is it?

<comment><USER17> It looks like it displays time in 10-minute increments, so you ought to be able to get _solar time_ to the nearest five or six minutes, provided you aim it accurately.

Note that solar time will differ from UTC depending on where you are in your timezone.</comment></comment>


2 good markets for a startup, which would you choose? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> Based on Marc A's last blog post, if you had a good team, good product and 2 good markets, what criteria would you use to select which market to focus?

<comment><USER2> Well, lacking any other details in your post: a coin;-)

I'd pick the one I liked the most.</comment></comment>


Single Sign on for Kubernetes: The Dashboard Experience - <AUTHOR> In the final part of my Kubernetes SSO series, I discuss how to protect the Kubernetes Dashboard with an authentication proxy, completing the journey to a fully SSO K8s infrastructure.<p>https://thenewstack.io/single-sign-on-for-kubernetes-dashboard-experience/ <comment><USER2> For some reason you are in the ask section instead of the normal links section.</comment>


Ask HN: Why uBlock Origin blocks my website content when there's no ads? - <AUTHOR> So I have been reported by some of my users that uBlock is blocking some in-site linking cards.
I tested this myself and is true, some of the cards that takes you to other subpages are blocked except 1, and the one not blocked has the same structured as the rest of the cards.
We are talking about http://colorsandfonts.com
Has anyone faced this?
Thank you and have a great day
/mike <comment> crooked-v One of the default EasyList element hiding rules is:

        ##.sponsor_block

You have the class name `sponsor_block` on some of your cards, so it hides them.

<comment><AUTHOR> It worked...for the content but then some stuff is still blocked. Like the navigation. The copy to clipboard button is not working...

I couldn't be more thankful. Amazing. thank you so much.

<comment> crooked-v See the full list of EasyList rules here: [https://easylist.to/easylist/easylist.txt](https://easylist.to/easylist/easylist.txt)

Any list starting with ## is a CSS selector to block things.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, all was good. Thank you so much. Regarding the sidebar it was because I have used my own flag too. Really helpfull</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Startup poll: What banks does everyone use for online checking? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Wells Fargo</comment>


Disrupting Google, Facebook and Twitter Business Model Completely - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/adwords-consortium-protecting-adwords-advertisers--2/x/2562398

<comment><USER2> Also, the title is extremely deceptive, as the linked indiegogo pitch only talks about unionising AdWords customers, not those of Twitter or Facebook.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are going after almost everyone and of course, if we can disrupt the hardest one 'Google' then the rest should be a lot easier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Unionizing AdWords? Why not... just stop using it. As long as people give Google money, Google's monopoly will survive. Bleed it dry.

<comment><AUTHOR> Because online businesses simply can't.

It's the only fastest and easiest way to get targeted customers.

Other marketing platform simply can't match it's efficacy.</comment></comment>


Particles Larger Than Galaxies Fill The Universe? - <AUTHOR> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090602-particles-larger-than-galaxies.html?source=email_wn_20090605

<comment><USER3> Now imagine you could collapse all (or at least a lot) of those neutrino probability waves into one specific point (say inside a star), and assume they have mass. Boom! Instant black hole.

I see a fantastic new field of military technology just waiting for us. Talk about a deterrent. "If you attack us, we'll blow up the solar system".

<comment><USER4> Mr. President, we must not allow a mine-shaft gap!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Title reminds me of <http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174>

</comment><comment><USER6> For some reason I found this article silly. I'm not sure why.

So these ancient neutrinos have such an extremely low energy and such a disperse wave function? Sounds like saying that we can't see them, and even if we could, they're not even in a "place" that can be seen. I mean, if your probability wave reasonably covers the entire universe, I'm not sure the word "location" works any more.

<comment><USER7> I don't see why it's silly. Anyway you're not thinking about it in the right way. Sure, one or two of these ultra-dispersed neutrinos, assuming they exist, might not be interesting or even detectable. But in quantity, and I suppose one can assume the quantities are quite overwhelmingly large, they could definitely add up to an effect worth studying.

Consider a 100W globe diffused to such a degree that the light is spread out over the whole solar system. Nothing remarkable, right? Wouldn't even notice. But imagine a few trillion trillion of them and suddenly you have some interesting questions, such as "where is all this light coming from".

Personally I find regular neutrinos to be utterly fascinating. The idea that there exists a particle so small that it can pass, utterly unhindered, through the whole freaking _planet_ just blows my mind.

Anyway, questions have to be asked, theories have to be proposed, silly or not!

<comment><USER3> But... neutrino is such a silly name. It would be a cold day in hell before I studied a particle with such a name!

</tease> ;-)

<comment><USER8> Call me crazy, but on this subject at least I'll take Enrico Fermi's aesthetic judgment over yours.

If I have to manipulate a big equation I give nicknames to the different pieces, like "the curvature leftovers" or "the linear stuff" or "that ugly fucker from under the radical."

"The little neutral guy" seems like a perfectly natural name to me.

<comment><USER3> _sigh_

I was just teasing sho about <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=643051>

<comment><USER7> I think I was punished enough for that!

Hope there's no hard feelings anyway, I certainly didn't intend it as some kind of attack. It can be hard to get honest feedback that hasn't been softened by politeness, so I attempt to provide it, even at the risk of being seen as a prick.

The rebuttals were instructive, by the way. One person chided me thus:

 _"You could try couching it in some politeness"_

And I suppose it is easy enough for me to do that. I am usually extremely polite. But is that really what you want? "Polite feedback only?" If that's what you want, ask your Mom.

Despite what you might think, I do try to be honest and, more importantly, useful. My actual, real-life reaction to that company name was visceral - <USER2> _really_ hated it. I tried to get that across; it was pretty late, and I was somewhat drunk (hehe), maybe I dialed up the harshness a little too high but reading it again I don't think I was that far off the mark. And certainly better than misrepresenting myself for the sake of protecting feelings.

Obviously there is a balance to be found between worthless feelgood encouragement and worthless destructive "that sucks" snark. Perhaps in this instance I went too far to the latter. But at the same time, look at the whole thread. No-one else even mentioned the name. Was it because they all love it? Or because something so fundamental is off-limits?

It cost me 20 mod points or something to get that point across, not that I care about that, but still - now you know that some people think the name sucks and it might be a problem. I am satisfied with the outcome.

Do you really want everyone to be following the principle "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all"?

<comment><USER3> Dude, I was just teasing you. You'll notice I didn't even reply to that thread. I'm the last person to be bothered by harsh online feedback (which would be hypocritical considering I dish out a fair bit of it myself).

You can imagine we didn't come up with this name without some thought, and we did do some testing of it before releasing it. Yes, some people will have an immediate adverse reaction to it, but they're a tiny minority, from what we observed. Most are puzzled by the name, but they don't care that much. One advantage we get from this name is that it sounds different from the competition, and so people remember us.

It's all about trade-offs.

Anyway, the above point was just a tease, I'm fine with feedback in all its forms.

<comment><USER7> OK we cool then : )

I have to admit, the name is memorable. By that metric, you've succeeded admirably. It might be seared into my brain as "worst name ever" but - it's seared into my brain, lol ...</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


$20 Business Plan wanted.  Nice. - <AUTHOR> http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/cpg/882554505.html

<comment><USER2> Damn. I was going to offer to do it for $25 but _"The wage is not negociable."_

TicketStumbler is my third business and I've never used a business plan unless you count the YC application. I certainly understand their purpose for very large projects but for the vast most startups...meh.

What does everyone else think?

<comment><USER3> It's been on the to-do for ages. I think it's a good idea, but I think having someone else do it for you completely defeats the purpose. Points in favor of a business plan:

\- Makes you block out how much stuff will cost. How much will your offices cost when you have 10 people? What about their salaries, insurance, etc.?

\- Vaguely, what does profitability look like for you? When do you want to try to reach it?

\- Who are you competing with? How are you different?

\- How do you want to balance revenue and growth? Do you want to be profitable as soon as possible, or throw as much money as it takes, as often as it takes at growth?

\- What sort of company do you want to be?

\- In an ideal world, where are you at in three years? Don't worry about this changing, just set something down and use it as a benchmark.

Those seem to be the good reasons to do a business plan -- it makes you ask, and seriously consider some relevant questions. Blathering on about your paradigm shifts is wankery. What are you going to build? Who are you going to need? How long is it going to take? How much is it going to cost? And how will you make money?

The reason that ours isn't finished isn't because we don't think it's important; it's that we know to reasonably answer the questions above we need to do more research.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This looks like a perfect thread to ask a real question that's been on my mind:

How do you write a business plan? More specifically, what are the conventions (format, language to use, etc) for writing one which will be shown to potential investors?

</comment><comment><USER5> There are countless "business plan templates", $20 appears to be reasonably price.

On sites such as elance or oDesk many people will give away work to get a better ranking. So why not "MANAGEMENT"

<comment><USER6> this one also wants you to do market research etc</comment></comment>


AOL snags a startup, reminding everyone that they're still buying - <AUTHOR> http://valleywag.com/352415/aol-snags-a-startup-reminding-everyone-that-theyre-still-buying <comment><USER2> Personally - I'd have to think twice about being acquired by those guys, unless I was already vested...

</comment><comment><USER3> Hmm the only reason I even know about AOL now is their instant messaging client. Besides that...I can't think of anyone in my neighborhood...or any of my friends for that matter...who uses AOL internet service. Time Warner owns other assets though right, so are they almost out of the dialup business? I don't see those amazingly annoying free CDs anymore...</comment>


What a Pull Request looked like in 1988 - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/RebeccaSlatkin/status/622112261293928449 <comment><USER2> More like a decade earlier, e.g. an obscure guy named Larry Wall wrote the first version of the patch program in 1985 according to Wikipedia: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patch_(Unix)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patch_\(Unix\))</comment>


Ask HN: What should a 16 year old Python hacker looking for "a job" do? - <AUTHOR> Hi there, I'm Aviral Dasgupta (http://www.aviraldg.com), a sixteen-year-old with a interest in web development (in Python) and a passion for solving problems.
I'm not looking for something big (I already do some open source stuff); just something that can either give me practical experience or the kind of cash required to fund my own projects. So, do you have a project you need done? Please tell me about it here.
Also, what should I do next? What should I learn?
Thanks.
More about me:
- Started developing when I was 11 or 12, with PHP and created a (rather simple) Twitter clone.
- I was a Grand Prize Winner in Google Code-in 2010 for my work with open source software. (http://google-opensource.blogspot.in/2011/02/google-code-in-grand-prize-winners.html)
- Involved with quite a few open source projects like Django (Python), Tux4Kids (C/SDL), OpenIntents (Android/Java)
- Here's my SO profile: http://stackoverflow.com/users/152873/aviraldg
- I've got quite some experience developing in Python (and Django), I've also done some front-end stuff with JavaScript.
- I'm currently dabbling with Flask, SQLAlchemy and data visualization and working on a top-secret project (which requires aforementioned funding.) <comment><USER2> I'm going to give you pg's advice to undergrads: get good at building things, if you want to do a startup later.

If you want a job at a software company, you'll want to get good at reading other people's code and fixing bugs in older, larger codebases. Ensure you are an effective communicator by practicing your writing skills ([http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-ultimate-guide-to- wri...](http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-ultimate-guide-to-writing- better-than-you-normally-do)). The ability to speak and talk to other people (and in front of them) will prove invaluable, especially in an industry that still is saturated with people who are poor communicators.

If you need practice on building things, check out the "Somebody Make This" subreddit (I'd like to it, but reddit seems to be down at the moment).

My email is in my HN profile -- shoot me a message. I might have a small project I can hook you up with.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was looking for similar advice when I was your age, unfortunately HN wasn't around at that point and information was more scarce. Kudos for using these tools to your advantage.

The most important thing you can do is build experience. I would keep working on open source projects, and try to engage yourself into popular ones to build a career direction that is impressive (the Django work is a great start here).

As far as a job, you're 16 and I'm going to guess your costs are very low. This is the perfect time to work on building a portfolio of your own work, as well as doing the aforementioned open source work. If you can get a fair job with low hours, look into the opportunity. At age 16, I fear a lot of people are going to try to take advantage of your youth to pay well-below-market prices. Do you have a need for money, experience is more valuable at this time?

Other random advice: do well in school, and invest a percentage of any money that you do make.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice. You're right about the costs bit, but I have a few projects of my own that require the money (which is more than I can afford on my pocket-money.) So, I'd love to do a proper web development project for both the experience and well, y'know :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Get involved in academic research. You'll be able to use your skills, and they've usually got money to throw at talented young people. If you can find a local university with a Human-Computer Interaction Studies program, you can get useful UX experience, if you want to get into the big-boy numerical stuff, you can look at Physics or Engineering departments, I'm sure a Computer Engineering department would love to have you, the list goes on.

If you're not hell-bent on being a capital-E Entrepreneur at 16, why not step outside the web development box and hang out on a college campus where you might have some fun?

My 2c.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nothing around; I live here: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamshedpur>

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would suggest doing something else than payjobs until you're over 20. Enjoy your youth, do lots of open source stuff. You have so many years to spend in a squirrel wheel.

I would love to have an option to just lay around at home and contributing to open source.

</comment><comment><USER6> 6 years ago I was in your shoes, I was certainly not of anything remotely resembling "advanced age" (14).

I was wholly without opportunity. I endeavored in various fruitless directions before my first real success (inasmuch as a 14 year old can be successful). The biggest bump to my career (also all-around credibility) was the first open source project I ever did ( <http://zv.github.com/work/swiftcrack/> ). When all was said and done, I made around $5,000 shooting the shit about wireless security to people interested in my work. This was huge for me, and set me up for being taken much more seriously. I'm firmly confident that none of them had the remotest clue I was 14. Had they known, I'm sure I would have been laughingstock and never given a serious chance. There is something to be said for concealing your age and making a solution where your elders make excuses, this is your paramount strength. I will imagine for now that you aren't interested in the politics and subtle ego-stroking that accompanies a lot of business, which gives you the power to actually get things done as a pace that will have your superiors dumbfounded. Suffice to say, hard work can fix hard luck.

This said, (if you are interested in learning Erlang) I would be more than happy to help you along if you'd like to be a part of developing my open source NoSQL database, Artifact. You gain experience developing your own database in a language that people take very seriously and you get to be a part of an open source project. You know what they say about birds and stones.

</comment><comment><USER7> I guess it depends on what else you're doing. If you're in High School still, suck it up and finish with high marks and be done.

As for college, there are two theories on that: on one hand, a college degree from a good school still caries a lot of weight with people, and it's a great networking tool. You'll meet some great people as well, and you might even learn something (though at your presumed skill level, you probably won't learn much of value until your junior/senior level CompSci classes. More valuable might be hitting CompEngineering or Electrical Engineering instead.

There's another theory which says 'skip college, do a startup', and there's lots of good reasons to take that route as well. It'll be less fun, more work, but possibly more lucrative, and you'll have much more 'working world' experience when you're done than your college friends.

As for 'what should you learn?' My MO for that is 'when in doubt, go deeper in the stack'. Those who truly understand the entire architecture of computers, and know how to drive the maximum performance out of it will always be in demand.

Also, work on the people skills. Learning to be a better communicator and how to connect with people will never be wasted. Negotiation is a skill to work on as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm still in High School. It's _extremely_ boring.

As for the "deeper in the stack bit", I've gone all the way down to assembler (don't ask, I wanted to program for the Game Boy; wouldn't do it again even if someone paid me _a lot_ of $$$)

Never been too good with people though, but I'm working on it. :)

<comment><USER7> Trust me. I get it. But if you don't have the HS diploma, it'll be something you have to explain for YEARS. People have certain expectations for others, even in high tech. The HS Diploma is one of those things. The college diploma still has a lot of the same stigma, though it's weakening. This stigma is a risk you'll have to weigh in your college or startup decision as well.

As for 'deeper in the stack', well, learning assembly in various guises is a good first step. Understanding how the pieces fit together, and how to make things faster is the next. I'm not sure if you're ready to start absorbing Knuth and the Art of Computer Programming (for reference, I'm not sure I am either), but that might be a good start too.

Oh, and another thing: understand the math. Learn the math behind this computer stuff. Understand how to measure the complexity and cost of a given algorithm. Something that might help there is Project Euler. It's something I enjoy hacking on when I have free time.

<\-- hopes my children learn to code like you have.

<comment><AUTHOR> I gave up on TAOCP after the proof of the first algorithm (which is around 2-3 pages long!) It's still on my TO-DO list :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I will hire you. We are a bunch of awesome developers working with some of the best tech startups in the valley. Two of our developers are in India just like you and work remotely. Email and my company info are in my profile.

<comment><USER9> Your email is not visible in your profile. You may want to change that before the two of you are not able to connect.

You have to put it in the text field where your linkedin/ website are listed to be public.

<comment><USER8> Thanks, fixed it. I already spoke to the guy on Skype.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You've already got multiple languages under your belt and have been developing for 5 years, so you are probably in the top 1% of developers your age. By the time you are 26 with 15 years of coding, you will still, no doubt, be among the top 1% of developers your age. I agree with the other comments about finishing high school, but in your free time, focus less on developing and instead focus on expanding your horizons by talking to people who are different from you. Who cares if you drop to only top 10% of developers your age by the time you are 26? Do you think most people who have the money to fund you can tell or care? Ideally if you come up with a brilliant startup, 2-3 years in, you shouldn't even be coding anymore.

I was in India last year for my developer's wedding (He operates out of India and...that was the first time we ever met face to face) and from the conversations with his friends, it was strange for me to learn that entrepreneurship on a resume is looked down upon by companies there. Basically, once you quit your job to start your own startup, there is no turning back to corporate life. So I can imagine the wall you are running into. But here is my suggestion, expand your understanding beyond your own personal world by talking to people who don't share the same background as you. There are hostels or places where backpackers from other countries hangout at in your city. Go talk to them and listen to their perspectives on anything and everything (backpackers love talking to locals). That's where you'll figure out what you can do to help change the world. PG once said that the most powerful people in the world are developers with ideas. good luck!

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm 18, and you seem a bit more experienced than me, but here's my advice: find something you're interested in working on and do that. You've already found this — your open source work — and that's great.

I spent two summers during highschool working at a physics lab. I understood very little of the physics but learned a _huge_ amount about programming — data collection, shipping, and analysis in particular. I'm sure any lab would love to pay you for your help.

Something else you could do is take a look at the Hacker News Jobs board [0] and look for a company that is working on something you're interested in. Even if they're not advertising for an intern, it might be worth it to send them an email. That's how I got my current job.

You're clearly very good at both programming and impressing people (these are _both_ important skills! [1]). If you're really in need of some money to fund your side projects, turn to Craigslist and offer your services as a tutor, maybe in more things than just programming. Again, this is something I did that worked well — adults will easily pay you $20/hr. if you know what you're talking about.

[0] <http://news.ycombinator.com/jobs>

[1] <http://carl.flax.ie/dothingstellpeople.html>

</comment><comment><USER12> You are looking for work. While someone should take interest, maybe nobody will take you seriously or find it easy to hire you, because of your age (sorry, I've been there).If you do contract work, be careful to get the agreement in writing.

The key thing for the long term will be to aggressively seek cool internships every year you are in college and (unless you have a better specific idea) get a comp sci degree at some place which is known and has a culture and setting that suits you. That shouldn't be any real problem, if you want to do it.

If this is what you love, there's nothing wrong with doing it at any age. If the job thing doesn't turn up, just take on fun projects using new tools and produce SMALL publishable units. This gives you something to show and more experience with the whole circle of software life.

If you have a lot more time than money, you may be able to engineer your secret project to be able to start on a leaner budget. Don't be too discouraged if things don't work or you screw up.

You have a good start and you have access to advice which I wish I had. Take advantage of it. The beer, LSD and girls will wait. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER13> If you were located in Boston (or SV), you'd probably have your pick of startups that would give you a paid summer internship. The best thing you can do is get involved in your local startup scene. Most of us doing software startups don't care much about age or education level. Passion and portfolio are far more important.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, unfortunately there aren't any startups around where I live. Would anyone be willing to allow me to work as an intern remotely (btw. I'm still in High School)

<comment><USER13> I would, but only as an unpaid intern. Dealing with payments to India is too hard for a fledgling startup. Maybe you'll find a more established company to pay...but as a Python/Haskell hacker I could at least offer you intellectually stimulating work :).

<comment><AUTHOR> How can I contact you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Unfortunately, Hacker News is a site for generic tech news (random sob articles occasionally) and startups, with the emphasis on startup advice/etc.

A few months back I tried asking for programming advice (language, direction, and even job aims help) but it was barely paid attention to and quickly voted down.

I think you're better off finding a local user group (which will have better advice as per your local climate) or asking on a strictly programming/development website.

Advice I'd give is to continue making things, put them out there. People see them, use them and you become known. Perhaps a company will want to get some extra support or features on it. Otherwise just keep learning, even at 16 winning a competition you're likely still not quite ready for full massive applications. Get your practice in instead of requiring a job to train you and you'll be worth double the pay.

</comment><comment><USER15> Somebody here should hire this guy remotely.

He's unlikely to get taken seriously face-to-face because of his age, but his projects/accolades actually mean something to the people here.

There's a shortage of devs. Somebody could use him.

<comment><USER13> I actually think it's harder for most companies to take a chance on someone remotely when they're so young.

<comment><USER16> Don't tell them your age, then. Age discrimination is illegal so they can't ask how old you are and you don't have to tell them.

I was contacted by a well-known men's magazine when I was in my teens regarding some blog/Usenet posts I'd written. They wanted me to go to a conference in the US and cover a story for them. The initial e-mail thread went very well then I made the mistake of admitting I was 16 on the first call and never heard back from them.

Covering a conference they'd eventually have figured it out - but with dev work the client need never know your age and as long as you are legal to work, they need never know.

<comment><USER17> Actually, not telling them may be illegal too.

This isn't legal advice, but as someone who worked when I was a teenager, parent consent may be required, so then they'd know you are a minor.

Under US Federal law, it is illegal to work under the age of 14. 14 & 15 can work but only during non-school hours. 16 and older are fine, but under the age of 18, parental consent is required.

Taken from: <http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/youthlabor/agerequirements.htm>

The illegal-to-them comes from hiring child labor without the proper consent or regulations met.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> You're on the right track, but do be careful of burnout. Get a job out of (or just slightly related) to industry. Work in a local computer repair shop, or even an ice cream shop. In my experience it was hard to find programming gigs that would pay a 16-yr-old minimum wage hourly and be worthwhile. But a "traditional job" will certainly, and I cannot impress how useful those customer relations skills were for me.

</comment><comment><USER19> beer? girls?

</comment><comment><USER20> You mentioned doing this because you have projects that you think need funding? 2 questions: 1) how much do you need? 2) with your chops/age a crowdfuned solution might work for you.

I think plenty of devs on here would be willing to toss you a few $$$ for a well defined project.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. Enough to: a) Pay for a VPS (I'm currently running test software on a t1.micro EC2 instance -- free for the first year) b) Pay for any shipping costs/losses while I figure out if the idea's viable (it's a partially digital and partially physical idea) c) To upgrade my development hardware. I don't want to sound bad here, but I currently develop on a netbook. (which I won here: <http://www.tcsitwiz.com/images/2010_kol_runner_big.jpg> \- I'm the guy on the right) d) Advertising costs?

2\. I did think about that, but popular services like Kickstarter et al are not available in India.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm working on a startup that is joining a top ranked accelerator next month-- we're looking for interns to help us with the site.

email me, email@example.com, if you're interested in hearing more

</comment><comment><USER22> I'd say play with embedded stuff to push your skills further. The arduino is a good simple start. Or you could go with a mini2440 board that runs linux (android too).

</comment><comment><USER23> Please shoot me an email: zaid.farooqui at gmail :)

Or msg me on gtalk.

</comment><comment><USER24> You're obviously talented so I would recommend getting involved in the start up scene in your area.

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately, there isn't a "start up scene" where I live :(

<comment><USER25> I'm curious about this. Do you know any other passionate or capable developers in your area?

If so, how about reaching out and forming a local scene?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I did know one or two people but they're in college right now.

<comment><USER26> I am from India, and I can understand how you will be discriminated by looking for projects or job offer(99.99% this will happen).

Since you have awards which is worth bragging to get you want you need.

1\. Create open source project which can be simple library and ask for donation.

2\. Teach people programming.

3\. Tell them how you are able to achieve this.

4\. Best is try to be intern in some webshop, only option is send a note in mailing list.

Main issue you might face is with banks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Freelance? Pick up some simple/easy jobs on eLance or other.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, thanks. Most of the listings on that site consist of projects trying to clone major websites on shoestring budgets. Plus it looks really shady. I may be sixteen, but I do have some self-respect.

(No offence if you were genuinely trying to help, but that's just what I think.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Find non-profits and other worthwhile organizations in your area who need help with fairly simple things and donate your time to them. This will get you experience and build up your CV.</comment>


Login And Pay With Amazon – Yesterday's launch will change the face of retail - <AUTHOR> http://www.redferret.net/?p=40414

<comment><USER2> One of the things I'm not sure the general public is aware of is that there's a very high stakes war going on behind the scenes between Amazon and much the e-commerce ecosystem. As the author points out, Amazon is good at what they do; maybe too good.

If you're a small e-com retailer, selling your goods on Amazon can seem like the magic bullet you've been looking for. They can provide you a huge audience overnight. And if you have a good product at the right price, you're probably going to do well on Amazon. The danger is when you do well enough that Amazon takes notice, because if you're little slice of the industry starts to look too profitable, Amazon will come in and start selling in your category direct. And they're bigger than you and can do it on a smaller margin. Entire verticals can be consumed in a matter of weeks if Amazon decides to set up shop next to you. Amazon is really good at destroying the retailers that they helped in the beginning.

But it doesn't stop there. Once Amazon squeezes out the small players, they start acting like Walmart with the manufacturers. They start dictating margins and pushing down prices. And they can do it because they've monopolized the distribution channel. Amazon isn't making a lot of friends with manufacturers lately.

My point is that while this may be a clear win for consumers, it's a very sticky situation for manufacturers, distributors and retailers. If you go to most of the major e-commerce trade shows, you'll find that people are actually quite fearful of Amazon. They're looking for ways to widen the gap, not close it. Heck, in the past year I've actually started to get contractual obligations from some major manufacturers that I CAN'T sell on Amazon. They're mandating that all of their retailers keep their product off of there because they're scared shitless that it's just a matter of time before Bezos starts dictating their margins.

For better or worse, I do think Amazon will be successful to some degree with this project, but there's going to be a lot of behind the scenes fighting to get there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Mmm...that's very interesting. Surely Amazon can't do this too much before eventually attracting the anti-monopoly lobby, or am I being naive?

<comment><USER3> Apple iBooks lawsuit by the US government is relevant here. Book publishers and Apple made a deal to change pricing to an agency model, where the publishers dictate the price. The US government sued them on the basis of anti-competitive price collusion. This slapped Apple and let Amazon go back to it's race-to-the-bottom pricing. In fact the US government is right that Amazon's methods are the essence of a free market. They are just bad for every other player and lead to Amazon expanding it's market share and thus making Amazon more of a monopoly.

Very interesting twist.

It gets bad for consumers if:

1\. Once Amazon has all the market it raises prices.

2\. The price pressure on manufacturers, publishers, and other producers of goods causes those businesses to fail and stop making their products, or to produce lower-quality products.

<comment><USER4> 3\. Amazon gives preferential treatment to merchants using their auxiliary services. They already give preferential treatment to merchants using Amazon Fulfilment by writing off (at least some of) the bad merchant feedback caused by fulfilment issues. This effects customers (as well as merchants) because from the customers perspective failed fulfilment is the same no matter who does it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I am a big Amazon.com customer, and I'd be very happy to see this widespread. I am tired of Paypal trying to use my bank account as the primary payment mechanism, and having to switch it most of the time. I would love to have more of my purchasing consolidated in a single place. Amazon also has a fantastic return/refund policy - would be interested to see how well that ports over to the payment mechanism.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have a trust in Amazon that goes well beyond the rational. If something isn't for sale on Amazon, I probably won't buy it. If I purchase with Amazon, it'll show up, it'll work, and if I want to return it, it'll just happen. I've had one or two issues with their Indian customer service via chat, but any real issues where I ended up getting on a phone, it got solved straight away.

I deeply and truly believe Amazon is on my side, where I believe Paypal is actively out to screw me.

I will use this service wherever I find it.

<comment><USER7> > deeply and truly believe Amazon is on my side, where I believe Paypal is > actively out to screw me.

Why do you feel so strongly about either of them?

<comment><USER6> I've had lots of stuff go wrong with Amazon orders, and they have always made it right, even when it was at a punitive cost to them.

Paypal, there are so many stories of them screwing customers, I don't even know where to start.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Saurik eviscerated this announcement in yesterday's post about Login & Pay: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6516948](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6516948)

<comment><AUTHOR> That was one 'tiny' merchant's view of the situation. I suspect that Amazon will be a lot more 'engaged' with larger merchants if it suits their purposes. I wouldn't write off Amazon strategy based on one first person account.

<comment><USER9> FWIW, they have told me I was one of their largest (I vaguely remember three years ago "the largest") customers "on mobile", and I was at a level where I was having nearly routine meetings with at one point a whopping seven people on their end climbing up the management hierarchy (who would, of course, tell me they could not provide ETAs on anything being fixed, and over the course of six months in contact, and now two months since I bothered talking back to them, still not even the most trivial of fixes have happened).

If you would like to compare how your company will fare in such a situation, I move a few million dollars a year through their service. I consider that tiny in be grand scheme of things (so I use that term), certainly in comparison to Amazon itself, but I am a giant in comparison to most of the other people who will be looking at their service seriously (I feel like most people who reach my size prefer not to rely so much on third-party payment networks; in fact, I don't even want to anymore, and am hoping to start doing direct credit card billing soon, ironically via PayPal Payments Pro, at which point Amazon is getting the axe).

But really, the most important points I made are very general: 1) this isn't new, as they've been in the PayPal-competitor business since 2008, and 2) to the extent to which this is somehow a new launch for Amazon, it is demonstrative of a pattern wherein they keep releasing new payment services without showing how they are related to each other and without having any kind of feature parity: this isn't a new service... this is a new feature of an existing service... and that's exactly how companies like PayPal and Alipay both added it... years ago.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the clarification, I didn't mean to be offensive, I was just quoting your term re 'tiny'.

It looks to me as though the announcement, which may not be new (I'm not sure) indicates a new marketing push towards smaller retailers, but then I'm not involved enough to know for sure.

And I would just say that Paypal has an awful reputation as far as their treatment of their customers, so I would perhaps be a little wary of putting too much reliance on themr for your switch?

<comment><USER9> I didn't take it as an insult: just a misubderstanding.

FWIW, I have loved PayPal. They actively improve things, tend to be easy to deal with, actually fix bugs you report (although not immediately, but it does happen), and I have an account manager who actually gets things done when I need stuff done. Even before I was large enough to warrant a personalized person (I currently do like 6-7 million a year via PayPal), I always found talking to their customer support simple. Frankly, I think most of the issues dealing with them are because people don't understand the payment processing business much and end up using PayPal's service for things that you shouldn't (preorders being a big one, which includes small conferences) and then freak out rather than attempting to work something out with PayPal (like, I got my account locked once: somehow I got it fixed in a couple hours).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Didn't they say the same thing about Google Checkout and Google Wallet? Yet nothing has changed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Apples and pears? Google does not own one of the world's largest online retail outlets, whereas Amazon already has its own hugely loyal customer base. Different?

<comment><USER3> Exactly. Google does not have my credit card and I don't want to give it to them. Amazon already has it. Just like I prefer to use PayPal when I can to avoid giving a new online merchant my credit card directly, I could now use Amazon for that purpose.

If I hadn't ever created a PayPal account in the first place then I would have no motivation to make one. With Amazon I already give them the credit card info to make purchases on Amazon. PayPal is just a middle-man so I have no reason to use them already.

Well, except that PayPal lets you receive payments too. Now that I think about it, I believe I created my PayPal account originally to accept payment for a website job. Only later did I add my credit card to make eBay purchases. So I can't completely replace my PayPal account with Amazon services yet.

<comment><USER10> Google might not have your credit card, but it has the credit cards of 500 million people that have Android phones and purchase apps[1]. I think that's a pretty sizable chunk of the population. Being able to use Google to buy things (and digital things) is huge. Yet Paypal still rules as of today.

[1]: [https://plus.google.com/u/0/+HugoBarra/posts/R5YdRRyeTHM](https://plus.google.com/u/0/+HugoBarra/posts/R5YdRRyeTHM)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In our experience, even though amazon has a huge customer base, that doesn't translate into people deciding to pay with amazon.

On our site, we only monitor Paypal sales, as those are by far the most abundant.

<comment><AUTHOR> At the moment Paypal has the initiative because a) it's global and b) it's so darn easy to set up and use with an email.

But for how long, once word of this Amazon alternative starts to spread?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> What is actually new here? Pay with Amazon has been around quite awhile.

</comment><comment><USER13> I just used the Amazon payment gateway on woot.com yesterday and was extremely pleased how easy the checkout process is.

</comment><comment><USER14> Isn't this just a rebrand of 'Amazon checkout' thats been around for years?</comment>


Show HN: Airport Locations from Around the World - <AUTHOR> http://www.partow.net/miscellaneous/airportdatabase/ <comment><USER2> I can't stress just how important (and how hard) it is to get a great source of data for airports, so kudos on the work! When building All the Flight Deals ([https://alltheflightdeals.com](https://alltheflightdeals.com)) and BookWithMatrix ([https://bookwithmatrix.com](https://bookwithmatrix.com)), airport data was essential.

It seems like your database covers the basics! However, timezone data and airport type/size were pretty important information for us, so we ended up getting these from:

\- OpenFlights [1]: this dataset was great since it had timezone too, which was really helpful for calculating flight lengths, etc.

\- OurAirports [2]: no timezone here, but the "type" and "scheduled_service" columns in this dataset are essential. "Type" lets you distinguish between small/medium/large airports, and "scheduled_service" lets you easily filter out airports without real flights (which you often might not care about).

\- IATA tzmap [3]: this was used for filling in timezone data and is derived from the Geonames database.

\- Random other GitHub Gist [4]: I have no idea where this data comes from, but it was surprisingly complete and has a few golden nuggets like "num_flights" and "runway_length" in addition to "timezone". The presence of a "woeid" suggests Yahoo-related origins, but it's hard to be sure.

Long story short, it'd be AWESOME to have one complete, updated database with all this data in one place, but part of the struggle is definitely having more data than just longitude/latitude.

[1] [https://github.com/jpatokal/openflights/](https://github.com/jpatokal/openflights/)

[2] [http://ourairports.com/data/](http://ourairports.com/data/)

[3] [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hroptatyr/dateutils/tzmaps...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hroptatyr/dateutils/tzmaps/iata.tzmap;) [http://download.geonames.org/export/dump/](http://download.geonames.org/export/dump/)

[4] [https://gist.github.com/tdreyno/4278655](https://gist.github.com/tdreyno/4278655)

<comment><USER3> Don't forget that time zone boundaries often change, so if you are going to store a "time zone" field, make sure you regularly update them.

You are right about the lack of availability of complete airport data. This is true for many things aviation related, including airspace boundaries, navigation aids, etc. Basically anything you would find on a pilot's chart. The USA is a wonderful exception as they publish a great deal of info digitally and for free, but this is not true for most other countries. Many countries cartographic offices (or their private contractors) even claim copyright over basic facts like "airport ABC is at location X" and "navaid DEF transmits on frequency 123". It's crazy that information that potentially could save lives are locked up behind rent extracting corporations and intellectual property laws.

<comment><USER4> > Don't forget that time zone boundaries often change

I always thought time zones boundaries were static... TIL

<comment><USER5> Actual time zone boundaries have on average 2-3 changes a year. Sudan recently hopped back an hour for example, a separatist state in eastern Ukraine switched to Moscow time and Russia changed the time zones of a bunch of cities last year.

What does happen more often is people screwing around with Daylight savings. Each year probably a dozen countries decide to change how they're going to do daylight savings, either by canceling or reintroducing it or moving the date when the changeover happens. And the you get some real oddities like Morocco (I think it was) a few years ago the decided to temporarily suspend daylights saving during Ramadan (what do you mean your software cannot handle having an arbitrary number of dates for the start and end of daylight saving each year)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a small sample of airports; would be interesting to know how they were selected.

> airports big and small from all around the world

Well, presumably mostly big.

The CIA Facebook shows 13500 airports for the USA alone, and 6 countries with more than 1000 [0]. So, when you count smaller airports (potentially untowered, or unpaved runways), there is way more than what's listed here.

Most countries (ICAO members) maintain an AIP (Aeronautical Information Publication, [1]) which lists the bigger airports in a country (and definitely the international ones with immigration and customs facilities) in part AD (aerodromes) and is often readily downloadable from the pertinent national civil aviation authority [2].

However, information on smaller airfields is often quite hard to come by.

I've flown small airplanes around in southern Africa and Thailand, and relied on websites, books, and aviation clubs to find coordinates for airfields. See eg. the _Airfields Directory of Southern Africa_ [3] or Tom Claytor's list at the bottom of the Thai Flying Club website [4].

[0] [https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/...](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/rankorder/2053rank.html)

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civil_aviation_authori...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civil_aviation_authorities)

[3] [http://www.cometaviationsupplies.co.za/index.php?route=produ...](http://www.cometaviationsupplies.co.za/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=969)

[4] [http://www.thaiflyingclub.com](http://www.thaiflyingclub.com)

EDIT: typos, clarity

<comment><USER7> Is there a clear definition between airfield and airport? Or rather, is there a distinction between places you can land a plane vs places an individual can buy a ticket to fly with an airline? I imagine this line gets blurred in certain countries more so than others, perhaps that's what the posted dataset is more geared towards?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Had some time today so put together a .Net client for this data [0][1] in case anyone is interested.

[0]: [https://github.com/shrayasr/GlobalAirports.Net](https://github.com/shrayasr/GlobalAirports.Net) [1]: [https://www.nuget.org/packages/GlobalAirports.Net](https://www.nuget.org/packages/GlobalAirports.Net)

</comment><comment><USER9> OpenFlights also has great data[0] here - and not just for airports, but also train stations, airline/carrier codes, and routes (i.e. origin/destination pairs with a carrier).

No sign of schedules from them yet, but there's been a request-for-interest on the site regarding those for a few years now.

[0] - [https://openflights.org/data.html](https://openflights.org/data.html)

<comment><USER10> OpenFlights maintainer here. Thanks for the kudos, although our airport data is primarily from OurAirports.com these days.

Re: schedules, I've finally got a good lead on a way to obtain data without relying on the OAG/Innovata duopoly. Stay tuned.

<comment><USER11> I am super interested in that final point of yours. Any more details you can share?

Also, I owe you a beer in real life for enabling my app to exist.

<comment><USER10> Sorry, not at this stage, but please tell me more about your use case & sign up to be notified:

[https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe7wl5eKTraibp0l6cS...](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe7wl5eKTraibp0l6cS6pidGqRPGtOq1z8mp8kWbcy3OSqftg/viewform)

And OpenFlights accepts donations ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great stuff! I was working on a project where we needed a database of all airports around the world. I used [http://ourairports.com/data/](http://ourairports.com/data/) IIRC. Out of curiosity, what's different in your project? Also, would be good to add the type of airport (e.g. airfield, airport, etc.).

Best of luck!

<comment><USER10> Came here to post this: OurAirports seems to be much more comprehensive, does GADB have any advantage over this? Also, where is GADB's data sources from?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Opentraveldata ([https://github.com/opentraveldata/opentraveldata](https://github.com/opentraveldata/opentraveldata)) is generally a great source for travel related data, based mostly on Geobases and Wikipedia. Its OAG extract is a bit old, but all airport data (and more) can be found in [https://github.com/opentraveldata/opentraveldata/blob/master...](https://github.com/opentraveldata/opentraveldata/blob/master/opentraveldata/optd_por_public.csv), which is refreshed on an almost daily basis. There are other data sources in the same folder.

Also, [https://github.com/opentraveldata/geobases](https://github.com/opentraveldata/geobases) is a fun way to play around with Geonames/Optd data.

</comment><comment><USER14> From your site, "Two closest airports: At 370m apart are the Horsching International Airport and Linz Aiports in Austria."

From Wikipedia, "Linz Airport, also known as Blue Danube Airport Linz and formerly Hörsching Airport"

Are you sure they aren't one and the same?

</comment><comment><USER15> I think China has more airports than the ones listed in the site.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_in_China#/med...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_airports_in_China#/media/File:China_Airports.png)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank-you for that link. I will be updating the DB in the coming month and China is one of the countries to have updated entries.

<comment><USER16> En Route Supplement Australia (ERSA) might be helpful:

[http://www.airservicesaustralia.com/aip/aip.asp?pg=40&vdate=...](http://www.airservicesaustralia.com/aip/aip.asp?pg=40&vdate=09-Nov-2017&ver=1)

Unfortunately, you'll need to deal with PDFs, but they are data rich:

[http://www.airservicesaustralia.com/aip/current/ersa/FAC_YSC...](http://www.airservicesaustralia.com/aip/current/ersa/FAC_YSCO_09-Nov-2017.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This site has a total of 9300 airports. The CIA lists 13513 airports in just the US - [https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/...](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/fields/2053.html#us)

<comment><USER18> Thank you for mentioning that! I could not believe when I saw "my" Germany so close to the US, because for Germany, this number must include every little sailplane field and a lot must be missing from the US. What I really wondered about is the pattern by which airports have been included. Where 100% private airports not included (because the US has an immense number of privately owned airstrips)? Even Flight Simulator X had about 20.000 airports worldwide ten years back. I also think that the USA have almost as many airports as the rest of the world combined. There are countries where private flying and airport building is virtually non-existent (take Iran for example) or heavily regulated (take Europe). So this database might be a starting point, but I wonder if there are no better databases available. May be: not for free.

<comment><USER17> The US has a lot of hobby airstrips. Let me explain it like this.

I live in northern Fort Worth. To the south of me there is a little international airport named Meacham. To the north of me there is a much large freight airport named Alliance. Down the street from my house is a small airport for personally owned airplanes. A little more than 5 miles from my house is a neighborhood built around an airstrip for personally owned airplanes.

Then of course there are the big airports that most people actually use: Love Field, DFW, Addison Executive. DFW is one of the largest and busiest airports in the world and you still have all these other airports around. Go to Fort Worth on Google Maps and search for Airports. There are some smaller airfields that don't show up even though you have all these results.

Flying is extremely regulated in the US, but that regulation is not super strict unless you are flying aircraft of a certain size or carry passengers. You have to be a certified pilot just to fly drones of a certain size.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> OpenFlights is really awesome, we used it to build [https://destigogo.com](https://destigogo.com)

Any other tips for complete airport datasets?

</comment><comment><USER20> Anyone have a free/inexpensive source for regularly updated airport pairs for scheduled airline flights?

<comment><USER21> If you're only interested in "local" data then you might be able to obtain it via a software radio.

I have a cheap USB receiver hooked up to my PC so I can watch the aircraft "overhead" in real-time. Annoyingly it loses the signal when the aircraft get too low, so I cannot see them landing.

<comment><USER22> Very interesting, do you have a blog post about this?

<comment><USER21> As it happens I do:

[https://blog.steve.fi/tracking_aircraft_in_real_time__via_so...](https://blog.steve.fi/tracking_aircraft_in_real_time__via_software_defined_radio.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm looking for something similar for shipping ports. Anyone know where I can find it?

</comment><comment><USER24> It doesn't have Moscow Domodedovo. That's number ten maybe in europe's top100, with 30 mln passengers actually. What use does this DB have with holes like these? F for effort.</comment>


Ask HN: Insultingly Bad Bonus, Bay Area, Cause for Concern? - <AUTHOR> I work for a fairly large computer-centric company in the east bay. I relocated across the country from NYC for this job around six months ago. Overall I would consider it a great move -- I'm working on an awesome project, my coworkers are amazing and have told me that my work is great, and my supervisor has told me I was a great hire. I'm fairly certain that the work I've done in the past six months will lead to a patent for the company and to a major feature in our main software package. No cause for concern, right?
Well, today, to much pomp and circumstance, the C level company execs announced year end bonuses at a company wide meeting. The execs emphasized that this year we saw record profits, and reiterated how they felt privileged to take care of all employees, from the staff at the company cafe to the long term, senior engineers. This success, as was emphasized, brought with it financial rewards that they were pleased to share with the feet on the ground.
Caught up in the hoopla, I queued up for my bonus cheque, only to find it in the amount of... around ~100 dollars, about enough money for a one way cab ride to SFO.
Is this cause for concern? I realize that bonuses are, by definition, a bonus, and that I should be happy for anything. But if, after this whole production, the bonus comes to around ~3% of one's monthly rent in the bay area, that seems fucked up, especially given the state of the tech industry in the area.
Is this paltry bonus a cause for concern? Should I circulate my resume among friends and former colleagues in the bay? I've worked in similar job titles in the past, so I feel like I can, for the most part, fairly gauge my contributions to the company's bottom line, but this seems like an intentionally bad bonus (hell, just tell everyone that new hires don't get a bonus at all instead of giving them a rounding error). <comment><USER2> Talk to your manager. Ask him or her if there's a message here. If there is, then there's no reason for your boss to beat around the bush.

A likely explanation is that they had some sort of cut-off where employees who joined after a certain date get a pro-forma minimum amount.

<comment><USER3> I would echo this. Talk to your manager and find out how bonuses are calculated and distributed. I would also voice your concern.

<comment><USER4> Yup. Silence gives consent. Don't be a quiet slave.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Whoa. I can't believe how many people are saying just talk to your manager. I am a manager and I really disagree with that advice. Talking to your manager may need to happen at some point but it should certainly not be the first step.

Unfortunately, in the real world, even a completely rational fair question asked to a manager can have negative results for the employee. The risks compound when a new employee might not fully realize they asked a question that _the manager thought was stupid or inappropriate_ and now thinks differently/worse of them.

...To answer your question. _Yes of course it 's cause for concern_

A $100 bonus like is most likely one of 3 things:

1\. It's a fuck you level intentionally bad bad bonus as you suggested.

2\. It was a mistake by HR and there should be two more zeros (at least) that are missing.

3\. There's no mistake by HR or bad intention by your boss, the $100 check is correct, but it fails the "people I work for need to have enough common sense that I don't despise them and think they are clueless" test.

As for how I might play it. Is there a coworker not your manager who you are friendly enough with and trust to just bring this up casually? You don't have to talk numbers or express disappointment just get a better understanding of what other bonuses looked like.

Even if you and your manager are bros and you think you can chat off the record, I still wouldn't do it. Find someone else. If you can't find a coworker to chat with casually then speak to HR, maybe bring it up in a nice way: "Hi HR, just wanted to ask about how our bonuses should be reported for tax purposes, I heard it might be a different tax rate, by the way just a random q too, are $100 dogshit bonuses like this normal"?

Either way start networking. Never hurts to start building that network even if this works out ok and you stay a while.

Good luck, mate.

P.S. If they really did make you stand and queue up, I would quit for that alone.

<comment><USER6> I'm also a manager, and I think asking your manager is the obvious thing to do ... BUT it is a good idea to ask a team-mate first. The C-levels' speech might just be hot air, and everyone could have got similar

FWIW I brought up a shitty bonus directly with our CTO after 2 months with the company I still work for 6 years later. He didn't change it, but judging by how he's behaved towards me since I think he admired my balls

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Well, just for comparison's sake, employees at Google are able to give _each other_ bonuses that are worth more than that. They're subject to manager approval of course, but they can be given for things as simple as "this person was my go-to help for understanding this new platform I haven't worked on before". So take that for what it's worth.

<comment><USER8> That's pretty awesome - like a real tip-jar. I wonder how much it gets abused...

<comment><USER9> We use something similar at our company, we use the [http://www.achievers.com/](http://www.achievers.com/) platform for this.

We get new credit every month, which we can give to anyone in that month, but if you do not give them away they expire.

We do not talk about big bonuses (as I am aware the credits value is different by location, at mine it is much less then 100 USD for a month), but yeah, it is abused.. Some colleagues just exchange it on the end of the month.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Once upon a time, I singlehandedly retooled my company's flagship app for an entirely new software platform in less than three weeks, in order to ensure we were available on the new platform when _it_ launched. I worked days, nights, weekends, and even dreamed about the damned thing as I was porting it over.

Six months later: review time. My boss tells me that he was monumentally impressed with the dedication, perseverance, and capability I demonstrated throughout the year, especially on the aforementioned product. And, as a result, he was very proud to give me...a 3% raise. I was deeply offended, and that was the beginning of the end for me there. I quit a few months later. I hear that layoffs have been rampant since I departed, which makes me feel a little better.

Anyway, long story short: fuck those guys. Polish your resume and tell them you're doing it.

<comment><USER11> Yup. Money can make anyone into a sociopath.

<comment><USER4> Nothing spells "hubris" like a little success with a swollen ego.

<comment><USER10> xoxo

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My random advice from the internet is collect more information from a neutral source: Payroll. Contact _Payroll not HR_ and simply ask "How was my bonus calculated?"

1\. Negative information: Don't react toward Payroll.

2\. No information: Ask who to ask.

3\. Mistake by Payroll, thank them for correcting it.

Then consider your options.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER13> That's exactly the bonus amount that prompted me to quit a health tech startup that had just been sold to a larger company. I wasn't the only one that left either.

Funny, because they really needed us to stay on because the acquisition meant a fair amount of tech work to integrate the product with the parent company's tech. My manager actually started crying when I quit...I think I was the 3rd or 4th to quit that day.

To me, $100 is worse than 0, especially when (as in your case, and mine), it's clear that the company had a great year. In my case, we also knew that the management had helped themselves to very substantial payouts.

I wasn't expecting to get rich, but I was at least expecting something that was, say 5-20%+ of my yearly salary. We had worked our asses off for 2 years, I was employee #13.

Edit: We all, of course, talked among ourselves. Everyone other than the equity holding employees got $100. So, it wasn't an intentional "fuck you" bonus...just an incredibly stupid miscalculation that we wouldn't interpret it that way.

</comment><comment><USER14> It has occurred to me that bonuses don't suit me well. As a software engineer my ability to work rests upon many different layers of knowledge (my trade), assumptions (there will be electricity at my client's office when I arrive), beliefs (I will get paid).

I work hard to make sure each of these elements are in place, so that I can free my mind of them, and focus on my work.

Well a bonus turns one of my most important factors for employment into a variable, based on my performance. This is a cognitive load that I refuse to bear while carrying out my trade.

If you read up on research regarding bonuses they also seem to lead to worse performance when it comes to cognitive tasks, and I'm unwilling to work with a company that doesn't use data, facts and reason as some of their driving factors.

<comment><USER15> _If you read up on research regarding bonuses they also seem to lead to worse performance when it comes to cognitive tasks, and I 'm unwilling to work with a company that doesn't use data, facts and reason as some of their driving factors._

Doesn't that exclude you from all major tech companies? Also, I'd be interested in reading this research if you have a link to it?

<comment><USER14> time.com/3342841/bonus-bad-news/

Yes it does, but I pretty much regard work as I do dating. In this respect being selective usually pays.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Record profits" by how much? I get the impression that the management were exaggerating. It would also be useful to know how much more senior staff got and especially the top managers. If your company is public, jump onto the SEC database and check the numbers for yourself.

You might have to also consider whether you were paid a generous bump up in salary and relocation expenses. Your manager, might have had to take your hiring costs into consideration when calculating your bonus.

</comment><comment><USER17> Six months is kinda too short to expect a huge bonus. $100 is pretty paltry, but I'd talk to your manager about it.

If you feel like your manager is bull-shitting you, then yes you need to leave. I regret not leaving my job earlier when I was in a similar position.

</comment><comment><USER18> Don't do anything rash, like others are suggesting. If your boss has told you that he's pleased he hired you, that you're making good contributions and you like the company, then there is no reason you shouldn't be compensated accordingly.

Pull your boss aside for a serious conversation and discuss it; even though you haven't been on the books long, $100 is indeed pathetic.

</comment><comment><USER19> There's too many good high paying jobs in the Bay area to waste your time and effort at a place that doesn't see that.

</comment><comment><USER20> Talk to your boss. That amount so low that there's no question of overreacting: you basically didn't get a bonus. Having worked before in larger tech companies, I would entertain the idea that the amount is a fluke of accounting rules--you said you only started six months ago: maybe there is some kind of vesting rule. It's very likely it's nothing personal. If the company is indeed doing as well as you say, they would either give you no bonus or something real. If it's the former, they'd probably be talking to you about leaving. It's unlikely that this is some kind of passive-aggressive gesture because they secretly want you gone. Unlikely, but not impossible: bad management definitely exists, so anything is possible. If this was an intentional act then definitely leave at your earliest convenience. But I bet it wasn't.

</comment><comment><USER21> $100 bonus is insulting for self driven creativity work. It shows management has no clue on how to motivate people and reward people. That might demoralize not just you but the rest of the company. It might be a cause of concern.

</comment><comment><USER22> You should start looking immediately.

</comment><comment><USER23> Not a totally apples-to-apples comparison, but I used to work for a large law firm on the East Coast. I started in July, and for my first year's bonus, received a crisp $100. Seemed low, but it was the same for my entire cohort. Probably just company policy. They liked our work, the company was doing well, and bonuses were fine the next year.

<comment><USER24> My guess is that those with less than 12 months are normally given nothing and everyone who normally receives nothing like new people, interns and cafe workers only got $100. It probably seemed like a good idea at the time but giving someone who would have received a fat bonus and has put in 6 months $100 is kind of insulting. If true they should use the same calculation they use for other developers, divide the total by 12 and then multiply it by the number of months the employee has been there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> If you messed up this bad your employer would fire you. Fire your employer. Don't make a stink. Get an offer and give notice. Discussions with management aren't going to do anything but leave a bad taste in their mouth. Never ever bad mouth previous employers and teams no matter how bad they are. It won't help you and it could hurt you.

Now... I wouldn't actually quit immediately. Do your job well and get to the two year mark. You want everyone sad to see you go. Employment is a means to end and keeping your resume well groomed is critical. Your current job is the last step to your next job.

I doubled my compensation (110k to 240k, remote work from NE Coast city) in 4 years and every manager I left wished I hadn't, but they simply couldn't swallow the trajectory I could get by leaving. Each job has been better than the last and each job has been a step towards my next one. I believe I have 30% more to go and then I will be done. All this to goad companies into paying the amount they are actually willing to pay, but simply refuse to due policies that prioritize cost management of visible costs over retention. Go figure.

I know people at past jobs who are getting absolutely demolished on comp for doing the same work I do. One guy making < 100k. You don't necessarily need to leave if you are willing to take on more leadership roles and title changes and can wrangle that, but I don't want that. I want to simply get paid the max for what I do at any given time. My time is valuable to me and it is not a renewable resource.

Employee retention is their job not yours. You are a fungible cog to them and you should behave likewise. Employers are only as good to their employees as they have to be and you should act in kind. You are literally punished for staying with your current employer and rewarded for changing employers. You didn't create this incentive structure you just have to work with it. You shouldn't feel guilty. They are adults running a business and could be competitive if they chose to.

Employers behave this way because as a group employees tolerate ridiculous behavior ranging from constant nickel and diming on compensation to outright nonsense like this. They set progress for existing hires based on churn and churn is usually not high enough to drive change. They also base progress on trailing indicators (churn) at which point the best have already left. You can't fix it.

I have come up with a very loose calculation for how long I stay at a company. It starts at 4 years. HR is bad? -3 months. Weak comp improvement (<5%) at the end of year 1 or year 2? -6 months per year. Lied about something in the offer letter? -6 months. Amazing team members and work? +1 year. External offers > 30% more for same or better quality work? -1 year. Bad manager? -1 year. If it gets down below two years I will stay for two years unless I can't possibly stand it which has never happened.

Obviously I won't change jobs if I don't stand to gain something substantial to justify the transaction costs and risks.

I am not sure the company that justifies staying longer than two years when you have room to move up exists. My current employer is in what people might think of as a different class so I don't know how it's going to turn out. I didn't create the incentive structure I just work with it and I refuse to apologize. This is business and they are not entitled to more than two years.

Employers don't cry because you confuse brinksmanship for negotiation. Learn what a BATNA is and get with the program. You don't choose how much your employees are paid. You only choose whether you get to be the one paying them.

</comment><comment><USER26> Not sure how big your company is, but my guess is you've only been there for part ofThe year, so you are considered very junior. Many companies don't give bonuses so I personally wouldn't sweat it.

</comment><comment><USER27> Some companies will not give out full bonuses for new hires if there was a signing bonus. It should be specified in your employment contract.

</comment><comment><USER28> Plenty of advice here. I would like to know how this turns out though.

</comment><comment><USER29> Wow, that's ridiculous

Companies in developing countries give better bonuses

</comment><comment><USER30> when negotiating your contract, a discretionary bonus not written into your contract has expected value 0.

</comment><comment><USER31> It shows that your boss basically thinks you're an idiot. Management types often think that engineers have some sort of autism and so are easy to fool; the reality is that most of us know exactly when we're being fooled - We just go along with it usually because we are too nice (and care too much about other people).

I would quit on the spot if I were you. This guy is making tons of money on top of your superior brain and then he has the audacity to treat you like some idiot.

You have to be aggressive. Find other key engineers who also feel mistreated and threaten to quit together if you don't get what you deserve.

<comment><USER6> OP - if you followed this joker's advice and took instant offense at something that could have been a mistake or company policy, then as your manager I'd be delighted if you quit. I don't people like this on my team

<comment><USER32> I agree making waves that could follow you around is a bad idea. Let other employees mind their own compensation issues.

I'm not against collective bargaining as a concept it just needs to be handled correctly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Welcome to corporation ladder. Game of thrones in real life.</comment>


Ninja Launcher – Curated set of best services to get started with your website - <AUTHOR> https://www.ninjalauncher.com <comment><USER2> I have started many projects and needed to figure out what services to use without breaking the bank. I put together a checklist to get started. I noticed that even when following the detailed checklist each project setup is long and tedious and takes away from the momentum and excitement of working on a new idea. I created this website to reduce the barriers of working on new ideas. Let me know if you think it's interesting and useful.</comment>