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The Guide to Writing Online - davidperell
https://www.perell.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-writing-online
======
camillomiller
Quick guide to Americans writing for a European public (or who want to make
business with Europe, especially Germany).
Writing something like this:
>“I’ve interviewed more than 70 of the world’s most interesting people on my
North Star Podcast, built a weekly email newsletter with almost 10,000
subscribers, and my most popular articles, such as What the Hell is Going On?,
have been read more than 100,000 times. I’ve done all this in just a couple of
years.“
will attract contempt and make you look like a moron. Boasting your
achievements in such a straightforward way might be ok for a US public, but in
Europe everyone just thinks “so what” and then “what the hell is this person
trying to sell me”?
~~~
Toine
European here, you nailed it. I stopped reading because of this,
unfortunately. Americans, why does everything have to sound like a cheap TV
commercial from the 90s ?
~~~
sridca
Neither an European nor an American here (born in India actually), and I too
stopped reading for the same reason.
~~~
Noumenon72
I hadn't even started reading at that point. By the third sentence I was
skimming. I slowed down at the heading "Age of Leverage" but didn't start
actually reading till the bullet points
1\. A Start Here page
2\. A curated list of your favorite articles
At that point I thought the advice on bootstrapping a blog was quite
worthwhile. I think the reading strategy of rejecting articles that start slow
is not as good as skimming over what isn't interesting to get to what is.
------
mikro2nd
I confess to having my confidence in the writer shaken when I read, "That’s
when they’ll pour through the archives".
No, they won't. They might _pore_ through your archives, though.
Offering a course in "Online Writing" and then making such a basic usage error
did not inspire much confidence. Perhaps another pair of editorial eyes might
help? For _any_ writer (myself especially included!) editors and proofreaders
are your friends. I've also misused words and had someone else point out my
error, and I'm grateful to them for having taught me something.
Lesson: If you aspire to "being a writer" \- online or anywhere - get
editorial help where polish matters.
~~~
cutler
No, they won't. They might pore over your archives, though.
~~~
codetrotter
Seems that both “pore through” and “pore over” are correct but the latter is
much more common.
[https://www.thefreedictionary.com/pore+over+or+through](https://www.thefreedictionary.com/pore+over+or+through)
[https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/46624/do-you-
use...](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/46624/do-you-use-pore-
over)
------
friggeri
One of the things I've been struggling with is that once I've mastered a topic
enough to feel comfortable writing about it, everything I write sounds obvious
to me, and from there there is an easy leap to "it's probably obvious to
everyone", and I start questioning whether I should write at all. Anyone has
dealt with this? Tips would be appreciated.
~~~
bachmeier
What's the problem with writing something obvious? Honest question. I don't
see why that should matter. (I mean, sure, you don't want to write 1000 words
about how you should blink your eyes so they don't dry out.) Try to think of
one person you know that wouldn't already know what you're writing. Even if
it's obvious, it's not literally something everyone in the world already knows
or shares your perspective on.
~~~
luckylion
> What's the problem with writing something obvious?
You're not contributing something useful if you're just pointing out the
obvious. Yeah, you can write the ten millionth article on how to change the
default slogan in WordPress, but unless that's the maximum extent of your
knowledge, you're wasting your potential and everybody else's time. That's how
I feel about it at least, and why I don't write stuff that's too obvious or
has already been widely covered. In that case, I might give a small overview
and some tips to newcomers and link to others that I think did a good job.
~~~
bachmeier
"ten millionth" is a duplication problem, not an obvious problem.
~~~
luckylion
There isn't a lot of a difference to me: the obvious has been stated by nearly
everyone. You're right that there will always be some that can benefit from
what one might consider obvious, but the amount of people depends on the level
of what you're writing about. There are people that don't know how to change
the default slogan on a WP site after all.
But don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that nobody should write about
that, I'm offering my perspective on why I probably wouldn't.
------
codingdave
From the headline, I thought it was going to talk about the well-hashed-over
advice of keeping online content short, concise, and skimmable. But when he
spent 4 paragraphs just leading up to a statement of, "In this essay, I'll
show you...", and then a table of contents. I pretty much gave up, as even if
the rest of the article does have something to say about writing, it clearly
isn't going to be accurate to the 'Online' part of the headline.
------
tenkabuto
> "As Devon Zuegel said in my interview with her, writing falls into three
> buckets: (1) trivial things that everybody knows, (2) things that everybody
> knows, [but nobody around you knows], and you have a unique perspective on,
> and (3) stuff that nobody knows so you have to do tons of research. Direct
> your energy towards the second bucket.”
Amusingly, this leaves out things that nobody knows but desperately wants to
know, among other potential things.
------
enygmata
Just write, dammit.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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What Phones Do People Dump For iPhone? - malvosenior
http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-what-phones-are-apples-iphone-buyers-throwing-away-2009-7
======
aj
I would be more interested in the reverse data, ie. what phones do people dump
the iPhone for..
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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I tried to pay with Bitcoin at a Mexico City bar. It didn’t go well - headalgorithm
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/i-tried-to-pay-with-bitcoin-at-a-mexico-city-bar-it-didnt-go-well/
======
nabdab
I had the exact same experience at the bitcoin only cafe paralelni Polis in
Prauge. Only since they refuse to take cash I was left in a pinch. One of the
people who worked there offered to spot me.... only to then adjust his balance
which was registered on a piece of paper denoted in czk. Because as he said
“the rate fluctuates so much and it takes so long to transfer that most who
here just do one large transfer at some point and then run off the tab”.
Af far as proving that a bitcoin only cafe is viable it’s nothing but a PR
scam. And I truly doubt that the people who’s balance was on that sheet
actually went to the trouble of converting czk to bitcoin and then have the
staff jot down the current rate equivalent czk. Most likely they just pay
cash, and keep the facade up so media can’t claim their bitcoin only cafe is
failing at being bitcoin only.
Good coffee though, just not worth the hassle.
~~~
solotronics
I already had bitcoin (and lightning) on a few different wallets on my phone
and was able to pay at Paralelni Polis without any friction. It was easier
than using my card because I didn't have to sign anything, scan the QR code in
my hot wallet and it was done instantly. I think the step of getting Bitcoin
is usually where the friction happens because you usually have to wait for a
certain number of confirmed blocks (10 minute intervals) before you can send
bitcoin from a new wallet.
I wished they had Lightning set up at Paralelni because to me this is even
cooler for Point of Sale systems.
~~~
toolz
It doesn't matter the age of your wallet. Without waiting for other blocks to
write your payment you run the risk of a double pay leaving you with nothing.
e.g. I buy some coffee and then immediately send all funds from that wallet to
my other wallet. If the 2nd transaction gets recorded first, the first tx
won't happen.
~~~
heptathorp
This requires colluding with a miner, since nodes will reject a transaction
that spends the same output as a transaction they've already seen. For a small
payment like a coffee, it should be enough to check that the transaction has a
reasonable fee and wait 1 second to see that it has propagated through the
network.
------
sharperguy
Making traditional payments at places like bars and coffee shops isn't really
a good usecase for bitcoin in today's environment. It can be fun for
enthusiasts, or useful for people who get paid in bitcoin and want an easier
way to spend it aside from just selling it. But for people paid in local
currency it just adds unnecessary complication.
There are some retail use-cases that make sense, mostly when whoever you're
buying from isn't well supported by the banking system. E.g. gambling sites,
marijuana dispensaries , VPN services, countries that don't have paypal or
VISA etc.
Other than that monetary sovereignty, censorship resistance, evading capital
controls and speculation are the name of the game.
~~~
panarky
Exactly.
It's like complaining about how difficult it is to get a cup of water to drink
from Niagara Falls.
------
bitxbitxbitcoin
Arguably, these institutions aren't failing at the accepting Bitcoin part -
which is usually a seamless transaction as the restaurant/bar should accept
the money on zero confirmations. Rather, they're failing at the getting
bitcoin to people who don't already have it portion.
If this author had bitcoin ready to use on a mobile wallet with him already,
he wouldn't have run into the delayed-receipt-of-bitcoin issue with the
Bitcoin ATM - which is a well known and documented issue that won't be solved
until layer two solutions reliably allow for "zero confirmation" transactions.
What institutions like this should/could be doing is ringing up the total in
btc and including the restaurant's bitcoin address on the receipt and having
the first-time-bitcoin-using patron go to the Bitcoin ATM to pay cash to the
Bitcoin ATM and send the resulting bitcoin to the restaurant's wallet - that
way it doesn't matter if the transaction doesn't fully clear until later.
Typing it out, that sounds like a nightmare that might not be worth the 10%
discount (especially as the ATM is likely taking a cut, too) and is it really
paying in bitcoin at that point?
I guess this just shows my point that these places are meant for people who
already have bitcoin to come in and use.
~~~
microtherion
> If this author had bitcoin ready to use on a mobile wallet with him already,
> he wouldn't have run into the delayed-receipt-of-bitcoin issue with the
> Bitcoin ATM
But wouldn't he then have run into the confirmation delay of his transaction
with the bar, i.e. either he would have to stay behind after payment until
confirmations rolled in, or the bar would have had to eat the transaction
risk?
~~~
nybble41
The bar would have to eat the transaction risk, at least until the first
confirmation (typically under 30 minutes). On the other hand, if they accept
any other form of payment besides cash in hand then they are already accepting
that risk in the form of chargebacks—which can occur months after the
transaction.
The scenario in this article is akin to opening a brand-new account at your
local bank and then trying to spend from it with a debit card immediately
afterward. You're likely to incur an overdraft penalty, if the transaction
isn't simply declined. If you want to pay with Bitcoin you need to _have_
Bitcoin—confirmed—at the the time you make the payment. This is not a problem
in practice but it can trip up people experimenting with the system for the
first time.
------
SOLAR_FIELDS
So what was the problem here? Taking a guess as to how the ATM servicer
responded to the author’s support ticket, it seems like the ATM servicer is
batching small transactions into a larger daily transaction on their end to
either cut down on fees or do some sort of rate arbitrage.
Bitcoin as a payment system is pretty much untenable these days due to fees
and confirmation times but why couldn’t the bar just accept a different
cryptocurrency that is in semi wide use, has near instantaneous confirmations,
and sub-cent fees? There are several of these but Ripple is the first one that
comes to mind.
~~~
corodra
If you own a business, one of the worst things to manage is all the different
payment systems you have to maintain. Both logistics and tax tracking. Theres
a very good reason why merchant service companies exist. They still suck, but
they're easier by orders of magnitude, of dealing with all the cards yourself.
I can only imagine how much more difficult it can be for companies outside the
states. Unless you're in Greece. Then you don't pay any taxes.
------
makz
That’s why stuff like bitcoin cash and lightning network exist.
Also walking into a bitcoin bar without having some bitcoin already is like
walking without cash into a normal bar that only accepts cash but has an ATM
and it’s the only ATM in miles: plenty of things can go wrong.
------
majewsky
tl;dr:
\- The bar had a vending machine for Bitcoin which the author used to convert
Pesos into Bitcoin, but he couldn't pay his tab because it took two days for
the Bitcoin to show up in his wallet.
\- The bar's manager, a Bitcoin evangelist, could not really name any
practical usecase for Bitcoin.
| {
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The Psychopath - The Mask of Sanity - cj
http://www.cassiopaea.com/cassiopaea/psychopath.htm
======
DLWormwood
I was agreeing with the essay until I got to about the 75% mark, and it went
off-tangent about how religion helps enable psychopathology, despite
explicitly avoiding the topic for most of the paper. (I should have taken the
mention of "Indigo children" as a warning sign, despite the paper treating
that as more of a kind of fashion rather than a religious concept.)
It turns out that this page appears to be SEO content bait for a constellation
of crack-pot sites dating from 2005, most notably "Signs of the Times" and
9/11 conspiracy theorists.
<http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/site_map_qfg.htm>
~~~
anthonyb
Why is it off tangent? It makes sense to me that systems like religion or
government are easily subverted. I also read the "Indigo Children" part as
being critical of the concept, ie. pandering to psychopaths.
Not that they're not crackpots - the conclusion of the article is pretty wacky
- but your criticism is a little off.
~~~
DLWormwood
I know this is a late response, but...
My concern is that the article felt like that for cases of institutional
corruption, the article reasoned, "A, therefore C" instead of saying "A
implies B, B implies C, therefore A implies C." The article didn't adequately
give the reader reasoning or context for an anti-institutional slam out of the
blue like that. (For religion, a few paragraphs discussing historical examples
like the Inquisition or pedophile priests would have both strengthened the
argument and smoothed out the narrative.)
~~~
anthonyb
An even later response :)
That section comes right on the tail of discussing how pscyhopathy seems to be
an inherited trait, and that there seems to be a lot of evidence, at least
anecdotally, for children who have much of the same behaviours as psychopaths.
So it doesn't seem that out of place to me.
The anti-institutional 'slam' was just them pointing out that a lot of the
religious doctrines seem to follow a psychopathic 'rationale', ie. here is the
truth, now don't question it. My reading was that it was almost an
epidemiological study on psychopaths subverting social organisations (since
that's how they seem to work individually).
Of course, the article is mostly anecdotal evidence, so it's hard to tell how
seriously to take this, but it's certainly food for thought.
------
techiferous
I think sometimes we are a little too eager to attach labels to people. There
are a couple of problems with labels:
1\. A label is a heuristic. It's a quick way of getting an approximate picture
of a person. If somebody introduces you to Rick as "a former Republican
senator from South Dakota" your mind is already filling in lots of blanks
about Rick with categories like "male", "senator", "Republican" and "South
Dakotan". Our mind gives us a head-start in knowing about Rick. The problem
comes when we don't allow ourselves to revise this rough-draft picture of
Rick. Perhaps we think all Republicans are like X, so Rick is like X.
Therefore, we don't bother looking for information about whether Rick is like
X, because we already _know_. Labels can get in the way of actually knowing
somebody.
2\. A label often carries the implicit assumption that the aspects of the
person in question are immutable. In other words, people don't change. It's
different to say someone is a "psychopath" instead of "going through a
psychopathic phase".
"In other words, psychopathy is being recognized as a more or less a different
type of human."
This quote really bothered me. This completely dehumanizes "psychopaths." They
are officially "the other". <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other>
------
danbmil99
Sheesh, this is simplistic. The world is a complex place, and there are niches
for all sorts of personality types. People can be cold-blooded about killing
but care about their family (Tony Soprano?)
A good show about all this is "Damages". Mad Men gets it too -- simple
morality narratives, where everyone is binary good/evil, do not reflect the
richness of human character.
------
primodemus
"Cheating skills seem to have an adaptive value in our society. The fact is:
psychopaths often end up on the top of the heap, John Forbes Nash, for
example." John Nash is schizophrenic, not psycopath.
------
greenlblue
You know what another word for psychopath is? Asshole. It's easy to spot them
and it's easy to avoid them so calm down. It's not a full blown epidemic and
these people have been around since the beginning of time.
~~~
dhughes
Not always, or at least they're not so obvious, some pretend to be your friend
and to console you all the while they are the ones causing you harm.
A better word may be "manager".
~~~
greenlblue
My point was that this article takes a long and winding road to reach the
simple conclusion that some people are simply assholes and there is nothing to
be done about it because they are built differently and the article makes it
all sound really menacing. There is nothing menacing here. Most assholes have
the same profile so it's really easy to figure them out after you've come into
contact with a few of them. Turning it into a research program is in my
opinion a waste of money which is the other thing the article seems to
advocate.
~~~
confuzatron
The authors argue that people in general (unlike you) are not good at spotting
psychopaths, that psychopathy is an increasingly successful evolutionary
strategy, that psychos are controlling society to help nurture their psycho
offspring, whom certain in-denial hippies have dubbed 'indigo children'.
I thought the whole thing was immensely entertaining (but I'm just saying that
to stave off the terror).
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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The Munger Operating System: How to Live a Life That Really Works - yarapavan
https://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2016/04/munger-operating-system/
======
yarapavan
For me, this is gold - To get what you want, deserve what you want. Trust,
success, and admiration are earned.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Nook: The Real Man's Electronic Reader - Hilarious - dreambird
http://thefastertimes.com/technovice/2010/03/02/the-nook-the-real-mans-electronic-reader/
======
Groxx
The last 3 times I've fiddled with a Nook in B&N, I've been _extremely_
disappointed. "Lame" comes to mind strongly. I've crashed it all 3 times, and
the UI is opaque and non-intuitive to say the least. Two Nooks have also had
burned-in images from the "screensaver" that took a good 20+ screen changes to
completely eliminate.
The Kindle is infinitely better, but it's still laughably far from a product
I'd actually buy because of how locked-down it is.
~~~
epochwolf
I've had the same experience. Having the interface split between a color
touchscreen and a non-touch e-ink screen is bad enough but did they have to
screw up basic navigation on top of that?
------
gjm11
"Hilarious" is editorializing by the submitter, not part of the original
title. For what it's worth, this article is one of the least hilarious things
I have read recently, but of course tastes vary.
~~~
wedesoft
For lack of something hilarious I went on to watch this video
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cd7Bsp3dDo>
------
Semiapies
Ehn, I was amused.
I think I read that Waugh book in college.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Show HN: Leadngin.com finally launched my startup after 18months of stealth. - mrkmcknz
So after 18months of working on my startup Leadngin.com we're finally ready to launch. Our first user was in fact Swombat with GrantTree who is still with us today. Many more HN users have since scaled their sales process with us! Let me know if you have any questions and be sure to point out anything we're doing wrong.
======
jfaucett
I would be interested in finding out more about this service and possibly
using it, but I have no idea how it works from looking at the info page.
Generate leads - ok, how? Why does it cost me a $99 setup? How does it
fullfill the 1-50 daily leads promise?
~~~
mrkmcknz
Thanks for the feedback. I agree we should be clearer in regards to how it
works. I'll put an example up there over the next couple of days.
In regards to the setup fee. We spend a bit of time before on-boarding where
we get to know who is receiving leads in a team and who you are targeting. We
didn't want to exclude small companies who start small and grow big and in
some cases they were only using 1-5 leads a week. With an account balance it
meant they didn't drop off after a couple of weeks and continued to receive
leads until they had chance to see benefit.
At first we were all about the £1,000 per month minimum spend. Then we
realised that two of our users spending that spent no more than £100 on their
first invoice.
------
swanify
Great to see this finally become public. I've been a huge supporter of Mark
from the beginning of his journey.
You've got to give this a try, the quality & accuracy of the leads produced go
above and beyond what you'd think possible.
------
swombat
FYI, we (GrantTree) are that first client. GrantTree has had enormous ROI from
this lead source - much better than the other lead sources we had found
before.
Also, this is one of those products where the MVP was an email.
------
nocashflow
I'm interested but I'm curious where the leads are coming from. If they are
scraped leads from public data sources I would pass, but if you have access to
a source I can't get my hands on then this is something I would pay for my
team to use.
~~~
mrkmcknz
We pull in data from private and public sources and the real magic isn't
crawling or scraping data. It's what we do to make sense of the data, the
information we can link together and using the data to understand businesses
and the individuals inside them.
I'd be happy to talk more if you want to reach out to me at [email protected]
~~~
nocashflow
Sounds great, we are doing similar to this ourselves now but it's time
consuming and I'd love to outsource it.
------
CookWithMe
Can you already source leads with a different language than English? Most
relevant for me: Can you find leads within Germany/Austria/Switzerland?
~~~
mrkmcknz
Interesting question...
I have no idea, we honestly haven't thought of this one bit. Send me an email
at [email protected] and I would be happy to test this for you.
------
palidanx
Do you have any plans of publishing a case study? I would be interested in
reading that before evaluating the service.
~~~
mrkmcknz
Yes! We've got something in the works for next week in regards to lead
generation and investor information. With permission we will also release the
dataset and make it public.
~~~
gavinbaker
Great. I'd be interested in the case study when it's ready. I shot you an
email too. Looks like it could be a good fit for us.
------
mrkmcknz
Clickable: [http://leadngin.com/](http://leadngin.com/)
------
jtchang
Perfect. Can you send me an e-mail? I want to learn more.
~~~
mrkmcknz
Sure, I will reach out to you!
------
mahesh_gkumar
What does a complete lead mean?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Algorithmic Theories of Everything (2000) - canjobear
https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0011122
======
cromwellian
If I read this right, it's saying we live in a universe with either a short
program, or a fast program (program here means theory). From an algorithmic
information theory standpoint, this seems to suggest whatever fundamental
theory of physics we find, it'll be short. I'm wondering if this points more
to a cellular automata style theory being at the root of reality. Maybe
Wolfram was right?
~~~
amelius
Why are we not living in a universe with _all_ possible theories (short and
long), and there is only one of these theories which we actually see? Of
course, enumerating all possible theories might be actually a simple program
...
~~~
smaddox
Wolfram actually touches on this near the end of his fairly recent blog post
discussing recent advancements he and his collaborators have made on this
topic: [https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2020/04/finally-we-
may-h...](https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2020/04/finally-we-may-have-a-
path-to-the-fundamental-theory-of-physics-and-its-beautiful/)
------
scribu
IMHO, a better title would be " _Probabilistic_ Theories Of Everything"
Contrast with the recent work from David Deutsch, which eliminates all
probabilities from physics.
Intro to Constructor Theory:
[https://youtu.be/wfzSE4Hoxbc](https://youtu.be/wfzSE4Hoxbc)
~~~
platz
this is basically just what happens in any deterministic hidden variable
theory
~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
Yeah, the aliens who are simulating us could be using a 64 bit prng at the
quantum level and we would still never know the difference, because our
measurement technology isn't there. The universe would be deterministic but
it's unlikely that we'd ever be able to prove it, unless they left breadcrumbs
intentionally.
------
xenonite
Jürgen Schmidhuber, in the year 2000
~~~
mcswell
Then was he 20 years ahead of his time?
~~~
xenonite
Well, he (+his students) were ahead of the time in many things like in LSTM,
GAN, et cetera.
------
m3kw9
Can someone explain in layman’s terms?
~~~
GrantS
ELI5 is: If the universe is computable, might we be in the _simplest_
computable universe or the _fastest_ computable universe? Can computer science
and math help us figure out the reasons for the physics that run our world?
------
ksr
When all the combinations have been played out, the universe will halt.
~~~
mcswell
Like this?
[https://urbigenous.net/library/nine_billion_names_of_god.htm...](https://urbigenous.net/library/nine_billion_names_of_god.html)
------
techbio
Going from the title, it's all just a materialized Fibonacci Heap (though the
abstract would disagree with me).
------
jarym
Well I’d love to give GPT3 the abstract as a starting point and see what comes
out the other end!
~~~
msapaydin
Here is what comes out: "The history of our universe is a sequence of random
events. Each event is the result of a very small probability, and the events
are independent of each other. The probability that any particular event will
happen is very small. So the probability that any particular event will happen
twice is even smaller. So the probability that any particular event will
happen twice in a row is even smaller. So the probability that any particular
event will happen three times in a row is even smaller. And so on."
~~~
whymauri
"The probability that any particular event will happen is very small. So the
probability that any particular event will happen twice is even smaller. So
the probability that any particular event will happen twice in a row is even
smaller. So the probability that any particular event will happen three times
in a row is even smaller."
This sounds like a meta-joke, lol.
~~~
taberiand
"So the probability that any particular event will happen four times in a row
is looking a little suspicious. Five is right out"
~~~
ooobit2
"And I'm not even going to entertain the probability of six, though I can
confirm it will be exactly as many degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon."
| {
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Startup is giving out free Bitcoin today - tonyicracked
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1qwpjv/startup_is_giving_out_free_bitcoin_today/
======
cycleapp
Hey Guys. Coinbase is having some issues (they are probably under a lot of
load) but we will make sure we redeem everyone!
[http://getcycle.com](http://getcycle.com)
------
rafeed
Just received 0.0007 BTC (0.54 USD). I'll take it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Warehouse: All New PyPI is now in beta - jwilk
https://pyfound.blogspot.com/2018/03/warehouse-all-new-pypi-is-now-in-beta.html
======
nikhilweee
Wasn't pypi.org in beta since ... forever?
~~~
jwilk
It was "pre-production" before it became "beta".
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
No more fillings? Gel regenerates teeth - cwan
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37978810/ns/health-oral_health/
======
chaosmachine
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1471083>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Relax. You can (mostly) stop using Interfaces in Java now - kaffeinecoma
http://garmhold.blogspot.com/2010/03/relax-you-can-mostly-stop-using.html
======
jfager
Please don't. Interfaces are one of the few redeeming aspects of the language.
They give you a way to fake mixins, they're the only hook for dynamic proxies
(for quick, simple, non-bloated aspect-oriented programming), and they let you
swap in different implementations. Interfaces are good, use more.
What's the perceived downside of using interfaces? That you end up with more
files? That you dead-end into bare method declarations when browsing your
code? Any others?
~~~
chubbard
How about trading off code readability for code complexity that has some
potential future payoff? Library developers might want to trade more of their
readability than app developers because of the nature of 3rd party code. It's
ultimately a trade off that you have to make, but there are some general rules
of thumb can help you so that uber flexilibity doesn't take over.
~~~
jfager
Do you really think that interfaces on their own constitute 'uber flexibility
taking over'?
~~~
chubbard
Prolific over use of interfaces when all you have is a single implementor. In
a word Yes.
------
locopati
There are good reasons to use interfaces and to just accept the extra minor
bit of work that goes with them. When using injection frameworks (like
Spring), it makes life easier to reference an iface and have your concrete
class plugged in automagically (using annotations). The iface also provides a
clean look at the intentions of the application. Writing impl classes is
trivial with an IDE - you can create your impl and fill in stub methods quite
easily. The tradeoff of separation can be worthwhile in a complex system.
~~~
jbooth
Yes, but generally speaking, if you're writing FooIFace and FooImpl you should
probably rethink what you're doing.
~~~
jfager
Ideally, you'd just get it right the first time, but if you're going to screw
up, it's usually better to screw up by having an interface you don't really
need than by having a class that should really be an interface. Generalizing
that makes it hard for me to agree that FooIFace and FooImpl is, on its own,
evidence that something's wrong.
~~~
Tuna-Fish
This does condense what I dislike about java quite nicely. All proper java
code is full of speculative architecture and genericity -- in order to have
your code easily extensible, you do have to have setters, getters, interfaces,
factories and everything else from version one.
As an example of a language that gets it right, look at python. You can write
your orginal classes in the simplest possible way they could be written, and
yet expand from there to just as much architecture as your problem needs
without ever touching the users of the class.
~~~
jbooth
Well, point taken about the getters/setters, those should be automatic or at
least managed via keyword or annotation (private gettable String fname or
something like that)
As for the rest of it.. it's just a question of proper design. If you're just
making a utility, you don't need any interfaces or factories. If you're making
a module for something that's intended to be run with a half-dozen service
dependencies, it's probably a good idea to design it in a way that said
dependencies can be injected -- whether you're using spring or doing something
more lightweight. That applies across languages, same deal in python.
~~~
Tuna-Fish
I honestly don't think "private gettable String fname" is in any material way
better than getters and setters, as your ide can already insert the
boilerplate for you. The problem isn't the boilerplate per se, it's forcing
you to think about things before their time. Your attention is a scarce
resource. The only satisfactory way for the first version is "public String
fname", with the ability to later turn that into proper getters and setters
when it is needed without the consumers of the class even knowing.
My big point about python is that you can always inject the dependencies, and
you don't have to spend any thought beforehand to achieve this. Java could go
a long way here with just a few minor changes -- for example, remove "new",
you get a new object by calling it's constructor, without any special
operators. Allow shadowing of functions. This alone would end the factory
madness -- in fact, factories are just an awful boilerplatey way to implement
this. For example, if I have a class Foo that needs to instantiate Bar to
function, and I want to inject a different bar for some tests (or something),
in python I can just:
def make_test_foo():
Bar = DummyObjectConstructor
return Foo()
(this will of course occur only in local scope, so that other potential users
in other threads are not going to be stuck with dummy objects against their
will)
To achieve the same in java, the way I was taught to was to design in a
BarFactory for use when needed. In most cases, it's not going to be needed.
But if you don't make it, boy are you going to be in a world of pain when you
do need it, and half the world already depends on your class.
What really irks me about this, is that hotspot is perfectly capable of
dealing with these kinds of things -- it is a really nice platform for this
kind of dynamicity. Sun just used think that poor programmers are going to be
confused when you hit them with too many high-level concepts, and refuses to
add constructs like this. Which would be fine, except that the programmers
invariably go on to develop their own ugly workarounds, like factories,
because they need the power.
This I believe to be the big reason why python is so much faster to program in
than java. I can program for the now, completely ignoring superfluous
architecture when my programs consists of 3 files, with the knowledge that I
can safely add it later when needed. The syntax and dynamic typing are just a
nice extra.
------
jrockway
I don't do Java, but I always prefer to code to interfaces rather than
implementations. It is more sane and allows you to "late bind" more. It is
also easier to test, even in languages that aren't as strict as Java. Sure,
not everything should be an interface/implementation combination, but it's not
a bad start.
------
chubbard
I guess this is only tangentially related to each other Mock objects and
interfaces. I stopped using interfaces in this manner. My rule if you only
have one implementation of an interface you don't need an interface. Wait to
create the interface when you get your second implementation, and we have
great tools that make that easy.
Now for people who do lots of mock objects this rule doesn't help them out
much, but my other rule is I don't overly separate my system for testing
purposes. Sure there are times when you need a mock object for java mail or
external services you need to mock out. But, doing it for every service you
have is really a lot of work for questionable gain. This is predicated on
practical experience rather than architecture theory. The reason you separate
your system for testing is to find more bugs. I found that I wasn't finding
anymore bugs by separating things than I was by testing it integrated. And, in
fact I found more bugs in the integration of services than I would if I only
tested them in separate form. Therefore, I stopped doing the extra work to
separate them because the payoff was really too small to bother. It's been
much more productive to think like this.
------
ShabbyDoo
So, the argument is that you can stop the pattern of writing IFoo and FooImpl
when you're pretty sure that the only other impl of IFoo will be MockFoo.
------
lambdom
Is it me or in both of the examples there is an extra { ? Is this something
about Java I don't know about?
~~~
Robin_Message
The first { opens the body of the anonymous inner class.
The second { starts an instance initialization block, which runs on each
object when it is constructed - not sure if it's before or after the
constructor - gonna guess before!
It's useful in this case as anonymous inner classes can't define constructors.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Sweet Twitter Alternative, looking for Alpha testers - bcambel
http://sweet.io
======
ouscux
I'm only curious about how "No embarrassing family posts" are prevented.
------
NonEUCitizen
"Care about privacy?"
BUT:
"No private accounts."
~~~
bcambel
Privacy like tracking you down all around the world, record every action you
take,etc..
------
pastirmaci
Looks promising!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Orgmode for Sublime Text 2 and 3 - emartinelli
https://github.com/danielmagnussons/orgmode
======
pumblechook
Kudos to the author for trying to bring org mode to a wider audience. It was
definitely the gateway drug to Emacs for me, and now that I've been using org
for awhile I honestly can't see myself ever switching to another personal task
manager/productivity tool. I always recommend it to others, but alas, the
Emacs barrier is too big for most to overcome.
I do have one suggestion: don't try to emulate the feature set of Emacs org
mode exactly. While I love org mode, the setup time and effort was many orders
of magnitude greater than any other tool I've used before, and I can't say it
enabled me to be many orders of magnitude more productive. I would love to
have an org mode with sensible defaults (such as indented bullets, project-
based agenda view, etc...) with a narrow feature set. For me, the killer
features are:
* Mixed notes and TODOs. It was a revelation to be able to just type a TODO into any notes and know that this will magically appear on my master TODO list. But for this to be useful, you really need...
* The agenda view. For those not familiar, this is essentially a consolidated list of todos across all your org files. But I never found the default agenda view that useful, so I again spent lots of time writing one myself. Now I use it many times a day.
* Timers. The way org mode does timers is miles better than any other time tracking software I've ever used.
* Flexible 'projects'. In org mode I have a lot of flexibility in how I treat projects (for me a project is simply a TODO with 1 or more nested TODO). With my agenda view I can quickly see all my projects with two keystrokes.
* Flexible TODO recurrence. Most task managers only let you repeat a TODO every so often, but org has a powerful syntax for defining whatever recurrence pattern you want (i.e. do this task every week on Friday and have it done within 3 days)
* TODOs dates as scheduled or deadlines. It is always surprising to me how other task managers don't recognize this difference. If you schedule yourself to do something on a certain date, it is very different than saying 'you have to get this done by this date'.
* TODO workflows. Most task managers have tepid support for a TODO as a workflow with potential alternate and blocking states (such as waiting on someone before you can do the TODO), but with org mode you can precisely define TODO workflows and do all sorts of cool stuff with them.
* Habits. The way org does habits is simply brilliant.
Keep up the good work!
~~~
mjb394
How does your agenda view differ from the default?
~~~
ac
Not the parent poster, but I have custom agendas too. The two I use the most
are "Today" and "Weekly review". "Today" has the ordinary day agenda block,
but sprinkled with habits tracking, as well as the separate list of NEXT
actions, sorted by priority and complexity. The view is structured to answer
the "What should I be doing right now?" very quickly.
The "Weekly review" is made for a (slightly tweaked) GTD review. It allows me
to review all the finished tasks in one plays, which I archive or refile for
future reference (this is to mitigate the downside of mixing TODOs with notes
--- you might lose important info when you archive a DONE task). Next block
reviews the tasks where I'm waiting on something or someone. I can update
their status and close them if whatever I was waiting on has happened. Then
there are new tasks from my inbox (org-capture) that I refile and assign
priorities/schedules/deadlines too. Then there is the agenda for the next
week, so I have a chance to plan my work and schedule more tasks if I have the
capacity. Then there is the review of all the NEXT actions. Then there are the
SOMEDAY tasks, which I review and occasionally promote to TODOs or NEXT
actions.
I'm also tinkering with agenda views that give longer term perspective for
project planning. However, I'm already running into the limitations of agenda
views.
Most of it is inspired by Bernt Hansen's (cited by the OP) and Sacha Chua's
configs, though they are doing even more sophisticated stuff at times.
~~~
pumblechook
I've been meaning to do an agenda view for weekly reviews for awhile, but my
master view works well enough. What I'd really like is an agenda view that
approximates a burn down chart and gives me a suggested velocity for next week
(or some arbitrary period of time) based on the difference between my effort
estimates and actual clocked-in time. A task aging view would also be nice to
remind me about tasks on my list that have been idle for awhile so I can
update them.
But alas, this is the beauty and curse of org mode. I could do this, but will
the time investment really make me that much more productive? Maybe, but maybe
not.
------
ronjouch
For another take on the TODO list in Sublime, check PlainTasks. It may not
have the ambition of a "full orgmode" if compared to emacs's orgmode, but has
nice default settings and keybindings.
It's on Package Control and at
[https://github.com/aziz/PlainTasks](https://github.com/aziz/PlainTasks)
~~~
cseelus
Its also available for VIM, Atom and other editors.
[https://github.com/elentok/plaintasks.vim](https://github.com/elentok/plaintasks.vim)
[https://atom.io/packages/tasks](https://atom.io/packages/tasks)
------
jefurii
Offtopic, but everytime I want to try Sublime I check to see if it can edit
files on remote systems via SSH and it can't. Well you can if you install some
package on the remote systems but that's clunky and doesn't count. I'll
continue using Emacs.
~~~
JonathonW
If you're on a *nix, I'm rather fond of sshfs for this purpose: it's a FUSE
filesystem that lets you mount a remote folder over SSH, and from there you
can work with files using whatever local editor or tools you want to.
It's available through apt-get in Ubuntu and Homebrew on OSX (and probably
other package managers, too), and should work anywhere that FUSE does. Doesn't
require any special configuration on the server-side except to have SSH
enabled (and not be doing anything weird that blocks SFTP, I guess).
~~~
laumars
I second the sshfs recommendation. Most of my remote development is using a
combination of tmux (as an IDE for remote CLI tools) and sshfs (for GUI IDEs).
------
MarcScott
For me the beauty of org-mode is I get to write in a feature rich markup
language and then export to almost any format my heathen non-emacs using
colleagues desire.
Oh, and tables. Having what is basically a spreadsheet that I can manipulate
without ever touching my trackpad is a serious win.
Sadly, I doubt these features will ever be available outside of emacs. Org-
mode probably deserves it's own app.
------
scrumper
Well I'm trying to use sublime for more stuff; my dream is that it turns into
a Python-based Emacs, so this is interesting. It's not clear to me how to
actually use this port of org-mode though. There don't seem to be any new
commands (bar 'set syntax'); how do I create tasks, indent, fold, mark done
etc?
------
melling
Is there a way for Sublime to work directly with Github? I maintain some notes
files in org mode directly on Github.
[https://github.com/melling/ComputerLanguages](https://github.com/melling/ComputerLanguages)
[https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes](https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes)
However, when I want to make big changes, I work locally. Ideally, I'd be
warned if I forget to update my local repo when I try to edit.
~~~
jacalata
You want a warning if the file has changed in the repository since you last
edited it locally, is that right? Interesting idea, I can see it coming in
handy myself.
------
Semiapies
I always wonder what developers feel when some project they haven't touched in
months or years gets leapt on by an eager Hacker News.
------
machinshin_
Anyone know of a good org mode plugin for vim?
~~~
bokchoi
[https://github.com/jceb/vim-orgmode](https://github.com/jceb/vim-orgmode)
------
mikerichards
2,3 years ago commit. What about Orgmode for other editors? I'd love to see
Atom or VSCode get one.
~~~
brudgers
To put it in perspective, Carsten Wimmers created org-mode for himself.
And...it's a hobby project: He's a full time astronomer who works on org-mode
on the train on his way to work. What it takes to get org-mode on VS-code or
Atom [or Sublime] is someone who cares about making it happen as much as
Wimmers does. And that's roughly 13 years of caring and 13 years is five years
longer than Sublime Text has existed and about a decade longer than Atom or
VScode.
It's a sort of variation on the Turing Tarpit: it's probably technically
possible to implement Org-mode in Eclipse or Vim, but it's not easy. Not easy
in both from the sense of software architecture and in the sense of the
community. People live in Emacs for Mail and NNTP and a Shell and calendars
and calculators and do so because Emacs was designed to be easy to extend and
the community did. That community has people who have been married to Emacs
for ten, twenty, thirty years. That's the kind of relationship that can
sustain a decade+ development effort.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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As Russian “FaceApp” gobbles up user photos, Schumer asks FBI to investigate - jackalo
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/07/as-russian-faceapp-gobbles-up-user-photos-schumer-asks-fbi-to-investigate/
======
hpoe
I get that this is a legitimate privacy concern, and that it fits into the
larger narrative tech, but as an American I am just wondering when we are
going to get over our Russophobia, I mean the Cold War has been over for more
than a quarter century now, and although I do agree that Russia isn't a
particularly moral international actor, and their current leader exhibits a
more than questionable concern about how human rights are viewed I am having a
hard time believing that every single thing done by a Russian person is
inherently a security risk.
I see this more as a Russian guy figured out that people like apps that show
them what they would look like when they are older, started a company and is
now trying to make a quick buck; but I could be wrong maybe this is a
nefarious attempt by the USSR to compile a database of US pictures the CEO of
the company is actually a KGB sleeper agent and the ultimate plan is to march
down Capital Avenue waving the Hammer and Sickle and singing the anthems to
the glorious Soviet motherland.
Am I alone in this, or is anyone else feeling that this is getting to be a
little over the top?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
AngularJS: If HTML were built for writing web apps - phren0logy
http://www.angularjs.org/Main_Page
======
arkitaip
This looks interesting but I am not sure about the use of additional
attributes. Will AngularJS produce well-formed markup? Can't help to notice
that the example code on the front page uses tables for layout purposes...
I just love the formidable "comeback" that JavaScript has made. It has gone
from being hated and patronized to become an incredibly flexible and
completely invaluable tool in every web develper's toolkit. With all these
frameworks and libraries - jQuery, YUI, node.js - JavaScript is becoming even
more powerful and actually fun to code it.
~~~
ericost
> Can't help to notice that the example code on the front page uses tables for
> layout purposes...
The table is used to layout tabular data. This is a good use of tables.
------
lukifer
I'm very curious as to what are the philosophy differences and trade-offs
between Angular, Knockout, and more lightweight plugins such as jQuery Data-
Link [1].
(1) <https://github.com/jquery/jquery-datalink>
------
lazylland
The neatest solution for handling forms I've seen was XForms
(<http://www.w3.org/TR/xforms11/>), originally part of the XHTML2 proposal.
You had multiple, potentially schema-validated models per page, the ability to
neatly segue in RESTful behaviour and custom controls for dates, ranges, tabs,
composite controls etc.
However, the standard relied on robust browser support instead of being added
on as a library (here's a current attempt at this:
<http://code.google.com/p/ubiquity-xforms/>). There was also an almost slavish
adherence to XPath which was too clunky for certain uses, and finally it ended
up as an unfortunate victim of the XHTML2 debacle.
------
dantheta
This definitely looks interesting to me. Although I only occasionally write
webapps, the web developers who sit near me regularly seem to have to spend a
lot of time dealing with problems like jQuery event handler race conditions,
JS and server-side state mismatch and so on.
All of it made me wonder if HTML and JS (with jQuery et al) were really the
right tools for developing rich user interfaces, or if it was time to look at
an alternatives for apps in the browser - although Flash, Adobe Air and
Silverlight all seem to be highly unpalatable choices.
(as for me, I'm generally happy with unstyled well-formed XHTML and doing all
the work on the server with form submits and page reloads - but that's why I'm
not doing webapps for a living!)
------
user24
Interesting timing - Just today I blogged about HTML5 and how it still doesn't
fully address the needs of web apps -
[http://www.puremango.co.uk/2011/01/what-is-the-point-of-
html...](http://www.puremango.co.uk/2011/01/what-is-the-point-of-html-5/)
Seems like there are a few projects filling this gap - backbone's been
mentioned, there's also sproutcore.
XUL is a great little language but as I say in the blog post: XUL is designed
to produce apps with a consistent look-and-feel. HTML is emphatically not (and
shouldn't be).
It's tricky to design a web application language which doesn't end up with all
apps looking the same.
------
ubasu
Older discussion:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2118417>
------
liamk
I wonder how this differs from backbone.js?
~~~
jashkenas
A good place to start would be to give them a quick read-through:
Angular.js Source: <http://www.angularjs.org/ng/js/angular-debug.js>
Backbone.js Source:
<http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/docs/backbone.html>
[Edit]: Just skimming through, you'll notice that Angular includes a custom
JavaScript parser for it's JS-in-HTML attributes (Knockout.js uses eval()), as
well as things like Social Security Number validation ... and it's own version
of jQuery, internally referenced as "jqLite".
------
ericmsimons
I feel like the web is such a chaotic mess of technologies...we need some sort
of universal language in the future. I hope HTML5 will deliver that although I
doubt it. I remember reading a blog from Joe Hewitt talking about how he would
love to see objective-c for creating web apps (like cappuccino, but tied in
with the backend as well). Should be interesting to see what happens
~~~
jashkenas
For better or for worse, JavaScript is that language. (Along with all of the
languages that compile to JS: [https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-
script/wiki/List-of-lang...](https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-
script/wiki/List-of-languages-that-compile-to-JS))
------
prodigal_erik
Found I had to disable CSS (there's something wonky hiding their content) but
I'm glad to see their documents are still usable if you don't blindly trust
everyone's js by default. A lot of sloppy or ignorant authors would have done
the js version first and then failed to finish the job.
------
jamesu
XUL anyone?
~~~
user24
XUL isn't cross browser. Though a xul.js which allowed you to define webapps
in XUL and it converts them into HTML on the client side would be an
interesting project.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Apple kicks ZFS in the butt - joao
http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=584
======
tvon
Summary: There is still no ZFS in Snow Leopard, we still don't know why. Let's
speculate.
~~~
mmphosis
I'll speculate: Testing.
* maybe with ZFS, there were problems like slow speed, unreliability, poor resource use, etc... more speculation of Apple's testing benchmarks...
* maybe without ZFS, no problems were found in testing. If this was the case, and remember I am speculating, I would ship without ZFS, easy.
------
pohl
I was looking forward to ZFS, but there was a recent article about BTRFS that
caught my eye.
What I would really like to see, though, is some modern filesystem with a
license that is neither offensive to a commercial vendor like Apple or
Microsoft, nor offensive to the GNU crowd, or the BSD crowd. I'm not sure
that's even possible, but it would be nice to know that I could format a flash
drive in a universal way that isn't FAT32.
~~~
rbanffy
"format a flash drive in a universal way that isn't FAT32."
Microsoft will never, ever support a technology they don't control. FAT32 is
just fine by them and you can't count them out when you say "universal".
They could, of course, use BSD licensed stuff, but they would not be able to
put pressure and extract licensing fees like they do with FAT.
------
barrkel
I'm running ZFS on OpenSolaris kernel (Nexenta, for GNU userland) for home
storage, with my main zpool at 9.06TB spread over 8 hard drives, for almost
7TB worth of ZFS storage.
ZFS isn't quite what's billed to be, but it's (mostly) better than every other
current choice. You can read the positives everywhere else, but let me point
out some of the negatives.
* Space wastage: block sizes for files grow up to 128K, but they never shrink, and the last block in a file is currently always the same as the overall file block size. This means that files e.g. 129K in size will have 127K of wasted space on disk, and files that were once 128K and truncated back down to 1 byte will still have 128K block size. Depending on the kinds of files, you can see space wastage rates in the region of 25-45%. This isn't theoretical: I had to reduce max block size to 8K on one filesystem to avoid huge wastage.
* Streaming latency: as a media server, I often play movies from data stored on this server, but there's a problem somewhere in the stack (network, OS file cache, filesystem implementation). If I'm playing a movie or TV episode from a ripped DVD (i.e. VIDEO_TS directory) I can guarantee that there'll be at least one glitch in every 40 minutes of playback, where network transfer has dropped to zero for 3 or 4 seconds.
* Device removal: you can add more storage to a ZFS pool, and one can replace any given device with a drive equal or larger in size, but it's not possible to remove a device. If you start out with 8 disks, you're stuck with 8 disks unless you want to backup and restore the entire FS - but at least FS streaming is easy with e.g. zfs send <snapshot> | ssh <remote> zfs receive <filesystem>.
* Fragmentation: there is no defragmentation solution currently. Sure, people say it's "not an issue", that "ZFS is not pathalogical", but the same was said about NTFS, and NTFS fragments like crazy when small incremental writes are used. ZFS performance is known to fall off a cliff (e.g. less than 1% of prior perf) as you approach capacity (symptomatic of fragmented free space) and, more importantly, _stay_ abysmal until you back off quite a bit and preferably drop a whole file system or two. Recommendation is to stay under 80%, which isn't very full.
* Performance: performance is a bit of a red herring; you can make ZFS as fast as you want by adding mirroring and striping. The more interesting case is when you don't have mirrors and stripes out the wazoo, and are relying on RAIDZ or RAIDZ2, and here the performance depends on access patterns. The way the parity and checksumming works, you need to burn a lot of cache to get decent small random read/write performance, because entire blocks need to get read and written even for small updates. So performance looks great for a while, then falls off.
I still think ZFS is one of the best choices for this kind of application -
the software RAID, multiple-volume handling is terrific - but it's far from
the last word, and not 100% baked (needs defragmentation and data recovery
tool ecosystem). BTRFS looks like it could be a very worthy contender, but
from what I've read, I haven't seen that it values a storage-
unit/pool/filesystem stack, where storage-unit can be a disk, a file or a
partition, and still seems stuck on the old device/filesystem approach.
~~~
ciupicri
What case are you using? Also, what are you using for cooling?
~~~
barrkel
Just an average case, Gigabyte 3D Aurora full tower. Here's a review:
[http://www.cluboverclocker.com/reviews/cases/gigabyte/aurora...](http://www.cluboverclocker.com/reviews/cases/gigabyte/aurora/index.htm)
HDs are both in the internal HD bays, which have a dedicated fan, and in
3.5/5.25 adapter in the 5.25 bays up top, with active cooling, it's something
like this:
<http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2313>
------
philwelch
Apple has a history of working on features and then dropping them. They had
one in the works for years where your home directory would be sync'd to your
iPod so you could plug into any Mac anywhere and get it all back.
It's more than likely that ZFS meant biting off more than they could chew, so
they deferred it for another release.
~~~
kylec
You can still get at the home sync feature if you manually enable it - it can
be found at /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/HomeSync.menu
~~~
duskwuff
The menu extra stub is still present, but there's no way to configure it --
the Accounts preference pane doesn't have the options that the menu extra
refers to.
~~~
kylec
You can get at them if you enable the menu item, then select "Mobile Account
Preferences" from the dropdown. However, this is as far as I've gotten because
I don't have the ability to test to see if this works.
~~~
duskwuff
Oh, wow, you're right. (Tip: You have to unlock the Accounts pref pane first
to make it show up.) I haven't tried this out, but I almost want to now.
~~~
dhess
I don't think that's what you think it is. The Home Sync menu I'm familiar
with is for mirroring a network home directory on your local disk, in
conjunction with another machine running Mac OS X Server. As far as I know,
this feature has nothing to do with portable home directories on iPods.
------
jeromewbrock
2 things:
1\. Sun's shared source license sucks and this is why ZFS isn't natively
supported in Linux. 2\. btrfs will soon have better
features/performance/stability than ZFS, and a better architecture to boot:
<http://lwn.net/Articles/342892/>
~~~
jodrellblank
"Soon", maybe, but it will take a long time for it to be Generally Recognised
As Reliable. (For all I argue against buying I to a brand just because, I do
like ZFS more with Sun's name behind it)
------
jsz0
I don't really understand the hype around ZFS. What's so great about it?
I've tried it out on OpenSolaris a few times in an attempt to learn why it's
so hyped up. The setup process is a bit cryptic and confusing. Even after the
initial setup I was really confused about what commands were destructive and
which ones were not. Based on that alone I would not consider using ZFS yet.
The flexibility of ZFS was a bit lost on me. It seems like there's a ton of
limitations and caveats to consider. I can't really comment on performance or
reliability since this was a short lab test but in the last 5 years or so I've
never lost a HFS+, EXT3 or NTFS file system so I'm not sure just how much more
reliable ZFS can be. Is all this hype just acronym lust? I feel like a good
RAID card combined with a semi-modern FS is still a better solution. It's
certainly easier to setup IMO.
~~~
enneff
ZFS allows RAID-5 without the "write hole" (google it). That's the killer
advantage for me. The rest is just gravy.
I'm amazed you found set-up cryptic. Once I understood the concepts of ZFS
pools and filesystems, I found the toolset among the most elegant and well-
designed out there.
I think it might actually be a little daunting in it's simplicity, maybe.
("that's it?!")
~~~
jsz0
I think that might be it. I found it a bit hard to visual what was actually
happening with these commands since they are all pretty simple.
------
mustpax
Maybe Oracle is less willing than Sun to license their core differentiating
server feature to competitors.
I believe Time Machine is still built on top of ZFS snapshot though. So
obviously some ZFS code remains.
Edit: Apparently Time Machine is not based on ZFS. So it seems ZFS is
completely off the map after all.
~~~
Locke1689
Actually,Time machine is not and has never been based on zfs. It is
implemented using hfs+, journaling, and a kernel/fs modification for
journaling and hard links. A time machine snapshot is basically modified hard
link journals.
~~~
rbanffy
The sad part is that Time Machine would be a one-liner had OSX supported ZFS
since Leopard...
~~~
glhaynes
Which one line (heck, doesn't have to just be one) command would you issue to
get Time Machine-like functionality from ZFS?
ZFS contains a lot of features that _sound_ like they overlap with Time
Machine, but in practice they really don't in a way that would make Time
Machine a "free" feature.
~~~
furyg3
I implemented a simple personal backup solution a long time ago which is
(essentially) what Time Machine implements now (without the eye-candy
application, of course). It's not that hard, it only requires hard-linking,
which the OS X kernel didn't support, so they added it.
Steps: First run:
* Rsync data from source drive to backup drive (can be done over network, ssh, whatever). We'll call this backup "0"
Second run:
* On the backup drive, copy the last backup folder (backup "0") to a new backup folder (backup "1"), using hardlinks. Hardlink copies don't take any additional space, since they're pointing to the original resource on the disk (folders do add some negligible space).
* Rsync data from source drive to backup drive (backup "1"). Rsync, of course, only updates what's new/changed.
Repeat, saving as far back as you'd like, and deleting old backups if the
drive is full, after N backups, or so many days. Now you've got an easy
incremental backup bash script.
Hardlinks are beautiful, because they don't add extra space, and once all the
hardlinks to a resource are deleted the resource becomes free space. This
isn't an enterprise-level backup solution, but it's a great quick-and-dirty
way to do incremental backups, and is exactly how Time Machine works.
~~~
glhaynes
One way this isn't exactly like Time Machine: since it doesn't hook into the
FSEvents journal of file system modifications, rsync has to check the modified
dates of every file in the backup set. With FSEvents, Time Machine knows
what's changed (or at least which folders contain changed items) and can deal
with only those.
But, yeah, same basic concept for sure.
------
dmaz
If the point of 10.6 was to add improvements to the OS without major end-user
changes, then ZFS could have been tested in the development cycle and then put
on hold for the next major release.
------
miracle
Well, they can integrate it in their next service pack then and charge another
50$! :-)
~~~
Herring
It's going to cost $50 regardless, so why work on ZFS? I wonder if they've
thought of just charging money for no features.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
NYTimes and others cite a gender-blind hiring study that doesnt exist - anon12345690
https://twitter.com/KelseyTuoc/status/1097361742647123968
======
geebee
Do you have a link to the nytimes article? Can’t find it in the twitter thread
though it is mentioned there.
------
sfopdxnonstop
I'm a white man in the industry. My understanding was that blinding resulted
in less diverse hiring, so blinding was abandoned.
I work with some women. But more men. AFAIK my company actively recruits
women.
------
DerekL
*doesn't
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Tesla's $2.6B Musk Award Too Costly, Glass Lewis Says - kuusisto
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-05/tesla-s-2-6-billion-award-to-musk-too-costly-glass-lewis-says
======
feniv
The article doesn't go into much details of the stock award. Musk is proposing
not taking a salary for the next 10 years and receiving a 1% stock award each
time he meets some insanely aggressive milestones:
[https://cdn.teslarati.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/01/Tesla-C...](https://cdn.teslarati.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/01/Tesla-CEO-Elon-Musk-Performance-
Award-e1516720893456.jpg)
[http://ir.tesla.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=1054948](http://ir.tesla.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=1054948)
I'm not a TSLA shareholder, but tying CEO performance to company performance
rather than an indifferently high salary seems reasonable to me.
~~~
freddie_mercury
Musk already owns tons of Tesla story and should be motivated by that. There's
absolutely no evidence that additional equity would motivate him more. On the
contrary, there is plenty of evidence on the diminishing marginal utility of
wealth.
Like much CEO pay, Musk's pay package is more about status than about
motivating him.
Or is someone really going to try to make the case that he's kinda half-assing
it right now?
~~~
ericb
He's not half-assing it, but he has Mars goals which are likely to distract
him at some point. He is serious about his Mars efforts. At a certain point it
makes sense for him to leave to focus on that, unless staying at Tesla also
helps him hit his Mars goal by 10xing the resources he can dedicate to the
effort.
~~~
kilroy123
He said he wants all this money just so he can fund colonizing Mars.
So I'm guessing he'd take that money and just privately fund SpaceX, like Jeff
Bozos is doing with blue origin.
~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _I 'm guessing he'd take that money and just privately fund SpaceX_
If his goal is to colonize Mars and you want him to sell cars, a good way to
do that is to say "sell cars for 10 years and we'll give you enough capital to
do in the following 10 what you couldn't do in 20 from today."
------
aphextron
According to the article the board feels this is necessary to ensure Elon's
focus is with resolving Tesla production issues, and not his other projects
(SpaceX). He tries to create this superhuman "ironman" persona in the media,
but the reality is no single person can possibly run all of these companies
effectively, and investors are calling him out on that.
------
V2hLe0ThslzRaV2
Appears Glass Lewis & Co currently maintains approximately 37% of the market
share for proxy advisory services - but does that mean that all of their
clients vote as per Glass Lewis reports recommend? If so, given they
collectively advise $20 trillion worth of assets, would someone please explain
why this is not toxic to a free market.
SOURCE:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Lewis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Lewis)
~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _given they collectively advise $20 trillion worth of assets, would someone
> please explain why this is not toxic to a free market_
They're recommendations. Reading board proposals and working out the
consequences of CEO pay packages is (a) hard and (b) not particularly
rewarding. Instead of every investment firm having someone doing hard and non-
rewarding work, they outsource it to these proxy advisory firms.
Keep in mind who these advisory firms' customers are: the investors. It could
be impolite for XYZ shareholder to publicly vote against Elon Musk. It is
easier to call one's proxy advisory firm and let them know your thoughts. (It
would also be more effective, from a political perspective, at achieving her
goal.)
(Nitpick: they advise _in respect of_ $20 trillion of assets. They don't make
buy/sell decisions.)
------
joncrane
Isn't this setting up a bizarre incentive where every time each of the
entities feels it isn't getting it's fair share of Elon's attention, that they
have to bribe him with some massive stock grant?
~~~
lopmotr
Why not? Eventually they would end up paying him just a bit less than the
value he provides, which is what you'd expect from any fair employment
agreement. At some point it would be cheaper to let him go or let him not try
very hard.
------
AndrewKemendo
These are the same people projecting that Apple should have sold 80M iPhone
X's...and then apple "fell short" of estimates when they sold 77M [1].
Why do people listen to these proxy advisory services like Glass Lewis [2]?
Honestly, none of them have anything near a good track record or are worth
anything [3]. They are effectively like tabloids for the financial markets.
Honestly, I'd love to hear from someone on wall street what value these
"analysts" provide?
[1] [https://www.recode.net/2018/2/1/16961202/apple-iphone-x-
chin...](https://www.recode.net/2018/2/1/16961202/apple-iphone-x-china-
airpods-christmas-q1-2018-earnings-charts-analysis)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Lewis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Lewis)
[3] [https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-
economics/2159435...](https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-
economics/21594358-bear-market-or-bull-analysts-give-bad-advice-consistently-
wrong)
~~~
dahdum
They explain their reasoning and do the boring legwork, even if you don’t
agree with their conclusion you can still find value in their analysis.
------
kristianp
Requires registration to read.
~~~
kencausey
Or something like uBlock Origin set to block everything.
------
kevin_thibedeau
Wasn't Tesla having revenue problems not too long ago? Seems like someone is
looking to flee a leaky ship by opening up some new ones.
------
tbabb
They should probably be spending that money on building cars.
I doubt that "more money" would make much of a dent on what Elon's motivations
really are.
~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _They should probably be spending that money on building cars_
It's a performance-triggered stock award in lieu of cash salary.
~~~
tbabb
They should still be spending that on cars.
------
frgtpsswrdlame
There should be some sort of law that prevents this. Musk's companies have
taken over 5 billion in government subsidies, why are my tax dollars going
towards the creation of billionaires?
~~~
John_KZ
The subsidies do have a reason to exist, but I agree that they're misdirected.
They could directly fund R&D of battery/EV/aerospace technology instead of
subsidizing luxury vehicles that only serve as a novelty for the rich.
~~~
zaroth
The subsidies _are_ directly funding R&D of battery/EV/aerospace technology.
But this way, the rich people buying the cars are _also_ funding it, as well
as the investors buying equity. The tax incentives are working precisely as
they were designed, and for every dollar in subsidy there’s probably $9 more
in outside investment coming onboard.
~~~
frgtpsswrdlame
The subsidies are directly funding Musk's wallet as much or more than they are
funding battery research.
~~~
alakin
I get that you have strong feelings. But this is just uninformed. If you took
a sec to understand Musk's comp structure you'd see that its paper wealth, as
in he doesn't take cash out of the company. Instead he puts cash in the
company. Also he only sold stock to pay taxes. I'd guess its likely he paid
more in taxes than you, if you're an average earner.
~~~
zaroth
~$600 million in taxes actually.[1] But strangely nobody seems to subtract
that amount from the value of the electric vehicle credits...
Anyone who's been there and done this knows that what the IRS giveth with one
hand, the IRS taketh away with the other. The house _never_ loses, and there
is no house like the United States Government.
[1] - [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-21/tesla-
s-m...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-21/tesla-s-musk-paid-
at-least-593-million-in-income-taxes-in-2016)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
"Bastard Operator From Hell"-style excuse generator - Garbage
http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/%7Eballard/bofh/bofhserver.pl
======
anons2011
>I'm not sure. Try calling the Internet's head office -- it's in the book.
:)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Amazon sues employee for taking Google cloud job, in new test of non-competes - _pius
http://www.geekwire.com/2014/amazon-sues-employee-taking-google-cloud-job-new-test-non-compete-laws/
======
luu
I was just talking to a friend of mine at amazon, who said that a lot of
people (including some pretty high-level people) thought prosecuting the one-
click patent was a mistake because it actually made it harder to recruit.
That's nothing compared to this. Seems like a classic case of the left hand
not knowing what the right hand is doing.
~~~
smackfu
I think the "must relocate to Seattle" makes it really hard to recruit.
~~~
hatred
Not Really, considering that they have opened offices in the bay area
exclusively for AWS openings.
------
chris_mahan
Amazon, sorry, but unless you're paying his salary to sit at home, you're just
whining because Google offered a better job.
You could have kept the guy, if he was so important to your business.
I'm not a happy Amazon Prime customer today.
~~~
actsasbuffoon
Exactly right. The best way to keep your talent from working for the
competition is to keep them working for you.
------
bcantrill
This is a pattern for Amazon: I work for a competitor to Amazon, and they went
after us for violating a non-compete after we hired an AWS engineer. Our
counsel had reviewed the non-compete before we hired the engineer, and
concluded that the non-compete didn't _actually_ prevent an engineer from
working for a competitor, but rather prevented much narrower activity like
poaching customer lists or supplier relationships. We were somewhat surprised
that Amazon aggressively pursued the matter because it seemed so obvious to us
that they wouldn't prevail. After Amazon sent us (and, it must be said, the
engineer personally) a very nasty letter claiming that the non-compete was
being violated, we retained local counsel and sent them an even nastier one
back, making clear that we had no intention of backing down. Ultimately, they
backed off, but in this process, I learned that Amazon has pursued this
particular non-compete "hundreds" of times, and has never (to the best of the
knowledge of our local counsel in Seattle) prevailed once. In part this is
because Washington allows non-competes, but also doesn't like to infringe on
the free flow of labor -- temporary restraining orders preventing an
individual from working for a company are extraordinarily rare. (This is in
contrast to states like Texas and Massachusetts, where non-competes are
infamously enforceable.)
So if Amazon never prevails, why do they do it? One of the peculiar attributes
of Amazon's action against us is that it was well publicized _within_ Amazon
-- and was apparently a result of outrage by a high-ranking executive after he
learned that the former AWS engineer not only was working for a competitor,
but had the gumption to open source a technology that he developed here.
(Ironically, the executive only learned of all of this when the technology
itself became a top story here on HN.) My conclusion from this: this action
wasn't _actually_ directed at us -- Amazon is smart enough to know that
nothing would come of it with respect to our actions -- but rather at _their
own_ employees. That is, Amazon's pursuit of the non-compete against our
engineer was their way of shooting an escapee in the back -- and sending a
sharp message to any other AWS inmates with similar ambitions.
In terms of an immediate effect, Amazon's move worked to a degree: our next
few hires from AWS were slowed a little bit by fear of similar action. That
said, the fact that we had prevailed against Amazon also gave these engineers
the confidence that we could and would do so again -- and ultimately, it
didn't prevent anyone from matriculating. It did, however, have one lasting
effect: the engineer that was pursued went from thinking fondly of his years
at AWS to hating AWS and Amazon with a white-hot passion that still burns
today. In the end, enforcing a non-compete is like erecting a Berlin Wall: if
you feel you need it, you have much deeper problems...
~~~
Fuxy
I still can't believe Americans are ok with non compete clauses in their
contract if you accept that crap somebody will eventually try to enforce it.
I personally think it should be illegal unless amazon volunteers to pay the
employee his regular salary for the period he is not allowed to compete.
The same way that if you're not paying for a service you're the product if
you're not paying your employee you should have no right to demand anything
from him anymore.
~~~
psykotic
> I still can't believe Americans are ok with non compete clauses in their
> contract if you accept that crap somebody will eventually try to enforce it.
These and other anti-employee clauses (e.g. excessive IP assignment) persist
because many programmers simply don't care while others who do care are awful
at negotiating compared to their interlocutors who do this for a living. When
you try to push back, the standard response you will first hear, an outright
lie, is that this is a non-negotiable mandate from their legal counsel and
that no-one has ever complained before. If they do budge on their initial
terms, they will make it seem like an unprecedented concession that warrants
concessions on your end. It's a truly absurd game of back and forth.
~~~
danielweber
_When you try to push back, the standard response you will first hear, an
outright lie, is that this is a non-negotiable mandate from their legal
counsel and that no-one has ever complained before_
I'll agree they'll act like it's totally weird you are complaining. Standard
salesman techniques.
And companies will usually negotiate these. Usually.
I once had an otherwise nice job offer where the employee agreement contained
the following three poison things:
1\. you cannot work for any competitors or customers for a year (it was a
consultancy, so potentially every employer in the country was off-limits)
2\. you assign us your IP rights while you work for us _and for a year after
you leave us_
3\. you agree this will not limit your ability to find work.
They totally stuck to their guns. They said legal wouldn't let them change it.
I had concerns and they "took the matter seriously" which amounted to telling
me, really hard, that these clauses didn't _really_ matter and they wouldn't
enforce them, and, y'know, they probably weren't enforceable anyway.
I walked away. Apparently many other people don't because they continue to get
new employees. I heard the horror story here on HN a few weeks ago [1] about
someone who no one would hire because he signed something with clause 2. I'm
more satisfied than ever I was right in walking away.
[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7921325](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7921325)
~~~
psykotic
Turnabout is fair play. If they pretend a clause is non-negotiable, call their
bluff by asking for fair compensation. "Sure thing! That means I will be off
the job market for one year, so I will require an unconditional severance
payment of one year's salary. If my employment ends before an agreed-upon
period, neither the severance payment or the non-compete will be binding." I'd
only consider this kind of hard negotiation for mercenary jobs. If you're
joining a normal company as a normal employee and they stonewall you on
reasonable concerns, take it as a sign and walk away, as you seem to have
done.
~~~
pessimizer
If everyone is aware of these clauses, their implications, and their
enforceability (in the hypothetical world where computer workers have any sort
of group that represents and publicizes their interests _as workers_ ),
they'll end up priced into wages as long as employers don't collude.
------
nostromo
Governments are always trying to find a way to steal a bit of the magic of
Silicon Valley, yet little attention is paid to copying California's stance on
non-competes. It allows for a free-flow of talent that is just as important as
the free-flow of capital. Washington State should copy _that_.
Hilariously, in Washington State, you can even enforce a non-compete when you
_fire the employee_.
~~~
tluyben2
I'm not sure what the laws in CA are exactly, but here (EU) non competes don't
work generally. If you are a programmer and you go work as a programmer for
the competition then even if you signed stacks of non-competes, they cannot be
enforced. Simply because you are a programmer and not allowing you to take
that job would mean you are potentially without a job which is about the worst
thing that could happen. Most non-competes refer to you resigning and taking
clients with your but even that is hard to enforce. The basics are ; if you
are a nice company to work for and with, you have nothing to fear.
~~~
glandium
I know first hand of a few cases of non competes working (in France), and they
all involved the ex-employer paying substantial amounts of money for the time
the ex-employee was prevented from working for the competition.
~~~
amirmc
Also known as garden leave. You're basically still 'employed' but you're kept
out of the office with all access revoked. It's to put some distance between
any time sensitive info from one job before you move onto the next. In the UK,
I think the banks do this for three months.
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_leave](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_leave)
~~~
danielweber
From discussions on HN, this is also common in the US finance sector.
------
electic
Apparently working at Amazon is damaging to your career.
~~~
hatred
Ex-AWS employee here. I tend to disagree with the above statement. Though,
their retention numbers are pathetic to say the least, but it was an awesome
place to work and learn and most of the people who do leave tend to go to the
high flying places.
~~~
potatolicious
Ex-Amazonian here also. Sadly, Amazon looks _great_ on your resume, it's still
considered in the "AAA" tier of tech employers, standing side by side with the
likes of Google, Facebook, etc.
Realistically I'd argue it's more on the high end of the "B" tier, but that's
neither here nor there.
Amazon's attrition rate is insane. Not high, _insane_. This should tell you a
lot about what it's like to work there. I too learned a lot, and it continues
to pay dividends on my resume, so I guess that's how they get away with it.
------
AceJohnny2
One key item:
"The suit, filed June 27 in King County Superior Court in Seattle, seeks to
take advantage of a more favorable climate for non-compete deals in Washington
state, where the terms of such deals have generally been allowed, if
considered reasonable. Non-compete clauses have repeatedly been found invalid
in California, where Google is based."
The article doesn't say Szabadi was or currently is geographically employed
(is his current contract with Google in California or Seattle?), which I
assume would have a bearing on the suit's strength
~~~
dctoedt
There's likely to be a certain element of race-to-the-courthouse here. If
Szabadi is about to move to California, then Google could file a lawsuit in a
state court there, seeking a declaratory judgment that under California law
his non-compete is unenforceable. A California court likely would rule in
Google's favor --- and if that were the first-filed lawsuit, then it might
take priority over any later-filed lawsuit Amazon might bring in Seattle.
Something akin to that happened in _Application Group, Inc. v. Hunter Group,
Inc._ , 61 Cal. App. 4th 881 (1998) [1] [2].
[1]
[http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1290227502038697...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=12902275020386975222)
[2]
[http://www.whitecase.com/files/Publication/dcf3d85c-1c1b-4bf...](http://www.whitecase.com/files/Publication/dcf3d85c-1c1b-4bf5-9806-7a04e2b0e214/Presentation/PublicationAttachment/d734c538-402d-4648-b778-80e6a224b192/article_enforceability.pdf)
~~~
bsimpson
Don't agreements like this typically include language to the effect of:
"This agreement is entirely enforceable under the laws of the state of ____,
under the jurisdiction of a binding arbitrator chosen by the employer, except
for injunctions which are handled by the ____ District Court in ____ County?"
~~~
justincormack
Those clauses might not be enforceable though, if they contradict local labour
laws.
~~~
danielweber
Yes, otherwise it would be trivial to override labor laws via contract. For
all they seem like dolts to us, this isn't the administrative class's first
barbeque. Attempts to end-run around the law are regularly shot down.
------
btgeekboy
As much as I am not a fan of non-competes, having read the complaint, it
appears that this is the exact reason non-competes exist. This isn't about an
Amazon SDE that worked on the amazon.com retail site moving over to work on
Gmail; the guy was responsible for working with AWS partners, and now works in
the exact same position for a direct competitor, in a position where external
contacts and relationships are key. Google even recognized this with their own
agreement not to use that information for a period of 6 months.
~~~
neumann
I was under the impression that non-competes were legally implemented _not_ to
stop employees moving, but to stop an owner from selling a business with
goodwill, and then starting up a competitor across the road and reducing the
goodwill be retaining their old customers. I have no evidence, but had assumed
that the modern non-compete enforced on employees by employers came out of a
precedent based on this law and has slowly gained acceptance. Happy to be
educated if somebody knows more.
~~~
PeterisP
Nope, provisions for _that_ are in M&A agreements and part of the reason why
acquiring companies takes so much money and [lawyer]time. And it's in no way a
"precedent based on this law" \- what do you mean by "this law"? All of these
provisions are in private contracts, not in legislation.
The classic use of non-competes is for salespeople or high-level service
people (lawyers, consultants, etc) not taking their customers with them when
leaving.
------
rdl
I've heard a lot of negative things about Amazon as an employer (mainly from
current or ex-Amazon people), which is depressing because they're an awesome
vendor and I want them to continue to be able to get great people and thus
produce awesome stuff. (I've also heard "but X group is awesome and not like
that" too, though.)
This really doesn't help things on that front.
~~~
dsugarman
they are a great vendor by facade, they bully and collude with their suppliers
to drive up prices on consumers. they systematically bury competitors with a
trojan horse strategy on their marketplace. using dirty tactics and infringing
on anti-trust, they can always appear to be the best vendor to consumers.
~~~
rdl
I go to a relatively well designed website and get products delivered in 1-2
days for cheap. From that perspective, I really like them.
AWS, while absurdly expensive vs. metal IMO, is also something a lot of people
have built on, and it's evolving so fast that no one has caught up to it, even
when companies like Rackspace, IBM, etc. recognize it as an existential
threat.
------
logicalgator
TLDR of my comment: always ask to see employment agreements you'll have to
sign before accepting an offer and resigning from your (now current) company,
otherwise you may not know what you'll be expected to sign until your first
day.
In response to several comments stating or implying that you can simply not
sign or negotiate a non-compete, I agree, but I think it's worth pointing out
that, at least in my experience with several (East Coast) companies (I have no
experience with Amazon), none of them sends you a copy of their non-compete
with your offer letter. What I have always seen happen, instead, is that after
you've fully resigned your previous employer and show up for your first day of
work at the new company, HR hands you a stack of 100-200+ pages of employee
handbook, travel policy, IT policy, etc., and various employment agreements,
requiring you to sign all the documents before you can start working. Buried
in there may be a non-compete, potentially disguised as another type of
agreement. Yes, you're free to read them all (and you should), and you're free
to reject them. But if you reject them you're rejecting the job, and now
you're stuck with no income until you find another job. Admittedly I think
that's better than agreeing to a bad non-compete which could last a lot longer
than the time to find a new job, but it's not an easy thing to do.
I strongly recommend what I do now: after receiving and before accepting an
offer even verbally, request to see all employment agreements that I'll have
to sign upon starting with a new company. All have been fine with sending them
to me (and if not I would immediately reject), but I would not have known
about them and had time to review them if I hadn't asked in advance.
One company I interviewed with years ago, which had a terribly restrictive
non-compete that I rejected, took the attitude that: 1\. I had nothing to
worry about because they said verbally they'd never enforce it. 2\. I had to
sign it anyway because everybody has to sign it, no exceptions (but their
verbal assurance of non-enforcement should be good enough for me). 3\. They
questioned my integrity and belittled my concern because (in their words) I
was planning to leave the company before I'd even started. Glad I avoided that
company - with that attitude, probably would have been a terrible place to
work. Back then (unlike today) I'm not sure I would have had the self-
confidence to fight that fight on my first day.
~~~
danielweber
_1\. I had nothing to worry about because they said verbally they 'd never
enforce it. 2. I had to sign it anyway because everybody has to sign it, no
exceptions (but their verbal assurance of non-enforcement should be good
enough for me)_
First, I feel your pain here, word for word. I didn't have the same experience
as you did in clause 3, but clause 1 and 2 were _exactly_ as I've experienced.
I'd like to say this means we were dealing with the same company but I know we
probably weren't.
Second, IANAL, but there is a difference in case-law between making someone
sign a non-compete as part of a job offer, and having someone sign a non-
compete as part of _continuing_ employment. I'd try to argue that making you
sign an agreement on your first day counts in the latter class. But IANAL.
Also, dropping an IP agreement on someone after they quit their old job is
unconscionable.
------
fatjokes
Note to self, given the choice, work in finance rather than Amazon. They
apparently treat their employees better. At least they have the decency to
offer you salary while you wait out a non-compete.
------
sharemywin
Way to win the battle and lose the war! Never hire anyone that goes to work at
Amazon at the senior exec level from this point forward because they're
clearly clueless.
------
simula67
Maybe Google can win back some karma they lost for participating in the "No
Poaching" deal with Apple et al by defending this guy.
~~~
aragot
This! Yes, why does it even go to public press? In France 60% of programming
jobs are through consulting companies, they constantly play the game of no-
poaching, and those get solved after commission between the two employers.
Either one is also customer of the first, either they pay.
------
jfoster
eBay Inc tried this a few years ago when Osama Bedier left PayPal for Google's
Wallet team. ([http://www.wired.com/2011/05/paypal-sues-google-
wallet](http://www.wired.com/2011/05/paypal-sues-google-wallet))
I have no idea what the outcome of the case was, but Bedier spent almost 3
years at Google.
------
int19h
The details are different, but s/Amazon/Microsoft and you have a headline from
2005: [http://news.cnet.com/Microsoft-sues-over-Google-
hire/2100-10...](http://news.cnet.com/Microsoft-sues-over-Google-
hire/2100-1014_3-5795051.html)
------
sumoward
Does anyone know how such clauses apply in the EU?
~~~
ccozan
No. They will ofer a "garden leave". This means, you get paid and stay
employed as much as the grace period is over. I think the only restriction is
not entering the company's premises.
For executives, is not uncommon that they stay one year in the "garden leave",
having all the perks too.
When I left Autonomy, I had such a "garden leave" for 3 months. I stayed at
home and received normal salary. Was nice, but boring.
------
atopuzov
They should take better care of their employees so they have an incentive to
stay and not sue them when they find a better job.
------
zw123456
I hope this comment does not get me down voted into oblivion, but just to play
the devils advocate here, the guy did sign the non-compete agreement, which,
setting aside legal aspects, is kind of like giving your word. I agree, non-
compete agreements are stupid, but you don't have to sign them, you can always
take a different job that does not require one, probably for less money. What
is your word worth?
~~~
skriticos2
I'm not a fan of down-votes, but I will try to (kind of) refute your central
point according to the argument pyramid. (Not fully disagreeing with you, just
some thoughts on the matter).
The central question is: did he really knowingly sign a non-compete agreement
and is it lawful in the jurisdiction?
Yes, he signed the contract, which was likely a 20 page standard issue paper
that was mostly written by Amazon lawyers in small print.
Now most of us don't send a copy of employment contracts to our layers and
discuss it with them for hours before signing (that's kind of expensive).
That's why there are some limitations on what can go into a contract in some
places (at least in Europe, but I assume the U.S. has something similar). For
instance they can't write in there that you will be their slave, providing
unpaid work without the ability to quit, be beaten as motivation and lawfully
enforce it, even if you sign the paper.
Other things need to be explicitly clarified to be accepted at court. For
instance, if a big software corporation would add a clause to their license
agreement on page 25 that your house belongs to them if you click on "I
Agree", it would most likely not hold ground in a court. If they explicitly
explained this to you (with a few witnesses), it might be heard in court.
The question here is (and it's far from clear cut) is if this contract holds
it's ground in court.
Back to the central point: this means, that Amazon might have to prove that
they made a good effort to clarify this clause in the contract explicitly and
it's lawful in the state he worked. That's up to the court to decide.
Now if they can prove that they did make a good faith effort to clarify his
contract, he agreed and then went on and willfully broke it, then he is in a
troublesome spot.
INAL, this is not an advice for anything and I'm not liable for any of the
above.
~~~
zw123456
Good point. I did not think of that, legal agreements can be made to
obfuscate, much like those online agreements. If that is the case then I am
with you completely, it is unfair. But if he signed it knowing the
consequences then he should live them in my view.
~~~
sheepmullet
"But if he signed it knowing the consequences then he should live them in my
view."
Why? It is not immoral to break a contract. It happens all the time in good
faith. The "wronged" party is only entitled to provable damages. Which as long
as he isn't running away with trade secrets, or cold calling his old clients,
then what provable damages are there?
Contracts are a civil matter. It is immoral to write a "punishment" clause
into a contract and nobody should have to "live with them".
------
cracker_jacks
The best way to stop this is not taking jobs that require a non-compete
agreement. By signing offers with non-competes, you're literally acknowledging
this is acceptable.
~~~
zak_mc_kracken
> The best way to stop this is not taking jobs that require a non-compete
> agreement
Easy to say, and then one day you get an offer for a job you really, really
like.
> By signing offers with non-competes, you're literally acknowledging this is
> acceptable.
Not at all. Very few (if any) of these terms are legally binding. The only way
to actually find out is to have them challenged in court.
If anything, the only way to stop this is for people to keep accepting jobs
tied to non compete agreements so that we can finally see how legally viable
they are. Seems like we are about to find out.
~~~
cracker_jacks
> Easy to say, and then one day you get an offer for a job you really, really
> like. Then weigh the cost/benefit of accepting it or negotiate with the
> company to change it.
My point is not whether non-competes are legally binding. It's the fact that
when you sign a contract, you and your employer are agreeing with the terms
set forth in good faith. You shouldn't sign employment agreements that you
have no intention of fulfilling.
Starting a new job should be a good thing for both the employer and employee.
Both should be on the same page.
~~~
danielweber
As someone who has walked away from a really nice offer because of the
malicious (and I used that exact word when talking with the hiring manager)
terms in the non-compete, not everyone can afford to walk away.
Oddly, before that incident I was in the "man, just negotiate them, it's all
right" camp. Like the joke about a liberal is a conservative who hasn't been
mugged yet, it really changed my outlook, and I'm now in favor of legislation
nuking those things from orbit.
------
turnip1979
I am pretty shocked to see this. For sales jobs or executives, I can
understand. But for your average tech guy? Are they kidding?
~~~
btgeekboy
Except he's not your "average tech guy." The very first page of the complaint
lists him in a "business development role." Going on, "[i]n this position, he
was responsible for developing and growing Amazon's relationships with
partners who utilize and sell Amazon's cloud computing services."
~~~
walshemj
that is such broad statement it could apply to any one from the company's top
sales guy to a junior customer support rep
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Jetbrains seems to be having a large sale - Stronico
https://blog.jetbrains.com/blog/2018/07/30/celebrate-this-friendship-day-with-jetbrains-and-unwrap-your-presents/
======
blumomo
Jetbrains products used to be superior. Better refactoring and speed than
Eclipse or Atom. However the sale might be a consequence of the fact that free
and nearly equally powerful alternatives such as VSCode are competing directly
with Jetbrains products to become the developer's preferred editor.
With the rise of Microsoft's free Language Server [1] I'm wondering how long
it takes until open source IDEs will be on par with Jetbrains.
[1] [https://github.com/Microsoft/language-server-
protocol](https://github.com/Microsoft/language-server-protocol)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Future of Node Is in Microsoft’s Fork - joeyespo
https://blog.andyet.com/2015/12/31/the-future-of-node-is-microsofts-fork/
======
nostrademons
I think proxies are coming in V8; I'm subscribed to the bug [1] and there've
been a steady stream of commits related to them. Nothing lately, but Google's
on holiday launch freeze and so it'll probably pick up again in January.
[https://bugs.chromium.org/p/v8/issues/detail?id=1543#c99](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/v8/issues/detail?id=1543#c99)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
It’s Just Fine to Make Mistakes - bootload
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/your-money/12shortcuts.html?src=recg&pagewanted=print
======
bootload
_"... There are ways that those with superperfectionist traits can try to take
things down a notch. They can try to break down tasks into more manageable
bites, so it does not feel overwhelming. ..."_
Decomposition works because the tasks are do-able. The downside, any lack of
resolution, timidity or weakness at any particular point at the transition
from one chunk to another can trigger failure.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Intel extends JavaScript for parallel programming - alexandros
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/17/intel_parallel_javascript/
======
aaronsung
Will in be used in node.js?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Where to get promo stickers made? - callmeed
This is somewhat of a lame question, but I really like some of the stickers I picked up at RailsConf–especially from Heroku, Github, and EngineYard.<p>I plan to have some made for an upcoming tradeshow we're exhibiting at. Can anyone recommend a place to have them made?
======
rrival
<http://www.stickergiant.com/> does it right (vinyl, die-cut).
<http://www.printrunner.com/> does it cheap.
Or if your timing is right, we (startupschwag.com) will get you 500+ free
(using printrunner) and ship a few hundred to bloggers.
------
chedigitz
<http://ltlprints.com> Larger then life, they specialize in wall stickers
~~~
lsb
When they showed the 10-year-old pitcher as a 4-foot-tall sticker in the
living room, I literally cringed with horror. It looks fantastic, and fits
well, in a children's room, but it looks absolutely vile above an Ikeariffic
couch.
------
leahculver
I think the new GitHub stickers are from <http://www.clubcardprinting.com/>
They're located in the Castro in San Francisco and the staff is super friendly
and the stickers are affordable and have a very quick turnaround. I've used
them for stickers for a side project and they had them done in a day.
My friend from Scribd recommended them, so if you go with them, it's nice to
mention Scribd as a referral.
~~~
pjhyett
Yea, these are the guys, good quality and price. I also like that they left
the square backing on the circle stickers so they weren't impossible to peel
off.
------
soybeanto
I think <http://sticviews.com/> is probably the most affordable place to make
custom stickers - you just upload an image file and choose a custom shape,
dimensions, and material. They make laptop skins and stuff, too. I got one for
less than $10.
------
freds4hb
And for something a little different <http://www.stickertweet.com>
------
there
<http://stickerrobot.com/>
------
socratees
You can try <http://bumperstickers.cafepress.com/custom_stickers>. Zazzle.com
also makes stickers.
------
tripngroove
stickerguy.com is awesome - I've used them many-a-time.
The website sucks, but they're cheap!
------
clint
Another vote for Sticker Giant
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
The Benefits of Bilingualism - ColinWright
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html
======
Shenglong
I wonder what degree of bilingualism is necessary. When I speak English, I
think in English. When I speak Chinese, I think in Chinese. When I speak
French, I think in English.
Moreover, when I speak to my parents, I can weave together English and Chinese
to speak in the most efficient and accurate way. Those of you who have two
native languages will probably understand what I mean. Some languages lack
words to describe certain situations, and other languages are much more direct
in describing them. Do we call this amalgamation of languages a third
language, then?
I think there needs to be a distinction based on varying levels of fluency; I
see it as a major contributing factor.
~~~
evincarofautumn
I agree the issue is more nuanced than it’s made out to be. I’m still not sure
there _is_ a useful, clear-cut distinction between native and second language,
at least not for everybody.
I speak English and French natively, but I don’t think in either. I just
think; in words sometimes, but mostly in spatial terms, colours, images,
sounds, that sort of thing. I only started studying Chinese a few years ago,
but I’ve never had the oft-bemoaned second-language problem of thinking in one
tongue and mentally translating to another. Sure, there are words you don’t
know, but you can always just talk around them, right?
~~~
jvrossb
This has been my experience as well. Grew up speaking English and French, am
100% bilingual, could not tell you which I think in. I think thoughts occur at
a level of abstraction one step above language.
When I started learning Chinese I also wasn't constantly translating, I just
had a limited breadth and depth of topics in which could express my thoughts
through Chinese.
~~~
Shenglong
I'm not talking about basic thoughts. I mean, when you trace logic in your
head, one language or another appears.
~~~
frooxie
I disagree. I have complex, multiple-step wordless thoughts.
~~~
Shenglong
You never think in words?
------
kenrikm
I speak English/Spanish once you learn another language you have the ability
of learning others easier. For example because I learned Spanish I can
understand much of Italian and Portuguese without having to study them. Think
of it like learning C and then switching to something like Php yes it's
different but you can make your way around.
~~~
mcdaid
You make a fair point, but learning Italian or Portugese after Spanish is easy
because they all share the same root language Latin.
An eastern language such as mandarin won't be much easier because you have
learnt a second European language.
Computer languages have much more in common and have often copied earlier
programming languages.
~~~
danmaz74
IIRC, studies show that if you learn a second language as an adult, learning a
third one becomes easier (even if it is a completely different one) because
you learned to learn a language. So yes, of course it is much easier to learn
a similar language, but there is also an effect with completely different
ones.
~~~
PeterWhittaker
I used to think along mcdaid's lines, that because I speak English and French
natively German and Spanish were no problem, and because I'd learned Spanish,
Italian was easy.
Then I learned Turkish, and later Arabic. Now I'm with danmaz74: Learning any
language makes learning any other language easier.
Sure, knowing French made Spanish more accessible, but there is large gap
between all of the languages I knew then and Turkish, and I picked it up
pretty quickly. Same with Arabic some time later.
I attribute this to the mental "faculty" or "faculties" involved being
flexible and responsive due to frequent use, rather than to the degree of
similarity between the languages.
On the flip side, "use it or lose it" is definitely also true. I'm back to
being native in two languages with a pretty decent third, because I don't use
the other 4-5 at all.
They'd each come back pretty quickly with suitable immersion.
------
ahalan
>These processes include ignoring distractions to stay focused, switching
attention willfully from one thing to another and holding information in mind
I'm trilingual and I can assure you it doesn't help with the ADD problem
~~~
halostatue
My wife would concur with you. Of course, her German is nonstandard enough
that her extended family in Germany calls it AnnaMariaDeutsch.
------
eternalban
For an immigrant such as myself, the interesting turning point is when [one]
stops dreaming in one's mother tongue and begins dreaming in the adopted
land's e.g. (American) English language.
~~~
pbz
I started dreaming in English while I was still learning the language. Same
when thinking about a hard problem. It's in your mind even, or especially,
when you're asleep.
------
israelpasos
I'm quadrilingual and recently I had an interesting discussion with a friend
of mine about other types of languages such as programming languages. I do
think that these count as a form of expression and ultimately improve the
brain's executive function as the article states. Furthermore, they develop
critical and logic thinking.
~~~
Shenglong
I'm currently in a business program, but I'm fluent with several programming
languages. I can't be sure that programming languages are the reason, but I
feel a lot of people around me lack the logical thought process.
Many of them seem to lack the ability to think _recursively_ , and I find
myself having to draw flowcharts, even to explain the most basic if-else
thought processes.
~~~
VMG
maybe you can program because you can think logically, not the other way
around?
------
amitparikh
I've been programming for quite some time, and I find it fascinating how
quickly I can learn, understand, and use the syntax of a new programming
language.
I think there are similar mechanisms going on as compared to linguistics,
particularly neurologically. Maybe all of us programmers are smarter, too,
huh?
~~~
radicalbyte
Programming languages are much easier to learn than natural languages. The
grammars are smaller and they don't rely on learning a massive list of
exceptions like certain language do (such as Dutch, my second language).
~~~
evincarofautumn
Counterexample: C++. The “exceptions” are different, but they’re still there:
inconsistencies and complexities in syntax, API design, and so on. These are
systems designed by humans, subject to the human understanding of language.
Learning a programming language and learning a natural language are _very_
similar, even if the languages themselves differ greatly in their structure
and purpose. The only way to get good at programming is to do a lot of it, so
that the basics become second-nature. It’s the same with natural languages:
you practice speaking, listening, reading, and writing, and gradually improve
as you repeatedly encounter common terms and structures.
~~~
skrebbel
You watched too much James Bond.
Learning any sufficiently foreign natural language (i.e. any that you can't
understand simply if a speaker of it talks slowly enough) is _significantly_
more time-consuming than for anyone who already knows one programming language
to learn, say, C++ sufficiently to be productive in it.
You're comparing learning a natural language until fluency with learning a
programming language _entirely_. These are very different things. Most people
make mistakes speaking and writing their native language.
~~~
evincarofautumn
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I agree with you. Natural languages are typically
larger and more involved than programming languages, so it takes longer to
attain fluency. But they _do_ exist on the same axis. A programming language
can be complex enough to take as long as a natural language to learn to speak
fluently and idiomatically.
------
Nervetattoo
I'm curious if there is a higher percentage of programmers than the population
in general who are bilinguals. After all programming requires us to learn new
languages for talking to the machine, there could be a correlation in ability
to learn machine languages.
Could someone make a poll here?
I speak norwegian and english fluently and dont translate in my head when
using english, but I'm currently in and around central/south america and
learning spanish, and when speaking spanish I at the moment translate from
english so probably a long way to go before I could consider me trilingual.
Whats interesting about languages is that just like programming languages two
different languages are not equally adept for explaining the same situations.
~~~
nihilocrat
I don't feel the analogy is entirely accurate. Imagine having to learn 5 "if"
statements, or 10 ways to say "++". In a spoken conversation, you don't get to
look up the API docs if you forgot something. However, most programmers are
likely at least bilingual because most programming books are in English and
many companies in non-English countries use English as a common language.
However, I do feel there's some similarities between constructing a possibly-
correct sentence and seeing if it actually works, and constructing some
possibly-correct code and seeing if it compiles.
~~~
vorg
> most programmers are likely at least bilingual because most programming
> books are in English and many companies in non-English countries use English
> as a common language.
Reading English is a smallish subset of fluency in English, i.e. being able to
also speak, listen to, and write English. Technical specs often use simple
written English, relying on example code. So I'm not sure if what non-English
programmers do can be called "bilingualism".
------
ma2rten
I grew up bilingually (Dutch and German, quite similar languages, but still).
Did that make me smarter? I am not sure.
I do fell I have a natural talent to learn languages - I just don't make use
of it. In school I was always too lazy to learn vocabulary. However, I feel
like I just assimilated the grammatical rules of the English language, without
ever having to do much exercises or making typical grammatical errors that
other students made. Once I was past a curtain point I could just read a text
with new words in it and subconsciously derive their meaning from the context,
without even noticing them. (This can also be annoying from time to time,
because sometimes I'd make wrong assumptions about the meaning.)
So, I would say I was able to learn English more like a native speaker learns
a language. Is this, because I grew up bilingually? Maybe. It is certainly an
interesting theory. Part of it might also be hanging around the internet and
exposing myself to English more then other students.
EDIT: Maybe it's also because I started programming quite early. I started to
program before I learned English, so I had to learn words like WHILE, IF,
INPUT by hard (QBasic, eh). Do other early programmers among you feel like it
had an impact on your abilities to learn natural languages?
~~~
flocial
I'm bilingual too. I found this abstract interesting:
"bilinguals typically have lower formal language proficiency than monolinguals
do; for example, they have smaller vocabularies and weaker access to lexical
items. The benefits, however, are that bilinguals exhibit enhanced executive
control in nonverbal tasks requiring conflict resolution, such as the Stroop
and Simon tasks. These patterns and their consequences are illustrated and
discussed. We also propose some suggestions regarding underlying mechanisms
for these effects. "
<http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/19/1/19.short>
------
gtani
Studies on this, meditation, TDCS, bright lights (the no brainer heh) and
musical training on brain development in young children and brain activity in
adults (written in my 2nd language)
[http://www.sott.net/articles/show/216086-Mental-muscle-
six-w...](http://www.sott.net/articles/show/216086-Mental-muscle-six-ways-to-
boost-your-brain)
------
akg
I grew up with Hindi and English, learned Spanish in school and now am
teaching myself German. It seems that I can switch easily between Hindi and
English, but while I am learning German and try to speak Spanish, I confuse
Spanish words for German ones. I am not sure of the neurology that is going on
here, but I am sure that it is the process of building these neural
connections to new languages is what keeps your brain active and perhaps
conditions your brain to make new connections elsewhere as well. Just a guess.
------
orky56
I'd be curious to find out how performance varies by the age in which someone
learns that new language. It's possible that the harmful effects affecting
development only happen in childhood, whereas in later years the benefits may
be more pronounced.
When discussing attention and multitasking, the experts are the ones who are
able to switch tasks in the least amount of time and get going on something
completely different. Perhaps bilingualism helps in this analogous situation
as well.
------
EGreg
Here is a major benefit that bilingualism has given me -- I am able to
converse directly with my developers in Russia and the Ukraine, so I can
connect with them and motivate them better. As a result of the culture fit, I
was able to find good developers more quickly, and save money. The stuff we've
built with the team at <http://qbix.com/about> would have taken half a million
dollars otherwise.
------
aen
I was sufficiently bilingual with English and Chinese at the age of nine or
ten. I've always mostly think in the abstract and images, even before I was
bilingual. I have exceptional spatial IQ so I guess it overrides everything
else. The article is true in the sense it has probably improved my mental
agility.
------
ranit8
Is there any research about learning speech and sign language simultaneously?
~~~
evincarofautumn
I would be interested to read such research as well. I attend Rochester
Institute of Technology (RIT), which is also the location of the National
Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID). Anecdotally, the majority of deaf
folks here report thinking in ASL. This is even the case with many English-
speaking people who are hard-of-hearing or have cochlear implants.
~~~
vitno
You literally stole the words right out of my mouth fellow RIT student... I'm
amazed at how often I find us on the interet…
------
tzaman
"I thought English is the only language in the world?" </sarcasm off>
Disclaimer: My primary language is not English.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How does Perkville work? - rocamboleh
http://www.perkville.com
Are those reward points redeemable at any of the registered businesses or only at your own?
What is the revenue model here?<p>Looks interesting.
======
rocamboleh
What is the revenue model? Are the points redeemable at any registered
business, or merely at your own?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Spomenik - Futuristic Communist Yougoslavia monuments - harscoat
http://www.foto8.com/new/online/blog/1268-spomenik
======
n1k
My family is Serbian (Bosnian Serb, more accurately). What my family went
through during the Tito era and prior is an interesting story. My grandfathers
cousins were part of the Black Hand who assassinated Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand
in Sarajevo leading to WW1. My father was an active participant in anti-
government movements during the 70s and was kicked out of the country as a
result (and later arrested when he return, resulting in an international
diplomatic indecent as he was an Australian citizen at the time).
Anyway, we weren't allowed to visit again until '01. When we did, we attempted
to visit Jasenovac, but the police had road blocks on every road approaching
the site in a wide radius. We were blocked from approaching the site from two
different directions, and on the second attempt were essentially told to go
away and that there was 'nothing to see here'.
The Croatian government has since become a lot more progressive, but there is
still a large element of denial for what is essentially the Auschwitz of the
Balkans.
The old Yugoslav government of Tito also didn't acknowledge what took place at
Jasenovac - which is a large part of the reason why the rest of the world
doesn't know about it. Tito pushed it all aside in the name of moving forward
with 'brotherhood and unity'.
And btw, a lot of the monuments that you see in this post, at least those that
were dedicated to the partizans and 'the workers', have since been heavily
graffitied and vandalized. The local populations took their anger for the
former state out on these huge monuments that were built at large expense.
~~~
drats
Your family has some serious history. I consider the guns that killed Arch
Duke Ferdinand to be some of the most important objects in the physical world
(outside the much more important realm of ideas). I visited the war museum in
Vienna where they are kept, alongside the car the duke was riding in and his
uniform, a year ago. All the events of 20th century as we know it are shaped
by a few objects in that room. Sure some will say they are "merely" the sparks
that lit the potential energy in the powderkegs of history but, nevertheless,
they are the sparks that did it.
------
adolph
Fascinating: _the monuments "had to be neutral enough to be acceptable to both
victims and perpetrators. After all, once the slaughter was over, the former
opponents had to collectively form the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia."_
~~~
batasrki
This is one of the sources of the appeal of Balkans for "foreigners" and one
of the sources of frustration and despair for the Balkan people themselves.
We never dealt with these issues in any way whatsoever. As is the cultural
norm of all of the Balkan people, shit that we don't want to deal with is
pushed away, compartmentalized and annotated (for future ammunition against
those who have caused the atrocities). This left the entire region susceptible
to manipulation by those who wished to tear the region apart. A lot of anger
has built up during the 50 years between Jasenovac and the wars of the 90s.
(Full disclosure, I'm a Bosnian Serb, as well)
------
acqq
For the story behind one of the monuments:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasenovac>
[http://www.france24.com/en/20100725-israels-peres-visits-
cro...](http://www.france24.com/en/20100725-israels-peres-visits-croatian-
auschwitz)
------
Keyframe
Check out yugoslav dinar banknotes from 1955 onwards
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_Yugoslav_dinar> for great
examples of socialist realism.
~~~
lionhearted
Socialism realism is a bit of doublespeak, though. Here's Wikipedia:
> Socialist realism held that successful art depicts and glorifies the
> proletariat's struggle toward socialist progress. The Statute of the Union
> of Soviet Writers in 1934 stated that socialist realism "is the basic method
> of Soviet literature and literary criticism. It demands of the artist the
> truthful, historically concrete representation of reality in its
> revolutionary development. Moreover, the truthfulness and historical
> concreteness of the artistic representation of reality must be linked with
> the task of ideological transformation and education of workers in the
> spirit of socialism."
Read that twice if you missed it - it must be truthful, and also must take the
task of ideological transformation. That is, propaganda.
"Socialist idealist" might be a friendly way of describing that style of art,
or "socialist propaganda" would be a less friendly way. But either way would
be far more accurate than socialist realist. As someone whose spent lots of
time around the world, the socialist countries have had absolutely terrible
taste outside of a rare few well-done landmarks. Soviet housing in Eastern
Europe is still brutal and cold and spiritually oppressive, and the older
people there simply don't smile and look proud like you see on the banknotes.
Actual realism in art positions itself against romanticism. The socialist
propaganda art is highly romanticized. The name's very much an Orwellian-style
misnomer that hasn't been appropriately discarded yet.
~~~
Keyframe
Maybe, you seem to know that better than I do. I remember it being described
during 80s as socialist realism. For example, this note:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1000din-1963.jpg> depicts this guy here:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alija_Sirotanovi%C4%87>
Guy won the international miners contest where he shoveled 'with ease' 25kgs
in one go and similar mythic stories behind it. And every single note had a
similar story behind it that furthered the myth of "workers in the spirit of
socialism".
~~~
acqq
> And every single note had a similar story behind it that furthered the myth
> of "workers in the spirit of socialism"
In Yugoslavia AFAIK the only note in that period with the real story is the
one you've mentioned (but the other person was depicted in that older note).
For others, citation needed, as the Wikipedia article is very specific. Old
1000 note "Arif Heralić" then some monuments or the most famous people, or
generic faces, without real stories.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Wireless Battle of the Mesh - luu
http://battlemesh.org/
======
maguirre
I am confused if this is a battle of mesh and routing protocol why is 802.15.4
with rpl left out
~~~
lgierth
It's not intentionally left out. Battlemesh is driven by the people who come
there and participate, and if nobody is interested in a particular protocol or
approach, it will not be set up or presented.
Disclaimer: I'll be presenting cjdns [1], the encrypted IPv6 implementation
using public-key cryptography for address allocation and a distributed hash
table for routing.
[1] [https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns](https://github.com/cjdelisle/cjdns)
~~~
maguirre
That's a shame, I wish I had known about this before I might have been able to
put something together and present. The start-up I work with is heavily
invested in developing mesh networking devices.
------
contingencies
Recently suggested the FirefoxOS people attend
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=945047](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=945047)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ignore what EA is telling you about Sim City - the real issue is ownership - shandsaker
http://www.attendly.com/ignore-what-ea-is-telling-you-about-sim-city-the-real-issue-is-ownership/
======
dtsingletary
This is silly. You've licensed nearly every game you ever bought since the
90s, likely even before that. You've never owned it; you just felt like you
did. Server-side storage and 'online-only' gaming just solidifies this in a
technological sense, not a legal one.
~~~
nasmorn
But practically no company could ban you from accessing your savegames with
your licensed software, since both were in your physical possession. Now they
can.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Which cities will sink into the sea first? Maybe not the ones you expect - mhandley
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/01/cities-sink-sea-first-earth-submerge-coastline
======
justtopost
It would have been nice if the author liated a single city in the whole
article, given the title.
Tldr; Ice is heavy and its melting may allow some artic costal regions to rise
as it melts to counter sea level rise. Thats the whole article.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Browser Applications Framework That is based on Rails, CoffeeScript and love - mrblues
http://joosy.ws/
======
fingerprinter
I could definitely get behind this. My issue with Ember and Backbone is how
alone I feel when I'm trying to write something. Honestly, the convention of
Rails has always been really, really nice (until you hit a breaking point, but
by then you usually know what to do in some other way). I like the opinions
and I like that they are trying to make it drop dead simple to get up and
running with minimal fuss.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Using Google's Python Client Library to Authorise Your Desktop App with OAuth2 - Jmoir
http://www.jamalmoir.com/2016/03/google-python-library-oauth2.html
======
tbrock
Nice post. I've definitely struggled with this before.
I'm always amazed at how difficult it is to use google's APIs. It probably
should not require a lengthy post to explain how it works assuming they want
people to use it. Yet here we are.
~~~
Jmoir
Yeah, I'm not too impressed by the Google API documentation if I'm honest.
Using the API via HTTP is quite well documented, but using the api via their
python library... Not so much.
------
mherrmann
If you want to write a Django app that uses Google's OAuth then the following
would serve as a good template:
[https://github.com/mherrmann/ExcludeMyIP](https://github.com/mherrmann/ExcludeMyIP).
------
gravypod
Is there any way to have an end-user application that doesn't require a oauth
certificate the way you created? I'm attempting to write some software now
that would benefit from allowing people to keep data in Google Spreadsheets.
~~~
Jmoir
If you're going to be accessing user data, you need to be using oath
authorisation. There are other ways to handle it but after a lot of research
and trial and error, in the end this was the best way I found.
------
jhasse
Am I the only one or is there something wrong with scrolling on this site?
~~~
Jmoir
What's the problem?
~~~
jhasse
It's different than any other side and somehow slower and a little bit
delayed.
~~~
Jmoir
Well it has a smooth scrolling effect on it. Does it lag? Is it inconvenient?
Any feedback on anything to do with the blog is welcomed and appreciated.
~~~
jhasse
Yes it's a little bit inconvenient. I have smooth scrolling enabled in my
browser and it seems those two don't work together ;)
~~~
Jmoir
Ah I see, thanks for telling me!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
VMware Introduces Liota – The IoT Developer’s Dream - frostmatthew
http://www.vmware.com/radius/vmware-introduces-liota-iot-developers-dream/
======
mdorazio
Is software for handling data really the worst thing about IoT development
right now? For me it's the lack of cheap 3G hardware (Particle is about the
only thing on the market and it's really expensive), and the lack of tooling
for getting data from poorly documented sensors developed by god knows what
company in China from the device to the web. Storing or routing data once it's
online isn't that difficult.
~~~
karmicthreat
I'm not entirely unconvinced that this isn't the IoT equivalent of bike-
shedding. So many companies are operating in the IoT data channel space and
not enough in the actually getting the data space.
I'm using a particle for a production project right now because 300$ for a
cloudgate cell router and 20$ a month for 250M of which I maybe need 2M is
ridiculous.
The only reason I am even using cellular is because it is such a colossal pain
to get on-premises wifi access in a factory. Like 2 weeks of back and forth
with plant IT.
If anyone has a good possible solution for this problem I will be your
technical co-founder tomorrow.
~~~
Qworg
The problem with solving the "getting the data" problem is that it has
hardware margins, which are slimmer than software. Everyone wants to "be the
intelligence" since that scales infinitely and at close to zero marginal cost.
As for your issue, send me an email. =D
------
staticvar
What does this project bring to the table? The examples are Python scripts
that we could already write on a Raspberry Pi.
------
dimdimdim
Would be better if they called it Lolita
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Hover – small drone camera that hovers - dannylandau
http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/26/hover-a-self-flying-camera-drone-lands-25m-for-better-aerial-shots/?ncid=rss&cps=gravity_1462_6192759752419939792
======
thatusertwo
I generally dislike new/modern consumer tech, but this looks pretty cool.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
PythonMonk – Learn Python in the browser - akshat
http://pythonmonk.com
======
gkoberger
Interesting, however I feel like learning to code in a browser (even if it's
JavaScript) doesn't work.
Sure, you may learn how to do a for loop or how variables work. But, you don't
learn how to _actually_ use the language. Setting up a development
environment, and understanding how everything is connected is much more
important.
Let's say you ace everything here, on CodeAcademy, etc. You still can't
actually build anything.
(For more on this, see this article from HN a few days ago:
<http://blog.zackshapiro.com/want-to-learn-to-code-start-here>)
~~~
metaphorm
this kind of thing is a good resource for people who already know how to code,
but need a fast and elegant syntax guide. its not useful for teaching
beginners because, as you've said, it doesn't deal with the tool chain or
project organization, etc. but if you know Ruby and want to learn Python, this
is a great resource.
~~~
doktrin
Agreed. I'm actually learning Python at the moment (coming from Ruby & Java),
and am finding this useful. Generally I don't think too highly of coding in a
browser.
------
phleet
The first thing I always try on sites like these is stuff like this:
__import__('commands').getstatusoutput('ls /')
or
__import__('subprocess').call(["ls", "-l"])
which gets blocked by the interpreter somehow with
exceptions.OSError - [Errno 11] Resource temporarily unavailable
I'm curious as to how you managed to do this - I've always been interested in
how to sandbox something like this.
~~~
emillon
This particular behaviour can occur because the process is disallowed to call
fork() and can be done with setrlimit() (see RLIMIT_NPROC). There should be
other protections, though, because forking a "ls" is not the only way to
access the filesystem.
~~~
phleet
Ah, interesting.
File system access isn't blocked completely:
__import__("os").listdir("/evaluate")
open("/evaluate/test.py").readlines()
~~~
emillon
Execv'ing processes is OK as long as you don't fork:
__import__("os").execv("/usr/bin/uname", ["uname", "-a"])
Linux ip-10-196-3-111 2.6.32-amazon-xen-r3 #1 SMP Mon Jan 16 21:03:16 PST 2012 i686 GNU/Linux
As for the actual files, there are a few clues that a chroot is created for
every request : /proc is not mounted, /etc is minimal (root + 1 user in
passwd) and "ls -id /" returns a new inode number every time.
~~~
tdinkar
Yeah, we are using chroot (along with other things) to sandbox things on a per
request basis.
\- Tejas from Team PythonMonk (I built the sandboxing stuff)
------
xbryanx
This is beautiful and the usability is great. But can anyone recommend some
online interactive Python learning that starts at the intermediate level? I
need Pai Mei to whip my sorry skills into shape, starting with OOP, sockets,
image handling, and maybe data persistence?
~~~
kaiwren
We already support teaching most of these - if you know anyone that would like
to create courseware around any of these topics please let us know.
Our courseware marketplace is still in a private alpha, but we are actively
soliciting awesome hackers that would like to teach online.
------
cglace
"Your turn now - go on and change the following code to compute the sum of the
numbers 1 through 5."
If you input 15 and submit, it says the answer is correct. Do all online code
courses just check for the retured value?
How do these services deal with someone running sum(i for i in
xrange(1000000000000000000))?
~~~
wodow
But of course that is a valid piece of code!
"15" completely matches the specification you give.
------
aroberge
Tried the test to define unique. Wrote
def unique(s):
return list(set(s))
and it gave assertion errors. Nice presentation ... but incorrect Python
implementation.
~~~
metaphorm
maybe you had a typo? or they have corrected this in the meantime? I just
tried this problem and it was error free.
def unique(values): """Finds all unique elements of a list.
>>> unique([])
[]
>>> unique([1, 2, 1])
[1, 2]
>>> unique([1, 2, 1, 3, 4, 2])
[1, 2, 3, 4]
"""
# your code here
return list(set(values))
it also works without the coercion to list. return set(values) is fine.
------
pc86
Both GitHub and Google signins failed for me and I lost progress in the first
section. May just be the work network; I'll try it at home.
------
r0h4n
Seems like there is a bug over here
[http://pythonmonk.com/learning/books/17-python-
primer/chapte...](http://pythonmonk.com/learning/books/17-python-
primer/chapters/98-conditional-expressions/lessons/240-conditional-
expressions)
"Evaluates to True when age is 40 and name is "Bob" , which should be fine i
think.
------
mmwanga
I think this is a great way to get beginners / students coding, but the end
product might be what we now know as "bolt-on" engineers. They put components
together and build beautiful functional products, until it breaks and they
have no idea what's "under the hood"
------
niels_olson
This is really cool. I think the assertions that this learn-in-the-browser
thing doesn't work is because folks on HN have seen so many entry-level
courses at this point.
More interestingly, can I get transfer credits from Codecademy instead?
------
azakai
Looks like it sends each command to run on a server - I'm curious why not
execute it in the browser? (There are a few solutions for that?)
~~~
kracekumar
I tried llvm based project <https://github.com/kracekumar/test-
empythoned(empythoned>: <https://github.com/replit/empythoned>). There are few
limitation I am facing, `import` system don't work(compilation issue). From my
experience more effort is required.
------
pekk
It is 2013. Why are you teaching Python 2?
~~~
metaphorm
while I agree that we should be more proactive about migrating to Python 3, if
you're trying to be pragmatic it is most useful to teach Python 2.7 since that
is the most widely used version.
~~~
pekk
Python 3, in 2013, is not lacking in pragmatism. It's not new, or
experimental. Someone just learning today is going to have to immediately turn
around and relearn things because they started out with an old version.
~~~
jace
I don't know anyone who uses Python 3 in production. It's still seen as an
experimental implementation.
~~~
melling
I dont' know Python but I'm thinking about learning it. What's experimental
about Python 3? I don't have any legacy reasons to start with 2.7. Why
wouldn't I just start with 3?
~~~
metaphorm
there's nothing experimental about Python 3. its a stable release version and
I think its already up to sub version 3.3.
HOWEVER, there are many important 3rd party libraries that have not yet been
migrated to be fully compatible with Python 3. these libraries are far more
important to writing real applications than the ability to use some newer
syntactic constructs in Python 3.
~~~
callahad
> _HOWEVER, there are many important 3rd party libraries that have not yet
> been migrated to be fully compatible with Python 3._
Are there any particular libraries blocking you? Numpy / SciPy, IPython,
Requests, Django, Pyramid, Bottle, etc. have all been ported to Python 3.
~~~
metaphorm
South (database migration for django). Until django core has its own migration
tool I won't be using it with Python 3.
PIL as well. similar reasons. django image fields are dependent on PIL.
Celery is still on Python 2 also, and while there are other message queues
available, none of them is as easy to integrate with for an app that's already
written in Python.
~~~
dorolow
To replace PIL you should try Pillow, a fork of PIL that is capable of running
on py3k (and 2.x).
------
smonff
Very far away from Perl Monks.
------
lsiebert
This probably isn't for experienced developers, but it looks gorgeous.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
What to do with every product idea you'll ever have - atroyn
https://medium.com/@atroyn/how-to-start-small-efe1bf831aaf
======
chintan39
First things first, register the domain name. :)
~~~
atroyn
There ought to be a secondary 'unused domains' market. I'll put that one up on
my ideas board next week :)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Writing a Fast JSON Parser - naspeh
https://chadaustin.me/2017/05/writing-a-really-really-fast-json-parser/
======
geezerjay
Very interesting read. Sometimes it's hard to keep in mind that software
development can actually be a fun pastime.
------
naspeh
BTW: the two years old discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14421215](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14421215)
with some comments from the author.
------
mjgoeke
(2017)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ageism in recruitment, openly - bpedro
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ageism-recruitment-openly-andr%C3%A9-dos-santos
======
sukilot
The argument is weak. Ageist employers aren't hiring founders. They ate hiring
professionals in whatever field, and nay want someone more naive to avoiding
paying more for talent.
You can argue morality or maturity or whatever, but "Jimmy Wales paid people
to build wikipedia" isn't a reason to hire him as an info tech.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
New York Under Water - sergeant3
http://nautil.us/issue/49/the-absurd/new-york-under-water
======
jimrandomh
This is a science fiction story about a world in which the sea level has risen
"more than 50 feet" (15m) in 2140. This is a reasonable conceit for a story,
but, it's important to not update our beliefs about the real world based on
fictional evidence.
Eyeballing a graph in the IPCC climate change report, the worst-case scenario
for sea level rise by 2200 has a wide error bar, but it's from .6m-2m; the
average-case scenario is from .3m-1.1m. Reduce those numbers further for a
setting in 2140, and this is not enough to flood New York as described.
[https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-
report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Cha...](https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-
report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter13_FINAL.pdf) pg 1188.
~~~
chrisseaton
I heard a radio programme once about nature-vs-nuture and they were using the
fictional novel, We Need To Talk About Kevin, to sort of present evidence and
discuss the subject, and all the way through I was thinking 'but this novel is
just what someone sat and made up based on imagination...'
------
awjr
I have a suspicion that the approach that will be used is the Dutch approach
and a Dam will be built across the Block Island Sound enabling reclamation of
significant amounts of land. The value of NYC and the ability to expand the
city should make it worth while.
I suspect dams will be used to protect Miami which already suffers from sea
flooding.
~~~
adanto6840
I'm actually really intrigued, somewhat enamored even, by this idea. The
newly-created land seems like it would be astronomically valuable, and so the
value proposition is surprisingly interesting to me. Brings a lot of questions
to mind --
Are there any comparable projects, of such massive scale (or even somewhat
close), to compare to? Especially on cost?
Does the sudden influx of that much land not cause existing land value to
plummet, or is there an established way to ration it into the market to help
mitigate that? Is this something that could even happen politically, or would
entrenched interests / existing land owners prefer to create canals (not sure
if realistic, but curious) which would probably reduce the property inventory
& in theory increase value?
~~~
collinmanderson
Chicago expanded their shoreline via landfill from 1870-1940. Not sure about
cost / land value.
[http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/3713.html](http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/3713.html)
[https://www.cityofchicago.org/content/dam/city/depts/cdot/Sh...](https://www.cityofchicago.org/content/dam/city/depts/cdot/ShorelineHistory.pdf)
A modern article says an additional 225 acres could add $62.5B.
[https://chicago.curbed.com/2015/1/21/10001048/we-could-
keep-...](https://chicago.curbed.com/2015/1/21/10001048/we-could-keep-the-
lakefront-sacred-by-adding-more-of-it)
Also, somewhat related, Chicago raised their city 6 ft in the 1850-1860's.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago)
------
ericedge
The hardest thing to believe in NEW YORK 2140 is that the stats language R is
still in active use 120 years in the future.
~~~
jfoutz
Right? All the core models are going to be FORTRAN2110 because later editions
weren't widely adopted.
~~~
WorldMaker
All the core models? Are you forgetting the critical ones baked in PyCOBOL 3.8
(circa 2084)?
------
pavement
There's always the possibility that an array of dams and locks could be
established, to preserve New York harbor, as it exists.
It'd be expensive, but New York is already expensive. Would such a project
consume more concrete than other dams?
------
pcunite
When I was about 12, I was in a academic play in which I had to recite a
portion of the quote on the statue of liberty by Emma Lazarus:
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-
tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
I was very impressed by this thought.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Computing with JavaScript Web Workers - emontero1
http://ejohn.org/blog/web-workers/
======
peregrine
Javascript just keeps getting cooler and cooler. The more I learn about it the
more I find myself loving it.
~~~
Bjoern
I can only second that, also since JS is runnable Serverside you can do alot
of funny things.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server-side_JavaScript>
~~~
n8agrin
I have a feeling that server-side js will eventually become a major player in
the web world, especially if solid, reliable implementations are created. The
idea of having a uniform language to communicate between the server and client
with a decent data transportation format (JSON) has been something I've long
for, enough so that one of my New Year's resolutions was to start contributing
to a SS-JS implementation this year.
~~~
tlrobinson
In that case, can I enlist your services :)
I started Narwhal (a JavaScript standard library: <http://narwhaljs.org>) and
Jack (a WSGI/Rack-like web server interface: <http://jackjs.org>) earlier this
year with the intention of bringing JavaScript up to par with Ruby, Python,
etc.
There are other nice SSJS products, but they're all very monolithic and self-
contained (in a bad way). I'm hoping Narwhal will be more modular and open,
like we have with most other languages.
~~~
peregrine
I am really looking to use V8 more then anything. Rhino is nice but the
momentum is with V8. The issue with those is that a feature is Java library
support and I personally would prefer native libs then some hack to make Java
libs work.
~~~
tlrobinson
So one of the cool things about Narwhal is it was created with the goal of
supporting multiple interpreters. Where possible, code is written in
JavaScript to facilitate sharing between interpreters. For example, the
"binary" module is currently about 700 lines of JavaScript, plus about 100
lines of C/C++ or JavaScript per platform.
While Rhino is currently the most complete Narwhal platform (mostly due to the
ease of prototyping in it) We've also started working on V8
(github.com/tlrobinson/narwhal-v8/) and JavaScriptCore
(github.com/tlrobinson/narwhal-jsc) support. They're still very incomplete but
it's a start.
------
axod
Web Workers look ugly to me :( Sad that they thought of this as a good idea.
It's just a horrible hack that'll lead to horrible code.
Threads are usually misused. When you add threads and it speeds up your code,
you're usually doing something terribly wrong (When #threads>#cores).
~~~
jeresig
I don't really understand what you're upset about - you don't like how they
look and you're worried that they're a hack? Are you familiar with the current
situation of processing in JavaScript? It involves running chunks of code,
split up using delayed timers, that constantly block the user interface from
being usable. If you want to talk about something that doesn't look good and
is hacky - that's what you should be railing against.
~~~
axod
That current situation is basically extremely powerful. It's effectively doing
your own time slicing. In terms of code, to me, it's pretty.
IMHO it'd be far nicer just to speed js up and perhaps create some helper
functionality to aid in splitting chunks of work up into bite size pieces, and
make it more optimal.
It'd be much nicer to just have some yield statement which allows you to say
"Hey, it's ok if you process any pending UI events, timers etc etc here". That
way you could just have a single main loop with some yields in the right
places. It'd create simpler, more maintainable code, and there's no reason
it'd be slower or less responsive UI wise than the web worker version.
I can see the examples where web workers can be useful, where you're doing
really CPU heavy backgroud work such as image processing etc. But I think
people will end up using web workers for far more than that, which will make
for some ugly code (IMHO).
------
robryan
So now any website could setup a web worker in the background of pages to
massively improve there processing power.
Very cool feature though, makes the entry level to distributed processing very
low.
------
huhtenberg
How long until some high-traffic page owner decides to resell his visitors CPU
time ?
------
gruseom
I'm rather amazed that this is available in Firefox and Safari today.
~~~
ams6110
Running the demo caused my Safari to crash
------
ohgrayt
tragedy of the commons. wow, i just can't wait for every amateur web designer
to take up the mantle of threaded coding.
get used to "kill -9", you're going to be using it to preempt all this
amateur-hour worker code people slap together and foist on you
~~~
DrJokepu
I can't say I agree with that. Actually I think that an easily-accessible code
interpreter sitting inside a browser, with a language and runtime capable of
delivering spectacular stuff in just a few lines can nurture a future
generation of programmers, not unlike the generation raised on easily
accessible basic interpreters on various 8-bit computers in the 70s and 80s. I
don't think denying access for beginners to powerful but harmless tools (it
sits inside a browser) is a good idea, how could they become experienced
professionals such as you then?
------
TweedHeads
Why web workers can't take a function or an object?
myobject={
start: function(){ /* do stuff */ }
stop: function(){ /* end worker */ }
postMessage:function(){ /* communicate */ }
onmessage: function(){ /* receiving data*/ }
onerror: function(){ /* handle stuff */ }
}
myworker = new Worker(myobject);
myworker.start();
myworker.postMessage("dostuff");
myworker.stop();
Or something like that...
~~~
jeresig
That can't work because the individual methods may contain a closure to a non-
threadable object (like the DOM). The reason why all of the logic is forced
into in an external script is to prevent contention from occurring - your
proposed solution definitely would not allow for that.
On the other hand, allowing for an easy way to call global functions of the
child worker would be really nice.
var worker = new Worker("worker.js");
worker.start();
Child Worker:
start = function(){
// Gets called by the parent
};
That would be sexy and surely simplify a lot of logic surrounding message
passing.
~~~
TweedHeads
Point taken, then let me rephrase that.
Threads we can fire and forget. Threads we can start "inside" our script and
let them work while we do other stuff.
myfunnyfunc = function(){/* do long funny stuff */}
mycallback = function(){/* do something when done */}
mythread = new Thread(myfunnyfunc,mycallback);
Asynchronous like xmlhttprequest, just a way to replace the "settimeout" hack.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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FBI Stymied by Islamic State’s Use of Encryption, Director Says - mudil
http://www.wsj.com/articles/fbi-stymied-by-islamic-states-use-of-encryption-director-says-1447866592
======
mudil
Full text:
The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation said investigators have
been stymied by Islamic State’s use of encryption.
FBI Director James Comey, speaking at a cybersecurity conference Wednesday at
the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said the bureau has tracked Islamic
State recruiting efforts on Twitter and reviewed private messages between
sympathizers after obtaining court orders.
But when Islamic State commanders find a recruit willing to die for the cause,
they move their communications over to encrypted platforms, “going dark,” he
said.
Mr. Comey didn’t say whether encryption was used in planning or executing the
Paris attacks, but the massacre loomed large at the conference, which included
law-enforcement officials from the U.S., U.K. and France.
His remarks were part of a public campaign by law-enforcement and intelligence
officials for access to encrypted phones and communications, in the face of
new software and devices promoted by companies as impervious to government
surveillance.
The aftermath of the Paris attacks could bolster the argument in favor of such
access after years of movement toward more customer privacy, fueled by
revelations of U.S. surveillance programs.
U.S. counterterrorism officials haven’t determined whether terrorists used
encrypted communications to plan or execute the Paris attacks, but they said
they expect evidence to emerge as the investigation continues.
Sen. Richard Burr (R., N.C.), chairman of the U.S. Senate Intelligence
Committee, said after a briefing by senior intelligence officials Tuesday that
the terrorists involved in the Paris attacks likely used “end-to-end”
encryption. He said encryption was likely because no direct communication
among the terrorists was detected.
Islamic State, which claimed credit for the bloodshed, has demonstrated its
technological savvy in tutorials for sympathizers on how to evade electronic
surveillance on the cheap, including an eight-minute video explaining the
eavesdropping capabilities of hostile governments and how they track phones.
Other Islamic State bulletins have analyzed the vulnerabilities of brands of
electronic equipment and messaging applications, ranking them based on their
ability to foil surveillance.
In separate remarks Wednesday, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr..
said his office has been unable to access evidence on encrypted phones in 111
cases handled by his office. Newer operating systems on phones made by Apple
Inc. and Google can’t be unlocked without the user passcode, even by the
companies themselves.
Mr. Vance called for legislation that would mandate that mobile-phone
companies have the capacity to unlock a customer device when presented with a
search warrant. “We don’t want a key held by the government,” Mr. Vance said.
Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties
Union, called Mr. Vance’s proposal “misguided” and disputed assertions that
encrypted devices have undermined law enforcement.
The law advocated by Mr. Vance would “compromise the security of Americans by
making their personal information and communications more vulnerable to
cyberattack and theft,” she said.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Ask HN: Review my web app - Modern Ballots - bradbeattie
http://modernballots.com/zombies/vote
I noticed a lot of distain for the two-party system and went about investigating alternatives. Modern Ballots is an attempt to make Schulze STV, a proportional representation algorithm, easy to use for anyone that wants to hold a vote.<p>Thing is, I'm not really all that savvy when it comes to UI design, marketing and all that stuff. Any suggestions on how to make this kind of thing more appealing? Electoral reform isn't exactly the sexiest of subjects, although it does entertain sporadic conversation.
======
ericd
I've been wishing the US had a score based voting system for a while now, but
there are considerable obstacles: -Two dominant, incumbent parties that have
no incentive to make it easier for more parties. -A populace that is unlikely
to understand why one would even want to change the voting system, and why
score-based voting would enable more parties to rise. -Millions of dollars or
more invested in the current voting system.
to name a few.
Not to discourage you, though, I think it's great.
Education might be a good place to start, and that seems to be what you're
dabbling with in writing this web app. I'd be very interested to hear your
ideas regarding the other issues, though (and any other issues you think of).
I don't believe the current system is codified in the US constitution, though
I could be wrong - a friend and I couldn't find anything specifically
prescribing the choose one candidate ballot system of voting in the national
constitution when we looked. The specific methods might be decided at the
state level.
~~~
wlievens
Not to rain on your parade here, but a multi-party system isn't paradise
either. I'm not saying the duopoly is better, but multi-party systems are
plagued with immobility, compromise for the sake of compromise, and lack of
differentiation. Any European cynic will repeat that for you.
~~~
ericd
I didn't say that I wanted a 3+ party system, the biggest advantage would be
that you wouldn't get a situation where voting for your favorite candidate
screws over your close second favorite but much more likely to win candidate,
as happened with Gore in 2000 when a percentage of his would-be supporters
voted for Nader instead.
------
bradbeattie
I noticed a lot of distain for the two-party system and went about
investigating alternatives. Modern Ballots is an attempt to make Schulze STV,
a proportional representation algorithm, easy to use for anyone that wants to
hold a vote.
Thing is, I'm not really all that savvy when it comes to UI design, marketing
and all that stuff. Any suggestions on how to make this kind of thing more
appealing? Electoral reform isn't exactly the sexiest of subjects, although it
does entertain sporadic conversation.
~~~
patio11
Don't most elections for which proportional representation is realistically
feasible involve democratic governments above the local level, with tens of
thousands of voters, serious worries about electoral malfeasance, and sales
cycles which require legislation or in some cases Constitutional amendments?
These are not things I would go looking for if I were trying to start a small
software business. I mean, in terms of "barriers to achieving conversion",
passing a Constitutional amendment is pretty up there.
Not quite sure if that is relevant for what you are doing. If you're trying
for a political movement, rather than a web app per se, you might want to lead
with an example of a real election rather than a zombie gag.
~~~
bradbeattie
The largest hurdle I see in electoral reform is broadening people's
expectations of a ballot, which is all I'm really trying to do with this app.
Approaching the problem from a legislative angle is hyperbolically analogous
to asking a dictator for fairer representation. People need to see that other
systems aren't all that difficult firsthand before anything happens.
------
Avenger42
Great app! Really enjoyed it, and definitely will help people get a more
visual understanding of how these sorts of ballots could work in real
elections in the future.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Mac Mini Pays for Itself After 2 Years - sahaj
http://cjgill.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/free-mini/
======
Periodic
A few people are debating the numbers, but I think there's a much more
important message here. Consumers rarely factor in the total cost of ownership
(TCO) of a computer, and only look at the retail price.
I used to think this way, particularly because I didn't have much money, so I
needed to buy the cheapest computer I could at a given time, resulting in
paying more over the lifetime of the computer (which might not be that long).
It was only once I began working with data centers when I realized what a huge
amount the power and cooling bills could be. In a datacenter, the power and
cooling requirements of a high-end system can easily be more than the cost of
buying the system initially. A great example is Western Digital's new "Green"
2TB drives. The drive costs more $/GB initially than two 1TB drives, even when
you factor in the cost of housing the drives; but if you look at the power
required by the hard drives (and hard drives really do pull a lot of energy)
the 2TB drives can come out cheaper. The same analysis applies to SSD drives.
If you want to be smart with your money, and have more in the long run, don't
forget to account for ALL the costs you'll incur when compared to another
solution. This applies to just about everything, not just computers.
~~~
staunch
Saving on power in the datacenter is one of the worst ways to try to save
money, in my experience.
It varies greatly, but $10 million dollars worth of servers, network gear, and
storage might cost $25k/mo in power. Shaving 5% or 10% off that bill is
practically meaningless. You can save a lot more money in other ways.
Obviously at massive scale (think Google) it's a different story, but for the
average small-medium company it's not even worth thinking about until you've
gone after everything else.
~~~
swernli
While I agree that for those numbers, 5% to 10% savings isn't worth the
effort, this isn't a good reason to dismiss saving by reducing data center
power. Nissan recently starting rolling out virtualization solutions for some
of their datacenters, resulting in 34% energy savings. For the kind of numbers
you list, that would end up being over $100k of savings a year.
~~~
staunch
I found the press release you were referencing:
[http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/server_virtuali...](http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/server_virtualization/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218100715)
It proves exactly my point: That focusing on power usage is backwards. You
should worry about other stuff, like using less servers.
The guy that worries about using less servers can consolidate 159 servers to
28. He saves $5 million dollars and $10k/mo. The guy that worries about power
usage itself just buys 159 slightly less power hungry servers. He saves
$2k/mo.
~~~
swernli
Ah, now I understand the distinction you are making. And I agree; get fewer
servers, not the same number of slightly more efficient ones, and then you can
talk about saving money on power.
------
Tichy
Oh come on...
Computers get more efficient all the time. My last power hungry desktop was
replaced with a mobile ultra low voltage CPU notebook. Guess it paid for
itself, too. But it wasn't from Apple, so I didn't make a fuss about it.
You know what, since you are so good at maths, I could sell you my old car for
10000 bucks. That way you would save 20000 bucks because you would not have to
buy a more expensive car instead.
~~~
elblanco
Whenever Apple takes a crap, fanboys flock to the stall to comment about how
smart the smell is, and how stylish the toilet paper is. How only Apple could
produce turds of such quality because they really, you know, _think_ about
what goes into the process and their specially formulated fiber diet is a
totally unique combination of oats and bran that you simply _can't_ replicate
in the Windows or Linux world. So you have to pay 3x the price for that
formulation.
And then blogs are filled with how it's all just so totally brilliant.
------
byoung2
He might have saved even more electricity had he gotten a laptop with the same
specs as the mini. My Dell Inspiron 1525 has a 65W power supply, vs the
similarly-equipped Mac Mini's 110W, and that 65W includes the screen. Adding
an LCD to the Mac Mini adds another 30-50W.
~~~
tedunangst
They don't make laptops with 42" screens, which is what he has attached to the
mini.
~~~
byoung2
You could just as easily connect a 42" screen to the laptop, as I sometimes do
using my laptop's HDMI out. It will still end up using less power than the Mac
Mini.
------
jws
Rule of thumb: for each watt your always on device consumes, you will pay
$1/year in electricity. (at $0.12/kwHr, common US price)
You folks in Silicon Valley are paying 50% more than that for your
electricity, so adjust accordingly.
His savings are high, $233/year which says to me he saved 150 watts, which
seems a touch on the high side, but if his Pavilion did not sleep well (common
in PCs) and his Mini does it would be right on the button.
~~~
tedunangst
An always on torrent server, as described in the article, doesn't sleep.
------
ptomato
Possibly a title reworking is in order so it looks less like spam...
edit: exactly, thanks.
------
erikstarck
Side benefit of low power: low noise.
That's actually the first thing I check when buying a new computer. How silent
is it?
~~~
chrisbolt
The Mac Mini is almost completely silent unless the CPU is being maxed for
long enough (a few minutes), causing the fan to kick in.
~~~
Tichy
No it isn't. I tried to use my PowerPC Mini as a homeserver, but my gf
complained about the constant noise, so I had to switch it off. The fan is
spinning continuously.
~~~
GeneralMaximus
Wasn't the PPC notorious for running hot? My Intel Mac runs completely silent
unless I'm building something from source.
(I have no experience with PPC Macs. Comment solely based on anecdotal
evidence. Correct me if I'm wrong.)
~~~
mbreese
G4 Powerbooks (PPC) were known to cause severe burns to people. So much so
that Apple never called them laptops because you couldn't use them on your
lap. (Granted, those people were wearing shorts and had the computer on bare
skin, and the heat built up slowly so you didn't notice it).
Point being, the PPC Macs ran damn hot. My old G4 powerbook ran hotter than my
current MacBook Pro. IIRC, notebook cooling and power requirements were the
main reasons for the switch to Intel chips.
------
graywh
There are too many other factors to consider when looking at the final bill.
Next time, use an in-line power use monitor and tell us about it.
------
aidenn0
I have a similar experience.
I got used to having a linux server on 24/7 when I was in college (no
electricity bill in the dorms).
I moved to California when I graduated, and was spending over $40/month on
electricity. I borrowed a friends kill-a-watt and measured my server at
180W-220W depending on the load!
I put together a machine based around the Via C7 and measured it as using 18W
at the outlet. The whole thing cost a bit over $300. Also, no fan, which is
nice as the server is now in my living room. As soon as SSDs get cheap enough,
I'll have a no-moving-parts server.
~~~
gonzo
I've got an Atom-powered rackmount firewall
([http://www.netgate.com/product_info.php?cPath=60_107&pro...](http://www.netgate.com/product_info.php?cPath=60_107&products_id=793)),
a fanless rackmount HP ProCurve GigE switch, and a 2009 series Mac Mini
running the home/business network. The rest is done with notebooks.
------
icey
Where do you live? If it's somewhere warm I'd say not having fans might be
part of your cost savings.
It would be much more compelling if you were giving us an apples-to-apples
comparison with regards to the dates. My electricity bills in the winter are
1/6th what they are in the summer (although that's due to air conditioning).
[Edit: whoops, I misread the examples in the OPs link; for some reason I
thought the lower bills were in the cooler months, and that is not the case.
Still, my question stands with regards to wanting to make apples-to-apples
comparisons]
~~~
Periodic
Mine is the opposite, for not having AC. Winter bills are much higher.
The month of the change is probably a very important factor. If you make the
change between January and February, or June and July, the weather is probably
a minimal factor if at all.
------
jdbeast00
auto sleep your computer after x minutes of idle. done.
~~~
tptacek
Can you wake it up with an IR remote? If not, then auto-sleep is a non-starter
for a set-top box. Just for example.
~~~
mrkurt
The Media Center remotes will wake/sleep your system. Windows Media Center
does a fantastic job with sleep, actually. It'll wake up to record, then go
back to sleep. If you hit "sleep" while it's recording, it will shut off the
video output, then sleep when it's done.
------
briansmith
I'm not sure how they justify their claim that the Mac Mini is the most power
efficient desktop. According to another post in this discussion, the average
draw under load is approximately 35W. The Lenovo M58 & M58p--which have been
out since December, 2008--also draws an average 35W under load, and are also
EPEAT Gold and Energy Star 5.0 rated. I believe HP has had a similar product
for a while too; probably every PC maker does.
------
bemmu
Where is the wasted energy lost to? If it is lost to heat and you have
electric heating in your house, would that lead to a correspondingly lowered
heating bill?
~~~
bjelkeman-again
Yes, but you really don't want to heat your house or your hot water with
straight electric radiators or water heaters. Use a heat pump. A heat pump
will give you a 30-40% lower electricity bill.
I have a heat pump which takes heat from the ground (two boreholes) and for
every 1kWh of electricity I put into it I get 2.5-3 kWh equivalent of heating
in my house. This is essentially stored solar heat in the ground which I use
the heat pump to transfer into my house. The electricity comes from regional
hydropower. With electricity usage for heating without the heatpump of roughly
50,000 kWh and an electric price of about 15 US cent for the kWh, this knocks
off a significant piece of the electricity bill, down to about 18,000 kWh and
gives lower environmental impact.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump#Ground_source_heat_pu...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump#Ground_source_heat_pumps)
Also, reversely, if you are in a warm climate your aircon will have to take
all that extra heat from your computer and push it out of the house, with a
corresponding loss in efficiency.
~~~
gonzo
I was born and raised in Las Vegas, NV. So was my father. His father started a
water well drilling business in 1953, my father joined him in that business
(post collage) in 1957.
In 1980, my father decided to build a house. We (meaning _I_ ) was sent to the
property in order to drill two 800 foot deep 'wells', which were subsequently
cased with 8" (ID) steel pipe, but not perforated. (There was a 1/2" plate on
the bottom of the casing.)
After this, we filled the casing with water. (A fine test of one's skill at
welding.) Then added a 2" galvanized "loop" inside the casing, which was then
hooked in to a heat pump.
It was the single-most efficient "single family residence" HVAC system in the
state.
We subsequently added hot-water recapture to the indoor AC units, in order to
make the most of the heat "pulled" out of the house.
Dad also built the house with R-44 insulation in the walls, R-60 or so in the
attic, and a white 'Spanish tile' roof.
The result, a power bill of around $100/mo for a 5000 sq ft home in the desert
that was numbingly cold in the summer, and pleasantly warm in the winter. (It
does get cold in LV.)
It helped that 40% of the square footage was basement (something else nobody
in Las Vegas has, because it turns _hard_ about 4 feet down.)
------
pistoriusp
Would love to know what his KWH consumption is per month. His electricity bill
is 1/2 mine. Is electricity generally cheap in North America?
~~~
pmjordan
I can tell you that in Europe, €0.20-0.25/kWh (about US$ 0.30-0.37, ZAR
2.20-2.80) is typical for residential customers.
~~~
zandorg
I'm not sure, but NPower in the UK appears to be 8 pence (about 12 cents).
That does seem low!
~~~
pmjordan
My figures include taxes and average amortization of any fixed costs. That
said, UK energy prices do seem to be lower than in central Europe; I'm not
sure why.
------
mcantelon
My guess is something Atom-based, like the EEE Box, would save even more in
electricity.
~~~
elblanco
Correct, they use about 50% less power, plus it costs less to purchase to
start with.
------
paul9290
Best home computing device I own!
It's connected to my LCD TV and acts as my source of TV/movie, etc enjoyment,
along with net surfing and conversing!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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When Good Waves Go Rogue (2014) - dnetesn
http://oceans.nautil.us/article/547/when-good-waves-go-rogue
======
kls
I was once in 10-15 ft seas, not really a big deal but we got hit by a three
sisters event and I will say that was the scariest event I have ever seen.
Basically it's a set of 3 rouge waves these where about 20-30 ft. We where in
a small craft but nothing that could not navigate a single 30 ft rouge wave.
Anyways the crazy thing about a three sisters event is you get hit by the
first two in rapid succession and they backwash and create a gully under the
third wave which pretty much puts you bow down going into it. Fortunately I
had a good captain with good instincts, so he gunned it into the gully.
Initially burring the bow but caused it to right faster due to buoyancy and
get us traveling up the wave before it started to break. It slammed us good
and knocked us to the floor but we where no worse for wear and we walked away
from it. Had it broke on us in the gully, I can only imagine but by the power
we got even busting thru it, if we had been in the gully that boat would have
been in two pieces. Now I don't go spearfishing if there is even the remotest
possibility that a squall line could whip up.
------
ceocoder
I read Susan Casey’s The Wave[0] about 8-9 years ago, it is told from
alternative perspectives of sailors and big wave surfers - Laird Hamilton to
be specific. A fascinating read, I highly recommend it. More I read about it
less likely that I’m ever going to take a cruise :)
[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Wave-Pursuit-Rogues-Freaks-
Giants/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Wave-Pursuit-Rogues-Freaks-
Giants/dp/0767928857)
------
paulcole
How can this possibly be true:
> This means you have probably experienced a rogue wave and not noticed. How?
> “If you’re out in calm conditions,” says Baschek, “and the waves are one
> meter high, and suddenly you experience a two meter wave, so what?”
Given that the next sentence says:
> In fact, Baschek says one wave per day, somewhere in the world’s oceans, is
> a rogue wave.
~~~
btilly
The first quote is clearly true.
A rogue wave is one that almost certainly resulted from a non-linear
interaction of waves because its size is statistically unlikely enough under
the linear wave model. So anything 2+* the background waves.
It isn't the size of the wave. It is the size relative to the sea around it.
That said, the next sentence does not make sense to me. Particularly not given
that it is also estimated that ships in the North Atlantic encounter an
average of one rogue wave per year. (But mostly not in sufficiently high seas
to be a problem.)
~~~
paulcole
I mean if the second sentence is true then it definitely throws doubt upon the
clear trueness of the first. If there is one of these per day in the entire
world, then it’s very unlikely that anyone reading this has experienced one.
~~~
btilly
Point.
However
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_wave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_wave)
quotes a researcher estimating that at any point in time there are an average
of 10 rogue waves somewhere in the world.
So the second quote appears to be a misquote. And everything else makes sense.
------
dang
See also (2016):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11976300](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11976300)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Startup snake oil: scamming early stage entrepreneurs - jmacd
http://pandodaily.com/2013/11/04/startup-snake-oil-scamming-early-stage-entrepreneurs/
======
DanielBMarkham
A little too much vitriol and angst for my taste, but it's an important
subject.
My position is simple: there are lots of folks in the startup ecosystem that
are trying to help me in various ways. Many of them charge money. Good for
them. Folks gotta eat.
Having said that, from my side (startup founder), the situation is _very_
precarious. As entrepreneurs we are constantly swamped with pitches for
various things to make our businesses successful. I know I've spent thousands
of dollars on stuff that didn't do what I thought it would do. In fact, I've
become quite bitter about all of it. When I think of all the money being spent
by folks who are trying to buy success through tools instead of customer
interaction? Makes me sad and angry.
But I think trying to name and shame is absolutely the wrong way to go about
this. Most of these startup ecosystem folks mean well, and most of them have
products that are well worth the money -- for folks who need the products. I
think the real problem as entrepreneurs is that we are unable to recognize for
ourselves whether we need something or not; so we buy too much. If we're too
ignorant to know what to spend our money on, can't well blame others for
selling us stuff.
So the answer here is educating each other, not going on some witch hunt for
aggressive spammers (which is a separate problem). Let's continue to meet and
share information on startups (which is why I'm here) and these other problems
will work themselves out.
~~~
jonnathanson
_" I think trying to name and shame is absolutely the wrong way to go about
this. Most of these startup ecosystem folks mean well, and most of them have
products that are well worth the money -- for folks who need the products."_
Completely agree. I'd love to see more stories that leave out the personal
drama and, instead, run some analysis. There are a lot of these companies out
there, offering similar services. What's the ROI on spending money with them?
Which ones are better than others? How do they rank against each other?
To your point:
_" I think the real problem as entrepreneurs is that we are unable to
recognize for ourselves whether we need something or not; so we buy too much.
If we're too ignorant to know what to spend our money on, can't well blame
others for selling us stuff."_
We can't blame others for selling us this stuff, but we can and should share
our experiences. It's completely legitimate to share a bad experience (or a
good experience). There is a lot of opacity in this space, and transparency is
going to help ease it.
I am completely with you, though: I could do without the public outing of
names and email addresses. And I hate smear campaigns, even when they appear
to be warranted. A lot of people make stupid mistakes when they're young and
dumb; few people deserve to have those mistakes chase them across the internet
for the rest of their lives. (As will probably be the case with the immature
BD guy named in the article. If even half of what was said about him is true,
he deserves to be fired, and his former employer should issue an apology to
Ms. Fichtner. But does he really deserve a life sentence?)
In general, I wish tech blogs would focus more on tech and less on people.
Leave gossip to the gossip blogs. It's hard to tell where informative
journalism ends and personal vendetta begins in pieces like these. So I've
trained myself to gloss over them. That's unfortunate, because underneath the
thicket of naming-and-shaming, there's often some wisdom or advice to be
found.
~~~
localhost3000
PandoDaily is a gossip blog that just happens to cover tech.
------
larrik
Okay, so they charge to attend a conference. Maybe the money isn't worth it. I
don't see any mention of people having actually gone there, nor if the
conference is actually a good thing.
Not recognizing the VCs from an east coast conference is hardly an automatic
fail, in my mind. There's no shortage of financial companies here, after all.
A "scam" would mean that the people paying don't get what they were promised.
This article doesn't claim that at all. It's just a bunch of people who think
the price is too high.
YMV might be terrible, but this article is hardly convincing.
~~~
tptacek
Charging un-funded startups to attend a conference to matchmake them with VC's
is unproductive and unethical.
If there's a problem with this article, it's that it takes hundreds of words
trying to unspool drama from such a simple point.
~~~
larrys
"Charging un-funded startups to attend a conference to matchmake them with
VC's is unproductive and unethical."
100% don't agree. [1]
Unproductive for the startup? Making contacts and getting some exposure and
having discussions (and most importantly making mistakes) is unproductive? How
so?
Charging? As the retort from the principal of the firm said what are they
supposed to do do this for free?
And exactly what is unethical? Taking advantage of young people who don't know
the difference between what you (or others here) might consider a "legit"
opportunity (hey like spending half their life trying to get into the YC or VC
lottery to begin with) and this?
[1] When I graduated from college on my own dime I paid money to fly to (get
this) a "word processing conference" in order to make contacts and establish
myself in what (I thought) would be the new business I was starting (computer
supplies). Later when starting other businesses I flew to other places to go
to expos, shows, whatever I needed to do. I used my own money to do that (that
I had earned).
~~~
tptacek
What's a well-known startup that was funded as a result of having paid to meet
investors?
If you can't name one, the unproductiveness argument is straightforward, and
the ethical argument follows from it.
The reality is that this simply isn't how venture funding works. Founders
don't pay to meet investors; they exercise their own networks to get intros.
Paying to expand your network in some obvious was is unhelpful; all it does is
send a signal that you don't have a real network.
~~~
larrys
"What's a well-known startup that was funded as a result of having paid to
meet investors?"
The answer to that question isn't known to me.
Of course if I was the one that was producing the event, and someone asked
that question, it would be valid. [1] That is if we could get beyond a
definition and why it matters if the startup was "well known".
"The reality is that this simply isn't how venture funding works."
Half of what people are doing today (1/2 is arbitrary to make a point) are
things that go against "how" something currently works.
"all it does is send a signal that you don't have a real network."
But who does it send a signal to? You mean it paints you with a big fat "I'm a
newbie and I don't know how things work label?".
To be clear I haven't analyzed the value provided by paying this company money
and can't say that I would recommend it (or not). But I don't think it's clear
that there isn't any value and I am fairly certain that it isn't a scam either
[2] that there could be people getting value from it.
[1] That said there are many situations in business where the effort and/or
money paid doesn't result in a direct benefit like funding or something (and
this is important) that is easily measured.
[2] Like those real estate seminars which I would say are a scam but I think
they have entertainment value for some people. And maybe after you attend one
you learn a valuable life lesson for the money spent.
~~~
tptacek
It's not "known" to me, but I would be willing to bet significantly on the
answer.
There are things that people don't do because nobody's thought to do it, or
because nobody's been willing to accept the risk. But there are also things
nobody does because they self-evidently won't work, and paying for
introductions to VCs is probably one of those things.
The signals it sends is worse than "I'm new"; it's "I was unable to generate
interest from investors on my own".
------
dgmistry
On December 19th 2012 I responded to an invite to a YSV event with the
following:
I have a few questions:
How many startups that have been funded as a direct result of this and prior
events hosted by New England Venture Summit? What is the ratio to startups
presenting and startups getting funded? Why do the investors not bear the cost
of startup entry fees? Is there the option to waive the fee? What is your
vetting process to ensure the quality of startups?
Here was the response I received from Kineret Weiss, note the sample of
success cases and a reluctance to track the only metrics that matter for an
organization like this - how effective are your conferences:
Hi Dinyar – Thanks for your interest. We evaluate each company based on the
components of the summary outline (management team, business model, market
potential, financials, etc.) which is needed to apply.
As far as stats, we don’t have the manpower or ability to track that
information, but we do know of several companies (such as Mojiva, Peminic,
UTest, etc) that have received funding as a direct result of our programs.
At the same time your question and outlook is flawed and I’ll tell you why.
Say I take your company today and sit you in front of the three most active
VCs in your space. After the meetings they each get up telling you that they
appreciate you coming by but that it’s not a fit for them at this time.
According to your data request, we would be offering you no value but the fact
is we placed you in front of the three most active VCs in your space.
Additionally, there is always a good mix of returning and new investors in
attendance, pointing to the fact that investors see great value in the high
level of startups that present at our conferences. You can view the video
highlights at the end of this email to see several top VCs (who I’m sure
you’ll recognize) who have found our summits to be of great value.
I have included further details below about the venture summit and the
opportunity to be showcased including pricing, benefits, testimonials and a
link to the conference website etc.
------
caruana
I think the offense with YSV is that they are preying on the vulnerable. When
a start-up is running out of cash and / or facing extinction they become
desperate for money.
I would even go so far to say that money is rarely the real issue. Start-ups
need to create the formula - insert $1 here, exit $2 there. Building a start-
up is a lot of work and there are no quick and easy answers at any point,
money may seem like the answer but in reality it can cause more problems then
it solves.
------
jsun
A lot of these conferences have the same underlying value prop. Finovate for
instance does the same thing - it costs something like 9k or 10k to present!
But Finovate is useful, because the content is better curated, they attract
more influential players from the space.
It sounds like YSV does a much poorer job executing, which makes it a poor
value, but not sure that makes it a scam
------
icecreampain
Part of me hates the spammers that do this, creating nothing of real value for
anyone but their own wallets, but another part of me, the grown-up, cynical
part, figures that what they're doing is smart as hell: they're selling
shovels.
Startups come and go in the thousands nowadays. What could possibly be smarter
than sucking them ALL dry, instead of trying to be a profitless, slave-to-the-
VC startup themselves?
~~~
xacaxulu
Agreed. That could be a similar argument for the crop of 'Learn To Code/Hack
in X Months' schools popping up all over the place. Lot's of shovels being
sold for sure.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Twitter: Like a Headless Chicken - showngo
http://brooksreview.net/2011/05/chicken/
======
phlux
I interviewed there recently and went through a few rounds - it was very clear
to me in the interview process that the internals of twitter were chaotic.
Much like Google is today as well.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: anyone playing with the Yahoo Fantasy Sports API? - twelvedigits
Yahoo! recently launched an API for their fantasy sports games.<p>http://developer.yahoo.com/fantasysports/<p>Has anyone played around with it? It currently restricts development for non-commercial use, but I think there are numerous opportunities to create products that leverage this software for the fantasy community.<p>The fantasy sports community might be one of the least tapped on the internet, because up until now all software was developed by the giants - ESPN, Yahoo, CBS, NFL. And for the most part, they've taken their users for granted. The interfaces are simple but lack innovation. Yahoo's API really opens doors for a lot of opportunities.<p>A few numbers:<p>- there are 30 million fantasy players in the US and Canada
- the average household income of a fantasy player is $92,750
- estimated as a $3 to $4 billion industry<p>(http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/10_38/b4195081511463.htm)<p>So - is anyone playing with the Yahoo API?
======
twelvedigits
Accidentally omitted a link that I wanted to share. Here's the best example so
far of the API in action: Pickemfirst scans what you're reading on your
browser and calls back to your league to indicate whether the player you're
reading about is available for pickup.
<http://app.pickemfirst.com/>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Guide for Waking Up Early - happy-go-lucky
https://medium.com/personal-growth/your-ultimate-guide-for-waking-up-early-a750c011eb07
======
vectorEQ
bodily and mental stress can have heavy impact on ability to sleep properly
and deeply, ability to spring to life in the mornings. if you have consitent
troubles with getting up in the morning and tried to fix it to no avail or are
always exhausted while you sleep enough hours, try consulting a docter to
measure mental and bodily stress levels, and check of vitamin and mineral
deficiencies in your diet / body. This last piece really impacted me for a
long time (i know, might sound silly, but i didnt realise it atall...) and
solving it in my diet instantly lead to being able to get up in the morning
better again... The tips in this article might help, but only if your body and
mind are healthy enough to begin with...
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Looking for Project for Quick Freelance Job - invinceable
Long story short, I need to make a few thousand dollars ($3,500) in a week. I'd like to build anyone's project (or add on pieces to an existing project) over the next few days/week at the most. Upon emailing me I will send you my LinkedIn, FB, and resume. Pay when you see 50% of the project is done, and the final 50% on completion. Not looking to go through a recruiter and that process, too much time.<p>Skills: Web application development, mobile application development, and any kind of marketing online you can think of.<p>Specialities: PHP (CakePHP), MySQL, HTML/CSS, Javascript (jQuery), Python (Django), graphic design, UI/UX, titanium mobile sdk.<p>Email: [email protected] please I will keep an eye on it as soon as this is posted. I can build anything.
======
anderspetersson
The first day of every month HN has a thread where freelancers can post their
skills and people can announce they are looking for someone to do work for
them.
If you wait 2 more days you should see alot of people posting gigs availble
for freelancers. The thread is called something like "Freelancer? Looking for
Freelancers?
~~~
invinceable
Thank you!
------
padseeker
there is an interesting startup idea - small freelance jobs. I work full time
but would like to pickup an interesting side project here or there that could
be done late at night on my own without the hassle of odesk or whatnot. I have
no work for you but you hit on an interesting concept, freelance jobs for
under $1000 maybe? Just a thought.
~~~
yolesaber
You might want to check out the /r/forhire subreddit. I have done several
projects from there that didn't take very long and paid quite well.
~~~
padseeker
Is there a location that is good for part time or after hours development?
That would be ideal - full time developers looking to do very part time work
after hours. I'd be willing to accept a less that a typical freelancer, but
still do the work as long as the expectations are within reason, i.e. the work
needs will be done later in the evening. Has anyone tried to do that?
~~~
yolesaber
All the projects that I have done were incredibly flexible in terms of hours
and billing. The usual process was that I would work on my own time as long as
I was sending commits on a reasonable basis as outlined in a contract /
discussed with the person contracting me.
------
invinceable
If it is a 1 day project for $500-$800 that is fine too. Thanks.
[email protected]
------
invinceable
Still here guys. Last bump I guess :/
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What is the expected capacity for a full time developer? - blahbap
At [large company] there I work as a contractor, several projects are being planned with only a limited pool of resources. Initially plans where laid expecting everyone to deliver at 100% capacity - meaning that 8 hours of work would be done during an 8 hour workday. But if you subtract lunch, meetings, procastination, interuptions et al. - what is the expected capacity (%) of an experienced developer in a semi-agile environment?
======
matt_s
I used to use 25 hours out of 40 in burndown calculations, so 5 hours a day.
This was then used against task lists that had estimates in hours of 1,4,8,16
increments. If something needed a re-estimate after work began that was taken
into calculation.
That was with a fairly low amount of BS. If there a lot of meetings then lower
it. If you work in an open plan work space with people not directly
contributing to the same effort, lower it some more.
------
skylark
I work at an extremely large non-tech company following a semi-agile process.
Officially, we're expected to do 6 hours of coding per day. However with
meetings and lunch, we only really have 4.5 - 5 hours of time that isn't
blocked off.
Then, because some meetings aren't scheduled back to back, we essentially lose
the time in the middle (especially if that time is only ~30 minutes).
When all is said and done, I'm probably putting in 3-4 hours of code in per
day on average. It's more than enough to get the job done.
It's soul crushing and I'm looking to quit soon.
------
toledi
The question doesn't really have a well defined answer. It would vary
tremendously by the organization and project they're working on. Also depends
a lot on their level. There are senior engineers who code probably <25% of
their time, but add value by helping other engineers, planning, architecting,
removing obstacles, etc.
------
bayonetz
Hoped and dreamed for? 100%
What I actually use when preparing estimates?
40%-75% which depends on stuff like the developer being staffed, how short the
project is (shorter = more productive), how bleeding edge the tech is (higher
tech = less productive), etc.
------
brudgers
What unit is developer capacity measured in?
Lines of code, bugs per hour (clised?, created?, avoided?), revenue per month
(a contractor standard), etc.
Utilization is different from productivity.
------
antoinevg
See: [http://style.org/unladenswallow/](http://style.org/unladenswallow/)
------
debacle
80% if you have a lean development cycle. 50% if your organization loves
meetings and project plans.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A simple framework for conducting 1-on-1 meetings - kashif
https://medium.com/@kashifrazzaqui/framework-for-1-1-59d45045838a
======
LandR
How are you, your family ?
What happening in your personal life ?
Are you saving and investing your money well ?
If I got asked either of those questions a in a work-place one to one I'd find
it very odd. Especially that last question, that's none of your business!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Corning and the MythBusters Guys - stevewilhelm
http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/corning-and-mythbusters-guys-show-you-how-get-millions-views-10-minute-pre-roll-162056
======
sfslim
These videos are really good, despite being ads. Like a Mythbusters minisode.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Guerrilla Bike Lanes: San Francisco Makes Illicit Infrastructure Permanent - misnamed
http://99percentinvisible.org/article/guerrilla-bike-lanes-san-francisco-makes-illicit-infrastructure-permanent/
======
brandur
I love 99% Invisible, but in my opinion this piece is far too generous to the
actual SFMTA, who occasionally respond to the SFMTrA's work reasonably (as
covered in the article), but who usually just strip it wholesale, to the
detriment of the safety of thousands of pedestrians and cyclists. For example,
these markers on Folsom St helped improve safety considerably and were
constructed in an incredibly professional way, but are now gone completely
[1].
The group itself puts it best here [2]:
> "The SFMTA is glacially slow to install pedestrian and bicyclist safety
> infrastructure, yet was able to remove our simple safety improvements within
> a week," the group said in a statement sent to SFist. "We call on SFMTA to
> immediately replace these pedestrian safety improvements with protection at
> or above the level installed by SFMTrA."
Everyone who walks or bikes in SF can atest to the truth of this statement
firsthand. Progress _is_ being made, but it's frustratingly slow.
[1] [http://www.sfmtra.org/blog/2016/10/26/the-sfmta-removed-
safe...](http://www.sfmtra.org/blog/2016/10/26/the-sfmta-removed-safety-
infrastructure-on-folsom-st-and-they-need-an-email-from-you)
[2]
[http://sfist.com/2016/10/19/sfmta_says_street_safety_improve...](http://sfist.com/2016/10/19/sfmta_says_street_safety_improvemen.php)
~~~
daodedickinson
It's extremely offensive to me that the people are so powerless to fix things
like this without sneaking it (like that guy that added a much-needed highway
sign in the LA area before it was caught over a year later).
~~~
Hydraulix989
Link to story about LA sign for reference:
[http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/2015/02/11/guerrilla_publ...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/2015/02/11/guerrilla_public_service_on_99_invisible_richard_ankrom_replaced_a_los_angeles.html)
------
TulliusCicero
I'm all for this kind of citizen action. They're volunteering their own time
to improve public safety. Kind of like how neighborhood watch groups can
supplement police, these volunteers are supplementing departments of
transportation. Of course it'd be even better if they could do it without
breaking the law, but I doubt there are rules in place to permit citizens to
do their own DIY infrastructure improvements.
Also, unlike what some commenters think, this doesn't really go against
democracy. The cities where these groups work have embraced Vision Zero at
least on paper, so they're generally for these sorts of improvements.
Government just tends to move slowly, and they often have to deal with NIMBY
groups that are more concerned with keeping as many parking spaces as possible
in their neighborhood than public safety.
~~~
edblarney
"Also, unlike what some commenters think, this doesn't really go against
democracy. "
It definitely goes against democracy and civility.
Maybe it's for the better, maybe it's for the worse - but a small group of
people taking it upon themselves to decide for everyone else how a city should
operate is a very tricky place for any society to be.
Maybe most people don't want something.
Maybe it makes rescue workers jobs difficult by blocking traffic in a certain
hot spot.
Maybe the situation is more complex than one would imagine (i.e. some lanes
radically affect the flow of traffic, screw up incoming/outgoing traffic/lane
changes).
I can think of quite a few things that 'civic vigilantes' could do that would
be way, way out of bounds.
It would be nice if SF could elect a mayor that could improve efficiency as
opposed to simply encouraging people to make up their own policies.
~~~
mmanfrin
taking it upon themselves to decide for everyone else how a
city should operate
How so? They aren't dictating traffic flow, they are adding visibility markers
to existing bike lanes.
~~~
stanleydrew
That's the most generous possible interpretation of the situation. It may be
correct, I'm just noting.
I ride my bike to and from work pretty much every day in SF, and I readily
admit that adding these markers most definitely does interrupt and disrupt
traffic flow.
The fact of the matter is, sometimes delivery vehicles and service vehicles
need to stop and block traffic. They tend to pull over as far as possible to
the right, so as not to impede auto traffic. Often this means pulling over
into the bike lane. (Note that when there is no bike lane, these vehicles
block the right-most lane of auto traffic and cars just go around without
getting too hot and bothered. But I digress.)
Erecting the markers prevents this behavior in many instances. You can decide
to be in favor of the new bike lane markers, but you can't pretend that the
added markers aren't a unilateral alteration to traffic flow that does have an
effect.
~~~
rrdharan
I agree that they change traffic flow. But it is interesting there's an
implicit car-prioritization bias in the behavior you're describing.
The delivery/service vehicles choose to block the bike lane instead of
blocking a lane of traffic.
This gets complicated quickly once you factor in total impact and so on, but I
just want to point out that a person on a bike doesn't necessarily deserve
less priority than a solo driver, for example.
Plus there's the fact that blocking the bike lane is indeed illegal as noted
by the other commenter. Although I sometimes think that we don't really know
how bad it would be if all delivery drivers had to comply with all parking
laws - maybe we'd all be starving in the nicely flowing streets due to a lack
of food.
~~~
BurningFrog
A bicyclist can get past any inconveniently parked vehicle, with some effort.
Cars, OTOH, just have to stand there and wait, and it doesn't take many
minuted for a major gridlock to form.
And that's why I think it's reasonable to block bike lanes over car lanes. Why
you have to block anyone is maybe the more important, but much harder
question.
~~~
TulliusCicero
> A bicyclist can get past any inconveniently parked vehicle, with some
> effort.
The whole _point_ of bike lanes is that mixed traffic with bikes and cars is
highly dangerous for bikes. Frequently blocked bike lanes that force cyclists
to suddenly merge into car traffic defeats the point of having the lanes in
the first place.
Not to mention, there's an implicit assumption on your part that we're
universally talking about confident, healthy adult cyclists. Do you think it's
cool to push pre-teen cyclists in traffic? What about grandma? A parent with
kids on their bike?
If we just accept dangerous infrastructure and behavior, biking for
transportation will always be an activity only for the tiny minority of people
who are highly tolerant of physical danger.
~~~
BurningFrog
> Do you think it's cool to push pre-teen cyclists in traffic?
When you try to choose the lesser evil, there are no "cool" options.
I think the real problem here is that SF streets are so overcrowded that basic
delivery has to be done by blocking live traffic lanes.
------
mmanfrin
When startups skirt entrenched and slow industries, it's disruption; when
bicyclists add traffic cones to already-defined bike lanes, it's an affront to
democracy.
Nice, HN commenters.
~~~
Anasufovic
Entitlement is painful
~~~
moyta
That it is.
------
pavel_lishin
They mention New York in this as well, and Sixth avenue. It's annoying to bike
up due to the lack of a bike lane, but traffic is usually slow enough that you
can get along pretty easily and safely. It's also better than 8th avenue,
which does have one - but is always filled with pedestrians. (And which seems
to disappear around Port Authority, forcing bicyclists to go into traffic
anyway.)
Luckily, you can usually take the Hudson River Greenway by cutting all the way
west. It's a more pleasant ride, but does take you out of your way, and once
you get above 59th street, has limited access eastward and not a lot of
signage to that effect.
If I don't mind pedaling through traffic, I'll take Sixth. If I'm angry and
want to stay that way, I'll take 8th. If I've got time to kill, I'll take the
greenway.
~~~
rrdharan
I'm confused by your comment. Sixth Avenue does have a bike lane for large
sections. Did you mean a protected lane specifically?
See also:
[http://gothamist.com/2016/02/04/sixth_ave_bike_lane.php](http://gothamist.com/2016/02/04/sixth_ave_bike_lane.php)
~~~
avn2109
In NYC, "unprotected bike lane" === "no bike lane at all" in 95% of all cases
and 100% of dangerous cases.
------
doughj3
This seems related to the idea of the Desire Path[0], which some of us may
have heard by the story of the "architect who waited to see which pathways
pedestrians would take through his/her outdoor spaces, and then paved
sidewalks to match those routes."[1]
[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path)
[1] [https://www.quora.com/Who-was-the-architect-who-waited-to-
se...](https://www.quora.com/Who-was-the-architect-who-waited-to-see-which-
pathways-pedestrians-would-take-through-his-her-outdoor-spaces-and-then-paved-
sidewalks-to-match-those-routes)
------
helthanatos
I think it would be very good to have bike lanes more separated from the road.
Safer for everyone that cars don't accidentally use bike lanes and bikes don't
affect traffic. It reminds me of those articles that said j-walking is more
safe than crossing at crosswalks. Paying attention is something people seem to
have trouble with. Clear markings are definitely for the best.
~~~
arnarbi
Can't agree enough with this. Here's a safe type of bike lane (note the two
curbs):
[http://therecord.blogs.com/.a/6a00d8341c465d53ef0133f21e9125...](http://therecord.blogs.com/.a/6a00d8341c465d53ef0133f21e9125970b-pi)
Here are two incredibly unsafe types, but for some reason the one's being
installed _right now_ in the Bay Area at least:
[http://www.newsworks.org/images/stories/flexicontent/l_bike-...](http://www.newsworks.org/images/stories/flexicontent/l_bike-
lane-parking_1200x675.jpg)
[http://www.executivestyle.com.au/content/dam/images/1/3/i/n/...](http://www.executivestyle.com.au/content/dam/images/1/3/i/n/1/n/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.13hysn.png/1428456608677.jpg)
I just don't get it.
~~~
adrianN
Riding in that second bike lane would be of questionable legality here in
Germany. Cyclist are required to stay far enough away from parked cars that
open doors don't hit them, otherwise they bear part of the responsibility in
an accident. OTOH you're also required to use bike lanes if they exist, so...
~~~
ygra
You're required to use bike lanes within city limits when there's Zeichen 237,
Zeichen 240, or Zeichen 241. Otherwise you're free to use the road. Any other
sign even if it has a bike symbol on it, does not mandate the use of a
specific path.
But indeed, Schutzstreifen next to parked cars often have the problem that you
either have to veer into traffic (or traffic veers into you), or get doored (I
don't recall that it's mandatory to keep your distance to parked cars, though,
it's just in your own best interest). Even though motorists are required to
keep 1.5 m distance to you there, very few do, since apparently the dashed
line implies that you're safe enough from them ...
~~~
adrianN
[http://pdeleuw.de/fahrrad/urteile.html#seitenabstand](http://pdeleuw.de/fahrrad/urteile.html#seitenabstand)
has a reference for the distance to parked cars.
~~~
ygra
I'd say 40 cm is not enough. It may suffice for those who open the door a tiny
bit and then look whether a cyclist is approaching, but those aren't the
problematic kind; rather those who just open the door fully without checking
anything, ruining either a cyclist's face, or a car's mirror.
------
sandworm101
These are not "Guerilla bike lanes". These are guerilla traffic cones. The
lane was there. The only non-permitted part are the improved markers. I doubt
many driver really care. Most probably appreciate them as they keep the bikes
away from the non-bike areas. If people want to spent their own money
installing such devices, more power to them.
Going out and painting new lanes, that is stepping things up a notch. That
will get police involved. That will create liabilities should any accident
occur due to your new lane designations.
------
donretag
The City of West Hollywood has installed delineators on its crosswalks to
prevent further accidents. They have been effective in their goal so far, but
are not going to be maintained since drivers keep hitting them and the cost to
constantly repair them is high.
[http://laist.com/2016/06/29/weho_crosswalks.php](http://laist.com/2016/06/29/weho_crosswalks.php)
~~~
pavel_lishin
I wonder what would happen if they were made out of solid steel and sunk about
six feet down into the concrete.
~~~
prawn
Friend of mine is an urban planner. He talks about letting the environment
inform the speed of cars more than speed limits, which I've always found
interesting. Narrower streets and bollards that encourage drivers to slow down
to avoid damage to their car are good examples of that.
~~~
masklinn
> Narrower streets and bollards that encourage drivers to slow down to avoid
> damage to their car are good examples of that.
Speed bumps, chicanes and chokers have become very common in france over the
last 10 years or so. They used to only be found in centers of pretty large
cities but these days you can find them on any old "local" country road.
~~~
prawn
I was in France for three weeks last month so saw exactly what you're talking
about. They also have very narrow streets in villages, and avenues bordered by
plane trees exceptionally close to the road!
~~~
masklinn
> They also have very narrow streets in villages, and avenues bordered by
> plane trees exceptionally close to the road!
These are more historical remnants, new codes don't really allow for that but
if a village was there at the time people still mostly used horse-drawn carts
(which was very common until post-war) they weren't going to tear down all the
houses to build the road.
It leads to interesting situations e.g. A380 parts heading to the final
assembly line near Toulouse go through Levignac, some parts have inches of
clearance from the houses.
------
deckar01
I think city infrastructure can learn something from the open source software
community in situations like this.
The city has a ton of work to do, but it is really picky about how it is done
and how it gets paid for. If it planned out the work out in advance, community
organizations like the SFMTrA could claim the low hanging fruit and comply
with the official requirements. If it fails inspection the city can tear it
down just like they are doing now.
------
williwu
I really hope that biking SF will improve in the future. It's freaking
dangerous to bike on some of the streets in downtown SF.
------
maerF0x0
IMO this is fantastic. Benevolent, efficient and easily reverted in case it
was wrong. I would love to see many public choices made as such.
------
mzw_mzw
I wonder if the people fed up with the slow pace of infrastructure
development, to the extent that they are _building their own_ , have made any
effort to push for a less sclerotic government structure in their town?
Actually, I bet I can guess the answer.
~~~
ajmurmann
I could see how SF government would now not put separators up even if they
originally planned to just out of spite.
------
thesz
This is more or less how Pyotr Kapitsa helped to plan pedestrian lanes in
Cambridge. He said that officials should wait until pedestrians lay out their
ways and then just move them into official walks plan. So they did, I was
told.
------
hiou
Yeah, fuck democracy. Just do whatever you want to shared resources. Gotta
look out for number 1! /s
~~~
TulliusCicero
I mean, in the primary example given, the bike lane already existed, they just
upgraded it.
Personally I'd say it's more of a reaction to the often glacial pace of
government action. Cities like SF, Seattle, and NYC have embraced Vision
Zero's safety-oriented goals in theory, but are moving very slowly indeed to
meet them.
These groups are actually helping the city meet their own self-imposed
targets. How does that translate to "fuck democracy"? More like "fuck overly
bureaucratic processes" if anything.
~~~
mc32
I totally agree with your, take, but I'd hedge it and say that if these cities
did not enact vision-0, these tactics would occur regardless of tacit approval
or explicit intention by gov. Guerrilla implies it's not seeking govt (or
broadly popular for that matter) approval.
~~~
TulliusCicero
They might still do it, but then in that case the accusation of them being
undemocratic would be accurate.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Armour: side-effects-free JavaScript - joeminichino
https://github.com/techfort/armour
======
lollipop25
All this does is do a deep copy, which is a costly operation.
I suggest using persistent DS libs like immutable.js. You just let that object
loose in the code and not worry about side effects happening on the object you
are referencing at some point in the code.
Sure, they may have the same overhead, but the idea is that your code doesn't
do unnecessary defensive cloning all over the place. Plus, defensive cloning
is an eyesore in code. It isn't UI logic, it isn't business logic. It's just
technical debt waiting to happen.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How a trio of hackers brought Google's reCAPTCHA to its knees - paulmcpazzi
http://arstechnica.com/security/2012/05/google-recaptcha-brought-to-its-knees/
======
sefjlse
I can still see the 10 words in the revamped reCaptcha. Surely their program
can be tweaked.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Snipt relaunches with new API and redesign - wxl
https://snipt.net
======
nicksergeant
API, clickable: <https://snipt.net/api/>
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Don’t Use Markdown for Documentation - forsaken
http://ericholscher.com/blog/2016/mar/15/dont-use-markdown-for-technical-docs/
======
geerlingguy
After having written a fairly popular 400+ page book, and dozens of
documentation sets in Markdown (and having worked on a few in other
languages), I have to say—Markdown is _good enough_.
The other syntaxes mentioned will not be mainstream enough to gain critical
mass for some time, if at all. Markdown, for many projects, is literally plain
text with some added frills for headings, lists, and code blocks.
Yes, adding a code snippet inside a table cell inside a list can be a pain-
inducing experience (especially until CommonMark settles things down a bit)...
but that's about .05% of anything I've ever written, and for those particular
instances, I fall back to HTML, which is completely compliant and much less
ambiguous.
For myself, and for most of the projects I've worked with and maintained, you
need documentation to be dead simple in syntax, and requiring a syntax with
even less adoption than Markdown is an easy way to cause users who would've
otherwise contributed doc fixes and updates behind.
~~~
kazinator
I wrote a 400+ man page in troff!
[http://nongnu.org/txr/txr-manpage.pdf](http://nongnu.org/txr/txr-manpage.pdf)
Welcome to the BDSM club.
Big Document in Shitty Markup.
:)
~~~
jhoechtl
How was your experience? What tools did you use, editor? Was it troff, Plan9
roff, neatroff?
~~~
kazinator
I use GNU troff (Groff) for maintaining this.
And by the way, this is actually installed as a man page on target systems.
Most of my struggles were in the area of halfway decent HTML conversion. To
that end, I started with a very hacky C program calld man2html, which actually
contains a mini-troff implementation, and improved it quite a bit. I cloned
that program here:
[http://www.kylheku.com/cgit/man/log/](http://www.kylheku.com/cgit/man/log/)
This had numerous issues, among the main ones being not handling loops and
conditionals and so on for complex macros.
I still do quite a bit of post-processing on the output of this program,
still, to do things like re-arrange its order, add internal hyper-links, and
create a Java-scripted table of contents:
[http://www.nongnu.org/txr/txr-manpage.html](http://www.nongnu.org/txr/txr-
manpage.html)
(Almost the same URL as before, s/pdf/html/).
That post-processing is done by:
[http://www.kylheku.com/cgit/txr/tree/genman.txr](http://www.kylheku.com/cgit/txr/tree/genman.txr)
I don't like the approaches you have to take in troff for defining multiple
ways of doing the same thing, based on whether it is juxtaposed to something
else or followed by whitespace. This is fundamentally broken.
For instance if you want foobar such that foo is italic, but bar is regular,
you have to use .IR foo bar, rather than the .I macro. I'm sorry, but a markup
language should have the scoping/delimiting wherewithal not to have to do
stupid things like this.
I have a more or less fixed (non-growing) set of such redundant macros in the
document and so it doesn't bother me that much any more.
~~~
groovy2shoes
mandoc works great for producing HTML and PDF output from man(7) and mdoc(7):
[http://mdocml.bsd.lv/](http://mdocml.bsd.lv/)
> I'm sorry, but a markup language should have the scoping/delimiting
> wherewithal not to have to do stupid things like this.
(btw, mdoc has this and is widely supported, having been around for about 2
decades... having discovered it, I'll never write a manpage in man again)
~~~
kazinator
This "mandoc" naming of a project that was previously called "mdocml" is
terribly confusing.
"mandoc" is the name of a newer troff/nroff macro package for writing man
pages which replaced one called "man". (nroff -man versus nroff -mandoc).
The renamed "mandoc" project provides a processor which understands a "mdoc"
language, a set of macros used on BSD Unixes. It's not a full processor for
the roff language. The mdoc language has macros that resemble mandoc, like
.SH, .TH and others.
In the TXR man-page-like reference manual, I'm using real roff macros (some of
which output mandoc macros as their target, in the original sense of mandoc).
I don't think these macros could run in under the mandoc system, where you
have to use a canned repertoire of macros.
For instance, I have a macro like this.
.coNP Functions @, boundp @, fboundp and @ mboundp
This parses its arguments. Any word preceded by @, is typeset in a typewriter
font, immediately followed by a comma. A word preceded by @ is typeset
typewriter, not followed by a comma. Other material is in the regular font.
Another complicated thing:
.mets (replace-list < list < item-sequence >> [ from <> [ to ]])
IN this syntax "< word" means typeset word as a meta-identifier. "<< word1
word2" means, typeset word as a meta-identifier, immediately juxtaposed with
word2 (no whitespace) which is ordinary. >> word1 word2 reverses the
relationship, and <> w1 w2 w3 means w1 and w2 are ordinary , surrounding meta-
syntax w2 without space.
When you render this with a man reader, the macro puts out angle-bracket
notation, exactly like this:
(replace-list <list> <item-sequence> [<from> [<to>]])
in the paragraphs which describe this, this notation is consistently used. In
HTML and PDF output, these angle-bracket notation is replaced by italics.
~~~
groovy2shoes
Ah, I didn't realize you were making full use of roff. I don't think mandoc
(mdocml) supports that; you're correct in saying that it's a canned version of
man/mdoc.
It has served me well, though :)
------
zmmmmm
Markdown has a lot of faults, but it solves the one single biggest problem in
writing documentation that basically overrides every single other
consideration: _getting people to actually write it_. Basically nothing else
matters except this.
And I disagree about the portability. Write Pandoc-compatible markdown and you
can convert it to just about any format under the planet. I love that I can
write in Markdown, then quickly create a word document to send around the
office for comments - whatever anybody says about Word, the track changes and
review functions both useful and defacto standards in most offices.
~~~
marssaxman
Markdown has always seemed to me less like a file format or a formal document
syntax and more like a set of strategies for upsampling plain text into such a
structured format by looking for the sorts of informal conventions people
naturally use when they're writing plain-text documents.
Or - I should say, it infers structure from the sorts of things people did as
a matter of course back when we had a network culture based on sending each
other blobs of text via email or Usenet. I'm sure the original author of
Markdown.pl was not intending to design a new structured document language at
all, and simply wanted to pretty-up some plain text files for display on the
Web. The structure was already there, the conventions were already in common
use, and Markdown.pl was just one strategy for doing something useful with
them.
I think it's easy to get people to use Markdown because it doesn't feel like
writing in code, and it doesn't feel like writing in code because it's
basically just the sort of thing we all did all the time before the web took
over.
Ironically, then, I think it actually will make Markdown _less_ useful to
build it up as a rigidly specified uniform document protocol offering
sophisticated formatting features. There's certainly value in having the
various makers of tools doing this job work together toward a common
understanding of the patterns people like to use, but it's far less important
whether someone uses triple-tickmarks for quoting or four-space-indentation
for quoting or whatever, so long as the tool can recognize that they are doing
_something_ , take a reasonable guess at what that might be, and then offer a
simple way to correct that guess later if the user is particularly concerned
about the way the text is being rendered.
~~~
accordionclown
this is an astute comment. (because marssaxman.)
but the problems arise because different markdown flavors recognize different
types of "common understanding of the patterns people like to use", so
misunderstanding happens.
------
danielvf
Markdown is wildly popular because Markdown is easy to write and read
unprocessed. At a basic level, it's little more a few conventions for writing
text.
RST, used by Sphinx, isn't quite as easy to write or to read. There are plenty
of gotchas. RST adds friction.
Using Sphinx also requires you to setup and configure Sphinx for your project
- even more friction early on.
The world is far better for having Markdown, and it's the right choice for
most projects.
However, there is indeed a place for more complicated projects to take on the
workload of a more complicated documentation system so that they can help user
and developers better. Django's amazing documentation is an example of this,
and a major reason for the success of the project.
~~~
mercurial
> RST, used by Sphinx, isn't quite as easy to write or to read. There are
> plenty of gotchas. RST adds friction.
What gotchas are you thinking about?
> Using Sphinx also requires you to setup and configure Sphinx for your
> project - even more friction early on.
You can perfectly well RST without Sphinx, it depends what you want to use it
for. Obviously, if you want to use for Sphinx, you need Sphinx. But otherwise,
you can perfectly well use rst2pdf or rst2html with a standard RST document.
~~~
danielvf
The format for code blocks in Markdown is to indent by four or more spaces.
The format for RST/Sphinx code blocks is to type two periods, a space, the
word "code-block", then two colons, then exactly two new lines, and at last
you can write your code. Indented with four spaces. Also, you have to make
sure there is a blank line between that "code-block" magic line and your
preceding text. In practice, I usually manage to screw some part of this up.
The extra complexity and cognitive load makes it much harder for a developer
to just write thoughts.
~~~
forsaken
You can do code blocks::
like this
:)
~~~
danielvf
Yeah - this always trips me up too, since it's two colons, not the holy Python
single colon, and it's "magic" on the preceding paragraph, not the code
itself. Django docs written in RST avoid doing this style.
You can do anything you need to in RST, but there's just more friction
involved.
~~~
cname
It's not a Python thing, though. It's a reStructuredText thing. I don't see
how this syntax is more "magic" than, say, using # in Markdown to indicate a
heading.
The reason it's a double colon is because a single colon acts like a normal
single colon (i.e., it's not interpreted in any way), which is sometimes what
you want (i.e., not every indented block is a code block).
------
_getify
I wrote a six book, 1100 page series in Markdown (all on github). I write all
my blog posts in Markdown.
I'm sorry but I just can't sympathize with any of the complaints leveled
against Markdown. They are so minor and compared to the massive adoption of
the common bits of Markdown, there's no chance I'd ever choose to write
anything in any other markup than that just for those small annoyances.
I don't need custom extensibility when I can just add HTML. HTML is pretty
good at markup, and it enhances the markdown in those rare occasions where
what's provided seems too limited. The very last thing I'd want to do is
literally write code as an extension to my markup language. The only code in
my markdown is inside nice tidy code blocks for display purposes only.
I also use JSON for configuration, even though many have tried to convince the
community that YAML or some other format is better. I pre-process my JSON to
strip it of "non standard" comments, and I'm quite happy that I chose the by-
far-defacto-standard there instead of going off the beaten path.
~~~
sigsergv
Markdown is fine for books, but not for technical docs.
Techdocs have lots of cross references and other similar elements, their
implementation in all markdown “standards” is really bad.
ReStructured text is much, much better.
~~~
_getify
I didn't mention in my comment, but I also use Markdown for all my technical
documentation (READMEs) on my dozens of github OSS projects. I have lots of
cross-references and I use normal links to named section anchors (sometimes
that I insert manually via HTML).
It's not perfect or even ideal, by any means, but the other benefits of
Markdown are more than enough to make up for the slight annoyances here.
I don't know about ReStructured text, but I can say that none of the examples
in the OP swayed me that I'm missing anything of any import.
------
ajford
I love Markdown. I enjoy RST. I think, like programming, they have their own
merits and use cases.
Markdown is a lot less verbose in my opinion than RST. It's not intentional,
nor is it insurmountable, but little things like inline code, hyperlinks,
defined subsection levels, and many more all add up to a bit of cognitive load
that I don't need for all situations. When I'm writing quick notes for a
meeting, or trying to jot down something, RST is a bit much. Which perhaps
isn't what this article is really harping on.
But when my quick notes to myself about a project turn long-winded and become
more of functional docs, it can be a pain to rewrite that into rst.
I do, however, tend to use RST when I sit down to write documentation for a
project. I even tend to use it when documenting firmware and hardware portions
of projects. This of course due to the so far poor handling of images in
Markdown.
So like I said above, they are tools. One may be better suited to something
than the other. But thus is the nature of tools. Use the right tool for the
right job whenever possible.
~~~
chipsy
When I was confronted with this dilemma for the first time I attacked it by
using multiple passes. My original draft is markdown. I pandoc it to DocBook.
Then I add frills and edits in DocBook.
I see the process as not being different from what's needed to do the writing
- compiling notes and sketches and outlines into a coherent narrative.
~~~
vq
I have a very similar process. I start of with an org document, do a couple of
drafts and then pandoc to LaTeX, pull in the proper template and add the
frills as you say.
------
102030485868
Ah. This reminds me of a great discussion that happened over at the Rust
Internals forum about which markup language to use for documentation. [0]
tl;dr: Markdown won.
[0]: [https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/rustdoc-
restructuredtext-v...](https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/rustdoc-
restructuredtext-vs-markdown/356)
------
parenthephobia
The fundamental complaint seems to be that the portable subset of Markdown
doesn't allow for extending with new types of blocks.
I find this an unconvincing argument against Markdown _per se_. It's an
argument against writing in the portable subset of Markdown, but why would
anyone _need_ to do that in their documentation? It isn't as if specific
Markdown implementations are hard to come by, or that there is a context where
it would be onerously hard to mandate a specific implementation.
Not to say that Markdown's fragmentation isn't a bad thing. It's annoying,
especially when you do use different implementations in different pieces of
software and you're trying to remember whether this version supports tables,
say, and what the syntax might be.
> “Markdown” is the most commonly used markup language on the internet.
That'll be HTML. :) Not just being facetious. HTML is certainly an option for
documentation, albeit not one I'd be totally happy with.
> You also can’t migrate Markdown easily to another markup language (Asciidoc
> or RST), because Pandoc and other conversion tools won’t support your
> flavor’s extensions.
Unless those flavours are Markdown Extra or Github or CommonMark, which pandoc
does support. Pandoc also supports adding specific syntax extensions ad-hoc,
as noted in its fine documentation. Although, I'd question why this would be
an issue in practical terms.
------
sotojuan
Personally I love how in Elixir, documentation comments are markdown. The
Elixir runtime even comes with a nice tool that generates awesome HTML from
it.
For example, this:
[https://github.com/parroty/extwitter/blob/master/lib/extwitt...](https://github.com/parroty/extwitter/blob/master/lib/extwitter.ex#L742)
Becomes this:
[https://hexdocs.pm/extwitter/ExTwitter.html#follow/1](https://hexdocs.pm/extwitter/ExTwitter.html#follow/1)
------
gberger
> “Markdown” is the most commonly used markup language on the internet.
Wouldn't that be HTML? :)
------
peatmoss
If you're using Github and/or Pandoc for things, you can pretty much drop org-
mode in as a replacement. It doesn't even require emacs :-)
In general, I find org-mode about as easy as Markdown, but with support for
things like cross-references that are sadly lacking in standard Markdown.
------
groovy2shoes
I don't have a particularly strong opinion about most markup, but I know for
sure I'll never use something that uses xmlto/xsltproc as part of the
toolchain (such as Docbook). As a maintainer of several packages for a Linux
distribution, I've gotten far too many headaches dealing with packages that
rely on Docbook for generating their manpages or other documentation. The
user's xsltproc setup has to be _just right_ for the packages to build.
Anything off in the XML catalog will break the whole build. Supporting it has
been the opposite of fun.
For manpages, I write mdoc directly. It's not hard. There are several great
mdoc resources on [http://bsd.lv](http://bsd.lv)
For reference material, I stick with either Pandoc or I use LaTeX (along with
tex2page for generating HTML). Anything fairly small tends to get the Markdown
treatment. If it's something I foresee will need to be split into multiple
documents, I reach for LaTeX. Scribble is pretty nice, too, if you're dealing
with Racket or Scheme.
------
shawnee_
Yep, I tend to agree with the author. For software documentation with complex
APIs, something more robust than markdown is necessary. For the same reason
that writing extensive in-line HTML+CSS markup is bad, relying too heavily on
HTML as the "fallback" for styling and structuring things that markdown cannot
handle is just not efficient.
Here's a quick cheat sheet... for the "why" of semantic styling your docs with
something like .rst with directives makes for better overall integration.
[https://github.com/indie/sphinx-
deco/blob/master/sphinx_deco...](https://github.com/indie/sphinx-
deco/blob/master/sphinx_deco.rst)
------
oliwarner
Getting developers to write documentation is hard enough already.
Raising the barrier to entry to include learning complicated markup languages
will chase them off completely.
I agree, it's far from perfect. But some documentation is better than none.
------
mmagin
TIL that Read The Docs is a product and not just a condescendingly-named
website with mirrors of python docs. :)
------
lutorm
I feel like this drive to use a document description language that is "natural
to read in ascii" but also works as a real markup language ends up fulfilling
neither in practice. I prefer LaTeX than any of these half-assed markup
languages that never quite works as you want.
~~~
ajford
As a former physicist and LaTeX user, I find it hilarious that you refer to
any others as "half-assed markup languages that never quite works as you
want". I've found myself spending way too much time recompiling my LaTeX
documents to get just the look I want. And I much prefer writing my first
draft in Markdown, then pandoc it to LaTeX and finish. Takes much less time in
my opinion.
~~~
whyever
Using pandoc markdown with inline latex works pretty well.
------
hobo_mark
I really tried to write in ReST but there is nothing intuitive about the
syntax and I kept forgetting how to do things, it also makes the plain text
unnecessarily verbose and does not support simple things like combining styles
(i.e. good luck if you want something be monospaced AND bold without terrible
kludges).
In the end I converted to Asciidoc, it does all I need, is readable and is not
as python-centric as docutils (I use the python implementation but asciidoctor
is ruby and there's even a chrome extension for live preview in the browser).
------
cyberpanther
I think most the arguments made in the piece don't matter but the argument for
Lack of Semantic Meaning is interesting in how Markdown solves it. First off
the argument is bad because Markdown can have semantic meaning, it is just
defined with HTML. So the real argument is semantic meaning in HTML sucks. In
his example, I would generally agree. However, what if you just used
<warning>Warn Me</warning>. I kind of like that a lot.
------
julie1
I guess markdown is nice for unstructured text.
When you think you can learn a job (technical writer) by doing it bad rather
than not doing it at all, you just take bad habits.
Serious technical documentation are structured. Pictures have captions, graphs
have legends... It is cumbersome, it requires more data but that is the price
to communicate (wait for it) INFORMATION to other humans.
Yes, writing structured documentation that can be easily used is part of what
information technologies are. Structuring information from data.
Information is still analogic at the end and rst is just a typesetting chain
designed for a domain specific kind of documents called technical
documentation.
I am totally biased. I love readthedocs, I love POD, man pages, ISO
documentations, IETF RFC, ASM papers, all kind of scientific papers, useful
instructions that can help me do my job faster by following well known
practices to be consistently readable without strain. And rst for this level
of requirement is less a PITA than doing it conscientiously by hand or with
markdown.
But I agree, I totally love the artistic freedom of markdown for writings too.
But in a Museum, or as grafitis.
We talk about documentations right? Not art? So the title is accurate.
------
herbst
Agreed. Better use docx for every type of documentation. Just embed it with
base64 if thats what you need. Nothing more standard than a good ol' docx.
------
tirus
And then there's CommonMark: [http://commonmark.org/](http://commonmark.org/)
They aim to standardize the "markdown-like" formats into a single unified one.
It's not done yet but it's certainly better than everyone for themselves.
~~~
cryptos
Does anyone remember Creole wiki markup? It was born in a time when each wiki
created its own syntax. Creole should become the standard for wikis, but it
never got traction. I fear that it will be the same with commonmark.
~~~
emodendroket
Probably would have worked better if they were allowed to call it "Standard
Markdown" or had been able to get Gruber aboard.
------
patrickmay
The primary limitation I've found with Markdown, and the one reason I revert
to LaTeX for longer documents, is the lack of support for equations. I'd love
to be able to just add LaTeX math between dollar signs.
~~~
gbax
Have you looked into RMarkdown?
[http://rmarkdown.rstudio.com/](http://rmarkdown.rstudio.com/)
Just like you said, you just use $ or $$ to add LaTeX.
I am not arguing you should write a 600 page book with RMarkdown + LaTeX (just
use LaTeX in that case), but it has worked well for me for technical reports
and presentation.
------
mastax
Rust uses markdown (with some extensions) for its documentation. This has some
limitations, and there was a discussion [1] about changing this to RST a while
ago, but it never happened.
[1]: [https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/rustdoc-
restructuredtext-v...](https://internals.rust-lang.org/t/rustdoc-
restructuredtext-vs-markdown/356)
~~~
steveklabnik
The only real issue I have with it is manually creating links to other things,
which is tedious and error-prone. I'm hoping to transition us to CommonMark,
and with it, an extension that can do this.
------
al2o3cr
"portable if you install all the custom extensions the document needs" is a
fairly poor implementation of "portable". You might as well call the different
flavors of Markdown "portable" (contra the article) since all you need to do
to render them correctly is install the right parser...
------
optimusclimb
Don't blindly follow advice from articles with hard "yes/no" imperatives as
titles.
------
mchahn
I have been expecting github markdown to become the defacto standard just as
github itself has become the defacto standard for hosting.
This would be a good thing since any standard is better than the tower of
babel we have now.
------
mixmastamyk
Rst is a bit harder to write but more powerful and extensible. To alleviate
some of the syntax annoyances I created some snippets in my editor.
------
3327
Markdown actually works great for documentation.
stick a certain version and do not change it.
the article is likely bias as writes states he works for read the docs.
------
jwilk
Is it [text](URL) or [URL](text) or (text)[URL] or...? It's impossible to
remember, because this syntax is bizarre.
~~~
UnoriginalGuy
I too get them back to front, but to be frank I have no better suggestion.
Markdown definitely isn't perfect, but it is "good enough." Now if Only HN
supported Markdown :)
------
talles
> This leads people to embed HTML directly in their Markdown
I don't find that too bad.
------
Dowwie
that's like... your opinion, man
I have done just fine with md
------
sqldba
Wah wah. I disagree. I'm tired of seeing this in Enterprise:
* 100 page Word document. 200 page Word document. Take your pick.
* 99% of it is clearly cut and pasted from somewhere else and contains information absolutely incorrect and irrelevant to the task at hand because it was accidentally included from the last document they cut and paste from, but people are afraid to remove it.
* Someone has manually typed in a few lines into a table (oooh, so THAT'S the temporary IP address of the server which will almost certainly change at a later date!) As it's buried in the document there's no way to extract, verify, or update it. It will be listed with a bunch of other IP addresses from the prior cut and paste, and if you get a server name in there, it's probably wrong too.
* They've also handed off the effort to any Architect, probably one of the people I see sitting in Visio day in day out drawing those diagrams of how a computer connects to the network. In a VM data centre. Where it's meaningless and has no connection to reality. And where the moment it gets turned on someone will install software that connects to 20 other servers in ways that will never be described let alone in this document let alone in a diagram.
* Now, take that, cut and paste the whole thing keeping it 90% intact, call it a "Controlled Document", add in the names of some people at the front and last edit dates (where every document starts at version 0.1 and stays there for its entire lifetime), and now you've got a process manual! Hundreds of them! Thousands of them! Don't worry they were all based on whatever kind of template the business was branded with from year to year so you can kind of tell which decade they were first created.
* And they'll be dumped in shares because whatever multi-million dollar document management system was never used by users before being bought and never ever ever works. If you're lucky they might have version numbers or edit dates which don't correspond internally but get you 90% of the way to finding which one is current.
I get to see those holy manuals in Enterprise every day. You have no idea how
bad it is.
Pick a third party format apart from Markdown? Are you fucking serious?
Enterprise doesn't buy fucking third party software and everything is locked
down so that you can't run your own. This is Windows for fuck's sake and there
aren't even decent free Markdown editors for it anyway.
I write _MY_ personal documentation in Markdown and I do it in a plain text
editor. If I ever need to draw a diagram or put in a picture then I know I've
fucked up and to backtrack. It's just plain text. That's what Markdown is for.
"Not portable" my arse. About the only thing I wish was easier is tables. And
they'd probably be ASCII tables at that.
So yeah. The argument against Markdown is bullshit.
------
soyiuz
Markdown is a virus. The virus shows you how you don't need markup at all.
------
nanodano
This is what I think of when reading this article:
[https://xkcd.com/927/](https://xkcd.com/927/)
=================================
Situation: There are 14 competing standards
"14?! Ridiculous! We need to develop one universal standard that covers
everyone's use cases.!"
"Yeah!"
Situation: There are 15 competing standards
==========================
The argument is that there are too many variations markdowns. Their solution?
Another markdown.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do you dress to work as an introvert? - Fritz_Daniel42
I work in a small startup with ~30 employees. Its an open office plan (We are 5 devs. mixed with marketing, sales & support). Am often being teased for wearing only lacoste to work.<p>I happen to be the youngest person there (22yrs) and also an introvert. Dressing of the things I struggle as person.<p>Thanks
======
recrudesce
Superdry hoodie, unbranded jeans, and Vans 100% of the time.
If people comment on the way you dress, then that shows their own personality
flaws, not yours. Dress how you want, as long as it's within the company
policy.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: How do I explain copyright to 11-year olds? - jorgem
My son and two other 11-year olds joined us for dinner tonight. One of my son's friends held up his iTouch and asked:<p>"What's Jailbreaking?"<p>After a few minutes discussion, they all started piping in...<p>"Isn't it legal to copy music from my Mac to your iPod? How come I am allowed to copy it to 5 different iPods?"<p>"Doesn't apple make the music?"<p>"I heard it is illegal to make a copy of a house key?"<p>Oh, brother. Where to begin?<p>Any tips?<p>I figured starting with "ignorance of the law is no excuse" was a bad idea...
======
byoung2
Put it in terms they understand, like this:
_Copyright is kinda like, the "right to copy" something. When you type a book
report for school, you can print as many copies as you want, because it's
yours. Maybe you want to print extra just in case you lose one before you hand
it in. Maybe you want to print a copy to give to your uncle Joe the English
professor to proofread. The sky's the limit for you because you wrote it. But
other people can't pick up a copy from Joe's desk and make a hundred
photocopies or scan it and place it online for every 5th grader to hand in as
his own work, and your teacher can't copy it and publish it in the school
newspaper...without your permission...for which you should charge...and give
me a percentage!_
------
mbrubeck
I like the snow shovel analogy, since it's easy to understand but allows for
discussion of many of the nuances and tradeoffs:
<http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/Mcchesneysnow.html>
When it snows hard in Chicago, people have to shovel out parking spaces for
their cars. But no one will want to do this if someone else can just take the
space as soon as they leave. So the rule (not a law, but socially enforced) is
that the person who shovels the space "owns" it for a limited time. This means
that people can do useful work and be rewarded for it. But their "property"
returns to the public after the snow melts. (Think about how the outcomes
would change if the "ownership" were just for one day, or if it were forever.)
This doesn't capture all the interesting things about copyright (like the non-
scarcity and zero marginal cost of information goods) but it does capture some
important differences between "intellectual property" and real property that
get left out of most discussions. And the Chicago parking system is
controversial just like many copyright issues.
------
vonsydov
Or maybe...copyright is a way to make sure that the guys who created the
product get as much money for it as possible. Why make it a moral issue when
its more like a cultural issue in the way humans have implemented resource
sharing and creative compensation.
~~~
pbhjpbhj
I'd start with moral rights - most kids seem to have an idea about not letting
people copy their school work. Copyright means someone else isn't allowed to
take your homework and hand it in with their name on it.
Then I'd talk about maybe an artist or musician and how they earn money to do
what they do - ignoring the part about the record companies. Mention that it
is the state that helps ensure, with copyright law, that the creators of works
aren't ripped off, that the state protects them for a certain amount of time
so they can get paid for what they do. Book writers is a good example for why
a longer period of time is needed, people can spend years writing books, if
someone can simply copy it then the author can possibly only sell one copy.
If they catch all that I'd progress on to how large corporations have
perverted copyright so that they can get the most benefit from a creators work
(but that creators may still make more than they would because of the
companies marketing abilities) and then how copyright terms have increased and
that has changed the whole deal stopping works entering the public domain [as
early].
------
blogimus
Well, <http://www.copyrightkids.org> might be a starting point. It seems a bit
hokey, but might give you some ideas.
It's put together by the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. I really don't know
anything about the organization.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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How to find the right designer - sgrove
http://www.attackofdesign.com/how-to-find-the-right-designer/
======
unshift
i used this exact method to find the designer i hired about a month ago.
overall, it worked out, but it was a frustrating process. i was aiming for
some specifics: a female designer who was up to date on HTML5/CSS3 and ideally
had some wedding stuff in her portfolio.
i probably contacted no less than 25 people (through their websites) over the
course of two weeks, and was met with either a lack of response, note saying
they weren't accepting work, couldn't start soon enough, or for one reason or
another i reconsidered.
eventually i found someone who is now doing some really great work, but it
wasn't a fast process.
it's important to carefully check out portfolios, because while most things
look good on Dribbble, a nice icon or logo doesn't necessarily translate into
solid web design skill. i spent a lot of time validating pages (and pages
linked in their portfolio), looking for design elements i liked and didn't
like, and overall indications that they'd be good for me to work with. that
way, once i hired my designer, i knew what to look out for (e.g. press the
issue of validating HTML).
all in all -- Dribbble was a good place to find designers, but i still had to
do diligence on my end to find the right one for my project. that's basically
echoing the point of the article, but it's worth repeating.
~~~
premchai21
I'm curious: are there reasons you were searching for a female designer
specifically? (Unless I'm misinterpreting that sentence, that is.)
~~~
unshift
yup. i'm working on a site for weddings and wanted a female perspective
------
justinph
Dribbble? Really?
Dribbble is neat and all, but using it to find a designer is like picking a
book by looking at the lower lefthand corner of the cover--it doesn't tell you
anything. You might find a designer who is good at fancy effects in photoshop,
but it won't tell you much about UX, architecture, coding experience, etc.
Dribbble could be the start of your browsing experience, but should by no
means be viewed as the go-to place.
~~~
huhtenberg
- I hate cats - the hair, the smell...
- Oh, you just don't know a good recipe
Same with Dribbble. All good designers have links to their portfolios full of
uncropped samples of their work. _Most_ of good designers on Dribbble also
have Pro accounts meaning that their "shots" typically have full-size versions
attached to them and the shots are organized into the projects.
Nobody is saying that one needs to pick a designer because of that one 400x300
shot that looks awesome. What the OP meant is that Dribbble is a great visual
directory of a metric ton of _really_ good designers.
~~~
sgdesign
Thanks for explaining my own point better than I could!
------
cuchoperl
Where can you go to look for a UX/UI designer that can help with the usability
of your website? Dribble is ok to showcase a nice logo, a nice button etc, but
fails for non-cosmetic driven design.
------
matt1
Quick plug: I'm working on a startup called Lean Designs to help developers
who struggle with web design create beautiful sites. In a nutshell, it's an
HTML5-based WYSIWYG editor that exports to professional HTML/CSS. I invite you
all to check it out:
<http://www.leandesigns.com>
~~~
pchristensen
Even if you never become a customer, watching Lean Designs develop via its
blog is amazing! It's too bad LD will be a huge success because matt1 is a
programmer I'd love to have on my team.
------
michaelpinto
As a designer I found the article a bit of a throw away. Firstly designer can
describe a wide range of talent — anybody from a branding expert to an
HTML/CSS production jockey. The way you'd search for each of those roles is
quite different, it's like the difference between a Unix admin and a Object C
programmer who knows iOS.
I think the main problem that many non-designers have when hiring talent is
that they don't understand the process of a designer, so they don't know how
to manage a designer. I also think there's the sin of going the cheap route
and then being unhappy with the results.
------
dreamdu5t
What about designers who can code? I think that's a major consideration in
hiring a web designer.
If you get one who can't code, how well do they understand what is possible or
easy in the browser? How well will they work with the coder you have to hire?
A lot of times you can get a decent frontend person who designs and codes for
less than you can hire a coder and a designer.
~~~
flyosity
Depends on what you want them to code. Any great designer who works on the web
can write HTML & CSS, else they're not a great designer. If you want them to
know Rails, Python, or PHP and help you with middle-tier integration, then
that's probably a more difficult task.
~~~
thomasgerbe
"Any great designer who works on the web can write HTML & CSS, else they're
not a great designer."
Couldn't disagree more. I've worked with so many amazing interactive designers
at agencies who didn't know much about coding but because of the division of
labor managed to execute some killer sites.
I'm not arguing that designers like myself shouldn't know code but rather that
amazing web designers who don't know code do exist.
~~~
flyosity
You can't design for the web (or for any medium) without knowing its
constraints. If a "web designer" doesn't know HTML or CSS then how can they
adequately design for the web as a platform when they don't know how it works?
~~~
jamesteow
Because they use the web everyday.
At my old company, we taught designers contraints about web elements and what
could typically be styled and executed. This relationship between front-end
dev and web designer was pretty key. I never coded but because of my usage of
the web, I knew the constraints.
Those designers ended up designing some of the most used sites in the United
States.
When working at an agency, one rarely ever touches code because the client
either has a team to deal with it OR there are full-time front-end devs.
But hey, if those designers who multiplied revenue for ecommerce sites and
increased viewership for content sites are bad web designers, then I'll take
those scrubs anyday.
~~~
DieBuche
I've seen a lot of "web designer" who treat a website like a regular printing
product. Only really understanding the constrains _and_ the possibilities
enables you to stuff that is really built for the web, not adapted to it. I
think it would be rather unlikely for a designer w/o any coding expirience to
think of stuff like this: <http://www.designmadeingermany.de/magazin/5/>
------
mtgentry
Coroflot.com and behance.net are good resources too.
Generally speaking, talented designers (and hackers) enjoy working on
interesting projects. If your idea is better than anything they're currently
working on, they might work for equity. That's how I approach it anyway.
------
peng
If you're looking to hire a logo or icon designer, Dribble is the place to be.
However, crafting the perfect 300x400 teaser has little to do with web design.
Do you want to hire a window decorator, or someone who will help you solve the
hard problem of making your app easier to use? Think carefully. You might not
want a real web designer. A graphic designer is certainly a safer hire--they
won't futz with your codebase, anyway!
~~~
sgdesign
The truth of the matter is that Dribbble has the best designers out there. And
yes, that includes great user experience designers
(<http://dribbble.com/rogie>), and even great front-end coders
(<http://dribbble.com/simurai>).
I think a lot of people mistakenly assume that a "user experience designer"
has to create ugly mockups and clumsy prototypes. The best user experience
designers are just designers that do their job well.
------
shawnee_
There's a decent mix of dev/design talent on Forrst
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Avoiding random crashes when multithreading Qt - artoonie
https://medium.com/@armin.samii/avoiding-random-crashes-when-multithreading-qt-f740dc16059
======
billconan
the first example code is an expected issue, according to Qt's document, only
the main thread should update the gui:
GUI Thread and Worker Thread As mentioned, each program has one thread when it
is started. This thread is called the "main thread" (also known as the "GUI
thread" in Qt applications). The Qt GUI must run in this thread. All widgets
and several related classes, for example QPixmap, don't work in secondary
threads. A secondary thread is commonly referred to as a "worker thread"
because it is used to offload processing work from the main thread.
[http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/thread-basics.html](http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/thread-
basics.html)
~~~
artoonie
Point is (and I should clarify in the post): qt doesn't document which
functions do and don't update the GUI, and you have no guarantees when calling
an arbitrary Qt function that it won't. This is practical advice to stay safe.
A seemingly innocuous Qt function might internally update the GUI, as shown in
the example.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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Silicon Valley Fight Club - tlrobinson
http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?videoId=3361421
======
Prrometheus
Could be a good way for YC to pick its investments. I would be willing to bet
that the winners would exhibit above average survival in the business world.
~~~
tomjen
Not so - the best way to survive a war is to let somebody else fight it.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Bitcoin high frequency trading with genetic algorithms - shii
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/ijp4s/high_frequency_trading_with_genetic_algorithms/
======
OmegaSupreme
Well that ticks all the Hacker News boxes
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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We Actually Built a Remote Team, and It Rocks - davidrupp
https://medium.com/@davidrupp/we-actually-built-a-remote-team-and-it-rocks-a4b839cf4e05
======
zedpm
The aligns very closely with my experience in a distributed startup. Of course
there are challenges like the ones mentioned in the StatusPage post, but I
felt that post exaggerated the problems greatly. For example, complaining
about a 3 hour time difference and lamenting that this meant almost no overlap
in working hours for team members. Sure, if your team makes no effort at all
to align working hours when needed.
There are a few points that stand out and ring true to me. As someone who has
thrived as a remote worker and made a career of being a generalist, I was
similarly surprised to hear from StatusPage that these qualities aren't
compatible. My team members and myself especially picked up new languages,
tools, roles, and responsibilities and ran with them.
As far as communication, weekly phone meetings (no video needed) coupled with
in-person meetings maybe once or twice a year served to keep us all on the
same page. The main method of day-to-day communication was via persistent chat
rooms and direct chats between people as needed.
After years of great progress, we had a successful exit in 2014. When I find
my next team, it will definitely be in a remote role, as the benefits to me
are so great that I've essentially ruled out working in an office in the
future. If you've convinced yourself that your organization can't operate with
remote workers, then good luck and I hope you find the team members you need.
~~~
MetaCosm
It seems that "high quality audio solution", in their case polycom, in our
case mumble + good mics and "no videoconferencing" are among the most common
thing I see in successful remote work setups.
For reasons I can't seem to put down on paper, remote setups that insist on
lots of video conferences feel... oppressive in a way that working next to
someone simply doesn't.
------
lugg
I'd really like to hear more stories like this one. Please share if you have a
working remote team.
I'm absolutely over the rhetoric about how you need to be in the same office
to have any sort of culture. There are online communities every where, they
all have their own culture, their inside jokes, their group think, etc etc.
Maybe I'm just a bit bitter about the topic but I grew up online, I find
online social connections to be equally as strong as offline ones. I guess I
just feel the whole counter argument is baseless and unproven and not held up
by anything more than survivor bias, industry norms and what people say
investors hate to hear.
The pros easily outweigh the con's. Some teams it will absolutely not work.
Some teams its the best way forward.
~~~
gibrown
Sure. We're a company of 300+, completely distributed and contribute to
building 23% of the internet. The company culture is unique, quirky,
effective, and clever. I can imagine working in an office because I did it for
many years. Can't imagine why I would ever want to do it again. Never been
more productive or effective.
[http://automattic.com/about/](http://automattic.com/about/)
A former colleague wrote a pretty good book about us:
[http://scottberkun.com/yearwithoutpants/](http://scottberkun.com/yearwithoutpants/)
------
fmitchell0
I've worked in both remote and in-house teams. I can't stress enough how
important it is to go to conferences together.
It doesn't need to be the whole team at the same time, but I believed it was
my job as manager to make sure my team could go to conferences (dev, UX, IA,
design) in groups.
Those situations have an uncanny ability to blend excitement, thought-
provoking questions, a bit of insecurity, and plans of action.
When folks returned, both remote and in-house, it lead to better camaraderie
and better output. Experiences are things people share and hold onto.
------
driverdan
The biggest problem I've seen with remote work is management. You need the
right people but management can also make or break the team. If they don't
understand how to manage a remote team effectively it's going to be a
disaster.
------
joshmn
I run a consultancy of about 15 including myself. We use a combo of Ventrilo
([http://ventrilo.com](http://ventrilo.com)) and Slack. I'd make a bet that
our productivity and communication is better than 99% of any company.
Alternatives to Ventrilo (just my personal preference, really), includes
Mumble and Teamspeak. Everyone is required to have a push-to-talk key, too. We
give everyone their own office (a la dedicated channel for them), and have
some scripts built into that allow us to page another user and tell them we
need their attention.
------
woohoo7676
I did remote contract dev work for about 2 years with a startup (all members
of our team of 3-4 were remote). It did take a little getting used to, but
ultimately I enjoyed it. A few key things that helped:
1) Good communication (as many others have mentioned) - team members were
always on chat (campfire->slack) while working. We also had semi-regular
weekly video chats where we talked about what was going on. Video was nice
because it helped to put faces to the people you were working with.
2) Don't focus on work 100% of the time - just like non-remote offices, people
need time where they can chat about non-work related things, like games, home
life, funny cat pictures, etc. Talking about these things helps create bonds
beyond work, and improves the team imo.
3) Meet in person occasionally - the team all met once a year in person. Yes
it can be a little awkward initially, but it also helps to further cement that
there is a real person behind the chat.
------
imroot
I've been on (and managed) both in-house and remote teams. As an employee, I
love the flexibility of working for a remote team -- you're more focused on
getting the work done versus spending 'x' hours a day in your office or in
your cube. On managing a remote team, it emphasized my need to ensure that
everyone had a clear understanding of the tasks at hand for that
day/week/month and that we were all communicating effectively (We used IRC,
VoIP phones with a built in VPN (they could be on the 'network' when plugged
into the back of the phone), and google hangouts).
If you add in the fact that I'm basically in rural Appalachia (Eastern
Kentucky) and there aren't that many DevOps/Linux SysAdmin jobs for guys out
here -- I'm almost forced to be a complete remote resource for most companies.
I've been doing a fair amount of interviewing recently -- I've had companies
tell me that their engineering staff is completely remote but their DevOps
team is an extension of corporate IT and that they need to be in the office
for that (um, what?), that I'd be their first remote employee (scary), or that
they have a cloud environment and they want a distributed team, but,
everyone's in an office somewhere because they don't have enough internal
support for a remote workforce.
From a manager's perspective, letting go control of your team is scary: you
lose the ability to check in on your employees by walking to their desk, you
lose the 'butt in seat' visibility of your team, and you lose the 'over the
cubical' conversations. What they don't immediately see is that those same
things still exist, and still happen, but in different mediums. Employees will
still chat amongst themselves in IRC, managers will still message people or
note who is or isn't here based on activity. Giving up that control resulted
in a productivity boost for my team -- almost everyone (there was one employee
who had an interesting home situation and we had to get him office space to
work) was twice as productive at home than they were in the office. We still
had our team dynamic -- we'd meet up once a week for dinner and work from a
shared working space one afternoon a week -- but we felt closer to one another
and understood our goals and targets more.
------
JoeAltmaier
We do what they do, but not with voip phones, with Sococo. I work there, and
our team is in 5 states and 2 continents. We use our own product for all of
our development.
Its especially important to have regular team online meetings e.g. Scrum. This
is both for communication and for socialization. Its easy to forget that other
remote workers are people; its easy to quit talking to them. Seeing and
hearing them daily makes them people again, instead of just an avatar.
------
scott_karana
I was curious about their point with VoIP. (Implementation, that is!)
David, if you're here, are you guys using SaaS for your VoIP provider, or are
you using FreePBX or something? Or just direct phone-to-phone voip with the
port forwarding that entails?
~~~
mikekchar
I'm not David, but I work remotely (+900 time difference!) and regularly work
with others over VOIP. Hardware SIP phones are pretty hard to beat, but we
often use Mumble for pair programming. It is a bit fiddly to get used to but
it has some very nice features and we actually prefer it to SIP. First, you
can easily (once you get the hang of it) configure the sound so that it is
really voice activated. This is actually quite important for us because only
about 25% of the team are permanently remote. When the office is noisy, it
really is nice not to hear the background. When I used to work in the office
regularly, I would pair program "remotely" with other people in the same room
-- it is just a lot more physically relaxing to have your own space. I can
also adjust the other person's volume to my own liking.
Another nice feature is the really low overhead of the server. Running a
Murmur server barely ticks over my CPU, so it is easy for each of us to run
their own server. This allows people to essentially join conversations at
somebody's "desk" at will. Everything is essentially a conference call so it
is easy to casually come and go, which is less nice with most SIP clients.
Finally, Mumble is really low latency. Especially since I'm 9 timezones away,
this is really important. We tend to pair program using Tmux and Vim (which is
really efficient), so you really want the voice to not lag too much from the
action. Honestly with a combination of Mumble, Tmux and Vim, I often
completely forget that I'm not physically in the same room as the person when
I'm pairing.
We tend to use Google Hangouts for our standups and planning meetings. We make
good use of the video and screen sharing in those meetings. I wouldn't say
that I need video overly much, but seeing everyone for 15 minutes a day does
help me feel more in touch.
Anyway, I know we're not the only group using Mumble. You might like to give
it a try.
~~~
scott_karana
Using Mumble had never occurred to me, but it's a great idea. Thanks! :)
------
henrik_w
Current (still on front page) HN thread on pros and cons of working from home:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9231541](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9231541)
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Beverly Clock - tzury
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Clock
======
oldcynic
See also Cox's Clock:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cox's_timepiece](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cox's_timepiece)
I'm sure Wikipedia used to have a much better write up, and more info on other
clocks of a similar type. It's a shame they started on deleting and merging so
much of the historic and esoterica - they lost a lot of accuracy and good data
in the process.
Now the best write up and photo is at [http://www.douglas-
self.com/MUSEUM/POWER/oddclocks/oddclocks...](http://www.douglas-
self.com/MUSEUM/POWER/oddclocks/oddclocks.htm)
~~~
neotek
Off topic, but I have never understood Wikipedia's intense drive to rid itself
of anything interesting or unusual or esoteric. It's text in a database,
you're not running out of space, nor are you diminishing the quality of other
articles!
~~~
Amorymeltzer
It's an encyclopedia; its content should be encyclopedic. A website that holds
on to everything else would be something different. While that's also fine,
it's a different project with a different goal.
~~~
jamesrcole
I know citing definitions only gets you so far, but the first definition
Google provides for encyclopedic is "comprehensive in terms of information."
~~~
yoz-y
If the content starts to touch topics which are too niche, there is a risk
that no-one will be able to verify it and the information will become
unreliable.
~~~
Double_a_92
Where would be a good place to actually store that niche knowledge? I agree
that it doesn't really belong on Wikipedia... But it could still be valuable.
Maybe even more valuable than "normal" content because if it's lost it's lost
for good.
~~~
yoz-y
In an ideal world, on the free decentralized web of interconnected webpages
indexed by search engines and archived in several places for posterity. In the
current state, I suppose something like Wikia but for anything? It definitely
deserves some place.
------
gopz
So this is probably a dumb question...but is the clock at all accurate? It
says it stops periodically when there isn't sufficient fluctuation in
temperature so do they manually correct it after?
~~~
toi98uhn
I own a similar clock (the Atmos clock mentioned in the article). It loses
several minutes per month. FWIW, I live in Los Angeles and it has been the
same regardless of time of year over the past decade or so. It's great that I
don't need to wind it, and it's mesmerizing to watch, but it's not the most
accurate clock in the world.
~~~
zokier
If it is consistently slow (or fast) then it sounds like it should be
correctable; most good clockwork mechanisms have some way of adjusting the
beat rate.
~~~
op00to
Indeed Atmos clocks do have a speed adjustment, though they are very
sensitive. I'd contact a professional since any repairs to them get expensive
very fast.
------
placebo
I wonder if a similar principle could have been used in the construction of
the late Dr David Jones’s bicycle wheel:
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4762778/How-r...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4762778/How-
riddle-bike-wheel-finally-solved.html)
~~~
PuffinBlue
This was my exact thought. I guess all these attempts at perpetual motion
machines are variations of heat engines at some level of operation.
At the least this clock could take the title of longest running 'fake'
perpetual motion machine.
------
laurent123456
It says the clock has never been manually wound, but can it be manually wound?
It's weird they keep repeating this in the article (and all the linked
articles) because it seems it's just not how it works, a bit like a solar
powered watch.
~~~
jstanley
Sure it can, just raise the weight by hand (or, if I've misunderstood it, do
whatever other operation is caused by the change in pressure).
It probably doesn't have a winder, but that doesn't mean it can't be wound.
~~~
laurent123456
Yes that would make sense. It seems it's the article that's not making much
sense:
> While the clock has not been wound [...] it has stopped on a number of
> occasions.
> when the ambient temperature has not fluctuated sufficiently to absorb the
> requisite amount of energy, the clock will not function
...so it's been wound.
~~~
toomanybeersies
No, after it was initially wound, it hasn't been wound by a person again. It
has stopped, but it has restarted on its own without human intervention.
~~~
GuiA
For all we know, it never had to be initially wound.
------
creeble
31 micro-watt-hours. Wow.
Analog clocks don't have much to do, but I'm glad we still use them.
~~~
ableal
That got me curious about digital clock chips.
A quick search netted me this:
[https://www.ablicinc.com/en/doc/datasheet/real_time_clock/S3...](https://www.ablicinc.com/en/doc/datasheet/real_time_clock/S35390A_E.pdf)
They specify a typical current of 0.25 uA at 3V supply, that's 0.75 uW power.
So an energy of 18 uWh over 24h.
Same ballpark, but does not move gears (just talks on the "phone" ;-)
~~~
sannee
The STM32L0x1 series has just a bit more at 0.9 uW (stop mode + RTC), but it
gets you a full microcontroller.
I am unsure if we have enough of an energy budget to get us some display
(e-ink likely) (and the MCU also needs some extra energy for the updates)
though.
------
mpetrovich
Related: Atmos clock
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmos_clock](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmos_clock)
------
xupybd
I'm surprised to see Dunedin pop up twice in one day one Hackernew. Maybe NZ
is more influential than I thought.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Decentralised Currencies Are Probably Impossible - joewalnes
http://www.links.org/?p=1179
======
mrb
The author, Ben Laurie, argues that the way _checkpoints_ are arbitrarily
applied to the Bitcoin block chain relies on trust (of the developers), and
therefore make Bitcoin centralized. He then argues that an efficient currency
could be designed based on this trust.
Firstly, only 7 blocks are checkpointed out of the 134000 in existence (as of
July 2, 2011):
if ((nHeight == 11111 && hash != uint256("0x0000000069e244f73d78e8fd29ba2fd2ed618bd6fa2ee92559f542fdb26e7c1d")) ||
(nHeight == 33333 && hash != uint256("0x000000002dd5588a74784eaa7ab0507a18ad16a236e7b1ce69f00d7ddfb5d0a6")) ||
(nHeight == 68555 && hash != uint256("0x00000000001e1b4903550a0b96e9a9405c8a95f387162e4944e8d9fbe501cd6a")) ||
(nHeight == 70567 && hash != uint256("0x00000000006a49b14bcf27462068f1264c961f11fa2e0eddd2be0791e1d4124a")) ||
(nHeight == 74000 && hash != uint256("0x0000000000573993a3c9e41ce34471c079dcf5f52a0e824a81e7f953b8661a20")) ||
(nHeight == 105000 && hash != uint256("0x00000000000291ce28027faea320c8d2b054b2e0fe44a773f3eefb151d6bdc97")) ||
(nHeight == 118000 && hash != uint256("0x000000000000774a7f8a7a12dc906ddb9e17e75d684f15e00f8767f9e8f36553")))
return error("AcceptBlock() : rejected by checkpoint lockin at %d", nHeight);
The mechanism by which these checkpoints are added is very slow: every few
months developers add them, and it takes months for most of the users to
deploy these new versions of the software (notwithstanding the fact that many
users never upgrade). Obviously a delay of multiple months to validate
transactions and issue coins is not acceptable. I cannot imagine how an
efficient currency could be built on top of this "more efficient" mechanism as
described by Laurie, who avoids this problem by stating "the exact mechanism
by which these snapshots are established is not important".
Secondly, he argues they make Bitcoin dependent on the trust of the
developers. This is not the case. The developers simply record some proof-of-
works recognized by the global Bitcoin network as of thousands of blocks ago.
Trust in these checkpoints is 100% based on trust of the proof-of-work
mechanism. The purpose of these checkpoints is to help prevent attacks where
Bitcoin nodes are isolated from the global peer-to-peer network via active
man-in-the-middle attacks, and are distributed an illegitimate block chain.
This only solves part of the problem (only the blocks up to 118000 are
checkpointed) but it is better than nothing.
------
joeyh
Is the checkpointing mechanism he implies actually present in bitcoin? Not
clear to me if it's a rhetorical device or if the bitcoin developers are
actually updating a last-good-checksum variable in the source from time to
time.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How to write a rootkit without really trying - ingve
https://blog.trailofbits.com/2019/01/17/how-to-write-a-rootkit-without-really-trying/
======
woodruffw
Author here. Happy to answer any questions.
~~~
exrook
Are you aware that this can be done without elevated privileges using
seccomp(2)[0] and ptrace(2)[1] using SECCOMP_RET_TRACE? (or with ptrace alone
using PTRACE_SYSEMU) Although the ptrace API can be daunting and I believe
it's somewhat involved to do anything besides changing values returned by the
call, however the upside (or downside) is you don't need to learn any kernel
programming. I wish these APIs were more accessible as I feel there's a lot of
potential to use them in creative ways.
EDIT: Just noticed your mention at the bottom of the post, feel free to
disregard this
[0][http://man7.org/linux/man-
pages/man2/ptrace.2.html](http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/ptrace.2.html)
[1][http://man7.org/linux/man-
pages/man2/seccomp.2.html](http://man7.org/linux/man-
pages/man2/seccomp.2.html)
~~~
woodruffw
Yup! I looked into implementing KRF[1] with ptrace originally, but ultimately
went the kernel module route for a few different reasons:
1\. I was more familiar with the relevant kernel APIs/techniques
2\. ptrace adds a 2x (3x?) overhead to each syscall and works on inferior
processes only
3\. I want KRF to eventually fault ptrace(2) itself!
[1]: [https://github.com/trailofbits/krf](https://github.com/trailofbits/krf)
------
catern
>eBPF can’t intercept syscalls
Perhaps soon it will be able to, though! See the "seccomp trap to userspace"
patches.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Google's Project Ara phone was delayed because it broke apart when dropped - edward
http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/19/9179413/google-explains-project-ara-delay
======
glxc
cant you just put like an otter case around it?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: iPhone interface in HTML5, but with explosions - hkuo
http://www.iphoneception.com
======
hkuo
Just launched this last night. I did both design and development, and worked
pretty hard to refine the touch and swipe gestures so it feels very close to
the actual iPhone home screen interface. It's meant to be installed on an
iPhone in order to fool someone to think they're using an actual iPhone, but
when you try to open an app, depending on which one you select, you'll get
exploding app icons, loss of gravity, cute kittens, or a scary zombie.
I'd love some feedback, and I'd actually love for you to try it on a friend or
family member and let me know their reaction.
Thanks much!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
My adventures in CNC robotics - fmavituna
http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/rstory/
======
jfim
Wow, that is seriously awesome. I would've never thought it would be possible
to make all those tiny plastic parts at home. The surface finish on those
looks really great too!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Splunk Developer Platform (what I've been working on) - itay
Hey HN,<p>I wanted to share with you what I've been working on for the past few months – the Splunk Developer Platform[1]. We released our Python SDK[2] back in August, but just last week we released our Java[3] and JavaScript[4] ones, and the JS SDK was the one I've been working on.<p>It was a great learning experience for me – first real foray into JavaScript and Node (the SDK works in both the browser and Node), and was a lot of fun to try different things out releasing it. I ended up building on a couple of open source libraries (and contributing back).<p>We are building out Splunk's developer platform and do a lot of work with social data like Twitter, Foursquare and GitHub, as well as try and come up with new ideas about how to use Splunk. If anyone has any questions or wants to try Splunk out, just let me know (contact info is in my profile).<p>[1]: http://dev.splunk.com<p>[2]: https://github.com/splunk/splunk-sdk-python<p>[3]: https://github.com/splunk/splunk-sdk-java<p>[4]: https://github.com/splunk/splunk-sdk-javascript
======
itay
Clickable links:
[1]: <http://dev.splunk.com>
[2]: <https://github.com/splunk/splunk-sdk-python>
[3]: <https://github.com/splunk/splunk-sdk-java>
[4]: <https://github.com/splunk/splunk-sdk-javascript>
------
soho33
we use splunk in our office and i must admit, it's one of the greatest tools!
to move from syslog to splunk has made life so much easier :) kudos on a great
product and company.
~~~
itay
Glad to hear - please get in touch if you have any requests for the dev
platform (or in general). One of our goals is to make it easier for people to
integrate Splunk with their other tools and processes.
------
rhizome
So...you work for Splunk?
~~~
itay
I do - sorry if it wasn't clear.
~~~
Donito
in Seattle?
~~~
itay
Yes, the Dev Platform team (including me) is all in Seattle.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Why it's impossible to become a programming expert - baha_man
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/programming-and-development/?p=673
======
gaius
This definitely resonates with me. I got my first paying Java gig in 1996
(really). Back then, one person could be reasonably expected to know _all_ of
Java, and work on any project that was feasible to do in Java, whether that
was applets, servers, fancy graphics, database access (no JDBC back then!),
anything.
Fast forward a few years, I knew JDBC and Swing pretty well, a little of the
EJB stuff, there were whole vast swathes of the Java universe that were simply
out of scope. I got out of Java a few years ago, but I imagine it must be even
more so now. With my current main languages, Python and OCaml, I still feel as
if I've barely scratched the surface (and in the company I count as an
"expert").
But this isn't limited to languages, back then a DBA could know all of Oracle
7.3.4, now Oracle 11g is too big for any one person to know it all. There's no
such thing as a generalist DBA anymore. You know enough to operate anything
your organization uses day to day or fix it if it breaks in the middle of the
night, but a tricky problem outside your specialist area will need to wait
'til whoever in the company specializes in that can take a look the next day.
------
yannis
A programming expert is not a person who has memorized the contents of the
programming equivalent of the Oxford Dictionary, but one that can write code
the way Hemingway could write books.
~~~
nkassis
I would call that a hacker. An expert in the real world just knows a lot of
stuff.
~~~
Novash
An expert is someone that can code without using google to teach him how to
make every other function.
~~~
brianto2010
from <http://www.zedshaw.com/essays/master_and_expert.html>
> _The main thing I noticed about the experts I’ve encountered is they are
> into impressing you with their abilities. They are usually incredibly good,
> but their need for recognition gets in the way of mastery. Everything they
> do is an attempt to prove themselves_
An expert programmer is a knowledgeable, yet ostentatious programmer. :-)
------
juvenn
"I find it quite frustrating at the personal level. I miss learning things in
depth. I miss the sense of satisfaction from attaining a level of expertise. I
miss getting to explore obtuse and obscure areas of knowledge."
~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
How about getting to know your problem domain in depth instead? Gaining a
sense of satisfaction from being an expert in the business and automating the
work so knowledge of obtuse and obscure bits of data is no longer needed?
I'd rather be known for having built an amazing product that anyone can use
than for mastering some obscure bit of the technology.
~~~
gloob
_How about getting to know your problem domain in depth instead?_
If I had wanted to be a biologist, or a businessman, or a banker, I would have
become one of those things. My domain is computers, and computers are what I
am interested in. I will take playing with pointers over
$different_kind_of_work any day. I think it's just a personality thing, but
that's the way it is for me. I would guess that a sizeable minority of
programmers are like that.
------
hxa7241
The difference is that the thinking process has become more 'externalised'.
Ideas or structures are produced not so much by mental action, but by the
mechanisms of external tools and representations. Instead of items being put
together by knowing them well, they are connected by web linkage. We are being
ever more subsumed into the community brain.
------
olliesaunders
Interesting how he says he relies heavily on IDEs. If those IDEs weren't there
as crutches how do you think those frameworks might be written differently?
~~~
litewulf
I think the Rails super-over-loaded Do-What-I-Mean method would become more
popular. Last night I tried to futz around with some of the form helpers, and
almost every parameter is optional. It makes for some pretty challenging
parameter munging at the beginning of the methods... but usually when coding
there is a particular method you call, and you just kind of pile things on.
(The plethora of form helpers notwithstanding)
------
olliesaunders
I focus less on knowledge and more on skill esp. API design. This makes me a
good programmer, I hope, although often an uninformed one. In an "open book"
world I can't help feeling like I made the right choice. The _right_ skills
are resistant to change.
------
scott_s
Taking the time to learn things in-depth is what grad school is for.
~~~
yannis
Taking the time to learn things in-depth is what L I F E school is for.
~~~
scott_s
That's a nice feel-good statement, but grad school gives you an environment
where you can spend all day researching what you're interested in. Most people
can't do that at their jobs or they'll get fired.
~~~
moron4hire
that sort of grad school is for people who need their hands held to learn
things.
~~~
psyklic
In some grad schools you're assigned projects, but at others you need to
continually figure out even what problems need to be solved and which avenues
of attack would likely yield the best results. This is much like what startups
do, and in fact figuring out the important problems/attack strategies is much
harder in my experience than performing the experiments themselves. I don't
see how this is "hand holding", but perhaps the grad schools with assigned
projects feel more like a normal job.
------
marze
Is it possible to create an equally powerful modern programming environment
with reduced complexity (as measured in pages of documentation or whatever)?
If Apple, or someone else, were able to it would be a competitive advantage.
I'm not suggesting that Apple hasn't already done so, but I don't have the
first hand experience to make the comparison myself.
------
edw519
OP _is_ an expert, he just doesn't realize it.
If you define "expert" as someone who has memorized all possible syntax, then
the only experts would be autistic and would need help getting dressed.
OTOH, if an expert is someone who knows how to find the right tool to get the
right job done, then OP is clearly already there. As are many of us too, I
suppose.
That's the difference between theory and practice.
~~~
Novash
When I studied C in College, I could tell you all functions on the ANSI
library. More often than not, it meant that I knew if a library had something
already done so we wouldn't need to do it again. Even simply things like using
freopen to redirect standard output to a file, or using sscanf to parse an
user input where outside of the class curriculum that I only got to know
because I studied the language somewhat in depth. Now that I work with C#,
nearly everytime I need a class that is somewhat uncommon, I am forced to do a
research, and it usually DO exist in the framework (exception in mind, double
indexed lists) somewhere. But I do not know it. Even the expert C# guys do not
know it. We need to research. Because the framework is too big, it is not
possible to know it. And because it is not possible to know it, every time I
am coding, I feel like blind because of the possibility that of what I am
doing is actually already there and I don't know it because I didn't think of
the right words to research it for.
~~~
gaius
I wonder if we're any more productive - whether we spend more time doing
research to find a library routine than it would take to just code it.
This is one problem in the OCaml community. Uptake of the new "standard"
libraries is lukewarm because everyone has already half-written their own
standard library.
~~~
Novash
We are more productive. It is not simply a matter of have/not have the
routine. It is also a matter of usability. If you did the routine yourself,
you would make it specific. When you needed it again, you would need to either
write it again from scratch or modify it. The framework has its methods coded
in ways to be the least specific possible so to avoid rewrite (in an ideal
world, everything would be like it).
------
moron4hire
To me, a lot of this is what the "design" process is for. You have a certain
set of requirements that you need to fulfill, so before you set about coding
it, you enumerate how it is possible to implement it. Now, I won't go into
details like "Use a System.Web.UI.WebControls.Label here", but if it's
something that I know my peers don't have much experience with (like
apparently the entire System.Drawing namespace, dammit), then I'll
specifically indicate in the design that that is an option. It makes for a
much more streamlined process for development. No, it doesn't answer all of
the questions that come up in coding, but it certainly slays the big dragons.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Trump Lies. China Thrives - davidf18
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/07/opinion/trump-china-trade.html
======
davidf18
"C.E.O. of Career International, told me two of his hottest job openings in
China are in “software and new energy” — everyone is looking for engineers for
electric cars, solar and wind. Walter Fang, a top executive at iSoftStone,
which helps design China’s smart, sustainable cities, told me that “just two
weeks ago I brought in about a dozen green energy start-up companies from
Massachusetts” to show them opportunities in China."
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Toyota Manufacturing Principles - josephcohen
http://josephmcohen.com/post/71536977591/toyota-manufacturing-principles
======
VLM
Its hard to talk about Japanese management techniques without talking about
Deming.
So Jidoka is pretty much Deming #11. Poka-yoke is obviously Deming #3. Kaizen
is Deming #5. At least according to the "Out of the Crisis" poster I used to
have.
I keep my Deming fandom quiet, he's about as anti-american as you can get. I'd
get less flack if I said I was a Marxist. Its too bad, Deming was a genius.
I'd say this whole topic is NSFW because you can't get further away from
modern American management than Deming. Its safer to quote Marx at work than
Deming.
~~~
philwelch
Weren't Deming's ideas the genesis of the whole "Total Quality Management" fad
in the 90's? What happened?
~~~
analog31
We'll work on product quality just after we make our numbers for the quarter.
Honest.
------
PeterWhittaker
It amazes me how many of us are willing to endure non-poka-yoke, that is,
processes that are inherently mistake-ready. My current fave is timesheet
rekeying by our admin. We're small, so it isn't too bad, but it cannot scale,
and as the admin becomes more harried as we grow, mistakes will be made.
Guaranteed.
Poka yoke. My new favourite process term. The other two are important, vital
even, but poka yoke has to be paramount.
(If you jidoka without poka yoke, how long before a worker is hurt by a
machine?)
------
James_Duval
Could such attitudes form part of an explanation for the JRPG/WRPG gulf?
JRPGs typically encourage training, finding efficient ways to grind (improving
processes) and perfecting character builds through trial and error - at least
on the first playthrough. This seems like a Kaizen approach.
WRPGs typically encourage a focus on fight-by-fight tactics and a priori
evaluation of build options and strategies to find an 'optimal' team, tactic,
strategy and build. This seems like a 'secret formula' approach to management
I've seen a lot in my own professional life.
At their worst, JRPGs are grindfests where the gameplay consists of finding
ways to minimise that grind or maximise efficiency.
At their worst, WRPGs are spreadsheet and inventory management simulators.
I think I am stretching a little here (many Japanese RPGs are
indistinguishable from so-called WRPGs), and I appreciate that this is
something of a tangent, it was just something that struck me.
~~~
e12e
I think tendencies in rpgs and relative success/feasabilty of _actually_
realizing lean production is more likely manifestations of underlying cultural
differences than any direct relation with these (concrete) management/process
ideas.
~~~
James_Duval
Oh yes, that's what I was thinking.
I wasn't implying that kaizen was causing culture which was causing JRPGs. I
was implying that the same culture was causing kaizen and JRPGs.
I was also talking only about kaizen, rather than about any of the other
management ideas touched on in the article.
------
jdlshore
If you're interested in Toyota's manufacturing principles, "The Toyota Way" by
Jeffrey Liker is worth reading.
~~~
midas007
That's a good book.
Brief history of TPS:
[http://www.sae.org/manufacturing/lean/column/leanjun01.htm](http://www.sae.org/manufacturing/lean/column/leanjun01.htm)
------
Theodores
I have extended the Toyota stuff in my own special way...
1) Imagine every piece of data in your code is a component, a physical widget.
2) Imagine that component has mass proportional to its size as measured in 1's
and 0's.
3) Imagine you have to have some person or some robot move it from place to
place, maybe via a warehouse (hard disk somewhere).
4) Now question what you are doing and whether it is efficient.
Take the simple but common scenario of working with someone that knows Dropbox
but not how to use FTP, e.g. a graphic designer. They upload their stuff to
Dropbox, taking hours to do because they are on the slow end of an ADSL
connection. They then send you the Dropbox link for you to then download and
upload to the server for them. Now imagine all of those 1's and 0's have
physical mass and have to move physical distances back and fore across the
Atlantic.
This whole process is so not 'just in time' manufacturing ways of doing
things.
Clearly this also goes on in your own code as well as with inane procedures
needed to work with non-techies. Sometimes thinking data has physical mass
helps you see whether what you are doing is efficient.
------
curiouscats
Some blogs for those interested in Toyota's management practices
- http://www.gembapantarei.com/
- http://superfactory.typepad.com/
- http://www.leanblog.org/
- http://management.curiouscatblog.net/category/lean-thinking/
------
gtklocker
Am I the only one who remembers this?
[http://www.edn.com/design/automotive/4423428/Toyota-s-
killer...](http://www.edn.com/design/automotive/4423428/Toyota-s-killer-
firmware--Bad-design-and-its-consequences)
~~~
TwoBit
Didn't it come out in the trial that the vehicle computer source code was
utter crap by any standards?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
“Banclist.com is probably the most lucrative direct messaging platform” - evilsimon
https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1141937787442098176
======
mlacks
It actually was a little difficult to figure out what this business is about
from their website, but their LinkedIn is comprehensive enough:
“Overview
Non-publicly held banks are facing increasing risks when they maintain a
private list of their shareholders. Sharing unpublished information about the
bank’s stock with a few shareholders exposes the bank, its management and
directors to potentially serious liability. Simply answering one shareholder’s
question without notifying every shareholder with the same information puts
the bank at risk. The threat and penalty of litigation can affect the bank’s
reputation and financial performance. In some cases banks can face civil and
criminal penalties.
One of the fastest growing bank services companies today, BancList (BL)
provides privately held financial institutions and their shareholders (and
other authorized users) with an easy-to-use web-based posting service that
replaces the list. BL lets shareholders post notices of their intent to buy or
sell their bank stock and keeps the bank out of the negotiation process – the
way transactions are supposed to occur.
Not only does BL provide a risk mitigation service for banks by replacing the
list, it helps banks enhance shareholder value and provides banks with even
more information about what is happening with their shares. BL bank clients
receive automatic email alerts every time someone posts a notice, which keeps
them aware of active negotiations.
BL is not a broker dealer and does not ask for a list of your shareholders. BL
never interferes with the relationship between bank clients and their
shareholders. BL does not collect broker fees for its services. BL clients pay
an annual subscription fee based on the asset size of the financial
institution.”
Very cool something of this scope operates with only a handful of employees.
[0][https://www.linkedin.com/company/communitybanklist](https://www.linkedin.com/company/communitybanklist)
~~~
Trombone12
To me the scope seems rather narrow, and the technical requirements about on
par with a mailing list.
~~~
scarejunba
Their sole innovation over that is that they realized neutrality and being a
third party is valuable because of regulation. Haha, this is pretty clever.
~~~
FabHK
Similarly, there is a business computing custom indices that a bank uses in
products. The bank is perfectly capable of computing the index itself, but it
needs to be handled by a third party that is paid handsomely to just re-
calculate what the bank already calculated.
~~~
adw
One example of that is Markit Group, which had revenue of _$1.5bn /yr_ when it
merged with IHS in 2016 at an implied valuation of roughly $5.5bn. Best London
startup of the last 25 years, including DeepMind, not close.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markit)
Being a trusted third party is frequently an amazing business, if you can earn
or negotiate your way there.
------
hirundo
> Thus BancList (spelling absolutely intentional, because even the K is
> regulated and I am absolutely not joking about that fact).
No, he's not joking. Even the font size is regulated. I ran into that as an
employee of a commodities trader. I'm not sure if the choice of font is
regulated but it wouldn't be surprising.
~~~
wmil
A bit of a tangent, but in Canada "financial advisers" are regulated and
required to act in the customers interests. So naturally banks will connect
you to "financial advisors" (unregulated) to buy products.
[https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-watchdog-
advise...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-watchdog-adviser-
advisor-1.4049326)
~~~
mstibbard
FYI financial advisers having a fiduciary duty to their clients is standard in
most of the western world EXCEPT America.
------
csomar
> In "Goodness that is a great, great software business", I present
> [http://banclist.com](http://banclist.com) , which is probably the most
> lucrative direct messaging platform in the world on a per user basis. (I'm
> exempting e.g. Bloomberg which does a lot more than DMs.)
That's some hyperbole from Patrick. The website is not a direct messaging
platform by any stretch. It's a listing website with a very specific audience.
Lots of that stuff happen over email, regular DM, phone calls or regular in-
persons meetups.
> BancList.com does not participate in any way in the execution of trades. Any
> trades that may occur must take place offline independent of BancList.com or
> any of its affiliates.
They only risk getting their data compromised but no money is at risk. Trades
happen discretely and they might not be aware of them or not care.
------
driverdan
> Apache/2.4.6 (CentOS) OpenSSL/1.0.1e-fips mod_fcgid/2.3.9 PHP/5.4.16
> mod_python/3.5.0- Python/2.7.5
Eek! I wouldn't trust them with my data if I was a bank. They haven't updated
their server since 2013. All of the versions listed in that header have major
vulns. This is a disaster waiting to happen.
~~~
avip
It seems dir listing is not properly disabled
[https://banclist.com/app/webroot/img/](https://banclist.com/app/webroot/img/)
~~~
dflock
It it now, by the look of it.
~~~
avip
Not an expert but I don't think it's considered good practice to expose your
directory structure like that. It should have been 404 or redirection to
/home.
------
StavrosK
> I imagine there was very little knocking on doors; founding team just called
> up everyone in their Rolodex, and after that point it's viral since the
> population of people who want to buy or sell one of 100 local banks
> definitely are interested in the 101st.
Ah, another company I could never ever have founded because its success
explicitly depends on who you know.
------
staunch
Seems like we're missing a "StocList" for buying/selling shares in private
companies. There are some "secondary market" services. But (IIRC) they all
take a hefty cut from both parties, have zero transparency, act as an
intermediary, have high minimum transactions, etc.
Seems like accredited investors and private company stock owners should be
able to make deals directly. Someone get on it!
~~~
javert
> There are some "secondary market" services. But (IIRC) they all take a hefty
> cut from both parties, have zero transparency, act as an intermediary, have
> high minimum transactions, etc.
Does anyone know of any such services that are reputable and worth using? Even
if it's expensive. Kind of to be expected in that field.
~~~
_1tan
A few are mentioned here: [https://www.holloway.com/g/equity-
compensation/sections/can-...](https://www.holloway.com/g/equity-
compensation/sections/can-you-sell-private-stock).
~~~
javert
Cool!
~~~
_1tan
There is also [https://carta.com/](https://carta.com/) which eventually
thrives to become a private market: [https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/06/carta-
was-just-valued-at-1...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/06/carta-was-just-
valued-at-1-7-billion-by-andreessen-horowitz-in-a-deal-some-see-as-rich/).
------
ForHackernews
Are there any effective strategies for searching out profitable parasitic
niches like this? Looking around the corners of big heavily regulated
industries? Healthcare, real estate, finance?
~~~
ransford
Immersion. Work in the industry at a position where you're likely to encounter
inefficiencies. In healthcare, for example, you can't spit without hitting an
optimization opportunity. Working midlevel can mean you get to see low-level
workers hacking around bureaucracy _and_ management wringing their hands about
money and budgets and such.
Taking a job in an industry to get access to its seedy underbelly isn't super
appealing to most founders, but for some ossified industries there's really no
other way to find those golden opportunities.
Oh, and be patient. Practice being a mouthless set of ears.
------
gopi
More info - [http://www.venturenashville.com/fintech-seed-stage-
banclist-...](http://www.venturenashville.com/fintech-seed-stage-banclist-
pops-up-in-nashville-eyes-capital-raise-cms-1050)
------
honopu
How would one even know this? Do they run billing through stripe, and if so
did he see the numbers? How would you know how lucrative this is?
------
gculliss
This hyperbolic introduction is like saying Ford sells the most expensive
tires on the planet.
------
justinjlynn
I would say that SWIFT international financial messaging platform most likely
beats it, in terms of lucrativeness, and - amusingly - it is also in the same
industrial sector.
------
arianestrasse
That website looks like an affiliate marketing cash grab site from the early
2000s. I know that I should probably do some proper research but it was so
off-putting that I'm just going to give up right away and call it a waste of
time and/or a scam.
~~~
rolltiide
> That website looks like an affiliate marketing cash grab site from the early
> 2000s
it also doesn't matter when a user engagement ponzi scheme isn't how you plan
to cash out of your company
------
tryptophan
This is an example of what happens when a field is over-regulated.
You have these obtuse solutions working around a problem that is only hard
because of lawyers and 500 regulations to "protect investors".
People were able to hack together exchanges for crypto-coins. The only thing
that stands in the way of doing this for private stock/tiny companies is
excessive regulation. I'm not saying we want the whole crypto experience of
exchanges blowing up overnight, but what we have now is clearly not right
either.
~~~
eridius
What about BancList indicates that the field is over-regulated
~~~
saagarjha
The fact that it's called "BancList"?
~~~
eridius
That just indicates that it's regulated. Where's the "over" part?
Personally, it sounds like a rather good idea to have regulation over who's
allowed to use the word "bank", given the assumptions that the general public
will make about anything with "bank" in the name.
~~~
mdpopescu
What stops the general public from making the same assumptions about anything
with "banc" in the name?
~~~
eridius
Probably the same thing that stops them from assuming that anything with
"spank" in the name is a reputable financial institution.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
On the tail risk of violent conflict and its underestimation [pdf] - lermontov
http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/violence.pdf
======
weeksie
Can someone explain this to me like I'm seven? My maths just isn't good
enough. I've read Pinker's Better Angels and I've read the unsatisfying
letters that Taleb wrote in criticism. Taleb seems to have a chip on his
shoulder and while he's undoubtedly an incredibly smart man, his thinking is
often sloppy when he steps outside his field.
~~~
sseefried
Seconded.
~~~
wjnc
Introduction in Extreme Value Theory [1]
[1] [http://www2.meteo.uni-
bonn.de/projekte/SPPMeteo/wiki/lib/exe...](http://www2.meteo.uni-
bonn.de/projekte/SPPMeteo/wiki/lib/exe/fetch.php?id=cops_2a&cache=cache&media=evt_cops2.pdf)
~~~
sseefried
Not sure that's pitched at a seven year old
------
wjnc
I work as an actuary and are somewhat used to seeing calculations like these.
They often point to very large tail risks, for example in catastrophe
modelling like windstorm, or in this case violent conflict. What makes me
somewhat doubt the applicability of these models is that they often
statistically encapsulate what you already know:
Life is fragile (to borrow Talebs word). Weather, environment (think
supervulcanoes) and man itself (violent conflict, nuclear events) all have the
capacity to do enormous damage and are a threat to society.
I know it's a variation on the age old question "What's the use of
#$this_science?", but even Talebs own narrative goes into making systems
'antifragile'. You can only make systems antifragile for so far as the causes
of the fragility are understood and manageable. So for an insurer we can do
something with a 1-in-200 chance of total ruin: don't insure. A society can
take measures to build earthquake-resistant buildings. Perhaps even move away
cities from supervolcanoes.
But in case of violent conflict: What can we do to prevent the US - China war?
(To name another now trending topic [1]) Or the next black swan conflict?
[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10309448](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10309448)
(edit, thanks!: changed link to The Thucydides Trap: Are the U.S. And China
Headed for War?)
~~~
sveme
Just a side remark, I always wonder when reading about Taleb whether he was
truly the first to discover the balance between fragility and robustness or
anti-fragility. I remember some really inspiring work by John Doyle [1] at
Caltech in the early 2000s on the concept of Highly Optimized Tolerance [2]
and complexity and robustness [3], stating that natural and engineered
networks exhibit a high tolerance towards common perturbations, yet can show
catastrophic failures when encountering extremely rare events (as described by
power law distributions). Never read much about Nassim Taleb's hypotheses, yet
sounds similar at first. Has Taleb popularized a concept that got stuck in the
unpopulated wasteland between theoretical physics and control theory?
[1] [http://leecenter.caltech.edu/doyle-
res.html](http://leecenter.caltech.edu/doyle-res.html)
[2] Highly optimized tolerance: A mechanism for power laws in designed
systems, JM Carlson, J Doyle, Phys Rev E 60(2) 2, 1999
[3]
[http://www.pnas.org/content/99/suppl_1/2538.abstract](http://www.pnas.org/content/99/suppl_1/2538.abstract)
------
fallingfrog
I think the most interesting here is this line: "All in all, among the
different classes of data (raw and rescaled), we observe that 1) casualties
are power law distributed." If I understand the math correctly, power law
distributed distributions arise when there is some cascade effect, for example
cities where the biggest cities also grow the fastest. Investment income would
be another example - the more money you have, the faster it grows. That to me
suggests that what happens is that small conflicts can grow into larger
conflicts, and more importantly the larger the conflict the more likely it is
to grow bigger. I don't know what that says about how we ought to minimize the
risk of big wars - except maybe to resolve them peacefully while they are
still small conflicts.
~~~
fallingfrog
Although - now I'm going to contradict myself. Things like skyscraper heights
also follow a power law distribution, and those don't grow in any meaningful
sense. So I guess I don't know what that means. But if anyone else does,
please enlighten me.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
ASK HN:How to Efficiently Live with Mental Health Issues? - yashvanth
I recently found out that I have Anxiety Issues.<p>Any know-hows to manage mental health with your daily life?<p>Anyone that has successfully done it without therapy?
======
jerome-jh
An advice I once got from psychoanalyst I had been consulting for a few month:
do not identify yourself to your pathology.
There are two faces of the coin once your condition is named:
\- it can be a relief: I have that, what can I do to improve it
\- it can be an impairment: if it gets all your focus
I think of this because you put capital letters to "Anxiety Issues", and also
because the diagnostic sounds pretty vague. Be aware that many people have
psychological, psychiatric or other medical conditions, and still live what
looks like a normal life to others. So take care of yourself, but do not let
those two words have all the focus.
------
jerome-jh
Without therapy and proven to work: contact with nature, physical exercise.
Both can be combined ;)
------
rs23296008n1
I'm not a psychologist so this comment is just random text that _accidentally_
might help.
Journaling, self-reflection and professional help are a good start. Journal
your daily life. Triggers, foods, challenges you set, what worked, what
failed. Be more forgiving of yourself as you grow. Each failure is a learning
experience. Try again. Review patterns as you notice them.
If you don't want professional help, then understand anxiety is often "too
much potential future" and/or "too much recycled past" and not enough "actual
now". You need to gradually build up resistance and resilience to your
fears/anxiety.
Look for clinical psychologists like Jordan Peterson etc. he's posted a lot on
youtube about anxiety etc. Learned helplessness and CPTSD are also some other
possible things to be aware of when examining anxiety.
The problem with doing it alone is the increased number of blind alleys you
will waste time in. As well as prolonging anything you don't notice. But you
have your reasons - they are what they are.
Recruit allies to help where possible. Self-help does not mean you do it
alone.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Silicon Valley wages have dropped for non-tech jobs - Futurebot
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/11/18/silicon-valley-wages-have-dropped-for-all-except-highest-paying-jobs-report/
======
yjhoney
I started a nonprofit 2 years ago (garagescript.org) that hires low income
people in San Jose and their full time job is to learn how to code and teach
new students.
Our nonprofit started off with 20 students, most were making about 25k/year
and had no coding experience. I paid each of them 2k / month to quit their
jobs and focus on coding full time.
From the original 20 students, 6 are left. The other 14 are all full-stack
software engineers.
If anyone wants to help out, send me an email to song at garagescript.org. I
believe the real long term solution is to train under-served communities
better and help them acquire technical skills.
_edit_ remove donation link.
~~~
space_fountain
First thanks for what you're doing. I think it's definitely part of the
solution. My worry though is that I don't think everyone is equipped to be a
programer. The thing I keep coming back to is my younger brother. He's got
mental disabilities which mean he can't read or do math at more than a very
basic level (first grade maybe) and for what ever it's worth he also scored
pretty low on IQ tests. Despite a bit of a falling out he's working in
construction and doing fine, but he could never go into a highly skilled
occupation. There's plenty of people like him some not nearly on such an
extreme who would have been perfectly capable of working in management or
similar, but as we require more and more training for simple jobs I worry that
we loose places for people who can't keep up
~~~
Scipio_Afri
Replying so that the other person pleading for skepticism in this thread, and
myself, can be seen near the top. This non-profit is not vetted, has a very
basic website, has no proof of the students, this persons account is 24 days
old.
Please be mindful that while this all sounds like a great idea and I hope it
really exists, this also could be a scam as there is no evidence or any 3rd
party that this is a real nonprofit which has been paying 20 people 2k a month
to learn to code.
Please don't donate until you're sure this person is using the money as they
claim. Attempting to verify their website and facebook leads to some red flags
- no pictures of events, just events on facebook with 1 or 2 people attending,
no documented proof of the 16 people who are full stack developers. If the
non-profit is successful as they've said it is, then if he doesn't want to
burn through his own savings (again supposedly) then he needs to seriously do
better marketing and proof. Even with those things, I'd be skeptical unless it
was independently verified.
~~~
yjhoney
Thanks for reminding people be aware. Fundraising wasn't the point of my
original comment, so I took out the donation link. My focus primarily has been
to teach students, so I haven't had time to update any of the social media or
the landing page.
I lost the pw to my original account on HN, but here's my username:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=songzme](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=songzme)
~~~
ma2rten
Here is a link to your previous post about it:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16043552](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16043552)
------
CydeWeys
I have when the news writes an entire article around a single report, but then
fails to link to that report. You had one job ...
Anyway, here's the report in question: [http://www.everettprogram.org/main/wp-
content/uploads/TIGHTR...](http://www.everettprogram.org/main/wp-
content/uploads/TIGHTROPE-2018-REPORT.pdf)
Reading the fine details of the report, you see that the top-line metric is
real income, adjusted for inflation and local cost of living. And the #1
factor that's proved ruinous to local cost of living in the Bay Area these
past two decades is of course housing prices. If zoning restrictions were
relaxed and more housing was allowed to be built, costs would be reduced and a
lot of these problems would be solved. The Bay Area has a critical lack of
housing, which is driving all these prices up and causing most of the decline
in CoL-adjusted non-tech wages.
~~~
dublidu
If only we could aloe property assessments to increase with a local cost of
living index, we would at least have enough property tax revenue to pay
teachers.
~~~
pm90
I think we should be careful with this. Currently, because of the frozen
property tax law, many houses worth millions pay very little in property
taxes; if they did have to pay taxes on the millions of dollars their property
is worth, they would have had to sell their houses ages ago. This would have
likely created a downward pressure on the prices; making it unlikely that the
home prices would reach the levels they are now.
All of which to say that assessing the property tax on the current market
value of all those properties isn't an accurate number; there is no way there
are so many people making that much money living in California.
~~~
slededit
Given the scale the only sane way to unwind it is to grandfather all sales
before a certain date. Otherwise you’ll have masses of people forced out of
their properties and chaos.
~~~
pm90
I mean, there are many solutions to this which aren't an immediate hike in
property taxes which would cause much market disruption. But its important to
acknowledge that the California Housing market is indeed a market distortion
on an Epic Scale. There is just no way that everyone can get the prices
they're asking for. And this is perhaps the major reason why I won't
personally invest in the CA housing market even though I love the state
otherwise.
------
lupire
The author almost noticed Simpson's paradox:
> Surprisingly, the UC Santa Cruz study suggests that employment in low wage
> industries is growing. The share of worker in jobs considered low-wage in
> 1997 grew 25 percent over the next 20 years, while the percent working in
> middle- and high-wage jobs declined.
The problem isn't that wages are dropping for certain work; the problem is
that middle-wage jobs are being automated away, leaving only low-skill but
non-automatable jobs that require organically-optimized things that all people
have but machines don't, like fingers and eyes.
~~~
Barrin92
the jobs that are mentioned in the article that are being hit the hardest are
teachers, firefighters, caretakers and so forth. How many of those have been
automated away?
It seems that tech workers in the valley have found their own analog to
blaming immigrants for downward wage pressure, their particular boogeyman
seems to be the robots.
No, the answer is much more trivial. As the article points out, the huge
influx of capital in the area is being returned only to the tech sector, who
merrily spend it and drive up the cost of living. The machines are not to
blame for this one.
~~~
empath75
I think there’s a step missing in the analysis there. If tech workers are
spending all this money — what are they spending it _on_? If they’re spending
it locally shouldn’t that increase wages locally?
~~~
burlesona
No. They’re spending it all on housing.
To be clear the flow is: tech companies make enormous revenue but require high
skill workers. To make this work they pay whatever it costs to get workers and
no more - in this case that means just enough to offset the enormous cost of
housing.
Since the baby boomers practically banned all housing development in the bay
once their little burns were built, this result in a little see-saw battle
where landlords raise the rent until tech companies are forced to raise wages,
back and forth. Employees are left with an equation that looks basically like:
enormous salary - obscene rent = just a bit more cash flow than you’d earn in
software anywhere else.
Thus the flow of capital is from tech companies to landlords, in an arms race
that will only end when the landlords have taken so much of the capital out of
tech that the industry sputters and moves away.
~~~
orangecat
_Employees are left with an equation that looks basically like: enormous
salary - obscene rent = just a bit more cash flow than you’d earn in software
anywhere else._
It's probably true that the cost of minimally acceptable housing drives entry
level tech salaries, but they go way up from there. A senior SWE at Google
with salary+bonus+stock of $300k/year has a whole lot of disposable income
even after the ridiculous housing expenses.
~~~
solidsnack9000
There are very few senior SWEs at Google, relative to tech employees as a
whole.
------
deanmoriarty
How about:
1) Introducing a much higher tax rate for rental property income.
2) Making property taxes be reassessed every single year unless your AGI is
lower than average and you are a resident.
3) Introducing a much (much!) higher tax for non-residents/foreign investors
who buy a house purely for investment, and sometimes they don't even rent it
out (I know a few rich folks from FAANG who bought a handful of houses in MV,
and they keep them empty because they don't want the trouble of dealing with
tenants, they say the appreciation is more than enough, to me it's borderline
criminal).
I've seen numerous instances of those three events playing out against normal
people trying to afford some housing while working a normal job. If it's not
obvious, I'm heavily biased against real estate investors, because housing is
a need for everybody, so the market should be much more regulated.
~~~
woah
My guess is that while your anecdote may infuriate you, the effect of
investors who don’t rent out their homes is negligible on housing prices. The
real fix is to build enough housing for everyone. Eliminating prop 13 could
help with this, since it would cause homeowners to be penalized for high home
values, building political will to build more housing and bring down the
prices.
~~~
rrcaptain
>My guess is that while your anecdote may infuriate you, the effect of
investors who don’t rent out their homes is negligible on housing prices.
No that's actually a large part of housing problems. Like a third of Manhattan
real estate is empty. And Manhattan is already super dense but still has
homeless people.
~~~
CydeWeys
Please don't make up fake stats.
I live in Manhattan and the idea that a full third of the real estate here is
empty is laughable. Have you ever visited??
As my sibling comment points out, the real rate (as determined by actual data)
is less than 5%.
~~~
kokokokoko
I think you might be confusing rental property that is unrented vs property
that is not in the market but not physically occupied.
"about 30 percent of the more than 5,000 apartments are routinely vacant for
more than 10 months a year" [1]
[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/nyregion/more-
apartments-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/nyregion/more-apartments-
are-empty-yet-rented-or-owned-census-finds.html)
~~~
AWS_IAM_AMA
I'm sure the parent commenter meant to use "please" in that manner, as the
stats are being used in a deliberately misleading manner.
Even your source shows it... that's 30 percent of a small (presumably
affluent) section of the city, not of the whole city. There are some 2.5
million apartments in the city, and this is talking about just 5k.
There are other sources that cite the actual percentage as 11% [1]. That's
still high, unfair to residents, and worth discussing, but you can't win
arguments by putting up fake stats.
[1] [https://www.6sqft.com/nearly-250000-nyc-rental-apartments-
si...](https://www.6sqft.com/nearly-250000-nyc-rental-apartments-sit-vacant/)
------
kuyaab
It’s incredible how hard it’s been for retail and service companies to recruit
lower-wage workers her in the South Bay. Mike Rowe and tech execs love to talk
about skills gaps, but the fact is most jobs aren’t filled because the
compensation these positions offer is garbage.
~~~
claydavisss
They're trapped - probably unable to even scrape together the money to move.
Moving is expensive! You need the money not only to relocate, but also to tide
you over until you find work. Casual mobility is for the wealthy.
~~~
bredren
It isn't just that, many low wage people have their families there. Sometimes
extended family. Moving would mean moving the whole clan away from friends and
their connections and where they grew up. Moving is not a small thing.
~~~
dabockster
Exactly this. Moving elsewhere when your extended family has lived in one
place for multiple generations is probably one of the largest risks a person
can take. You’re essentially trading most or all of your network for the
possibility of a better life. If the possibility doesn’t work out, the person
is usually worse off than if had they stayed in their original location.
------
imagetic
As someone who lives in the outer bay area, pay for jobs hasn't really gone up
at all in the last 8 years, but the tech industry has really pushed the cost
of living up a lot. I can't say I've noticed a drop in pay outside of the
media industry since that's what I work in. And a lot of that has to do with
the cost of gear now and the supply is so high buy the demand hasn't grown
that much.
Most of my neighbors are contractors / construction workers. Nobody I know can
fathom buying a home. But until last year things were fairly stagnant for
them. There is a lot more construction going on now, but it's mostly to turn
homes we can't afford into vacation rentals.
~~~
mlindner
This is because zoning laws largely prevent additional housing construction.
Converting existing housing isn't blocked however so converting them to
vacation rentals makes sense economically.
------
ummonk
One thing I've noticed is that aside from rent, random expenses in NYC are so
much more expensive. E.g. classpass classes, restaurants, etc. Do service
workers get better paid there?
------
helen___keller
Zoning law and housing code were enacted across the nation in response to the
crowded, unsanitary, and unsafe tenements of the industrial revolution. But,
we’ve gone too far and allowed too much local control of housing. Now in 21st
century American boomtowns, you can’t convert your single family into a duplex
or small apartment building, you can’t convert the first floor of your
building into a small business, you can’t have organic growth in your city the
way cities had grown up until the early 20th century. Far from just outlawing
tenements, we’ve outlawed our cities from adapting to change, which is why we
see such absurdities as in the bay areas cost of living.
For decades now we’ve been surviving off technical debt. Cars and roads allow
us to survive even when our cities are absurdly inefficiently organized. But
as the nation changes more and more, our top cities’ roads and street layouts
don’t adapt to the change, so we have unbearable traffic in every major city.
On top of that, we continue to ignore the needs of a more efficient method of
organizing ourselves - relaxing zoning to allow organic growth in the city,
and construction of mass transit between the dense regions that develop under
this system.
That’s how we developed cities before we started relying on cars, and what we
need to do to continue scaling American cities. Or we can just accept as every
house in the Bay Area reaches multimillion dollar price tag.
------
Aeolun
Isn’t it ironic that the rates of poverty are increasing in possibly the
wealthiest region in the world?
~~~
clubm8
> Isn’t it ironic that the rates of poverty are increasing in possibly the
> wealthiest region in the world?
Not really - a natural side effect of corporations not paying their fair share
in taxes, alongside employees who are compensated in ways (stock options)
where large chunks of their salary are untaxable by local governments.
(It's my understanding it's much harder for local governments to tax stock
options as capital gains go to feds, please correct me if I'm mistaken)
~~~
GeneralMayhem
That's half true at best.
Capital gains are reported on your tax return as a form of income. The rate at
which they're taxed is up to each jurisdiction. For federal taxes, long-term
capital gains happen to be taxed at a lower rate than other income. For
California state taxes, there is no such distinction - all income, including
capital gains, is taxed on the same progressive taxation schedule. So for
Californians, getting paid in stock options usually results in lower federal
taxes, but no change in state taxes.
Now, where it gets interesting is with local jurisdictions. In California,
cities and counties are not allowed to collect income taxes. However, San
Francisco does collect _payroll_ taxes. Paying your employees in options could
reduce the amount that counts as payroll, but only if the stock options are
increasing in value quickly. If your employees are getting all of their money
from you, the city gets its cut. If your employees are getting some of their
money from you and some from the stock market, then the city loses out on the
latter portion - but most employees should consider that a bonus and negotiate
pay primarily based on current value, so that shouldn't matter too much in the
long run.
What the city (but not the state!) definitely misses out on taxing is capital
gains on wealth already accrued. When I make money on investments (not so much
this year, but hypothetically), the city doesn't get anything from that,
because there's no payroll involved. The feds get some of it (at the reduced
capital gains rates, assuming I've held for a year); California gets some of
it (at the full income tax rate); San Francisco gets none. But again, that
story is only for investment income on money I already had, not for new stock
compensation.
------
mlindner
Silicon Valley has a multi-fold problem.
1\. Housing is expensive because of the influx of people immigrating to the
state from out of state and also out of country. (I'm one of them.) This
causes a housing shortage which will naturally drive up price of housing.
2\. The housing prices don't come down because California in general has very
restrictive zoning laws, especially in the most expensive areas, that prevent
building of sufficient housing density to cover demand. This in turn drives
housing development further outside of the bay area forcing long commute times
and highway usage.
3\. Because of the high cost of living (primarily from housing, food/etc is
not significantly more expensive) from the above problems the solution
proposed is to greatly raise the minimum wage, now hitting $15 in many areas.
This causes a drive to automate away simpler jobs (also providing an entry for
further tech startups to automate these things) or more commonly, move the
jobs out of the state via company acquisition followed by moving the
administrative jobs to company headquarters located out of state or sometimes
out of country. A high minimum wage reduces the available job market by
putting an artificial job supply limit in place thus causing unemployment for
these simpler jobs.
4\. On top of this there's a loophole for illegal immigrants where companies
abuse them by paying them below minimum wage because they are here illegally.
(Another reason that giving a path to legal immigration for illegal immigrants
would help things.)
The first thing and most important thing that needs to happen is for the state
to overrule local zoning laws (as opposed by the NIMBYs) and force generic
zoning, allowing unrestricted housing development. Just look at the south bay
area. The zoning is obvious even looking at satellite maps. Industrial areas
are kept separate from housing which are kept separate from retail. This
prevents natural intermixing of these causing a lot of need for road
development to allow people to travel between these blocks rather than walking
down the street.
~~~
humanrebar
> ...giving a path to legal immigration for illegal immigrants would help
> things.
I would rather consider paying _anyone_ below minimum wage a form of wage
theft and prosecutable as a criminal offense. Dunno why embezzlement is a
felony but breaking the law to underpay people is just grounds for a lawsuit.
~~~
jldugger
It's difficult to prosecute considering the employee risks deportation if they
report.
~~~
humanrebar
Still seems more likely than an undocumented person filing a lawsuit.
------
cutler
This is the real truth about the tech boom - how it impacts society as a whole
and who benefits. A nation's progress is measured by the standard of living of
the average citizen, not the elite. By that yardstick the so-called advanced
nations such as the UK and USA, with their spiralling housing costs, are
moving backwards not forwards.
------
ReptileMan
This looks like the run of the mill hollowing of the middle that has been
going on since the late 70s.
------
Scipio_Afri
Boost the wage floor. High skilled workers have more force to push against the
wage supply price that employers set; they have a lot of power to set wages,
including an entire department called HR dedicated to ensuring they get the
best deal as they can. Low wage employees do not have that power.
~~~
mlindner
The wage floor has been continuously getting raised. Many areas of California
have the highest minimum wage laws in the country. That isn't going to solve
the problem.
~~~
Scipio_Afri
Adjusted for inflation its lower than it was in the 1960's
------
crankylinuxuser
Surprised? I'm not. Capitalists are well known to conspire together and create
capitalist unions to block workers of all stripes.
[https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/15/technology/silicon-
valley...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/15/technology/silicon-valley-
antitrust-case-settlement-poaching-engineers.html)
Google, Apple, Intel and Adobe in this one....
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation)
Adobe, Apple Inc., Google, Intel, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and eBay here.
[https://www.morganlewis.com/pubs/ftc-brings-first-wage-
fixin...](https://www.morganlewis.com/pubs/ftc-brings-first-wage-fixing-
enforcement-action-following-joint-doj-ftc-human-resources-guidance)
~~~
hazz99
Edit: I'm not a mod, nor trying to masquerade as one.
> Please don't use Hacker News primarily for political or ideological battle.
> This destroys intellectual curiosity [0]
Please keep your ideological battles away from HN.
[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
~~~
tomcam
Sticking up for my ideological opposite crankylinuxuser again. HN is
constantly used for political and ideological battle. Why is crankylinuxuser's
different?
~~~
hazz99
Disclaimer: I'm not a mod, so you don't have to listen to my opinion.
This article is about low-skill workers, and has nothing to do with tech
companies being against unions.
But, it could simply be a tangential discussion, and those are often
interesting! My main concern was the
Capitalists are well known to conspire together and create capitalist unions to block workers of all stripes.
generalization, which turned a potentially interesting discussion of tech
unions into an "capitalism vs. xyz" ideological battle.
~~~
crankylinuxuser
> Disclaimer: I'm not a mod, so you don't have to listen to my opinion.
So... You're masquerading as a HN mod? Damn.
Now, that seems like a bannable offense.
~~~
hazz99
I'm not trying to masquerade as a mod, I'm trying to gently suggest that
ideological battles be fought elsewhere, and for us to focus on the discussion
itself (tech unions).
I've edited my first comment to make it more apparent - I thought that sort of
comment was a common thing, but perhaps I'm wrong.
------
kumarm
Call any service business from top list on Yelp (Handyman, Dryer Vent
Cleaning, Plumber etc), they would charge minimum 80$ (Irrespective of whether
they do work or not).
Where is this money going?
~~~
itomato
Time spent sitting in traffic?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
An Nginx Module for Virtual Hosts Monitoring - user5994461
https://github.com/vozlt/nginx-module-vts
======
Benfromparis
This module seems to introduce nginx stats close to haproxy native monitoring
webpage. I'm wondering what others features are missing in nginx compare to
haproxy?
~~~
user5994461
On the top of my mind, TCP support and a couple of load balancing algorithms.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: In the next 5 years which markets will grow the most and why? - zongitsrinzler
The more specific you are the better.
======
Mz
Most people are terrible at predicting the future in this way. Some of the
most accurate predictions sound like (or are) jokes at the time, like when JK
Rowling was writing her first book as basically a "welfare mom." She did a lot
of the writing while her baby napped at some eatery owned by
friends/relatives. She would make jokes to the effect of "When my book gets
famous, it will put your place on the map!" That basically all came true, from
the book being famous to it making the place she wrote it famous too.
But when you go back historically, predictions of what life would be like
"now" all left out the world changing invention of computers and internet.
There is a scene in the movie "The Graduate" where he is at a party and
everyone is telling him what he should go into as his career because it will
be big in the future. One person tells him "Plastics!" This was a joke at the
time, a ridiculous statement. Years later, the plastics industry used that bit
in a TV commercial.
If you really, sincerely believe "The Future is all about X industry," you
aren't telling people that on the internet. You are quietly behind the scenes
buying more shares in X or getting training to work in X or otherwise trying
to make sure you are the firstest with the mostest in X.
~~~
BatFastard
5 years out is not that hard, since it is basically which technologies that
are either just out, or coming out soon will be successful. 10 years is more
challenging, 20 impossible.
~~~
Mz
Five years ago, tablets were basically cutting edge new tech. They were
insanely expensive and crappy as hell. They often faced limitations in
functionality because a lot of websites did not accommodate them. I know
because I bought two of them 5.5 years ago and it was $2000 worth of computers
and lots of stuff just did NOT work.
Today, you can get a tablet for under $50 and Google is (or has) split its
search stuff into PC and mobile search and is actively optimizing stuff for
mobile because mobile search is eating the world. I seriously doubt anyone
expected mobile to take over like this when it was new tech.
In contrast, "net books" seem to have gone extinct. I think that was supposed
to be The Next Big thing -- until tablets came out and began eating their
lunch.
~~~
andars
5 years ago, over 100 million tablets had been sold worldwide and the iPad was
entering its 4th generation. Your description is more apt for 10 years ago.
~~~
Mz
Well, according to Wikipedia, the history of tablets goes back to the 1800s.
But I know for a fact that I bought two tablets on December 31st, 2011 that
were priced at $2000 (after getting a 2 year internet service contract plus a
20% employee discount to reduce the price, I paid $800 up front) and it was
kind of the hot new item at the time. And I know for a fact that proliferation
of apps we have now was not the norm back then. I had enormous difficulty
getting things done on it and I noticed that painfully because I essentially
had no other access to computers at the time. I can now do all kinds of things
on a tablet bought for under $50 that I could only dream of and wish for 5
years ago.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tablet_computers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tablet_computers)
Humorously:
_" Mobile to overtake fixed Internet access by 2014" was the huge headline
summarising the bold prediction from 2008 by Mary Meeker..._
[http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-
marketi...](http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketing-
analytics/mobile-marketing-statistics/)
~~~
giobox
The first generation iPad launched close to two years before your example in
2010 at $499.
I agree with the previous remarks - the tablet industry was pretty well
established 5 years ago and hardly cutting edge tech - 10 years ago is
definitely a better comparison at this point, with the crappy tablet devices
Microsoft were pushing at much higher price points then.
------
chauhankiran
I personally think the market of add-on or web browser's extension.
Why? Because, web browser is second most software used after operating system
by a normal computer users. If you are developer you use editor and web
browser, if you are writer you use world processor and web browser, if you are
market person you use trading software and web browser and so on. I mean web
browser is something used by everyone.
We have written applications ( for computer and mobile device ) for most
useful sotware - operating system to reach out our users. Now, it is time to
target next software used by everyone. You might create a website but it will
only be there until user do not close that tab. But, with extension, you will
be in constant connection with user.
Currently thid market is uder estimate as many developer consider that it is
not something that consider as programming. But, I think every website
specific limit to connect users. and at that situation, add-ons will come to
rescue.
~~~
joshbaptiste
I see the browser becoming the OS period. I didn't realize this until I got a
ChromeBook and realized (with crouton) I can do everything I normally do on my
Linux notebook.
~~~
kakarot
Do you normally just watch Youtube and use Google Docs on Linux? Because
that's about where the set of things you can do on both ends
~~~
joshbaptiste
All I need is a browser and a terminal since my development environment
consists only of tmux/vim via Crouton chroots and Plex Web/Youtube/Google
Music for entertainment.
~~~
kakarot
Why use Chrome OS at all if you're just gonna virtualize Linux?
------
pdog
Blockchain and cryptocoin markets will probably grow the most in the next five
years.
The total market cap for cryptocoins will grow from $50 billion today to $1+
trillion in the future.
~~~
chronic940
Do you know how few people on HN even own any cryptocurrency? It's likely
close to 1-2%. It's been like that for the past 5 years.
~~~
ryanx435
Major movie theaters and other retail stores in Phoenix, Arizona, accept
bitcoin. It may not be 100% mainstream yet, but crypticurrency is going to
explode in a big way
~~~
gst
As a customer, why would I want to use Bitcoin (instead of, e.g., a credit
card) at a movie theater (or at any other type of shop)?
~~~
mythrwy
For the of the thrill of not knowing how much actual spending power you have
from one day to the next?
~~~
Top19
I can't say whether you're right or not, but your comment caused me to laugh
out loudly enough that people at Starbucks looked over at me. Thank you.
------
sonink
India. Because it will go from 100mn internet users to 1200 mn, enabled by a
massive 4G/fiber deployment currently underway.
~~~
InclinedPlane
Their economy has also been growing at about 7% per year. That's 40% over 5
years, which is around a trillion dollars (more in PPP).
------
BatFastard
AI in all its guises, such as self driving cars, virtual assistants like
Alexa, Siri, etc.
Augmented Reality, I would suspect in a year or two we will have the first
successful product.
Services and entertainment for aging populations.
Real estate auction services, Trump is going to have to sell of a lot after
going to prison.
~~~
BatFastard
Forgot solar power, batteries, roofs.
------
stock_toaster
Healthcare. Because a large portion of the population in the west (baby boomer
generation) is getting older.
~~~
chillydawg
Look at healthcare cost going up - this is already happening in all markets.
People getting old and fat cost an absolute fortune to keep alive.
------
crypticlizard
Timescales are hard but...Ai will do mostly all of it and humans are being
factored out. Humans will need not apply for real work, fake work could
proliferate. Automation vertically integrated into robotic systems will
prevail in mostly all sectors... Embodied AGI will autonomously operate under
duress, capable of or superior to humans at warfare. This is already normal
today to a lesser extent, but not publicly claimed by anyone. I believe this
is so because a soldier never reveals his position. Superior Industries could
be: computer hacking using AI, computers being used in new ways on a mass
scale, super computer quantum computing, nanotechnology, organ replacement,
DNA therapies, automated field doctors, 3d PTSD therapy machines, data
thievery & recovery using AI. AI will cause crime sprees as new exploits using
AI trump non-AI systems. Also, People plugging their brains into computers
makes sense bc then we achieve intelligence upgrades.3d printers that print
anything fast. Lifelong AI Buddies/monitors. Nostalgia Industries as old
people feel really out of touch with the modern world. Propaganda and fake
news bc they will be more effectively convincing bc AI. As AI really starts to
prove itself superior People will question everything. Maybe we will want to
colonize Mars bc it will make humans feel not obsolete. Who knows.
------
tyingq
Low cost cloud providers. No idea why there's not a low cost competitor to
AWS, GCE, and Azure. And I don't mean just a VPS. Full service cloud with
equivalents for EC2, ELB, S3, Lambda, etc.
~~~
skynode
Outcompete Amazon (especially) on prices? Waiting to see who'll achieve that
feat.
That aside, there's a cost threshold beyond which it wouldn't makes sense to
offer cloud services at such ridiculous prices. If anything, I actually think
compute prices might increase in future as demand for cloud services become
globally outrageous, from Alaska to Zagreb.
~~~
marktangotango
I'd like to see the opposite of admining your own custom stack on vps or cloud
instances. What I want is a really full featured walled guarden where compute
storage and bandwidth are all metered and you just pay for what you use. Super
cheap if you can live within the constraints. I'm talking mainframe style web
app hosting, one giant server, you pay for a slice. No admining or
provisioning of instances required.
------
zackmorris
Wrote a whole long response beginning with "my gut feeling is that markets are
driven as much by politics as technology so Hacker News may not be the place
to ask." Then said, man, that sucks.
I'm hoping for a market to end all markets, where the product is money. You
sign up with a company, it pays you. All anyone wants is cheap, cheaper, free.
Getting paid tops that.
So maybe solar panels are just getting competitive, but getting paid to put
them on your roof, that's hot.
Turo is hot.
Universal basic income is hot. Maybe politicians don't have the imagination to
make it happen, but we do. Secretly every employee in the world yearns to load
the part of their job that even a monkey could do into a spreadsheet, go home,
and still get paid. Given the permission to automate our own jobs, we’ll do it
gladly and in large numbers. The only thing stopping us is really really,
ridiculously rich people, and people with no imagination. Somehow we have to
find a way to pay them as well, and keep paying them, no matter how much they
don’t want to get paid.
------
dominotw
a reaction to technology overreach in ours lives. People are sick of their
phones, laptops, sleep tracking, social media. We want to reclaim our mind
back. There is place in LA that does Buddhist retreat where you sit in silence
for 1 week, its booked 8 months in advance.
------
beagle3
Person tracking.
We're going through something similar to the industrial revolution, lots of
people will lose their job to AI (or still be employed, but with significantly
lower wages - even previously untouchable professions like lawyers, doctors
and programmers).
To avoid riots, these people will be fed either through existing welfare
programs or new basic-income style ones. But the old guard will want to make
sure they don't blow their money on hookers and blow and booze, so anyone who
peddles "here's how we can figure out which of the welfare recipients is non-
compliant with their spending habits" is going to make a killing.
Sad, but inevitable in the current political climate.
~~~
orthoganol
Maybe in the next 50 years, but not the next 5. There's about a 10-1 marketing
to actual breakthrough ratio for AI changing our economy. I agree it will
eventually, and has made some inroads, but it won't anytime soon to the extent
where we have to solve problems of demographic shifts.
There are few people I'm aware of who think to the contrary who are actually
working at a technical level in the field of AI, and not founders of a startup
riding buzzword funding or who have financial or PR interests to hype AI.
I'll add a caveat that the invention of general AI would accelerate this
timeline. I think it will require paradigm shifts, not feature-augmented/
exotic ensembles of neural networks with RL layers, or other approaches
possible with current techniques, but think it is still more possible, sooner
than AI skeptics believe, but still beyond 5 years.
~~~
beagle3
I think the nature of these revolutions is that they happen slowly but
invisibly until one day all of a sudden everyone is aware of them. I wrote
"AI", but it's not _just_ AI, it's a lot of things that are coming of age.
Some "Minimum wage jobs" are disappearing -- a local fast food joint now has
about 1/3 of the employees it had a couple of years ago: they have better
automated machines in the kitchen, and a smart ordering kiosk that most people
use (though there's still a person at the register, for people who are
uncomfortable with the kiosk or requests that are not available through it).
Translators, as a job, have almost disappeared (relegated to those needing "an
official translation"). That happened in the last 10 years, starting with an
awfully funny and weird altavista or google translate that would give you
results that could only be meaningful if you had some familiarity with both
languages - down to modern translation which, while not perfect, is readable
and understandable.
Professional photohgraphers for newspapers used to command a $3,000/day salary
just 10 years ago. Now it's closer to $300/day, if they can get it at all -
because there's already someone on the scene, with a smart phone camera -- the
pictures are horrible, but people are willing to give them for credit, so a
photographer is unneeded.
The army of people working for Google/Facebook/Amazon to moderate user
content, is being decimated.
It's started to happen to lawyers; It's not prevalent yet, but it is eating
the more "mechanical" parts of a lawyer's job - finding relevant historical
cases and summarizing them. Computers are now slightly better than the interns
that used to be assigned to these jobs. In 5 years, they might be better than
the experienced partners at these kinds of jobs.
It's closer than most people think in many, many jobs. Truck drivers will
likely not be completely replaced in 5 years, but their jobs might change to
"24 hour shifts" in which they are allowed to sleep until the automated truck
wakes them up to deal with some condition.
You know, writing down what's in a picture, was almost sci-fi 10 years ago,
and right now you have Google, Microsoft and ClariFi offering this as a cheap
API.
------
espitia
The medical cannabis industry! \- Science: as we pass the obstacles of
regulation, more studies will be able to confirm (hopefully) what we suspect
so far. \- Zeitgeist of our times is "going green". \- Damaged image of big
pharma.
------
clio
The atheist generation will have grown up and begin to look for someone to
tell them everything will be okay. It's a good opportunity to start a new
religion.
Also, some form of artificial companionship.
~~~
limeblack
A new religion based around what? Is this religion supposed to actually be
believed? This is one of my favorite videos which explains why new religions
don't have as much credibility
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PEg_Oys4NkA](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PEg_Oys4NkA)
You have to watch the video to probably get the basic idea. I'm not Jewish
despite the video focusing on Judaism.
~~~
clio
Which direction is the zeitgeist blowing? From my perspective, it seems that
there is a real and ongoing erosion of local communities (labor, religious, or
otherwise) that are replaced, often times, by a shallow virtual existence. It
does not have to be a religion in the conventional sense, just something that
attempts to give meaning to the meaningless.
------
iamacynic
my three guesses (my company is in 1 of these areas):
consumer internet privacy and security (think barracuda for the home market --
above and beyond a standard router/firewall possibly with active L7 features)
consumer and enterprise storage management (they literally can't even make
enough ssd's right now, people and companies are hoarding data and can't
manage it effectively or reliably)
rural and wilderness area wireless internet (people will start moving out of
cities again and will want the same > 50 megabit low latency service).
~~~
dnautics
Fascinating... I had a similar list, and The company I work for is on it. Drop
a line.
------
westoque
Cryptocurrency.
Have you sent someone money internationally before? How about across different
banks? Typical transfers process at around 3-5 days. With the help of
cryptocurrencies like Ripple, Steller and the like. Transfers happen in
seconds. This will grow because now, banks will utilize this technology to get
rid of the old one (Swift anyone?) and will save banks lots of time and money.
~~~
alasdair_
I send through transferwise. It's very fast and the exchange rates are very
close to the forex rates - it was a lot easier and cheaper than using bitcoin.
The trick is to match flows of cash so they money isnt actually transferred
internationally - my cash from the uk was sent to someone else in the uk and
my US bank account was credited from some other US-based bank.
~~~
tompazourek
It's quite smart what Transferwise are doing.
When a transfer is made from country A to country B, the money gets first
transferred from the sender in country A to local Transferwise account in
country A (avoiding fees and conversions). Then they send the money from local
Transferwise account in country B to the recipient in country B (again
avoiding fees and conversions).
The magic is how they ensure that the local Transferwise accounts in each
country have enough money to do the transfers. They own a bank account in
every country they operate in, and the money flows between those bank
accounts. They need to move money between their local accounts in each country
while minimizing the amounts transferred, but also minimizing the fees and
conversions. When they actually move the money is up to them, they just need
to ensure they have enough on each account. I guess there's a lot of variables
to optimize for, and it would be interesting to know more details of the
process.
I've also seen a company called Azimo trying to do a similar thing, but I
haven't tried them yet.
------
avaer
Some mode of online social interaction that seems ridiculous now but will seem
obvious in retrospect. This will be milked for ads and acquired by a big
player while me-toos nibble the ends in the aftermath.
The market will grow from zero to millions in this time, but it will be
entirely consumed by one of the big five and everyone will just think of it as
a Google feature or something.
~~~
SimbaOnSteroids
You've just described 2nd and 3rd generation AR
------
tmaly
I think food technology. As the worlds population grows, the demand for food
and more productive ways to produce it will grow.
I think semi-automated systems will become more automated using some of the AI
that is in the news today.
We may even see better automation on the programming front in terms of being
able to create stuff.
I think we will see more software and automation in government at all levels.
There is drive to automate everything, but governments tend to be even slower
than enterprise to adopt things given the budgetary process.
Lastly, I think we will see some significant gains in genetic programming that
come out of the CRISPR technique. If you recall the tech that allowed us to
sequence the human genome was very slow at first. Eventually they developed
faster techniques, and not you can sequence things an order of magnitude
faster.
------
id122015
There will be war. Anything that will protect us will do.
~~~
xapata
Will be? There _is_.
------
ParameterOne
Indexing. Who needs Google when you have your own index? And I don't know
about you but I can't get passed 16 pages of search results on google even
though it has billions of results for the search term "contact us" (have it
set to 50 per page)
------
borplk
I will go ahead and make this prediction for the amusement of myself
(hopefully) and others in 5 years. Here it comes:
"AI will not become as big as people want to believe today."
------
AznHisoka
carpal tunnel syndrome specialists.
------
Existenceblinks
1) Weapon. Because of War. 2) Entertainment. Because of Pain.
------
nugget
Support for trade schools and skilled vocational pathways (and vocational
entrepreneurship) in place of four year university education for all.
------
jayaram
I think in the next 5 years desktop applications are going to be a thing
again. Frameworks like Qt, electron, nw.js and others have made it very easy
for developers to create desktop applications.
~~~
nextweek2
I struggle with that suggestion. Which probably means you are correct.
However we are seeing technologies like WebAssembly and WebGL which are
directly addressing the benefits of desktop applications. What would a desktop
application offer over browser based app?
------
richardw
VR. People living in a place/time/body they physically aren't. When I'm old
I'd like to VR to all the places I missed out on visiting because I was
working too hard. I won't be alone.
~~~
tonyedgecombe
People have been banging on about VR for years, I don't see it ever becoming
more than a niche thing.
~~~
Gustomaximus
And people were banging on about personal mobile devices for years, then it
all came together with the first iPhone. There are loads of these examples if
you think about it. People expect these fast product deliveries form concepts
but it takes time for hardware/software and execution to catch-up with
potential.
------
WalterBright
Health care. The boomers are entering their prime health care spending years,
and Obamacare will engender huge industry profits from "spend all you want -
someone else will pay the bill!".
------
tonyedgecombe
Anything to do with mitigating climate change, clearly we aren't going to do
anything significant to stop it.
------
olalonde
Not a market per se, but there seems to be a lot of low hanging fruits related
to machine learning.
------
atroll
im betting my pennies on real estate
------
alex_g
food automation, healthcare, learning/edu tech
------
NoCanDo
AI, because everything and their grandma needs to be smart.
~~~
fellellor
That would be IoT.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Do you feel any cognitive dissonance working in tech at all? - rblion
Just curious. A lot has changed between 2009 and 2019. I still love design and engineering to solve valuable problems in day-to-day life and society at large. I am also aware of the public sentiment/resentment towards the industry as a whole. There is much to be said and to discuss. I would love to hear what you think and feel, what you are doing with your time and skills.
======
perfunctory
Thus for the first time since his creation man will be faced with his real,
his permanent problem - how to use his freedom from pressing economic cares,
how to occupy the leisure, which science and compound interest will have won
for him, to live wisely and agreeably and well.
The strenuous purposeful money-makers may carry all of us along with them into
the lap of economic abundance. But it will be those peoples, who can keep
alive, and cultivate into a fuller perfection, the art of life itself and do
not sell themselves for the means of life, who will be able to enjoy the
abundance when it comes.
Yet there is no country and no people, I think, who can look forward to the
age of leisure and of abundance without a dread. For we have been trained too
long to strive and not to enjoy.
\-- John Maynard Keynes [0]
My personal conspiracy theory is that the age of abundance has already come
but we just don't know what to do with it other than keep working our BS jobs.
[0]
[http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf](http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf)
~~~
gervu
We have lots of abundance. The problem is that the future is, as they say, not
so equally distributed.
It's hard to solve things like poverty when a tiny minority is hoarding most
of the increase in wealth, and in fact often profits or draws political power
from maintaining inequality in its various forms.
~~~
wait-a-minute
Then why has poverty been going down drastically, even faster than anyone
would've expected?
[https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-
poverty](https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty)
"In 1990, there were 1.9 billion people living in extreme poverty. With a
reduction to 735 million in 2015, this means that on average, every day in the
25 years between 1990 and 2015, 128,00 fewer people were living in extreme
poverty.17
On every day in the last 25 years there could have been a newspaper headline
reading, “The number of people in extreme poverty fell by 128,000 since
yesterday”. Unfortunately, the slow developments that entirely transform our
world never make the news, and this is the very reason why we are working on
this online publication.
Recently this decline got even faster and in the 7 years from 2008 to 2015 the
headline could have been “Number of people in extreme poverty fell by 192,000
since yesterday”. In the recent past we saw the fastest reduction of the
number of people in extreme poverty ever."
~~~
gervu
The fact that some things are getting better doesn't change that others are
simultaneously bad, or that things could maybe be more better if resource
allocation wasn't so drastically unbalanced.
I seem to have severely underestimated the ability of HN readers to see basic
economic data that's both well known and easy to look up like the rate at
which the wealth of different demographics is changing as uncontroversial,
which is...well, it's a thing.
~~~
wait-a-minute
The argument you made is that "it's hard to solve poverty due to wealth
hoarding" and the response I provided is to show you that clearly that is not
the case, given the rate at which poverty is being solved across the entire
planet.
So either you've overstated the difficulty of solving poverty or overestimated
the amount of hoarding or overestimated the impact of hoarding on the rate of
solving poverty. Perhaps the amount of wealth someone has isn't entirely
relevant to the amount of poverty, since wealth is not a zero-sum game.
Resource allocation being equal is not a prerequisite for eliminating poverty.
Kings used to have all the wealth but the poorest American today still has a
much better standard of living than the wealthiest kings from just a 200 years
ago.
------
perfunctory
When I am in the office I constantly hear my inner voice whispering into my
ear - b-u-l-l-s-h-i-t.
P.S.
[http://www.berglas.org/Articles/ImportantThatSoftwareFails/I...](http://www.berglas.org/Articles/ImportantThatSoftwareFails/ImportantThatSoftwareFails.html)
------
codingdave
I admit that some companies are better than other about being mission-driven,
and concerned about their impact on society. But I'm not sure we can
generalize about the tech industry as a whole on that level, even if the
general public does exactly that.
Working in this industry, in particular if you are not in SV, you see the
variety of people, purposes, and goals that comprise tech companies.
As far as what I do personally, I've focused my career in the public sector
since 2012, writing software that saves money for school districts. I watch
the pricing models that our sales team comes up with to be aware whether they
cross the line where our fees are greater than the cost savings, and therefore
would cut into student funding. My side projects focus on building tools to
help the creative efforts of my children. In short, I try to avoid work that
is purely money-driven.
------
throw51319
Yeah 100%. I'm in my second job out of school working at a big bank in tech.
It's mindnumbingly uninteresting to me. And I also don't think it does
anything to help society. Though sometimes the technical problems fit the bill
of being interesting, it doesn't come close to filling the gap.
------
CM30
No, not really. Honestly, I don't think there's much resentment towards tech
at all. There's a bit towards the largest companies like Facebook and Google
sure, but most companies in the tech industry have pretty good reputations,
and even the likes of Facebook aren't exactly 'hated' by the majority of the
population.
Most people appreciate what I... no we do. Every app and site I've worked has
been liked by both clients and customers.
Instead, the tech 'backlash' side is being played up by the media rather than
the public. Likely because technology and the internet in particular has
decimated their business model, and the people working there aren't exactly
happy about it. But that's not the sentinment of most, it's just looking like
it is because the folks with the largest megaphones are the ones most against
it.
Do I feel some dissonance in some things? Sure, I guess I've always found it
hard to reason that someone making say, hundreds of thousands or
millions/billions of pounds or dollars a year really deserves that much more
than everyone else. But that's not really a tech thing.
------
bjourne
Yes.
To much tech is likely not helpful. I think social media makes people
lonelier, porn and online games are also not completely nonproblematic. If you
plot a curve with amount of tech on the x-axis and happiness on the y-axis
then I think it would look like a parabola (hill). And most people in the
Western world are probably beyond the maximum.
Someone will object that pacemakers save lives, Facebook helps people
reconnect with old friends and Fitbit motivates people to get in shape. That
is all true, but such tech-enabled activities seem to be in the minority...
Like reading news sites for 15 minutes per day is time well-spent. But
reloading news sites and idly browsing through headlines every 15 minutes per
day is a waste of time.
------
mortivore
Nope. My conscience is clean. I don't work for a company with a spy/sell data
business model.
~~~
winkeyless
We might as well imagine a company you work for that is trustworthy and does
none of the spy/sell data business. And also imagine that the product of the
company has been rapidly replacing a million jobs in 5 years and creating
merely 200 different jobs in San Francisco demanding higher level of
education. A bit extreme but I don’t think it’s unimaginable. Would you feel
the same if I may ask?
~~~
mortivore
If I were in such a job I would be very happy about it. I view work as a means
to an end. Work to live, don't live to work. A society without jobs would be
wonderful. If something I was working on would eliminate the jobs of millions,
then we would be closer to having no jobs at all. In such a position I would
feel like I was really contributing to a greater future.
~~~
zhaomizhi
It is true that lots of job in market do not treat people as human. Lots of
them are just repeatable labor work and require very minimal level of
creativity or innovation. In this sense, i agreed that eliminating these jobs
would be a huge step for the whole society. However, I don't think the
government and these giant capitalist tech company is ready or have a plan
about how to distribute resource and money they earned. Also, i am not sure
how you define the work here. Instead of eliminate work, i would think working
for what you truly believe can give you satisfaction since you are being
rewarded for what you do and make.
------
tomjen3
I don't believe that the public as such hate tech. A bit more weary about
Facebook, perhaps, but not much more than. The rest is just obsolete media
hating tech for being better than them.
We are nerds, we should be able to spot bullies and their tactics well by now.
As a minimum we should not allow them to bully us.
------
psv1
> I am also aware of the public sentiment/resentment towards the industry as a
> whole.
Can you or anyone else elaborate on this? I'm really not aware of this
negative sentiment.
~~~
hashkb
You can easily find this yourself. One major issue is that we're pricing
people out of neighborhoods their families have lived in for years.
~~~
psv1
Are you saying that tech salaries being generally higher than other
industries' is a problem?
~~~
hashkb
No, of course I am not saying that. I'm saying it's a complicated issue that's
currently playing out in public and you can read about it from many well-
articulated points of view if you do a bit of Googling.
------
segmondy
No.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: What is the best enterprise software you use every day? - bonfire
A few days ago there was a discussion about worst enterprise software. What is the BEST one?
======
wenc
Things that we pay for.
_SQL Server_ : it's not cheap, but it's genuinely good. Live query plans,
clustered columnstore indices, linked servers, rich SQL features.
_Tableau_ : more than a dashboarding tool, it's actually a really good
multivariate exploratory data analysis (EDA) tool. You can use it to visualize
multidimensional data easily. I do use Jupyter (seaborn, plotly) and R
(ggplot2) which are good, but Tableau lets you touch your data and move stuff
around in a more fluid fashion. The UI lets you really interact deeply with
your data. I find that on a new dataset, I can get usable results out of
Tableau faster than if were to muck around with ggplot2's syntax, even though
I'm familiar with the latter. There is a learning curve for Tableau though,
especially around how to structure your data for visualization (you have to
think in SQL-like operations). It's not just dragging-and-dropping -- a
certain mindset is required.
_Active Directory_ : it's just there. It's pretty decent.
_Visual Studio_ : I don't use this every day, but I do maintain a complex C#
codebase from time to time (among other things), and Visual Studio (not VS
Code! though I like VS Code too) is genuinely a pleasant IDE. I'm a big fan of
the C# language and the integration with dev tooling is unparalleled e.g.
solid refactoring, peeks, referencing, Intellisense, etc. The IDE supplies a
ton of guards to help avoid human errors.
_Splunk_ : it's good. Not the cheapest though.
~~~
milani
Why is Splunk among the bests for you? What is the cheaper alternative?
~~~
wenc
For an on-prem general purpose logging server, it's fast and easy to maintain.
The query engine supports fairly complex queries. Did I mention it's fast?
Plus it's an industry standard so it's an easier sell in the enterprise. It's
also actually not that expensive at low data volumes -- prices are comparable
to Sumologic.
Cheaper alternatives? You can roll your own logging server with fluentd and a
database. Some folks will recommend elasticsearch, but we tried it and it was
challenging to set up just right.
~~~
mrweasel
The minute you say “on-prem” a surprising number of sales people stop talking
and just looks terrified.
Running and managing an ELK stack is just a hassle and a managing nightmare
conpared to Splunk. Humio is a great alternative, if you need something
cheaper, but you have to give up a lot of features.
~~~
user5994461
I've managed a full elastic search + graylog cluster. It was very easy to
setup and maintain. [https://thehftguy.com/2016/09/12/250-gbday-of-logs-with-
gray...](https://thehftguy.com/2016/09/12/250-gbday-of-logs-with-graylog-
lessons-learned/)
By far elasticsearch is the easiest distributed database to setup and scale.
------
PeterStuer
Surprised by the answers given here. If I hear 'enterprise', I'm thinking SAP,
IBM, Oracle. SAS etc., not some dev environments or niche tools.
~~~
GoblinSlayer
Yep, RHEL would be an example of open source enterprise software.
~~~
fizixer
Borderline. The 'E' in RHEL doesn't imply RHEL itself is an enterprise s/w,
more that it's an OS best suited for 'running enterprise s/w on'.
------
adrianbordinc
Datadog - the amount of observability we have in our infrastructure is insane.
I can find out what’s wrong within a few seconds.
~~~
siddharthgoel88
The tool indeed does a very good job from developer's point of view but when
we see the end to end aspects of Datadog then the feeling changes. Previously
when I was working as a DevOps Engineer, I remember how much our Head of
Infrastructure was pissed with the shady licensing and pricing model of
Datadog. Missing of detailed itemized billing, lack of proper access control
(allowing who team can use which feature, can publish what metrics, etc.)
makes the tool a pain in the long run. We even started to look for affordable
alternatives to it.
~~~
acid__
Yeah, amazing, incredible tool but the billing is obfuscated to the point you
almost wonder if they're intentionally trying to make it impossible to
understand. Though once you realize there are a tons of hacks to abuse their
billing methods and pay much less, it becomes apparent that it's just a case
of Hanlon's razor.
------
kristopolous
I've tried not to be impressed by airtable, but their on the fly API
documentation generators for how you configure things still feels like black
magic.
Every time I want to be dismissive of the product, it's exceeded what I
believed to be an extremely unlikely to meet set of expectations.
They've clearly got some pretty competent people. I'd love to draft them
somehow
Beyond that, the services of namecheap Ava digital ocean. They clearly have
developers who rely on the product. All the elements are there and they work
well.
Azure's python libraries I find way easier than AWS's boto3, which for some
reason always reminds me of dbus programming. I keep meaning to try Google's
bud I haven't yet.
I also have been meaning to write one that somehow transparently uses things
like rsync/scp with some partitioning strategy so you can migrate say a
personal project costing you $50/month, generating you $0 and used by only a
few dozen people to potentially a lot less.
(I've got numerous large scale efforts that _almost_ nobody uses...)
~~~
iamwil
what is an on the fly API documentation generator? Is it that you say what
your lang and stack is and they tailor the documentation to just the lang and
stack you're using?
~~~
hiyer
Airtable generates basic REST APIs for CRUD operations based on your database
schema. Perhaps that's what OP is referring to.
~~~
rochak
That sounds about right and even makes sense. I would really like to work on
something like that, maybe even open source.
------
Someone1234
Cisco's Duo Security MFA product.
It Just Works™. Which you'd just take for granted with something as simple as
MFA, but we had two previous enterprise products that were garbage. Duo just
does its thing, gets out of the way, and I can keep working.
It is one of those things you appreciate because you never think about it.
~~~
paxys
Huh I have used Duo for years and had no idea they were owned by Cisco. Agree
with you though - I don't spend more than a few seconds a day interacting with
it, but it gets the job done painlessly.
~~~
rgrs
Acquired by Cisco
------
pinacarlos90
1) Microsoft Visual Studio 2019 2) SnagIt 3) SSMS 4) Microsoft Azure Services
5) Microsoft Azure DevOps 6) Postman
there a bunch of other tools I use/love but I'm not sure they would qualify as
'enterprise', but here they are just in case:
VScode, notepad++, Agent Ransack, code compare, Dark reader chrome extension,
Fork (git-client tool for MacOS),linqPad
------
DigitallyFidget
LanSweeper. It's the primary asset tracker/scanner we use for our local
network of over 3000 network devices. It can read switch data to even provide
a means of finding what port a device is connected to on a switch. Combine
with ArcGIS to physically trace thousands of network cables and hundreds of
fiber trunks and runs, we're able to have immediate access/knowledge of where
any asset is located virtually and physically as well as the entire physical
path between each point. These two tools have allowed us to migrate from
knowledge only being saved in the memory of a few individuals to being
preserved via documentation.
~~~
blaser-waffle
We're running into this issue now. It will be at least 2-3 more weeks of
having a cable monkey trace everything in our colo's.
How does LANSweeper detect devices? CDP, SNMP, etc?
~~~
DigitallyFidget
SNMP mainly. It collects installed apps (versions) hardware info, warranty
info, and basically everything you could want or need to know and tons of
stuff you probably don't even care about. It has an optional built in
ticketing system (for helpdesk) and even a deployment service. I've set up
tons of automation with it. Auto install virus scanner on systems, install VPN
on laptops, script execution to change Windows USB power settings, and other
little things. You can setup groups, filters, reports, search by systems
running a specific version of software (and then deploy an update for those
systems). It's basically an automated documentation tool with extras that
enable a new person to jump in and be able to navigate the company's network
to find computers and get to work without having to ask where everything is.
But that also helps for the people who have been there for years to not have
to go through and document things. Honestly the ability for it to trace
through the network connections is probably the most game changing powerful
feature. And you can even use it to execute backup scripts on network
switches.
It's enterprise and comes with that price tag, but the cost of it is covered
by the labor hours it saves.
------
thehappypm
I love using Tableau. It has completely changed the way I analyze data --
things that would have taken me a minute or two in Excel takes literally
seconds in Tableau.
~~~
supernova87a
What's Tableau's special secret to handling data? Is it doing table indexing,
summary, and array manipulation in a smarter way compared to dumb Excel?
~~~
thehappypm
It’s honestly just speed. Want to sum this, broken out by that, filtering out
this other thing? Oh want to make it an area chart instead of a bar chart? Add
a color code? These things are just super fast and easy to do
------
jokab
1) nimbletext. when clients send me excel sheets with tons of data to import i
would generate insert statements in the sheets themselves. this is a painful
experience. Then i found out about nimbletext. its pure joy to use.
2) jailer. I'm a visual kind of guy. so this makes database analysis very
easy.
3) onenote. if only it had Linux app i would use it for personal use.
4) visual studio 2019. customized to the bone to be uber productive
5) Autohotkey. got a ms 4000 ergonomic keyboard and binding all keys a journey
in itself
I'll stop right here but i have tons of other tools i really enjoy using.
~~~
cylentwolf
What kind of customization do you do to VS 2019 to make it more productive?
~~~
tester34
I'm no the OP, but I suggest to use things like
Extensions:
Roslynator
Codemaid
Productivity Power Tools - pack of extensions
_________
And maybe disable option: Reopen documents on solution load
It's in tools -> options -> projects and solutions -> general
------
SMAAART
[https://datastudio.google.com/](https://datastudio.google.com/)
When you've maxed out on what you can do with spreadsheets.
~~~
avipars
Didn't know this thing existed. Thank you ;)
------
bonfire
For me, I have to say it, it's MS Outlook. I do e-mail all day every day and I
use VBA macros and all sorts of shortcuts to make it very useful. Love it.
~~~
culopatin
That is the first time I hear someone praise Outlook. For an application that
gets billions in billing, there are no valid excuses for it to be the same
thing as it was 15 years ago.
~~~
maxerickson
I think there's a solid argument that getting billions in billing while being
stagnant is self evidently a valid excuse to be stagnant.
~~~
bonfire
> I think there's a solid argument that getting billions in billing while
> being stagnant is self evidently a valid excuse to be stagnant.
yes.
------
vmurthy
I've been enamored by Pipedream
([https://pipedream.com](https://pipedream.com)) because as a Product Manager
with engineering background, I can quickly hack together prototypes and get
good feedback from customers :) . Pretty sure there are other nocode software
but this is great for me.
~~~
wackget
What kind of stuff do you use it for? I watched the intro video and I get it
would be useful for "monitoring" Twitter and stuff like that, but are there
more practical day-to-day uses for it?
~~~
vmurthy
My team’s bread and butter is integrations between enterprise systems. So I
can quickly make prototypes of system A and our own software working when a
webhook is triggered on A. Quick feedback plus tweaks before we do formal dev
keeps us from having nasty surprises at the end of integration
------
leokennis
Two:
\- UltraEdit. What Photoshop is to images, UltraEdit is to text. The weird
thing is, it’s not a super flashy or even immediately intuitive tool. But once
you get the hang of it, it never fails to deliver.
\- Excel. It’s insane the breadth of stuff you can do with it. And as a tool,
it’s equally handy and “oh my God this will save me so much work” for a school
teacher as it is for a data analyst and stock broker. It sort of scales
infinitely, there is always one more level of complexity/usefulness to unlock.
~~~
enchiridion
Can you give an example of why UltraEdit is better than emacs? Thanks!
~~~
eli
I assume Emacs can be made to do anything under the sun, but UltraEdit comes
out of the box with a friendly GUI that exposes some fairly complicated text
manipulation tools. On some level it's just personal preference and
familiarity.
------
darkr
* Looker (most usable BI tool I’ve come across so far)
* DataDog (distributed tracing is a dream)
* IntelliJ (idea, goland, pycharm, clion, datagrip)
* MindNode (macOS-only mind-mapping software)
Recently started using smart sheets, but on the fence about this one so far.
~~~
jbhatab
What other BI platforms have you used? We're looking to build out our BI
infrastructure as a service for our customers and are currently testing google
data studio but have looked into Sisense + Looker.
~~~
darkr
QuickSight, Tableau, Chartio. Disappointed with all of these
~~~
huy
You should check out Holistics.io if you're disappointed with all 3 options. A
balance between drag-and-drop for business users and SQL for data analysts,
this is done through a SQL-based data modeling layer.
Disclaimer: I work at Holistics.
------
johnwalkr
GrabCAD. It's free, simple cloud-based version control for CAD files. I don't
think they actually offer an enterprise (on-prem) version anymore but I would
still consider it enterprise software.
The only alternatives are network shares filled with v1_v2_final_edited
filenames and very expensive, SAP-level of complexity and JIRA-style approval
workflows.
Unfortunately they are owned by Stratasys, the Oracle of 3D printing and the
product is barely maintained. When it was acquired they made it free. It was
meant to become the github (in terms of de facto standard for public
repositories) of 3D CAD, and be an inroad to 3D printer / 3D printing service
sales. But that aspect never took off, Stratasys is bleeding marketshare and
an at any time I expect to login and see that the service is discontinued.
Getting off-topic but I'm interested to see if there are any replies:
For all software engineers reading this, I can't state how behind other
engineering disciplines are compared to software. The equivalent to git or SVN
or even CVS never appeared as standard practice and there is barely any middle
ground between no version control whatsoever and formal change control boards
(which is no version control whatsoever except at a few milestones and if
you're lucky you can verify a change to the milestone by checking a paper or
dvd).
Outside of software, academic spin-offs tend to start with good practices,
such as markdown or latex files for documentation, which work well with
version control, but never seem to make it more than 5 years before they reach
a state of no control / word documents.
Electrical CAD is becoming better, with more software-background hobbyist and
more open source tools arriving. It helps that design files and manufacturing
files started to converge in the 80s due to early automation and thus tend to
be text-based and diffable. Mechanical CAD on the other hand tends to be
somewhat incompatible between vendors and binary in nature. The open source
alternatives (FreeCAD and OpenSCAD) are a decade away from providing 1990s
features and hobbyists have free licenses to proprietary software (eg Fusion
360) so there is very little pressure to make a good tools in the open source
world.
~~~
traeblain
I cannot agree more with this comment. CAD software is still so dominated by
proprietary systems that maintain their own version control and feature set.
And since all the major players offer a "suite" of tools, there's no incentive
to seamlessly interact between products. You spend so much time trying to
figure out how you are going work with importing a neutral export (meaning
you've dissected the data from its version control), and maintaining any data
accuracy.
I was honestly extremely hopeful when OnShape hit the market. Granted it was
still a proprietary tool, but felt it had the tooling and integrations to
bring CAD systems into the "modern era". Then they crippled their free
offering, removing it's discrimination from tools like Fusion. And now with
their purchase by PTC, I have no hope in it making any further waves in the
CAD space.
~~~
johnwalkr
It's obvious to anyone with exposure to software that the whole industry is 25
years behind in version control. It exists in large companies, but as a JIRA
or SAP like system, usually with engineers fighting for the right to work with
local files. It does not exist as standard industry practice that everyone
follows.
I'm sure many people on HN have experience meeting a one-person self-taught
software team in a small company that developed their own version control
system called "copying folders". In mechanical CAD, half of the industry is at
that level, but it's even worse because your shard libraries may be updated
irreversibly and without notification when you don't intend, or not updated
when you intend, depending on such factors as the order in which you loaded
your projects.
I was sad enough that GrabCAD was purchased by Stratasys, but at least it's
plausible that it exists for a while. I didn't know OnShape was purchased by
PTC. I was also really hopeful and play around with it about once a year. It's
always missing something I need, but was getting close, and some of the
features they add are really innovative. They are also honest about what
features are missing.
On the other hand, I still have a soft spot for Pro-E since it was my first
MCAD package and to this day miss some of its parametric features (but
certainly not its interface).
~~~
yasinaydin
GrabCAD engineer here. AFAIK community part of GrabCAD, main website where the
libraries, models, tutorials etc located, is planned to be always free.
As for the features and suggestions, could you please writ them to
[https://grabcad.com/groups/grabcad-community-user-
group](https://grabcad.com/groups/grabcad-community-user-group) where all the
PMs and related engineers follow and improve the product.
------
davedx
JIRA. It's powerful, customizable, flexible and drives workflows and
productivity across millions of companies around the world. It's the SAP of
issue tracking. Despite all the baggage, they still try continuously to
improve the UX of the software so it stays relevant and relatively usable.
There's definitely problems with it (its performance can be awful and require
dedicated server clusters to keep it up at larger orgs), but come on let's be
honest, it's a huge success story and lets orgs do things "their way" with
project management and software development.
~~~
coblers
It's crazy how different opinions are on JIRA. I think it's the worst tool I'm
forced to use - and have been - at all my dev jobs. It's slow, sluggish, the
UX is horrible and it gets in my way. A lot of dev teams that are outside of
product/project management claws simply opt for using whatever simple kanban
board there might be(Trello, for example).
~~~
manicdee
Every problem you mentioned with a Jira is some decision your IT folks made.
The same every time I hear people telling me how awful the software is: they
complain of autocratic workflows, forms being slow, forms being complex and
having so many mandatory fields that they can’t get anything done.
It’s all due to local configuration, some IT kiddo sees all these bells and
whistles and levers to pull, so they turn them all on thinking more features
is better.
In the meantime the most efficient workflow I have has six states (planning,
execution, UAT, deployment, warranty, closed) and it works just fine and stays
out of my way.
~~~
coblers
JIRA being slow and sluggish doesn't really have anything to do with
configuration. It's a horrible tool to navigate UX-wise.
~~~
richardwhiuk
It's often deployed on completely underpowered servers.
------
waiseristy
Trace32 & the Lauterbach JTAG. Expensive, but intuitive, scriptable, and
performant.
~~~
paxys
Funny but I had the exact opposite experience with it back when I worked in
the space like 10 years ago. The software was clunky and borderline unusable,
every bit of the system was proprietary (I remember we had to pay $10K a pop
for connector cables, which each came with their own limited license), support
was clueless, and there was no ecosystem to speak of (again due to their tight
controls).
~~~
waiseristy
The expense I think is just a side effect of working in this space. Mayne when
things open up prices will go down. As for the softwares usability, I don't
know how much it's changed in the 10 years since you saw it last, but I really
like it. Everything is clickable, the work flow for flashing, symbol loading,
fiddling with registers + peripherals, is better than really any other system
I've used in the space.
------
lmm
I think Slack is the only enterprise software that I use every day and don't
hate.
~~~
dynamite-ready
Definitely. It's much friendlier than Teams. Even little things like your own
personal channel are so thoughtful, I use it outside of work as a cross
platform clipboard (files and links).
I also am much more likely to prioritize Slack messages over email. It is just
Skype with bells on, but it's still very good in it's own right.
------
adjkant
Any Jetbrains IDE - take my money
Okta - Just works, good UI
Workday - I seem to be in the minority but the clean UI + generally decent
tooling allows for a decent deal to be in there
------
sokoloff
Excel, Box, and Zoom. Would vote for Cloudability as well, but that's not
something that I use anywhere near every day.
~~~
maps7
Excel is a pain. It's annoying to open - if I already have Excel open and try
open another Excel document I often have to click into a cell in the currently
opened Excel document for the new document to open.
It's also a pain closing as it prompts do I want to save. Saving as a CSV is a
pain, it takes two prompts to save as a CSV.
File recovery is also a pain.
~~~
nabeards
I converted to Apple Numbers about a year after it came out, and both Excel
and Google Sheets seem completely archaic to me now. I've sent PDFs of my
Numbers docs to people and they are blown away. Now that I can share Numbers
through iCloud to both Mac and Windows users, I've got some people fully
converted over.
~~~
johnwalkr
Multiple tables on one sheet that can be resized is a killer feature. It's
just so easy to make nice looking data and output on one screen compared to
Excel.
------
ex3ndr
Weird but i like Outlook Web, very good replacement for GMail with it's
endless "ui improvements".
~~~
jasonv
I don't hate Outlook at all, and the mobile app is 1000% better than the Gmail
app.
~~~
ex3ndr
iOS app is veeeery good! That's how i eventually moved to paid cloud outlook
since it is also so good.
------
christkv
Clubhouse for managing the software development. It’s really snappy which I
love. Sentry.io for handling all exceptions from applications and mobile
devices in one place.
------
tails4e
Confluence. It's so easy to organise information and documentation now for
technical projects. Of course its free form so people can be messy with it,
but done right, and with the good plugins, like draw.io it's really powerful.
Integrates very well with JIRA also.
~~~
time0ut
I used to think this as well. But over time, I've seen it devolve into a
wasteland of out of date information. This is driven by two factors. First,
the search functionality is by far the worst search I have ever seen. This
leads to duplicate information as people relearn and redocument things because
they couldn't find them. Second, confluence has a very powerful permission
system. Once you get past a certain scale, you can end up with little fiefdoms
of information. Want to update a common piece of documentation? You need to
convince the owner to give you edit rights. Who is the owner? I dunno, start
asking around.
~~~
blaser-waffle
Seconded. The search is bad, and Confluence feels unstructured, but with tight
security.
It was better than DokuWiki, for sure, but DokuWiki was free...
------
dharmab
PagerDuty is generally pretty good, but I haven't used VictorOps or OpsGenie
so I can't compare.
~~~
bradknowles
In my experience, OpsGenie is a huge improvement over PagerDuty.
I’ve helped manage both PagerDuty and OpsGenie at a certain employer, and
while PagerDuty seemed to mostly kinda semi sorta work, there was a lot of
klunky aspects to the system. When we switched to OpsGenie, it was like all
the things we liked about PagerDuty were still present, but we didn’t have any
of the pain points. Moreover, there were additional features that made it even
nicer.
Imagine how good it feels when you stop banging your head against the wall,
and then realize you’ve been banging your head against a wall for the past few
years.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the PagerDuty guys and everything they’ve done as
pioneers in this field, but I much prefer OpsGenie.
In fact, OpsGenie is such low-touch that we now have many fewer people who are
involved in the day to day management of it, each team can manage the things
they really care about, and the rest of us can just get on with our other
work.
~~~
kqr
What sort of thing made you run into trouble with PagerDuty? I've only used it
in smaller teams and we've basically not touched it after setting it up, save
for editing rotations.
Importantly, PagerDuty has (as far as I know) a well deserved reputation for
reliability, which is critical in that space. How is the reliability of these
other providers? How have you measured it?
------
pabe
Odoo ERP. Select the apps (Sales, CRM, Newsletter etc.) you need and profit
from great integrations. Gets rid of all those data back and forth between
independent applications. You can also create your own apps.
~~~
jesterson
Looking at it right now and it does seem to be a wonderful ecosystem with
reasonable pricing. Do you happen to know use cases examples that you can
share?
~~~
throwaway744678
Another happy odoo user here: we use it internally for CRM, sales, purchases,
accounting, product inventory. We also developped modules to make it the back
end of our web/mobile shop, and of our mobile apps.
The flexibility is really great, and while I have not used other ERPs, I
believe it is easier to develop for, and to use as an end-user. Part of the
code is open-source, and you have access to the source of the non-free apps.
As a bonus, it's Python!
Regarding the pricing, it sure is less expensive than the competitors, but the
cost increases fast when you add new modules, or if you have many internal
users (pricing is 100-250€ per module per year + ~250€ per internal user per
year)
EDIT: a live demo with most modules installed is running at
[https://master.odoo.com/saas_master/demo](https://master.odoo.com/saas_master/demo)
~~~
jesterson
Thank you for the feedback. You probably won't be willing to share the
site/app, but if you do, would you mind if I get a look?
------
2000bmw328ci
Autodesk Revit 2020. Although it does have it's quirks, it is a very powerful
modeling program.
------
seesawtron
Matlab: Great for prototyping and tinkering.
~~~
shaklee3
There's a reason Matlab is still around and doing well. It's so much faster to
prototype things in, and systems engineers all know it well. Yes, python can
do most of the same things, but it's nowhere near as easy and integrated.
~~~
olodus
I thought it was only because it had gotten into universities curriculums.
Mostly joking. I agree that Matlab is quite good to quickly setting up certain
things and can even be quite elegant when used by someone who knows it.
I do however feel like it should not get as central of a place in education as
it got at my university. I would prefer more open alternatives to be used to
maybe inspire more simpler exploration by the students.
------
riskneutral
Lotus Notes. You can build your whole application in it, isn't that just
great?
------
winrid
Absolutely loved SumoLogic for the six years or so we used it. Threw terabytes
of logs at them a month and searches were always fast. Being able to do joins
on logs was a godsend. I tried to work there but it seemed like they stopped
hiring for a while.
Now I use Loggly... It's okay.
IDEA's IDEs as others have mentioned.
I've built enterprise software I enjoyed using (reputation.com), does that
count? :)
~~~
klohto
I wasn't aware of SumoLogic but at $2.5/GB ingested, they seem expensive. I
understand that at TB a month of logs Elasticsearch stops being viable, but
what made SumoLogic so great except the speed to warrant the cost?
~~~
winrid
We spent a lot of money on Sumo indeed. But when it helps you keep churn down
it can pay off.
You can also parse the logs and create alerts and dashboards from the parsed
values.
We only retained the logs for 30 days, so you could use Elastic/Kibana and we
did for our dev/qa environments. However people hated it compared to Sumo.
------
time0ut
Splunk is an incredible tool. It is powerful, fast, and just a joy to use. The
skill floor is low and the ceiling is high. Only minor complaint is the APIs
have essentially no documentation if you want to interact with it
programmatically (yes, there is some documentation, but it only covered like
10-20% of the interface last time I looked).
Everything I've used from Hashicorp has been good once you learn it. Vault is
better than anything that came before it. Terraform is better than anything
that came before it. Packer is excellent. Gonna try using consul connect for
my next project. The learning curve is pretty steep on these things, but they
are definitely force multipliers.
I'm also gonna say Eclipse. It seems to get a lot of hate, but I've used it so
much for so long that it feels very natural. I've mostly switched to VSCode,
but that is more a function of moving on to new languages that are better
supported in VSCode.
------
abjKT26nO8
Jira. My only pet-peeves are:
* it breaks native keyboard shortcuts. After disabling the shortcut overrides in settings, "/" is a NOP (which is weird, since disabling the overrides worked in Confluence)
* the markup is non-standard (but I can live with it)
* sometimes it will log me out when I want to post a comment and all of what I wrote in the comment box gets lost
------
mprovost
Superhuman. It's the only software I use at work that I pay for myself because
it makes dealing with email so much less painful. To the point that it's
actually almost enjoyable clearing out my inbox. The ability to do absolutely
everything from the keyboard and being so responsive really makes a huge
difference.
------
tails4e
Vivado. It's for FPGA design, and I while do ASIC design, but I use vivado to
visualise my RTL structure. I find it better than any of the major EDA vendors
RTL schematic viewers (except perhaps starvision). I know people rag on Vivado
for other reasons, but it's visualisation is fantastic!
~~~
tsss
I had to use Vivado once and it was the most miserable experience I ever had
with a development environment. Even Haskell has better IDE support. Vivado is
super unintuitive, it's slow as fuck, it has none of the basic editing
features modern IDEs sport and it has very heavy handed enterprise DRM like
you would normally find on CAD tools.
~~~
tails4e
I hear this a lot, but I really don't get it. The ide is very responsive, when
you are interacting with a design, exploring structure or connectivity, static
timing analysis, etc.. Perhaps you are referring to synthesising RTL - yes
thst is slow, but thats much slower with ASIC tools. Synthesis and PnR is a
very cpu intensive task, and is separate from the GUI really. I'd be
interested in hearing the specifics of what you found slow.
~~~
user5994461
I have to join the other commenters. Vivado is maybe the worst IDE I have
used.
We had new projects and interns stuck for weeks because they couldn't figure
out how to make a hello world project in Vivado (blink a led for a FPGA dev
kit). There was zero doc and zero help available online because it's too
niche. This was only unstuck after a while when one senior guy showed how to
use it and wrote an internal 50 pages docs on how to create a project and do
anything at all. Every single step is an impossible to figure out wonder.
After the initial hiccups, the IDE and the SoC SDK were abysmal. Couldn't
store the software in source control because Vivado had no source control
support and it was autogenerating/overwriting garbage files all over the
place.
To be fair the tool was functional for routing and HDL development. It's
usable professionally if you have time to learn and get trained. This may even
be good by some embedded development standards (embedded consistently has
really shitty development tools that other developers would never tolerate).
~~~
tails4e
Theres loads of docs and step by step tutorials [0] is just one such free set
of material with all files, with step by step PDFs and presentations to
explain basic digital design concepts. This is just one form this larger list
of courses [1], all free. There are also loads of videos showing how the GUI
works [2]
[0] [https://github.com/xupgit/FPGA-Design-Flow-using-
Vivado/tree...](https://github.com/xupgit/FPGA-Design-Flow-using-
Vivado/tree/master/slides)
[1]
[https://www.xilinx.com/support/university.html](https://www.xilinx.com/support/university.html)
[2] [https://www.xilinx.com/video/hardware/getting-started-
with-t...](https://www.xilinx.com/video/hardware/getting-started-with-the-
vivado-ide.html)
Hello World blink an LED can be done in 10 mins flat, I'm afraid you did your
intern a disservice by not giving him or her a basic intro and pointer to the
docs. Do a goole search for vivado design flow and you'll see all those links
I just posted. I lecture in digital design at my local university part time,
and I use Vivado and in one lab students are already able to blink the LED,
and much more.
I do agree the SDK side is a bit dodgy. My biggest bugbear there is project
corruption partly due to being eclipse based. I understand thats been upgraded
to Vitis now, but have not used that yet. Vivado is separate from that and is
very sold though
~~~
user5994461
I was working on that around 2015 if I remember well. Some time after Xilinx
was unifying their development tools into Vivado. The project attempted to use
Zynq SoC, joint software and hardware development on the FPGA in HDL and on
the embedded CPU in C. Not exactly trivial things to do but the scope was very
small for a first go.
We found zero documentation whatsoever on the internet. None of the things you
linked to existed. Looks like it took 5 years for some tutorials to be
written, and it's not even from Xilinx, it's from some guy sharing on GitHub
(maybe a university).
Interns were not to blame, more experienced engineers couldn't figure a thing
and there was a 3 months deadline. If it were not for one employee who tried
the Zynq platform 6 months before and was trained by Xilinx, the whole thing
would surely have been canned.
There was lots of issues with the platform and the IDE once got a hello world
working (I really hope Xilinx fixed most of them). Basic APIs were not working
or were documented wrong, the compiler had issues (modified gcc under a
modified eclipse), the IDE occasionally crashed or got stuck (it called a ton
of sub processes that got lost or failed).
The SoC IO pins were undocumented (needed info and identifier to do the
routing), had to get private doc from Xilinx and they had typo in their pin
layouts, so there was a constant risk to misconfigure a pin and fry the board
(FPGA don't forgive mixing up input and output and voltage).
Now that I remember about it. The whole thing was pretty insane. ^^
My only question if I had to work on this again would be, does vivado support
Git/SVN nowadays?
~~~
tails4e
Thanks for the detailed reply, but FYI the github stuff is from xilinx, they
just make it open source.
In 2015 vivado was pretty new, it's come a long way, so I'd give it another
look. There has been a strong push as you can see to make the developer
experience much better, so hopefully if you give it another chance you may
come to appreciate it as much as I do.
~~~
user5994461
To be fair, the HDL tools are decent. There are some quirks but they get the
job done (obviously it's professional tooling, not something an enthusiast can
pick up over a weekend). I think you're working on the FPGA side?
However the software development experience is dismal overall. I doubt it will
ever improve much, hardware companies just don't make good development tools.
The closest experience developers get to embedded might be android
development. The IDE are good, source control, auto completion, the platform
documentation is amazing, fully documented API with examples, there are entire
guides on how the system work, remote debugging on the device (I've developed
on Android version 1 a decade ago and it was all there). It's just great. Now
try developing for a MCU and half the manufacturers can't document how to read
an IO pin or use the DAC. I'm not looking forward to moving back to embedded.
^^
------
jimbob45
\- TortoiseSVN/TortoiseGit make everything a snap when it comes to repository
work. I can’t recommend these enough.
\- Agent Ransack is a GUI for findstr. Much nicer to use than the one in
Notepad++.
\- VS 2019 is incredible. I weep for the parallel universe where we’re all
stuck using Eclipse for everything.
~~~
anjanb
IntelliJ tools are quite good. Most IntelliJ tools are better than most
Eclipse equivalents.
------
cferr
Since it hasn't been mentioned yet, I'll throw in Nagios. Having had to roll
and maintain an in-house solution with similar functionality before, Nagios is
a huge breath of fresh air.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 is also awesome. I wish we could have 8, but that's
not quite in the pipeline yet. The distro is crazy stable. With the Extras,
Optionals, EPEL, etc. repositories enabled you get access to almost all of the
best software in the Linux ecosystem.
Ansible, particularly Red Hat Ansible Engine, is also amazing for managing all
of my Red Hat servers. I couldn't imagine doing half of my job by hand, as
nothing would ever really get done. With Ansible you just fire off a playbook
and relax.
------
finnthehuman
Microsoft Outlook. Seriously.
I can list gripes for days, and I wish thunderbird would integrate with all
the features of exchange better, but I don't know how anyone gets by work with
webmail. I feel such a lack of control in my personal gmail box.
------
client4
I'm not sure it counts as enterprise software, but Fiberstore is one of the
best websites I've ever interacted with. It's clearly laid out, gives
recommendations, and is quick and simple. I make weekly purchases and it's
always easy.
------
jll29
Would be helpful to clarify what you mean by enterprise software (certainly
the answers name software that I don't consider fitting that category).
Do you mean Enterprise Resources Planning systems like SAP R/3 v. Oracle
Applications?
------
ForrestN
Basecamp. Incredibly thoughtful design, radically reduces stress and
confusion.
------
LVB
Google CloudSearch against our GSuite data. It’s impressive how much better it
is at searching our Drive and Docs content compared to those tools’ own
search. Burrowing into Gmail for results is also handy.
------
spapas82
Although I don't use it anymore since I've changed jobs, for me it would be
Appian. For people not familiar with it checkout my description in this
comment
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23583081](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23583081)
Beyond it's shortcomings it's something I'd gladly pay for (if I needed it of
course) because it can't really be replaced by something free / opensource.
------
t312227
imho.
dynatrace - expensive as hell, but really really useful for large
organisations if you are operating your own software and depend on its
functionality - read: financial biz etc.
------
no-dr-onboard
\- Burp Suite Pro: MitmProxy, Postman, ZAP just don't compare. The extensions
API and library are top notch and the community is really thriving atm. The
only downside that I can think of is that occasionally a release will suffer
from what seems like a memory leak. Projects can consume upwards of 15G ram
and 100% allcore CPU spikes are not uncommon. Something, something, Java.
~~~
fh4ntke
Yes, it's really worth the money. Otherwise, I only use open source tools
------
tardismechanic
Algolia - search as a service
------
juancn
I love Wavefront for metrics and Sumologic for log queries. They make
troubleshooting and monitoring thousands of servers a pleasure.
Both have excellent UIs and they are truly powerful.
Avoid any Graffana based solutions, the only good thing I can say about them
is that they are free.
------
forty
A few great security-related products we use:
\- Hashicorp Vault (secret management)
\- Duo Security (2FA)
\- StrongDM (Database authentication and auditing)
------
fxtentacle
IntelliJ, PyCharm, and the git to docker deployment service that I built
myself for my companies.
------
meztez
RStudio, server and connect are such a treat to interact with compared to
anaconda entreprise.
------
znpy
I have fond memories of SecureCRT as an ssh terminal on windows and Mac. It
works on Linux too however.
It was just better than the regular ssh client.
Really worth it's price, if anything because you can create a set of sessions
and share them with all your colleagues.
------
teekert
Linux. Man I love Linux, but I don't just use it in my enterprise environment.
Linux also powers my smartphone, my home server, my HTPC and apparently also
my EdgeRouter X so probably even more of my life I don't even know about.
------
krakatau1
There are two tools nobody mentioned yet.
DbVisualizer -> best GUI for databases, you learn it well and use for all
databases
Editpad -> fastest text editor I’ve ever seen with bunch of useful features
and terrific regex (see regexbuddy from the same author)
------
chid
Outlook? I'd say Excel but these days I don't use it every day.
------
toomuchtodo
Excel
------
INTPenis
I had to dig deep for this since I'm a FOSS specialist and advocate. But if
you're going to count softwares that I depend on then Active Directory and
vCenter come to mind.
------
s4ik4t
These days we are mostly collaborating on Microsoft Teams.
~~~
atraac
Do you consider it the best enterprise software though?
I find Teams to be incredibly bad. It's slow, it literally has a typing lag to
the point where you type something, press enter to send and then start another
message, letters get eaten and sent with previous message. It eats more ram
than JetBrains IDE at this point. It has a very bad UX, a lot of (slow) tab
switching, pictures do not even load for me most of the time(unless
restarted), sometimes it takes up to 10 seconds to mark something as read on
the 'Activity' tab which is even more annoying. Insanely bad custom
notification system instead of using built in Windows notifications. Add to
that terrible API, weird flow of adding apps to conversations and few more
things. It grew to become my most hated application that I have to use every
day.
------
fh4ntke
Burp Suite [https://portswigger.net/burp](https://portswigger.net/burp)
------
rurban
Only GitHub
~~~
justinzollars
try Phabricator
------
pavlov
Workplace by Facebook. Not kidding, I like it.
~~~
ashrodan
It's god awful UI is laggy Chat has no threading Integrations are limited
------
RabbitmqGuy
[https://about.sourcegraph.com/](https://about.sourcegraph.com/)
------
dave_sid
Not Jira. Hahahahaha.
~~~
mrslave
Is anyone just using Git{Hub,Lab,Tea} issues and being fine with it?
Is the absence of a Kanban board a deal breaker? Perhaps for management.
~~~
closeparen
Git-adjacent issue trackers are communication tools for developers. JIRA is a
surveillance and control mechanism for senior executives. It just depends on
the size of your company.
~~~
brazzy
> Git-adjacent issue trackers are communication tools for developers.
So is JIRA.
> JIRA is a surveillance and control mechanism for senior executives.
Never saw it being used like that, though I see how it could be abused.
> It just depends on the size of your company.
The culture probably more than the size.
------
DrNuke
MS Office, of course (no pun intended).
------
badrabbit
Splunk! If only it didn't cost an arm and a leg. No other solution, open or
closed comes close.
Second best: Office 365
~~~
jakozaur
Have you looked at Sumo Logic?
~~~
badrabbit
Thank you! First time hearing of it. I just looked it up, it looks similar to
Azure sentinel? Is it really cheaper than on-prem splunk?
Good query language (rollup,piping,stats,etc...),visualization and rich
function set (eval and stats functions in splunk) is a minimum requirement for
me. Tried Kibana,Graylog,Sentinel and a few others I can't mention here.
~~~
slyall
Sumo is cheaper the Splunk from all accounts but still pretty expensive. Think
half the price of Splunk perhaps. It's still nice but we ended up spending a
lot of time trying to keep out bill down by not sending data to it since the
price is based on the number of GB/day you send it.
~~~
badrabbit
That pricing model is a big turn off. Really looking for something that lets
you process events to use a smart approach to pick and choose what to ingest
before you get billed for it.
------
SAI_Peregrinus
JetBrains CLion. It's by far the best C/C++/Rust IDE I've found. Much nicer
than Visual Studio (refactorings especially), very capable out of the box,
good plugin ecosystem, surprisingly fast (obviously slower to start than
vim/sublime/etc but plenty fast once running), and way nicer than the
afterthoughts most chip vendors provide.
------
aojdwhsd
ITRS Geneos for environment monitoring. I just wish they built *BSD binaries.
------
mister_hn
Visual Studio Professional, ActiveDirectory, PrimeKey EJBCA and OpenLimit CC
Sign.
They work really well
------
closeparen
Phabricator
~~~
mrweasel
Enterprise indeed, I had to use it when working with a client, it’s was ...
different.
No intergration with something like Jira, no support for pull-requests/merge-
request, navigation is pretty terrible.
~~~
closeparen
What? Tasks (unit of work) and Diffs (unit of code review) are its two central
entities. Which parts of it were you using, if not those?
~~~
mrweasel
Sounds like that may not be Phabricators fault in that case. I was under the
impression that you'd need Arcanist if you wanted to do reviews of diffs.
The problem may have been that we where only allowed to use the Git part.
~~~
closeparen
Ah. Arc is just a script for submitting the patch from your working copy to
Diffusion (like emailing to LKML). Technically you could paste “git diff” into
the web UI.
------
exabrial
gitlab, metabase, graylog, TICK (telegraf, influxdb, chronograf, kapacitor)
~~~
beckingz
Metabase is great.
------
hagonzalez94
Gramerlie
~~~
SMAAART
It took me a second... #LOL
------
tobiasbischoff
Everything pivotal
------
aus_sua
BigQuery, Snowflake and Splunk for data analysis.
------
venki80
We use Dremio for queries on S3. Years ahead of Athena.
------
enz
Fastmail and Trello.
------
harrylepotter
Roadmunk - fantastic, simple roadmapping tool
------
arjunbanker
asana, looker, google sheets, vscode
------
seancoleman
Sisense (formerly Periscope)
------
austincheney
Node.js
~~~
justinzollars
troll
------
pachico
Probably gitlab on premise
------
sys_64738
Windows 10
------
paxys
TL;DR developers like developer tools.
------
fnord123
hubspot, zendesk.
------
hagonzalez94
gramerlie
------
irrational
Jetbrains IntelliJ. I use it for html, JS, CSS, Vue, node.js, Python, Java,
SQL, etc. I’ve tried visual studio and some other IDEs, but find intellij to
be superior in every way.
~~~
dcminter
You know, I just don't get the love for IntelliJ. I used to use Eclipse (or
more often than not Spring Tool Suite) and I rather liked that. More and more
I'm obliged to use IntelliJ and in comparison it just seems ... okay.
Its suggestions stuff is nice, and it works reasonably well. In particular it
supports multiple languages much better than Eclipse's motley range of
plugins. So I can see why your list of uses makes it the superior option
there.
But for primarily Java development, which is where I encounter it and the most
vocal love for it, it lacks a couple of key features (or non-obvious
configuration to enable them I guess?)
* You can't run code unless the whole project compiles (poor for quick sanity check, test driven development, and refactoring breaking changes).
* You don't get the "problems" view of compilation issues (and optionally analysis output like findbugs) so as often as not I'll try to run a test, building the whole shebang, when the end result will be needing to fix a trivial syntax error. Eclipse tells me that _first_.
* It's a pain to use when working with multiple (source independent) projects simultaneously. E.g. a library project and the main project. Eclipse lets you open anything you want to in the same window and presents them in the same explorer view.
It also, anecdotally, feels slower than Eclipse, and seems to enjoy popping up
focus-stealing windows more often than Eclipse (though I guess I can cuss
Gnome just as much for that one).
I don't hate it, but I do miss Eclipse.
Edit: I should add that it supports Gradle rather better than Eclipse does,
but since I _really_ dislike Gradle I'm not sure how much of a plus that is!
~~~
davet91
> It's a pain to use when working with multiple (source independent) projects
> simultaneously. E.g. a library project and the main project. Eclipse lets
> you open anything you want to in the same window and presents them in the
> same explorer view.
That's a common confusion about IntelliJ.
Eclipse Workspace -> IntelliJ Project
Eclipse Project -> IntelliJ Module
In IntelliJ create an empty Project and import all your Maven or Gradle
projects as Modules. Everything in one window :)
~~~
dcminter
I will try this and report back :) thanks for the clarification!
Edit: Ok, report.
It's... close enough. I don't really like the need to create a new project to
contain the "IntelliJ droppings" :) but honestly that's not that different
from Eclipse's workspace directories.
Thanks for the tip!
------
siddharthgoel88
Beyond Compare.
I find this tool very very useful when you have lots of integration job. If
you have an enterprise version, then you can do stuff like compare and merge
files across two servers, compare PDFs, ZIPs, JAR, and obviously plain text
files. This is a tool for which I definitely ask for an Enterprise Version
license whenever I join a new organization.
~~~
shoo
beyond compare gets bonus points for having special features for diffing and
merging tabular data. for example, if you're comparing a couple of CSV files,
you can mark some columns as unimportant to help focus on diffing and merging
differences in the remaining columns you deem are important. this can be quite
helpful if manually regression testing tabular output from some report
generating tool, where most of the output is deterministic but the tool
pollutes one column with timestamps or ids that differ every run.
the ability to compare and merge directories is also nice (although a number
of open source diff and merge tools also support this -- e.g. kdiff3, meld)
------
diehunde
I don't know if it counts as enterprise software but I use Jetbrains' products
everyday. Goland, IntelliJ and PyCharm are great tools.
~~~
CraftThatBlock
Why use 3 different ones when IntelliJ can do all of the features of the
listed editors? PyCharm is IntelliJ locked with Python plugin, etc.
~~~
diehunde
I've heard that before but I'm skeptic about if it's exactly the same.
~~~
CraftThatBlock
The only one that is different is Rider, since it has much deeper C#
integration (might be others such as DataGrip, but never used it). PyCharm and
GoLand are just plugins (same as WebStorm, PhpStorm, etc)
~~~
grogenaut
technically resharper is way diferent as well but whether you'd call it a ide
is "questionable"
~~~
jolux
Rider runs ReSharper underneath
------
axaxs
Does VSCode count? That's the first IDE to make me switch from Vim. I was
reluctant at first, but now I feel lost without it.
For saas, probably Workday. I really enjoy it compared to what we had used
prior.
~~~
shawabawa3
Does a free open source code editor count as enterprise software?
...no
Just because Microsoft wrote it doesn't make it enterprise
~~~
mellosouls
If it's used across the enterprise, it's arguably enterprise.
------
amlidajames
I mostly use Sage Business Cloud X3 software which is one of the best
enterprise software.
------
rp00
Salesforce
------
jupp0r
None, pretty much everything that has enterprise in its name is a nuisance to
me.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Linux is ready for the end of time - CrankyBear
https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-is-ready-for-the-end-of-time/
======
dieselerator
tl:dr
The 32-bit signed integer clock rolls over in 2038. This is mitigated by OS
updates to a 64-bit clock for most reads of the clock.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
How North Korea’s Hackers Became Dangerously Good - rbanffy
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-north-koreas-hackers-became-dangerously-good-1524150416
======
guilhas
> "The researchers emphasize that catching hackers is difficult, and that they
> can’t be 100% certain that every attack attributed to North Korea was
> orchestrated by its cyberwarriors."
That's about the facts of this story.
> "Many North Korean hackers are using perfect English or embedding other
> languages into coding to make it appear hacks came from other countries, the
> researchers have concluded"
Everyone ends up using English even in comments. It's just easier. Everyone
knows it. And it's where most resources are.
~~~
laythea
I recently noticed that some of my firefox bookmark folders were renamed. But
it was not me that renamed it.
It was a very strange feeling. Whoever had renamed it was replying to the
subject of the bookmark folder. So Eg. If the folder was called "Fast cars",
then it would have been relabelled something like "I, this is fast cars pal."
Both the "I" at the start and the "pal" are typically Scottish, which is where
I'm from.
I deleted the folder.
~~~
thaumaturgy
The likelihood that someone compromised your system just to rename your
bookmarks is approximately epsilon.
The most likely explanation is that you did it and have no memory of it; this
can be caused by taking certain sleep medications, having a sleep disorder, or
by other environmental conditions (like a CO leak, already mentioned).
The next most likely is that a friend or family member with a bizarre sense of
humor is playing a prank on you.
It is more likely that you own a cat, who is literate and can operate a
computer, than that your system was remotely compromised for the purposes of
renaming your bookmarks.
~~~
laythea
I did not say that it was for the purposes of renaming bookmarks.
However, the folder in particular was a collections of links, one of which I
suspected had a virus. So I named it "folder with possible virus links". I can
only imagine whoever was in my computer, could not resist renaming this.
I have no medication, no negative environmental conditions and I am, by normal
standards, a sane individual.
------
coldcode
In an authoritarian state, especially one where food is scarce to much of the
population, learning a skill that is considered vital to the state is a good
way to ensure you can eat.
~~~
mkirklions
It reminds me of all the 'Humanity started farming and it allowed people to
specialize'.
Also, I imagine that those skills allow you to talk to the outside world
without any old people knowing whats going on.
~~~
yorwba
NK has a system where everyone with _any_ kind of outside contact is paired up
with a stranger who might be an intelligence agent or just a regular person
whose family has been taken hostage, but in any case they're fairly likely to
snitch. The East German Stasi used similar methods, and quite effectively.
~~~
flohofwoe
Comparing the situation in Eastern Germany to North Korea is a bit of a
stretch to put it mildly. I don't know first-hand how bad it is in NK, but I
grew up in the GDR. Even the worst Stasi actions are most likely tamer than a
normal day in North Korea (family members and friends ended up in jail for
weeks or months for attempting to escape to the West, but I guess if the same
happened in North Korea it's not done with a bit of jail time).
Most Stasi snitches (IMs) didn't need much 'encouragement' by the Stasi, most
did it for purely egoistical reasons (money or favours).
~~~
coldtea
> _Even the worst Stasi actions are most likely tamer than a normal day in
> North Korea_
as reported in doubtful articles and by sources with reasons to put some spice
on their stories (e.g. to have them celebrated and promoted as heroic
defectors as opposed to run of the mill immigrants).
------
youpassbutter
Did dear leader buy his team a subscription to 2600?
------
devilmoon
Non-paywalled version?
~~~
aglionby
Replacing 'wsj.com' with 'fullwsj.com' works for any WSJ article. Redirects
via Facebook.
[https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/how-north-koreas-hackers-
be...](https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/how-north-koreas-hackers-became-
dangerously-good-1524150416)
~~~
lightbyte
Alternatively, save the following as a bookmark and click it on the article
page:
javascript:location.href='http://facebook.com/l.php?u='+encodeURIComponent(location.href)
------
mcrae
>> Corrections & Amplifications An earlier version of this article incorrectly
included the name of a defector familiar with North Korea’s cyber training,
whose identity was included in violation of the agreement with the source.
(April 19, 2018)
Yikes!! I understand mistakes happen, but what an absolute betrayal of trust
~~~
brazzledazzle
I don’t usually think someone should be fired for mistakes but this is so
egregious. How does their name even end up in a draft, much less the published
article? How will the convince anyone considering discussing something
anonymously with the paper to move forward with a screw up like that?
~~~
partisan
The first thing anyone who is not asleep at the wheel would ask is, “does this
person really want to be named?”
~~~
alex_hitchins
We are all human and humans make mistakes. While a devastating action, it was
likely a process that failed rather than an individual being inept.
~~~
toss1
Yes hyumans make mistakes. And those mistakes have, and should have
consequences.
When the likely result is to get someone killed, there should be serious
consequences for the people, regardless of whether it was 'people' or
'process' that you put at the top of the fault chain.
That is the way it works in the real world. Small bits of inattention can lead
to death. We don't say that 'it was just a small thing' when someone is
texting while driving and crashes and injures/kills people, even tho it was
just a a few seconds lapse of attention.
This source, and/or his family back home are now likely on a NK hit list. The
employer has now had it's credibility for confidentiality destroyed for a
decade. This lapse should have consequences.
(And if you don't like the potential consequences, either make sure you play
the game right, or don't play the game.)
~~~
alex_hitchins
I'm not sure I understand your comment in full, but I wasn't suggesting there
be no consequences for this mistake. I also don't see it in any way trivial.
Sacking people is easy and a quick fix but what change was actually made to
ensure this never, ever happens again.
------
sametmax
I doubt they ever became good, because to grow good "anyone" is very hard in
such a harsh dictatorship.
It's much more likely they just hire technical mercenaries.
~~~
nasredin
Lots of "patriotic" hackers in Russia, one of North Korea's few friends...
~~~
sametmax
You can buy books and access internet easily in russia.
------
thekingofh
I'm no hacker. But if I were I'd first hack North Korean servers, then use
those servers to do all my outward hacking. This would ensure no cooperation
of authorities and no traceback. North Korea is essentially a black hole for
hackers to launch their attacks from. Not sure why people think this third
world country is fostering the creativity and science and engineering
background necessary for the hacking that's attributed to them.
~~~
Double_a_92
Even if its a third world country they just need to foster a few hundred
students and teach them to become hackers... Possible even if everybody else
is starving.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
A Whig History of CRISPR - perugolate
http://genotopia.scienceblog.com/573/a-whig-history-of-crispr/
======
kmonad
Interesting analysis from my perspective as definitely not a good writer. One
comment though:
_" But science is no longer done in monasteries. Competition, pride, ego,
greed, and politics play all too great a role in determining who gets credit,
who wins the prizes, and who gets into the textbooks."_
This really was never any different.
~~~
Torgo
Science was done in the Royal Society, there certainly was no competition,
pride, ego, greed or politics there!
~~~
nccomfort
To be sure, there was. I had in mind, principally, the monastery in Brno,
where a certain monk did some breeding experiments with peas in the mid-19th
century. (I am the author of the article.)
------
peter303
Lander is still smarting from when private industry guy Venter from out of
nowhere creamed the government human genome project an order of magnitude
faster and cheaper.
------
Terr_
In a way it's a shame how humans seem wired to want "The One Guy" to credit
for any complex outcome requiring thousands of unsung incremental
improvements.
------
Upvoter33
crispr is fascinating, as is this back-and-forth in the scientific community
about its history
~~~
eggie
I hope that scientists who have their reputations bound up in its history
don't waste their time trying to stake claim to it.
They will, but there are lessons to be had. For instance:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war),
which consumed half the energy of a brilliant man and did little for the
progress of the world.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Checked C: Making C Safer by Extension - matt_d
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/checkedc-making-c-safe-by-extension/
======
Someone
This does nothing for use-after-free or integer under/overflow, so “Making C
Safe _R_ by Extension” would be a better title.
It’s good to see people attempting this, though. I would think chances are
good Microsoft will use it internally, and that already would be a win. Also,
it’s a clang/LLVM extension. That makes it easier for third parties to start
using it.
On the other hand, their choice to use _Ptr <T>_ for familiarity with C++
requires users who want to keep their code compatible with C compilers that
don’t support this a bit harder (it will require wrapping that in some macro,
say __ptrTo(T)_ ). That isn’t ideal for adoption in open source programs.
~~~
ainar-g
Re. syntax. I don't understand, why can't they just make _Ptr an attribute
like _Atomic, and provide a header <stdchecked.h>. That is,
#include <stdchecked.h>
void read_next(int *b, int idx, checked int *out) {
int tmp = *(b+idx);
*out = tmp;
}
------
saagarjha
The problem here is you’re not writing C, you’re writing a language that kind
of resembles C but is nonportable. So you might as well just use a different,
memory safe language at that point.
~~~
chubot
I think you're missing an important point:
_Checked C’s design is distinguished by its focus on backward-compatibility,
incremental conversion, developer control, and enabling highly performant
code_
The problem is that there is a huge body of decades-old C code out there that
we all depend on.
A typical Docker container with a web app contains maybe 10K lines of your own
code in Python/Ruby/JS, 100K lines of framework code, and 1M or 10M lines of C
code (i.e. the interpreter itself, the web server, SSL, the base image, etc.)
So I welcome new languages focused on incremental conversion.
That's what I'm doing with Unix shell:
[http://www.oilshell.org/blog/2018/01/28.html](http://www.oilshell.org/blog/2018/01/28.html)
I applaud projects like Corrode, a C to unsafe-Rust translator, although
undoubtedly they would have an easier time if Rust was designed in the first
place for conversion.
[https://github.com/jameysharp/corrode](https://github.com/jameysharp/corrode)
So Checked C seems like a great idea to me.
I've noticed that most programmers seem to wildly overestimate the rate at
which code gets rewritten. I think it's more accurate to say that code piles
up over time. And unfortunately when the foundations are unstable, what you
build on top is also unstable.
~~~
bluejekyll
There is also a new tool, c2rust, [https://c2rust.com](https://c2rust.com)
that I believe was inspired by Corrode.
In addition, we also have the bindgen tool in Rust that will auto generate the
Rust FFI from C header files. It works really well. At that point you wrap the
FFI in more Rust idiomatic interfaces, and expose those as the preferred
library for others to use.
I mention this, because it is a path toward allowing for the carrying forward
of a C codebase, but using a safe language like Rust for all future work,
perhaps going back and rewriting the C if it’s deemed important.
There are many examples of this pattern being applied to projects.
In addition to that, there is a cbindgen tool, that does the inverse of the
bindgen tool, which would allow you to write Rust code, and quickly generate C
header files for the FFI, allowing for critical areas of C to be replaced with
Rust, without converting the entire project.
Putting all of that together might be a reasonable thing for large projects to
convert iteratively, should they decide it’s an important thing for them to
do.
~~~
pjmlp
That is nice for userspace apps, but no one is going to use c2rust on Aix, HP-
UX, __*BSD, Linux, Zephyr, QNX, RTos, ....
I think something like Checked C is the only way to actually make it work on
those use cases.
~~~
littlestymaar
No one is going to use Rust on any of these projects, because of political
reasons and portability concerns (because LLVM doesn't target all platforms).
But those two issues also apply to Checked C and I doubt any project you
listed will ever use it either.
~~~
sanxiyn
Since BSD's system compiler is now LLVM, I think it's only a matter of time
some enlightened BSD variant (OpenBSD maybe?) tries something like Checked C.
------
profquail
Checked C source code:
[https://github.com/Microsoft/checkedc](https://github.com/Microsoft/checkedc)
------
Animats
I wonder how this will work out. GCC had checked fat pointers for years, used
by almost nobody. Microsoft can make it stick on their platform, because they
own the libraries and can make them use fat pointers.
I hope this works out better than Microsoft Managed C++.
~~~
wott
There has been dozens of "safe" additions, variants and extensions to C along
the years (from commercial companies, from individuals, from university labs,
...). Not one of them ever took off. This one did not either.
We always just say "hmmm... right... this one may look a bit better than the
previous one (or doesn't)" and we never bother to use them. After 20 years
like this, we can conclude that we like C as it is and are not interested in
extra layers.
~~~
stefano
> After 20 years like this, we can conclude that we like C as it is and are
> not interested in extra layers.
This says a lot about how little the industry cares about software quality.
You'd think a bunch of people who make a living out of automating tasks would
happily use tools that automate the checking of an importnt source of bugs.
Instead, many prefer to use tools that look simpler on the surface and then
end up manually testing for the same kind of bugs over and over. So you have
people writing in dynamically typed languages who rely on (manually written!)
unit tests to check that their program is not mixing up types, and others
using unsafe languages and then relying on tests to catch memory access
violations. Inevitably, tests never catch all issues and you end up with type
errors and segfaults in production.
~~~
vmchale
> This says a lot about how little the industry cares about software quality.
> You'd think a bunch of people who make a living out of automating tasks
> would happily use tools that automate the checking of an importnt source of
> bugs. Instead, many prefer to use tools that look simpler on the surface and
> then end up manually testing for the same kind of bugs over and over. So you
> have people writing in dynamically typed languages who rely on (manually
> written!) unit tests to check that their program is not mixing up types, and
> others using unsafe languages and then relying on tests to catch memory
> access violations.
In the case of a "safer C" I suspect it's largely because it never
materialized. C still has its deficiencies relative to Rust, but Rust is the
first viable competitor.
~~~
pjmlp
Sure it did, all major systems languages outside UNIX universe were safer than
C.
But the OSes they were tied to were killed by UNIX's adoption, just like the
browser has helped JavaScript to take over areas of other languages.
------
kyberias
October 1, 2018 ? :O
~~~
srujn
That's likely when the paper will be presented at the
[https://cybersecurity.ieee.org/blog/2018/01/31/ieee-
secdev-2...](https://cybersecurity.ieee.org/blog/2018/01/31/ieee-
secdev-2018-call-for-papers/)
------
styfle
There is some precedent for a new language that gradually improves safety of
an existing language; TypeScript did this to JavaScript and is arguably
successful.
I don’t know if Checked C will have the same success story but if devs can
easily add this to their existing projects and it catches bugs, that seems
like a win to me.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Laptop for Programming? - throwaway_yc
I want to buy a new laptop for coding, creating content and editing video. Budget is less than $1000.<p>Please suggest me some good cheap laptop options. I am open to buy desktop also if it is cheaper.
======
PoissonVache
Look for a 16Gb RAM in order to use IDEs + Docker alltogether.
They all are 1000$ You can check Huawei and Xiaomi, they are cheaper and good
quality
[https://www.google.com/search?q=huawei+16gb&oq=huawei+16gb&a...](https://www.google.com/search?q=huawei+16gb&oq=huawei+16gb&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0l7.2131j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)
~~~
harpratap
If you plan to use Docker I'd recommend not buying a Macbook. It runs inside a
VM on OSX and is really bad at performance, you can literally save hours per
week waiting for commands to run on OSX.
------
munna77
If you can wait Apple is coming up with own "A series" bionic chips for
laptops . You can check the rumours about pricing .
I think it will worth to wait .
------
ss_y2n
Buy a mac mini. Add a decent monitor, keyboard and mouse and you are ready.
------
emteycz
Try looking at Tuxedo laptops
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Udemy Flash Sale - aledalgrande
https://www.udemy.com/
======
steveharman
How can Udemy having a sale be classed as news? It's a permanent state, isn't
it?
------
pruthvishetty
Hasn't this sale been going on forever?
~~~
dylz
Pretty much. Never trust prices from Udemy.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
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What Happened When I Got a Job at a Soul-Crushing, Abusive Warehouse - cherry_su
http://www.alternet.org/comments/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/what-happened-when-i-got-job-soul-crushing-abusive-warehouse
======
pwg
Single page link:
[http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-
workpla...](http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-
workplace/what-happened-when-i-got-job-soul-crushing-abusive-
warehouse?paging=off¤t_page=1)
For those who prefer the article whole, instead of chopped up into 10 separate
parts.
------
percept
"Still, most people really don't know how most internet goods get to them. The
e-commerce specialist didn't even know, and she was in charge of choosing the
3PL for her midsize online-retail company. "These decisions are made at a
business level and are based on cost," she says. "I never, ever thought about
what they're like and how they treat people. Fulfillment centers want to keep
clients blissfully ignorant of their conditions." If you called major clothing
retailers, she ventured, and asked them "what it was like at the warehouse
that ships their sweaters, no one at company headquarters would have any
fucking clue.""
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: where do you share and discuss ideas (just for the heck of it)? - Timothee
As most people here I presume, even though I don't necessarily do anything of it, I have ideas about stuff to build. I like to think about them as some kind of exercise, to think about different scenarios, how one could monetize it, the basic architecture, etc.<p>I'm wondering if you have a place (online or offline) where you usually discuss these ideas (the kind where most probably nothing will happen but which are still interesting to kick around), or a group of hacker friends you exchange emails with...<p>Personally, I discuss that with one of my friends by email. But I'm thinking I could find a bigger group for more discussion.<p>As an example, the release of Tipjoy's API (http://tipjoy.com/APIcontest/) sounds like something to spend some time just thinking about what could be done, even if we don't get to the implementation.
======
mahmud
I "pitch" ideas to everyone and anyone who will listen, specially if I know
they're entrepreneurs, I will flood them with feedback and can spend the night
visualizing ways they can improve their business, etc.
It's good sometimes, but it mostly overwhelms people. I am also known to
express dismay whenever a friend tells me he will take/keep a full time job. A
few days ago I was at a party when I ran into an old gym buddy. I knew he was
a pharmaceuticals post graduate then and I wanted to kick back and forth a few
ideas someone else raised to be about starting a medical software business. My
friend said he was working full time at his university and he wasn't
interested in losing that lazy but paying academic gig. It really ruined my
night and I kept trying to talk him out of it.
Sometimes people will come to me with ideas and I will take them and run with
them. The next day I would have been exhausted all possibilities and now I
have several pages of business analysis in my notebook. Only problem is,
people usually "have" ideas but they're not convinced of them. It than falls
on you whether to put the 4 weeks of coding necessary to launch the service
and start marketing it and make $, along side your other projects in the
little time you have. It's a judgment call you have to make, and I always
choose to ignore it and just apply the lessons I "learned" to my own projects.
Ideas are cheap, just make sure you're not telling them to an _executioner_ if
you're not yourself a taker. You will waste his time and put him in a moral
dilemma when he finds out you're the one dragging his feet.
~~~
Timothee
Rather than "where do you pitch your ideas", my question is more about just
discussing them informally. Discussions that could start by "wouldn't it be
nice if...?", "I was playing around with this API and thought...".
Like a book club for just discussing ideas :)
------
vorador
What about creating a mailing list dedicated to discussing ideas ?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Show HN: Stacks – A bookshelf for your MOOCs - johnnyodonnell
https://stacks.courses
======
aaronharnly
I’m intrigued, but friendly advice: this page could really use a paragraph, or
even a sentence, explaining what it does and why I might want it. The metaphor
“bookshelf for your MOOCs” isn’t quite clear enough for me to just blindly
fill out a registration form.
~~~
johnnyodonnell
That's a good point. Thanks for the feedback! I will see if I can add
something to provide more context. I'm assuming you're visiting from mobile?
~~~
aaronharnly
Ah, I see now – you have an outline of the functionality (Search, List,
Share), but because it has class d-md-block, it doesn't show on mobile :-)
~~~
johnnyodonnell
Yes. Still a valid point though. Mobile should have a description as well.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Www.voxinsta.com - voxinsta
https://www.voxinsta.com/
======
voxinsta
Instagram videos, photos, comments and likes. Discover most popular Instagram
users and #hashtags.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Learning about Type Systems - krat0sprakhar
Hi,<p>I've been a Python / Javascript programmer for a long time and just last week started learning OCaml after listening to a podcast. OCaml has been great and I'm really loving the strong typing and bugs the compiler spews out before runtime. On HN I've repeatedly read people debating about Type systems and comparing them in different languages. I would love to advance my knowledge on the area! Are there any beginner books on Type Systems that helped you in the grokking the subject?<p>Thanks!
======
adultSwim
[http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/sf/current/index.html](http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/sf/current/index.html)
Check out Software Foundations. It's a pretty gentle bridge from programming
into the theory side. You do programming exercises in Coq. If you already know
basic OCaml, the programming side of Coq will seem very familiar. I can't
recommend SF highly enough.
gkuan's recommendations are good regular books. They might be a little more
than you're looking for.
------
gkuan
Bob Harper's _Practical Foundations for Programming Languages_ is a good
starting point and from there I would go on to Benjamin Pierce's _Types and
Programming Languages_.
------
CmonDev
Search for "static dynamic" on Programmers.SE (the general consensus there is
that static typing is superior for most tasks):
[http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/16/do-
dynamic...](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/16/do-dynamic-
typed-languages-deserve-all-the-criticism)
------
zan
For me it was just the experience with both. Coming from Java background it
was exactly the opposite when I was first dynamic languages, but it got easier
eventually (quickly).
I guess you just have to try out different approaches (and mixed ones, Dart
and ActionScript come to mind) and gradually understand benefits of each way.
------
rubiquity
I haven't worked through it yet, but I've heard Benjamin Pierce's Types and
Programming Languages (TAPL) is one of the go to books on the topic.
[http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/tapl/](http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/tapl/)
------
noblethrasher
Which podcast?
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
George Clooney and how the Media is Broken - 5vforest
http://blog.mygovhub.org/post/19415537048/george-clooney-and-how-the-media-is-broken
======
gamechangr
I've noticed the BBC has been headed down that sloppy slope for about the last
five years.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Meet Watsi, Y Combinator's First Nonprofit - pg
http://ycombinator.com/watsi.html
======
tptacek
This is great. I did what you asked and used the site and it is indeed
extraordinarily compelling. I might suggest a move away from Paypal (only
because the Paypal checkout experience is more intrusive and annoying than the
state of the art).
Our annual all-hands summit is next week, and we'll look for ways to work this
into our charity match programs. Many people on HN have companies with
employees; we were told about running charity matches by other friends who
have companies and let me pass the message along: they work really well. Match
programs have generated more goodwill for us than bonus programs. Start a
match program!
I have a question:
The big charity in this space is Partners In Health, which has an extremely
positive reputation (their cofounder is also now the President of the World
Bank), spends 94% of their funding on program expenses, and has a CEO who
makes less than 6 figures. (PIH is apparently a medical partner for Watsi).
Is the advantage of Watsi over PIH that 100% of funds go to program expenses,
rather than 94%? Or is it that fine-grained funding is more compelling and
will thus elicit more donations?
~~~
chaseadam17
All of the treatments funded on Watsi are provided by our partner
organizations (names listed on the patient profiles) and our first partner,
Nyaya Health, is a Partners in Health clinic in Nepal.
So in short, the benefit of Watsi is both of those you described. 1) 100% of
funds directly fund treatments and 2) those treatments are performed by great
organizations like Nyaya.
~~~
tptacek
Is there a kind of care I'd be funding using Watsi that I wouldn't be funding
as effectively if I routed contributions directly to PIH?
Or is the big advantage to Watsi (from a 1000ft view) that it creates an
especially compelling way to get people to contribute on-the-ground operating
funds to places like PIH?
The latter is certainly a huge big deal, in case I sound skeptical. I'm just
trying to refine my understanding of how all this stuff works.
Congratulations on all of this.
~~~
chaseadam17
Really insightful question. With Nyaya Health (the PIH org) we're funding
treatments they don't normally provide their patients (specialty referral
care, think heart surgery and the like), so yes, there's a big difference
between funding organizations directly and funding via Watsi.
Here's a link to the first patient we funded via Nyaya
([http://www.flickr.com/photos/nyayahealth/8405959818/in/photo...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/nyayahealth/8405959818/in/photostream)).
She had to take a 72-hour trip from Far Western Nepal to Kathmandu to receive
life-saving heart surgery. This is a pretty expensive endeavor by Nepali
standards ($1,125 USD), and without funding from an organization like Watsi,
specialty care for individual patients like Bageshwori is out of the question.
~~~
tptacek
Wow. There are treatments PIH can only provide in Nepal because of a site you
built? That is completely amazing. Congratulations.
------
kevinalexbrown
Aside from the human connection mentioned in the post, by far the most
compelling aspect to me is the "fixed" attribute. There's something so
satisfying about isolating a problem, then fixing it.
Many charities feel like an investment. This feels like a transaction.
Edit: Here by transaction, I mean it's something that has a very high chance
that it's working out. When I order a shirt online, there's a high probability
it will get to me. When I fund a new t-shirt company on Kickstarter, it's less
certain.
~~~
dm8
I agree on the point of transaction vs investment part of non-profit. CRY
(<http://america.cry.org/site/index.html>) has been doing it for years for
educating children and they are quite successful (what I've heard).
------
glimcat
So, the really cool part is this:
"At Watsi, 100% of your donations directly fund medical treatments. Watsi.org
is separately funded. They pay all their operational costs from their own
funding, and none from your donations. They even eat the credit card
processing fees."
This works great with Watsi's crowdfunding-style model. It probably wouldn't
help with things which need legs on the ground full-time, but it would be
interesting to see more nonprofits looking at an "out of channel" donor model.
P.S. If you haven't clicked through to read PG's announcement and check out
Watsi, go do so. Really. This is something YC is going to look back on and be
proud of being part of 20 years from now.
<https://watsi.org/faq>
~~~
dmoney
_So, the really cool part is this:
"At Watsi, 100% of your donations directly fund medical treatments. Watsi.org
is separately funded. They pay all their operational costs from their own
funding, and none from your donations. They even eat the credit card
processing fees."_
It doesn't sound (as) cool me if the founders can only do this until they go
broke. It looks like they do accept direct donations to fund their operating
costs, but it seems to me that the demand (if that's the right word for the
desire to donate) might not increase at the same rate as the demand to fund
treatments (and therefore costs for credit card fees, hosting, staff)
increases. Better to take a percentage and be transparent about what you use
it for.
~~~
chaseadam17
Very good point. We certainly don't want to go broke!
However, we feel very strongly that Watsi should be run like a successful
startup, and _not_ like a traditional non-profit.
Sustainability is extremely important to us. I'm a terrible fundraiser, and I
want nothing more than for us to cover our own overhead.
However, it just doesn't make sense to implement revenue generating features
(e.g. take a cut of donations, which to be clear we will never do) until we
hit scale. Right now, we're entirely focused on improving our product,
speaking with donors, and maximizing our impact.
However, just like any successful startup, there will (hopefully) come a time
when the costs associated with scale begin to outstrip the seed-support we've
so generously received from people like pg and Jessica. When that happens, we
will implement features that generate revenue for our organization, and we'll
have a user base large enough to make those features viable.
Without going into too much detail, those features will include things like
asking donors for an optional "tip" to Watsi when giving to a patient
(expected to net 6-8%), cause marketing products (already a few companies
interested), white label, etc.
We will never abandon the 100% model, and I'm completely confident that for as
long as there is demand for the service we're offering, we'll find a way to
cover our overhead.
~~~
fatbat
Interesting. What Watsi has is beyond what I imagined an ideal online
donations would offer.
Kudos for taking the leap Watsi!
------
PabloOsinaga
We (masporloschicos.com) have been doing roughly the same since 2005. (instead
of health we focus on malnutrition)
Note- site is in spanish - targeted to the Argentine audience
We are a bit less granular though - instead of matching against an individual,
we match a specific soup kitchen. But we keep donors updated with newsletters,
pictures, letters from the kids and so on.
edit: this level of udpates keeps donors engaged. we dont allow one time
donations - instead we require you to subscribe.
When we built masporloschicos.com I wanted to do it more granular (individual
level), but we ended up doing it a bit more aggregate because it was really
hard / expensive to get to that granular level.
I wonder how is watsi tackling this problem - because ultimately you don't
want to spend a lot of funds (regardless of where they come from) on the
administration/bureaucracy required to provide quality 1:1 matching.
So I just wonder how are they doing it?
~~~
irollboozers
The issue of administration and bureaucracy is definitely one the best
questions and hardest challenges for new startups trying to tackle these kinds
of peer-connected problems. There are entire systems of middle-men built up
over long periods of time that up until the internet have been how systems
like medical treatment, education, and research funding operate. The biggest
factor of inertia in these systems is the system itself.
Sites like Watsi are now making people realize two things: which
inefficiencies we can cut away, and that simple experiences like funding
medical treatment can be enhanced. Those are two very big revelations that
will fuel so much of peer-to-peer funding.
------
corin_
I'm personally not a fan of the concept of donating to help a specific person,
rather than a cause, but am unsure whether I'm a rare exception or whether
many people have the same view as me - hopefully a few replies could help
answer this?
When I say not a fan of the concept, I absolutely don't mean I disapprove. I
don't have any problem with organisations raising money this way, nor with
people choosing to donate money this way - I simply don't like donating
myself.
Trying to chose between fighting HIV or starvation, cancer or... etc. etc. is
hard enough. Looking at Watsi's homepage, does Chimwemwe from Malawi deserve
my money more than Kirshan from Nepal? What about Lidiya from Malawi? I can
see the point of view that it's nice to know your money has _definitely_ made
an impact on somebody's life, but personally I don't enjoy the burden of
making that decision. I'd far rather be 0.0000000001% of a big solution than
100% of a small one when it comes to charitable donations.
All that said, the fact that I dislike it doesn't take anything away from my
thinking that Watsi looks like a great site, my opinion doesn't change the
fact that anyone raising money for good causes is great and if the method used
here helps that then no complaints from me.
~~~
chaseadam17
Great point. It's all about personal opinion. There are currently tons of
organizations that enable people to fund a cause, but nearly none that let you
fund something as specific as an individual treatment. We're providing a new,
more direct and transparent, alternative.
Oftentimes there is institutional support for specific "mainstream" conditions
(e.g. HIV, TB, etc.) and as a result, some patients who are in unique
situations (e.g. have a rare condition, need a slightly expensive treatment,
need referral care, etc.) often fall through the cracks. Watsi provides an
opportunity to those patients by enabling them to tap into the crowd.
While there are pros and cons to each approach, it's important to note that
they are complementary. Charitable giving is not a zero sum game, and we're
working hard to expand the pie, not take a piece of it.
~~~
corin_
I wonder if everyone who has come across both options (broad vs. specific)
choses one and sticks with that, or whether some people like both and split
their donations?
While you'd obviously always prefer to expand the pie rather than just take a
piece, there's nothing wrong with the latter - like you said, your approach
can help people who slip through the gaps, so even if the pie doesn't expand,
your taking a piece of it can still be a good thing.
Keep up the good work.
~~~
chaseadam17
Great insight. We're in the process of creating a "General Fund" on Watsi to
help us answer that very question.
Donors that are interested in maximizing impact, and not necessarily
interested in helping a specific person, can give to that fund. We'll then use
those donations to support organizational projects (e.g. $1 vaccinations and
the like).
We're considering leveraging an organization like GiveWell to help us identify
organizations and projects that will be beneficiaries of the general fund.
------
SoftwareMaven
This is really cool, but I'm curious how an investment in this is different
than a charitable contribution. The contribution is awesome for the network it
introduces Watsi to, but I can't imagine there will ever be a return on this
kind of investment.
(This is _not_ meant to sound negative. I am truly excited to see it,
interested to see what the YC network can bring to it, and very curious about
the investment thinking behind it.)
~~~
pg
There is no difference; it is simply a charitable contribution.
~~~
tikhonj
Will they also be going through dinners, office-hours and the like?
I could see this being a good way to help new non-profits get over the initial
hump of raising awareness, getting administrative issues sorted out and so on.
Certainly a service worth more than just the money provided.
~~~
pg
Yes, everything is the same. They're going to present at Demo Day too (lots of
rich people in that room).
~~~
SoftwareMaven
That is awesome. A really great use of the YC network.
------
jkuria
This is really great to see. I am just curious, how do they ensure that the
funds are actually used for the intended person's health issues? How do you
prevent scammers and posers who just want to get money? I have a bit of
experience here and would say it is a non trivial problem if you do not have
an operation on the ground. You could donate to organizations that you trust
but then you get back to the same old problem: Distance from the human face
and actual life you are impacting.
For those of you who want to donate to non health related issues there is also
SeeYourImpact.org founded by Scott Oki, one of Microsoft's early execs. They
also ensure 100% of the donation goes to the person and absorb all the
overhead expenses.
Shameless plug: For our Hacker News Clone for African startus, business and
technology we will be running ads for SeeYourImpact.org but strictly for
educational needs. Check out the site here: <http://AfriTech.org/about.htm>
Actual news stories on front page: <http://AfriTech.org>
~~~
chaseadam17
We prevent scammers by going through trusted organizations. The funds go
directly to the organization that is providing treatment (i.e. the hospital or
clinic), and never into the hands of the patient.
As well, patients aren't able to solicit Watsi funding. In fact, they don't
even know we exist until a doctor at one of our partner organizations has
identified them as a candidate and presents them with the opportunity to have
their care funded by Watsi. You can think of us as an "Emergency Fund" for on-
the-ground healthcare providers.
~~~
gruseom
This is all tremendously innovative and exciting, and you are doing a superb
job of articulating it.
------
jango
In Slovakia (a small EU country) we have a non-profit called "Dobry anjel"
(Good angel) which helps families of children sick with cancer and other
serious diseases. It is also collects donations, is separately funded and
distributes all the donations "up to the last cent". Two possibly interesting
tidbits: 1) The organization has re-distributed almost 17 million euros since
its inception in 2006 (this is 23 mil. USD, over half a million USD in the
last month alone -- our population is about the same as Minnesota), 2) Its co-
founder Andrej Kiska is planning to run for president of Slovakia next year.
EDIT: Note on transparency: all the donors have their own website login
information ("angel ID") to track every donation and see exactly how much was
sent to whom. The stories of recipient families are provided, along with their
address + telephone number. The donors have an option to remain anonymous or
reveal their contact information. I never contacted any recipients or revealed
my name to them but I have heard stories where the donors and families in
distress got in touch and supported each other with prayers, encouragements,
etc.. "Good angel" also makes it possible to keep sending donations to the
same families if you choose to (otherwise the families will be chosen at
random, which is the default choice -- or at least was the default for me when
I signed up in 2007).
------
eranation
I'm so glad this was funded, I remember when it was initially posted, and the
simple, brave solution, and I salute to YC for funding and mentoring this.
One small thing, although I just donated 50$ for two people, I found myself to
be a bit uncomfortable with my actions,
I didn't really pay attention much to who I'm donating to, just clicked on the
first picture that caught my eye without thinking, and donated 25$. Then I
noticed, I'm donating to a 1 year old baby, with a cute photo. I really want
to think of myself as someone who pays more attention, reads and makes a
decision based on facts, medical condition, urgency, and likelihood to
succeed, but no, I just clicked based on prejudice, 1 second first impression,
biased decision, without noticing I did so.
Then I saw a 37 years old woman and noticed she got much less donations
although her total needed amount is higher, perhaps her medical situation is
less severe, but I would be naive to think that that's the only reason. So I
asked myself, am I doing some sort of unconscious decision that is not really
fair and unbiased? I would lie if I say I didn't.
So I donated 25$ to her as well, just so I feel a little better with myself,
and then I thought, well, this is a feature request.
So to avoid the "cute baby gets more donations" bias, what would make it a
little nicer to me is to donate without knowing who it goes to, I'd like a
button that says - "donate to most medically severe case", or "donate to most
time sensitive case" and have someone else make the decision. This will make
me feel a little more in peace with myself, and actually might make such
biases less common. Right now it might not have affect, but as it will
hopefully grow to help more people, having such "donate to who needs it most
medically" option will help prevent such gaps.
Also moving to a better payment system, Stripe or even Google checkout will
make it a much nicer experience.
EDIT: the baby's profile was on the home page, where as the woman's profile
was one click deeper, so this could be another reason, but this brings another
enhancement, please automatically promote / rotate profiles that have less
donations / most urgent medical conditions to the front page
Another feature I'm missing is to allow subscription, I would think many would
be happy to donate 5$-20$ a month and automatically give it to those who have
the least donations, or must urgent medical condition. Getting traffic is hard
and critical for making this work, and not every day you get to HN front page,
I would take advantage of it and offer a recurring donation as soon as
possible.
~~~
DigitalJack
It sounds to me like that what you want to work with is the more traditional
charity model. You don't know who your funding will support generally, you can
subscribe, they have staff that steer the funding toward the most urgent
needs.
So have a look at the Medical Partners that Watsi uses. See about donating
there.
------
suchow
This is a neat idea.
I have an unimportant question. PG's post says "They even eat the credit card
processing fees", but Watsi's FAQ says, "As part of the cost of the treatment,
we have included PayPal credit card processing fees (2.9% + $0.30 per
transaction). These PayPal fees are unavoidable, and no portion of the fees go
to Watsi."
Who is right?
~~~
bdcs
Good question. Also, PayPal fees are only unavoidable at PayPal. Would it be a
conflict of interest, on pg's part, to include donations via bitcoins using
Coinbase? If so, what if a competitor, such as BitPay, was used?
~~~
chaseadam17
We're switching over to Stripe and they've been kind enough to hook us up with
a better deal than PayPal (we'll be paying cost which is something like 2.4%
flat, inclusive of Amex and international transactions, which constitute more
than 30% of our total donations).
~~~
ianstormtaylor
Was just about to ask about Stripe helping out a charity and fellow YCer.
Awesome to here that they are hooking you guys up. Even with Paypal I already
went through 4 donations or so, but Stripe would make the process even more
addicting.
~~~
chaseadam17
Thank you for donating! It's amazing for us to hear from people that have
already supported so many patients on Watsi.
~~~
ianstormtaylor
If you guys remember my credit card between donations and give me an account
that will notify once a month (or so) of new patients, it'll actually become a
problem for my bank account.
------
eduardordm
pg,
I wrote this minutes ago in a thread about the 3rd world. If you ever come
across a startup that solves this please fund them:
"The biggest problems right now involve education and health. Example: 60-80%
health problems follow the same pattern: you see a doctor, he asks for
blood/urine tests, you get the results, go back to the doctor for a
prescription. Build something that the poor can explain their symptoms and do
those tests without going physically to a doctor and become a semi-god here.
That would involve a website (or phone call) and portable blood testers.
(Specially for things like malaria, E. coli, colera, dengue fever, typhoid
fever, etc)"
~~~
dreamdu5t
This would be illegal in the US AFAIK. The law and the US government are the
biggest barriers to medical innovation right now.
~~~
tnorthcutt
Isn't eduardordm specifically talking about 3rd world countries, e.g. not the
U.S?
~~~
TeMPOraL
Probably some of the US regulations would be relevant for US-based startups
trying to develop and test the technology locally, even if it is to be used in
3rd world countries later.
------
tsycho
On one hand, I love it that I was able to donate to a person, and Watsi didn't
require a login, email etc. (though I guess they have my email from the Paypal
payment).
But this is one of the sites where a login would probably be a good idea, so
that I can keep track of my donations and particularly the status/health
updates of those whom I am helping, and also potentially for tax purposes.
Another site on these lines which I like a lot is Kiva.org (no affiliation,
just a user). It's micro-finance, not donations, but all 3 people whom I lent
to on Kiva, have paid me back so their enterprise has presumably succeeded. It
feels great to be able to help some poor villager in Africa buy some
fertilizers or a cow, and I like how Kiva makes it easy to keep track of them
:)
Update: Watsi just emailed me a receipt that I can use for tax purposes, and
promised to send me a email when the person I donated to receives treatment.
So I take back my minor complaint above!
~~~
chaseadam17
This is a great suggestion. We do send updates to all donors, but as soon as
we integrate Stripe we're going to enable _optional_ user accounts. These
accounts will enable us to create new features like one-click donation
checkout, recurring donations, and a donation history so you can easily view
all the patients you've helped support. If you have any other ideas, please
let us know!
------
justjimmy
Previous discussions about Watsi. Good to see they're getting more exposure.
"Thank You HN: From 30 people whose lives you saved"
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4815006>
"Show HN - We just built a site that saves lives"
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4424081>
------
sethbannon
Very happy to see this. At the very least, it's great news for the nonprofit
world, which needs desperately to learn some of the basic the lessons of the
startup world: fail fast, iterate, focus on your users, and more.
~~~
jk4930
Would be interesting to observe how the established nonprofits react to this.
Many of them do the following: Make their target audience (who they claim to
care for) more dependent (i.e., don't solve the problem, just give some
temporal ease) and take money from third parties (state, private donors) that
don't control them.
My guess is that they would come up with many arguments against this startup-
ish approach and would lobby for legal barriers.
~~~
tptacek
Watsi is already working with huge names in this space. PIH, one of the best
known, funds on-the-ground medical care in places like Haiti and Subsaharan
Africa. I don't think anyone in these places cares how "dependent" they are on
PIH; their kids are living with broken femurs, infected bones, cataracts, and
hernias.
Charities are not going to lobby against Watsi.
~~~
jk4930
Thanks for the info. I didn't intend to imply that they (or other nonprofit
startups) would face opposition by all established players. It's just that I
found many "nonprofits" showing questionable behaviours: The people working in
the field are often very interested in helping, (some but important) people in
the administration became cynics or bigots and working for a nonprofit became
less of a mission and more of a job option and power play and protecting their
org's income streams and spheres of influence is more important than helping.
This is a POV from Germany where you have a wealthy population willing to
donate and many sharks eager to catch the fish. Add to this that some legal
circumstances make it possible for the established players to keep fresh
competition out of public money streams or eat plenty of the private donor
money (e.g., up to 49% for admin costs).
~~~
tptacek
I'm sure this is true of a lot of charitable endeavors, but the health care
charities are generally about getting medical teams on the ground and
deploying desperately needed care.
It makes sense to route contributions to reputable charities. In the medical
space, you have not only PIH but also organizations like Médecins Sans
Frontières/DWB-USA. One of the very cool things about what Watsi is doing is
that they provide a front end that routes contributions to multiple reputable
on-the-ground health care providers, like PIH clinics.
~~~
jk4930
Yes to all of the above. And I think there are other days when I can express
my concerns, now it's time that I start celebrating Watsi's success. :)
------
kalvin
Watsi is awesome. Kiva and donorschoose made "direct" p2p lending/giving
popular long ago, but Watsi is the first that feels like, well, a YC startup
(just from the site-- product, team, mentality).
Also be sure to check out givewell.org for very HN-friendly
(rational/research-driven) tips on how you might think about giving in
general.
------
maxharris
Is there any chance of expanding this to include Americans? Or even better -
people that live near me, such as my zip code + the surrounding zip codes.
That way, there's at least a chance that I'd see the person that I helped
someday.
~~~
tptacek
Worth mentioning that patients in the US, and particularly children, are
guaranteed medical care regardless of ability to pay. Medical care funding can
bankrupt you in the US, but it cannot prevent you from having a broken femur
fixed. States also run "CHIP" programs to provide health insurance coverage to
children.
The same is not true in Haiti or Malawi. Without the funds to pay for care, a
child can live for years --- their entire life, even --- with easily
correctible medical conditions.
~~~
loceng
"guaranteed medical care" - of what quality, with what results? And the value
of medical care being covered is that it doesn't destroy the rest of your
life. It's actually kind of pointless to help someone just get to the point of
surviving, and then leave them to fend for themself.
~~~
philwelch
To me, it's plainly obvious that people in those other countries need our help
more than people in the United States. What other concern is there? "I'd like
to help people in MY country" is just a vaguely nationalistic bigotry.
~~~
tinco
It is not so obvious. There's a lot of suffering going on in your country too.
Charity comes from the heart, and where you should direct your love is your
own choice. If you feel the people in your country are closer to you, there's
no shame in helping them before others. We are human after all.
~~~
philwelch
> If you feel the people in your country are closer to you
That's the nationalistic bigotry I was talking about. That's like saying if
there was a charity that only helped white people, maybe I should contribute
to that because I feel that people of European descent are "closer to me".
~~~
tinco
It is not bigotry, you are misinformed. Black people contributing to
<http://blackcharities.net/> are not bigots, they merely support those whose
fate they identify with.
~~~
philwelch
Sure, people are more likely to help those they identify with. That means
they're more likely to ignore the plight of people they don't identify with.
And that _is_ bigotry. And criticizing a charity for not enabling that is also
bigotry.
------
jmcgough
I really like the transparency - with a lot of nonprofits, I feel like I need
to look into their expenditures to see where my donation is really going and
to figure out if it's worthwhile. Watsi feels a lot more like kickstarter but
directly targeted at helping individual people. Very cool idea.
How do they pay for operations costs - is there a separate donations channel?
------
dasht
Paul Graham, or anyone "in the know", may we please hear a bit about what the
equivalent of a term sheet looks like for a Y Combinator non-profit
investment? Is Y Combinator giving a grant? Is Watsi issuing debt to Y
Combinator? What's the financing model here?
~~~
pg
It's just a donation.
~~~
robg
Have you considered ycombinator.org? Call it a program-related investment and
mirror the .com?
~~~
rdl
One of the things I respect most about pmarca and a16z is that they donate the
difference between real income tax rates and the bogus carry-as-capital-gains
rates to charity (individually or as a firm, I forget).
I wish all VCs would do this, because carry-as-capital-gains is an incredible
abuse of the system. I'm fine with founders getting this, and with LPs who
invest cash, but VCs do not deserve preferential rates over other workers when
they do not themselves take financial risk.
------
Mizza
I used Watsi when it was first announced here. It's a truly amazing offering,
a great product with great customer support and outreach, and, as a user, it
truly makes you feel like you're doing something good for the world.
A few weeks after donating, I later got an email from them letting me know
that the boy whose heart transplant I had funded had died. It kind of wrecked
my whole day, but I was still glad I got the notification. I didn't expect to
have such an emotional connection to a person I have never even interacted
with before. Godspeed, Watsi.
~~~
chaseadam17
Our team was heartbroken to hear the outcome of that treatment as well.
(You've now got three of our team sitting around discussing your incredibly
poignant comment.)
It's certainly a bit of a dilemma, but we've made a promise to be 100%
transparent, even when it hurts.
FWIW we've found ourselves even more dedicated to Watsi since receiving our
first negative outcome. We always knew that what we were doing was real and
important, but there's something about death that really puts the gravity of
the problem we're attempting to solve into perspective.
------
seeingfurther
One could think of this non-profit funding as YC's own charity donation. I
like this type of donation much more than just hard cash. YC is committing
what it does best, building great organizations around amazing teams. I wish
more people, companies and orgs took this approach to donations.
------
rdl
Please figure out a way to take equity eventually (there are organizations
which help non profits do this).
I, and a lot of other startup founders, have limited income to donate, but
potentially have equity which could be worth a lot of money someday. It is a
lot easier to donate equity than current income.
It adds overhead and complicates your "transactional" model, but it might be a
good way to fund your overhead, or to fund longer term projects, and could
eventually be a recurring income stream to pay for some number of treatments.
~~~
chaseadam17
Yes! Great idea. We'll get on this.
------
fghh45sdfhr3
How about a kick starter like nonprofit for social funding of scientific and
medical research?
~~~
kt9
Ask and you shall receive: <https://www.microryza.com/>
~~~
prawks
Very cool! Thanks for the link.
------
jtchang
This is amazing. I love how they are moving so fast they simply publish
results to a Google Doc spreadsheet.
This foreshadows an era where non-profits must aggressively publish their
spending and compete on how lean they become. My guess is there are going to
be a lot of niche sites that perform exactly like Watsi.
------
wave
The only suggestion I have is that it would be nice to see the patient's
profiles get updated after being funded and treatment was given. We all like
to see how our donations are making noticeable difference in people's lives.
I really like what Watsi is doing. They even "eat the credit card processing
fees"
~~~
chaseadam17
Working on this! After Stripe integration, it's one of our top priorities. In
the meantime, you can view every patient update on our transparency document
(see the last
column):[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah3wJ9CRQzyHdDZ...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah3wJ9CRQzyHdDZSaEF1X1JsRm1yZ251d0RQZ0VmRGc&output=html)
------
febeling
Go and fund someone, and observe how a couple of minutes later you get the
notification email that the funding is complete. This is a very powerful new
thing.
------
woodhull
I'm pretty sure that GiveWell (whom I adore) wouldn't like Watsi very much.
It doesn't maximize the utility of donations to spend lots of money saving the
lives of a handful of people vs. other interventions that can save the lives
of many more people suffering from diseases like malaria at a much lower cost
per patient than the interventions that Watsi is promoting.
I think Watsi donors will feel good about helping specific people, but I'm
personally interested in my donations actually being maximally impactful. If
you want to save the most lives per dollar, the sort of extraordinary
treatments that Watsi funds are not a great way to do it.
~~~
chaseadam17
Charitable giving isn't a zero sum game. Instead of taking a piece of the
charitable pie, we're expanding it by offering donors and patients a new
opportunity.
If Watsi didn't exist, many of the patients on our site would have likely
died. How do you quantify that impact? How do you prove that all the donations
made via Watsi would have been allocated to some other cause had we not
existed?
Also, I'd like to say that we really respect GiveWell's work. Quantifying
social impact is a really tough challenge, and it's great to see such an
intelligent team working on the problem.
Furthermore, we actually think they'd be big fans of donations made on Watsi,
at least those made to patients at Nyaya Health, which was rated one of
GiveWell's "Standout Organizations" last year.
~~~
philh
> If Watsi didn't exist, many of the patients on our site would have likely
> died. How do you quantify that impact?
Roughly, by comparing it to the number of people who die in other hypothetical
scenarios. You can't get exact numbers, but you can do a damn sight better
than saying "it can't be done".
> How do you prove that all the donations made via Watsi would have been
> allocated to some other cause had we not existed?
Of course they wouldn't. But what if, instead of creating Watsi, you had put
the same effort into advocating for more efficient charities? (This is a
serious question. I actually wouldn't be completely shocked if it turns out
that that would have been less effective.)
> Nyaya Health, which was rated one of GiveWell's "Standout Organizations"
> last year.
However, they didn't estimate its cost-effectiveness. And on that metric... I
go to your website and see that $1000 can stop someone from maybe becoming
infertile, and that just doesn't seem like it can possibly win against malaria
nets. (Looking deeper, that seems like one of the lowest value treatments
available, but I don't expect the others to win either.)
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you guys are doing this. I'm not convinced you're
doing the best you possibly could, but you're doing far better than me. I
absolutely think your impact on the world is massively positive. But I don't
anticipate donating to you myself any time soon.
~~~
ichabodcole
I think one thing to keep in mind is whether or not people who donate money
through a system such as Watsi, would have otherwise donated that money to
some other type of organization, and whether by donating through a Watsi like
system they will be more likely to donate to other types organizations in the
future. These questions could definitely use some study (I'll bet there are
some already out there).
Anecdotally, I'm not someone who normally gives to charity, but I gave through
Watsi, because I could see and to some degree feel the real impact of the
money. As a secondary effect, I actually feel more charitable, whether that
means I will give to other types of organizations remains to be seen, but I
would not discount the halo effect systems like Watsi may have.
~~~
dsjoerg
This.
People who are already giving the max to GiveWell-supported charities should
not divert their funds to Watsi.
People who have more to give and want maximum impact should follow GiveWell's
recommendations.
However, many people have not given to the max, nor do they care so much about
maximum impact. For them, there is Watsi to direct their dollars to a noble
cause, rather than on Minecraft-themed plush toys or something.
------
aidos
I just love this. It was featured a few months back and by the time I got to
it everyone had already been sponsored [0]. It's brilliant to see the real
stories of people who's lives you can have a positive effect on right now.
I also use Kiva [1] which is brilliant in a different way. You can loan money
to people so they can fund their businesses etc.
I'm off to donate to Watsi now.
[0] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4424081> [1] <http://www.kiva.org/>
------
chamboo
This is how all charities should be done. I will be supporting this charity,
and I furthermore think it should be illegal to run a charity in any other
manner than pure transparency. My hat is off to Watsi, and I feel this is a
bigger deal than most people may realize. These are the types of startups we
need to change the world. Not only do they do something good and useful for
people, they also show the rest of the charities that operating with
transparency is the only way to go. Thanks guys, this made my day.
------
orionblastar
Well it is good for people in Nepal.
But what about the USA, especially disabled veterans, people on disability,
people on no or low income, homeless people, and others who cannot afford
their healthcare and got shafted by the federal government?
There are some charities, but they collect funds with Quadriga Art, that keeps
the lion's share of the donations and little to no money goes to the charity
or people in need. CNN has investigated this company
[http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/26/us/senate-charities-
investigat...](http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/26/us/senate-charities-
investigation/index.html) [http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/24/fund-raising-
company-f...](http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/24/fund-raising-company-
faces-new-questions/) [http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/25/charities-in-
debt-to-f...](http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/25/charities-in-debt-to-
fundraising-company/)
This is the reason why so many charities are broke in the USA and the money
never goes to the people it is supposed to help. We can reform this problem by
starting up a non-profit web company to keep the costs low for raising money
for these charities and making sure the people in need get the money and life
saving medical treatments and surgeries that they need.
~~~
jc00ke
Yes, there are people all over that need help, and that definitely includes
those you mentioned in the US. However, there are existing organizations
already working on that, or other organizations yet to be created that could
lead the charge.
Watsi was founded on a few simple principles, and 2 that we apply to every
possible treatment are "low cost, high impact". Unfortunately, health care in
the US is not low cost. It's ridiculous.
I hope one day we can collaborate with an organization or 2 that will take on
the challenge! Until then, there's Give Forward, which does a great job
itself.
------
nsomniact
I lost a bet to a friend. I just used Watsi to fulfill it.
------
ryanmolden
Congrats, this is awesome news! I contributed to a couple of patients when I
first saw you announce this on HN because I like the 'direct to patient, 100%
utilization' nature of it. This is a reminder for me to go back.
I see from your website you are a 501(c)(3) charity. I will submit your
organization for approval for the matching program at my employer, which I
like because it allows me to 'stick it to the man' by donating to all kinds of
things my employer might or might not support (this doesn't fall into that
category though). They also match volunteer hours by employees at $17 bucks an
hour (after the first 10 hours), which can be a great way to get free work and
free money.
~~~
chaseadam17
Awesome! Thank you. Please let us know if we can provide any info for the
matching request: [email protected].
------
got2surf
After spending the past week thinking about monetizing ads, the next
social/local/mobile app, etc... that all seems so minor compared to Watsi.
It's awesome to see people doing so much social good - best of luck and
amazing job!
------
brezina
Congrats @pg and team! I love seeing YC used for so much good. The impact
continues
------
alpb
Kiva is a similar organization <http://kiva.org> where people can lend money
to people in poor countries for their needs. I wish the same help for Kiva.
------
pratikjhaveri
Just donated. What an awesome cause and an amazing effort by the team. I'm
asking other organizations that I donate to, to follow Watsi's example in
transparency.
------
callmeed
I'm curious if there's a reason Watsi _couldn't or shouldn't_ be a for-profit
company?
I like the fact they're not taking a transaction fee. But, it seems to me that
they're also a benefit to healthcare providers, insurance companies, and big
pharma (after all, the money raised is going to end up in their pockets).
Aren't there ways Watsi could make money from these companies?
~~~
chaseadam17
Great suggestion. We hopefully will make money from them! As a non-profit,
we're able to earn money just as a for-profit would. The only difference is
that we are required by law to invest any profit back into the organization to
ensure we're never personally profiting off of the generosity of others.
------
st0p
I just donated some euro's, and I truely believe those euro's will be well
spend. But it feels wierd (and somehow wrong) to crowdfund someone's health.
I'm not questioning watsi, they are in it for the right reasons. But is
crowdfunding something important as health for poor people the solution?
I think everyone is trying to do good here, but nobody is solving the real
problems.
~~~
chaseadam17
Thanks for the donation, the patient (and we) really appreciate it.
You bring up a really interesting point. Is crowdfunding a sustainable
solution for healthcare? It's something we think about a lot as a team.
Right now, there are people dying for lack of available and relatively cheap
medical treatments, simply because they can't afford them. We think the only
moral thing to do is fund their treatments.
However, is this sustainable? I'd argue that it is for two reasons.
First, the organizations we partner with are all working towards fairly
obvious sustainable solutions. Some establish public-private partnerships,
others cross-subsidize, and others have a very strong focus on training local
doctors (some do all three - we require at least one).
Second, and without getting into a really deep discussion here, only about 40
out of 200 countries in the world have a formal healthcare system. And those
systems that work best are, for the most part, universal healthcare systems
financed by the government (i.e. the costs are crowdfunded via taxes).
However, with the world becoming smaller by the second, is it too crazy to
think that Watsi might one day be the first truly universal healthcare system?
What if instead of a mandatory tax, of which a % is allocated to national
healthcare, human compassion was enough to fuel a global healthcare system?
For the first time in history, the internet is making this feasible. The only
question that remains is whether human compassion is enough to solve one of
the world's greatest challenges.
------
namank
I'm glad.
Not because of the non-profit nature of this startup but the endorsement YC
has now given to non-traditional and perhaps massively big ideas.
------
xfax
Really cool concept, makes donating very compelling. In fact, I just donated
to help fund Esther's treatment.
An idea to get more people to give more - make it competitive. For example,
it'll be cool if I could create a group for my school and then get people to
'tag' their donations with the group ID. Would love to see which school can
get the most donations!
------
toddnessa
A really great idea. I have been befriended by a native pastor in Kenya. His
son came down with something unexpected and had to go to the hospital. The
hospital did not want to let the kid out until he was fully paid up and he
couldn't pay it all . This escalated the bill even further. Something like
this could have really helped.
------
benrmatthews
Amaingly transparent organisation too. You can see every patient they've ever
funded and the outcome of their treatment in a Google spreadsheet, here:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah3wJ9CRQzyHdDZ...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Ah3wJ9CRQzyHdDZSaEF1X1JsRm1yZ251d0RQZ0VmRGc&gid=0)
------
Golobulus
Will there be some kind of illness directory? Or a way I could keep track of
or sign up for notices of new listings? What about a widget that I could embed
on my site for specific kinds of illnesses that readers/users might be
interested in donating to? Congratulations on all of this, really great
idea/implementation.
------
kanamekun
Congrats on a great site, and the exciting news around joining YC! One quick
question:
<< If Watsi didn't exist, many of the patients on our site would have likely
died. >>
If a surgery isn't funding in time to save a patient's life, would you fund
the remaining amount of the loan out of your own funds?
~~~
chaseadam17
Yes, we guarantee funding for all patients on our site by leaving profiles
posted until they are fully funded. Also, we give our partners permission to
pre-treat a patient in the event they need immediate care, so long as we've
already accepted the profile. We then reimburse the partner for the cost of
treatment once the profile is fully funded. In the event we have more profiles
than we can fund (never been the case so far) we will accept and post the
lowest-cost, highest-impact profiles first. However, we can do a pretty good
job of avoiding this situation by growing our partners (and thus our volume of
potential patients) at a rate that corresponds with the speed at which donor
demand is increasing.
~~~
kanamekun
If your doctors do "pre-treat" patients, please be very careful! If patients
are regularly pre-treated, then the 1:1 connection between donor and patient
could be seen as less pure (if the surgery already happened, it isn't 100%
clear that the users' donations funded that specific surgery - as opposed to
just being a general donation to a Medical Partner's operating budget).
A similar criticism was made of Kiva, as covered by the NYT here:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/business/global/09kiva.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/business/global/09kiva.html)
It's really important to disclose the date of any surgeries. And if a surgery
has been performed prior to the profile being fully funded (or even prior to
posting), the date of the surgery should be displayed and the profile should
be labeled as pre-treated.
Just want to make sure you guys avoid some of the growing pains of Kiva! (I
used to run Marketing over there for a bunch of 2010/2011.) Good luck!
------
josh2600
This is awesome.
I think this model of achieving more direct distribution through technology
could profitably be applied to a number of for-profit and non-profit
endeavors.
This seems like it could also be a better way of addressing hunger,
contributing food to individuals but using a managed distribution system.
What a cool idea :).
------
vegasje
I'm really glad to see that Watsi got some more attention after their original
HN debut (here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4424081>). These guys are
making it so easy to help people in need.
------
zhyder
"I've never been so excited about anything we've funded."
That's great! I'm excited that you're excited. I imagine we'll see a lot more
non-profits in YC shortly. Will 2013 be the year of many such non-profits,
like 2012 was for hardware startups?
------
DannyBee
I'm really glad this is happening. A lot of the traditional funding mechanisms
for non-profits seem badly broken, incentive wise. Then again, i've been in
DC, where I guess almost everything is badly broken.
------
white_devil
Why would a venture capitalist invest in a _non-profit_? Does YC not want a
return on their investment?
------
chunsaker
Way to go, Chase and team. This has tremendous vision and I hope you come out
of YC with a ton of velocity.
------
batemanesque
this could channel money away from preventative care, which is far more cost-
effective than funding later-stage individual treatments. $50 given for the
purchase of malaria nets would save a lot more lives than a single operation.
------
tadruj
A great site for millionaires to visit when they're bored or have lost their
purpose.
------
raheemm
Not to be cynical but how do they ensure the veracity of the patients?
------
zopticity
Wow, I'm really taken away the fact that you're using PayPal. First of all,
you're in YC, where's the brotherly support of using other YC companies? You
got WePay and Stripe, and you're not using either.
~~~
FrojoS
One step after the other. I just donated, despite ever having used PayPal
before, and with a non-american credit card. And - it worked within a few
minutes. I have my objections to PayPal, too, and would like to see
alternatives but that doesn't have to be the focus right now.
~~~
h2s
You're right, and I understand your point, but I would also like to add my
voice to those pressuring Watsi for a PayPal alternative. Personally I had
pressed "Fund Treatment" and was 100% committed to converting until PayPal
loaded. I don't have a PayPal account any more and I won't reopen it for
anybody, not even Watsi.
------
rosstamicah
Next up, a YC L3C (a hybrid for and non profit)
------
theklub
Wow this is a great idea.
------
macorama
Great Job!
------
abraininavat
Really great project. Some thoughts: 1\. In the interest of 100% transparency,
what do you think about being 100% transparent with your tech? Would it make
sense to open-source your technology stack?
2\. I really wish you had the ability to donate on behalf of someone else,
either to fund Watsi or to fund medical treatment. On Amazon I set up a
wishlist that people can easily access for ideas of what to buy me on
Christmas or my birthday. If I could set up something like that on Watsi
instead, I probably would. And if your tech was open source, I might even
implement the feature myself!
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
There’s Nothing Apple’s CEO Cares About More Than Not Paying Taxes - Cbasedlifeform
https://theintercept.com/2017/05/04/theres-nothing-apples-ceo-cares-about-more-than-not-paying-taxes/
======
pdog
Alternative title: there's nothing Apple's CEO cares about more than saving
$50 billion for Apple and its shareholders.
------
nihonde
I find it a little mystifying when people act as if revenue earned overseas
ought to be contributed to US tax revenue. In the end, that kind of policy
would hurt the US at a time when America needs more winners like Apple and
less businesses that rely on the tax base to keep their failing concerns
afloat.
~~~
mikeyouse
The rub comes from all of the effort they go through to make domestic income
look like foreign income. It's one thing to argue local income should be taxed
in the jurisdiction that it's earned in, but when you look at all the transfer
pricing games these companies play in _every_ jurisdiction, it's clear that
they just wouldn't pay taxes anywhere.
Edited to add example:
E.g. when Apple sells an iPhone in New Zealand for say $800, they are meant to
pay taxes on the difference between what the phone cost and the sales price.
Except, all Apple products sold internationally need to pay Apple Sales
International for their IP. This amount happens to eliminate the tax liability
in every country that they sell products.
So okay, then Apple Sales International should pay taxes on all of that IP
licensing cash, right? Well Apple negotiated an agreement with Ireland such
that all profits earned outside of Ireland are attributed to a "head office"
that literally doesn't exist. So the only taxes that Apple Sales International
pay are from sales in Ireland.
So they can make tens of billions in profit, pay a few million in taxes and
wait for a repatriation holiday to capture that money basically tax free.
~~~
gozur88
>So okay, then Apple Sales International should pay taxes on all of that IP
licensing cash, right? Well Apple negotiated an agreement with Ireland such
that all profits earned outside of Ireland are attributed to a "head office"
that literally doesn't exist. So the only taxes that Apple Sales International
pay are from sales in Ireland.
Why does it matter to New Zealand whether or not Apple pays taxes in Ireland?
~~~
ubernostrum
New Zealand (or any other country) would like to say that you pay tax equal to
some percentage of the profit on iPhones sold in New Zealand (or whatever
country is trying to tax them). Apple would like to route the money around
between its subsidiaries in order to say "well, we actually made zero dollars
of profit from selling iPhones in New Zealand this year, so we won't be paying
you any tax".
The fact that the money ends up in places where Apple pays very little tax or
even zero tax on the profit is just rubbing salt in the wound.
This is the kernel of usefulness in the border adjustment tax Trump has tried
to propose a few times. His version of it is way off from the original idea,
but the original idea -- to replace "tax profit made here" with "tax sales
made here" \-- is sound. You can hide the existence of profit all sorts of
ways, but it's much harder to hide the existence of a sale, and bordering on
impossible to hide the existence of millions of sales.
~~~
gozur88
That's opening quite a can of worms, though, isn't it? If I were selling a
product that was barely breaking even, would you have the government tax me
into a loss?
~~~
ubernostrum
Many countries already have VAT. And in the US, state and local governments
levy taxes on a percentage of sales, which are paid by the buyer. If this were
going to massacre gigantic numbers of businesses, or cause the number of
people willing to go into business to drop to zero, it would have already and
we'd have noticed.
So if a tax on money made from selling products is what's desired, this --
rather than an avoidable tax on profit -- is a way to do it.
------
williamle8300
What's wrong with reducing a business' taxes? Aren't tax write-offs there for
a reason?
~~~
arcticbull
Because society needs the money.
~~~
wyager
Society has the money. If you mean "the US Federal government needs the
money", be explicit.
------
mproud
Don’t put this on Tim. This isn’t about Apple. This is about large
corporations and tax laws.
------
mjbadagliacco
It's NOT the governments money! Stop acting like the government is entitled to
a dime!
Cook is right to do everything possible to avoid paying this over bloated joke
of a Constitutional Republic! The founders would be screaming for another
revolutions years ago!
~~~
refresh99
Actually many argue that taxes were originally meant only for corporations and
not personal income tax since personal income tax was not originally
collected. The thought is the profit of those companies are being generated
from the efforts of the citizens and corporations are not people. Instead of
asking the people to pay more so the fat acts could keep more of the money the
corps would fund the govt.
------
yuhong
I think a compromise to cut US federal taxes to something like 25% is most
likely and what I would recommend.
~~~
sambull
I think we should penalize them and add 10%.
~~~
yuhong
I am talking about in general.
------
jshute
How can you blame them? They're playing by the rules, the same rules their
competitors play by (Google also uses the double Irish). In that context,
isn't it far better to pay single digit interest rates on money when you're
backstopping it with overseas cash rather than taking a 35% haircut to
repatriate the same? Finally, what odds do you place on the one time transfer
of $88B to the US government with a love note ACTUALLY resulting in a better
quality of life for US citizens? It seems to me that regardless of regressive
policies and hero projects like walls and Mars trips, monetary policy is still
trying to get people and companies to reinvest to spur growth vs. sitting on
savings.
~~~
GreaterFool
Also, let's not forget that the offshore pile of money has already been taxed
in jurisdictions where it was earned. The world is slightly bigger than US. If
Apple sells an iPhone in Germany it pays taxes in Germany. It is a bit silly
to then send the money home and pay another huge tax on top of it!
Yes, I'm aware that thanks to various tax shenanigans the offshore tax bill
might be artificially low. If that was the case though, Apple would've cheated
local governments and not the US government.
~~~
deepsun
> If Apple sells an iPhone in Germany it pays taxes in Germany.
Not necessarily. See a comment above about New Zealand.
~~~
GreaterFool
As I've mentioned in my comment "thanks to various tax shenanigans the
offshore tax bill might be artificially low". It would be up to New Zealand to
investigate and make sure Apple pays it's due. But I don't see why US needs a
slice of that particular pie.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Objections are goals - KentBeck
https://medium.com/@kentbeck_7670/objections-are-goals-9c9c2f27069
======
gfs78
Then we complain about the sad state of the industry.
What about empirically proving that something works instead? Like in serious
professions.
Imagine going to a doctor and the doctor saying: "The cure to your illness is
eating a big warm turd every morning. I know you will object but turn it into
a goal and you'll see its value".
Better to use guru status and force people to use an objectionable idea (turn
objections into goals) until they are invested in it and hence start to find
value in it. This is Machiavellism 101. Once you get invested you get
emotional and you will defend it, no matter if its shit.
As another example go find the original scrum papers by Sutherland. Every
claim is pulled from his rear end. No serious studies, metrics, none,
whatsoever.
Luckily this people does not promote brain surgery procedures and techniques.
~~~
sanderjd
I have a new baby. There is a metric ton of guesswork involved in figuring out
what's going on with her health and well-being at any moment. The
pediatricians have better more targeted hypotheses and ideas for things to try
than us or our books or the internet, but I would _not_ call what they're
doing empirical in the sense you're using it. I honestly don't find it very
dissimilar to the type of iterative hypothesis testing informed by past
experience we do when building software. I think a similar thing is true for
most (but perhaps not all) of the "serious professions" you're thinking of.
~~~
gfs78
But this is a problem of magnitude. What would you think of your baby's
pediatrician if he/she starting pushing his/her unproven ideas as good
practices that should be followed by the medical community and writing about
pushing against the objections when someone objects them?
~~~
sanderjd
This is totally how it works! There are also people trying to apply more
empirical rigor, and presumably (or hopefully), once that's available, people
switch to it. What I'm saying is that we aren't the only field that uses
experience-based best practices as a way to get things done without making
perfect the enemy of good.
~~~
gfs78
Can you point me to a blog where a well know surgeon pushes the medical
community to use some novel techniques he devised and supposedly uses but that
have not been peer reviewed at least once?
------
md224
Paradigm: Death Based Development (DBD). If the tests fail, the software
engineer who wrote the code is executed.
Step 1: I can't do DBD because I don't want to die.
Step 2: I _can_ do DBD if I'm willing to die.
Step 3: When I'm willing to accept death as a natural part of the software
development cycle, I can do DBD.
Nice, I like this.
~~~
jsight
I'm very confident my tests would be very simple under this system.
~~~
antognini
I'm confident the Volkswagen unit test system would become very popular:
[https://github.com/auchenberg/volkswagen](https://github.com/auchenberg/volkswagen)
------
mlthoughts2018
I love this post, even though it gives even more evidence that the original
TCR proposal is unworkable in practice. Namely, because all the bullet points
at the bottom define different conditions that all have to be satisfied for
TCR to be workable (and many more are omitted), you end up needing your unit
test situation to be the intersection of a huge number of special cases that
are almost never true in practice.
You need (TCR doesn’t fragment commit history && tests are fast && confidence
of test accuracy is high && ....). As you AND more things in there (and there
are many more things to AND into the list of conditions necessary for TCR),
the probability that it all applies to your working situation is going to drop
rapidly except for some extremely isolated cases, and then one might question
if it’s a good idea to adopt an extreme practice like TCR even when the heroic
assumptions are satisfied, because it will mean mixed development practices in
cases when the assumptions are / are not satisfied, and that inconsistency
itself costs you, especially in a team setting.
But the idea of reversing objections into statements of conditions is
brilliant and I plan to practice thinking this way for sure!
~~~
iainmerrick
I have the opposite reaction, I’m skeptical that the abstract “objections are
goals” rule has significant value. But the concrete points about TCR are
interesting.
To address the objections about fast and trustworthy tests, you could limit
its use to code that already has good tests. To address the version history
objection, you could use “git commit --amend” to limit it to a single commit.
So in some situations TCR may actually be usable (and in fact it’s not too far
away from the process I often use! Frequent small commits with --amend)
~~~
mlthoughts2018
I envy your ability to use that workflow. Across three enterprise jobs over
the last 7 years, all places using git and GitHub, I’ve never worked on any
sections of code where this could be tractable, except maybe for the process
of using —amend in some rare cases where we wouldn’t want this history of
those commits to be well separated for later purposes of bisecting to find
regressions and bugs.
~~~
iainmerrick
This is not something I’d do on master, of course -- just on my own branch
while working on stuff that will eventually become a single PR.
I like to curate my commit(s) as I go, so that the final PR is easy to
understand.
~~~
mlthoughts2018
Oh, I see. Yes, that is a very standard workflow. I also commonly address PR
change requests in isolated commits as well, and then link back in the PR
review page with something like “fixed in <commit hash>”, so that reviewers
can see isolated commit changes fixing itemized requests, and also so that no
review comments ever go without some explicit reply, either demonstrating the
fix or explain why to not do it or table it for later.
I guess in this sense, these items don’t have much to do with whether the big
conjunction of conditions necessary for TCR are satisfied or not.
------
pjc50
Another way of looking at this is: all advice is conditional. It only works
for people in certain setups and environments. People rarely specify their
conditions, and may not even be aware of the other possibilities.
So when offering advice or suggestions for process improvement, always try to
add at least a couple of sentences describing the context at the front. It'll
reduce the amount of objections you get.
~~~
default-kramer
I think it goes a little deeper. Kent's original post (test && commit ||
revert) describes the strategy as just a curiosity. "I’m not arguing for “test
&& commit || revert” nor even describing its trade-offs. I’m saying it seems
like it shouldn’t work at all, it does, and I hope you try it (if you’re the
sort of person who just tries new programming workflows)."
But the problem is Kent has probably never been on the wrong side of a CxO's
dictum: "This company is using agile, starting now. Thank you." Programmers
who have felt that pain want to make sure that a random musing from Kent Beck
doesn't turn into a "movement" that ruins their work, so they try to shut down
his idea hard. I don't blame them.
------
slavik81
The stated goals are not tied to any business value. This is putting the cart
before the horse. TCR is a means to an end, not an end itself.
Dale's essay on "Resistance as a Resource" is very good, but this is not how I
would apply it.
~~~
asplake
Right. I designed a workshop/coaching game 15-minute FOTO (from obstacles to
outcomes) [1] which does a similar “flip” from the negative to the positive;
however by construction the input obstacles are with respect to some kind of
objective. 4-Oh if you like - objective, obstacle, outcome, more outcomes. See
also the classic coaching model GROW (Whitmore)
[1] [https://www.agendashift.com/15-minute-
foto](https://www.agendashift.com/15-minute-foto)
------
iainmerrick
Huh, I was bullish on “log-driven programming”
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18165472](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18165472))
but this one strikes me as fairly obvious common sense. Is it any more than
“try to respond to objections in a positive way”?
If someone objects “I can’t use this TCR process because it will mess up
version control history” it seems pretty clear that either TCR or version
history will have to change.
------
beat
This is a terrific article. I've used some similar techniques to reduce
negativity and reflexive opposition to change (mostly borrowed from sales
techniques), but this logical formulation is very clear and easy to use.
~~~
edw
And how do the people you do this to feel about it? The idea of
enthusiastically applying sales techniques to interactions with one’s
coworkers feels appalling. A group of colleagues is ideally a marketplace of
ideas and, yes, one needs to _sell_ ideas from time to time, but who wants to
be _sold to_?
People often oppose something but raise (being uncharitable here) spurious
objections, either because they don’t want to share their true feelings — or
don’t even know what their true feelings are. It’s worth getting to the bottom
of these issues, and worth doing with a great deal of respect for other
people’s feelings.
If you’re dealing with an issue that is _not_ emotionally contentious, if
you’re trying together with a group to achieve a common goal, using this
“objections are goals” approach can help bring a team together and encourage
positivity in the face of obstacles. When applied where there is disagreement
about the goal, people will feel bulldozed.
~~~
beat
Who wants to be sold to?
Everyone. Everyone wants to be sold something. Because when someone sells you
something, it means they have listened to your problem (and maybe helped you
discover/understand it), and offered you a solution using resources you
already have. Sales, _done right_ , is one of the best parts of human social
behavior. It's mutually beneficial, a win-win.
Sales has a bad reputation due to bad actors, not due to sales itself. Smarmy
behavior, dishonesty, and taking advantage of others is not inherently part of
sales, and it's definitely not part of _good_ sales.
"Objections are goals" is a sales technique. Overcoming objections is Sales
101, and a big part of that is turning negatives into positives.
~~~
cirgue
No one wants to be sold to. Not a single person in the world. There's a reason
used car salespeople are the universal object of derision: no one wants to
interact with someone that wants something from them and is willing to
obfuscate, misdirect, and even lie to get it. That is a fundamental to sales:
the sales person is trying to maximize their returns, and in most cases there
is zero structural incentive for them to take the interests of the other party
into account. This isn't something that you can imagine away any more than you
can imagine away incentives in other areas of human interaction. People
recognize that immediately, even if they can't put their finger on why.
~~~
beat
No one wants to be cheated. _Everyone_ wants to be sold to. That's because
everyone has problems they can't solve on their own.
"I don't want to be sold to, because I think I'm being cheated" becomes "If
I'm not being cheated, then selling to me is okay". Or to put it more
abstractly, "Selling bad because yuck" becomes "If yum, then selling good".
It comes back to the win-win, to mutually beneficial relationships. I disagree
that there is "zero structural incentive" to consider the needs of the
customer. In most cases, there's plenty of structural incentive. If your
business depends on repeat customers, not considering their needs costs you
their business. If your business depends on references and reputation, then
not considering your customer's needs costs both the current customer and
future customers.
------
myWindoonn
As the author admits, this isn't how logic works. Next time, use the Law of
Contrapositives, which at least works when the Law of Excluded Middle is
assumed.
Suppose, for example, I object to cats; I might say, "If cats are in the
house, then they will bring me mice as tribute." The contrapositive is, "If I
am not being brought mice as tribute, then there are not cats in the house."
Plural logic aside, this is pretty close! And now we can turn it into a goal:
"If I want mice to exist in my house in non-dead states, then I should avoid
cats." Now we've managed to refactor this into a goal: "I should get cats if I
want fewer mice."
I'm not sure if anything was gained from this exercise.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
Ask HN: Ideas on getting inflatable rafts for flood rescue - bjacobt
My home state in India is experiencing its worst flooding in 100 years [1]. While there are rescue efforts going on; there are small groups of people who are stranded in the second floor of their house in sparsely populated areas.<p>As the rain continues, the water level is rising to the top of house where people are seeking refuge. There are many heart wrenching videos of people with babies and elderly pleading for rescue. Most of them have already been there for a couple of days and running out of food and water.<p>I feel small inflatable rafts could help the locals find and rescue stranded people and was wondering if anyone had ideas on how to deliver some ASAP.<p>[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/17/world/asia/kerala-india-floods.html
======
yohann305
I’m sorry I’m not an expert and cannot bring much help but we all remember how
Elon Musk was all in to help a dozen kids stuck in a Thai cave, maybe you
should try to get him to help out. At the very least you will create public
awareness which ultimately will get more people’s attention and focus on
helping. Good luck
Ps: Elon Musk seems to be quite easy to contact on Twitter
~~~
bjacobt
Thanks, I'll give that a shot
------
anoncoward111
Is there not an Indian superstore that imports cheap $150 dinghies to the
local capital city?
Very sorry for your hardship and loss.
| {
"pile_set_name": "HackerNews"
} |
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